13722	----	YOUTH AND SEX Dangers and Safeguards for Girls and Boys by MARY SCHARLIEB, M.D., M.S., AND F. ARTHUR SIBLY, M.A., LL.D. 1919 CONTENTS. PART I.: GIRLS. BY MARY SCHARLIEB, M.D., M.S. INTRODUCTION I. CHANGES OBSERVABLE DURING PUBERTY AND ADOLESCENCE IN GIRLS II. OUR DUTIES TOWARDS ADOLESCENT GIRLS III. CARE OF THE ADOLESCENT GIRL IN SICKNESS IV. MENTAL AND MORAL TRAINING V. THE FINAL AIM OF EDUCATION PART II.: BOYS. BY F. ARTHUR SIBLY, M.A., LL.D. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION INTRODUCTORY NOTE I. PREVALENCE OF IMPURITY AMONG BOYS: THE AUTHOR'S OWN EXPERIENCE II. PREVALENCE OF IMPURITY AMONG BOYS: THE OPINIONS OF CANON LYTTELTON, DR. DUKES AND OTHERS III. CAUSES OF THE PREVALENCE OF IMPURITY AMONG BOYS IV. RESULTS OF YOUTHFUL IMPURITY V. SEX KNOWLEDGE IS COMPATIBLE WITH PERFECT REFINEMENT AND INNOCENCE VI. CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH PURITY TEACHING IS BEST GIVEN: REMEDIAL AND CURATIVE MEASURES NOTE TO CORRESPONDENTS PART I.: GIRLS. BY MARY SCHARLIEB, M.D., M.S. INTRODUCTION. Probably the most important years in anyone's life are those eight or ten preceding the twenty-first birthday. During these years _Heredity_, one of the two great developmental factors, bears its crop, and the seeds sown before birth and during childhood come to maturity. During these years also the other great developmental force known as _Environment_ has full play, the still plastic nature is moulded by circumstances, and the influence of these two forces is seen in the manner of individual that results. This time is generally alluded to under two heads: (1) Puberty, (2) Adolescence. By Puberty we understand the period when the reproductive organs are developed, the boy or girl ceasing to be the neutral child and acquiring the distinctive characteristics of man or woman. The actual season of puberty varies in different individuals from the eleventh to the sixteenth year, and although the changes during this time are not sudden, they are comparatively rapid. By Adolescence we understand the time during which the individual is approximating to the adult type, puberty having been already accomplished. Adolescence corresponds to the latter half of the developmental period, and may be prolonged even up to twenty-five years. CHAPTER I. CHANGES OBSERVABLE DURING PUBERTY AND ADOLESCENCE IN GIRLS. 1. Changes in the Bodily Framework.--During this period the girl's skeleton not only grows remarkably in size, but is also the subject of well-marked alterations and development. Among the most evident changes are those which occur in the shape and inclination of the pelvis. During the years of childhood the female pelvis has a general resemblance to that of the male, but with the advent of puberty the vertical portion of the hip bones becomes expanded and altered in shape, it becomes more curved, and its inner surface looks less directly forward and more towards its fellow bone of the other side. The brim of the pelvis, which in the child is more or less heart-shaped, becomes a wide oval, and consequently the pelvic girdle gains considerably in width. The heads of the thigh bones not only actually, in consequence of growth, but also relatively, in consequence of change of shape in the pelvis, become more widely separated from each other than they are in childhood, and hence the gait and the manner of running alters greatly in the adult woman. At the same time the angle made by the junction of the spinal column with the back of the pelvis, known as the sacro-vertebral angle, becomes better marked, and this also contributes to the development of the characteristic female type. No doubt the female type of pelvis can be recognised in childhood, and even before birth, but the differences of male and female pelves before puberty are so slight that it requires the eye of an expert to distinguish them. The very remarkable differences that are found between the adult male and the adult female pelvis begin to appear with puberty and develop rapidly, so that no one could mistake the pelvis of a properly developed girl of sixteen or eighteen years of age for that of a boy. These differences are due in part to the action of the muscles and ligaments on the growing bones, in part to the weight of the body from above and the reaction of the ground from beneath, but they are also largely due to the growth and development of the internal organs peculiar to the woman. All these organs exist in the normal infant at birth, but they are relatively insignificant, and it is not until the great developmental changes peculiar to puberty occur that they begin to exercise their influence on the shape of the bones. This is proved by the fact that in those rare cases in which the internal organs of generation are absent, or fail to develop, there is a corresponding failure in the pelvis to alter into the normal adult shape. The muscles of the growing girl partake in the rapid growth and development of her bony framework. Sometimes the muscles outgrow the bones, causing a peculiar lankiness and slackness of figure, and in other girls the growth of the bones appears to be too rapid for the muscles, to which fact a certain class of "growing pain" has been attributed. Another part of the body that develops rapidly during these momentous years is the bust. The breasts become large, and not only add to the beauty of the girl's person, but also manifestly prepare by increase of their glandular elements for the maternal function of suckling infants. Of less importance so far as structure is concerned, but of great importance to female loveliness and attractiveness, are the changes that occur in the clearing and brightening of the complexion, the luxuriant growth, glossiness, and improved colour of the hair, and the beauty of the eyes, which during the years which succeed puberty acquire a new and singularly attractive expression. The young girl's hands and feet do not grow in proportion with her legs and arms, and appear to be more beautifully shaped when contrasted with the more fully developed limb. With regard to the internal organs, the most important are those of the pelvis. The uterus, or womb, destined to form a safe nest for the protection of the child until it is sufficiently developed to maintain an independent existence, increases greatly in all its dimensions and undergoes certain changes in shape; and the ovaries, which are intended to furnish the ovules, or eggs (the female contribution towards future human beings), also develop both in size and in structure. Owing to rapid growth and to the want of stability of the young girl's tissues, the years immediately succeeding puberty are not only those of rapid physiological change, but they are those during which irreparable damage may be done unless those who have the care of young girls understand what these dangers are, how they are produced, and how they may be averted. With regard to the bony skeleton, lateral curvature of the spine is, in mild manifestation, very frequent, and is too common even in the higher degrees. The chief causes of this deformity are: (1) The natural softness and want of stability in the rapidly growing bones and muscles; (2) The rapid development of the bust, which throws a constantly increasing burden on these weakened muscles and bones; and (3) The general lassitude noticeable amongst girls at this time which makes them yield to the temptation to stand on one leg, to cross one leg over the other, and to write or read leaning on one elbow and bending over the table, whereas they ought to be sitting upright. Unless constant vigilance is exerted, deformity is pretty sure to occur--a deformity which always has a bad influence over the girl's health and strength, and which, in those cases where it is complicated by the pathological softness of bones found in cases of rickets, may cause serious alteration in shape and interfere with the functions of the pelvis in later life. 2. Changes in the Mental Nature.--These are at least as remarkable as the changes in the bodily framework. There is a slight diminution in the power of memorising, but the faculties of attention, of reasoning, and of imagination, develop rapidly. Probably the power of appreciation of the beautiful appears about this time, a faculty which is usually dormant during childhood. More especially is this true with regard to the beauty of landscape; the child seldom enjoys a landscape as such, although isolated beauties, such as that of flowers, may sometimes be appreciated. As might be anticipated, all things are changing with the child during these momentous years: its outlook on life, its appreciation of other people and of itself, alter greatly and continuously. The wonderfully rapid growth and alterations in structure of the generative organs have their counterpart in the mental and moral spheres; there are new sensations which are scarcely recognised and are certainly not understood by the subject: vague feelings of unrest, ill-comprehended desires, and an intense self-consciousness take the place of the unconscious egoism of childhood. The processes of Nature as witnessed in the season of spring have their counterpart in the changes that occur during the early years of adolescence. The earth warmed by the more direct rays of the sun and softened by recurring showers is transformed in a few weeks from its bare and dry winter garb into the wonderful beauty of spring. This yearly miracle fails to impress us as it should do because we have witnessed it every year of our lives, and so, too, the great transformation from child to budding woman fails to make its appeal to our understanding and sympathy because it is of so common occurrence. If it were possible for adults to really remember their own feelings and aspirations in adolescent years, or if it were possible for us with enlightened sympathy to gain access to the enchanted garden of youth, we should be more adequate guides for the boys and girls around us. As it is we entirely fail to appreciate the heights of their ambitions, hopes, and joys, and we have no measure with which to plumb the depths of their fears, their disappointments, and their doubts. The transition between radiant joy and confident hope in the future to a miserable misinterpretation of sensations both physical and psychical are rapid. It is the unknown that is terrible to us all, and to the child the changes in its body, the changes in its soul and spirit, which we pass by as commonplace, are full of suggestions of abnormality, of disaster, and of death. Young people suffer much from the want of comprehension and intelligent sympathy of their elders, much also from their own ignorance and too fervid imagination. The instability of the bodily tissues and the variability of their functions find a counterpart in the instability of the mental and moral natures and in the variability of their phenomena. Adolescents indeed "never continue in one stay;" left to themselves they will begin many pursuits, but persevere with, and finish, nothing. Youth is the time for rapidly-succeeding friends, lovers, and heroes. The schoolfellow or teacher who is adored to-day may become the object of indifference or even of dislike to-morrow. Ideas as to the calling or profession to be adopted change rapidly, and opinions upon religion, politics, &c., vary from day to day. It is little wonder that there is a special type of adolescent insanity differing entirely from that of later years, one in which, owing to the want of full development of mental faculties, there are no systematised delusions, but a rapid change from depression and melancholy to exaltation bordering on mania. Those parents and guardians who know something of the peculiar physical and mental conditions of adolescence will be best prepared both to treat the troubles wisely, and by sympathy to help the young people under their care to help themselves. One of the phenomena of adolescence is the dawn of the sexual instinct. This frequently develops without the child knowing or understanding what it means. More especially is this true of young girls whose home life has been completely sheltered, and who have not had the advantage, or disadvantage, of that experience of life which comes early to those who live in crowded tenements or amongst the outspoken people of the countryside. The children of the poorer classes have, in a way, too little to learn: they are brought up from babyhood in the midst of all domestic concerns, and the love affairs of their elders are intimately known to them, therefore quite early in adolescence "ilka lassie has her laddie," and although the attraction be short-lived and the affection very superficial, yet it is sufficient to give an added interest to life, and generally leads to an increased care in dress and an increased desire to make the most of whatever good looks the girl may possess. The girl in richer homes is probably much more bewildered by her unwonted sensations and by the attraction she begins to feel towards the society of the opposite sex. Probably in these days, when there is more intermingling of the sexes, the girl's outlook is franker, and, so far as this is concerned, healthier, than it was forty or fifty years ago. It is very amusing to elders to hear a boy scarcely in his teens talking of "his best girl," or to see the little lass wearing the colour or ornament that her chosen lad admires. It is true that the "best girl" varies from week to week if not from day to day, but this special regard for a member of the opposite sex announces the dawn of a simple sentiment that will, a few years later, blossom out into the real passion which may fix a life's destiny. The mental and moral changes that occur during the early years of adolescence call for help and sympathy of an even higher order than do the changes in physical structure and function. Some of these changes, such as shyness and reticence, may be the cause of considerable suffering to the girl and a perplexity to her elders, but on the whole they are comparatively easy of comprehension, and are more likely to elicit sympathy and kindness than blame. It is far otherwise with such changes as unseemly laughter, rough manners, and a nameless difference in the girl's manner when in the presence of the other sex. A girl who is usually quiet, modest, and sensible in her behaviour may suddenly become boisterous and self-asserting, there is a great deal of giggling, and altogether a disagreeable transformation which too frequently involves the girl in trouble with her mother or other guardian, and is very frequently harshly judged by the child herself. In proportion as self-discipline has been taught and self-control acquired, these outward manifestations are less marked, but in the case of the great majority of girls there are, at any rate, impulses having their origin in the yet immature and misunderstood sex impulse which cause the young woman herself annoyance and worry although she is as far from understanding their origin as her elders may be. The remedies for these troubles are various. First in order of time and in importance comes a habit of self-control and self-discipline that ought to be coeval with conscious life. Fathers and mothers are themselves to blame if their girl lapses from good behaviour when they have not inculcated ideals of obedience, duty, and self-discipline from babyhood. It seems such a little thing to let the child have its run of the cake-basket and the sweet-box; it is in the eyes of many parents so unimportant whether the little one goes to bed at the appointed time or ten minutes later; they argue that it can make no difference to her welfare in life or to her eternal destiny whether her obedience is prompt and cheerful or grudging and imperfect. One might as well argue that the proper planting of a seed, its regular watering, and the influences of sun and wind make no difference to the life of a tree. We have to bear carefully in mind that those who sow an act reap a habit, who sow a habit reap a character, who sow a character reap a destiny both in this world and in that which is eternal. It is mere selfishness, unconscious, no doubt, but none the less fatal, when parents to suit their own convenience omit to inculcate obedience, self-restraint, habits of order and unselfishness in their children. Youth is the time when the soul is apt to be shaken by sorrow's power and when stormy passions rage. The tiny rill starting from the mountainside can be readily deflected east or west, but the majestic river hastening to the sea is beyond all such arbitrary directions. So it is with the human being: the character and habit are directed easily in infancy, with difficulty during childhood, but they are well-nigh impossible of direction by the time adolescence is established. Those fathers and mothers who desire to have happiness and peace in connection with their adolescent boys and girls must take the trouble to direct them aright during the plastic years of infancy and childhood. All natural instincts implanted in us by Him who knew what was in the heart of man are in themselves right and good, but the exercise of these instincts may be entirely wrong in time or in degree. The sexual instinct, the affinity of boy to girl, the love of adult man and woman, are right and holy when exercised aright, and it is the result of "spoiling" when these good and noble instincts are wrongly exercised. All who love their country, all who love their fellow men, and all who desire that the kingdom of God should come, must surely do everything that is in their power to awaken the fathers and mothers of the land to a sense of their heavy responsibility and of their high privilege. In this we are entirely separated from and higher than the rest of the animal creation, in that on us lies the duty not only of calling into life a new generation of human beings, but also the still higher duty, the still greater privilege and the wider responsibility of bringing up those children to be themselves the worthy parents of the future, the supporters of their country's dignity, and joyful citizens of the household of God. Another characteristic of adolescence is to be found in gregariousness, or what has been sometimes called the _gang spirit_. Boys, and to almost as great a degree girls, form themselves into companies or gangs, which frequently possess a high degree of organisation. They elaborate special languages, they have their own form of shorthand, their passwords, their rites and ceremonies. The gang has its elected leader, its officers, its members; and although it is liable to sudden disruption and seldom outlasts a few terms of school-life, each succeeding club or company is for the time being of paramount importance in the estimation of its members. The gang spirit may at times cause trouble and lead to anxiety, but if rightly directed it may be turned to good account. It is the germ of the future capacity to organise men and women into corporate life--the very method by which much public and national work is readily accomplished, but which is impossible to accomplish by individual effort. 3. Changes in the Religion of the Adolescent.--The religion of the adolescent is apt to be marked by fervour and earnest conviction, the phenomenon of "conversion" almost constantly occurring during adolescence. The girl looks upon eternal truths from a completely new standpoint, or at any rate with eyes that have been purged and illuminated by the throes of conversion. From a period of great anxiety and doubt she emerges to a time of intense love and devotion, to an eager desire to prove herself worthy, and to offer a sacrifice of the best powers she possesses. Unfortunately for peace of mind, the happy epoch succeeding conversion not unfrequently ends in a dismal time of intellectual doubt and spiritual darkness. Just as the embryonic love of the youthful adolescent leads to a time when the opposite sex is rather an object of dislike than of attraction, so the fervour of early conversion is apt to lead to a time of desolation; but just as the incomplete sex love of early adolescence finds its antitype and fine flower in the later fully developed love of honourable man and woman, so does the too rapturous and uncalculating religious devotion of these early years revive after the period of doubt, transfigured and glorified into the religious conviction and devotion which makes the strength, the joy, and the guiding principle of adult life. Much depends on the circumstances and people surrounding the adolescent. Her unbounded capacity for hero-worship leads in many instances to a conscious or unconscious copying of parent, guardian, or teacher; and although the ideals of the young are apt to far outpace those of the adult whose days of illusion are over, yet they are probably formed on the same type. One sees this illustrated by generations in the same family holding much the same religious or political opinions and showing the same aptitude for certain professions, games, and pursuits. Much there is in heredity, but probably there is still more in environment. CHAPTER II. OUR DUTIES TOWARDS ADOLESCENT GIRLS. These may be briefly summed up by saying that we have to provide adolescent girls with all things that are necessary for their souls and their bodies, but any such bald and wholesale enunciation of our duty helps but little in clearing one's ideas and in pointing out the actual manner in which we are to perform it. First, with regard to the bodies of adolescent girls; Their primary needs, just like the primary needs of all living beings, are food, warmth, shelter, exercise and rest, with special care in sickness. Food.--In spite of the great advance of knowledge in the present day, it is doubtful whether much practical advance has been made in the dietetics of children and adolescents, and it is to be feared that our great schools are especially deficient in this most important respect. Even when the age of childhood is past, young people require a much larger amount of milk than is usually included in their diet sheet. It would be well for them to begin the day with porridge and milk or some such cereal preparation. Coffee or cocoa made with milk should certainly have the preference over tea for breakfast, and in addition to the porridge or other such dish, fish, egg, or bacon, with plenty of bread and butter, should form the morning repast. The midday meal should consist of fresh meat, fish, or poultry, with an abundance of green vegetables and a liberal helping of sweet pudding. The articles of diet which are most deficient in our lists are milk, butter, and sugar. There is an old prejudice against sugar which is quite unfounded so far as the healthy individual is concerned. Cane sugar has recently been proved to be a most valuable muscle food, and when taken in the proper way for sweetening beverages, fruit, and puddings, it is entirely good. The afternoon meal should consist chiefly of bread and butter and milk or cocoa, with a fair proportion of simple, well-made cake, and in the case where animal food has been taken both at breakfast and dinner, the evening meal might well be bread and butter, bread and milk, or milk pudding with stewed or fresh fruit. But it is different in the case of those adolescents whose midday meal is necessarily slight, and who ought to have a thoroughly good dinner or supper early in the evening; One would have thought it unnecessary to mention alcohol in speaking of the dietary of young people were it not that, strange to say, beer is still given at some of our public schools. It is extraordinary that wise and intelligent people should still give beer to young boys and girls at the very time when what they want is strength and not stimulus, food for the growing frame and nothing to stimulate the already exuberant passions. An invariable rule with regard to the food of children should be that their meals should be regular, that they should consist of good, varied, nourishing food taken at regular hours, and that nothing should be eaten between meals. The practice of eating biscuits, fruit, and sweets between meals during childhood and adolescence not only spoils the digestion and impairs the nutrition at the time, but it is apt to lay the foundation of a constant craving for something which is only too likely to take the form of alcoholic craving in later years. It is impossible for the stomach to perform its duty satisfactorily if it is never allowed rest, and the introduction of stray morsels of food at irregular times prevents this, and introduces confusion into the digestive work, because there will be in the stomach at the same time food in various stages of digestion. Warmth.--Warmth is one of the influences essential to health and to sound development, and although artificial warmth is more urgently required by little children and by old people than it is by young adults, still, if their bodies are to come to their utmost possible perfection, they require suitable conditions of temperature. This is provided in the winter partly by artificial heating of houses and partly by the wearing of suitable clothing. Ideal clothing is loose of texture and woven of wool, although a fairly good substitute can be obtained in materials that are made from cotton treated specially. This is not the time or place in which to insist on the very grave dangers that accompany the use of ordinary flannelette, but a caution must be addressed in passing to those who provide clothing for others. In providing clothes it is necessary to remember the two reasons for their existence: (1) to cover the body, and (2) as far as possible to protect a large area of its surface against undue damp and cold. Adolescents, as a rule, begin early to take a great interest in their clothes. From the time that the appreciation of the opposite sex commences, the child who has hitherto been indifferent or even slovenly in the matter of clothing takes a very living interest in it; indeed the adornment of person and the minute care devoted to details of the toilet by young people of both sexes remind one irresistibly of the preening of the feathers, the strutting and other antics of birds before their mates. Girls especially are apt to forget the primary object of clothing, and to think of it too much as a means of adornment. This leads to excesses and follies such as tight waists, high-heeled shoes, to the ungainly crinoline or to indecent scantiness of skirts. Direct interference in these matters is badly tolerated, but much may be accomplished both by example and by cultivating a refined and artistic taste in sumptuary matters. Sleep.--Amongst the most important of the factors that conduce to well-being both of body and mind must be reckoned an adequate amount of sleep. This has been made the subject of careful inquiry by Dr. Dukes of Rugby and Miss Alice Ravenhill. Both these trained and careful observers agree that the majority of young people get far too little rest and sleep. We have to remember that although fully-grown adults will take rest when they can get it in the daytime, young people are too active, and sometimes too restless, to give any repose to brain or muscle except during sleep. In the early years of adolescence ten hours sleep is none too much; even an adult in full work ought to have eight hours, and still more is necessary for the rapidly-growing, continually-developing, and never-resting adolescent. It is unfortunately a fact that even in the boarding schools of the well-to-do the provision of sleep is too limited, and for the children of the poor, whose homes are far from comfortable and who are accustomed to doing pretty nearly as their elders do, the night seldom begins before eleven or even twelve o'clock. It is one of the saddest sights of London to see small children dancing on the pavement in front of the public-houses up to a very late hour, while groups of loafing boys and hoydenish girls stand about at the street corners half the night. There is little wonder that the morning finds them heavy and unrefreshed, and that schoolwork suffers severely from want of the alert and vigorous attention that might be secured by a proper night's sleep. Great harm is done by allowing children to take work home with them from school; if possible, the day's work should finish with school hours, and the scanty leisure should be spent in healthy exercise or in sleep. Overcrowding.--In considering the question of adequate sleep it would be well to think of the conditions of healthy sleep. For sleep to be refreshing and health-giving, the sleeper ought to have a comfortable bed and an abundant supply of fresh air. Unfortunately the great majority of our people both in town and country do not enjoy these advantages. In both town and country there is a great deficiency of suitable dwellings at rents that can be paid with the usual rate of wages. In consequence families are crowded into one, two, or three rooms, and even in the case of people far above the status of day labourers and artisans it is the exception and not the rule for each individual to have a separate bed. The question of ventilation is certainly better understood than it was a few years ago, but still leaves much to be desired, and there is still an urgent necessity for preaching the gospel of the open window. Exercise.--In considering the question of the exercise of adolescents, one's thoughts immediately turn to athletics, games, and dancing. As a nation the English have always been fond of athletics, and have attributed to the influence of such team games as cricket and football not only their success in various competitions but also their success in the sterner warfare of life. This success has been obtained on the tented field and in the work of exploring, mountaineering, and other pursuits that make great demand not only on nerve and muscle but also on strength of character and powers of endurance. Team games appear to be the especial property of adolescents, for young children are more or less individualistic and solitary in many of their games, but boys and girls alike prefer team games from the pre-adolescent age up to adult life. It is certain that no form of exercise is superior to these games: they call into play every muscle of the body, they make great demands on accuracy of eye and coordination, they also stimulate and develop habits of command, obedience, loyalty, and _esprit de corps_. In the great public schools of England, and in the private schools which look up to them as their models, team games are played, as one might say, in a religious spirit. The boy or girl who attempts to take an unfair advantage, or who habitually plays for his or her own hand, is quickly made to feel a pariah and an outcast. Among the greatest blessings that are conveyed to the children of the poorer classes is the instruction not only in the technique of team games but also in the inoculation of the spirit in which they ought to be played. It is absolutely necessary that the highest ideals connected with games should be handed down, for thus the children who perhaps do not always have the highest ideals before them in real life may learn through this mimic warfare how the battle of life must be fought and what are the characters of mind and body that deserve and ensure success. It has been well said that those who make the songs of a nation help largely to make its character, and equally surely those who teach and control the games of the adolescents are making or marring a national destiny. Among the means of physical and moral advancement may be claimed gymnastics. And here, alas, this nation can by no means claim to be _facile princeps_. Not only have we been relatively slow in adopting properly systematised exercises, but even to the present day the majority of elementary schools are without properly fitted gymnasia and duly qualified teachers. The small and relatively poor Scandinavian nations have admirably fitted gymnasia in connection with their _Folkschule_, which correspond to our elementary schools. The exercises are based on those systematised by Ling; each series is varied, and is therefore the more interesting, and each lesson commences with simple, easily performed movements, leading on to those that are more elaborate and fatiguing, and finally passing through a descending series to the condition of repose. The gymnasia where such exercises are taught in England are relatively few and far between, and it is lamentable to find that many excellent and well-appointed schools for children, whose parents pay large sums of money for their education, have no properly equipped gymnasia nor adequately trained teachers. When the question is put, "How often do you have gymnastics at your school?" the answer is frequently, "We have none," or, "Half an hour once a week." Exercises such as Ling's not only exercise every muscle in the body in a scientific and well-regulated fashion, but being performed by a number of pupils at once in obedience to words of command, discipline, co-operation, obedience to teachers, and loyalty to comrades, are taught at the same time. The deepest interest attaches to many of the more complex exercises, while some of them make large demands on the courage and endurance of the young people. In Scandinavia the State provides knickerbockers, tunics, and gymnasium shoes for those children whose parents are too poor to provide them; and again, in Scandinavia there is very frequently the provision of bathrooms in which the pupils can have a shower bath and rub-down after the exercises. These bathrooms in connection with the gymnasia need not necessarily be costly; indeed many of them in Stockholm and Denmark merely consist of troughs in the cement floor, on the edge of which the children sit in a row while they receive a shower bath over their heads and bodies. The feet get well washed in the trough, and the smart douche of water on head and shoulders acts as an admirable tonic. Another exercise which ought to be specially dear to a nation of islanders is swimming, and this, again, is a relatively cheap luxury too much neglected amongst us. Certainly there are public baths, but there are not enough to permit of all the elementary school children bathing even once a week, and still less have they the opportunity of learning to swim. There is much to be done yet before we can be justly proud of our national system of education. We must not lose sight of the ideal with which we started--viz. that we should endeavour to do the best that is possible for our young people in body, soul, and spirit. The three parts of our nature are intertwined, and a duty performed to one part has an effect on the whole. CHAPTER III. CARE OF THE ADOLESCENT GIRL IN SICKNESS. If measured by the death-rate the period of adolescence should cause us little anxiety, but a careful examination into the state of health of children of school age shows us that it is a time in which disorders of health abound, and that although these disorders are not necessarily, nor even generally, fatal, they are frequent, they spoil the child's health, and inevitably bear fruit in the shape of an injurious effect on health in after life. That the health of adolescents should be unstable is what we ought to expect from the general instability of the organism due to the rapidity of growth and the remarkable developmental changes that are crowded into these few years. Rapidity of growth and increase of weight are very generally recognised, although their effects upon health are apt to be overlooked. On the other hand, the still more remarkable development that occurs in adolescence is very generally ignored. As a general rule the infectious fevers, the so-called childish diseases--such as measles, chicken-pox, and whooping-cough--are less common in adolescence than they are in childhood, while the special diseases of internal organs due to their overwork, or to their natural tendency to degeneration, is yet far in the future. The chief troubles of adolescents appear to be due to overstress which accompanies rapid development, to the difficulty of the whole organism in adapting itself to new functions and altered conditions, and no doubt in some measure to the unwisdom both of the young people and of their advisers. This is not the place for a general treatise on the diseases of adolescents, but a few of the commonest and most obvious troubles should be noted. The Teeth.--It is quite surprising to learn what a very large percentage of young soldiers are refused enlistment in the army on account of decayed or defective teeth, and anyone who has examined the young women candidates for the Civil Service and for Missionary Societies must have recognised that their teeth are in no way better than those of the young men. In addition to several vacancies in the dental series, it is by no means unusual to find that a candidate has three or even five teeth severely decayed. The extraordinary thing is that not only the young people and their parents very generally fail to recognise the gravity of this condition, but that even their medical advisers have frequently acquiesced in a state of things that is not only disagreeable but dangerous. A considerable proportion of people with decayed teeth have also suppuration about the margins of the gums and around the roots of the teeth. This pyorrhoea alveolaris, as it is called, constitutes a very great danger to the patient's health, the purulent discharge teems with poisonous micro-organisms, which being constantly swallowed are apt to give rise to septic disease in various organs. It is quite probable that some cases of gastric ulcer are due to this condition, so too are some cases of appendicitis, it has been known to cause a peculiarly fatal form of heart disease, and it is also responsible for the painful swelling of the joints of the fingers, with wasting of the muscles and general weakness which goes by the name of rheumatoid arthritis. In addition to this there are many local affections, such as swollen glands in the neck, that may be due to this poisonous discharge. One would think that the mere knowledge that decayed teeth can cause all this havoc would lead to a grand rush to the dentist, but so far from being the case, doctors find it extremely difficult to induce their patients to part with this unsightly, evil-smelling, and dangerous decayed tooth. The Throat.--Some throat affections, such as diphtheria and quinsy, are well known and justly dreaded; and although many a child's life has been sacrificed to the slowness of its guardians to procure medical advice and the health-restoring antitoxin, yet on the whole the public conscience is awake to this duty. Far otherwise is it with chronic diseases of the tonsils: they may be riddled with small cysts, they may be constantly in a condition of subacute inflammation dependent on a septic condition, but no notice is taken except when chill, constipation, or a general run-down state of health aggravates the chronic into a temporary acute trouble. And yet it is perhaps not going too far to say that for one young girl who is killed or invalided rapidly by diphtheria there are hundreds who are condemned to a quasi-invalid life owing to this persistent supply of poison to the system. Another condition of the throat which causes much ill-health is well known to the public under the name of adenoids. Unfortunately, however, many people have an erroneous idea that children will "grow out of adenoids." Even if this were true it is extremely unwise to wait for so desirable an event. Adenoids may continue to grow, and during the years that they are present they work great mischief. Owing to the blocking of the air-passages the mouth is kept constantly open, greatly to the detriment of the throat and lungs. Owing to the interference with the circulation at the back of the nose and throat, a considerable amount both of apparent and real stupidity is produced, the brain works less well than it ought, and the child's appearance is ruined by the flat, broad bridge of the nose and the gaping mouth. The tale of troubles due to adenoids is not even yet exhausted; a considerable amount of discharge collects about them which it is not easy to clear away, it undergoes very undesirable changes, and is then swallowed to the great detriment of the stomach and the digestion. The removal of septic tonsils and of adenoids is most urgently necessary, and usually involves little distress or danger. The change in the child's health and appearance that can thus be secured is truly wonderful, especially if it be taught, as it should be, to keep its mouth shut and to breathe through the nose. In the course of a few months the complexion will have cleared, the expression will have regained its natural intelligence, digestion will be well performed, and the child's whole condition will be that of alert vigour instead of one of listless and sullen indifference. Errors of Digestion.--From the consideration of certain states of the nose, mouth, and throat, it is easy to turn to what is so often their consequence. Many forms of indigestion are due to the septic materials swallowed. It would not, however, be fair to say that all indigestion is thus caused; not infrequently indigestion is due to errors of diet, and here the blame must be divided between the poverty and ignorance of many parents and the self-will of adolescents. The foods that are best for young people--such as bread, milk, butter, sugar, and eggs--are too frequently scarce in their dietaries owing to their cost; and again, in the case of many girls whose parents are able and willing to provide them with a thoroughly satisfactory diet-sheet, dyspepsia is caused by their refusal to take what is good for them, and by their preference for unsuitable and indigestible viands. A further cause of indigestion must be sought in the haste with which food is too often eaten. The failure to rise at the appointed time leads to a hasty breakfast, and this must eventually cause indigestion. The food imperfectly masticated and not sufficiently mixed with saliva enters the stomach ill-prepared, and the hasty rush to morning school or morning work effectually prevents the stomach from dealing satisfactorily with the mass so hastily thrust into it. There is an old saying that "Those whom the gods will destroy they first make mad," and in many instances young people who fall victims to the demon of dyspepsia owe their sorrows, if not to madness, at any rate to ignorance and want of consideration. The defective teeth, septic tonsils, discharging adenoids, poverty of their parents and their own laziness, all conspire to cause digestive troubles which bear a fruitful crop of further evils, for thus are caused such illnesses as anæmia and gastric ulcer. Constipation claims a few words to itself. And here again we ought to consider certain septic processes. The refuse of the food should travel along the bowels at a certain rate, but if owing to sluggishness of their movements or to defects in the quality and amount of their secretion, the refuse is too long retained the masses become unduly dry, and, constantly shrinking in volume, are no longer capable of being urged along the tube at the proper rate. In consequence of this the natural micro-organisms of the intestine cease to be innocent and become troublesome; they lead in the long run to a peculiar form of blood-poisoning, and to so many diseased conditions that it is impossible to deal with them at the present moment. The existence of constipation is too often a signal for the administration of many doses of medicine. The wiser, the less harmful, and the more effectual method of dealing with it would be to endeavour to secure the natural action of the bowels by a change in the diet, which should contain more vegetable and less animal constituents. The patient should also be instructed to drink plenty of water, either hot or cold, a large glassful on going to bed and one on first awaking, and also if necessary an hour before each meal. Steady exercise is also of very great service, and instead of starting so late as to have no time for walking to school or work, a certain portion of the daily journey should be done on foot. Further, in all cases where it is possible, team games, gymnastics, and dancing should be called in to supplement the walk. Headache.--Headache may be due to so many different causes that it would be impossible in this little book to adequately consider them, but it would not be fair to omit to mention that in many cases the headache of young people is due to their want of spectacles. The idea that spectacles are only required by people advanced in life is by this time much shaken, but even now not only many parents object to their children enjoying this most necessary assistance to imperfect vision, but also employers may be found so foolish and selfish as to refuse to employ those persons who need to wear glasses. The folly as well as selfishness of this objection is demonstrated by the far better work done by a person whose vision has been corrected, and the absolute danger incurred by all who have to deal with machinery if vision is imperfect. Among other causes for headache are the defects of mouth, throat, stomach, and bowels already described, because in all of them there is a supply of septic material to the blood which naturally causes headache and other serious symptoms. Abnormalities of Menstruation.--The normal period should occur at regular intervals about once a month. Its duration and amount vary within wide limits, but in each girl it should remain true to her individual type, and it ought not to be accompanied by pain or distress. As a rule the period starts quite normally, and it is not until the girl's health has been spoiled by over-exertion of body or mind, by unwise exertion during the period, or by continued exposure to damp or cold, that it becomes painful and abnormal in time or in amount. One of the earliest signs of approaching illness--such as consumption, anæmia, and mental disorder--is to be found in the more or less sudden cessation of the period. This should always be taken as a danger-signal, and as indicating the need of special medical advice. Another point that should enter into intimate talk with girls is to make them understand the co-relation of their own functions to the great destiny that is in store. A girl is apt to be both shocked and humiliated when she first hears of menstruation and its phenomena. Should this function commence before she is told about it, she will necessarily look upon it with disgust and perhaps with fear. It is indeed a most alarming incident in the case of a girl who knows nothing about it, but if, before the advent of menstruation, it be explained to her that it is a sign of changes within her body that will gradually, after the lapse of some years, fit her also to take her place amongst the mothers of the land, her shame and fear will be converted into modest gladness, and she will readily understand why she is under certain restrictions, and has at times to give up work or pleasure in order that her development may be without pain, healthy, and complete. CHAPTER IV. MENTAL AND MORAL TRAINING. The years of adolescence, during which rapid growth and development inevitably cause so much stress and frequently give rise to danger, are the very years in which the weight of school education necessarily falls most heavily. The children of the poor leave school at fourteen years of age, just the time when the children of the wealthier classes are beginning to understand the necessity of education and to work with a clearer realisation of the value and aim of lessons. The whole system of education has altered of late years, and school work is now conducted far more intelligently and with a greater appreciation of the needs and capacities of the pupils than it was some fifty years ago. Work is made more interesting, the relation of different studies to each other is more adequately put in evidence, and the influence that school studies have on success in after life is more fully realised by all concerned. The system of training is, however, far from perfect. In the case of girls, more particularly, great care has to be exercised not to attempt to teach too much, and to give careful consideration to the physiological peculiarities of the pupils. It is impossible for girls who are undergoing such rapid physiological and psychical changes to be always equally able and fit for strenuous work. There are days in every girl's life when she is not capable of her best work, and when a wise and sympathetic teacher will see that it is better for her to do comparatively little. And yet these slack times are just those in which there is the greatest danger of a girl indulging in daydreams, and when her thoughts need to be more than usually under control. These times may be utilised for lighter subjects and for such manual work as does not need great physical exertion. It is not a good time for exercises, for games, for dancing, and for gardening, nor are they the days on which mathematics should be pressed, but they are days in which much supervision is needed, and when time should not be permitted to hang heavily on hand. Just as there are days in which consideration should be shown, so too there are longer periods of time in which it is unwise for a girl to be pressed to prepare for or to undergo a strenuous examination. The brain of the girl appears to be as good as that of the boy, while her application, industry, and emulation are far in advance of his, but she has these physiological peculiarities, and if they are disregarded there will not only be an occasional disastrous failure in bodily or mental health, but girls as a class will fail to do the best work of which they are capable, and will fail to reap the fullest advantage from an education which is costly in money, time, and strength. It follows that the curriculum for girls presents greater difficulties than the curriculum for boys, and that those ladies who are responsible for the organisation of a school for girls need to be women of great resource, great patience, and endowed with much sympathetic insight. The adolescent girl will generally do little to help her teachers in this matter. She is incapable of recognising her own limitations, she is full of emulation, and is desirous of attaining and keeping a good position not only in her school but also in the University or in any other public body for whose examination she may present herself. The young girl most emphatically needs to be saved from herself, and she has to learn the lessons of obedience and of cheerful acquiescence in restrictions that certainly appear to her simply vexatious. One of the difficulties in private schools arises from the necessity of providing occupation for every hour of the waking day, while avoiding the danger of overwork with its accompanying exhaustion. In the solution of this problem such subjects as gymnastics, games, dancing, needlework, cooking, and domestic economy will come in as a welcome relief from the more directly intellectual studies, and equally as a relief to the conscientious but hard-pressed woman who is trying to save her pupils from the evils of unoccupied time on the one hand and undue mental pressure on the other. Boys, and to a less extent girls, attending elementary schools who leave at fourteen are not likely to suffer in the same way or from the same causes. One of the difficulties in their case is that they leave school just when work is becoming interesting and before habits of study have been formed, indeed before the subjects taught have been thoroughly assimilated, and that therefore in the course of a few years little may be left of their painfully acquired and too scanty knowledge. Free education has been given to the children of the poor for nearly fifty years, and yet the mothers who were schoolgirls in the seventies and eighties appear to have saved but little from the wreck of their knowledge except the power to sign their names and to read in an imperfect and blundering manner. Here, too, there are many problems to be solved, one among them being the great necessity of endeavouring to correlate the lessons given in school to the work that the individual will have to perform in after life. It would appear as if the girls of the elementary schools, in addition to reading, writing, and simple arithmetic, sufficient to enable them to write letters, to read books, and to keep simple household accounts, ought to be taught the rudiments of cookery, the cutting out and making of garments, and the best methods of cleansing as applied to houses, household utensils and clothing. In addition, and as serious subjects, not merely as a recreation, they should be taught gymnastics, part singing and mother-craft. No doubt in individual schools much of this modification of the curriculum has been accomplished, but more remains to be done before we can be satisfied that we have done the best in our power to fit the children of the country for their life's work. Another of the great problems connected with the children in elementary schools, a problem which, indeed, arises out of their leaving at fourteen, is that of the Continuation School or Evening School, and the system which is known as "half-timing." It is well known that although young people from fourteen to sixteen years of age are well able to profit by continued instruction, they are, with very few exceptions, not at all well adapted for commencing their life's work as industrials. The general incoherency and restlessness peculiar to that age frequently lead to a change of employment every few months, while their general irresponsibility and want of self-control lead to frequent disputes with foremen and other officials in factories and shops, in consequence of which the unfortunate child is constantly out of work. In proportion to the joy and pride caused by the realised capacity to earn money and by the sense of independence that employment brings, is the unhappiness, and in many cases the misery, due to unemployment, and to repeated failures to obtain and to keep an independent position. The boy or girl out of work has an uneasy feeling that he or she has not earned the just and expected share towards household expenses. The feeling of dependence and well-nigh of disgrace causes a rapid deterioration in health and spirits, and it is only too likely that in many instances where unemployment is continuous or frequently repeated, the unemployed will quickly become the unemployable. So far as the young people themselves are concerned, it would be nearly always an unmixed benefit that they should pass at fourteen into a Technical School or Continuation School, as the case may be. Among the great difficulties to the solution of this problem is the fact that in many working-class households the few weekly shillings brought into the family store by the elder children are of very real importance, and although the raising of the age of possible employment and independence would enable the next generation to work better and to earn higher and more continuous wages, it is difficult for the parents to acquiesce in the present deprivation involved, even though it represents so much clear gain in the not distant future. At the present time there are Evening Schools, but this system does not work well. All busy people are well aware that after a hard day's work neither brain nor body is in the best possible condition for two or three hours of serious mental effort. The child who has spent the day in factory or shop has really pretty nearly used up all his or her available mental energy, and after the evening meal is naturally heavy, stupid, irritable, and altogether in a bad condition for further effort. The evenings ought to be reserved for recreation, for the gymnasium, the singing class, the swimming bath, and even for the concert and the theatre. The system of "half-timing" during ordinary school life does not work well, and it would be a great pity should a similar system be introduced in the hope of furthering the education of boys and girls who are just entering industrial life. There is reason to hope that a great improvement in education will be secured by Mr. Hayes Fisher's bill. Another subject to which the attention of patriots and philanthropists ought to be turned is the sort of employment open to children at school-leaving age. The greatest care should be taken to diminish the number of those who endeavour to achieve quasi-independence in those occupations which are well known as "blind alleys." In England it is rare that girls should seek these employments, but in Scotland there is far too large a number of girl messengers. In this particular, the case of the girl is superior to that of the boy. The "tweeny" develops into housemaid or cook; the young girls employed in superior shops to wait on the elder shopwomen hope to develop into their successors, and the girls who nurse babies on the doorsteps are, after all, acquiring knowledge and dexterity that may fit them for domestic service or for the management of their own families a few years later. The girls of the richer classes have not the same difficulties as their poorer sisters. They generally remain at school until a much later age, and subsequently have the joy and stimulus of college life, of foreign travel, of social engagements, or of philanthropic enterprise. Still, a residue remains even of girls of this class whose own inclinations, or whose family circumstances, lead to an aimless, purposeless existence, productive of much injury to both body and mind, and only too likely to end in hopeless ennui and nervous troubles. It should be thoroughly understood by parents and guardians that no matter what the girl's circumstances may be, she ought always to have an abundance of employment. The ideas of obligation and of duty should not be discarded when school and college life cease. The well-to-do girl should be encouraged to take up some definite employment which would fill her life and provide her with interests and duties. Any other arrangement tends to make the time between leaving school or college and a possible marriage not only a wasted time but also a seed-time during which a crop is sown of bad habits, laziness of body, and slackness of mind, that subsequently bear bitter fruit. It is quite time for us to recognise that unemployment and absence of duties is as great a disadvantage to the rich as it is to the poor; the sort of employment must necessarily differ, but the spirit in which it is to be done is the same. One point that one would wish to emphasise with regard to all adolescents is that although occupation for the whole day is most desirable, hard work should occupy but a certain proportion of the waking hours. For any adolescent, or indeed for any of us to attempt to work hard for twelve or fourteen hours out of the twenty-four is to store up trouble. It is not possible to lay down any hard and fast rule as to the length of hours of work, because the other factors in the problem vary so greatly. One person may be exhausted by four hours of intellectual effort, whereas another is less fatigued by eight; and further, the daily occupations vary greatly in the demand that they make on attention and on such qualities as reason, judgment, and power of initiation. Those who teach or learn such subjects as mathematics, or those who are engaged in such occupations as portrait-painting and the higher forms of musical effort, must necessarily take more out of themselves than those who are employed in feeding a machine, in nursing a baby, or in gardening operations. CHAPTER V. THE FINAL AIM OF EDUCATION. The great problem before those who have the responsibility for the training of the young is that of preparing them to take their place in the world as fathers, mothers, and citizens, and among the fundamental duties connected with this responsibility must come the placing before the eyes of the young people high ideals, attractive examples, and the securing to them the means of adequate preparation. As a nation it seems to be with us at present as it was with the people of Israel in the days of Eli: "the word of the Lord was precious (or scarce) in those days; there was no open vision." We seem to have come to a time of civilisation in which there is much surface refinement and a widespread veneer of superficial knowledge, but in which there is little enthusiasm and in which the great aim and object of teaching and of training is but too little realised. In the endeavour to know a little of all things we seem to have lost the capacity for true and exhaustive knowledge of anything. It would appear as if the remedy for this most unsatisfactory state of things has to commence long before the years of adolescence, even while the child is yet in its cradle. The old-fashioned ideas of duty, obedience, and discipline must be once more household words and living entities before the race can enter on a period of regeneration. We want a poet with the logic of Browning, the sweetness of Tennyson, and the force of Rudyard Kipling, to sing a song that would penetrate through indifference, sloth, and love of pleasure, and make of us the nation that we might be, and of which the England of bygone years had the promise. Speaking specially with regard to girls, let us first remember that the highest earthly ideal for a woman is that she should be a good wife and a good mother. It is not necessary to say this in direct words to every small girl, but she ought to be so educated, so guided, as to instinctively realise that wifehood and motherhood is the flower and perfection of her being. This is the hope and ideal that should sanctify her lessons and sweeten the right and proper discipline of life. All learning, all handicraft, and all artistic training should take their place as a preparation to this end. Each generation that comes on to the stage of life is the product of that which preceded it. It is the flower of the present national life and the seed of that which is to come. We ought to recognise that all educational aims and methods are really subordinate to this great end; if this were properly realised by adolescents it would be of the greatest service and help in their training. The deep primal instinct of fatherhood and motherhood would help them more than anything else to seek earnestly and successfully for the highest attainable degree of perfection of their own bodies, their own minds, and their own souls. It is, however, impossible to aim at an ideal that is unseen and even unknown, and although the primal instinct exists in us all, its fruition is greatly hindered by the way in which it is steadily ignored, and by the fact that any proclamation of its existence is considered indiscreet and even indelicate. How are children to develop a holy reverence for their own bodies unless they know of their wonderful destiny? If they do not recognise that at least in one respect God has confided to them in some measure His own creative function, how can they jealously guard against all that would injure their bodies and spoil their hopes for the exercise of this function? There is, even at the present time, a division of opinion as to when and in what manner children are to be made aware of their august destiny. We are indeed only now beginning to realise that ignorance is not necessarily innocence, and that knowledge of these matters may be sanctified and blessed. It is, however, certain that the conspiracy of silence which lasted so many years has brought forth nothing but evil. If a girl remains ignorant of physiological facts, the shock of the eternal realities of life that come to her on marriage is always pernicious and sometimes disastrous. If, on the other hand, such knowledge is obtained from servants and depraved playfellows, her purity of mind must be smirched and injured. Even among those who hold that children ought to be instructed, there is a division of opinion as to when this instruction is to begin. Some say at puberty, others a few years later, perhaps on the eve of marriage, and yet others think that the knowledge will come with less shock, with less personal application, and therefore in a more natural and useful manner from the very beginning of conscious life. These last would argue--why put the facts of reproduction on a different footing from those of digestion and respiration? As facts in the physical life they hold a precisely similar position. Upon the due performance of bodily functions depends the welfare of the whole organism, and although reproduction, unlike the functions of respiration and digestion, is not essential to the life of the individual, it is essential to the life of the nation. The facts of physiology are best taught to little children by a perfectly simple recognition of the phenomena of life around them--the cat with her kittens, the bird with its fledgelings, and still more the mother with her infant, are all common facts and beautiful types of motherhood. Instead of inventing silly and untrue stories as to the origin of the kitten and the fledgeling, it is better and wiser to answer the child's question by a direct statement of fact, that God has given the power to His creatures to perpetuate themselves, that the gift of Life is one of His good gifts bestowed in mercy on all His creatures. The mother's share in this gift and duty can be observed by, and simply explained to, the child from its earliest years; it comes then with no shock, no sense of shame, but as a type of joy and gladness, an image of that holiest of all relations, the Eternal Mother and the Heavenly Child. Somewhat later in life, probably immediately before puberty in boys and shortly after puberty in girls, the father's share in this mystery may naturally come up for explanation. The physiological facts connected with this are not so constantly in evidence before children, and therefore do not press for explanation in the same way as do those of motherhood, but the time comes soon in the schoolboy's life when the special care of his own body has to be urged on him, and this knowledge ought to come protected by the sanction that unless he is faithful to his trust he cannot look to the reward of a happy home life with wife and children. In the case of the girl the question as to fatherhood is more likely to arise out of the reading of the Bible or other literature, or by her realisation that at any rate in the case of human parenthood there is evidently the intermediation of a father. The details of this knowledge need not necessarily be pressed on the adolescent girl, but it is a positive cruelty to allow the young woman to marry without knowing the facts on which her happiness depends. Another way in which the mystery of parenthood can be simply and comfortably taught is through the study of vegetable physiology. The fertilisation of the ovules by pollen which falls directly from the anthers on to the stigma can be used as a representation of similar facts in animal physiology. It is very desirable, however, that this study of the vegetable should succeed and not precede that of the domestic animals in the teaching of boys and girls. Viewed from this standpoint there is surely no difficulty to the parent in imparting to the child this necessary knowledge. We have to remember that children have to know the mysteries of life. They cannot live in the world without seeing the great drama constantly displayed to them in family life and in the lives of domesticated animals. They cannot read the literature of Greece and Rome, nay, they cannot study the Book of Books, without these facts being constantly brought to mind. A child's thirst for the interpretation of this knowledge is imperative and unsatiable--not from prurience nor from evil-mindedness, but in obedience to a law of our nature, the child demands this knowledge--and will get it. It is for fathers and mothers to say whether these sublime and beautiful mysteries shall be lovingly and reverently unveiled by themselves or whether the child's mind shall be poisoned and all beauty and reverence destroyed by depraved school-fellows and vulgar companions. In the hope of securing the purity, reverence and piety of our children, in the hope that they may grow up worthy of their high destiny, let us do what we may to keep their honour unsmirched, to preserve their innocence, and to lead them on from the unconscious goodness of childhood to the clear-eyed, fully conscious dignity of maturity, that our sons may grow up as young plants, and our daughters as the polished corners of the temple. PART II.: BOYS. BY F. ARTHUR SIBLY, M.A., LL.D. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. My contribution to this little book was originally intended for the eyes of parents, scoutmasters, and other adults. Since 1913, when the book was first published, it has been my privilege to receive from these so many letters of warm appreciation that it seems needless to retain the apologetic preface which I then wrote. The object which I had in view at that time was the hastening of a supremely important reform. I have to-day the very deep joy of knowing that my words have carried conviction to many adults and have given help to countless boys. One result of this publication was entirely unlooked for. It did not occur to me, as I wrote, that the book would be read by boys and young men. It was not written at all for this purpose. In some respects its influence over them has, however, been increased by this obvious fact. In this book boys have, as it were, overheard a confidential conversation about themselves carried on by adults anxious for their welfare, and some at least are evidently more impressed by this conversation than by a direct appeal--in which they are liable to suspect exaggeration. I have received hundreds of letters from boys and young men. These confirm in _every_ way the conclusions set forth in this book, and prove that the need for guidance in sex matters is acute and universal. The relief and assistance which many boys have experienced from correspondence with me, and the interest which I find in their letters have caused me--spite of the extreme preoccupation of a strenuous life--to issue a special invitation to those who may feel inclined to write to me. Great diversity of opinion exists as to the best method of giving sex instruction, and those who have had experience of one method are curiously blind to the merits of other methods, which they usually strongly denounce. While I have my own views as to the best method to adopt, I am quite sure that each one of very many methods can, in suitable hands, produce great good, and that the very poorest method is infinitely superior to no method at all. Some are for oral teaching, some for the use of a pamphlet, some favour confidential individual teaching, others collective public teaching. Some would try to make sex a sacred subject; some would prefer to keep the emotional element out and treat reproduction as a matter-of-fact science subject. Some wish the parent to give the teaching, some the teacher, some the doctor, some a lecturer specially trained for this purpose. Good results have been obtained by every one of these methods. During recent years much additional evidence has accumulated in my hands of the beneficent results of such teaching as I advocate in these pages, and I am confident that of boys who have been wisely guided and trained, few fail to lead clean lives even when associated with those who are generally and openly corrupt. I must, however, emphasise my belief that the cleanliness of a boy's life depends ultimately not upon his knowledge of good and evil but upon his devotion to the Right. "Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, These three alone lead life to sovereign power." Where these are not, it is idle to inculcate the rarest and most difficult of all virtues. F. ARTHUR SIBLY. WYCLIFFE, STONEHOUSE, GLOS. _September 1918._ INTRODUCTORY NOTE. The term puberty will so often be used in the following chapters that a brief account of the phenomena of puberty may appropriately be given at the outset of this work. Puberty is a name given to the age at which a boy becomes capable of being a father. In temperate climates this age is reached at about fifteen years, though some boys attain it at twelve and some not until seventeen. The one obvious and invariable sign of puberty is a change of pitch in the voice, which assumes its bass character after an embarrassing period of squeaky alternations between the high and low tones. The age is a critical one, as several important changes take place in body and in mind. The reproductive organs undergo considerable development and become sensitive to any stimulus, physical or mental. The seminal fluid, which in normal cases has hitherto been secreted little, if at all, is now elaborated by the testicles, and contains spermatazoa--minute organisms which are essential to reproduction. Under the stimulus of sexual thoughts this fluid is secreted in such quantity as to give rise to involuntary discharge during sleep. These nocturnal emissions are so often found among boys and young men that some physiologists consider them to be quite normal. My experience leads me to doubt this conclusion. Another physical change associated with puberty is the growth of hair on the pubes and on the face: in this latter situation the growth is slow. With the capacity for fatherhood comes a very strong awakening of the sexual instinct, which manifests itself in passion and in lust--the unconscious and the conscious sex hunger. The passion shows itself in a ludicrously indiscriminate and exaggerated susceptibility to female attractions--a susceptibility the sexual character of which is usually quite unrecognised. Among boys who have sex knowledge there is also a tendency to dwell on sexual thoughts when the mind is not otherwise occupied. Passion and lust do not at once develop their full strength; but, coming at a time when self-control is very weak, and coming with all the attraction of novelty, they often dominate the mind even in normal cases, and may become tyrannous when the reproductive system has been prematurely stimulated. A heightened self-consciousness and an antagonism to authority so often follow the attainment of puberty that they are usually considered to be its results. My own experience with boys satisfies me that this conclusion is not correct. Self-consciousness, when it occurs in boyhood, is usually the result of an unclean inner life. Puberty merely increases the self-consciousness by intensifying its cause. When the mind is clean there is no marked change in this respect at puberty. The antagonism to authority so often observed after puberty is the product of unsatisfactory external influences. With puberty the desire to stand well with others, and in particular the desire to seem manly, increases. If a debased public opinion demands of a boy the cheap manliness of profanity, tobacco, and irreverence, the demand creates a plentiful supply, while it also suppresses as priggish or "pi" any avowed or suspected devotion to higher ideals. A healthy public opinion, working in harmony with a boy's nobler instincts, calls forth in him an earnest devotion to high ideals, and causes him to exercise, on the development of his powers and in a crusade against wrong, the new energies which a wholesome puberty places at his disposal. CHAPTER I. PREVALENCE OF IMPURITY AMONG BOYS: THE AUTHOR'S OWN EXPERIENCE. Of the perils which beset the growing boy all are recognised, and, in a measure, guarded against except the most inevitable and most fatal peril of all. In all that concerns the use and abuse of the reproductive organs the great majority of boys have hitherto been left without adult guidance, and have imbibed their ideas from the coarser of their companions and from casual references to the subject in the Bible and other books. Under these conditions very few boys escape two of the worst dangers into which it is possible for a lad to fall--the artificial stimulation of the reproductive organs and the acquisition of degraded ideas on the subject of sex. That many lives are thus prematurely shortened, that many constitutions are permanently enfeebled, that very many lads who might otherwise have striven successfully against the sexual temptations of adult life succumb--almost without a struggle--to them, can be doubted by no one who is familiar with the inner life of boys and men. Of these two evils, self-abuse, though productive of manifold and disastrous results, is distinctly the less. Many boys outgrow the physical injuries which, in ignorance, they inflict upon themselves in youth; but very few are able wholly to cleanse themselves from the foul desires associated in their minds with sex. These desires make young men impotent in the face of temptation. Under their evil dominance, even men of kind disposition will, by seduction, inflict on an innocent girl agony, misery, degradation, and premature death. They will indulge In the most degrading of all vices with prostitutes on the street. They will defile the atmosphere of social life with filthy talk and ribald jest. Even a clean and ennobling passion can do little to redeem them. The pure stream of human love is made turbid with lust. After a temporary uplifting in marriage the soul is again dragged down, marriage vows are broken and the blessings of home life are turned into wormwood and gall. That a system so destructive of physical and of spiritual health should have lasted almost intact until now will, I believe, shortly become a matter for general amazement; for while evidence of the widespread character of youthful perversion is a product of quite recent years, the assumptions on which this system has been based are unreasonable and incapable of proof. Since conclusive evidence of the prevalence of impurity among boys is available, I will not at present invite the reader to examine the assumptions which lead most people to a contrary belief. When I do so, I shall hope to demonstrate that we might reasonably expect to find things precisely as they are. In the first and second chapters we shall see to what conclusions teachers who have actual experience in the matter have been led. There are several teachers whose authority in most matters stands so very much above my own that it might seem presumptuous to begin by laying my own experiences before the reader; but I venture to take this course because no other teacher, as far as I know, has published quite such definite evidence as I have done; and I think that the more general statements of such eminent men as Canon Lyttelton, Mr. A.C. Benson, and Dr. Clement Dukes will appeal to the reader more powerfully when he has some idea of the manner in which conclusions on this subject may be reached. I have some reason, also, for the belief that the paper I read in 1908 at the London University before the International Congress on Moral Education has been considered of great significance by very competent judges. By a special decision of the Executive of the Congress it--alone of all sectional papers--was printed _in extenso_ in the official report. Later on, it came under the notice of Sir R. Baden-Powell, at whose request it was republished in the _Headquarters Gazette_--the official organ of the Boy Scout movement. It certainly did require some courage at the time to put my results before the public, for I was not then aware that men of great eminence in the educational world had already made equally sweeping, if less definite, statements. Emboldened by this fact and by the commendations above referred to, I venture to quote the greater part of this short paper. "The opinions I am about to put forward are based almost entirely on my own twenty years' experience as a housemaster. My house contains forty-eight boys, who vary in age from ten to nineteen and come from comfortable middle-class homes. "Private interviews with individual boys in my study have been the chief vehicle of my teaching and the chief source of my information. My objects in these interviews have been to warn boys against the evils of private impurity, to supply them with a certain amount of knowledge on sexual subjects in order to prevent a prurient curiosity, and to induce them to confide to me the history of their own knowledge and difficulties. In my early days I interviewed those only who appeared to me to be obviously suffering from the effects of impurity, and, of late years, the extreme pressure of my work has forced me very reluctantly to recur to this plan. "For several years, however, I was accustomed to interview every boy under my care during his first term with me. Very rarely have I failed in these interviews so to secure a boy's confidence as to learn the salient facts of the history of his inner life. Sunday afternoon addresses to the Sixth Form on the sexual dangers of late youth and early manhood have resulted at times in elder boys themselves seeking an interview with me. Such spontaneous confidences have naturally been fuller, and therefore more instructive, than the confidences I have invited. "Many people are inclined to look upon the instruction of boys in relation to adolescence as needless and harmful; needless because few boys, they imagine, awake to the consciousness and problems of sex until manhood; harmful because the pristine innocence of the mind is, they think, destroyed, and evils are suggested of which a boy might otherwise remain unconscious. To one who knows what boys really are such ideas are nothing less than ludicrous. "Boys come to our school from many different classes of preparatory and secondary schools. Almost every such school seems to possess a few boys who delight to initiate younger boys into sexual knowledge, and usually into knowledge of solitary vice. The very few boys who have come to me quite ignorant of these matters have come either straight from home at ten or eleven, or from a school in which a few young boys are educated with girls. Of boys who have come under my care as late as twelve I have known but two who even professed total ignorance on sexual subjects, and in one of these cases I am quite sure that no such ignorance existed. "In a large majority of cases solitary vice has been learned and practised before a boy has got into his teens. The lack of insight parents display in relation to these questions is quite phenomenal. The few who mention the subject to me are always quite satisfied of the complete 'innocence' of their boys. Some of the most precocious and unclean boys I have known have been thus confidently commended to me. Boys are wholly unsuspicious of the extent to which their inner life lies open to the practised eye, and they feel secure that nothing can betray their secrets if they themselves do not. "In no department of our life are George Eliot's words truer than in this department: 'Our daily familiar life is but a hiding of ourselves from each other behind a screen of trivial words and deeds, and those who sit with us at the same hearth are often the farthest off from the deep human soul within us--full of unspoken evil and unacted good.' We cannot prevent a boy's obtaining information on sexual questions. Our choice lies between leaving him to pick it up from unclean and vulgar minds, which will make it guilty and impure, and giving it ourselves in such a way as to invest it from the first with a sacred character. "Another idea which my experience proves to be an entire delusion is the idea that a boy's natural refinement is a sufficient protection against defilement. Some of the most refined boys I have had the pleasure of caring for have been pronounced victims of solitary sin. That it is a sin at all, that it has, indeed, any significance, either ethical or spiritual, has not so much as occurred to most of them. On what great moral question dare we leave the young to find their own way absolutely without guidance? In this most difficult and dangerous of all questions we leave the young soul, stirred by novel and blind impulses, to grope in the darkness. Is it any wonder if it fails to see things in their true relations? "Again, it is sometimes thought that the consequences of secret sin are so patent as to deter a boy from the sin itself. So far is this from being the case that I have never yet found a single boy (even among those who have, through it, made almost complete wrecks physically and mentally) who has of himself connected these consequences with the sin itself. I have, on the other hand, known many sad cases in which, through the weakening of will power, which this habit causes, boys of high ideals have fallen again and again after their eyes have been fully opened. This sin is rarely a conscious moral transgression. The boy is a victim to be sympathised with and helped, not an offender to be reproved and punished." I desire to call the attention of the reader to two points in the foregoing extract. I was particular in giving my credentials to state the character and limitations of my experience. Everywhere in life one finds confident and sweeping generalisations made by men who have little or no experience to appeal to. This is specially the case in the educational world, and perhaps most of all in discussions on this very subject. Some men, at least, are willing to instruct the public with nothing better to guide them than the light of Nature. It would greatly assist the quest of truth if everyone who ventures to address the public on this question would first present his credentials. There is danger lest the reader should discount the significance of the statements I make in the foregoing paper by falling into the error of supposing that the facts stated apply, after all, to one school only. This is not by any means so. The facts have been collected _at_ one school; but those which refer to the prevalence of sex knowledge and of masturbation have reference solely to the condition of boys when they first entered, and are significant of the conditions which obtain at some scores of schools and in many homes. I venture here to quote and to warmly endorse Canon Lyttelton's opinion: "It is, however, so easy to be misunderstood in this matter that I must insert a caution against an inference which may be drawn from these words, viz. that school life is the _origin_ of immorality among boys. The real origin is to be found in the common predisposition to vicious conceptions, which is the result of neglect. Nature provides in almost every case an active curiosity on this subject; and that curiosity must be somehow allayed; and if it were not allayed at school, false and depraved ideas would be picked up at home.... So readily does an ignorant mind at an early age take in teaching about these subjects that there are no conceivable conditions of modern social life not fraught with grave peril to a young boy, if once he has been allowed to face them quite unprepared, either by instruction or by warning. And this manifestly applies to life at home, or in a day-school, or in a boarding-school to an almost equal degree."[A] [Footnote A: _Training of the Young in Relation to Sex, p. 1 et seq_.] One of the facts which I always tried to elicit from boys was the source of their information, or rather the character of that source, for I was naturally anxious not to ask a boy to incriminate any individual known to me. In many cases, information came first to the boy at _home_ from a brother, or cousin, or casual acquaintance, or domestic servant. In one of the worst cases I have known the information was given to a boy by another boy--an entire stranger to him--whom he happened to meet on a country road when cycling. Since boys meet one another very much more at school than elsewhere and spend three-fourths of their lives there, of course information is more often obtained at school than at home. My own experience leads me to think that in this respect the day-school--probably on account of its mixed social conditions--is worse than the boarding-school. Before passing from matters of personal experience, it may interest the reader if I give particulars of a few typical cases to illustrate some points on which I have insisted. _Case A._--The father and mother of a boy close on thirteen came to see me before entering the lad. They had no idea that I was specially interested in purity-teaching; but they were anxious to ascertain what precautions we took against the corruption of small boys. They struck me as very good parents. I was specially pleased that they were alive to the dangers of impurity, and that the mother could advert openly to the matter without embarrassment. I advised them to give the boy explicit warning; but they said that they were anxious to preserve his innocence as long as possible. He was at present absolutely simple, and they hoped that he would long remain so. It was a comfort to them that I was interested in the subject, and they would leave the boy with confidence in my care. As soon as I saw the boy, I found it difficult to believe in his innocence; and I soon discovered that he was thoroughly corrupt. Not merely did he begin almost at once to corrupt other boys, but he actually gave them his views on brothels! In a private interview with me he admitted all this, and told me that he was corrupted at ten years of age, when he was sent, after convalescence from scarlet fever, to a country village for three months. There he seems to have associated with a group of street boys, who gave him such information as they had, and initiated him into self-abuse. Since then he had been greedily seeking further information and passing it on. _Case B._--A delicate, gentle boy of eleven, an only son, was sent to me by an intellectual father, who had been his constant companion. The lad was very amiable and well-intentioned. A year later he gave me particulars of his corruption by a cousin, who was three years older than he. Since that time--particularly of late--he had practised masturbation. He had not the least idea that it was hurtful or even unrefined, and thought that it was peculiar to himself and his cousin. He knew from his cousin the chief facts of maternity and paternity, but had not spoken to other boys about them. He was intensely anxious to cleanse himself entirely, and promised to let me know of any lapse, should it occur. In the following vacation he developed pneumonia. For some days his life hung in the balance, and then flickered out. His father wrote me a letter of noble resignation. Terribly as he felt his loss, he was greatly consoled, he said, by the knowledge that his boy had died while his mind was innocent and before he could know even what temptation was. It is needless to add that I never hinted the real facts to the father; and--without altering any material detail--I am disguising the case lest it should possibly be recognised by him. I have often wondered whether, when the lad's life hung in the balance, it might not have been saved if Death's scale had not been weighted by the child's lowered vitality. _Case C._--A boy of fourteen came to me. He was a miserable specimen in every way--pale, lethargic, stupid almost beyond belief. He had no mother; and the father, though a man of leisure, evidently found it difficult to make the lad much of a companion. I felt certain from the first that the boy was an exceptionally bad victim of self-abuse; And this I told his father, advising him to investigate the matter. He was horrified at my diagnosis, and committed the great indiscretion of taxing the boy with self-abuse as though it were a conscious and grave fault. The father wrote during the vacation saying that he found I was entirely mistaken: not, content with the lad's assurance, he had watched him with the utmost care. As soon as the boy returned to school I interviewed him. He admitted readily that he had long masturbated himself daily--sometimes oftener. He had first--as far as he could remember, at about six--had his private parts excited by his nurse, who apparently did this to put an irritable child into a good temper! My warning had little effect upon him, as he had become a hopeless victim. He was too delicate a boy for us to desire to keep; and after a brief stay at school, during which we nursed him through a critical illness, he left to finish his education under private tuition at home. _Case D._--This boy came to me at thirteen. He was always a conscientious and amiable boy, but was nervous and dull. By fifteen his dullness had increased, and he complained of brain-strain and poorness of memory. Finally he began to develop St. Vitus's dance. I sent him to our school doctor, who returned him with a note saying that his condition was serious--that he must stop all work, &c. &c. I was in my study when the lad came back, and I at once told him what was the matter. He frankly admitted frequent self-abuse, which he had learned from an elder brother. He had not the least suspicion that the habit was injurious; but was very apprehensive about his future until I reassured him. He wanted me to write at once and warn a younger brother who had fallen into the habit. By great effort he got himself rapidly under control. His nervous twitchings disappeared, his vitality improved, the brain-fag gradually ceased; and when he left, eighteen months later, he was fairly normal. His improvement continued afterwards, and he is now a successful man of business and a married man. _Case E._--This boy entered at twelve. He was very weak physically and highly nervous--owing, his people thought, to severe bullying at a previous school. He was an able boy, of literary and artistic tastes, and almost painfully conscientious. He was very shy; always thought that he was despised by other boys; and was a duffer at games, which he avoided to the utmost. With my present experience I should have known him to be a victim of self-abuse. Then, I did not suspect him; and it was not until he was leaving at eighteen for the University that we talked the matter over, on his initiative. Then I found that he had been bullied into impurity at eleven, and was now a helpless victim. After two years at the University he wrote me that, though the temptation now came less frequently, he seemed absolutely powerless when it did come; that he despised himself so much that the impulse to suicide often haunted him; but that the cowardice which had kept him from games at school would probably prevent his taking his life. With the assistance of an intense and devoted religious life he gradually began to gain self-mastery. It is some years now since he has mentioned the subject to me. These are merely specimen cases. Cases A, B, and C illustrate my assertions that parents are wonderfully blind; Cases B and E, that quite exceptional refinement in a boy gives no protection from temptation to impurity; Case D, that a boy, even in an extreme case, does not know that the habit is injurious. In respect of their severity, C, D, and E are not normal but extreme cases. The reader must not imagine that boys ordinarily suffer as much as these did. CHAPTER II. PREVALENCE OF IMPURITY AMONG BOYS: THE OPINIONS OF CANON LYTTELTON, DR. DUKES, AND OTHERS. I propose now to make clear to the reader the fact that the conclusions I have reached as to the existence of sexual knowledge among boys, and as to the prevalence of self-abuse, are entirely borne out by the opinion of the most distinguished teachers and medical men. Canon Lyttelton writes with an authority which no one will question. Educated at Eton, he was for two years an assistant master at Wellington College; then, for fifteen years, headmaster of Haileybury College, and has now been headmaster of Eton for over six years. He has intimate knowledge of boys, derived, as regards the question of purity, from confidential talks with them. The quotations which follow are from his work _Training of the Young in Laws of Sex_. Canon Lyttelton does not think it needful to make statements as to the prevalence of impurity among boys. He rather assumes that this prevalence is obvious and, under present conditions, inevitable. I have already quoted one passage which involves this assumption, and now invite the reader to consider two others. "In the school life of boys, in spite of very great improvements, it is _impossible_ that sexual subjects should be wholly avoided in common talk.... Though, in preparatory schools of little boys under fourteen, the increasing vigilance of masters, and constant supervision, combined with constant employment, reduce the evil of prurient talk to a minimum, yet these subjects _will_ crop up.... It should be remembered that the boys who are talkative about such subjects are just those whose ideas are most distorted and vicious. In the public school, owing not only to freer talk and more mixed company but to the boy's own wider range of vision, sexual questions, and also those connected with the structure of the body, come to the fore and begin to occupy more or less of the thoughts of all but a peculiarly constituted minority of the whole number. "Men, as I have shown, have been severely dealt with by Nature in this respect: she has forced them, at a time of life when their minds are ill compacted, their ideas chaotic, and their wills untrained, to face an ordeal which demands above all things reverence based on knowledge and resolution sustained by high affections. An _enormously large proportion_ flounder blindly into the mire before they know what it is, not necessarily, but very often into the defilement of evil habit, but, still more often, into the tainted air of diseased opinion, and after a few years _some of them_ emerge saved, but so as by fire."[B] [Footnote B: Pages 4 _et seq._: the italics are mine.] The following are quotations from the _Upton Letters_, written by Mr. A.C. Benson. Mr. Benson is one of the most distinguished of modern teachers: he has had long experience of public-school life both as a boy and as a master: he has that insight into the heart of boyhood which can come only to one who has affectionate sympathy with boys and has been the recipient of their confidences. It will be abundantly evident from the passages which follow that in Mr. Benson's opinion no boy is likely to preserve his "innocence" in passing through a public school. "The subject is so unpleasant that many masters dare not speak of it at all, and excuse themselves by saying that they don't want to put ideas into boys' heads. I cannot conscientiously believe that a man who has been through a big public school himself can honestly be afraid of that." "The standard of purity is low: a vicious boy does not find his vicious tendencies by any means a bar to social success." This, of course, assumes that the vicious tendencies are a matter of notoriety. A similar implication is involved in the following: "I do not mean to say that there are not many boys who are both pure-minded and honest; but they treat such virtues as a secret preference of their own, and do not consider that it is in the least necessary to interfere with the practice of others or even to disapprove of it." He further gives it as his opinion that "The deadly and insidious temptation of impurity has, as far as one can learn, increased," and tells us "An innocent-minded boy whose natural inclination to purity gave way before perpetual temptation and even compulsion might be thought to have erred, but would have scanty, if any, expression of either sympathy or pity from other boys; while if he breathed the least hint of his miserable position to a master and the fact came out, he would be universally scouted.... One hears of simply heart-rending cases where a boy dare not even tell his parents of what he endures." It would thus appear that in some of the premier schools of the world impurity is a matter of notoriety, sometimes of compulsion; and that, to a boy's own strong inclination to concealment, is superadded, by the public opinion of the school, an imperious command that this concealment shall, even in heart-rending cases, be maintained. No one, I think, will maintain that private schools _as a class_ are in the least degree lees corrupt than public schools; while there are, I am sure, at least a few schools in which public opinion condemns _open_ impurity, and will not tolerate impure talk. And while I am confident that it is possible, not merely to attain this condition in a school, but also to reduce private impurity to a negligible quantity, impurity--in one form or another--is, in general, so widely spread in boys' schools of every type, that it is difficult to understand how anyone familiar with school life can doubt its prevalence. Let us now consider the opinion of Dr. Clement Dukes, the medical officer of Rugby School and the greatest English authority on school hygiene. In the preface to the fourth edition of his well-known work _Health at School_, Dr. Dukes writes: "I have studied children in all their phases and stages for many years--two years at the Hospital for Sick Children in 61 Ormond Street, London, followed by thirty-three years at Rugby School--a professional history which has provided me with an almost unique experience in all that relates to the Health and Disease of Childhood and Youth, and has compelled constant and steady thought upon every aspect of this problem." In an earlier work, _The Preservation of Health_, Dr. Dukes gives his estimate of the prevalence of masturbation, and quotes the opinion of other authorities whose credentials he has verified; In this work, on page 150, he writes of masturbation: "I believe that the reason why it is so widespread an evil--amounting, I gather, although from the nature of the case no complete evidence can ever be accurately obtained, to somewhere _about 90 to 95 per cent. of all boys at boarding-schools_--is because the boy leaves his home in the first instance without one word of warning from his parents ... and thus falls into evil ways from his innocence and ignorance alone.... This immorality is estimated by some at 80 per cent., by others at 90 per cent. Another says that not 10 per cent. are innocent. Another that it has always begun at from eight to twelve years of age. Others that it is always worst amongst the elder boys. Others that 'it is universal.'" Professor Stanley Hall, in his great work on _Adolescence_, after a similar and exhaustive review of the numerous works on this subject in different languages, concludes: "The whole literature on the subject attests that whenever careful researches have been undertaken the results are appalling as to prevalence." And yet there are people who deprecate purity-teaching for boys because they feel that a boy's natural modesty is quite a sufficient protection, and that there is danger of destroying a boy's innocence by putting ideas into his head! To hear such people talk, and to listen to the way in which they speak of self-abuse as though it implied monstrous moral perversion, one would think that the condition of morals when they were young was wholly different. The great novelist Thackeray gives little countenance to this opinion when he writes in _Pendennis_: "And, by the way, ye tender mothers and sober fathers of Christian families, a prodigious thing that theory of life is as orally learned at a great public school. Why if you could hear those boys of fourteen who blush before mothers and sneak off in silence in the presence of their daughters, talking among each other--it would be the woman's turn to blush then. Before he was twelve years old little Pen had heard talk enough to make him quite awfully wise upon certain points--and so, madam, has your pretty rosy-cheeked son, who is coming home from school for the ensuing holidays. I don't say that the boy is lost, or that the innocence has left him which he had from 'Heaven, which is our home,' but that the shades of the prison-house are closing fast over him, and that we are helping as much as possible to corrupt him." Before concluding this chapter I would caution the reader against the error of supposing that the opinions expressed by Canon Lyttelton and Dr. Dukes are indicative merely of the conditions they have met at Haileybury, Eton, and Rugby. They are equally significant of the conditions which obtain in the innumerable schools from which Haileybury, Eton, and Rugby are recruited; and as there is no reason why other preparatory schools should differ from these, they are significant of the almost universal condition of boys' schools. CHAPTER III. CAUSES OF THE PREVALENCE OF IMPURITY AMONG BOYS. The evidence I have adduced in the previous chapters will convince most of my readers that few boys retain their innocence after they are of school age. There may, however, be a few who find it impossible to reconcile this conclusion with their ideas of boy nature. I will therefore now examine current conceptions on this subject and expose their fundamental inaccuracy. There are some people who imagine that a boy's innate modesty is quite sufficient protection against defilement. Does experience really warrant any such conclusion? Those who know much of children will recognise the fact that even the cardinal virtues of truthfulness and honesty have often to be learned, and that ideas of personal cleanliness, of self-restraint in relation to food, and of consideration for others have usually to be implanted and fostered. Among people of refinement these virtues are often so early learned that there is danger lest we should consider them innate. The susceptibility of some children to suggestions conveyed to them by the example and precept of their elders is almost unlimited. Hence a child may, at two, have given up the trick of clearing its nostrils with the finger-nail, and may, before five, have learned most of the manners and virtues of refined people. The majority, however, take longer to learn these things, so that a jolly little chap of ten or twelve is often by no means scrupulously clean in hands, nails, ears, and teeth, is often distinctly greedy, and sometimes far from truthful. That cleanliness and virtue are acquired and not innate is obvious enough from the fact that children who grow up among dirty and unprincipled people are rarely clean and virtuous. Were it possible for the child of refined parents to grow up without example or precept in relation to table manners and morals, except the example and advice of vulgar people, who would expect refinement and consideration from him? Is there anyone who has such faith in innate refinement that he would be content to let a child of his own, grow up without a hint on these matters, and with such example only as was supplied by association with vulgar people? Yet this is precisely what we do in relation to the subject of personal purity. The child has no good example to guide him. The extent to which temptation comes to those whom he respects, the manner in which they comport themselves when tempted, the character of their sex relations are entirely hidden from him. He is not only without example, he is without precept. No ideals are set before him, no advice is given to him: the very existence of anything in which ideals and advice are needful is ignored. If in conditions like these we should expect a boy to grow up greedy, we may be certain that he will grow up impure. At puberty there awakes within him by far the strongest appetite that human nature can experience--an appetite against which some of the noblest of mankind have striven in vain. The appetite is given abnormal strength by the artificial and stimulating conditions under which he lives. The act which satisfies this appetite is also one of keen pleasure. He has long been accustomed to caress his private parts, and the pleasure with which he does this is greatly enhanced. He does not suspect that indulgence is harmful. This pleasure, unlike that of eating, costs him nothing, and is ever available. His powers of self-control are as yet undeveloped. He can indulge himself without incurring the least suspicion. He probably knows that most boys, of his age and above, indulge themselves. The result is inevitable. He finds that sexual thoughts are keenly pleasurable, and that they produce bodily exaltation. He has much yet to learn on the subject of sex, and he enjoys the quest. Wherever he turns he finds it now--in his Bible, in animal life, in his classics, in the encyclopædia, in his companions, and in the newspaper. Day and night the subject is ever with him. It is inevitable. And at this juncture comes along the theorist who is aghast at our destroying the lad's "innocence," and at our "suggesting evils to him which otherwise he would never have thought of." "The boy's innate modesty is quite a sufficient protection"! To me the wonderful thing is the earnestness with which a boy sets about the task of cleansing his life when once he has been made to realise the real character of the thoughts and acts with which he has been playing. Boys, as I find them, rarely err in this matter, or in any other, from moral perversity, but merely from ignorance and thoughtlessness. Severe rebukes and punishments are rarely either just or useful. The disposition which obliges the teacher to use them in the last resort, and the rebellion against authority which is said to follow puberty, arise almost invariably from injudicious training in the home or at school. Boys who have received a fair home training, and who find themselves in a healthy atmosphere at school, are almost invariably delightful to deal with; and even those who have been less fortunate in their early surroundings adapt themselves in most cases to the standards which a healthy public opinion in the school demands. It may be thought that the mere reticence of adults about reproduction and the reproductive organs would impress the child's mind with the idea that it is unclean to play with his private parts or to talk about their functions with his companions. This is a psychological error. For some years past adults have avoided any allusion to the subject of excretion, and the child assumes that _public_ attention to bodily needs and _public_ reference to these needs are alike indelicate. He does not, however, conclude that excretion in private is an indelicate act, nor does any sense of delicacy oblige him to maintain, with regard to companions of his own sex and age, the reticence which has become habitual to him in his relations with adults. Why should the child think it "dirty" to fondle and excite his private parts or to talk about them with his boy friends? The knowledge which makes us feel as we do is as yet hidden from him. The same thing is certainly true of conversation about the facts of reproduction when those who converse are uncorrupted. Another element, however, at once appears when these facts are divulged by a corrupt boy, because his manner is irresistibly suggestive of uncleanness as well as of secrecy. Similarly when self-abuse is fallen into spontaneously by a boy who is otherwise clean, no sense of indecency attaches itself to the act. When, however, it is taught by an unclean boy, there is a feeling of defilement from the first. In boys under the age of puberty this feeling may overpower the temptation; in boys above that age it is, as a rule, totally inadequate as a safeguard. Many people imagine that a boy who is impure must betray himself, and that if no overt acts of indecency are observed the innocence of a boy's mind may be safely inferred. Knowledge on these subjects has, however, been almost invariably gained under conditions of the utmost secrecy, and the behaviour of adults has effectively fostered the idea of concealment. Hence we might expect that the secret would be jealously guarded and that any overt act of impurity would be avoided in the presence of adults with even greater circumspection than the public performance of an excretory act. The habit of self-abuse, moreover, is practised usually under the double cover of darkness and the bed-clothes. The temptation occurs far less by day than by night, and a boy who yields to it in the day invariably chooses a closet or other private place in which he feels secure from detection. To many people it is inconceivable that a lad can harbour impure feelings and habits without obvious deterioration; but even if a child's lapses into these things were associated with conscious guilt, does our knowledge of human nature justify us in supposing that evil in the heart is certain to betray itself in a visible degradation of the outer life? If we believe the language of the devout, we must admit that the most spiritual of men hide in their heart thoughts of which they are heartily ashamed. It is not into the mouth of the reprobate but into the mouth of her devoted members as they enter upon their sacramental service that the Church puts the significant prayer, "Almighty God, unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid; Cleanse the thoughts in our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit." Inconsistency in adults is far too well recognised to need proof. In children it is even more obvious, and for this reason that, looked at aright, it is the faculty of maintaining the general health of the soul, spite of local morbid conditions--a faculty which is strongest in the simpler and more adaptable mind of the child. Impurity as a disease has a long incubation period. When he contracts the disease, its victim is often wholly unconscious of his danger; and, both because the disease is an internal one and is slow in development, it is a very long time before obvious symptoms appear. Meanwhile a corruption may have set in which will ultimately ruin the whole life. CHAPTER IV. RESULTS OF YOUTHFUL IMPURITY. It is difficult to exaggerate the evils which result from the present system under which boys grow to manhood without any adult guidance in relation to the laws of sex. It has already been stated that the immediate physical results of self-abuse are small evils indeed compared with the corruption of mind which comes from perverted sex ideas. They are, however, by no means negligible; and are, in some cases, very serious. The great prevalence of self-abuse among boys, combined with the inevitable uncertainty as to the degree of a boy's freedom from, or indulgence in, this vice, makes it very difficult to institute a reliable comparison between those who are chaste and those who are unchaste. Greater significance attaches, I think, to a comparison in individual cases of a boy's condition during a period of indulgence in masturbation and his condition after its total, or almost total, relinquishment. I have no hesitation in saying that the difference in a boy's vitality and spiritual tone after relinquishing this habit is very marked. The case _D_ quoted in Chapter I. is, in this respect, typical. In my pamphlet, _Private Knowledge for Boys_, I have quoted a striking passage from Acton on the Reproductive Organs, in which he contrasts the continent and the incontinent boy. But in the case of men like Dr. Acton--specialists in the diseases of the male reproductive organs--it must be remembered that it is mostly the abnormal and extreme cases which come under their notice: a fact which is liable to affect their whole estimate. The book can be recommended to adults who wish to see the whole subject of sex diseases dealt with by a specialist who writes with a high moral purpose. My own estimate is given in the pamphlet already referred to. After quoting Dr. Acton's opinion, I add:-- "You will notice that Dr. Acton is here describing an extreme case. I want to tell you what are the results in a case which is not extreme. My difficulty is that these results are so various. The injury to the nerves and brain which is caused by sexual excitement and by the loss of semen leaves nothing in the body, mind or character uninjured. The _extent_ of the injury varies greatly with the strength of a boy's constitution and with the frequency of his sin. The _character_ of the injury varies with the boy's own special weaknesses and tendencies. If he is naturally shy and timid, it makes him shyer and more timid. If he is stupid and lazy, it makes him more stupid and lazy. If he is inclined to consumption or other disease, it destroys his power of resisting such disease. In extreme cases only does it actually change an able boy into a stupid one, an athletic boy into a weak one, and a happy boy into a discontented one; but in all cases it _weakens_ every power a boy possesses. Its most prominent results are these: loss of will-power and self-reliance, shyness, nervousness and irritability, failure of the reasoning powers and memory, laziness of body and mind, a diseased fondness for girls, deceitfulness. Of these results, the loss of will-power leaves the boy a prey not only to the temptations of impurity, but to every other form of temptation: the deceitfulness destroys his self-respect and turns his life into a sham." Of incomparably greater importance than Acton's wide but abnormal experience and my own narrow but normal experience is the experience of Dr. Clement Dukes, which is very wide and perfectly normal. No man has probably been in so good a position for forming an estimate as he has been. Dr. Dukes thus sums up his opinion: "The harm which results is moral, intellectual, and physical. _Physically_ it is a frequent drain at a critical time of life when nature is providing for growth and development, and is ill able to bear it; it is a powerful nervous shock to the system ill-prepared to meet it.... It also causes muscular and mental debility, loss of spirit and manliness, and occasional insanity, suicide and homicide. Moreover it leads to further uncontrollable passions in early manhood.... Further, this vice enfeebles the _intellectual_ powers, inducing lethargy and obtuseness, and incapacity for hard mental work. And last, and most of all, it is an _immorality_ which stains the whole character and undermines the life." In this passage Dr. Dukes refers to the intellectual and moral harm of self-abuse as well as to its physical consequences. Intimately connected as these are with one another, I am here attempting to give them separate treatment. It is, however, impossible to treat perverted sex-knowledge and self-abuse separately; for though in young boys they are found independently of one another, and sometimes co-exist in elder boys without any intimate conscious association, their results are identical. In the following pages, therefore, I shall refer to them jointly as impurity. The earliest evil which springs from impurity is the destruction of the intimacy which has hitherto existed between the boy and his parents. Closely associated with this is that duplicity of life which results from secrets which may be shared with the coarse but must be jealously concealed from everyone who is respected. Untold harm follows these changes in a lad. Hitherto he has had nothing to conceal from his mother--unless, indeed, his parents have been foolish enough to drive him into deception by undue severity over childish mistakes, and accidents, and moral lapses. Every matter which has occupied his thoughts he has freely shared with those who can best lead him into the path of moral health. Henceforth all is changed. The lad has his own inner life which he must completely screen from the kind eyes which have hitherto been his spiritual lights. Concealment is soon found to be an easy thing. Acts and words are things of which others may take cognisance; the inner life no one can ever know. A world is opened to the lad in which the restraints of adult opinion are not felt at all and the guidance and inspiration of a father's or mother's love never come. How completely this is the case in regard to impurity the reader will hardly doubt if he remembers that all parents believe their boys to be innocent, and that some 90 per cent. of them are hopelessly hoodwinked. But this double life is not long confined to the subject of purity. The concealment which serves one purpose excellently can be made to serve another; and henceforth parents and adult friends need never know anything but what they are told. It is a sad day for the mother when first she realises that the old frankness has gone; it is a very, very much sadder day for the boy. There is no fibre of his moral being but is, or will be, injured by this divorce of home influences and by this ever-accumulating burden of guilty memories. "His mother may not know why this is so," writes Canon Lyttelton; "the only thing she may be perfectly certain of is that the loss will never be quite made up as long as life shall last." Another injury done by impurity to the growing mind of the lad is that, in all matters relating to sex, he learns to look merely for personal enjoyment. In every other department of life he is moved by a variety of motives: by the desire to please, the desire to excel, by devotion to duty, by the love of truth, and by many other desires. Even in gratifying the appetite most nearly on the same plane as the sexual appetite--namely, that of hunger--he has more or less regard for his own well-being, more or less consideration for the wishes of others, and a constant desire to attain the standard expected of him. Meanwhile, as regards the sexual appetite--the racial importance of which is great; and the regulation of which is of infinite importance for himself, for those who may otherwise become its victims, for the wife he may one day wed, and for the children, legitimate or illegitimate, that he may beget--his one idea is personal enjoyment. One deplorable result of this idea will be adverted to in the next chapter. When boyish impurity involves a coarse way of looking at sexual relations, as it always must when these are matters of common talk and jest, the boy suffers a loss which prejudicially affects the whole tone of his mind and every department of his conduct--I mean the loss of reverence. It is those things alone which are sacred to us, those things about which we can talk only with friends, and about which we can jest with no one, that have inspiration in them, that can give us power to follow our ideals and to lay a restraining hand on the brute within us. Fortunately the self-control which manifests itself in heroism, in good form, and in the sportsmanlike spirit is sacred to almost all. To most, a mother's love is sacred. To many, all that is implied in the word religion. To a few, sexual passion and the great manifestations of human genius in poetry, music, painting, sculpture, and architecture. Exactly in proportion as these things are profaned by jest and mockery, is the light of the soul quenched and man degraded to the level of the beast. Considering how large a part the sex-passion plays in the lives of most men and women; considering how it permeates the literature and art of the World and is--as the basis of the home--the most potent factor in social life, its profanation is a terrible loss, and the habit of mind which such profanation engenders cannot fail to weaken the whole spirit of reverence. I must confess that the man who jests over sex relations is to me incomparably lower than the man who sustains clean but wholly illegitimate sex relations; and while I am conscious of a strong movement of friendship towards a lad who has admitted impurity in his life but retains reverence for purity, it is hard to feel anything but repulsion towards one who profanes the subject of sex with coarse and ribald talk. As a result of the two evils of which I have now spoken, together with the physical effects of masturbation, young men become powerless to face the sexual temptations of manhood; and many, who in all other relations of life are admirable, sink in this matter into the mire of prostitution or the less demoralising, but far crueller, sin of seduction. Thrown on the streets, usually through no fault of her own, often merely from an over-trustful love, the prostitute sinks to the lowest depths of degradation and despair. It is not merely that she sells to every comer, clean or bestial, without even the excuse of appetite or of passion, what should be yielded alone to love; but it is also that to do this she poisons body and mind with spirit-drinking, leads a life of demoralising indolence and self-indulgence, is cut off from all decent associations, and sinks, under the combined influence of these things and of fell disease, into a loathsome creature whom not the lowest wants; sinks into destitution, misery, suicide, or the outcast's early grave. Writing of the young man who is familiar with London, the Headmaster of Eton says: "He cannot fail to see around him a whole world of ruined life--a ghastly varnish of gaiety spread over immeasurable tracts of death and corruption; a state of things so heart-rending and so hopeless that on calm consideration of it the brain reels, and sober-minded people who, from motives of pity, have looked the hideous evil in the face, have asserted that nothing in their experience has seemed to threaten them so nearly with a loss of reason." Into the contamination of this inferno, into active support of this cruel infamy, many and many a young man is led by the impurity of his boyhood. Such at least is the conclusion of some who know boys best. Thus Dr. Dukes writes: "This evil, of which I have spoken so long and so freely, is, I believe, _the root of the evil of prostitution_ and similar vices; and if this latter evil is to be mitigated, it can only be, to my mind, by making the life of the schoolboy purer. "How is it possible to put a stop to this terrible social evil? How is it possible to _elevate women_ while the demand for them for base purposes is so great? We must go to the other end of the scale and make men better; we must train young boys more in purity of life and chastity BEFORE their passions become uncontrollable. "Whereas the cry of every moralist and philanthropist is, 'Let us put a stop to this prostitution, open and clandestine.' This cannot be effected at present, much as it is to be desired; the demand for it is too great, even possibly greater than the supply. If we wish to eradicate it, we must go to the fountainhead and make those who create the demand purer, so that, the demand falling off, the supply will be curtailed."[C] [Footnote C: _The Preservation of Health_, p. 161.] To this I venture to add that by teaching chastity we not merely decrease the demand for prostitutes, but we greatly diminish the supply. Few girls, if any, take to the streets until they have been seduced; and the antecedents of seduction are the morbid exaggeration of the sexual appetite, the lack of self-control, and the selfish hedonism which youthful impurity engenders. The selfishness, and consequent blindness to cruelty, of which I write, manifests itself quite early. A boy of chivalrous feeling, whose blood would boil at any other form of outrage on a girl, will read a newspaper account of rape or indecent assault with a pleasure so intense that indignation and disgust are quite crowded out of his mind. If, repelled by the coarseness of the streets, the young man allows lust or passion to lead him into seduction, he commits a crime the consequences of which are usually cruel in the extreme; for in most cases the seduced girl sinks of necessity into prostitution. So blind, so callous does impurity make even the refined and generous, that many a young man who can be a good son, a good brother, a noble friend, a patriotic citizen, will doom a girl whose only fault is that she is physically attractive--and possibly too affectionate and trusting--to torturing anxiety, to illness, to the horrible suffering of undesired travail, to disgrace, and in nineteen cases out of twenty to ostracism and the infamy of the streets. Murder is a small thing compared with this. Who would not rather that his daughter were killed in her innocence than that she should be doomed to such a fate? Many young men are ignorant of the fact that sexual relations with prostitutes frequently result in the foulest and most terrible of diseases. Venereal diseases, as these are called, commence in the private parts themselves, but the poison which they engender soon attacks other parts of the body and often wrecks the general health. It gives rise to loathsome skin disease, to degeneration of the nervous system and paralysis, to local disease in the heart, lungs, and digestive organs, and to such lowering of vitality as renders the body an easy prey to disease generally. No one is justified in looking upon this risk as a matter of merely private concern. Health is of supreme importance not merely to the personal happiness and success of the man himself, but also to the services he can render to his friends, to his nation, and to humanity. Even if a young man is foolish enough to risk his happiness and success for the sake of animal enjoyment, he cannot without base selfishness and disloyalty disregard the duties he owes to others. Further, the man who suffers from venereal disease is certain to pass its poison on to his wife and children--cursing thus with unspeakable misery those whom of all others it is his duty to protect and bless. One cannot help feeling at times that the blessings of home--and of the monogamy which makes home possible--are terribly discounted by a condition of things which offer a young man no other alternatives to chastity than these terrible evils. Now that year by year the rising standard of living and the increased exactions which the State makes on the industrious and provident cause marriage to be a luxury too expensive for many, and delayed unduly for most, the problem of social purity becomes ever greater and more urgent. The instruction of the young in relation to sex provides the only solution, and is, I venture to think, incomparably the most important social reform now needed. I am confident that a boy who receives wise training and sex guidance from his early days will never find lust the foul and uncontrollable element which it is to-day in the lives of most men; that in a few generations our nation could be freed from the seething corruption which poisons its life; and that, while freer scope could be given to the ineffable joys of pure sexual love, very much could be done to diminish the awful misery and degradation engendered by lust. If children had from their infancy an instinctive and growing desire for alcohol, with secret and unrestrained means of gratifying it; if by its indulgence this desire grew into an overmastering craving; if throughout childhood they received no word of warning or guidance from the good, but were tempted and corrupted by the evil, we should have a nation in which most men and women were drunkards, ready to break all laws--human and divine--which stood in the way of an imperious need; a nation in which, among those who declined to yield to iniquity, the craving for drink caused unceasing and life-long struggle. On the young man of to-day we lay a burden which no ordinary man was ever yet able to bear. His boyhood and youth become, through ignorance, the prey of lust; his passions become tyrannous; his will is enslaved. Even if he contracts marriage, his troubles are not at an end, for man, _as an animal_, is neither monogamous nor wholly constant. His neglected sex-education makes him far more susceptible to physical attractions than to those qualities which make a wife a good companion, a good housekeeper, and a good mother; and but too often, as a result, the beneficent influence of marriage is transient; the domestic atmosphere ceases to be congenial; both husband and wife become susceptible to other attachments, and the old struggle begins all over again. CHAPTER V. SEX KNOWLEDGE IS COMPATIBLE WITH PERFECT REFINEMENT AND INNOCENCE. The reader who has followed me through the preceding chapters will, I hope, feel that, whatever objections there may be to giving explicit instruction on sex matters to the young, such instruction is immensely to be preferred to the almost inevitable perversion which follows ignorance. If we had to choose between a state of "innocence" and a state of reverent knowledge, many people would doubtless incline to the former. No such option exists. Our choice lies between leaving a lad to pick up information from vulgar and unclean minds, and giving it ourselves in such a manner as to invest it from the first with sacredness and dignity. Even if the reader is still inclined to think that sex-knowledge is, at best, an unholy secret, he will hardly doubt that it can be divulged with less injury by an adult who is earnestly anxious for the child's welfare than by coarse and irreverent lips. I am not content to leave the reader in this dilemma. I am confident that the following words of Canon Lyttelton spring from the truest spiritual insight: "To a lover of nature, no less than to a convinced Christian, the subject ought to wear an aspect not only negatively innocent, but positively beautiful. It is a recurrent miracle, and yet the very type and embodiment of law; and it may be confidently affirmed that, in spite of the blundering of many generations, there is nothing in a normally-constituted child's mind which refuses to take in the subject from this point of view, provided that the right presentation of it is the first." Nothing more forcibly convicts the present system of the evil which lies at its door than the current beliefs on this subject. At present, sexual knowledge is picked up from the gutter and the cesspool; and no purification can free it entirely in many minds from its original uncleanness. "Love's a virtue for heroes!--as white as the snow on high hills, And immortal as every great soul is that struggles, endures, and fulfils." This is the prophet's belief, and yet, putting on one side those who actually delight in uncleanness, there appear to be many people who look upon the marriage certificate as a licence to impurity, and upon sexual union as a form of animal indulgence to which we are so strongly impelled that even the most refined are tempted by it into an act of conscious indelicacy and sin. Such people read literally the psalmist's words: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." It is surely some such feeling as this which makes parents shrink from referring to the subject, which underlies the constant use of the word "innocence" as the aptest description of a state of mind which precedes the acquisition of sexual knowledge. That individuals, at least, have risen to a loftier conception than this is certain; and the only possible explanations of the prevalence of the current idea are that sex-knowledge has almost always been obtained from a tainted source; and that, while the coarse have not merely whispered their views in the ear in the closet, but have, in all ages, proclaimed them from the house-tops, the refined have hardly whispered their ideas, much less discussed them publicly. Children growing up with perverted views have listened to the loud assertions of disputants on the one side, have witnessed the demoralisation which so often attends the sexual passion, but have received no hint of what may be said on the other side of the question. An instructed public opinion would be horrified at our sovereign's taking shares in a slave-trading expedition as Queen Elizabeth did. We are aghast at the days when crowds went forth to enjoy the torture at the stake of those from whom they differed merely on some metaphysical point. We have even begun to be restless under man's cruel domination over the animal creation. But we have made far less advance in our conceptions on sexual matters; and we are content here with ideas which were current in Elizabethan days. But for this, no passion for conservatism, no reverence for a liturgy endeared by centuries of use, could induce us to tell every bride as she stands before God's altar that it is one of her functions to provide an outlet for her husband's passion and a safeguard against fornication. Lust is at least as degrading in married life as it is outside it. No legal contract, no religious ceremony, can purify, much less sanctify, what is essentially impure. Those who desire to assist in the uplifting of humanity cannot afford to be silent and to allow judgment to go against them by default. Courage they will need; for a charge of indecency is sure to be levelled against them by the indecent, and they may be misjudged even by the pure. This is not the place in which so delicate a matter can be fully discussed, nor does space permit; but if the movement towards sex instruction is not to be stultified by the very ideas which evidence the need for it, the subject cannot be wholly ignored here, and I venture to throw out a few suggestions. Are we indeed to believe that the noblest and most spiritual of men will compromise themselves in the eyes of the woman they love best, and whose respect they most desire, by committing in her presence and making her the instrument of an indelicate act? A great poet, who remained an ardent lover and a devoted companion until his wife died in his arms--blissfully happy that she might die so--has written: "Let us not always say, 'Spite of the flesh to-day I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole.' As the bird wings and sings, Let us cry, 'All good things Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul.'" Again: are we, who believe in a Divine government of the world, able to imagine that God has made the perpetuation of the race dependent upon acts of sin or of indelicacy? Did He who graced with His presence the marriage at Cana in Galilee really countenance a ceremony which was a prelude to sin? Did He who took the little children in His arms and blessed them know, as He said "for of such is the kingdom of heaven," that not one of them could have existed without indelicacy, and that they were but living proof of their fathers' lapses and their mothers' humiliation? Is He whom we address daily as "Our Father" willing to be described by a name with which impurity is of necessity connected? And has He implanted in us as the strongest of our instincts that which cannot elevate and must debase? Again: it needs no wide experience of life, nor any very indulgent view of it, to feel some truth at least in the words Tennyson puts into the mouth of his ideal man: "Indeed I knew Of no more subtle master under heaven Than is the maiden passion for a maid Not only to keep down _the base in man_, But teach high thought, and amiable words, And courtliness, and the desire for fame, And love of truth, and all that makes a man." And yet this passion is indisputably sexual passion, and the chastest of lovers has bodily proof that the most spiritual of his kisses is allied to the supreme embrace of love. Our body is the instrument by which all our emotions are expressed. The most obvious way of expressing affection is by bodily contact. The mother fondles her child, kisses its lips and its limbs, and presses it to her breast. Young children hold hands, put their arms round one another and kiss; and, although later we become less demonstrative, we still take our friend's arm, press his hand with ours, and lay a hand upon his shoulder; we pat our horse or dog and stroke our cat. The lover returns to the spontaneous and unrestrained caresses of his childhood. These become more and more intimate until they find their consummation in the most intimate and most sacred of all embraces. From first to last these caresses--however deep the pleasure they bestow--are sought by the mother or the lover, not _for the sake of_ that pleasure, but as a means of expressing emotion. He only who realises this fact and conforms to it can enter on married life with any certainty of happiness. The happiness of very many marriages is irretrievably shattered at the outset through the craving for sexual excitement which, in the absence of wise guidance, grows up in every normal boy's heart, and by the contemplation of sexual intercourse as an act of physical pleasure. And once again: It is the experience of those who have given instruction in sex questions to the young that by those whose minds have never been defiled the instruction is received with instant reverence, as something sacred; not with shame, as something foul. I venture once more to quote Canon Lyttelton, who sets forth his experience and my own in language the beauty of which I cannot imitate: "There is something awe-inspiring in the innocent readiness of little children to learn the explanation of by far the greatest fact within the horizon of their minds. The way they receive it, with native reverence, truthfulness of understanding, and guileless delicacy, is nothing short of a revelation of the never-ceasing bounty of Nature, who endows successive generations of children with this instinctive ear for the deep harmonies of her laws. People sometimes speak of the indescribable beauty of children's innocence, and insist that there is nothing which calls for more constant thanksgiving than that influence on mankind. But I will venture to say that no one quite knows what it is who has foregone the privilege of being the first to set before them the true meaning of life and birth and the mystery of their own being." To the arguments thus briefly indicated it is no answer to say that sexual union is essentially physical, and that to regard it in any other way is transcendental. Among primitive men eating and drinking were merely animal. We have made them, in our meals, an accompaniment to social pleasures, and in our religious life we have raised them to a sacramental level. CHAPTER VI. CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH PURITY TEACHING IS BEST GIVEN: REMEDIAL AND CURATIVE MEASURES. We have now seen that impurity is almost universal among boys who have been left without warning and instruction; that, under these conditions, it is practically inevitable; that its direct results are lowered vitality and serious injury to character, its indirect results an appalling amount of degradation and misery; finally, that there is nothing in sex knowledge, when rightly presented, which can in the least defile a child's mind. All that now remains is for us to consider by whom and under what circumstances instruction on this subject should be given, and what assistance can be rendered to boys who desire to lead chaste lives. Without doubt, instruction should be given to a boy by his parents in the home. When young children ask questions with regard to reproduction, parents should neither ignore these question nor give the usual silly answers. If the occasion on which the question is asked is not one in which an answer can appropriately be given, the child should be gently warned that the question raised is one about which people do not openly talk, and the promise of an answer hereafter should be made. Then, at the first convenient hour, the child can either be given the information he seeks or told that he shall hear all about the matter at some future specified time, as for example, his sixth or eighth birthday. In the absence of questions from a child, the ideal thing would be for the child, at the age of six, seven, or eight, to learn orally from his mother the facts of maternity and to receive warning against playing with his private parts. Whether at this time it is best to teach him the facts of paternity is, I think, doubtful. Canon Lyttelton is strongly of opinion that the father's share in the child's existence should be explained when the mother's share is explained, and there is much weight in what he says. If the question of paternity is reserved, it should not be on the ground that there is anything embarrassing or indelicate about the matter, and, when the facts are revealed, the child should clearly understand that they have been withheld merely until his mind was sufficiently developed to understand them. The only safe guide in such matters is experience, and of this as yet we have unfortunately little. The question next arises: should it be the mother or the father who gives this instruction? As regards the earlier part of the instruction a confident reply can be made to this question. The information should be given by the parent whose relations with the child are the more intimate and tender, and whose influence over him is the greater. This will, of course, usually be the mother. The subject of paternity may, if reserved for future treatment, be appropriately given by the father, provided that he and his son are on really intimate terms. If timely warning is given to a child about playing with his private parts, no reference need be made to self-abuse until a boy leaves home for school, or until he is nearing the age of puberty. There are many mothers whose insight and tact will enable them to approach these questions in the best possible way and to say exactly the right thing. There are others--a large majority, I think--who would be glad of guidance, and there are not a few who would certainly leave the matter alone unless thus guided. It was mainly to assist parents in this work that I published last year a pamphlet entitled _Private Knowledge for Boys_.[D] This embodies just what, in my opinion, should be said to an intelligent child, and it has, in my own hands, proved effective for many years past. In the case of _young_ children the teaching should certainly be oral, _provided_ that the mother knows clearly what to say, has sufficient powers of expression to say it well, and can talk without any feeling of embarrassment. Unless these conditions co-exist I recommend the use of a pamphlet. As I have found that children often do not know what one means by the "private parts," I make this clear at the outset. [Footnote D: To be obtained post free for nine stamps from Mr. M. Whiley, Stonehouse, Glos.] Some into whose hands this book may come and who have boys of twelve and upwards to whom they have never given instruction, may possibly be glad of advice as to the manner in which the subject can best be dealt with in their case. For boys of this age, I am strongly of opinion that it is better in most cases to make use of a pamphlet than to attempt oral instruction. Probably they already have some knowledge on the subject; possibly some sense of guilt. If so, it will be found very difficult to treat the matter orally without embarrassment--a thing to be avoided at all costs. I was interested to find that on receipt of my pamphlet Professor Geddes--one of the greatest experts on sex--placed it at once in the hands of his own boy, a fact from which his opinion on the relative merits of oral and printed instruction can easily be inferred. Many of my readers who have boys of fourteen and upwards to whom they have hitherto given no instruction will, I hope, feel that they must now do this. I venture, therefore, to give a detailed account of the manner in which I should myself act in similar circumstances. I should arrange to be with the lad when there was no danger of interruption, and in such circumstances as would put him at his ease. I should tell him that I was conscious of unwisdom in not speaking to him before about a subject of supreme importance to him; that I took upon myself all blame for anything he might, in ignorance, have said or done; that through ignorance I had myself fallen and suffered, and that I should like him now to sit down and read through this pamphlet slowly and carefully. When he finished I should try by every possible means to make him sensible of my affection for him. I should associate myself in a few words with the sentiments of the writer, and should invite the lad to tell me whether he had fallen into temptation, and if so to what extent. A confidence of this kind assists a boy greatly and establishes a delightful intimacy. There are several points with regard to purity-teaching which need to be emphasised. Such teaching can hardly be too explicit. "Beating about the bush" is always indicative of the absence of self-possession. The embarrassment manifested is quickly perceived even by a young child, and is certain to communicate itself to the recipient. It is of paramount importance that the child should, from the first, feel that the knowledge imparted is pure; anything which suggests that it is indelicate should be studiously avoided. The introduction of a few science terms is advantageous in several ways: amongst others it relieves the tension which the spiritual aspect of the question may engender, it gives a lad a terminology which is free from filthy contamination. It is important that the information given should be full, otherwise the boy lives in a chronic state of curiosity, which, to his great detriment, he is ever trying to satisfy. If the reader feels that the information is dangerous, and aims, therefore, at imparting as little as possible, he is not fitted to do the work at all. No greater mistake can be made than that of taxing a boy with impurity as though it were a conscious and egregious fault. I have already expressed my strong opinion that, in almost every instance, the boy is a victim to be sympathised with, not a culprit to be punished. This opinion is shared, I believe, by everyone who has investigated the subject. It is certainly the opinion of Canon Lyttelton and Dr. Dukes. It is, indeed, easy to exaggerate the conscious guilt even of boys who have initiated others into masturbation. Apart from the injustice to the boy of an attitude of severity, it is certain to shut the boy's heart up with a snap. If a pamphlet is used it should, without fail, be taken from a boy when he has read it. Much harm may, I fear, result from supplying boys with the cheap pamphlets which well-meaning but inexperienced persons are producing. Should the time ever come when parents give timely warning and instruction to boys, a very difficult problem will be solved for the schoolmaster. But in the meantime what ought the schoolmaster to do? The following plan commends itself to some eminent teachers. As soon as a boy is about to enter the school a letter is sent to his parents advising them to give the boy instruction, and a pamphlet is enclosed for this purpose. This plan has the decided advantage of shifting the responsibility on to the shoulders of those who ought to take it. The weakness of the plan arises from the fact that most parents do not believe in the prevalence of impurity among boys, and are quite confident that their own boys need no warning. Hence they may do nothing at all, or merely content themselves with some vague and quite useless statement. The traditions of most boys' schools make it impossible for those intimate and respectful relations to exist between masters and boys without which confidential teaching of this kind may be even worse than useless. Where masters are invariably referred to disrespectfully if not contemptuously, where a teacher's most earnest address is a "jaw" which the recipient is expected to betray and mock at with his companions; where to shield profanity, indecency, and bullying from detection is the imperative duty of every boy below the Sixth; where failure to avert from a moral leper the kindly treatment which might restore him to health and prevent the wholesale infection of others is the one unpardonable sin, only one or two teachers of a generation can hope to do much, and the risk of failure is immense. I can hardly believe that the present race of teachers will long tolerate the system I here advert to. Public opinion _can_ be organised and enlisted as strongly on the side of Right as it is now, but too often, on the side of Evil. Mr. A.C. Benson is very moderate when he writes: "To take no steps to arrive at such an organisation, and to leave it severely alone, is a very dark responsibility." Even in such a school, some good is, I know, done by tactful public references to the existence of masturbation and to its deplorable consequences. The question is not free from difficulty even when the general atmosphere of the school is healthy and helpful. If one dared to leave this instruction until the age of puberty, the lad would be capable of a much deeper impression than he is at an earlier age, and the impression would be fresh just at the time at which it is most needed. In the case of boys who have come to me at nine or ten I have sometimes ventured to defer my interview for four or five years, and have found them quite uncorrupted. On the other hand, within an hour of penning these lines I have been talking to a little boy of eleven who commenced masturbation two years ago while he was under excellent home influence. One such boy may, without guilt, corrupt a whole set, for impurity is one of the most infectious as well as the most terrible of diseases. The ideal state in a school is not reached until periodical addresses on purity can be given to all with the certainty that by all they will be listened to and treated reverently and respectfully. Such addresses cannot well be made the vehicle of sex information, but they can be so constructed as to guide those to whom individual instruction has not yet been given, and to strengthen those who, spite of full instruction, periodically need a helping hand. What results may we reasonably expect from adequate and timely instruction? I have so rarely met a case in which this has been given at home that I can only infer what these results might be from the cases in which my own instruction has been given in time. In almost every instance I feel sure that the results have been beneficial, that the temptation to impurity has been little felt, and that a healthy and chaste boyhood has resulted. Canon Lyttelton writes: "The influences of school life have been found to be impotent to deprave the tone of a boy who has been fortified by the right kind of instruction from his parents." This I can well believe, for, if the schoolmaster can do much, there can be no limit to a power which has been cradled in the sanctity of home and cherished by a mother's love. This appears to be the emphatic opinion also of Dr. Dukes. Of a boy thus favoured, Canon Lyttelton writes: "He will feel that any rude handling of such a theme, even of only its outer fringe, is like the profaning of the Holy of Holies in his heart, and he will no more suffer it than he would suffer a stranger to defile the innermost shrine of his feelings by taking his mother's or his sister's name in vain. All the goading curiosity which drives other boys to pry greedily into nature's laws, in blank ignorance of their mighty import, their unspeakable depth, and spiritual unearthly harmonies, has been for him forestalled, enlightened, and purified." It is a sad step down from such a boy to the lad who has been given warning after corruption has begun. Most boys feel such shame in confessing to failure that one has to accept with reserve the statements made by even the most truthful of those who are treading the upward path. After making due allowance for this source of error, my experience enables me to say confidently that, if a boy has not been long or badly corrupted, a radical change of attitude may be expected in him at once, and the habit of self-abuse will be instantly or rapidly relinquished. Very different is the case of a lad who has long practised masturbation, or who has practised it for some time after the advent of puberty, or who has associated sexual imaginations with the practice. Few such boys conquer the habit at once, however much they desire to, and, if the above conditions co-exist, a boy's progress is very slow, and years may pass without anything approaching cure. If in addition to the temptations from within he has foes also without in the form of companions who sneer at his desire for improvement, controvert the statements made to him, and throw temptation in his way, his chance of cure must be enormously decreased. Of such cases I know nothing; for my experience lies solely among boys who have, outside their own hearts, little to hinder and very much to help. As I have dealt elsewhere with the question of aids to chastity, I will make only a brief reference to it here. The mind is so much influenced by the body that purity is impossible when the body is unduly indulged. No man exists who could inhale the vapour of chloroform without an irresistible desire to sleep. Under these conditions the strongest will would not avail even if the victim knew that by surrender he was sacrificing everything he reverenced and held dear. The lad past the age of puberty who has much stimulating food, who drinks alcohol, who sleeps in a warm and luxurious bed and occupies it for some time before or after sleep, is certain, even if he takes much exercise, to be tempted irresistibly. Dr. Dukes considers that a heavy meat meal with alcohol shortly before bedtime is in itself sufficient to ensure a lad's fall. Meanwhile, no abstinence which it not unduly rigorous, can save a boy from impurity if he gets into the habit of exchanging glances with girls who are socially inferior, if he reads suggestive books, looks at stimulating pictures and sights, and falls into the hopeless folly of entertaining sexual thoughts even momentarily. He who has not the strength to tread out a spark is little likely to subdue a conflagration. The best and most timely teaching will never make carelessness in these matters justifiable, and a boy who has once been corrupted and desires to master his lower nature has no chance of self-conquest unless he gives them his constant and careful attention. It is very important to fill a boy's leisure with congenial occupation. Idleness and dullness make a boy specially susceptible to temptation. On the other hand, the fond parent who satisfies a boy's every whim and encourages the lad to think that his own enjoyment is the chief thing in life does his utmost to destroy the lad's chance of purity--or, indeed, of any virtue whatever. Can anything be done for boys and young men who have become the slaves of self-abuse to such an extent that they groan in the words of St. Paul: "The good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do.... I delight in the law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Can anything be done for the lad who has become so defiled by lustful thoughts that his utmost efforts fail to carry him forward, and even leave him to sink deeper in the mire. There are many, many such cases, alas! for as Dr. Acton says, "The youth is a dreamer who will open the floodgates of an ocean, and then attempt to prescribe at will a limit to the inundation." Yes there is a remedy--I believe a specific--which can rapidly and, I think, finally restore strength to the enfeebled will and order the unclean spirit to come out of the man. It is hypnotic suggestion. Let not the reader, however, think that the matter is a simple one. In all ages any great advance in the art of healing has, by the ignorant, been attributed to the powers of darkness. The Divine Healer Himself did not escape from the charge of casting out devils by the prince of the devils, and, while hypnotic suggestion has long been used for therapeutic purposes on the Continent and is now practised in Government institutions there, the doctor or clergyman or teacher who uses it in England runs great risks; for in this subject, as in all others, it is those who are entirely without experience who are most dogmatic. In the case of the schoolmaster, its use in this connection is practically excluded. If he applies to a parent for permission to use it he probably runs his head against a blank wall of ignorance; for hypnotism, to most people, means a dangerous power by which an unscrupulous, strong-willed Svengali dominates an abnormally weak-willed Trilby whose will continues to grow weaker until the subject becomes a mere automaton; and most of us would rightly prefer that a boy should be his own master--even if he were rushing to headlong ruin--than that he should be the mere puppet of the most saintly man living. The human will is sacred and inviolable, and we do unwisely if we seek to control it or to remove those obstacles from its way by which alone it can gain divine strength. Meanwhile the stimulus by which the mind acquires self-mastery usually comes from without in the form of spiritual inspiration; and to remove from a boy's path an obstacle which blocks it and is entirely beyond his own strength is equally desirable both in the physical and in the spiritual realm. Those who think that without this obstacle a boy's power of self-control is likely to receive insufficient exercise will, of course, object to the instruction advocated in this book. If it is unwise to remove this obstacle from a boy's path it is equally unwise so to instruct him as to prevent the obstacle from arising. In _trustworthy_ hands hypnotic suggestion is a beneficent power which has no dangers and no drawbacks, and to decline to use it is to accept a very serious responsibility. For the teacher a further difficulty--not to mention that of time--is that, without betraying a boy's confidence or inducing him to allow his admissions to be passed on to his father, it is impossible to give his parents an idea of the urgency of the case. Altogether the time for hypnotic suggestion in education is not yet, but the day must come when its use is recognised not only in physical cases such as nocturnal emissions and constipation, but in all cases in which the will-power is practically in abeyance, as it is in bad cases of impurity. For intelligent parents the difficulties are far less, and if any such care to pursue the subject farther, I would refer them to the volume on _Hypnotism_ in the People's Books series or to one of the larger medical works on the subject, such as _Hypnotism and Suggestion_, by Dr. Bernard Hollander. To those who know boys well and love them much, there is something intensely interesting and pathetic about the spiritual struggle through which they have to pass. The path of self-indulgence seems so obviously the path to happiness; self-denial is so hard and self-control so difficult. "The struggle of the instinct that enjoys and the more noble instinct that aspires" is ever there. The young soul reaches out after good, but its grasp is weak. It needs much enlightenment, much encouragement, much inspiration, much patient tolerance of its faults, much hopeful sympathy with its strivings, if it is ever to attain the good it seeks. In the past it has met, without light or aid, unwarned and unprepared, the deadliest foe which can assail the soul. An appetite which has in all ages debased the weak, wrestled fiercely with the strong, and vanquished at times even the noble, is let loose upon an unwarned, unarmed, defenceless child. Oh, the utter, the utter folly of it! For life after death the writer has no longing. Immortality, if vouchsafed, appears to him to be a gift to be accepted trustfully and humbly, not to be yearned after with a sort of transcendental egoism. But to him the wish to-- "Join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence" grows ever stronger as the inevitable end draws nearer. To save young lives from the needless struggles and failures of my own, to secure healthy motherhood or maiden life to some whom lust might otherwise destroy, to add, for some at least, new sanctity to human passion--these have been my hopes in penning the foregoing pages. It has been my privilege and joy, in my own quiet sphere, to preserve boys from corruption and to restore the impure to cleanness of heart. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity these pages afford of extending this delightful work. When the hand which writes these lines has long been cold in death, may the message which it speeds this day breathe peace and strength into many an eager heart. NOTE TO CORRESPONDENTS. TO BOYS. I warmly invite any boy who has read these pages to write to me if he feels inclined to do so. Since this book was first published I have received hundreds of letters from boys who have, without any definite invitation, understood that it would please me much to hear from them. Many boys feel all the better for frankly confessing their difficulties to a man who fully understands and sympathises with them. Some desire advice about their own case. Anyone who accepts this invitation will do wisely to give me a full and frank history of his difficulties. His confidences will, of course, be strictly respected. He will also, I hope, remember that I am an extremely busy man with many and urgent claims on my time, and that I cannot always reply as quickly and as fully as I should like to do. TO YOUNG MEN. Before a young man marries he should always seek advice from a trustworthy source with regard to his conduct as a husband. No satisfactory book is, or perhaps could be, published on this subject; and even if a young man can make up his mind to consult a doctor, it is by no means every doctor who has the needful knowledge on this subject or the best moral outlook. It has been my privilege to help several in this matter, and I am always happy to do this. TO BOYS AND YOUNG MEN. I earnestly warn you against those who, by advertisement in the papers, offer to cure young men who are suffering from weakness of the private parts and other ills which impurity entails. Many such advertisers are little better than rogues, who are out to make money by trading on the fears of their victims; their "treatment"--quite apart from a far greater cost than at first appears--often does more harm than good. In every case in which disease or weakness exists, or is suspected, a reliable medical man should be at once consulted. If this is done, a cure may generally be looked for. Do not write to me; this is a doctor's business, not mine. 
14325	----	Transcriber's note: The irregular footnote markers in this text [numbers] refer to the reference book the author used, and not always to the specific page numbers. These reference books are listed numerically at the end of each chapter. The footnotes are marked with [letters] and the referenced footnotes are contained within the text, near to the footnote marker. Therefore, occasionally the numerical footnote markers are out of sequence. Words that were italicized are now marked by an underscore (_). TABOO AND GENETICS A Study of the Biological, Sociological and Psychological Foundation of the Family by M. M. KNIGHT, PH.D. IVA LOWTHER PETERS, PH.D. PHYLLIS BLANCHARD, PH.D. Author of _The Adolescent Girl_ London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd. New York: Moffat, Yard & Co. 1921 DEDICATED TO OUR FRIEND AND TEACHER, FRANK HAMILTON HANKINS PREFACE Scientific discovery, especially in biology, during the past two decades has made necessary an entire restatement of the sociological problem of sex. Ward's so-called "gynæcocentric" theory, as sketched in Chapter 14 of his _Pure Sociology_, has been almost a bible on the sex problem to sociologists, in spite of the fact that modern laboratory experimentation has disproved it in almost every detail. While a comparatively small number of people read this theory from the original source, it is still being scattered far and wide in the form of quotations, paraphrases, and interpretations by more popular writers. It is therefore necessary to gather together the biological data which are available from technical experimentation and medical research, in order that its social implications may be utilized to show the obsoleteness of this older and unscientific statement of the sex problem in society. In order to have a thoroughly comprehensive survey of the institutions connected with sexual relationships and the family and their entire significance for human life, it is also necessary to approach them from the ethnological and psychological points of view. The influence of the primitive sex taboos on the evolution of the social mores and family life has received too little attention in the whole literature of sexual ethics and the sociology of sex. That these old customs have had an inestimable influence upon the members of the group, modern psychology has recently come to recognize. It therefore seems advantageous to include these psychological findings in the same book with the discussion of the sex taboos and other material with which it must so largely deal. These fields--biology, ethnology, and psychology--are so complicated and so far apart technically, although their social implications are so closely interwoven, that it has seemed best to divide the treatment between three different writers, each of whom has devoted much study to his special phase of the subject. This leads to a very simple arrangement of the material. The first part deals with the physical or biological basis of the sex problem, which all societies from the most primitive to the most advanced have had and still have to build upon. The second part deals with the various ideas man has developed in his quest for a satisfactory adaptation of this physical basis to his own requirements. Part three attempts to analyze the effect of this long history of social experimentation upon the human psyche in its modern social milieu. In the social evolution of the human mind, the deepest desires of the individual have been often necessarily sacrificed to the needs of the group. Sometimes they have been unnecessarily sacrificed, since human intelligence is, unfortunately, not omniscient. Nevertheless, the sum total of human knowledge has now become great enough so that it is at least well to pause and take account of its bearing on the age-old problem of family life, in order that our evolution henceforth may be guarded by rational control rather than trial and error in so far as is possible. Such a summarization of our actual knowledge of the biology, sociology and psychology of the foundations of the family institution this book aims to present, and if it can at the same time suggest a starting point for a more rationalized system of social control in this field, its purpose will have been accomplished. THE AUTHORS. CONTENTS PART I BY M. M. KNIGHT, PH.D. THE NEW BIOLOGY AND THE SEX PROBLEM IN SOCIETY CHAPTER I. THE PROBLEM DEFINED What is sex? A sexual and mixed reproduction. Origin of sexual reproduction. Advantage of sex in chance of survival. Germ and body cells. Limitations of biology in social problems. Sex always present in higher animals. Sex in mammals--the problem in the human species. Application of the laboratory method. II. SEX IN TERMS OF INTERNAL SECRETIONS Continuity of germ plasm. The sex chromosome. The internal secretions and the sex complex. The male and the female type of body. How removal of sex glands affects body type. Sex determination. Share of the egg and sperm in inheritance. The nature of sex--sexual selection of little importance. The four main types of secretory systems. Sex and sex instincts of rats modified by surgery. Dual basis for sex. Opposite sex basis in every individual. The Free-Martin cattle. Partial reversal of sex in human species. III. SEX AND SEX DIFFERENCES AS QUANTITATIVE Intersexes in moths. Bird intersexes. Higher metabolism of males. Quantitative difference between sex factors. Old ideas of intersexuality. Modern surgery and human intersexes. Quantitative theory a Mendelian explanation. Peculiar complication in the case of man. Chemical life-cycles of the sexes. Functional-reproductive period and the sex problem. Relative significance of physiological sex differences. IV. SEX SPECIALIZATION AND GROUP SURVIVAL Adaptation and specialization. Reproduction a group--not an individual problem. Conflict between specialization and adaptation. Intelligence makes for economy in adjustment to environment. Reproduction, not production, the chief factor in the sex problem. V. RACIAL DEGENERATION AND THE NECESSITY FOR RATIONALIZATION OF THE MORES Racial decay in modern society. Purely "moral" control dysgenic in civilized society. New machinery for social control. Mistaken notion that reproduction is an individual problem. Economic and other factors in the group problem of reproduction. PART II BY IVA LOWTHER PETERS, PH.D. THE INSTITUTIONALIZED SEX TABOO I. THE PRIMITIVE ATTITUDE TOWARD SEX AND WOMANHOOD Primitive social control. Its rigidity. Its necessity. The universality of this control in the form of taboos. Connection between the universal attitude of primitive peoples toward woman as shown in the Institutionalized Sex Taboo and the magico-religious belief in Mana. Relation of Mana to Taboo. Discussion of Sympathetic Magic and the associated idea of danger from contact. Difficulties in the way of an inclusive definition of Taboo. Its dual nature. Comparison of concepts of Crawley, Frazer, Marett, and others. Conclusion that Taboo is Negative Mana. Contribution of modern psychology to the study of Taboo. Freud's analogy between the dualistic attitude toward the tabooed object and the ambivalence of the emotions. The understanding of this dualism together with the primitive belief in Mana and Sympathetic Magic explains much in the attitude of man toward woman. The vast amount of evidence in the taboos of many peoples of dualism in the attitude toward woman. Possible physiological explanation of this dualistic attitude of man toward woman found in a period before self-control had in some measure replaced social control, in the reaction of weakness and disgust following sex festivals. II. FROM THE DAWN OF HISTORY: WOMAN AS SAINT AND WITCH Taboos of first chapter indicate that in the early ages the fear of contamination by woman predominated. Later emphasis fell on her mystic and uncanny power. Ancient fertility cults. Temple prostitution, dedication of virgins, etc. Ancient priestesses and prophetesses. Medicine early developed by woman added to belief in her power. Woman's psychic quality of intuition: its origin--theories--conclusion that this quality is probably physiological in origin, but aggravated by taboo repressions. Transformation in attitude toward woman in the early Christian period. Psychological reasons for the persistence in religion of a Mother Goddess. Development of the Christian concept. Preservation of ancient woman cults as demonology. Early Christian attitude toward woman as unclean and in league with demons. Culmination of belief in demonic power of woman in witchcraft persecutions. All women affected by the belief in witches and in the uncleanness of woman. Gradual development on the basis of the beliefs outlined of an ideally pure and immaculate Model Woman. III. THE DUALISM IN MODERN LIFE: THE INSTITUTIONAL TABOO The Taboo and modern institutions. Survival of ideas of the uncleanness of woman. Taboo and the family. The "good" woman. The "bad" woman. Increase in the number of women who do not fit into the ancient classifications. IV. DYSGENIC INFLUENCES OF THE INSTITUTIONAL TABOO Taboo survivals act dysgenically within the family under present conditions. Conventional education of girls a dysgenic influence. Prostitution and the family. Influence of ancient standards of "good" and "bad." The illegitimate child. Effect of fear, anger, etc., on posterity. The attitude of economically independent women toward marriage. PART III BY PHYLLIS BLANCHARD, PH.D. THE SEX PROBLEM IN THE LIGHT OF MODERN PSYCHOLOGY I. SEX IN TERMS OF MODERN PSYCHOLOGY Bearing of modern psychology on the sex problem. Conditioning of the sexual impulse. Vicarious expression of the sexual impulse. Unconscious factors of the sex life. Taboo control has conditioned the natural biological tendencies of individuals to conform to arbitrary standards of masculinity and femininity. Conflict between individual desires and social standards. II. HOW OUR INSTITUTIONS FIT INDIVIDUAL SEX PSYCHOLOGY Social institutions controlling sex activities based on the assumption that _all_ women are adapted to as well as specialized for reproduction. Neurotic tendencies which unfit women for marriage--the desire for domination. Sexual anæsthesia another neurotic trait which interferes with marital harmony. The conditioning of the sexual impulse to the parent ideal and the erotic fetish as factors which determine mating. Homosexual tendencies and their part in the sex problem. The conflict between the desire for marriage and egoistic ambitions. The social regulations from the viewpoint of individual psychology. III. DYSGENIC NATURE OF CERTAIN FACTORS OF SEX PSYCHOLOGY AND NECESSITY FOR A SOCIAL THERAPY Mating determined by unconscious psychological motives instead of eugenic considerations. Some of the best male and female stock refusing marriage and parenthood. The race is reproduced largely by the inferior and average stocks and very little by the superior stock. As a therapeutic measure, society should utilize psychological knowledge as a new method of control. Romantic love and conjugal love--a new ideal of love. The solution of the conflict between individual and group interests. PART I THE NEW BIOLOGY AND THE SEX PROBLEM IN SOCIETY BY M. M. KNIGHT, PH.D. CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM DEFINED What is sex? Asexual and mixed reproduction; Origin of sexual reproduction; Advantage of sex in chance of survival; Germ and body cells; Limitations of biology in social problems; Sex always present in higher animals; Sex in mammals; The sex problem in the human species; Application of laboratory method. Sex, like all complicated phenomena, defies being crowded into a simple definition. In an animal or plant individual it is expressed by and linked with the ability to produce egg- or sperm-cells (ova or spermatozoa). Sexual reproduction is simply the chain of events following the union of the egg and sperm to produce a new individual. Looked at from another angle, it is that sort of reproduction which requires two differentiated individuals: the male, which produces spermatoza, and the female, which produces ova. In the case of very simple forms, it would be simply the union or conjugation of a male and a female individual and the reproductive process involved. Where there is no differentiation into male and female there is no sex. An individual which produces both sperm-and egg-cells within its body is termed an hermaphrodite. Very few hermaphrodites exist among the vertebrates, although they may be found in one or two species (e.g., the hagfish). There are no truly hermaphroditic mammals, i.e., individuals in which both the male and the female germ cells function, except perhaps in rare instances. Sexless or asexual reproduction assumes various forms. What is usually considered the most primitive of these is fission or simple division, in which the cell divides into two equal, identical parts. There is of course no suggestion of sex here. It is fairly safe to assume that life began thus in the world, as neuter or sexless--i.e., with no suggestion of either maleness or femaleness.[A] [Footnote A: This asexual type of reproduction has been misinterpreted by a whole school of non-biological writers, who have followed the lead of Lester F. Ward, in his classification of these neuter-organisms as females. Ward says ("Pure Sociology," Ch. 14): "It does no violence to language or science to say that life begins with the female organism and is carried on a long distance by means of females alone. In all the different forms of asexual reproduction from fission to parthenogenesis, the female may in this sense be said to exist alone and perform all the functions of life including reproduction. In a word, life begins as female" (p. 313). Adding to this statement the assertion that the male developed at first as a mere parasite, in the actual, physical sense, Ward proceeds to build up his famous Gynæcocentric Theory, which is familiar to all students of social science, and need not be elaborated here. It is obvious that a thorough biological knowledge destroys the fundamental concept on which this theory is founded, for there is no doubt that life begins as neuter or sexless, and not as female.] There are a number of other forms of asexual reproduction, or the "vegetative type" (Abbott's term, which includes fission, budding, polysporogonia and simple spore formation). Budding (as in yeast) and spore formation are familiar to us in plants. Such forms are too distant from man, in structure and function, for profitable direct comparison. Especially is this true with respect to sex, which they do not possess. Parthenogenesis includes very diverse and anomalous cases. The term signifies the ability of females to reproduce in such species for one or a number of generations without males. Many forms of this class (or more strictly, these classes) have apparently become specialized or degenerated, having once been more truly sexual. Parthenogenesis (division and development of an egg without the agency of male sperm) has been brought about artificially by Jacques Loeb in species as complicated as frogs.[1,2] All the frogs produced were males, so that the race (of frogs) could not even be theoretically carried on by that method. The origin of sexual reproduction in animals must have been something as follows: The first method of reproduction was by a simple division of the unicellular organism to form two new individuals. At times, a fusion of two independent individuals occurred. This was known as conjugation, and is seen among Paramecia and some other species to-day. Its value is probably a reinvigoration of the vitality of the individual. Next there was probably a tendency for the organism to break up into many parts which subsequently united with each other. Gradually some of these uniting cells came to contain more food material than the others. As a result of their increased size, they possessed less power of motion than the others, and in time lost their cilia (or flagella) entirely and were brought into contact with the smaller cells only by the motion of the latter. Finally, in colonial forms, most of the cells in the colony ceased to have any share in reproduction, that function being relegated to the activities of a few cells which broke away and united with others similarly adrift. These cells functioning for reproduction continued to differentiate more and more, until large ova and small, motile spermtozoa were definitely developed. The clearest evidences as to the stages in the evolution of sexual reproduction is found in the plant world among the green algæ.[3] In the lower orders of one-celled algæ, reproduction takes place by simple cell division. In some families, this simple division results in the production of several new individuals instead of only two from each parent cell. A slightly different condition is found in those orders where the numerous cells thus produced by simple division of the parent organism unite in pairs to produce new individuals after a brief independent existence of their own. These free-swimming cells, which apparently are formed only to reunite with each other, are called zoöspores, while the organism which results from their fusion is known as a zygospore. The zygospore thus formed slowly increases in size, until it in its turn develops a new generation of zoöspores. In still other forms, in place of the zoöspores, more highly differentiated cells, known as eggs and sperms, are developed, and these unite to produce the new individuals. Both eggs and sperms are believed to have been derived from simpler ancestral types of ciliated cells which were similar in structure and closely resembled zoöspores.[A] [Footnote A: This evidence, which points to the conclusion that in the early origin of sexual reproduction the males and females were differentiated and developed from a uniform type of ancestral cell, quite controverts Ward's point that the male originated as a kind of parasite.] Having once originated, the sexual type of reproduction possessed a definite survival value which assured its continuation. Sex makes possible a crossing of strains, which evidently possesses some great advantage, since the few simple forms which have no such division of reproductive functions have undergone no great development and all the higher, more complicated animals are sexual. This crossing of strains may make possible greater variety, it may help in crossing out or weakening variations which are too far from the average, or both. Schäfer[4] thinks that an exchange of nuclear substance probably gives a sort of chemical rejuvenation and very likely stimulates division. At any rate, the groups in which the reproductive process became thus partitioned between two kinds of individuals, male and female, not only survived, but they underwent an amazing development compared with those which remained sexless. There came a time in the evolution of the groups possessing sexual reproduction, when increasing specialization necessitated the division into reproductive and non-reproductive cells. When a simple cell reproduces by dividing into two similar parts, each developing into a new individual like the parent, this parent no longer exists as a cell, but the material which composed it still exists in the new ones. The old cell did not "die"--no body was left behind. Since this nuclear substance exists in the new cells, and since these generations go on indefinitely, the cells are in a sense "immortal" or deathless. In a one-celled individual, there is no distinction between germinal and bodily functions. In the more complicated organisms, however, there are innumerable kinds of cells, a few (the germ cells) specialized for reproduction, the others forming the body which eats, moves, sees, feels, and in the case of man, _thinks_. But the germ-cells or germplasm continue to be immortal or deathless in the same sense as in the simplest organisms. The body, in a historical sense, grew up around the germ-cells, taking over functions a little at a time, until in the higher animals nutrition and other activities and a large part even of the reproductive process itself is carried on by body-cells. When we think of a man or woman, we think of an individual only one of whose innumerable activities--reproduction--is carried on by germ-cells, and this one only at the very beginning of the life of a new individual. Human societies, needless to remark, are not organized by germplasms, but by brains and hands--composed of body cells. If these brains and hands--if human bodies--did not wear out or become destroyed, we should not need to trouble ourselves so much about the germplasm, whose sole function in human society is to replace them. Since the individual human bodies and minds which seek after the things to which we mortals attach value--moral worth, esthetic and other pleasure, achievement and the like--do have to be replaced every few years, the germplasms from which new individuals must come have always been and always will be of fundamental importance. It is always the _product_ of the germplasm which concerns us, and we are interested in the germ-cells themselves only in relation to their capacity to produce individuals of value to society. So let us not go erring about in the philosophical ether, imagining that because the _amoeba_ may not be specialized for anything over and above nutrition and reproduction that these are necessarily the "main business" or "chief ends" of human societies. Better say that although we have become developed and specialized for a million other activities we are still bound by those fundamental necessities. As to "Nature's purposes" about which the older sex literature has had so much to say, the idea is essentially religious rather than scientific. If such "purposes" indeed exist in the universe, man evidently does not feel particularly bound by them. We do not hesitate to put a cornfield where "Nature" had a forest, or to replace a barren hillside by the sea with a city. Necessities and possibilities, not "purposes" in nature, claim our attention--reproduction being one of those embarrassing necessities, viewed through the eyes of man, the one evaluating animal in the world. Thus in reasoning from biology to social problems, it is fundamental to remember that man as an animal is tremendously differentiated in functions, and that most of the activities we look upon as distinctively human depend upon the body rather than the germ-cells. It follows that biology is the foundation rather than the house, if we may use so crude a figure. The solidity of the foundation is very important, but it does not dictate the details as to how the superstructure shall be arranged. Civilization would not be civilization if we had to spend most of our time thinking about the biological basis. If we wish to think of "Nature's" proscriptions or plans as controlling animal life, the anthropomorphism is substantially harmless. But man keeps out of the way of most of such proscriptions, has plans of his own, and has acquired considerable skill in varying his projects without running foul of such biological prohibitions. It is time to abandon the notion that biology prescribes in detail how we shall run society. True, this foundation has never received a surplus of intelligent consideration. Sometimes human societies have built so foolishly upon it that the result has been collapse. Somebody is always digging around it in quest of evidence of some vanished idyllic state of things which, having had and discarded, we should return to. This little excursion into biology is made in the full consciousness that social mandates are not to be found there. Human projects are the primary material of social science. It is indispensable to check these against biological fact, in order to ascertain which are feasible and which are not. The biological basis may _help_ in explaining old social structures or in planning new ones; but much wild social theory has been born of a failure to appreciate the limitations of such material. All the so-called higher animals, mammals and others, are divided into two sexes, male and female. Besides the differentiation of germ-cells there are rather obvious differences in the bodies of the two sexes. In common with many other mammals, the human male has a larger and stronger body, on an average, than has the human female. This is true also of the anthropoid apes, the species which most resemble man physically and are commonly supposed to be his nearest blood relatives in the animal kingdom. It has been true of man himself as far back as we have any records. Such differences are only superficial--the real ones go deeper. We are not so much interested in how they originated in the world as in how they _do_ come about in the individual. At least, we can come a good deal nearer ascertaining the latter than the former. In either case, our real purpose is to determine as nearly as possible what the unlikeness really consists of and so help people to sensibly make up their minds what can be done about it. To define sex with rigid accuracy as the term applies to human beings, it is necessary to tell what it is in mammals, since man is a mammal. The presence of distinct body-cells is not peculiar to mammals, but there is one respect in which these latter are quite different from non-mammals: A mammalian individual, beginning like a non-mammal with a fertilized egg, has a period of intra-maternal development which a non-mammal has not. That is, a non-mammalian is a fertilized egg _plus_ its parental (or extra-parental) environment; but a mammalian individual is a fertilized egg, _plus its intra-maternal environment_, plus its non-parental environment. Here in a nutshell is the biological basis of sex problem in human society. Human individuals do wear out and have to be replaced by reproduction. In the reproductive process, the female, as in mammals generally, is specialized to provide an intra-maternal environment (approximately nine months in the human species) for each new individual, and lactation or suckling afterward. The biological phase of the sex problem in society consists in studying the nature of that specialization. From the purely sociological standpoint, the sex problem concerns the customs and institutions which have grown up or may grow up to meet the need of society for reproduction. The point which most concerns us is in how far biological data can be applied to the sex problem in society. Systematic dissections or breeding experiments upon human beings, thought out in advance and under control in a laboratory, are subject to obvious limitations. Surgical operations, where careful data are kept, often answer the same purpose as concerns some details; but these alone would give us a fragmentary record of how a fertilized egg becomes a conscious human being of one sex or the other. The practice of medicine often throws light on important points. Observation of abnormal cases plays its part in adding to our knowledge. Carefully compiled records of what does occur in inheritance, while lacking many of the checks of planned and controlled experiments, to some extent take the place of the systematic breeding possible with animals. At best, however, the limitations in experimentation with human subjects would give us a rather disconnected record were it not for the data of experimental biology. How may such biological material be safely used? Indiscriminately employed, it is worse than useless--it can be confusing or actually misleading. It is probably never safe to say, or even to infer directly, that because of this or that animal structure or behaviour we should do thus and so in human society. On this point sociology--especially the sociology of sex--must frankly admit its mistakes and break with much of its cherished past. The social problem of sex consists of fitting the best possible institutions on to the biological foundation _as we find it in the human species_. Hence all our reasoning about which institution or custom is preferable must refer directly to the human bodies which compose society. We can use laboratory evidence about the bodies of other animals to help us in understanding the physical structure and functions of the human body; but we must stop trying to apply the sex-ways of birds, spiders or even cows (which are at least mammals) to human society, which is not made up of any of these. It is possible to be quite sure that some facts carefully observed about mammals in a biological laboratory apply to similar structures in man, also a mammal. Because of this relationship, the data from medicine and surgery are priceless. Thus we are enabled to check up our systematic experimental knowledge of animals by an ascertained fact here and there in the human material, and to get a fairly exact idea of how great the correspondence actually is. Gaps thus filled in are narrow enough, and our certainty of the ground on either side sufficiently great, to give a good deal of justifiable assurance. If we use our general biological evidence in this way, merely to help in clearing up points about _human_ biology, we need not be entirely limited to mammals. Some sex phenomena are quite general, and may be drawn from the sexual species most convenient to study and control in experiments. When we get away from mammalian forms, however, we must be very sure that the cases used for illustrations are of general application, are similar in respect to the points compared, or that any vital differences are understood and conscientiously pointed out. Too much stress cannot be laid upon the point that such animal data, carefully checked up with the human material, cannot safely be used for any other purpose than to discover what the facts are about the human body. When the discussion of human social institutions is taken up in Part II, the obvious assumption will always be that these rest upon human biology, and that we must not let our minds wander into vague analogies concerning birds, spiders or crustacea. BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER I 1. Loeb, Jacques. Artificial Parthenogenesis and Fertilization. Chicago, 1913. 2. Loeb, Jacques. The Organism as a Whole. N.Y., 1916, p. 125--brief summary of results of [1]. 3. Bower, Kerr & Agar. Sex and Heredity. N.Y., 1919, 119 pp. 4. Schäfer, E.A. Nature, Origin and Maintenance of Life. Science, n.s., Vol. 36, pp. 306 f., 1912. 5. Guyer, M.F. Being Well-Born. Indianapolis, 1916; p. 123. CHAPTER II SEX IN TERMS OF INTERNAL SECRETIONS Continuity of germplasm; The sex chromosome; The internal secretions and the sex complex; The male and the female type of body; How removal of sex glands affects body type; Sex determination; Share of egg and sperm in heredity; Nature of sex--sexual selection of little importance; The four main types of secretory systems; Sex and sex-instincts of rats modified by surgery; Dual basis for sex; Opposite-sex basis in every individual; The Free-Martin cattle; Partial reversal of sex in man. In Chapter I, the "immortality" of the protoplasm in the germ cells of higher animals, as well as in simpler forms without distinct bodies, was mentioned. In these higher animals this protoplasm is known as _germplasm_, that in body cells as _somatoplasm_. All that is really meant by "immortality" in a germplasm is continuity. That is, while an individual may consist of a colony of millions of cells, all of these spring from one cell and it a germ cell--the fertilized ovum. This first divides to form a new group of germ cells, which are within the embryo or new body when it begins to develop, and so on through indefinite generations. Thus the germ cells in an individual living to-day are the lineal descendants, by simple division, of the germ cells in his ancestors as many generations, or thousands of generations, ago as we care to imagine. All the complicated body specializations and sex phenomena may be regarded as super-imposed upon or grouped around this succession of germ cells, continuous by simple division. The type of body in each generation depends upon this germplasm, but the germplasm is not supposed to be in any way modified by the body (except, of course, that severe enough accidents might damage it). Thus we resemble our parents only because the germplasm which directs our development is a split-off portion of the same continuous line of germ cells which directed their development, that of their fathers, and so on back. This now universally accepted theory is called the "continuity of the germplasm." It will be seen at once that this seems to preclude any possibility of a child's inheriting from its parents anything which these did not themselves inherit. The bodies of each generation are, so to speak, mere "buds" from the continuous lines of germplasm. If we _develop_ our muscles or our musical talent, this development is of the body and dies with it, though the physical basis or capacity we ourselves inherited is still in the germplasm and is therefore passed along to our children. We may also furnish our children an environment which will stimulate their desire and lend opportunity for similar or greater advancement than our own. This is _social inheritance_, or the product of _environment_--easy to confuse with that of _heredity_ and very difficult to separate, especially in the case of mental traits. It will likewise become clear as we proceed that there is no mechanism or relationship known to biology which could account for what is popularly termed "pre-natal influence." A developing embryo has its own circulation, so insulated from that of the mother that only a few of the most virulent and insidious disease germs can ever pass the barrier. The general health of the mother is of utmost importance to the vitality, chances of life, constitution and immunity from disease of the unborn child. Especially must she be free from diseases which may be communicated to the child either before or at the time of birth. This applies particularly to gonorrhoea, one of the most widely prevalent as well as most ancient of maladies, and syphilis, another disastrous and very common plague which is directly communicable. As to "birthmarks" and the like being directly caused by things the mother has seen or thought about, such beliefs seem to be founded on a few remarkable pure coincidences and a great deal of folk-lore. Reproduction in its simplest form is, then, simply the division of one cell into two parts, each of which develops into a replica of the original. Division is also the first stage in reproduction in the most complicated animal bodies. To get an idea of what takes place in such a division we must remember that a cell consists of three distinct parts: (a) the protoplasm or cytoplasm, (b) the nucleus, and (c) a small body known as the centrosome which need not be discussed here. When a cell division takes place, the nucleus breaks up into a number of thread-like portions which are known as chromosomes. There are supposed to be 24 pairs, or 48, in the human cell. All the evidence indicates that these chromosomes carry the "factors" in inheritance which produces the characters or characteristics of the individual body. In mitosis or ordinary cell division, these chromosomes split lengthwise, so that the new cells always have the same number as the original one. When the germ-cells of the male and female make the division which marks the first step in reproduction, however, the process is different. Half the chromatin material passes into each of the two cells formed. This is called _maturation_, or the maturation division, and the new cells have only half the original number of chromosomes. Each of these divides again by mitosis (the chromosomes splitting lengthwise), the half or haploid number remaining. The result is the _gametes_ (literally "marrying cells"--from the Greek _gamé_, signifying marriage). Those from the male are called sperms or spermatozoa and those from the female eggs or ova. (The divisions to form ova present certain complications which need not be taken up in detail here.) Of the 24 chromosomes in each sperm or egg we are here concerned with only one, known as the sex chromosome because, in addition to transmitting other characteristics, it determines the sex of the new individual. Neither the ovum nor the spermatozoon (the human race is referred to) is capable alone of developing into a new individual. They must join in the process known as fertilization. The sperm penetrates the egg (within the body of the female) and the 24 chromosomes from each source, male and female, are re-grouped in a new nucleus with 48 chromosomes--the full number. The chances are half and half that the new individual thus begun will be of a given sex, for the following reason: There is a structural difference, supposed to be fundamentally chemical, between the cells of a female body and those of a male. The result is that the gametes (sperm and eggs) they respectively produce in maturation are not exactly alike as to chromosome composition. All the eggs contain what is known as the "X" type of sex chromosome. But only half the male sperm have this type--in the other half is found one of somewhat different type, known as "Y." (This, again, is for the human species--in some animals the mechanism and arrangement is somewhat different.) If a sperm and egg both carrying the X-type of chromosome unite in fertilization, the resulting embryo is a female. If an X unites with a Y, the result is a male. Since each combination happens in about half the cases, the race is about half male and half female. Thus sex is inherited, like other characters, by the action of the chromatin material of the cell nucleus. As Goldschmidt[1] remarks, this theory of the visible mechanism of sex distribution "is to-day so far proven that the demonstration stands on the level of an experimental proof in physics or chemistry." But why and how does this nuclear material determine sex? In other words, what is the nature of the process of differentiation into male and female which it sets in motion? To begin with, we must give some account of the difference between the cells of male and female origin, an unlikeness capable of producing the two distinct types of gametes, not only in external appearance, but in chromosome makeup as well. It is due to the presence in the bodies of higher animals of a considerable number of glands, such as the thyroid in the throat and the suprarenals just over the kidneys. These pour secretions into the blood stream, determining its chemical quality and hence how it will influence the growth or, when grown, the stable structure of other organs and cells. They are called endocrine glands or organs, and their chemical contributions to the blood are known as _hormones_. Sometimes those which do nothing but furnish these secretions are spoken of as "ductless glands," from their structure. The hormones (endocrine or internal secretions) do not come from the ductless glands alone--but the liver and other glands contribute hormones to the blood stream, in addition to their other functions. Some authorities think that "every cell in the body is an organ of internal secretion",[2] and that thus each influences all the others. The sex glands are especially important as endocrine organs; in fact the somatic cells are organized around the germ cells, as pointed out above. Hence the sex glands may be considered as the keys or central factors in the two chemical systems, the male and the female type. These various hormones or chemical controllers in the blood interact in a nicely balanced chemical system. Taken as a whole this is often called the "secretory balance" or "internal secretory balance." This balance is literally the key to the sex differences we see, because it lies back of them; i.e., there are two general types of secretory balance, one for males and one for females. Not only are the secretions from the male and the female sex glands themselves quite unlike, but the whole chemical system, balance or "complex" involved is different. Because of this dual basis for metabolism or body chemistry, centering in the sex glands, no organ or cell in a male body can be exactly like the corresponding one in a female body. In highly organized forms like the mammals (including man), sex is linked up with _all_ the internal secretions, and hence is of the whole body.[3] As Bell [2, p.5] states it: "We must focus at one and the same time the two essential processes of life--the individual metabolism and the reproductive metabolism. They are interdependent. Indeed, the individual metabolism is the reproductive metabolism." Here, then, is the reason men have larger, differently formed bodies than women--why they have heavier bones, tend to grow beards, and so on. The sex glands are only part of what we may call a well-organized chemical laboratory, delivering various products to the blood, but always in the same general proportions for a given sex. The ingredients which come from the sex glands are also qualitatively different, as has been repeatedly proved by injections and otherwise. Each of these sex types, male and female, varies somewhat within itself, as is true of everything living. The two are not so far apart but that they may overlap occasionally in some details. For instance, some women are larger than are some men--have lower pitched voices, etc. The whole bodily metabolism, resting as it does upon a chemical complex, is obviously more like the male average in some women than it is in others, and _vice versa_. But the average physical make-up which we find associated with the male and female sex glands, respectively, is distinctive in each case, and a vast majority of individuals of each sex conform nearly enough to the average so that classification presents no difficulty. The extreme as well as the average body types existing in the presence of the respective types of sex-glands are different. For example, we find an occasional hen with male spurs, comb or wattles, though she is a normal female in every other respect, and lays eggs.[4] But we never find a functional female (which lays eggs) with _all_ the typical characteristics of the male body. Body variation can go only so far in the presence of each type of primary sexuality (i.e., sex-glands). The bodily peculiarities of each sex, as distinguished from the sex-glands or gonads themselves, are known as _secondary_ sex characters. To put our statement in the paragraph above in another form, the primary and secondary sex do not always correspond in all details. We shall find as we proceed that our original tentative definition of sex as the ability to produce in the one case sperm, in the other eggs, is sometimes difficult to apply. What shall we say of a sterile individual, which produces neither? The problem is especially embarrassing when the primary and secondary sex do not correspond, as is sometimes the case. Even in a fully grown animal, to remove or exchange the sex glands (by surgery) modifies the bodily type. One of the most familiar cases of removal is the gelding or desexed horse. His appearance and disposition are different from the stallion, especially if the operation takes place while he is very young. The reason he resembles a normal male in many respects is simply that sexuality in such highly-organized mammals is of the whole body, not of the sex-glands or organs alone. Suppose this horse was desexed at two years old. Nearly three years had elapsed since he was a fertilized egg. During the eleven months or so he spent within his mother, he developed a very complicated body. Beginning as a male, with a male-type metabolism (that is, as the result of a union between an X and a Y chromosome, not two X's), all his glands, as well as the body structures they control, developed in its presence. Not only the sex glands, but the liver, suprarenals, thyroid--the whole body in fact--became adjusted to the male type. He had long before birth what we call a male sex complex. Complex it is, but it is, nevertheless, easy enough to imagine its nature for illustrative purposes. It is simply all the endocrine or hormone-producing organs organized into a balanced chemical system--adjusted to each other. When the horse had had this body and this gland system for nearly three years (eleven months within his mother's body and twenty-four outside), it had become pretty well organised and fixed. When a single chemical element (the hormones from the sex-glands) was withdrawn, the system (thus stereotyped in a developed body and glands) was modified but not entirely upset. The sex complex remained male in many respects. It had come to depend upon the other chemical plants, so to speak, quite as much as upon the sex glands. The later the castration is performed--the more fixed the body and gland type has become--the closer the horse will resemble a normal male. Much laboratory experimentation now goes to show that some accident while this horse was still a fertilized egg or a very small embryo might have upset this male type of body chemistry--perhaps even caused him to develop into a female instead, if it took place early enough. This is well illustrated by the so-called "Free-Martin" cattle, to be described later. For a long time a controversy raged as to whether sex is determined at the time of fertilization, before or after. Biologists now generally prefer to say that a fertilized egg is "predisposed" to maleness or femaleness, instead of "determined." The word "determined" suggests finality, whereas the embryo appears to have in the beginning only a strong tendency or predisposition toward one sex type or the other. It is now quite commonly believed that this predisposition arises from the _quantity_ rather than the quality or kind of factors in the chemical impetus in the nuclei of the conjugating gametes. A later chapter will be devoted to explaining the quantitative theory of sex. Hence the modern theory of "sex determination" has become: 1. That the chemical factors which give rise to one sex or the other are present in the sperm and ovum _before_ fertilization; 2. That a tendency or predisposition toward maleness or femaleness arises at the time of fertilization, depending upon which type of sperm unites with the uniform type of egg (in some species the sperm is uniform while the egg varies); 3. That this predisposition is: a. Weaker at first, before it builds up much of a body and gland system to fix it; b. Increasingly stronger as the new body becomes organized and developed; c. Liable to partial or complete upset in the very early stages; d. Probably quantitative--stronger in some cases than in others. The new definition is, then, really a combination and amplification of the three older points of view. The term "sex determination" does not mean to the biologist the changing or determining of the sex at will on the part of the experimenter. This might be done by what is known as "selective fertilization" artificially with only the kind of sperm (X or Y as to chromosomes) which would produce the desired result. There is as yet no way to thus select the sperm of higher animals. It has been authoritatively claimed that feeding with certain chemicals, and other methods to be discussed later, has affected the sex of offspring. These experiments (and controversies) need not detain us, since they are not applicable to the human species. Let us consider this fertilized egg--the contributions of the father and the mother. The total length of the spermatozoon is only about 1/300 of an inch, and 4/5 of this is the tail. This tail does not enter the egg, and has no other known function than that of a propeller. Its movement has been studied and found to be about 1/8 of an inch per minute. Only the head and neck enter the egg. This head consists almost entirely of the nuclear material which is supposed to determine the characters of the future individual. The ovum or egg contributed by the mother is much larger--nearly round in shape and about 1/120 of an inch in diameter. Besides its nucleus, it contains a considerable amount of what used to be considered as "stored nutritive material" for the early development of the individual. In ancient times the female was quite commonly supposed to be a mere medium of development for the male seed. Thus the Laws of Manu stated that woman was the soil in which the male seed was planted. In the Greek _Eumenides_, Orestes' mother did not generate him, but only received and nursed the germ. These quaint ideas of course originated merely from observation of the fact that the woman carries the young until birth, and must not lead us to imagine that the ancients actually separated the germ and somatic cells in their thinking. A modern version of this old belief was the idea advanced by Harvey that the ovum consisted of fluid in which the embryo appeared by spontaneous generation. Loeuwenhoek's development of the microscope in the 17th century led immediately to the discovery of the spermatozoon by one of his students. At the time, the "preformation theory" was probably the most widely accepted--i.e., that the adult form exists in miniature in the egg or germ, development being merely an unfolding of these preformed parts. With the discovery of the spermatozoon the preformationists were divided into two schools, one (the ovists) holding that the ovum was the container of the miniature individual, the other (animalculists) according this function to the spermatozoon. According to the ovists, the ovum needed merely the stimulation of the spermatozoon to cause its contained individual to undergo development, while the animalculists looked upon the spermatozoon as the essential embryo container, the ovum serving merely as a suitable food supply or growing place. This nine-lived notion of male supremacy in inheritance was rather reinforced than removed by the breeding of domestic animals in the still more recent past. Attention has been focused on a few great males. For example, the breed of American trotting horses all goes back to one sire--Hambletonian 10. The great Orloff Stud Book, registering over a million individuals, is in the beginning founded on a single horse--a male. It is not strange that we still find among some breeders vestiges of the ancient belief that the male predominates in inheritance. A superior male can impress his characters in a single year upon 100 times as _many_ colts as a female of equal quality could produce in her lifetime. So slight an incident in his life is this reproductive process for each individual that he could if he devoted his life solely to reproduction stamp his characters upon a thousand times as many colts as could a female. Thus under artificial breeding conditions, the good males do have a tremendously disproportionate share in improving the whole breed of horses, though each single horse gets his qualities equally from his male and female parents. Though Mendel knew an astonishing amount about inheritance a half-century ago, it is worth noting that the foundation upon which rests our present knowledge of sex has been discovered less than twenty years before--the reference is, of course, to the chromosomes as the carriers of inheritance. While from the standpoint of biology the opinions of two decades ago about sex literally belong to a different age, some of them have been so persistent in sociological thought and writings that they must be briefly reviewed in order that the reader may be on his guard against them. Books which still have a wide circulation deal with the sex problem in terms of a biology now no more tenable than the flatness of the earth. On the one hand were the ancient traditions of male predominance in inheritance, reinforced by the peculiar emphasis which animal breeding places upon males. On the other hand, biologists like Andrew Wilson[5] had argued as early as the seventies of the past century for female predominance, from the general evidence of spiders, birds, etc. Lester F. Ward crystallized the arguments for this view in an article entitled "Our Better Halves" in _The Forum_ in 1888. This philosophy of sex, which he christened the "Gynæcocentric Theory," is best known as expanded into the fourteenth chapter of his "Pure Sociology," published fifteen years later. Its publication at this late date gave it an unfortunate vitality long after its main tenets had been disproved in the biological laboratory. Germ-cell and body-cell functions were not separated. Arguments from social structures, from cosmic, natural and human history, much of it deduced by analogy, were jumbled together in a fashion which seems amazing to us now, though common enough thirty years ago. It was not a wild hypothesis in 1888, its real date, but its repeated republication (in the original and in the works of other writers who accepted it as authoritative) since 1903 has done much to discredit sociology with biologists and, what is more serious, to muddle ideas about sex and society. In 1903, Weismann's theory of the continuity of the germplasm was ten years old. De Vries' experiments in variation and Mendel's rediscovered work on plant hybridization had hopelessly undermined the older notion that the evolution or progress of species has taken place through the inheritance of acquired characters--that is, that the individuals developed or adapted themselves to suit their surroundings and that these body-modifications were inherited by their offspring. As pointed out in Chapter I, biologists have accepted Weismann's theory of a continuous germplasm, and that this germplasm, not the body, is the carrier of inheritance. Nobody has so far produced evidence of any trace of any biological mechanism whereby development of part of the body--say the biceps of the brain--of the individual could possibly produce such a specific modification of the germplasm he carries as to result in the inheritance of a similar development by his offspring. Mendel's experiments had shown that the characters we inherit are units or combinations of units, very difficult to permanently change or modify. They combine with each other in all sorts of complicated ways. Sometimes one will "dominate" another, causing it to disappear for a generation or more; but it is not broken up. These characters have a remarkable way of becoming "segregated" once more--that is, of appearing intact later on. While it follows from Weismann's theory that an adaptation acquired by an individual during his lifetime cannot be transmitted to his offspring, it remained for De Vries to show authoritatively that evolution can, and does, take place without this. Once this was established, biologists cheerfully abandoned the earlier notion. Lester Ward and the biologists of his day in general not only believed in the transmission of acquired characters, but they filled the obvious gaps which occurred in trying to apply this theory to the observed facts by placing a fantastic emphasis upon sexual selection. That is, much progress was accounted for through the selection by the females of the superior males. This, as a prime factor in evolution, has since been almost "wholly discredited" (Kellogg's phrase) by the careful experiments of Mayer, Soule, Douglass, Dürigen, Morgan and others. The belief in sexual selection involved a long string of corollaries, of which biology has about purged itself, but they hang on tenaciously in sociological and popular literature. For instance, Ward believed in the tendency of opposites to mate (tall men with short women, blonds with brunettes, etc.), although Karl Pearson had published a statistical refutation in his _Grammar of Science_, which had run through two editions when the _Pure Sociology_ appeared. The greater variability of males than females, another gynæcocentric dogma had also been attacked by Pearson on statistical evidence in 1897 (in the well-known essay on Variation in Man and Woman, in _Chances of Death_) and has become increasingly unacceptable through the researches of Mrs. Hollingworth[6,7,8]. The idea of a vanished age of mother-rule in human society, so essential to the complete theory, has long since been modified by anthropologists. De Vries' experiments showed that a moderately simple fact practically makes all these complicated theories unnecessary. No two living things are exactly alike--that is, all living matter is more or less variable. Some variations are more fortunate than others, and these variants are the ones which survive--the ones best adapted to their environment. Given this fact of the constant variation of living matter, natural selection (i.e., survival of the fittest and elimination of the unfit) is the mechanism of evolution or progress which best accounts for the observed facts. Such variation is called "chance variation," not because it takes place by "chance" in the properly accepted sense of the term, but because it is so tremendously varied--is evidently due to such complicated and little-understood circumstances--that it can best be studied mathematically, using statistical applications of the "theory of probabilities." The fine-spun, elaborate theories about sex, so current twenty years ago, have fallen into almost complete desuetude among scientists. With the discovery of the place of the chromosomes in inheritance, biologists began to give their almost undivided attention to a rigid laboratory examination of the cell. This has included sex phenomena since McClung and Sutton pointed out the function of the sex chromosome in 1902 and 1903. Present-day "theories" are little more than working hypotheses, developed, not in a library or study, but with one eye glued to a high-power microscope. Besides its faulty foundation as to facts, the old gynæcocentric theory involved a method of treatment by historical analogy which biologists have almost entirely discarded. Anyone interested in the relative value of different kinds of biological data for social problems would do well to read the opening chapter of Prof. Morgan's "Critique of the Theory of Evolution"[9], for even a summary of which space is lacking here. College reference shelves are still stocked with books on sex sociology which are totally oblivious of present-day biology. For example, Mrs Gilman (Man-Made World), Mrs Hartley (Truth About Woman) and the Nearings (Woman and Social Progress) adhere to Ward's theory in substantially its primitive form, and not even sociologists like Professor Thomas (Sex and Society) have been able to entirely break away from it. The old question of male and female predominance in inheritance has been to a considerable extent cleared up, to the discomfiture of both sides to the controversy. Most exhaustive experiments failed to trace any characters to any other part of either sperm or egg than the nucleus. Transmission of characteristics seemed to be absolutely equal by the two parents. The male nucleus enters the egg practically naked. Hence if the characters are transmitted equally, there is certainly ground for supposing that only the nucleus of the egg has such functions, and that the remainder merely provides material for early development. Yet this does not seem to be strictly true. Parthenogenesis (development of eggs without agency of male sperm) proves that in many simple forms the female nucleus alone possesses all the essential determiners for a new individual. Boveri's classic experiment[10] proved the same thing for the male nucleus. He removed the nuclei from sea-urchin eggs and replaced them with male nuclei. Normal individuals developed. To make things still more certain, he replaced the female nucleus with a male one from a different variety of sea-urchin. The resulting individual exhibited the characteristics of the _male nucleus_ only--none of those of the species represented by the egg. Here, then, was inheritance definitely traced to the nucleus. If this nucleus is a male the characters are those of the male line; if a female those of the female line, and in sexual reproduction where the two are fused, half and half. Yet the fact remained that all efforts to develop the spermatozoon alone (without the agency of any egg material at all) into an individual had signally failed. Conklin[11] had found out in 1904 and 1905 that the egg cytoplasm in Ascidians is not only composed of different materials, but that these give rise to definite structures in the embryo later on. So a good many biologists believed, and still believe[12,13,14] that the egg is, before fertilization, a sort of "rough preformation of the future embryo" and that the Mendelian factors in the nuclei "only impress the individual (and variety) characters upon this rough block." If we look at these views from one angle, the apparent conflict disappears, as Professor Conklin[15] points out. We can still presume that all the factors of inheritance are carried in the nucleus. But instead of commencing the life history of the individual at fertilization, we must date it back to the beginning of the development of the egg in the ovary. Whatever rude characters the egg possesses at the time of fertilization were developed under the influence of the nucleus, which in turn got them half and half from its male and female parents. These characters carried by the female across one generation are so rudimentary that they are completely covered up, in the developing embryo, by those of the new nucleus formed by the union of the sperm with the egg in fertilization. In case fertilization does not take place, this rude beginning in the egg is lost. Since no characteristic sex is assumed until after fertilization, we may say that life begins as neuter in the individual, as it is presumed to have done in the world. It will occur to those inclined to speculation or philosophic analysis that by the word "neuter" we may mean any one or all of three things: (a) neither male nor female; (b) both male and female, as yet undifferentiated, or (c) potentially either male or female. Clearly, the above explanation assumes a certain _germinal_ specialization of the female to reproduction, in addition to the body specialization for the intra-parental environment (in mammals). A tremendous amount of laboratory experimentation upon animals has been done in late years to determine the nature of sex. For example, Goodale[16] castrated a brown leghorn cockerel twenty-three days old and dropped pieces of the ovary of a female bird of the same brood and strain into the abdominal cavity. These adhered and built up circulatory systems, as an autopsy later showed. This cockerel, whose male sex glands had been exchanged for female ones, developed the female body, and colouration so completely that expert breeders of the strain pronounced it a female. He found that simply removing the female sex glands invariably led to the development of spurs and male plumage. But simple removal of the male sex glands did not alter plumage. To make sure, he replaced the male sex glands with female, and found that the former male developed female plumage. This obviously signifies that in birds the female is an inhibited male.[4, p.49.] Either sex when castrated has male feathers--the male has them either with or without testes, unless they are _inhibited_ by the presence of (transplanted) ovaries. It will be remembered that the sociological theory of sex held by Ward, Mrs. Hartley and a host of others was founded on the supposition that evolution or development of a species is chiefly due to selection by the females of the better males, a conclusion based almost entirely on bird evidence. Ward[17] states that "the change or progress, as it may be called, has been wholly in the male, the female remaining unchanged"; also that "the male side of nature shot up and blossomed out in an unnatural, fantastic way...." Speaking of the highly-coloured males, especially among birds, the same writer states that "the _normal colour_ (italics ours) is that of the young and the female, and the colour of the male is the result of his excessive variability." Goodale's results completely refute this idea, and should bury for ever the well-known sociological notion of "male afflorescence." The general doctrine of a stable, "race-type" female and a highly variable male has been widely circulated. In tracing it back through voluminous literature, it appears to have been founded on an article published by W.I. Brooks in the _Popular Science Monthly_ for June, 1879, fourteen years before Weissmann's enunciation of the theory of continuity of the germ-plasm. Like Wallace, Brooks continued to study and experiment till the last, and finally withdrew from his earlier position on sexual selection. However, this has not prevented others from continuing to quote his discarded views--innocently, of course. Havelock Ellis[18] and G. Stanley Hall[19] have applied the idea of a "race-type" female with peculiar insistence to the human race. Goodale has finally killed the bird evidence upon which earlier workers so largely founded this doctrine, by showing that the "race type" toward which birds tend unless inhibited by the female ovarian secretion is the male type, not the female. There is a great difference in the way the internal secretions act in birds and in man, as will be pointed out later. It is so important that such a major point as general variability must be supported and corroborated by mammalian evidence to prove anything positively for man. As already noted, the statistical studies of Pearson and Mrs. Hollingworth _et al._ have yielded uniformly negative results. In the utilization of data gathered from non-human species, certain differences in the systems of internal secretion must be taken into account. Birds differ from the human species as to internal secretory action in two vital particulars: (a) In the higher mammals, sex depends upon a "complex" of all the glands interacting, instead of upon the sex glands alone as in birds; (b) The male bird instead of the female is homogametic for sex--i.e., the sperm instead of the eggs is uniform as to the sex chromosome. Insects are (in some cases at least) like birds as to the odd chromosome--the opposite of man. But as to secondary sex-characters they differ from both. These characters do not depend upon any condition of the sex organs, but are determined directly by the chemical factors which determine sex itself.[20] In crustacea, the male is an inhibited female (the exact opposite of birds), as shown by the experiments of Giard and Geoffrey Smith on crabs. A parasite, _Sacculina neglecta_, sometimes drives root-like growths into the spider crab, causing slow castration. The females thus desexed do not assume the male type of body, but castrated males vary so far toward the female type that some lay eggs[3, p.143; 20]. It is the discovery of such distinctions which makes it necessary to re-examine all the older biological evidence on the sex problem, and to discard most of it as insufficiently exact. The work of Steinach[12, pp.225f.] on rats is another well-known example of changing sex characters by surgery. Steinach found that an ovary transplanted into a male body changed its characteristics and instincts into the female type. The growth of the male sex organs he found to be definitely inhibited by the ovaries. He went so far as to transplant the whole uterus and tube into the male body, where it developed normally. One of the most interesting of his results is the observation of how the instincts were changed along with the type of body. The feminized males behaved like normal females toward the other males and toward females. Likewise they were treated as normal females by the males. It would be impossible to give here any just idea of the vast amount of rigid scientific experimentation which has been carried on in this field, or the certainty of many of the results. Sex is really known, about as well as anything can be known, to arise from the chemical causes discussed above. That is, the endocrine explanation is the correct one. One of the most significant results of the transplantation experiments is the evidence that _each individual carries the fundamental bases for both sexes_. When Goodale changed a male bird into a female as to secondary characters and instincts by replacing one secretion with another, he was faced with the following problem: How can a single secretion be responsible for innumerable changes as to feather length, form and colouring, as to spurs, comb and almost an endless array of other details? To suppose that a secretion could be so complicated in its action as to determine each one of a thousand different items of structure, colour and behaviour would be preposterous. Besides, we know that some of these internal secretions are _not_ excessively complicated--for instance adrenalin (the suprarenal secretion) can be compounded in the laboratory. We may say that it cannot possibly be that the ovarian or testicular secretion is composed of enough different chemical substances to produce each different effect. There remains only the supposition that the female already possesses the genetic basis for becoming a male, and _vice versa_. This is in accord with the observed facts. In countless experiments it is shown that the transformed female becomes like the male of her own strain and brood--to state it simply, like the male she would have been if she had not been a female. If we think of this basis as single, then it must _exhibit_ itself in one way in the presence of the male secretions, in another way under the influence of the female secretions. In this way a very simple chemical agent in the secretion might account for the whole difference--merely causing a genetic basis already present to express itself in the one or the other manner. This may be illustrated by the familiar case of the crustacea _Artemia salina_ and _Artemia Milhausenii_. These are so unlike that they were long supposed to be different species; but it was later discovered that the genetic basis is exactly the same. One lives in 4 to 8% salt water, the other in 25% or over. If, however, the fresh-water variety is put in the saltier water with the salt-water variety, all develop exactly alike, into the salt-water kind. Likewise, if the salt-water variety is developed in fresh water, it assumes all the characteristics of the fresh-water kind. Thus the addition or subtraction of a single chemical agent--common salt--makes all the difference. If this basis for sex is single, it is represented by the male plumage in domestic birds, the secretions from the sex-glands acting as modifiers. But a great deal of evidence has been produced to show that the genetic basis, in man and some other forms at least, is double. That is, we must think of two genetic bases existing in each individual--each representing one of the two types of secondary sex characters. The primary sex (i.e., the sex glands) would then determine which is to express itself. In the domestic birds described above, the male type of body appears in the absence of the ovarian secretion, and the female type in its presence. In man and the more highly organized mammals, we must use "secretions" in the plural, since a number of them, from different glands, act together in a "complex." Goodale, experimenting with birds, was unable to definitely decide whether the basis for sex was single or double in that material, though he favoured the latter explanation. Dr Bell, the English gynecologist, using human surgical cases as a basis, commits himself strongly to the dual basis.[2, p.13.] "Every fertilized ovum," he says, "is potentially bisexual," but has "a predominating tendency ... toward masculinity or femininity." But "at the same time," he remarks, "it is equally obvious that latent traits of the opposite sex are always present." After discussing mental traits observed in each sex which normally belong to the other, he concludes as follows: "If further evidence of this bisexuality, which exists in everyone, were required, it is to be found in the embryological remains of the latent sex, which always exist in the genital ducts." In some lower forms, dual sexuality is apparent until the animal is fairly well developed. In frogs, for example, the sex glands of both sexes contain eggs in early life, and it is not possible to tell them apart with certainty, until they are about four months old.[12, p.125.] Then the eggs gradually disappear in the male. However, we need not depend upon non-mammalian evidence for either the secretory explanation or the dual basis. An ideal case would be to observe the effects of circulating the blood of one sex in a developing embryo of the other. This blood-transfusion occurs in nature in the "Free-Martin" cattle.[21] Two embryos (twins) begin to develop in separate membranes or chorions. At an early stage in this development, however, the arteries and veins of the two become connected, so that the blood of each may circulate through the body of the other. "If both are males or both are females no harm results from this...," since the chemical balance which determines the bodily form in each case is of the same type. But if one is a male and the other a female, the male secretory balance dominates the female in a very peculiar fashion. The female reproductive system is largely suppressed. She even develops certain male organs, and her general bodily appearance is so decidedly masculine that until Dr Lillie worked out the case she had always been supposed to be a non-functional male. She is sterile. The blood transfusion not only alters the sex-type of her body, but it actually modifies the sex glands themselves, so that the ovary resembles a testicle, though dissection proves the contrary. Why does not the female become a true, functional male? Perhaps she does in some cases. Such a one would not be investigated, since there would be no visible peculiarity. In all the cases examined, the embryo had begun its female development and specialization under the influence of a predisposition of the female type in the fertilized egg, before the transfusion began. There is no absolutely convincing mammalian evidence of the complete upset of this predisposition, so all one can say is that it is theoretically possible. Cases of partial reversal, sometimes called "intersexes," are common enough. In birds and insects, where the material is less expensive and experimentation simpler, males have been produced from female-predisposed fertilized eggs and _vice versa_, as we shall see in the next chapter. Dr Bell[2, pp.133f.] points out that the so-called human "hermaphrodites" are simply partial reversals of the sex type from that originally fixed in the fertilized egg. As has been remarked earlier in these pages, there is rarely if ever true hermaphroditism in higher animals--i.e., cases of _two functional sexes_ in the same individual. In fact, the pathological cases in the human species called by that name are probably not capable of reproduction at all.[A] [Footnote A: _Note on human hermaphroditism_: This subject has been treated in a considerable medical literature. See, for example, Alienist and Neurologist for August, 1916, and New York Medical Journal for Oct. 23, 1915. It has been claimed that both human and higher mammalian "hermaphrodites" have actually functioned for both sexes. Obviously, absolute certainty about cause and effect in such cases, where human beings are concerned, is next to impossible, because of lack of scientific, laboratory control. If a case of complete functional hermaphroditism in the human species could be established beyond question, it would indicate that the male secretory balance in man does not inhibit the female organs to the same extent that it apparently does in the Free-Martin cattle. If established, the idea of "male dominance" in the human species would be undermined in a new place. Such cases, if they occur at all, are exceedingly rare, but are of theoretical interest. We must not rush to conclusions, as the earlier sociologists used to do. Such a case would require careful analysis. Its very uniqueness would suggest that it may not be due to the ordinary causes of hermaphroditism, but might arise from some obscure and unusual cause such as the fusion of two embryos at a very early stage. The biochemistry involved is so intricate and so little understood that any deduction from the known facts would be purely speculative.] Like the Free-Martin cattle, some accident has resulted in a mixture of male and female characteristics. This accident occurs after a certain amount of embryonic development has taken place under the influence of the original predisposition of the fertilized egg. The delicate secretory balance, so complex in man, is upset. With partially developed organs of one type and with a blood-chemistry of the opposite one, some curious results follow, as the illustrative plates in Dr Bell's book show. It should be remembered that sex in higher mammals is of the whole body, and depends upon all the secretions. Hence an accident to one of the other glands may upset the balance as well as one to the sex glands themselves. For example, 15% of Neugebauer's[22] cases of female tubular partial hermaphroditism had abnormal growths in the suprarenals. Thus in the human species, it is possible for one type of sex glands to exist in the opposite type of body, as we saw it to be in cattle--though it apparently could not occur unless compensated for in some way by the other secretions. This is a very great departure from birds, rats and guinea pigs, whose bodies change over their sex type when the gonads are transplanted. Birds take on the male appearance when the sex glands are removed (or retain it, if they are males). This is not true of man. The chemical life processes of the two sexes after puberty in the human species are quite characteristic. The male and female types are both very different from the infantile. When it becomes necessary to desex men, the resulting condition is _infantile_, not female.[23] The desexed man is of course the eunuch of ancient literature. If desexed near maturity, he might look like a normal man in many respects; but if the operation were performed before puberty, his development is simply arrested and remains infantile--incomplete. Only in 1878 was the practice of desexing boys to get the famous adult male soprano voices for the Sistine Choir discontinued. Removal of the ovaries in women likewise produces an infantile condition, which is pronounced only in case the operation takes place very young. [24] From his clinical experience, Dr Bell [2, p.160] concludes that no very definite modifications can be produced in an adult woman by withdrawal of the ovarian secretion alone. "There must be," he says, "some gross change in those parts of the endocritic system, especially apart from the genital glands, which normally produce masculinity--potentiality that appears to be concentrated in the suprarenals, the pituitary and probably in the pineal." What, then, do we mean by "male" and "female" in man? Take Dr Russell Andrews' patient: photographs[2, plate opposite p.243] show a rounded bodily outline, hairless face, well-developed mammæ--the female sex characteristics in every respect which the ordinary person could detect. Yet an operation proved that the sex glands themselves were male. Presumably extreme cases like the above are rare. Obviously operations cannot be performed on all those with female-type bodies who do not bear children, to determine the primary sex, and conversely with men. This does, however, point the obvious question: Are not some we classify as men _more male_ or masculine than others--some we classify as women _more feminine_ than others? Bearing in mind the fact that the genetic basis for both sexes exists in each individual, are not some women more masculine than others, some men more feminine than others? However much we may object to stating it just that way, the biological fact remains thus. The Greeks called these intermediate types _urnings_--modern biology knows them as "intersexes." Only within the past few years have the general phenomena of intersexuality been cleared up to any considerable extent--naturally on the basis of the secretory explanation of sex. This secretory or endocrine idea has also given us an entirely new view of sex differences. These are best discussed as functional rather than as structural. To correlate this material, we must next give a rude sketch of the quantitative theory of sex. BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER II 1. Goldschmidt, R. Intersexuality and the Endocrine Aspect of Sex. Endocrinology, Vol. I, p. 434, 1917. 2. Bell, Dr Blair. The Sex Complex. London, 1916, p. 98. 3. Paton, D. Noël. Regulators of Metabolism. London, 1913, p. 146. 4. Goodale, H.D. Gonadectomy...Carnegie Pub. 243, 1916, pp. 43f. 5. Wilson, Andrew. Polity of a Pond (essay). Humboldt Lib. of Sc., No. 88--reprint, dated 1888. 6. Hollingworth, L.S. Variability as Related to Sex Differences in Achievement. Am. Jour, of Sociol., XIX., 1914, pp. 510-530. 7. Lowie, R.H. & Hollingworth, L.S. Science and Feminism. Sci. Mthly., Sept., 1916, pp. 277-284. 8. Montague, Helen & Hollingworth, L.S. Comparative Variability of the Sexes at Birth. Am. J. of Sociol. XX, 335-70. 1915. 9. Morgan, T.H. A Critique of the Theory of Evolution. N.Y., 1916, pp. 1-27. 10. Loeb, Jacques. Artificial Parthenogenesis and Fertilization. Chicago, 1913, pp. 3, 51f., 240f, 303. 11. Conklin, E.G. Organ-Forming Substances in the Eggs of Ascidians. U. of Pa. Contrib. from the Zool. Lab. Vol. 12. 1905, pp. 205-230. 12. Loeb, J. The Organism as a Whole. N.Y., 1916, pp. 138f, 151-2. 13. Guyer, M.F. Being Well-Born. Indianapolis, 1916, p. 51. 14. Tower, W.L. (et al.). Heredity and Eugenics. Chicago, 1912, pp. 164, 254-5. 15. Conklin, E.G. Share of Egg and Sperm in Heredity. Proc. Nat. Acad. of Sc., Feb., 1917. 16. Goodale, H.D. A Feminized Cockerel. Jour. Exp. Zool. Vol. 20, pp. 421-8. 17. Ward, Lester F. Pure Sociology. N.Y., 1903, pp. 322f. 18. Ellis, Havelock. Man and Woman, 4th Ed. London, 1904. Ch. XVI. 19. Hall, G. Stanley. Adolescence. N.Y., 1907. Vol. II, pp. 561-2. 20. Morgan, T.H. Heredity and Sex. N.Y., 1913, pp. 155f. 21. Lillie, F.R. Theory of the Free Martin. Science, n.s., Vol. XLIII, pp. 611-13. 22. Neugebauer, F.L. Hermaphrodismus, Leipzig, 1908. 23. Vincent, S. Internal Secretions and the Ductless Glands. London, 1912, p. 69. 24. Marshall, F.H. Physiology of Reproduction. London, 1910, p. 314. CHAPTER III SEX AND SEX DIFFERENCES AS QUANTITATIVE Intersexes in moths; Bird intersexes; Higher metabolism of males; Quantitative difference between sex factors; Old ideas of intersexuality; Modern surgery and human intersexes; Quantitative theory a Mendelian explanation; Peculiar complication in the case of man; Chemical life cycles of the sexes; Functional-reproductive period and the sex problem; Relative significance of physiological sex differences. Crossing European and Japanese gypsy moths, Goldschmidt [1,2,3,4] noticed that the sex types secured were not pure--i.e., that certain crosses produced females which bore a distinctly greater resemblance to the male type than others, and _vice versa_. One of these hybrids of "intersexes," as he calls them, would always possess some female and some male sexual characters. He found that he could separate the males and females, respectively, into seven distinct grades with respect to their modification toward the opposite-sex type, and could produce any one of these grades at will by breeding. For example, the seven grades of females were roughly as follows: (1) Pure females; (2) Females with feathered antennæ like males and producing fewer than the normal number of eggs; (3) Appearance of the brown (male) patches on the white female wings; ripe eggs in abdomen, but only hairs in the egg-sponge laid; instincts still female; (4) Instincts less female; whole sections of wings with male colouration, interspersed with cuneiform female sectors; abdomen smaller, males less attracted; reproduction impossible; (5) Male colouration over almost the entire wing; abdomen almost male, with few ripe eggs; instincts intermediate between male and female; (6) Like males, but with rudimentary ovaries and show female traits in some other organs; (7) Males with a few traces of female origin, notably wing-shape. The males showed the same graded approach to the female type. Their instincts likewise became more and more female as the type was modified in that direction. That is, a moth would be 12% or 35% female, and so on. Goldschmidt watched the crosses which produced seven different grades of maleness in his females. The moth material, like the birds and mammals, suggested a dual basis for sex in each individual. The grades of maleness and femaleness made it seem probable that the factor which determines sex must be stronger in some instances than in others, i.e., that the difference between two of these grades of female is originally quantitative, not qualitative--in amount rather than in kind. Mating European moths with European, or Japanese with Japanese, produced pure, uniform sex-types, male and female. But a cross of European with Japanese strains resulted in intersexes. Goldschmidt concluded that (1) all individuals carried the genetic basis for both sexes; and (2) that these basic factors were two chemicals of enzyme nature. One of these he called Andrase, enzyme producing maleness, the other Gynase, enzyme producing femaleness. Further, (3) since each chemical sex determiner is present in both individuals in every cross, there must be two chemical "doses" of maleness and two of femaleness struggling for mastery in each fertilized egg. (4) If the total dose of maleness exceeds the total dose of femaleness, the sex will be male, and _vice versa_. (5) These quantities get fixed by natural selection in a single race which always lives in the same environment, i.e., the doses of maleness and femaleness in a given sex always bear practically the same relation to each other. Hence the types are fixed and uniform. (6) But different races are likely to have a different strength of chemical sex-doses, so that when they are crossed, the ratios of maleness to femaleness are upset. Often they are almost exactly equal, which produces a type half male and half female--or 2/3, or 1/3, etc. The proof of this theory is that it solved the problems. Goldschmidt was able to work out the strengths of the doses of each sex in his various individuals, and thereby to predict the exact grade of intersexuality which would result from a given cross. Riddle's work on pigeons [5,6] brings us much nearer to man, and suggests the results noted by both Goldschmidt and Lillie. As in the Free-Martin cattle, there is an apparent reversal of the sex predisposition of the fertilized egg. As in the gypsy moths, different grades of intersexes were observed. In the pigeons, it was found that more yolk material tended to produce a larger proportion of females. The most minute quantitative measurements were made of this factor, to eliminate any possibility of error. The chromosome mechanisms practically force us to suppose that about half the eggs are originally predisposed to maleness, half to femaleness. A pigeon's clutch normally consists of two eggs, one with a large yolk and one with a small yolk. But the half-and-half numerical relation of males to females varies considerably--i.e., not all the large-yolked eggs produce females or all the small-yolked ones males. Wild pigeons begin the season by throwing a predominance of males, and the first eggs of the clutches also tend to produce males all along. In both cases, the male-producing eggs were found to be the ones with the smaller yolks. Family crosses also produce small yolks, which hatch out nearly all males. Some pairs of birds, however, have nearly all female offspring. Riddle investigated a large number of these cases and found the amount of yolk material to be large. In other words, there seems to be a definite relation between the amount of yolk and sex. A great number of clever experiments were carried out to find out if eggs originally predisposed to one sex were actually used to produce the other. Selective fertilization with different kinds of sperm was impossible, since in these birds there is only one type of sperm--two of eggs--as to the sex chromosome. For instance, by overworking females at egg-production, the same birds which had been producing more males than females were made to reverse that relation. One of the interesting results of the experiments was the production of a number of intersexual types of various grades. This was easily verifiable by colour and other characteristics. To make sure that the instincts were correspondingly modified, behaviour was registered on moving-picture films. Where the first egg of a clutch (the one with a small, normally male-producing yolk) produces a female, she is usually found to be more masculine than her sister from the second egg with the larger yolk. This is true both as to appearance and as to behaviour. Some of these were quite nearly males in appearance and behaviour, though they laid eggs. Testicular and ovarian extracts were injected. The more feminine birds were often killed by the testicular extract, the more masculine by the ovarian extract. Finally, to make assurance doubly sure, some females which should theoretically have been the most feminine were dissected and shown to be so. That is, out-crosses which produced a predominance of females in the fall were mated with females which had been overworked at egg production until they threw nearly all females. Dissecting the females thus produced, they were shown to have _right ovaries_, which means _double femaleness_, since normally the pigeon is functional only in the left ovary, like other birds. The right one usually degenerates before or at hatching and is wholly absent in the week-old squab. In pigeons, Riddle thinks the "developmental energy" of the eggs is in an inverse ratio to their size. The last and largest eggs of the season develop least and produce most females. The second egg of a clutch is larger than the first, but develops less and the bird produced is shorter-lived. Overworking and other conditions tending to produce large eggs and females also throw white mutants and show other signs of weakness. Old females lay larger eggs than do young ones. These eggs produce more females. They store more material, have a lower metabolism and less oxidizing capacity than do the earlier male-producing eggs. It would be unsafe to draw specific conclusions about mammals from these bird and insect experiments. Both the secretory action and the chromosome mechanisms are different. The quantitative nature of sex, and also the existence of intersexual types, between males and females, would seem to be general phenomena, requiring rather slight corroboration from the mammals themselves. We have such mammalian cases as the Free-Martin cattle, and some convincing evidence of intersexuality in the human species itself, which will be reviewed presently. The notion of more "developmental energy" or a higher metabolism in males is borne out in the human species. Benedict and Emmes[7] have shown by very careful measurements that the basal metabolism of men is about 6% higher than that of women. Riddle cites the work of Thury and Russell on cattle to show that a higher water value (as he found in the pigeon eggs), associated with increased metabolism, helps to produce males. In males, the secretion of the sex glands alone seems to be of particular importance, again suggesting this idea of "strength" which comes up over and over again. Removal of these glands modifies the male body much more profoundly than it does the female.[8] It is quite generally supposed that the action of this one secretion may have much to do with the superior size and vigour of males. For example, Paton says[9]: "The evidence thus seems conclusive that in the male the gonad, by producing an internal secretion, exercises a direct and specific influence upon the whole soma, increasing the activity of growth, moulding the whole course of development, and so modifying the metabolism of nerve and muscle that the whole character of the animal is altered." It used to be said that the male was more "katabolic," the female more "anabolic." These expressions are objectionable, inasmuch as they hint that in a mature organism, with metabolism rather stable, tearing down, or katabolism, could go on faster than building up, or anabolism, or that one of two phases of the same process might go on faster than the other. It seems safer to say merely that a lower metabolism in the female is accompanied by a tendency to store materials. A long time will doubtless be required to work out the details of differences in metabolism in the two sexes. Some of the main facts are known, however, and the general effects of the two diverse chemical systems upon the life cycles of the sexes are quite obvious. What we call the "quantitative theory of sex" has, besides a place in exact science, an interesting relation to the history of biological thought, especially as applied to society. It is thus in order to state as clearly as possible what it now is; then, so that no one may confuse it with what it is not, to run over some of the old ideas which resemble it. Experiments with transplanted sex glands, with sex-gland extracts (testicular and ovarian) and the observation of infusions of a male-type blood-stream into a female body, as occurs in nature in some cattle and in the so-called human "hermaphrodites," indicate a gross chemical difference between the respective determiners for femaleness and for maleness. So the chemicals involved, though not yet isolated, must be presumed to be _qualitatively_ different, since they produce such different results. But such experiments also indicate that both determiners must be present in some proportions in every individual of either sex. The basis for both sexes being present, the one which shall predominate or be expressed in the individual must depend upon the _quantitative_ relation between the determiners which come together at fertilization. The quantitative theory merely means that this predominance of one factor or the other (maleness or femaleness--Gynase or Andrase) is more pronounced in some cases than in others. In brief, then, the quantitative theory of sex is merely the most reasonable explanation of the known fact that intersexes exist--that is, females with some male characteristics, or with all their characters more like the female type than the average, and _vice versa_. Laboratory biology has established the phenomena of intersexuality beyond question, and the word "inter-sex" has become a scientific term. But the fact that this word and the idea it represents are new to _exact science_ does not mean that it is new in the world. Intersexes in the human species--not only the extreme pathological cases represented by the so-called "hermaphrodites," but also merely masculine women and effeminate men--have been the subject of serious remarks as well as literary gibes from the earliest times. The Greeks called these people _urnings_. Schopenhauer was interested in the vast ancient literature and philosophy on this subject. The 19th century produced a copious psychological treatment of warped or reversed sexual impulses by such men as Moll, Krafft-Ebing and Havelock Ellis. Otto Weiniger[10] collected a mass of this philosophy, literature, psychology, folklore and gossip, tied it together with such biological facts as were then known (1901) and wove around it a theory of sex _attraction_.[A] The same material was popularized by Leland[11], Carpenter[12] and W.L. George[13] to support quite different views. [Footnote A: NOTE: Weiniger thought he could pick, merely by observing physical type, people who would be sexually attracted to each other. There is much ground for scepticism about this. To begin with, the biological experiments indicate that intersexes are peculiarly likely to appear where two or more races are mixed. So far, there is no exact knowledge about the amount or kind of sex difference in each race. As Bateson remarks (Biol. Fact & the Struct. of Society, p.13), one unversed in the breeds even of poultry would experience great difficulty and make many mistakes in sorting a miscellaneous group of cocks and hens into pairs according to breed. If this is true in dealing with pure breeds, "in man, as individuals pure-bred in any respect are very rare, the operation would be far more difficult." In the human species sexual attraction also obviously depends upon many factors which are not purely biological; it is rather a complicated sentiment than an instinct.] George's statement that "there are no men and ... no women; there are only sexual majorities"[p.61, op. cit.] has been widely quoted. The feminists, he adds, "base themselves on Weininger's theory, according to which the male principle may be found in woman, and the female principle in man." Unfortunately, George does not make clear what he means by "principle," so his theory, if he has one, is impossible to appraise in biological terms. From the embryonic idea expressed above, he deduces a very positive social philosophy of sex. The feminists, he says, "recognize no masculine or feminine '_spheres_' and ... propose to identify absolutely the conditions of the sexes." So, while George seems to think much more highly of women than does Weininger, their philosophies come together, for quite different reasons, on the practical procedure of disregarding reproduction and letting the race go hang[10, p.345]. Weininger seems to recognize the dual basis for sex; George evidently does not quite follow him. Both entirely misconceived the real issues involved, as well as the kind of evidence required to settle them, as we shall see later in discussing adaptation and specialization. Dr Blair Bell[14,15] has collected a mass of evidence on intersexes in the human species. This includes his own surgical and other cases, as well as many treated by his colleagues, and a very considerable review of the medical literature. He not only believes in degrees of femininity in women, but has worked out classifications which he claims to have found of great practical value in surgery.[14, pp.166-7] As noted above, Riddle discovered that his more feminine female pigeons were often killed by a dose of testicular extract which was practically harmless to a partially masculinized female. Sex in the human species being a matter of all the glands organized into a complex, the quantitative "strength" of that complex would be useful to know before removing any one secretion from it. Dr Bell states that the oöphorectomy operation (removal of ovaries) may be performed upon a masculine type of woman with "little disturbance of the metabolism..." But he thinks that the degree of masculinity should always be carefully observed before undertaking such operations, which in some cases have most undesirable effects. At one end of the scale, this surgeon places the typically feminine woman in all her characteristics--with well-formed breasts, menstruating freely and feminine in instincts--he says "mind." The intermediate grades consist, he says, of women whose metabolism leans toward the masculine type. Some have sexual desires but no maternal impulse. Others desire maternity but take no interest in sex activity, or positively shun it. The physical manifestations of masculine glandular activity take the form of pitch of voice, skin texture, shape and weight of bones, etc. Some of the inter-grades are a little hard to define--the human species is such an inextricable mixture of races, etc.; but Dr Bell does not hesitate to describe the characteristically masculine woman of the extreme type, who "shuns both sexual relations and maternity...(She) is on the fringe of femininity. These women are usually flat-breasted and plain. Even though they menstruate, their metabolism is often for the most part masculine in character: indications of this are seen in the bones which are heavy, in the skin which is coarse, and in the aggressive character of the mind...If a woman have well-developed genitalia, and secondary characteristics, she usually is normal in her instincts. A feebly menstruating woman with flat breasts and coarse skin cannot be expected to have strong reproductive instincts, since she is largely masculine in type..." The glandular and quantitative explanation of sex, instead of being abstruse and complicated, brings the subject in line with the known facts about inheritance generally. The dual basis for femaleness and maleness in each individual simply means that both factors are present, but that only one expresses itself fully. The presence of such a dual basis is proved by the fact that in castration and transplantation experiments both are exhibited by the same individual in a single lifetime. In the case of the Free-Martin cattle, even the female sex-glands are modified toward the male type to such an extent that they were long mistaken for testes. The same applies to some glands found in human "hermaphrodites," as Dr Bell's plates show. The peculiar complication of the chemical complex determining sex in these mammalian forms, involving all the glands and hence the entire body, makes it problematical whether a complete (functional) reversal is possible, at least after any development whatever of the embryo has taken place. On the other hand, the fact that such complete transformations have not so far been observed by no means proves their non-existence. Their being functional, and hence to all external appearances normal, would cause such animals to escape observation. Latent traits of the opposite sex of course immediately suggest recessive or unexpressed characters in the well-known Mendelian inheritance phenomena. In the bird-castration cases, we saw that to remove the inhibiting sex glands caused previously latent characters to act like dominant or expressed ones. The case of horns in sheep, investigated by Professor Wood[16], is so similar that it seems worth summarizing, by way of illustration. Both sexes in Dorset sheep have well-developed horns; in the Suffolk breed both sexes are hornless. If the breeds are crossed, all the rams in the first (hybrid) generation have horns and all the ewes are hornless. If these hybrids are mated, the resulting male offspring averages three horned to one hornless; but the females are the reverse of this ratio--one horned to three hornless. This is an example of Mendel's principle of segregation--factors may be mixed in breeding, but they do not lose their identity, and hence tend to be sorted out or segregated again in succeeding generations. In the horned Dorsets, we must suppose that both males and females carry a dual factor for horns--technically, are _homozygous_ for horns. The hornless Suffolks, on the contrary, are homozygous for _absence_ of horns. Thus the dual factor in the zygotes or fertilized eggs at the basis of the first filial (hybrid) generation consists of a single factor for horns and a single factor for their absence. If we represent horns by _H_ and absence of horns by _A_, Dorsets have a factor _HH_, Suffolks _AA_ and the hybrids _HA_. All the males in this generation have horns, which means that a single "dose" of the factor _H_ will produce horns in a male, or that they are _dominant_ in males. But a single dose will not produce horns in a female--that is, horns are _recessive_ in females--the factor is present but unexpressed. Mating two _HA_ hybrids, the _H_ and _A_ of course split apart in the formation of the gametes, as the _HH_ and _AA_ did in the previous generation; so that we get an equal number of single _H_ and _A_ factors. In reuniting in fertilized eggs, the chance is just half and half that an _H_ will unite with another _H_ or with an _A_--that an _A_ will unite with an _H_ or another _A_. Thus we have two chances of getting _HA_ to each chance of getting either _AA_ or _HH_. Half the zygotes will be _HA_, one-fourth _HH_ and one-fourth _AA_. If we consider four average males, one will have two _A's_ (absence of the factor for horns) and will thus be hornless. One will have two _H's_, or the double factor for horns, and hence will exhibit horns--as will also the two _HA's_ since a single dose of horns expresses them in a male. So we have the three-to-one Mendelian ratio. But four females with exactly the same factors will express them as follows: The one _HH_ (double factor for horns) proves sufficient to express horns, even in a female. The _AA_, lacking the factor entirely, cannot have horns. Nor will the two _HA_ females have horns, a single dose being insufficient to express them in a female. Again we get our three-to-one Mendelian ratio, but this time it is three hornless to one horned. Especially Goldschmidt's carefully graded experiments point to a similar difference in the strength of the dose or doses of the sex factors. Instead of the two doses of horns required to express them in the presence of the female secretory balance in Professor Wood's sheep, Goldschmidt found it took six doses of maleness to completely express it on a female basis in his moths. But even with three doses, the female was incapable of reproduction. A single dose in excess of the ordinary combination to produce normal females modified the type of body, also reducing the number of eggs. In the case of the horns, only two types were possible, absence or presence of the character. Likewise there are only two types of primary sex, i.e., of sex glands proper. But seven different types or grades of body for each sex were found to exhibit themselves in the moths. In more complicated bodies, we should of course expect many more, and where many races (instead of two) are mixed, as in man, a classification merely on the basis of physical characteristics would be much more complicated. Indeed, we may well be sceptical as to the possibilities of cataloguing differences of the sort between men and women by body type alone. In society, however, we are much more interested in the mental than the purely physical qualities of the two types of bodies, especially since the use of machines has so largely replaced brute strength with skill. Most employments do not even require a muscular skill beyond that possessed by ordinary individuals of both sexes. Even this ignores the primary consideration in the sex problem in society, the first of the following two parts into which the whole problem may be divided: (1) _How to guarantee the survival of the group through reproduction_ of a sufficient number of capable individuals; and (2) How to make the most economical use of the remaining energies, first in winning nutrition and protection from the environment, second in pursuing the distinctly human values over and above survival. The sex problem as a whole is concerned with adjusting two different general types of individuals, male and female, to the complicated business of such group life or society. The differences between these two sex-types being fundamentally functional, the best way to get at them is to trace the respective and unlike life cycles. We have already shown in rude outline how a difference (apparently chemical) between two fertilized eggs starts them along two different lines of development in the embryonic stage. One develops the characteristic male primary and secondary sex characters, the other the female. Throughout the embryonic or intra-maternal stage this differentiation goes on, becoming more and more fixed as it expresses itself in physical structures. Childhood is only a continuation of this development--physically separate from the mother after the period of lactation. Until puberty, when sex ceases to be merely potential and becomes functional (about 12-14 in girls and 14-16 boys), the differences in metabolism are not very marked. Neither are they in old age, after sex has ceased to be functional. It is during the period when sex is functional (about 35 years in women and considerably longer in men) that the gross physiological differences manifest themselves. Before puberty in both sexes, calcium or lime salts are retained in the tissues and go to build up the bony skeleton. (A mere sketch of calcium metabolism is all that can be given here--for details consult such works as 15 and 17 in bibliography; summary in 14; pp. 34f. & 161f.) Note that puberty comes earlier in girls than in boys, and that the skeleton therefore remains lighter. During the reproductive period in women these salts are heavily drawn upon for the use of the reproductive system. The male reproductive system draws upon them as well, though the drain is very slight as compared to that in women. In old age these salts produce senility through deposit in the tissues, especially in the arteries. At the pubertal age in girls begins the phenomenon known as menstruation, in which there is a large excretion of calcium salts. In pregnancy these are needed for building the skeleton of the foetus, and at delivery go to the breasts to assist in lactation. Bell states that there is a noticeable connection between early menstruation and short stature, and _vice versa_. What is commonly known as menstruation lasts only a few days, and is merely the critical period in a monthly cycle or periodicity which goes with the female sex specialization. This period involves the gradual preparation of the uterus or womb for a guest, together with the maturing of the ova. Then the Graafian follicles containing the ova break and these latter enter the uterus for fertilization. If fertilization takes place, the fertilized egg buries itself in the wall and development of the embryo proceeds. Menstruation stops, the calcium salts being required for the growing embryo. There is likely to be no menstruation for a considerable time after delivery if the child is nursed, as is normal. This gives the uterus time for devolution to the normal, before a surplus of calcium salts sets the periodicity going again. If the egg which passes from the ovary to the uterus is not fertilized, it is excreted, the uterus goes through another monthly cycle of preparation for the period of intra-maternal environment, and so on indefinitely until the climacteric. This climacteric or decay of sexuality is a rather critical time, especially in women. It marks the period at which the metabolism can no longer support the strain of reproduction. A surplus of calcium brings on senility, as noted above. Withdrawal of the interests which centre in sex, together with the marked accompanying physical changes, involves a shift of mental attitude which is also frequently serious. A British coroner stated in the _British Medical Journal_ in 1900 (Vol. 2, p.792) that a majority of 200 cases of female suicide occurred at this period, while in the case of younger women suicide is peculiarly likely to occur during menstruation. Krugelstein and Lombroso, respectively, remark the same tendencies.[18] It is a matter of almost everyday observation that men and women in the neighbourhood of fifty suddenly find themselves disoriented in the world. Tolstoi, for example, who had written passionately of passion in his earlier years, suddenly awoke, according to his "Confessions," from what seemed to him afterward to have been a bad dream. In this case, the result was a new version of religion as a new anchorage for the man's life. It may be pacifism, prohibition, philanthropy, or any one of a very large number of different interests--but there must usually be something to furnish zest to a life which has ceased to be a sufficient excuse for itself. If freed from worry about economic realities, it is not infrequently possible for the first time for these people to "balance" their lives--to find in abstraction a rounded perfection for which earlier in life we seek in vain as strugglers in a world of change. Thus old people are often highly conservative, i.e., impatient of change in their social environment, involving re-orientation; they wish the rules of the game let alone, so they can pursue the new realities they have created for themselves. Socially, the old are of course a very important factor since a changed metabolism sets them somewhat outside the passionate interests which drive people forward, often in wrong directions, in the prime of life. Hence in a sense the old can judge calmly, as outsiders. Like youth before it has yet come in contact with complicated reality, they often see men and women as "each chasing his separate phantom." While such conservatism, in so far as it is judicial, is of value to society, looking at it from the viewpoint of biology we see also some bad features. _Senex_, the old man, often says to younger people, "These things you pursue are valueless--I too have sought them, later abandoned the search and now see my folly;" not realizing that if his blood were to resume its former chemical character he would return to the quest. Elderly people, then, biological neuters, come especially within the problem of the economical use of the social as distinguished from the biological capacities of the race. They affect the sex problem proper, which applies to a younger age-class, only through their opinions. Some of these opinions are hangovers from the time in their own lives when they had stronger sexual interests, and some are peculiar to people of their readjusted glandular activity. Their reproductive contribution to society has been made. Pre-pubertal childhood and youth, on the contrary, has its biological contributions to society still before it. The glandular activity of boys and girls is perhaps not so unlike as to justify society in giving them a different kind of education and preparation for group life. The excuse for two sorts of training is that the two sexes will not do the same work after puberty. Hence the question of youthful training is sociological almost entirely--not biological--or rather, it rests upon the biology, not of childhood but of the reproductive period, which society anticipates. Instead of scattering attention over the whole history of the universe, then, or even over the general field of biology, in dealing with sex as a social problem, the emphasis must be upon the human life cycle during the functional-reproductive period. Other biological data than that which concerns this period is merely introductory or explanatory. The extent to which the sociological problem involved is linked up with general biological considerations like natural selection, adaptation and specialization will be summarized in a separate chapter. Earlier female maturity and puberty, as well as lighter structure, have already been accounted for by the metabolism, especially of the calcium salts. These have also been shown to be the key fact in the monthly periodicity of the mammalian female. Nearly all of the anatomical and physiological sex differences catalogued by such pioneer workers as Ellis, Ploss, Thomas and Bucura are simply what we should expect from the less active and in some ways peculiar metabolism of woman. Among such differences are the size and shape of bones and other body structures, the more plentiful hæmoglobin in male blood during the reproductive period, and such blood peculiarities as the production of more carbonic acid or the higher specific gravity in the male. The greater percentage of fat as compared with muscle in women[19], if it is generally true, is what we should expect from a lower metabolism and a tendency to store materials. The long list of diseases which are more or less sex-limited [20; 14, pp.160f.; 18] are largely endocrine. Even those which do not primarily concern the internal secretory system would be expected to work somewhat differently in the presence of unlike blood streams. As to the greater average weight of the male brain, this is true of the whole body. Brain weight, either absolute or relative to body weight, is not positively known to be in any way correlated (in normal people) with mental capacity. A library might be stocked with the vast literature devoted to summarizing and cataloguing sex differences; and most of it would be useless from the standpoint of sociology. Unaccompanied by the criticisms a biologist would have to make on the method of their ascertainment and validity, not to mention their significance, such lists can easily do--and probably have done--more harm than good. One simple and reasonable criterion would reduce this catalogue to fairly modest proportions, so far as social science is concerned: _Which ones have an obvious or even probable social significance?_ Over and above that, while such contrasts may be of speculative interest, they lead imaginative people to argue from them by analogy and thus cloud the real issues. What are the outstandingly significant sex differences which application of the above criterion leaves? (1) A less active and more uneven metabolism of woman; (2) Associated with this, less physical strength on the average--hence an inferior adaptability to some kinds of work, resulting in a narrower range of choice of occupation, disadvantageous in competitive society; (3) But the one fundamental difference, to which all the others are as nothing, is the specialization of the mammalian female body and metabolism to furnish the intra-maternal environment (approximately nine months in the human species) for the early development of the young and lactation for some months afterward. This last may be said to include the former two, which were arbitrarily placed first because they are always in evidence, whether reproduction is undertaken or not. This takes us out of cell and endocrine biology and into the general problem in group adjustment to environment which that specialization entails. BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER III 1. Goldschmidt, R. Experimental Intersexuality and the Sex Problem. Amer. Naturalist, 1916. Vol. 50, pp. 705f. 2. Goldschmidt, R. Preliminary Report on Further Experiments in Inheritance and Determination of Sex. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sc, 1916. Vol. II, No. 1, pp. 53f. 3. Goldschmidt, R. A Case of Facultative Parthenogenesis. Biol. Bulletin, 1917. Vol. XXXII, No. 1, p. 38. 4. Goldschmidt, R. Intersexuality and the Endocrine Aspect of Sex. Endocrinology, Vol. I, p. 434. 1917. Fine summary of the work done on moths, birds and various forms by many biologists. 5. Riddle, Dr Oscar. Quantitative Basis of Sex as indicated by the Sex-Behaviour of Doves from a Sex-Controlled Series. Science, n.s., Vol. 39, p. 440, 1914. 6. Riddle, Dr Oscar. Sex Control and Known Correlations in Pegeons. Amer. Nat. Vol. L, pp. 385-410. 7. Benedict, F.G. & Emmes, L.E. A Comparison of the Basal Metabolism of Men and Women. Jour. Biol. Chem. Vol. 20. No. 3. 1914. 8. Schäfer, Sir E.A. Endocrine Glands and Internal Secretions. Stanford University, 1914, p. 91. 9. Paton, D. Noël. Regulators of Metabolism. London, 1913, p. 146. 10. Weininger, Otto. Sex and Character. London & N.Y., 1906. Eng. trans. of Geschlecht u. Charakter, Vienna & Leipzig, 1901 & 1903. 11. Leland, C.G. The Alternate Sex. London, 1904. 12. Carpenter, Edw. Love's Coming of Age. London, 1906. 13. George, W.L. The Intelligence of Woman, Boston, 1916. 14. Bell, Dr Blair. The Sex Complex, London, 1916. 15. Bell, Dr. Blair. Gynæcology. London, 1919. 16. Bateson, W. Mendel's Principles of Heredity. 1909, pp. 169-70. 17. Marshall, F.H. A Physiology of Reproduction. London, 1910. 18. Ellis, Havelock. Man and Woman. 1904 ed., pp. 284f 19. Thomas, W.I. Sex and Society. 1907, p. 19. 20. Schäfer, Sir Edw. An Introduction to the Study of Internal Secretions. London, 1916, pp. 106f. CHAPTER IV SEX SPECIALIZATION AND GROUP SURVIVAL Adaptation and specialization; Reproduction a group not an individual problem; Conflict between specialization and adaptation; Intelligence makes for economy in adjustment to environment; Reproduction, not production, the chief factor in the sex problem. From the facts briefly stated in the preceding chapters it is quite evident that the general superiority of man over woman or _vice versa_ cannot be proven by biology. Such an idea arises from a careless and unscientific use of language. Superiority is a term which, when used to express the rather exact ideas of biology, is employed in a carefully limited and specific, not in a general, sense. That is, superiority, even if an apparently general idea like survival value is referred to, always implies a given, understood environment where such is not specifically mentioned. Wolves, for example, might be found to possess superior chances for survival over foxes, beaver or partridges in a given environment. A biologist would probably use more exact and less ambiguous terms to express such a fact, and say that wolves were the best _adapted_ to the given surroundings. If all these animals continued to live side by side in the given environment, they could be compared only as to specific details--size, strength, cunning, fleetness in running, swimming or flying, concealment from enemies, etc. Then the biologist would probably make his meaning perfectly clear by stating that one is _specialized_ in one direction or another. Especially is general superiority a vague idea when the things compared are different but mutually necessary or complementary. If their functions overlap to some extent (i.e., if certain acts can be performed by either), we may say that one is better adapted to a certain activity than the other. Thus it may be that women are generally better adapted to caring for young children than are men, or that men are on the whole better adapted to riveting boiler plates, erecting skyscrapers, or sailing ships. Where their activities do not overlap at all, even the word adaptation hardly applies. For example, women are not better "adapted" to furnishing the intra-maternal environment for the young, since men are not adapted to it at all. It is a case of female _specialization_. Men being neither specialized nor adapted, to any extent whatever, to this particular activity, any attempt at comparison is obviously fruitless, since one term is always zero. This specialization, absolutely necessary to the survival of human groups, is either present or it is absent in a given individual. Any attempt to formulate a general proposition about superiority either attaches purely arbitrary values to different kinds of activity or is absurd from the standpoint of the most elementary logic. From the standpoint of biology, reproduction is not an individual but a group problem, however many problems of detail it may give rise to in individual lives. Sex involves the division of the reproductive process, without the exercise of which any human group would perish very shortly, into two complementary, mutually necessary but unequal parts. (This statement applies only to the reproductive process, as obviously the male and female gametes contribute equally to the formation of the new individual). Neither part (the male or the female) of this process is more necessary than the other, both being _absolutely_ necessary. But the female specialization for furnishing the intra-maternal environment makes her share more burdensome. Biologically considered, not even two individuals (male and female), together with their offspring, can be more than an arbitrary "unit" as concerns sex, since inbreeding eventually impoverishes the stock. Hence outcrosses are necessary. To intelligibly consider the sex problem in the human species, then, we must always predicate a considerable _group_ of people, with such organization and division of activities as to guarantee that all the processes necessary to survival will be carried on. Sex is a group problem. Considering the mutual interdependence and the diversity of activities in human society, to make the generalization that one sex is superior to the other is on a par with saying that roots and branches are superior to trunks and leaves. It is sheer foolishness. Yet oceans of ink have flowed in attempts to establish one or the other of two equally absurd propositions. Since the specialization to furnish the intra-maternal environment for the young makes the female part of the reproductive process essentially and unavoidably more burdensome than the male, it results that an economical division of the extra-reproductive activities of any group must throw an unequal share upon the males. This specialization to carry the young during the embryonic period is thus at the base of the division of labour between the sexes. It is the chief factor involved in the problems of sex, and gives rise, directly or indirectly, to most of the others. But the sex problem as a whole is one of adaptation as well as of specialization. An incident of the female specialization is a type of body on the average smaller, weaker and less well adapted to some other activities than is the male body, even when reproduction is not undertaken. A great complication is added by the fact that some women, and also some men, are better adapted than others to nonreproductive activities. This is another way of saying that the type of body associated with either type of sex glands varies a good deal, for reasons and in respects already pointed out. The most important fact about this reproductive specialization is that beyond fertilization it is _exclusive_ in the female. Since the males cannot furnish the intra-parental environment for the young, the entire burden must fall on half the group. If this aggregation is to even hold its own numerically, its women must have, on an average, two children each, _plus about one more_ for unavoidable waste--death in infancy or childhood, sterility, obvious unfitness for reproduction, etc., i.e., _three_ in all. If one woman has less than her three children, then another must have more than three, or the group number will decrease. _Group survival is the fundamental postulate in a problem of this kind._ The above figure is for civilized society. In primitive groups, the terrific wastage makes a much higher birth-rate necessary, several times as high in many cases. If we suppose such a group, where child mortality, lack of sanitation, etc., necessitates an average of eight children per woman (instead of three), the biological origin of the division of labour between the sexes is much more clearly seen than it is in civilized societies. If men are better hunters or fighters than women, the latter could nevertheless hunt and fight--it is a question of superior or inferior adaptation to particular activities. But it is more than that. _Only_ the women are biologically specialized to the chief reproductive burden (intra-parental environment and lactation). If half the women should withdraw from child-bearing, the remainder would be obliged to average _sixteen_ apiece. But even this is not all. Unfortunately, the half of the women who would be found best adapted to hunting and fighting would be the more vigorous half. The new generation would thus be born from the leftovers, and would be poor quality. Such a division of labour within a group would be fatally foolish and entirely uncalled for--since there are plenty of men adapted to hunting and fighting, but entirely unspecialized to child-bearing and nursing. Group survival being the fundamental thing, the group is obliged to develop a division of labour which directs the activities of the individuals composing it to providing for its necessities, regardless of any interference with their own desires. That is, if group survival requires that woman use her specialization to child-bearing instead of any adaptation she may possess in other directions, one of two things inevitably result: (1) Either the group finds or evolves some social control machinery which meets the necessity, or (2) it must give way to some other group which can do so. In either case, the result is a division of labour, which we see more clearly in primitive peoples. The less efficient group is not necessarily exterminated, but if it loses out in the competition until some other group is able to conquer it and impose _its_ division of labour the result is of course the extinction of the conquered group as an integral part of society. This is simply natural selection working on groups. Natural selection works chiefly in this manner on the human species, _because that species lives in groups_. Such group control of the component individuals as has been described has led to a division of labour between the sexes in every primitive society. All this means is that the group adopting such a division has greater survival value, and hence is more likely to be represented in later ages. It must not be supposed that such systems of control were always logically thought out or deliberately planned. Even animals which live in herds or colonies have divisions of labour. Through an infinite slaughter of the least fit, such groups arrive at some kind of instinctive adjustment to produce and protect the young. The crudest human intelligence must have eliminated much of the waste involved, by comprehending obvious cause-and-effect relations which animals have to arrive at through trial and error methods. For example, an intelligence capable of employing artificial weapons is also able to see that the wielder of these for group defence cannot be encumbered with baggage or children when the group is in movement. Hence women became the burden bearers, and took care of the children, even after the nursing period. War parties could not generally be mixed, for the obvious reasons that such women as did not have young children would be pregnant a good deal of the time, or likely to become so. Moreover, a hunter and fighter must not have his courage, ferocity and physical initiative undermined by unsuitable employments and associations. In a semi-settled group, the hunter and warrior cannot be relied upon to keep hearth-fires burning or tend crops, even though he may occasionally have time for such activities. These duties are therefore relegated to the women, whose child-bearing functions impose upon them a more sedentary existence. Women must reproduce practically up to their full capacity to fill up the gaps made by war, accident and disease as well as death from old age. To this biological service which they alone can perform are added those which lie nearest it and interfere least with carrying it out. We must therefore keep in view _all_ the activities of any group in which the sex problem is being studied. There is a certain tendency to disregard the female specialization to child-bearing, and to regard the sex question as one merely of adaptation to extra-biological services. In every group which has survived, some machinery--a "crust of custom," reinforced by more arbitrary laws or regulations--has sought to guarantee reproduction by keeping women out of lines of endeavour which might endanger that fundamental group necessity. Primitive societies which got stabilized within a given territory and found their birth-rate dangerously _high_ could always keep it down by exposing or destroying some of the unfit children, or a certain per cent of the female children, or both. In primitive groups, the individual was practically _nil_. But modern civilized society is able to survive without the rigid control of individual activities which the old economy entailed. Man comes to choose more and more for himself individually instead of for the group, uniformity weakens and individualism becomes more pronounced. As control of environment becomes more complete and easy, natural selection grows harder to detect. We turn our interests and activities toward the search for what we want and take survival largely for granted--something the savage cannot do. Natural selection becomes unreal to us, because the things we do to survive are so intricately mixed up with those we do for other reasons. Natural selection in gregarious animals operates upon groups rather than upon individuals. Arrangement of these groups is often very intricate. Some have territorial boundaries and some have not. Often they overlap, identical individuals belonging to several. Hence it is not strange that natural selection phenomena often escape attention. But this must not lead us to suppose that natural selection is wholly inoperative in civilized society. We see some nations outbreeding others, or dominating them through superior organization. Within nations, some racial and religious groups outbreed others and thus gradually supplant them--_for the future is to those who furnish its populations_. CHAPTER V RACIAL DEGENERATION AND THE NECESSITY FOR RATIONALIZATION OF THE MORES Racial decay in modern society; Purely "moral" control dysgenic in civilized society; New machinery for social control; Mistaken notion that reproduction is an individual problem; Economic and other factors in the group problem of reproduction. From the discussion in the preceding chapter, it becomes apparent that for the half of the female element in a savage society possessing the most vigor and initiative to turn away from reproduction would in the long run be fatal to the group. Yet this is what occurs in large measure in modern civilized society. Reproduction is a biological function. It is non-competitive, as far as the individual is concerned, and offers no material rewards. The breakdown of the group's control over the detailed conduct and behaviour of its members is accompanied by an increasing stress upon material rewards to individuals. So with growing individualism, in the half of the race which can both bear children and compete in the social activities offering rewards, i.e., the women who are specialized to the former and adapted to the latter, there is a growing tendency among the most successful, individualized strains, to choose the social and eschew the biological functions. Racial degeneration is the result. Recorded history is one succession of barbarous races, under strong, primitive breeding conditions, swamping their more civilized, individualized neighbours, adopting the dysgenic ways of civilization and then being swamped in their turn by barbarians. This is especially pronounced in our own times because popularized biological and medical knowledge makes it possible for a tremendous class of the most successful and enlightened to avoid reproduction without foregoing sex activity. In primitive groups, a "moral" control which kept all women at reproduction was neither eugenic nor dysgenic unless accompanied by systematic destruction of the least fit children. By "moral" control is meant the use of taboo, prejudice, religious abhorrence for certain acts and the like. The carefully nurtured moral ideas about sex and reproduction simply represent the system of coercion which groups have found most effective in enforcing the division of reproductive and other activities among the individual members. When this social machinery grew up, to regulate sexual activity was in general to regulate reproduction. The natural sex desire proved sufficiently powerful and general to still seek its object, even with the group handicaps and regulations imposed to meet the reproductive necessity. But contraceptive knowledge, etc., has now become so general that to regulate sex activity is no longer to regulate reproduction. The taboo or "moral" method of regulation has become peculiarly degenerating to race quality, because the most intelligent, rationalized individuals are least affected by it. There is no turning back to control by ignorance. Even theoretically, the only way to stop such a disastrous selection of the unfit would be to rationalize reproduction--so that _nobody_ shall reproduce the species through sheer ignorance of how to evade or avoid it. This done, some type of social control must be found which will enable civilized societies to breed from their best instead of their worst stock. Under the old scheme, already half broken down, natural selection favours primitive rather than civilized societies through decreased birth-rates and survival of the unfit in the latter. Even this is true only where the savage groups are not interfered with by the civilized, a condition rapidly disappearing through modern occidental imperialism and the inoculation of primitive peoples with "civilized" diseases such as syphilis, rum-drinking and rampant individualism. To continually encourage the racially most desirable women to disregard their sexual specialization and exploit their social-competitive adaptation must, obviously destroy the group which pursues such a policy. The only way to make such a course democratic is to carefully instruct all women, rich and poor, wise and ignorant, in the methods of avoiding reproduction and to inject the virus of individualism in all alike. Then the group can get its population supply only by a new system of control. To remove any economic handicaps to child-bearing is certainly not out of harmony with our ideas of justice. In removing the economic handicaps at present connected with the reproductive function in women, care must also be taken that the very measures which insure this do not themselves become dysgenic influences. Such schemes as maternity insurance, pensions for mothers, and most of the propositions along this line, may offer an inducement to women of the poorer classes to assume the burdens connected with their specialization for child-bearing. But their more fortunate sisters, who find themselves so well adapted to modern conditions that they are even moderately successful in the competition for material rewards, will hardly find recompense thus for turning from their social to their biological functions. To these highly individualized modern women must be presented more cogent reasons for taking upon themselves the burden of reproducing the group. It is obvious that from just this energetic female stock we should obtain a large part of the next generation if we are at all concerned over the welfare of the group and its chances of survival. One suggestion is that we may be able to turn their very individualism to account and use it as a potent factor in the social control of their reproductive activities. If we can demonstrate on the basis of sound biological data that the bearing of children is necessary for the full and complete development of the individual woman, physically and mentally, we shall have gone a long way toward securing voluntary motherhood. Only such argument will induce the highly individualized, who may also be the most vital, woman to turn of her own accord from competitive social activities to the performance of the biological function for which she is specialized. This is especially true, as has been intimated above, since contraceptive knowledge now permits the exercise of sexual functions without the natural consequences, and the avoidance of motherhood no longer involves the denial of expression to the sexual urge. Even if we are able to utilize this method of control, it will not obtain the requisite number of offspring to maintain the eugenic quality of the group, since the bearing of one or two children would be all that individual development would require. If the group must have on the average three children from each of its women in order to replace itself, the larger part of the reproductive activities will still be confined to the more ignorant, or if they also make use of contraceptive knowledge, the group will simply die out from the effects of its own democratic enlightenment. Thus it becomes apparent that we must find some more potent force than this narrow form of self-interest to accomplish the social purposes of reproduction. When reproduction is generally understood to be as thoroughly a matter of group survival as for example the defensive side in a war of extermination, the same sentiment of group loyalty which now takes such forms as patriotism can be appealed to. If the human race is unsocial it will perish anyway. If it has not become unsocial--and it does not display any such tendency, but only the use of such impulses in mistaken directions--then a group necessity like reproduction can be met. Whatever is required of the individual will become "moral" and "patriotic"--i.e., it will be wreathed in the imperishable sentiments which group themselves around socially necessary and hence socially approved acts everywhere and always. In whatever races finally survive, the women of good stock as well as poor--perhaps eventually the good even more than the poor--will reproduce themselves. Because of our ideals of individual liberty, this may not be achieved by taboo, ignorance or conscription for motherhood. But when it is found to be the personal interest to bear children, both as a means of complete physical and mental development and as a way of winning social approval and esteem, it will become as imperative for woman to fulfil the biological function to which she is specialized as it was under the old system of moral and taboo control. The increasing emphasis on the necessity of motherhood for the maintenance of a normal, health personality, and the growing tendency to look upon this function as the greatest service which woman can render to society, are manifest signs that this time is approaching. There is little doubt that woman will be as amenable to these newer and more rationalized mores as human nature has always been to the irrationally formed customs and traditions of the past. To ignore the female specialization involved in furnishing the intramaternal environment for three children, on an average, to the group, is simply foolish. If undertaken at maturity--say from twenty-two to twenty-five years of age--and a two-year interval left between the three in the interest of both mother and children, it puts woman in an entirely different relation toward extra-reproductive activities than man. It does imply a division of labour. In general, it would seem socially expedient to encourage each woman to have her own three children, instead of shifting the burden upon the shoulders of some other. If such activities of nursing and caring for the very young can be pooled, so much the better. Doubtless some women who find them distasteful would be much more useful to society at other work. But let us not disregard fundamentals. It is obviously advantageous for children of normal, able parents to be cared for in the home environment. In a _biologically healthy_ society the presumption must be that the average woman has some three children of her own. Since this obviously includes nurses and governesses, we see at once the futility of the oft-proposed class solution of hiring single women to care for the children of the fortunate. If such a servant is undesirable, she is not hired; if normal, in a biologically healthy society she would have her own children. The female handicap incident to reproduction may be illustrated by the case of Hambletonian 10 mentioned in Chapter II. We saw that a female could not have borne the hundredth part of his colts. This simply means that the effort or individual cost of impressing his characters upon the new generation is less than one one-hundredth that required of a female. Among domestic animals this is made use of to multiply the better males to the exclusion of the others, a valuable biological expedient which we are denied in human groups because it would upset all our social institutions. So we do the next best thing and make the males do more than half in the extra-biological activities of society, since they are by their structure prevented from having an equal share in the reproductive burden. This is an absolutely necessary equation, and there will always be some sort of division of labour on the basis of it. Since reproduction is a group, not an individual, necessity, whatever economic burden it entails must eventually be assumed by society and divided up among the individuals, like the cost of war or any other group activity. Ideally, then, from the standpoint of democracy, every individual, male or female, should bear his share as a matter of course. This attitude toward reproduction, as an individual duty but a group economic burden, would lead to the solution of most of the problems involved. Negative eugenics should be an immediate assumption--if the state must pay for offspring, the quality will immediately begin to be considered. A poor race-contribution, not worth paying for, would certainly be prevented as far as possible. Some well-meaning radical writers mistakenly suppose that the emancipation of women means the withdrawal by the group of any interest in, or any attempt to regulate, such things as the hours and conditions of female labour. That would simply imply that the group takes no interest in reproduction--in its own survival. For if the group does not make some equation for the greater burden of reproduction upon women, the inevitable result will be that that particular service will not be rendered by those most desirable to be preserved. Given the fundamental assumption that the group is to survive--to be perpetuated by the one possible means--if it withdraws all solicitude about the handicap this entails to women as a whole, introducing a spirit of laissez-faire competition between men and women, the women with sense enough to see the point will not encumber themselves with children. For each one of these who has no children, some other woman must have six instead of three. And some people encourage this in the name of democracy! The most involved problems must inevitably centre around the women who, to quote Mrs. Hollingworth, "vary from the mode," but are yet functional for sex. Some have no sex desires at all, some no craving for or attachment to children, some neither of these. It is a question still to be solved whether some of them ought, in the interest of the race, to be encouraged to reproduce themselves. In less individualized primitive society, seclusion, taboo and ignorance coerced them into reproduction. Any type of control involving the inculcation of "moral" ideas is open to the objection that it may work on those who should not reproduce themselves as well as those who should. In a sense, this problem will tend to solve itself. With the substitution of the more rationalized standards of self-interest and group loyalty for the irrational taboo control of reproductive activities, there will be as much freedom for women to choose whether they will accept maternity as there is now, in the period of transition from the old standards to the new. The chief difference will be that many of the artificial forces which are acting as barriers to motherhood at the present time--as for example the economic handicap involved--will be removed, and woman's choice will therefore be more entirely in harmony with her native instinctive tendencies. Thus those women endowed with the most impelling desire for children will, as a rule, have the largest number. In all probability their offspring will inherit the same strong parental instinct. The stocks more poorly endowed with this impulse will tend to die out by the very lack of any tendency to self-perpetuation. It is only logical to conclude, therefore, that as we set up the new forces of social control outlined in this chapter, we are at the same time providing more scope for natural selection, and that the problem of aberrant types consequently becomes only a transitory one. PART II THE INSTITUTIONALIZED SEX TABOO BY IVA LOWTHER PETERS, PH.D. CHAPTER I THE PRIMITIVE ATTITUDE TOWARD SEX AND WOMANHOOD Primitive social control; Its rigidity; Its necessity; Universality of this control in the form of taboos; Connection between the universal attitude of primitive peoples towards woman as shown in the Institutionalized Sex Taboo and the magic-religious belief in Mana; Relation of Mana to Taboo; Discussion of Sympathetic Magic and the associated idea of danger from contact; Difficulties in the way of an inclusive definition of Taboo; Its dual nature; Comparison of concepts of Crawley, Frazer, Marett and others; Conclusion that Taboo is Negative Mana; Contribution of modern psychology to the study of Taboo; Freud's analogy between the dualistic attitude toward the tabooed object and the ambivalence of the emotions; The understanding of this dualism together with the primitive belief in Mana and Sympathetic Magic explains much in the attitude of man toward woman; The vast amount of evidence in the taboos of many peoples of dualism in the attitude toward woman. Possible physiological explanation of this dualistic attitude of man toward woman found in a period before self-control had in some measure replaced social control, in the reaction of weakness and disgust following sex festivals. A study of the elaborate, standardized, and authoritative systems of social control found among all primitive peoples gives a vivid impression of the difficulty of the task of compelling man to die to himself, that is, to become a socius. The rigors and rituals of initiation ceremonies at adolescence impressed the duties of sociality at that impressionable period. The individual who refused to bow his head to the social yoke became a vagabond, an outcast, an excommunicate. In view of the fierceness of the struggle for food and the attitude toward the stranger among all primitives, the outcast's life chances were unenviable. It was preferable to adapt one's self to the social order. "Bad" traits were the more easily suppressed in return for the re-enforcement of power which was the striking feature of group life; power over enemies, power over nature, and a re-enforcement of the emotional life of the individual which became the basis on which were built up the magico-religious ceremonies of institutionalized religion. It is the purpose of this study to consider a phase of social life in which there can be traced a persistence into modern times of a primitive form of control which in a pre-rational stage of group life made possible the comparatively harmonious interplay of antagonistic forces. This form of control is called Taboo. A student of the phenomenon, a recognized authority on its ethnological interpretation, says of it: "To illustrate the continuity of culture and the identity of the elementary human ideas in all ages, it is sufficient to point to the ease with which the Polynesian word _tabu_ has passed into modern language."[1, p.16] We shall attempt to show that at least one form of taboo, the Institutionalized Sex Taboo, is co-extensive with human social experience, and exists to-day at the base of family life, the socialized form of sex relationship. The family as a social institution has been scarcely touched until a very recent historical period by the rationalizing process that has affected religious and political institutions. Economic changes resultant upon the introduction of an industrial era which showed the importance of women in diverse social relations were causes of this new effort at adaptation to changing conditions. It became apparent that taboos in the form of customs, ceremonials, beliefs, and conventions, all electrically charged with emotional content, have guarded the life of woman from change, and with her the functions peculiar to family life. There has doubtless been present in some of these taboos "a good hard common-sense element." But there are also irrational elements whose persistence has resulted in hardship, blind cruelty, and over-standardization. In order to comprehend the attitude of early man toward sex and womanhood, and to understand the system of taboo control which grew out of this attitude, it is only reasonable to suppose that the prehistoric races, like the uncivilized peoples of the present time, were inclined to explain all phenomena as the result of the action of spiritistic forces partaking of both a magical and religious nature. This supernatural principle which the primitive mind conceived as an all-pervading, universal essence, is most widely known as _mana_, although it has been discussed under other names.[A] Certain persons, animals and objects[B] are often held to be imbued to an unusual degree with this _mana_, and hence are to be regarded as holy and held in awe. Inasmuch as man may wish to use this power for his own purposes, a ceremonial cult would naturally grow up by which this would become possible. Otherwise, to come in contact with these objects directly or indirectly, besides profaning their sanctity would be exceedingly dangerous for the transgressor, because of this same power of transmission of a dread and little understood force. Therefore, all such persons, animals or objects are taboo and must be avoided. Under these circumstances it can be seen that taboos are unanalyzed, unrationalized "Don'ts," connected with the use and wont which have crystallized around the wish of man to manipulate the mysterious and often desirable features of his environment, notably those connected with possession, food, and sex. [Footnote A: The Australians call it Arunkulta, the Iroquis Indians Orenda and other North American tribes Wakonda, the Melanesians Mana.] [Footnote B: Dr F.B. Jevons[2] says: "These things ... are alike taboo: the dead body; the new-born child; blood and the shedder of blood; the divine being as well as the criminal; the sick, outcasts, and foreigners; animals as well as men; women especially, the married woman as well as the sacred virgin; food, clothes, vessels, property, house, bed, canoes, the threshing floor, the winnowing fan, a name, a word, a day; all are or may be taboo because dangerous. This short list does not contain one-hundredth part of the things which are supposed to be dangerous; but even if it were filled out and made tolerably complete, it would, by itself, fail to give any idea of the actual extent and importance of the institution of taboo."] The idea of the transmission of _mana_ through contact is concomitant with the notion of _sympathetic magic_, defined as the belief that the qualities of one thing can be mysteriously transferred to another. The most familiar illustration is that of the hunter who will not eat the heart of the deer he has killed lest he become timid like that animal, while to eat the heart of a lion would be to gain all the fierce courage of that beast.[A] This belief becomes so elaborated that the qualities of one object are finally thought to be transferred to another which has never come into direct contact with the first, the transition being accomplished through the agency of a third object which has been in contact with both the others and thus acts as the conducting medium through which the qualities of one pass into the other. [Footnote A: E.B. Tylor[3] has called attention to the belief that the qualities of the eaten pass into the eater as an explanation of the food taboos and prejudices of savage peoples.] Just as the holy thing, which is to be feared as the seat of a mystic, supernatural force, is to be avoided lest harm befall from contact with it, or lest it be denied by human touch and its divine essence be affected, so the unclean thing is also made taboo lest it infect man with its own evil nature. Even as the savage will not have his idol polluted by contact with his own personality, however indirect, so he would himself avoid pollution in similar fashion by shunning that which is unclean. Here also the avoidance of the tabooed person or thing is based on the principle of sympathetic magic understood as a method of transference of qualities, and on belief in the possibility of infection by contact. The dual nature of taboo as the avoidance of both the sacred and the unclean is noted by authorities on the subject who differ in other respects as to the definition of taboo, such as in the relation of taboo to the magical ceremonies by which man undertook to mould his environment to his wishes. Whether the tabooed object be regarded in one light or the other, the breaking of taboo is associated with dread of the unknown--besides the fear of infection with the qualities of the tabooed object according to the laws of sympathetic magic. There is also the fear of the mysterious and supernatural, whether conceived as the mana force or as a principle of "bad magic." Dr. J.G. Frazer has collected into the many volumes of "The Golden Bough" a mass of evidence concerning the taboos of primitive society. On the basis of his definition of magic as "a misapplication of the ideas of association by similarity and contiguity," Dr. Frazer divided magic into "positive magic," or charms, and "negative magic," or taboo. "Positive magic says, 'Do this in order that so and so may happen.' Negative magic or taboo says 'Do not do this lest so and so should happen.'"[4, p.111, v.I.] But Dr. Frazer's conclusion, which he himself considered only tentative, was not long left unassailed. Prof. R.R. Marett in his essay "Is Taboo a Negative Magic?"[5] called attention to the very evident fact that Dr. Frazer's definition would not cover the characteristics of some of the best known taboos, the food taboos of Prof. Tylor to which we have previously alluded in this study, as a consequence of which "the flesh of timid animals is avoided by warriors, but they love the meat of tigers, boars, and stags, for their courage and speed."[3, p.131.] Are not these food taboos rather, Dr. Marett asks, a "misapplication of the ideas of association by similarity and contiguity" amounting to the sympathetic taboos so carefully described by such writers on Magic as MM. Hubert and Mauss of L'Année Sociologique? Still another kind of taboos mentioned by Dr. Frazer but amplified by Mr. Crawley in "The Mystic Rose," the taboos on knots at childbirth, marriage, and death, are much better described by the term "sympathetic taboo." Moreover, if taboo were a form of magic as defined by Dr. Frazer, it would be a somewhat definite and measurable quantity; whereas the distinguishing characteristic of taboo everywhere is the "infinite plus of awfulness" always accompanying its violation. As Dr. Marett observes, there may be certain definite results, such as prescribed punishment for violations against which a legal code is in process of growth. There may be also social "growlings," showing the opposition of public opinion to which the savage is at least as keenly sensitive as the modern. But it is the "infinite plus" always attached to the violation of taboo that puts it into the realm of the mystical, the magical. It would seem that Dr. Frazer's definition does not include enough. It is when we turn to the subject of this study that we see most clearly the deficiencies in these explanations--to the "classic well-nigh universal major taboo" of the woman shunned. Dr. Marett uses her as his most telling argument against the inclusiveness of the concepts of Dr. Frazer and of MM. Hubert and Mauss. He says: "It is difficult to conceive of sympathy, and sympathy only, as the continuous, or even the originally efficient cause of the avoidance." Mr Crawley had called attention to the fact that savages fear womanly characteristics, that is, effeminacy, which is identified with weakness. While noting with great psychological insight the presence of other factors, such as the dislike of the different, he had gone so far as to express the opinion that the fear of effeminacy was probably the chief factor in the Sex Taboo. This is probably the weakest point in Mr. Crawley's study, for he shows so clearly the presence of other elements, notably mystery, the element that made woman the potential witch against whom suspicion concentrated in so tragical a fashion up to a late historical period. Because of the element of mystery present in taboo we are led to conclude that taboo is more than negative magic if we accept so definite a concept as "a false association of ideas." The presence of power in the tabooed object turns our attention to _mana_ as giving us a better understanding of why man must be wary. Mana must however be liberally interpreted if we are to see to the bottom of the mystery. It must be thought of as including good as well as evil power, as more than the "black magic" of the witch-haunted England of the 17th century, as is shown by the social position of the magicians who deal with the Mana of the Pacific and with the Orenda of the Iroquois. It implies "wonder-working," and may be shown in sheer luck, in individual cunning and power, or in such a form as the "uncanny" psychic qualities ascribed to women from the dawn of history. With this interpretation of mana in mind, taboo may be conceived as negative mana; and to break taboo is to set in motion against oneself mystic wonder-working power. Our study thus far has made it clear that there are mystic dangers to be guarded against from human as well as extra-human sources. There is weakness to be feared as well as power, as shown by the food and sex taboos. And once again there is mystery in the different, the unusual, the unlike, that causes avoidance and creates taboos. Man's dislike of change from the old well-trodden way, no matter how irrational, accounts for the persistence of many ancient folkways[6] whose origins are lost in mystery.[A] Many of these old and persistent avoidances have been expanded in the development of social relationships until we agree with Mr. Crawley that taboo shows that "man seems to feel that he is treading in slippery places." Might it not be within the range of possibility that in the study of taboo we are groping with man through the first blind processes of social control?[B] [Footnote A: Prof. Franz Boas explains this tendency: "The more frequently an action is repeated, the more firmly it will become established ... so that customary actions which are of frequent repetition become entirely unconscious. Hand in hand with this decrease of consciousness goes an increase in the emotional value of the omission of these activities, and still more of the performance of acts contrary to custom."[7]] [Footnote B: No study of the tabu-mana theory, however delimited its field, can disregard the studies of religion and magic made by the contributors to L'Année Sociologique, notably MM. Durkheim and Levy-Bruhl, and in England by such writers as Sir Gilbert Murray, Miss Harrison, Mr A.B. Cook, Mr F.M. Cornford, and others. In their studies of "collective representations" these writers give us an account of the development of the social obligation back of religion, law, and social institutions. They posit the sacred as forbidden and carry origins back to a pre-logical stage, giving as the origin of the collective emotion that started the representations to working the re-enforcement of power or emotion resulting from gregarious living. This study is concerned, however, with a "social" rather than a "religious" taboo,--if such a distinction can somewhat tentatively be made, with the admission that the social scruple very easily takes on a religious colouring.] It is worthy of note that the most modern school of analytical psychology has recently turned attention to the problem of taboo. Prof. Sigmund Freud, protagonist psychoanalysis, in an essay, Totem und Tabu, called attention to the analogy between the dualistic attitude toward the tabooed object as both sacred and unclean and the ambivalent attitude of the neurotic toward the salient objects in his environment. We must agree that in addition to the dread of the tabooed person or object there is often a feeling of fascination. This is of course particularly prominent in the case of the woman tabooed because of the strength of the sex instinct. As Freud has very justly said, the tabooed object is very often in itself the object of supreme desire. This is very obvious in the case of the food and sex taboos, which attempt to inhibit two of the most powerful impulses of human nature. The two conflicting streams of consciousness called ambivalence by the psychologist may be observed in the attitude of the savage toward many of his taboos. As the Austrian alienist cannily remarks, unless the thing were desired there would be no necessity to impose taboo restrictions concerning it. It is by a knowledge of the mana concept and the belief in sympathetic magic, clarified by recognition of the ambivalent element in the emotional reaction to the thing tabooed, that we can hope to understand the almost universal custom of the "woman shunned" and the sex taboos of primitive peoples. This dualism appears most strongly in the attitude toward woman; for while she was the natural object of the powerful sexual instinct she was quite as much the source of fear because she was generally supposed to be endowed with spiritistic forces and in league with supernatural powers. During the long period when the fact of paternity was unrecognized, the power of reproduction which was thus ascribed to woman alone made of her a mysterious being. Her fertility could be explained only on the basis of her possession of an unusually large amount of mana or creative force, or by the theory of impregnation by demonic powers. As a matter of fact, both explanations were accepted by primitive peoples, so that woman was regarded not only as imbued with mana but also as being in direct contact with spirits. Many of the devices for closing the reproductive organs which abounded among savage tribes were imposed as a protection against spirits rather than against the males of the human species. The tradition of impregnation by gods or demons was not confined to savage tribes, but was wide-spread in the days of Greece and Rome and lasted into biblical times, when we read of the sons of heaven having intercourse with the daughters of men. In addition to this fear of the woman as in possession of and in league with supernatural powers, there was an additional motive to avoidance in the fear of transmission of her weakness through contact, a fear based on a belief in sympathetic magic, and believed with all the "intensely realized, living, and operative assurance" of which the untutored mind is capable. Crawley masses an overwhelming amount of data on this point, and both he and Frazer show the strength of these beliefs. Indeed, in many cases violation proved to be "sure death," not by the hand of man, but from sheer fright. As a result, just as woman was considered to have both the tendency and power to impart her characteristics through contact, so the sexual act, the acme of contact, became the most potent influence for the emasculation of the male. If we wish for proof that the primitive attitude toward women was essentially that which we have outlined, we have only to glance at the typical taboos concerning woman found among ancient peoples and among savage races of our own day. Nothing could be more indicative of the belief that the power to bring forth children was a manifestation of the possession of mana than the common avoidance of the pregnant woman. Her mystic power is well illustrated by such beliefs as those described by the traveller Im Thurn, who says that the Indians of Guiana believe that if a pregnant woman eat of game caught by hounds, they will never be able to hunt again. Similarly, Alfred Russell Wallace wrote of the aborigines of the Amazon: "They believe that if a woman during her pregnancy eats of any meat, any other animal partaking of it will suffer; if a domestic animal or tame bird, it will die; if a dog, it will be for the future incapable of hunting; and even a man will be unable to shoot that particular kind of game for the future."[8] In Fiji a pregnant wife may not wait upon her husband.[9] In the Caroline Islands men may not eat with their wives when pregnant, but small boys are allowed to do so.[10] The avoidance of the menstruous woman is an even more widespread custom than the shunning of pregnancy, probably because this function was interpreted as a symptom of demonic possession. Primitive man had no reason to know that the phenomenon of menstruation was in any way connected with reproduction. The typical explanation was probably very much like that of the Zoroastrians, who believed that the menses were caused by the evil god Ahriman. A woman during the period was unclean and possessed by that demon. She must be kept confined and apart from the faithful, whom her touch would defile, and from the fire, which her very look would injure. To this day there is in the house of the Parsee a room for the monthly seclusion of the women, bare of all comforts, and from it neither sun, moon, stars, fire, water, nor any human being can be seen.[11] All the ancient civilizations had such taboos upon the menstruous woman. According to Pliny, the Romans held that nothing had such marvellous efficacy as, or more deadly qualities than, the menstrual flow. The Arabs thought that a great variety of natural powers attached themselves to a woman during the menstrual period.[12, p.448] Rabbinic laws demand that "a woman during all the days of her separation shall be as if under a ban." The epithet Niddah, applied to a woman at that time, means "to lay under a ban." The reconstruction of the ancient Assyrian texts shows that the law of the unclean taboo on the woman in her courses holds for them. Up to the present time the Semitic woman is carefully segregated from the rest of the tribe, often for a long time, and becomes taboo again on each successive occasion.[13] Peoples in the eastern Mediterranean region will not permit a woman in her courses to salt or pickle; whatever she might prepare would not keep. This belief survives among the folk to-day in America, and was evidently brought early in the history of the country, for it is common among pioneer stock. There are very similar taboos among the savage races. Among the Tshi peoples of West Africa women are not allowed to remain even in the town but retire at the period to huts erected for the purpose in the neighbouring bush, because they are supposed to be offensive to the tribal deities at that time.[14] The Karoks of California have a superstition like that of the Israelites. Every month the woman is banished without the village to live in a booth by herself. She is not permitted to partake of any meat, including fish. If a woman at this time touches or even approaches any medicine which is about to be given to a sick man, it will cause his death.[15] Amongst other Indian tribes of North America women at menstruation are forbidden to touch men's utensils, which would be so defiled by their touch that their subsequent use would be attended by certain misfortune. The Canadian Dénés believe that the very sight of a woman in this condition is dangerous to society, so that she wears a special skin bonnet to hide her from the public gaze.[16] In western Victoria a menstruous woman may not take anyone's food or drink, and no one will touch food that has been touched by her.[17] Amongst the Maoris, if a man ate food cooked by a menstrous woman, he would be "tapu an inch thick."[18] Frazer quotes the case of an Australian blackfellow who discovered that his wife had lain on his blanket at her menstrual period, and who killed her and died of terror himself within a fortnight.[19] Australian women at this time are forbidden on pain of death to touch anything that men use or even to walk on a path that men frequent.[20] Among the Baganda tribes a menstruous woman is not permitted to come near her husband, cook his food, touch any of his weapons, or sit on his mats, bed, or seat.[21] By some twist in the primitive way of thinking, some "false association by similarity and contiguity," the function of childbirth, unlike that of pregnancy, where the emphasis seems to have been placed in most cases on the mana principle, was held to be unclean and contaminating, and was followed by elaborate rites of purification. It may be that the pains of delivery were ascribed to the machinations of demonic powers, or possession by evil spirits,--we know that this has sometimes been the case. The use of charms and amulets, and the chanting of sacred formulæ at this dangerous time all point to such beliefs. At any rate, although the birth of the child would seem in every respect except in the presence of blood to be more closely connected with the phenomena of pregnancy than with that of menstruation, as a matter of fact the taboos on the woman in child-bed were intimately associated with those on menstruous women. Among the ancients, the Zoroastrians considered the woman unclean at childbirth as at menstruation.[22] In the Old Testament, ritual uncleanness results from contact with a woman at childbirth.[23] Likewise among savage tribes the same customs concerning childbirth prevail. Among the Australian aborigines women are secluded at childbirth as at menstruation, and all vessels used by them during this seclusion are burned.[20] The Ewe-speaking people think a mother and babe unclean for forty days after childbirth.[24] At menstruation and childbirth a Chippeway wife may not eat with her husband; she must cook her food at a separate fire, since any one using her fire would fall ill.[10, v. ii, p.457] The Alaskan explorer Dall found that among the Kaniagmuts a woman was considered unclean for several days both after delivery and menstruation; in either case no one may touch her and she is fed with food at the end of a stick.[25] Amongst the tribes of the Hindu Kush the mother is considered unclean for seven days after the birth of her child, and no one will eat from her hand nor will she suckle her infant during that period. In the Oxus valley north of the Hindu Kush the period is extended to forty days.[26] This attitude which primitive man takes toward woman at the time of her sexual crises--menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth--are but an intensification of the feeling which he has toward her at all times. Conflicting with his natural erotic inclinations are the emotions of awe and fear which she inspires in him as the potential source of contagion, for there is always some doubt as to her freedom from bad magic, and it is much safer to regard her as unclean.[27] Thus the every-day life of savage tribes is hedged in by all manner of restrictions concerning the females of their group. The men have their own dwelling in many instances, where no woman may enter. So, too, she may be barred out from the temples and excluded from the religious ceremonies when men worship their deity. There are people who will not permit the women of their nation to touch the weapons, clothing, or any other possessions of the men, or to cook their food, lest even this indirect contact result in emasculation. The same idea of sympathetic magic is at the root of taboos which forbid the wife to speak her husband's name, or even to use the same dialect. With social intercourse debarred, and often no common table even in family life, it is veritably true that men and women belong to two castes. Of the primitive institution known as the "men's house," Hutton Webster says: "Sexual separation is further secured and perpetuated by the institution known as the men's house, of which examples are to be found among primitive peoples throughout the world. It is usually the largest building in a tribal settlement ... Here the most precious belongings of the community, such as trophies and religious emblems, are preserved. Within its precincts ... women and children ... seldom or never enter ... Family huts serve as little more than resorts for the women and children."[28] Many examples among uncivilized peoples bear out this description of the institution of the men's house. Amongst the Indians of California and in some Redskin tribes the men's clubhouse may never be entered by a squaw under penalty of death. The Shastika Indians have a town lodge for women, and another for men which the women may not enter.[15] Among the Fijis women are not allowed to enter a _bure_ or club house, which is used as a lounge by the chiefs. In the Solomon Islands women may not enter the men's _tambu_ house, and on some of the islands are not even permitted to cross the beach in front of it.[29] In the Marquesas Islands the _ti_ where the men congregate and spend most of their time is taboo to women, and protected by the penalty of death from the pollution of a woman's presence.[30] Not only is woman barred from the men's club house, but she is also often prohibited from association and social intercourse with the opposite sex by many other regulations and customs. Thus no woman may enter the house of a Maori chief,[31] while among the Zulus, even if a man and wife are going to the same place they never walk together.[32] Among the Baganda wives are kept apart from the men's quarters.[21] The Ojibway Indian Peter Jones says of his people: "When travelling the men always walk on before. It would be considered a great presumption for the wife to walk by the side of her husband."[33] In many islands of the South Seas the houses of important men are not accessible to their wives, who live in separate huts. Among the Bedouins a wife may not sit in any part of the tent except her own corner, while it is disgraceful for a man to sit under the shadow of the women's _roffe_ (tent covering).[34] Among the Hindus, no female may enter the men's apartments. In the Society and Sandwich Islands the females were humiliated by taboo, and in their domestic life the women lived almost entirely by themselves. The wife could not eat the same food, could not eat in the same place, could not cook by the same fire. It was said that woman would pollute the food.[35] In Korea a large bell is tolled at about 8 p.m. and 3 a.m. daily, and between these hours only are women supposed to appear in the streets.[36] In the New Hebrides there is a curious segregation of the sexes, with a dread among the men of eating anything female.[37] Among many tribes this segregation of the women and the separation of the sexes begin at an early age, most often at the approach of puberty, which is earlier in primitive peoples than in our own race.[38] The boys usually go about with the father, while the girls remain with the mother. This is true in Patagonia, where the boys begin to go with the father at ten, the daughters with the mother at nine.[39] In Korea boys and girls are separated at seven. From that time the Korean girl is absolutely secluded in the inner court of her father's home. Mrs Bishop says: "Girl children are so successfully hidden away that ... I never saw one girl who looked above the age of six ... except in the women's rooms."[36] Among the northern Indian girls are from the age of eight or nine prohibited from joining in the most innocent amusements with children of the opposite sex, and are watched and guarded with such an unremitting attention as cannot be exceeded by the most rigid discipline of an English boarding-school.[40] Similar arrangements are reported among the Hill Dyaks,[41] certain Victorian tribes,[17] and many others. As already instanced, the separation of the sexes extends even to brothers and sisters and other close relatives. Thus in Fiji brothers and sisters are forbidden by national and religious custom to speak to each other.[9] In Melanesia, according to Codrington, the boy begins to avoid his mother when he puts on clothing, and his sister as soon as she is tattooed.[42] In the exclusive Nanburi caste of Travancore brothers and sisters are separated at an early age. Women are more often than not excluded also from religious worship on account of the idea of their uncleanness. The Arabs in many cases will not allow women religious instruction. The Ansayrees consider woman to be an inferior being without a soul, and therefore exclude her from religious services.[34] In the Sandwich Islands women were not allowed to share in worship or festivals.[35] The Australians are very jealous lest women should look into their sacred mysteries. It is death for a woman to look into a Bora.[20] In Fiji women are kept away from worship and excluded from all the temples.[9] The women of some of the Indian hill-tribes may not sacrifice nor appear at shrines, nor take part in religious festivals. In New Ireland women are not allowed to approach the temples.[43] In the Marquesas Islands the Hoolah-hoolah ground, where festivals are held, is taboo to women, who are killed if they enter or even touch with their feet the shadow of the trees.[30] Women are also excluded from the sacred festivals of the Ahts.[44] In the Amazon region, the women are not even permitted to see the objects used in important ceremonies. If any woman of the Uaupes tribe happens to see the masks used in the tribal ceremony she is put to death.[45] Crawley has explained the taboos on the sexes eating together and on the cooking of food by women for men as due to the superstitious belief that food which has come in contact with or under the influence of the female is capable of transmitting her properties. Some southern Arabs would die rather than accept food from a woman.[12] Among the old Semites it was not the custom for a man to eat with his wife and children. Among the Motu of New Guinea when a man is helega, he may not eat food that his wife has cooked.[46] South Australian boys during initiation are forbidden to eat with the women, lest they "grow ugly or become grey." It was probably some fear of the charm-weaving power of woman which lay at the root of the rules which forbade her to speak her husband's name, the implication being that she might use it in some incantation against him. For instance, a Zulu woman was forbidden to speak her husband's name; if she did so, she would be suspected of witchcraft.[47] Herodotus tells us that no Ionian woman would ever mention the name of her husband, nor may a Hindu woman do so.[48] Frazer says that the custom of the Kaffir woman of South Africa not to speak the name of her own or husband's relations has given rise to an almost entirely different language from that of the men through the substitution of new words for the words thus banned. Once this "women's speech" had arisen, it would of course not be used by the men because of the universal contempt for woman and all that pertained to her. This may have been the origin of the use of different dialects in some tribes, such as the Japanese, the Arawaks, some Brazilian tribes, and others.[49] Although the division of labour between the sexes had a natural biological basis, and indeed had its beginning in the animal world long before man as such came into existence, the idea of the uncleanness of woman was carried over to her work, which became beneath the dignity of man. As a result, there grew up a series of taboos which absolutely fixed the sphere of woman's labour, and prohibited her from encroaching on the pursuits of man lest they be degraded by her use, quite as much as they barred man from her specific activities. In Nicaragua, for example, it is a rule that the marketing shall be done by women. In Samoa, where the manufacture of cloth is allotted to the women, it is taboo for a man to engage in any part of the process.[30] Among the Andamanese the performance of most of the domestic duties falls to the lot of the women and children. Only in cases of stern necessity will the husband procure wood or water.[50] An Eskimo even thinks it an indignity to row in an _umiak_, the large boat used by women. They also distinguish very definitely between the offices of husband and wife. For example, when a man has brought a seal to land, it would be a stigma on his character to draw it out of the water, since that is the duty of the female.[51] In the Marquesas Islands, the use of canoes in all parts of the islands is rigorously prohibited to women, for whom it is death even to be seen entering one when hauled on shore; while Tapa-making, which belongs exclusively to women, is taboo to men.[30] Among the Betchuanas of South Africa the men will not let women touch the cattle.[52] The Baganda think that if a woman steps over a man's weapons they will not aim straight or kill until they have been purified.[21] Among many South African tribes, if a wife steps over her husband's assegais, they are considered useless from that time and are given to the boys to play with. This superstition rings many changes and is current among the natives of all countries. The taboos which have thus been exemplified and reviewed are based on the feeling that woman is possessed of a demonic power, or perhaps of a _mana_ principle which may work injury; or else upon the fear that she may contaminate man with her weakness. It is very probable that many of these taboos originated even as far back as the stage of society in which the line of descent was traced through the mother. There seems little doubt that the framework of ancient society rested on the basis of kinship, and that the structure of the ancient gens brought the mother and child into the same gens. Under these circumstances the gens of the mother would have some ascendancy in the ancient household. On such an established fact rests the assumption of a matriarchate, or period of Mutterrecht. The German scholar Bachofen in his monumental work "Das Mutterrecht" discussed the traces of female "authority" among the Lycians, Cretans, Athenians, Lemnians, Lesbians, and Asiatic peoples. But it is now almost unanimously agreed that the matriarchal period was not a time when women were in possession of political or economic power, but was a method of tracing descent and heritage. It is fairly well established that, in the transition from metronymic to patronymic forms, authority did not pass from women to men, but from the brothers and maternal uncles of the women of the group to the husbands and sons. Such a method of tracing descent, while it doubtless had its advantages in keeping the woman with her child with her blood kindred, would not prevent her from occupying a degraded position through the force of the taboos which we have described.[53] With the development of the patriarchal system and the custom of marriage by capture or purchase, woman came to be regarded as a part of man's property, and as inviolate as any other of his possessions. Under these circumstances virginity came to be more and more of an asset, since no man wished his property to be denied by the touch of another. Elaborate methods for the preservation of chastity both before and after marriage were developed, and in many instances went so far as to consider a woman defiled if she were accidentally touched by any other man than her husband. Here we have once more the working of sympathetic magic, where the slightest contact works contamination. We have in other connections alluded to the seclusion of young girls in Korea, among the Hindus, among the North American Indians, and in the South Seas. One of the most beautiful examples of this custom is found in New Britain. From puberty until marriage the native girls are confined in houses with a bundle of dried grass across the entrance to show that the house is strictly taboo. The interior of these houses is divided into cells or cages in each of which a girl is confined. No light and little or no air enters, and the atmosphere is hot and stifling. The seclusion of women after marriage is common among many peoples. In the form in which it affected western civilization it probably originated among the Persians or some other people of central Asia, and spread to the Arabs and Mohammedans. That it did not originate with the Arabs is attested by students of their culture. It was common among the Greeks, whose wives were secluded from other men than their husbands. In modern Korea it is not even proper to ask after the women of the family. Women have been put to death in that country when strange men have accidentally touched their hands.[36, p.341] The saddest outcome of the idea of woman as property was the status of widows. In uncivilized society a widow is considered dangerous because the ghost of her husband is supposed to cling to her. Hence she must be slain that his spirit may depart in peace with her, as well as with the weapons and other possessions which are buried with him or burned upon his funeral pyre. The Marathi proverb to the effect that "the husband is the life of the woman" thus becomes literally true. The best known case of widow slaying is of course the custom of "suttee" in India. The long struggle made against this custom by the British government is a vivid illustration of the strength of these ancient customs. The Laws of Manu indicate that the burning of widows was practised by primitive Aryans. In the Fiji Islands, where a wife was strangled on her husband's grave, the strangled women were called "the carpeting of the grave."[54] In Arabia, as in many other countries, while a widow may escape death, she is very often forced into the class of vagabonds and dependents. One of the most telling appeals made by missionaries is the condition of child widows in countries in which the unfortunates cannot be killed, but where the almost universal stigma of shame is attached to second marriages. A remarkable exception to this, when in ancient Greece the dying husband sometimes bequeathed his widow to a male friend, emphasized the idea of woman as property. Although the taboos which are based on the idea of ownership are somewhat aside from the main theme of our discussion, they nevertheless reinforce the other taboos of the seclusion and segregation of woman as unclean. Moreover, as will be shown in a later chapter, the property idea has certain implications which are important for the proper understanding of the status of woman and the attitude toward her at the present time. In the face of the primitive aversion to woman as the source of contamination through sympathetic magic, or as the seat of some mystic force, whether of good or evil, it may well be asked how man ever dared let his sexual longings overcome his fears and risk the dangers of so intimate a relationship. Only by some religious ceremonial, some act of purification, could man hope to counteract these properties of woman; and thus the marriage ritual came into existence. By the marriage ceremonial, the breach of taboo was expiated, condoned, and socially countenanced.[1, p.200] This was very evident in the marriage customs of the Greeks, which were composed of purification rites and other precautions.[55] The injunctions to the Hebrews given in Leviticus illustrate the almost universal fact that even under the sanction of marriage the sexual embrace was taboo at certain times, as for example before the hunt or battle. We are now prepared to admit that throughout the ages there has existed a strongly dualistic or "ambivalent" feeling in the mind of man toward woman. On the one hand she is the object of erotic desire; on the other hand she is the source of evil and danger. So firmly is the latter feeling fixed that not even the sanction of the marriage ceremony can completely remove it, as the taboos of intercourse within the marital relationship show. There are certain psychological and physiological reasons for the persistence of this dualistic attitude in the very nature of the sex act itself. Until the climax of the sexual erethism, woman is for man the acme of supreme desire; but with detumescence the emotions tend to swing to the opposite pole, and excitement and longing are forgotten in the mood of repugnance and exhaustion. This tendency would be very much emphasized in those primitive tribes where the _corroboree_ with its unlimited indulgence was common, and also among the ancients with their orgiastic festivals. In the revulsion of feeling following these orgies woman would be blamed for man's own folly. In this physiological swing from desire to satiety, the apparent cause of man's weakness would be looked upon as the source of the evil--a thing unclean. There would be none of the ethical and altruistic element of modern "love" to protect her. Students agree that these elements in the modern sentiment have been evolved, "not from the sexual instinct, but from the companionship of the battlefield."[56] It is therefore probable that in this physiological result of uncontrolled sex passion we shall find the source of the dualism of the attitude toward sex and womanhood present in taboo. BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER I 1. Crawley, A.E. The Mystic Rose. 492 pp. Macmillan. London, 1902. 2. Jevons, F.B. History of Religion. 443 pp. Methuen & Co. London, 1896. 3. Tylor, E.B. Early History of Mankind, 3d. ed. 388 pp. J. Murray. London, 1878. 4. Frazer, J.G. The Golden Bough: Part I, The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings. 2 vols. Macmillan. London, 1911. 5. First published in Anthropological Essays presented to E.B. Tylor in honour of his 75th birthday. Oct. 2, 1907. 416 pp. The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1907. 6. Sumner, W.G. Folkways. 692 pp. Ginn & Co. Boston, 1907. 7. Boas, Franz. The Mind of Primitive Man. 294 pp. Macmillan. N.Y., 1911. 8. Wallace, Alfred Russel. Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro. 541 pp. Reeve & Co., London, 1853. 9. Williams, Thomas, and Calvert, James. Fiji and the Fijians. 551 pp. Appleton. N.Y., 1859. 10. Ploss, Dr Hermann H. Das Weib. 2 vols. Th. Grieben's Verlag. Leipzig, 1885. 11. Greiger, Ostiranische Kultur. Erlangen, 1882. Quoted from Folkways [6], p. 513. 12. Robertson Smith, W. Religion of the Semites. 508 pp. A. & C. Black. Edinburgh, 1894. 13. Thompson, R.C. Semitic Magic. 286 pp. Luzac & Co. London, 1908. 14. Ellis, A.B. Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa. 343 pp. Chapman & Hall. London, 1887. 15. Powers, Stephen. Tribes of California. Contributions to North American Ethnology, Third Volume. Washington, 1877. 16. Morice, Rev. Father A.G. The Canadian Dénés. Annual Archeological Report, 1905. Toronto, 1906. Quoted from Frazer, Taboo and the Perils of the Soul. 17. Dawson, James. Australian Aborigines. 111 pp., with Appendix. George Robertson. Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide, 1881. Citation from Latin note to Chap. XII. 18. Tregear, Edward. The Maoris of New Zealand. Journal of the Anthropological Institute, v. xix, 1889. 19. Armit, Capt. W.E. Customs of the Australian Aborigines. Jour. Anthr. Inst., ix, 1880, p. 459. See also [18]. 20. Ridley, W. Report on Australian Languages and Traditions. Jour. Anthr. Inst., ii, 1872. 21. Roscoe, Rev. John. Manners and Customs of the Baganda. Jour. Anthr, Inst., xxxii, 1902. 22. Zend-Avesta. Sacred Books of the East Series. Oxford 1880, 1883. 23. Leviticus xii. 24. Ellis, A.B. Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa. Chapman & Hall. London, 1890. 331 pp. 25. Dall, W.H. Alaska and Its Resources. 627 pp. Lee & Shepard. Boston, 1870. 26. Biddulph, Maj. J. Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh. 164 pp. Gov't. Printing Office. Calcutta, 1880. 27. Frazer, J.G. The Golden Bough: Part II, Taboo and the Perils of the Soul. 446 pp. Macmillan. London, 1911. 28. Webster, Hutton. Primitive Secret Societies. 227 pp. Macmillan. N.Y., 1908. 29. Guppy, H.B. The Solomon Islands and Their Natives. 384 pp. Swan Sonnenschein & Co. London, 1887. 30. Melville, H. The Marquesas Islands. 285 pp. John Murray. London, 1846. 31. Taylor, Rev. Richard. Te Ika A Maui, or New Zealand and Its Inhabitants. 713 pp. 2d. ed. Macintosh. London, 1870. 32. Shooter, Rev. Joseph. The Kaffirs of Natal and the Zulu Country. 403 pp. E. Stanford. London, 1857. 33. Jones, Rev. Peter. History of the Ojibway Indians. 217 pp. A.W. Bennett. London, 1861. 34. Featherman, A. Social History of the Races of Mankind. 5 vols. Trübner & Co. London, 1881. 35. Ellis, Rev. Wm. Polynesian Researches. 4 vols. G. Bohn. London, 1853. 36. Bishop, Mrs Isabella Bird. Korea and Her Neighbours. 480 pp. Fleming H. Revell Co. N.Y., 1898. 37. Somerville, Lieut. Boyle T. The New Hebrides. Jour. Anthr. Inst., xxiii, 1894. 38. Hall, G. Stanley. Adolescence. 2 vols. Appleton, N.Y., 1904. 39. Musters, G.C. At Home with the Patagoniana. 340 pp. J. Murray. London, 1873. 40. Hearne, Samuel. A Journey from Prince of Wales's Fort in Hudson's Bay to the Northern Ocean. Publications of the Champlain Society, No. 6. London, 1795. 41. Low, Hugh. Sarawak. 416 pp. Richard Bentley. London, 1848. 42. Codrington, Rev. R.H. The Melanesians. 419 pp. Oxford, 1891. 43. Romilly, Hugh Hastings. The Western Pacific and New Guinea, 2d. ed., 284 pp. John Murray. London, 1887. 44. Sproat, G.M. Scenes and Studies of Savage Life. 317 pp. Smith, Elder & Co. London, 1868. 45. Wissler, Clark. The American Indian. 435 pp. D.C. McMurtrie. N.Y., 1917. 46. Lawes, W.G. Ethnographical Notes on the Motu, Koitapu, and Koiari Tribes of New Guinea. Jour. Anthr. Inst., viii, 1879. 47. Callaway, Rev. Canon Henry. Religious System of the Amazulu. 448 pp. Trübner & Co. London, 1870. 48. Crooke, W. Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India. 2 vols. Archibald Constable & Co. Westminster, 1896. 49. Crawley, A.E. Sexual Taboo. Journ. Anthr. Inst., xxiv, 1895. 50. Man, E.H. The Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands. Jour. Anthr. Inst., xii, 1882. 51. Crantz, David. History of Greenland. Trans, fr. the German, 2 vols. Longmans, Green. London, 1820. 52. Holub, E. Central South African Tribes. Jour. Anthr. Inst., x, 1881. 53. Morgan, Lewis H. Ancient Society. 560 pp. Henry Holt & Co. N.Y., 1907. (First edition, 1877). 54. Fison, Rev. Lorimer. Figian Burial Customs, jour. Anthr. Inst., x. 1881. 55. Rohde, Erwin. Psyche. 711 pp. Freiburg und Leipzig, 1894. 56. Benecke, E.F.M. Women in Greek Poetry. 256 pp. Swan Sonnenschein & Co. London, 1896. CHAPTER II FROM THE DAWN OF HISTORY: WOMAN AS SAINT AND WITCH Taboos of first chapter indicate that in the early ages the fear of contamination by woman predominated; Later, emphasis fell on her mystic and uncanny power; Ancient fertility cults; Temple prostitution, dedication of virgins, etc.; Ancient priestesses and prophetesses; Medicine early developed by woman added to belief in her power; Woman's psychic quality of intuition: its origin--theories--conclusion that this quality is probably physiological in origin, but aggravated by taboo repressions; Transformation in attitude toward woman in the early Christian period; Psychological reasons for the persistence in religion of a Mother Goddess; Development of the Christian concept; Preservation of ancient women cults as demonology; Early Christian attitude toward woman as unclean and in league with demons; Culmination of belief in demonic power of woman in witchcraft persecutions; All women affected by the belief in witches and in the uncleanness of woman; Gradual development on the basis of the beliefs outlined of an ideally pure and immaculate Model Woman. From the data of the preceding chapter, it is clear that the early ages of human life there was a dualistic attitude toward woman. On the one hand she was regarded as the possessor of the mystic _mana_ force, while on the other she was the source of "bad magic" and likely to contaminate man with her weaknesses. Altogether, the study of primitive taboos would indicate that the latter conception predominated in savage life, and that until the dawn of history woman was more often regarded as a thing unclean than as the seat of a divine power. At the earliest beginnings of civilization man's emotions seem to have swung to the opposite extreme, for emphasis fell on the mystic and uncanny powers possessed by woman. Thus it was that in ancient nations there was a deification of woman which found expression in the belief in feminine deities and the establishment of priestess cults. Not until the dawn of the Christian era was the emphasis once more focussed on woman as a thing unclean. Then, her mystic power was ascribed to demon communication, and stripped of her divinity, she became the witch to be excommunicated and put to death. All the ancient world saw something supernatural, something demoniacal, in generation. Sometimes the act was deified, as in the phallic ceremonials connected with nature worship, where the procreative principle in man became identified with the creative energy pervading all nature, and was used as a magic charm at the time of springtime planting to insure the fertility of the fields and abundant harvest,[1] It was also an important part of the ritual in the Phrygian cults, the cult of the Phoenician Astarte, and the Aphrodite cults. These mystery religions were widely current in the Græco-Roman world in pre-Christian times. The cult of Demeter and Dionysius in Greece and Thrace; Cybele and Attis in Phrygia; Atagartes in Cilicia; Aphrodite and Adonis in Syria; Ashtart and Eshmun (Adon) in Phoenicia; Ishtar and Tammuz in Babylonia; Isis, Osiris and Serapis in Egypt, and Mithra in Persia--all were developed along the same lines.[2] The custom of the sacrifice of virginity to the gods, and the institution of temple prostitution, also bear witness to the sacred atmosphere with which the sex act was surrounded among the early historic peoples.[3] It was this idea of the mysterious sanctity of sex which did much to raise woman to her position as divinity and fertility goddess. The dedication of virgins to various deities, of which the classic example is the institution of the Vestal Virgins at Rome, and the fact that at Thebes and elsewhere even the male deities had their priestesses as well as priests, are other indications that at this time woman was regarded as divine or as capable of ministering to divinity. The prophetic powers of woman were universally recognized. The oracles at Delphi, Argos, Epirus, Thrace and Arcadia were feminine. Indeed the Sibylline prophetesses were known throughout the Mediterranean basin.[A] [Footnote A: Farnell[4] found such decided traces of feminine divinity as to incline him to agree with Bachofen that there was at one time an age of Mutterrecht which had left its impress on religion as well as on other aspects of social life. As we have said before, it is now fairly well established that in the transition from metronymic to patronymic forms, authority did not pass from women to men but from the brothers and maternal uncles of the women of the group to husbands and sons. This fact does not, however, invalidate the significance of Farnell's data for the support of the view herein advanced, i.e., that woman was at one time universally considered to partake of the divine.] The widespread character of the woman-cult of priestesses and prophetesses among the peoples from whom our culture is derived is evidenced in literature and religion. That there had been cults of ancient mothers who exerted moral influence and punished crime is shown by the Eumenides and Erinyes of the Greeks. The power of old women as law-givers survived in Rome in the legend of the Cumæan Sibyl.[5] An index of the universality of the sibylline cult appears in the list of races to which Varro and Lactantius say they belonged: Persian, Libyan, Delphian, Cimmerian, Erythrian, Trojan, and Phrygian.[6] These sibyls were believed to be inspired, and generations of Greek and Roman philosophers never doubted their power. Their carmina were a court of last resort, and their books were guarded by a sacred taboo. Among the Greeks and neighbouring nations the women of Thessaly had a great reputation for their charms and incantations.[7] Among the writers who speak of a belief in their power are: Plato, Aristophanes, Horace, Ovid, Virgil, Tibullus, Seneca, Lucan, Menander, and Euripides. All of the northern European tribes believed in the foresight of future events by women. Strabo says of the Cimbri that when they took the field they were accompanied by venerable, hoary-headed prophetesses, clothed in long, white robes. Scandinavians, Gauls, Germans, Danes and Britons obeyed, esteemed and venerated females who dealt in charms and incantations. These sacred women claimed to foretell the future and to interpret dreams, and among Germans, Celts and Gauls they were the only physicians and surgeons. The druidesses cured disease and were believed to have power superior to that of the priests.[8] The Germans never undertook any adventure without consulting their prophetesses.[9] The Scandinavian name for women endowed with the gift of prophecy was _fanae_, _fanes_. The English form is _fay_. The ceremonies of fays or fairies, like those of the druidesses, were performed in secluded woods.[A] [Footnote A: Joan of Arc was asked during her trial if she were a fay.] Magic and medicine went hand in hand in ancient times, and remained together down to the middle ages. Old herbals largely compiled from the lore of ancient women form a link in the chain of tradition, the first ring of which may have been formed in Egypt or in Greece. There is no doubt that women from an early date tried to cure disease. Homer makes mention of Hecamede and her healing potions. There seems little doubt that there were Greek women who applied themselves to a complete study of medicine and contributed to the advance of medical science. This traditional belief in the power of women to cure disease survives in the folk to-day.[10] In view of the widespread veneration of a peculiar psychic quality of woman, a power of prophecy and a property of divinity which has made her an object of fear and worship, it may be well to review the modern explanations of the origin of this unique feminine power. Herbert Spencer was of the opinion that feminine penetration was an ability to distinguish quickly the passing feelings of those around and was the result of long ages of barbarism during which woman as the weaker sex was obliged to resort to the arts of divination and to cunning to make up for her lack of physical force and to protect herself and her offspring.[11] In like vein Käthe Schirmacher, a German feminist, says: "The celebrated intuition of woman is nothing but an astonishing refinement of the senses through fear.... Waiting in fear was made the life task of the sex."[12] Lester F. Ward had a somewhat different view.[13] He thought that woman's psychic power came from the sympathy based on the maternal instinct, which "though in itself an entirely different faculty, early blended with or helped to create, the derivative reason-born faculty of altruism." With Ward's view Olive Schreiner agrees, saying: "We have no certain proof that it is so at present, but woman's long years of servitude and physical subjection, and her experience as childbearer and protector of infancy, may be found in the future to have endowed her ... with an exceptional width of human sympathy and instinctive comprehension."[14] In all probability Lombroso came nearer to the truth in his explanation of feminine penetration. "That woman is more subject to hysteria is a known fact," he says, "but few know how liable she is to hypnotic phenomena, which easily opens up the unfoldment of spiritual faculties.... The history of observation proves that hysteria and hypnotism take the form of magic, sorcery, and divination or prophecy, among savage peoples. 'Women,' say the Pishawar peoples, 'are all witches; for several reasons they may not exert their inborn powers.' ... In the Slave Coast hysterical women are believed to be possessed with spirits. The Fuegians believed that there had been a time when women wielded the empire through her possession of the secrets of sorcery."[8, pp.85f.] The history of modern spiritualism has so well confirmed this view of Lombroso's that we are safe in accepting it as the partial explanation of the attribute of a mysterious and uncanny power which man has always given to the feminine nature. The power of prophecy and divination which was possessed by women at the dawn of history and for some time thereafter was probably not different in its essentials from the manifestations of hysterical girls who have puzzled the wisest physicians or the strange phenomena of those spiritualistic mediums who have been the subject of research well into our own times.[15] If we wish to push our inquiry still further and ask why woman should be so much more subject than man to hysterical seizures and to hypnotic suggestion, we shall probably find that it is an essential part of her femininity. Modern psychology and physiology have pointed out that the menstrual cycle of woman has a vast influence not only on her emotional nature but on her whole psychic life, so that there are times when she is more nervously tense, more apt to become hysterical or to yield to the influence of suggestion. Moreover, because of the emphasis on chastity and the taboos with which she was surrounded, any neurotic tendencies which might be inherent in her nature were sure to be developed to the utmost. As Lombroso suggests, hysteria and other neurotic phenomena are classed as evidence of spirit possession by the untutored mind. Thus it happened that observing the strange psychic manifestations to which woman was periodically subject, the ancient peoples endowed her with spiritualistic forces which were sometimes held to be beneficent and at other times malefic in character. Whatever the attitude at any time whether her _mana_ were regarded as evil or benignant, the savage and primitive felt that it was well to be on his guard in the presence of power; so that the taboos previously outlined would hold through the swing of man's mind from one extreme to the other. As goddess, priestess and prophetess, woman continued to play her rôle in human affairs until the Christian period, when a remarkable transformation took place. The philosophy of dualism that emanated from Persia had affected all the religions of the Mediterranean Basin and had worked its way into Christian beliefs by way of Gnosticism, Manicheanism, and Neo-Platonism. Much of the writing of the church fathers is concerned with the effort to harmonize conflicting beliefs or to avoid the current heresies. To one who reads the fathers it becomes evident to what extent the relation of man to woman figures in these controversies.[16] The Manicheanism which held in essence Persian Mithraism and which had so profound an influence on the writings of St. Augustine gave body and soul to two distinct worlds and finally identified woman with the body. But probably as a result of the teachings of Gnosticism with its Neo-Platonic philosophy which never entirely rejected feminine influence, some of this influence survived in the restatement of religion for the folk. When the restatement was completed and was spreading throughout Europe in the form which held for the next millennium, it was found that the early goddesses had been accepted among the saints, the priestesses and prophetesses were rejected as witches, while the needs of men later raised the Blessed Virgin to a place beside her son. Modern psychology has given us an explanation of the difficulty of eradicating the worship of such a goddess as the Great Mother of Asia Minor from the religion of even martial peoples who fear the contamination of woman's weakness; or from a religion obsessed with hatred of woman as unclean by men who made the suppression of bodily passions the central notion of sanctity. The most persistent human relationship, the one charged with a constant emotional value, is not that of sex, which takes manifold forms, but that of the mother and child. It is to the mother that the child looks for food, love, and protection. It is to the child that the mother often turns from the mate, either because of the predominance of mother love over sex or in consolation for the loss of the love of the male. We have only recently learned to evaluate the infantile patterns engraved in the neural tissue during the years of childhood when the mother is the central figure of the child's life. Whatever disillusionments may come about other women later in life, the mother ideal thus established remains a constant part of man's unconscious motivations. It is perhaps possible that this infantile picture of a being all-wise, all-tender, all-sacrificing, has within it enough emotional force to create the demand for a mother-goddess in any religion. To arrive at the concept of the Madonna, a far-reaching process of synthesis and reinterpretation must have been carried out before the Bible could be brought into harmony with the demands made by a cult of a mother goddess. Just as the views brought into the church by celibate ideals spread among heathen people, so the church must have been in its turn influenced by the heathen way of looking at things.[17] One of the great difficulties was the reconciliation of the biological process of procreation with divinity. But there had for ages been among primitive peoples the belief that impregnation was caused by spirit possession or by sorcery. This explanation had survived in a but slightly altered form in the ancient mythologies, all of which contained traditions of heroes and demi-gods who were born supernaturally of a divine father and a human mother. In the myths of Buddha, Zoroaster, Pythagoras and Plato, it was intimated that the father had been a god or spirit, and that the mother had been, and moreover remained after the birth, an earthly virgin. These old and precious notions of the supernatural origin of great men were not willingly renounced by those who accepted the new religion; nor was it necessary to make such a sacrifice, because men thought that they could recognize in the Jewish traditions something corresponding to the heathen legends.[18] The proper conditions for the development of a mother cult within Christianity existed within the church by the end of the second century. At the Council of Nicæa (325 A.D.) it was settled that the Son was of the same nature as the Father. The question of the nature of Mary then came to the fore. The eastern fathers, Athanasius, Ephraim Syrus, Eusebius and Chrysostom, made frequent use in their writings of the term Theotokos, Mother of God. When Nestorius attacked those who worshipped the infant Christ as a god and Mary as the mother of God rather than as the mother of Christ, a duel began between Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorius "which in fierceness and importance can only be compared with that between Arius and Athanasius."[19] In 431 A.D. the Universal Church Council at Ephesus assented to the doctrine that Mary was the Mother of God. Thus Ephesus, home of the great Diana, from primitive times the centre of the worship of a goddess who united in herself the virtues of virginity and motherhood, could boast of being the birthplace of the Madonna cult. And thus Mary, our Lady of Sorrows, pure and undefiled, "the church's paradox," became the ideal of man. She was "a woman, virgin and mother, sufficiently high to be worshipped, yet sufficiently near to be reached by affection. ... If we judge myths as artistic creations we must recognize that no god or goddess has given its worshippers such an ideal as the Mary of Christian art and poetry."[19: p.183] [20: v. ii., pp.220f.] Although Christianity thus took over and embodied in its doctrines the cult of the mother-goddess, at the same time it condemned all the rites which had accompanied the worship of the fertility goddesses in all the pagan religions. The power of these rites was still believed in, but they were supposed to be the work of demons, and we find them strictly forbidden in the early ecclesiastical laws. The phallic ceremonials which formed so large a part of heathen ritual became marks of the devil, and the deities in whose honour they were performed, although losing none of their power, were regarded as demonic rather than divine in nature. Diana, goddess of the moon, for example, became identified with Hecate of evil repute, chief of the witches. "In such a fashion the religion of Greece, that of Egypt, of Phoenicia and Asia Minor, of Assyria and of Persia, became mingled and confused in a simple demonology."[21] In addition to the condemnation of Pagan deities and their ritualistic worship, there was a force inherent in the very nature of Christianity which worked toward the degradation of the sex life. After the death of Christ, his followers had divorced their thoughts from all things earthly and set about fitting themselves for their places in the other world. The thought of the early Christian sects was obsessed by the idea of the second coming of the Messiah. The end of the world was incipient, therefore it behooved each and every one to purge himself from sin. This emphasis on the spiritual as opposed to the fleshly became fixated especially on the sex relationship, which came to be the symbol of the lusts of the body which must be conquered by the high desires of the soul. Consequently the feelings concerning this relation became surcharged with all the emotion which modern psychology has taught us always attaches to the conscious symbol of deeply underlying unconscious complexes. In such a situation man, who had come to look with horror on the being who reminded him that he was flesh as well as spirit saw in her "the Devil's gateway," or "a fireship continually striving to get along side the male man-of-war to blow him up into pieces."[22][A] [Footnote A: Dr Donaldson, translator of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, says: "I used to believe ... that woman owes her present position to Christianity ... but in the first three centuries I have not been able to see that Christianity had any favourable effect on the position of woman."] With the rejection of the idea of the sanctity of sex as embodied in the phallic rituals of the pagan cults, the psychic power of woman became once more a thing of fear rather than of worship, and her uncleanness was emphasized again more than her holiness, even as in primitive times. The power of woman to tell the course of future events which in other days had made her revered as priestess and prophetess now made her hated as a witch who had control of what the Middle Ages knew as the Black Art.[23] The knowledge of medicine which she had acquired through the ages was now thought to be utilized in the making of "witch's brew," and the "ceremonies and charms whereby the influence of the gods might be obtained to preserve or injure"[21: v.1, p.12] became incantations to the evil one. In addition to her natural erotic attraction for the male, woman was now accused of using charms to lure him to his destruction. The asceticism of the church made it shameful to yield to her allurements, and as a result woman came to be feared and loathed as the arch-temptress who would destroy man's attempt to conform to celibate ideals. This sex antagonism culminated in the witchcraft persecutions which make so horrible a page of the world's history. Among the pagans, witches had shared with prophetesses and priestesses a degree of reverence and veneration. Medea had taught Jason to tame the brazen-footed bulls and dragons which guarded the Golden Fleece. Hecate was skilled in spells and incantations. Horace frequently mentions with respect Canidia, who was a powerful enchantress. Gauls, Britons and Germans had obeyed and venerated women who dealt in charms and incantations. The doctrines of Christianity had changed the veneration into hatred and detestation without eradicating the belief in the power of the witch. It was with the hosts of evil that she was now believed to have her dealings, however. When this notion of the alliance between demons and women had become a commonplace, "the whole tradition was directed against woman as the Devil's instrument, basely seductive, passionate and licentious by nature."[24] Man's fear of woman found a frantic and absurd expression in her supposed devil-worship. As a result, the superstitions about witchcraft became for centuries not only a craze, but a theory held by intelligent people. Among the female demons who were especially feared were: Nahemah, the princess of the Succubi; Lilith, queen of the Stryges; and the Lamiæ or Vampires, who fed on the living flesh of men. Belief in the Vampires still persists as a part of the folklore of Europe. Lilith tempted to debauchery, and was variously known as child-strangler, child-stealer, and a witch who changed true offspring for fairy or phantom children.[A] The figure of the child-stealing witch occurs in an extremely ancient apocryphal book called the Testament of Soloman, and dates probably from the first or second century of the Christian Era.[25] [Footnote A: The name of Lilith carries us as far back as Babylon, and in her charms and conjurations we have revived in Europe the reflection of old Babylonian charms.] Laws against the malefici (witches) were passed by Constantine. In the Theodosian Code (_Lib. 9. Tit. 16. Leg. 3._) they are charged with making attempts by their wicked arts upon the lives of innocent men, and drawing others by magical potions (philtra et pharmaca) to commit misdemeanours. They are further charged with disturbing the elements, raising tempests, and practising abominable arts. The Council of Laodicea (343-381. _Can_. 36) condemned them. The Council of Ancyra forbade the use of medicine to work mischief. St. Basil's canons condemned witchcraft. The fourth Council of Carthage censured enchantment.[26] John of Salisbury tells of their feasts, to which they took unbaptized children. William of Auverne describes the charms and incantations which they used to turn a cane into a horse. William of Malmesbury gives an account of two old women who transformed the travellers who passed their door into horses, swine or other animals which they sold. From some of the old Teuton laws we learn that it was believed that witches could take a man's heart out of his body and fill the cavity with straw or wood so that he would go on living. One of the famous witchcraft trials was that of the Lady Alice Kyteler,[27] whose high rank could not save her from the accusation. It was claimed that she used the ceremonies of the church, but with some wicked changes. She extinguished the candles with the exclamation, "Fi! Fi! Fi! Amen!" She was also accused of securing the love of her husbands, who left much property to her, by magic charms. These claims were typical of the accusations against witches in the trials which took place. By the sixteenth century, the cumulative notion of witches had penetrated both cultivated and uncultivated classes, and was embodied in a great and increasing literature. "No comprehensive work on theology, philosophy, history, law, medicine, or natural science could wholly ignore it," says Burr, "and to lighter literature it afforded the most telling illustrations for the pulpit, the most absorbing gossip for the news-letter, the most edifying tales for the fireside."[28] As a result of this belief in the diabolic power of woman, judicial murder of helpless women became an institution, which is thus characterized by Sumner: "After the refined torture of the body and nameless mental sufferings, women were executed in the most cruel manner. These facts are so monstrous that all other aberrations of the human race are small in comparison.... He who studies the witch trials believes himself transferred into the midst of a race which has smothered all its own nobler instincts, reason, justice, benevolence and sympathy."[24] Any woman was suspect. Michelet, after a thirty years' study, wrote: "Witches they are by nature. It is a gift peculiar to woman and her temperament. By birth a fay, by the regular recurrence of her ecstasy she becomes a sibyl. By her love she grows into an enchantress. By her subtlety ... she becomes a witch and works her spells."[29] Just how many victims there were of the belief in the power of women as witches will never be known. Scherr thinks that the persecutions cost 100,000 lives in Germany alone.[30] Lord Avebury quotes the estimate of the inquisitor Sprenger, joint author of the "Witch Hammer," that during the Christian period some 9,000,000 persons, mostly women, were burned as witches.[31] Seven thousand victims are said to have been burned at Treves, 600 by a single bishop of Bamburg, 800 in a single year in the bishopric of Wurtzburg. At Toulouse 400 persons perished at a single burning.[29: ch.1] [20: v.1. ch.1] One witch judge boasted that he executed 900 witches in fifteen years. The last mass burning in Germany was said to have taken place in 1678, when 97 persons were burned together. The earliest recorded burning of a witch in England is in Walter Mapes' _De Nugis Curialium_, in the reign of Henry II. An old black letter tract gloats over the execution at Northampton, 1612, of a number of persons convicted of witchcraft.[32] The last judicial sentence was in 1736, when one Jane Wenham was found guilty of conversing familiarly with the devil in the form of a cat.[33] The connection between the witchcraft delusion and the attitude toward all women has already been implied.[34] The dualistic teaching of the early church fathers, with its severance of matter and spirit and its insistence on the ascetic ideal of life, had focussed on sexuality as the outstanding manifestation of fleshly desires. The contact of the sexes came to be looked upon as the supreme sin. Celibacy taught that through the observance of the taboo on woman the man of God was to be saved from pollution. Woman was the arch temptress who by the natural forces of sex attraction, reinforced by her evil charms and incantations, made it so difficult to attain the celibate ideal. From her ancestress Eve woman was believed to inherit the natural propensity to lure man to his undoing. Thus the old belief in the uncleanness of woman was renewed in the minds of men with even greater intensity than ever before, and in addition to a dangerous adventure, even within the sanction of wedlock the sex act became a deed of shame. The following quotations from the church fathers will illustrate this view: Jerome said, "Marriage is always a vice; all we can do is to excuse and cleanse it. ... In Paradise Eve was a virgin. Virginity is natural while wedlock only follows guilt."[35] Tertullian addressed women in these words: "Do you not know that you are each an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age. ... You are the devil's gateway. ... You destroy God's image, Man."[35: Bk.1.] Thus woman became degraded beyond all previous thought in the teaching of the early church. The child was looked upon as the result of an act of sin, and came into the world tainted through its mother with sin. At best marriage was a vice. All the church could do was to cleanse it as much as possible by sacred rites, an attempt which harked back to the origin of marriage as the ceremonial breaking of taboo. Peter Lombard's Sentences affirmed marriage a sacrament. This was reaffirmed at Florence in 1439. In 1565, the Council of Trent made the final declaration. But not even this could wholly purify woman, and intercourse with her was still regarded as a necessary evil, a concession that had to be unwillingly made to the lusts of the flesh. Such accounts as we have of the lives of holy women indicate that they shared in the beliefs of their times. In the account of the life of a saint known as the Blessed Eugenia preserved in an old palimpsest[36] we read that she adopted the costume of a monk,--"Being a woman by nature in order that I might gain everlasting life." The same account tells of another holy woman who passed as a eunuch, because she had been warned that it was easier for the devil to tempt a woman. In another collection of lives of saints is the story[37] of a holy woman who never allowed herself to see the face of a man, even that of her own brother, lest through her he might go in among women. Another holy virgin shut herself up in a tomb because she did not wish to cause the spiritual downfall of a young man who loved her. This long period of religious hatred of and contempt for woman included the Crusades, the Age of Chivalry,[38] and lasted well into the Renaissance.[39] Students of the first thousand years of the Christian era like Donaldson,[22] McCabe,[40] and Benecke argue that the social and intellectual position of women was probably lower than at any time since the creation of the world. It was while the position of woman as wife and mother was thus descending into the slough which has been termed the Dark Age of Woman that the Apotheosis of the Blessed Virgin was accomplished. The attitude toward human love, generation, the relation of the earthly mother to the human child because of Eve's sin, all made the Immaculate Conception a logical necessity. The doctrine of the virgin birth disposed of sin through the paternal line. But if Mary was conceived in sin or was not purified from sin, even that of the first parent, how could she conceive in her body him who was without sin? The controversy over the Immaculate Conception which began as early as the seventh century lasted until Pius IX declared it to be an article of Catholic belief in 1854. Thus not only Christ, but also his mother became purged of the sin of conception by natural biological processes, and the same immaculacy and freedom from contamination was accorded to both. In this way the final step in the differentiation between earthly motherhood and divine motherhood was completed. The worship of the virgin by men and women who looked upon the celibate life as the perfect life, and upon the relationship of earthly fatherhood and motherhood as contaminating, gave the world an ideal of woman as "superhuman, immaculate, bowing in frightened awe before the angel with the lily, standing mute and with downcast eyes before her Divine Son."[41] With all its admitted beauty, this ideal represented not the institution of the family, but the institution of the church. Chivalry carried over from the church to the castle this concept of womanhood and set it to the shaping of The Lady,[42] who was finally given a rank in the ideals of knighthood only a little below that to which Mary had been elevated by the ecclesiastical authorities. This concept of the lady was the result of the necessity for a new social standardization which must combine beauty, purity, meekness and angelic goodness. Only by such a combination could religion and family life be finally reconciled. By such a combination, earthly motherhood could be made to approximate the divine motherhood. With the decline of the influence of chivalry, probably as the result of industrial changes, The Lady was replaced by a feminine ideal which may well be termed the "Model Woman." Although less ethereal than her predecessor, The Lady, the Model Woman is quite as much an attempt to reconcile the dualistic attitude, with its Divine Mother cult on the one hand, and its belief in the essential evil of the procreative process and the uncleanness of woman on the other, to human needs. The characteristics of the Model Woman must approximate those of the Holy Virgin as closely as possible. Her chastity before marriage is imperative. Her calling must be the high art of motherhood. She must be the incarnation of the maternal spirit of womanhood, but her purity must remain unsullied by any trace of erotic passion. A voluminous literature which stated the virtues and duties of the Model Woman blossomed out in the latter part of the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth century.[43] The Puritan ideals also embodied this concept. It was by this attempt to make woman conform to a standardized ideal that man sought to solve the conflict between his natural human instincts and desires and the early Christian teaching concerning the sex life and womanhood. BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER II 1. Frazer, J.G. The Golden Bough. A Study in Magic and Religion. Part I. The Magic Art. 2 vols. Macmillan. London, 1911. Part V. Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild. 2 vols. London, 1912. 2. Farnell, L.R. Evolution of Religion. 235 pp. Williams and Norgate. London, 1905. Crown Theological Library, Vol 12. 3. Frazer, J.G. Part IV. of The Golden Bough; Adonis, Attis, and Osiris. Chaps. III and IV. Macmillan. London, 1907. ---- Sumner, W.G. Folkways. 692 pp. Ginn & Co. Boston, 1907. Chap. XVI, Sacral Harlotry. ---- Lombroso, Cesare, and Lombroso-Ferrero, G. La donna delinquente. 508 pp. Fratelli Bocca. Milano, 1915. 4. Farnell, L.R. Sociological Hypotheses Concerning the Position of Woman in Ancient Religion. Archiv für Religionswissenschaft. Siebenter Band, 1904. 5. Fowler, W. Warde. The Religious Experiences of the Roman People. 504 pp. Macmillan. London, 1911. 6. For a description of these sibyls with a list of the works in which they are mentioned, see: ---- Fullom, Steven Watson. The History of Woman. Third Ed. London, 1855. ---- Rohmer, Sax. (Ward, A.S.) The Romance of Sorcery. 320 pp. E.P. Dutton & Co., New York, 1914. 7. Maury, L.F. La Magie et L'Astrologie dans l'Antiquité et au Moyen Age. Quatrieme éd. 484 pp. Paris, 1877. 8. Lombroso, Cesare. Priests and Women's Clothes. North American Review. Vol. 192, 1910. 9. For an extensive compilation of facts from ancient literature and history concerning sacred women, see: ---- Alexander, W. History of Women from the Earliest Antiquity to the Present Time. 2 vols. W. Strahan. London, 1779. 10. Mason, Otis T. Woman's Share in Primitive Culture. 295 pp. Appleton. New York, 1894. ---- Dyer, T.F.S. Plants in Witchcraft. Popular Science Monthly. Vol. 34, 1889, pp. 826-833. ---- Donaldson, Rev. James. Woman, Her Position and Influence in Ancient Greece and Rome. 278 pp. Longmans, Green. London, 1907. 11. Spencer, Herbert. Study of Sociology. 431 pp. Appleton. N.Y., 1880. 12. Schirmacher, Käthe. Das Rätsel: Weib. 160 pp. A Duncker. Weimar, 1911. 13. Ward, Lester F. Psychic Factors in Civilization. 369 pp. Ginn & Co., Boston and New York, 1906. Chap. XXVI. ---- Pure Sociology. 607 pp. Macmillan. N.Y., 1903. 14. Schreiner, Olive. Woman and Labour. 299 pp. Frederick A. Stokes Co. N.Y., 1911. 15. Hall, G. Stanley. Adolescence. 2 vols. Appleton. N.Y., 1904. ---- Dupouy, Edmund. Psychologie morbide. Librairie des Sciences Psychiques, 1907. 16. The Ante-Nicene Fathers. Translation by the Rev. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, LL.D., and others. American Reprint of the Edinburgh Edition. Buffalo, 1889. 17. Hatch, Edwin. Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church. Ed. by A.M. Fairbairn. 4th ed. London, 1892. Hibbert Lectures, 1888. 18. Gilbert, George Holley. The Greek Strain in Our Oldest Gospels. North American Review. Vol. 192, 1910. 19. Hirn, Yrjo. The Sacred Shrine. 574 pp. Macmillan. London, 1912. 20. Lecky, W.E.H. Rationalism in Europe. 2 vols. Appleton. N.Y. and London, 1910. Vol. II, pp. 220 f. 21. Wright, Thomas. Narratives of Sorcery and Magic. 2 vols. R. Bentley. London, 1851. 22. Donaldson, Rev. James. The Position of Woman Among the Early Christians. Contemporary Review. Vol. 56, 1889. 23. Bingham, Joseph. Antiquities of the Christian Church. 2 vols. London, 1846. 24. Sumner, W.G. Witchcraft. Forum. Vol. 41, 1909, pp. 410-423. 25. Gaster, M. Two Thousand Years of a Charm Against the Child-stealing Witch. Folklore. Vol. XI, No. 2, June, 1900. 26. For discussion of the dates of the Church Councils see Rev. Charles J. Hefele, Councils of the Church. Trans, fr. the German by C.W. Bush, 1883. 27. Alice Kyteler. A contemporary narrative of the Proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler, prosecuted for sorcery by Richard de Ledrede, Bishop of Ossory, 1324. Edited by Thomas Wright. London, 1843. 28. Burr, George L. The Literature of Witchcraft. Papers of the American Historical Association. Vol IV, pp. 37-66. G.P. Putnam's Sons. N.Y., 1890. 29. Michelet, J. La Sorcière. 488 pp. Paris, 1878. Trans. of Introduction by L.J. Trotter. 30. Scherr, Johannes. Deutsche Frauenwelt. Band II. 31. Avebury, Right Hon. Lord (Sir John Lubbock). Marriage, Totemism and Religion. 243 pp. Longmans, Green. London, 1911. Footnote, p. 127. 32. Wood, Wm. Witchcraft. Cornhill Magazine. Vol. V, 1898. ---- Lea, H.C. Superstition and Force. 407 pp. Philadelphia, 1866. 33. Bragge, F. Jane Wenham. 36 pp. E. Curll. London 1712. 34. Paulus, Nikolaus. Die Rolle der Frau in der Geschichte des Hexenwahns. Historisches Jahrbuch. XXIX Band. München. Jahrgang 1918. 35. Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. 2d. series. Vol. 6, Letter xxii, Ad Eustachium. 36. Studia Sinaitica No. IX. Select Narratives of Holy Women from the Syro-Antiochene or Sinai Palimpsest as written above the old Syriac Gospels by John the Stylite, of Beth-Mari Ianun in A.D. 778. Edited by Agnes Smith Lewis, M.R.A.S. London, 1900. 37. Lady Meux Mss. No. VI. British Museum. The Book of Paradise, being the Histories and Sayings of the Monks and Ascetics of the Egyptian Desert by Palladius, Hieronymus and others. English Trans. by E.A. Wallis Budge. (From the Syriac.) Vol. I. 38. Gautier, Emile Théodore Léon. La Chevalerie. 850 pp. C. Delagrave. Paris, 1890. 39. Maulde la Clavière, R. de. The Women of the Renaissance. Trans. by G.H. Ely. 510 pp. Swan Sonnenschein, 1900. 40. McCabe, Joseph. Woman in Political Evolution. Watts & Co. London, 1909. 41. Barnes, Earl. Woman in Modern Society. 257 pp. B.W. Huebsch. N.Y., 1913. 42. Putnam, Emily James. The Lady. 323 pp. Sturgis & Walton Co. N.Y., 1910. 43. Excellent examples of this literature are Kenrick's "The Whole Duty of a Woman, or A Guide to the Female Sex," published some time in the eighteenth century (a copy in the Galatea Collection, Boston Public Library); and Duties of Young Women, by E.H. Chapin. 218 pp. G.W. Briggs. Boston, 1848. CHAPTER III THE DUALISM IN MODERN LIFE: THE INSTITUTIONAL TABOO The taboo and modern institutions; Survival of ideas of the uncleanness of woman; Taboo and the family; The "good" woman; The "bad" woman; Increase in the number of women who do not fit into the ancient classifications. With the gradual accumulation of scientific knowledge and increasing tendency of mankind toward a rationalistic view of most things, it might be expected that the ancient attitude toward sex and womanhood would have been replaced by a saner feeling. To some extent this has indeed been the case. It is surprising, however, to note the traces which the old taboos and superstitions have left upon our twentieth century social life. Men and women are becoming conscious that they live in a world formed out of the worlds that have passed away. The underlying principle of this social phenomenon has been called the principle of "the persistence of institutions."[1] Institutionalized habits, mosaics of reactions to forgotten situations, fall like shadows on the life of to-day. Memories of the woman shunned, of the remote woman goddess, and of the witch, transmit the ancient forms by which woman has been expected to shape her life. It may seem a far cry from the savage taboo to the institutional life of the present; but the patterns of our social life, like the infantile patterns on which adult life shapes itself, go back to an immemorial past. Back in the early life of the peoples from which we spring is the taboo, and in our own life there are customs so analogous to many of these ancient prohibitions that they must be accounted survivals of old social habits just as the vestigial structures within our bodies are the remnants of our biological past. The modern preaching concerning woman's sphere, for example, is an obvious descendant of the old taboos which enforced the division of labour between the sexes. Just as it formerly was death for a woman to approach her husband's weapons, so it has for a long time been considered a disgrace for her to attempt to compete with man in his line of work. Only under the pressure of modern industrialism and economic necessity has this ancient taboo been broken down, and even now there is some reluctance to recognize its passing. The exigencies of the world war have probably done more than any other one thing to accelerate the disappearance of this taboo on woman from the society of to-day. A modern institution reminiscent of the men's house of the savage races, where no woman might intrude, is the men's club. This institution, as Mr Webster has pointed out,[2] is a potent force for sexual solidarity and consciousness of kind. The separate living and lack of club activity of women has had much to do with a delay in the development of a sex consciousness and loyalty. The development of women's organizations along the lines of the men's clubs has been a powerful factor in enabling them to overcome the force of the taboos which have lingered on in social life. Only through united resistance could woman ever hope to break down the barriers with which she was shut off from the fullness of life. Perhaps the property taboo has been as persistent as any other of the restrictions which have continued to surround woman through the ages. Before marriage, the girl who is "well brought up" is still carefully protected from contact with any male. The modern system of chaperonage is the substitute for the old seclusion and isolation of the pubescent girl. Even science was influenced by the old sympathetic magic view that woman could be contaminated by the touch of any other man than her husband, for the principle of telegony, that the father of one child could pass on his characteristics to offspring by other fathers, lingered in biological teaching until the very recent discoveries of the physical basis of heredity in the chromosomes. Law-making was also influenced by the idea of woman as property. For a long time there was a hesitancy to prohibit wife-beating on account of the feeling that the wife was the husband's possession, to be dealt with as he desired. The laws of coverture also perpetuated the old property taboos, and gave to the husband the right to dispose of his wife's property. The general attitude towards such sexual crises as menstruation and pregnancy is still strongly reminiscent of the primitive belief that woman is unclean at those times. Mothers still hesitate to enlighten their daughters concerning these natural biological functions, and as a result girls are unconsciously imbued with a feeling of shame concerning them. Modern psychology has given many instances of the rebellion of girls at the inception of menstruation, for which they have been ill prepared. There is little doubt that this attitude has wrought untold harm in the case of nervous and delicately balanced temperaments, and has even been one of the predisposing factors of neurosis.[3] The old seclusion and avoidance of the pregnant woman still persists. The embarrassment of any public appearance when pregnancy is evident, the jokes and secrecy which surround this event, show how far we are from rationalizing this function. Even medical men show the influence of old superstitions when they refuse to alleviate the pains of childbirth on the grounds that they are good for the mother. Authorities say that instruction in obstetrics is sadly neglected. A recent United States report tells us that preventable diseases of childbirth and pregnancy cause more deaths among women than any other disease except tuberculosis.[4] The belief in the possession by woman of an uncanny psychic power which made her the priestess and witch of other days, has crystallized into the modern concept of womanly intuition. In our times, women "get hunches," have "feelings in their bones," etc., about people, or about things which are going to happen. They are often asked to decide on business ventures or to pass opinions on persons whom they do not know. There are shrewd business men who never enter into a serious negotiation without getting their wives' intuitive opinion of the men with whom they are dealing. The psychology of behaviour would explain these rapid fire judgments of women as having basis in observation of unconscious movements, while another psychological explanation would emphasize sensitiveness to suggestion as a factor in the process. Yet in spite of these rational explanations of woman's swift conclusions on matters of importance, she is still accredited with a mysterious faculty of intuition. A curious instance of the peculiar forms in which old taboos linger on in modern life is the taboos on certain words and on discussion of certain subjects. The ascetic idea of the uncleanness of the sex relation is especially noticeable. A study of 150 girls made by the writer in 1916-17 showed a taboo on thought and discussion among well-bred girls of the following subjects, which they characterize as "indelicate," "polluting," and "things completely outside the knowledge of a lady." 1. Things contrary to custom, often called "wicked" and "immoral." 2. Things "disgusting," such as bodily functions, normal as well as pathological, and all the implications of uncleanliness. 3. Things uncanny, that "make your flesh creep," and things suspicious. 4. Many forms of animal life which it is a commonplace that girls will fear or which are considered unclean. 5. Sex differences. 6. Age differences. 7. All matters relating to the double standard of morality. 8. All matters connected with marriage, pregnancy, and childbirth. 9. Allusions to any part of the body except head and hands. 10. Politics. 11. Religion. It will be noted that most of these taboo objects are obviously those which the concept of the Model Woman has ruled out of the life of the feminine half of the world. As might well be expected, it is in the marriage ceremony and the customs of the family institution that the most direct continuation of taboo may be found. The early ceremonials connected with marriage, as Mr Crawley has shown, counteracted to some extent man's ancient fear of woman as the embodiment of a weakness which would emasculate him. Marriage acted as a bridge, by which the breach of taboo was expiated, condoned, and socially countenanced. Modern convention in many forms perpetuates this concept. Marriage, a conventionalized breach of taboo, is the beginning of a new family. In all its forms, social, religious, or legal, it is an accepted exception to the social injunctions which keep men and women apart under other circumstances. The new family as a part of the social order comes into existence through the social recognition of a relationship which is considered especially dangerous and can only be recognized by the performance of elaborate rites and ceremonies. It is taboo for men and women to have contact with each other. Contact may occur only under ceremonial conditions, guarded in turn by taboo, and therefore socially recognized. The girl whose life from puberty on has been carefully guarded by taboos, passes through the gateway of ceremonial into a new life, which is quite as carefully guarded. These restrictions and elaborate rituals which surround marriage and family life may appropriately be termed institutional taboos. They include the property and division of labour taboos in the survival forms already mentioned, as well as other religious and social restrictions and prohibitions. The foundations of family life go far back of the changes of recent centuries. The family has its source in the mating instinct, but this instinct is combined with other individual instincts and social relationships which become highly elaborated in the course of social evolution. The household becomes a complex economic institution. While the processes of change may have touched the surface of these relations, the family itself has remained to the present an institution established through the social sanctions of communities more primitive than our own. The new family begins with the ceremonial breach of taboo,--the taboo which enjoins the shunning of woman as a being both sacred and unclean. Once married, the woman falls under the property taboo, and is as restricted as ever she was before marriage, although perhaps in slightly different ways. In ancient Rome, the wife was not mistress of the hearth. She did not represent the ancestral gods, the lares and penates, since she was not descended from them. In death as in life she counted only as a part of her husband. Greek, Roman and Hindu law, all derived from ancestor worship, agreed in considering the wife a minor.[5] These practices are of the greatest significance in a consideration of the modern institutional taboos which surround the family. Students agree that our own mores are in large part derived from those of the lowest class of freedmen in Rome at the time when Christianity took over the control which had fallen from the hands of the Roman emperors. These mores were inherited by the Bourgeoisie of the Middle Ages, and were passed on by them as they acquired economic supremacy. Thus these practices have come down to us unchanged in spirit even if somewhat modified in form, to fit the changed environment of our times. The standardization of the family with its foundations embedded in a series of institutional taboos, added its weight to the formulation of the Model Woman type referred to at the close of the preceding chapter. The model wife appears in the earliest literature. In _The Trojan Women_, Hecuba tells how she behaved in wedlock. She stayed at home and did not gossip. She was modest and silent before her husband. The patient Penelope was another ideal wife. To her, her son Telemachus says: "Your widowed hours apart, with female toil, And various labours of the loom, beguile, There rule, from palace cares remote and free, That care to man belongs, and most to me." The wifely type of the Hebrews is set forth in Proverbs xxxi, 10-31. Her virtues consisted in rising while it was yet night, and not eating the bread of idleness. In her relation to her husband, she must never surprise him by unusual conduct, and must see that he was well fed. The Romans, Hindus, and Mohammedans demanded similar virtues in their wives and mothers. The wives of the medieval period were to remain little girls, most admired for their passive obedience. Gautier puts into the mouth of a dutiful wife of the Age of Chivalry the following soliloquy: "I will love no one but my husband. Even if he loves me no longer, I will love him always. I will be humble and as a servitor. I will call him my sire, or my baron, or domine..."[6] The modern feminine ideal combines the traits demanded by the worship of the madonna and the virtues imposed by the institutional taboos which surround the family. She is the virgin pure and undefiled before marriage. She is the protecting mother and the obedient, faithful wife afterward. In spite of various disrupting influences which are tending to break down this concept, and which will presently be discussed, this is still the ideal which governs the life of womankind. The average mother educates her daughter to conform to this ideal woman type which is the synthesized product of ages of taboo and religious mysticism. Home training and social pressure unite to force woman into the mould wrought out in the ages when she has been the object of superstitious fear to man and also a part of his property to utilize as he willed. Being thus the product of wholly irrational forces, it is little wonder that only in recent years has she had any opportunity to show what she in her inmost soul desired, and what capabilities were latent within her personality. In sharp contrast to the woman who conforms to the standards thus created for her, is the prostitute, who is the product of forces as ancient as those which have shaped the family institution. In the struggle between man's instinctive needs and his mystical ideal of womanhood, there has come about a division of women into two classes--the good and the bad. It is a demarcation as sharp as that involved in the primitive taboos which set women apart as sacred or unclean. In building up the Madonna concept and requiring the women of his family to approximate this mother-goddess ideal, man made them into beings too spiritual to satisfy his earthly needs. The wife and mother must be pure, as he conceived purity, else she could not be respected. The religious forces which had set up the worship of maternity had condemned the sex relationship and caused a dissociation of two elements of human nature which normally are in complete and intimate harmony. One result of this divorce of two biologically concomitant functions was the institution of prostitution. Prostitution is designed to furnish and regulate a supply of women outside the mores of the family whose sex shall be for sale, not for purposes of procreation but for purposes of indulgence. In the ancient world, temple prostitution was common, the proceeds going to the god or goddess; but the sense of pollution in the sex relation which came to be so potent an element in the control of family life drove the prostitute from the sanctuary to the stews and the brothel, where she lives to-day. She has become the woman shunned, while the wife and mother who is the centre of the family with its institutional taboos is the sacred woman, loved and revered by men who condemn the prostitute for the very act for which they seek her company. Such is the irrational situation which has come to us as a heritage from the past. Among the chief causes which have impelled women into prostitution rather than into family life are the following: (1) Slavery; (2) poverty; (3) inclination. These causes have been expanded and re-grouped by specialists, but the only addition which the writer sees as necessary in consequence of the study of taboo is the fact that the way of the woman transgressor is peculiarly hard because of the sex taboo, the ignorance and narrowness of good women, and the economic limitations of all women. Ignorance of the results of entrance into a life which usually means abandonment of hope may be a contributing cause. Boredom with the narrowness of family life and desire for adventure are also influences. That sex desire leads directly to the life of the prostitute is unlikely. The strongly sexed class comes into prostitution by the war of irregular relationships with men to whom they have been attached, and who have abandoned them or sold them out. Many authorities agree on the frigidity of the prostitute. It is her protection from physical and emotional exhaustion. This becomes evident when it is learned that these women will receive thirty men a day, sometimes more. A certain original lack of sensitiveness may be assumed, especially since the investigations of prostitutes have shown a large proportion, perhaps one-third, who are mentally inferior. It is an interesting fact that those who are sensitive to their social isolation defend themselves by dwelling on their social necessity. Either intuitively or by a trade tradition, the prostitute feels that "she remains, while creeds and civilizations rise and fall, blasted for the sins of the people." A beautiful young prostitute who had been expelled from a high grade house after the exposures of the Lexow Investigation, once said to the writer: "It would never do for good women to know what beasts men are. We girls have got to pay." The lady, dwelling on her pedestal of isolation, from which she commands the veneration of the chivalrous gentleman and the adoration of the poet, is the product of a leisure assured by property. At the end of the social scale is the girl who wants to be a lady, who doesn't want to work, and who, like the lady, has nothing to sell but herself. The life of the prostitute is the nearest approach for the poor girl to the life of a lady with its leisure, its fine clothes, and its excitement. So long as we have a sex ethics into which are incorporated the taboo concepts, the lady cannot exist without the prostitute. The restrictions which surround the lady guard her from the passions of men. The prostitute has been developed to satisfy masculine needs which it is not permitted the lady to know exist. But in addition to the married woman who has fulfilled the destiny for which she has been prepared and the prostitute who is regarded as a social leper, there is a large and increasing number of unmarried women who fall into neither of these classes. For a long time these unfortunates were forced to take refuge in the homes of their luckier sisters who had fulfilled their mission in life by marrying, or to adopt the life of the religieuse. Economic changes have brought an alteration in their status, however, and the work of the unattached woman is bringing her a respect in the modern industrial world that the "old maid" of the past could never hope to receive. Although at first often looked upon askance, the working woman by the sheer force of her labours has finally won for herself a recognized place in society. This was the first influence that worked against the old taboos, and made possible the tentative gropings toward a new standardization of women. The sheer weight of the number of unattached women in present day life has made such a move a necessity. In England, at the outbreak of the war, there were 1,200,000 more women than men. It is estimated that at the end of the war at least 25% of English women are doomed to celibacy and childlessness. In Germany, the industrial census of 1907 showed that only 9-1/2 millions of women were married, or about one-half the total number over eighteen years of age. In the United States, married women constitute less than 60% of the women fifteen years of age and over. The impossibility of a social system based on the old sex taboos under the new conditions is obvious. There must be a revaluation of woman on the basis of her mental and economic capacity instead of on the manner in which she fits into a system of institutional taboos. But the old concepts are still with us, and have shaped the early lives of working women as well as the lives of those who have fitted into the old grooves. Tenacious survivals surround them both, and are responsible for many of the difficulties of mental and moral adjustment which make the woman question a puzzle to both conservative and radical thinkers on the subject. BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER III 1. Davis, Michael M. Psychological Interpretations of Society. 260 pp. Columbia University. Longmans. Green & Co. N.Y., 1909. 2. Webster, Hutton. Primitive Secret Societies. 227 pp. Macmillan. N.Y., 1908. 3. Blanchard, Phyllis. The Adolescent Girl. 243 pp. Kegan Paul & Co., London, 1921. ---- Peters, Iva L. A Questionnaire Study of Some of the Effects of Social Restrictions on the American Girl. Pedagogical Seminary, December, 1916, Vol. XXIII, pp. 550-569. 4. Report of the U.S. Children's Bureau, 1917. 5. Fowler, W. Warde. The Religious Experience of the Roman People. 504 pp. Macmillan. London, 1911. ---- Fustel de Coulanges, Numa Denis. The Ancient City. Trans. from the latest French edition by Willard Small. 10th ed. Lee and Shepard. Boston, 1901. 529 pp. 6. Gautier, Emile Théodore Léon. La Chevalerie. 850 pp. C. Delagrave. Paris, 1890. CHAPTER IV DYSGENIC INFLUENCES OF THE INSTITUTIONAL TABOO Taboo survivals act dysgenically within the family under present conditions; Conventional education of girls a dysgenic influence; Prostitution and the family; Influence of ancient standards of "good" and "bad." The illegitimate child; Effect of fear, anger, etc., on posterity; The attitude of economically independent women toward marriage. It is evident that in the working of old taboos as they have been preserved in our social institutions there are certain dysgenic influences which may well be briefly enumerated. For surely the test of the family institution is the way in which it fosters the production and development of the coming generation. The studies made by the Galton Laboratory in England and by the Children's Bureau in Washington combine with our modern knowledge of heredity to show that it is possible to cut down the potential heritage of children by bad matrimonial choices. If we are to reach a solution of these population problems, we must learn to approach the problem of the sex relation without that sense of uncleanness which has led so many generations to regard marriage as giving respectability to an otherwise wicked inclination. The task of devising a sane approach is only just begun. But the menace of prostitution and of the social diseases has become so great that society is compelled from an instinct of sheer self-preservation to drag into the open some of the iniquities which have hitherto existed under cover. In the first place, the education of girls, which has been almost entirely determined by the standardized concepts of the ideal woman, has left them totally unprepared for wifehood and motherhood, the very calling which those ideals demand that they shall follow. The whole education of the girl aims at the concealment of the physiological nature of men and women. She enters marriage unprepared for the realities of conjugal life, and hence incapable of understanding either herself or her husband. When pregnancy comes to such a wife, the old seclusion taboos fall upon her like a categorical imperative. She is overwhelmed with embarrassment at a normal and natural biological process which can hardly be classified as "romantic." Such an attitude is neither conducive to the eugenic choice of a male nor to the proper care of the child either before or after its birth. A second dysgenic influence which results from the taboo system of sexual ethics is the institution of prostitution, the great agency for the spread of venereal disease through the homes of the community, and which takes such heavy toll from the next generation in lowered vitality and defective organization. The 1911 report of the Committee on the Social Evil in Baltimore showed that at the time there was in that city one prostitute to every 500 inhabitants. As is the case everywhere, such statistics cover only prostitutes who have been detected. Hospital and clinic reports for Baltimore gave 9,450 acute cases of venereal disease in 1906 as compared with 575 cases of measles, 1,172 cases of diphtheria, 577 of scarlet fever, 175 of chickenpox, 58 of smallpox and 733 cases of tuberculosis. Statistics on the health of young men shown by the physical examinations of the various draft boards throughout the country give us a more complete estimate of the prevalence of venereal disease among the prospective fathers of the next generation than any other figures for the United States. In an article in the _New York Medical Journal_ for February 2, 1918, Dr. Isaac W. Brewer of the Medical Reserve Corps presents tables showing the percentage of rejections for various disabilities among the applicants for enlistment in the regular army from January 1, 1912, to December 31, 1915. Among 153,705 white and 11,092 coloured applicants, the rejection rate per 1,000 for venereal disease was 196.7 for whites and 279.9 for coloured as against 91.3 for whites and 75.0 for coloured for heart difficulties, next on the list. In foreshadowing the results under the draft, Dr. Brewer says: "Venereal disease is the greatest cause for rejection, and reports from the cantonments where the National Army has assembled indicate that a large number of the men had these diseases when they arrived at the camp. It is probably true that venereal diseases cause the greatest amount of sickness in our country." Statistics available for conditions among the American Expeditionary Forces must be treated with great caution. Detection of these diseases at certain stages is extremely difficult. Because of the courtesy extended to our men by our allies, cases were treated in French and English hospitals of which no record is available. But it is fairly safe to say that there was no such prevalence of disease as was shown by the Exner Report to have existed on the Mexican Border. It may even be predicted that the education in hygienic measures which the men received may in time affect favourably the health of the male population and through them their wives and children. But all who came in contact with this problem in the army know that it is a long way to the understanding of the difficulties involved before we approach a solution. We do know, on the basis of the work, of Neisser, Lesser, Forel, Flexner and others, that regulation and supervision seem to increase the incidence of disease. Among the reasons for this are: (1) difficulties of diagnosis; (2) difficulties attendant on the apprehension and examination of prostitutes; (3) the infrequency of examination as compared with the number of clients of these women; and perhaps as important as any of these reasons is the false sense of security involved. The model woman of the past has known very little of the prostitute and venereal disease. It is often stated that her moral safety has been maintained at the expense of her fallen and unclean sister. But such statements are not limited as they should be by the qualification that her moral safety obtained in such a fashion is often at the expense of her physical safety. If the assumption has a basis in fact that there is a relation between prostitution and monogamic marriage, the complexity of the problem becomes evident. It is further complicated by the postponement of marriage from economic reasons, hesitation at the assumption of family responsibilities at a time of life when ambition as well as passion is strong, when the physiological functions are stimulated by city life and there is constant opportunity for relief of repression for a price. It is here that the demarcation between the man's and the woman's world shows most clearly. It may well be that the only solution of this problem is through the admission of a new factor--the "good" woman whom taboo has kept in ignorance of a problem that is her own. If it be true that the only solution for the double standard whose evils show most plainly here is a new single standard which has not yet been found, then it is high time that we find what that standard is to be, for the sake of the future. The third dysgenic influence which works under cover of the institutional taboo is akin to the first in its ancient standards of "good" and "bad." We are only recently getting any standards for a good mother except a man's choice and a wedding ring. Men's ideals of attractiveness greatly complicate the eugenic situation. A good matchmaker, with social backing and money, can make a moron more attractive than a pushing, energetic girl with plenty of initiative, whose contribution to her children would be equal or superior to that of her mate. A timid, gentle, pretty moron, with the attainment of a girl of twelve years, will make an excellent match, and bring into the world children who give us one of the reasons why it is "three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves." For such a girl, the slave to convention, exactly fits the feminine ideal which man has built up for himself. And she will be a good wife and mother in the conventional sense all her life. This following of an ideal feminine type conceived in irrational processes in former days inclines men to marry women with inferior genetic possibilities because they meet the more insistent surface requirements. The heritage of our children is thus cut down, and many a potential mother of great men remains unwed. The same survival of ancient sex taboos is seen in the attitude toward the illegitimate child. The marriage ceremony is by its origin and by the forms of its perpetuation the only sanction for the breaking of the taboo on contact between men and women. The illegitimate child, the visible symbol of the sin of its parents, is the one on whom most heavily falls the burden of the crime. Society has for the most part been utterly indifferent to the eugenic value of the child and has concerned itself chiefly with the manner of its birth. Only the situation arising out of the war and the need of the nations for men has been able to partially remedy this situation. The taboos on illegitimacy in the United States have been less affected by the practical population problems growing out of war conditions than those of other countries. As compared with the advanced stands of the Scandinavian countries, the few laws of progressive states look painfully inadequate. Miss Breckinridge writes:[1] "The humiliating and despised position of the illegitimate child need hardly be pointed out. He was the son of nobody, filius nullius, without name or kin so far as kinship meant rights of inheritance or of succession. In reality this child of nobody did in a way belong to his mother as the legitimate child never did in common law, for, while the right of the unmarried mother to the custody of the child of her shame was not so noble and dignified a thing as the right of the father to the legitimate child, she had in fact a claim, at least so long as the child was of tender years, not so different from his and as wide as the sky from the impotence of the married mother. The contribution of the father has been secured under conditions shockingly humiliating to her, in amounts totally inadequate to her and the child's support. In Illinois, $550 over 5 years; Tennessee, $40 the first year, $30 the second, $20 the third. (See studies of the Boston Conference on Illegitimacy, September, 1914, p. 47.) Moreover, the situation was so desperate that physicians, social workers and relatives have conspired to save the girl's respectability at the risk of the child's life and at the cost of all spiritual and educative value of the experience of motherhood. This has meant a greatly higher death rate among illegitimate infants, a higher crime and a higher dependency rate." The fifth of the dysgenic influences which has been fostered by the institutional taboo is uncovered by recent studies of the effect of certain emotions on the human organism. The life of woman has long been shadowed by the fact that she has been the weaker sex; that even when strong she has been weighted by her child; and that throughout the period of private property she has been the poor sex, dependent on some male for her support. In an age of force, fear has been her strong emotion. If she felt rage it must be suppressed. Disappointment and discouragement had also to be borne in silence and with patience. Of such a situation Davies says: "The power of the mind over the body is a scientific fact, as is evidenced by hypnotic suggestion and in the emotional control over the chemistry of health through the agency of the internal secretions. The reproductive processes are very susceptible to chemic influences. Thus the influences of the environment may in some degree carry through to the offspring."[2] The studies of Drs Crile and Cannon show that the effects of fear on the ganglionic cells are tremendous. Some of the cells are exhausted and completely destroyed by intensity and duration of emotion. Cannon's experiments on animals during fear, rage, anger, and hunger, show that the entire nervous system is involved and that internal and external functions change their normal nature and activity. The thyroid and adrenal glands are deeply affected. In times of intense emotion, the thyroid gland throws into the system products which cause a quickened pulse, rapid respiration, trembling, arrest of digestion, etc. When the subjects of experiments in the effect of the emotions of fear, rage, etc., are examined, it is found that the physical development, especially the sexual development, is retarded. Heredity, age, sex, the nervous system of the subject, and the intensity and duration of the shock must all have consideration. Griesinger, Amard and Daguin emphasize especially the results of pain, anxiety and shock, claiming that they are difficult or impossible to treat. To the bride brought up under the old taboos, the sex experiences of early married life are apt to come as a shock, particularly when the previous sex experiences of her mate have been gained with women of another class. Indeed, so deeply has the sense of shame concerning the sexual functions been impressed upon the feminine mind that many wives never cease to feel a recurrent emotion of repugnance throughout the marital relationship. Especially would this be intensified in the case of sexual intercourse during the periods of gestation and lactation, when the girl who had been taught that the sexual functions existed only in the service of reproduction would see her most cherished illusions rudely dispelled. The effect of this long continued emotional state with its feeling of injury upon the metabolism of the female organism would be apt to have a detrimental effect upon the embryo through the blood supply, or upon the nursing infant through the mother's milk. There can be no doubt that anxiety, terror, etc., affect the milk supply, and therefore the life of the child. The sixth dysgenic effect of the control by taboos is the rebellion of economically independent women who refuse motherhood under the only conditions society leaves open to them. The statistics in existence, though open to criticism, indicate that the most highly trained women in America are not perpetuating themselves.[3] Of the situation in England, Bertrand Russell said in 1917: "If an average sample were taken out of the population of England, and their parents were examined, it would be found that prudence, energy, intellect and enlightenment were less common among the parents than in the population in general; while shiftlessness, feeble-mindedness, stupidity and superstition were more common than in the population in general ... Mutual liberty is making the old form of marriage impossible while a new form is not yet developed."[4] It must be admitted that to-day marriage and motherhood are subject to economic penalties. Perhaps one of the best explanations of the strength of the present struggle for economic independence among women is the fact that a commercial world interested in exchange values had refused to properly evaluate their social contribution. A new industrial system had taken away one by one their "natural" occupations. In the modern man's absorption in the life of a great industrial expansion, home life has been less insistent in its claims. His slackening of interest and attention, together with the discovery of her usefulness in industry, may have given the woman of initiative her opportunity to slip away from her ancient sphere into a world where her usefulness in other fields than that of sex has made her a different creature from the model woman of yesterday. These trained and educated women have hesitated to face the renunciations involved in a return to the home. The result has been one more factor in the lessening of eugenic motherhood, since it is necessarily the less strong who lose footing and fall back on marriage for support. These women wage-earners who live away from the traditions of what a woman ought to be will have a great deal of influence in the changed relations of the sexes. The answer to the question of their relation to the family and to a saner parenthood is of vital importance to society. BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER IV 1. Breckinridge, Sophonisba P. Social Control of Child Welfare. Publications of the American Sociological Society. Vol. XII, p. 23 f. 2. Davies, G.R. Social Environment. 149 pp. A.C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, 1917. 3. Popenoe, Paul. Eugenics and College Education. School and Society, pp. 438-441. Vol. VI. No. 146. 4. Russell, Bertrand. Why Men Fight. 272 pp. The Century Co., N.Y., 1917. PART III THE SEX PROBLEM IN THE LIGHT OF MODERN PSYCHOLOGY BY PHYLLIS BLANCHARD, PH.D. CHAPTER I SEX IN TERMS OF MODERN PSYCHOLOGY Bearing of modern psychology on the sex problem; Conditioning of the sexual impulse; Vicarious expression of the sexual impulse; Unconscious factors of the sex life; Taboo control has conditioned the natural biological tendencies of individuals to conform to arbitrary standards of masculinity and femininity; Conflict between individual desires and social standards. An adequate treatment of the sex problem in society must necessarily involve a consideration of the sexual impulse in the individual members of that society. Recent psychological research, with its laboratory experiments and studies of pathology has added a great deal of information at this point. The lately acquired knowledge of the warping effect of the environment upon the native biological endowment of the individual by means of the establishment of conditioned reflexes, the discovery that any emotion which is denied its natural motor outlet tends to seek expression through some vicarious activity, and the realization of the fundamental importance of the unconscious factors in shaping emotional reactions,--such formulations of behaviouristic and analytic psychology have thrown a great deal of light upon the nature of the individual sex life. There are certain modifications of the erotic life which are explicable only when we recollect that under environmental influences situations which originally did not call up an emotional response come later to do so. This fact, which was first noted by Setchenov, was experimentally demonstrated by Pavlov and his students.[7] They found that when some irrelevant stimulus, such as a musical tone or a piece of coloured paper was presented to a dog simultaneously with its food for a sufficiently long period, the presentation of the tone or paper alone finally caused the same flow of saliva that the food had originally evoked. The irrelevant stimulus was named a _food sign_, and the involuntary motor response of salivary secretion was called a _conditioned reflex_ to differentiate it from the similar response to the biologically adequate stimulus of food, which was termed an _unconditioned reflex_. "The significance of the conditioned reflex is simply this, that an associated stimulus brings about a reaction; and this associated stimulus may be from any receptor organ of the body; and it may be formed of course not merely in the laboratory by specially devised experiments, but by association in the ordinary environment."[1] Thus it is evident that the formation of conditioned reflexes takes place in all fields of animal and human activity. Watson has recently stated that a similar substitution of one stimulus for another occurs in the case of an emotional reaction as well as at the level of the simple physiological reflex response.[8] This means that when an emotionally exciting object stimulates the subject simultaneously with one not emotionally exciting, the latter may in time (or even after one joint stimulation) arouse the same emotional response as the former. Kempf considers this capacity of the emotion to become thus conditioned to other than the original stimuli "of the utmost importance in determining the selections and aversions throughout life, such as mating, habitat, friends, enemies, vocations, professions, religious and political preferences, etc."[5] Just as Pavlov and his followers found that almost anything could become a food sign, so the study of neurotics has shown that the sexual emotion can be fixed upon almost any love object. For example, a single characteristic of a beloved person (e.g.,--eye colour, smile posture, gestures) can become itself a stimulus to evoke the emotional response originally associated only with that person. Then it happens that the affection may centre upon anyone possessing similar traits. In most psychological literature, this focussing of the emotion upon some particular characteristic is termed _fetishism_, and the stimulus which become capable of arousing the conditioned emotional response is called an _erotic fetish_. In extreme cases of fetishism, the sexual emotions can only be aroused in the presence of the particular fetish involved. Krafft-Ebing[6] and other psychopathologists describe very abnormal cases of erotic fetishism in which some inanimate object becomes entirely dissociated from the person with whom it was originally connected, so that it serves exclusively as a love object in itself, and prevents a normal emotional reaction to members of the opposite sex. The development of romantic love has depended to a great extent upon the establishment of a wide range of stimuli capable of arousing the erotic impulses. As Finck has pointed out, this romantic sentiment is inseparable from the ideals of personal beauty.[3] As criteria of beauty he lists such characteristics as well-shaped waist, rounded bosom, full and red underlip, small feet, etc., all of which have come to be considered standards of loveliness because the erotic emotion has been conditioned to respond to their stimulation. Literature is full of references to such marks of beauty in its characters (_Jane Eyre_ is almost the only well-known book with a plain heroine), and is therefore one of the potent factors in establishing a conditioned emotional reaction to these stimuli. The erotic impulse may have its responses conditioned in many other ways than the building up of erotic fetishes. Kempf has observed that the affective reactions of the individual are largely conditioned by the unconscious attitudes of parents, friends, enemies and teachers. For instance, one boy is conditioned to distrust his ability and another to have confidence in his powers by the attitude of the parents. Similarly, the daughter whose mother is abnormally prudish about sexual functions will surely be conditioned to react in the same manner towards her own sexual functions, unless conditioned to react differently by the influence of another person.[5] Through the everyday associations in the social milieu, therefore, the erotic impulse of an individual may become modified in almost any manner. Just as an emotional reaction may become conditioned to almost any other stimulus than the one which originally called it forth, so there is a tendency for any emotion to seek a vicarious outlet whenever its natural expression is inhibited. Were any member of the group to give free play to his affective life he would inevitably interfere seriously with the freedom of the other members. But the fear of arousing the disapproval of his fellows, which is rooted in man's gregarious nature, inhibits the tendency to self-indulgence. "A most important factor begins to exert pressure upon the infant at birth and continues throughout its life," says Kempf. "It is the incessant, continuous pressure of the herd ... to conventionalize its methods of acquiring the gratification of its needs."[5] The emotions thus denied a natural outlet seek other channels of activity which have received the sanction of social approval. It is obvious that the rigid social regulations concerning sexual activities must enforce repression of the erotic impulses more frequently than any others. The love which is thus denied its biological expression transmutes itself into many forms. It may reach out to envelop all humanity, and find a suitable activity in social service. It may be transformed into the love of God, and find an outlet in the religious life of the individual. Or it may be expressed only in language, in which case it may stop at the stage of erotic fantasy and day-dream, or may result in some really great piece of poetry or prose. This last outlet is so common that our language is full of symbolic words and phrases which have a hidden erotic meaning attached to them. According to Watson, the phenomena seen in this tendency of emotions inhibited at one point to seek other outlets are too complex to be explained on the basis of conditioned reflex responses. All that we can say at present is that too great emotional pressure is drained off through whatever channel environmental and hereditary factors make possible.[8] This vicarious mode of expression may become habitual, however, and interfere with a return to natural activities in a manner analogous to that in which the development of the erotic fetish often prevents the normal reaction to the original stimulus. Because the conditioned emotional reactions and substitutions of vicarious motor outlets take place at neurological and physiological levels outside the realm of consciousness, they are called unconscious activities of the organism. There are many other unconscious factors which also modify the sex life of the human individual. The most fundamental of these are the impressions and associations of the infancy period, which may well be classed as conditioned reflex mechanisms, but are sufficiently important to receive separate consideration. It is generally conceded by students of child psychology that the social reactions of the child are conditioned by the home environment in which the earliest and most formative years of its life are passed. It is not surprising, therefore, that the ideal of the opposite sex which the boy or girl forms at this time should approximate the mother or father, since they are the persons best loved and most frequently seen. The ideals thus established in early childhood are very often the unconscious influences which determine the choice of a mate in adult life. Or the devotion to the parent may be so intense as to prevent the transference of the love-life to another person and thus entirely prohibit the entrance upon the marital relation. Elida Evans has given some very convincing cases in illustration of these points in her recent book, "The Problem of the Nervous Child."[2] On the other hand, in those unfortunate cases where the father or mother is the object of dislike, associations may be formed which will be so persistent as to prevent the normal emotional reaction to the opposite sex in later years. This, too, results in the avoidance of marriage and the establishment of vicarious outlets for the sexual emotions, or less often in homosexual attachments or perversions of the sex life. Conditioned emotional reactions such as these play a dominant role in the social problem of sex, as will become apparent in succeeding chapters. In addition to the influences which naturally act to condition the original sexual endowment of the individual, there are artificial forces which still further qualify it. The system of taboo control which society has always utilized in one form or another as a means of regulating the reproductive activities of its members, has set up arbitrary ideals of masculinity and femininity to which each man and woman must conform or else forfeit social esteem. The feminine standard thus enforced has been adequately described in Part II of this study. Dr Hinkle has also described this approved feminine type, as well as the contrasting masculine ideal which embodies the qualities of courage, aggressiveness, and other traditional male characteristics. From her psychoanalytic practice, Dr Hinkle concludes that men and women do not in reality conform to these arbitrarily fixed types by native biological endowment, but that they try to shape their reactions in harmony with these socially approved standards in spite of their innate tendencies to variation.[4] The same conclusion might be arrived at theoretically on the grounds of the recent biological evidence of intersexuality discussed in Part I, which implies that there are no absolute degrees of maleness and femaleness. If there are no 100% males and females, it is obvious that no men and women will entirely conform to ideals of masculine and feminine perfection. In addition to the imposition of these arbitrary standards of masculinity and femininity, society has forced upon its members conformity to a uniform and institutionalized type of sexual relationship. This institutionalized and inflexible type of sexual activity, which is the only expression of the sexual emotion meeting with social approval, not only makes no allowance for biological variations, but takes even less into account the vastly complex and exceedingly different conditionings of the emotional reactions of the individual sex life. The resulting conflict between the individual desires and the standards imposed by society has caused a great deal of disharmony in the psychic life of its members. The increasing number of divorces and the modern tendency to celibacy are symptomatic of the cumulative effect of this fundamental psychic conflict. BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER I 1. Burnham, W.H. Mental Hygiene and the Conditioned Reflex. Ped. Sem. Vol. XXIV, Dec, 1917, pp. 449-488. 2. Evans, Elida. The Problem of the Nervous Child. Kegan Paul & Co., London, 1920. 3. Finck, H.T. Romantic Love and Personal Beauty. Macmillan, N.Y., 1891. 4. Hinkle, Beatrice M. On the Arbitrary Use of the Terms "Masculine" and "Feminine." Psychoanalyt. Rev. Vol. VII, No. 1, Jan., 1920, pp. 15-30. 5. Kempf, E.J. The Tonus of the Autonomic Segments as Causes of Abnormal Behaviour. Jour. Nerv. & Ment. Disease, Jan., 1920, pp. 1-34. 6. Krafft-Ebing, R. Psychopathia Sexualis. Fuchs, Stuttgart, 1907. 7. Pavlov, J.P. L'excitation Psychique des Glandes Salivaires. Jour de Psychologie, 1910, No. 2, pp. 97-114. 8. Watson, J.B. Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviourist. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1919. CHAPTER II HOW OUR INSTITUTIONS FIT INDIVIDUAL SEX PSYCHOLOGY Social institutions controlling sex activities based on the assumption that _all_ women are adapted to as well as specialized for reproduction; Neurotic tendencies which unfit women for marriage--the desire for domination; Sexual anæsthesia another neurotic trait which interferes with marital harmony; The conditioning of the sexual impulse to the parent ideal and the erotic fetish as factors which determine mating; Homosexual tendencies and their part in the sex problem; The conflict between the desire for marriage and egoistic ambitions; The social regulations from the viewpoint of individual psychology. The institutionalized forms of social control into which the old sex taboos have developed impose upon all members of the group a uniform type of sexual relationship. These socially enforced standards which govern the sex life are based upon the assumption that men and women conform closely to the masculine and feminine ideals of tradition. The emphasis is much more strongly placed on feminine conformity, however; a great many sexual activities are tolerated in the male that would be unsparingly condemned in the female. Thus the sex problem becomes in large measure a woman's problem, not only because of her peculiar biological specialization for reproduction, which involves an enormous responsibility but also because her life has for so many generations been hedged in by rigid institutionalized taboos and prohibitions. The traditional conception of marriage and the family relation implies that all women are adapted to as well as specialized for motherhood. In reality, if the biological evidence of intersexuality be as conclusive as now appears, there are many women who by their very nature are much better adapted to the activities customarily considered as pre-eminently masculine, although they are still specialized for childbearing. There is no statistical evidence of any high correlation between the sexual and maternal impulses. Indeed, a great many traits of human behaviour seem to justify the inference that these two tendencies may often be entirely dissociated in the individual life. Dr Blair Bell (as noted in Part I, Chapter III) believes that it is possible to differentiate women possessing a maternal impulse from those lacking such tendencies by the very anatomical structure. It is obvious that a woman endowed with a strong erotic nature requires a kind of sexual relationship different from one whose interests are predominantly in her children. And both the sexual and maternal types require different situations than the woman who combines the two instincts in her own personality for a normal expression of their emotional life. According to social tradition, sexual activity (at least in the case of women) is to be exercised primarily for the reproduction of the group. Thus the institutions of marriage and the family in their present form provide only for the woman who possesses both the sexual and maternal cravings. Contraceptive knowledge has enabled a small number of women (which is rapidly growing larger) to fit into these institutions in spite of their lack of a desire for motherhood. There have been a few hardy theorists who have braved convention to the extent of suggesting the deliberate adoption of unmarried motherhood by women who are consumed by the maternal passion but have no strongly erotic nature. Whether their problem will be solved in this manner, only the course of social evolution in the future can show. Besides the differences in natural instinctive tendencies which make it difficult for many women to fit into a uniform type of sexual relationship, modern society, with its less rigid natural selection, has permitted the survival of many neurotic temperaments which find marriage a precarious venture. The neurotic constitution, as Adler[1,2] has pointed out, is an expression of underlying structural or functional organic deficiency. It is a physiological axiom that whenever one organ of the body, because of injury, disease, etc., becomes incapable of properly discharging its functions, its duties are taken over by some other organ or group of organs. This process of organic compensation, whereby deficiency in one part of the body is atoned for by additional labours of other parts, necessarily involves the nervous mechanism in ways which need not be discussed in detail here. In children the process of compensation, with its formation of new nervous co-ordinations, is manifest in the inability to cope with their companions who have a better biological endowment. This gives rise to a feeling of inferiority from which the child tries to free itself by every possible means, ordinarily by surpassing in the classroom the playmates whom it cannot defeat on the playground. The feeling of inferiority continues throughout life, however, although the mechanism of physiological compensation may have become so perfected that the functioning of the organism is quite adequate to the needs of the environment. As a result, the ruling motive of the conduct becomes the desire to release the personality from this torturing sense of inability by a constant demonstration of the power to control circumstances or to dominate associates. This abnormal will to power finds expression in the marital relationship in the desire for supremacy over the mate. The domineering husband is a familiar figure in daily life. The wife who finds it more difficult to rule her husband by sheer mastery achieves the same ends by developing a fit of hysterical weeping or having a nervous headache when denied her own way in family affairs. By far the easiest way for the woman to satisfy her craving for power is the development of an interesting illness which makes her the centre of attention. The history of nervous disease furnishes many cases of neurosis where this uncontrollable longing for domination is the chief factor in the etiology of the illness. It is not at all unusual to meet wives who hold their husbands subservient to every whim because of "delicate nervous organizations" which are upset at the slightest thwarting of their wishes so that they develop nervous headaches, nervous indigestion, and many other kinds of sickness unless their preferences meet with the utmost consideration. This tendency often becomes a chronic invalidism, which, at the same time that it brings the longed-for attention, incapacitates the individual for sexual and maternal activities and makes the married life an abnormal and unhappy one. Another more or less neurotic trait which acts as a cause of disharmony in the marital relationship is the sexual anæsthesia which is not at all uncommon in modern women. The absence of any erotic passion is held to be a matter of physiological makeup by many authorities, but it is probably more often due to the inhibition of natural tendencies in accordance with concepts built up by social tradition. In order to understand how social suggestion can have so powerful an effect upon the reactions of the individual, we must revert once more to the principles of behaviouristic psychology. According to Watson,[4] whenever the environmental factors are such that a direct expression of an emotion cannot occur, the individual has to have recourse to implicit motor attitudes. The best example in everyday life is probably seen in the case of anger, which can seldom be permitted to find an outlet in the natural act of striking, etc. It is apparent, however, in the facial expression and in a certain muscular posture which can best be described as a "defiant" attitude. Another good example is the submissive attitude which often accompanies the emotion of fear. It is manifest in shrinking, avoiding movements, sometimes of the whole body, but more often of the eyes or some other special organ. "In the sphere of love," Watson remarks, "there are numerous attitudes as shown by the popular expressions lovelorn, lovesick, tenderness, sympathy. More fundamental and prominent attitudes are those of shyness, shame, embarrassment, jealousy, envy, hate, pride, suspicion, resentment, anguish, and anxiety."[4] The significant fact is that these attitudes function by limiting the range of stimuli to which the person is sensitive. The attitude of shame concerning their sexual functions, which has been impressed upon women as a result of ages of thinking in harmony with taboo standards, thus is able to prevent the normal biological response to a situation which should call out the emotions of love. In women who have an unstable nervous system this shameful feeling often results in a definite physiological shrinking from the physical manifestations of sexuality and renders the individual insensitive to all erotic stimulation. This attitude of shame in connection with the love life came into existence as a socially conditioned emotional reaction set up under the influence of the traditional ideal of the "model woman" who was pictured as a being of unearthly purity and immaculacy. It has been passed on from generation to generation through an unconscious conditioning of the daughter's attitude by suggestion and imitation to resemble that of the mother. Thus it happens that although an increasing amount of liberty, both social and economic, and a more rational and scientific understanding of the womanly nature, have quite revoked this ideal in theory, in actual practice it still continues to exert its inhibitory and restrictive influence. Because the standardized family relationship involves so much more radical a readjustment in the life of woman than of man, it has almost always been the feminine partner who has taken refuge in neurotic symptoms in order to escape the difficulties of the situation. After the marriage ceremony, the man's life goes on much as before, so far as his social activities are concerned, but woman takes up the new duties connected with the care of the home and her child-bearing functions. Moreover, the sexual life of woman is in many ways more complex than that of man. She has been subjected to more repressions and inhibitions, and as a result there has been more modification of her emotional reactions in the field of love. This greater complexity of her love life makes adaptation to marriage more problematical in the case of woman. Although the neurotic tendencies of modern women have been an important factor for the production of disharmony in the family life, there are certain variations of the individual sex life which are more universally significant. The conditioned emotional reactions which environmental influences have built up around the sexual impulse of each member of society invariably determine the choice of the mate and give rise to extremely complicated problems by the very nature of the selective process. It is largely a matter of chance whether the mate chosen in accordance with the ideals of romantic love and because of some fascinating trait which acts as an erotic fetish or in conformity with a parental fixation will prove a congenial companion through life. But the complexity of the situation lies in the fact that the erotic impulses may become conditioned to respond to an indefinite number of substituted stimuli. For example, the parental fixation may become reconditioned by focussing upon some special characteristic of the father or mother, which becomes an erotic fetish. If the mate is selected on the basis of this fetishistic attraction, he (or she) may prove to be so unlike the parent in other respects as to lose all the affection which was originally inspired. A concrete illustration of these conflicting emotional reactions is the case of the girl who declared that she feared her fiancé as much as she loved him, but felt that she must marry him nevertheless. An investigation showed that her almost compulsive feeling about her lover was due to the fact that his gestures and manner of regarding her, in fact his whole bearing, reminded her of her dead father, while in other respects he was totally repugnant to her because his character traits were so far removed from those of her father ideal. The conflict between the parental ideal and other phases of the sexual impulse is even more pronounced in men than in women, for two reasons. In the first place, the mother plays by far the largest part in the life of her children, so that the son's fixation upon her is necessarily more intense than the daughter's affection for the father. Yet on the other hand, the sexual desire of the male is more easily aroused than that of the female, and is more apt to centre upon some member of the opposite sex who possesses certain physical attractiveness but is not at all like the mother ideal. Thus it happens that men often enshrine on their hearthstone the woman who approximates the worshipped mother, while they seek satisfaction for their erotic needs outside the home. In other words, in the masculine psyche there is often a dissociation of the sexual impulse in its direct manifestations and the sentiment of love in its more idealistic aspects. This partially explains the fact that it is possible for a man to be "unfaithful" to his wife while actually loving her devotedly all the time. A different solution of the unconscious conflict between the mother fixation and the sexual desires at lower levels is seen in those cases in which the man impulsively marries the woman who has this transient attraction for him. When the first passion of such an alliance has worn away, there is no lasting bond to take its place, and the man must find solace in some such way as an intimate friendship with a woman who recalls the maternal impressions of his childhood. A famous example of this is found in the beautiful affection of Auguste Comte for his idolized Clotilde de Vaux. Although Comte was bound to a woman whom he had married in the flush of erotic desire and whom he found entirety uncongenial, Clotilde became the inspiration of his later life, and held his affection without the aid of any material bond because she so closely resembled the dead mother whom he adored.[3] It is evident that the selection of a mate who is erotically attractive, but proves to be very similar to a parent who was disliked instead of loved, is as unfortunate as the choice of a partner who is utterly unlike a beloved father or mother. Indeed, when all the possible complications are clearly visualized, taking into account the numerous ways in which the sexual emotions can be modified, it is plain that these unconscious factors which determine the choice of a mate are not always conducive to a happy married life. Quite recently the tendency to homosexuality has been emphasized as an important factor in the psychological problem of sex. At the International Conference of Medical Women (New York, 1919) it was stated that homosexual fixations among women are a frequent cause of female celibacy and divorce. This view was upheld by such authorities as Dr. Constance Long of England, and other prominent women physicians. Although a certain percentage of female homosexuality is congenital, it is probable that by far the largest part is due to a conditioning of the sexual impulse by the substitution of members of the same sex as the erotic stimulus in place of the normal response to the opposite sex. This substitution is facilitated by certain facts in the social life of women. The frequent lack of opportunity to be with men during adolescent school days, and a certain amount of taboo on male society for the unmarried woman, are in direct favour of the establishment of homosexual reactions. There is also an increasing sex antagonism, growing out of woman's long struggle for the privilege of participating in activities and sharing prerogatives formerly limited to men, which acts as an inhibitory force to prevent the transference of the sexual emotion to its normal object in the opposite sex. Moreover, the entrance of woman into a manner of living and lines of activity which have heretofore been exclusively masculine, has brought out certain character traits which in other times would have been repressed as incompatible with the social standards of feminine conduct, but which are conducive to the formation of homosexual attachments, since the qualities admired in men can now be found also in women. In this connection the term _homosexuality_ is used very loosely to denote any type of emotional fixation upon members of the same sex which is strong enough to prevent a normal love life with some individual of the opposite sex. Among American women, at least, this tendency is seldom expressed by any gross physical manifestations, but often becomes an idealized and lofty sentiment of friendship. It is abnormal, however, when it becomes so strong as to prevent a happy married life. The tendency of emotions to seek a vicarious outlet must also be considered in any inclusive attempt to explain the homosexual attachment of women. The woman who, on account of lack of attraction for men or for any other reason, is denied the normal functioning of the love life in marriage, is forced to find some other expression for her erotic emotions, and it is only natural that she should find it in an affection for other women. Again, the voluntary celibacy of a large class of modern women, who prefer to retain their economic independence rather than to enter into family life, also necessitates finding vicarious emotional activities. Whenever their work throws a number of these women into constant association, it is almost inevitable that homosexual attachments will spring up. We meet all these types of homosexual fixations in daily life. The college girl who is isolated from men for four years has her sworn comrade among the girls, and is sure that she will never marry but will love her chum always. Very often it is some time after she leaves college before she begins to take an interest in male companionship. The young professional woman looks up to the older woman in her line of work with the same admiration for her courage and brilliancy that used to be reserved for the husband alone in the days when women were permitted only a strictly feminine education and occupation. The business woman refuses to give up her high salaried position for marriage, and consoles herself with her feminine friends. These are the common manifestations characteristic of female homosexuality. As has been suggested, the term is loosely applied to such cases as these, but the tendency of recent psychological literature is to consider them as highly sublimated expressions of this tendency. As has been intimated, the modern woman who has entered into the economic competition is often reluctant to abandon this activity for the responsibilities of wifehood and motherhood, which involve a withdrawal from the business world. Just as the materialistic rewards of economic activities often prove more attractive than the emotional satisfactions of family life, so, too, the intellectual ambitions of the professional woman may deter her from the exercise of her reproductive functions. Thus the egoistic and individualistic tendencies which modern social organization fosters in the personality of its feminine members makes them unwilling to sacrifice their ambitious plans in the performance of their natural biological functions. In the present speeding up of competition, the entrance upon family life becomes almost as burdensome to man as to woman, although in a different manner. Free as he is from the biological responsibilities connected with childbearing which fall to a woman's lot, he finds the economic responsibilities which the care of children entails equally grilling. His choice of a profession can no longer be decided by his own preferences, but must be determined by the economic returns. He can never afford to sacrifice financial gain for personal recognition, because of his obligation to provide for his family. Thus it happens that marriage often presents a situation in which no outlet for personal ambitions is possible and the egoistic desires and emotions must be sternly repressed. There is therefore an increasing hesitancy on the part of the men of to-day to assume responsibilities so grave and involving so much personal sacrifice. It is evident from even such a casual inquiry as this, that there are many facts of individual psychology which have not been taken into account by society in the development of the mores which govern the sexual relationships of its members. The traditional institution of the family, which would shape all women into model wives and mothers, has neglected to consider the fact that not all women are biologically adapted for these particular activities. The choice of a mate which is determined by irrational and unconscious motives may or may not prove to be a wise selection, as we have seen in the course of our discussion. Most significant of all for the social problem of sex, is the overwhelming tendency to individuation which is making both men and women frankly question whether marriage and parenthood are worth while when they involve so much personal sacrifice. From the viewpoint of psychology, we may briefly summarize the whole situation by saying that society has imposed upon its members a uniform and inflexible type of sexual relationships and reproductive activities with a total disregard of individual differences in its demand for conformity to these traditions. When the infinite number of variations and modifications possible in the sexual life of different individuals is taken into consideration, it is obvious that there must be a certain disharmony between personal inclinations and social standards. Because the power of the group control is very great, its members usually repress emotions which are not in accord with its regulations, and shape their conduct to meet with its approval. If such a restriction of the personality and emotional life of the individual is necessary for the welfare of the whole race and for social progress, its existence is entirely justified. It is our next task, therefore, to determine in what respects a rigid and irrational social control is conducive to human betterment, and wherein, if at all, it fails to achieve this purpose. BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER II 1. Adler, Alfred. The Neurotic Constitution. Moffat, Yard, N.Y., 1917. (Kegan Paul & Co., 1921.) 2. Adler, Alfred. A Study of Organic Inferiority and Its Psychic Compensation. Nervous & Mental Disease Pub. Co., N.Y., 1917. 3. Blanchard, P. A Psychoanalytic Study of Auguste Comte. Am. Jour. Psy., April, 1918. 4. Watson, J.B. Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviourist. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1919. CHAPTER III DYSGENIC NATURE OF CERTAIN FACTORS OF SEX PSYCHOLOGY AND NECESSITY FOR A SOCIAL THERAPY Mating determined by unconscious psychological motives instead of eugenic considerations; Some of the best male and female stock refusing marriage and parenthood; The race is reproduced largely by the inferior and average stocks and very little by the superior stock; As a therapeutic measure, society should utilize psychological knowledge as a new method of control; Romantic love and conjugal love--a new ideal of love; The solution of the conflict between individual and group interests. From the viewpoint of group welfare, the present psychological situation of human reproductive activities undoubtedly has its detrimental aspects. As we have seen, the choice of a mate is determined by irrational motives which lie far below the levels of consciousness. These unconscious factors which govern sexual selection far outweigh the more rational considerations of modern eugenic thought. The marks of personal beauty around which romantic love centres and which therefore play a prominent part in mating are not necessarily indicative of physical and mental health that will insure the production of sound offspring. The modern standards of beauty (at least in so far as feminine loveliness is concerned) have gone far from the ancient Grecian type of physical perfection. Influenced perhaps by the chivalric ideals of "the lady," the demand is rather for a delicate and fragile prettiness which has come to be regarded as the essence of femininity. The robust, athletic girl must preserve this "feminine charm" in the midst of her wholesome outdoor life, else she stands in great danger of losing her erotic attraction. Surface indications of the truth of this statement are easily discovered. The literature which before the war ran riot with athletic heroines pictured them with wind-blown hair and flushed cheeks receiving the offer of their male companion's heart and hand. The golf course or the summer camp was simply a charming new setting for the development of the eternal love theme. Even fashion has conspired to emphasize the feminine charm of the girl who goes in for sports, as a glance at the models of bathing costumes, silken sweaters, and graceful "sport" skirts plainly reveals. Just as the love which is directed in accordance with an emotional reaction conditioned to respond to some erotic fetishism or to a parent ideal may be productive of individual unhappiness, so it is also entirely a matter of chance whether or not it leads to a eugenic mating. Like romantic love, it is quite as apt to focus upon a person who does not conform to eugenic ideals as upon one who does. The mate selected upon the basis of these unconscious motives is very likely to bequeath a neurotic constitution or an otherwise impaired physical organism to the offspring of the union, since those possibilities were not taken into consideration in making the choice. It becomes apparent that while certain forces in the life of the individual and in the social inheritance have united to condition the emotional reactions of the sex life, these conditionings have not always been for the benefit of the race. Indeed, it would almost seem that society has been more concerned with the manner of expression of the love life in the individual members than in its effects upon the next generation. In its neglect or ignorance of the significance of artificial modifications of the emotions, it has permitted certain dysgenic influences to continue in the psychic life of generation after generation, regarding with the utmost placidity a process of sexual selection determined by irrational and irresponsible motives. The most potent dysgenic influence in the present phase of the sex problem is the conflict between the interests of the individual and the group regulations. The traditional type of marriage and family life has a cramping effect upon the personal ambitions which lessens its attractiveness materially. The enterprising young business or professional man has no desire to restrict his opportunities by the assumption of the responsibilities that accompany family life. He must be free to stake all his resources on some favourable speculation without the thought that he cannot take chances on impoverishing his wife and children. Or if he has professional aspirations, he must be able to take the long difficult pathway of scientific research with no anxiety about the meagre salary that is insufficient for the support of a home. Thus the most vital and aggressive male stocks as well as the most highly intelligent tend to avoid the hampering effects of family life, and their qualities are often lost to the next generation, since even if they marry they will feel that they cannot afford offspring. As women enter more and more into the competition for economic and social rewards, this becomes equally applicable in their case. Indeed, it would be strange were there not an even greater tendency to shun the ties of family life on the part of ambitious women than of men, since it involves greater sacrifices in their case on account of their biological specialization for motherhood. It appears, therefore, that we are losing the best parental material for the coming generations on both the paternal and maternal sides. Thus the conflict between the egoistic desires and the social institution of the family is segregating just those energetic, successful individuals from whom the race of the future should spring if we hope to reproduce a social organism capable of survival in the inter-group struggle. If it be true that the best stock, both male and female, for various reasons refuses to assume the duty of reproduction, the group will necessarily be replaced from individuals of average and inferior (but not superior) eugenic value. Even within these limits there is at present no conscious eugenic selection, and the irrational and unconscious motives which govern sexual selection at the present time may induce the choice of a mate from among the weaker individuals. Once again it becomes a matter of chance whether or not the matings prove to be for the welfare of the group and of the race. It might be contended that the very fact that certain individuals withdraw from reproductive activities is sufficient proof of their lack of normal emotional reactions adapting them to the performance of those functions. But a clearer insight shows that the group standards permit the exercise of the reproductive activities only in accord with arbitrary regulations which have coalesced in the institutions of marriage and the family. These institutions have been developed to fit a definite ideal of manhood and womanhood which grew up out of a manner of thinking in accord with taboo control and ignorant superstitions rather than in harmony with the actual facts of the situation. Now that we are facing reality and trying to rationalize our thinking, we find that the variation from these masculine and feminine ideals does not necessarily imply biological or psychological abnormality, since the ideals were themselves established without reference to biological and psychological data. The traditional marriage and family arrangement tends to enforce a selection of individuals who conform most nearly to these artificial types as parents for the succeeding generations. It is not at all certain that such a selection is advantageous to the group. It would seem rather that in so complex a social system as that of the present day with its increasing division of labour on other than purely sexual distinctions, we need a variety of types of individuals adapted to the varied activities of modern life. If society is to successfully meet the present situation it must utilize its psychological insight to remedy conditions which are obviously dysgenic and detrimental to the welfare of the race. If the egoistic and highly individualized modern man and woman are induced to sacrifice personal ambitions in the interests of reproduction, for instance, it will only be because society has learned to turn those same egoistic impulses to its own ends. This will never be accomplished by the forces of tradition or by any such superimposed method of control as conscription for parenthood. There is too much of a spirit of freedom and individual liberty in the social mind to-day for any such measure to meet with success. The same spirit of freedom which formerly burst the bonds of superstition and entered into the world of science is now as impatient of restraint of its emotional life as it formerly was of restriction of its intellectual search for the truth. Therefore society can no longer depend upon taboo standards crystallized into institutionalized forms as a means of control. It must appeal to more rational motives if it expects to have any degree of influence over its most intelligent and energetic members. Only when the production of eugenic offspring brings the same social approval and reward that is meted out for other activities will the ineradicable and irrespressible egoistic desires that now prevent individuals from assuming the responsibilities of family life be enlisted in the very cause to which they are now so hostile. When the same disapproval is manifested for the shirking of reproductive activities by the eugenically fit that is now directed toward lack of patriotism in other lines, the number of voluntary celibates in society will be materialy decreased. The greatest triumph of society in the manipulation of the sexual and reproductive life of its members will come when it is able to condition the emotional reaction of the individual by the substitution of the eugenic ideal for the parental fixation and to focus the sentiment of romantic love upon eugenic traits. When this is accomplished, the selection of the mate will at least be favourable for racial regeneration even if individual disharmonies are not entirely eliminated. That there are great difficulties in the way of this accomplishment may be admitted at the outset. The conditioned responses to be broken down and replaced are for the most part formed in early childhood, and have had a long period in which to become firmly impressed upon the organism. But psychological experiments have proven that even the best established conditioned reactions can be broken down and others substituted in their place, so that the situation is not so hopeless. When we recollect that for ages the traditional ideals of masculinity and femininity have been conditioning the emotional life of men and women to respond to their requirements with a remarkable degree of success, there is ground for the belief that the same forces of suggestion and imitation may be turned to more rational ends and utilized as an effective means of social therapy. If we are to have a more rationalized form of social control, then, it will undoubtedly take into consideration the necessity of forming the socially desirable conditionings of the emotional life. The importance of the emotional reactions for social progress has been very well summarized by Burgess, who says that emotion can be utilized for breaking down old customs and establishing new ones, as well as for the conservation of the mores. Society can largely determine around what stimuli the emotions can be organized, this author continues, and the group has indeed always sought to control the stimuli impinging upon its members. One policy has been to eliminate objectionable stimuli, as in the outlawing of the saloon. The other is to change the nature of the affective response of the individual to certain stimuli in the environment where the natural or organic responses would be at variance with conduct considered socially desirable.[3] Modern psychological knowledge enables us to understand the mechanism of this last method of social control as the building up of the conditioned emotional response. If our civilization is to endure it must learn to apply this method of control to the sex life of the individual so that reproduction will fall to the lot of the most desirable eugenic stock instead of being left to the workings of chance as it is at the present time. From the viewpoint of individual psychology, one of the principal problems of the erotic life is to find a smooth transition from the romantic love of the courtship period to the less ethereal emotions of the married state. Indirectly, this is also socially significant, because of the overwhelming effect of the home environment in shaping the reactions of the next generation. As a rule, only the children who have grown up in a happy and wholesome atmosphere of sincere parental comradeship and affection can have an entirely sane and healthy reaction to their own erotic functions in later years. Although romantic love in its present expression may often lead to uncongenial marriages and even involve dysgenic mating, its æsthetic and refining influences are such as to make it desirable in spite of these drawbacks. Its influence upon literature has been noted by Bloch[2] while its potency in the formation of a deep and tender feeling between men and women has been elaborately discussed by Finck.[4] Thus it is evident that its individual and social advantages more than balance its disadvantages. Unfortunately, with the entrance into the marital relationship and the release of the erotic emotion into natural channels so that it no longer seeks the vicarious outlets which were partly supplied in the idealization of the lovers, there is a tendency for this romantic element to fade from their affection. The conjugal affection which replaces it is built on quite other foundations. It is not composed of day dreams about the beloved, but is wrought out of mutual interests, of joys and sorrows shared together, of the pleasure of unrestricted companionship, and of the common care of offspring. The danger lies in the possibility that these foundations for conjugal love will not have been lain by the time that romantic sentiments begin to grow dim. It is this crisis in the married life which seems disappointing in the afterglow of the engagement and honeymoon. Of late there have been attempts to build up a new conception of love which shall incorporate the best features of romantic love and at the same time make the transition to the conjugal affection less difficult. This new conception has grown up through the increasing freedom of women and the constant association of the sexes in the educational and business world as well as in the social life. This free companionship of men and women has done much to destroy the illusions about each other which were formerly supposed to be so necessary a component of romantic love, but it has also created the basis for a broader sympathy and a deeper comradeship which is easily carried over into the married relation. The new ideal of love which is being thus developed combines complete understanding and frankness with erotic attraction and the tenderness of romanticism. It implies a type of marital relationship in which there is preservation of the personality and at the same time a harmony and union of interests that was often absent from the old-fashioned marriage, when the wife was supposed to be more limited in her interests than her husband. It may well be that the evolution of this new ideal of love, which grants personal autonomy even within the marriage bond, will solve a great deal of the present conflict between the individualistic impulses and the exercise of the erotic functions as permitted by the group. It is, of course, an open question as to how far the interests of the individual and the group can be made to coincide. Group survival demands that the most vital and intelligent members shall be those to carry on the reproductive functions. Therefore from the social viewpoint, it is quite justified in setting up the machinery of social approval and in establishing emotional attitudes by this means that will insure that this takes place. On the other hand, it may be that the individuals who will be thus coerced will be as rebellious against new forms of social control as they are restless under the present methods of restraint. If we free ourselves from a manner of thinking induced by inhibitions developed through ages of taboo control, and look at the problem rationally, we must admit that the chief interest of society would be in the eugenic value of the children born into it. At the present time, however, the emphasis seems to be chiefly upon the manner of birth, that is, the principal concern is to have the parents married in the customary orthodox fashion. Only in view of the necessities of the recent war have the European nations been forced to wipe out the stain of illegitimacy, and in America we are still blind to this necessity. Only Scandinavia, under the leadership of such minds as Ellen Key's, was roused to this inconsistency in the mores without external pressure, and enacted legislation concerning illegitimacy which may well serve as a model to the whole world. The main points of the Norwegian Castberg bill are as follows: The child whose parents are unmarried has a right to the surname of the father, and the right of inheritance from a propertied father; the court has full power to clear up the paternity of the child; the man is held responsible for the child's support even if other men are known to have had intercourse with the mother. In order to discourage immorality in women for the purpose of blackmailing wealthy men, the mother is also compelled to contribute to the child's support.[1] No psychologist of discernment, in insisting on eugenic standards rather than a marriage certificate as the best criterion for parenthood would encourage any tendency to promiscuous mating. The individual suffering involved in such a system of sexual relationships would be too great to permit its universal adoption even if it should be found to have no deleterious social effects. But the very fact that transient mating does involve so much human agony, especially on the part of the woman, is all the more reason why it is needless to add artificial burdens to those already compelled by the very nature of the emotional life. The study of child psychology, too, would tend to discourage any general tendency to temporary sexual relationships. Modern research has shown that nothing is more necessary for the normal development of the child's emotional life than a happy home environment with the presence of both father and mother. Only in these surroundings, with the love of both parents as a part of the childhood experience, can the emotional reactions of the child be properly conditioned to respond to the social situations of adult life. In one respect, at least, society can do a great deal to better the existing situation, and to solve the struggle between the individual and group interests. At the same time that it endeavours to set up emotional responses that shall be conducive to eugenic mating and to a happy love life, as well as for the welfare of the child, it should also leave a wide margin of personal liberty for the individuals concerned to work out a type of sexual relationship which is in harmony with their natural inclinations. The institution of monogamy is too deeply founded in the needs of the individual and of the child to suffer from this increase in freedom and responsibility. Were it so frail a thing as to need the protection of the church and state as well as public opinion to insure its survival, it would be so little adapted to the needs of humanity that it might better disappear. There are no indications that there would be any wider deviation from the monogamous relationship were variations frankly recognized that now take place in secret. By its present attitude, society is not accomplishing its purpose and preventing all sexual relationships except those which conform to its institutionalized standards. It is merely forcing what should be always the most dignified of human relationships into the shamefulness of concealment and furtiveness. Moreover, because it visits its wrath on the child born of unions which are not strictly conventionalized, it prevents the birth of children from mothers who might be of great eugenic value, but whom fear of social disapproval keeps from the exercise of their maternal functions but not of their sexual activities. In the final analysis, it will probably be demonstrated that for a certain type of personality there can be no compromise which will resolve the conflict between the egoistic inclinations and the interests of the group. For those whose deepest desires are so out of harmony with the social life of the times there is no alternative but to sacrifice their personal desires or to forfeit the pleasure of feeling in complete rapport with their fellows. In such natures, the ultimate course of conduct will be determined by the relative strengths of the individualistic and gregarious impulses, other things being equal. In some instances this will mean the choice of a line of conduct out of harmony with the general trend of group life; in others, it will mean the repression of personal inclinations and conformity to social standards. For the majority of people, however, it is likely that a more rational form of social control, freed from the long ages of taboo restrictions, and based upon accurate biological and psychological knowledge, will solve the disharmony between the individual and the group to a great extent. Such a rationalization will take into account the value of a new ideal of love which shall be built up from a sane relationship between the sexes and in accordance with eugenic standards. It will also grant a great deal of personal autonomy in the determination of sexual relationships in so far as this can be correlated with the welfare of the children of the race. Last of all, it will attempt to condition the emotional reactions to respond to stimuli which shall insure eugenic mating naturally and without the intervention of legislation. Unless modern civilization can set up some such form of rational control for the sexual and reproductive life of its members, the present conflict between individuation and socialization will continue and the dysgenic factors now operative in society will steadily increase. In the end, this internal conflict may become so powerful as to act as an irresistible disintegrating force that will shatter the fabric of modern social organization. Only the evolution of a rationalized method of control can avert this social catastrophe. BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER III. 1. Anthony, Katharine. Feminism in Germany and Scandinavia. Henry Holt, N.Y., 1915. 2. Bloch, Ivan. Sexual Life of Our Time. Rebman, London, 1908. 3. Burgess, E.W. The Function of Socialization in Social Evolution. Univ. Chicago Press, 1916. 4. Finck, H.T. Romantic Love and Personal Beauty. Macmillan, N.Y., 1891. 
47501	----	Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals. * * * * * MARRIED LOVE Books by the same Author SCIENTIFIC. "The Cretaceous Flora, Part I." Illustrated. Published by the Trustees of the British Museum. 12s. net. "The Cretaceous Flora, Part II." Illustrated. Published by the Trustees of the British Museum. £1 1s. net. "Ancient Plants." Illustrated. Published by Blackie. 4s. 6d. net. "The Study of Plant Life." Illustrated. Published by Blackie. 3s. 6d. net. "Wise Parenthood." Published by Fifield. 2s. 6d. net. TRAVEL. "A Journal from Japan." Published by Blackie. 7s. 6d. net. LITERARY. "Man, Other Poems, and a Preface." Published by Heinemann. 3s. 6d. net. "Conquest," a Three-Act Play. Published by French. 1s. net. "Gold in the Wood" and "The Race." Two Plays. Published by Fifield. 2s. net. With Prof. J. Sakurai, "Plays of Old Japan, The Nö." Published by Heinemann. 5s. net. _The author's vivid and imaginative sympathy has really enabled her in some degree to communicate the incommunicable._ ATHENÆUM. MARRIED LOVE A New Contribution to the Solution of Sex Difficulties BY MARIE CARMICHAEL STOPES _Doctor of Science, London; Doctor of Philosophy, Munich; Fellow of University College, London; Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and the Linnean Society, London_ _With a Preface by Dr. JESSIE MURRAY and LETTERS from PROFESSOR E. H. STARLING, F.R.S., and FATHER STANISLAUS ST. JOHN, S.J._ _Sixth and enlarged Edition_ London: A. C. Fifield 13, Clifford's Inn, E.C.4 1919 _Dedicated to young husbands and all those who are betrothed in love_ _First published March 26, 1918_ _Second Edition printed May 17, 1918_ _Third Edition printed June 25, 1918_ _Fourth Edition printed August 2, 1918_ _Fifth Edition printed September 19, 1918_ _Sixth Edition printed February 3, 1919_ _Printed by the Pelican Press, London._ _Copyright; translation and all other rights reserved by the Author_ _Copyright in U.S.A._ Contents PAGE. Preface by Dr. Jessie Murray vii Letter from Professor Starling, F.R.S., &c. x Author's Preface xi Letter from Father St. John and Reply xiv Chapter I. The Heart's Desire 1 Chapter II. The Broken Joy 7 Chapter III. Woman's "Contrariness" 14 Chapter IV. The Fundamental Pulse 26 Chapter V. Mutual Adjustment 38 Chapter VI. Sleep 55 Chapter VII. Modesty and Romance 66 Chapter VIII. Abstinence 72 Chapter IX. Children 77 Chapter X. Society 92 Chapter XI. The Glorious Unfolding 107 Additions to Sixth Edition 114 Appendix 123 Charts to face 32 and 33 Preface BY Miss JESSIE MURRAY, M.B., B.S. In this little book Dr. Marie Stopes deals with subjects which are generally regarded as too sacred for an entirely frank treatment. Some earnest and delicate minds may feel apprehensive that such frankness in details is "dangerous," because the effect on prurient minds might be to give them food for their morbid fancies. It is just such a fear which has been largely responsible for the silence and mystery which have for so long been wrapped round the sacred rites of mating. The question now is, Has this reticence been carried too far? Has it been carried so far that it now tends to defeat its purpose of safeguarding public morals? There are many who unhesitatingly answer such questions in the affirmative. Their intimate knowledge of human lives compels them to recognise that at least as much harm is done by silence as by speaking out. Everything depends on how the matter is presented. Those who are shocked at the publication of such a book as this on the ground that it gives material for impure minds to sport with, need only reflect that such material is already amply provided in certain comic papers, in hosts of inferior novels, too often on the stage and film, and presented thus in coarse and demoralising guise. It can do nothing but good to such minds to meet the facts they are already so familiar with in a totally new light. On the other hand, there are all the earnest and noble young minds who seek to know what responsibilities they are taking on themselves when they marry, and how they may best meet these responsibilities. How few of them have more than the vaguest ideas on the subject! How few of them know how or where to obtain the help they desire! They recoil from the coarse and impure sources of information which are so accessible, and they hesitate to approach those they have learned to regard as virtuous and modest, realising that from such they will receive so little actual information, and that so veiled as to be almost useless. Dr. Stopes has attempted to meet the need of such seekers, and her book will certainly be warmly welcomed by them. It is calculated to prevent many of those mistakes which wreck the happiness of countless lovers as soon as they are actually married. If it did no more than this it would be valuable indeed! But there is an even more important aspect to be considered--the effect on the child. In all civilised lands there is a growing sense of responsibility towards the young. The problems of their physical and mental nurture attract more and more attention day by day. Eugenists, educationists, physicians, politicians, philanthropists, and even ordinary parents discuss and ponder, ponder and discuss, matters both great and small which have a bearing on the development of the child. By common consent the first seven years of life are regarded as the most critical. It is during these years that the foundations of the personality-to-be are laid--"well and truly" or otherwise. It is during these years that the deepest and most ineradicable impressions are made in the plastic constitution of the child, arresting or developing this or the other instinctive trend and fixing it, often for life. And it is during these years above all that the parents play the most important role in the inner history of the child's life, not so much by anything they directly teach through verbal exhortations, warnings, or commands, as by those subtler influences which are conveyed in gesture, tone, and facial expression. The younger the child, the more is it influenced through these more primitive modes of expression, and quite as much when they are not directed towards itself but are employed by the parents in their intimate relations with one another in the presence of their apparently unobserving child--the infant in its cot, the toddling baby by the hearth, the little child to all appearance absorbed in its picture book or toy. Is it not of the utmost importance that these earliest impressions should be of the finest nature? And should we not therefore welcome all that may help--as this book can--to make the living cradle of the next generation as full of beauty and harmony as love and mutual understanding can? The age-long conflict between the "lower" and the "higher" impulses, between the primitive animal nature and the specifically human developments of an altruistic and ethical order, are fought afresh in each soul and in every marriage. We need to realise more clearly that the lower is never--ought never to be--_eliminated_ but rather _subsumed by the higher_. No true harmony can be hoped for so long as one factor or the other is ignored or repressed. Dr. Stopes makes some very important biological suggestions which should not be lightly dismissed. Further observation is required to establish or disprove her theory of the normal sexual cycle in women, but my own observation certainly tends to confirm it. J. M. MURRAY. _Letter from_ Professor E. H. STARLING, M.D., B.S., F.R.S., _Professor of Physiology_, _University of London_. UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, GOWER STREET, LONDON, W.C., November 23, 1917. DEAR DR. STOPES,-- The need of such guidance as you give is very evident. After all, instinct in man is all insufficient to determine social behaviour, and there is need of instruction in the highest of physiological functions, that of reproduction, as there is in the lower functions of eating and drinking--the only difference being that in the former instruction can be deferred to a later age. And there is no doubt that in this case it is better to acquire knowledge by instruction than by a type of experience which is nearly always sordid and may be fraught with danger to the health of the individual and of the family. At the present time it is of vital importance to the State that its marriages should be fruitful--in children, happiness, and efficiency (and all three are closely connected). If your book helps in securing this object, your trouble will not have been in vain. Believe me, Yours very truly, ERNEST H. STARLING. Author's Preface More than ever to-day are happy homes needed. It is my hope that this book may serve the State by adding to their numbers. Its object is to increase the joys of marriage, and to show how much sorrow may be avoided. The only secure basis for a present-day State is the welding of its units in marriage; but there is rottenness and danger at the foundations of the State if many of the marriages are unhappy. To-day, particularly in the middle classes in this country, marriage is far less really happy than its surface appears. Too many who marry expecting joy are bitterly disappointed; and the demand for "freedom" grows; while those who cry aloud are generally unaware that it is more likely to have been their own ignorance than the "marriage-bond" which was the origin of their unhappiness. It is never _easy_ to make marriage a lovely thing; and it is an achievement beyond the powers of the selfish, or the mentally cowardly. Knowledge is needed and, as things are at present, knowledge is almost unobtainable by those who are most in want of it. The problems of the sex-life are infinitely complex, and for their solution urgently demand both sympathy and scientific research. I have some things to say about sex, which, so far as I am aware, have not yet been said, things which seem to be of profound importance to men and women who hope to make their marriages beautiful. This little book is less a record of a research than an attempt to present in easily understandable form the clarified and crystallised results of long and complex investigations. Its simple statements are based on a very large number of first-hand observations, on confidences from men and women of all classes and types, and on facts gleaned from wide reading. My original contributions to the age-long problems of marriage will principally be found in Chapters IV., V., and VIII. The other chapters fill in what I hope is an undistorted picture of the potential beauties and realities of marriage. The whole is written simply, and for the ordinary untrained reader, though it embodies some observations which will be new even to those who have made scientific researches on the subjects of sex and human physiology. These observations I intend to supplement and publish at greater length and in more scientific language in another place. I do not now touch upon the many human variations and abnormalities which bulk so largely in most books on sex, nor do I deal with the many problems raised by incurably unhappy marriages. In the following pages I speak to those--and in spite of all our neurotic literature and plays they are in the great majority--who are nearly normal, and who are married or about to be married, and hope, but do not know how, to make their marriages beautiful and happy. To the reticent, as to the conventional, it may seem a presumption or a superfluity to speak of the details of the most complex of all our functions. They ask: Is not instinct enough? The answer is No. Instinct is _not_ enough. In every other human activity it has been realised that training, the handing on of tradition are essential. As Dr. Saleeby once wisely pointed out: A cat knows how to manage her new-born kittens, how to bring them up and teach them; a human mother does not know how to manage her baby unless she is trained, either directly or by her own quick observation of other mothers. A cat performs her simple duties by instinct; a human mother has to be trained to fulfil her very complex ones. The same is true in the subtle realm of sex. In this country, in modern times, the old traditions, the profound primitive knowledge of the needs of both sexes, have been lost, and nothing but a muffled confusion of individual gossip disturbs a silence, shamefaced or foul. Here and there, in a family of fine tradition, a youth or maiden may learn some of the mysteries of marriage, but the great majority of people in our country have no glimmering of the supreme human art, the art of love; while in books on advanced Physiology and Medicine the gaps, the omissions, and even the misstatements of bare fact are amazing. In my first marriage I paid such a terrible price for sex-ignorance that I feel that knowledge gained at such a cost should be placed at the service of humanity. In this little book average, healthy, mating creatures will find the key to the happiness which should be the portion of each. It has already guided some to happiness, and I hope it may save some others years of heartache and blind questioning in the dark. MARIE CARMICHAEL STOPES. AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO FOURTH EDITION. I so much regret that many people have had to wait for the book, or been unable to get it. The paper restrictions and difficulties of printing and binding have been great. At first the publisher started with a modest edition of 2,000, not knowing what sort of reception the book would have. Now that we know that people not only need the book but really _want_ it we hope to be able to keep it in print, instead of perforce having it so often "reprinting," as it has been in the first few months of its existence. MARIE CARMICHAEL STOPES. AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO FIFTH EDITION. To mention some of those whose appreciation and encouragement have so much helped the progress of this book would be invidious, and to record them all would fill pages with mere names; but there is one toward whom I have often desired to record in print my gratitude, and that is Humphrey Verdon Roe. These thanks are rendered to him not in his private capacity of adored and adoring husband, but in his more public office of sympathetic friend. Though he did not meet me early enough to contribute to the text of the book itself his interest has nevertheless been invaluable in creating a helpful atmosphere for the ever-increasing work the book brings. MARIE CARMICHAEL STOPES. AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO SIXTH EDITION. The difficulty and cost of printing still renders it inadvisable to incorporate throughout this edition the number of small notes I should like to add, and the further points about which my various correspondents have asked advice. Among the subjects of inquiry, two are particularly prominent in the many letters which readers send me. The most frequent questions concern the practical extension so many desire to Chapter 9. This I have already dealt with separately in the short companion volume called "Wise Parenthood." The other subject deals with the reverse state of affairs and is also an extension of Chapter 9. This, for the present, I am placing at the end of the volume, Addition 4, page 119. Other points are dealt with on pages 114, _et seq._ Readers who have kindly contributed information, or have made requests for more light in a new edition, will, I hope, be satisfied now before too long a time has elapsed. MARIE CARMICHAEL STOPES _Letter from_ Father STANISLAUS ST. JOHN, F.C., S.J. 114, MOUNT STREET, LONDON, W. I, December 11, 1917. DEAR DR. STOPES, I have read "Married Love" with deep interest. As a piece of thoughtful, scientific writing I find it admirable throughout, and it seems to me that your theme could not have been treated in more beautiful or more delicate language, or with a truer ring of sympathy for those who, through ignorance or want of thought, make shipwreck of their married happiness. Your clear exposition of the rhythmic curve of sex-feeling and of the misinterpretation on the part of so many husbands of what they call their wives' contrariness, arising from their ignorance of its existence, should bring happiness to many married couples whose lives are drifting apart through want of knowledge. In the exercise of my ministry I have repeatedly traced the beginnings of the rift to this want of knowledge and consequently of sympathy. So far we are in complete agreement, but our ways part when you treat of birth control. You write primarily as a scientist (though a very human scientist), and so you are naturally mainly occupied with the facts and conditions of what I may call our earth-life. I, on the other hand, writing as a Catholic, regard our earth-life as essentially and inseparably connected with an eternal existence which reaches out beyond the grave. I look on this life as utterly meaningless in itself, as a period which is simply and solely a means to an end--Eternity--a period of which all the circumstances of pleasure and pain can only be explained and rightly used in their relation to this Eternity. Let me take in illustration of my meaning the case you give of the worn-out mother of twelve. The Catholic belief is that the loss of health on her part for a few years of life and the diminished vitality on the part of her later children would be a very small price indeed to pay for an endless happiness on the part of all. In our belief, then, the destruction of one spermatazoon is not the question, but the deliberate prevention of an eternally happy existence which, in the supposition, might arise from its preservation. Holding, as we do, that the marriage-act is the divinely ordained means by which man offers to God the opportunity of creating an immortal being, we do not believe that he may make use of this means and deliberately frustrate it of its end without doing grave wrong. You do me the honour of suggesting that I should write a foreword to your book, but any foreword from me could obviously only derive value from my position as a Catholic priest, and that position is in opposition to this part of your work. I cannot end without thanking you very sincerely for allowing me to read your book. Apart from what, as a Catholic, I object to in it, it contains so much most helpful matter that I feel sure it will bring to many a happiness in married life now wanting through the ignorance and the consequent want of sympathy which you so rightly deplore. Believe me, dear Dr. Stopes, Yours very sincerely, S. ST. JOHN, S.J., C.F. I publish this letter with sincere thanks to Father St. John for his permission to use it.--M. C. S. Reply to Father St. John, S.J. LEATHERHEAD, December 12, 1917. DEAR FATHER ST. JOHN,-- Your letter wins my heart entirely by its appreciation and kindness. It is a great help and encouragement to find that we are so far in essential agreement, and that you are so well disposed toward even part of my effort. But--and I wish I could say it in burning words--it is not because I am chiefly concerned with Time that I wrote Chapter IX., but just because I am so acutely and so persistently conscious that I am dealing with factors of Eternity. _To me to-day is essentially a part of my Life Everlasting._ I cannot separate time and eternity, this world and the next, as religious people often seem able to do; to me this body is a tool in the service of (though not completely in the control of) my immortal soul. Now it seems to me that religious people--and even in your letter I fancy I detect the same tendency (forgive me if I am wrong)--are too ready to separate this world and the next, to act unreasonably or cruelly here and to trust to Eternity, or the Hereafter, to put all right. I do not think that is the way God wills us to work out His plans now that He is giving us the knowledge to do better. Could there be anything more unreasonable or cruel than to bring into life half a dozen children _doomed from birth_ to ill-health, poverty, and almost inevitable crime? Christ forgave the thief upon the Cross, but He said, "Woe unto him through whom offences come. It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he cast into the sea." Would Christ approve of deliberately creating a thief by bringing forth a child who was one inevitably through predictable weakness of physique and mentality and an environment of poverty? ("Thief" stands for criminals in general.) But more, what about others, born dead, born imbecile, thwarted of life by miscarriage, which tear and rend the overburdened mother so that she is forced to neglect the children she has, and her neglect turns them into thieves? The poor, uneducated mother commits this crime through ignorance: it is _we who know_ and allow her to remain in ignorance who are really responsible. Is not our withholding God-given knowledge the greatest stumbling-block of offence to these little ones, and shall we not deserve the millstone round our necks? Were everyone to have all the children physiologically possible (now that infant mortality is so much reduced by science) in a few centuries there would not be standing room on the earth, and nowhere for a blade of grass or an ear of corn to grow between the crowding feet. Is then a Roman Catholic mother, the increases to whose large family get punier and punier, to be privileged to go deliberately with that host of puny children _at the expense of others_, not only through that part of Eternity called Time, but through all Eternity? But, dear Father St. John, it is not my place to preach or to argue with you, especially after your generous kindness and appreciation. And, alas! I fully realise that even were I granted the tongues of men and of angels, and I converted you to my thought in this matter, you as a Roman Catholic priest could not uphold a position in opposition to your Church. Oh, that the Churches would look to Christ's own words instead of to the official Church interpretation of them! I thank you very sincerely for your kindness to a stranger, and remain, always yours respectfully, MARIE CARMICHAEL STOPES. Chapter I. The Heart's Desire She gave him comprehension of the meaning of love: a word in many mouths, not often explained. With her, wound in his idea of her, he perceived it to signify a new start in our existence, a finer shoot of the tree stoutly planted in good gross earth; the senses running their live sap, and the minds companioned, and the spirits made one by the whole-natured conjunction. In sooth, a happy prospect for the sons and daughters of Earth, divinely indicating more than happiness: the speeding of us, compact of what we are, between the ascetic rocks and the sensual whirlpools, to the creation of certain nobler races, now very dimly imagined.--George Meredith's "Diana of the Crossways," chap. 37. Every heart desires a mate. For some reason beyond our comprehension, nature has so created us that we are incomplete in ourselves; neither man nor woman singly can know the joy of the performance of all the human functions; neither man nor woman singly can create another human being. This fact, which is expressed in our outward divergencies of form, influences and colours the whole of our lives; and there is nothing for which the inner-most spirit of one and all so yearns as for a sense of union with another soul, and the perfecting of oneself which such union brings. In all young people, unless they have inherited depraved or diseased faculties, the old desire of our race springs up afresh in its pristine beauty. With the dreams and bodily changes of adolescence, come to the youth and maiden the strange and powerful impulses of the racial instinct. The bodily differences of the two, now accentuated, become mystical, alluring, enchanting in their promise. Their differences unite and hold together the man and the woman so that their bodily union is the solid nucleus of an immense fabric of interwoven strands reaching to the uttermost ends of the earth; some lighter than the filmiest cobweb, or than the softest wave of music, iridescent with the colours, not only of the visible rainbow, but of all the invisible glories of the wave-lengths of the soul. However much he may conceal it under assumed cynicism, worldliness, or self-seeking, the heart of every young man yearns with a great longing for the fulfilment of the beautiful dream of a life-long union with a mate. Each heart knows instinctively that it is only a mate who can give full comprehension of all the potential greatness in the soul, and have tender laughter for all the child-like wonder that lingers so enchantingly even in the white-haired. The search for a mate is a quest for an understanding heart clothed in a body beautiful, but unlike our own. In the modern world, those who set out on high endeavours or who consciously separate themselves from the ordinary course of social life, are comparatively few, and it is not to them that I am speaking. The great majority of our citizens--both men and women--after a time of waiting, or of exploring, or of oscillating from one attraction to another, "settle down" and marry. Very few are actually so cynical as to marry without the hope of happiness; while most young people, however their words may deny it and however they may conceal their tender hopes by an assumption of cynicism, reveal that they are conscious of entering on a new and glorious state by their radiant looks and the joyous buoyancy of their actions. In the kisses and the hand touch of the betrothed are a zest and exhilaration which stir the blood like wine. The two read poetry, listen entranced to music which echoes the songs of their pulses, and see reflected in each other's eyes the beauty of the world. In the midst of this celestial intoxication they naturally assume that, as they are on the threshold of their lives, so too they are in but the ante-chamber of their experience of spiritual unity. The more sensitive, the more romantic, and the more idealistic is the young person of either sex, the more his or her soul craves for some kindred soul with whom the whole being can unite. But all have some measure of this desire, even the most prosaic, and we know from innumerable stories of real life that the sternest man of affairs, he who may have worldly success of every sort, may yet, through the lack of a real mate, live with a sense almost as though the limbs of his soul had been amputated. Edward Carpenter has beautifully voiced this longing:-- That there should exist one other person in the world towards whom all openness of interchange should establish itself, from whom there should be no concealment; whose body should be as dear to one, in every part, as one's own; with whom there should be no sense of Mine or Thine, in property or possession; into whose mind one's thoughts should naturally flow, as it were to know themselves and to receive a new illumination; and between whom and oneself there should be a spontaneous rebound of sympathy in all the joys and sorrows and experiences of life; such is perhaps one of the dearest wishes of the soul.--"Love's Coming of Age." It may chance that someone into whose hands this book falls may protest that he or she has never felt the fundamental yearning to form a part of that trinity which alone is the perfect expression of humanity. If that is so, it is possible that all unconsciously he may be suffering from a real malady--sex anæsthesia. This is the name given to an inherent coldness, which, while it lacks the usual human impulse of tenderness, is generally quite unconscious of its lack. It may even be that the reader's departure from the ordinary ranks of mankind is still more fundamental, in which case, instead of sitting in judgment on the majority, he will do well to read some such book as "The Sexual Question" (English translation 1908) by the famous Professor August Forel, in order that his own nature may be made known to him. He may then discover to which type of our widely various humanity he belongs. He need not read my book, for it is written about, and it is written for, ordinary men and women who, feeling themselves incomplete, yearn for a union that will have power not only to make a fuller and richer thing of their own lives, but which will place them in a position to use their sacred trust as creators of lives to come. It has happened many times in human history that individuals have not only been able to conquer this natural craving for a mate, but have set up celibacy as a higher ideal. In its most beautiful expression and sublimest manifestations, the celibate ideal has proclaimed a world-wide love, in place of the narrower human love of home and children. Many saints and sages, reformers and dogmatists have modelled their lives on this ideal. But such individuals cannot be taken as the standard of the _race_, for they are out of its main current: they are branches which may flower, but never fruit in a bodily form. In this world our spirits not only permeate matter but find their only expression through its medium. So long as we are human we must have bodies, and bodies obey chemical and physiological, as well as spiritual laws. If our race as a whole set out to pursue an ideal which must ultimately eliminate bodies altogether, it is clear that very soon we should find the conditions of our environment so altered that we could no longer speak of the human race. In the meantime, we _are_ human. We each and all live our lives according to laws, some of which we have begun to understand, many of which are completely hidden from us. The most complete human being is he or she who consciously or unconsciously obeys the profound physical laws of our being in such a way that the spirit receives as much help and as little hindrance from the body as possible. A mind and spirit finds its fullest expression thwarted by the misuse, neglect or gross abuse of the body in which it dwells. By the ignorant or self-indulgent breaking of fundamental laws endless harmonies are dislocated. The modern, small-minded ascetic endeavours to grow spiritually by destroying his physical instincts instead of by using them. But I would proclaim that we are set in the world so to mould matter that it may express our spirits; that it is presumption to profess to fight the immemorial laws of our physical being, and that he who does so loses unconsciously the finest flux in which wondrous new creations take their rise. To use a homely simile--one might compare two human beings to two bodies charged with electricity of different potentials. Isolated from each other the electric forces within them are invisible, but if they come into the right juxtaposition the force is transmuted, and a spark, a glow of burning light arises between them. Such is love. From the body of the loved one's simple, sweetly coloured flesh, which our immemorial creature instincts urge us to desire, there springs not only the wonder of a new bodily life, but also the enlargement of the horizon of human sympathy and the glow of spiritual understanding which a solitary soul could never have attained alone. Many reading this may feel conscious that they have had physical union without such spiritual results, perhaps even without an accession of ordinary happiness. If that is so, it can only be because, consciously or unconsciously, they have broken some of the profound laws which govern the love of man and woman. Only by learning to hold a bow correctly can one draw music from a violin: only by obedience to the laws of the lower plane can one step up to the plane above. Chapter II. The Broken Joy What shall be done to quiet the heart-cry of the world? How answer the dumb appeal for help we so often divine below eyes that laugh?--Æ. in "The Hero in Man." Dreaming of happiness, feeling that at last they have each found the one who will give eternal understanding and tenderness, the young man and maiden marry.[1] [1] In this, and in most of the generalisations found in this book, I am speaking of things as they are in Great Britain. While, to a considerable extent, the same is true of America and the Scandinavian countries, it must be remembered all through that I am speaking of the British, and primarily of our educated classes. At first, in the time generally called the honeymoon, the unaccustomed freedom and the sweetness of the relation often does bring real happiness. How long does it last? Too often a far shorter time than is generally acknowledged. In the first joy of their union it is hidden from the two young people that they know little or nothing about the fundamental laws of each other's being. Much of the sex-attraction (not only among human beings, but even throughout the whole world of living creatures) depends upon the differences between the two that pair; and probably taking them all unawares, those very differences which drew them together now begin to work their undoing. But so long as the first illusion that each understands the other is supported by the thrilling delight of ever-fresh discoveries, the sensations lived through are so rapid and so joyous that the lovers do not realise that there is no firm foundation of real mutual knowledge beneath their feet. While even the happiest pair may know of divergencies about religion, politics, social custom, and opinions on things in general, these, with goodwill, patience, and intelligence on either side, can be ultimately adjusted, because in all such things there is a common meeting ground for the two. Human beings, while differing widely about every conceivable subject in such human relations, have at least _thought_ about them, threshed them out, and discussed them openly for generations. But about the much more fundamental and vital problems of sex, there is a lack of knowledge so abysmal and so universal that its mists and shadowy darkness have affected even the few who lead us, and who are prosecuting research in these subjects. And the two young people begin to suffer from fundamental divergencies, before perhaps they realise that such exist, and with little prospect of ever gaining a rational explanation of them. Nearly all those whose own happiness seems to be dimmed or broken count themselves exceptions, and comfort themselves with the thought of some of their friends, who, they feel sure, have attained the happiness which they themselves have missed. It is generally supposed that happy people, like happy nations, have no history--they are silent about their own affairs. Those who talk about their marriage are generally those who have missed the happiness they expected. True as this may be in general, it is not permanently and profoundly true, and there are people who are reckoned, and still reckon themselves, happy, but who yet unawares reveal the secret disappointment which clouds their inward peace. Leaving out of account "_femmes incomprises_" and all the innumerable neurotic, super-sensitive, and slightly abnormal people, it still remains an astonishing and tragic fact that so large a proportion of marriages lose their early bloom and are to some extent unhappy. For years many men and women have confided to me the secrets of their lives; and of all the innumerable marriages of which the inner circumstances are known to me, there are tragically few which approach even humanly attainable joy. Many of those considered by the world, by the relatives, _even by the loved and loving partner_, to be perfectly happy marriages, are secretly shadowed to the more sensitive of the pair. Where the bride is, as are so many of our educated girls, composed of virgin sweetness shut in ignorance, the man is often the first to create "the rift within the lute"; but his suffering begins almost simultaneously with hers. The surface freedom of our women has not materially altered, cannot materially alter, the pristine purity of a girl of our northern race. She generally has not even the capacity to imagine the basic facts of physical marriage, and her bridegroom may shock her without knowing that he was doing so. Then, unconscious of the nature, and even perhaps of the existence of his fault, he is bewildered and pained by her inarticulate pain. Yet I think, nevertheless, it is true that in the early days of marriage the young man is often even more sensitive, more romantic, more easily pained about all ordinary things, and he enters marriage hoping for an even higher degree of spiritual and bodily unity than does the girl or the woman. But the man is more quickly blunted, more swiftly rendered cynical, and is readier to look upon happiness as a Utopian dream than is his mate. On the other hand, the woman is slower to realise disappointment, and more often by the sex-life of marriage is of the two the more _profoundly_ wounded, with a slow corrosive wound that eats into her very being. Perfect happiness is a unity composed of a myriad essences; and this one supreme thing is exposed to the attacks of countless destructive factors. Were I to touch upon all the possible sources of marital disappointment and unhappiness, this book would expand into a dozen bulky volumes. As I am addressing those who I assume have read, or can read, other books written upon various ramifications of the subject, I will not discuss the themes which have been handled by many writers, nor deal with abnormalities, which fill so large a part of most books on sex. In the last few years there has been such an awakening to the realisation of the corrosive horror of all aspects of prostitution that there is no need to labour the point that no marriage can be happy where the husband has, in buying another body, sold his own health with his honour, and is tainted with disease. Nor is it necessary, in speaking to well-meaning, optimistic young couples, to enlarge upon the obvious dangers of drunkenness, self-indulgence, and the cruder forms of selfishness. It is with the subtler infringements of the fundamental laws we have to deal. And the prime tragedy is that, as a rule, the two young people are both unaware of the existence of such decrees. Yet here, as elsewhere in Nature, the law breaker is punished whether he is aware of the existence of the law he breaks or not. In the state of ignorance which so largely predominates to-day, the first sign that things are amiss between the two who thought they were entering paradise together, is generally a sense of loneliness, a feeling that the one who was expected to have all in common is outside some experience, some subtle delight, and fails to understand the needs of the loved one. Trivialities are often the first indicators of something which takes its roots unseen in the profoundest depths. The girl may sob for hours over something so trifling that she cannot even put into words its nature, while the young man, thinking that he had set out with his soul's beloved upon an adventure into celestial distances, may find himself apparently up against a barrier in her which appears as incomprehensible as it is frivolous. Then, so strange is the mystical inter-relation between our bodies, our minds, and our souls, that for crimes committed in ignorance of the dual functions of the married pair, and the laws which harmonise them, the punishments are reaped on planes quite diverse, till new and ever new misunderstandings appear to spring spontaneously from the soil of their mutual contact. Gradually or swiftly each heart begins to hide a sense of boundless isolation. It may be urged that this statement is too sweeping. It is, however, based on innumerable actual lives. I have heard from women whose marriages are looked upon by all as the happiest possible expressions of human felicity, the details of secret pain of which they have allowed their husbands no inkling. Many men will know how they have hidden from their beloved wives a sense of dull disappointment, perhaps at her coldness in the marital embrace, or from the sense that there is in her something elusive which always evades their grasp. This profound sense of misunderstanding finds readier expression in the cruder and more ordinary natures. The disappointment of the married is expressed not only in innumerable books and plays, but even in comic papers and all our daily gossip. Now that so many "movements" are abroad, folk on all sides are emboldened to express the opinion that it is marriage itself which is at fault. Many think that merely by loosening the bonds, and making it possible to start afresh with someone else, their lives would be made harmonious and happy. But often such reformers forget that he or she who knows nothing of the way to make marriage great and beautiful with one partner, is not likely to succeed with another. Only by a reverent study of the Art of Love can the beauty of its expression be realised in linked lives. And even when once learnt, the Art of Love takes _time_ to practise. As Ellen Key says, "Love requires peace, love will dream; it cannot live upon the remnants of our time and our personality." There is no doubt that Love loses, in the haste and bustle of the modern turmoil, not only its charm and graces, but some of its vital essence. The evil results of the haste which so infests and poisons us are often felt much more by the woman than by the man. The over-stimulation of city life tends to "speed up" the man's reactions, but to retard hers. To make matters worse, even for those who have leisure to spend on love-making, the opportunities for peaceful, romantic dalliance are less to-day in a city with its tubes and cinema shows than in woods and gardens where the pulling of rosemary or lavender may be the sweet excuse for the slow and profound mutual rousing of passion. Now physical passion, so swiftly stimulated in man, tends to override all else, and the untutored man seeks but one thing--the accomplishment of desire. The woman, for it is in her nature so to do, forgives the crudeness, but sooner or later her love revolts, probably in secret, and then for ever after, though she may command an outward tenderness, she has nothing within but scorn and loathing for the act which should have been a perpetually recurring entrancement. So many people are now born and bred in artificial and false surroundings, that even the elementary fact that the acts of love should be _joyous_ is unknown to them. A distinguished American doctor made this amazing statement: "I do not believe mutual pleasure in the sexual act has any particular bearing on the happiness of life." (Amer. Med. Assoc. Rep. 1900.) This is, perhaps, an extreme case, yet so many distinguished medical men, gynecologists and physiologists, are either in ignorance or error regarding some of the profoundest facts of human sex-life, that it is not surprising that ordinary young couples, however hopeful, should break and destroy the joy that might have been their life-long crown. Chapter III. Woman's "Contrariness" Oh! for that Being whom I can conceive to be in the world, though I shall not live to prove it. One to whom I might have recourse in all my Humours and Dispositions: in all my Distempers of Mind, visionary Causes of Mortification, and Fairy Dreams of Pleasure. I have been trying to train up a Lady or two for these good offices of Friendship, but hitherto I must not boast of my success.--HERRICK. What is the fate of the average man who marries, happily and hopefully, a girl well suited to him? He desires with his whole heart a mutual, life-long happiness. He marries with the intention of fulfilling every injunction given him by father, doctor, and friend. He is considerate in trifles, he speaks no harsh words, he and his bride go about together, walk together, read together, and perhaps, if they are very advanced, even work together. But after a few months, or maybe a few years of marriage they seem to have drifted apart, and he finds her often cold and incomprehensible. Few men will acknowledge this even to their best friends. But each heart knows its own pain. He may at times laugh, and in the friendliest spirit tease his wife about her contrariness. That is taken by everyone to mean nothing but a playful concealment of his profound love. Probably it is. But gnawing at the very roots of his love is a hateful little worm--the sense that she _is contrary_. He feels that she is at times inexplicably cold; that, sometimes, when he has "done nothing" she will have tears in her eyes, irrational tears which she cannot explain. He observes that one week his tender love-making and romantic advances win her to smiles and joyous yielding, and then perhaps a few days later the same, or more impassioned, tenderness on his part is met by coldness or a forced appearance of warmth, which, while he may make no comment upon it, hurts him acutely. And this deep, inexplicable hurt is often the beginning of the end of his love. Men like to feel that they understand their dearest one, and that she is a rational being. After inexplicable misunderstanding has continued for some time, if the man is of at all a jealous nature he will search his wife's acquaintances for someone whom she may have met, for someone who may momentarily have diverted her attention. For however hard it is for the natural man to believe that anyone could step into _his_ shoes, some are ready to seek the explanation of their own ill success in a rival. On some occasion when her coldness puzzles him the man is perhaps conscious that his love, his own desires, are as ardent as they were a few days before; then, knowing so intimately his own heart, he is sure of the steadiness of its love, and he feels acutely the romantic passion to which her beauty stirs him; he remembers perhaps that a few days earlier his ardour had awakened a response in her; therefore, he reaches what appears to him to be the infallible logical deduction--that either there must be some rival or his bride's nature is incomprehensible, contrary, capricious. Both thoughts to madden. With capriciousness, man in general has little patience. Caprice renders his best efforts null and void. Woman's caprice is, or appears to be, a negation of reason. And as reason is man's most precious and hard-won faculty, the one which has raised mankind from the ranks of the brute creation, he cannot bear to see it apparently flouted. That his bride should lack logic and sweet reasonableness is a flaw it hurts him to recognise in her. He has to crush the thought down. It may then happen that the young man, himself pained and bewildered at having pained his bride by the very ardour of his affection, may strive to please her by placing restraint upon himself. He may ask himself: Do not religious and many kinds of moral teachers preach restraint to the man? He reads the books written for the guidance of youth, and finds "restraint," "self-control," in general terms (and often irrationally) urged in them all. His next step may then be to curtail the expression of his tender feelings, and to work hard and late in the evenings instead of kissing his bride's fingers and coming to her for sweet communion in the dusk. And then, if he is at all observant, he may be aggrieved and astonished to find her again wistful or hurt. With the tender longing to _understand_, which is so profound a characteristic in all the best of our young men, he begs, implores, or pets her into telling him some part of the reason for her fresh grievance. He discovers to his amazement that _this_ time she is hurt because he had not made those very advances which so recently had repelled her, and had been with such difficulty repressed by his intellectual efforts. He asks himself in despair: What is a man to do? If he is "educated," he probably devours all the books on sex he can obtain. But in them he is not likely to find much real guidance. He learns from them that "restraint" is advised from every point of view, but according to the character of the author he will find that "restraint" means having the marriage relations with his wife not more than three times a week, or once a month--or never at all except for the procreation of children. He finds no _rational_ guidance based on natural law. According to his temperament then, he may begin to practise "restraint." But it may happen, and indeed it has probably happened in every marriage once or many times, that the night comes when the man who has heroically practised restraint, accidentally discovers his wife in tears on her solitary pillow. He seeks for advice indirectly from his friends, perhaps from his doctor. But can his local doctor or his friends tell him more than the chief European authorities on this subject? The famous Professor Forel ("The Sexual Question," transl. 1908) gives the following advice:-- The reformer, Luther, who was a practical man, laid down the average rule of two or three connections a week in marriage, at the time of highest sexual power. I may say that my numerous observations as a physician have generally confirmed this rule, which seems to me to conform very well to the normal state to which _man_[2] has become gradually adapted during thousands of years. Husbands who would consider this average as an imprescriptable right would, however, make wrong pretensions, for it is quite possible for a normal man to contain himself much longer, and it is his duty to do so, not only when his wife is ill, but also during menstruation and pregnancy. [2] The italics are mine.--M. C. S. [see transcriber's note] This pronouncement of an exceptionally advanced and broadminded thinker serves to show how little attention has hitherto been paid to the woman's side of this question, or to ascertaining _her_ natural requirements. Many men will not be so considerate as to follow this advice, which represents a high standard of living; but, on the other hand, there are many who are willing to go not only so far, but further than this in their self-suppression in order to attain their heart's desire, the happiness of their mate, and consequently their own life's joy. However willing they may be to go further, the great question for the man is: Where? There are innumerable leaders anxious to lead in many different directions. The young husband may try first one and then the other, and still find his wife unsatisfied, incomprehensible--capricious. Then it may be that, disheartened, he tires, and she sinks into the dull apathy of acquiescence in her "wifely duty." He is left with an echo of resentment in his heart. If only she had not been so capricious, they would still have been happy, he fancies. Many writers, novelists, poets and dramatists have represented the uttermost tragedy of human life as due to the incomprehensible contrariness of the feminine nature. The kindly ones smile, perhaps a little patronisingly, and tell us that women are more instinctive, more child-like, less reasonable than men. The bitter ones sneer or reproach or laugh at this in women they do not understand, and which, baffling _their_ intellect, appears to them to be irrational folly. It seems strange that those who search for natural law in every province of our universe should have neglected the most vital subject, the one which concerns us all infinitely more than the naming of planets or the collecting of insects. Woman is _not_ essentially capricious; some of the laws of her being might have been discovered long ago had the existence of law been suspected. But it has suited the general structure of society much better for men to shrug their shoulders and smile at women as irrational and capricious creatures, to be courted when it suited them, not to be studied. Vaguely, perhaps, men have realised that much of the charm of life lies in the sex-_differences_ between men and women; so they have snatched at the easy theory that women differ from themselves by being capricious. Moreover, by attributing to mere caprice the coldness which at times comes over the most ardent woman, man was unconsciously justifying himself for at any time coercing her to suit himself. Circumstances have so contrived that hitherto the explorers and scientific investigators, the historians and statisticians, the poets and artists have been mainly men. Consequently woman's side of the joint life has found little or no expression. Woman has been content to mould herself to the shape desired by man wherever possible, and she has stifled her natural feelings and her own deep thoughts as they welled up. Most women have never realised intellectually, but many have been dimly half-conscious, that woman's nature is set to rhythms over which man has no more control than he has over the tides of the sea. While the ocean can subdue and dominate man and laugh at his attempted restrictions, woman has bowed to man's desire over her body, and, regardless of its pulses, he approaches her or not as is his will. Some of her rhythms defy him--the moon-month tide of menstruation, the cycle of ten moon-months of bearing the growing child and its birth at the end of the tenth wave--these are essentials too strong to be mastered by man. But the subtler ebb and flow of woman's sex has escaped man's observation or his care. If a swimmer comes to a sandy beach when the tide is out and the waves have receded, leaving sand where he had expected deep blue water--does he, baulked of his bathe, angrily call the sea "capricious"? But the tenderest bridegroom finds only caprice in his bride's coldness when she yields her sacrificial body while her sex-tide is at the ebb. There is another side to this problem, one perhaps even less considered by society. There is the tragic figure of the loving woman whose love-tide is at the highest, and whose husband does not recognise the delicate signs of her ardour. In our anæmic artificial days it often happens that the man's desire is a surface need, quickly satisfied, colourless, and lacking beauty, and that he has no knowledge of the rich complexities of love-making which an initiate of love's mysteries enjoys. To such a man his wife may indeed seem petulant, capricious, or resentful without reason. Welling up in her are the wonderful tides, scented and enriched by the myriad experiences of the human race from its ancient days of leisure and flower-wreathed love-making, urging her to transports and to self-expressions, were the man but ready to take the first step in the initiative or to recognise and welcome it in her. Seldom dare any woman, still more seldom dare a wife, risk the blow at her heart which would be given were she to offer charming love-play to which the man did not respond. To the initiate she will be able to reveal that the tide is up by a hundred subtle signs, upon which he will seize with delight. But if her husband is blind to them there is for her nothing but silence, self-suppression, and their inevitable sequence of self-scorn, followed by resentment towards the man who places her in such a position of humiliation while talking of his "love." So unaware of the elements of the physiological reactions of women are many modern men that the case of Mrs. G. is not exceptional. Her husband was accustomed to pet her and have relations with her frequently, but yet he never took any trouble to rouse in her the necessary preliminary feeling for mutual union. She had married as a very ignorant girl, but often vaguely felt a sense of something lacking in her husband's love. Her husband had never kissed her except on the lips and cheek, but once at the crest of the wave of her sex-tide (all unconscious that it was so) she felt a yearning to feel his head, his lips, pressed against her bosom. The sensitive inter-relation between a woman's breasts and the rest of her sex-life is not only a bodily thrill, but there is a world of poetic beauty in the longing of a loving woman for the unconceived child which melts in mists of tenderness toward her lover, the soft touch of whose lips can thus rouse her mingled joy. Because she shyly asked him, Mrs. G.'s husband gave her one swift unrepeated kiss upon her bosom. He was so ignorant that he did not know that her husband's lips upon her breast melt a wife to tenderness and are one of a husband's first and surest ways to make her physically ready for complete union. In this way he inhibited her natural desire, and as he never did anything to stir it, she never had any physical pleasure in their relation. Such prudish or careless husbands, content with their own satisfaction, little know the pent-up aching, or even resentment, which may eat into a wife's heart, and ultimately may affect her whole health. Often the man is also the victim of the purblind social customs which make sex-knowledge _tabu_. It has become a tradition of our social life that the ignorance of woman about her own body and that of her future husband is a flower-like innocence. And to such an extreme is this sometimes pushed, that not seldom is a girl married unaware that married life will bring her into physical relations with her husband fundamentally different from those with her brother. When she discovers the true nature of his body, and learns the part she has to play as a wife, she may refuse utterly to agree to her husband's wishes. I know one pair of which the husband, chivalrous and loving, had to wait years before his bride recovered from the shock of the discovery of the meaning of marriage and was able to allow him a natural relation. There have been not a few brides whom the horror of the first night of marriage with a man less considerate has driven to suicide or insanity. That girls can reach a marriageable age without some knowledge of the realities of marriage would seem incredible were it not a fact. One highly-educated lady intimately known to me told me that when she was about eighteen she suffered many months of agonising apprehension that she was about to have a baby because a man had snatched a kiss from her lips at a dance. When girls so brought up are married it is a _rape_ for the husband to insist on his "marital rights" at once. It will be difficult or impossible for such a bride ever after to experience the joys of sex-union, for such a beginning must imprint upon her consciousness the view that the man's animal nature dominates him. In a magazine I came across a poem which vividly expresses this peculiarly feminine sorrow: ... To mate with men who have no soul above Earth grubbing; who, the bridal night, forsooth, Killed sparks that rise from instinct fires of life, And left us frozen things, alone to fashion Our souls to dust, masked with the name of wife-- Long years of youth--love years--the years of passion Yawning before us. So, shamming to the end, All shrivelled by the side of him we wed, Hoping that peace may riper years attend, Mere odalisques are we--well housed, well fed. KATHERINE NELSON. Many men who enter marriage sincerely and tenderly may yet have some previous experience of bought "love." It is then not unlikely that they may fall into the error of explaining their wife's experiences in terms of the reactions of the prostitute. They argue that, because the prostitute showed physical excitement and pleasure in union, if the bride or wife does not do so, then she is "cold" or "under-sexed." They may not realise that often all the bodily movements which the prostitute makes are studied and simulated because her client enjoys his climax best when the woman in his arms simultaneously thrills. As Forel says ("The Sexual Question," 1908, Engl. trans.): "The company of prostitutes often renders men incapable of understanding feminine psychology, for prostitutes are hardly more than automata trained for the use of male sensuality. When men look among these for the sexual psychology of woman they find only their own mirror." Fate is often cruel to men, too. More high-spirited young men than the world imagines strive for and keep their purity to give their brides; if such a man then marries a woman who is soiled, or, on the other hand, one who is so "pure" and prudish that she denies him union with her body, his noble achievement seems bitterly vain. On the other hand, it may be that after years of fighting with his hot young blood a man has given up and gone now and again for relief to prostitutes, and then later in life has met the woman who is his mate, and whom, after remorse for his soiled past, and after winning her forgiveness for it, he marries. Then, unwittingly, he may make the wife suffer either by interpreting her in the light of the other women or perhaps (though this happens less frequently) by setting her absolutely apart from them. I know of a man who, after a loose life, met a woman whom he reverenced and adored. He married her, but to preserve her "purity," her difference from the others, he never consummated his marriage with her. She was strangely unhappy, for she loved him passionately and longed for children. She appeared to him to be pining "capriciously" when she became thin and neurotic. Perhaps this man might have seen his own behaviour in a truer light had he known that some creatures simply _die_ if unmated (see p. 123 Appendix). The idea that woman is lowered by sex intercourse is very deeply rooted in our present society. Many sources have contributed to this mistaken idea, not the least powerful being the ascetic ideal of the early Church and the fact that man has _used_ woman as his instrument so often regardless of her wishes. Women's education, therefore, and the trend of social feeling, has largely been in the direction of freeing her from this and thus mistakenly encouraging the idea that sex-life is a low, physical, and degrading necessity which a pure woman is above enjoying. In marriage the husband has used his "marital right"[3] of intercourse when _he_ wished it. Both law and custom have strengthened the view that he has the right to approach his wife whenever he wishes, and that she has no wishes and no fundamental needs in the matter at all. [3] "Conjugal Rights." Notes and Queries. May 16, 1891, p. 383. "S. writes from the Probate Registry, Somerset House: 'Previous to 1733 legal proceedings were recorded in Latin and the word then used where we now speak of _rights_ was _obsequies_. For some time after the substitution of English for Latin the term _rites_ was usually, if not invariably adopted; _rights_ would appear to be a comparatively modern error.'" "Mr. T. E. Paget writes ('Romeo and Juliet,' Act V., Scene III.): "What cursed foot wanders this way to-night To cross my obsequies, and true lovers rite?" "Well may Lord Esher say he has never been able to make out what the phrase 'conjugal rights' means. The origin of the term is now clear, and a blunder, which was first made, perhaps, by a type-setter in the early part of the last century, and never exposed until now, has led to a vast amount of misapprehension. Here, too, is another proof that Shakespeare was exceedingly familiar with 'legal language.'" That woman has a rhythmic sex-tide which, if its indications were obeyed, would ensure not only her enjoyment, but would explode the myth of her capriciousness, seems not to be suspected. We have studied the wave-lengths of water, of sound, of light; but when will the sons and daughters of men study the sex-tide in woman and learn the laws of her Periodicity of Recurrence of desire? Chapter IV. The Fundamental Pulse The judgments of men concerning women are very rarely matters of cold scientific observation, but are coloured both by their own sexual emotions and by their own moral attitude toward the sexual impulse.... [Men's] Statements about the sexual impulses of women often tell us less about women than about the persons who make them.--H. ELLIS. By the majority of "nice" people woman is supposed to have no spontaneous sex impulses. By this I do not mean a sentimental "falling in love," but a physical, a physiological state of stimulation which arises spontaneously and quite apart from any particular man. It is in truth the _creative_ impulse, and is an expression of a high power of vitality. So widespread in our country is the view that it is only depraved women who have such feelings (especially before marriage) that most women would rather die than own that they _do_ at times feel a physical yearning indescribable, but as profound as hunger for food. Yet many, many women have shown me the truth of their natures when I have simply and naturally assumed that of course they feel it--being normal women--and have asked them only: _When?_ From their replies I have collected facts which are sufficient to overturn many ready-made theories about women. Some of the ridiculous absurdities which go by the name of science may be illustrated by the statement made by Windscheid in the Centralblatt für Gynäkologie: "In the normal woman, especially of the higher social classes, the sexual instinct is acquired, not inborn; when it is inborn, or awakens by itself, there is _abnormality_. Since women do not know this instinct before marriage, they do not miss it when they have no occasion in life to learn it." (Ellis transl.) The negation of this view is expressed in the fable of Hera quoted by Ellen Key. Hera sent Iris to earth to seek out three virtuous and perfectly chaste maidens who were unsoiled by any dreams of love. Iris found them, but could not take them back to Olympus, for they had already been sent for to replace the superannuated Furies in the infernal regions. Nevertheless it is true that the whole education of girls, which so largely consists in the concealment of the essential facts of life from them; and the positive teaching so prevalent that the racial instincts are low and shameful; and also the social condition which places so many women in the position of depending on their husband's will not only for the luxuries but for the necessaries of life, have all tended to inhibit natural sex-impulses in women, and to conceal and distort what remains. It is also true that in our northern climate women are on the whole naturally less persistently stirred than southerners; and it is further true that with the delaying of maturity, due to our ever-lengthening youth, it often happens that a woman is approaching or even past thirty years before she is awake to the existence of the profoundest calls of her nature. For many years before that, however, the unrealised influence, diffused throughout her very system, has profoundly affected her. It is also true that (partly due to the inhibiting influences of our customs, traditions and social code) women may marry before it wakes, and may remain long after marriage entirely unconscious that it surges subdued within them. For innumerable women, too, the husband's regular habits of intercourse, claiming her both when she would naturally enjoy union and when it is to some degree repugnant to her, have tended to flatten out the billowing curves of the line of her natural desire. One result, apparently little suspected, of using the woman as a passive instrument for man's need has been, in effect, to make her that and nothing more. Those men--and there are many--who complain of the lack of ardour in good wives, are often themselves entirely the cause of it. When a woman is claimed at times when she takes no _natural_ pleasure in union, it reduces her vitality, and tends to kill her power of enjoying it when the love season returns. It is certainly true of women as they have been made by the inhibitions of modern conditions, that most of them are only fully awake to the existence of sex after marriage. As we are human beings, the social, intellectual, spiritual side of the love-choice have tended to mask the basic physiological aspect of women's sex-life. To find a woman in whom the currents are not all so entangled that the whole is inseparable into factors, is not easy, but I have found that wives (particularly happy wives whose feelings are not complicated by the stimulus of another love) who have been separated from their husbands for some months through professional or business duties--whose husbands, for instance, are abroad--are the women from whom the best and most definitive evidence of a fundamental rhythm of feeling can be obtained. Such women, yearning daily for the tender comradeship and nearness of their husbands, find, in addition, at particular times, an accession of longing for the close physical union of the final sex-act. Many such separated wives feel this; and those I have asked to keep notes of the dates, have, with remarkable unanimity, told me that these times came specially just before and some week or so after the close of menstruation, coming, that is, about every fortnight. It is from such women that I got the first clue to the knowledge of what I call the Law of Periodicity of Recurrence of desire in women. This law it is possible to represent graphically as a curved line; a succession of crests and hollows as in all wave-lines. Its simplest and most fundamental expression, however, is generally immensely complicated by other stimulations which may bring into it diverse series of waves, or irregular wave-crests. We have all, at some time, watched the regular ripples of the sea breaking against a sand-bank, and noticed that the influx of another current of water may send a second system of waves at right angles to the first, cutting athwart them, so that the two series of waves pass through each other. Woman is so sensitive and responsive an instrument, and so liable in our modern civilised world to be influenced by innumerable sets of stimuli, that it is perhaps scarcely surprising that the deep, underlying waves of her primitive sex-tides have been obscured, and entangled so that their regular sequence has been masked in the choppy turmoil of her sea, and their existence has been largely unsuspected, and apparently quite unstudied. For some years I have been making as scientific and detailed a study as possible of this extremely complex problem. Owing to the frank and scientific attitude of a number of women, and the ready and intimate confidence of many more, I have obtained a number of most interesting facts from which I think it is already possible to deduce a generalisation which is illuminating, and may be of great medical and sociological value. A detailed statement of this will be given in a scientific publication, but as it bears very intimately on the subject of the present chapter, a short and simple account of my conclusions must be given here. It is first necessary to consider several other features of woman's life, however. The obvious moon-month rhythm in woman, so obvious that it _cannot_ be overlooked, has been partially studied in its relation to some of the ordinary functions of her life. Experiments have been made to show its influence on the rate of breathing, the muscular strength, the temperature, the keenness of sight, etc., and these results have even been brought together and pictured in a single curved diagram supposed to show the variability in woman's capacities at the different times in her twenty-eight-day cycle. But it brings home to one how little original work even in this field has yet been done, that the same identical diagram is repeated from book to book, and in Marshall's Physiology it is "taken from Sellheim," in Havelock Ellis "from Von Ott," and in other books is re-copied and attributed to still other sources, but it is always the same old diagram. This diagram is reproduced by one learned authority after another, yet nearly every point on which this curve is based appears to have been disputed. According to this curve, woman's vitality rises during the few days before menstruation, sinks to its lowest ebb during menstruation and rises shortly after, and then runs nearly level till it begins to rise again before the next menstrual period. This simple curve may or may not be true for woman's temperature, muscular strength, and the other relatively simple things which have been investigated. My work and observations on a large number of women all go to show that this curve does _not_ represent the waves of woman's sex-vitality. The whole subject is so complex and so little studied that it is difficult to enter upon it at all without going into many details which may seem remote or dull to the general reader. Even a question which we must all have asked, and over which we have probably pondered in vain--namely, what is menstruation?--cannot yet be answered. To the lay mind it would seem that this question should be answerable at once by any doctor; but many medical men are still far from being able to reply to it even approximately correctly. (See also Appendix, note 2.) There are a good many slight variations among us, ranging from a three to a five weeks "month," but the majority of the women of our race have a moon-month of twenty-eight days, once during which comes the flow of menstruation. If we draw out a chart with succeeding periods of twenty-eight days each, looking on each period as a unit: When in this period is it that a normal healthy woman feels desire or any up-welling of her sex-tides? The few statements which are made in general medical and physiological literature on the subject of sex feeling in women are generally very guarded and vague. Marshall ("Physiology of Reproduction," p. 138), for instance, says: "The period of most acute sexual feeling is generally just after the close of the menstrual period." Ellis speaks of desire being stronger before and sometimes also after menstruation, and appears to lean to the view that it is natural for desire to coincide with the menstrual flow. After the most careful inquiries I have come to the conclusion that the general confusion regarding this subject is due partly to the great amount of variation which exists between different individuals, and partly to the fact that very few women have any idea of taking any scientific interest in life, and partly to the fact that the more profound, fundamental rhythm of sex desire which I have come to the conclusion exists or is potential in every normal woman, is covered over or masked by the more superficial and temporary influences due to a great variety of stimuli or inhibitions in modern life. For the present consideration I have tried to disentangle the profound and natural rhythm from the more irregular surface waves. The chart given opposite may assist in making graphically clear what has been said in these last few pages. It is compounded from a number of individual records, and shows a fair average chart of the rhythmic sequence of superabundance and flagging in woman's sex-vitality. The tops of the wave-crests come with remarkable regularity, so that there are two wave-crests in each twenty-eight-day month. The one comes on the two or three days just _before_ menstruation, the other after; but after menstruation has ceased there is a nearly level interval, bringing the next wave-crest to the two or three days which come about eight or nine days after the close of menstruation--that is, just round the fourteen days, or half the moon month, since the last wave-crest. If this is put in its simplest way, one may say that there are fortnightly periods of desire, arranged so that one period comes always just _before_ each menstrual flow. According to her vitality at the time, and the general health of the woman, the length of each desire-period, or, as we might say, the size and complexity of each wave-crest, depends. Sometimes for the whole of as much as, or even more than three days, she may be ardently and quite naturally stimulated, while at another time the same woman, if she is tired and over-worked, may be conscious of desire for only a few hours, or even less. [Illustration: CHART I. Curve showing the Periodicity of Recurrence of natural desire in healthy women. Various causes make slight irregularities in the position, size and duration of the "wave crests," but the general rhythmic sequence is apparent. (_to face page 32_)] [Illustration: CHART II. Curve showing the depressing effects on the "wave-crests" of fatigue and over-work. Crest _a_ represented only by a feeble and transient up-welling. Shortly before and during the time of the crest _d_ Alpine air restored the vitality of the subject. The increased vitality is shown by the height and number of the apices of this wave-crest. (_to face page 33_)] The effects of fatigue, city life, bad feeding, and, indeed, of most outward circumstances may be very marked, and may for years, or all her life, so reduce her vitality that a woman may never have experienced any spontaneous sex-impulse at all. The effects of fatigue, which reduces the vital energy, even in a normal, strongly sexed woman, can be seen in the second curve opposite, where at _a_ the intermediate wave-crest is very much reduced. This is not a generalised chart, but a detailed record of an actual individual case. Curves similar to those shown facing page 32 represent in general terms a simplified view of what my research leads me to believe to be the normal, spontaneous sex tide in women of our race. As one young married woman confided to me, her longing for bodily union with her husband, as distinct from her longing for his daily companionship, seemed to well up naturally like "clockwork," and this during his long absence. But human beings vary remarkably in every particular, and just as no two people have the same features, so no two people would have _absolutely_ identical curves were they recorded in sufficient detail. Many a woman is particularly conscious of only one sex-impulse in each moon-month. Of such women, some feel the period which comes before menstruation, and some feel the one which follows it. In those who generally feel only one, the second period is sometimes felt when they are particularly well, or only when they read exciting novels, or meet the man they love at a time coinciding with the natural, but suppressed, time of desire. There are a few women, who seem to be really a little abnormal, who feel the strongest desire actually during the menstrual flow. If anyone who reads this thinks to test my view by questioning a number of women, the result will probably appear very conflicting, partly because it is not often that women will tell the truth about such a thing, and partly because in the larger number of women either one or the other period is the more acute and is the one they observe in themselves--if they have observed anything. But a delicate and more accurate investigation of such cases will often bring to light the existence of the second crest of vitality. Once the fundamental idea is grasped, much that appeared obscure or of no significance becomes plain and full of meaning. One lady doctor with whom I discussed my view at once said that it illuminated many observations she had made on her patients, but had not brought together or explained. There is but little evidence to be found in scientific works on sex, but an interesting instance is mentioned by Forel ("The Sexual Question," Engl. Transl. page 92) in another connection. He says: "A married woman confessed to me, when I reproached her for being unfaithful to her husband, that she desired coitus at least once a fortnight, and that when her husband was not there she took the first comer." Forel did not see any law in this. We may perhaps all see in her want of self-control a grievous _moral_ abnormality, but in her fortnightly periods of desire she fits perfectly into the physiological law which, it appears to me, governs the normal sex tides of our race. In this connection it is of interest to note the decrees of the Mosaic Law regarding marriage intercourse. Not only was all intercourse with a woman during her menstruation period very heavily punished (see Leviticus xx. 18: "If a man lie with a woman having her sickness ... both of them shall be cut off from among their people"), but the Mosaic Law provided that women should be protected from intercourse for some days _after_ each such period. The results obtained by my independent investigation thus find some support in this ancient wisdom of the East. Modern writers are inclined to deride the Mosaic Law on the ground that it prohibits intercourse just at the time when _they think_ sex feeling should be strongest. But it does not appear on what grounds they make the latter statement, nor do they give any scientific data in support of it. Thus Galabin in his Manual of Midwifery says: "In the Jewish law women are directed to abstain[4] from coitus during menstruation and for seven days after its cessation. Strict observers of the law are said to go beyond what is commanded in Leviticus, and even if discharge lasts only for an hour or two, to observe five days during which the discharge might last, for the period itself, and add to these seven clear days, making twelve in all. It is much to be doubted whether a whole nation was ever induced to practise abstinence at the period of most acute sexual feeling." But, as will readily be recognised, the old Jewish plan of having twelve clear days after the beginning of menstruation before the next union is in almost exact harmony with the Law of Periodicity of Recurrence of women's desire shown in my charts, pp. 32, 33. [4] NOTE.--In Leviticus xv. it is the _man_ who is directed to abstain from touching the woman at this period, and who is rendered unclean if he does.--M. C. S. These comparatively simple curves represent what I would postulate as the normal spontaneous up-welling of natural desire in woman. These are the foundations on which the edifice of the physical expression of love may be built. It must not be forgotten, however, that, particularly in modern luxurious life, there are innumerable excitements which may _stimulate_ sexual feeling, just as there are many factors in our life which tend to inhibit or retard it. A woman may be, like a man, so swayed by a great love that there is not a day in the whole month when her lover's touch, his voice, the memory of his smile, does not stir her into the thrilling longing for the uttermost union. Hence it is often difficult, particularly for a woman dwelling with the man she loves, to recognise this rhythm in herself, for she may be perpetually stimulated by her love and by his being. I am convinced, however, that ordinarily, whether she recognises it by outward signs or not, a fortnightly rhythm profoundly influences the average woman, and hence that it fundamentally affects the marriage relation in every way. The burning magnificence of an overpowering life-long love is not given to many, and a husband who desires lasting and mutual happiness in his marriage will carefully study his wife, observe how far she has a normal rhythm, and in what she has little personal traits. He will then endeavour to adapt his demands on her so that they are in harmony with her nature. This mutual adaptation is not an entirely simple matter, and will be considered in the next chapter. Chapter V. Mutual Adjustment "Love worketh no ill to his neighbour."--St. Paul. In the average man of our race desire knows no season beyond the slight slackening of the winter months and the heightening of spring. Some men have observed in themselves a faintly-marked monthly rhythm; but in the majority of men desire, even if held in stern check, is merely slumbering. It is always present, ever ready to wake at the lightest call, and often so spontaneously insistent as to require perpetual conscious repression. It would go ill with the men of our race had women retained the wild animals' infrequent seasonal rhythm, and with it her inviolable rights in her own body save at the mating season. Woman, too, has acquired a much more frequent rhythm; but, as it does not equal man's, he has tended to ignore and over-ride it, coercing her at all times and seasons, either by force, or by the even more compelling power of "divine" authority and social tradition. If man's desire is perpetual and woman's intermittent; if man's desire naturally wells up every day or every few days, and woman's only every fortnight or every month, it may appear at first sight impossible for the unwarped needs of both natures simultaneously to be satisfied. The sense that a satisfactory mutual adjustment is not within the realms of possibility has, indeed, obsessed our race for centuries. The result has been that the supposed need of one of the partners has tended to become paramount, and we have established the social traditions of a husband's "rights" and wifely "duty." As one man quite frankly said to me: "As things are it is impossible for both sexes to get what they want. One _must_ be sacrificed. And it is better for society that it should be the woman." Nevertheless, the men who consciously sacrifice the women are in a minority. Most men act in ignorance. Our code, however, has blindly sacrificed not only the woman, but with her the happiness of the majority of men, who, in total ignorance of its meaning and results, have grown up thinking that women should submit to regularly frequent, or even nightly, intercourse. For the sake of a few moments of physical pleasure they lose realms of ever-expanding joy and tenderness; and while men and women may not realise the existence of an untrodden paradise, they both suffer, if only half consciously, from being shut out from it. Before making some suggestions which may help married people to find not only a _via media_ of mutual endurance, but a _via perfecta_ of mutual joy, it is necessary to consider a few points about the actual nature of man's "desire." In the innumerable books addressed to the young which I have read, I have not found one which gives certain points regarding the meaning of the male sex-phenomena which must be grasped before it is possible to give rational guidance to intelligent young men. The general ground plan of our physiology is told to us in youth because it so obviously is right for us to know it accurately and in a clean scientific way, rather than to be perpetually perplexed by fantastic imaginings. But the physiology of our most profoundly disturbing functions is ignored--in my opinion, criminally ignored. To describe the essentials, simple, direct and scientific language is necessary, though it may surprise those who are accustomed only to the hazy vagueness which has led to so much misapprehension of the truth. Every mating man and woman should know the following: The sex organs of a man consist not only of the tissues which give rise to the living, moving, ciliated cells, the _sperms_, and of the penis through which they pass and by means of which they are directed into the proper place for their deposition, the woman's vagina. Associated with these primary and essential structures there are other tissues and glands which have numerous subsidiary but yet very important parts to play; some of which influence almost every organ in the body. Man's penis, when unstimulated, is soft, small and drooping. But when stimulated, either by physical touch which acts through the nerves and muscles directly, or indirectly through messages from the brain, it increases greatly in size, and becomes stiff, turgid and erect. Many men imagine that the turgid condition of an erection is due to the local accumulation of sperms, and that these can only be naturally got rid of by an ejaculation. This is entirely wrong. The enlargement of the penis is not at all due to the presence of actual sperm, but is due to the effects of the nervous reaction on the blood-vessels, leading to the filling, principally of the _veins_, and much less of the arteries. As the blood enters but does not leave the penis, the venous cavities in it fill up with venous blood until the whole is rigid. When rigid this organ is able to penetrate the female entrance, and there the further stimulation of contact calls out the sperms from their storehouses, the seminal vesicles, and they pass down the channel (the urethra) and are expelled. If this is clear, it will be realised that the stiffening and erection does not _necessarily_ call for relief in the ejaculation of sperm. If the veins can empty themselves, as they naturally do when the nervous excitement which restricted them locally passes, the erection will subside without any loss of sperms, by the mere passing back of the locally excessive blood into the ordinary circulatory system. This can happen quite naturally and healthily when the nerves are soothed, either physically or as a result of a sense of mental peace and exaltation. When, on the other hand, the local excitement culminates in the calling up and expulsion of the sperms, after it has once started the ejaculation becomes quite involuntary and the sperms and the secretions associated with them pass out of the system and are entirely lost. Of what does this loss consist? It is estimated that there are somewhere between two and five hundred million sperms in a single average ejaculation.[5] Each single one of these (in healthy men) is capable of fertilising a woman's egg-cell and giving rise to a new human being. (Thus by a single ejaculation one man might fertilise nearly all the marriageable women in the world!) Each single one of those minute sperms carries countless hereditary traits, and each consists very largely of nuclear plasm--the most highly-specialised and richest substance in our bodies. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that the analysis of the chemical nature of the ejaculated fluid reveals among other things a remarkably high percentage of calcium and phosphoric acid--both precious substances in our organisation. [5] See Pflügers Archiv., 1891. It is therefore the greatest mistake to imagine that the semen is something to be got rid of _frequently_--all the vital energy and the precious chemical substances which go to its composition can be better utilised by being transformed into other creative work on most days of the month. And so mystic and wonderful are the chemical transformations going on in our bodies that the brain can often set this alchemy in motion, particularly if the brain is helped by _knowledge_. A strong will can often calm the nerves which regulate the blood supply, and order the distended veins of the penis to retract and subside without wasting the semen in an ejaculation. But while it is good that a man should be able to do this often, it is not good to try to do it always. The very restraint which adds to a man's strength up to a point, taxes his strength when carried beyond it. It is my belief that just sufficient restraint to carry him through the ebb-tides of his wife's sex-rhythm is usually the right amount to give the best strength, vigour, and joy to a man if both are normal people. If the wife has, as I think the majority of healthy, well-fed young women will be found to have, a fortnightly consciousness or unconscious _potentiality_ of desire, then the two should find a perfect mutual adjustment in having fortnightly unions; for this need not be confined to only a single union on such occasion. Many men, who can well practise restraint for twelve or fourteen days, will find that one union only will not then thoroughly satisfy them; and if they have the good fortune to have healthy wives, they will find that the latter, too, have the desire for several unions in the course of a day or two. If the wave-crests facing page 32 are studied, it will be seen that they spread over two or three days and show several small minor crests. This is what happens when a woman is thoroughly well and vital; her desire recurs during a day or two, sometimes even every few hours if it does not, and sometimes even when it does, receive satisfaction. Expressed in general terms (which, of course, will not fit everybody) my view may be formulated thus: The mutually best regulation of intercourse in marriage is to have three or four days of repeated unions, followed by about ten days without any unions at all, unless some strong external stimulus has stirred a mutual desire. I have been interested to discover that the people known to me who have accidentally fixed upon this arrangement of their lives are _happy_: and it should be noted that it fits in with the charts I give which represent the normal, spontaneous feeling of so many women. There are many women, however, who do not feel, or who may not at first recognise, a second, but have only one time of natural pleasure in sex in each moon-month. Many men of strong will and temperate lives will be able so to control themselves that they can adjust themselves to this more restrained sex-life, as do some with whom I am acquainted. On the other hand, there will be many who find this period too long to live through without using a larger amount of energy in restraining their impulse than is justifiable. It seems to me never justifiable to spend so much energy and will power on restraining natural impulses, that valuable work and intellectual power and poise are made to suffer. If, then, a strongly-sexed husband, who finds it a real loss to his powers of work to endure through twenty-six days of abstinence, should find himself married to a wife whose vitality is so low that she can only take pleasure in physical union once in her moon-month (in some it will be before, in some a little time after, her menstrual flow), he should note carefully the time she is spontaneously happy in their union, and then at any cost restrain himself through the days immediately following, and about a fortnight after her time of desire he should set himself ardently to woo her. Unless she is actually out of health he is more likely then than at any other time to succeed not only in winning her compliance, but also in giving her the proper feeling and attaining mutual ecstasy. The husband who so restrains himself, even if it is hard to do it, will generally find that he is a thousand-fold repaid not only by the increasing health and happiness of his wife, and the much intenser pleasure he gains from their mutual intercourse, but also by his own added vitality and sense of self-command. A fortnight is not too long for a healthy man to restrain himself with advantage. Sir Thomas Clouston says ("Before I Wed," 1913, page 84): "Nature has so arranged matters that the more constantly control is exercised the more easy and effective it becomes. It becomes a habit. The less control is exercised the greater tendency there is for a desire to become a _craving_ of an uncontrollable kind, which is itself of the nature of disease, and means death sooner or later." This conclusion is not only the result of the intellectual and moral experience of our race, but is supported by physiological experiments. While a knowledge of the fundamental laws of our being should in the main regulate our lives, so complex are we, so sensitive to a myriad impressions, that clock-work regularity can never rule us. Even where the woman is strongly sexed, with a well-marked recurrence of desire, which is generally satisfied by fortnightly unions, it may not infrequently happen that, in between these periods, there may be additional special occasions when there springs up a mutual longing to unite. These will generally depend on some event in the lovers' lives which stirs their emotions; some memory of past passion, such as an anniversary of their wedding, or perhaps will be due to a novel, poem, or picture which moves them deeply. If the man she loves plays the part of tender wooer, even at times when her passion would not _spontaneously_ arise, a woman can generally be stirred so fundamentally as to give a passionate return. But at the times of her ebb-tides the stimulus will have to be stronger than at the high tides, and it will then generally be found that the appeal must be made even more through her emotional and spiritual nature and less through the physical than usual. The supreme law for husbands is: Remember that each act of union must be tenderly wooed for and won, and that no union should ever take place unless the woman also desires it and is made physically ready for it. (See page 47.) While in most marriages the husband has to restrain himself to meet the wife's less frequently recurrent rhythm, there are, on the other hand, marriages in which the husband is so under-sexed that he cannot have ordinary union save at very infrequent intervals without a serious effect on his health. If such a man is married to a woman who has inherited an unusually strong and over-frequent desire, he may suffer by union with her, or may cause her suffering by refusing to unite. It is just possible that for such people the method of Karezza (see Dr. A. Stockham's book "Karezza"[6] on the subject) might bring them both the health and peace they need; conserving the man's vital energy from the loss of which he suffers, and giving the woman the sense of union and physical nerve-soothing she requires. But the variations in the sex-needs and the sex-ideas of different healthy people are immense, far greater than can be suggested in this book. [6] This book is now out of print, but can be seen at the British Museum. Ellis states that the Queen of Aragon ordained that six times a day was the proper rule in legitimate marriage! So abnormally sexed a woman would today probably succeed in killing by exhaustion a succession of husbands, for the man who could match such a desire is rare, though perhaps less exceptional than such a woman. Though the timing and the frequency of union are the points about which questions are oftenest asked by the ignorant and well-meaning, and are most misunderstood, yet there are other fundamental facts concerning coitus about which even medical men seem surprisingly ignorant. Regarding these, a simple statement of the physiological facts is essential. An impersonal and scientific knowledge of the structure of our bodies is the surest safeguard against prurient curiosity and lascivious gloating. This knowledge at the back of the minds of the lovers, though not perhaps remembered as such, may also spare the unintentioned cruelty of behaviour which so readily injures one whose lover is ignorant. What actually happens in an act of union should be known. After the preliminaries have mutually roused the pair, the stimulated penis, enlarged and stiffened, is pressed into the woman's vagina. Ordinarily when a woman is not stimulated, the entrance to this canal, as well as the exterior lips of soft tissue surrounding it, are dry and rather crinkled, and the vaginal opening is smaller than the man's distended penis. But when the woman is what is physiologically called tumescent (that is, when she is ready for union and has been profoundly stirred) local parts are flushed by the internal blood supply and to some extent are turgid like those of the man, while a secretion of mucus lubricates the opening of the vagina. In an ardent woman the vaginal orifice may even spontaneously contract and relax. (So powerful is the influence of thought upon our bodily structure, that in some people all these physical results may be brought about by the thought of the loved one, by the enjoyment of tender words and kisses, and the beautiful subtleties of wooing.) It can therefore be readily imagined that when the man tries to enter a woman whom he has _not_ wooed to the point of stimulating her natural physical reactions of preparation, he is endeavouring to force his entry through a dry-walled opening too small for it. He may thus cause the woman actual pain, apart from the mental revolt and loathing she is likely to feel for a man who so regardlessly uses her. On the other hand, in the tumescent woman the opening, already naturally prepared, is lubricated by mucus, and all the nerves and muscles are ready to react and easily accept the man's entering organ. This account is of the meeting of two who have been already married. The first union of a virgin girl differs, of course, from all others, for on that occasion the hymen is broken. One would think that every girl who was about to be married would be told of this necessary rupturing of the membrane and the temporary pain it would cause her; but even still large numbers of girls are allowed to marry in complete and cruel ignorance. It should be realised that a man does not woo and win a woman once for all when he marries her: _he must woo her before every separate act of coitus_, for each act corresponds to a marriage as other creatures know it. Wild animals are not so foolish as man; a wild animal does not unite with his female without the wooing characteristic of his race, whether by stirring her by a display of his strength in fighting another male, or by exhibiting his beautiful feathers or song. And we must not forget that the wild animals are assisted by nature; they generally only woo just at the season when the female is beginning to feel natural desire. But man, who wants his mate all out of season as well as in it, has a double duty to perform, and must himself rouse, charm, and stimulate her to the local readiness which would have been to some extent naturally prepared for him had he waited till her own desire welled up. To render a woman ready before uniting with her is not only the merest act of humanity to save her pain, but is of value from the man's point of view, for (unless he is one of those relatively few abnormal and diseased variants who delight only in rape) the man gains an immense increase of sensation from the mutuality thus attained, and the health of both the man and the woman is most beneficially affected. Assuming now that the two are in the closest mental and spiritual, as well as sensory harmony: in what position should the act be consummated? Men and women, looking into each other's eyes, kissing tenderly on the mouth, with their arms round each other, meet face to face. And that position is symbolic of the coming together of the two who meet together gladly. It seems incredible that to-day educated men should be found who--apparently on theological grounds--refuse to countenance any other position. Yet one wife told me that she was crushed and nearly suffocated by her husband, so that it took her hours to recover after each union, but that "on principle" he refused to attempt any other position than the one he chose to consider normal. Mutual well-being should be the guide for each pair. (See Addition, p. 114.) It is perhaps not generally realised how great are the variations of size, shape, and position of all the sex parts of the body in different individuals, yet they differ more even than the size and characters of all the features of the face and hands. It happens, therefore, that the position which suits most people is unsatisfactory for others. Some, for instance, can only benefit by union when both are lying on their sides. Though medically this is generally considered unfavourable or prohibitive for conception, yet I know women who have had several children and whose husbands always used this position. In this matter every couple should find out for themselves which of the many possible positions best suits them _both_. When the two have met and united, the usual result is that, after a longer or shorter interval, the man's mental and physical stimulation reaches a climax in sensory intoxication and in the ejaculation of semen. Where the two are perfectly adjusted, the woman simultaneously reaches the crisis of nervous and muscular reactions very similar to his. This mutual orgasm is extremely important (see also p. 58), but in many cases the man's climax comes so swiftly that the woman's reactions are not nearly ready, and she is left without it. Though in some instances the woman may have one or more crises before the man achieves his, it is, perhaps, hardly an exaggeration to say that 70 or 80 per cent. of our married women (in the middle classes) are deprived of the full orgasm through the excessive speed of the husband's reactions, or through some mal-adjustment of the relative shapes and positions of the organs. So deep-seated, so profound, are woman's complex sex-instincts as well as her organs, that in rousing them the man is rousing her whole body and soul. And this takes time. More time, indeed, than the average, uninstructed husband gives to it. Yet woman has at the surface a small vestigial organ called the clitoris, which corresponds morphologically to the man's penis, and which, like it, is extremely sensitive to touch-sensations. This little crest, which lies anteriorly between the inner lips round the vagina, enlarges when the woman is really tumescent, and by the stimulation of movement it is intensely roused and transmits this stimulus to every nerve in her body. But even after a woman's dormant sex-feeling is aroused and all the complex reactions of her being have been set in motion, it may even take as much as from ten to twenty minutes of actual physical union to consummate her feeling, while two or three minutes often completes the union for a man who is ignorant of the need to control his reactions so that both may experience the added benefit of a mutual crisis to love. A number of well-meaning people demand from men absolute "continence" save for procreation only. They overlook the innumerable physiological reactions concerned in the act, as well as the subtle spiritual alchemy of it, and propound the view that "the opposition to continence, save for procreation only, has but one argument to put forward, and that is appetite, selfishness." (_The Way of God in Marriage._) I maintain, however, that it should be realised that the complete act of union is a triple consummation. It symbolises, and at the same time actually enhances, the spiritual union; there are a myriad subtleties of soul-structures which are compounded in this alchemy. At the same time the act gives the most intense physical pleasure and benefit which the body can experience, and it is a _mutual_, not a selfish, pleasure and profit, more calculated than anything else to draw out an unspeakable tenderness and understanding in both partakers of this sacrament; while, thirdly, it is the act which gives rise to a new life by rendering possible the fusion of one of the innumerable male sperms with the female egg-cell. It often happens nowadays that, dreading the expense and the physical strain of child-bearing for his wife, the husband practises what is called _coitus interruptus_--that is, he withdraws just before the ejaculation, but when he is already so stimulated that the ejaculation has become involuntary. In this way the semen is spent, but, as it does not enter the wife's body, fertilisation and, consequently, procreation cannot take place. This practice, while it may have saved the woman the anguish of bearing unwanted children, is yet very harmful to her, and is to be deprecated. It tends to leave the woman in "mid-air" as it were; to leave her stimulated and unsatisfied, and therefore it has a very bad effect on her nerves and general health, particularly if it is done frequently. The woman, too, loses the advantage (and I am convinced that it is difficult to overstate the physiological advantage) of the partial absorption of the man's secretions, which must take place through the large tract of internal epithelium with which they come in contact. If, as physiology has already proved is the case, the internal absorption of secretions from the sex organs plays so large a part in determining the health and character of remote parts of the body, it is extremely likely that the highly stimulating secretion of man's semen can and does penetrate and affect the woman's whole organism. Actual experiment has shown that iodine placed in the vagina in solution is so quickly absorbed by the epithelial walls that in an hour it has penetrated the system and is even being excreted. It still remains, however, for scientific experiments to be devised which will enable us to study the effects of the absorption of substances from the semen. On the other hand, _coitus interruptus_ is not always harmful for the man, for he has the complete sex-act, though a good many men think its effects on them are undesirable, and it may lead to lack of desire or even impotence toward his wife in a man who practises it with her, or, on the other hand, to a too swift fresh desire from the lack of complete resolution of nervous tension. It is certainly bad when its safety from consequences induces him to frequent indulgence, for thus wastefully to scatter what should be _creative power_ is to reduce his own vitality and power of work (see also page 41). By those who have a high appreciation of the value of their creative impulse, and who wish to know the mutual pleasure and enhancement of sex-union without wasting it, this method should not be practised. It should never be forgotten that without the discipline of control there is no lasting delight in erotic feeling. The fullest delight, even in a purely physical sense, can _only_ be attained by those who curb and direct their natural impulses. Dr. Saleeby's words are appropriate in this connection (Introduction to Forel's "Sexual Ethics," 1908): "Professor Forel speaks of subduing the sexual instinct. I would rather speak of transmuting it. The direct method of attack is often futile, always necessitous of effort, but it is possible for us to transmute our sex-energy into higher forms in our individual lives, thus justifying the evolutionary and physiological contention that it is the source of the higher activities of man, of moral indignation, and of the 'restless energy' which has changed the surface of the earth." Forel says ("The Sexual Question," 1908): "Before engaging in a life-long union, a man and woman ought to explain to each other their sexual feelings so as to avoid deception and incompatibility later on." This would be admirable advice were it possible for a virgin girl to know much about the reactions and effects upon her mind and body of the act of coitus, but she does not. Actually it often takes several years for eager and intelligent couples fully to probe themselves and to discover the extent and meaning of the immensely profound physiological and spiritual results of marriage. Yet it is true that a noble frankness would save much misery when, as happens not infrequently, one or other of the pair marry with the secret determination to have no children. So various are we all as individuals, so complex all the reactions and inter-actions of sex relations, that no hard-and-fast rule can be laid down. Each couple, after marriage, must study themselves, and the lover and the beloved must do what best serves them both and gives them the highest degree of mutual joy and power. There are, however, some laws which should be inviolable. Their details can be gathered from the preceding pages, and they are summed up in the words: "Love worketh no ill to the beloved." Chapter VI. Sleep He giveth His Beloved Sleep. The healing magic of sleep is known to all. Sleeplessness is a punishment for so many different violations of nature's laws, that it is perhaps one of the most prevalent of humanity's innumerable sufferings. While most of the aspects of sleep and sleeplessness have received much attention from specialists in human physiology, the relation between sleep and coitus appears to be but little realised. Yet there is an intimate, profound and quite direct relation between the power to sleep, naturally and refreshingly, and the harmonious relief of the whole system in the perfected sex-act. We see this very clearly in ordinary healthy man. If, for some reason, he has to live unsatisfied for some time after the acute stirring of his longing for physical contact with his wife, he tends in the interval to be wakeful, restless, and his nerves are on edge. Then, when the propitious hour arrives, and after the love-play, the growing passion expands, until the transports of feeling find their ending in the explosive completion of the act, at once the tension of his whole system relaxes, and his muscles fall into gentle, easy attitudes of languorous content, and in a few moments the man is sleeping like a child. This excellent and refreshing sleep falls like a soft curtain of oblivion and saves the man's consciousness from the jar and disappointment of an anti-climax. But not only is this sleep a restorative after the strenuous efforts of the transport, it has peculiarly refreshing powers, and many men feel that after such a sleep their whole system seems rejuvenated. But how fare women in this event? When they too have had complete satisfaction they similarly relax and slumber. But as things are to-day it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the majority of wives are left wakeful and nerve-racked to watch with tender motherly brooding, or with bitter and jealous envy, the slumbers of the men who, through ignorance and carelessness, have neglected to see that they too had the necessary resolution of nervous tension. Many married women have told me that after they have had relations with their husbands they are restless, either for some hours or for the whole night; and I feel sure that the prevalent failure on the part of many men to effect orgasms for their wives at each congress, must be a very common source of the sleeplessness and nervous diseases of so many married women. The relation between the completion of the sex act and sleep in woman is well indicated in the case of Mrs. A., who is typical of a large class of wives. She married a man with whom she was passionately in love. Neither she nor her husband had ever had connection with anyone else, and, while they were both keen and intelligent people with some knowledge of biology, neither knew anything of the details of human sex union. For several years her husband had unions with her which gave him some satisfaction and left him ready at once to sleep. Neither he nor she knew that women should have an orgasm, and after every union she was left so "on edge" and sleepless that never less than several hours would elapse before she could sleep at all, and often she remained wakeful the whole night. After her husband's death her health improved, and in a year or two she entered into a new relation with a man who was aware of women's needs and spent sufficient time and attention to them to ensure a successful completion for her as well as for himself. The result was that she soon became a good sleeper, with the attendant benefits of restored nerves and health. Sleep is so complex a process, and sleeplessness the resultant of so many different maladjustments, that it is, of course, possible that the woman may sleep well enough, even if she be deprived of the relief and pleasure of perfect union. But in so many married women sleeplessness and a consequent nervous condition are coupled with a lack of the complete sex relation, that one of the first questions a physician _should_ put to those of his women patients who are worn and sleepless is: Whether her husband really fulfils his marital duty in their physical relation. From their published statements, and their admissions to me, it appears that many practising doctors are either almost unaware of the very existence of orgasm in women, or look upon it as a superfluous and accidental phenomenon. Yet to have had a moderate number of orgasms at some time at least is a necessity for the full development of a woman's health and all her powers. As this book is written for those who are married, I say nothing here about the lives of those who are still unmarried, though, particularly after the age of thirty has been reached, they may be very difficult and need much study and consideration. It is, however, worth noticing how prevalent sleeplessness is among a class of women who have never had any normal sex-life or allowed any relief to their desires. There is little doubt that the complete lack of a normal sex relation is one of the several factors which render many middle-aged unmarried women nervous and sleepless. Yet for the unmarried woman the lack is not so acute nor so localised as it is for the married woman who is thwarted in the natural completion of her sex-functions after they have been directly stimulated. The unmarried woman, unless she be in love with some particular man, has no definite stimulus to her sex desires beyond the natural upwelling of the creative force. The married woman, however, is not only diffusely stirred by the presence of the man she loves, but is also acutely locally and physically stimulated by his relation with her. And if she is then left in mid-air, without natural relief to her tension, she is in this respect far worse off than the unmarried woman. When a wife is left sleepless through the neglect of the mate who slumbers healthily by her side, it is not surprising if she spends the long hours reviewing their mutual position; and the review cannot yield her much pleasure or satisfaction. For, deprived of the physical delight of mutual orgasm (though, perhaps, like so many wives, quite unconscious of all it can give), she sees in the sex act an arrangement where pleasure, relief and subsequent sleep, are all on her husband's side, while she is merely the passive instrument of his enjoyment. Nay, more than that: if following every union she has long hours of wakefulness, she then sees clearly the encroachment on her own health in an arrangement in which she is not merely passive, but is actively abused. Another of the consequences of the incomplete relation is that often, stirred to a point of wakefulness and vivacity by the preliminary sex-stimulation (of the full meaning of which she may be unconscious), a romantic and thoughtful woman is then most able to talk intimately and tenderly--to speak of the things _most_ near and sacred to her heart. And she may then be terribly wounded by the inattention of her husband, which, coming so soon after his ardent demonstrations of affection, appears peculiarly callous. It makes him appear to her to be indifferent to the highest side of marriage--the spiritual and romantic intercourse. Thus she may see in the man going off to sleep in the midst of her love-talk, a gross and inattentive brute--and all because she has never shared the climax of his physical tension, and does not know that its natural reaction is sleep. These thoughts are so depressing even to the tenderest and most loving woman, and so bitter to one who has other causes of complaint, that in their turn they act on the whole system and increase the damage done by the mere sleeplessness. The older school of physiologists dealt in methods too crude to realise the physiological results of our thoughts, but it is now well known that anger and bitterness have experimentally recognisable physiological effects, and are injurious to the whole system. It requires little imagination to see that after months or years of such embittered sleeplessness, the woman tends not only to become neurasthenic but also resentful towards her husband. She is probably too ignorant and unobservant of her own physiology to realise the full meaning of what is taking place, but she feels vaguely that he is to blame, and that she is being sacrificed for what, in her still greater ignorance of _his_ physiology, seems to her to be his mere pleasure and self-indulgence. He, with his health maintained by the natural outlet followed by recuperative sleep, is not likely to be ready to look into the gloomy and shadowy land of vague reproach and inexplicable trivial wrongs which are all the expression she gives to her unformulated physical grievance. So he is likely to set down any resentment she may show to "nerves" or "captiousness"; and to be first solicitous, and then impatient, towards her apparently irrelevant complaints. If he is, as many men are, tender and considerate, he may try to remedy matters by restricting to the extreme limit of what is absolutely necessary for him, the number of times they come together. Unconsciously he thus only makes matters worse; for as a general rule, he is quite unaware of his wife's rhythm, and does not arrange to coincide with it in his infrequent tender embraces. As he is now probably sleeping in another room and not daring to come for the nightly talks and tenderness which are so sweet a privilege of marriage, here, as in other ways, his well-meaning but wrongly-conceived efforts at restraint only tend to drive the pair still further apart. To make plain the reasonableness of my view regarding sleep, it is necessary to mention some of the immensely profound influences which it is now known that sex exerts, even when not stimulated to its specific use. In those who are deprived of their sex-organs, particularly when young, many of the other features and organs of the body develop abnormally or fail to appear. Castrated boys (eunuchs) when grown up, tend to have little or no beard, or moustache, to have high-pitched voices and several other characters which separate them from normal men. The growth of organs and structures so remote from the sex-organs, as, e.g., the larynx, have been found to be influenced by the chemical stimulus of secretions from the sex-organs and their subsidiary glands. These secretions are not passed out through external ducts but enter the blood system _directly_. Such secretions passing straight from the ductless glands into the vascular system are of very great importance in almost all our bodily functions. They have recently been much studied, and the general name of _Hormones_ given to them by Starling.[7] The idea that some particular secretions or "humours" are connected with each of the internal organs of the body, is a very ancient one; but we have even yet only the vaguest and most elementary knowledge of a few of the many miracles performed by these subtle chemical substances. Thus we know that the stimulus of food in the stomach sends a chemical substance from one ductless gland in the digestive system chasing through the blood to another gland which prepares a different digestive secretion further on. We know that the thyroid gland in the neck swells and contracts in very sensitive relation with the sex organs; we know that some chemical secretion from the developing embryo, or the tissue in which it grows, sends its chemical stimulus to the distant mammary glands of the mother; we know that if the ovaries of a girl or the testes of a boy are completely cut out, the far-reaching influences their hormones would have exerted are made evident by the numerous changes in the system and departures from the normal, which result from their lack. [7] See Prof. Ernest H. Starling's Croonian Lecture to the Royal Society, 1905. But we do _not_ know, for physiologists have not yet studied the degree and character of the immense stimulus of sex-life and experience on the glands of the sex-organs, or how they affect the whole of the human being's life and powers. The "Mendelians" and the "Mutationists," who both tend to lay so much (and I think such undue) stress on morphological hereditary factors, seem at present to have the ear of the public more than the physiologists. But it is most important that every grown up man and woman should know that through the various chemical substances or "messengers" (which Starling called the hormones) there is an extremely rapid, almost immediate, effect on the activities of organs in remote parts of the body, due to the influences exerted on one or other internal organ. It is therefore clear that any influences exerted on such profoundly important organs as those connected with sex must have far-reaching results in many unexpected fields. What must be taking place in the female system as a result of the completed sex act? It is true that in coitus woman has but a slight external secretion, and that principally of mucus. But we have no external signs of all the complex processes and reactions going on in digestion and during the production of digestive secretions. When, as is the case in orgasm, we have such intense and apparent nervous, vascular and muscular reactions, it seems inevitable that there must be correspondingly profound internal correlations. Is it conceivable that organs so fundamentally placed, and whose mere existence we know affects the personal characters of women, could escape physiological result from the intense preliminary stimulus and acute sensations of an orgasm? To ask this question is surely to answer it. It is to my mind inconceivable that the orgasm in woman as in man should not have profound physiological effects. Did we know enough about the subject, many of the "nervous breakdowns" and neurotic tendencies of the modern woman could be directly traced to the partial stimulation of sexual intercourse without its normal completion which is so prevalent in modern marriage. This subject, and its numerous ramifications, are well worth the careful research of the most highly-trained physiologists. There is nothing more profound, or of more vital moment to modern humanity as a whole, than is the understanding of the sex nature and sex needs of men and women. I may point out as a mere suggestion that the man's sex-organs give rise to _external_ and also to _internal_ secretions. The former only leave the glands which secrete them as a result of definite stimulus; the latter appear to be perpetually exuded in small quantities and always to be entering and influencing the whole system. In women we know there are corresponding perpetual internal secretions, and it seems evident to me that there must be some internal secretions which are only released under the definite stimulus of the whole sex-act. The English and American peoples, who lead the world in so many ways, have an almost unprecedentedly high proportion of married women who get no satisfaction from physical union with their husbands, though they bear children, and may in every other respect appear to be happily married. The modern civilised neurotic woman has become a by-word in the Western world. Why? I am certain that much of this suffering is caused by the _ignorance_ of both men and women regarding not only the inner physiology, but even the obvious outward expression, of the complete sex-act. Many medical men now recognise that numerous nervous and other diseases are associated with the lack of physiological relief for natural or stimulated sex feelings in women. Ellis[8] quotes the opinion of an Austrian gynecologist who said that, "of every hundred women who come to him with uterine troubles, seventy suffer from congestion of the womb, which he regarded as due to incomplete coitus." While a writer in a recent number of the _British Medical Journal_[9] published some cases in which quite serious nervous diseases in wives were put right when their husbands were cured of too hasty ejaculation. [8] H. Ellis. "Sex in Relation to Society," 1910, p. 551. [9] See Porosz, _British Medical Journal_, April 1, 1911, p. 784. Sleep, concerning which I began this chapter, is but one of innumerable indications of inner processes intimately bound up with the sex-reactions. When the sex-rite is, in every sense, rightly performed, the healing wings of sleep descend both on the man and on the woman in his arms. Every organ in their bodies is influenced and stimulated to play its part, while their spirits, after soaring in the dizzy heights of rapture, are wafted to oblivion, thence to return gently to the ordinary plains of daily consciousness. Chapter VII. Modesty and Romance A person can therefore no more promise to love or not to love than he can promise to live long. What he can promise is to take good care of his life and of his love.--ELLEN KEY. Artists clearly, and poets in veiled language, have in all ages, expressed the glory of the naked human body. Before the Venus of Milo in her Paris home, even the empty-headed and ridiculously-dressed creatures of fashion stand for a moment with a catch in the throat and a sense that here is something full of divine secrets. One day, when I was doing my reverence before this ancient goddess, drinking in strength and happiness from the harmonies of her curves, a preposterously corsetted doll came up to the statue, paused, and said with tears in her voice to the man beside her: "Hasn't she got the _loveliest_ figure!" If cold marble so stirs us, how much more the warmth and vitality of living beauty! Any well-formed young man or woman is immeasurably more graceful when free from the clinging follies of modern dress, while a beautiful woman's body has a supernal loveliness at which no words short of a poetic rapture can even hint. Our race has so long neglected the culture of human beauty that a sad proportion of mature men and women are unattractive; but most young people have the elements of beauty, and to them chiefly this book is addressed. A young man or woman perfectly naked _cannot_ be tawdry. The fripperies, the jagged curves and inharmonious lines and colours of the so-called "adornments" are surmounted, and the naked figure stepping from their scattered pile is seen in its utter simplicity. How charming even the raggedest little street urchins become when they leave their rags on the bank and plunge into the water! It is therefore not surprising that one of the innumerable sweet impulses of love should be to reveal, each to each, this treasure of living beauty. To give each other the right to enter and enjoy the sight which most of all sights in the world draws and satisfies the artist's eyes. This impulse, however, is, on the part of the woman, swayed by two at least of the natural results of her rhythmic tides. For some time during each month, age-long tradition that she is "unclean," coupled with her obvious requirements, have made her withdraw herself from even her husband's gaze. But, on the other hand, there regularly come times when her body is raised to a higher point of loveliness than usual by the rounding and extra fullness of the breasts. (This is one of the regular physiological results of the rhythmic processes going on within her.) Partly or wholly unconscious of the brilliance and full perfection of her beauty, she yet delights in its gentle promptings to reveal itself to her lover's eyes when he adores. This innocent, this goddess-like self-confidence retreats when the natural ebb of her vitality returns. How fortunate for man when these sweet changes in his lover are not coerced into uniformity! For man has still so much of the ancient hunter in his blood that beauty which is always at hand and ever upon its pedestal must inevitably attract him far less than the elusive and changing charms of rhythmic life. In the highly-evolved and cultivated woman, who has wisdom enough not to restrict, but to give full play to the great rhythms of her being, man's polygamous instinct can be satisfied and charmed by the ever-changing aspects of herself which naturally come uppermost. And one of her natural phases is at times to retreat, to experience a profound sex indifference, and passionately to resent any encroachment on her solitude. This is something woman too often forgets. She has been so thoroughly "domesticated" by man that she feels too readily that after marriage she is all his. And by her very docility to his perpetual demands she destroys for him the elation, the palpitating thrills and surprises, of the chase. In the rather trivial terms of our sordid modern life, it works out in many marriages somewhat as follows: The married pair share a bedroom, and so it comes about that the two are together not only at the times of delight and interest in each other, but during most of the unlovely and even ridiculous proceedings of the toilet. Now it may enchant a man once--perhaps even twice--or at long intervals--to watch his goddess screw her hair up into a tight and unbecoming knot and soap her ears. But it is inherently too unlovely a proceeding to retain indefinite enchantment. To see a beautiful woman floating in the deep, clear water of her bath--that may enchant for ever, for it is so lovely, but the unbeautiful trivialities essential to the daily toilet tend only to blur the picture and to dull the interest and attention that should be bestowed on the body of the loved one. Hence, ultimately, everyday association in the commonplace daily necessities tends to reduce the keen pleasure each takes in the other. And hence, inevitably and tragically, though stealthily and unperceived, to reduce the keenness of stimulation the pair exert on each other, and thus to lower their intensity of the consummation of the sex act, and hence to lower its physiological value.[10] [10] A quotation from Thomas (p. 112 of William Thomas' book "Sex and Society," 1907, Pp. 314) is here very apt, though he had been speaking not of man, but of the love play and coyness shown by female birds and animals. "We must also recognise the fact that reproductive life must be connected with violent stimulation, or it would be neglected and the species would become extinct; and on the other hand, if the conquest of the female were too easy, sexual life would be in danger of becoming a play interest and a dissipation, destructive of energy and fatal to the species. Working, we may assume, by a process of selection and survival, nature has both secured and safeguarded reproduction. The female will not submit to seizure except in a high state of nervous excitation (as is seen especially well in the wooing of birds), while the male must conduct himself in such a way as to manipulate the female; and, as the more active agent, he develops a marvellous display of technique for this purpose. This is offset by the coyness and coquetry of the female, by which she equally attracts and fascinates the male, and practises upon him to induce a corresponding state of nervous excitation." In short, the overcoming of her personal modesty, which is generally looked on as an essential result in marriage where the woman becomes wholly the man's, has generated among our women a tradition that before their husbands they can perform any and all of the details of personal and domestic duties. Correspondingly, they allow the man to be neglectful of preserving some reticence before them. This mutual possession of the lower and more elementary experiences of life has been, in innumerable marriages, a factor in destroying the mutual possession of life's higher and more poetic charms. And woman's beauty wanes too often more through neglect than through age. The man, with the radiant picture of his bride blurred by the daily less lovely aspects, may cease to remind her by acts of courtship that her body is precious. But many men by whom each aspect of their wives is noted, are often hurt by woman's stupidity or neglect of herself. Women lose their grace of motion by relying on artificial bones and stiffenings, and clog their movements with heavy and absurdly fashioned garments. They forget how immeasurably they can control not only their clothed appearance but the very structure of their bodies by the things they eat and do, by the very thoughts they think. A wise man once said that a woman deserved no credit for her beauty at sixteen, but beauty at sixty was her own soul's doing. I would that all the world so thirsted for beauty that we moulded the whole race into as lovely forms as the Greeks created. In this respect I am inclined to think that man suffers more than woman. For man is still essentially the hunter, the one who experiences the desires and thrills of the chase, and dreams ever of coming unawares upon Diana in the woodlands. On the other hand, the married woman, having once yielded all, tends to remain passively in the man's companionship. Though it may appear trivial beside the profound physiological factors considered in recent chapters, I think that, in the interests of husbands, an important piece of advice to wives is: Be always escaping. Escape the lower, the trivial, the sordid. So far as possible (and this is far more possible than appears at first, and requires only a little care and rearrangement in the habits of the household) ensure that you allow your husband to come upon you only when there is delight in the meeting. Whenever the finances allow, the husband and wife should have separate bedrooms. No soul can grow to its full stature without spells of solitude. A married woman's body and soul should be essentially her own, and that can only be so if she has an inviolable retreat. But at the same time the custom of having separate rooms should not mean, as it often does, that the husband only comes to his wife's room when he has some demand to make upon her. Nothing is more calculated to inhibit all desire for union in a sensitive wife than the knowledge of what her husband wants when he comes, however lovingly, to her side. Every night, unless something prevents, there should be the tender companionship and whispered intimacies which are, to many people, only possible in the dark. The "good-night" should be a time of delightful forgetting of the outward scars of the years, and a warm, tender, perhaps playful exchange of confidences. This is not incompatible with what has been said in the previous chapters, and when this custom is maintained it overcomes the objection some people make to separate rooms as a source of estrangements. Chapter VIII. Abstinence How intoxicating indeed, how penetrating--like a most precious wine--is that love which is the sexual transformed by the magic of the will into the emotional and spiritual! And what a loss on the merest grounds of prudence and the economy of pleasure is its unbridled waste along physical channels! So nothing is so much to be dreaded between lovers as just this--the vulgarisation of love--and this is the rock upon which marriage so often splits.--EDWARD CARPENTER. And because marriage so often splits upon this rock, or because men and women have in all ages yearned for spiritual beauty, there have been those who shut themselves off from all the sweet usages of the body. In the struggle of man to gain command over his body, and in the slow and often backsliding evolution of the higher love, there is no doubt that humanity owes much to the ascetic. But this debt is in the past. We are now gaining control of the lower forces, we are winning knowledge of the complex meanings and the spiritual transformations of our physical reactions, and in the _future_ the highest social unit will be recognised to be the pair, fused in love so that all human potentialities are theirs, as well as the higher potentialities which only perfect love can originate. Yet, as we live to-day, with still so many remnants of the older standards within and upon us, we must endeavour to understand the ascetic. He (less often she) is by no means seldom one of the products of marriage. It not infrequently happens that after a love-marriage and some years of what is considered happiness, the man or woman may withdraw from the sex life, often looking down upon it, and considering that they have reached a higher plane by so doing. But such people seldom ask themselves if, while they lived it, they reached the highest possible level of the sex-life. One of the most famous instances of the married ascetic is Tolstoy, whose later opinion was that the _highest_ human being completely inhibits his sex-desires and lives a celibate life. Ascetics, however, seldom have much knowledge of human physiology, and it seems to me that, with all their fine and religious fervour, they often lack the mysticism necessary for the full realisation of the meaning and potentialities of the new creation resulting from man's and woman's highest union. Doubtless if for an hour we were to take the place of the individual chemical atoms of Oxygen or of Hydrogen, we could have no inkling of the physical properties of the water-drop they together form. Christianity, like most religions, had a strong wave of asceticism early in its history. While there was, as there still is, a harsh asceticism which is hostile to the other sex, it is of much interest to see that there was also a romantic asceticism which, while revolting from the sensuality of the pagan contemporaries, did not entirely prohibit the charms and pleasures of mutual companionship. Thus, in a mutilated form, it seems these early Christian ascetics gained some of the immaterial benefits of marriage. Ellis (Vol. 6, "Sex and Society," 1913) gives an interesting account of these ascetic love-unions: "Our fathers," Chrysostom begins ("Against those who keep Virgins in their Houses"), "only knew two forms of sexual intimacy, marriage and fornication. Now a third form has appeared: men introduce young girls into their houses and keep them there permanently, respecting their virginity. What," Chrysotom asks, "is the reason? It seems to me that life in common with a woman is sweet, even outside conjugal union and fleshly commerce. That is my feeling; and perhaps it is not my feeling alone; it may also be that of these men. They would not hold their honour so cheap nor give rise to such scandals if this pleasure were not violent and tyrannical.... That there should really be a pleasure in this which produces a love more ardent than conjugal union may surprise you at first. But when I give you the proofs you will agree that it is so." The absence of restraint to desire in marriage, he continues, often leads to speedy disgust, and even apart from this, sexual intercourse, pregnancy, delivery, lactation, the bringing up of children, and all the pains and anxieties that accompany these things, soon destroy youth and dull the point of pleasure. The virgin is free from these burdens. She retains her vigour and her youthfulness, and even at the age of forty may rival the young nubile girl. "A double ardour thus burns in the heart of him who lives with her, and the gratification of desire never extinguishes the bright flame which ever continues to increase in strength." Chrysostom describes minutely all the little cares and attentions which the modern girls of his time required, and which these men delighted to expend on their virginal sweethearts whether in public or in private. He cannot help thinking, however, that the man who lavishes kisses and caresses on a woman whose virginity he retains is putting himself somewhat in the position of Tantalus. But this new refinement of tender chastity, which came as a delicious discovery to the early Christians who resolutely thrust away the licentiousness of the pagan world, was deeply rooted, as we discover from the frequency with which the grave Fathers of the Church, apprehensive of scandal, felt called upon to reprove it, though their condemnation is sometimes not without a trace of secret sympathy. Thus Jerome, in his letter to Eustochium, refers to those couples who "share the same room," often even the same bed, and call us suspicious if we draw any conclusions; while Cyprian (_Epistola_, 86) is unable to approve of those men he hears of, one a deacon, who live in familiar intercourse with virgins, even sleeping in the same bed with them, for, he declares, the feminine sex is weak and youth is wanton. The harsh ascetic, however, is the one the word ascetic most generally conjures up. Even if he accomplishes miracles of self-restraint, and subdues desire, he is often weakened rather than strengthened by his determination to flout nature. Save only in the truly great, there is a warping and narrowing which results from coercing beyond the limits of reason the desires which were implanted in Adam and Eve when they were told to be fruitful and multiply. As Ellen Key says ("Love and Marriage"): Those ascetics who recommend only self-control as a remedy for the mastery of sexual instinct, even when such control becomes merely obstructive to life, are like the physician who tried only to drive the fever out of his patient: it was nothing to him that the sick man died of the cure. But these ascetics may have arrived at their fanaticism by two different paths. One group--which includes most of the female ascetics--hates Cupid because he has never shown to them any favour. The other group--embracing the majority of male ascetics--curse him because he never leaves them in peace. Approaching the subject in a more modern and scientific attitude of impartial inquiry, the medical man can produce an imposing list of diseases more or less directly caused by abstinence both in men and in women. These diseases range from neuralgia and "nerves" to (in women) fibroid growths. And it is well worthy of remark that these diseases may be present when the patient (as have many unmarried women) has no idea that the sex-impulse exists unmastered. Thus the ascetic and the profligate (whether or not in _legal_ marriage) have both to run the gauntlet of disease. There is, however, no disease I know of which is caused by the normal and mutually happy marriage relation--a relation which, certainly to most, has positive healing and vitalising power. The profound truth which is perceived by the ascetics is that the creative energy of sex can be _transformed_ into other activities. This truth should never be lost sight of in marriage; where between the times of natural, happy, and also stimulating exercise of the sex-functions, the periods of complete abstinence should be opportunities for transmuting the healthy sex-power into work of every sort. Chapter IX. Children I am for you, and you are for me, Not only for your own sake, but for others' sakes, Envelop'd in you sleep greater heroes and bards, They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me. WALT WHITMAN. The Mystic in his moment of enlightenment attains through the flux of his personality the realisation of oneness with the divine forces of the Universe. To ordinary men and women, however, this mystical ecstasy is unknown, and the ordinary human consciousness is far more aware of its separateness than of its oneness with the vital forces of creation. Yet the glow of half swooning rapture in which the mystic's whole being melts and floats in the light of the divine force is paralleled in the rapture of lovers. When two who are mated in every respect burn with the fire of the innumerable forces within them, which set their bodies longing towards each other with the desire to inter-penetrate and to encompass one another, the fusion of joy and rapture is not purely physical. The half swooning sense of flux which overtakes the spirit in that eternal moment at the apex of rapture sweeps into its flaming tides the whole essence of the man and woman, and as it were, the heat of the contact vapourises their consciousness so that it fills the whole of cosmic space. For the moment they are identified with the divine thoughts, the waves of eternal force, which to the Mystic often appear in terms of golden light. From their mutual penetration into the realms of supreme joy the two lovers bring back with them a spark of that light which we call life. And unto them a child is born. This is the supreme purpose of nature in all her enticing weft of complex factors luring the two lovers into each other's arms. Only by the fusion of two can the new human life come into being, and only by creating a new life in this way can we hand on the torch which lights our consciousness in the sphere of matter. This mystical and wonderful fact has never yet found the poet to sing its full glory. But in the hearts of all who have known true love lies the realisation of the sacredness that is theirs when they are in the very act of creation. Were our bodies specifically organised for this supreme purpose, two human beings would only pass through the sacred fire of mutual fusion in order to create a new life. But, however far our spirits have evolved, our bodies are composed of matter which bears the imprint of the many past phases through which we have reached our present position. And because in the world of the lower animals there is an immense wastage of all the young lives created, and it is necessary that myriads should be conceived in order that a small number should reach maturity, so in our bodies (specialised though they are in comparison with the lower animals) both sexes still produce a far larger number of germs awaiting fertilisation than can be actually fructified and imbued with individual life. So profoundly has the course of our history been stamped upon us that each germ, unaware of its own futility if it reaches maturity at an unpropitious moment, is just as insistent in its development as the favoured one which follows out the full natural course of its career and gives rise to a new individual. It is utterly impossible, organised as our bodies are at present, for us to obey the dictates of theologians and refrain from the destruction of potential life. The germ cells of the woman, though immeasurably less numerous than the male germ cells (the sperm) yet develop uselessly over and over again in every celibate as well as in every married woman. While myriads of sperm cells are destroyed even in the process of the act which does ensure fertilisation of the woman by the single favoured sperm. If the theologians really mean what they say, and demand the voluntary effort of complete celibacy from all men, save for the purpose of procreation, this will _not_ achieve their end of preventing the destruction of all potential life; and the monthly loss of unfertilised eggcell by women is beyond all the efforts of the will to curb. Nature, not man, arranged the destruction of potential life against which ascetic Bishops rage. If, then, throughout the greater part of their lives the germinal cells of both sexes inevitably disintegrate without creating an embryo, there can be nothing wrong in selecting the most favourable moment possible for the conception of the first of these germinal cells to be endowed with the supreme privilege of creating a new life. What generally happens in marriage where this is not thought of is that one of the very earliest unions results in the fertilisation of the wife, so that the young pair have a baby nine months, or a little more, after marriage. Whereas, were they wise and did they realise the full significance of what they were doing, they would allow at least six months or a year to elapse before beginning the supreme task of their lives, the burden of which falls mainly upon the woman. For many reasons it is more ideal to have the children spontaneously and early; but if economic conditions are hard, as they so often are in "civilised" life, it may be better to marry and defer the children rather than not to marry. (See my "Wise Parenthood.") If the pair married very young, and before they could afford to support children, they might wait several years with advantage. An exceptional case is one of the happiest marriages I know. The pair married while they were young students in the University, and fourteen years later they had their first child, a splendidly healthy boy. Though such a long interval is certainly not to be universally recommended, as it is said that it may result in sterility, in this instance it was triumphantly better for the two to have lived normally satisfied happy lives than to have waited for fourteen years and risked the man's "fall." There are many reasons, both for their own and for the child's sake, why the potential parents should take the wise precaution of delay, unless owing to special circumstances they cannot expect to live together uninterruptedly. The child, conceived in rapture and hope, should be given every material chance which the wisdom and love of the parents can devise. And the first and _most_ vital condition of its health is that the mother should be well and happy and free from anxiety while she bears it. The tremendous and far-reaching effects of marriage on the woman's whole organism make her less fitted to bear a child at the very commencement of marriage than later on, when the system will have adjusted itself to its new conditions. Not only for the sake of the child, however, should the first conception be a little delayed, but also to secure the lasting happiness of the married lovers. It is generally (though perhaps not always) wise thoroughly to establish their relation to each other before introducing the inevitable dislocation and readjustment necessitated by the wife's pregnancy and the birth of a child. In this book I am not speaking so much of the universal sex relation as to those who find themselves to-day in the highly civilised, artificial communities of English-speaking people: and in our present society there is little doubt that the early birth of a child demands much self-sacrifice and self-restraint from the man, one of the reflex vibrations of which is his undefinable sense of loss and separation from his bride. This has been confided to me by many men who have been generous enough to trust me with some of the secrets of their lives. Mr. C. is typical of many others of his class. He was quiet and refined, with a strong strain of romantic love, which was entirely centred in his bride. He was manly and sufficiently virile to feel the need of sex intercourse, but he was unaware (as are so many men) of the woman's corresponding need; and he did not give his wife any orgasm. She took no pleasure, therefore, in the physical act of union, which for her was so incomplete. Very shortly after marriage she conceived, and a child was born ten months after the wedding day. For two years after the birth of the child her vitality was so lowered that the sex-act was to her _so_ repugnant that she refused her husband any union; and it was thus three years after their marriage before they met in anything like a normal way. By that time the long separation from sex-life, and the strain on the man, coupled with daily familiarity at home, had dimmed, if not completely destroyed, his sense of romance. The natural stimulation each should exert on the other had faded, so that they never experienced the mutual glow of rapture in their sex-union. Another pair suffered similarly: Mr. and Mrs. D. were prevented for several years by the wife's real and fancied ill-health from having any intercourse. When, after that time, she recovered and passionately desired the true marriage relation, the husband felt it to be impossible. To him it would have been, as he expressed it, "like raping his sister." Once such a thought has grown into a man's mind it is very difficult "to recapture the first fine early rapture." And with the loss of that early rapture the two lose, for the rest of their lives, the irradiating joy which is priceless not only for its beauty, but for the vitality with which its wings are laden. On the other hand, if by waiting some months (or even years if they are young) the mated pair have learnt to adjust themselves to each other and have experienced the full possibilities of complete love-making, the disturbance which is caused by the birth of the child is in no sense a danger to their happiness, but is its crown and completion. A man once said to me--"One can endure anything for the sake of a beloved wife." But the _wife_ is only utterly beloved when she and her married lover have not only entered paradise together, but when she fully realises, through insight gained by her own experiences, the true nature of that of which she is depriving her husband so long as her bodily condition makes sex-union with him impossible. Much has been written, and may be found in the innumerable books on the sex-problems, as to whether a man and woman should or should not have relations while the wife is bearing an unborn child. In this matter experience is very various, so that it is difficult or impossible to give definite advice without knowing the full circumstances of each case. When, however, we observe the admirable sanctity of the pregnant females of the woodland creatures, and when we consider the extraordinary ignorance and disregard of woman's needs which mark so many of our modern customs, we cannot but think that the safe side of this debatable question must be in the complete continence of the woman for at least six months before the birth of the child. I have heard from a number of women, however, that they desire union urgently at this time; and from others that the thought of it is incredible. (See Addition 2, p. 115.) Tolstoy strongly condemned any sex contact while the wife was pregnant or nursing, and blames the husband who "puts upon her the unbearable burden of being at one and the same time a mistress, an exhausted mother, and a sickly, irritable, hysterical individual. And the husband loves her as his mistress, ignores her as a mother, and hates her for the irritability and hysteria which he himself has produced and produces." His view is taken by many of our noblest men. While the wife feels that she cannot allow her husband to enter the portals of her body when it has become the sacred temple of a developing life, she should also consider the perpetual strain which nature imposes upon him; and the tender and loving wife will readily find some means of giving him that physical relief which his nature needs. The exquisite, unselfish tenderness which is aroused in a man by the sense of mental and spiritual harmony with a wife who sympathises with, because she understands, his needs is one of the loveliest things in marriage. The wife who knows how to waken this tenderness in a man raises him out of the self-centred slough in which so many men wallow unhappily. With an ardent man, wholly devoted to his wife and long deprived of her, the time will come when it will be sufficient for him to be near her and caress her for relief to take place without any physical connection. After the birth of the first child the health of the mother and of the baby both demand that there should be no hurried beginning of a second. _At least_ a year should pass before the second little life is allowed to begin its unfolding, so that _a minimum_ of about two years should elapse before the second child is born. The importance of this, both for the mother and for the child, is generally adequately recognised by medical specialists, and some distinguished gynecologists advocate as much as three or five years between the births of successive children. While in the whole human relation there is no slavery or torture so horrible as coerced, unwilling motherhood, there is no joy and pride greater than that of a woman who is bearing the developing child of a man she adores. It is a serious reflection on our poisoned "civilisation" that a pregnant woman should feel shame to appear in the streets. Never will the race reach true health till it is cured of its prurient sickness, and the prospective mother can carry her sacred burden as a priestess in a triumphal procession. (See Addition 3, p. 117.) Of the innumerable problems which touch upon the qualities transmitted to the children by their parents, the study of which may be covered by the general term Eugenics, I shall here say nothing: nor shall I deal with the problems of birth and child-rearing. Many writers have considered these subjects, and my purpose in this book is to present aspects of sex-life which have been more or less neglected by others. While throughout I have omitted the consideration of abnormalities, there is one condition which verges on the abnormal but yet touches the lives of some married people who are individually both normal and healthy, about which a few words need to be said. It not infrequently happens that two healthy, loving people, for no apparent reason, seem unable to have a child. (See Addition 4, p. 119.) The old-fashioned view was that the fault lay with the woman, and the reproach of being a barren woman is one which brought untold anguish to many hearts. It is now beginning to be recognised, however, that in a childless union the "fault," if fault it be, is as often the man's as the woman's, particularly where the husband is a brain worker in a city. Though it is natural that there should not be the same joy for the pair in a child which had not arisen from their own supreme fusion, nevertheless, the man who is generous and broadminded might find much joy in a child of his wife's were the obtaining of this child not coupled with the yielding of her body to the embrace of another man, which is so generally and so naturally repugnant to a husband. The future possibilities of science here come in. Much interesting research has already been done on the growth of the young of various creatures without the ordinary fertilisation of the mother egg-cell. Then there are the experiments by the famous Dr. Hunter at the end of the eighteenth century, and more recent work. See, for instance, Heape, in the "Proceedings of the Royal Society, 1897," and Marshall's text-book of "The Physiology of Reproduction, 1910." While in such an event as these discoveries adumbrate, the husband would have no bodily part in the heritage of the child, yet in the creation of its spirit he could play a profound part, the potentialities of which appear to be almost unrecognised by humanity. The idea that the soul and character of the child can be in any degree influenced by the mental status of the mother during the months of its development as an embryo within her body, is apt to be greeted with pure scepticism--for it is difficult of proof, and repugnant to the male intellect, now accustomed to explain life in terms of chemistry. Yet all the wisest mothers whom I know vary only in the degree of their belief in this power of the mother. All are agreed in believing that the spiritual and mental condition and environment of the mother does profoundly affect the character and the mental and spiritual powers of the child. An interesting fact which strengthens the woman's point of view, is quoted (though not in this connection) by Marshall,[11] who says: "It has been found that immunity from disease may be acquired by young animals being suckled by a female which had previously become immune, the antibody to the disease being absorbed in the ingested milk." This particular fact is explainable in terms of chemistry; but it seems to me more than rash for anyone in these days of hormones from ductless glands, to deny the possibility of mental states in the mother generating "chemical messengers," which may impress permanent characters in the physiological reactions of the developing child. Ellis says (Vol. 6, "Sex and Society," 1913): "The mother is the child's supreme parent, and during the period from conception to birth the hygiene of the future man can only be affected by influences which work through her." [11] See p. 566 of the text-book on "The Physiology of Reproduction," Pp. xvii., 706, 1910. And Alfred Russel Wallace, the great naturalist, thought the transmission of mental influence neither impossible nor even very improbable.[12] I am convinced that it takes place all the time, moulding and influencing the hereditary factors. [12] See his letter to the scientific journal "Nature" in the year 1893, August 24, pp. 389 and 390. Hence I suggest that the husband who is deprived of normal fatherhood may yet make the child of his wife's body partly his own, if his thoughts are with her intensely, supportingly, and joyously throughout the whole time of the unborn baby's growth. If he reads to her, plays beautiful music or takes her to hear it, and gives her the very best of his thoughts and aspirations, mystical though the conclusion may seem, he does attain an actual measure of fatherhood. The converse is even more difficult, where the wife is really barren and the husband capable of having children with another woman. Then the attainment of children by the man is impossible without the collaboration of another woman in a manner not outwardly recognised by our laws and customs. Even if this done it is clear that to introduce the child of another woman into the home is demanding a much greater self-abnegation from the wife than is demanded from the husband in the situation we have just considered. Many people whose ideals are very noble are yet strangely incapable of adapting the material acts of life to the real fulfilment of their ideals. Thus there is a section of our community which insists that there should be no restriction whatever of the number of children born to married people. They think any birth control immoral. They take their stand upon the statement that we have no right to destroy potential life. But if they would study a little human or animal physiology they would find that not only every celibate, but also every married man incessantly and inevitably wastes myriads of germs (see p. 41) which had the potentiality of fusion with an ovum, and consequently could have produced a child had opportunity been given them. For the supposed sake of one or two of these myriad sperms which must naturally and inevitably die, they encourage the production of babies in rapid succession which are weakened by their proximity while they might have been sturdy and healthy had they been conceived further apart from each other. Such people, while awake to the claims of the unborn, nay, even of the unconceived, are blind to the claims of the one who should be dearest of all to the husband, and for whose health and happiness he is responsible. A man swayed by archaic dogma will allow, even coerce, his wife to bear and bring forth an infant annually. Save where the woman is exceptional, each child following so rapidly on its predecessor, saps and divides the vital strength which is available for the making of the offspring. This generally lowers the vitality of each succeeding child, and surely even if slowly, may murder the woman who bears them. Of course, the effects of this strain upon the woman vary greatly according to her original health and vitality, the conditions of her surroundings and the intensity of the family's struggle for food. A half-starved mother trying to bring up children in the foul air of city slums, loses, as a rule, far more of her family than a comfortable and well-fed woman in the country. Nevertheless, conditions are not everything; under the best conditions, the chances of death of the later children of a large family, which comes rapidly, are far greater than for the earlier children. Dr. Ploetz found that while the death-rate of first-born infants is about 220 per thousand, the death-rate of the seventh-born is about 330, and of the twelfth-born is 597 per thousand. So that when "Nature" has its way, and twelve children come to sap a woman's vitality, so little strength has she that nearly 60 per cent. of these later ones die. What a waste of vitality! What a hideous orgy of agony for the mothers to produce in anguish death-doomed, suffering infants! Forel ("The Sexual Question," 1908) says: "It seems almost incredible that in some countries medical men who are not ashamed to throw young men into the arms of prostitution, blush when mention is made of anti-conceptional methods. This false modesty, created by custom and prejudice, waxes indignant at innocent things while it encourages the greatest infamies." It is important to observe that Holland, the country which takes _most_ care that children shall be well and voluntarily conceived, has increased its survival-rate, and has thereby, not diminished, but increased its population, and has the lowest infant mortality in Europe. While in America, where the outrageous "Comstock Laws" confuse wise scientific prevention with illegal abortion and label them both as "obscene," thus preventing people from obtaining decent hygienic knowledge, horrible and criminal abortion is more frequent than in any other country. It should be realised that all the proper, medical methods of controlling pregnancy consist, not in destroying an already growing embryo, but in preventing the male sperm from reaching the unfertilised egg cell. This may be done either by shutting the sperms away from the opening of the womb, or by securing the death of _all_ (instead of the natural death of all but _one_) of the two to six hundred million sperms which enter the woman. Even when a child is allowed to grow in its mother, all these hundreds of millions of sperms are inevitably and naturally destroyed every time the man has an emission, and to add one more to these millions sacrificed by Nature is surely no crime! To kill quickly the ejaculated sperms which would otherwise die and decompose naturally, is a simple matter. Their minute and uncovered bodies are plasmolised in weak acid, such as vinegar and water, or by a solution of quinine, or by many other substances. To those who protest that we have no right to interfere with the course of Nature, one must point out that the whole of civilisation, everything which separates man from animals, is an interference with what such people commonly call "Nature." Nothing in the cosmos can be against Nature, for it all forms part of the great processes of the universe. Actions differ, however, in their relative positions in the scale of things. Only those actions are worthy which lead the race onwards to a higher and fuller completion and the perfecting of its powers, which steer the race into the main current of that stream of life and vitality which courses through us and impels us forward. It is a sacred duty of all who dare to hand on the awe-inspiring gift of life, to hand it on in a vessel as fit and perfect as they can fashion, so that the body may be the strongest and most beautiful instrument possible in the service of the soul they summon to play its part in the mystery of material being. Chapter X. Society Love is fed not by what it takes, but by what it gives, and that excellent dual love of man and wife must be fed also by the love they give to others.--EDWARD CARPENTER. Man, even the commonplace modern man, is romantic. He craves consciously or unconsciously for the freedom, the beauty, and the adventure which his forefathers found in their virgin forests. This craving, transmuted, changed out of recognition by civilised life and modern circumstances, is yet a factor not to be ignored in the relationship of the sexes. The "bonds of matrimony," so often referred to with ribald laughter, touch, and perhaps secretly gall, even the most romantic and devoted husband. If to the sincere and friendly question: "What is most difficult in married life for the man?" one gets the sincere and rueful answer--that answer may be summed up in the words "perpetual propinquity." Of this, the wife, particularly if she be really in love, is seldom fully aware. If her husband is her true lover, his tenderness and real devotion will give him the wit to conceal it. But though by concealment he may preserve the unruffled surface of their happiness, yet the longing to be roving is not completely extinguished. In the true lover this unspoken, unconscious longing is perhaps less a desire to set out upon a fresh journey than a longing to experience again the exquisite joy of the return; to re-live the magic charm of the approach to the spot in which the loved one is living her life, into the sacred separateness of which the lover breaks, and, like the Prince by his kiss, to stir her to fresh activity. As will be realised by those who have understood the preceding chapters, each coming together of man and wife, even if they have been mated for many years, should be a fresh adventure; each winning should necessitate a fresh wooing. Yet what a man often finds so hard is to come to that wooing with full ardour and with that complete sense of romance which alone can render it utterly delightful, if the woman he is to woo has been in a too uninterrupted and prosaic relation with him in the meantime. Most men, of course, have their businesses apart from their homes, but in the home lives of the great mass of middle-class people the Victorian tradition still too largely preponderates, and the mated pair bore or deaden each other during the daily routine. To a very thoughtful couple whom I have known, so precious was the sense of romantic joy in one another that they endeavoured to perpetuate it by living in different houses. Such a measure, however, is not likely to suit many people, particularly where there are children. Yet even without bodily separation (which must always entail expense) or any measure of freedom not at everyone's command, much can be done to retain that sense of spiritual freedom in which alone the full joy of loving union can be experienced. But even intellectual and spiritual freedom is often rendered impossible in present-day marriage. The beautiful desire for ideal unity which is so strong in most hearts is perhaps the original cause of one of the most deadening features in many marriages. In the endeavour to attain the ideal unity, one or other partner consciously or unconsciously imposes his or her will and opinions first upon the wife or husband, and then upon the children as they grow up. The typical self-opinionated male which this course develops, while a subject for laughter in plays and novels, a laughter which hastens his extermination, is yet by no means extinct. In his less exaggerated form such a man may often be an idealist, but he is essentially an idealist of narrow vision. The peace, the unity, for which he craves is superficially attained; but it takes acuter eyes than his to see that it is attained not by harmonious intermingling, but by super-position and destruction. I have known a romantic man of this type, apparently unaware that he was encroaching upon his wife's personality, who yet endeavoured not only to choose her books and her friends for her, but "prohibited" her from buying the daily newspaper to which she had been accustomed for years before her marriage, saying that one newspaper was enough for them both, and blandly ignoring the fact that he took it with him out of the house before she had an opportunity of reading it. This man posed to himself more successfully than to others, not only as a romantic man, but as a model husband; and he reproached his wife for jeopardising their perfect unity whenever she accepted an invitation in which he was not included. On the other hand, in homes where the avowed desire is for the modern freedom of intellectual life for both partners, there is very frequently a bickering, a sense of disharmony and unrest that dispels the peace and the air of restful security which is an essential feature of a true home. It is one of the most difficult things in the world for two people of different opinions to retain their own opinions without each endeavouring to convert or coerce the other, and at the same time to feel the same tender trust in the judgment of the other that each would have felt had they agreed. It takes a generous and beautiful heart to see beauty and dignity in the attitude of a mate who is looking at the other side of a vital question. But the very fact that it _does_ take a beautiful and generous heart to do this thing proves it well worth the doing. If the easier way is chosen and the two mutually conceal their views when they differ, or the stronger partner coerces the weaker into hiding those traits which give personality to an individual, the result is an impoverishing of both, and through that very fact, an impoverishment, a lowering of the love which both sought to serve. In marriage each one dreams that he will find the Understander--the one from whom he may set out into the world in search of treasures of knowledge and experience, and before whom the spoils may be exhibited without thought of rivalry, and with the certainty of glad apprisal. Treasures, dear to our own hearts but of no value to others, should here find appreciation, and here the tender super-sensitive germ of an idea may be watered and tended till its ripe beauty is ready to burst upon the world. As marriage is at present such tenderness and such stimulating appreciation is much more likely to come from the woman to the man and his work than from the man to the woman. For too long have men been accustomed to look upon woman's views, and in particular on her intellectual opinions, as being something demanding at the most a bland humouring beneath the kindest smiles. Even from the noblest man, the woman of sensitive personality to-day feels an undercurrent as of surprised congratulation when she has anything to say worth his _serious_ attention outside that department of life supposed to belong to her "sphere." Thus man robs his wedded self of a greatness which the dual unity might reach. But in marriage the mutual freedom and respect for opinion, vitally important though it be, is not sufficient for the full development of character. Life demands ever-widening interests. Owing partly to the differentiation of many types of individuals due to the specialisation of civilisation, which interests thoughtful individuals, and partly to the transmutation of his old vagrant instinct, man increasingly desires to touch and to realise the lives of his fellows. In the lives of others our hearts and understanding may find perpetual adventures into the new and strange. Individual human beings, even the noblest and most complex yet evolved, have but a share of the innumerable faculties of the race. Hence even in a supremely happy marriage, which touches, as does the mystic in his raptures, a realisation of the whole universe, there cannot lie the _whole_ of life's experience. Outside the actual lives of the pair there must always be many types of thought and many potentialities which can only be realised in the lives of other people. In the complete human relation friends of all grades are needed, as well as a mate. Marriage, however, in its present form is too often made to curtail the enjoyment of intimate friendships. The reason for this is partly the social etiquette, which, though discarded in the highest levels of society, still lingers in many circles, of inviting the husband and the wife together upon all social occasions. It is true that they are separated at the dinner table, but they are always within the possibility of earshot of each other, which very often deadens their potentialities for being entertaining. The mere fact of being overheard repeating something one may have already said elsewhere is sufficient to prevent some people from telling their best stories, or from expressing their real views upon important matters. And, still more serious barrier to joy, so primitive, so little evolved are we even yet, there is in most human beings a strong streak of sex-jealousy. For either mate to be allowed to go out uncriticised into the world, is to demand, if not more than the other is willing to give, at least a measure of trust which by its rarity appears nowadays as something conspicuously fine. Jealousy, which is one of the most frequent shadows cast by the blight of love, is very apt to sow a distrust in one which makes a normal life for the other partner impossible. It is hard to say in which sex the feeling is more strongly developed. It takes special forms under different circumstances, and if a nature is predisposed towards it, it is one of the most difficult characteristics to eradicate. Custom, and generations of traditions, seem to have imprinted on our race the false idea that marital fidelity is to be strengthened by coercive bonds. We are slowly growing out of this, and nowadays in most books giving advice to young wives there is a section telling them that a man should be allowed his men friends after marriage. But this is not enough. There should be complete and unquestioning trust on both sides. The man and the woman should each be free to go unchallenged by a thought on solitary excursions, or on visits, weekends or walking tours, without the possibility of a breath of jealousy or suspicion springing up in the heart of one or the other. It is true that many natures are not yet ready for such trust, and might abuse such freedom. But the baser natures will always find a method of gratifying their desires, and are not likely to err more in trusted freedom than they would inevitably have done through secret intrigues if held in jealous bondage. While, on the other hand, it is only in the fresh unsullied air of such freedom that the fullest and most perfect love can develop. In the marriage relation it is supremely true that only by loosening the bonds can one bind two hearts indissolubly together. When they are sometimes physically apart married lovers attain the closest spiritual union. For with sensitive spirits--and they are the only ones who know the highest pinnacles of love--periods of separation and solitude can be revivifying and recreative. So great is the human soul that some of its beauty is hidden by nearness: it needs distance between it and the beholder to be perceived in its true perspective. To the realisation of the beauty and the enjoyment of solitude, woman in general tends to be less awake than man. This, perhaps, is due to the innumerable generations during which the claims of her children and of domestic life have robbed her of Nature's healing gift. Although it is merely incidental to the drama, yet to me the most poignant thing in Synge's beautiful play _Deirdré_ is that she could feel inevitable tragedy when the first thought of something apart from herself crosses her lover's mind. Deirdré and her lover had been together for seven years in an unbroken and idyllic intimacy, and she feels that all is finished, and that her doom, the knell of their joy, had struck, when for the first time she perceived in him a half-formed thought of an occupation apart from her. This ancient weakness of her sex must be conquered, and is being conquered by the modern woman. While modern marriage is tending to give ever more and more freedom to each of the partners, there is at the same time a unity of work and interest growing up which brings them together on a higher plane than the purely domestic one which was so confining to the women and so dull to the men. Every year one sees a widening of the independence and the range of the pursuits of women: but still, far too often, marriage puts an end to woman's intellectual life. Marriage can never reach its full stature until women possess as much intellectual freedom and freedom of opportunity within it as do their partners. That at present the majority of women neither desire freedom for creative work, nor would know how to use it, is only a sign that we are still living in the shadow of the coercive and dwarfing influences of the past. In an interesting article on woman's intellectual work, W. Thomas (1907, "Sex and Society") says: The American woman, with the enjoyment of greater liberty, has made an approach toward the standards of professional scholarship, and some individuals stand at the very top in their university studies and examinations. The trouble with these cases is that they are either swept away and engulfed by the modern system of marriage, or find themselves excluded in some intangible way from association with men in the fullest sense, and no career open to their talents. He sees clearly that this is but a passing phase in the development of our society, and he advocates a wider scope for the play of married women's powers. The practice of an occupational activity of her own choosing, and a generous attitude towards this on the part of the man, would contribute to relieve the strain and make marriage more frequently successful. When woman naturally develops the powers latent within her, man will find at his side not only a mate, free and strong, but a desirable friend and an intellectual comrade. The desire for freedom, both for physical and mental exploration and for experiences outside the sacred enclosure of the home, may at first sight appear to be conflicting and entirely incompatible with the ideal of closer and more perfect unity between the married pair. But this conflict is only apparent, though it is true that most writers have failed to realise this. Consequently in some sections of the writing and teaching of the "advanced" schools there are claims only for increased freedom--a freedom to wander at will--a freedom in which the wanderer does not return to his fixed centre. On the other hand there are those who realise principally the beauty of married unity, and, concentrating on the demand for the unity and extremest stability on the part of the married pair, are very apt to ignore the enriching flow of a wide life's experiences. They try to dam up the fertilising tide of life, and thus, though they are unconscious of what they are doing, they tend to reduce the richness and beauty of marriage. It is for the young people of the new generation to realise that the two currents of longing which spring up within them--the longing for a full life-experience and the longing for a close union with a lifelong mate--are not incompatible, but are actually both essential parts of the more perfect and fuller beauty of the future that already seeks to find its expression in their lives. Ellen Key ("Love and Marriage") seems to fear the widening of the married woman's life, and she writes as though the aspiration to do professional and intellectual work of a high order must dwarf and sterilise the mother in the married woman. She writes of a more northerly people, the Scandinavians, and it may be true of her countrywomen, I do not know. But it is _not_ essentially and universally true. I am writing of the English, the English of to-day, and though we also have among us that dwarfed and sterilised type of woman, she forms in our community a dwindling minority. The majority of our best women enter marriage and motherhood, or else long for a marriage more beautiful than the warped mockery of it that is offered them. As Mrs. Stetson says ("Women and Economics"): In the primal physical functions of maternity the human female cannot show that her supposed specialisation to these uses has improved her fulfilment of them, rather the opposite. The more freely the human mother mingles in the natural industries of a human creature, as in the case of the savage woman, the peasant woman, the working woman everywhere who is not overworked, the more rightly she fulfils these functions. The more absolutely the woman is segregated to sex-functions only, cut off from all economic use and made wholly dependent on the sex-relation as means of a livelihood, the more pathological does her motherhood become. The over-development of sex caused by her economic dependence on the male reacts unfavourably on her essential duties. She is too female for the perfect motherhood! The majority of our young women, I am convinced, have in them the potentiality of a full and perfected love. So, too, have the majority of our young men. For the best type of young man to-day is tired of polygamy; he has seen enough in his father's and friends' lives of the weariness of the sinister, secret polygamy, that hides itself and rots the race under the protecting cloak of the supposed monogamy of our social system. But as things are at present in England, the young man who marries, however much he may be in love, is generally too ignorant (as has been indicated in the preceding chapters) to give his wife all her nature requires. Then, sooner or later, comes the sequence of disappointments which culminate in the longing for a fresh adventure. As one young husband said to me, "A decent man can't go on having unions with his wife when she obviously does not enjoy them," and so he is forced to "go elsewhere." "And they call us polygamists! We are not polygamists any longer. But marriage is a rotten failure," was his verdict. No. They are not polygamists, the finest young men of the present and of the future. Most men to-day are not in their heart of hearts polygamists, in spite of all the outward signs to the contrary; in spite of the fact that so few of them have remained faithful to one woman. But they are ignorant of the sex-laws and traditions, that sex-knowledge which was the heritage of much less civilised tribes, and so they have trampled and crushed out the very thing for the growth of which their hearts are aching. Hence secretly (for in a marriage that is at least superficially happy the man seldom does this openly) the man begins to crave for another type of society and he "goes elsewhere." Not, it is true, to find, or even in the hope of finding, what he would get from a perfect marriage; but often to satisfy in some measure that yearning for fresh experience, for romance, and for that sense of fusion with another in the romantic experience which, even if it is only a delusion of the senses, is yet one of the most precious things life has to offer. It is hard, indeed in many cases it seems impossible, for a good woman to understand what it is that draws her husband from her. Restricted by habit and convention in the exercise of her faculties, she is unaware of the ever-narrowing range of her interest and her powers of conversation. The home life tends to become that of a fenced pond, instead of a great ocean with innumerable currents. From the restricted and fenced man's instinct is ever to escape. Man's opportunities for exploration in the cities are few, and the prostitute is one of the most obvious doors of escape into new experiences. Women feel a so righteous and instinctive horror of prostitution, and regarding it they experience an indignation so intense, that they do not seek to understand the man's attitude. The prostitute, however, sometimes supplies an element which is not purely physical, and which is often lacking in the wife's relation with her husband, an element of charm and mutual gaiety in pleasure. If good women realised this, while they would judge and endeavour to eliminate prostitution no less strenuously, they might be in a better position to begin their efforts to free men from the hold that social disease has upon them. It is perhaps impossible to find the beginning of a vicious circle, but the first step out of it must be the realisation that one is within it, and the realisation of some, at any rate, of its component parts. Man, through prudery, through the custom of ignoring the woman's side of marriage and considering his own whim as marriage law, has largely lost the art of stirring a chaste partner to physical love. He therefore deprives her of a glamour, the loss of which he deplores, for he feels a lack not only of romance and beauty, but of something higher which is mystically given as the result of the complete union. He blames his wife's "coldness" instead of his own want of art. Then he seeks elsewhere for the things she could have given him had he known how to win them. And she, knowing that the shrine has been desecrated, is filled with righteous indignation, though generally as blind as he is to the true cause of what has occurred. Manifold and far-reaching, influencing the whole structure of society not only in this country, but in every country and at every time, have been the influences which have grown up from the root-fallacy in the marriage relation. Then there is another cause for the dulling of a wife's bright charm--her inferior position in the eyes of the law. It is indeed a serious matter, as Jean Finot says, "that, under present conditions, the mistress keeps certain liberties which are denied to married women." The past and its history have been studied by many, and we may leave it. What concerns the present generation of young married people is to-day and the future. The future is full of hope. Already one sees beginning to grow up a new relationship between the units composing society. In the noblest society love will hold sway. The love of mates will always be the supremest life experience, but it will no longer be an experience exclusive and warped. The love of friends and children, of comrades and fellow-workers, will but serve to develop every power of the two who are mates. By mingling the greatness of their individual stature they can achieve together something that, had both or either been dwarfed and puny individuals, would have remained for ever unattainable. The whole trend of the evolution of human society has been toward an increased coherence of all its parts, until at the present time it is already almost possible to say that the community has an actual life on a plane above that of all the individuals composing it: that the community, in fact, is a super-entity. It is through the community of human beings, and not in our individual lives, that we reach an ultimate permanence upon this globe. When our relation to the community is fully realised, it will be seen that the health, the happiness, and the consequent powers of every individual, concern not only his own life, but also affect the whole community of which he is a member. The happiness of a perfect marriage, which enhances the vitality of the private life, renders one not only capable of adding to the stream of the life-blood of the community in children, but by marriage one is also rendered a fitter and more perfect instrument for one's own particular work, the results of which should be shared by society as a whole, and in the tempering and finishing of which society plays a part. Thus it is the concern of the whole community that marriage should be as perfect, and hence as joyous, as possible; so that the powers which should be set free and created for the purpose of the whole community should not be frittered away in the useless longing and disappointment engendered by ignorance, narrow restrictions, and low ideals. In the world the happily mated pair should be like a great and beautiful light; a light not hid under a bushel, but one whose beams shine through the lives of all around them. Chapter XI. The Glorious Unfolding Let knowledge grow from more to more, but more of reverence in us dwell. TENNYSON. We are surrounded in this world by processes and transmutations so amazing that were they not taking place around us hourly they would be scouted as impossible imaginings. A mind must be dull and essentially lacking in wonderment which, without amazement, can learn for the first time that the air we breathe, apparently so uniform in its invisible unity, is in reality composed of two principal, and several other, gases. The two gases, however, are but mixed as wine may be with water, and each gas by itself is a colourless air, visually like that mixture of the two which we call the atmosphere. Much greater is the miracle of the composition of water. It is made of only two gases, one of them a component of the air we breathe, and the other similarly invisible and odourless, but far lighter. These two invisible gases, when linked in a proportion proper to their natures, fuse and are no longer ethereal and invisible, but precipitate in a new substance--water. The waves of the sea with their thundering power, the sparkling tides of the river buoying the ships, are but the transmuted resultants of the union of two invisible gases. And this, in its simplest terms, is a parable of the infinitely complex and amazing transmutations of married love. Ellis expresses the strange mystery of one of the physical sides of love when he says: What has always baffled men in the contemplation of sexual love is the seeming inadequacy of its cause, the immense discrepancy between the necessarily circumscribed regions of mucous membrane which is the final goal of such love and the sea of world-embracing emotions to which it seems the door, so that, as Remy de Gourmont has said, "the mucous membranes, by an ineffable mystery, enclose in their obscure folds all the riches of the infinite." It is a mystery before which the thinker and the artist are alike overcome. To me, however, the recent discoveries of physiology seem to afford a key which may unlock a chamber of the mystery and admit us to one of the halls of the palace of truth. The hormones (see page 61) in each individual body pour from one organ and affect another, and thus influence the whole character of the individual's life processes. The visible secretions and the most subtle essences which pass during union between man and woman, affect the lives of each and are essentially vital to each other. As I see them, the man and the woman are each organs, parts, of the other. And in the strictest scientific, as well as in a mystical, sense they _together_ are a single unit, an individual entity. There is a _physiological_ as well as a spiritual truth in the words "they twain shall be one flesh." In love it is not only that the yearning of the bonds of affinity to be satisfied is met by the linking with another, but that out of this union there grows a new and unprecedented creation. In this I am not speaking of the bodily child which springs from the love of its parents, but of the super-physical entity created by the perfect union in love of man and woman. Together, united by the love bonds which hold them, they are a new and wondrous thing surpassing, and different from, the arithmetical sum of them both when separate. So seldom has the perfection of this new creation been experienced, that we are still far short even of imagining its full potentialities, but that it must have mighty powers we dimly realise. Youths and maidens stirred by the attraction of love, feel hauntingly and inarticulately that there is before them an immense and beautiful experience: feel as though in union with the beloved there will be added powers of every sort which have no measure in terms of the ordinary unmated life. These prophetic dreams, if they are not true of each individual life, are yet true of the race as a whole. For in the dreams of youth to-day is a foreshadowing of the reality of the future. So accustomed have we recently become to accept one aspect of organic evolution, that we tend to see in youth only a recapitulation of our race's history. The well-worn phrase "Ontogeny repeats Phylogeny" has helped to concentrate our attention on the fact that the young in their development, in ourselves as in the animals, go through many phases which resemble the stages through which the whole race must have passed in the course of its evolution. While this is true, there is another characteristic of youth: It is prophetic! The dreams of youth, which each young heart expects to see fulfilled in its own life, seem so often to fade unfulfilled. But that is because the wonderful powers of youth are not supplied with the necessary tool--knowledge. And so potentialities, which could have worked miracles, are allowed to atrophy and die. But as humanity orients itself more truly, more and more will the knowledge and experience of the whole race be placed at the disposal of all youth on its entry into life. Then that glorious upspringing of the racial ideal, which finds its expression in each unspoiled generation of youth, will at last meet with a store of knowledge sufficient for its needs, and will find ready as a tool to its hand the accumulated and sifted wisdom of the race. Then youth will be spared the blunders and the pain and the unconscious self-destruction that to-day leaves scarcely anyone untouched. In my own life, comparatively short and therefore lacking in experience though it be, I have known both personally and vicariously so much anguish that might have been prevented by knowledge. This impels me not to wait till my experience and researches are complete, and my life and vital interest are fading, but to hand on at once those gleanings of wisdom I have already accumulated which may help the race to understand itself. Hence I conclude this little book, for, though incomplete, it contains some of the vital things youth should be told. In all life activities, house-building, hunting or any other, where intellectual and oral tradition comes in, as it does with the human race, "instinct" tends to die out. Thus the human mother is far less able to manage her baby without instruction than is a cat her kittens; although the human mother at her best has, in comparison with the cat, an infinitude of duties toward, and influences over, her child. A similar truth holds in relation to marriage. The century-long following of various "civilised" customs has not only deprived our young people of most of the instinctive knowledge they might have possessed, but has given rise to innumerable false and polluting customs. Though many write on the art of managing children, few have anything to say about the art of marriage, save those who have some dogma, often theological or subversive of natural law, to proclaim. Any fundamental truth regarding marriage is rendered immeasurably difficult to ascertain because of the immense ranges of variety in human beings, even of the same race, many of which result from the artificial conditions and the unnatural stimuli so prevalent in what we call civilisation. To attempt anything like a serious study of marriage in all its varieties would be a monumental work. Those who have even partially undertaken it have tended to become entangled in a maze of abnormalities, so that the needs of the normal, healthy, romantic person have been overlooked. Each pair, therefore, has tended to repeat the blunders from which it might have been saved, and to stumble blindly in a maze of difficulties which are not the essential heritage of humanity, but are due to the unreasoning folly of our present customs. I have written this book for those who enter marriage normally and healthily, and with optimism and hope. If they learn its lessons they may be saved from some of the pitfalls in which thousands have wrecked their happiness, but they must not think that they will thereby easily attain the perfection of marriage. There are myriad subtleties in the adjustment of any two individuals. Each pair must, using the tenderest and most delicate touches, sound and test each other, learning their way about the intricacies of each other's hearts. Sometimes, with all the knowledge and the best will in the world, two who have married find that they cannot fuse their lives; of this tragedy I have not here anything to say; but ordinary unhappiness would be less frequent than it is were the tenderness of _knowledge_ applied to the problem of mutual adjustment from the first day of marriage. All the deepest and highest forces within us impel us to evolve an ever nobler and tenderer form of life-long monogamy as our social ideal. While the thoughtful and tenderhearted must seek, with ever greater understanding, to ease and comfort those who miss this joyful natural development, reformers in their zeal for side-issues must not forget the main growth of the stock. The beautiful sense for love in the hearts of the young should be encouraged, and they should have access to the knowledge of how to cultivate it, instead of being diverted by the clamour for "freedom" to destroy it. Disillusioned middle age is apt to look upon the material side of the marriage relation, to see its solid surface in the cold, dull light of everyday experience; while youth, irradiated by the glow of its dreams, is unaware how its aerial and celestial phantasies are broken and shattered when unsuspectingly brought up against the hard facts of physical reality. The transmutation of material facts by celestial phantasies is to some extent within the power of humanity, even the imperfect humanity of to-day. When knowledge and love together go to the making of each marriage, the joy of _that new unit, the pair_ will reach from the physical foundations of its bodies to the heavens where its head is crowned with stars. _Addition_ 1 (_to page_ 49) A curious rigidity of mental and physical capacity seems to characterise some excellent and well-meaning people, and among those whose marriages unaccountably fail to reach just that height of perfection in a physical sense which they may intellectually desire, are those who are either entirely ignorant that sex union may be accomplished in many various positions, or those who consider any other position but the most usual one to be wrong. Yet, curiously enough, it sometimes comes to light that a pair do not even know the usual position, and in my own experience several couples who have failed to have children, or have failed to obtain the complete delight of union, have revealed that the woman did not know that it is not only her arms which should embrace her lover. Consequently, entry was to him both difficult and sometimes impossible. In addition to this, the encouragement of that spontaneous movement which comes so naturally to those who are highly stirred, needs in far too many of our moderns to be cultivated. A pair should, impelled by the great wave of feeling within them, be as pliable as the sea-plants moved by the rushing tides, and they should discover for themselves which of the innumerable possible positions of equilibrium results in the greatest mutual satisfaction. In this matter, as in so many others of the more intimate phases of sex life, there should not harden a routine, but the body should become at the service of intense feeling a keen and pliable instrument. _Addition_ 2 (_to page_ 83) It must be remembered that the parallel of the more primitive creatures cannot be pressed too far, because in a thousand ways we highly civilised human beings have developed in fresh directions away from our ancestral habits. This question, of whether or not it is right and wise to have sex unions during pregnancy, is one on which scientific research should be undertaken. Far too few men and women are clean-minded and frank enough to record their feelings in this connection, and far too few medical men delicately sympathetic enough to elicit the facts even from those women who are personally conscious of them. The little evidence which I have acquired through direct personal confidences about this subject points in absolutely conflicting directions, and there is little doubt that in this particular, even more than in so many others, the health, needs, and mental condition of women who are bearing children vary profoundly. From one distinguished medical specialist I have acquired the interesting suggestion that in one or two cases among his own patients, where the prospective mother had desired unions and the husband had denied them thinking it in her interest, the doctor had observed that the children seemed to grow up restless, uncontrollable, and with an unduly marked tendency to self-abuse. On this most suggestive and important idea, I would gladly obtain evidence from parents and the medical profession, for only from a large number of cases can reliable conclusions be drawn. But just as in popular opinion it is good for the child and the woman to gratify any harmless fancy for food which she may develop, so, in my opinion, it seems probable that any desire for moderate and careful sex union between the prospective mother and the father of the coming child should be gratified in the interests of all three. But this opinion is expressed merely provisionally, and largely in response to a number of inquirers who have asked me about this point. Immoderate and excessive sex union must undoubtedly be looked upon as an unfavourable symptom, and a practising doctor should be consulted about it. A woman who is bearing a child by the man she deeply loves, has an intense longing that he should share, so far as is possible, in influencing that child while it is coming, and that he should be as near and as close to it and to her as is possible. The basis of this longing we may well imagine may be not only a tender sentiment of the brain, but may depend on that fine sensual interchange of ultra-microscopic particles which must take place between skin and skin during physical contact, the idea of which is so beautifully foreshadowed in Carpenter's "Love's Coming of Age." A woman who is bearing a child should not--indeed, she cannot--have the intensest form of muscular orgasm, but this subtler and deeper sweetening and harmonising union has not only a romantic justification, but will, I think, be proved by Science, when Science becomes sensitive enough to handle such delicate things, to have a real bio-chemical basis. As so many people lack a due visualising imagination, perhaps I should add that the ordinary position of union is not suitable--indeed, may be very well most harmful--to a woman during this time; but she and her husband can easily so intertwine themselves that the weight of both is lying upon the bed or upon pillows, and so no pressure falls upon the woman. _Addition_ 3 (_to page_ 85) Although it is out of the province of this book to give advice about the more material and better-known details of the general management of the health of the prospective mother, yet there are one or two very important points generally overlooked which profoundly affect both the woman's health and happiness, and may affect also the child. For instance, leading medical experts are in the habit of considering the "morning sickness" which is so usual in the early months of pregnancy as a "physiological process," and to look upon it complacently as perfectly normal and to be endured as a matter of course. This marks a deplorably low standard of health. Why should this comparatively small but nauseating experience accompany what should be among the most rapturously beautiful months of a woman's life? In my opinion there is no reason for this at all, except that medical men have been blind leaders of the blind; accustomed always to deal with invalids or semi-invalids, they have lost the instinct to demand of humanity a high and buoyant state of health, while women so harried by the undue drains of unregulated sex experience, with vitality so lowered by "civilised" life, have seen one another suffering on all sides until they too have lost the racial memory of radiant bodily beauty and health. Here and there an exceptional woman has gone through the months of pregnancy with no handicap, with not even morning sickness. Instead of looking upon her as an enviable exception, as all do now, look upon her as the normal standard which all should attain! One of the aids to attaining this standard for every prospective mother would be the knowledge by all adult women that, directly they know they are bearing a child, they should instantly discard not only all corsets, but all clothes of every kind which are heavy and close or which have any definite bands or tight fastenings. Specialists are content to say no harm accrues if a woman wears "comfortable" corsets until the third or fourth month. I denounce this as misleading folly. The sensitiveness to pressure, often unconscious, at such a time is extraordinary, and the penalty of even the lightest pressure is the morning sickness. The standard of clothing should be so light, so loose, that a butterfly could walk upon the bare skin beneath the clothes without breaking its wings. This may seem exaggerated to nearly everyone, but it is a very profound truth. Another aid to buoyant health during this time is to add to the diet the largest possible amount of uncooked fruit, particularly oranges, plums, and apples. Various books have been written on the health in pregnancy, though few of these are enlightened. Although one must deplore the many mistakes in elementary chemistry which are made therein, by far the best of the books on this subject known to me is Dr. Alice Stockham's "Tokology." In this book it is only such comparative trifles as the calling of carbonaceous material _carbonates_ which, though sufficient to prejudice the scientific mind against the rest of her work, does not really affect the profound truth of the gist of her message--a message which was first given to the public by a wise old Englishman long ago. _Addition_ 4 (_to page_ 85) Owing partly to the incredible ignorance of our bodily structure in which it is possible for a grown man or woman not only to enter marriage but to be married for years, sometimes apparently childless unions are not in any sense due to the incapacity of either partner for parenthood, but are due sometimes to trifling impediments which can easily be removed, or to trifling peculiarities of construction which can very simply be overcome. While the great majority of married couples are actually suffering, or would suffer, without the exertion of definite control, from too many pregnancies there are still--particularly in the middle and upper classes--many would-be parents who long for children but seem to be mysteriously deprived of them. Doctors may have examined both the man and the woman, and pronounced them perfectly normal, perfectly healthy, and perfectly capable of having children together, and yet children do not come. Sometimes this is caused by an undue activity of a slightly acid secretion on the part of the woman, a secretion doing her no harm and of which she is quite unconscious, but which may be sufficient to render the active sperm impotent. Sometimes, therefore, it is sufficient to ensure conception for the woman to syringe the vagina with a little weak neutralising solution such as sodium carbonate shortly before sex union. Another cause which sometimes operates against the vital sperm penetrating to the waiting ovum is an excess of mucus at the mouth of the womb. In such a case it is important that a really complete and muscularly energetic orgasm should be achieved by the woman, not before but coincident with or after the sperm has been ejaculated. It is often argued that it makes no difference whether or not the woman has a complete orgasm, for so many cases are recorded in which women who have never experienced an orgasm have had many children; but it is generally forgotten that women are of many different types, and while one type of woman, the very fruitful mother with a wide vagina and but slight internal mucus, may conceive a dozen times without an orgasm, the more highly nervous, equally perfect, woman may only conceive on the occasion when she experiences an orgasm whilst the sperm are actually in the vagina. Another slight obstacle to conception on the part of a woman which is not infrequent is the position of the mouth of the womb and the relation of the vaginal canal, which may be such that the spermatic fluid tends to be lost without any of it penetrating the orifice of the womb itself. To overcome this it is often sufficient for the woman to turn over directly the act of union is complete and lie face downwards for a few hours. Without any question, all women have times of greater or less reproductive vitality, but in some women this is less marked than in others, and with some conception may take place at almost any date in the menstrual month; but with other women there is a group of days ranging from three or four to a dozen or more, in which conception seems to be impossible; while, on the other side of this group of neutral days, the days grade upwards towards a date of greater reproductive potency. Therefore, a woman and her husband who desire children, but have not after some years of marriage had the good fortune to attain parenthood, should choose for their acts of union those days on which conception is most likely. It is generally found that the most certain date for conception is--with very few exceptions--about the last day of the monthly period, or the day or two immediately after it; so that the husband who ardently desires his wife to conceive should, with her consent, concentrate their unions so far as possible on such dates. On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that the effect on the whole nervous system of the desire to conceive is very great. A too frantic desire, which leads to too frequently repeated unions, will probably defeat itself, because it is not the mere coalescence of the sperm with the ovum which completes conception, it is also the attachment of that impregnated ovum to the wall of the womb, and intense nervous excitement may prevent that. Indeed, it has been stated by a medical man of considerable weight in the last century that there are women among those races to whom sex-knowledge is not taboo who can voluntarily control conception at will and consciously expel an impregnated ovum by mere exercise of nervous force. A woman in modern society who is in a highly nervous condition, which may find expression in her constant need of cigarettes or excitement, may be (though this is by no means universally true) frequently impregnated and at the same time continually throwing off the impregnated ovum before the settling down of that ovum, which results in true conception, can take place. If, therefore, the woman who urgently desires to be a mother finds herself continuously smoking, or notes in herself any other indication of a lack of placidity in her nerves, she would do well--not merely to restrict her smoking, which is nothing but a symptom of a deeper need--but she would do well to restore so far as possible a calm poise to her whole system by longer sleep, more country air, plenty of fresh butter, or whatever simple remedy it may be that will supply her nerves with something lacking, and for which she is unconsciously craving. Although to many it may seem incredible, yet it is not so rare as might be supposed, that the adult pair may be married for years, and the wife still physically a virgin owing to neither of the pair knowing that penetration must be effected. Amazing as it may seem, four or five such cases, all of intelligent apparently average people, have come to my direct knowledge in the course of one year alone. Another cause, less extreme, is due to the woman making full entry difficult or impossible by not taking up a proper position during union. (See also p. 114.) In such cases a knowledge of the true details involved may speedily bring the desired conception. These very simple suggestions are of the kind often overlooked by the medical specialist, to whom a woman goes tremblingly asking if she is abnormally formed in any way, because she does not get the children she so much longs for. Such advice, of course, will apply only to people who are essentially normal and without deformity. For more serious obstructions to parenthood, the pair, and not the woman only, should seek medical advice. Appendix NOTE 1.--(See p. 24.) For suffering and even death of unmated females, see _e.g._ MARSHALL, in _Quarterly Journal Microscopical Society_, Vol. 48, 1904, p. 323. PARSONS, in _British Medical Journal_, October, 1904. NOTE 2.--(See p. 31.) A frequent mistake (made even by gynæcologists) is to confuse menstruation with the "period of desire," which is generally called "heat" in animals. Even in the most authoritative recent text books, such phrases as "heat and menstruation" are very common, thus coupling heat and menstruation as though they were equivalents, while the older books quite explicitly look on the menstrual period in women as corresponding to desire of "heat" in animals. This error has even been repeated very recently in the _Proceedings_ of the Royal Society of Medicine.[13] [13] See Dr. Raymond Crawfurd's mistaken statement that "the identity of oestrus, or 'heat' in the lower animals and of menstruation in the human female, admits of no doubt." P. 62 _Proc._ Roy. Soc. Medicine, vol. 9., 1916. Some physiologists have studied this subject in several of the higher animals, and now realise that the time of desire is physiologically distinct from the phase which is represented by menstruation in women. It seems to be fairly well established that in women menstruation is caused by an internal secretion of the ovaries (_c.f._ p. 61), and is not directly due to ovulation, though it must have some connection with it.[14] [14] The best modern account of these complex subjects will be found in the advanced text-book, "The Physiology of Reproduction," pp. xvii., 706, by F. H. A. Marshall. Reference may be made to original papers by J. Beard in the _Anat. Anzeiger_ for 1897; and by Heape in the _Philosophical Trans._ Royal Society, 1894, 97. The most that modern science appears to have attained is briefly summarised in the following quotation from Marshall ("The Physiology of Reproduction," p. 69): "According to Martin and certain other writers, the human, female often experiences a distinct post-menstrual oestrus [Modern research has recognised a period when the female animal is ready for impregnation, which is called the oestrus, and a preparatory series of physiological changes called the pro-estrous phase.--M.C.S.], at which sexual desire is greater than at other times; so that, although conception can occur throughout the intermenstrual periods, it would seem probable that originally coition was restricted to definite periods of oestrus following menstrual or pro-estrous periods in women, as in females of other mammalia. On this point Heape writes as follows: 'This special time for oestrus in the human female has very frequently been denied, and, no doubt, modern civilisation and modern social life do much to check the natural sexual instinct where there is undue strain on the constitution, or to stimulate it at other times where extreme vigour is the result. For these reasons a definite period of oestrus may readily be interfered with, but the instinct is, I am convinced, still marked.'" In nearly all wild animals there is a definite period for sexual excitement, very commonly just at that time of the year which fits into the span of gestation, so that the young are born at the season which gives them the best chance to grow up. In animals the period of desire, the ovulation (or setting free of the female germ or unfertilised egg-cell) and the time of the birth of the young, are all co-related harmoniously. The male animal is only allowed to approach the female when the natural longing for union is upon her. Among human beings, the only race which seems to have long periods of sexual quiescence at all comparable with those natural to the animals are the Esquimaux, who appear to pass many months without any unions of the men and women. A BOOK THE WORLD HAS BEEN WAITING FOR MARRIED LOVE A NEW CONTRIBUTION TO THE SOLUTION OF SEX DIFFICULTIES. _Sixth Edition in twelve months_ By DR. MARIE STOPES _Six Shillings Net. Postage 3d._ "Like all Dr. Stopes's writing, it is clear, thoughtful, penetrating, and undoubtedly is a scientific contribution towards a subject which a decade ago would have been taboo.... Our advice is for women to read it and for men to read it, for there is here stated a real problem which is specifically English."--_English Review._ "Dr. Marie Stopes has endeavoured to meet the need of healthy young people of the educated class for information as to the sexual responsibilities of marriage. Though not a medical woman, the author has special qualifications for this task: with high scientific attainments she combines literary skill, sympathetic insight, idealism, and more than common courage.... To the married and to those about to marry, provided they are normal in mind and body and not afraid of facing facts, this should prove a most helpful book."--_British Medical Journal._ "It is probably the most important contribution to the sex problem that has ever been made really _accessible_ to the English public."--_Cambridge Magazine._ "In saying that, unless the art of love is studied, marriage cannot bear its full fruits, she sees, as the greatest thinkers have always seen, that marriage is a symbol of transcendental significance.... In exquisite quality of understanding the book is a contribution to its subject, which in time will receive the recognition that it deserves."--_The Hospital._ "In the West End just now everybody is reading 'Married Love.'... Frank, straightforward truth finds no greater admirers than in the heart of Mayfair, and that is the reason for the success of Dr. Marie Stopes's book."--Mr. A. L. Humphreys in _The Book Monthly_. "This is a remarkable book which gives much information regarding the physiology of marital life.... All medical men and medical women should read and study this book. They cannot fail to glean from its pages valuable information."--_Medical Times._ London: A. C. Fifield, 13 Clifford's Inn, E.C.4 _By the same Author_ ALREADY IN ITS SECOND EDITION WISE PARENTHOOD A SEQUEL TO "MARRIED LOVE": A BOOK FOR MARRIED PEOPLE BY MARIE CARMICHAEL STOPES, D.SC., D.PH. WITH INTRODUCTION BY ARNOLD BENNETT _TWO SHILLINGS & SIXPENCE NET_ (_Postage 2d.; postage abroad, registered, 4d._) As not only individual inquirers, but the world at large, and even the medical profession, lack a rational, scientific and critical consideration of the effects of the birth-control methods now used by millions of people, this little book seems urgently needed. It is hoped that it will help materially to improve our race and to check the spread of nervous and other injuries so prevalent as a result of ignorant attempts to obtain that wise and health-giving control of parenthood which all who think must crave. It forms a sequel of practical advice to the same author's book, "Married Love," of which serious and enthusiastic reviews have been published in many medical and popular journals. "We hope millions and tens of millions of this manual gets into the hands of the younger generation."--_Cambridge Magazine._ "I would strongly recommend any who are interested in the practical aspect [the scientific method of birth control] to read a little book which has just appeared, from the pen of Dr. Marie C. Stopes, 'Wise Parenthood,'"--C. Killick Millard (Medical Officer of Health for Leicester) in _Medical Officer_, Dec. 7th, 1918. "The method is that which people, including many doctors, want to know.... It meets the immense æsthetic difficulties.... The work is especially for those happy people who recognise the kindred duty and delight of having, by a healthy mother, healthy children."--_The Hospital._ London: A. C. Fifield, 13 Clifford's Inn, E.C. 4 * * * * * Transcriber's note: The footnote on page 17 says "The italics are mine.--M. C. S.", however, there are no italics found in the designated paragraph. Minor typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed. The cover for the eBook version of this book was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain. 
13613	----	STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX, VOLUME IV Sexual Selection In Man I. Touch. Ii. Smell. Iii. Hearing. Iv. Vision. by HAVELOCK ELLIS 1927 PREFACE. As in many other of these _Studies_, and perhaps more than in most, the task attempted in the present volume is mainly of a tentative and preliminary character. There is here little scope yet for the presentation of definite scientific results. However it may be in the physical universe, in the cosmos of science our knowledge must be nebulous before it constellates into definitely measurable shapes, and nothing is gained by attempting to anticipate the evolutionary process. Thus it is that here, for the most part, we have to content ourselves at present with the task of mapping out the field in broad and general outlines, bringing together the facts and considerations which indicate the direction in which more extended and precise results will in the future be probably found. In his famous _Descent of Man_, wherein he first set forth the doctrine of sexual selection, Darwin injured an essentially sound principle by introducing into it a psychological confusion whereby the physiological sensory stimuli through which sexual selection operates were regarded as equivalent to æsthetic preferences. This confusion misled many, and it is only within recent years (as has been set forth in the "Analysis of the Sexual Impulse" in the previous volume of these _Studies_) that the investigations and criticisms of numerous workers have placed the doctrine of sexual selection on a firm basis by eliminating its hazardous æsthetic element. Love springs up as a response to a number of stimuli to tumescence, the object that most adequately arouses tumescence being that which evokes love; the question of æsthetic beauty, although it develops on this basis, is not itself fundamental and need not even be consciously present at all. When we look at these phenomena in their broadest biological aspects, love is only to a limited extent a response to beauty; to a greater extent beauty is simply a name for the complexus of stimuli which most adequately arouses love. If we analyze these stimuli to tumescence as they proceed from a person of the opposite sex we find that they are all appeals which must come through the channels of four senses: touch, smell, hearing, and, above all, vision. When a man or a woman experiences sexual love for one particular person from among the multitude by which he or she is surrounded, this is due to the influences of a group of stimuli coming through the channels of one or more of these senses. There has been a sexual selection conditioned by sensory stimuli. This is true even of the finer and more spiritual influences that proceed from one person to another, although, in order to grasp the phenomena adequately, it is best to insist on the more fundamental and less complex forms which they assume. In this sense sexual selection is no longer a hypothesis concerning the truth of which it is possible to dispute; it is a self-evident fact. The difficulty is not as to its existence, but as to the methods by which it may be most precisely measured. It is fundamentally a psychological process, and should be approached from the psychological side. This is the reason for dealing with it here. Obscure as the psychological aspects of sexual selection still remain, they are full of fascination, for they reveal to us the more intimate sides of human evolution, of the process whereby man is molded into the shapes we know. HAVELOCK ELLIS. Carbis Water, Lelant, Cornwall, England. CONTENTS. SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. The External Sensory Stimuli Affecting Selection in Man. The Four Senses Involved. TOUCH. I. The Primitive Character of the Skin. Its Qualities. Touch the Earliest Source of Sensory Pleasure. The Characteristics of Touch. As the Alpha and Omega of Affection. The Sexual Organs a Special Adaptation of Touch. Sexual Attraction as Originated by Touch. Sexual Hyperæsthesia to Touch. The Sexual Associations of Acne. II. Ticklishness. Its Origin and Significance. The Psychology of Tickling. Laughter. Laughter as a Kind of Detumescence. The Sexual Relationships of Itching. The Pleasure of Tickling. Its Decrease with Age and Sexual Activity. III. The Secondary Sexual Skin Centres. Orificial Contacts. Cunnilingus and Fellatio. The Kiss. The Nipples. The Sympathy of the Breasts with the Primary Sexual Centres. This Connection Operative both through the Nerves and through the Blood. The Influence of Lactation on the Sexual Centres. Suckling and Sexual Emotion. The Significance of the Association between Suckling and Sexual Emotion. The Association as a Cause of Sexual Perversity. IV. The Bath. Antagonism of Primitive Christianity to the Cult of the Skin. Its Cult of Personal Filth. The Reasons which Justified this Attitude. The World-wide Tendency to Association between Extreme Cleanliness and Sexual Licentiousness. The Immorality Associated with Public Baths in Europe down to Modern Times. V. Summary. Fundamental Importance of Touch. The Skin the Mother of All the Other Senses. SMELL. I. The Primitiveness of Smell. The Anatomical Seat of the Olfactory Centres. Predominance of Smell among the Lower Mammals. Its Diminished Importance in Man. The Attention Paid to Odors by Savages. II. Rise of the Study of Olfaction. Cloquet. Zwaardemaker. The Theory of Smell. The Classification of Odors. The Special Characteristics of Olfactory Sensation in Man. Smell as the Sense of Imagination. Odors as Nervous Stimulants. Vasomotor and Muscular Effects. Odorous Substances as Drugs. III. The Specific Body Odors of Various Peoples. The Negro, etc. The European. The Ability to Distinguish Individuals by Smell. The Odor of Sanctity. The Odor of Death. The Odors of Different Parts of the Body. The Appearance of Specific Odors at Puberty. The Odors of Sexual Excitement. The Odors of Menstruation. Body Odors as a Secondary Sexual Character. The Custom of Salutation by Smell. The Kiss. Sexual Selection by Smell. The Alleged Association between Size of Nose and Sexual Vigor. The Probably Intimate Relationship between the Olfactory and Genital Spheres. Reflex Influences from the Nose. Reflex Influences from the Genital Sphere. Olfactory Hallucinations in Insanity as Related to Sexual States. The Olfactive Type. The Sense of Smell in Neurasthenic and Allied States. In Certain Poets and Novelists. Olfactory Fetichism. The Part Played by Olfaction in Normal Sexual Attraction. In the East, etc. In Modern Europe. The Odor of the Armpit and its Variations. As a Sexual and General Stimulant. Body Odors in Civilization Tend to Cause Sexual Antipathy unless some Degree of Tumescence is Already Present. The Question whether Men or Women are more Liable to Feel Olfactory Influences. Women Usually more Attentive to Odors. The Special Interest in Odors Felt by Sexual Inverts. IV. The Influence of Perfumes. Their Aboriginal Relationship to Sexual Body Odors. This True even of the Fragrance of Flowers. The Synthetic Manufacture of Perfumes. The Sexual Effects of Perfumes. Perfumes perhaps Originally Used to Heighten the Body Odors. The Special Significance of the Musk Odor. Its Wide Natural Diffusion in Plants and Animals and Man. Musk a Powerful Stimulant. Its Widespread Use as a Perfume. Peau d'Espagne. The Smell of Leather and its Occasional Sexual Effects. The Sexual Influence of the Odors of Flowers. The Identity of many Plant Odors with Certain Normal and Abnormal Body Odors. The Smell of Semen in this Connection. V. The Evil Effects of Excessive Olfactory Stimulation. The Symptoms of Vanillism. The Occasional Dangerous Results of the Odors of Flowers. Effects of Flowers on the Voice. VI. The Place of Smell in Human Sexual Selections. It has given Place to the Predominance of Vision largely because in Civilized Man it Fails to Act at a Distance. It still Plays a Part by Contributing to the Sympathies or the Antipathies of Intimate Contact. HEARING I. The Physiological Basis of Rhythm. Rhythm as a Physiological Stimulus. The Intimate Relation of Rhythm to Movement. The Physiological Influence of Music on Muscular Action, Circulation, Respiration, etc. The Place of Music in Sexual Selection among the Lower Animals. Its Comparatively Small Place in Courtship among Mammals. The Larynx and Voice in Man. The Significance of the Pubertal Changes. Ancient Beliefs Concerning the Influence of Music in Morals, Education and Medicine. Its Therapeutic Uses. Significance of the Romantic Interest in Music at Puberty. Men Comparatively Insusceptible to the Specifically Sexual Influence of Music. Rarity of Sexual Perversions on the Basis of the Sense of Hearing. The Part of Music in Primitive Human Courtship. Women Notably Susceptible to the Specifically Sexual Influence of Music and the Voice. II. Summary. Why the Influence of Music in Human Sexual Selection is Comparatively Small. VISION. I. Primacy of Vision in Man. Beauty as a Sexual Allurement. The Objective Element in Beauty. Ideals of Feminine Beauty in Various Parts of the World. Savage Women sometimes Beautiful from European Point of View. Savages often Admire European Beauty. The Appeal of Beauty to some Extent Common even to Animals and Man. II. Beauty to Some Extent Consists Primitively in an Exaggeration of the Sexual Characters. The Sexual Organs. Mutilations, Adornments, and Garments. Sexual Allurement the Original Object of Such Devices. The Religious Element. Unæsthetic Character of the Sexual Organs. Importance of the Secondary Sexual Characters. The Pelvis and Hips. Steatopygia. Obesity. Gait. The Pregnant Woman as a Mediæval Type of Beauty. The Ideals of the Renaissance. The Breasts. The Corset. Its Object. Its History. Hair. The Beard. The Element of National or Racial Type in Beauty. The Relative Beauty of Blondes and Brunettes. The General European Admiration for Blondes. The Individual Factors in the Constitution of the Idea of Beauty. The Love of the Exotic. III. Beauty Not the Sole Element in the Sexual Appeal of Vision. Movement. The Mirror. Narcissism. Pygmalionism. Mixoscopy. The Indifference of Women to Male Beauty. The Significance of Woman's Admiration of Strength. The Spectacle of Strength is a Tactile Quality made Visible. IV. The Alleged Charm of Disparity in Sexual Attraction. The Admiration for High Stature. The Admiration for Dark Pigmentation. The Charm of Parity. Conjugal Mating. The Statistical Results of Observation as Regards General Appearance, Stature, and Pigmentation of Married Couples. Preferential Mating and Assortative Mating. The Nature of the Advantage Attained by the Fair in Sexual Selection. The Abhorrence of Incest and the Theories of its Cause. The Explanation in Reality Simple. The Abhorrence of Incest in Relation to Sexual Selection. The Limits to the Charm of Parity in Conjugal Mating. The Charm of Disparity in Secondary Sexual Characters. V. Summary of the Conclusions at Present Attainable in Regard to the Nature of Beauty and its Relation to Sexual Selection. APPENDIX A. The Origins of the Kiss. APPENDIX B. Histories of Sexual Development. SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. The External Sensory Stimuli Affecting Selection in Man--The Four Senses Involved. Tumescence--the process by which the organism is brought into the physical and psychic state necessary to insure conjugation and detumescence--to some extent comes about through the spontaneous action of internal forces. To that extent it is analogous to the physical and psychic changes which accompany the gradual filling of the bladder and precede its evacuation. But even among animals who are by no means high in the zoölogical scale the process is more complicated than this. External stimuli act at every stage, arousing or heightening the process of tumescence, and in normal human beings it may be said that the process is never completed without the aid of such stimuli, for even in the auto-erotic sphere external stimuli are still active, either actually or in imagination. The chief stimuli which influence tumescence and thus direct sexual choice come chiefly--indeed, exclusively--through the four senses of touch, smell, hearing, and sight. All the phenomena of sexual selection, so far as they are based externally, act through these four senses.[1] The reality of the influence thus exerted may be demonstrated statistically even in civilized man, and it has been shown that, as regards, for instance, eye-color, conjugal partners differ sensibly from the unmarried persons by whom they are surrounded. When, therefore, we are exploring the nature of the influence which stimuli, acting through the sensory channels, exert on the strength and direction of the sexual impulse, we are intimately concerned with the process by which the actual form and color, not alone of living things generally, but of our own species, have been shaped and are still being shaped. At the same time, it is probable, we are exploring the mystery which underlies all the subtle appreciations, all the emotional undertones, which are woven in the web of the whole world as it appeals to us through those sensory passages by which alone it can reach us. We are here approaching, therefore, a fundamental subject of unsurpassable importance, a subject which has not yet been accurately explored save at a few isolated points and one which it is therefore impossible to deal with fully and adequately. Yet it cannot be passed over, for it enters into the whole psychology of the sexual instinct. Of the four senses--touch, smell, hearing, and sight--with which we are here concerned, touch is the most primitive, and it may be said to be the most important, though it is usually the last to make its appeal felt. Smell, which occupies the chief place among many animals, is of comparatively less importance, though of considerable interest, in man; it is only less intimate and final than touch. Sight occupies an intermediate position, and on this account, and also on account of the very great part played by vision in life generally as well as in art, it is the most important of all the senses from the human sexual point of view. Hearing, from the same point of view, is the most remote of all the senses in its appeal to the sexual impulse, and on that account it is, when it intervenes, among the first to make its influence felt. FOOTNOTES: [1] Taste must, I believe, be excluded, for if we abstract the parts of touch and smell, even in those abnormal sexual acts in which it may seem to be affected, taste could scarcely have any influence. Most of our "tasting," as Waller puts it, is done by the nose, which, in man, is in specially close relationship, posteriorly, with the mouth. There are at most four taste sensations--sweet, bitter, salt, and sour--if even all of these are simple tastes. What commonly pass for taste sensations, as shown by some experiments of G.T.W. Patrick (_Psychological Review_, 1898, p. 160), are the composite results of the mingling of sensations of smell, touch, temperature, sight, and taste. TOUCH. I. The Primitive Character of the Skin--Its Qualities--Touch the Earliest Source of Sensory Pleasure--The Characteristics of Touch--As the Alpha and Omega of Affection--The Sexual Organs a Special Adaptation of Touch--Sexual Attraction as Originated by Touch--Sexual Hyperæsthesia to Touch--The Sexual Associations of Acne. We are accustomed to regard the skin as mainly owing its existence to the need for the protection of the delicate vessels, nerves, viscera, and muscles underneath. Undoubtedly it performs, and by its tough and elastic texture is well fitted to perform, this extremely important service. But the skin is not merely a method of protection against the external world; it is also a method of bringing us into sensitive contact with the external world. It is thus, as the organ of touch, the seat of the most widely diffused sense we possess, and, moreover, the sense which is the most ancient and fundamental of all--the mother of the other senses. It is scarcely necessary to insist that the primitive nature of the sensory function of the skin with the derivative nature of the other senses, is a well ascertained and demonstrable fact. The lower we descend in the animal scale, the more varied we find the functions of the skin to be, and if in the higher animals much of the complexity has disappeared, that is only because the specialization of the various skin regions into distinct organs has rendered this complexity unnecessary. Even yet, however, in man himself the skin still retains, in a more or less latent condition, much of its varied and primary power, and the analysis of pathological and even normal phenomena serves to bring these old powers into clear light. Woods Hutchinson (_Studies in Human and Comparative Pathology_, 1901, Chapters VII and VIII) has admirably set forth the immense importance of the skin, as in the first place "a tissue which is silk to the touch, the most exquisitely beautiful surface in the universe to the eye, and yet a wall of adamant against hostile attack. Impervious alike, by virtue of its wonderful responsive vitality, to moisture and drought, cold and heat, electrical changes, hostile bacteria, the most virulent of poisons and the deadliest of gases, it is one of the real Wonders of the World. More beautiful than velvet, softer and more pliable than silk, more impervious than rubber, and more durable under exposure than steel, well-nigh as resistant to electric currents as glass, it is one of the toughest and most dangerproof substances in the three kingdoms of nature" (although, as this author adds, we "hardly dare permit it to see the sunlight or breathe the open air"). But it is more than this. It is, as Woods Hutchinson expresses it, the creator of the entire body; its embryonic infoldings form the alimentary canal, the brain, the spinal cord, while every sense is but a specialization of its general organic activity. It is furthermore a kind of "skin-heart," promoting the circulation by its own energy; it is the great heat-regulating organ of the body; it is an excretory organ only second to the kidneys, which descend from it, and finally it still remains the seat of touch. It may be added that the extreme beauty of the skin as a surface is very clearly brought out by the inadequacy of the comparisons commonly used in order to express its beauty. Snow, marble, alabaster, ivory, milk, cream, silk, velvet, and all the other conventional similes furnish surfaces which from any point of view are incomparably inferior to the skin itself. (Cf. Stratz, _Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers_, Chapter XII.) With reference to the extraordinary vitality of the skin, emphasized by Woods Hutchinson, it may be added that, when experimenting on the skin with the electric current, Waller found that healthy skin showed signs of life ten days or more after excision. It has been found also that fragments of skin which have been preserved in sterile fluid for even as long as nine months may still be successfully transplanted on to the body. (_British Medical Journal_, July 19, 1902.) Everything indicates, remark Stanley Hall and Donaldson ("Motor Sensations in the Skin," _Mind_, 1885), that the skin is "not only the primeval and most reliable source of our knowledge of the external world or the archæological field of psychology," but a field in which work may shed light on some of the most fundamental problems of psychic action. Groos (_Spiele der Menschen_, pp. 8-16) also deals with the primitive character of touch sensations. Touch sensations are without doubt the first of all the sensory impressions to prove pleasurable. We should, indeed, expect this from the fact that the skin reflexes have already appeared before birth, while a pleasurable sensitiveness of the lips is doubtless a factor in the child's response to the contact of the maternal nipple. Very early memories of sensory pleasure seem to be frequently, perhaps most frequently, tactile in character, though this fact is often disguised in recollection, owing to tactile impression being vague and diffused; there is thus in Elizabeth Potwin's "Study of Early Memories" (_Psychological Review_, November, 1901) no separate group of tactile memories, and the more elaborate investigation by Colegrove ("Individual Memories," _American Journal of Psychology_, January, 1899) yields no decisive results under this head. See, however, Stanley Hall's valuable study, "Some Aspects of the Early Sense of Self," _American Journal of Psychology_, April, 1898. Külpe has a discussion of the psychology of cutaneous sensations (_Outlines of Psychology_ [English translation], pp. 87 et seq.) Harriet Martineau, at the beginning of her _Autobiography_, referring to the vivid character of tactile sensations in early childhood, remarks, concerning an early memory of touching a velvet button, that "the rapture of the sensation was really monstrous." And a lady tells me that one of her earliest memories at the age of 3 is of the exquisite sensation of the casual contact of a cool stone with the vulva in the act of urinating. Such sensations, of course, cannot be termed specifically sexual, though they help to furnish the tactile basis on which the specifically sexual sensations develop. The elementary sensitiveness of the skin is shown by the fact that moderate excitation suffices to raise the temperature, while Heidenhain and others have shown that in animals cutaneous stimuli modify the sensibility of the brain cortex, slight stimulus increasing excitability and strong stimulus diminishing it. Féré has shown that the slight stimulus to the skin furnished by placing a piece of metal on the arm or elsewhere suffices to increase the output of work with the ergograph. (Féré, _Comptes Rendus Société de Biologie_, July 12, 1902; id., _Pathologic des Emotions_, pp. 40 et seq.) Féré found that the application of a mustard plaster to the skin, or an icebag, or a hot-water bottle, or even a light touch with a painter's brush, all exerted a powerful effect in increasing muscular work with the ergograph. "The tonic effect of cutaneous excitation," he remarks, "throws light on the psychology of the caress. It is always the most sensitive parts of the body which seek to give or to receive caresses. Many animals rub or lick each other. The mucous surfaces share in this irritability of the skin. The kiss is not only an expression of feeling; it is a means of provoking it. Cataglottism is by no means confined to pigeons. The tonic value of cutaneous stimulation is indeed a commonly accepted idea. Wrestlers rub their hands or limbs, and the hand-shake also is not without its physiological basis. "Cutaneous excitations may cause painful sensations to cease. Many massage practices which favor work act chiefly as sensorial stimulants; on this account many nervous persons cannot abandon them, and the Greeks and Romans found in massage not only health, but pleasure. Lauder Brunton regards many common manoeuvres, like scratching the head and pulling the mustache, as methods of dilating the bloodvessels of the brain by stimulating the facial nerve. The motor reactions of cutaneous excitations favor this hypothesis." (Féré, _Travail et Plaisir_, Chapter XV, "Influence des Excitations du Toucher sur le Travail.") The main characteristics of the primitive sense of touch are its wide diffusion over the whole body and the massive vagueness and imprecision of the messages it sends to the brain. This is the reason, why it is, of all the senses, the least intellectual and the least æsthetic; it is also the reason why it is, of all the senses, the most-profoundly emotional. "Touch," wrote Bain in his _Emotions and Will_, "is both the alpha and the omega of affection," and he insisted on the special significance in this connection of "tenderness"--a characteristic emotional quality of affection which is directly founded on sensations of touch. If tenderness is the alpha of affection, even between the sexes, its omega is to be found in the sexual embrace, which may be said to be a method of obtaining, through a specialized organization of the skin, the most exquisite and intense sensations of touch. "We believe nothing is so exciting to the instinct or mere passions as the presence of the hand or those tactile caresses which mark affection," states the anonymous author of an article on "Woman in her Psychological Relations," in the _Journal of Psychological Medicine_, 1851. "They are the most general stimuli in lower animals. The first recourse in difficulty or danger, and the primary solace in anguish, for woman is the bosom of her husband or her lover. She seeks solace and protection and repose on that part of the body where she herself places the objects of her own affection. Woman appears to have the same instinctive impulse in this respect all over the world." It is because the sexual orgasm is founded on a special adaptation and intensification of touch sensations that the sense of touch generally is to be regarded as occupying the very first place in reference to the sexual emotions. Féré, Mantegazza, Penta, and most other writers on this question are here agreed. Touch sensations constitute a vast gamut for the expression of affection, with at one end the note of minimum personal affection in the brief and limited touch involved by the conventional hand-shake and the conventional kiss, and at the other end the final and intimate contact in which passion finds the supreme satisfaction of its most profound desire. The intermediate region has its great significance for us because it offers a field in which affection has its full scope, but in which every road may possibly lead to the goal of sexual love. It is the intimacy of touch contacts, their inevitable approach to the threshold of sexual emotion, which leads to a jealous and instinctive parsimony in the contact of skin and skin and to the tendency with the increased sensitiveness of the nervous system involved by civilization to restrain even the conventional touch manifestation of ordinary affection and esteem. In China fathers leave off kissing their daughters while they are still young children. In England the kiss as an ordinary greeting between men and women--a custom inherited from classic and early Christian antiquity--still persisted to the beginning of the eighteenth century. In France the same custom existed in the seventeenth century, but in the middle of that century was beginning to be regarded as dangerous,[2] while at the present time the conventional kiss on the cheek is strictly differentiated from the kiss on the mouth, which is reserved for lovers. Touch contacts between person and person, other than those limited and defined by custom, tend to become either unpleasant--as an undesired intrusion into an intimate sphere--or else, when occurring between man and woman at some peculiar moment, they may make a powerful reverberation in the emotional and more specifically sexual sphere. One man falls in love with his future wife because he has to carry her upstairs with a sprained ankle. Another dates his love-story from a romp in which his cheek accidentally came in contact with that of his future wife. A woman will sometimes instinctively strive to attract the attention of the man who appeals to her by a peculiar and prolonged pressure of the hand--the only touch contact permitted to her. Dante, as Penta has remarked, refers to "sight or touch" as the two channels through which a woman's love is revived (_Purgatorio_, VIII, 76). Even the hand-shake of a sympathetic man is enough in some chaste and sensitive women to produce sexual excitement or sometimes even the orgasm. The cases in which love arises from the influence of stimuli coming through the sense of touch are no doubt frequent, and they would be still more frequent if it were not that the very proximity of this sense to the sexual sphere causes it to be guarded with a care which in the case of the other senses it is impossible to exercise. This intimacy of touch and the reaction against its sexual approximations leads to what James has called "the _antisexual instinct_, the instinct of personal isolation, the actual repulsiveness to us of the idea of intimate contact with most of the persons we meet, especially those of our own sex." He refers in this connection to the unpleasantness of the sensation felt on occupying a seat still warm from the body of another person.[3] The Catholic Church has always recognized the risks of vuluptuous emotion involved in tactile contacts, and the facility with which even the most innocent contacts may take on a libidinous character.[4] The following observations were written by a lady (aged 30) who has never had sexual relationships: "I am only conscious of a very sweet and pleasurable emotion when coming in contact with honorable men, and consider that a comparison can be made between the idealism of such emotions and those of music, of beauties of Nature, and of productions of art. While studying and writing articles upon a new subject I came in contact with a specialist, who rendered me considerable aid, and, one day, while jointly correcting a piece of work, he touched my hand. This produced a sweet and pure sensation of thrill through the whole system. I said nothing; in fact, was too thrilled for speech; and never to this day have shown any responsive action, but for months at certain periods, generally twice a month, I have experienced the most pleasurable emotions. I have seen this friend twice since, and have a curious feeling that I stand on one side of a hedge, while he is on the other, and, as neither makes an approach, pleasure of the highest kind is experienced, but not allowed to go beyond reasonable and health-giving bounds. In some moments I feel overcome by a sense of mastery by this man, and yet, feeling that any approach would be undignified, some pleasure is experienced in restraining and keeping within proper bounds this passional emotion. All these thrills of pleasurable emotion possess a psychic value, and, so long as the nervous system is kept in perfect health, they do not seem to have the power to injure, but rather one is able to utilize the passionate emotions as weapons for pleasure and work." Various parts of the skin surface appear to have special sexual sensitiveness, peculiarly marked in many individuals, especially women; so that, as Féré remarks (_L'Instinct Sexuel_, second edition, 1902, p. 130), contact stimulation of the lips, lobe of ear, nape of neck, little finger, knee, etc., may suffice even to produce the orgasm. Some sexually hyperæsthetic women, as has already been noted, experience this when shaking hands with a man who is attractive to them. In some neurotic persons this sensibility, as Féré shows, may exist in so morbid a degree that even the contact of the sensitive spot with unattractive persons or inanimate objects may produce the orgasm. In this connection reference may be made to the well-known fact that in some hysterical subjects there are so-called "erogenous zones" simple pressure on which suffices to evoke the complete orgasm. There is, perhaps, some significance, from our present point of view, in the fact that, as emphasized by Savill ("Hysterical Skin Symptoms," _Lancet_, January 30, 1904), the skin is one of the very best places to study hysteria. The intimate connection between the skin and the sexual sphere is also shown in pathological conditions of the skin, especially in acne as well as simple pimples on the face. The sexual development of puberty involves a development of hair in various regions of the body which previously were hairless. As, however, the sebaceous glands on the face and elsewhere are the vestiges of former hairs and survive from a period when the whole body was hairy, they also tend to experience in an abortive manner this same impulse. Thus, we may say that, with the development of the sexual organs at puberty, there is correlated excitement of the whole pilo-sebaceous apparatus. In the regions where this apparatus is vestigial, and notably in the face, this abortive attempt of the hair-follicles and their sebaceous appendages to produce hairs tends only to disorganization, and simple _comedones_ or pustular acne pimples are liable to occur. As a rule, acne appears about puberty and dies out slowly during adolescence. While fairly common in young women, it is usually much less severe, but tends to be exacerbated at the menstrual periods; it is also apt to appear at the change of life. (Stephen Mackenzie, "The Etiology and Treatment of Acne Vulgaris," _British Medical Journal_, September 29, 1894. Laycock [_Nervous Diseases of Women_, 1840, p. 23] pointed out that acne occurs chiefly in those parts of the surface covered by sexual hair. A lucid account of the origin of acne will be found in Woods Hutchinson's _Studies in Human and Comparative Pathology_, pp. 179-184. G.J. Engelmann ["The Hystero-neuroses," _Gynæcological Transactions_, 1887, pp. 124 et seq.] discusses various pathological disorders of the skin as reflex disturbances originating in the sexual sphere.) The influence of menstruation in exacerbating acne has been called in question, but it seems to be well established. Thus, Bulkley ("Relation between Certain Diseases of the Skin and the Menstrual Function," _Transactions of the Medical Society of New York_, 1901, p. 328) found that, in 510 cases of acne in women, 145, or nearly one-third, were worse about the monthly period. Sometimes it only appeared during menstruation. The exacerbation occurred much more frequently just before than just after the period. There was usually some disturbance of menstruation. Various other disorders of the skin show a similar relationship to menstruation. It has been asserted that masturbation is a frequent or constant cause of acne at puberty. (See, e.g., discussion in _British Medical Journal_, July, 1882.) This cannot be accepted. Acne very frequently occurs without masturbation, and masturbation is very frequently practiced without producing acne. At the same time we may well believe that at the period of puberty, when the pilo-sebaceous system is already in sensitive touch with the sexual system, the shock of frequently repeated masturbation may (in the same way as disordered menstruation) have its repercussion on the skin. Thus, a lady has informed me that at about the age of 18 she found that frequently repeated masturbation was followed by the appearance of _comedones_. FOOTNOTES: [2] A. Franklin, _Les Soins de Toilette_, p. 81. [3] W. James, _Principles of Psychology_, vol. ii. p. 347. [4] Numerous passages from the theologians bearing on this point are brought together in _Moechialogia_, pp. 221-220. II. Ticklishness--Its Origin and Significance--The Psychology of Tickling--Laughter--Laughter as a Kind of Detumescence--The Sexual Relationships of Itching--The Pleasure of Tickling--Its Decrease with Age and Sexual Activity. Touch, as has already been remarked, is the least intellectual of the senses. There is, however, one form of touch sensation--that is to say, ticklishness--which is of so special and peculiar a nature that it has sometimes been put aside in a class apart from all other touch sensations. Scaliger proposed to class titillation as a sixth, or separate, sense. Alrutz, of Upsala, regards tickling as a milder degree of itching, and considers that the two together constitute a sensation of distinct quality with distinct end-organs, for the mediation of that quality.[5] However we may regard this extreme view, tickling is certainly a specialized modification of touch and it is at the same time the most intellectual mode of touch sensation and that with the closest connection with the sexual sphere. To regard tickling as an intellectual manifestation may cause surprise, more especially when it is remembered that ticklishness is a form of sensation which reaches full development very early in life, and it has to be admitted that, as compared even with the messages that may be sent through smell and taste, the intellectual element in ticklishness remains small. But its presence here has been independently recognized by various investigators. Groos points out the psychic factor in tickling as evidenced by the impossibility of self-tickling.[6] Louis Robinson considers that ticklishness "appears to be one of the simplest developments of mechanical and automatic nervous processes in the direction of the complex functioning of the higher centres which comes within the scope of psychology,"[7] Stanley Hall and Allin remark that "these minimal touch excitations represent the very oldest stratum of psychic life in the soul."[8] Hirman Stanley, in a somewhat similar manner, pushes the intellectual element in ticklishness very far back and associates it with "tentacular experience." "By temporary self-extension," he remarks, "even low amoeboid organisms have slight, but suggestive, touch experiences that stimulate very general and violent reactions, and in higher organisms extended touch-organs, as tentacles, antennæ, hair, etc., become permanent and very delicately sensitive organs, where minimal contacts have very distinct and powerful reactions." Thus ticklishness would be the survival of long passed ancestral tentacular experience, which, originally a stimulation producing intense agitation and alarm, has now become merely a play activity and a source of keen pleasure.[9] We need not, however, go so far back in the zoölogical series to explain the origin and significance of tickling in the human species. Sir J.Y. Simpson suggested, in an elaborate study of the position of the child in the womb, that the extreme excitomotory sensibility of the skin in various regions, such as the sole of the foot, the knee, the sides, which already exists before birth, has for its object the excitation and preservation of the muscular movements necessary to keep the foetus in the most favorable position in the womb.[10] It is, in fact, certainly the case that the stimulation of all the ticklish regions in the body tends to produce exactly that curled up position of extreme muscular flexion and general ovoid shape which is the normal position of the foetus in the womb. We may well believe that in this early developed reflex activity we have the basis of that somewhat more complex ticklishness which appears somewhat later. The mental element in tickling is indicated by the fact that even a child, in whom ticklishness is highly developed, cannot tickle himself; so that tickling is not a simple reflex. This fact was long ago pointed out by Erasmus Darwin, and he accounted for it by supposing that voluntary exertion diminishes the energy of sensation.[11] This explanation is, however, inadmissible, for, although we cannot easily tickle ourselves by the contact of the skin with our own fingers, we can do so with the aid of a foreign body, like a feather. We may perhaps suppose that, as ticklishness has probably developed under the influence of natural selection as a method of protection against attack and a warning of the approach of foreign bodies, its end would be defeated if it involved a simple reaction to the contact of the organism with itself. This need of protection it is which involves the necessity of a minimal excitation producing a maximal effect, though the mechanism whereby this takes place has caused considerable discussion. We may, it is probable, best account for it by invoking the summation-irradiation theory of pain-pleasure, the summation of the stimuli in their course through the nerves, aided by capillary congestion, leading to irradiation due to anastomoses between the tactile corpuscles, not to speak of the much wider irradiation which is possible by means of central nervous connections. Prof. C.L. Herrick adopts this explanation of the phenomena of tickling, and rests it, in part, on Dogiel's study of the tactile corpuscles ("Psychological Corollaries of Modern Neurological Discoveries," _Journal of Comparative Neurology_, March, 1898). The following remarks of Prof. A. Allin may also be quoted in further explanation of the same theory: "So far as ticklishness is concerned, a very important factor in the production of this feeling is undoubtedly that of the summation of stimuli. In a research of Stirling's, carried on under Ludwig's direction, it was shown that reflex contractions only occur from repeated shocks to the nerve-centres--that is, through summation of successive stimuli. That this result is also due in some degree to an alternating increase in the sensibility of the various areas in question from altered supply of blood is reasonably certain. As a consequence of this summation-process there would result in many cases and in cases of excessive nervous discharge the opposite of pleasure, namely: pain. A number of instances have been recorded of death resulting from tickling, and there is no reason to doubt the truth of the statement that Simon de Montfort, during the persecution of the Albigenses, put some of them to death by tickling the soles of their feet with a feather. An additional causal factor in the production of tickling may lie in the nature and structure of the nervous process involved in perception in general. According to certain histological researches of recent years we know that between the sense-organs and the central nervous system there exist closely connected chains of conductors or neurons, along which an impression received by a single sensory cell on the periphery is propagated avalanchelike through an increasing number of neurons until the brain is reached. If on the periphery a single cell is excited the avalanchelike process continues until finally hundreds or thousands of nerve-cells in the cortex are aroused to considerable activity. Golgi, Ramón y Cajal, Koelliker, Held, Retzius, and others have demonstrated the histological basis of this law for vision, hearing, and smell, and we may safely assume from the phenomena of tickling that the sense of touch is not lacking in a similar arrangement. May not a suggestion be offered, with some plausibility, that even in ideal or representative tickling, where tickling results, say, from someone pointing a finger at the ticklish places, this avalanchelike process may be incited from central centres, thus producing, although in a modified degree, the pleasant phenomena in question? As to the deepest causal factor, I should say that tickling is the result of vasomotor shock." (A. Allin, "On Laughter," _Psychological Review_, May, 1903.) The intellectual element in tickling conies out in its connection with laughter and the sense of the comic, of which it may be said to constitute the physical basis. While we are not here concerned with laughter and the comic sense,--a subject which has lately attracted considerable attention,--it may be instructive to point out that there is more than an analogy between laughter and the phenomena of sexual tumescence and detumescence. The process whereby prolonged tickling, with its nervous summation and irradiation and accompanying hyperæmia, finds sudden relief in an explosion of laughter is a real example of tumescence--as it has been defined in the study in another volume entitled "An Analysis of the Sexual Impulse"--resulting finally in the orgasm of detumescence. The reality of the connection between the sexual embrace and tickling is indicated by the fact that in some languages, as in that of the Fuegians,[12] the same word is applied to both. That ordinary tickling is not sexual is due to the circumstances of the case and the regions to which the tickling is applied. If, however, the tickling is applied within the sexual sphere, then there is a tendency for orgasm to take place instead of laughter. The connection which, through the phenomena of tickling, laughter thus bears to the sexual sphere is well indicated, as Groos has pointed out, by the fact that in sexually-minded people sexual allusions tend to produce laughter, this being the method by which they are diverted from the risks of more specifically sexual detumescence.[13] Reference has been made to the view of Alrutz, according to which tickling is a milder degree of itching. It is more convenient and probably more correct to regard itching or pruritus, as it is termed in its pathological forms, as a distinct sensation, for it does not arise under precisely the same conditions as tickling nor is it relieved in the same way. There is interest, however, in pointing out in this connection that, like tickling, itching has a real parallelism to the specialized sexual sensations. Bronson, who has very ably interpreted the sensations of itching (New York Neurological Society, October 7, 1890; _Medical News_, February 14, 1903, and summarized in the _British Medical Journal_, March 7, 1903; and elsewhere), regards it as a perversion of the sense of touch, a dysæsthesia due to obstructed nerve-excitation with imperfect conduction of the generated force into correlated nervous energy. The scratching which relieves itching directs the nervous energy into freer channels, sometimes substituting for the pruritus either painful or voluptuous sensations. Such voluptuous sensations may be regarded as a generalized aphrodisiac sense comparable to the specialized sexual orgasm. Bronson refers to the significant fact that itching occurs so frequently in the sexual region, and states that sexual neurasthenia is sometimes the only discoverable cause of genital and anal pruritus. (Cf. discussion on pruritus, _British Medical Journal_, November 30, 1895.) Gilman, again (_American Journal of Psychology_, vi, p. 22), considers that scratching, as well as sneezing, is comparable to coitus. The sexual embrace has an intimate connection with the phenomena of ticklishness which could not fail to be recognized. This connection is, indeed, the basis of Spinoza's famous definition of love,--"_Amor est titillatio quædam concomitante idea causæ externæ_,"--a statement which seems to be reflected in Chamfort's definition of love as "_l'échange de deux fantaisies, et le contact de deux epidermes_." The sexual act, says Gowers, is, in fact, a skin reflex.[14] "The sexual parts," Hall and Allin state, "have a ticklishness as unique as their function and as keen as their importance." Herrick finds the supreme illustration of the summation and irradiation theory of tickling in the phenomena of erotic excitement, and points out that in harmony with this the skin of the sexual region is, as Dogiel has shown, that portion of the body in which the tactile corpuscles are most thoroughly and elaborately provided with anastomosing fibres. It has been pointed out[15] that, when ordinary tactile sensibility is partially abolished,--especially in hemianæsthesia in the insane,--some sexual disturbance is specially apt to be found in association. In young children, in girls even when they are no longer children, and occasionally in men, tickling may be a source of acute pleasure, which in very early life is not sexual, but later tends to become so under circumstances predisposing to the production of erotic emotion, and especially when the nervous system is keyed up to a high tone favorable for the production of the maximum effect of tickling. "When young," writes a lady aged 28, "I was extremely fond of being tickled, and I am to some extent still. Between the ages of 10 and 12 it gave me exquisite pleasure, which I now regard as sexual in character. I used to bribe my younger sister to tickle my feet until she was tired." Stanley Hall and Allin in their investigation of the phenomena of tickling, largely carried out among young women teachers, found that in 60 clearly marked cases ticklishness was more marked at one time than another, "as when they have been 'carrying on,' or are in a happy mood, are nervous or unwell, after a good meal, when being washed, when in perfect health, when with people they like, etc." (Hall and Allin, "Tickling and Laughter," _American Journal of Psychology_, October, 1897.) It will be observed that most of the conditions mentioned are such as would be favorable to excitations of an emotionally sexual character. The palms of the hands may be very ticklish during sexual excitement, especially in women, and Moll (_Konträre Sexualempfindung_, p. 180) remarks that in some men titillation of the skin of the back, of the feet, and even of the forehead evokes erotic feelings. It may be added that, as might be expected, titillation of the skin often has the same significance in animals as in man. "In some animals," remarks Louis Robinson (art. "Ticklishness," _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_), "local titillation of the skin, though in parts remote from the reproductive organs, plainly acts indirectly upon them as a stimulus. Thus, Harvey records that, by stroking the back of a favorite parrot (which he had possessed for years and supposed to be a male), he not only gave the bird gratification,--which was the sole intention of the illustrious physiologist,--but also caused it to reveal its sex by laying an egg." The sexual significance of tickling is very clearly indicated by the fact that the general ticklishness of the body, which is so marked in children and in young girls, greatly diminishes, as a rule, after sexual relationships have been established. Dr. Gina Lombroso, who investigated the cutaneous reflexes, found that both the abdominal and plantar reflexes, which are well marked in childhood and in young people between the ages of 15 and 18, were much diminished in older persons, and to a greater extent in women than in men, to a greater extent in the abdominal region than on the soles of the feet;[16] her results do not directly show the influence of sexual relationship, but they have an indirect bearing which is worth noting. The difference in ticklishness between the unmarried woman and the married woman corresponds to their difference in degree of modesty. Both modesty and ticklishness may be said to be characters which are no longer needed. From this point of view the general ticklishness of the skin is a kind of body modesty. It is so even apart from any sexual significance of tickling, and Louis Robinson has pointed out that in young apes, puppies, and other like animals the most ticklish regions correspond to the most vulnerable spots in a fight, and that consequently in the mock fights of early life skill in defending these spots is attained. In Iceland, according to Margarethe Filhés (as quoted by Max Bartels, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1900, ht. 2-3, p. 57), it may be known whether a youth is pure or a maid is intact by their susceptibility to tickling. It is considered a bad sign if that is lost. I am indebted to a medical correspondent for the following communication: "Married women have told me that they find that after marriage they are not ticklish under the arms or on the breasts, though before marriage any tickling or touching in these regions, especially by a man, would make them jump or get hysterical or 'queer,' as they call it. Before coitus the sexual energy seems to be dissipated along all the nerve-channels and especially along the secondary sexual routes,--the breasts, nape of neck, eyebrows, lips, cheeks, armpits, and hair thereon, etc.,--but after marriage the surplus energy is diverted from these secondary channels, and response to tickling is diminished. I have often noted in insane cases, especially mania in adolescent girls, that they are excessively ticklish. Again, in ordinary routine practice I have observed that, though married women show no ticklishness during auscultation and percussion of the chest, this is by no means always so in young girls. Perhaps ticklishness in virgins is Nature's self-protection against rape and sexual advances, and the young girl instinctively wishing to hide the armpits, breasts, and other ticklish regions, tucks herself up to prevent these parts being touched. The married woman, being in love with a man, does not shut up these parts, as she reciprocates the advances that he makes; she no longer requires ticklishness as a protection against sexual aggression." FOOTNOTES: [5] Alrutz's views are summarized in _Psychological Review_, Sept., 1901. [6] _Die Spiele der Menschen_, 1899, p. 206. [7] L. Robinson, art. "Ticklishness," Tuke's _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_. [8] Stanley Hall and Allin, "Tickling and Laughter," _American Journal of Psychology_, October, 1897. [9] H.M. Stanley, "Remarks on Tickling and Laughter," _American Journal of Psychology_, vol. ix, January, 1898. [10] Simpson, "On the Attitude of the Foetus in Utero," _Obstetric Memoirs_, 1856, vol. ii. [11] Erasmus Darwin, _Zoönomia_, Sect. XVII, 4. [12] Hyades and Deniker, _Mission Scientifique du Cap Horn_, vol. vii. p. 296. [13] Such an interpretation is supported by the arguments of W. McDougall ("The Theory of Laughter," _Nature_, February 5, 1903), who contends, without any reference to the sexual field, that one of the objects of laughter is automatically to "disperse our attention." [14] Even the structure of the vaginal mucous membrane, it may be noted, is analogous to that of the skin. D. Berry Hart, "Note on the Development of the Clitoris, Vagina, and Hymen," _Transactions of the Edinburgh Obstetrical Society_, vol. xxi, 1896. [15] W.H.B. Stoddart, "Anæsthesia in the Insane," _Journal of Mental Science_, October, 1899. [16] Gina Lombroso, "Sur les Réflexes Cutanés," International Congress of Criminal Anthropology, Amsterdam, _Comptes Rendus_, p. 295. III. The Secondary Sexual Skin Centres--Orificial Contacts--Cunnilingus and Fellatio--The Kiss--The Nipples--The Sympathy of the Breasts with the Primary Sexual Centres--This Connection Operative both through the Nerves and through the Blood--The Influence of Lactation on the Sexual Centres--Suckling and Sexual Emotion--The Significance of the Association between Suckling and Sexual Emotion--This Association as a Cause of Sexual Perversity. We have seen that the skin generally has a high degree of sensibility, which frequently tends to be in more or less definite association with the sexual centres. We have seen also that the central and specific sexual sensation, the sexual embrace itself, is, in large measure, a specialized kind of skin reflex. Between the generalized skin sensations and the great primary sexual centre of sensation there are certain secondary sexual centres which, on account of their importance, may here be briefly considered. These secondary centres have in common the fact that they always involve the entrances and the exits of the body--the regions, that is, where skin merges into mucous membrane, and where, in the course of evolution, tactile sensibility has become highly refined. It may, indeed, be said generally of these frontier regions of the body that their contact with the same or a similar frontier region in another person of opposite sex, under conditions otherwise favorable to tumescence, will tend to produce a minimum and even sometimes a maximum degree of sexual excitation. Contact of these regions with each other or with the sexual region itself so closely simulates the central sexual reflex that channels are set up for the same nervous energy and secondary sexual centres are constituted. It is important to remember that the phenomena we are here concerned with are essentially normal. Many of them are commonly spoken of as perversions. In so far, however, as they are aids to tumescence they must be regarded as coming within the range of normal variation. They may be considered unæsthetic, but that is another matter. It has, moreover, to be remembered that æsthetic values are changed under the influence of sexual emotion; from the lover's point of view many things are beautiful which are unbeautiful from the point of view of him who is not a lover, and the greater the degree to which the lover is swayed by his passion the greater the extent to which his normal æsthetic standard is liable to be modified. A broad consideration of the phenomena among civilized and uncivilized peoples amply suffices to show the fallacy of the tendency, so common among unscientific writers on these subjects, to introduce normal æsthetic standards into the sexual sphere. From the normal standpoint of ordinary daily life, indeed, the whole process of sex is unæsthetic, except the earlier stages of tumescence.[17] So long as they constitute a part of the phase of tumescence, the utilization of the sexual excitations obtainable through these channels must be considered within the normal range of variation, as we may observe, indeed, among many animals. When, however, such contacts of the orifices of the body, other than those of the male and female sexual organs proper, are used to procure not merely tumescence, but detumescence, they become, in the strict and technical sense, perversions. They are perversions in exactly the same sense as are the methods of intercourse which involve the use of checks to prevent fecundation. The æsthetic question, however, remains the same as if we were dealing with tumescence. It is necessary that this should be pointed out clearly, even at the risk of misapprehension, as confusions are here very common. The essentially sexual character of the sensitivity of the orificial contacts is shown by the fact that it may sometimes be accidentally developed even in early childhood. This is well illustrated in a case recorded by Féré. A little girl of 4, of nervous temperament and liable to fits of anger in which she would roll on the ground and tear her clothes, once ran out into the garden in such a fit of temper and threw herself on the lawn in a half-naked condition. As she lay there two dogs with whom she was accustomed to play came up and began to lick the uncovered parts of the body. It so happened that as one dog licked her mouth the other licked her sexual parts. She experienced a shock of intense sensation which she could never forget and never describe, accompanied by a delicious tension of the sexual organs. She rose and ran away with a feeling of shame, though she could not comprehend what had happened. The impression thus made was so profound that it persisted throughout life and served as the point of departure of sexual perversions, while the contact of a dog's tongue with her mouth alone afterward sufficed to evoke sexual pleasure. (Féré, _Archives de Neurologie_, 1903, No. 90.) I do not purpose to discuss here either _cunnilingus_ (the apposition of the mouth to the female pudendum) or _fellatio_ (the apposition of the mouth to the male organ), the agent in the former case being, in normal heterosexual relationships, a man, in the latter a woman; they are not purely tactile phenomena, but involve various other physical and psychic elements. _Cunnilingus_ was a very familiar manifestation in classic times, as shown by frequent and mostly very contemptuous references in Aristophanes, Juvenal, and many other Greek and Roman writers; the Greeks regarded it as a Phoenician practice, just as it is now commonly considered French; it tends to be especially prevalent at all periods of high civilization. _Fellatio_ has also been equally well known, in both ancient and modern times, especially as practiced by inverted men. It may be accepted that both _cunnilingus_ and _fellatio_, as practiced by either sex, are liable to occur among healthy or morbid persons, in heterosexual or homosexual relationships. They have little psychological significance, except to the extent that when practiced to the exclusion of normal sexual relationships they become perversions, and as such tend to be associated with various degenerative conditions, although such associations are not invariable. The essentially normal character of _cunnilingus_ and _fellatio_, when occurring as incidents in the process of tumescence, is shown by the fact that they are practiced by many animals. This is the case, for instance, among dogs. Moll points out that not infrequently the bitch, while under the dog, but before intromission, will change her position to lick the dog's penis--apparently from an instinctive impulse to heighten her own and his excitement--and then return to the normal position, while _cunnilingus_ is of constant occurrence among animals, and on account of its frequency among dogs was called by the Greeks skylax (Rosenbaum, _Geschichte der Lustseuche im Altertume_, fifth edition, pp. 260-278; also notes in Moll, _Untersuchungen über pie Libido Sexualis_, Bd. I, pp. 134, 369; and Bloch, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil II, pp. 216 et seq.) The occurrence of _cunnilingus_ as a sexual episode of tumescence among lower human races is well illustrated by a practice of the natives of the Caroline Islands (as recorded by Kubary in his ethnographic study of this people and quoted by Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, vol. i). It is here customary for a man to place a piece of fish between the labia, while he stimulates the latter by his tongue and teeth until under stress of sexual excitement the woman urinates; this is regarded as an indication that the proper moment for intercourse has arrived. Such a practice rests on physiologically sound facts whatever may be thought of it from an æsthetic standpoint. The contrast between the normal æsthetic standpoint in this matter and the lover's is well illustrated by the following quotations: Dr. A.B. Holder, in the course of his description of the American Indian _boté_, remarks, concerning _fellatio_: "Of all the many varieties of sexual perversion, this, it seems to me, is the most debased that could be conceived of." On the other hand, in a communication from a writer and scholar of high intellectual distinction occurs the statement: "I affirm that, of all sexual acts, _fellatio_ is most an affair of imagination and sympathy." It must be pointed out that there is no contradiction in these two statements, and that each is justified, according as we take the point of view of the ordinary onlooker or of the impassioned lover eager to give a final proof of his or her devotion. It must be added that from a scientific point of view we are not entitled to take either side. Of the whole of this group of phenomena, the most typical and the most widespread example is certainly the kiss. We have in the lips a highly sensitive frontier region between skin and mucous membrane, in many respects analogous to the vulvo-vaginal orifice, and reinforcible, moreover, by the active movements of the still more highly sensitive tongue. Close and prolonged contact of these regions, therefore, under conditions favorable to tumescence sets up a powerful current of nervous stimulation. After those contacts in which the sexual regions themselves take a direct part, there is certainly no such channel for directing nervous force into the sexual sphere as the kiss. This is nowhere so well recognized as in France, where a young girl's lips are religiously kept for her lover, to such an extent, indeed, that young girls sometimes come to believe that the whole physical side of love is comprehended in a kiss on the mouth; so highly intelligent a woman as Madam Adam has described the agony she felt as a girl when kissed on the lips by a man, owing to the conviction that she had thereby lost her virtue. Although the lips occupy this highly important position as a secondary sexual focus in the sphere of touch, the kiss is--unlike _cunnilingus_ and _fellatio_--confined to man and, indeed, to a large extent, to civilized man. It is the outcome of a compound evolution which had its beginning outside the sphere of touch, and it would therefore be out of place to deal with the interesting question of its development in this place. It will be discussed elsewhere.[18] There is yet another orificial frontier region which is a highly important tactile sexual focus: the nipple. The breasts raise, indeed, several interesting questions in their intimate connection with the sexual sphere and it may be worth while to consider them at this point. The breasts have from the present point of view this special significance among the sexual centres that they primarily exist, not for the contact of the lover, but the contact of the child. This is doubtless, indeed, the fundamental fact on which all the touch contacts we are here concerned with have grown up. The sexual sensitivity of the lover's lips to orificial contacts has been developed from the sensitivity of the infant's lips to contact with his mother's nipple. It is on the ground of that evolution that we are bound to consider here the precise position of the breasts as a sexual centre. As the great secreting organs of milk, the function of the breasts must begin immediately the child is cut off from the nutrition derived from direct contact with his mother's blood. It is therefore essential that the connection between the sexual organs proper, more especially the womb, and the breasts should be exceedingly intimate, so that the breasts may be in a condition to respond adequately to the demand of the child's sucking lips at the earliest moment after birth. As a matter of fact, this connection is very intimate, so intimate that it takes place in two totally distinct ways--by the nervous system and by the blood. The breasts of young girls sometimes become tender at puberty in sympathy with the evolution of the sexual organs, although the swelling of the breasts at this period is not normally a glandular process. At the recurring periods of menstruation, again, sensations in the breasts are not uncommon. It is not, however, until impregnation occurs that really decisive changes take place in the breasts. "As soon as the ovum is impregnated, that is to say within a few days," as W.D.A. Griffith states it ("The Diagnosis of Pregnancy," _British Medical Journal_, April 11, 1903), "the changes begin to occur in the breast, changes which are just as well worked out as are the changes in the uterus and the vagina, which, from the commencement of pregnancy, prepare for the labor which ought to follow nine months afterward. These are changes in the direction of marked activity of function. An organ which was previously quite passive, without activity of circulation and the effects of active circulation, begins to grow and continues to grow in activity and size as pregnancy progresses." The association between breasts and womb is so obvious that it has not escaped many savage peoples, who are often, indeed, excellent observers. Among one primitive people at least the activity of the breast at impregnation seems to be clearly recognized. The Sinangolo of British New Guinea, says Seligmann (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, July-December, 1902, p. 298) believe that conception takes place in the breasts; on this account they hold that coitus should never take place before the child is weaned or he might imbibe semen with the milk. It is natural to assume that this connection between the activity of the womb and the glandular activity of the breasts is a nervous connection, by means of the spinal cord, and such a connection certainly exists and plays a very important part in the stimulating action of the breasts on the sexual organs. But that there is a more direct channel of communication even than the nervous system is shown by the fact that the secretion of milk will take place at parturition, even when the nervous connection has been destroyed. Mironoff found that, when the mammary gland is completely separated from the central nervous system, secretion, though slightly diminished, still continued. In two goats he cut the nerves shortly before parturition and after birth the breasts still swelled and functioned normally (_Archives des Sciences Biologiques_, St. Petersburg, 1895, summarized in _L'Année Biologique_; 1895, p. 329). Ribbert, again, cut out the mammary gland of a young rabbit and transplanted it into the ear; five months after the rabbit bore young and the gland secreted milk freely. The case has been reported of a woman whose spinal cord was destroyed by an accident at the level of the fifth and sixth dorsal vertebræ, yet lactation was perfectly normal (_British Medical Journal_, August 5, 1899, p. 374). We are driven to suppose that there is some chemical change in the blood, some internal secretion from the uterus or the ovaries, which acts as a direct stimulant to the breasts. (See a comprehensive discussion of the phenomena of the connection between the breasts and sexual organs, though the conclusions are not unassailable, by Temesvary, _Journal of Obstetrics and Gynæcology of the British Empire_, June, 1903). That this hypothetical secretion starts from the womb rather than the ovaries seems to be indicated by the fact that removal of both ovaries during pregnancy will not suffice to prevent lactation. In favor of the ovaries, see Beatson, _Lancet_, July, 1896; in favor of the uterus, Armand Routh, "On the Interaction between the Ovaries and the Mammary Glands," _British Medical Journal_, September 30, 1899. While, however, the communications from the sexual organs to the breast are of a complex and at present ill understood character, the communication from the breasts to the sexual organs is without doubt mainly and chiefly nervous. When the child is put to the breast after birth the suction of the nipple causes a reflex contraction of the womb, and it is held by many, though not all, authorities that in a woman who does not suckle her child there is some risk that the womb will not return to its normal involuted size. It has also been asserted that to put a child to the breast during the early months of pregnancy causes so great a degree of uterine contraction that abortion may result. Freund found in Germany that stimulation of the nipples by an electrical cupping apparatus brought about contraction of the pregnant uterus. At an earlier period it was recommended to irritate the nipple in order to excite the uterus to parturient action. Simpson, while pointing out that this was scarcely adequate to produce the effect desired, thought that placing a child to the breast after labor had begun might increase uterine action. (J.Y. Simpson, _Obstetric Memoirs_, vol. i, p. 836; also Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, second edition, p. 132). The influence of lactation over the womb in preventing the return of menstruation during its continuance is well known. According to Remfry's investigation of 900 cases in England, in 57 per cent. of cases there is no menstruation during lactation. (L. Remfry, in paper read before Obstetrical Society of London, summarized in the _British Medical Journal_, January 11, 1896, p. 86). Bendix, in Germany, found among 140 cases that in about 40 per cent. there was no menstruation during lactation (paper read before Düsseldorf meeting of the Society of German Naturalists and Physicians, 1899). When the child is not suckled menstruation tends to reappear about six months after parturition. It is possible that the divergent opinions of authorities concerning the necessarily favorable influence of lactation in promoting the return of the womb to its normal size may be due to a confusion of two distinct influences: the reflex action of the nipple on the womb and the effects of prolonged glandular secretion of the breasts in debilitated persons. The act of suckling undoubtedly tends to promote uterine contraction, and in healthy women during lactation the womb may even (according to Vineberg) be temporarily reduced to a smaller size than before impregnation, thus producing what is known as "lactation atrophy." In debilitated women, however, the strain of milk-production may lead to general lack of muscular tone, and involution of the womb thus be hindered rather than aided by lactation. On the objective side, then, the nipple is to be regarded as an erectile organ, richly supplied with nerves and vessels, which, under the stimulation of the infant's lips--or any similar compression, and even under the influence of emotion or cold,--becomes firm and projects, mainly as a result of muscular contraction; for, unlike the penis and the clitoris, the nipple contains no true erectile tissue and little capacity for vascular engorgement.[19] We must then suppose that an impetus tends to be transmitted through the spinal cord to the sexual organs, setting up a greater or less degree of nervous and muscular excitement with uterine contraction. These being the objective manifestations, what manifestations are to be noted on the subjective side? It is a remarkable proof of the general indifference with which in Europe even the fairly constant and prominent characteristics of the psychology of women have been treated until recent times that, so far as I am aware,--though I have made no special research to this end,--no one before the end of the eighteenth century had recorded the fact that the act of suckling tends to produce in women voluptuous sexual emotions. Cabanis in 1802, in the memoir on "Influence des Sexes" in his _Rapports du Physique et du Moral de l'Homme_, wrote that several suckling women had told him that the child in sucking the breast made them experience a vivid sensation of pleasure, shared in some degree by the sexual organs. There can be no doubt that in healthy suckling women this phenomenon is exceedingly common, though in the absence of any methodical and precise investigation it cannot be affirmed that it is experienced by every woman in some degree, and it is highly probable that this is not the case. One lady, perfectly normal, states that she has had stronger sexual feelings in suckling her children than she has ever experienced with her husband, but that so far as possible she has tried to repress them, as she regards them as brutish under these circumstances. Many other women state generally that suckling is the most delicious physical feeling they have ever experienced. In most cases, however, it does not appear to lead to a desire for intercourse, and some of those who make this statement have no desire for coitus during lactation, though they may have strong sexual needs at other times. It is probable that this corresponds to the normal condition, and that the voluptuous sensations aroused by suckling are adequately gratified by the child. It may be added that there are probably many women who could say, with a lady quoted by Féré,[20] that the only real pleasures of sex they have ever known are those derived from their suckling infants. It is not difficult to see why this normal association of sexual emotion with suckling should have come about. It is essential for the preservation of the lives of young mammals that the mothers should have an adequate motive in pleasurable sensation for enduring the trouble of suckling. The most obvious method for obtaining the necessary degree of pleasurable sensation lay in utilizing the reservoir of sexual emotion, with which channels of communication might already be said to be open through the action of the sexual organs on the breasts during pregnancy. The voluptuous element in suckling may thus be called a merciful provision of Nature for securing the maintenance of the child. Cabanis seems to have realized the significance of this connection as the basis of the sympathy between mother and child, and more recently Lombroso and Ferrero have remarked (_La Donna Delinquente_, p. 438) on the fact that maternal love has a sexual basis in the element of venereal pleasure, though usually inconsiderable, experienced during suckling. Houzeau has referred to the fact that in the majority of animals the relation between mother and offspring is only close during the period of lactation, and this is certainly connected with the fact that it is only during lactation that the female animal can derive physical gratification from her offspring. When living on a farm I have ascertained that cows sometimes, though not frequently, exhibit slight signs of sexual excitement, with secretion of mucus, while being milked; so that, as the dairymaid herself observed, it is as if they were being "bulled." The sow, like some other mammals, often eats her own young after birth, mistaking them, it is thought, for the placenta, which is normally eaten by most mammals; it is said that the sow never eats her young when they have once taken the teat. It occasionally happens that this normal tendency for suckling to produce voluptuous sexual emotions is present in an extreme degree, and may lead to sexual perversions. It does not appear that the sexual sensations aroused by suckling usually culminate in the orgasm; this however, was noted in a case recorded by Féré, of a slightly neurotic woman in whom intense sexual excitement occurred during suckling, especially if prolonged; so far as possible, she shortened the periods of suckling in order to prevent, not always successfully, the occurrence of the orgasm (Féré, _Archives de Neurologie_ No. 30, 1903). Icard refers to the case of a woman who sought to become pregnant solely for the sake of the voluptuous sensations she derived from suckling, and Yellowlees (Art. "Masturbation," _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_) speaks of the overwhelming character of "the storms of sexual feeling sometimes observed during lactation." It may be remarked that the frequency of the association between lactation and the sexual sensations is indicated by the fact that, as Savage remarks, lactational insanity is often accompanied by fancies regarding the reproductive organs. When we have realized the special sensitivity of the orificial regions and the peculiarly close relationships between the breasts and the sexual organs we may easily understand the considerable part which they normally play in the art of love. As one of the chief secondary sexual characters in women, and one of her chief beauties, a woman's breasts offer themselves to the lover's lips with a less intimate attraction than her mouth only because the mouth is better able to respond. On her side, such contact is often instinctively desired. Just as the sexual disturbance of pregnancy is accompanied by a sympathetic disturbance in the breasts, so the sexual excitement produced by the lover's proximity reacts on the breasts; the nipple becomes turgid and erect in sympathy with the clitoris; the woman craves to place her lover in the place of the child, and experiences a sensation in which these two supreme objects of her desire are deliciously mingled. The powerful effect which stimulation of the nipple produces on the sexual sphere has led to the breasts playing a prominent part in the erotic art of those lands in which this art has been most carefully cultivated. Thus in India, according to Vatsyayana, many authors are of the opinion that in approaching a woman a lover should begin by sucking the nipples of her breasts, and in the songs of the Bayaderes of Southern India sucking the nipple is mentioned as one of the natural preliminaries of coitus. In some cases, and more especially in neurotic persons, the sexual pleasure derived from manipulation of the nipple passes normal limits and, being preferred even to coitus, becomes a perversion. In girls' schools, it is said, especially in France, sucking and titillation of the breasts are not uncommon; in men, also, titillation of the nipples occasionally produces sexual sensations (Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, second edition, p. 132). Hildebrandt recorded the case of a young woman whose nipples had been sucked by her lover; by constantly drawing her breasts she became able to suck them herself and thus attained extreme sexual pleasure. A.J. Bloch, of New Orleans, has noted the case of a woman who complained of swelling of the breasts; the gentlest manipulation produced an orgasm, and it was found that the swelling had been intentionally produced for the sake of this manipulation. Moraglia in Italy knew a very beautiful woman who was perfectly cold in normal sexual relationships, but madly excited when her husband pressed or sucked her breasts. Lombroso (_Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1885, fasc. IV) has described the somewhat similar case of a woman who had no sexual sensitivity in the clitoris, vagina, or labia, and no pleasure in coitus except in very strange positions, but possessed intense sexual feelings in the right nipple as well as in the upper third of the thigh. It is remarkable that not only is suckling apt to be accompanied by sexual pleasure in the mother, but that, in some cases, the infant also appears to have a somewhat similar experience. This is, at all events, indicated in a remarkable case recorded by Féré (_L'Instinct Sexuel_, second edition, p. 257). A female infant child of slightly neurotic heredity was weaned at the age of 14 months, but so great was her affection for her mother's breasts, though she had already become accustomed to other food, that this was only accomplished with great difficulty and by allowing her still to caress the naked breasts several times a day. This went on for many months, when the mother, becoming again pregnant, insisted on putting an end to it. So jealous was the child, however, that it was necessary to conceal from her the fact that her younger sister was suckled at her mother's breasts, and once at the age of 3, when she saw her father aiding her mother to undress, she became violently jealous of him. This jealousy, as well as the passion for her mother's breasts, persisted to the age of puberty, though she learned to conceal it. At the age of 13, when menstruation began, she noticed in dancing with her favorite girl friends that when her breasts came in contact with theirs she experienced a very agreeable sensation, with erection of the nipples; but it was not till the age of 16 that she observed that the sexual region took part in this excitement and became moist. From this period she had erotic dreams about young girls. She never experienced any attraction for young men, but eventually married; though having much esteem and affection for her husband, she never felt any but the slightest sexual enjoyment in his arms, and then only by evoking feminine images. This case, in which the sensations of an infant at the breast formed the point of departure of a sexual perversion which lasted through life, is, so far as I am aware, unique. FOOTNOTES: [17] Jonas Cohn (_Allgemeine Æsthetik_, 1901, p. 11) lays it down that psychology has nothing to do with good or bad taste. "The distinction between good and bad taste has no meaning for psychology. On this account, the fundamental conceptions of æsthetics cannot arise from psychology." It may be a question whether this view can be accepted quite absolutely. [18] See Appendix A: "The Origins of the Kiss." [19] See J.B. Hellier, "On the Nipple Reflex," _British Medical Journal_, November 7, 1896. [20] Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, second edition, p. 147. IV. The Bath--Antagonism of Primitive Christianity to the Cult of the Skin--Its Cult of Personal Filth--The Reasons which Justified this Attitude--The World-wide Tendency to Association between Extreme Cleanliness and Sexual Licentiousness--The Immorality Associated with Public Baths in Europe down to Modern Times. The hygiene of the skin, as well as its special cult, consists in bathing. The bath, as is well known, attained under the Romans a degree of development which, in Europe at all events, it has never reached before or since, and the modern visitor to Rome carries away with him no more impressive memory than that of the Baths of Caracalla. Since the coming of Christianity the cult of the skin, and even its hygiene, have never again attained the same general and unquestioned exaltation. The Church killed the bath. St. Jerome tells us with approval that when the holy Paula noted that any of her nuns were too careful in this matter she would gravely reprove them, saying that "the purity of the body and its garments means the impurity of the soul."[21] Or, as the modern monk of Mount Athos still declares: "A man should live in dirt as in a coat of mail, so that his soul may sojourn more securely within." Our knowledge of the bathing arrangements of Roman days is chiefly derived from Pompeii. Three public baths (two for both men and women, who were also probably allowed to use the third occasionally) have so far been excavated in this small town, as well as at least three private bathing establishments (at least one of them for women), while about a dozen houses contain complete baths for private use. Even in a little farm house at Boscoreale (two miles out of Pompeii) there was an elaborate series of bathing rooms. It may be added that Pompeii was well supplied with water. All houses but the poorest had flowing jets, and some houses had as many as ten jets. (See Man's _Pompeii_, Chapters XXVI-XXVIII.) The Church succeeded to the domination of imperial Rome, and adopted many of the methods of its predecessor. But there could be no greater contrast than is presented by the attitude of Paganism and of Christianity toward the bath. As regards the tendencies of the public baths in imperial Rome, some of the evidence is brought together in the section on this subject in Rosenbaum's _Geschichte der Lustseuche im Alterthume_. As regards the attitude of the earliest Christian ascetics in this matter I may refer the reader to an interesting passage in Lecky's _History of European Morals_ (vol. ii, pp. 107-112), in which are brought together a number of highly instructive examples of the manner in which many of the most eminent of the early saints deliberately cultivated personal filth. In the middle ages, when the extreme excesses of the early ascetics had died out, and monasticiam became regulated, monks generally took two baths a year when in health; in illness they could be taken as often as necessary. The rules of Cluny only allowed three towels to the community: one for the novices, one for the professed, and one for the lay brothers. At the end of the seventeenth century Madame de Mazarin, having retired to a convent of Visitandines, one day desired to wash her feet, but the whole establishment was set in an uproar at such an idea, and she received a direct refusal. In 1760 the Dominican Richard wrote that in itself the bath is permissible, but it must be taken solely for necessity, not for pleasure. The Church taught, and this lesson is still inculcated in convent schools, that it is wrong to expose the body even to one's own gaze, and it is not surprising that many holy persons boasted that they had never even washed their hands. (Most of these facts have been taken from A. Franklin, _Les Soins de Toilette_, one of the _Vie Privée d'Autrefois_ series, in which further details may be found.) In sixteenth-century Italy, a land of supreme elegance and fashion, superior even to France, the conditions were the same, and how little water found favor even with aristocratic ladies we may gather from the contemporary books on the toilet, which abound with recipes against itch and similar diseases. It should be added that Burckhardt (_Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien_, eighth edition, volume ii, p. 92) considers that in spite of skin diseases the Italians of the Renaissance were the first nation in Europe for cleanliness. It is unnecessary to consider the state of things in other European countries. The aristocratic conditions of former days are the plebeian conditions of to-day. So far as England is concerned, such documents as Chadwick's _Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Laboring Population of Great Britain_ (1842) sufficiently illustrate the ideas and the practices as regards personal cleanliness which prevailed among the masses during the nineteenth century and which to a large extent still prevail. A considerable amount of opprobrium has been cast upon the Catholic Church for its direct and indirect influence in promoting bodily uncleanliness. Nietzsche sarcastically refers to the facts, and Mr. Frederick Harrison asserts that "the tone of the middle ages in the matter of dirt was a form of mental disease." It would be easy to quote many other authors to the same effect. It is necessary to point out, however, that the writers who have committed themselves to such utterances have not only done an injustice to Christianity, but have shown a lack of historical insight. Christianity was essentially and fundamentally a rebellion against the classic world, against its vices, and against their concomitant virtues, against both its practices and its ideals. It sprang up in a different part of the Mediterranean basin, from a different level of culture; it found its supporters in a new and lower social stratum. The cult of charity, simplicity, and faith, while not primarily ascetic, became inevitably allied with asceticism, because from its point of view: sexuality was the very stronghold of the classic world. In the second century the genius of Clement of Alexandria and of the great Christian thinkers who followed him seized on all those elements in classic life and philosophy which could be amalgamated with Christianity without, as they trusted, destroying its essence, but in the matter of sexuality there could be no compromise, and the condemnation of sexuality involved the condemnation of the bath. It required very little insight and sagacity for the Christians to see--though we are now apt to slur over the fact--that the cult of the bath was in very truth the cult of the flesh.[22] However profound their ignorance of anatomy, physiology, and psychology might be, they had before them ample evidence to show that the skin is an outlying sexual zone and that every application which promoted the purity, brilliance, and healthfulness of the skin constituted a direct appeal, feeble or strong as the case might be, to those passions against which they were warring. The moral was evident: better let the temporary garment of your flesh be soaked with dirt than risk staining the radiant purity of your immortal soul. If Christianity had not drawn that moral with clear insight and relentless logic Christianity would never have been a great force in the world. If any doubt is felt as to the really essential character of the connection between cleanliness and the sexual impulse it may be dispelled by the consideration that the association is by no means confined to Christian Europe. If we go outside Europe and even Christendom altogether, to the other side of the world, we find it still well marked. The wantonness of the luxurious people of Tahiti when first discovered by European voyagers is notorious. The Areoi of Tahiti, a society largely constituted on a basis of debauchery, is a unique institution so far as primitive peoples are concerned. Cook, after giving one of the earliest descriptions of this society and its objects at Tahiti (Hawkesworth, _An Account of Voyages_, etc., 1775, vol. ii, p. 55), immediately goes on to describe the extreme and scrupulous cleanliness of the people of Tahiti in every respect; they not only bathed their bodies and clothes every day, but in all respects they carried cleanliness to a higher point than even "the politest assembly in Europe." Another traveler bears similar testimony: "The inhabitants of the Society Isles are, among all the nations of the South Seas, the most cleanly; and the better sort of them carry cleanliness to a very great length"; they bathe morning and evening in the sea, he remarks, and afterward in fresh water to remove the particles of salt, wash their hands before and after meals, etc. (J.R. Forster, "_Observations made during a Voyage round the World_," 1798, p. 398.) And William Ellis, in his detailed description of the people of Tahiti (_Polynesian Researches_, 1832, vol. i, especially Chapters VI and IX), while emphasizing their extreme cleanliness, every person of every class bathing at least once or twice a day, dwells on what he considers their unspeakable moral debasement; "notwithstanding the apparent mildness of their disposition and the cheerful vivacity of their conversation, no portion of the human race was ever perhaps sunk lower in brutal licentiousness and moral degradation." After leaving Tahiti Cook went on to New Zealand. Here he found that the people were more virtuous than at Tahiti, and also, he found, less clean. It is, however, a mistake to suppose that physical uncleanliness ruled supreme through mediæval and later times. It is true that the eighteenth century, which saw the birth of so much that marks our modern world, witnessed a revival of the old ideal of bodily purity. But the struggle between two opposing ideals had been carried on for a thousand years or more before this. The Church, indeed, was in this matter founded on an impregnable rock. But there never has been a time when influences outside the Church have not found a shelter somewhere. Those traditions of the classic world which Christianity threw aside as useless or worse quietly reappeared. In no respect was this more notably the case than in regard to the love of pure water and the cult of the bath. Islam adopted the complete Roman bath, and made it an institution of daily life, a necessity for all classes. Granada is the spot in Europe where to-day we find the most exquisite remains of Mohammedan culture, and, though the fury of Christian conquest dragged the harrow over the soil of Granada, even yet streams and fountains spring up there and gush abundantly and one seldom loses the sound of the plash of water. The flower of Christian chivalry and Christian intelligence went to Palestine to wrest the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of pagan Mohammedans. They found there many excellent things which they had not gone out to seek, and the Crusaders produced a kind of premature and abortive Renaissance, the shadow of lost classic things reflected on Christian Europe from the mirror of Islam. Yet it is worth while to point out, as bearing on the associations of the bath here emphasized, that even in Islam we may trace the existence of a religious attitude unfavorable to the bath. Before the time of Mohammed there were no public baths in Arabia, and it was and is believed that baths are specially haunted by the djinn--the evil spirits. Mohammed himself was at first so prejudiced against public baths that he forbade both men and women to enter them. Afterward, however, he permitted men to use them provided they wore a cloth round the loins, and women also when they could not conveniently bathe at home. Among the Prophet's sayings is found the assertion: "Whatever woman enters a bath the devil is with her," and "All the earth is given to me as a place of prayer, and as pure, except the burial ground and the bath." (See, e.g., E.W. Lane, _Arabian Society in the Middle Ages_, 1883, pp. 179-183.) Although, therefore, the bath, or _hammam_, on grounds of ritual ablution, hygiene, and enjoyment speedily became universally popular in Islam among all classes and both sexes, Mohammed himself may be said to have opposed it. Among the discoveries which the Crusaders made and brought home with them one of the most notable was that of the bath, which in its more elaborate forms seems to have been absolutely forgotten in Europe, though Roman baths might everywhere have been found underground. All authorities seem to be agreed in finding here the origin of the revival of the public bath. It is to Rome first, and later to Islam, the lineal inheritor of classic culture, that we owe the cult of water and of physical purity. Even to-day the Turkish bath, which is the most popular of elaborate methods of bathing, recalls by its characteristics and its name the fact that it is a Mohammedan survival of Roman life. From the twelfth century onward baths have repeatedly been introduced from the East, and reintroduced afresh in slightly modified forms, and have flourished with varying degrees of success. In the thirteenth century they were very common, especially in Paris, and though they were often used, more especially in Germany, by both sexes in common, every effort was made to keep them orderly and respectable. These efforts were, however, always unsuccessful in the end. A bath always tended in the end to become a brothel, and hence either became unfashionable or was suppressed by the authorities. It is sufficient to refer to the reputation in England of "hot-houses" and "bagnios." It was not until toward the end of the eighteenth century that it began to be recognized that the claims of physical cleanliness were sufficiently imperative to make it necessary that the fairly avoidable risks to morality in bathing should be avoided and the unavoidable risks bravely incurred. At the present day, now that we are accustomed to weave ingeniously together in the texture of our lives the conflicting traditions of classic and Christian days, we have almost persuaded ourselves that the pagan virtue of cleanliness comes next after godliness, and we bathe, forgetful of the great moral struggle which once went on around the bath. But we refrain from building ourselves palaces to bathe in, and for the most part we bathe with exceeding moderation.[23] It is probable that we may best harmonize our conflicting traditions by rejecting not only the Christian glorification of dirt, but also, save for definitely therapeutic purposes, the excessive heat, friction, and stimulation involved by the classic forms of bathing. Our reasonable ideal should render it easy and natural for every man, woman, and child to have a simple bath, tepid in winter, cold in summer, all the year round. For the history of the bath in mediæval times and later Europe, see A. Franklin, _Les Soins de Toilette_, in the _Vie Privée d'Autrefois_ series; Rudeck, _Geschichte der öffentlichen Sittlichkeit in Deutschland_; T. Wright, _The Homes of Other Days_; E. Dühren, _Das Geschlechtsleben in England_, bd. 1. Outside the Church, there was a greater amount of cleanliness than we are sometimes apt to suppose. It may, indeed, be said that the uncleanliness of holy men and women would have attracted no attention if it had corresponded to the condition generally prevailing. Before public baths were established bathing in private was certainly practiced; thus Ordericus Vitalis, in narrating the murder of Mabel, the Countess de Montgomery, in Normandy in 1082, casually mentions that she was lying on the bed after her bath (_Ecclesiastical History_, Book V, Chapter XIII). In warm weather, it would appear, mediæval ladies bathed in streams, as we may still see countrywomen do in Russia, Bohemia, and occasionally nearer home. The statement of the historian Michelet, therefore, that Percival, Iseult, and the other ethereal personages of mediæval times "certainly never washed" (_La Sorcière_, p. 110) requires some qualification. In 1292 there were twenty-six bathing establishments in Paris, and an attendant would go through the streets in the morning announcing that they were ready. One could have a vapor bath only or a hot bath to succeed it, as in the East. No woman of bad reputation, leper, or vagabond was at this time allowed to frequent the baths, which were closed on Sundays and feast-days. By the fourteenth century, however, the baths began to have a reputation for immorality, as well as luxury, and, according to Dufour, the baths of Paris "rivaled those of imperial Rome: love, prostitution, and debauchery attracted the majority to the bathing establishments, where everything was covered by a decent veil." He adds that, notwithstanding the scandal thus caused and the invectives of preachers, all went to the baths, young and old, rich and poor, and he makes the statement, which seems to echo the constant assertion of the early Fathers, that "a woman who frequented the baths returned home physically pure only at the expense of her moral purity." In Germany there was even greater freedom of manners in bathing, though, it would seem, less real licentiousness. Even the smallest towns had their baths, which were frequented by all classes. As soon as the horn blew to announce that the baths were ready all hastened along the street, the poorer folk almost completely undressing themselves before leaving their homes. Bathing was nearly always in common without any garment being worn, women attendants commonly rubbed and massaged both sexes, and the dressing room was frequently used by men and women in common; this led to obvious evils. The Germans, as Weinhold points out (_Die Deutschen Frauen im Mittelalter_, 1882, bd. ii, pp. 112 et seq.), have been fond of bathing in the open air in streams from the days of Tacitus and Cæsar until comparatively modern times, when the police have interfered. It was the same in Switzerland. Poggio, early in the sixteenth century, found it the custom for men and women to bathe together at Baden, and said that he seemed to be assisting at the _floralia_ of ancient Rome, or in Plato's Republic. Sénancour, who quotes the passage (_De l'Amour_, 1834, vol. i, p. 313), remarks that at the beginning of the nineteenth century there was still great liberty at the Baden baths. Of the thirteenth century in England Thomas Wright (_Homes of Other Days_, 1871, p. 271) remarks: "The practice of warm bathing prevailed very generally in all classes of society, and is frequently alluded to in the mediæval romances and stories. For this purpose a large bathing-tub was used. People sometimes bathed immediately after rising in the morning, and we find the bath used after dinner and before going to bed. A bath was also often prepared for a visitor on his arrival from a journey; and, what seems still more singular, in the numerous stories of amorous intrigues the two lovers usually began their interviews by bathing together." In England the association between bathing and immorality was established with special rapidity and thoroughness. Baths were here officially recognized as brothels, and this as early as the twelfth century, under Henry II. These organized bath-brothels were confined to Southwark, outside the walls of the city, a quarter which was also given up to various sports and amusements. At a later period, "hot-houses," bagnios, and hummums (the eastern _hammam_) were spread all over London and remained closely identified with prostitution, these names, indeed, constantly tending to become synonymous with brothels. (T. Wright, _Homes of Other Days_, 1871, pp. 494-496, gives an account of them.) In France the baths, being anathematized by both Catholics and Huguenots, began to lose vogue and disappear. "Morality gained," remarks Franklin, "but cleanliness lost." Even the charming and elegant Margaret of Navarre found it quite natural for a lady to mention incidentally to her lover that she had not washed her hands for a week. Then began an extreme tendency to use cosmetics, essences, perfumes, and a fierce war with vermin, up to the seventeenth century, when some progress was made, and persons who desired to be very elegant and refined were recommended to wash their faces "nearly every day." Even in 1782, however, while a linen cloth was advised for the purpose of cleaning the face and hands, the use of water was still somewhat discountenanced. The use of hot and cold baths was now, however, beginning to be established in Paris and elsewhere, and the bathing establishments at the great European health resorts were also beginning to be put on the orderly footing which is now customary. When Casanova, in the middle of the eighteenth century, went to the public baths at Berne he was evidently somewhat surprised when he found that he was invited to choose his own attendant from a number of young women, and when he realized that these attendants were, in all respects, at the disposition of the bathers. It is evident that establishments of this kind were then already dying out, although it may be added that the customs described by Casanova appear to have persisted in Budapest and St. Petersburg almost or quite up to the present. The great European public baths have long been above suspicion in this respect (though homosexual practices are not quite excluded), while it is well recognized that many kinds of hot baths now in use produce a powerfully stimulating action upon the sexual system, and patients taking such baths for medical purposes are frequently warned against giving way to these influences. The struggle which in former ages went on around bathing establishments has now been in part transferred to massage establishments. Massage is an equally powerful stimulant to the skin and the sexual sphere,--acting mainly by friction instead of mainly by heat,--and it has not yet attained that position of general recognition and popularity which, in the case of bathing establishments, renders it bad policy to court disrepute. Like bathing, massage is a hygienic and therapeutic method of influencing the skin and subjacent tissues which, together with its advantages, has certain concomitant disadvantages in its liability to affect the sexual sphere. This influence is apt to be experienced by individuals of both sexes, though it is perhaps specially marked in women. Jouin (quoted in Paris _Journal de Médecine_, April 23, 1893) found that of 20 women treated by massage, of whom he made inquiries, 14 declared that they experienced voluptuous sensations; 8 of these belonged to respectable families; the other 6 were women of the _demimonde_ and gave precise details; Jouin refers in this connection to the _aliptes_ of Rome. It is unnecessary to add that the gynæcological massage introduced in recent years by the Swedish teacher of gymnastics, Thure-Brandt, as involving prolonged rubbing and kneading of the pelvic regions, "_pression glissante du vagin_" etc. (_Massage Gynécologique_, by G. de Frumerie, 1897), whatever its therapeutic value, cannot fail in a large proportion of cases to stimulate the sexual emotions. (Eulenburg remarks that for sexual anæsthesia in women the Thure-Brandt system of massage may "naturally" be recommended, _Sexuale Neuropathie_, p. 78.) I have been informed that in London and elsewhere massage establishments are sometimes visited by women who seek sexual gratification by massage of the genital regions by the _masseuse_. FOOTNOTES: [21] "_Dicens munditiam corporis atque vestitus animæ esse immunditiam_"--St. Jerome, _Ad Eustochium Virginem_. [22] With regard to the physiological mechanism by which bathing produces its tonic and stimulating effects Woods Hutchinson has an interesting discussion (Chapter VII) in his _Studies in Human and Comparative Pathology_. [23] Thus among the young women admitted to the Chicago Normal School to be trained as teachers, Miss Lura Sanborn, the director of physical training, states (_Doctor's Magazine_, December, 1900) that a bath once a fortnight is found to be not unusual. V. Summary--Fundamental Importance of Touch--The Skin the Mother of All the Other Senses. The sense of touch is so universally diffused over the whole skin, and in so many various degrees and modifications, and it is, moreover, so truly the Alpha and the Omega of affection, that a broken and fragmentary treatment of the subject has been inevitable. The skin is the archæological field of human and prehuman experience, the foundation on which all forms of sensory perception have grown up, and as sexual sensibility is among the most ancient of all forms of sensibility, the sexual instinct is necessarily, in the main, a comparatively slightly modified form of general touch sensibility. This primitive character of the great region of tactile sensation, its vagueness and diffusion, the comparatively unintellectual as well as unæsthetic nature of the mental conceptions which arise on the tactile basis make it difficult to deal precisely with the psychology of touch. The very same qualities, however, serve greatly to heighten the emotional intensity of skin sensations. So that, of all the great sensory fields, the field of touch is at once the least intellectual and the most massively emotional. These qualities, as well as its intimate and primitive association with the apparatus of tumescence and detumescence, make touch the readiest and most powerful channel by which the sexual sphere may be reached. In disentangling the phenomena of tactile sensibility ticklishness has been selected for special consideration as a kind of sensation, founded on reflexes developing even before birth, which is very closely related to sexual phenomena. It is, as it were, a play of tumescence, on which laughter supervenes as a play of detumescence. It leads on to the more serious phenomena of tumescence, and it tends to die out after adolescence, at the period during which sexual relationships normally begin. Such a view of ticklishness, as a kind of modesty of the skin, existing merely to be destroyed, need only be regarded as one of its aspects. Ticklishness certainly arose from a non-sexual starting-point, and may well have protective uses in the young animal. The readiness with which tactile sensibility takes on a sexual character and forms reflex channels of communication with the sexual sphere proper is illustrated by the existence of certain secondary sexual foci only inferior in sexual excitability to the genital region. We have seen that the chief of these normal foci are situated in the orificial regions where skin and mucous membrane meet, and that the contact of any two orificial regions between two persons of different sex brought together under favorable conditions is apt, when prolonged, to produce a very intense degree of sexual erethism. This is a normal phenomenon in so far as it is a part of tumescence, and not a method of obtaining detumescence. The kiss is a typical example of these contacts, while the nipple is of special interest in this connection, because we are thereby enabled to bring the psychology of lactation into intimate relationship with the psychology of sexual love. The extreme sensitiveness of the skin, the readiness with which its stimulation reverberates into the sexual sphere, clearly brought out by the present study, enable us to understand better a very ancient contest--the moral struggle around the bath. There has always been a tendency for the extreme cultivation of physical purity to lead on to the excessive stimulation of the sexual sphere; so that the Christian ascetics were entirely justified, on their premises, in fighting against the bath and in directly or indirectly fostering a cult of physical uncleanliness. While, however, in the past there has clearly been a general tendency for the cult of physical purity to be associated with moral licentiousness, and there are sufficient grounds for such an association, it is important to remember that it is not an inevitable and fatal association; a scrupulously clean person is by no means necessarily impelled to licentiousness; a physically unclean person is by no means necessarily morally pure. When we have eliminated certain forms of the bath which must be regarded as luxuries rather than hygienic necessities, though they occasionally possess therapeutic virtues, we have eliminated the most violent appeals of the bath to the sexual impulse. So imperative are the demands of physical purity now becoming, in general opinion, that such small risks to moral purity as may still remain are constantly and wisely disregarded, and the immoral traditions of the bath now, for the most part, belong to the past. SMELL. I. The Primitiveness of Smell--The Anatomical Seat of the Olfactory Centres--Predominance of Smell among the Lower Mammals--Its Diminished Importance in Man--The Attention Paid to Odors by Savages. The first more highly organized sense to arise on the diffused tactile sensitivity of the skin is, in most cases, without doubt that of smell. At first, indeed, olfactory sensibility is not clearly differentiated from general tactile sensibility; the pit of thickened and ciliated epithelium or the highly mobile antennæ which in many lower animals are sensitive to odorous stimuli are also extremely sensitive to tactile stimuli; this is, for instance, the case with the snail, in whom at the same time olfactive sensibility seems to be spread over the whole body.[24] The sense of smell is gradually specialized, and when taste also begins to develop a kind of chemical sense is constituted. The organ of smell, however, speedily begins to rise in importance as we ascend the zoölogical scale. In the lower vertebrates, when they began to adopt a life on dry land, the sense of smell seems to have been that part of their sensory equipment which proved most useful under the new conditions, and it developed with astonishing rapidity. Edinger finds that in the brain of reptiles the "area olfactoria" is of enormous extent, covering, indeed, the greater part of the cortex, though it may be quite true, as Herrick remarks, that, while smell is preponderant, it is perhaps not correct to attribute an exclusively olfactory tone to the cerebral activities of the _Sauropsida_ or even the _Ichthyopsida_. Among most mammals, however, in any case, smell is certainly the most highly developed of the senses; it gives the first information of remote objects that concern them; it gives the most precise information concerning the near objects that concern them; it is the sense in terms of which most of their mental operations must be conducted and their emotional impulses reach consciousness. Among the apes it has greatly lost importance and in man it has become almost rudimentary, giving place to the supremacy of vision. Prof. G. Elliot Smith, a leading authority on the brain, has well summarized the facts concerning the predominance of the olfactory region in the mammal brain, and his conclusions may be quoted. It should be premised that Elliot Smith divides the brain into rhinencephalon and neopallium. Rhinencephalon designates the regions which are pre-eminently olfactory in function: the olfactory bulb, its peduncle, the tuberculum olfactorium and locus perforatus, the pyriform lobe, the paraterminal body, and the whole hippocampal formation. The neopallium is the dorsal cap of the brain, with frontal, parietal, and occipital areas, comprehending all that part of the brain which is the seat of the higher associative activities, reaching its fullest development in man. "In the early mammals the olfactory areas form by far the greater part of the cerebral hemisphere, which is not surprising when it is recalled that the forebrain is, in the primitive brain, essentially an appendage, so to speak, of the smell apparatus. When the cerebral hemisphere comes to occupy such a dominant position in the brain it is perhaps not unnatural to find that the sense of smell is the most influential and the chief source of information to the animal; or, perhaps, it would be more accurate to say that the olfactory sense, which conveys general information to the animal such as no other sense can bring concerning its prey (whether near or far, hidden or exposed), is much the most serviceable of all the avenues of information to the lowly mammal leading a terrestrial life, and therefore becomes predominant; and its particular domain--the forebrain--becomes the ruling portion of the nervous system. "This early predominance of the sense of smell persists in most mammals (unless an aquatic mode of life interferes and deposes it: compare the _Cetacea, Sirenia_, and _Pinnipedia_, for example) even though a large neopallium develops to receive visual, auditory, tactile, and other impressions pouring into the forebrain. In the _Anthropoidea_ alone of nonaquatic mammals the olfactory regions undergo an absolute (and not only relative, as in the _Carnivora_ and _Ungulata_) dwindling, which is equally shared by the human brain, in common with those of the other _Simiidæ_, the _Cercopithecidæ_, and the _Cebidæ_. But all the parts of the rhinencephalon, which are so distinct in macrosmatic mammals, can also be recognized in the human brain. The small ellipsoidal olfactory bulb is moored, so to speak, on the cribriform plate of the ethmoid bone by the olfactory nerves; so that, as the place of attachment of the olfactory peduncle to the expanding cerebral hemisphere becomes removed (as a result of the forward extension of the hemisphere) progressively farther and farther backward, the peduncle becomes greatly stretched and elongated. And, as this stretching involves the gray matter without lessening the number of nerve-fibres in the olfactory tract, the peduncle becomes practically what it is usually called--i.e., the olfactory 'tract.' The tuberculum olfactorium becomes greatly reduced and at the same time flattened; so that it is not easy to draw a line of demarcation between it and the anterior perforated space. The anterior rhinal fissure, which is present in the early human foetus, vanishes (almost, if not altogether) in the adult. Part of the posterior rhinal fissure is always present in the 'incisura temporalis,' and sometimes, especially in some of the non-European races, the whole of the posterior rhinal fissure is retained in that typical form which we find in the anthropoid apes." (G. Elliot Smith, in _Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue of the Physiological Series of Comparative Anatomy Contained in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England_, second edition, vol. ii.) A full statement of Elliot Smith's investigations, with diagrams, is given by Bullen, _Journal of Mental Science_, July, 1899. It may be added that the whole subject of the olfactory centres has been thoroughly studied by Elliot Smith, as well as by Edinger, Mayer, and C.L. Herrick. In the _Journal of Comparative Neurology_, edited by the last named, numerous discussions and summaries bearing on the subject will be found from 1896 onward. Regarding the primitive sense-organs of smell in the various invertebrate groups some information will be found in A.B. Griffiths's _Physiology of the Invertebrata_, Chapter XI. The predominance of the olfactory area in the nervous system of the vertebrates generally has inevitably involved intimate psychic associations between olfactory stimuli and the sexual impulse. For most mammals not only are all sexual associations mainly olfactory, but the impressions received by this sense suffice to dominate all others. An animal not only receives adequate sexual excitement from olfactory stimuli, but those stimuli often suffice to counterbalance all the evidence of the other senses. We may observe this very well in the case of the dog. Thus, a young dog, well known to me, who had never had connection with a bitch, but was always in the society of its father, once met the latter directly after the elder dog had been with a bitch. He immediately endeavored to behave toward the elder dog, in spite of angry repulses, exactly as a dog behaves toward a bitch in heat. The messages received by the sense of smell were sufficiently urgent not only to set the sexual mechanism in action, but to overcome the experiences of a lifetime. There is an interesting chapter on the sense of smell in the mental life of the dog in Giessler's _Psychologie des Geruches_, 1894, Chapter XI, Passy (in the appendix to his memoir on olfaction, _L'Année Psychologique_, 1895) gives the result of some interesting experiments as to the effects of perfume on dogs; civet and castoreum were found to have the most powerfully exciting effect. The influences of smell are equally omnipotent in the sexual life of many insects. Thus, Féré has found that in cockchafers sexual coupling failed to take place when the antennæ, which are the organs of smell, were removed; he also found that males, after they had coupled with females, proved sexually attractive to other males (_Comptes Rendus de la Société de Biologie_, May 21, 1898). Féré similarly found that, in a species of _Bombyx_, males after contact with females sometimes proved attractive to other males, although no abnormal relationships followed. (_Soc. de Biol_, July 30, 1898.) With the advent of the higher apes, and especially of man, all this has been changed. The sense of smell, indeed, still persists universally and it is still also exceedingly delicate, though often neglected.[25] It is, moreover, a useful auxiliary in the exploration of the external world, for, in contrast to the very few sensations furnished to us by touch and by taste, we are acquainted with a vast number of smells, though the information they give us is frequently vague. An experienced perfumer, says Piesse, will have two hundred odors in his laboratory and can distinguish them all. To a sensitive nose nearly everything smells. Passy goes so far as to state that he has "never met with any object that is really inodorous when one pays attention to it, not even excepting glass," and, though we can scarcely accept this statement absolutely,--especially in view of the careful experiments of Ayrton, which show that, contrary to a common belief, metals when perfectly clean and free from traces of contact with the skin or with salt solutions have no smell,--odor is still extremely widely diffused. This is especially the case in hot countries, and the experiments of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition on the sense of smell of the Papuans were considerably impeded by the fact that at Torres Straits everything, even water, seemed to have a smell. Savages are often accused more or less justly of indifference to bad odors. They are very often, however, keenly alive to the significance of smells and their varieties, though it does not appear that the sense of smell is notably more developed in savage than in civilized peoples. Odors also continue to play a part in the emotional life of man, more especially in hot countries. Nevertheless both in practical life and in emotional life, in science and in art, smell is, at the best, under normal conditions, merely an auxiliary. If the sense of smell were abolished altogether the life of mankind would continue as before, with little or no sensible modification, though the pleasures of life, and especially of eating and drinking, would be to some extent diminished. In New Ireland, Duffield remarks (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1886, p. 118), the natives have a very keen sense of smell; unusual odors are repulsive to them, and "carbolic acid drove them wild." The New Caledonians, according to Foley (_Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie_, November 6, 1879), only like the smells of meat and fish which are becoming "high," like _popoya_, which smells of fowl manure, and _kava_, of rotten eggs. Fruits and vegetables which are beginning to go bad seem the best to them, while the fresh and natural odors which we prefer seem merely to say to them: "We are not yet eatable." (A taste for putrefying food, common among savages, by no means necessarily involves a distaste for agreeable scents, and even among Europeans there is a widespread taste for offensively smelling and putrid foods, especially cheese and game.) The natives of Torres Straits were carefully examined by Dr. C.S. Myers with regard to their olfactory acuteness and olfactory preferences. It was found that acuteness was, if anything, slightly greater than among Europeans. This appeared to be largely due to the careful attention they pay to odors. The resemblances which they detected among different odorous substances were frequently found to rest on real chemical affinities. The odors they were observed to dislike most frequently were asafoetida, valerianic acid, and civet, the last being regarded as most repulsive of all on account of its resemblance to fæcal odor, which these people regard with intense disgust. Their favorite odors were musk, thyme, and especially violet. (_Report of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. ii, Part II, 1903.) In Australia Lumholtz (_Among Cannibals_, p. 115) found that the blacks had a keener sense of smell than he possessed. In New Zealand the Maoris, as W. Colenso shows, possessed, formerly at all events, a very keen sense of smell or else were very attentive to smell, and their taste as regarded agreeable and disagreeable odors corresponded very closely to European taste, although it must be added that some of their common articles of food possessed a very offensive odor. They are not only sensitive to European perfumes, but possessed various perfumes of their own, derived from plants and possessing a pleasant, powerful, and lasting odor; the choicest and rarest was the gum of the _taramea_ (_Aciphylla Colensoi_), which was gathered by virgins after the use of prayers and charms. Sir Joseph Banks noted that Maori chiefs wore little bundles of perfumes around their necks, and Cook made the same observation concerning the young women. References to the four chief Maori perfumes are contained in a stanza which is still often hummed to express satisfaction, and sung by a mother to her child:-- "My little neck-satchel of sweet-scented moss, My little neck-satchel of fragrant fern, My little neck-satchel of odoriferous gum, My sweet-smelling neck-locket of sharp-pointed _taramea_." In the summer season the sleeping houses of Maori chiefs were often strewed with a large, sweet-scented, flowering grass of powerful odor. (W. Colenso, _Transactions of the New Zealand Institute_, vol. xxiv, reprinted in _Nature_, November 10, 1892.) Javanese women rub themselves with a mixture of chalk and strong essence which, when rubbed off, leaves a distinct perfume on the body. (Stratz, _Die Frauenkleidung_, p. 84.) The Samoans, Friedländer states (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1899, p. 52), are very fond of fragrant and aromatic odors. He gives a list of some twenty odorous plants which they use, more especially as garlands for the head and neck, including ylang-ylang and gardenia; he remarks that of one of these plants (cordyline) he could not himself detect the odor. The Nicobarese, Man remarks (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1889, p. 377), like the natives of New Zealand, particularly dislike the smell of carbolic acid. Both young men and women are very partial to scents; the former say they find their use a certain passport to the favor of their wives, and they bring home from the jungle the scented leaves of a certain creeper to their sweethearts and wives. Swahili women devote much attention to perfuming themselves. When a woman wishes to make herself desirable she anoints herself all over with fragrant ointments, sprinkles herself with rose-water, puts perfume into her clothes, strews jasmine flowers on her bed as well as binding them round her neck and waist, and smokes _ûdi_, the perfumed wood of the aloe; "every man is glad when his wife smells of _ûdi_" (Velten, _Sitten und Gebraüche der Suaheli_, pp. 212-214). FOOTNOTES: [24] Emile Yung, "Le Sens Olfactif de l'Escargot (Helix Pomata)," _Archives de Psychologie_, November, 1903. [25] The sensitiveness of smell in man generally exceeds that of chemical reaction or even of spectral analysis; see Passy, _L'Année Psychologique_, second year, 1895, p. 380. II. Rise of the Study of Olfaction--Cloquet--Zwaardemaker--The Theory of Smell--The Classification of Odors--The Special Characteristics of Olfactory Sensation in Man--Smell as the Sense of Imagination--Odors as Nervous Stimulants--Vasomotor and Muscular Effects--Odorous Substances as Drugs. During the eighteenth century a great impetus was given to the physiological and psychological study of the senses by the philosophical doctrines of Locke and the English school generally which then prevailed in Europe. These thinkers had emphasized the immense importance of the information derived through the senses in building up the intellect, so that the study of all the sensory channels assumed a significance which it had never possessed before. The olfactory sense fully shared in the impetus thus given to sensory investigation. At the beginning of the nineteenth century a distinguished French physician, Hippolyte Cloquet, a disciple of Cabanis, devoted himself more especially to this subject. After publishing in 1815 a preliminary work, he issued in 1821 his _Osphrésiologie, ou Traité des odeurs, du sens et des organes de l'Olfaction_, a complete monograph on the anatomy, physiology, psychology, and pathology of the olfactory organ and its functions, and a work that may still be consulted with profit, if indeed it can even yet be said to be at every point superseded. After Cloquet's time the study of the sense of smell seems to have fallen into some degree of discredit. For more than half a century no important progress was made in this field. Serious investigators seemed to have become shy of the primitive senses generally, and the subject of smell was mainly left to those interested in "curious" subjects. Many interesting observations were, however, incidentally made; thus Laycock, who was a pioneer in so many by-paths of psychology and anthropology, showed a special interest in the olfactory sense, and frequently touched on it in his _Nervous Diseases of Women_ and elsewhere. The writer who more than any other has in recent years restored the study of the sense of smell from a by-path to its proper position as a highway for investigation is without doubt Professor Zwaardemaker, of Utrecht. The invention of his first olfactometer in 1888 and the appearance in 1895 of his great work _Die Physiologie des Geruchs_ have served to give the physiology of the sense of smell an assured status and to open the way anew for much fruitful investigation, while a number of inquirers in many countries have had their attention directed to the elucidation of this sense. Notwithstanding, however, the amount of work which has been done in this field during recent years, it cannot be said that the body of assured conclusions so far reached is large. The most fundamental principles of olfactory physiology and psychology are still somewhat vague and uncertain. Although sensations of smell are numerous and varied, in this respect approaching the sensations of vision and hearing, smell still remains close to touch in the vagueness of its messages (while the most sensitive of the senses, remarks Passy, it is the least precise), the difficulty of classifying them, the impossibility of so controlling them as to found upon them any art. It seems better, therefore, not to attempt to force the present study of a special aspect of olfaction into any general scheme which may possibly not be really valid. The earliest and most general tendency in regard to the theory of smell was to regard it as a kind of chemical sense directly stimulated by minute particles of solid substance. A vibratory theory of smell, however, making it somewhat analogous to hearing, easily presents itself. When I first began the study of physiology in 1881, a speculation of this kind presented itself to my mind. Long before Philipp von Walther, a professor at Landshut, had put forward a dynamic theory of olfaction (_Physiologie des Menschen_, 1807-8, vol. ii, p. 278). "It is a purely dynamic operation of the odorous substance in the olfactory organ," he stated. Odor is conveyed by the air, he believed, in the same way as heat. It must be added that his reasons for this theory will not always bear examination. More recently a similar theory has been seriously put forward in various quarters. Sir William Ramsay tentatively suggested such a theory (_Nature_, vol. xxv, p. 187) in analogy with light and sound. Haycraft (_Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh_, 1883-87, and _Brain_, 1887-88), largely starting from Mendelieff's law of periodicity, similarly sought to bring smell into line with the higher senses, arguing that molecules with the same vibration have the same smell. Rutherford (_Nature_, August 11, 1892, p. 343), attaching importance to the evidence brought forward by von Brunn showing that the olfactory cells terminate in very delicate short hairs, also stated his belief that the different qualities of smell result from differences in the frequency and form of the vibrations initiated by the action of the chemical molecules on these olfactory cells, though he admitted that such a conception involved a very subtle conception of molecular vibration. Vaschide and Van Melle (Paris Academy of Sciences, December 26, 1899) have, again, argued that smell is produced by rays of short wave-lengths, analogous to light-rays, Röntgen rays, etc. Chemical action is however, a very important factor in the production of odors; this has been well shown by Ayrton (_Nature_, September 8, 1898). We seem to be forced in the direction of a chemico-vibratory theory, as pointed out by Southerden (_Nature_, March 26, 1903), the olfactory cells being directly stimulated, not by the ordinary vibrations of the molecules, but by the agitations accompanying chemical changes. The vibratory hypothesis of the action of odors has had some influence on the recent physiologists who have chiefly occupied themselves with olfaction. "It is probable," Zwaardemaker writes (_L'Année Psychologique_, 1898), "that aroma is a physico-chemical attribute of the molecules"; he points out that there is an intimate analogy between color and odor, and remarks that this analogy leads us to suppose in an aroma ether vibrations of which the period is determined by the structure of the molecule. Since the physiology of olfaction is yet so obscure it is not surprising that we have no thoroughly scientific classification of smells, notwithstanding various ambitious attempts to reach a classification. The classification adopted by Zwaardemaker is founded on the ancient scheme of Linnæus, and may here be reproduced:-- I. Ethereal odors (chiefly esters; Rimmel's fruity series). II. Aromatic odors (terpenes, camphors, and the spicy, herbaceous, rosaceous, and almond series; the chemical types are well determined: cineol, eugenol, anethol, geraniol, benzaldehyde). III. The balsamic odors (chiefly aldehydes, Rimmel's jasmin, violet, and balsamic series, with the chemical types: terpineol, ionone, vanillin). IV. The ambrosiacal odors (ambergris and musk). V. The alliaceous odors, with the cacodylic group (asafoetida, ichthyol, etc.). VI. Empyreumatic odors. VII. Valerianaceous odors (Linnæus's _Odores hircini_, the capryl group, largely composed of sexual odors). VIII. Narcotic odors (Linnæus's _Odores tetri_). IX. Stenches. A valuable and interesting memoir, "Revue Générale sur les Sensations Olfactives," by J. Passy, the chief French authority on this subject, will be found in the second volume of _L'Année Psychologique_, 1895. In the fifth issue of the same year-book (for 1898) Zwaardemaker presents a full summary of his work and views, "Les Sensations Olfactives, leurs Combinaisons et leurs Compensations." A convenient, but less authoritative, summary of the facts of normal and pathological olfaction will be found in a little volume of the "Actualités Médicales" series by Dr. Collet, _L'Odorat et ses Troubles_, 1904. In a little book entitled _Wegweiser zu einer Psychologie des Geruches_ (1894) Giessler has sought to outline a psychology of smell, but his sketch can only be regarded as tentative and provisional. At the outset, nevertheless, it seems desirable that we should at least have some conception of the special characteristics which mark the great and varied mass of sensations reaching the brain through the channel of the olfactory organ. The main special character of olfactory images seems to be conditioned by the fact that they are intermediate in character between those of touch or taste and those of sight or sound, that they have much of the vagueness of the first and something of the richness and variety of the second. Æsthetically, also, they occupy an intermediate position between the higher and the lower senses.[26] They are, at the same time, less practically useful than either the lower or the higher senses. They furnish us with a great mass of what we may call by-sensations, which are of little practical use, but inevitably become intimately mixed with the experiences of life by association and thus acquire an emotional significance which is often very considerable. Their emotional force, it may well be, is connected with the fact that their anatomical seat is the most ancient part of the brain. They lie in a remote almost disused storehouse of our minds and show the fascination or the repulsiveness of all vague and remote things. It is for this reason that they are--to an extent that is remarkable when we consider that they are much more precise than touch sensations--subject to the influence of emotional associations. The very same odor may be at one moment highly pleasant, at the next moment highly unpleasant, in accordance with the emotional attitude resulting from its associations. Visual images have no such extreme flexibility; they are too definite to be so easily influenced. Our feelings about the beauty of a flower cannot oscillate so easily or so far as may our feelings about the agreeableness of its odor. Our olfactory experiences thus institute a more or less continuous series of by-sensations accompanying us through life, of no great practical significance, but of considerable emotional significance from their variety, their intimacy, their associational facility, their remote ancestral reverberations through our brains. It is the existence of these characteristics--at once so vague and so specific, so useless and so intimate--which led various writers to describe the sense of smell as, above all others, the sense of imagination. No sense has so strong a power of suggestion, the power of calling up ancient memories with a wider and deeper emotional reverberation, while at the same time no sense furnishes impressions which so easily change emotional color and tone, in harmony with the recipient's general attitude. Odors are thus specially apt both to control the emotional life and to become its slaves. With the use of incense religions have utilized the imaginative and symbolical virtues of fragrance. All the legends of the saints have insisted on the odor of sanctity that exhales from the bodies of holy persons, especially at the moment of death. Under the conditions of civilization these primitive emotional associations of odor tend to be dispersed, but, on the other hand, the imaginative side of the olfactory sense becomes accentuated, and personal idiosyncrasies of all kinds tend to manifest themselves in the sphere of smell. Rousseau (in _Emile_, Bk. II) regarded smell as the sense of the imagination. So, also, at an earlier period, it was termed (according to Cloquet) by Cardano. Cloquet frequently insisted on the qualities of odors which cause them to appeal to the imagination; on their irregular and inconstant character; on their power of intoxicating the mind on some occasions; on the curious individual and racial preferences in the matter of odors. He remarked on the fact that the Persians employed asafoetida as a seasoning, while valerian was accounted a perfume in antiquity. (Cloquet, _Osphrésiologie_, pp. 28, 45, 71, 112.) It may be added, as a curious example familiar to most people of the dependence of the emotional tone of a smell on its associations, that, while the exhalations of other people's bodies are ordinarily disagreeable to us, such is not the case with our own; this is expressed in the crude and vigorous dictum of the Elizabethan poet, Marston, "Every man's dung smell sweet i' his own nose." There are doubtless many implications, moral as well as psychological, in that statement. The modern authorities on olfaction, Passy and Zwaardemaker, both alike insist on the same characteristics of the sense of smell: its extreme acuity and yet its vagueness. "We live in a world of odor," Zwaardemaker remarks (_L'Année Psychologique_, 1898, p. 203), "as we live in a world of light and of sound. But smell yields us no distinct ideas grouped in regular order, still less that are fixed in the memory as a grammatical discipline. Olfactory sensations awake vague and half-understood perceptions, which are accompanied by very strong emotion. The emotion dominates us, but the sensation which was the cause of it remains unperceived." Even in the same individual there are wide variations in the sensitiveness to odors at different times, more especially as regards faint odors; Passy (_L'Année Psychologique_, 1895, p. 387) brings forward some observations on this point. Maudsley noted the peculiarly suggestive power of odors; "there are certain smells," he remarked, "which never fail to bring back to me instantly and visibly scenes of my boyhood"; many of us could probably say the same. Another writer (E. Dillon, "A Neglected Sense," _Nineteenth Century_, April, 1894) remarks that "no sense has a stronger power of suggestion." Ribot has made an interesting investigation as to the prevalence and nature of the emotional memory of odors (_Psychology of the Emotions_, Chapter XI). By "emotional memory" is meant the spontaneous or voluntary revivability of the image, olfactory or other. (For the general question, see an article by F. Pillon, "La Mémoire Affective, son Importance Théorique et Pratique," _Revue Philosophique_, February, 1901; also Paulhan, "Sur la Mémoire Affective," _Revue Philosophique_, December, 1902 and January, 1903.) Ribot found that 40 per cent. of persons are unable to revive any such images of taste or smell; 48 per cent, could revive some; 12 per cent, declared themselves capable of reviving all, or nearly all, at pleasure. In some persons there is no necessary accompanying revival of visual or tactile representations, but in the majority the revived odor ultimately excites a corresponding visual image. The odors most frequently recalled were pinks, musk, violets, heliotrope, carbolic acid, the smell of the country, of grass, etc. Piéron (_Revue Philosophique_, December, 1902) has described the special power possessed by vague odors, in his own case, of evoking ancient impressions. Dr. J.N. Mackenzie (_American Journal of the Medical Sciences_, January, 1886) considers that civilization exerts an influence in heightening or encouraging the influence of olfaction as it affects our emotions and judgment, and that, in the same way, as we ascend the social scale the more readily our minds are influenced and perhaps perverted by impressions received through the sense of smell. Odors are powerful stimulants to the whole nervous system, causing, like other stimulants, an increase of energy which, if excessive or prolonged, leads to nervous exhaustion. Thus, it is well recognized in medicine that the aromatics containing volatile oils (such as anise, cinnamon, cardamoms, cloves, coriander, and peppermint) are antispasmodics and anæsthetics, and that they stimulate digestion, circulation, and the nervous system, in large doses producing depression. The carefully arranged plethysmographic experiments of Shields, at the Johns Hopkins University, have shown that olfactory sensations, by their action on the vasomotor system, cause an increase of blood in the brain and sometimes in addition stimulation of the heart; musk, wintergreen, wood violet, and especially heliotrope were found to act strongly in these ways.[27] Féré's experiments with the dynamometer and the ergograph have greatly contributed to illustrate the stimulating effects of odors. Thus, he found that smelling musk suffices to double muscular effort. With a number of odorous substances he has found that muscular work is temporarily heightened; when taste stimulation was added the increase of energy, notably when using lemon was "colossal." A kind of "sensorial intoxication" could be produced by the inhalation of odors and the whole system stimulated to greater activity; the visual acuity was increased, and electric and general excitability heightened.[28] Such effects may be obtained in perfectly healthy persons, though both Shields and Féré have found that in highly nervous persons the effects are liable to be much greater. It is doubtless on this account that it is among civilized peoples that attention is chiefly directed to perfumes, and that under the conditions of modern life the interest in olfaction and its study has been revived. It is the genuinely stimulant qualities of odorous substances which led to the widespread use of the more potent among them by ancient physicians, and has led a few modern physicians to employ them still. Thus, vanilla, according to Eloy, deserves to be much more frequently used therapeutically than it is, on account of its excitomotor properties; he states that its qualities as an excitant of sexual desire have long been recognized and that Fonssagrives used to prescribe it for sexual frigidity.[29] FOOTNOTES: [26] The opinions of psychologists concerning the æsthetic significance of smell, not on the whole very favorable, are brought together and discussed by J.V. Volkelt, "Der Æsthetische Wert der niederen Sinne," _Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane_, 1902, ht. 3. [27] T.E. Shields, "The Effect of Odors, etc., upon the Blood-flow," _Journal of Experimental Medicine_, vol. i, November, 1896. In France, O. Henry and Tardif have made somewhat similar experiments on respiration and circulation. See the latter's _Les Odeurs et les Parfums_, Chapter III. [28] Féré, _Sensation et Mouvement_, Chapter VI; ib., _Comptes Rendus de la Société de Biologie_, November 3, December 15 and 22, 1900. [29] Eloy, art. "Vanille," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_. III. The Specific Body Odors of Various Peoples--The Negro, etc.--The European--The Ability to Distinguish Individuals by Smell--The Odor of Sanctity--The Odor of Death--The Odors of Different Parts of the Body--The Appearance of Specific Odors at Puberty--The Odors of Sexual Excitement--The Odors of Menstruation--Body Odors as a Secondary Sexual Character--The Custom of Salutation by Smell--The Kiss--Sexual Selection by Smell--The Alleged Association between Size of Nose and Sexual Vigor--The Probably Intimate Relationship between the Olfactory and Genital Spheres--Reflex Influences from the Nose--Reflex Influences from the Genital Sphere--Olfactory Hallucinations in Insanity as Related to Sexual States--The Olfactive Type--The Sense of Smell in Neurasthenic and Allied States--In Certain Poets and Novelists--Olfactory Fetichism--The Part Played by Olfaction in Normal Sexual Attraction--In the East, etc.--In Modern Europe--The Odor of the Armpit and its Variations--As a Sexual and General Stimulant--Body Odors in Civilization Tend to Cause Sexual Antipathy unless some Degree of Tumescence is Already Present--The Question whether Men or Women are more Liable to Feel Olfactory Influences--Women Usually more Attentive to Odors--The Special Interest in Odors Felt by Sexual Inverts. In approaching the specifically sexual aspect of odor in the human species we may start from the fundamental fact--a fact we seek so far as possible to disguise in our ordinary social relations--that all men and women are odorous. This is marked among all races. The powerful odor of many, though not all, negroes is well known; it is by no means due to uncleanly habits, and Joest remarks that it is even increased by cleanliness, which opens the pores of the skin; according to Sir H. Johnston, it is most marked in the armpits and is stronger in men than in women. Pruner Bey describes it as "ammoniacal and rancid; it is like the odor of the he-goat." The odor varies not only individually, but according to the tribe; Castellani states that the negress of the Congo has merely a slight "_goût de noisette_" which is agreeable rather than otherwise. Monbuttu women, according to Parke, have a strong Gorgonzola perfume, and Emin told Parke that he could distinguish the members of different tribes by their characteristic odor. In the same way the Nicobarese, according to Man, can distinguish a member of each of the six tribes of the archipelago by smell. The odor of Australian blacks is less strong than that of negroes and has been described as of a phosphoric character. The South American Indians, d'Orbigny stated, have an odor stronger than that of Europeans, though not as strong as most negroes; it is marked, Latcham states, even among those who, like the Araucanos, bathe constantly. The Chinese have a musky odor. The odor of many peoples is described as being of garlic.[30] A South Sea Islander, we are told by Charles de Varigny, on coming to Sydney and seeing the ladies walking about the streets and apparently doing nothing, expressed much astonishment, adding, with a gesture of contempt, "and they have no smell!" It is by no means true, however, that Europeans are odorless. They are, indeed, considerably more odorous than are many other races,--for instance, the Japanese,--and there is doubtless some association between the greater hairiness of Europeans and their marked odor, since the sebaceous glands are part of the hair apparatus. A Japanese anthropologist, Adachi, has published an interesting study on the odor of Europeans,[31] which he describes as a strong and pungent smell,--sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter,--of varying strength in different individuals, absent in children and the aged, and having its chief focus in the armpits, which, however carefully they are washed, immediately become odorous again. Adachi has found that the sweat-glands are larger in Europeans than in the Japanese, among whom a strong personal odor is so uncommon that "armpit stink" is a disqualification for the army. It is certainly true that the white races smell less strongly than most of the dark races, odor seeming to be correlated to some extent with intensity of pigmentation, as well as with hairiness; but even the most scrupulously clean Europeans all smell. This fact may not always be obvious to human nostrils, apart from intimate contact, but it is well known to dogs, to whom their masters are recognizable by smell. When Hue traveled in Tibet in Chinese disguise he was not detected by the natives, but the dogs recognized him as a foreigner by his smell and barked at him. Many Chinese can tell by smell when a European has been in a room.[32] There are, however, some Europeans who can recognize and distinguish their friends by smell. The case has been recorded of a man who with bandaged eyes could recognize his acquaintances, at the distance of several paces, the moment they entered the room. In another case a deaf and blind mute woman in Massachusetts knew all her acquaintances by smell, and could sort linen after it came from the wash by the odor alone. Governesses have been known to be able when blindfolded to recognize the ownership of their pupil's garments by smell; such a case is known to me. Such odor is usually described as being agreeable, but not one person in fifty, it is stated, is able to distinguish it with sufficient precision to use it as a method of recognition. Among some races, however this aptitude would appear to be better developed. Dr. C.S. Myers at Sarawak noted that his Malay boy sorted the clean linen according to the skin-odor of the wearer.[33] Chinese servants are said to do the same, as well as Australians and natives of Luzon.[34] Although the distinctively individual odor of most persons is not sufficiently marked to be generally perceptible, there are cases in which it is more distinct to all nostrils. The most famous case of this kind is that of Alexander the Great, who, according to Plutarch, exhaled so sweet an odor that his tunics were soaked with aromatic perfume (_Convivalium Disputationum_, lib. I, quest. 6). Malherbe, Cujas, and Haller are said to have diffused a musky odor. The agreeable odor of Walt Whitman has been remarked by Kennedy and others. The perfume exhaled by many holy men and women, so often noted by ancient writers (discussed by Görres in the second volume of his _Christliche Mystik_) and which has entered into current phraseology as a merely metaphorical "odor of sanctity," was doubtless due, as Hammond first pointed out, to abnormal nervous conditions, for it is well known that such conditions affect the odor, and in insanity, for instance, the presence is noted of bodily odors which have sometimes even been considered of diagnostic importance. J.B. Friedreich, _Allgemeine Diagnostik der Psychischen Krankheiten_, second edition, 1832, pp. 9-10, quotes passages from various authors on this point, which he accepts; various writers of more recent date have made similar observations. The odor of sanctity was specially noted at death, and was doubtless confused with the _odor mortis_, which frequently precedes death and by some is regarded as an almost certain indication of its approach. In the _British Medical Journal_, for May and June, 1898, will be found letters from several correspondents substantiating this point. One of these correspondents (Dr. Tuckey, of Tywardwreath, Cornwall) mentions that he has in Cornwall often seen ravens flying over houses in which persons lay dying, evidently attracted by a characteristic odor. It must be borne in mind, however, that, while every person has, to a sensitive nose, a distinguishing odor, we must regard that odor either as but one of the various sensations given off by the body, or else as a combination of two or more of these emanations. The body in reality gives off a number of different odors. The most important of these are: (1) the general skin odor, a faint, but agreeable, fragrance often to be detected on the skin even immediately after washing; (2) the smell of the hair and scalp; (3) the odor of the breath; (4) the odor of the armpit; (5) the odor of the feet; (6) the perineal odor; (7) in men the odor of the preputial smegma; (8) in women the odor of the mons veneris, that of vulvar smegma, that of vaginal mucus, and the menstrual odor. All these are odors which may usually be detected, though sometimes only in a very faint degree, in healthy and well-washed persons under normal conditions. It is unnecessary here to take into account the special odors of various secretions and excretions.[35] It is a significant fact, both as regards the ancestral sexual connections of the body odors and their actual sexual associations to-day, that, as Hippocrates long ago noted, it is not until puberty that they assume their adult characteristics. The infant, the adult, the aged person, each has his own kind of smell, and, as Monin remarks, it might be possible, within certain limits, to discover the age of a person by his odor. Jorg in 1832 pointed out that in girls the appearance of a specific smell of the excreta indicates the establishment of puberty, and Kaan, in his _Psychopathia Sexualis_, remarked that at puberty "the sweat gives out a more acrid odor resembling musk." In both sexes puberty, adolescence, early manhood and womanhood are marked by a gradual development of the adult odor of skin and excreta, in general harmony with the secondary sexual development of hair and pigment. Venturi, indeed, has, not without reason, described the odor of the body as a secondary sexual character.[36] It may be added that, as is the case with the pigment in various parts of the body in women, some of these odors tend to become exaggerated in sympathy with sexual and other emotional states. The odor of the infant is said to be of butyric acid; that of old people to resemble dry leaves. Continent young men have been said by many ancient writers to smell more strongly than the unchaste, and some writers have described as "seminal odor"--an odor resembling that of animals in heat, faintly recalling that of the he-goat, according to Venturi--the exhalations of the skin at such times. During sexual excitement, as women can testify, a man very frequently, if not normally, gives out an odor which, as usually described, proceeds from the skin, the breath, or both. Grimaldi states that it is as of rancid butter; others say it resembles chloroform. It is said to be sometimes perceptible for a distance of several feet and to last for several hours after coitus. (Various quotations are given by Gould and Pyle, _Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine_, section on "Human Odors," pp. 397-403.) St. Philip Neri is said to have been able to recognize a chaste man by smell. During menstruation girls and young women frequently give off an odor which is quite distinct from that of the menstrual fluid, and is specially marked in the breath, which may smell of chloroform or violets. Pouchet (confirmed by Raciborski, _Traité de la Menstruation_, 1868, p. 74) stated that about a day before the onset of menstruation a characteristic smell is exuded. Menstruating girls are also said sometimes to give off a smell of leather. Aubert, of Lyons (as quoted by Galopin), describes the odor of the skin of a woman during menstruation as an agreeable aromatic or acidulous perfume of chloroform character. By some this is described as emanating especially from the armpits. Sandras (quoted by Raciborski) knew a lady who could always tell by a sensation of faintness and _malaise_--apparently due to a sensation of smell--when she was in contact with a menstruating woman. I am acquainted with a man, having strong olfactory sympathies and antipathies, who detects the presence of menstruation by smell. It is said that Hortense Baré, who accompanied her lover, the botanist Commerson, to the Pacific disguised as a man, was recognized by the natives as a woman by means of smell. Women, like men, frequently give out an odor during coitus or strong sexual excitement. This odor may be entirely different from that normally emanating from the woman, of an acid or hircine character, and sufficiently strong to remain in a room for a considerable period. Many of the ancient medical writers (as quoted by Schurigius, _Parthenologia_, p. 286) described the goaty smell produced by venery, especially in women; they regarded it as specially marked in harlots and in the newly married, and sometimes even considered it a certain sign of defloration. The case has been recorded of a woman who emitted a rose odor for two days after coitus (McBride, quoted by Kiernan in an interesting summary, "Odor in Pathology," _Doctor's Magazine_, December, 1900). There was, it is said (_Journal des Savans_ 1684, p. 39, quoting from the _Journal d'Angleterre_) a monk in Prague who could recognize by smell the chastity of the women who approached him. (This monk, it is added, when he died, was composing a new science of odors.) Gustav Klein (as quoted by Adler, _Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindungen des Weibes_, p. 25) argues that the special function of the glands at the vulvar orifice--the _glandulæ vestibulares majores_--is to give out an odorous secretion to act as an attraction to the male, this relic of sexual periodicity no longer, however, playing an important part in the human species. The vulvar secretion, however, it may be added, still has a more aromatic odor than the vaginal secretion, with its simple mucous odor, very clearly perceived during parturition. It may be added that we still know extremely little concerning the sexual odors of women among primitive peoples. Ploss and Bartels are only able to bring forward (_Das Weib_, 1901, bd. 1, p. 218) a statement concerning the women of New Caledonia, who, according to Moncelon, when young and ardent, give out during coitus a powerful odor which no ablution will remove. In abnormal states of sexual excitement such odor may be persistent, and, according to an ancient observation, a nymphomaniac, whose periods of sexual excitement lasted all through the spring-time, at these periods always emitted a goatlike odor. It has been said (G. Tourdes, art. "Aphrodisie," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_) that the erotic temperament is characterized by a special odor. If the body odors tend to develop at puberty, to be maintained during sexual life, especially in sympathy with conditions of sexual disturbance, and to become diminished in old age, being thus a kind of secondary sexual character, we should expect them to be less marked in those cases in which the primary sexual characters are less marked. It is possible that this is actually the case. Hagen, in his _Sexuelle Osphrésiologie_, quotes from Roubaud's _Traité de l'Impuissance_ the statement that the body odor of the castrated differs from that of normal individuals. Burdach had previously stated that the odor of the eunuch is less marked than that of the normal man. It is thus possible that defective sexual development tends to be associated with corresponding olfactory defect. Heschl[37] has reported a case in which absence of both olfactory nerves coincided with defective development of the sexual organs. Féré remarks that the impotent show a repugnance for sexual odors. Dr. Kiernan informs me that in women after oöphorectomy he has noted a tendency to diminished (and occasionally increased) sense of smell. These questions, however, await more careful and extended observation. A very significant transition from the phenomena of personal odor to those of sexual attraction by personal odor is to be found in the fact that among the peoples inhabiting a large part of the world's surface the ordinary salutation between friends is by mutual smelling of the person. In some form or another the method of salutation by applying the nose to the nose, face, or hand of a friend in greeting is found throughout a large part of the Pacific, among the Papuans, the Eskimo, the hill tribes of India, in Africa, and elsewhere.[38] Thus, among a certain hill tribe in India, according to Lewin, they smell a friend's cheek: "in their language, they do not say, 'Give me a kiss,' but they say 'Smell me.'" And on the Gambia, according to F. Moore, "When the men salute the women, they, instead of shaking their hands, put it up to their noses, and smell twice to the back of it." Here we have very clearly a recognition of the emotional value of personal odor widely prevailing throughout the world. The salutation on an olfactory basis may, indeed, be said to be more general than the salutation on a tactile basis on which European handshaking rests, each form involving one of the two most intimate and emotional senses. The kiss may be said to be a development proceeding both from the olfactory and the tactile bases, with perhaps some other elements as well, and is too complex to be regarded as a phenomenon of either purely tactile or purely olfactory origin.[39] As the sole factor in sexual selection olfaction must be rare. It is said that Asiatic princes have sometimes caused a number of the ladies to race in the seraglio garden until they were heated; their garments have then been brought to the prince, who has selected one of them solely by the odor.[40] There was here a sexual selection mainly by odor. Any exclusive efficacy of the olfactory sense is rare, not so much because the impressions of this sense are inoperative, but because agreeable personal odors are not sufficiently powerful, and the olfactory organ is too obtuse, to enable smell to take precedence of sight. Nevertheless, in many people, it is probable that certain odors, especially those that are correlated with a healthy and sexually desirable person, tend to be agreeable; they are fortified by their association with the loved person, sometimes to an irresistible degree; and their potency is doubtless increased by the fact, to which reference has already been made, that many odors, including some bodily odors, are nervous stimulants. It is possible that the sexual associations of odors have been still further fortified by a tendency to correlation between a high development of the olfactory organ and a high development of the sexual apparatus. An association between a large nose and a large male organ is a very ancient observation and has been verified occasionally in recent times. There is normally at puberty a great increase in the septum of the nose, and it is quite conceivable, in view of the sympathy, which, as we shall see, certainly exists between the olfactory and sexual region, that the two regions may develop together under a common influence. The Romans firmly believed in the connection between a large nose and a large penis. "Noscitur e naso quanta sit hasta viro," stated Ovid. This belief continued to prevail, especially in Italy, through the middle ages; the physiognomists made much of it, and licentious women (like Joanna of Naples) were, it appears, accustomed to bear it in mind, although disappointment is recorded often to have followed. (See e.g., the quotations and references given by J.N. Mackenzie, "Physiological and Pathological Relations between the Nose and the Sexual Apparatus in Man." _Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin_, No. 82, January, 1898; also Hagen, _Sexuelle Osphrésiologie_, pp. 15-19.) A similar belief as to the association between the sexual impulse in women and a long nose was evidently common in England in the sixteenth century, for in Massinger's _Emperor of the East_ (Act II, Scene I) we read, "Her nose, which by its length assures me Of storms at midnight if I fail to pay her The tribute she expects." At the present day, a proverb of the Venetian people still embodies the belief in the connection between a large nose and a large sexual member. The probability that such an association tends in many cases to prevail is indicated not only by the beliefs of antiquity, when more careful attention was paid to these matters, but by the testimony of various modern observers, although it does not appear that any series of exact observations have yet been made. It may be noted that Marro, in his careful anthropological study of criminals (_I Caratteri dei Delinquenti_), found no class of criminals with so large a proportion alike of anomalies of the nose and anomalies of the genital organs as sexual offenders. However this may be, it is less doubtful that there is a very intimate relation both in men and women between the olfactory mucous membrane of the nose and the whole genital apparatus, that they frequently show a sympathetic action, that influences acting on the genital sphere will affect the nose, and occasionally, it is probable, influences acting on the nose reflexly affect the genital sphere. To discuss these relationships would here be out of place, since specialists are not altogether in agreement concerning the matter. A few are inclined to regard the association as extremely intimate, so that each region is sensitive even to slight stimuli applied to the other region, while, on the other hand, many authorities ignore altogether the question of the relationship. It would appear, however, that there really is, in a considerable number of people at all events, a reflex connection of this kind. It has especially been noted that in many cases congestion of the nose precedes menstruation. Bleeding of the nose is specially apt to occur at puberty and during adolescence, while in women it may take the place of menstruation and is sometimes more apt to occur at the menstrual periods; disorders of the nose have also been found to be aggravated at these periods. It has even been possible to control bleeding of the nose, both in men and women, by applying ice to the sexual regions. In both men and women, again, cases have been recorded in which sexual excitement, whether of coitus or masturbation, has been followed by bleeding of the nose. In numerous cases it is followed by slight congestive conditions of the nasal passages and especially by sneezing. Various authors have referred to this phenomenon; I am acquainted with a lady in whom it is fairly constant.[41] Féré records the case of a lady, a nervous subject, who began to experience intense spontaneous sexual excitement shortly after marriage, accompanied by much secretion from the nose.[42] J.N. Mackenzie is acquainted with a number of such cases, and he considers that the popular expression "bride's cold" indicates that this effect of strong sexual excitement is widely recognized. The late Professor Hack, of Freiburg, in 1884, called general medical attention to the intimate connection between the nose and states of nervous hyperexcitability in various parts of the body, although such a connection had been recognized for many centuries in medical literature. While Hack and his disciples thus gave prominence to this association, they undoubtedly greatly exaggerated its importance and significance. (Sir Felix Semon, _British Medical Journal_, November 9, 1901.) Even many workers who have more recently further added to our knowledge have also, as sometimes happens with enthusiasts, unduly strained their own data. Starting from the fact that in women during menstruation examination of the nose reveals a degree of congestion not found during the rest of the month, Fliess (_Die Beziehungen zwischen Nase und Weiblichen Geschlechtsorganen_, 1897), with the help of a number of elaborate and prolonged observations, has reached conclusions which, while they seem to be hazardous at some points, have certainly contributed to build up our knowledge of this obscure subject. Schiff (_Wiener klinische Wochenschrift_, 1900, p. 58, summarized in _British Medical Journal_, February 16, 1901), starting from a skeptical standpoint, has confirmed some of Fliess's results, and in a large number of cases controlled painful menstruation by painting with cocaine the so-called "genital spots" in the nose, all possibility of suggestion being avoided. Ries, of Chicago, has been similarly successful with the method of Fliess (_American Gynæcology_, vol. iii, No. 4, 1903). Benedikt (_Wiener medicinische Wochenschrift_, No. 8, 1901, summarized in _Journal of Medical Science_, October, 1901), while pointing out that the nose is not the only organ in sympathetic relation with the sexual sphere, suggests that the mechanism of the relationship is involved in the larger problem of the harmony in growth and in nutrition of the different parts of the organism. In this way, probably, we may attach considerable significance to the existence of a kind of erectile tissue in the nose. An interesting example of a reflex influence from the nose affecting the genital sphere has been brought forward by Dr. E.S. Talbot, of Chicago: "A 56-year-old man was operated on (September 1, 1903) for the removal of the left cartilage of the septum of the nose owing to a previous traumatic fracture at the sixteenth year. No pain was experienced until two years ago, when a continual soreness occurred at the apical end of the fracture during the winter months. The operation was decided upon fearing more serious complications. The parts were cocainized. No pain was experienced in the operation except at one point at the lower posterior portion near the floor of the nose. A profound shock to the general system followed. The reflex influence of the pain upon the genital organs caused semen to flow continually for three weeks. Treatment of general motor irritability with camphor monobromate and conium, on consultation with Dr. Kiernan, checked the flow. The discharge produced spinal neurasthenia. The legs and feet felt heavy. Erythromelalgia caused uneasiness. The patient walked with difficulty. The tired feeling in the feet and limbs was quite noticeable four months after the operation, although the pain had, to a great extent diminished." (Chicago Academy of Medicine, January, 1904, and private letter.) J.N. Mackenzie has brought together a great many original observations, together with interesting quotations from old medical literature, in his two papers: "The Pathological Nasal Reflex" (_New York Medical Journal_, August 20, 1887) and "The Physiological and Pathological Relations between the Nose and the Sexual Apparatus of Man" (_Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin_, January 1, 1898). A number of cases have also been brought together from the literature by G. Endriss in his Inaugural Dissertation, _Die bisherigen Beobachtungen von Physiologischen und Pathologischen Beziehungen der oberen Luftwege zu den Sexualorganen_, Teil. II, Würzburg, 1892. The intimate association between the sexual centers and the olfactory tract is well illustrated by the fact that this primitive and ancient association tends to come to the surface in insanity. It is recognized by many alienists that insanity of a sexual character is specially liable to be associated with hallucinations of smell. Many eminent alienists in various countries are very decidedly of the opinion that there is a special tendency to the association of olfactory hallucinations with sexual manifestations, and, although one or two authorities have expressed doubt on the matter, the available evidence clearly indicates such an association. Hallucinations of smell are comparatively rare as compared to hallucinations of sight and hearing; they are commoner in women than in men and they not infrequently occur at periods of sexual disturbance, at adolescence, in puerperal fever, at the change of life, in women with ovarian troubles, and in old people troubled with sexual desires or remorse for such desires. They have often been noted as specially frequent in cases of excessive masturbation. Krafft-Ebing, who found olfactory hallucinations common in various sexual states, considers that they are directly dependent on sexual excitement (_Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, bd. 34, ht. 4, 1877). Conolly Norman believes in a distinct and frequent association between olfactory hallucinations and sexual disturbance (_Journal of Mental Science_, July, 1899, p. 532). Savage is also impressed by the close association between sexual disturbance or changes in the reproductive organs and hallucinations of smell as well as of touch. He has found that persistent hallucinations of smell disappeared when a diseased ovary was removed, although the patient remained insane. He considers that such hallucinations of smell are allied to reversions. (G.H. Savage, "Smell, Hallucinations of," Tuke's _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_; cf. the same author's manual of _Insanity and Allied Neuroses_.) Matusch, while not finding olfactory hallucinations common at the climacteric, states that when they are present they are connected with uterine trouble and sexual craving. He finds them more common in young women. (Matusch, "Der Einfluss des Climacterium auf Entstchung und Form der Geistesstörung," _Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, vol. xlvi, ht. 4). Féré has related a significant case of a young man in whom hallucinations of smell accompanied the sexual orgasm; he subsequently developed epilepsy, to which the hallucination then constituted the aura (_Comptes Rendus de la Société de Biologie_, December, 1896). The prevalence of a sexual element in olfactory hallucinations has been investigated by Bullen, who examined into 95 cases of hallucinations of smell among the patients in several asylums. (In a few cases there were reasons for believing that peripheral conditions existed which would render these hallucinations more strictly illusions.) Of these, 64 were women. Sixteen of the women were climacteric cases, and 3 of them had sexual hallucinations or delusions. Fourteen other women (chiefly cases of chronic delusional insanity) had sexual delusions. Altogether, 31 men and women had sexual delusions. This is a large proportion. Bullen is not, however, inclined to admit any direct connection between the reproductive system and the sense of smell. He finds that other hallucinations are very frequently associated with the olfactory hallucinations, and considers that the co-existence of olfactory and sexual troubles simply indicates a very deep and widespread nervous disturbance. (F. St. John Bullen, "Olfactory Hallucinations in the Insane," _Journal of Mental Science_, July, 1899.) In order to elucidate the matter fully we require further precise inquiries on the lines Bullen has laid down. It may be of interest to note, in this connection, that smell and taste hallucinations appear to be specially frequent in forms of religious insanity. Thus, Dr. Zurcher, in her inaugural dissertation on Joan of Arc (_Jeanne d'Arc_, Leipzig, 1895, p. 72), estimates that on the average in such insanity nearly 50 per cent, of the hallucinations affect smell and taste; she refers also to the olfactory hallucinations of great religious leaders, Francis of Assisi, Katherina Emmerich, Lazzaretti, and the Anabaptists. It may well be, as Zwaardemaker has suggested in his _Physiologie des Geruchs_, that the nasal congestion at menstruation and similar phenomena are connected with that association of smell and sexuality which is observable throughout the whole animal world, and that the congestion brings about a temporary increase of olfactory sensitiveness during the stage of sexual excitation.[43] Careful investigation of olfactory acuteness would reveal the existence of such menstrual heightening of its acuity. In a few exceptional, but still quite healthy people, smell would appear to possess an emotional predominance which it cannot be said to possess in the average person. These exceptional people are of what Binet in his study of sexual fetichism calls olfactive type; such persons form a group which, though of smaller size and less importance, is fairly comparable to the well-known groups of visual type, of auditory type, and of psychomotor type. Such people would be more attentive to odors, more moved by olfactory sympathies and antipathies, than are ordinary people. For these, it may well be, the supremacy accorded to olfactory influences in Jäger's _Entdeckung der Seele_, though extravagantly incorrect for ordinary persons, may appear quite reasonable. It is certain also that a great many neurasthenic people, and particularly those who are sexually neurasthenic, are peculiarly susceptible to olfactory influences. A number of eminent poets and novelists--especially, it would appear, in France--seem to be in this case. Baudelaire, of all great poets, has most persistently and most elaborately emphasized the imaginative and emotional significance of odor; the _Fleurs du Mal_ and many of the _Petits Poèmes en Prose_ are, from this point of view, of great interest. There can be no doubt that in Baudelaire's own imaginative and emotional life the sense of smell played a highly important part; and that, in his own words, odor was to him what music is to others. Throughout Zola's novels--and perhaps more especially in _La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret_--there is an extreme insistence on odors of every kind. Prof. Leopold Bernard wrote an elaborate study of this aspect of Zola's work[44]; he believed that underlying Zola's interest in odors there was an abnormally keen olfactory sensibility and large development of the olfactory region of the brain. Such a supposition is, however, unnecessary, and, as a matter of fact, a careful examination of Zola's olfactory sensibility, conducted by M. Passy, showed that it was somewhat below normal.[45] At the same time it was shown that Zola was really a person of olfactory psychic type, with a special attention to odors and a special memory for them; as is frequently the case with perfumers with less than normal olfactory acuity he possessed a more than normal power of discriminating odors; it is possible that in early life his olfactory acuity may also have been above normal. In the same way Nietzsche, in his writings, shows a marked sensibility, and especially antipathy, as regards odors, which has by some been regarded as an index to a real physical sensibility of abnormal keenness; according to Möbius, however, there was no reason for supposing this to be the case.[46] Huysmans, who throughout his books reveals a very intense preoccupation with the exact shades of many kinds of sensory impressions, and an apparently abnormally keen sensibility to them, has shown a great interest in odors, more especially in an oft-quoted passage in _A Rebours_. The blind Milton of "Paradise Lost" (as the late Mr. Grant Allen once remarked to me), dwells much on scents; in this case it is doubtless to the blindness and not to any special organic predisposition that we must attribute this direction of sensory attention.[47] Among our older English poets, also, Herrick displays a special interest in odors with a definite realization of their sexual attractiveness.[48] Shelley, who was alive to so many of the unusual æsthetic aspects of things, often shows an enthusiastic delight in odors, more especially those of flowers. It may, indeed, be said that most poets--though to a less degree than those I have mentioned--devote a special attention to odors, and, since it has been possible to describe smell as the sense of imagination, this need not surprise us. That Shakespeare, for instance, ranked this sense very high indeed is shown by various passages in his works and notably by Sonnet LIV: "O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem?"--in which he implicitly places the attraction of odor on at least as high a level as that of vision.[49] A neurasthenic sensitiveness to odors, specially sexual odors, is frequently accompanied by lack of sexual vigor. In this way we may account for the numerous cases in which old men in whom sexual desire survives the loss of virile powers--probably somewhat abnormal persons at the outset--find satisfaction in sexual odors. Here, also, we have the basis for olfactory fetichism. In such fetichism the odor of the woman alone, whoever she may be and however unattractive she may be, suffices to furnish complete sexual satisfaction. In many, although not all, of those cases in which articles of women's clothing become the object of fetichistic attraction, there is certainly an olfactory element due to the personal odor attaching to the garments.[50] Olfactory influences play a certain part in various sexually abnormal tendencies and practices which do not proceed from an exclusively olfactory fascination. Thus, _cunnilingus_ and _fellatio_ derive part of their attraction, more especially in some individuals, from a predilection for the odors of the sexual parts. (See, e.g., Moll, _Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, bd. 1, p. 134.) In many cases smell plays no part in the attraction; "I enjoy _cunnilingus_, if I like the girl very much," a correspondent writes, "_in spite_ of the smell." We may associate this impulse with the prevalence of these practices among sexual inverts, in whom olfactory attractions are often specially marked. Those individuals, also, who are sexually affected by the urinary and alvine excretions ("_renifleurs_," "_stereoraires_," etc.) are largely, though not necessarily altogether, moved by olfactory impressions. The attraction was, however, exclusively olfactory in the case of the young woman recorded by Moraglia (_Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1892, p. 267), who was irresistibly excited by the odor of the fermented urine of men, and possibly also in the case narrated to Moraglia by Prof. L. Bianchi (ib. p. 568), in which a wife required flatus from her husband. The sexual pleasure derived from partial strangulation (discussed in the study of "Love and Pain" in a previous volume) may be associated with heightened olfactory sexual excitation. Dr. Kiernan, who points this out to me, has investigated a few neuropathic patients who like to have their necks squeezed, as they express it, and finds that in the majority the olfactory sensibility is thus intensified. Even in ordinary normal persons, however, there can be no doubt that personal odor tends to play a not inconsiderable part in sexual attractions and sexual repulsions. As a sexual excitant, indeed, it comes far behind the stimuli received through the sense of sight. The comparative bluntness of the sense of smell in man makes it difficult for olfactory influence to be felt, as a rule, until the preliminaries of courtship are already over; so that it is impossible for smell ever to possess the same significance in sexual attraction in man that it possesses in the lower animals. With that reservation there can be no doubt that odor has a certain favorable or unfavorable influence in sexual relationships in all human races from the lowest to the highest. The Polynesian spoke with contempt of those women of European race who "have no smell," and in view of the pronounced personal odor of so many savage peoples as well as of the careful attention which they so often pay to odors, we may certainly assume, even in the absence of much definite evidence, that smell counts for much in their sexual relationships. This is confirmed by such practices as that found among some primitive peoples--as, it is stated, in the Philippines--of lovers exchanging their garments to have the smell of the loved one about them. In the barbaric stages of society this element becomes self-conscious and is clearly avowed; personal odors are constantly described with complacency, sometimes as mingled with the lavish use of artificial perfumes, in much of the erotic literature produced in the highest stages of barbarism, especially by Eastern peoples living in hot climates; it is only necessary to refer to the _Song of Songs_, the _Arabian Nights_, and the Indian treatises on love. Even in some parts of Europe the same influence is recognized in the crudest animal form, and Krauss states that among the Southern Slavs it is sometimes customary to leave the sexual parts unwashed because a strong odor of these parts is regarded as a sexual stimulant. Under the usual conditions of life in Europe personal odor has sunk into the background; this has been so equally under the conditions of classic, mediæval, and modern life. Personal odor has been generally regarded as unæsthetic; it has, for the most part, only been mentioned to be reprobated, and even those poets and others who during recent centuries have shown a sensitive delight and interest in odors--Herrick, Shelley, Baudelaire, Zola, and Huysmans--have seldom ventured to insist that a purely natural and personal odor can be agreeable. The fact that it may be so, and that for most people such odors cannot be a matter of indifference in the most intimate of all relationships, is usually only to be learned casually and incidentally. There can be no doubt, however, that, as Kiernan points out, the extent to which olfaction influences the sexual sphere in civilized man has been much underestimated. We need not, therefore, be surprised at the greater interest which has recently been taken in this subject. As usually happens, indeed, there has been in some writers a tendency to run to the opposite extreme, and we cannot, with Gustav Jäger, regard the sexual instinct as mainly or altogether an olfactory matter. Of the Padmini, the perfect woman, the "lotus woman," Hindu writers say that "her sweat has the odor of musk," while the vulgar woman, they say, smells of fish (_Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana_). Ploss and Bartels (_Das Weib_, 1901, p. 218) bring forward a passage from the Tamil _Kokkôgam_, minutely describing various kinds of sexual odor in women, which they regard as resting on sound observation. Four things in a woman, says the Arab, should be perfumed: the mouth, the armpits, the pudenda, and the nose. The Persian poets, in describing the body, delighted to use metaphors involving odor. Not only the hair and the down on the face, but the chin, the mouth, the beauty spots, the neck, all suggested odorous images. The epithets applied to the hair frequently refer to musk, ambergris, and civet. (_Anis El-Ochchâq_ translated by Huart, _Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes_, fasc. 25, 1875.) The Hebrew _Song of Songs_ furnishes a typical example of a very beautiful Eastern love-poem in which the importance of the appeal to the sense of smell is throughout emphasized. There are in this short poem as many as twenty-four fairly definite references to odors,--personal odors, perfumes, and flowers,--while numerous other references to flowers, etc., seem to point to olfactory associations. Both the lover and his sweetheart express pleasure in each other's personal odor. "My beloved is unto me," she sings, "as a bag of myrrh That lieth between my breasts; My beloved is unto me as a cluster of henna flowers In the vineyard of En-gedi." And again: "His cheeks are as a bed of spices [or balsam], as banks of sweet herbs." While of her he says: "The smell of thy breath [or nose] is like apples." Greek and Roman antiquity, which has so largely influenced the traditions of modern Europe, was lavish in the use of perfumes, but showed no sympathy with personal odors. For the Roman satirists, like Martial, a personal odor is nearly always an unpleasant odor, though, there are a few allusions in classic literature recognizing bodily smell as a sexual attraction. Ovid, in his _Ars Amandi_ (Book III), says it is scarcely necessary to remind a lady that she must not keep a goat in her armpits: "_ne trux caper iret in alas_." "_Mulier tum bene olet ubi nihil olet_" is an ancient dictum, and in the sixteenth century Montaigne still repeated the same saying with complete approval. A different current of feeling began to appear with the new emotional movement during the eighteenth century. Rousseau called attention to the importance of the olfactory sense, and in his educational work, _Emile_ (Bk. II), he referred to the odor of a woman's "_cabinet de toilette_" as not so feeble a snare as is commonly supposed. In the same century Casanova wrote still more emphatically concerning the same point; in the preface to his _Mémoires_ he states: "I have always found sweet the odor of the women I have loved"; and elsewhere: "There is something in the air of the bedroom of the woman one loves, something so intimate, so balsamic, such voluptuous emanations, that if a lover had to choose between Heaven and this place of delight his hesitation would not last for a moment" (_Mémoires_, vol. iii). In the previous century, in England, Sir Kenelm Digby, in his interesting and remarkable _Private Memoirs_, when describing a visit to Lady Venetia Stanley, afterward his wife, touches on personal odor as an element of attraction; he had found her asleep in bed and on her breasts "did glisten a few drops of sweatlike diamond sparks, and had a more fragrant odor than the violets or primroses whose season was newly passed." In 1821 Cadet-Devaux published, in the _Revue Encyclopédique_, a study entitled "De l'atmosphère de la Femme et de sa Puissance," which attracted a great deal of attention in Germany as well as in France; he considered that the exhalations of the feminine body are of the first importance in sexual attraction. Prof. A. Galopin in 1886 wrote a semiscientific book, _Le Parfum de la Femme_, in which the sexual significance of personal odor is developed to its fullest. He writes with enthusiasm concerning the sweet and health-giving character of the natural perfume of a beloved woman, and the mischief done both to health and love by the use of artificial perfumes. "The purest marriage that can be contracted between a man and a woman," he asserts (p. 157) "is that engendered by olfaction and sanctioned by a common assimilation in the brain of the animated molecules due to the secretion and evaporation of two bodies in contact and sympathy." In a book written during the first half of the nineteenth century which contains various subtle observations on love we read, with reference to the sweet odor which poets have found in the breath of women: "In reality many women have an intoxicatingly agreeable breath which plays no small part in the love-compelling atmosphere which they spread around them" (_Eros oder Wörterbuch über die Physiologie_, 1849, Bd. 1, p. 45). Most of the writers on the psychology of love at this period, however, seem to have passed over the olfactory element in sexual attraction, regarding it probably as too unæsthetic. It receives no emphasis either in Sénancour's _De l'Amour_ or Stendhal's _De l'Amour_ or Michelet's _L'Amour_. The poets within recent times have frequently referred to odors, personal and other, but the novelists have more rarely done so. Zola and Huysmans, the two novelists who have most elaborately and insistently developed the olfactory side of life, have dwelt more on odors that are repulsive than on those that are agreeable. It is therefore of interest to note that in a few remarkable novels of recent times the attractiveness of personal odor has been emphasized. This is notably so in Tolstoy's _War and Peace_, in which Count Peter suddenly resolves to marry Princess Helena after inhaling her odor at a ball. In d'Annunzio's _Trionfo della Morte_ the seductive and consoling odor of the beloved woman's skin is described in several passages; thus, when Giorgio kissed Ippolita's arms and shoulders, we are told, "he perceived the sharp and yet delicate perfume of her, the perfume of the skin that in the hour of joy became intoxicating as that of the tuberose, and a terrible lash to desire." When we are dealing with the sexual significance of personal odors in man there is at the outset an important difference to be noticed in comparison with the lower mammals. Not only is the significance of odor altogether very much less, but the focus of olfactory attractiveness has been displaced. The centre of olfactory attractiveness is not, as usually among animals, in the sexual region, but is transferred to the upper part of the body. In this respect the sexual olfactory allurement in man resembles what we find in the sphere of vision, for neither the sexual organs of man nor of woman are usually beautiful in the eyes of the opposite sex, and their exhibition is not among us regarded as a necessary stage in courtship. The odor of the body, like its beauty, in so far as it can be regarded as a possible sexual allurement, has in the course of development been transferred to the upper parts. The careful concealment of the sexual region has doubtless favored this transfer. It has thus happened that when personal odor acts as a sexual allurement it is the armpit, in any case normally the chief focus of odor in the body, which mainly comes into play, together with the skin and the hair. Aubert, of Lyons, noted that during menstruation the odor of the armpits may become more powerful, and describes it as being at this time an aromatic odor of acidulous or chloroform character. Galopin remarks that, while some women's armpits smell of sheep in rut, others, when exposed to the air, have a fragrance of ambergris or violet. Dark persons (according to Gould and Pyle) are said sometimes to exhale a prussic acid odor, and blondes more frequently musk; Galopin associates the ambergris odor more especially with blondes. While some European poets have faintly indicated the woman's armpit as a centre of sexual attraction, it is among Eastern poets that we may find the idea more directly and naturally expressed. Thus, in a Chinese drama ("The Transmigration of Yo-Chow," _Mercure de France_, No. 8, 1901) we find a learned young doctor addressing the following poem to his betrothed:-- "When I have climbed to the bushy summit of Mount Chao, I have still not reached to the level of your odorous armpit. I must needs mount to the sky Before the breeze brings to me The perfume of that embalsamed nest!" This poet seems, however, to have been carried to a pitch of enthusiasm unusual even in China, for his future mother-in-law, after expressing her admiration for the poem, remarks: "But who would have thought one could find so many beautiful things under my daughter's armpit!" The odor of the armpit is the most powerful in the body, sufficiently powerful to act as a muscular stimulant even in the absence of any direct sexual association. This is indicated by an observation made by Féré, who noticed, when living opposite a laundry, that an old woman who worked near the window would, toward the close of the day, introduce her right hand under the sleeve of the other to the armpit and then hold it to her nose; this she would do about every five minutes. It was evident that the odor acted as a stimulant to her failing energies. Féré has been informed by others who have had occasion to frequent workrooms that this proceeding is by no means uncommon among persons of both sexes. (Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, second edition, p. 135.) I have myself noticed the same gesture very deliberately made in the street by a young English woman of the working class, under circumstances which suggested that it acted as an immediate stimulant in fatigue. Huysmans--who in his novels has insisted on odors, both those of a personal kind and perfumes, with great precision--has devoted one of the sketches, "Le Gousset," in his _Croquis Parisiens_ (1880) to the varying odors of women's armpits. "I have followed this fragrance in the country," he remarks, "behind a group of women gleaners under the bright sun. It was excessive and terrible; it stung your nostrils like an unstoppered bottle of alkali; it seized you, irritating your mucous membrane with a rough odor which had in it something of the relish of wild duck cooked with olives and the sharp odor of the shallot. On the whole, it was not a vile or repugnant emanation; it united, as an anticipated thing, with the formidable odors of the landscape; it was the pure note, completing with the human animals' cry of heat the odorous melody of beasts and woods." He goes on to speak of the perfume of feminine arms in the ball-room. "There the aroma is of ammoniated valerian, of chlorinated urine, brutally accentuated sometimes, even with a slight scent of prussic acid about it, a faint whiff of overripe peaches." These "spice-boxes," however, Huysmans continues, are more seductive when their perfume is filtered through the garments. "The appeal of the balsam of their arms is then less insolent, less cynical, than at the ball where they are more naked, but it more easily uncages the animal in man. Various as the color of the hair, the odor of the armpit is infinitely divisible; its gamut covers the whole keyboard of odors, reaching the obstinate scents of syringa and elder, and sometimes recalling the sweet perfume of the rubbed fingers that have held a cigarette. Audacious and sometimes fatiguing in the brunette and the black woman, sharp and fierce in the red woman, the armpit is heady as some sugared wines in the blondes." It will be noted that this very exact description corresponds at various points with the remarks of more scientific observers. Sometimes the odor of the armpit may even become a kind of fetich which is craved for its own sake and in itself suffices to give pleasure. Féré has recorded such a case, in a friend of his own, a man of 60, with whom at one time he used to hunt, of robust health and belonging to a healthy family. On these hunting expeditions he used to tease the girls and women he met (sometimes even rather old women) in a surprising manner, when he came upon them walking in the fields with their short-sleeved chemises exposed. When he had succeeded in introducing his hand into the woman's armpit he went away satisfied, and frequently held the hand to his nose with evident pleasure. After long hesitation Féré asked for an explanation, which was frankly given. As a child he had liked the odor, without knowing why. As a young man women with strong odors had stimulated him to extraordinary sexual exploits, and now they were the only women who had any influence on him. He professed to be able to recognize continence by the odor, as well as the most favorable moment for approaching a woman. Throughout life a cold in the head had always been accompanied by persistent general excitement. (Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, 1902, p. 134.) We not only have to recognize that in the course of evolution the specific odors of the sexual region have sunk into the background as a source of sexual allurements, we have further to recognize the significant fact that even those personal odors which are chiefly liable under normal circumstances to come occasionally within the conscious sexual sphere, and indeed purely personal odors of all kinds, fail to exert any attraction, but rather tend to cause antipathy, unless some degree of tumescence has already been attained. That is to say, our olfactory experiences of the human body approximate rather to our tactile experiences of it than to our visual experiences. Sight is our most intellectual sense, and we trust ourselves to it with comparative boldness without any undue dread that its messages will hurt us by their personal intimacy; we even court its experiences, for it is the chief organ of our curiosity, as smell is of a dog's. But smell with us has ceased to be a leading channel of intellectual curiosity. Personal odors do not, as vision does, give us information that is very largely intellectual; they make an appeal that is mainly of an intimate, emotional, imaginative character. They thus tend, when we are in our normal condition, to arouse what James calls the antisexual instinct. "I cannot understand how people do not see how the senses are connected," said Jenny Lind to J.A. Symonds (Horatio Brown, _J.A. Symonds_, vol. i, p. 207). "What I have suffered from my sense of smell! My youth was misery from my acuteness of sensibility." Mantegazza discusses the strength of olfactory antipathies (_Fisiologia dell' Odio_, p. 101), and mentions that once when ill in Paraguay he was nursed by an Indian girl of 16, who was fresh as a peach and extremely clean, but whose odor--"a mixture of wild beast's lair and decayed onions"--caused nausea and almost made him faint. Moll (_Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, bd. i, p. 135) records the case of a neuropathic man who was constantly rendered impotent by his antipathy to personal body odors. It had very frequently happened to him to be attracted by the face and appearance of a girl, but at the last moment potency was inhibited by the perception of personal odor. In the case of a man of distinguished ability known to me, belonging to a somewhat neuropathic family, there is extreme sensitiveness to the smell of a woman, which is frequently the most obvious thing to him about her. He has seldom known a woman whose natural perfume entirely suits him, and his olfactory impressions have frequently been the immediate cause of a rupture of relationships. It was formerly discussed whether strong personal odor constituted adequate ground for divorce. Hagen, who brings forward references on this point (_Sexuelle Osphrésiologie_, pp. 75-83), considers that the body odors are normally and naturally repulsive because they are closely associated with the capryl group of odors, which are those of many of the excretions. Olfactory antipathies are, however, often strictly subordinated to the individual's general emotional attitude toward the object from which they emanate. This is illustrated in the case, known to me, of a man who on a hot day entering a steamboat with a woman to whom he was attached seated himself between her and a man, a stranger. He soon became conscious of an axillary odor which he concluded to come from the man and which he felt as disagreeable. But a little later he realized that it proceeded from his own companion, and with this discovery the odor at once lost its disagreeable character. In this respect a personal odor resembles a personal touch. Two intimate touches of the hand, though of precisely similar physical quality, may in their emotional effects be separated by an immeasurable interval, in dependence on our attitude toward the person from whom they proceed. Personal odor, in order to make its allurement felt, and not to arouse antipathy, must, in normal persons, have been preceded by conditions which have inhibited the play of the antisexual instinct. A certain degree of tumescence must already have been attained. It is even possible, when we bear in mind the intimate sympathy between the sexual sphere and the nose, that the olfactory organ needs to have its sensibility modified in a form receptive to sexual messages, though such an assumption is by no means necessary. It is when such a faint preliminary degree of tumescence has been attained, however it may have been attained,--for the methods of tumescence, as we know, are innumerable,--that a sympathetic personal odor is enabled to make its appeal. If we analyze the cases in which olfactory perceptions have proved potent in love, we shall nearly always find that they have been experienced under circumstances favorable for the occurrence of tumescence. When this is not the case we may reasonably suspect the presence of some degree of perversion. In the oft-quoted case of the Austrian peasant who found that he was aided in seducing young women by dancing with them and then wiping their faces with a handkerchief he had kept in his armpit, we may doubtless regard the preliminary excitement of the dance as an essential factor in the influence produced. In the same way, I am acquainted with the ease of a lady not usually sensitive to simple body odors (though affected by perfumes and flowers) who on one occasion, when already in a state of sexual erethism, was highly excited when perceiving the odor of her lover's axilla. The same influence of preliminary excitement may be seen in another instance known to me, that of a gentlemen who when traveling abroad fell in with three charming young ladies during a long railway journey. He was conscious of a pleasurable excitement caused by the prolonged intimacy of the journey, but this only became definitely sexual when the youngest of the ladies, stretching before him to look out of the window and holding on to the rack above, accidentally brought her axilla into close proximity with his face, whereupon erection was caused, although he himself regards personal odors, at all events when emanating from strangers, as indifferent or repulsive. A medical correspondent, referring to the fact that with many men (indeed women also) sexual excitement occurs after dancing for a considerable time, remarks that he considers the odor of the woman's sweat is here a considerable factor. The characteristics of olfaction which our investigation has so far revealed have not, on the whole, been favorable to the influence of personal odors as a sexual attraction in civilized men. It is a primitive sense which had its flowering time before men arose; it is a comparatively unæsthetic sense; it is a somewhat obtuse sense which among Europeans is usually incapable of perceiving the odor of the "human flower"--to use Goethe's phrase--except on very close contact, and on this account, and on account of the fact that it is a predominantly emotional sense, personal odors in ordinary social intercourse are less likely to arouse the sexual instinct than the antisexual instinct. If a certain degree of tumescence is required before a personal odor can exert an attractive influence, a powerful personal odor, strong enough to be perceived before any degree of tumescence is attained, will tend to cause repulsion, and in so doing tend, consciously or unconsciously, to excite prejudice against personal odor altogether. This is actually the case in civilization, and most people, it would appear, view with more or less antipathy the personal odors of those persons to whom they are not sexually attracted, while their attitude is neutral in this respect toward the individuals to whom they are sexually attracted.[51] The following statement by a correspondent seems to me to express the experience of the majority of men in this respect: "I do not notice that different people have different smells. Certain women I have known have been in the habit of using particular scents, but no associations could be aroused if I were to smell the same scent now, for I should not identify it. As a boy I was very fond of scent, and I associate this with my marked sexual proclivities. I like a woman to use a little scent. It rouses my sexual feelings, but not to any large extent. I dislike the smell of a woman's vagina." While the last statement seems to express the feeling of many if not most men, it may be proper to add that there seems no natural reason why the vulvar odor of a clean and healthy woman should be other than agreeable to a normal man who is her lover. In literature it is the natural odor of women rather than men which receives attention. We should expect this to be the case since literature is chiefly produced by men. The question as to whether men or women are really more apt to be sexually influenced in this way cannot thus be decided. Among animals, it seems probable, both sexes are alike influenced by odors, for, while it is usually the male whose sexual regions are furnished with special scent glands, when such occur, the peculiar odor of the female during the sexual season is certainly not less efficacious as an allurement to the male. If we compare the general susceptibility of men and women to agreeable odors, apart from the question of sexual allurement, there can be little doubt that it is most marked among women. As Groos points out, even among children little girls are more interested in scents than boys, and the investigations of various workers, especially Garbini, have shown that there is actually a greater power of discriminating odors among girls than among boys. Marro has gone further, and in an extended series of observations on girls before and after the establishment of puberty--which is of considerable interest from the point of view of the sexual significance of olfaction--he has shown reason to believe that girls acquire an increased susceptibility to odors when sexual life begins, although they show no such increased powers as regards the other senses.[52] On the whole, it would appear that, while women are not apt to be seriously affected, in the absence of any preliminary excitation, by crude body odors, they are by no means insusceptible to the sexual influence of olfactory impressions. It is probable, indeed, that they are more affected, and more frequently affected, in this way, than are men. Edouard de Goncourt, in his novel _Chérie_--the intimate history of a young girl, founded, he states, on much personal observation--describes (Chapter LXXXV) the delight with which sensuous, but chaste young girls often take in strong perfumes. "Perfume and love," he remarks, "impart delights which are closely allied." In an earlier chapter (XLIV) he writes of his heroine at the age of 15: "The intimately happy emotion which the young girl experienced in reading _Paul et Virginie_ and other honestly amorous books she sought to make more complete and intense and penetrating by soaking the book with scent, and the love-story reached her senses and imagination through pages moist with liquid perfume." Carbini (_Archivio per l'Antropologia_, 1896, fasc. 3) in a very thorough investigation of a large number of children, found that the earliest osmo-gustative sensations occurred in the fourth week in girls, the fifth week in boys; the first real and definite olfactory sensations appeared in the fifteenth month in girls, in the sixteenth in boys; while experiments on several hundred children between the ages of 3 and 6 years showed the girls slightly, but distinctly, superior to the boys. It may, of course, be argued that these results merely show a somewhat greater precocity of girls. I have summarized the main investigations into this question in _Man and Woman_, revised and enlarged edition, 1904, pp. 134-138. On the whole, they seem to indicate greater olfactory acuteness on the part of women, but the evidence is by no means altogether concordant in this sense. Popular and general scientific opinion is also by no means always in harmony. Thus, Tardif, in his book on odors in relation to the sexual instinct, throughout assumes, as a matter of course, that the sense of smell is most keen in men; while, on the other hand, I note that in a pamphlet by Mr. Martin Perls, a manufacturing perfumer, it is stated with equal confidence that "it is a well-known fact that ladies have, even without a practice of long standing, a keener sense of smell than men," and on this account he employs a staff of young ladies for testing perfumes by smell in the laboratory by the glazed paper test. It is sometimes said that the use of strong perfumes by women indicates a dulled olfactory organ. On the other hand, it is said that the use of tobacco deadens the sensitiveness of the masculine nose. Both these statements seem to be without foundation. The use of a large amount of perfume is rather a question of taste than a question of sensory acuteness (not to mention that those who live in an atmosphere of perfume are, of course, only faintly conscious of it), and the chemist perfumer in his laboratory surrounded by strong odors can distinguish them all with great delicacy. As regards tobacco, in Spain the _cigarreras_ are women and girls who live perpetually in an atmosphere of tobacco, and Señora Pardo Bazan, who knows them well, remarks in her novel, _La Tribuna_, which deals with life in a tobacco factory, that "the acuity of the sense of smell of the _cigarreras_ is notable, and it would seem that instead of blunting the nasal membrane the tobacco makes the olfactory nerves keener." "It was the same as if I was in a sweet apple garden, from the sweetness that came to me when the light wind passed over them and stirred their clothes," a woman is represented as saying concerning a troop of handsome men in the Irish sagas (_Cuchulain of Muirthemne_, p. 161). The pleasure and excitement experienced by a woman in the odor of her lover is usually felt concerning a vague and mixed odor which may be characteristic, but is not definitely traceable to any specific bodily sexual odor. The general odor of the man she loves, one woman states, is highly, sometimes even overwhelmingly, attractive to her; but the specific odor of the male sexual organs which she describes as fishy has no attraction. A man writes that in his relations with women he has never been able to detect that they were influenced by the axillary or other specific odors. A woman writes: "To me any personal odor, as that of perspiration, is very disagreeable, and the healthy _naked_ human body is very free from any odor. Fresh perspiration has no disagreeable smell; it is only by retention in the clothing that it becomes objectionable. The faint smell of smoke which lingers round men who smoke much is rather exciting to me, but only when it is _very_ faint. If at all strong it becomes disagreeable. As most of the men who have attracted me have been great smokers, there is doubtless a direct association of ideas. It has only once occurred to me that an indifferent unpleasant smell became attractive in connection with some particular person. In this case it was the scent of stale tobacco, such as comes from the end of a cold cigar or cigarette. It was, and is now, very disagreeable to me, but, for the time and in connection with a particular person, it seemed to me more delightful and exciting than the most delicious perfume. I think, however, only a very strong attraction could overcome a dislike of this sort, and I doubt if I could experience such a twist-round if it had been a personal odor. Stale tobacco, though nasty, conveys no mentally disagreeable idea. I mean it does not suggest dirt or unhealthiness." It is probably significant of the somewhat considerable part which, in one way or another, odors and perfumes play in the emotional life of women, that, of the 4 women whose sexual histories are recorded in Appendix B of vol. iii of these _Studies_, all are liable to experience sexual effects from olfactory stimuli, 3 of them from personal odors (though this fact is not in every case brought out in the histories as recorded), while of the 8 men not one has considered his olfactory experiences in this respect as worthy of mention. The very marked sexual fascination which odor, associated with the men they love, exerts on women has easily passed unperceived, since women have not felt called upon to proclaim it. In sexual inversion, however, when the woman takes a more active and outspoken part than in normal love, it may very clearly be traced. Here, indeed, it is often exaggerated, in consequence of the common tendency for neurotic and neurasthenic persons to be more than normally susceptible to the influence of odors. In the majority of inverted women, it may safely be said, the odor of the beloved person plays a very considerable part. Thus, one inverted woman asks the woman she loves to send her some of her hair that she may intoxicate herself in solitude with its perfume (_Archivio di Psicopatie Sessuali_, vol. i, fasc. 3, p. 36). Again, a young girl with some homosexual tendencies, was apt to experience sexual emotions when in ordinary contact with schoolfellows whose body odor was marked (Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, p. 260). Such examples are fairly typical. That the body odor of men may in a large number of cases be highly agreeable and sexually attractive is shown by the testimony of male sexual inverts. There is abundant evidence to this effect. Raffalovich (_L'Uranisme et l'Unisexualité_, p. 126) insists on the importance of body odors as a sexual attraction to the male invert, and is inclined to think that the increased odor of the man's own body during sexual excitement may have an auto-aphrodisiacal effect which is reflected on the body of the loved person. The odor of peasants, of men who work in the open air, is specially apt to be found attractive. Moll mentions the case of an inverted man who found the "forest, mosslike odor" of a schoolfellow irresistibly attractive. The following passage from a letter written by an Italian marquis has been sent to me: "Bonifazio stripped one evening, to give me pleasure. He has the full, rounded flesh and amber coloring which painters of the Giorgione school gave to their S. Sebastians. When he began to dress, I took up an old _fascia_, or girdle of netted silk, which was lying under his breeches, and which still preserved the warmth of his body. I buried my face in it, and was half inebriated by its exquisite aroma of young manhood and fresh hay. He told me he had worn it for two years. No wonder it was redolent of him. I asked him to let me keep it as a souvenir. He smiled and said: 'You like it because it has lain so long upon my _panoia_.' 'Yes, just so,' I replied; 'whenever I kiss it, thus and thus, it will bring you back to me.' Sometimes I tie it round my naked waist before I go to bed. The smell of it is enough to cause a powerful erection, and the contact of its fringes with my testicles and phallus has once or twice produced an involuntary emission." I may here reproduce a communication which has reached me concerning the attractiveness of the odor of peasants: "One predominant attraction of these men is that they are pure and clean; their bodies in a state of healthy normal function. Then they possess, if they are temperate, what the Greek poet Straton called the phydikê chrôtos (a quality which, according to this authority, is never found in women). This 'natural fair perfume of the flesh' is a peculiar attribute of young men who live in the open air and deal with natural objects. Even their perspiration has an odor very different from that of girls in ball-rooms: more refined, ethereal, pervasive, delicate, and difficult to seize. When they have handled hay--in the time of hay-harvest, or in winter, when they bring hay down from mountain huts--the youthful peasants carry about with them the smell of 'a field the Lord hath blessed.' Their bodies and their clothes exhale an indefinable fragrance of purity and sex combined. Every gland of the robust frame seems to have accumulated scent from herbs and grasses, which slowly exudes from the cool, fresh skin of the lad. You do not perceive it in a room. You must take the young man's hands and bury your face in them, or be covered with him under the same blanket in one bed, to feel this aroma. No sensual impression on the nerves of smell is more poignantly impregnated with spiritual poetry--the poetry of adolescence, and early hours upon the hills, and labor cheerfully accomplished, and the harvest of God's gifts to man brought home by human industry. It is worth mentioning that Aristophanes, in his description of the perfect Athenian Ephebus, dwells upon his being redolent of natural perfumes." In a passage in the second part of _Faust_ Goethe (who appears to have felt considerable interest in the psychology of smell) makes three women speak concerning the ambrosiacal odor of young men. In this connection, also, I note a passage in a poem ("Appleton House") by our own English poet Marvell, which it is of interest to quote:-- "And now the careless victors play, Dancing the triumphs of the hay, When every mower's wholesome heat Smells like an Alexander's sweat. Their females fragrant as the mead Which they in fairy circles tread, When at their dance's end they kiss, Their new-mown hay not sweeter is." FOOTNOTES: [30] R. Andree, "Völkergeruch," in _Ethnographische Parallelen_, Neue Folge, 1889, pp. 213-222, brings together many passages describing the odors of various peoples. Hagen, _Sexuelle Osphrésiologie_, pp. 166 et seq., has a chapter on the subject; Joest, supplement to _International Archiv für Ethnographie_, 1893, p. 53, has an interesting passage on the smells of various races, as also Waitz, _Introduction to Anthropology_, p. 103. Cf. Sir H.H. Johnston, _British Central Africa_, p. 395; T.H. Parke, _Experiences in Equatorial Africa_, p. 409; E.H. Man, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1889, p. 391; Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, vol. i, p. 7; d'Orbigny, _L'Homme Américain_, vol. i, p. 87, etc. [31] B. Adachi "Geruch der Europaer," _Globus_, 1903, No. 1. [32] Hagen quotes testimonies on this point, _Sexuelle Osphrésiologie_, p. 173. The negro, Castellani states, considers that Europeans have a smell of death. [33] _Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition_, vol. ii, p. 181. [34] Waitz, _Introduction to Anthropology_, p. 103. [35] Monin, _Les Odeurs du Corps Humain_, second edition, Paris, 1886, discusses briefly but comprehensively the normal and more especially the pathological odors of the body and of its secretions and excretions. [36] Venturi, _Degenerazione Psicho-sessuale_, p. 417. [37] Quoted by Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, 1902, p. 133. [38] H. Ling Roth, "On Salutations," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, November, 1889. [39] See Appendix A: "The Origins of the Kiss." [40] See, e.g., passage quoted by I. Bloch, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil II, p. 205. [41] It must at the same time be remembered that the more or less degree of exposure involved by sexual intercourse is itself a cause of nasal congestion and sneezing. [42] Féré, _Pathologie des Emotions_, p. 81 [43] J.N. Mackenzie similarly suggests (_Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin_, No. 82, 1898) that "irritation and congestion of the nasal mucous membrane precede, or are the excitants of, the olfactory impression that forms the connecting link between the sense of smell and erethism of the reproductive organs exhibited in the lower animals." [44] _Les Odeurs dans les Romans de Zola_, Montpellier, 1889. [45] Toulouse, _Emile Zola_, pp. 163-165, 173-175. [46] P.J. Möbius, _Das Pathologische bei Nietzsche_. [47] Moll has a passage on the sense of smell in the blind, more especially in sexual respects, _Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, bd. 1, pp. 137 et seq. [48] See, for instance, his poem, "Love Perfumes all Parts," in which he declares that "Hands and thighs and legs are all richly aromatical." And compare the lyrics entitled "A Song to the Maskers," "On Julia's Breath," "Upon Julia's Unlacing Herself," "Upon Julia's Sweat," and "To Mistress Anne Soame." [49] There are various indications that Goethe was attentive to the attraction of personal odors; and that he experienced this attraction himself is shown by the fact that, as he confessed, when he once had to leave Weimar on an official journey for two days he took a bodice of Frau von Stein's away in order to carry the scent of her body with him. [50] Hagen has brought together from the literature of the subject a number of typical cases of olfactory fetichism, _Sexuelle Osphrésiologie_, 1901, pp. 82 et seq. [51] Moll's inquiries among normal persons have also shown that few people are conscious of odor as a sexual attraction. (_Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_. Bd. I, p. 133.) [52] Marro, _La, Pubertà_, 1898, Chapter II. Tardif found in boys that perfumes exerted little or no influence on circulation and respiration before puberty, though his observations on this point were too few to carry weight. IV. The Influence of Perfumes--Their Aboriginal Relationship to Sexual Body Odors--This True even of the Fragrance of Flowers--The Synthetic Manufacture of Perfumes--The Sexual Effects of Perfumes--Perfumes perhaps Originally Used to Heighten the Body Odors--The Special Significance of the Musk Odor--Its Wide Natural Diffusion in Plants and Animals and Man--Musk a Powerful Stimulant--Its Widespread Use as a Perfume--Peau d'Espagne--The Smell of Leather and its Occasional Sexual Effects--The Sexual Influence of the Odors of Flowers--The Identity of many Plant Odors with Certain Normal and Abnormal Body Odors--The Smell of Semen in this Connection. So far we have been mainly concerned with purely personal odors. It is, however, no longer possible to confine the discussion of the sexual significance of odor within the purely animal limit. The various characteristics of personal odor which have been noted--alike those which tend to make it repulsive and those which tend to make it attractive--have led to the use of artificial perfumes, to heighten the natural odor when it is regarded as attractive, to disguise it when it is regarded as repellent; while at the same time, happily covering both of these impulses, has developed the pure delight in perfume for its own agreeableness, the æsthetic side of olfaction. In this way--although in a much less constant and less elaborate manner--the body became adorned to the sense of smell just as by clothing and ornament it is adorned to the sense of sight. But--and this is a point of great significance from our present standpoint--we do not really leave the sexual sphere by introducing artificial perfumes. The perfumes which we extract from natural products, or, as is now frequently the case, produce by chemical synthesis, are themselves either actually animal sexual odors or allied in character or composition, to the personal odors they are used to heighten or disguise. Musk is the product of glands of the male _Moschus moschiferus_ which correspond to preputial sebaceous glands; castoreum is the product of similar sexual glands in the beaver, and civet likewise from the civet; ambergris is an intestinal calculus found in the rectum of the cachelot.[53] Not only, however, are nearly all the perfumes of animal origin, in use by civilized man, odors which have a specially sexual object among the animals from which they are derived, but even the perfumes of flowers may be said to be of sexual character. They are given out at the reproductive period in the lives of plants, and they clearly have very largely as their object an appeal to the insects who secure plant fertilization, such appeal having as its basis the fact that among insects themselves olfactory sensibility has in many cases been developed in their own mating.[54] There is, for example, a moth in which both sexes are similarly and inconspicuously marked, but the males diffuse an agreeable odor, said to be like pineapple, which attracts the females.[55] If, therefore, the odors of flowers have developed because they proved useful to the plant by attracting insects or other living creatures, it is obvious that the advantage would lie with those plants which could put forth an animal sexual odor of agreeable character, since such an odor would prove fascinating to animal creatures. We here have a very simple explanation of the fundamental identity of odors in the animal and vegetable worlds. It thus comes about that from a psychological point of view we are not really entering a new field when we begin to discuss the influence of perfumes other than those of the animal body. We are merely concerned with somewhat more complex or somewhat more refined sexual odors; they are not specifically different from the human odors and they mingle with them harmoniously. Popular language bears witness to the truth of this statement, and the normal and abnormal human odors, as we have already seen, are constantly compared to artificial, animal, and plant odors, to chloroform, to musk, to violet, to mention only those similitudes which seem to occur most frequently. The methods now employed for obtaining the perfumes universally used in civilized lands are three: (1) the extraction of odoriferous compounds from the neutral products in which they occur; (2) the artificial preparation of naturally occurring odoriferous compounds by synthetic processes; (3) the manufacture of materials which yield odors resembling those of pleasant smelling natural objects. (See, e.g., "Natural and Artificial Perfumes," _Nature_, December 27, 1900.) The essential principles of most of our perfumes belong to the complex class of organic compounds known as terpenes. During recent years a number of the essential elements of natural perfumes have been studied, in many cases the methods of preparing them artificially discovered, and they are largely replacing the use of natural perfumes not only for soaps, etc., but for scent essences, though it appears to be very difficult to imitate exactly the delicate fragrance achieved by Nature. Artificial musk was discovered accidentally by Bauer when studying the butyltoluenes contained in a resin extractive. Vanillin, the odoriferous principle of the vanilla bean, is an aldehyde which was first artificially prepared by Tiemann and Haarmann in 1874 by oxidizing coniferin, a glucoside contained in the sap of various coniferæ, but it now appears to be usually manufactured from eugenol, a phenol contained in oil of cloves. Piperonal, an aldehyde closely allied to vanillin, is used in perfumery under the name of heliotropin and is prepared from oil of sassafras and oil of camphor. Cumarine, the material to which tonka bean, sweet woodruff, and new-mown hay owe their characteristic odors, was synthetically prepared by W.H. Parkin in 1868 by heating sodiosalicylic aldehyde with acetic anhydride, though now more cheaply prepared from an herb growing in Florida. Irone, which has the perfume of violets, was isolated in 1893 from a ketone contained in orris-root; and ionone, another ketone which has a very closely similar odor of fresh violets and was isolated after some years' further work, is largely used in the preparation of violet perfume. Irone and ionone are closely similar in composition to oil of turpentine which when taken into the body is partly converted into perfume and gives a strong odor of violets to the urine. "Little has yet been accomplished toward ascertaining the relation between the odor and the chemical constitution of substances in general. Hydrocarbons as a class possess considerable similarity in odor, so also do the organic sulphides and, to a much smaller extent, the ketones. The subject waits for some one to correlate its various physiological, psychological and physical aspects in the same way that Helmholtz did for sound. It seems, as yet, impossible to assign any probable reason to the fact that many substances have a pleasant odor. It may, however, be worth suggesting that certain compounds, such as the volatile sulphides and the indoles, have very unpleasant odors because they are normal constituents of mammalian excreta and of putrefied animal products; the repulsive odors may be simply necessary results of evolutionary processes." (_Loc. cit._, _Nature_, December 27, 1900.) Many of the perfumes in use are really combinations of a great many different odors in varying proportions, such as oil of rose, lavender oil, ylang-ylang, etc. The most highly appreciated perfumes are often made up of elements which in stronger proportion would be regarded as highly unpleasant. In the study and manufacture of perfumes Germany and France have taken the lead in recent times. The industry is one of great importance. In France alone the trade in perfumes amounts to £4,000,000. It is doubtless largely owing to the essential and fundamental identity of odors--to the chemical resemblances even of odors from the most widely remote sources--that we find that perfumes in many cases have the same sexual effects as are primitively possessed by the body odors. In northern countries, where the use of perfumes is chiefly cultivated by women, it is by women that this sexual influence is most liable to be felt. In the South and in the East it appears to be at least equally often experienced by men. Thus, in Italy Mantegazza remarks that "many men of strong sexual temperament cannot visit with impunity a laboratory of essences and perfumes."[56] In the East we find it stated in the Islamic book entitled _The Perfumed Garden of Sheik Nefzaoui_ that the use of perfumes by women, as well as by men, excites to the generative act. It is largely in reliance on this fact that in many parts of the world, especially among Eastern peoples and occasionally among ourselves in Europe, women have been accustomed to perfume the body and especially the vulva.[57] It seems highly probable that, as has been especially emphasized by Hagen, perfumes were primitively used by women, not as is sometimes the case in civilization, with the idea of disguising any possible natural odor, but with the object of heightening and fortifying the natural odor.[58] If the primitive man was inclined to disparage a woman whose odor was slight or imperceptible,--turning away from her with contempt, as the Polynesian turned away from the ladies of Sydney: "They have no smell!"--women would inevitably seek to supplement any natural defects in this respect, and to accentuate their odorous qualities, in the same way as by corsets and bustles, even in civilization, they have sought to accentuate the sexual saliencies of their bodies. In this way we may, as Hagen suggests, explain the fact that until recent times the odors preferred by women have not been the most delicate or exquisite, but the strongest, the most animal, the most sexual: musk, castoreum, civet, and ambergris. In that interesting novel--dealing with the adventures of a Jewish maiden at the Persian court of Xerxes--which under the title of _Esther_ has found its way into the Old Testament we are told that it was customary in the royal harem at Shushan to submit the women to a very prolonged course of perfuming before they were admitted to the king: "six months with oil of myrrh and six months with sweet odors." (_Esther_, Chapter II, v. 12.) In the _Arabian Nights_ there are many allusions to the use of perfumes by women with a more or less definitely stated aphrodisiacal intent. Thus we read in the story of Kamaralzaman: "With fine incense I will perfume my breasts, my belly, my whole body, so that my skin may melt more sweetly in thy mouth, O apple of my eye!" Even among savages the perfuming of the body is sometimes practiced with the object of inducing love in the partner. Schellong states that the Papuans of Kaiser Wilhelm's Land rub various fragrant plants into their bodies for this purpose. (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1899, ht. i, p. 19.) The significance of this practice is more fully revealed by Haddon when studying the Papuans of Torres Straits among whom the initiative in courtship is taken by the women. It was by scenting himself with a pungent odorous substance that a young man indicated that he was ready to be sued by the girls. A man would wear this scent at the back of his neck during a dance in order to attract the attention of a particular girl; it was believed to act with magical certainty, after the manner of a charm (_Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. v, pp. 211, 222, and 328). The perfume which is of all perfumes the most interesting from the present point of view is certainly musk. With ambergris, musk is the chief member of Linnæus's group of _Odores ambrosiacæ_, a group which in sexual significances, as Zwaardemaker remarks, ranks besides the capryl group of odors. It is a perfume of ancient origin; its name is Persian[59] (indicating doubtless the channel whence it reached Europe) and ultimately derived from the Sanskrit word for testicle in allusion to the fact that it was contained in a pouch removed from the sexual parts of the male musk-deer. Musk odors, however, often of considerable strength, are very widely distributed in Nature, alike among animals and plants. This is indicated by the frequency with which the word "musk" forms part of the names of animals and plants which are by no means always nearly related. We have the musk-ox, the musky mole, several species called musk-rat, the musk-duct, the musk-beetle; while among plants which have received their names from a real or supposed musky odor are, besides several that are called musk-plant, the musk-rose, the musk-hyacinth, the musk-mallow, the musk-orchid, the musk-melon, the musk-cherry, the musk-pear, the musk-plum, muskat and muscatels, musk-seed, musk-tree, musk-wood, etc.[60] But a musky odor is not merely widespread in Nature among plants and the lower animals, it is peculiarly associated with man. Incidentally we have already seen how it is regarded as characteristic of some races of man, especially the Chinese. Moreover, the smell of the negress is said to be musky in character, and among Europeans a musky odor is said to be characteristic of blondes. Laycock, in his _Nervous Diseases of Women_, stated his opinion that "the musk odor is certainly the sexual odor of man"; and Féré states that the musk odor is that among natural perfumes most nearly approaching the odor of the sexual secretions. We have seen that the Chinese poet vaunts the musky odor of his mistress's armpits, while another Oriental saying concerning the attractive woman is that "her navel is filled with musk." Persian literature contains many references to musk as an attractive body odor, and Firdusi speaks of a woman's hair as "a crown of musk," while the Arabian poet Motannabi says of his mistress that "her hyacinthine hair smells sweeter than Scythian musk." Galopin stated that he knew women whose natural odor of musk (and less frequently of ambergris) was sufficiently strong to impart to a bath in less than an hour a perfume due entirely to the exhalations of the musky body; it must be added that Galopin was an enthusiast in this matter. The special significance of musk from our present point of view lies not only in the fact that we here have a perfume, widely scattered throughout nature and often in an agreeable form, which is at the same time a very frequent personal odor in man. Musk is the odor which not only in the animals to which it has given a name, but in many others, is a specifically sexual odor, chiefly emitted during the sexual season. The sexual odors, indeed, of most animals seem to be modifications of musk. The Sphinx moth has a musky odor which is confined to the male and is doubtless sexual. Some lizards have a musky odor which is heightened at the sexual season; crocodiles during the pairing season emit from their submaxillary glands a musky odor which pervades their haunts. In the same way elephants emit a musky odor from their facial glands during the rutting season. The odor of the musk-duck is chiefly confined to the breeding season.[61] The musky odor of the negress is said to be heightened during sexual excitement. The predominance of musk as a sexual odor is associated with the fact that its actual nervous influence, apart from the presence of sexual association, is very considerable. Féré found it to be a powerful muscular stimulant. In former times musk enjoyed a high reputation as a cardiac stimulant; it fell into disuse, but in recent years its use in asthenic states has been revived, and excellent results, it has been claimed, have followed its administration in cases of collapse from Asiatic cholera. For sexual torpor in women it still has (like vanilla and sandal) a certain degree of reputation, though it is not often used, and some of the old Arabian physicians (especially Avicenna) recommended it, with castoreum and myrrh, for amenorrhoea. Its powerful action is indicated by the experience of Esquirol, who stated that he had seen cases in which sensory stimulation by musk in women during lactation had produced mania. It has always had the reputation, more especially in the Mohammedan East, of being a sexual stimulant to men; "the noblest of perfumes," it is called in _El Ktab_, "and that which most provokes to venery." It is doubtless a fact significant of the special sexual effects of musk that, as Laycock remarked, in cases of special idiosyncrasy to odors, musk appears to be that odor which is most liked or disliked. Thus, the old English physician Whytt remarked that "several delicate women who could easily bear the stronger smell of tobacco have been thrown into fits by musk, ambergris, or a pale rose."[62] It may be remarked that in the _Perfumed Garden of Sheik Nefzaoui_ it is stated that it is by their sexual effects that perfumes tend to throw women into a kind of swoon, and Lucretius remarks that a woman who smells castoreum, another animal sexual perfume, at the time of her menstrual period may swoon.[63] Not only is musk the most cherished perfume of the Islamic world, and the special favorite of the Prophet himself, who greatly delighted in perfumes ("I love your world," he is reported to have said in old age, "for its women and its perfumes"),[64] it is the only perfume generally used by the women of a land in which the refinements of life have been carried so far as Japan, and they received it from the Chinese.[65] Moreover, musk is still the most popular of European perfumes. It is the perfumes containing musk, Piesse states in his well-known book on the _Art of Perfumery_, which sell best. It is certainly true that in its simple form the odor of musk is not nowadays highly considered in Europe. This fact is connected with the ever-growing refinement in accordance with which the specific odors of the sexual regions in human beings tend to lose their primitive attractiveness and bodily odors generally become mingled with artificial perfumes and so disguised. But, although musk in its simple form, and under its ancient name, has lost its hold in Europe, it is an interesting and significant fact that it is still the perfumes which contain musk that are the most widely popular. Peau d'Espagne may be mentioned as a highly complex and luxurious perfume, often the favorite scent of sensuous persons, which really owes a large part of its potency to the presence of the crude animal sexual odors of musk and civet. It consists of wash-leather steeped in ottos of neroli, rose, santal, lavender, verbena, bergamot, cloves, and cinnamon, subsequently smeared with civet and musk. It is said by some, probably with a certain degree of truth, that Peau d'Espagne is of all perfumes that which most nearly approaches the odor of a woman's skin; whether it also suggests the odor of leather is not so clear. There is, however, no doubt that the smell of leather has a curiously stimulating sexual influence on many men and women. It is an odor which seems to occupy an intermediate place between the natural body odors and the artificial perfumes for which it sometimes serves as a basis; possibly it is to this fact that its occasional sexual influence is owing, for, as we have already seen, there is a tendency for sexual allurement to attach to odors which are not the specific personal body odors but yet are related to them. Moll considers, no doubt rightly, that shoe fetichism, perhaps the most frequent of sexual fetichistic perversions, is greatly favored, if, indeed, it does not owe its origin to, the associated odor of the feet and of the shoes.[66] He narrates a case of shoe fetichism in a man in which the perversion began at the age of 6; when for the first time he wore new shoes, having previously used only the left-off shoes of his elder brother; he felt and smelt these new shoes with sensations of unmeasured pleasure; and a few years later began to use shoes as a method of masturbation.[67] Näcke has also recorded the case of a shoe fetichist who declared that the sexual attraction of shoes (usually his wife's) lay largely in the odor of the leather.[68] Krafft-Ebing, again, brings forward a case of shoe fetichism in which the significant fact is mentioned that the subject bought a pair of leather cuffs to smell while masturbating.[69] Restif de la Bretonne, who was somewhat of a shoe fetichist, appears to have enjoyed smelling shoes. It is not probable that the odor of leather explains the whole of shoe fetichism,--as we shall see when, in another "Study," this question comes before us--and in many cases it cannot be said to enter at all; it is, however, one of the factors. Such a conclusion is further supported by the fact that by many the odor of new shoes is sometimes desired as an adjuvant to coitus. It is in the experience of prostitutes that such a device is not infrequent. Näcke mentions that a colleague of his was informed by a prostitute that several of her clients desired the odor of new shoes in the room, and that she was accustomed to obtain the desired perfume by holding her shoes for a moment over the flame of a spirit lamp. The direct sexual influence of the odor of leather is, however, more conclusively proved by those instances in which it exists apart from shoes or other objects having any connection with the human body. I have elsewhere in these "Studies"[71] recorded the case of a lady, entirely normal in sexual and other respects, who is conscious of a considerable degree of pleasurable sexual excitement in the presence of the smell of leather objects, more especially of leather-bound ledgers and in shops where leather objects are sold. She thinks this dates from the period when, as a child of 9, she was sometimes left alone for a time on a high stool in an office. A possible explanation in this case lies in the supposition that on one of these early occasions sexual excitement was produced by the contact with the stool (in a way that is not infrequent in young girls) and that the accidentally associated odor of leather permanently affected the nervous system, while the really significant contact left no permanent impression. Even on such a supposition it might, however, still be maintained that a real potency of the leather odor is illustrated by this case, and this is likewise suggested by the fact that the same subject is also sexually affected by various perfumes and odorous flowers not recalling leather.[70] It has been suggested to me by a lady that the odor of leather suggests that of the sexual organs. The same suggestion is made by Hagen,[72] and I find it stated by Gould and Pyle that menstruating girls sometimes smell of leather. The secret of its influence may thus be not altogether obscure; in the fact that leather is animal skin, and that it may thus vaguely stir the olfactory sensibilities which had been ancestrally affected by the sexual stimulus of the skin odor lies the probable foundation of the mystery. In the absence of all suggestion of personal or animal odors, in its most exquisite forms in the fragrance of flowers, olfactory sensations are still very frequently of a voluptuous character. Mantegazza has remarked that it is a proof of the close connection between the sense of smell and the sexual organs that the expression of pleasure produced by olfaction resembles the expression of sexual pleasures.[73] Make the chastest woman smell the flowers she likes best, he remarks, and she will close her eyes, breathe deeply, and, if very sensitive, tremble all over, presenting an intimate picture which otherwise she never shows, except perhaps to her lover. He mentions a lady who said: "I sometimes feel such pleasure in smelling flowers that I seem to be committing a sin."[74] It is really the case that in many persons--usually, if not exclusively, women--the odor of flowers produces not only a highly pleasurable, but a distinctly and specifically sexual, effect. I have met with numerous cases in which this effect was well marked. It is usually white flowers with heavy, penetrating odors which exert this influence. Thus, one lady (who is similarly affected by various perfumes, forget-me-nots, ylang-ylang, etc.) finds that a number of flowers produce on her a definite sexual effect, with moistening of the pudenda. This effect is especially produced by white flowers like the gardenia, tuberose, etc. Another lady, who lives in India, has a similar experience with flowers. She writes: A scent to cause me sexual excitement must be somewhat heavy and _penetrating_. Nearly all white flowers so affect me and many Indian flowers with heavy, almost pungent scents. (All the flower scents are quite unconnected with me with any individual.) Tuberose, lilies of the valley, and frangipani flowers have an almost intoxicating effect on me. Violets, roses, mignonette, and many others, though very delicious, give me no sexual feeling at all. For this reason the line, 'The lilies and languors of virtue for the roses and raptures of vice' seems all wrong to me. The lily seems to me a very sensual flower, while the rose and its scent seem very good and countrified and virtuous. Shelley's description of the lily of the valley, 'whom youth makes so fair and _passion_ so pale,' falls in much more with my ideas. "I can quite understand," she adds, "that leather, especially of books, might have an exciting effect, as the smell has this _penetrating_ quality, but I do not think it produces any special feeling in me." This more sensuous character of white flowers is fairly obvious to many persons who do not experience from them any specifically sexual effects. To some people lilies have an odor which they describe as sexual, although these persons may be quite unaware that Hindu authors long since described the vulvar secretion of the _Padmini_, or perfect woman, during coitus, as "perfumed like the lily that has newly burst."[75] It is noteworthy that it was more especially the white flowers--lily, tuberose, etc.--which were long ago noted by Cloquet as liable to cause various unpleasant nervous effects, cardiac oppression and syncope.[76] When we are concerned with the fragrances of flowers it would seem that we are far removed from the human sexual field, and that their sexual effects are inexplicable. It is not so. The animal and vegetable odors, as, indeed, we have already seen, are very closely connected. The recorded cases are very numerous in which human persons have exhaled from their skins--sometimes in a very pronounced degree--the odors of plants and flowers, of violets, of roses, of pineapple, of vanilla. On the other hand, there are various plant odors which distinctly recall, not merely the general odor of the human body, but even the specifically sexual odors. A rare garden weed, the stinking goosefoot, _Chenopodium vulvaria_, it is well known, possesses a herring brine or putrid fish odor--due, it appears, to propylamin, which is also found in the flowers of the common white thorn or mayflower (_Cratægus oxyacantha_) and many others of the _Rosaceæ_--which recalls the odor of the animal and human sexual regions.[77] The reason is that both plant and animal odors belong chemically to the same group of capryl odors (Linnæus's _Odores hircini_), so called from the goat, the most important group of odors from the sexual point of view. Caproic and capryl acid are contained not only in the odor of the goat and in human sweat, and in animal products as many cheeses, but also in various plants, such as Herb Robert (_Geranium robertianum_), and the Stinking St. John's worts (_Hypericum hircinum_), as well as the _Chenopodium_. Zwaardemaker considers it probable that the odor of the vagina belongs to the same group, as well as the odor of semen (which Haller called _odor aphrodisiacus_), which last odor is also found, as Cloquet pointed out, in the flowers of the common berberry (_Berberis vulgaris_) and in the chestnut. A very remarkable and significant example of the same odor seems to occur in the case of the flowers of the henna plant, the white-flowered Lawsonia (_Lawsonia inermis_), so widely used in some Mohammedan lands for dyeing the nails and other parts of the body. "These flowers diffuse the sweetest odor," wrote Sonnini in Egypt a century ago; "the women delight to wear them, to adorn their houses with them, to carry them to the baths, to hold them in their hands, and to perfume their bosoms with them. They cannot patiently endure that Christian and Jewish women shall share the privilege with them. It is very remarkable that the perfume of the henna flowers, when closely inhaled, is almost entirely lost in a very decided spermatic odor. If the flowers are crushed between the fingers this odor prevails, and is, indeed, the only one perceptible. It is not surprising that so delicious a flower has furnished Oriental poetry with many charming traits and amorous similes." Such a simile Sonnini finds in the _Song of Songs_, i. 13-14.[78] The odor of semen has not been investigated, but, according to Zwaardemaker, artificially produced odors (like cadaverin) resemble it. The odor of the leguminous fenugreek, a botanical friend considers, closely approaches the odor given off in some cases by the armpit in women. It is noteworthy that fenugreek contains cumarine, which imparts its fragrance to new-mown hay and to various flowers of somewhat similar odor. On some persons these have a sexually exciting effect, and it is of considerable interest to observe that they recall to many the odor of semen. "It seems very natural," a lady writes, "that flowers, etc., should have an exciting effect, as the original and by far the pleasantest way of love-making was in the open among flowers and fields; but a more purely physical reason may, I think, be found in the exact resemblance between the scent of semen and that of the pollen of flowering grasses. The first time I became aware of this resemblance it came on me with a rush that here was the explanation of the very exciting effect of a field of flowering grasses and, perhaps through them, of the scents of other flowers. If I am right, I suppose flower scents should affect women more powerfully than men in a sexual way. I do not think anyone would be likely to notice the odor of semen in this connection unless they had been greatly struck by the exciting effects of the pollen of grasses. I had often noticed it and puzzled over it." As pollen is the male sexual element of flowers, its occasionally stimulating effect in this direction is perhaps but an accidental result of a unity running through the organic world, though it may be perhaps more simply explained as a special form of that nasal irritation which is felt by so many persons in a hay-field. Another correspondent, this time a man, tells me that he has noted the resemblance of the odor of semen to that of crushed grasses. A scientific friend who has done much work in the field of organic chemistry tells me he associates the odor of semen with that produced by diastasic action on mixing flour and water, which he regards as sexual in character. This again brings us to the starchy products of the leguminous plants. It is evident that, subtle and obscure as many questions in the physiology and psychology of olfaction still remain, we cannot easily escape from their sexual associations. FOOTNOTES: [53] H. Beauregard, _Matière Médicale Zoölogique: Histoire des Drogues d'origine Animate_, 1901. [54] Professor Plateau, of Ghent, has for many years carried on a series of experiments which would even tend to show that insects are scarcely attracted by the colors of flowers at all, but mainly influenced by a sense which would appear to be smell. His experiments have been recorded during recent years (from 1887) in the _Bulletins de l'Académie Royale de Belgique_, and have from time to time been summarized in _Nature_, e.g., February 5, 1903. [55] David Sharp, _Cambridge Natural History: Insects_, Part II, p. 398. [56] Mantegazza, _Fisiologia dell' Amore_, 1873, p. 176. [57] Mantegazza (_L'Amour dans l'Humanité_, p. 94) refers to various peoples who practice this last custom. Egypt was a great centre of the practice more than 3000 years ago. [58] Hagen, _Sexuelle Osphrésiologie_, 1901, p. 226. It has been suggested to me by a medical correspondent that one of the primitive objects of the hair, alike on head, mons veneris, and axilla, was to collect sweat and heighten its odor to sexual ends. [59] The names of all our chief perfumes are Arabic or Persian: civet, musk, ambergris, attar, camphor, etc. [60] Cloquet (_Osphrésiologie_, pp. 73-76) has an interesting passage on the prevalence of the musk odor in animals, plants, and even mineral substances. [61] Laycock brings together various instances of the sexual odors of animals, insisting on their musky character (_Nervous Diseases of Women_; section, "Odors"). See also a section in the _Descent of Man_ (Part II, Chapter XVIII), in which Darwin argues that "the most odoriferous males are the most successful in winning the females." Distant also has an interesting paper on this subject, "Biological Suggestions," _Zoölogist_, May, 1902; he points out the significant fact that musky odors are usually confined to the male, and argues that animal odors generally are more often attractive than protective. [62] R. Whytt, _Works_, 1768, p. 543. [63] Lucretius, VI, 790-5. [64] Mohammed, said Ayesha, was very fond of perfumes, especially "men's scents," musk and ambergris. He used also to burn camphor on odoriferous wood and enjoy the fragrant smell, while he never refused perfumes when offered them as a present. The things he cared for most, said Ayesha, were women, scents, and foods. Muir, _Life of Mahomet_, vol. iii, p. 297. [65] H. ten Kate, _International Centralblatt für Anthropologie_, Ht. 6, 1902. This author, who made observations on Japanese with Zwaardemaker's olfactometer, found that, contrary to an opinion sometimes stated, they have a somewhat defective sense of smell. He remarks that there are no really native Japanese perfumes. [66] Moll: _Die Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, 1890, p. 306. [67] Moll: _Libido Sexualis_, bd. 1, p. 284. [68] P. Näcke, "Un Cas de Fetichisme de Souliers," _Bulletin de la Société de Médecine Mentale de Belgique_, 1894. [69] _Psychopathia Sexualis_, English edition, p. 167. [70] Philip Salmuth (_Observationes Medicæ_, Centuria II, no. 63) in the seventeenth century recorded a case in which a young girl of noble birth (whose sister was fond of eating chalk, cinnamon, and cloves) experienced extreme pleasure in smelling old books. It would appear, however, that in this case the fascination lay not so much in the odor of the leather as in the mouldy odor of worm-eaten books; "_fætore veterum liborum, a blattis et tineis exesorum, situque prorsus corruptorum_" are Salmuth's words. [71] _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, vol. iii, "Appendix B, History VIII." [72] _Sexuelle Osphrésiologie_, p. 106. [73] Mantegazza, _Fisiologia dell' Amore_, p. 176. [74] In this connection I may quote the remark of the writer of a thoughtful article in the _Journal of Psychological Medicine_, 1851: "The use of scents, especially those allied to the musky, is one of the luxuries of women, and in some constitutions cannot be indulged without some danger to the morals, by the excitement to the ovaria which results. And although less potent as aphrodisiacs in their action on the sexual system of women than of men, we have reason to think that they cannot be used to excess with impunity by most." [75] _Kama Sutra_ of Vatsyayana, 1883, p. 5. [76] Cloquet, _Osphrésiologie_, p. 95. [77] In Normandy the _Chenopodium_, it is said, is called "conio," and in Italy erba connina (con, cunnus), on account of its vulvar odor. The attraction of dogs to this plant has been noted. In the same way cats are irresistibly attracted to preparations of valerian because their own urine contains valerianic acid. [78] Sonnini, _Voyage dans la Haute et Basse Egypte_, 1799, vol. i. p. 298. V. The Evil Effects of Excessive Olfactory Stimulation--The Symptoms of Vanillism--The Occasional Dangerous Results of the Odors of Flowers--Effects of Flowers on the Voice. The reality of the olfactory influences with which we have been concerned, however slight they may sometimes appear, is shown by the fact that odors, both agreeable and disagreeable, are stimulants, obeying the laws which hold good for stimulants generally. They whip up the nervous energies momentarily, but in the end, if the excitation is excessive and prolonged, they produce fatigue and exhaustion. This is clearly shown by Féré's elaborate experiments on the influences of odors, as compared with other sensory stimulants, on the amount of muscular work performed with the ergograph.[79] Commenting on the remark of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, that "man uses perfumes to impart energy to his passion," Féré remarks: "But perfumes cannot keep up the fires which they light." Their prolonged use involves fatigue, which is not different from that produced by excessive work, and reproduces all the bodily and psychic accompaniments of excessive work.[80] It is well known that workers in perfumes are apt to suffer from the inhalation of the odors amid which they live. Dealers in musk are said to be specially liable to precocious dementia. The symptoms generally experienced by the men and women who work in vanilla factories where the crude fruit is prepared for commerce have often been studied and are well known. They are due to the inhalation of the scent, which has all the properties of the aromatic aldehydes, and include skin eruptions,[81] general excitement, sleeplessness, headache, excessive menstruation, and irritable bladder. There is nearly always sexual excitement, which may be very pronounced.[82] We are here in the presence, it may be insisted, not of a nervous influence only, but of a direct effect of odor on the vital processes. The experiments of Tardif on the influence of perfumes on frogs and rabbits showed that a poisonous effect was exerted;[83] while Féré, by incubating fowls' eggs in the presence of musk, found repeatedly that many abnormalities occurred, and that development was retarded even in the embryos that remained normal; while he obtained somewhat similar results by using essences of lavender, cloves, etc.[84] The influence of odors is thus deeper than is indicated by their nervous effects; they act directly on nutrition. We are led, as Passy remarks, to regard odors as very intimately related to the physiological properties of organic substances, and the sense of smell as a detached fragment of generally sensibility, reacting to the same stimuli as general sensibility, but highly specialized in view of its protective function. The reality and subtlety of the influence of odors is further shown, by the cases in which very intense effects are produced even by the temporary inhalation of flowers or perfumes or other odors. Such cases of idiosyncrasy in which a person--frequently of somewhat neurotic temperament--becomes acutely sensitive to some odor or odors have been recorded in medical literature for many centuries. In these cases the obnoxious odor produces congestion of the respiratory passages, sneezing, headache, fainting, etc., but occasionally, it has been recorded, even death. (Dr. J.N. Mackenzie, in his interesting and learned paper on "The Production of the so-called 'Rose Cold,' etc.," _American Journal of Medical Sciences_, January, 1886, quotes many cases, and gives a number of references to ancient medical authors; see also Layet, art. "Odeur," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_.) An interesting phenomenon of the group--though it is almost too common to be described as an idiosyncrasy--is the tendency of the odor of certain flowers to affect the voice and sometimes even to produce complete loss of voice. The mechanism of the process is not fully understood, but it would appear that congestion and paresis of the larynx is produced and spasm of the bronchial tube. Botallus in 1565 recorded cases in which the scent of flowers brought on difficulty of breathing, and the danger of flowers from this point of view is well recognized by professional singers. Joal has studied this question in an elaborate paper (summarized in the _British Medical Journal_, March 3, 1895), and Dr. Cabanès has brought together (_Figaro_, January 20, 1894) the experiences of a number of well-known singers, teachers of singing, and laryngologists. Thus, Madame Renée Richard, of the Paris Opera, has frequently found that when her pupils have arrived with a bunch of violets fastened to the bodice or even with a violet and iris sachet beneath the corset, the voice has been marked by weakness and, on using the laryngoscope, she has found the vocal cords congested. Madame Calvé confirmed this opinion, and stated that she was specially sensitive to tuberose and mimosa, and that on one occasion a bouquet of white lilac has caused her, for a time, complete loss of voice. The flowers mentioned are equally dangerous to a number of other singers; the most injurious flower of all is found to be the violet. The rose is seldom mentioned, and artificial perfumes are comparatively harmless, though some singers consider it desirable to be cautious in using them. FOOTNOTES: [79] Féré, _Travail et Plaisir_, Chapter XIII. [80] _Travail et Plaisir_, p. 175. It is doubtless true of the effects of odors on the sexual sphere. Féré records the case of a neurasthenic lady whose sexual coldness toward her husband only disappeared after the abandonment of a perfume (in which heliotrope was apparently the chief constituent) she had been accustomed to use in excessive amounts. [81] It is perhaps significant that many colors are especially liable to produce skin disorders, especially urticaria; a number of cases have been recorded by Joal, _Journal de Médecine_, July 10, 1899. [82] Layet, art. "Vanillisme," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_; cf. Audeoud, _Revue Médicale de la Suisse Romande_, October 20, 1899, summarized in the _British Medical Journal_, 1899. [83] E. Tardif, _Les Odeurs et Parfums_, Chapter III. [84] Féré, _Société de Biologie_, March 28, 1896. VI. The Place of Smell in Human Sexual Selections--It has given Place to the Predominance of Vision largely because in Civilized Man it Fails to Act at a Distance--It still Plays a Part by Contributing to the Sympathies or the Antipathies of Intimate Contact. When we survey comprehensively the extensive field we have here rapidly traversed, it seems not impossible to gain a fairly accurate view of the special place which olfactory sensations play in human sexual selection. The special peculiarity of this group of sensations in man, and that which gives them an importance they would not otherwise possess, is due to the fact that we here witness the decadence of a sense which in man's remote ancestors was the very chiefest avenue of sexual allurement. In man, even the most primitive man,--to some degree even in the apes,--it has declined in importance to give place to the predominance of vision.[85] Yet, at that lower threshold of acuity at which it persists in man it still bathes us in a more or less constant atmosphere of odors, which perpetually move us to sympathy or to antipathy, and which in their finer manifestations we do not neglect, but even cultivate with the increase of our civilization. It thus comes about that the grosser manifestations of sexual allurement by smell belong, so far as man is concerned, to a remote animal past which we have outgrown and which, on account of the diminished acuity of our olfactory organs, we could not completely recall even if we desired to; the sense of sight inevitably comes into play long before it is possible for close contact to bring into action the sense of smell. But the latent possibilities of sexual allurement by olfaction, which are inevitably embodied in the nervous structure we have inherited from our animal ancestors, still remain ready to be called into play. They emerge prominently from time to time in exceptional and abnormal persons. They tend to play an unusually larger part in the psychic lives of neurasthenic persons, with their sensitive and comparatively unbalanced nervous systems, and this is doubtless the reason why poets and men of letters have insisted on olfactory impressions so frequently and to so notable a degree; for the same reason sexual inverts are peculiarly susceptible to odors. For a different reason, warmer climates, which heighten all odors and also favor the growth of powerfully odorous plants, lead to a heightened susceptibility to the sexual and other attractions of smell even among normal persons; thus we find a general tendency to delight in odors throughout the East, notably in India, among the ancient Hebrews, and in Mohammedan lands. Among the ordinary civilized population in Europe the sexual influences of smell play a smaller and yet not altogether negligible part. The diminished prominence of odors only enables them to come into action, as sexual influences, on close contact, when, in some persons at all events, personal odors may have a distinct influence in heightening sympathy or arousing antipathy. The range of variation among individuals is in this matter considerable. In a few persons olfactory sympathy or antipathy is so pronounced that it exerts a decisive influence in their sexual relationships; such persons are of olfactory type. In other persons smell has no part in constituting sexual relationships, but it comes into play in the intimate association of love, and acts as an additional excitant; when reinforced by association such olfactory impressions may at times prove irresistible. Other persons, again, are neutral in this respect, and remain indifferent either to the sympathetic or antipathetic working of personal odors, unless they happen to be extremely marked. It is probable that the majority of refined and educated people belong to the middle group of those persons who are not of predominantly olfactory type, but are liable from time to time to be influenced in this manner. Women are probably at least as often affected in this manner as men, probably more often. On the whole, it may be said that in the usual life of man odors play a not inconsiderable part and raise problems which are not without interest, but that their demonstrable part in actual sexual selection--whether in preferential mating or in assortative mating--is comparatively small. FOOTNOTES: [85] Moll has a passage on this subject, _Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_. Bd. I, pp. 376-381. HEARING. I. The Physiological Basis of Rhythm--Rhythm as a Physiological Stimulus--The Intimate Relation of Rhythm to Movement--The Physiological Influence of Music on Muscular Action, Circulation, Respiration, etc.--The Place of Music in Sexual Selection among the Lower Animals--Its Comparatively Small Place in Courtship among Mammals--The Larynx and Voice in Man--The Significance of the Pubertal Changes--Ancient Beliefs Concerning the Influence of Music in Morals, Education, and Medicine--Its Therapeutic Uses--Significance of the Romantic Interest in Music at Puberty--Men Comparatively Insusceptible to the Specifically Sexual Influence of Music--Rarity of Sexual Perversions on the Basis of the Sense of Hearing--The Part of Music in Primitive Human Courtship--Women Notably Susceptible to the Specifically Sexual Influence of Music and the Voice. The sense of rhythm--on which it may be said that the sensory exciting effects of hearing, including music, finally rest--may probably be regarded as a fundamental quality of neuro-muscular tissue. Not only are the chief physiological functions of the body, like the circulation and the respiration, definitely rhythmical, but our senses insist on imparting a rhythmic grouping even to an absolutely uniform succession of sensations. It seems probable, although this view is still liable to be disputed, that this rhythm is the result of kinæsthetic sensations,--sensations arising from movement or tension started reflexly in the muscles by the external stimuli,--impressing themselves on the sensations that are thus grouped.[86] We may thus say, with Wilks, that music appears to have had its origin in muscular action.[87] Whatever its exact origin may be, rhythm is certainly very deeply impressed on our organisms. The result is that, whatever lends itself to the neuro-muscular rhythmical tendency of our organisms, whatever tends still further to heighten and develop that rhythmical tendency, exerts upon us a very decidedly stimulating and exciting influence. All muscular action being stimulated by rhythm, in its simple form or in its more developed form as music, rhythm is a stimulant to work. It has even been argued by Bücher and by Wundt[88] that human song had its chief or exclusive origin in rhythmical vocal accompaniments to systematized work. This view cannot, however, be maintained; systematized work can scarcely be said to exist, even to-day, among most very primitive races; it is much more probable that rhythmical song arose at a period antecedent to the origin of systematized work, in the primitive military, religious, and erotic dances, such as exist in a highly developed degree among the Australians and other savage races who have not evolved co-ordinated systematic labor. There can, however, be no doubt that as soon as systematic work appears the importance of vocal rhythm in stimulating its energy is at once everywhere recognized. Bücher has brought together innumerable examples of this association, and in the march music of soldiers and the heaving and hoisting songs of sailors we have instances that have universally persisted into civilization, although in civilization the rhythmical stimulation of work, physiologically sound as is its basis, tends to die out. Even in the laboratory the influence of simple rhythm in increasing the output of work may be demonstrated; and Féré found with the ergograph that a rhythmical grouping of the movements caused an increase of energy which often more than compensated the loss of time caused by the rhythm.[89] Rhythm is the most primitive element of music, and the most fundamental. Wallaschek, in his book on _Primitive Music_, and most other writers on the subject are agreed on this point. "Rhythm," remarks an American anthropologist,[90] "naturally precedes the development of any fine perception of differences in pitch, of time-quality, or of tonality. Almost, if not all, Indian songs," he adds, "are as strictly developed out of modified repetitions of a motive as are the movements of a Mozart or a Beethoven symphony." "In all primitive music," asserts Alice C. Fletcher,[91] "rhythm is strongly developed. The pulsations of the drum and the sharp crash of the rattles are thrown against each other and against the voice, so that it would seem that the pleasure derived by the performers lay not so much in the tonality of the song as in the measured sounds arrayed in contesting rhythm, and which by their clash start the nerves and spur the body to action, for the voice which alone carries the tone is often subordinated and treated as an additional instrument." Groos points out that a melody gives us the essential impression of a _voice that dances_;[92] it is a translation of spatial movement into sound, and, as we shall see, its physiological action on the organism is a reflection of that which, as we have elsewhere found,[93] dancing itself produces, and thus resembles that produced by the sight of movement. Dancing, music, and poetry were primitively so closely allied as to be almost identical; they were still inseparable among the early Greeks. The refrains in our English ballads indicate the dancer's part in them. The technical use of the word "foot" in metrical matters still persists to show that a poem is fundamentally a dance. Aristotle seems to have first suggested that rhythm and melodies are motions, as actions are motions, and therefore signs of feeling. "All melodies are motions," says Helmholtz. "Graceful rapidity, gravel procession, quiet advance, wild leaping, all these different characters of motion and a thousand others can be represented by successions of tones. And as music expresses these motions it gives an expression also to those mental conditions which naturally evoke similar motions, whether of the body and the voice, or of the thinking and feeling principle itself." (Helmholtz, _On the Sensations of Tone_, translated by A. J. Ellis, 1885, p. 250.) From another point of view the motor stimulus of music has been emphasized by Cyples: "Music connects with the only sense that can be perfectly manipulated. Its emotional charm has struck men as a great mystery. There appears to be no doubt whatever that it gets all the marvelous effects it has beyond the mere pleasing of the ear, from its random, but multitudinous summonses of the efferent activity, which at its vague challenges stirs unceasingly in faintly tumultuous irrelevancy. In this way, music arouses aimlessly, but splendidly, the sheer, as yet unfulfilled, potentiality within us." (W. Copies, _The Process of Human Experience_, p. 743.) The fundamental element of transformed motion in music has been well brought out in a suggestive essay by Goblot ("La Musique Descriptive," _Revue Philosophique_, July, 1901): "Sung or played, melody figures to the ear a successive design, a moving arabesque. We talk of _ascending_ and _descending_ the gamut, of _high_ notes or _low_ notes; the; higher voice of woman is called _soprano_, or _above_, the deeper voice of man is called _bass_. _Grave_ tones were so called by the Greeks because they seemed heavy and to incline downward. Sounds seem to be subject to the action of gravity; so that some rise and others fall. Baudelaire, speaking of the prelude to _Lohengrin_, remarks: 'I felt myself _delivered from the bonds of weight_.' And when Wagner sought to represent, in the highest regions of celestial space, the apparition of the angels bearing the Holy Grail to earth, he uses very high notes, and a kind of chorus played exclusively by the violins, divided into eight parts, in the highest notes of their register. The descent to earth of the celestial choir is rendered by lower and lower notes, the progressive disappearance of which represents the reascension to the ethereal regions. "Sounds seem to rise and fall; that is a fact. It is difficult to explain it. Some have seen in it a habit derived from the usual notation by which the height of the note corresponds to its height in the score. But the impression is too deep and general to be explained by so superficial and recent a cause. It has been suggested also that high notes are generally produced by small and light bodies, low notes by heavy bodies. But that is not always true. It has been said, again, that high notes in nature are usually produced by highly placed objects, while low notes arise from caves and low placed regions. But the thunder is heard in the sky, and the murmur of a spring or the song of a cricket arise from the earth. In the human voice, again, it is said, the low notes seem to resound in the chest, high notes in the head. All this is unsatisfactory. We cannot explain by such coarse analogies an impression which is very precise, and more sensible (this fact has its importance) for an interval of half a tone than for an interval of an octave. It is probable that the true explanation is to be found in the still little understood connection between the elements of our nervous apparatus. "Nearly all our emotions tend to produce movement. But education renders us economical of our acts. Most of these movements are repressed, especially in the adult and civilized man, as harmful, dangerous, or merely useless. Some are not completed, others are reduced to a faint incitation which externally is scarcely perceptible. Enough remain to constitute all that is expressive in our gestures, physiognomy, and attitudes. Melodic intervals possess in a high degree this property of provoking impulses of movement, which, even when repressed, leave behind internal sensations and motor images. It would be possible to study these facts experimentally if we had at our disposition a human being who, while retaining his sensations and their motor reactions, was by special circumstances rendered entirely spontaneous like a sensitive automaton, whose movements were neither intentionally produced nor intentionally repressed. In this way, melodic intervals in a hypnotized subject might be very instructive." A number of experiments of the kind desired by Goblot had already been made by A. de Rochas in a book, copiously illustrated by very numerous instantaneous photographs, entitled _Les Sentiments, la Musique et la Geste_, 1900. Chapter III. De Rochas experimented on a single subject, Lina, formerly a model, who was placed in a condition of slight hypnosis, when various simple fragments of music were performed: recitatives, popular airs, and more especially national dances, often from remote parts of the world. The subject's gestures were exceedingly marked and varied in accordance with the character of the music. It was found that she often imitated with considerable precision the actual gestures of dances she could never have seen. The same music always evoked the same gestures, as was shown by instantaneous photographs. This subject, stated to be a chaste and well-behaved girl, exhibited no indications of definite sexual emotion under the influence of any kind of music. Some account is given in the same volume of other hypnotic experiments with music which were also negative as regards specific sexual phenomena. It must be noted that, as a physiological stimulus, a single musical note is effective, even apart from rhythm, as is well shown by Féré's experiments with the dynamometer and the ergograph.[94] It is, however, the influence of music on muscular work which has been most frequently investigated, and both on brief efforts with the dynamometer and prolonged work with the ergograph it has been found to exert a stimulating influence. Thus, Scripture found that, while his own maximum thumb and finger grip with the dynamometer is 8 pounds, when the giant's motive from Wagner's _Rheingold_ is played it rises to 8¾ pounds.[95] With the ergograph Tarchanoff found that lively music, in nervously sensitive persons, will temporarily cause the disappearance of fatigue, though slow music in a minor key had an opposite effect.[96] The varying influence on work with the ergograph of different musical intervals and different keys has been carefully studied by Féré with many interesting results. There was a very considerable degree of constancy in the results. Discords were depressing; most, but not all, major keys were stimulating; and most, but not all, minor keys depressing. In states of fatigue, however, the minor keys were more stimulating than the major, an interesting result in harmony with that stimulating influence of various painful emotions in states of organic fatigue which we have elsewhere encountered when investigating sadism.[97] "Our musical culture," Féré remarks, "only renders more perceptible to us the unconscious relationships which exist between musical art and our organisms. Those whom we consider more endowed in this respect have a deeper penetration of the phenomena accomplished within them; they feel more profoundly the marvelous reactions between the organism and the principles of musical art, they experience more strongly that art is within them."[98] Both the higher and the lower muscular processes, the voluntary and the involuntary, are stimulated by music. Darlington and Talbot, in Titchener's laboratory at Cornell University, found that the estimation of relative weights was aided by music.[99] Lombard found, when investigating the normal variations in the knee-jerk, that involuntary reflex processes are always reinforced by music; a military band playing a lively march caused the knee-jerk to increase at the loud passages and to diminish at the soft passages, while remaining always above the normal level.[100] With this stimulating influence of rhythm and music on the neuro-muscular system--which may or may not be direct--there is a concomitant influence on the circulatory and breathing apparatus. During recent years a great many experiments have been made on man and animals bearing on the effects of music on the heart and respiration. Perhaps the earliest of these were carried out by the Russian physiologist Dogiel in 1880.[101] His methods were perhaps defective and his results, at all events as regards man, uncertain, but in animals the force and rapidity of the heart were markedly increased. Subsequent investigations have shown very clearly the influence of music on the circulatory and respiratory systems in man as well as in animals. That music has an apparently direct influence on the circulation of the brain is shown by the observations of Patrizi on a youth who had received a severe wound of the head which had removed a large portion of the skull wall. The stimulus of melody produced an immediate increase in the afflux of blood to the brain.[102] In Germany the question was investigated at about the same time by Mentz.[103] Observing the pulse with a sphygmograph and Marey tambour he found distinct evidence of an effect on the heart; when attention was given to the music the pulse was quickened, in the absence of attention it was slowed; Mentz also found that pleasurable sensations tended to slow the pulse and disagreeable ones to quicken it. Binet and Courtier made an elaborate series of experiments on the action of music on the respiration (with the double pneumograph), the heart, and the capillary circulation (with the plethysmograph of Hallion and Comte) on a single subject, a man very sensitive to music and himself a cultured musician. Simple musical sounds with no emotional content accelerated the respiration without changing its regularity or amplitude. Musical fragments, mostly sung, usually well known to the subject, and having an emotional effect on him, produced respiratory irregularity either in amplitude or rapidity of breathing, in two-thirds of the trials. Exciting music, such as military marches, accelerated the breathing more than sad melodies, but the intensity of the excitation had an effect at least as great as its quality, for intense excitations always produced both quickened and deeper breathing. The heart was quickened in harmony with the quickened breathing. Neither breathing nor heart was ever slowed. As regards the capillary pulsation, an influence was exerted chiefly, if not exclusively, by gay and exciting melodies, which produced a shrinking. Throughout the experiments it was found that the most profound physiological effects were exerted by those pieces which the subject found to be most emotional in their influence on him.[104] Guibaud studied the question on a number of subjects, confirming and extending the conclusions of Binet and Courtier. He found that the reactions of different individuals varied, but that for the same individual reactions were constant. Circulatory reaction was more often manifest than respiratory reaction. The latter might be either a simultaneous modification of depth and of rapidity or of either of these. The circulatory reaction was a peripheral vasoconstriction with diminished fullness of pulse and slight acceleration of cardiac rhythm; there was never any distinct slowing of heart under the influence of music. Guibaud remarks that when people say they feel a shudder at some passage of music, this sensation of cold finds its explanation in the production of a peripheral vasoconstriction which may be registered by the plethysmograph.[105] Since music thus directly and powerfully affects the chief vital processes, it is not surprising that it should indirectly influence various viscera and functions. As Tarchanoff and others have demonstrated, it affects the skin, increasing the perspiration; it may produce a tendency to tears; it sometimes produces desire to urinate, or even actual urination, as in Scaliger's case of the Gascon gentleman who was always thus affected on hearing the bagpipes. In dogs it has been shown by Tarchanoff and Wartanoff that auditory stimulation increases the consumption of oxygen 20 per cent., and the elimination of carbonic acid 17 per cent. In addition to the effects of musical sound already mentioned, it may be added that, as Epstein, of Berne, has shown,[106] the other senses are stimulated under the influence of sound, and notably there is an increase in acuteness of vision which may be experimentally demonstrated. It is probable that this effect of music in heightening the impressions received by the other senses is of considerable significance from our present point of view. Why are musical tones in a certain order and rhythm pleasurable? asked Darwin in _The Descent of Man_, and he concluded that the question was insoluble. We see that, in reality, whatever the ultimate answer may be, the immediate reason is quite simple. Pleasure is a condition of slight and diffused stimulation, in which the heart and breathing are faintly excited, the neuro-muscular system receives additional tone, the viscera gently stirred, the skin activity increased; and certain combinations of musical notes and intervals act as a physiological stimulus in producing these effects.[107] Among animals of all kinds, from insects upward, this physiological action appears to exist, for among nearly all of them certain sounds are agreeable and attractive, and other sounds indifferent and disagreeable. It appears that insects of quite different genera show much appreciation of the song of the Cicada.[108] Birds show intense interest in the singing of good performers even of other species. Experiments among a variety of animals in the Zoölogical Gardens with performances on various instruments showed that with the exception of seals none were indifferent, and all felt a discord as offensive. Many animals showed marked likes and dislikes; thus, a tiger, who was obviously soothed by the violin, was infuriated by the piccolo; the violin and the flute were preferred by most animals.[109] Most persons have probably had occasion to observe the susceptibility of dogs to music. It may here suffice to give one personal observation. A dog (of mixed breed, partly collie), very well known to me, on hearing a nocturne of Chopin, whined and howled, especially at the more pathetic passages, once or twice catching and drawing out the actual note played; he panted, walked about anxiously, and now and then placed his head on the player's lap. When the player proceeded to a more cheerful piece by Grieg, the dog at once became indifferent, sat down, yawned, and scratched himself; but as soon as the player returned once more to the nocturne the dog at once repeated his accompaniment. There can be no doubt that among a very large number of animals of most various classes, more especially among insects and birds, the attraction of music is supported and developed on the basis of sexual attraction, the musical notes emitted serving as a sexual lure to the other sex. The evidence on this point was carefully investigated by Darwin on a very wide basis.[110] It has been questioned, some writers preferring to adopt the view of Herbert Spencer,[111] that the singing of birds is due to "overflow of energy," the relation between courtship and singing being merely "a relation of concomitance." This view is no longer tenable; whatever the precise origin of the musical notes of animals may be,--and it is not necessary to suppose that sexual attraction had a large part in their first rudimentary beginnings,--there can now be little doubt that musical sounds, and, among birds, singing, play a very large part indeed in bringing the male and the female together.[112] Usually, it would appear, it is the performance of the male that attracts the female; it is only among very simple and primitive musicians, like some insects, that the female thus attracts the male.[113] The fact that it is nearly always one sex only that is thus musically gifted should alone have sufficed to throw suspicion on any but a sexual solution of this problem of animal song. It is, however, an exceedingly remarkable fact that, although among insects and lower vertebrates the sexual influence of music is so large, and although among mammals and predominantly in man the emotional and æsthetic influence of music is so great, yet neither in man nor any of the higher mammals has music been found to exert a predominant sexual influence, or even in most cases any influence at all. Darwin, while calling attention to the fact that the males of most species of mammals use their vocal powers chiefly, and sometimes exclusively, during the breeding-season, adds that "it is a surprising fact that we have not as yet any good evidence that these organs are used by male mammals to charm the female."[114] From a very different standpoint, Féré, in studying the pathology of the human sexual instinct in the light of a very full knowledge of the available evidence, states that he knows of no detailed observations showing the existence of any morbid sexual perversions based on the sense of hearing, either in reference to the human voice or to instrumental music.[115] When, however, we consider that not only in the animals most nearly related to man, but in man himself, the larynx and the voice undergo a marked sexual differentiation at puberty, it is difficult not to believe that this change has an influence on sexual selection and sexual psychology. At puberty there is a slight hyperæmia of the larynx, accompanied by rapid development alike of the larynx itself and of the vocal cords, which become larger and thicker, while there is an associated change in the voice, which deepens. All these changes are very slight in girls, but very pronounced in boys, whose voices are said to "break" and then become lower by at least an octave. The feminine larynx at puberty only increases in the proportion of 5 to 7, but the masculine larynx in the proportion of 5 to 10. The direct dependence of this change on the general sexual development is shown not merely by its occurrence at puberty, but by the fact that in eunuchs in whom the testicles have been removed before puberty the voice retains its childlike qualities.[116] As a matter of fact, I believe that we may attach a considerable degree of importance to the voice and to music generally as a method of sexual appeal. On this point I agree with Moll, who remarks that "the sense of hearing here plays a considerable part, and the stimulation received through the ears is much larger than is usually believed."[117] I am not, however, inclined to think that this influence is considerable in its action on men, although Mantegazza remarks, doubtless with a certain truth, that "some women's voices cannot be heard with impunity." It is true that the ancients deprecated the sexual or at all events the effeminating influence of some kinds of music, but they seem to have regarded it as sedative rather than stimulating; the kind of music they approved of as martial and stimulating was the kind most likely to have sexual effects in predisposed persons. The Chinese and the Greeks have more especially insisted on the ethical qualities of music and on its moralizing and demoralizing effects. Some three thousand years ago, it is stated, a Chinese emperor, believing that only they who understood music are capable of governing, distributed administrative functions in accordance with this belief. He acted entirely in accordance with Chinese morality, the texts of Confucianism (see translations in the "Sacred Books of the East Series") show clearly that music and ceremony (or social ritual in a wide sense) are regarded as the two main guiding influences of life--music as the internal guide, ceremony as the external guide, the former being looked upon as the more important. Among the Greeks Menander said that to many people music is a powerful stimulant to love. Plato, in the third book of the _Republic_, discusses what kinds of music should be encouraged in his ideal state. He does not clearly state that music is ever a sexual stimulant, but he appears to associate plaintive music (mixed Lydian and Hypolydian) with drunkenness, effeminacy, and idleness and considers that such music is "useless even to women that are to be virtuously given, not to say to men." He only admits two kinds of music: one violent and suited to war, the other tranquil and suited to prayer or to persuasion. He sets out the ethical qualities of music with a thoroughness which almost approaches the great Chinese philosopher: "On these accounts we attach such importance to a musical education, because rhythm and harmony sink most deeply into the recesses of the soul, and take most powerful hold of it, bringing gracefulness in their train, and making a man graceful if he be rightly nurtured, ... leading him to commend beautiful objects, and gladly receive them into his soul, and feed upon them, and grow to be noble and good." Plato is, however, by no means so consistent and thorough as the Chinese moralist, for having thus asserted that it is the influence of music which molds the soul into virtue, he proceeds to destroy his position with the statement that "we shall never become truly musical until we know the essential forms of temperance and courage and liberality and munificence," thus moving in a circle. It must be added that the Greek conception of music was very comprehensive and included poetry. Aristotle took a wider view of music than Plato and admitted a greater variety of uses for it. He was less anxious to exclude those uses which were not strictly ethical. He disapproved, indeed, of the Phrygian harmony as the expression of Bacchic excitement. He accepts, however, the function of music as a katharsis of emotion, a notion which is said to have originated with the Pythagoreans. (For a discussion of Aristotle's views on music, see W.L. Newman, _The Politics of Aristotle_, vol. i, pp. 359-369.) Athenæus, in his frequent allusions to music, attributes to it many intellectual and emotional properties (e.g., Book XIV, Chapter XXV) and in one place refers to "melodies inciting to lawless indulgence" (Book XIII, Chapter LXXV). We may gather from the _Priapeia_ (XXVI) that cymbals and castanets were the special accompaniment in antiquity of wanton songs and dances: "_cymbala, cum crotalis, pruriginis arma_." The ancient belief in the moralizing influence of music has survived into modern times mainly in a somewhat more scientific form as a belief in its therapeutic effects in disordered nervous and mental conditions. (This also is an ancient belief as witnessed by the well-known example of David playing to Saul to dispel his melancholia.) In 1729 an apothecary of Oakham, Richard Broune, published a work entitled _Medicina Musica_, in which he argued that music was beneficial in many maladies. In more recent days there have been various experiments and cases brought forward showing its efficacy in special conditions. An American physician (W.F. Hutchinson) has shown that anæsthesia may be produced with accurately made tuning forks at certain rates of vibration (summarized in the _British Medical Journal_, June 4, 1898). Ferrand in a paper read before the Paris Academy of Medicine in September, 1895, gives reasons for classing some kinds of music as powerful antispasmodics with beneficial therapeutic action. The case was subsequently reported of a child in whom night-terrors were eased by calming music in a minor key. The value of music in lunatic asylums is well recognized; see e.g., Näcke, _Revue de Psychiatrie_, October, 1897. Vaschide and Vurpas (_Comptes Rendus de la Société de Biologie_, December 13, 1902) have recorded the case of a girl of 20, suffering from mental confusion with excitation and central motor disequilibrium, whose muscular equilibrium was restored and movements rendered more co-ordinated and adaptive under the influence of music. While there has been much extravagance in the ancient doctrine concerning the effects of music, the real effects are still considerable. Not only is this demonstrated by the experiments already referred to (p. 118), indicating the efficacy of musical sounds as physiological stimulants, but also by anatomical considerations. The roots of the auditory nerves, McKendrick has pointed out, are probably more widely distributed and have more extensive connections than those of any other nerve. The intricate connections of these nerves are still only being unraveled. This points to an explanation of how music penetrates to the very roots of our being, influencing by associational paths reflex mechanisms both cerebral and somatic, so that there is scarcely a function of the body that may not be affected by the rhythmical pulsations, melodic progressions, and harmonic combinations of musical tones. (_Nature_, June 15, 1899, p. 164.) Just as we are not entitled from the ancient belief in the influence of music on morals or the modern beliefs in its therapeutic influence--even though this has sometimes gone to the length of advocating its use in impotence[118]--to argue that music has a marked influence in exciting the specifically sexual instincts, neither are we entitled to find any similar argument in the fact that music is frequently associated with the love-feelings of youth. Men are often able to associate many of their earliest ideas of love in boyhood with women singing or playing; but in these cases it will always be found that the fascination was romantic and sentimental, and not specifically erotic.[119] In adult life the music which often seems to us to be most definitely sexual in its appeal (such as much of Wagner's _Tristan_) really produces this effect in part from the association with the story, and in part from the intellectual realization of the composer's effort to translate passion into æsthetic terms; the actual effect of the music is not sexual, and it can well be believed that the results of experiments as regards the sexual influence of the _Tristan_ music on men under the influence of hypnotism have been, as reported, negative. Helmholtz goes so far as to state that the expression of sexual longing in music is identical with that of religious longing. It is quite true, again, that a soft and gentle voice seems to every normal man as to Lear "an excellent thing in woman," and that a harsh or shrill voice may seem to deaden or even destroy altogether the attraction of a beautiful face. But the voice is not usually in itself an adequate or powerful method of evoking sexual emotion in a man. Even in its supreme vocal manifestations the sexual fascination exerted by a great singer, though certainly considerable, cannot be compared with that commonly exerted by the actress. Cases have, indeed, been recorded--chiefly occurring, it is probable, in men of somewhat morbid nervous disposition--in which sexual attraction was exerted chiefly through the ear, or in which there was a special sexual sensibility to particular inflections or accents.[120] Féré mentions the case of a young man in hospital with acute arthritis who complained of painful erections whenever he heard through the door the very agreeable voice of the young woman (invisible to him) who superintended the linen.[121] But these phenomena do not appear to be common, or, at all events, very pronounced. So far as my own inquiries go, only a small proportion of men would appear to experience definite sexual feelings on listening to music. And the fact that in woman the voice is so slightly differentiated from that of the child, as well as the very significant fact that among man's immediate or even remote ancestors the female's voice can seldom have served to attract the male, sufficiently account for the small part played by the voice and by music as a sexual allurement working on men.[122] It is otherwise with women. It may, indeed, be said at the outset that the reasons which make it antecedently improbable that men should be sexually attracted through hearing render it probable that women should be so attracted. The change in the voice at puberty makes the deeper masculine voice a characteristic secondary sexual attribute of man, while the fact that among mammals generally it is the male that is most vocal--and that chiefly, or even sometimes exclusively, at the rutting season--renders it antecedently likely that among mammals generally, including the human species, there is in the female an actual or latent susceptibility to the sexual significance of the male voice,[123] a susceptibility which, under the conditions of human civilization, may be transferred to music generally. It is noteworthy that in novels written by women there is a very frequent attentiveness to the qualities of the hero's voice and to its emotional effects on the heroine.[124] We may also note the special and peculiar personal enthusiasm aroused in women by popular musicians, a more pronounced enthusiasm than is evoked in them by popular actors. As an interesting example of the importance attached by women novelists to the effects of the male voice I may refer to George Eliot's _Mill on the Floss_, probably the most intimate and personal of George Eliot's works. In Book VI of this novel the influence of Stephen Guest (a somewhat commonplace young man) over Maggie Tulliver is ascribed almost exclusively to the effect of his base voice in singing. We are definitely told of Maggie Tulliver's "sensibility to the supreme excitement of music." Thus, on one occasion, "all her intentions were lost in the vague state of emotion produced by the inspiring duet--emotion that seemed to make her at once strong and weak: strong for all enjoyment, weak for all resistance. Poor Maggie! She looked very beautiful when her soul was being played on in this way by the inexorable power of sound. You might have seen the slightest perceptible quivering through her whole frame as she leaned a little forward, clasping her hands as if to steady herself; while her eyes dilated and brightened into that wideopen, childish expression of wondering delight, which always came back in her happiest moments." George Eliot's novels contain many allusions to the powerful emotional effects of music. It is unnecessary to refer to Tolstoy's _Kreutzer Sonata_, in which music is regarded as the Galeotto to bring lovers together--"the connecting bond of music, the most refined lust of the senses." In primitive human courtship music very frequently plays a considerable part, though not usually the sole part, being generally found as the accompaniment of the song and the dance at erotic festivals.[125] The Gilas, of New Mexico, among whom courtship consists in a prolonged serenade day after day with the flute, furnish a somewhat exceptional case. Savage women are evidently very attentive to music; Backhouse (as quoted, by Ling Roth[126]) mentions how a woman belonging to the very primitive and now extinct Tasmanian race, when shown a musical box, listened "with intensity; her ears moved like those of a dog or horse, to catch the sound." I have found little evidence to show that music, except in occasional cases, exerts even the slightest specifically sexual effect on men, whether musical or unmusical. But I have ample evidence that it very frequently exerts to a slight but definite extent such an influence on women, even when quite normal. Judging from my own inquiries it would, indeed, seem likely that the majority of normal educated women are liable to experience some degree of definite sexual excitement from music; one states that orchestral music generally tends to produce this effect; another finds it chiefly from Wagner's music; another from military music, etc. Others simply state--what, indeed, probably expresses the experience of most persons of either sex--that it heightens one's mood. One lady mentions that some of her friends, whose erotic feelings are aroused by music, are especially affected in this way by the choral singing in Roman Catholic churches.[127] In the typical cases just mentioned, all fairly normal and healthy women, the sexual effects of music though definite were usually quite slight. In neuropathic subjects they may occasionally be more pronounced. Thus, a medical correspondent has communicated to me the case of a married lady with one child, a refined, very beautiful, but highly neurotic, woman, married to a man with whom she has nothing in common. Her tastes lie in the direction of music; she is a splendid pianist, and her highly trained voice would have made a fortune. She confesses to strong sexual feelings and does not understand why intercourse never affords what she knows she wants. But the hearing of beautiful music, or at times the excitement of her own singing, will sometimes cause intense orgasm. Vaschide and Vurpas, who emphasize the sexually stimulating effects of music, only bring forward one case in any detail, and it is doubtless significant that this case is a woman. "While listening to a piece of music X changes expression, her eyes become bright, the features are accentuated, a smile begins to form, an expression of pleasure appears, the body becomes more erect, there is a general muscular hypertonicity. X tells us that as she listens to the music she experiences sensations very like those of normal intercourse. The difference chiefly concerns the local genital apparatus, for there is no flow of vaginal mucus. On the psychic side the resemblance is marked." (Vaschide and Vurpas, "Du Coefficient Sexual de l'Impulsion Musicale," _Archives de Neurologie_, May, 1904.) It is sometimes said, or implied, that a woman (or a man) sings better under the influence of sexual emotion. The writer of an article already quoted, on "Woman in her Psychological Relations" (_Journal of Psychological Medicine_, 1851), mentions that "a young lady remarkable for her musical and poetical talents naïvely remarked to a friend who complimented her upon her singing: 'I never sing half so well as when I've had a love-fit.'" And George Eliot says. "There is no feeling, perhaps, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not make a man sing or play the better." While, however, it may be admitted that some degree of general emotional exaltation may exercise a favorable influence on the singing voice, it is difficult to believe that definite physical excitement at or immediately before the exercise of the voice can, as a rule, have anything but a deleterious effect on its quality. It is recognized that tenors (whose voices resemble those of women more than basses, who are not called upon to be so careful in this respect) should observe rules of sexual hygiene; and menstruation frequently has a definite influence in impairing the voice (H. Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition, p. 290). As the neighborhood of menstruation is also the period when sexual excitement is most likely to be felt, we have here a further indication that sexual emotion is not favorable to singing. I agree with the remarks of a correspondent, a musical amateur, who writes: "Sexual excitement and good singing do not appear to be correlated. A woman's emotional capacity in singing or acting may be remotely associated with hysterical neuroses, but is better evinced for art purposes in the absence of disturbing sexual influences. A woman may, indeed, fancy herself the heroine of a wanton romance and 'let herself go' a little in singing with improved results. But a memory of sexual ardors will help no woman to make the best of her voice in training. Some women can only sing their best when they think of the other women they are outsinging. One girl 'lets her soul go out into her voice' thinking of jamroll, another thinking of her lover (when she has none), and most, no doubt, when they think of nothing. But no woman is likely to 'find herself' in an artistic sense because she has lost herself in another sense--not even if she has done so quite respectably." The reality of the association between the sexual impulse and music--and, indeed, art generally--is shown by the fact that the evolution of puberty tends to be accompanied by a very marked interest in musical and other kinds of art. Lancaster, in a study of this question among a large number of young people (without reference to difference in sex, though they were largely female), found that from 50 to 75 per cent of young people feel an impulse to art about the period of puberty, lasting a few months, or at most a year or two. It appears that 464 young people showed an increased and passionate love for music, against only 102 who experienced no change in this respect. The curve culminates at the age of 15 and falls rapidly after 16. Many of these cases were really quite unmusical.[128] FOOTNOTES: [86] This view has been more especially developed by J.B. Miner, _Motor, Visual, and Applied Rhythms_, Psychological Review Monograph Supplements, vol. v, No. 4, 1903. [87] Sir S. Wilks, _Medical Magazine_, January, 1894; cf. Clifford Allbutt, "Music, Rhythm, and Muscle," _Nature_, February 8, 1894. [88] Bücher, _Arbeit und Rhythmus_, third edition, 1902; Wundt, _Völkerpsychologie_, 1900, Part I, p. 265. [89] Féré deals fully with the question in his book, _Travail et Plaisir_, 1904, Chapter III, "Influence du Rhythme sur le Travail." [90] Fillmore, "Primitive Scales and Rhythms," _Proceedings of the International Congress of Anthropology_, Chicago, 1893. [91] "Love Songs among the Omaha Indians," in _Proceedings_ of same congress. [92] Groos, _Spiele der Menschen_, p. 33. [93] "Analysis of the Sexual Impulse," _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, vol. iii. [94] Féré, _Sensation et Mouvement_, Chapter V; id., _Travail et Plaisir_, Chapter XII. [95] Scripture, _Thinking, Feeling, Doing_, p. 85. [96] Tarchanoff, "Influence de la Musique sur l'Homme et sur les Animaux," _Atti dell' XI Congresso Medico Internationale_, Rome, 1894, vol. ii, p. 153; also in _Archives Italiennes de Biologie_, 1894. [97] "Love and Pain," _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, vol. iii. [98] Féré, _Travail et Plaisir_, Chapter XII, "Action Physiologique des Sens Musicaux." "A practical treatise on harmony," Goblot remarks (_Revue Philosophique_, July, 1901, p. 61), "ought to tell us in what way such an interval, or such a succession of intervals, affects us. A theoretical treatise on harmony ought to tell us the explanation of these impressions. In a word, musical harmony is a psychological science." He adds that this science is very far from being constituted yet; we have hardly even obtained a glimpse of it. [99] _American Journal of Psychology_, April, 1898. [100] _American Journal of Psychology_, November, 1887. The influence of rhythm on the involuntary muscular system is indicated by the occasional effect of music in producing a tendency to contraction of the bladder. [101] _Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie_ (Physiologisches Abtheilung), 1880, p. 420. [102] M.L. Patrizi, "Primi esperimenti intorno all' influenza della musica sulla circolozione del sangue nel cervello umano," _International Congress für Psychologie_, Munich, 1897, p. 176. [103] _Philosophische Studien_, vol. xi. [104] Binet and Courtier, "La Vie Emotionelle," _Année Psychologique_, Third Year, 1897, pp. 104-125. [105] Guibaud, _Contribution à l'étude expérimentale de l'influence de la musique sur la circulation et la respiration_. Thèse de Bordeaux, 1898, summarized in _Année Psychologique_, Fifth Year, 1899, pp. 645-649. [106] _International Congress of Physiology_, Berne, 1895. [107] The influence of association plays no necessary part in these pleasurable influences, for Féré's experiments show that an unmusical subject responds physiologically, with much precision, to musical intervals he is unable to recognize. R. MacDougall also finds that the effective quality of rhythmical sequences does not appear to be dependent on secondary associations (_Psychological Review_, January, 1903). [108] R.T. Lewis, in _Nature Notes_, August, 1891. [109] Cornish, "Orpheus at the Zoo," in _Life at the Zoo_, pp. 115-138. [110] _Descent of Man_, Chapters XIII and XIX. [111] "The Origin of Music" (1857), _Essays_, vol. ii. [112] Anyone who is in doubt on this point, as regards bird song, may consult the little book in which the evidence has been well summarized by Häcker, _Der Gesang der Vögel_, or the discussion in Groos's _Spiele der Thiere_, pp. 274 et seq. [113] Thus, mosquitoes are irresistibly attracted by music, and especially by those musical tones which resemble the buzzing of the female; the males alone are thus attracted. (Nuttall and Shipley, and Sir Hiram Maxim, quoted in _Nature_, October 31, 1901, p. 655, and in _Lancet_, February 22, 1902.) [114] _Descent of Man_, second edition, p. 567. Groos, in his discussion of music, also expresses doubt whether hearing plays a considerable part in the courtship of mammals, _Spiele der Menschen_, p. 22. [115] Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, second edition, p. 137. [116] See Biérent, _La Puberté_ Chapter IV; also Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition, pp. 270-272. Endriss (_Die Bisherigen Beobachtungen von Physiologischen und Pathologischen Beziehungen der oberen Luftwege zu den Sexualorganen_, Teil III) brings together various observations on the normal and abnormal relations of the larynx to the sexual sphere. [117] Moll, _Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, bd. 1, p. 133. [118] J.L. Roger, _Traité des Effets de la Musique_, 1803, pp. 234 and 342. [119] A typical example occurs in the early life of History I in Appendix B to vol. iii of these _Studies_. [120] Vaschide and Vurpas state (_Archives de Neurologie_, May, 1904) that in their experience music may facilitate sexual approaches in some cases of satiety, and that in certain pathological cases the sexual act can only be accomplished under the influence of music. [121] Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, p. 137. Bloch (_Beiträge_, etc., vol. ii, p. 355) quotes some remarks of Kistemaecker's concerning the sound of women's garments and the way in which savages and sometimes civilized women cultivate this rustling and clinking. Gutzkow, in his _Autobiography_, said that the _frou-frou_ of a woman's dress was the music of the spheres to him. [122] The voice is doubtless a factor of the first importance in sexual attraction among the blind. On this point I have no data. The expressiveness of the voice to the blind, and the extent to which their likes and dislikes are founded on vocal qualities, is well shown by an interesting paper written by an American physician, blind from early infancy, James Cocke, "The Voice as an Index to the Soul," _Arena_, January, 1894. [123] Long before Darwin had set forth his theory of sexual selection Laycock had pointed out the influence which the voice of the male, among man and other animals, exerts on the female (_Nervous Diseases of Women_, p. 74). And a few years later the writer of a suggestive article on "Woman in her Psychological Relations" (_Journal of Psychological Medicine_, 1851) remarked: "The sonorous voice of the male man is exactly analogous in its effect on woman to the neigh and bellow of other animals. This voice will have its effect on an amorous or susceptible organization much in the same way as color and the other visual ovarian stimuli." The writer adds that it exercises a still more important influence when modulated to music: "in this respect man has something in common with insects as well as birds." [124] Groos refers more than once to the important part played in German novels written by women by what one of them terms the "bearded male voice." [125] Various instances are quoted in the third volume of these _Studies_ when discussing the general phenomena of courtship and tumescence, "An Analysis of the Sexual Impulse." [126] _The Tasmanians_, p. 20. [127] An early reference to the sexual influence of music on women may perhaps be found in a playful passage in Swift's _Martinus Scriblerus_ (possibly due to his medical collaborator, Arbuthnot): "Does not Ælian tell how the Libyan mares were excited to horsing by music? (which ought to be a caution to modest women against frequenting operas)." _Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus_, Book I, Chapter 6. (The reference is to Ælian, _Hist. Animal_, lib. XI, cap. 18, and lib. XII, cap. 44.) [128] E. Lancaster, "Psychology of Adolescence," _Pedagogical Seminary_, July, 1897. II. Summary--Why the Influence of Music in Human Sexual Selection is Comparatively Small. We have seen that it is possible to set forth in a brief space the facts at present available concerning the influence on the pairing impulse of stimuli acting through the ear. They are fairly simple and uncomplicated; they suggest few obscure problems which call for analysis; they do not bring before us any remarkable perversions of feeling. At the same time, the stimuli to sexual excitement received through the sense of hearing, although very seldom of exclusive or preponderant influence, are yet somewhat more important than is usually believed. Primarily the voice, and secondarily instrumental music, exert a distinct effect in this direction, an effect representing a specialization of a generally stimulating physiological influence which all musical sounds exercise upon the organism. There is, however, in this respect, a definite difference between the sexes. It is comparatively rare to find that the voice or instrumental music, however powerful its generally emotional influence, has any specifically sexual effect on men. On the other hand, it seems probable that the majority of women, at all events among the educated classes, are liable to show some degree of sexual sensibility to the male voice or to instrumental music. It is not surprising to find that music should have some share in arousing sexual emotion when we bear in mind that in the majority of persons the development of sexual life is accompanied by a period of special interest in music. It is not unexpected that the specifically sexual effects of the voice and music should be chiefly experienced by women when we remember that not only in the human species is it the male in whom the larynx and voice are chiefly modified at puberty, but that among mammals generally it is the male who is chiefly or exclusively vocal at the period of sexual activity; so that any sexual sensibility to vocal manifestations must be chiefly or exclusively manifested in female mammals. At the best, however, although æsthetic sensibility to sound is highly developed and emotional sensibility to it profound and widespread, although women may be thrilled by the masculine voice and men charmed by the feminine voice, it cannot be claimed that in the human species hearing is a powerful factor in mating. This sense has here suffered between the lower senses of touch and smell, on the one hand, with their vague and massive appeal, and the higher sense, vision, on the other hand, with its exceedingly specialized appeal. The position of touch as the primary and fundamental sense is assured. Smell, though in normal persons it has no decisive influence on sexual attraction, acts by virtue of its emotional sympathies and antipathies, while, by virtue of the fact that among man's ancestors it was the fundamental channel of sexual sensibility, it furnishes a latent reservoir of impressions to which nervously abnormal persons, and even normal persons under the influence of excitement or of fatigue, are always liable to become sensitive. Hearing, as a sense for receiving distant perceptions has a wider field than is in man possessed by either touch or smell. But here it comes into competition with vision, and vision is, in man, the supreme and dominant sense.[129] We are always more affected by what we see than by what we hear. Men and women seldom hear each other without speedily seeing each other, and then the chief focus of interest is at once transferred to the visual centre.[130] In human sexual selection, therefore, hearing plays a part which is nearly always subordinated to that of vision. FOOTNOTES: [129] Nietzsche has even suggested that among primitive men delicacy of hearing and the evolution of music can only have been produced under conditions which made it difficult for vision to come into play: "The ear, the organ of fear, could only have developed, as it has, in the night and in the twilight of dark woods and caves.... In the brightness the ear is less necessary. Hence the character of music as an art of night and twilight." (_Morgenröthe_, p. 230.) [130] At a concert most people are instinctively anxious to _see_ the performers, thus distracting the purely musical impression, and the reasonable suggestion of Goethe that the performers should be invisible is still seldom carried into practice. VISION I. Primacy of Vision in Man--Beauty as a Sexual Allurement--The Objective Element in Beauty--Ideals of Feminine Beauty in Various Parts of the World--Savage Women sometimes Beautiful from European Point of View--Savages often Admire European Beauty--The Appeal of Beauty to some Extent Common even to Animals and Man. Vision is the main channel by which man receives his impressions. To a large extent it has slowly superseded all the other senses. Its range is practically infinite; it brings before us remote worlds, it enables us to understand the minute details of our own structure. While apt for the most abstract or the most intimate uses, its intermediate range is of universal service. It furnishes the basis on which a number of arts make their appeal to us, and, while thus the most æsthetic of the senses, it is the sense on which we chiefly rely in exercising the animal function of nutrition. It is not surprising, therefore, that from the point of view of sexual selection vision should be the supreme sense, and that the love-thoughts of men have always been a perpetual meditation of beauty. It would be out of place here to discuss comparatively the origins of our ideas of beauty. That is a question which belongs to æsthetics, not to sexual psychology, and it is a question on which æstheticians are not altogether in agreement. We need not even be concerned to make any definite assertion on the question whether our ideas of sexual beauty have developed under the influence of more general and fundamental laws, or whether sexual ideals themselves underlie our more general conceptions of beauty. Practically, so far as man and his immediate ancestors are concerned, the sexual and the extra-sexual factors of beauty have been interwoven from the first. The sexually beautiful object must have appealed to fundamental physiological aptitudes of reaction; the generally beautiful object must have shared in the thrill which the specifically sexual object imparted. There has been an inevitable action and reaction throughout. Just as we found that the sexual and the non-sexual influences of agreeable odors throughout nature are inextricably mingled, so it is with the motives that make an object beautiful to our eyes.[131] The sexual element in the constitution of beauty is well recognized even by those writers who concern themselves exclusively with the æsthetic conception of beauty or with its relation to culture. It is enough to quote two or three testimonies on this point. "The whole sentimental side of our æsthetic sensibility," remarks Santayana, "--without which it would be perceptive and mathematical rather than æsthetic,--is due to our sexual organization remotely stirred.... If anyone were desirous to produce a being with a great susceptibility to beauty, he could not invent an instrument better designed for that object than sex. Individuals that need not unite for the birth and rearing of each generation might retain a savage independence. For them it would not be necessary that any vision should fascinate, or that any languor should soften, the prying cruelty of the eye. But sex endows the individual with a dumb and powerful instinct, which carries his body and soul continually toward another; makes it one of the dearest enjoyments of his life to select and pursue a companion, and joins to possession the keenest pleasure, to rivalry the fiercest rage, and to solitude an eternal melancholy. What more could be needed to suffuse the world with the deepest meaning and beauty? The attention is fixed upon a well-defined object, and all the effects it produces in the mind are easily regarded as powers or qualities of that object.... To a certain extent this kind of interest will center in the proper object of sexual passion, and in the special characteristics of the opposite sex[131]; and we find, accordingly, that woman is the most lovely object to man, and man, if female modesty would confess it, the most interesting to woman. But the effects of so fundamental and primitive a reaction are much more general. Sex is not the only object of sexual passion. When love lacks its specific object, when it does not yet understand itself, or has been sacrificed to some other interest, we see the stifled fire bursting out in various directions.... Passion then overflows and visibly floods those neighboring regions which it had always secretly watered. For the same nervous organization which sex involves, with its necessarily wide branchings and associations in the brain, must be partially stimulated by other objects than its specific or ultimate one; especially in man, who, unlike some of the lower animals, has not his instincts clearly distinct and intermittent, but always partially active, and never active in isolation. We may say, then, that for man all nature is a secondary object of sexual passion, and that to this fact the beauty of nature is largely due." (G. Santayana, _The Sense of Beauty_, pp. 59-62.) Not only is the general fact of sexual attraction an essential element of æsthetic contemplation, as Santayana remarks, but we have to recognize also that specific sexual emotion properly comes within the æsthetic field. It is quite erroneous, as Groos well points out, to assert that sexual emotion has no æsthetic value. On the contrary, it has quite as much value as the emotion of terror or of pity. Such emotion, must, however, be duly subordinated to the total æsthetic effect. (K. Groos, _Der Æsthetische Genuss_, p. 151.) "The idea of beauty," Remy de Gourmont says, "is not an unmixed idea; it is intimately united with the idea of carnal pleasure. Stendhal obscurely perceived this when he defined beauty as 'a promise of happiness.' Beauty is a woman, and women themselves have carried docility to men so far as to accept this aphorism which they can only understand in extreme sexual perversion.... Beauty is so sexual that the only uncontested works of art are those that simply show the human body in its nudity. By its perseverance in remaining purely sexual Greek statuary has placed itself forever above all discussion. It is beautiful because it is a beautiful human body, such a one as every man or every woman would desire to unite with in the perpetuation of the race.... That which inclines to love seems beautiful; that which seems beautiful inclines to love. This intimate union of art and of love is, indeed, the only explanation of art. Without this genital echo art would never have been born and never have been perpetuated. There is nothing useless in these deep human depths; everything which has endured is necessary. Art is the accomplice of love. When love is taken away there is no art; when art is taken away love is nothing but a physiological need." (Remy de Gourmont, _Culture des Idées_, 1900, p. 103, and _Mercure de France_, August, 1901, pp. 298 et seq.) Beauty as incarnated in the feminine body has to some extent become the symbol of love even for women. Colin Scott finds that it is common among women who are not inverted for female beauty whether on the stage or in art to arouse sexual emotion to a greater extent than male beauty, and this is confirmed by some of the histories I have recorded in the Appendix to the third volume of these _Studies_. Scott considers that female beauty has come to be regarded as typical of ideal beauty, and thus tends to produce an emotional effect on both sexes alike. It is certainly rare to find any æsthetic admiration of men among women, except in the case of women who have had some training in art. In this matter it would seem that woman passively accepts the ideals of man. "Objects which excite a man's desire," Colin Scott remarks, "are often, if not generally, the same as those affecting woman. The female body has a sexually stimulating effect upon both sexes. Statues of female forms are more liable than those of male form to have a stimulating effect upon women as well as men. The evidence of numerous literary expressions seems to show that under the influence of sexual excitement a woman regards her body as made for man's gratification, and that it is this complex emotion which forms the initial stage, at least, of her own pleasure. Her body is the symbol for her partner, and indirectly for her, through his admiration of it, of their mutual joy and satisfaction." (Colin Scott, "Sex and Art," _American Journal of Psychology_, vol. vii, No. 2, p. 206; also private letter.) At the same time it must be remembered that beauty and the conception of beauty have developed on a wider basis than that of the sexual impulse only, and also that our conceptions of the beautiful, even as concerns the human form, are to some extent objective, and may thus be in part reduced to law. Stratz, in his books on feminine beauty, and notably in _Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers_, insists on the objective element in beauty. Papillault, again, when discussing the laws of growth and the beauty of the face, argues that beauty of line in the face is objective, and not a creation of fancy, since it is associated with the highest human functions, moral and social. He remarks on the contrast between the prehistoric man of Chancelade,--delicately made, with elegant face and high forehead,--who created the great Magdalenian civilization, and his seemingly much more powerful, but less beautiful, predecessor, the man of Spy, with enormous muscles and powerful jaws. (_Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie_, 1899, p. 220.) The largely objective character of beauty is further indicated by the fact that to a considerable extent beauty is the expression of health. A well and harmoniously developed body, tense muscles, an elastic and finely toned skin, bright eyes, grace and animation of carriage--all these things which are essential to beauty are the conditions of health. It has not been demonstrated that there is any correlation between beauty and longevity, and the proof would not be easy to give, but it is quite probable that such a correlation may exist, and various indications point in this direction. One of the most delightful of Opie's pictures is the portrait of Pleasance Reeve (afterward Lady Smith) at the age of 17. This singularly beautiful and animated brunette lived to the age of 104. Most people are probably acquainted with similar, if less marked, cases of the same tendency. The extreme sexual importance of beauty, so far, at all events, as conscious experience is concerned is well illustrated by the fact that, although three other senses may and often do play a not inconsiderable part in the constitution of a person's sexual attractiveness,--the tactile element being, indeed, fundamental,--yet in nearly all the most elaborate descriptions of attractive individuals it is the visible elements that are in most cases chiefly emphasized. Whether among the lowest savages or in the highest civilization, the poet and story-teller who seeks to describe an ideally lovely and desirable woman always insists mainly, and often exclusively, on those characters which appeal to the eye. The richly laden word _beauty_ is a synthesis of complex impressions obtained through a single sense, and so simple, comparatively, and vague are the impressions derived from the other senses that none of them can furnish us with any corresponding word. Before attempting to analyze the conception of beauty, regarded in its sexual appeal to the human mind, it may be well to bring together a few fairly typical descriptions of a beautiful woman as she appears to the men of various nations. In an Australian folklore story taken down from the lips of a native some sixty years ago by W. Dunlop (but evidently not in the native's exact words) we find this description of an Australian beauty: "A man took as his wife a beautiful girl who had long, glossy hair hanging around her face and down her shoulders, which were plump and round. Her face was adorned with red clay and her person wrapped in a fine large opossum rug fastened by a pin formed from the small bone of the kangaroo's leg, and also by a string attached to a wallet made of rushes neatly plaited of small strips skinned from their outside after they had been for some time exposed to the heat of the fire; which being thrown on her back, the string passing under one arm and across her breast, held the soft rug in a fanciful position of considerable elegance; and she knew well how to show to advantage her queenlike figure when she walked with her polished yam stick held in one of her small hands and her little feet appearing below the edge of the rug" (W. Dunlop, "Australian Folklore Stories," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, August and November, 1898, p. 27). A Malay description of female beauty is furnished by Skeat. "The brow (of the Malay Helen for whose sake a thousand desperate battles are fought in Malay romances) is like the one-day-old moon; her eyebrows resemble 'pictured clouds,' and are 'arched like the fighting-cock's (artificial) spur'; her cheek resembles the 'sliced-off cheek of a mango'; her nose, 'an opening jasmine bud'; her hair, the 'wavy blossom shoots of the areca-palm'; slender is her neck, 'with a triple row of dimples'; her bosom ripening, her waist 'lissom as the stalk of a flower,' her head; 'of a perfect oval' (literally, bird's-egg shaped), her fingers like the leafy 'spears of lemon-grass' or the 'quills of the porcupine,' her eyes 'like the splendor of the planet Venus,' and her lips 'like the fissure of a pomegranate.'" (W.W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_, 1900, p. 363.) In Mitford's _Tales of Old Japan_ (vol. i, p. 215) a "peerlessly beautiful girl of 16" is thus described: "She was neither too fat nor too thin, neither too tall nor too short; her face was oval, like a melon-seed, and her complexion fair and white;; her eyes were narrow and bright, her teeth small and even; her nose was aquiline, and her mouth delicately formed, with lovely red lips; her eyebrows were long and fine; she had a profusion of long black hair; she spoke modestly, with a soft, sweet voice, and when she smiled, two lovely dimples appeared in her cheeks; in all her movements she was gentle and refined." The Japanese belle of ancient times, Dr. Nagayo Sensai remarks (_Lancet_, February 15, 1890) had a white face, a long, slender throat and neck, a narrow chest, small thighs, and small feet and hands. Bälz, also, has emphasized the ethereal character of the Japanese ideal of feminine beauty, delicate, pale and slender, almost uncanny; and Stratz, in his interesting book, _Die Körperformen in Kunst und Leben der Japaner_ (second edition, 1904), has dealt fully with the subject of Japanese beauty. The Singalese are great connoisseurs of beauty, and a Kandyan deeply learned in the matter gave Dr. Davy the following enumeration of a woman's points of beauty: "Her hair should be voluminous, like the tail of the peacock, long, reaching to her knees, and terminating in graceful curls; her eyebrows should resemble the rainbow, her eyes, the blue sapphire and the petals of the blue manilla-flower. Her nose should be like the bill of the hawk; her lips should be bright and red, like coral or the young leaf of the iron-tree. Her teeth should be small, regular, and closely set, and like jessamine buds. Her neck should be large and round, resembling the berrigodea. Her chest should be capacious; her breasts, firm and conical, like the yellow cocoa-nut, and her waist small--almost small enough to be clasped by the hand. Her hips should be wide; her limbs tapering; the soles of her feet, without any hollow, and the surface of her body in general soft, delicate, smooth, and rounded, without the asperities of projecting bones and sinews." (J. Davy, _An Account of the Interior of Ceylon_, 1821, p. 110.) The "Padmini," or lotus-woman, is described by Hindu writers as the type of most perfect feminine beauty. "She in whom the following signs and symptoms appear is called a _Padmini_: Her face is pleasing as the full moon; her body, well clothed with flesh, is as soft as the Shiras or mustard flower; her skin is fine, tender, and fair as the yellow lotus, never dark colored. Her eyes are bright and beautiful as the orbs of the fawn, well cut, and with reddish corners. Her bosom is hard, full, and high; she; has a good neck; her nose is straight and lovely; and three folds or wrinkles cross her middle--about the umbilical region. Her _yoni_ [vulva] resembles the opening lotus bud, and her love-seed is perfumed like the lily that has newly burst. She walks with swanlike [more exactly, flamingolike] gait, and her voice is low and musical as the note of the Kokila bird [the Indian cuckoo]; she delights in white raiment, in fine jewels, and in rich dresses. She eats little, sleeps lightly, and being as respectful and religious as she is clever and courteous, she is ever anxious to worship the gods and to enjoy the conversation of Brahmans. Such, then, is the Padmini, or lotus-woman." (_The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana_, 1883, p. 11.) The Hebrew ideal of feminine beauty is set forth in various passages of the _Song of Songs_. The poem is familiar, and it will suffice to quote one passage:-- "How beautiful are thy feet in sandals, O prince's daughter! Thy rounded thighs are like jewels, The work of the hands of a cunning workman. Thy navel is like a rounded goblet Wherein no mingled wine is wanting; Thy belly is like a heap of wheat Set about with lilies. Thy two breasts are like two fawns They are twins of a roe. Thy neck is like the tower of ivory; Thine eyes as the pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bathrabbim; Thy nose is like the tower of Lebanon That looketh toward Damascus. Thine head upon thee is like Carmel And the hair of thine head like purple; The king is held captive in the tresses thereof. This thy stature is like to a palm-tree, And thy breasts to clusters of grapes, And the smell of thy breath like apples, And thy mouth like the best wine." And the man is thus described in the same poem:-- "My beloved is fair and ruddy, The chiefest among ten thousand. His head as the most fine gold, His locks are bushy (or curling), and black as a raven. His eyes are like doves beside the water-brooks, Washed with milk and fitly set. His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as banks of sweet herbs; His lips are as lilies, dropping liquid myrrh. His hands are as rings of gold, set with beryl; His body is as ivory work, overlaid with sapphires. His legs are as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold. His aspect is like Lebanon, excellent as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet; yea, he is altogether lovely." "The maiden whose loveliness inspires the most impassioned expressions in Arabic poetry," Lane states, "is celebrated for her slender figure: She is like the cane among plants, and is elegant as a twig of the oriental willow. Her face is like the full moon, presenting the strongest contrast to the color of her hair, which is of the deepest hue of night, and falls to the middle of her back (Arab ladies are extremely fond of full and long hair). A rosy blush overspreads the center of each cheek; and a mole is considered an additional charm. The Arabs, indeed, are particularly extravagant in their admiration of this natural beauty spot, which, according to its place, is compared to a drop of ambergris upon a dish of alabaster or upon the surface of a ruby. The eyes of the Arab beauty are intensely black,[132] large, and long, of the form of an almond: they are full of brilliancy; but this is softened by long silken lashes, giving a tender and languid expression that is full of enchantment and scarcely to be improved by the adventitious aid of the black border of kohl; for this the lovely maiden adds rather for the sake of fashion than necessity, having what the Arabs term natural kohl. The eyebrows are thin and arched; the forehead is wide and fair as ivory; the nose straight; the mouth, small; the lips of a brilliant red; and the teeth, like pearls set in coral. The forms of the bosom are compared to two pomegranates; the waist is slender; the hips are wide and large; the feet and hands, small; the fingers, tapering, and their extremities dyed with the deep orange tint imparted by the leaves of the henna." Lane adds a more minute analysis from an unknown author quoted by El-Ishákee: "Four things in a woman should be _black_--the hair of the head, the eyebrows, the eyelashes, and the dark part of the eyes; four _white_--the complexion of the skin, the white of the eyes, the teeth, and the legs; four _red_--the tongue, the lips, the middle of the cheeks, and the gums; four _round_--the head, the neck, the forearms, and the ankles; four _long_--the back, the fingers, the arms, and the legs; four _wide_--the forehead, the eyes, the bosom, and the hips; four _fine_--the eyebrows, the nose, the lips, and the fingers; four _thick_--the lower part of the back, the thighs, the calves of the legs, and the knees; four _small_--the ears, the breasts, the hands, and the feet." (E.W. Lane, _Arabian Society in the Middle Ages_, 1883, pp. 214-216.) A Persian treatise on the figurative terms relating to beauty shows that the hair should be black, abundant, and wavy, the eyebrows dark and arched. The eyelashes also must be dark, and like arrows from the bow of the eyebrows. There is, however, no insistence on the blackness of the eyes. We hear of four varieties of eye: the dark-gray eye (or narcissus eye); the narrow, elongated eye of Turkish beauties; the languishing, or love-intoxicated, eye; and the wine-colored eye. Much stress is laid on the quality of brilliancy. The face is sometimes described as brown, but more especially as white and rosy. There are many references to the down on the lips, which is described as greenish (sometimes bluish) and compared to herbage. This down and that on the cheeks and the stray hairs near the ears were regarded as very great beauties. A beauty spot on the chin, cheek, or elsewhere was also greatly admired, and evoked many poetic comparisons. The mouth must be very small. In stature a beautiful woman must be tall and erect, like the cypress or the maritime pine. While the Arabs admired the rosiness of the legs and thighs, the Persians insisted on white legs and compared them to silver and crystal. (_Anis El-Ochchâq_, by Shereef-Eddin Romi, translated by Huart, _Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes_, Paris, fasc. 25, 1875.) In the story of Kamaralzaman in the _Arabian Nights_ El-Sett Budur is thus described: "Her hair is so brown that it is blacker than the separation of friends. And when it is arrayed in three tresses that reach to her feet I seem to see three nights at once. "Her face is as white as the day on which friends meet again. If I look on it at the time of the full moon I see two moons at once. "Her cheeks are formed of an anemone divided into two corollas; they have the purple tinge of wine, and her nose is straighter and more delicate than the finest sword-blade. "Her lips are colored agate and coral; her tongue secretes eloquence; her saliva is more desirable than the juice of grapes. "But her bosom, blessed be the Creator, is a living seduction. It bears twin breasts of the purest ivory, rounded, and that may be held within the five fingers of one hand. "Her belly has dimples full of shade and arranged with the harmony of the Arabic characters on the seal of a Coptic scribe in Egypt. And the belly gives origin to her finely modeled and elastic waist. "At the thought of her flanks I shudder, for thence depends a mass so weighty that it obliges its owner to sit down when she has risen and to rise when she lies. "Such are her flanks, and from them descend, like white marble, her glorious thighs, solid and straight, united above beneath their crown. Then come the legs and the slender feet, so small that I am astounded they can bear so great a weight." An Egyptian stela in the Louvre sings the praise of a beautiful woman, a queen who died about 700 B.C., as follows: "The beloved before all women, the king's daughter who is sweet in love, the fairest among women, a maid whose like none has seen. Blacker is her hair than the darkness of night, blacker than the berries of the blackberry bush (?). Harder are her teeth (?) than the flints on the sickle. A wreath of flowers is each of her breasts, close nestling on her arms." Wiedemann, who quotes this, adds: "During the whole classic period of Egyptian history with few exceptions (such, for example, as the reign of that great innovator, Amenophis IV) the ideal alike for the male and the female body was a slender and but slightly developed form. Under the Ethiopian rule and during the Ptolemaic period in Egypt itself we find, for the first time, that the goddesses are represented with plump and well-developed outlines. Examination of the mummies shows that the earlier ideal was based upon actual facts, and that in ancient Egypt slender, sinewy forms distinguished both men and women. Intermarriage with other races and harem life may have combined in later times to alter the physical type, and with it to change also the ideal of beauty." (A. Wiedemann, _Popular Literature in Ancient Egypt_, p. 7.) Commenting on Plato's ideas of beauty in the _Banquet_ Eméric-David gives references from Greek literature showing that the typical Greek beautiful woman must be tall, her body supple, her fingers long, her foot small and light, the eyes clear and moderately large, the eyebrows slightly arched and almost meeting, the nose straight and firm, nearly--but not quite--aquiline, the breath sweet as honey. (Eméric-David, _Recherches sur l'Art Statuaire_, new edition, 1863, p. 42.) At the end of classic antiquity, probably in the fifth century, Aristænetus in his first Epistle thus described his mistress Lais: "Her cheeks are white, but mixed in imitation of the splendor of the rose; her lips are thin, by a narrow space separated from the cheeks, but more red; her eyebrows are black and divided in the middle; the nose straight and proportioned to the thin lips; the eyes large and bright, with very black pupils, surrounded by the clearest white, each color more brilliant by contrast. Her hair is naturally curled, and, as Homer's saying is, like the hyacinth. The neck is white and proportioned to the face, and though unadorned more conspicuous by its delicacy; but a necklace of gems encircles it, on which her name is written in jewels. She is tall and elegantly dressed in garments fitted to her body and limbs. When dressed her appearance is beautiful; when undressed she is all beauty. Her walk is composed and slow; she looks like a cypress or a palm stirred by the wind. I cannot describe how the swelling, symmetrical breasts raise the constraining vest, nor how delicate and supple her limbs are. And when she speaks, what sweetness in her discourse!" Renier has studied the feminine ideal of the Provençal poets, the troubadours who used the "langue d'oc." "They avoid any description of the feminine type. The indications refer in great part to the slender, erect, fresh appearance of the body, and to the white and rosy coloring. After the person generally, the eyes receive most praise; they are sweet, amorous, clear, smiling, and bright. The color is never mentioned. The mouth is laughing, and vermilion, and, smiling sweetly, it reveals the white teeth and calls for the delights of the kiss. The face is clear and fresh, the hand white and the hair constantly blonde. The troubadours seldom speak of the rest of the body. Peire Vidal is an exception, and his reference to the well-raised breasts may be placed beside a reference by Bertran de Born. The general impression conveyed by the love lyrics of the langue d'oc is one of great convention. There seemed to be no salvation outside certain phrases and epithets. The woman of Provence, sung by hundreds of poets, seems to have been composed all of milk and roses, a blonde Nuremburg doll." (R. Renier, _Il Tipo Estetico della Donna nel Medioevo_, 1885, pp. 1-24.) The conventional ideal of the troubadours is, again, thus described: "She is a lady whose skin is white as milk, whiter than the driven snow, of peculiar purity in whiteness. Her cheeks, on which vermilion hues alone appear, are like the rosebud in spring, when it has not yet opened to the full. Her hair, which is nearly always bedecked and adorned with flowers, is invariably of the color of flax, as soft as silk, and shimmering with a sheen of the finest gold." (J.F. Rowbotham, _The Troubadours and Courts of Love_, p. 228.) In the most ancient Spanish romances, Renier remarks, the definite indications of physical beauty are slight. The hair is "of pure gold," or simply fair (_rudios_, which is equal to _blondos_, a word of later introduction), the face white and rosy, the hand soft, white, and fragrant; in one place we find a reference to the uncovered breasts, whiter than crystal. But usually the ancient Castilian romances do not deal with these details. The poet contents himself with the statement that a lady is the sweetest woman in the world, "_la mas linda mujer del mundo_." (R. Renier, _Il Tipo Estetico della Donna nel Medioevo_, pp. 68 et seq.) In a detailed and well-documented thesis, Alwin Schultz describes the characteristics of the beautiful woman as she appealed to the German authors of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. She must be of medium height and slender. Her hair must be fair, like gold; long, bright, and curly; a man's must only reach to his shoulders. Dark hair is seldom mentioned and was not admired. The parting of the hair must be white, but not too broad. The forehead must be white and bright and rounded, without wrinkles. The eyebrows must be darker than the hair, arched, and not too broad, as though drawn with a pencil, the space between them not too broad. The eyes must be bright, clear, and sparkling, not too large or too small; nothing definite was said of the color, but they were evidently usually blue. The nose must be of medium size, straight, and not curved. The cheeks must be white, tinged with red; if the red was absent by nature women used rouge. The mouth must be small; the lips full and red. The teeth must be small, white, and even. The chin must be white, rounded, lovable, dimpled; the ears small and beautiful; the neck of medium size, soft, white, and spotless; the arm small; the hands and fingers long; the joints small, the nails white and bright and well cared for. The bosom must be white and large; the breasts high and rounded, like apples or pears, small and soft. The body generally must be slender and active. The lower parts of the body are very seldom mentioned, and many poets are even too modest to mention the breasts. The buttocks must be rounded, one poet, indeed, mentions, and the thighs soft and white, the _meinel_ (mons) brown. The legs must be straight and narrow, the calves full, the feet small and narrow, with high instep. The color of the skin generally must be clear and of a tempered rosiness. (A. Schultz, _Quid de Perfecta Corporis Humani Pulchritudine Germani Soeculi XII et XIII Senserint_, 1866.) A somewhat similar, but shorter, account is given by K. Weinhold (_Die Deutschen Frauen im Mittelalter_, 1882, bd. 1, pp. 219 et seq.). Weinhold considers that, like the French, the Germans admired the mixed eye, _vair_ or gray. Adam de la Halle, the Artois _trouvère_ of the thirteenth century, in a piece ("Li Jus Adan ou de la feuillie") in which he brings himself forward, thus describes his mistress: "Her hair had the brilliance of gold, and was twisted into rebellious curls. Her forehead was very regular, white, and smooth; her eyebrows, delicate and even, were two brown arches, which seemed traced with a brush. Her eyes, bright and well cut, seemed to me _vairs_ and full of caresses; they were large beneath, and their lids like little sickles, adorned by twin folds, veiled or revealed at her will her loving gaze. Between her eyes descended the pipe of her nose, straight and beautiful, mobile when she was gay; on either side were her rounded, white cheeks, on which laughter impressed two dimples, and which one could see blushing beneath her veil. Beneath the nose opened a mouth with blossoming lips; this mouth, fresh and vermilion as a rose, revealed the white teeth, in regular array; beneath the chin sprang the white neck, descending full and round to the shoulder. The powerful nape, white and without any little wandering hairs, protruded a little over the dress. To her sloping shoulders were attached long arms, large or slender where they so should be. What shall I say of her white hands, with their long fingers, and knuckles without knots, delicately ending in rosy nails attached to the flesh by a clear and single line? I come to her bosom with its firm breasts, but short and high pointed, revealing the valley of love between them, to her round belly, her arched flanks. Her hips were flat, her legs round, her calf large; she had a slender ankle, a lean and arched foot. Such she was as I saw her, and that which her chemise hid was not of less worth." (Houdoy, _La Beauté des Femmes_, p. 125, who quotes the original of this passage, considers it the ideal model of the mediæval woman.) In the twelfth century story of _Aucassin et Nicolette_, "Nicolette had fair hair, delicate and curling; her eyes were gray (_vairs_) and smiling; her face admirably modeled. Her nose was high and well placed; her lips small and more vermilion than the cherry or the rose in summer; her teeth were small and white; her firm little breasts raised her dress as would two walnuts. Her figure was so slender that you could inclose it with your two hands, and the flowers of the marguerite, which her toes broke as she walked with naked feet, seemed black in comparison with her feet and legs, so white was she." "Her hair was divided into a double tress," says Alain of Lille in the twelfth century, "which was long enough to kiss the ground; the parting, white as the lily and obliquely traced, separated the hair, and this want of symmetry, far from hurting her face, was one of the elements of her beauty. A golden comb maintained that abundant hair whose brilliance rivaled it, so that the fascinated eye could scarce distinguish the gold of the hair from the gold of the comb. The expanded forehead had the whiteness of milk, and rivaled the lily; her bright eyebrows shone like gold, not standing up in a brush, and, without being too scanty, orderly arranged. The eyes, serene and brilliant in their friendly light, seemed twin stars, her nostrils embalsamed with the odor of honey, neither too depressed in shape nor too prominent, were of distinguished form; the nard of her mouth offered to the smell a treat of sweet odors, and her half-open lips invited a kiss. The teeth seemed cut in ivory; her cheeks, like the carnation of the rose, gently illuminated her face and were tempered by the transparent whiteness of her veil. Her chin, more polished than crystal, showed silver reflections, and her slender neck fitly separated her head from the shoulders. The firm rotundity of her breasts attested the full expansion of youth; her charming arms, advancing toward you, seemed to call for caresses; the regular curve of her flanks, justly proportioned, completed her beauty. All the visible traits of her face and form thus sufficiently told what those charms must be that the bed alone knew." (The Latin text is given by Houdoy, _La Beauté des Femmes du XIIe au XVIe Siècle_, p. 119. Robert de Flagy's portrait of Blanchefleur in _Sarin-le-Loherain_, written in same century, reveals very similar traits.) "The young woman appeared with twenty brightly polished daggers and swords," we read in the Irish _Tain Bo Cuailgne_ of the Badhbh or Banshee who appeared to Meidhbh, "together with seven braids for the dead, of bright gold, in her right hand; a speckled garment of green ground, fastened by a bodkin at the breast under her fair, ruddy countenance, enveloped her form; her teeth were so new and bright that they appeared like pearls artistically set in her gums; like the ripe berry of the mountain ash were her lips; sweeter was her voice than the notes of the gentle harp-strings when touched by the most skillful fingers, and emitting the most enchanting melody; whiter than the snow of one night was her skin, and beautiful to behold were her garments, which reached to her well molded, bright-nailed feet; copious tresses of her tendriled, glossy, golden hair hung before, while others dangled behind and reached the calf of her leg." (_Ossianio Transactions_, vol. ii, p. 107.) An ancient Irish hero is thus described: "They saw a great hero approaching them; fairest of the heroes of the world; larger and taller than any man; bluer than ice his eye; redder than the fresh rowan berries his lips; whiter than showers of pearl his teeth; fairer than the snow of one night his skin; a protecting shield with a golden border was upon him, two battle-lances in his hands; a sword with knobs of ivory [teeth of the sea-horse], and ornamented with gold, at his side; he had no other accoutrements of a hero besides these; he had golden hair on his head, and had a fair, ruddy countenance." (_The Banquet of Dun na n-gedh_, translated by O'Donovan, _Irish Archæological Society_, 1842.) The feminine ideal of the Italian poets closely resembles that of those north of the Alps. Petrarch's Laura, as described in the _Canzoniere_, is white as snow; her eyes, indeed, are black, but the fairness of her hair is constantly emphasized; her lips are rosy; her teeth white; her cheeks rosy; her breast youthful; her hands white and slender. Other poets insist on the tall, white, delicate body; the golden or blonde hair; the bright or starry eyes (without mention of color), the brown or black arched eyebrows, the straight nose, the small mouth, the thin vermilion lips, the small and firm breasts. (Renier, _Il Tipo Estetico_, pp. 87 et seq.) Marie de France, a French mediæval writer of the twelfth century, who spent a large part of her life in England, in the _Lai of Lanval_ thus described a beautiful woman: "Her body was beautiful, her hips low, the neck whiter than snow, the eyes gray (_vairs_), the face white, the mouth beautiful, the nose well placed, the eyebrows brown, the forehead beautiful, the head curly and blonde; the gleam of gold thread was less bright than her hair beneath the sun." The traits of Boccaccio's ideal of feminine beauty, a voluptuous ideal as compared with the ascetic mediæval ideal which had previously prevailed, together with the characteristics of the very beautiful and almost classic garments in which he arrayed women, have been brought together by Hortis (_Studi sulle opere Latine del Boccaccio_, 1879, pp. 70 et seq.). Boccaccio admired fair and abundant wavy hair, dark and delicate eyebrows, and brown or even black eyes. It was not until some centuries later, as Hortis remarks, that Boccaccio's ideal woman was embodied by the painter in the canvases of Titian. The first precise description of a famous beautiful woman was written by Niphus in the sixteenth century in his _De Pulchro et Amore_, which is regarded as the first modern treatise on æsthetics. The lady described is Joan of Aragon, the greatest beauty of her time, whose portrait by Raphael (or more probably Giulio Romano) is in the Louvre. Niphus, who was the philosopher of the pontifical court and the friend of Leo X, thus describes this princess, whom, as a physician, he had opportunities of observing accurately: "She is of medium stature, straight, and elegant, and possesses the grace which can only be imparted by an assemblage of characteristics which are individually faultless. She is neither fat nor bony, but succulent; her complexion is not pale, but white tinged with rose; her long hair is golden; her ears are small and in proportion with the size of her mouth. Her brown eyebrows are semicircular, not too bushy, and the individual hairs short. Her eyes are blue (_oæsius_), brighter than stars, radiant with grace and gaiety beneath the dark-brown eyelashes, which are well spaced and not too long. The nose, symmetrical and of medium size, descends perpendicularly from between the eyebrows. The little valley separating the nose from the upper lip is divinely proportioned. The mouth, inclined to be rather small, is always stirred by a sweet smile; the rather thick lips are made of honey and coral. The teeth are small, polished as ivory, and symmetrically ranged, and the breath has the odor of the sweetest perfumes. Her voice is that of a goddess. The chin is divided by a dimple; the whole face approximates to a virile rotundity. The straight long neck, white and full, rises gracefully from the shoulders. On the ample bosom, revealing no indication of the bones, arise the rounded breasts, of equal and fitting size, and exhaling the perfume of the peaches they resemble. The rather plump hands, on the back like snow, on the palm like ivory, are exactly the length of the face; the full and rounded fingers are long and terminating in round, curved nails of soft color. The chest as a whole has the form of a pear, reversed, but a little compressed, and the base attached to the neck in a delightfully well-proportioned manner. The belly, the flanks, and the secret parts are worthy of the chest; the hips are large and rounded; the thighs, the legs, and the arms are in just proportion. The breadth of the shoulders is also in the most perfect relation to the dimensions of the other parts of the body; the feet, of medium length, terminate in beautifully arranged toes." (Houdoy reproduces this passage in _La Beauté des Femmes_; cf. also Stratz, _Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers_, Chapter III.) Gabriel de Minut, who published in 1587 a treatise of no very great importance, _De la Beauté_, also wrote under the title of _La Paulegraphie_ a very elaborate description, covering sixty pages, of Paule de Viguier, a Gascon lady of good family and virtuous life living at Toulouse. Minut was her devoted admirer and addressed an affectionate poem to her just before his death. She was seventy years of age when he wrote the elaborate account of her beauty. She had blue eyes and fair hair, though belonging to one of the darkest parts of France. Ploss and Bartels (_Das Weib_, bd. 1, sec. 3) have independently brought together a number of passages from the writers of many countries describing their ideals of beauty. On this collection I have not drawn. When we survey broadly the ideals of feminine beauty set down by the peoples of many lands, it is interesting to note that they all contain many features which appeal to the æsthetic taste of the modern European, and many of them, indeed, contain no features which obviously clash with his canons of taste. It may even be said that the ideals of some savages affect us more sympathetically than some of the ideals of our own mediæval ancestors. As a matter of fact, European travelers in all parts of the world have met with women who were gracious and pleasant to look on, and not seldom even in the strict sense beautiful, from the standpoint of European standards. Such individuals have been found even among those races with the greatest notoriety for ugliness. Even among so primitive and remote a people as the Australians beauty in the European sense is sometimes found. "I have on two occasions," Lumholtz states, "seen what might be called beauties among the women of western Queensland. Their hands were small, their feet neat and well shaped, with so high an instep that one asked oneself involuntarily where in the world they had acquired this aristocratic mark of beauty. Their figure was above criticism, and their skin, as is usually the case among the young women, was as soft as velvet. When these black daughters of Eve smiled and showed their beautiful white teeth, and when their eyes peeped coquettishly from beneath the curly hair which hung in quite the modern fashion down their foreheads," Lumholtz realized that even here women could exert the influence ascribed by Goethe to women generally. (C. Lumholtz, _Among Cannibals_, p. 132.) Much has, again, been written about the beauty of the American Indians. See, e.g., an article by Dr. Shufeldt, "Beauty from an Indian's Point of View," _Cosmopolitan Magazine_, April, 1895. Among the Seminole Indians, especially, it is said that types of handsome and comely women are not uncommon. (_Clay_ MacCauley, "Seminole Indians of Florida," _Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_, 1883-1884, pp. 493 et seq.) There is much even in the negress which appeals to the European as beautiful. "I have met many negresses," remarks Castellani (_Les Femmes au Congo_, p. 2), "who could say proudly in the words of the Song of Songs, 'I am black, but comely.' Many of our peasant women have neither the same grace nor the same delicate skin as some natives of Cassai or Songha. As to color, I have seen on the African continent creatures of pale gold or even red copper whose fine and satiny skin rivals the most delicate white skins; one may, indeed, find beauties among women of the darkest ebony." He adds that, on the whole, there is no comparison with white women, and that the negress soon becomes hideous. The very numerous quotations from travelers concerning the women of all lands quoted by Ploss and Bartels (_Das Weib_, seventh edition, bd. i, pp. 88-106) amply suffice to show how frequently some degree of beauty is found even among the lowest human races. Cf., also, Mantegazza's survey of the women of different races from this point of view, _Fisiologia della Donna_, Cap. IV. The fact that the modern European, whose culture may be supposed to have made him especially sensitive to æsthetic beauty, is yet able to find beauty among even the women of savage races serves to illustrate the statement already made that, whatever modifying influences may have to be admitted, beauty is to a large extent an objective matter. The existence of this objective element in beauty is confirmed by the fact that it is sometimes found that the men of the lower races admire European women more than women of their own race. There is reason to believe that it is among the more intelligent men of lower race--that is to say those whose æsthetic feelings are more developed--that the admiration for white women is most likely to be found. "Mr. Winwood Reade," stated Darwin, "who has had ample opportunities for observation, not only with the negroes of the West Coast of Africa, but with those of the interior who have never associated with Europeans, is convinced that their ideas of beauty are, _on the whole_, the same as ours; and Dr. Rohlfs writes to me to the same effect with respect to Bornu and the countries inhabited by the Pullo tribes. Mr. Reade found that he agreed with the negroes in their estimation of the beauty of the native girls; and that their appreciation of the beauty of European women corresponded with ours.... The Fuegians, as I have been informed by a missionary who long resided with them, considered European women as extremely beautiful ... I should add that a most experienced observer, Captain [Sir R.] Burton, believes that a woman whom we consider beautiful is admired throughout the world." (Darwin, _Descent of Man_, Chapter XIX.) Mantegazza quotes a conversation between a South American chief and an Argentine who had asked him which he preferred, the women of his own people or Christian women; the chief replied that he admired Christian women most, and when asked the reason said that they were whiter and taller, had finer hair and smoother skin. (Mantegazza, _Fisiologia della Donna_, Appendix to Cap. VIII.) Nordenskjöld, as quoted by Ploss and Bartels, states that the Eskimo regard their own type as more ugly than that produced by crossing with white persons, and, according to Kropf, the Nosa Kaffers admire and seek the fairer half-castes in preference to their own women of pure race (Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, seventh edition, bd. 1, p. 78). There is a widespread admiration for fairness, it may be added, among dark peoples. Fair men are admired by the Papuans at Torres Straits (_Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition_, vol. v, p. 327). The common use of powder among the women of dark-skinned peoples bears witness to the existence of the same ideal. Stratz, in his books _Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers_ and _Die Rassenschönheit des Weibes_, argues that the ideal of beauty is fundamentally the same throughout the world, and that the finest persons among the lower races admire and struggle to attain the type which is found commonly and in perfection among the white peoples of Europe. When in Japan he found that among the numerous photographs of Japanese beauties everywhere to be seen, his dragoman, a Japanese of low birth, selected as the most beautiful those which displayed markedly the Japanese type with narrow-slitted eyes and broad nose. When he sought the opinion of a Japanese photographer, who called himself an artist and had some claim to be so considered, the latter selected as most beautiful three Japanese girls who in Europe also would have been considered pretty. In Java, also, when selecting from a large number of Javanese girls a few suitable for photographing, Stratz was surprised to find that a Javanese doctor pointed out as most beautiful those which most closely corresponded to the European type. (Stratz, _Die Rassenschönheit des Weibes_, fourth edition, 1903, p. 3; id., _Die Körperformen der Japaner_, 1904, p. 78.) Stratz reproduces (Rassenschönheit, pp. 36 et seq.) a representation of Kwan-yin, the Chinese goddess of divine love, and quotes some remarks of Borel's concerning the wide deviation of the representations of the goddess, a type of gracious beauty, from the Chinese racial type. Stratz further reproduces the figure of a Buddhistic goddess from Java (now in the Archæological Museum of Leyden) which represents a type of loveliness corresponding to the most refined and classic European ideal. Not only is there a fundamentally objective element in beauty throughout the human species, but it is probably a significant fact that we may find a similar element throughout the whole animated world. The things that to man are most beautiful throughout Nature are those that are intimately associated with, or dependent upon, the sexual process and the sexual instinct. This is the case in the plant world. It is so throughout most of the animal world, and, as Professor Poulton, in referring to this often unexplained and indeed unnoticed fact, remarks, "the song or plume which excites the mating impulse in the hen is also in a high proportion of cases most pleasing to man himself. And not only this, but in their past history, so far as it has been traced (e.g., in the development of the characteristic markings of the male peacock and argus pheasant), such features have gradually become more and more pleasing to us as they have acted as stronger and stronger stimuli to the hen."[133] FOOTNOTES: [131] "It is likely that all visible parts of the organism, even those with a definite physiological meaning, appeal to the æsthetic sense of the opposite sex," Poulton remarks, speaking primarily of insects, in words that apply still more accurately to the human species. E. Poulton, _The Colors of Animals_, 1890, p. 304. [132] "The Arabs in general," Lane remarks, "entertain a prejudice against blue eyes--a prejudice said to have arisen from the great number of blue-eyed persons among certain of their northern enemies." [133] _Nature_, April 14, 1898, p. 55. II. Beauty to Some Extent Consists Primitively in an Exaggeration of the Sexual Characters--The Sexual Organs--Mutilations, Adornments, and Garments--Sexual Allurement the Original Object of Such Devices--The Religious Element--Unæsthetic Character of the Sexual Organs--Importance of the Secondary Sexual Characters--The Pelvis and Hips--Steatopygia--Obesity--Gait--The Pregnant Woman as a Mediæval Type of Beauty--The Ideals of the Renaissance--The Breasts--The Corset--Its Object--Its History--Hair--The Beard--The Element of National or Racial Type in Beauty--The Relative Beauty of Blondes and Brunettes--The General European Admiration for Blondes--The Individual Factors in the Constitution of the Idea of Beauty--The Love of the Exotic. In the constitution of our ideals of masculine and feminine beauty it was inevitable that the sexual characters should from a very early period in the history of man form an important element. From a primitive point of view a sexually desirable and attractive person is one whose sexual characters are either naturally prominent or artificially rendered so. The beautiful woman is one endowed, as Chaucer expresses it, "With buttokes brode and brestës rounde and hye"; that is to say, she is the woman obviously best fitted to bear children and to suckle them. These two physical characters, indeed, since they represent aptitude for the two essential acts of motherhood, must necessarily tend to be regarded as beautiful among all peoples and in all stages of culture, even in high stages of civilization when more refined and perverse ideals tend to find favor, and at Pompeii as a decoration on the east side of the Purgatorium of the Temple of Isis we find a representation of Perseus rescuing Andromeda, who is shown as a woman with a very small head, small hands and feet, but with a fully developed body, large breasts, and large projecting nates.[134] To a certain extent--and, as we shall see, to a certain extent only--the primary sexual characters are objects of admiration among primitive peoples. In the primitive dances of many peoples, often of sexual significance, the display of the sexual organs on the part of both men and women is frequently a prominent feature. Even down to mediæval times in Europe the garments of men sometimes permitted the sexual organs to be visible. In some parts of the world, also, the artificial enlargement of the female sexual organs is practised, and thus enlarged they are considered an important and attractive feature of beauty. Sir Andrew Smith informed Darwin that the elongated nymphæ (or "Hottentot apron") found among the women of some South African tribes was formerly greatly admired by the men (_Descent of Man_, Chapter XIX). This formation is probably a natural peculiarity of the women of these races which is very much exaggerated by intentional manipulation due to the admiration it arouses. The missionary Merensky reported the prevalence of the practice of artificial elongation among the Basuto and other peoples, and the anatomical evidence is in favor of its partly artificial character. (The Hottentot apron is fully discussed by Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, bd. I, sec. vi.) In the Jaboo country on the Bight of Benin in West Africa, Daniell stated, it was considered ornamental to elongate the labia and the clitoris artificially; small weights were appended to the clitoris and gradually increased. (W.F. Daniell, _Topography of Gulf of Guinea_, 1849, pp. 24, 53.) Among the Bawenda of the northern Transvaal, the missionary Wessmann states, it is customary for young girls from the age of 8 to spend a certain amount of time every day in pulling the _labia majora_ in order to elongate them; in selecting a wife the young men attach much importance to this elongation, and the girl whose labia stand out most is most attractive. (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1894, ht. 4, p. 363.) It may be added that in various parts of the world mutilations of the sexual organs of men and women, or operations upon them, are practiced, for reasons which are imperfectly known, since it usually happens that the people who practice them are unable to give the reason for this practice, or they assign a reason which is manifestly not that which originally prompted the practice. Thus, the excision of the clitoris, practiced in many parts of East Africa and frequently supposed to be for the sake of dulling sexual feeling (J.S. King _Journal of the Anthropological Society_, Bombay, 1890, p. 2), seems very doubtfully accounted for thus, for the women have it done of their own accord; "all Sobo women [Niger coast] have their clitoris cut off; unless they have this done they are looked down upon, as slave women who do not get cut; as soon, therefore, as a Sobo woman has collected enough money, she goes to an operating woman and pays her to do the cutting." (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, August-November, 1898, p. 117.) The Comte de Cardi investigated this matter in the Niger Delta: "I have questioned both native men and women," he states, "to try and get the natives' reason for this rite, but the almost universal answer to my queries was, 'it is our country's fashion.'" One old man told him it was practiced because favorable to continence, and several old women said that once the women of the land used to suffer from a peculiar kind of madness which this rite reduced. (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, August-November, 1899, p. 59.) In the same way the subincision of the urethra (mika operation of Australia) is frequently supposed to be for the purpose of preventing conception (See, e.g., the description of the operation by J.G. Garson, _Medical Press_, February 21, 1894), but this is very doubtful, and E.C. Stirling found that subincised natives often had large families. (_Intercolonial Quarterly Journal of Medicine and Surgery_, 1894.) A passage in the _Mainz Chronicle_ for 1367 (as quoted by Schultz, _Das Höfische Leben_, p. 297) shows that at that time the tunics of the men were so made that it was always possible for the sexual organs to be seen in walking or sitting. This insistence on the naked sexual organs as objects of attraction is, however, comparatively rare, and confined to peoples in a low state of culture. Very much more widespread is the attempt to beautify and call attention to the sexual organs by tattooing,[135] by adornment and by striking peculiarities of clothing. The tendency for beauty of clothing to be accepted as a substitute for beauty of body appears early in the history of mankind, and, as we know, tends to be absolutely accepted in civilization.[136] "We exclaim," as Goethe remarks, "'What a beautiful little foot!' when we have merely seen a pretty shoe; we admire the lovely waist when nothing has met out eyes but an elegant girdle." Our realities and our traditional ideals are hopelessly at variance; the Greeks represented their statues without pubic hair because in real life they had adopted the oriental custom of removing the hairs; we compel our sculptors and painters to make similar representations, though they no longer correspond either to realities or to our own ideas of what is beautiful and fitting in real life. Our artists are themselves equally ignorant and confused, and, as Stratz has repeatedly shown, they constantly reproduce in all innocence the deformations and pathological characters of defective models. If we were honest, we should say--like the little boy before a picture of the Judgment of Paris, in answer to his mother's question as to which of the three goddesses he thought most beautiful--"I can't tell, because they haven't their clothes on." The concealment actually attained was not, however, it would appear, originally sought. Various authors have brought together evidence to show that the main primitive purpose of adornment and clothing among savages is not to conceal the body, but to draw attention to it and to render it more attractive. Westermarck, especially, brings forward numerous examples of savage adornments which serve to attract attention to the sexual regions of man and woman.[137] He further argues that the primitive object of various savage peoples in practicing circumcision, as other similar mutilations, is really to secure sexual attractiveness, whatever religious significance they may sometimes have developed subsequently. A more recent view represents the magical influence of both adornment and mutilation as primary, as a method of guarding and insulating dangerous bodily functions. Frazer, in _The Golden Bough_, is the most able and brilliant champion of this view, which undoubtedly embodies a large element of truth, although it must not be accepted to the absolute exclusion of the influence of sexual attractiveness. The two are largely woven in together.[138] There is, indeed, a general tendency for the sexual functions to take on a religious character and for the sexual organs to become sacred at a very early period in culture. Generation, the reproductive force in man, animals, and plants, was realized by primitive man to be a fact of the first magnitude, and he symbolized it in the sexual organs of man and woman, which thus attained to a solemnity which was entirely independent of purposes of sexual allurement. Phallus worship may almost be said to be a universal phenomenon; it is found even among races of high culture, among the Romans of the Empire and the Japanese to-day; it has, indeed, been thought by some that one of the origins of the cross is to be found in the phallus. "Hardly any other object," remarks Dr. Richard Andree, "has been with such great unanimity represented by nearly all peoples as the phallus, the symbol of procreative force in the religions of the East and an object of veneration at public festivals. In the Moabitic Baal Peor, in the cult of Dionysos, everywhere, indeed, except in Persia, we meet with Priapic representations and the veneration accorded to the generative organ. It is needless to refer to the great significance of the _Linga puja_, the procreative organ of the god Siva, in India, a god to whom more temples were erected than to any other Indian deity. Our museums amply show how common phallic representations are in Africa, East Asia, the Pacific, frequently in connection with religious worship." (R. Andree, "Amerikansche Phallus-Darstellungen," _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1895, ht. 6, p. 678.) Women have no external generative organ like the phallus to play a large part in life as a sacred symbol. There is, however, some reason to believe that the triangle is to some extent such a symbol. Lejeune ("La Representation Sexuelle en Religion, Art, et Pédagogie," _Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie_, Paris, October 3, 1901) brings forward reasons in favor of the view that the triangular hair-covered region of the mons veneris has had considerable significance in this respect, and he presents various primitive figures in illustration. Apart from the religions and magical properties so widely accorded to the primary sexual characters, there are other reasons why they should not often have gained or long retained any great importance as objects of sexual allurement. They are unnecessary and inconvenient for this purpose. The erect attitude of man gives them here, indeed, an advantage possessed by very few animals, among whom it happens with extreme rarity that the primary sexual characters are rendered attractive to the eye of the opposite sex, though they often are to the sense of smell. The sexual regions constitute a peculiarly vulnerable spot, and remain so even in man, and the need for their protection which thus exists conflicts with the prominent display required for a sexual allurement. This end is far more effectively attained, with greater advantage and less disadvantage, by concentrating the chief ensigns of sexual attractiveness on the upper and more conspicuous parts of the body. This method is well-nigh universal among animals as well as in man. There is another reason why the sexual organs should be discarded as objects of sexual allurement, a reason which always proves finally decisive as a people advances in culture. They are not æsthetically beautiful. It is fundamentally necessary that the intromittent organ of the male and the receptive canal of the female should retain their primitive characteristics; they cannot, therefore, be greatly modified by sexual or natural selection, and the exceedingly primitive character they are thus compelled to retain, however sexually desirable and attractive they may become to the opposite sex under the influence of emotion, can rarely be regarded as beautiful from the point of view of æsthetic contemplation. Under the influence of art there is a tendency for the sexual organs to be diminished in size, and in no civilized country has the artist ever chosen to give an erect organ to his representations of ideal masculine beauty. It is mainly because the unæsthetic character of a woman's sexual region is almost imperceptible in any ordinary and normal position of the nude body that the feminine form is a more æsthetically beautiful object of contemplation than the masculine. Apart from this character we are probably bound, from a strictly æsthetic point of view, to regard the male form as more æsthetically beautiful.[139] The female form, moreover, usually overpasses very swiftly the period of the climax of its beauty, often only retaining it during a few weeks. The following communication from a correspondent well brings out the divergences of feeling in this matter: "You write that the sex organs, in an excited condition, cannot be called æsthetic. But I believe that they are a source, not only of curiosity and wonder to many persons, but also objects of admiration. I happen to know of one man, extremely intellectual and refined, who delights in lying between his mistress's thighs and gazing long at the dilated vagina. Also another man, married, and not intellectual, who always tenderly gazes at his wife's organs, in a strong light, before intercourse, and kisses her there and upon the abdomen. The wife, though amative, confessed to another woman that she could not understand the attraction. On the other hand, two married men have told me that the sight of their wives' genital parts would disgust them, and that they have never seen them. "If the sexual parts cannot be called æsthetic, they have still a strong charm for many passionate lovers, of both sexes, though not often, I believe, among the unimaginative and the uneducated, who are apt to ridicule the organs or to be repelled by them. Many women confess that they are revolted by the sight of even a husband's complete nudity, though they have no indifference for sexual embraces. I think that the stupid bungle of Nature in making the generative organs serve as means of relieving the bladder has much to do with this revulsion. But some women of erotic temperament find pleasure in looking at the penis of a husband or lover, in handling it, and kissing it. Prostitutes do this in the way of business; some chaste, passionate wives act thus voluntarily. This is scarcely morbid, as the mammalia of most species smell and lick each others' genitals. Probably primitive man did the same." Brantôme (_Vie des Dames Galantes_, Discours II) has some remarks to much the same effect concerning the difference between men, some of whom take no pleasure in seeing the private parts of their wives or mistresses, while others admire them and delight to kiss them. I must add that, however natural or legitimate the attraction of the sexual parts may be to either sex, the question of their purely æsthetic beauty remains unaffected. Remy de Gourmont, in a discussion of the æsthetic element in sexual beauty, considers that the invisibility of the sexual organs is the decisive fact in rendering women more beautiful than men. "Sex, which is sometimes an advantage, is always a burden and always a flaw; it exists for the race and not for the individual. In the human male, and precisely because of his erect attitude, sex is the predominantly striking and visible fact, the point of attack in a struggle at close quarters, the point aimed at from a distance, an obstacle for the eye, whether regarded as a rugosity on the surface or as breaking the middle of a line. The harmony of the feminine body is thus geometrically much more perfect, especially when we consider the male and the female at the moment of desire when they present the most intense and natural expression of life. Then the woman, whose movements are all interior, or only visible by the undulation of her curves, preserves her full æsthetic value, while the man, as it were, all at once receding toward the primitive state of animality, seems to throw off all beauty and become reduced to the simple and naked condition of a genital organism." (Remy de Gourmont, _Physique de l'Amour_, p. 69.) Remy de Gourmont proceeds, however, to point out that man has his revenge after a woman has become pregnant, and that, moreover, the proportions of the masculine body are more beautiful than those of the feminine body. The primary sexual characters of man and woman have thus never at any time played a very large part in sexual allurement. With the growth of culture, indeed, the very methods which had been adopted to call attention to the sexual organs were by a further development retained for the purpose of concealing them. From the first the secondary sexual characters have been a far more widespread method of sexual allurement than the primary sexual characters, and in the most civilized countries to-day they still constitute the most attractive of such methods to the majority of the population. The main secondary sexual characters in woman and the type which they present in beautiful and well-developed persons are summarized as follows by Stratz, who in his book on the beauty of the body in woman sets forth the reasons for the characteristics here given:-- Delicate bony structure. Rounded forms and breasts. Broad pelvis. Long and abundant hair. Low and narrow boundary of pubic hair. Sparse hair in armpit. No hair on body. Delicate skin. Rounded skull. Small face. Large orbits. High and slender eyebrows. Low and small lower jaw. Soft transition from cheek to neck. Rounded neck. Slender wrist. Small hand, with long index finger. Rounded shoulders. Straight, small clavicle. Small and long thorax. Slender waist. Hollow sacrum. Prominent and domed nates. Sacral dimples. Rounded and thick thighs. Low and obtuse pubic arch. Soft contour of knee. Rounded calves. Slender ankle. Small toes. Long second and short fifth toe. Broad middle incisor teeth. (Stratz, _Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers_, fourteenth edition, 1903, p. 200. This statement agrees at most points with my own exposition of the secondary sexual characters: _Man and Woman_, fourth edition, revised and enlarged, 1904.) Thus we find, among most of the peoples of Europe, Asia, and Africa, the chief continents of the world, that the large hips and buttocks of women are commonly regarded as an important feature of beauty. This secondary sexual character represents the most decided structural deviation of the feminine type from the masculine, a deviation demanded by the reproductive function of women, and in the admiration it arouses sexual selection is thus working in a line with natural selection. It cannot be said that, except in a very moderate degree, it has always been regarded as at the same time in a line with claims of purely æsthetic beauty. The European artist frequently seeks to attenuate rather than accentuate the protuberant lines of the feminine hips, and it is noteworthy that the Japanese also regard small hips as beautiful. Nearly everywhere else large hips and buttocks are regarded as a mark of beauty, and the average man is of this opinion even in the most æsthetic countries. The contrast of this exuberance with the more closely knit male form, the force of association, and the unquestionable fact that such development is the condition needed for healthy motherhood, have served as a basis for an ideal of sexual attractiveness which appeals to nearly all people more strongly than a more narrowly æsthetic ideal, which must inevitably be somewhat hermaphroditic in character. Broad hips, which involve a large pelvis, are necessarily a characteristic of the highest human races, because the races with the largest heads must be endowed also with the largest pelvis to enable their large heads to enter the world. The white race, according to Bacarisse, has the broadest sacrum, the yellow race coming next, the black race last. The white race is also stated to show the greatest curvature of the sacrum, the yellow race next, while the black race has the flattest sacrum.[140] The black race thus possesses the least developed pelvis, the narrowest, and the flattest. It is certainly not an accidental coincidence that it is precisely among people of black race that we find a simulation of the large pelvis of the higher races admired and cultivated in the form of steatopygia. This is an enormously exaggerated development of the subcutaneous layer of fat which normally covers the buttocks and upper parts of the thighs in woman, and in this extreme form constitutes a kind of natural fatty tumor. Steatopygia cannot be said to exist, according to Deniker, unless the projection of the buttocks exceeds 4 per cent of the individual's height; it frequently equals 10 per cent. True steatopygia only exists among Bushman and Hottentot women, and among the peoples who are by blood connected with them. An unusual development of the buttocks is, however, found among the Woloffs and many other African peoples.[141] There can be no doubt that among the black peoples of Africa generally, whether true steatopygia exists among them or not, extreme gluteal development is regarded as a very important, if not the most important, mark of beauty, and Burton stated that a Somali man was supposed to choose his wife by ranging women in a row and selecting her who projected farthest _a tergo_.[142] In Europe, it must be added, clothing enables this feature of beauty to be simulated. Even by some African peoples the posterior development has been made to appear still larger by the use of cushions, and in England in the sixteenth century we find the same practice well recognized, and the Elizabethan dramatists refer to the "bum-roll," which in more recent times has become the bustle, devices which bear witness to what Watts, the painter, called "the persistent tendency to suggest that the most beautiful half of humanity is furnished with tails."[143] In reality, as we see, it is simply a tendency, not to simulate an animal character, but to emphasize the most human and the most feminine of the secondary sexual characters, and therefore, from the sexual point of view, a beautiful feature.[144] Sometimes admiration for this characteristic is associated with admiration for marked obesity generally, and it may be noted that a somewhat greater degree of fatness may also be regarded as a feminine secondary sexual character. This admiration is specially marked among several of the black peoples of Africa, and here to become a beauty a woman must, by drinking enormous quantities of milk, seek to become very fat. Sonnini noted that to some extent the same thing might be found among the Mohammedan women of Egypt. After bright eyes and a soft, polished, hairless skin, an Egyptian woman, he stated, most desired to obtain _embonpoint_; men admired fat women and women sought to become fat. "The idea of a very fat woman," Sonnini adds, "is nearly always accompanied in Europe by that of softness of flesh, effacement of form, and defect of elasticity in the outlines. It would be a mistake thus to represent the women of Turkey in general, where all seek to become fat. It is certain that the women of the East, more favored by Nature, preserve longer than others the firmness of the flesh, and this precious property, joined to the freshness and whiteness of their skin, renders them very agreeable. It must be added that in no part of the world is cleanliness carried so far as by the women of the East."[145] The special characteristics of the feminine hips and buttocks become conspicuous in walking and may be further emphasized by the special method of walking or carriage. The women of some southern countries are famous for the beauty of their way of walk; "the goddess is revealed by her walk," as Virgil said. In Spain, especially, among European countries, the walk very notably gives expression to the hips and buttocks. The spine is in Spain very curved, producing what is termed _ensellure_, or saddle-back--a characteristic which gives great flexibility to the back and prominence to the gluteal regions, sometimes slightly simulating steatopygia. The vibratory movement naturally produced by walking and sometimes artificially heightened thus becomes a trait of sexual beauty. Outside of Europe such vibration of the flanks and buttocks is more frankly displayed and cultivated as a sexual allurement. The Papuans are said to admire this vibratory movement of the buttocks in their women. Young girls are practiced in it by their mothers for hours at a time as soon as they have reached the age of 7 or 8, and the Papuan maiden walks thus whenever she is in the presence of men, subsiding into a simpler gait when no men are present. In some parts of tropical Africa the women walk in this fashion. It is also known to the Egyptians, and by the Arabs is called _ghung_.[146] As Mantegazza remarks, the essentially feminine character of this gait makes it a method of sexual allurement. It should be observed that it rests on feminine anatomical characteristics, and that the natural walk of a femininely developed woman is inevitably different from that of a man. In an elaborate discussion of beauty of movement Stratz summarizes the special characters of the gait in woman as follows: "A woman's walk is chiefly distinguished from a man's by shorter steps, the more marked forward movement of the hips, the greater length of the phase of rest in relation to the phase of motion, and by the fact that the compensatory movements of the upper parts of the body are less powerfully supported by the action of the arms and more by the revolution of the flanks. A man's walk has a more pushing and active character, a woman's a more rolling and passive character; while a man seems to seek to catch his fleeing equilibrium, a woman seems to seek to preserve the equilibrium she has reached.... A woman's walk is beautiful when it shows the definitely feminine and rolling character, with the greatest predominance of the moment of extension over that of flexion." (Stratz, _Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers_, fourteenth edition, p. 275.) An occasional development of the idea of sexual beauty as associated with developed hips is found in the tendency to regard the pregnant woman as the most beautiful type. Stratz observes that a woman artist once remarked to him that since motherhood is the final aim of woman, and a woman reaches her full flowering period in pregnancy, she ought to be most beautiful when pregnant. This is so, Stratz replied, if the period of her full physical bloom chances to correspond with the early months of pregnancy, for with the onset of pregnancy metabolism is heightened, the tissues become active, the tone of the skin softer and brighter, the breasts firmer, so that the charm of fullest bloom is increased until the moment when the expansion of the womb begins to destroy the harmony of the form. At one period of European culture, however,--at a moment and among a people not very sensitive to the most exquisite æsthetic sensations,--the ideal of beauty has even involved the character of advanced pregnancy. In northern Europe during the centuries immediately preceding the Renaissance the ideal of beauty, as we may see by the pictures of the time, was a pregnant woman, with protuberant abdomen and body more or less extended backward. This is notably apparent in the work of the Van Eycks: in the Eve in the Brussels Gallery; in the wife of Arnolfini in the highly finished portrait group in the National Gallery; even the virgins in the great masterpiece of the Van Eycks in the Cathedral at Ghent assume the type of the pregnant woman. "Through all the middle ages down to Dürer and Cranach," quite truly remarks Laura Marholm (as quoted by I. Bloch, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil I, p. 154), "we find a very peculiar type which has falsely been regarded as one of merely ascetic character. It represents quiet, peaceful, and cheerful faces, full of innocence; tall, slender, young figures; the shoulders still scanty; the breasts small, with slender legs beneath their garments; and round the upper part of the body clothing that is tight almost to the point of constriction. The waist comes just under the bosom, and from this point the broad skirts in folds give to the most feminine part of the feminine body full and absolutely unhampered power of movement and expansion. The womanly belly even in saints and virgins is very pronounced in the carriage of the body and clearly protuberant beneath the clothing. It is the maternal function, in sacred and profane figures alike, which marks the whole type--indeed, the whole conception--of woman." For a brief period this fashion reappeared in the eighteenth century, and women wore pads and other devices to increase the size of the abdomen. With the Renaissance this ideal of beauty disappeared from art. But in real life we still seem to trace its survival in the fashion for that class of garments which involved an immense amount of expansion below the waist and secured such expansion by the use of whalebone hoops and similar devices. The Elizabethan farthingale was such a garment. This was originally a Spanish invention, as indicated by the name (from _verdugardo_, provided with hoops), and reached England through France. We find the fashion at its most extreme point in the fashionable dress of Spain in the seventeenth century, such as it has been immortalized by Velasquez. In England hoops died out during the reign of George III but were revived for a time, half a century later, in the Victorian crinoline.[147] Only second to the pelvis and its integuments as a secondary sexual character in woman we must place the breasts.[148] Among barbarous and civilized peoples the beauty of the breast is usually highly esteemed. Among Europeans, indeed, the importance of this region is so highly esteemed that the general rule against the exposure of the body is in its favor abrogated, and the breasts are the only portion of the body, in the narrow sense, which a European lady in full dress is allowed more or less to uncover. Moreover, at various periods and notably in the eighteenth century, women naturally deficient in this respect have sometimes worn artificial busts made of wax. Savages, also, sometimes show admiration for this part of the body, and in the Papuan folk-tales, for instance, the sole distinguishing mark of a beautiful woman is breasts that stand up.[149] On the other hand, various savage peoples even appear to regard the development of the breasts as ugly and adopt devices for flattening this part of the body.[150] The feeling that prompts this practice is not unknown in modern Europe, for the Bulgarians are said to regard developed breasts as ugly; in mediæval Europe, indeed, the general ideal of feminine slenderness was opposed to developed breasts, and the garments tended to compress them. But in a very high degree of civilization this feeling is unknown, as, indeed, it is unknown to most barbarians, and the beauty of a woman's breasts, and of any natural or artificial object which suggests the gracious curves of the bosom, is a universal source of pleasure. The casual vision of a girl's breasts may, in the chastest youth, evoke a strange perturbation. (Cf., e.g., a passage in an early chapter of Marcelle Tinayre's _La Maison du Péché_.) We need not regard this feeling as of purely sexual origin; and in addition even to the æsthetic element it is probably founded to some extent on a reminiscence of the earliest associations of life. This element of early association was very well set forth long ago by Erasmus Darwin:-- "When the babe, soon after it is born into this cold world, is applied to its mother's bosom, its sense of perceiving warmth is first agreeably affected; next its sense of smell is delighted with the odor of her milk; then its taste is gratified by the flavor of it; afterward the appetites of hunger and of thirst afford pleasure by the possession of their object, and by the subsequent digestion of the aliment; and, last, the sense of touch is delighted by the softness and smoothness of the milky fountain, the source of such variety of happiness. "All these various kinds of pleasure at length become associated with the form of the mother's breast, which the infant embraces with its hands, presses with its lips, and watches with its eyes; and thus acquires more accurate ideas of the form of its mother's bosom than of the odor, flavor, and warmth which it perceives by its other senses. And hence at our maturer years, when any object of vision is presented to us which by its wavy or spiral lines bears any similitude to the form of the female bosom, whether it be found in a landscape with soft gradations of raising and descending surface, or in the forms of some antique vases, or in other works of the pencil or the chisel, we feel a general glow of delight which seems to influence all our senses; and if the object be not too large we experience an attraction to embrace it with our lips as we did in our early infancy the bosom of our mothers." (E. Darwin, _Zoönomia_, 1800, vol. i, p. 174.) The general admiration accorded to developed breasts and a developed pelvis is evidenced by a practice which, as embodied in the corset, is all but universal in many European countries, as well as the extra-European countries inhabited by the white race, and in one form or another is by no means unknown to peoples of other than the white race. The tightening of the waist girth was little known to the Greeks of the best period, but it was practiced by the Greeks of the decadence and by them transmitted to the Romans; there are many references in Latin literature to this practice, and the ancient physician wrote against it in the same sense as modern doctors. So far as Christian Europe is concerned it would appear that the corset arose to gratify an ideal of asceticism rather than of sexual allurement. The bodice in early mediæval days bound and compressed the breasts and thus tended to efface the specifically feminine character of a woman's body. Gradually, however, the bodice was displaced downward, and its effect, ultimately, was to render the breasts more prominent instead of effacing them. Not only does the corset render the breasts more prominent; it has the further effect of displacing the breathing activity of the lungs in an upward direction, the advantage from the point of sexual allurement thus gained being that additional attention is drawn to the bosom from the respiratory movement thus imparted to it. So marked and so constant is this artificial respiratory effect, under the influence of the waist compression habitual among civilized women, that until recent years it was commonly supposed that there is a real and fundamental difference in breathing between men and women, that women's breathing is thoracic and men's abdominal. It is now known that under natural and healthy conditions there is no such difference, but that men and women breathe in a precisely identical manner. The corset may thus be regarded as the chief instrument of sexual allurement which the armory of costume supplies to a woman, for it furnishes her with a method of heightening at once her two chief sexual secondary characters, the bosom above, the hips and buttocks below. We cannot be surprised that all the scientific evidence in the world of the evil of the corset is powerless not merely to cause its abolition, but even to secure the general adoption of its comparatively harmless modifications. Several books have been written on the history of the corset. Léoty (_Le Corset à travers les Ages_, 1893) accepts Bouvier's division of the phases through which the corset has passed: (1) the bands, or fasciæ, of Greek and Roman ladies; (2) period of transition during greater part of middle ages, classic traditions still subsisting; (3) end of middle ages and beginning of Renaissance, when tight bodices were worn; (4) the period of whalebone bodices, from middle of sixteenth to end of eighteenth centuries; (5) the period of the modern corset. We hear of embroidered girdles in Homer. Even in Rome, however, the fasciæ were not in general use, and were chiefly employed either to support the breasts or to compress their excessive development, and then called _mamillare_. The _zona_ was a girdle, worn usually round the hips, especially by young girls. The modern corset is a combination of the _fascia_ and the _zona_. It was at the end of the fourteenth century that Isabeau of Bavaria introduced the custom of showing the breasts uncovered, and the word "corset" was then used for the first time. Stratz, in his _Frauenkleidung_ (pp. 366 et seq.), and in his _Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers_, Chapters VIII, X, and XVI, also deals with the corset, and illustrates the results of compression on the body. For a summary of the evidence concerning the difference of respiration in man and woman, its causes and results, see Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition, 1904, pp. 228-244. With reference to the probable influence of the corset and unsuitable clothing generally during early life in impeding the development of the mammary glands, causing inability to suckle properly, and thus increasing infant mortality, see especially a paper by Professor Bollinger (_Correspondenz-blatt Deutsch. Gesell. Anthropologie_, October, 1899). The compression caused by the corset, it must be added, is not usually realized or known by those who wear it. Thus, Rushton Parker and Hugh Smith found, in two independent series of measurements, that the waist measurement was, on the average, two inches less over the corset than round the naked waist; "the great majority seemed quite unaware of the fact." In one case the difference was as much as five inches. (_British Medical Journal_, September 15 and 22, 1900.) The breasts and the developed hips are characteristics of women and are indications of functional effectiveness as well as sexual allurement. Another prominent sexual character which belongs to man, and is not obviously an index of function, is furnished by the hair on the face. The beard may be regarded as purely a sexual adornment, and thus comparable to the somewhat similar growth on the heads of many male animals. From this point of view its history is interesting, for it illustrates the tendency with increase of civilization not merely to dispense with sexual allurement in the primary sexual organs, but even to disregard those growths which would appear to have been developed solely to act as sexual allurements. The cultivation of the beard belongs peculiarly to barbarous races. Among these races it is frequently regarded as the most sacred and beautiful part of the person, as an object to swear by, an object to which the slightest insult must be treated as deadly. Holding such a position, it must doubtless act as a sexual allurement. "Allah has specially created an angel in Heaven," it is said in the _Arabian Nights_, "who has no other occupation than to sing the praises of the Creator for giving a beard to men and long hair to women." The sexual character of the beard and the other hirsute appendage is significantly indicated by the fact that the ascetic spirit in Christianity has always sought to minimize or to hide the hair. Altogether apart, however, from this religious influence, civilization tends to be opposed to the growth of hair on the masculine face and especially to the beard. It is part of the well-marked tendency with civilization to the abolition of sexual differences. We find this general tendency among the Greeks and Romans, and, on the whole, with certain variations and fluctuations of fashion, in modern Europe also. Schopenhauer frequently referred to this disappearance of the beard as a mark of civilization, "a barometer of culture."[151] The absence of facial hair heightens æsthetic beauty of form, and is not felt to remove any substantial sexual attraction. That even the Egyptians regarded the beard as a mark of beauty and an object of veneration is shown by the fact that the priests wore it long and cut it off in grief (Herodotus, _Euterpe_, Chapter XXXVI). The respect with which the beard was regarded among the ancient Hebrews is indicated in the narrative (II Samuel, Chapter X) which tells how, when David sent his servants to King Hanun the latter shaved off half their beards; they were too ashamed to return in this condition, and remained at Jericho until their beards had grown again. A passage in Ordericus Vitalis (_Ecclesiastical History_, Book VIII, Chapter X) is interesting both as regards the fashions of the twelfth century in England and Normandy and the feeling that prompted Ordericus. Speaking of the men of his time, he wrote: "The forepart of their head is bare after the manner of thieves, while at the back they nourish long hair like harlots. In former times penitents, captives and pilgrims usually went unshaved and wore long beards, as an outward mark of their penance or captivity or pilgrimage. Now almost all the world wear crisped hair and beards, carrying on their faces the token of their filthy lust like stinking goats. Their locks are curled with hot irons, and instead of wearing caps they bind their heads with fillets. A knight seldom appears in public with his head uncovered, and properly shaved, according to the apostolic precept (I Corinthians, Chapter XI, verses 7 and 14)." We have seen that there is good reason for assuming a certain fundamental tendency whereby the most various peoples of the world, at all events in the person of their most intelligent members, recognize and accept a common ideal of feminine beauty, so that to a certain extent beauty may be said to have an objectively æsthetic basis. We have further found that this æsthetic human ideal is modified, and very variously modified in different countries and even in the same country at different periods, by a tendency, prompted by a sexual impulse which is not necessarily in harmony with æsthetic cannons, to emphasize, or even to repress, one or other of the prominent secondary sexual characters of the body. We now come to another tendency which is apt to an even greater extent to limit the cultivation of the purely æsthetic ideal of beauty: the influences of national or racial type. To the average man of every race the woman who most completely embodies the type of his race is usually the most beautiful, and even mutilations and deformities often have their origin, as Humboldt long since pointed out, in the effort to accentuate the racial type.[152] Eastern women possess by nature large and conspicuous eyes, and this characteristic they seek still further to heighten by art. The Ainu are the hairiest of races, and there is nothing which they consider so beautiful as hair. It is difficult to be sexually attracted to persons who are fundamentally unlike ourselves in racial constitution.[153] It frequently happens that this admiration for racial characteristics leads to the idealization of features which are far removed from æsthetic beauty. The firm and rounded breast is certainly a feature of beauty, but among many of the black peoples of Africa the breasts fall at a very early period, and here we sometimes find that the hanging breast is admired as beautiful. The African Baganda, the Rev. J. Roscoe states (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, January-June, 1902, p. 72), admire hanging breasts to such an extent that their young women tie them down in order to hasten the arrival of this condition. "The most remarkable trait of beauty in the East," wrote Sonnini, "is to have large black eyes, and nature has made this a characteristic sign of the women of these countries. But, not content with this, the women of Egypt wish their eyes to be still larger and blacker. To attain this Mussulmans, Jewesses, and Christians, rich and poor, all tint their eyelids with galena. They also blacken the lashes (as Juvenal tells us the Roman ladies did) and mark the angles of the eye so that the fissure appears larger." (Sonnini, _Voyage dans la Haute et Basse Egypte_, 1799, vol. i, p. 290.) Kohl is thus only used by the women who have what the Arabs call "natural kohl." As Flinders Petrie has found, the women of the so-called "New Race," between the sixth and tenth dynasties of ancient Egypt, used galena and malachite for painting their faces. Jewish women in the days of the prophets painted their eyes with kohl, as do some Hindu women to-day. "The Ainu have a great affection for their beards. They regard them as a sign of manhood and strength and consider them as especially handsome. They look upon them, indeed, as a great and highly prized treasure." (J. Batchelor, _The Ainu and their Folklore_, p. 162.) A great many theories have been put forward to explain the Chinese fashion of compressing and deforming the foot. The Chinese are great admirers of the feminine foot, and show extreme sexual sensitiveness in regard to it. Chinese women naturally possess very small feet, and the main reason for binding them is probably to be found in the desire to make them still smaller. (See, e.g., Stratz, _Die Frauenkleidung_, 1904, p. 101.) An interesting question, which in part finds its explanation here and is of considerable significance from the point of view of sexual selection, concerns the relative admiration bestowed on blondes and brunettes. The question is not, indeed, one which is entirely settled by racial characteristics. There is something to be said on the matter from the objective standpoint of æsthetic considerations. Stratz, in a chapter on beauty of coloring in woman, points out that fair hair is more beautiful because it harmonizes better with the soft outlines of woman, and, one may add, it is more brilliantly conspicuous; a golden object looks larger than a black object. The hair of the armpit, also, Stratz considers should be light. On the other hand, the pubic hair should be dark in order to emphasize the breadth of the pelvis and the obtusity of the angle between the mons veneris and the thighs. The eyebrows and eyelashes should also be dark in order to increase the apparent size of the orbits. Stratz adds that among many thousand women he has only seen one who, together with an otherwise perfect form, has also possessed these excellencies in the highest measure. With an equable and matt complexion she had blonde, very long, smooth hair, with sparse, blonde, and curly axillary hair; but, although her eyes were blue, the eyebrows and eyelashes were black, as also was the not overdeveloped pubic hair.[154] We may accept it as fairly certain that, so far as any objective standard of æsthetic beauty is recognizable, that standard involves the supremacy of the fair type of woman. Such supremacy in beauty has doubtless been further supported by the fact that in most European countries the ruling caste, the aristocratic class, whose superior energy has brought it to the top, is somewhat blonder than the average population. The main cause, however, in determining the relative amount of admiration accorded in Europe to blondes and to brunettes is the fact that the population of Europe must be regarded as predominantly fair, and that our conception of beauty in feminine coloring is influenced by an instinctive desire to seek this type in its finest forms. In the north of Europe there can, of course, be no question concerning the predominant fairness of the population, but in portions of the centre and especially in the south it may be considered a question. It must, however, be remembered that the white population occupying all the shores of the Mediterranean have the black peoples of Africa immediately to the south of them. They have been liable to come in contact with the black peoples and in contrast with them they have tended not only to be more impressed with their own whiteness, but to appraise still more highly its blondest manifestations as representing a type the farthest removed from the negro. It must be added that the northerner who comes into the south is apt to overestimate the darkness of the southerner because of the extreme fairness of his own people. The differences are, however, less extreme than we are apt to suppose; there are more dark people in the north than we commonly assume, and more fair people in the south. Thus, if we take Italy, we find in its fairest part, Venetia, according to Raseri, that there are 8 per cent. communes in which fair hair predominates, 81 per cent. in which brown predominates, and only 11 per cent. in which black predominates; as we go farther south black hair becomes more prevalent, but there are in most provinces a few communes in which fair hair is not only frequent, but even predominant. It is somewhat the same with light eyes, which are also most abundant in Venetia and decrease to a slighter extent as we go south. It is possible that in former days the blondes prevailed to a greater degree than to-day in the south of Europe. Among the Berbers of the Atlas Mountains, who are probably allied to the South Europeans, there appears to be a fairly considerable proportion of blondes,[155] while on the other hand there is some reason to believe that blondes die out under the influence of civilization as well as of a hot climate. However this may be, the European admiration for blondes dates back to early classic times. Gods and men in Homer would appear to be frequently described as fair.[156] Venus is nearly always blonde, as was Milton's Eve. Lucian refers to women who dye their hair. The Greek sculptors gilded the hair of their statues, and the figurines in many cases show very fair hair.[157] The Roman custom of dyeing the hair light, as Renier has shown, was not due to the desire to be like the fair Germans, and when Rome fell it would appear that the custom of dyeing the hair persisted, and never died out; it is mentioned by Anselm, who died at the beginning of the twelfth century.[158] In the poetry of the people in Italy brunettes, as we should expect, receive much commendation, though even here the blondes are preferred. When we turn to the painters and poets of Italy, and the æsthetic writers on beauty from the Renaissance onward, the admiration for fair hair is unqualified, though there is no correspondingly unanimous admiration for blue eyes. Angelico and most of the pre-Raphaelite artists usually painted their women with flaxen and light-golden hair, which often became brown with the artists of the Renaissance period. Firenzuola, in his admirable dialogue on feminine beauty, says that a woman's hair should be like gold or honey or the rays of the sun. Luigini also, in his _Libro della bella Donna_, says that hair must be golden. So also thought Petrarch and Ariosto. There is, however, no corresponding predilection among these writers for blue eyes. Firenzuola said that the eyes must be dark, though not black. Luigini said that they must be bright and black. Niphus had previously said that the eyes should be "black like those of Venus" and the skin ivory, even a little brown. He mentions that Avicenna had praised the mixed, or gray eye. In France and other northern countries the admiration for very fair hair is just as marked as in Italy, and dates back to the earliest ages of which we have a record. "Even before the thirteenth century," remarks Houdoy, in his very interesting study of feminine beauty in northern France during mediæval times, "and for men as well as for women, fair hair was an essential condition of beauty; gold is the term of comparison almost exclusively used."[159] He mentions that in the _Acta Sanctorum_ it is stated that Saint Godelive of Bruges, though otherwise beautiful, had black hair and eyebrows and was hence contemptuously called a crow. In the _Chanson de Roland_ and all the French mediæval poems the eyes are invariably _vairs_. This epithet is somewhat vague. It comes from _varius_, and signifies mixed, which Houdoy regards as showing various irradiations, the same quality which later gave rise to the term _iris_ to describe the pupillary membrane.[160] _Vair_ would thus describe not so much the color of the eye as its brilliant and sparkling quality. While Houdoy may have been correct, it still seems probable that the eye described as _vair_ was usually assumed to be "various" in color also, of the kind we commonly call gray, which is usually applied to blue eyes encircled with a ring of faintly sprinkled brown pigment. Such eyes are fairly typical of northern France and frequently beautiful. That this was the case seems to be clearly indicated by the fact that, as Houdoy himself points out, a few centuries later the _vair_ eye was regarded as _vert_, and green eyes were celebrated as the most beautiful.[161] The etymology was false, but a false etymology will hardly suffice to change an ideal. At the Renaissance Jehan Lemaire, when describing Venus as the type of beauty, speaks of her green eyes, and Ronsard, a little later, sang: "Noir je veux l'oeil et brun le teint, Bien que l'oeil verd toute la France adore." Early in the sixteenth century Brantôme quotes some lines current in France, Spain, and Italy according to which a woman should have a white skin, but black eyes and eyebrows, and adds that personally he agrees with the Spaniard that "a brunette is sometimes equal to a blonde,"[162] but there is also a marked admiration for green eyes in Spanish literature; not only in the typical description of a Spanish beauty in the _Celestina_ (Act. I) are the eyes green, but Cervantes, for example, when referring to the beautiful eyes of a woman, frequently speaks of them as green. It would thus appear that in Continental Europe generally, from south to north, there is a fair uniformity of opinion as regards the pigmentary type of feminine beauty. Such variation as exists seemingly involves a somewhat greater degree of darkness for the southern beauty in harmony with the greater racial darkness of the southerner, but the variations fluctuate within a narrow range; the extremely dark type is always excluded, and so it would seem probable is the extremely fair type, for blue eyes have not, on the whole, been considered to form part of the admired type. If we turn to England no serious modification of this conclusion is called for. Beauty is still fair. Indeed, the very word "fair" in England itself means beautiful. That in the seventeenth century it was generally held essential that beauty should be blonde is indicated by a passage in the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, where Burton argues that "golden hair was ever in great account," and quotes many examples from classic and more modern literature.[163] That this remains the case is sufficiently evidenced by the fact that the ballet and chorus on the English stage wear yellow wigs, and the heroine of the stage is blonde, while the female villain of melodrama is a brunette. While, however, this admiration of fairness as a mark of beauty unquestionably prevails in England, I do not think it can be said--as it probably can be said of the neighboring and closely allied country of France--that the most beautiful women belong to the fairest group of the community. In most parts of Europe the coarse and unbeautiful plebeian type tends to be very dark; in England it tends to be very fair. England is, however, somewhat fairer generally than most parts of Europe; so that, while it may be said that a very beautiful woman in France or in Spain may belong to the blondest section of the community, a very beautiful woman in England, even though of the same degree of blondness as her Continental sister, will not belong to the extremely blonde section of the English community. It thus comes about that when we are in northern France we find that gray eyes, a very fair but yet unfreckled complexion, brown hair, finely molded features, and highly sensitive facial expression combine to constitute a type which is more beautiful than any other we meet in France, and it belongs to the fairest section of the French population. When we cross over to England, however, unless we go to a so-called "Celtic" district, it is hopeless to seek among the blondest section of the community for any such beautiful and refined type. The English beautiful woman, though she may still be fair, is by no means very fair, and from the English standpoint she may even sometimes appear somewhat dark:[164] In determining what I call the index of pigmentation--or degree of darkness of the eyes and hair--of different groups in the National Portrait Gallery I found that the "famous beauties" (my own personal criterion of beauty not being taken into account) was somewhat nearer to the dark than to the light end of the scale.[165] If we consider, at random, individual instances of famous English beauties they are not extremely fair. Lady Venetia Stanley, in the early seventeenth century, who became the wife of Sir Kenelm Digby, was somewhat dark, with brown hair and eyebrows. Mrs. Overall, a little later in the same century, a Lancashire woman, the wife of the Dean of St. Paul's, was, says Aubrey, "the greatest beauty in her time in England," though very wanton, with "the loveliest eyes that were ever seen"; if we may trust a ballad given by Aubrey she was dark with black hair. The Gunnings, the famous beauties of the eighteenth century, were not extremely fair, and Lady Hamilton, the most characteristic type of English beauty, had blue, brown-flecked eyes and dark chestnut hair. Coloration is only one of the elements of beauty, though an important one. Other things being equal, the most blonde is most beautiful; but it so happens that among the races of Great Britain the other things are very frequently not equal, and that, notwithstanding a conviction ingrained in the language, with us the fairest of women is not always the "fairest." So magical, however, is the effect of brilliant coloring that it serves to keep alive in popular opinion an unqualified belief in the universal European creed of the beauty of blondness. We have seen that underlying the conception of beauty, more especially as it manifests itself in woman to man, are to be found at least three fundamental elements: First there is the general beauty of the species as it tends to culminate in the white peoples of European origin; then there is the beauty due to the full development or even exaggeration of the sexual and more especially the secondary sexual characters; and last there is the beauty due to the complete embodiment of the particular racial or national type. To make the analysis fairly complete must be added at least one other factor: the influence of individual taste. Every individual, at all events in civilization, within certain narrow limits, builds up a feminine ideal of his own, in part on the basis of his own special organization and its demands, in part on the actual accidental attractions he has experienced. It is unnecessary to emphasize the existence of this factor, which has always to be taken into account in every consideration of sexual selection in civilized man. But its variations are numerous and in impassioned lovers it may even lead to the idealization of features which are in reality the reverse of beautiful. It may be said of many a man, as d'Annunzio says of the hero of his _Trionfo della Morte_ in relation to the woman he loved, that "he felt himself bound to her by the real qualities of her body, and not only by those which were most beautiful, but specially by _those which were least beautiful_" (the novelist italicizes these words), so that his attention was fixed upon her defects, and emphasized them, thus arousing within himself an impetuous state of desire. Without invoking defects, however, there are endless personal variations which may all be said to come within the limits of possible beauty or charm. "There are no two women," as Stratz remarks, "who in exactly the same way stroke back a rebellious lock from their brows, no two who hold the hand in greeting in exactly the same way, no two who gather up their skirts as they walk with exactly the same movement."[166] Among the multitude of minute differences--which yet can be seen and felt--the beholder is variously attracted or repelled according to his own individual idiosyncrasy, and the operations of sexual selection are effected accordingly. Another factor in the constitution of the ideal of beauty, but one perhaps exclusively found under civilized conditions, is the love of the unusual, the remote, the exotic. It is commonly stated that rarity is admired in beauty. This is not strictly true, except as regards combinations and characters which vary only in a very slight degree from the generally admired type. "_Jucundum nihil est quod non reficit variatas_," according to the saying of Publilius Syrus. The greater nervous restlessness and sensibility of civilization heightens this tendency, which is not infrequently found also among men of artistic genius. One may refer, for instance, to Baudelaire's profound admiration for the mulatto type of beauty.[167] In every great centre of civilization the national ideal of beauty tends to be somewhat modified in exotic directions, and foreign ideals, as well as foreign fashions, become preferred to those that are native. It is significant of this tendency that when, a few years since, an enterprising Parisian journal hung in its _salle_ the portraits of one hundred and thirty-one actresses, etc., and invited the votes of the public by ballot as to the most beautiful of them, not one of the three women who came out at the head of the poll was French. A dancer of Belgian origin (Cléo de Merode) was by far at the head with over 3000 votes, followed by an American from San Francisco (Sybil Sanderson), and then a Polish woman. FOOTNOTES: [134] Figured in Mau's _Pompeii_, p. 174. [135] As a native of Lukunor said to the traveler Mertens, "It has the same object as your clothes, to please the women." [136] "The greatest provocations of lust are from our apparel," as Burton states (_Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part III, Sec. II, Mem. II, Subs. III), illustrating this proposition with immense learning. Stanley Hall (_American Journal of Psychology_, vol. ix, Part III, pp. 365 _et seq._) has some interesting observations on the various psychic influences of clothing; cf. Bloch, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil II, pp. 330 et seq. [137] _History of Human Marriage_, Chapter IX, especially p, 201. We have a striking and comparatively modern European example of an article of clothing designed to draw attention to the sexual sphere in the codpiece (the French _braguette_), familiar to us through fifteenth and sixteenth century pictures and numerous allusions in Rabelais and in Elizabethan literature. This was originally a metal box for the protection of the sexual organs in war, but subsequently gave place to a leather case only worn by the lower classes, and became finally an elegant article of fashionable apparel, often made of silk and adorned with ribbons, even with gold and jewels. (See, e.g., Bloch, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil I, p. 159.) [138] A correspondent in Ceylon has pointed out to me that in the Indian statues of Buddha, Vishnu, goddesses, etc., the necklace always covers the nipples, a sexually attractive adornment being thus at the same time the guardian of the orifices of the body. Crawley (_The Mystic Rose_, p. 135) regards mutilations as in the nature of permanent amulets or charms. [139] Mantegazza, in his discussion of this point, although an ardent admirer of feminine beauty, decides that woman's form is not, on the whole, more beautiful than man's. See Appendix to Cap. IV of _Fisiologia della Donna_. [140] For a discussion of the anthropology of the feminine pelvis, see Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, bd. 1. Sec. VI. [141] Ploss and Bartels, loc. cit.; Deniker, _Revue d'Anthropologie_, January 15, 1889, and _Races of Man_, p. 93. [142] Darwin. [143] G.F. Watts, "On Taste in Dress," _Nineteenth Century_, 1883. [144] From mediæval times onwards there has been a tendency to treat the gluteal region with contempt, a tendency well marked in speech and custom among the lowest classes in Europe to-day, but not easily traceable in classic times. Dühren (_Das Geschlechtsleben in England_, bd. II, pp. 359 et seq.) brings forward quotations from æsthetic writers and others dealing with the beauty of this part of the body. [145] Sonnini, _Voyage, etc._, vol. i, p. 308. [146] Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, bd. 1, Sec. III; Mantegazza, _Fisiologia della Donna_, Chapter III. [147] Bloch brings together various interesting quotations concerning the farthingale and the crinoline. (_Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil I, p. 156.) He states that, like most other feminine fashions in dress, it was certainly invented by prostitutes. [148] The racial variations in the form and character of the breasts are great, and there are considerable variations even among Europeans. Even as regards the latter our knowledge is, however, still very vague and incomplete; there is here a fruitful field for the medical anthropologist. Ploss and Bartels have brought together the existing data (_Das Weib_, bd. I, Sec. VIII). Stratz also discusses the subject (_Die Schönheit das Weiblichen Körpers_, Chapter X). [149] _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. v, p. 28. [150] These devices are dealt with and illustrations given by Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_ (loc. cit.). [151] See, e.g., _Parerga und Paralipomena_, bd. I, p. 189, and bd. 2, p. 482. Moll has also discussed this point (_Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, bd. I, pp. 384 et seq.). [152] Speaking of some South American tribes, he remarks (_Travels_, English translations, 1814, vol. iii. p. 236) that they "have as great an antipathy to the beard as the Eastern nations hold it in reverence. This antipathy is derived from the same source as the predilection for flat foreheads, which is seen in so singular a manner in the statues of the Aztec heroes and divinities. Nations attach the idea of beauty to everything which particularly characterizes their own physical conformation, their natural physiognomy." See also Westermarck, _History of Marriage_, p. 261. Ripley (_Races of Europe_, pp. 49, 202) attaches much importance to the sexual selection founded on a tendency of this kind. [153] "Differences of race are irreducible," Abel Hermant remarks (_Confession d'un Enfant d'Hier_, p. 209), "and between two beings who love each other they cannot fail to produce exceptional and instructive reactions. In the first superficial ebullition of love, indeed, nothing notable may be manifested, but in a fairly short time the two lovers, innately hostile, in striving to approach each other strike against an invisible partition which separates them. Their sensibilities are divergent; everything in each shocks the other; even their anatomical conformation, even the language of their gestures; all is foreign." [154] C.H. Stratz, _Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers_, fourteenth edition, Chapter XII. [155] See, e.g., Sergi, _The Mediterranean Race_, pp. 59-75. [156] Sergi (_The Mediterranean Race_, Chapter 1), by an analysis of Homer's color epithets, argues that in very few cases do they involve fairness; but his attempt scarcely seems successful, although most of these epithets are undoubtedly vague and involve a certain range of possible color. [157] Léchat's study of the numerous realistic colored statues recently discovered in Greece (summarized in _Zentralblatt für Anthropologie_, 1904, ht. 1, p. 22) shows that with few exceptions the hair is fair. [158] Renier, _Il Tipo Estetico_, pp. 127 et seq. In another book, _Les Femmes Blondes selon les Peintres de l'Ecole de Venise_, par deux Venitiens (one of these "Venetians" being Armand Baschet), is brought together much information concerning the preference for blondes in literature, together with a great many of the recipes anciently used for making the hair fair. [159] J. Houdoy, _La Beauté des Femmes dans la Littérature et dans l'Art du XIIe au XVIe Siècle_, 1876, pp. 32 et seq. [160] Houdoy, op. cit., pp. 41 et seq. [161] Houdoy, op. cit., p. 83. [162] Brantôme, _Vie des Dames Galantes_, Discours II. [163] _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part III, Sec. II, Mem. II, Subs. II. [164] It is significant that Burton (_Anatomy of Melancholy_, loc. cit.), while praising golden hair, also argues that "of all eyes black are moist amiable," quoting many examples to this effect from classic and later literature. [165] "Relative Abilities of the Fair and the Dark," _Monthly Review_, August, 1901; cf. H. Ellis, _A Study of British Genius_, p. 215. [166] Stratz, _Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers_, p. 217. [167] Bloch (_Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil II, pp. 261 et seq.) brings together some facts bearing on the admiration for negresses in Paris and elsewhere. III. Beauty not the Sole Element in the Sexual Appeal of Vision--Movement--The Mirror--Narcissism--Pygmalionism--Mixoscopy--The Indifference of Women to Male Beauty--The Significance of Woman's Admiration of Strength--The Spectacle of Strength is a Tactile Quality made Visible. Our discussion of the sensory element of vision in human sexual selection has been mainly an attempt to disentangle the chief elements of beauty in so far as beauty is a stimulus to the sexual instinct. Beauty by no means comprehends the whole of the influences which make for sexual allurement through vision, but it is the point at which all the most powerful and subtle of these are focussed; it represents a fairly definite complexus, appealing at once to the sexual and to the æsthetic impulses, to which no other sense can furnish anything in any degree analogous. It is because this conception of beauty has arisen upon it that vision properly occupies the supreme position in man from the point of view which we here occupy. Beauty is thus the chief, but it is not the sole, element in the sexual appeal of vision. In all parts of the world this has always been well understood, and in courtship, in the effort to arouse tumescence, the appeals to vision have been multiplied and at the same time aided by appeals to the other senses. Movement, especially in the form of dancing, is the most important of the secondary appeals to vision. This is so well recognized that it is scarcely necessary to insist upon it here; it may suffice to refer to a single typical example. The most decent of Polynesian dances, according to William Ellis, was the _hura_, which was danced by the daughters of chiefs in the presence of young men of rank with the hope of gaining a future husband. "The daughters of the chiefs, who were the dancers on these occasions, at times amounted to five or six, though occasionally only one exhibited her symmetry of figure and gracefulness of action. Their dress was singular, but elegant. The head was ornamented with a fine and beautiful braid of human hair, wound round the head in the form of a turban. A triple wreath of scarlet, white, and yellow flowers adorned the head-dress. A loose vest of spotted cloth covered the lower part of the bosom. The tihi, of fine white stiffened cloth frequently edged with a scarlet border, gathered like a large frill, passed under the arms and reached below the waist; while a handsome fine cloth, fastened round the waist with a band or sash, covered the feet. The breasts were ornamented with rainbow-colored mother-of-pearl shells, and a covering of curiously wrought network and feathers. The music of the hura was the large and small drum and occasionally the flute. The movements were generally slow, but always easy and natural, and no exertion on the part of the performers was wanting to render them graceful and attractive."[168] We see here, in this very typical example, how the extraneous visual aids of movement, color, and brilliancy are invoked in conjunction with music to make the appeal of beauty more convincing in the process of sexual selection. It may be in place here to mention, in passing, the considerable place which vision occupies in normal and abnormal methods of heightening tumescence under circumstances which exclude definite selection by beauty. The action of mirrors belongs to this group of phenomena. Mirrors are present in profusion in high-class brothels--on the walls and also above the beds. Innocent youths and girls are also often impelled to contemplate themselves in mirrors and sometimes thus, produce the first traces of sexual excitement. I have referred to the developed forms of this kind of self-contemplation in the Study of Auto-erotism, and in this connection have alluded to the fable of Narcissus, whence Näcke has since devised the term Narcissism for this group of phenomena. It is only necessary to mention the enormous production of photographs, representing normal and abnormal sexual actions, specially prepared for the purpose of exciting or of gratifying sexual appetites, and the frequency with which even normal photographs of the nude appeal to the same lust of the eyes. Pygmalionism, or falling in love with statues, is a rare form of erotomania founded on the sense of vision and closely related to the allurement of beauty. (I here use "pygmalionism" as a general term for the sexual love of statues; it is sometimes restricted to cases in which a man requires of a prostitute that she shall assume the part of a statue which gradually comes to life, and finds sexual gratification in this performance alone; Eulenburg quotes examples, _Sexuale Neuropathie_, p. 107.) An emotional interest in statues is by no means uncommon among young men during adolescence. Heine, in _Florentine Nights_, records the experiences of a boy who conceived a sentimental love for a statue, and, as this book appears to be largely autobiographical, the incident may have been founded on fact. Youths have sometimes masturbated before statues, and even before the image of the Virgin; such cases are known to priests and mentioned in manuals for confessors. Pygmalionism appears to have been not uncommon among the ancient Greeks, and this has been ascribed to their æsthetic sense; but the manifestation is due rather to the absence than to the presence of æsthetic feeling, and we may observe among ourselves that it is the ignorant and uncultured who feel the indecency of statues and thus betray their sense of the sexual appeal of such objects. We have to remember that in Greece statues played a very prominent part in life, and also that they were tinted, and thus more lifelike than with us. Lucian, Athenæus, Ælian, and others refer to cases of men who fell in love with statues. Tarnowsky (_Sexual Instinct_, English edition, p. 85) mentions the case of a young man who was arrested in St. Petersburg for paying moonlight visits to the statue of a nymph on the terrace of a country house, and Krafft-Ebing quotes from a French newspaper the case which occurred in Paris during the spring of 1877 of a gardener who fell in love with a Venus in one of the parks. (I. Bloch, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil II, pp. 297-305, brings together various facts bearing on this group of manifestations.) Necrophily, or a sexual attraction for corpses, is sometimes regarded as related to pygmalionism. It is, however, a more profoundly morbid manifestation, and may perhaps he regarded as a kind of perverted sadism. Founded on the sense of vision also we find a phenomenon, bordering on the abnormal, which is by Moll termed mixoscopy. This means the sexual pleasure derived from the spectacle of other persons engaged in natural or perverse sexual actions. (Moll, _Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, p. 308. Moll considers that in some cases mixoscopy is related to masochism. There is, however, no necessary connection between the two phenomena.) Brothels are prepared to accommodate visitors who merely desire to look on, and for their convenience carefully contrived peepholes are provided; such visitors are in Paris termed "_voyeurs_." It is said by Coffignon that persons hide at night in the bushes in the Champs Elysées in the hope of witnessing such scenes between servant girls and their lovers. In England during a country walk I have come across an elderly man carefully ensconced behind a bush and intently watching through his field-glass a couple of lovers reclining on a bank, though the actions of the latter were not apparently marked by any excess of indecorum. Such impulses are only slightly abnormal, whatever may be said of them from the point of view of good taste. They are not very far removed from the legitimate curiosity of the young woman who, believing herself unobserved, turns her glass on to a group of young men bathing naked. They only become truly perverse when the gratification thus derived is sought in preference to natural sexual gratification. They are also not normal when they involve, for instance, a man desiring to witness his wife in the act of coitus with another man. I have been told of the case of a scientific man who encouraged his wife to promote the advances of a young friend of his own, in his own drawing-room, he himself remaining present and apparently taking no notice; the younger man was astonished, but accepted the situation. In such a case, when the motives that led up to the episode are obscure, we must not too hastily assume that masochism or even mixoscopy is involved. For information on some of the points mentioned above see, e.g., I. Bloch, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil I, pp. 200 _et seq._; Teil II, pp. 195 et seq. Wide, however, as is the appeal of beauty in sexual selection, it cannot be said to cover by any means the whole of the visual field in its sexual relationship. Beauty in the human species is, above all, a feminine attribute, making its appeal to men. Even for women, as has already been noted, beauty is still a feminine quality, which they usually admire, and in cases of inversion worship with an ardor which equals, if it does not surpass, that experienced by normal men. But the normal woman experiences no corresponding cult for the beauty of man. The perfection of the body of man is not behind that of woman in beauty, but the study of it only appeals to the artist or the æsthetician; it arouses sexual enthusiasm almost exclusively in the male sexual invert. Whatever may be the case among animals or even among savages, in civilization the man is most successful with women is not the most handsome man, and may be the reverse of handsome.[169] The maiden, according to the old saying, who has to choose between Adonis and Hercules, will turn to Hercules. A correspondent writes: "Men are generally attracted in the first instance by a woman's beauty, either of face or figure. Frequently this is the highest form of love they are capable of. Personally, my own love is always prompted by this. In the case of my wife there was certainly a leaven of friendship and moral sympathies but these alone would never have been translated into love had she not been young and good-looking. Moreover, I have felt intense passion for other women, in my relations with whom the elements of moral or mental sympathy have not entered. And always, as youth and beauty went, I believe I should transfer my love to some one else. "Now, in woman I fancy this element of beauty and youth does not enter so much. I have questioned a large number of women--some married, some unmarried, young and old ladies, shopgirls, servants, prostitutes, women whom I have known only as friends, others with whom I have had sexual relations--and I cannot recollect one instance when a woman said she had fallen in love with a man for his looks. The nearest approach to any sign of this was in the instance of one, who noticed a handsome man sitting near us in a hotel, and said to me: 'I should like him to kiss me.' "I have also noticed that women do not like looking at my body, when naked, as I like looking at theirs. My wife has, on a few occasions, put her hand over my body, and expressed pleasure at the feeling of my skin. (I have very fair, soft skin.) But I have never seen women exhibit the excitement that is caused in me by the sight of their bodies, which I love to look at, to stroke, to kiss all over." It is interesting to point out, in this connection, that the admiration of strength is not confined to the human female. It is by the spectacle of his force that the male among many of the lower animals sexually affects the female. Darwin duly allows for this fact, while some evolutionists, and notably Wallace, consider that it covers the whole field of sexual selection. When choice exists, Wallace states, "all the facts appear to be consistent with the choice depending on a variety of male characteristics, with some of which color is often correlated. Thus, it is the opinion of some of the best observers that vigor and liveliness are most attractive, and these are, no doubt, usually associated with some intensity of color, ... There is reason to believe that it is his [the male bird's] persistency and energy rather than his beauty which wins the day." (A.R. Wallace, _Tropical Nature_, 1898, p. 199.) In his later book, _Darwinism_ (p. 295), Wallace reaffirms his position that sexual selection means that in the rivalry of males for the female the most vigorous secures the advantage; "ornament," he adds, "is the natural product and direct outcome of superabundant health and vigor." As regards woman's love of strength, see Westermarck, _History of Marriage_, p. 255. Women admire a man's strength rather than his beauty. This statement is commonly made, and with truth, but, so far as I am aware, its meaning is never analyzed. When we look into it, I think, we shall find that it leads us into a special division of the visual sphere of sexual allurement. The spectacle of force, while it remains strictly within the field of vision, really brings to us, although unconsciously, impressions that are correlated with another sense--that of touch. We instinctively and unconsciously translate visible energy into energy of pressure. In admiring strength we are really admiring a tactile quality which has been made visible. It may therefore be said that, while through vision men are sexually affected mainly by the more purely visual quality of beauty, women are more strongly affected by visual impressions which express qualities belonging to the more fundamentally sexual sense of touch. The distinction between the man's view and the woman's view, here pointed out, is not, it must be added, absolute. Even for a man, beauty, with all these components which we have already analyzed in it, is not the sole sexual allurement of vision. A woman is not necessarily sexually attractive in the ratio of her beauty, and with even a high degree of beauty may have a low degree of attraction. The addition of vivacity or the addition of languor may each furnish a sexual allurement, and each of these is a translated tactile quality which possesses an obscure potency from vague sexual implications.[170] But while in the man the demand for these translated pressure qualities in the visible attractiveness of a woman are not usually quite clearly realized, in a woman the corresponding craving for the visual expression of pressure energy is much more pronounced and predominant. It is not difficult to see why this should be so, even without falling back on the usual explanation that natural selection implies that the female shall choose the male who will be the most likely father of strong children and the best protector of his family. The more energetic part in physical love belongs to the man, the more passive part to the woman; so that, while energy in a woman is no index to effectiveness in love, energy in a man furnishes a seeming index to the existence of the primary quality of sexual energy which a woman demands of a man in the sexual embrace. It may be a fallacious index, for muscular strength is not necessarily correlated with sexual vigor, and in its extreme degrees appears to be more correlated with its absence. But it furnishes, in Stendhal's phrase, a probability of passion, and in any case it still remains a symbol which cannot be without its effect. We must not, of course, suppose that these considerations are always or often present to the consciousness of the maiden who "blushingly turns from Adonis to Hercules," but the emotional attitude is rooted in more or less unerring instincts. In this way it happens that even in the field of visual attraction sexual selection influences women on the underlying basis of the more primitive sense of touch, the fundamentally sexual sense. Women are very sensitive to the quality of a man's touch, and appear to seek and enjoy contact and pressure to a greater extent than do men, although in early adolescence this impulse seems to be marked in both sexes. "There is something strangely winning to most women," remarks George Eliot, in _The Mill on the Floss_, "in that offer of the firm arm; the help is not wanted physically at that moment, but the sense of help--the presence of strength that is outside them and yet theirs--meets a continual want of the imagination." Women are often very critical concerning a man's touch and his method of shaking hands. Stanley Hall (_Adolescence_, vol. ii, p. 8) quotes a gifted lady as remarking: "I used to say that, however much I liked a man, I could never marry him if I did not like the touch of his hand, and I feel so yet." Among the elements of sexual attractiveness which make a special appeal to women, extreme personal cleanliness would appear to take higher rank than it takes in the eyes of a man, some men, indeed, seeming to make surprisingly small demands of a woman in this respect. If this is so we may connect it with the fact that beauty in a woman's eye is to a much greater extent than in a man's a picture of energy, in other words, a translation of pressure contracts, with which the question of physical purity is necessarily more intimately associated than it is with the picture of purely visual beauty. It is noteworthy that Ovid (_Ars Amandi_, lib. I) urges men who desire to please women to leave the arts of adornment and effeminacy to those whose loves are homosexual, and to practice a scrupulous attention to extreme neatness and cleanliness of body and garments in every detail, a sun-browned skin, and the absence of all odor. Some two thousand years later Brummell in an age when extravagance and effeminacy often marked the fashions of men, introduced a new ideal of unobtrusive simplicity, extreme cleanliness (with avoidance of perfumes), and exquisite good taste; he abhorred all eccentricity, and may be said to have constituted a tradition which Englishmen have ever since sought, more or less successfully to follow; he was idolized by women. It may be added that the attentiveness of women to tactile contacts is indicated by the frequency with which in them it takes on morbid forms, as the _délire du contact_, the horror of contamination, the exaggerated fear of touching dirt. (See, e.g., Raymond and Janet, _Les Obsessions et la Psychasthénie_.) FOOTNOTES: [168] William Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, second edition, 1832, vol. 1, p. 215. [169] Stendhal (_De l'Amour_, Chapter XVIII) has some remarks on this point, and refers to the influence over women possessed by Lekain, the famous actor, who was singularly ugly. "It is _passion_," he remarks, "which we demand; beauty only furnishes _probabilities_." [170] The charm of a woman's garments to a man is often due in part to their expressiveness in rendering impressions of energy, vivacity, or languor. This has often been realized by the poets, and notably by Herrick, who was singularly sensitive to these qualities in a woman's garments. IV. The Alleged Charm of Disparity in Sexual Attraction--The Admiration for High Stature--The Admiration for Dark Pigmentation--The Charm of Parity--Conjugal Mating--The Statistical Results of Observation as Regards General Appearance, Stature, and Pigmentation of Married Couples--Preferential Mating and Assortative Mating--The Nature of the Advantage Attained by the Fair in Sexual Selection--The Abhorrence of Incest and the Theories of its Cause--The Explanation in Reality Simple--The Abhorrence of Incest in Relation to Sexual Selection--The Limits to the Charm of Parity in Conjugal Mating--The Charm of Disparity in Secondary Sexual Characters. When we are dealing with the senses of touch, smell, and hearing it is impossible at present, and must always remain somewhat difficult, to investigate precisely the degree and direction of their influence in sexual selection. We can marshal in order--as has here been attempted--the main facts and considerations which clearly indicate that there is and must be such an influence, but we cannot even attempt to estimate its definite direction and still less to measure it precisely. With regard to vision, we are in a somewhat better position. It is possible to estimate the direction of the influence which certain visible characters exert on sexual selection, and it is even possible to attempt their actual measurement, although there must frequently be doubt as to the interpretation of such measurements. Two facts render it thus possible to deal more exactly with the influence of vision on sexual selection than with the influence of the other senses. In the first place, men and women consciously seek for certain visible characters in the persons to whom they are attracted; in other words, their "ideals" of a fitting mate are visual rather than tactile, olfactory, or auditory. In the second place, whether such "ideals" are potent in actual mating, or whether they are modified or even inhibited by more potent psychological or general biological influences, it is in either case possible to measure and compare the visible characters of mated persons. The two visible characters which are at once most frequently sought in a mate and most easily measurable are degree of stature and degree of pigmentation. Every youth or maiden pictures the person he or she would like for a lover as tall or short, fair or dark, and such characters are measurable and have on a large scale been measured. It is of interest in illustration of the problem of sexual selection in man to consider briefly what results are at present obtainable regarding the influence of these two characters. It has long been a widespread belief that short people are sexually attracted to tall people, and tall people to short; that in the matter of stature men and women are affected by what Bain called the "charm of disparity." It has not always prevailed. Many centuries ago Leonardo da Vinci, whose insight at so many points anticipated our most modern discoveries, affirmed clearly and repeatedly the charm of parity. After remarking that painters tend to delineate the figures that resemble themselves he adds that men also fall in love with and marry those who resemble themselves; "_chi s'innamora voluntieri s'innamorano de cose a loro simiglianti_," he elsewhere puts it.[171] But from that day to this, it would seem Leonardo's statements have remained unknown or unnoticed. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre said that "love is the result of contrasts," and Schopenhauer affirmed the same point very decisively; various scientific and unscientific writers have repeated this statement.[172] So far as stature is concerned, there appears to be very little reason to suppose that this "charm of disparity" plays any notable part in constituting the sexual ideals of either men or women. Indeed, it may probably be affirmed that both men and women seek tallness in the person to whom they are sexually attracted. Darwin quotes the opinion of Mayhew that among dogs the females are strongly attracted to males of large size.[173] I believe this is true, and it is probably merely a particular instance of a general psychological tendency. It is noteworthy as an indication of the direction of the sexual ideal in this matter that the heroines of male novelists are rarely short and the heroes of female novelists almost invariably tall. A reviewer of novels addressing to lady novelists in the _Speaker_ (July 26, 1890) "A Plea for Shorter Heroes," publishes statistics on this point. "Heroes," he states, "are longer this year than ever. Of the 192 of whom I have had my word to say since October of last year, 27 were merely tall, and 11 were only slightly above the middle height. No less than 85 stood exactly six feet in their stocking soles, and the remainder were considerably over the two yards. I take the average to be six feet three." As a slight test alike of the supposed "charm of disparity" as well as of the general degree in which tall and short persons are sought as mates by those of the opposite sex I have examined a series of entries in the _Round-About_, a publication issued by a club, of which the president is Mr. W.T. Stead, having for its object the purpose of promoting correspondence, friendship, and marriage between its members. There are two classes, of entries, one inserted with a view to "intellectual friendship," the other with a view to marriage. I have not thought it necessary to recognize this distinction here; if a man describes his own physical characteristics and those of the lady he would like as a friend, I assume that, from the point of view of the present inquiry, he is much on the same footing as the man who seeks a wife. In the series of entries which I have examined 35 men and women state approximately the height of the man or woman they seek to know; 30 state in addition their own height. The results are expressed in the table on the following page. Although the cases are few, the results are, in two main respects, sufficiently clear without multiplication of data. In the first place, those who seek parity, whether men or women, are in a majority over those who seek disparity. In the second place, the existence of any disparity at all is due only to the universal desire to find a tall person. Not one man or woman sets down shortness as his or her ideal. The very fact that no man in these initial announcements ventures to set himself down as short (although a considerable proportion describe themselves as tall) indicates a consciousness that shortness is undesirable, as also does the fact that the women very frequently describe themselves as tall. The same charm of disparity which has been supposed to rule in selective attraction as regards stature has also been assumed as regards pigmentation. The fair, it is said, are attracted to the dark, the dark to the fair. Again, it must be said that this common assumption is not confirmed either by introspection or by any attempt to put the matter on a statistical basis.[174] WOMEN. MEN. TOTALS. Tall women seek tall men.. 8 Tall men seek tall women.. 6 14 Short women seek short men 0 Short men seek short women 0 0 Medium-sized women seek Medium-sized men seek medium-sized men ....... 0 medium-sized women .... 3 3 Seek parity........... 8 Seek parity........... 9 17 Tall women seek short men. 0 Tall men seek short women. 0 0 Short women seek tall men. 4 Short men seek tall women. 0 4 Medium-sized woman seeks Medium-sized men seek tall tall man................ 1 women .................. 8 9 Seek disparity........ 5 Seek disparity........ 8 13 Men of unknown height seek tall women.............. 5 5 Most people who will carefully introspect their own feelings and ideals in this matter will find that they are not attracted to persons of the opposite sex who are strikingly unlike themselves in pigmentary characters. Even when the abstract ideal of a sexually desirable person is endowed with certain pigmentary characters, such as blue eyes or darkness,--either of which is liable to make a vaguely romantic appeal to the imagination,--it is usually found, on testing the feeling for particular persons, that the variation from the personal type of the subject is usually only agreeable within narrow limits, and that there is a very common tendency for persons of totally opposed pigmentary types, even though they may sometimes be considered to possess a certain æsthetic beauty, to be regarded as sexually unattractive or even repulsive. With this feeling may perhaps be associated the feeling, certainly very widely felt, that one would not like to marry a person of foreign, even though closely allied, race. From the same number of the _Round-About_ from which I have extracted the data on stature, I have obtained corresponding data on pigmentation, and have embodied them in the following table. They are likewise very scanty, but they probably furnish as good a general indication of the drift of ideals in this matter as we should obtain from more extensive data of the same character. WOMEN. MEN. TOTALS. Fair women seek fair men. 2 Fair men seek fair women 2 4 Dark woman seeks dark man 1 Dark men seek dark women 7 8 Seek parity.......... 3 Seek parity......... 9 12 Fair women seek dark men. 4 Fair men seek dark women 3 7 Dark woman seeks fair man 1 Dark men seek fair women 4 5 Medium-colored man seeks Seek disparity....... 5 dark woman ........... 1 1 Medium-colored man seeks fair woman ........... 1 1 Seek disparity...... 9 14 Men of unknown color seek dark women ........... 3 3 It will be seen that in the case of pigmentation there is not as in the case of stature a decided charm of parity in the formation of sexual ideals. The phenomenon, however, remains essentially analogous. Just as in regard to stature there is without exception an abstract admiration for tall persons, so here, though to a less marked extent, there is a general admiration for dark persons. As many as 6 out of 8 women and 14 out of 21 men seek a dark partner. This tendency ranges itself with the considerations already brought forward (p. 182), leading us to believe that, in England at all events, the admiration of fairness is not efficacious to promote any sexual selection, and that if there is actually any such selection it must be put down to other causes. No doubt, even in England the abstract æsthetic admiration of fairness is justifiable and may influence the artist. Probably also it influences the poet, who is affected by a long-established convention in favor of fairness, and perhaps also by a general tendency on the part of our poets to be themselves fair and to yield to the charm of parity,--the tendency to prefer the women of one's own stock,--which we have already found to be a real force.[175] But, as a matter of fact, our famous English beauties are not very fair; probably our handsomest men are not very fair, and the abstract sexual ideals of both our men and our women thus go out toward the dark. The formation of a sexual ideal, while it furnishes a predisposition to be attracted in a certain direction, and undoubtedly has a certain weight in sexual choice, is not by any means the whole of sexual selection. It is not even the whole of the psychic element in sexual selection. Let us take, for instance, the question of stature. There would seem to be a general tendency for both men and women, apart from and before experience, to desire sexually large persons of the opposite sex. It may even be that this is part of a wider zoölogical tendency. In the human species it shows itself also on the spiritual plane, in the desire for the infinite, in the deep and unreasoning feeling that it is impossible to have too much of a good thing. But it not infrequently happens that a man in whose youthful dreams of love the heroine has always been large, has not been able to calculate what are the special nervous and other characteristics most likely to be met in large women, nor how far these correlated characteristics would suit his own instinctive demands. He may, and sometimes does, find that in these other demands, which prove to be more important and insistent than the desire for stature, the tall women he meets are less likely to suit him than the medium or short women.[176] It may thus happen that a man whose ideal of woman has always been as tall may yet throughout life never be in intimate relationship with a tall woman because he finds that practically he has more marked affinities in the case of shorter women. His abstract ideals are modified or negatived by more imperative sympathies or antipathies. In one field such sympathies have long been recognized, especially by alienists, as leading to sexual unions of parity, notwithstanding the belief in the generally superior attraction of disparity. It has often been pointed out that the neuropathic, the insane and criminal, "degenerates" of all kinds, show a notable tendency to marry each other. This tendency has not, however, been investigated with any precision.[177] The first attempt on a statistical basis to ascertain what degree of parity or disparity is actually attained by sexual selection was made by Alphonse de Candolle.[178] Obtaining his facts from Switzerland, North Germany, and Belgium, he came to the conclusion that marriages are most commonly contracted between persons with different eye-colors, except in the case of brown-eyed women, who (as Schopenhauer stated, and as is seen in the English data of the sexual ideal I have brought forward) are found more attractive than others. The first series of serious observations tending to confirm the result reached by the genius of Leonardo da Vinci and to show that sexual selection results in the pairing of like rather than of unlike persons was made by Hermann Fol, the embryologist.[179] He set out with the popular notion that married people end by resembling each other, but when at Nice, which is visited by many young married couples on their honeymoons, he was struck by the resemblances already existing immediately after marriage. In order to test the matter he obtained the photographs of 251 young and old married couples not personally known to him. The results were as follows: RESEMBLANCES NONRESEMBLANCES COUPLES. (PERCENTAGE). (PERCENTAGE). TOTAL. Young.............. 132, about 66,66 66, about 33.33 198 Old ................ 38, about 71.70 15, about 28.30 53 He concluded that in the immense majority of marriages of inclination the contracting parties are attracted by similarities, and not by dissimilarities, and that, consequently, the resemblances between aged married couples are not acquired during conjugal life. Although Fol's results were not obtained by good methods, and do not cover definite points like stature and eye-color, they represented the conclusions of a highly skilled and acute observer and have since been amply confirmed. Galton could not find that the average results from a fairly large number of cases indicated that stature, eye-color, or other personal characteristics notably influenced sexual selection, as evidenced by a comparison of married couples.[180] Karl Pearson, however, in part making use of a large body of data obtained by Galton, referring to stature and eye-color, has reached the conclusion that sexual selection ultimately results in a marked degree of parity so far as these characters are concerned.[181] As regards stature, he is unable to find evidence of what he terms "preferential mating"; that is to say, it does not appear that any preconceived ideals concerning the desirability of tallness in sexual mates leads to any perceptibly greater tallness of the chosen mate; husbands are not taller than men in general, nor wives than women in general. In regard to eye-color, however, there appeared to be evidence of preferential mating. Husbands are very decidedly fairer than men in general, and though there is no such marked difference in women, wives are also somewhat fairer than women in general. As regards "assortative mating" as it is termed by Pearson,--the tendency to parity or to disparity between husbands and wives,--the result were in both cases decisive. Tall men marry women who are somewhat above the average in height; short men marry women who are somewhat below the average, so that husband and wife resemble each other in stature as closely as uncle and niece. As regards eye-color there is also a tendency for like to marry like; the light-eyed men tend to marry light-eyed women more often than dark-eyed women; the dark-eyed men tend to marry dark-eyed women more often than light-eyed. There remains, however, a very considerable difference in the eye-color of husband and wife; in the 774 couples dealt with by Pearson there are 333 dark-eyed women to only 251 dark-eyed men, and 523 light-eyed men to only 441 light-eyed women. The women in the English population are darker-eyed than the men;[182] but the difference is scarcely so great as this; so that even if wives are not so dark-eyed as women generally it would appear that the ideal admiration for the dark-eyed may still to some extent make itself felt in actual mating. While we have to recognize that the modification and even total inhibition of sexual ideals in the process of actual mating is largely due to psychic causes, such causes do not appear to cover the whole of the phenomena. Undoubtedly they count for much, and the man or the woman who, from whatever causes, has constituted a sexual ideal with certain characters may in the actual contacts of life find that individuals with other and even opposed characters most adequately respond to his or her psychic demands. There are, however, other causes in play here which at first sight may seem to be not of a purely psychic character. One unquestionable cause of this kind comes into action in regard to pigmentary selection. Fair people, possibly as a matter of race more than from absence of pigment, are more energetic than dark people. They possess a sanguine vigor and impetuosity which, in most, though not in all, fields and especially in the competition of practical life, tend to give them some superiority over their darker brethren. The greater fairness of husbands in comparison with men in general, as found by Karl Pearson, is thus accounted for; fair men are most likely to obtain wives. Husbands are fairer than men in general for the same reason that, as I have shown elsewhere,[183] created peers are fairer than either hereditary peers or even most groups of intellectual persons; they have possessed in higher measure the qualities that insure success. It may be added that with the recognition of this fact we have not really left the field of sexual psychology, for, as has already been pointed out, that energy which thus insures success in practical life is itself a sexual allurement to women. Energy in a woman in courtship is less congenial to her sexual attitude than to a man's, and is not attractive to men; thus it is not surprising, even apart from the probably greater beauty of dark women, that the preponderance of fairness among wives as compared to women generally, indicated by Karl Pearson's data, is very slight. It may possibly be accounted for altogether by homogamy--the tendency of like to marry like--in the fair husbands. The energy and vitality of fair people is not, however, it is probable, merely an indirect cause of the greater tendency of fair men to become husbands; that is to say, it is not merely the result of the generally somewhat greater ability of the fair to attain success in temporal affairs. In addition to this, fair men, if not fair women, would appear to show a tendency to a greater activity in their specifically sexual proclivities. This is a point which we shall encounter in a later _Study_ and it is therefore unnecessary to discuss it here. In dealing with the question of sexual selection in man various writers have been puzzled by the problem presented by that abhorrence of incest which is usually, though not always so clearly marked among the different races of mankind.[184] It was once commonly stated, as by Morgan and by Maine, that this abhorrence was the result of experience; the marriages of closely related persons were found to be injurious to offspring and were therefore avoided. This theory, however, is baseless because the marriages of closely related persons are not injurious to the offspring. Consanguineous marriages, so closely as they can be investigated on a large scale,--that is to say, marriages between cousins,--as Huth was the first to show, develop no tendency to the production of offspring of impaired quality provided the parents are sound; they are only injurious in this respect in so far as they may lead to the union of couples who are both defective in the same direction. According to another theory, that of Westermarck, who has very fully and ably discussed the whole question,[185] "there is an innate aversion to sexual intercourse between persons living very closely together from early youth, and, as such persons are in most cases related, this feeling displays itself chiefly as a horror of intercourse between near kin." Westermarck points out very truly that the prohibition of incest could not be founded on experience even if (as he is himself inclined to believe) consanguineous marriages are injurious to the offspring; incest is prevented "neither by laws, nor by customs, nor by education, but by an _instinct_ which under normal circumstances makes sexual love between the nearest kin a psychic impossibility." There is, however, a very radical objection to this theory. It assumes the existence of a kind of instinct which can with difficulty be accepted. An instinct is fundamentally a more or less complicated series of reflexes set in action by a definite stimulus. An innate tendency at once so specific and so merely negative, involving at the same time deliberate intellectual processes, can only with a certain force be introduced into the accepted class of instincts. It is as awkward and artificial an instinct as would be, let us say, an instinct to avoid eating the apples that grew in one's own yard.[186] The explanation of the abhorrence to incest is really, however, exceedingly simple. Any reader who has followed the discussion of sexual selection in the present volume and is also familiar with the "Analysis of the Sexual Impulse" set forth in the previous volume of these _Studies_ will quickly perceive that the normal failure of the pairing instinct to manifest itself in the case of brothers and sisters, or of boys and girls brought up together from infancy, is a merely negative phenomenon due to the inevitable absence under those circumstances of the conditions which evoke the pairing impulse. Courtship is the process by which powerful sensory stimuli proceeding from a person of the opposite sex gradually produce the physiological state of tumescence, with its psychic concomitant of love and desire, more or less necessary for mating to be effected. But between those who have been brought up together from childhood all the sensory stimuli of vision, hearing, and touch have been dulled by use, trained to the calm level of affection, and deprived of their potency to arouse the erethistic excitement which produces sexual tumescence.[187] Brothers and sisters in relation to each other have at puberty already reached that state to which old married couples by the exhaustion of youthful passion and the slow usage of daily life gradually approximate. Passion between brother and sister is, indeed, by no means so rare as is sometimes supposed, and it may be very strong, but it is usually aroused by the aid of those conditions which are normally required for the appearance of passion, more especially by the unfamiliarity caused by a long separation. In reality, therefore, the usual absence of sexual attraction between brothers and sisters requires no special explanation; it is merely due to the normal absence under these circumstances of the conditions that tend to produce sexual tumescence and the play of those sensory allurements which lead to sexual selection.[188] It is a purely negative phenomenon and it is quite unnecessary, even if it were legitimate, to invoke any instinct for its explanation. It is probable that the same tendency also operates among animals to some extent, tending to produce a stronger sexual attraction toward those of their species to whom they have not become habituated.[189] In animals, and in man also when living under primitive conditions, sexual attraction is not a constant phenomenon[190]; it is an occasional manifestation only called out by the powerful stimulation. It is not its absence which we need to explain; it is its presence which needs explanation, and such an explanation we find in the analysis of the phenomena of courtship. The abhorrence of incest is an interesting and significant phenomenon from our present point of view, because it instructively points out to us the limits to that charm of parity which apparently makes itself felt to some considerable extent in the constitution of the sexual ideal and still more in the actual homogamy which seems to predominate over heterogamy. This homogamy is, it will be observed, a _racial_ homogamy; it relates to anthropological characters which mark stocks. Even in this racial field, it is unnecessary to remark, the homogamy attained is not, and could not be, absolute; nor would it appear that such absolute racial homogamy is even desired. A tall man who seeks a tall woman can seldom wish her to be as tall as himself; a dark man who seeks a dark woman, certainly will not be displeased at the inevitably greater or less degree of pigment which he finds in her eyes as compared to his own. But when we go outside the racial field this tendency to homogamy disappears at once. A man marries a woman who, with slight, but agreeable, variations, belongs to a like stock to himself. The abhorrence of incest indicates that even the sexual attraction to people of the same stock has its limits, for it is not strong enough to overcome the sexual indifference between persons of near kin. The desire for novelty shown in this sexual indifference to near kin and to those who have been housemates from childhood, together with the notable sexual attractiveness often possessed by a strange youth or maiden who arrives in a small town or village, indicates that slight differences in stock, if not, indeed, a positive advantage from this point of view, are certainly not a disadvantage. When we leave the consideration of racial differences to consider sexual differences, not only do we no longer find any charm of parity, but we find that there is an actual charm of disparity. At this point it is necessary to remember all that has been brought forward in earlier pages[191] concerning the emphasis of the secondary sexual characters in the ideal of beauty. All those qualities which the woman desires to see emphasized in the man are the precise opposite of the qualities which the man desires to see emphasized in the woman. The man must be strong, vigorous, energetic, hairy, even rough, to stir the primitive instincts of the woman's nature; the woman who satisfies this man must be smooth, rounded, and gentle. It would be hopeless to seek for any homogamy between the manly man and the virile woman, between the feminine woman and the effeminate man. It is not impossible that this tendency to seek disparity in sexual characters may exert some disturbing influences on the tendency to seek parity in anthropological racial characters, for the sexual difference to some extent makes itself felt in racial characters. A somewhat greater darkness of women is a secondary (or, more precisely, tertiary) sexual character, and on this account alone, it is possible, somewhat attractive to men[192]. A difference in size and stature is a very marked secondary sexual character. In the considerable body of data concerning the stature of married couples reproduced by Pearson from Galton's tables, although the tall on the average tend to marry the tall, and the short the short, it is yet noteworthy that, while the men of 5 ft. 4 ins. have more wives at 5 ft. 2 ins. than at any other height, men of 6 ft. show, in an exactly similar manner, more wives at 5 ft. 2 ins. than at any other height, although for many intermediate heights the most numerous groups of wives are taller[193]. In matters of carriage, habit, and especially clothing the love of sexual disparity is instinctive, everywhere well marked, and often carried to very great lengths. To some extent such differences are due to the opposing demands of more fundamental differences in custom and occupation. But this cause by no means adequately accounts for them, since it may sometimes happen that what in one land is the practice of the men is in another the practice of the women, and yet the practices of the two sexes are still opposed[194]. Men instinctively desire to avoid doing things in women's ways, and women instinctively avoid doing things in men's ways, yet both sexes admire in the other sex those things which in themselves they avoid. In the matter of clothing this charm of disparity reaches its highest point, and it has constantly happened that men have even called in the aid of religion to enforce a distinction which seemed to them so urgent[195]. One of the greatest of sex allurements would be lost and the extreme importance of clothes would disappear at once if the two sexes were to dress alike; such identity of dress has, however, never come about among any people. FOOTNOTES: [171] L. da Vinci, _Frammenti_, selected by Solmi, pp. 177-180. [172] Westermarck, who accepts the "charm of disparity," gives references, _History of Human Marriage_, p. 354. [173] _Descent of Man_. Part II, Chapter XVIII. [174] Bloch (_Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil II, pp. 260 et seq.) refers to the tendency to admixture of races and to the sexual attraction occasionally exerted by the negress and sometimes the negro on white persons as evidence in favor of such charm of disparity. In part, however, we are here concerned with vague statements concerning imperfectly known facts, in part with merely individual variations, and with that love of the exotic under the stimulation of civilized conditions to which reference has already been made (p. 184). [175] In this connection the exceptional case of Tennyson is of interest. He was born and bred in the very fairest part of England (Lincolnshire), but he himself and the stock from which he sprang were dark to a very remarkable degree. In his work, although it reveals traces of the conventional admiration for the fair, there is a marked and unusual admiration for distinctly dark women, the women resembling the stock to which he himself belonged. See Havelock Ellis, "The Color Sense in Literature," _Contemporary Review_, May, 1896. [176] It is noteworthy that in the _Round-About_, already referred to, although no man expresses a desire to meet a short woman, when he refers to announcements by women as being such as would be likely to suit him, the persons thus pointed out are in a notable proportion short. [177] It has been discussed by F.J. Debret, _La Selection Naturelle dans l'espèce humaine_ (Thèse de Paris), 1901. Debret regards it as due to natural selection. [178] "Hérédité de la Couleur des Yeux dans l'espèce humaine," _Archives des Sciences physiques et naturelles_, sér. iii, vol. xii, 1884, p. 109. [179] _Revue Scientifique_, Jan., 1891. [180] F. Galton, _Natural Inheritance_, p. 85. It may be remarked that while Galton's tables on page 206 show a slight excess of disparity as regards sexual selection in stature, in regard to eye color they anticipate Karl Pearson's more extensive data and in marriages of disparity show a decided deficiency of observed over chance results. In _English Men of Science_ (pp. 28-33), also, Galton found that among the parents parity decidedly prevailed over disparity (78 to 31) alike as regards temperament, hair color, and eye color. [181] Karl Pearson, _Phil. Trans. Royal Society_, vol. clxxxvii, p. 273, and vol. cxcv, p. 113; _Proceedings of the Royal Society_, vol. lxvi, p. 28; _Grammar of Science_, second edition, 1900, pp. 425 _et seq._; _Biometrika_, November, 1903. The last-named periodical also contains a study on "Assortative Mating in Man," bringing forward evidence to show that, apart from environmental influence, "length of life is a character which is subject to selection;" that is to say, the long-lived tend to marry the long-lived, and the short-lived to marry the short-lived. [182] For a summary of the evidence on this point see Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition, 1904, pp. 256-264. [183] "The Comparative Abilities of the Fair and the Dark," _Monthly Review_, August, 1901. [184] The fact that even in Europe the abhorrence to incest is not always strongly felt is brought out by Bloch, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil II, pp. 263 et seq. [185] Westermarck, _History of Marriage_, Chapters XIV and XV. [186] Crawley (_The Mystic Rose_, p. 446) has pointed out that it is not legitimate to assume the possibility of an "instinct" of this character; instinct has "nothing in its character but a response of function to environment." [187] Fromentin, in his largely autobiographic novel _Dominique_, makes Olivier say: "Julie is my cousin, which is perhaps a reason why she should please me less than anyone else. I have always known her. We have, as it were, slept in the same cradle. There may be people who would be attracted by this almost fraternal relationship. To me the very idea of marrying someone whom I knew as a baby is as absurd as that of coupling two dolls." [188] It may well be, as Crawley argues (_The Mystic Rose_, Chapter XVII), that sexual taboo plays some part among primitive people in preventing incestuous union, as, undoubtedly, training and moral ideas do among civilized peoples. [189] The remarks of the Marquis de Brisay, an authority on doves, as communicated to Giard (_L'Intermédiare des Biologistes_, November 20, 1897), are of much interest on this point, since they correspond to what we find in the human species: "Two birds from the same nest rarely couple. Birds coming from the same nest behave as though they regarded coupling as prohibited, or, rather, they know each other too well, and seem to be ignorant of their difference in sex, remaining unaffected in their relations by the changes which make them adults." Westermarck (op. cit., p. 334) has some remarks on a somewhat similar tendency sometimes observed in dogs and horses. [190] See Appendix to vol. lii of these _Studies_, "The Sexual Impulse among Savages." [191] See, especially, _ante_, pp. 163 et seq. [192] Kistemaecker, as quoted by Bloch (_Beiträge, etc._, ii. p. 340), alludes in this connection to the dark clothes of men and to the tendency of women to wear lighter garments, to emphasize the white underlinen, to cultivate pallor of the face, to use powder. "I am white and you are brown; ergo, you must love me"; this affirmation, he states, may be found in the depths of every woman's heart. [193] K. Pearson, _Grammar of Science_, second edition, p. 430. [194] In _Man and Woman_ (fourth edition, p. 65) I have referred to a curious example of this tendency to opposition, which is of almost worldwide extent. Among some people it is, or has been, the custom for the women to stand during urination, and in these countries it is usually the custom for the man to squat; in most countries the practices of the sexes in this matter are opposed. [195] It is sufficient to quote one example. At the end of the sixteenth century it was a serious objection to the fashionable wife of an English Brownist pastor in Amsterdam that she had "bodies [a bodice or corset] tied to the petticoat with points [laces] as men do their doublets and their hose, contrary to I Thess., v, 22, conferred with Deut. xxii, 5; and I John ii, 16." V. Summary of the Conclusions at Present Attainable in Regard to the Nature of Beauty and its Relation to Sexual Selection. The consideration of vision has led us into a region in which, more definitely and precisely than is the case with any other sense, we can observe and even hope to measure the operation of sexual selection in man. In the conception of feminine beauty we possess an instrument of universal extension by which it seems possible to measure the nature and extent of such selection as exercised by men on women. This conception, with which we set out, is, however, by no means so precise, so easily available for the attainment of sound conclusions, as at first it may seem to be. It is true that beauty is not, as some have supposed, a mere matter of caprice. It rests in part on (1) an objective basis of æsthetic character which holds all its variations together and leads to a remarkable approximation among the ideals of feminine beauty cherished by the most intelligent men of all races. But beyond this general objective basis we find that (2) the specific characters of the race or nation tend to cause divergence in the ideals of beauty, since beauty is often held to consist in the extreme development of these racial or national anthropological features; and it would, indeed, appear that the full development of racial characters indicates at the same time the full development of health and vigor. We have further to consider that (3) in most countries an important and usually essential element of beauty lies in the emphasis of the secondary and tertiary sexual characters: the special characters of the hair in woman, her breasts, her hips, and innumerable other qualities of minor saliency, but all apt to be of significance from the point of view of sexual selection. In addition we have (4) the factor of individual taste, constituted by the special organization and the peculiar experiences of the individual and inevitably affecting his ideal of beauty. Often this individual factor is merged into collective shapes, and in this way are constituted passing fashions in the matter of beauty, certain influences which normally affect only the individual having become potent enough to affect many individuals. Finally, in states of high civilization and in individuals of that restless and nervous temperament which is common in civilization, we have (5) a tendency to the appearance of an exotic element in the ideal of beauty, and in place of admiring that kind of beauty which most closely approximates to the type of their own race men begin to be agreeably affected by types which more or less deviate from that with which they are most familiar. While we have these various and to some extent conflicting elements in a man's ideal of feminine beauty, the question is still further complicated by the fact that sexual selection in the human species is not merely the choice of the woman by the man, but also the choice of the man by the woman. And when we come to consider this we find that the standard is altogether different, that many of the elements of beauty as it exists in woman for man have here fallen away altogether, while a new and preponderant element has to be recognized in the shape of a regard for strength and vigor. This, as I have pointed out, is not a purely visual character, but a tactile pressure character translated into visual terms. When we have stated the sexual ideal we have not yet, however, by any means stated the complete problem of human sexual selection. The ideal that is desired and sought is, in a large measure, not the outcome of experience; it is not even necessarily the expression of the individual's temperament and idiosyncrasy. It may be largely the result of fortuitous circumstances, of slight chance attractions in childhood, of accepted traditions consecrated by romance. In the actual contacts of life the individual may find that his sexual impulse is stirred by sensory stimuli which are other than those of the ideal he had cherished and may even be the reverse of them. Beyond this, also, we have reason for believing that factors of a still more fundamentally biological character, to some extent deeper even than all these psychic elements, enter into the problem of sexual selection. Certain individuals, apart altogether from the question of whether they are either ideally or practically the most fit mates, display a greater energy and achieve a greater success than others in securing partners. These individuals possess a greater constitutional vigor, physical or mental, which conduces to their success in practical affairs generally, and probably also heightens their specifically philogamic activities. Thus, the problem of human sexual selection is in the highest degree complicated. When we gather together such scanty data of precise nature as are at present available, we realize that, while generally according with the results which the evidence not of a quantitative nature would lead us to accept, their precise significance is not at present altogether clear. It would appear on the whole that in choosing a mate we tend to seek parity of racial and individual characters together with disparity of secondary sexual characters. But we need a much larger number of groups of evidence of varying character and obtained under varying conditions. Such evidence will doubtless accumulate now that its nature is becoming defined and the need for it recognized. In the meanwhile we are, at all events, in a position to assert, even with the evidence before us, that now that the real meaning of sexual selection is becoming clear its efficacy in human evolution can no longer be questioned. APPENDICES APPENDIX A. THE ORIGINS OF THE KISS. Manifestations resembling the kiss, whether with the object of expressing affection or sexual emotion, are found among various animals much lower than man. The caressing of the antennæ practiced by snails and various insects during sexual intercourse is of the nature of a kiss. Birds use their bills for a kind of caress. Thus, referring to guillemots and their practice of nibbling each other's feet, and the interest the mate always takes in this proceeding, which probably relieves irritation caused by insects, Edmund Selous remarks: "When they nibble and preen each other they may, I think, be rightly said to cosset and caress, the expression and pose of the bird receiving the benefit being often beatific."[196] Among mammals, such as the dog, we have what closely resembles a kiss, and the dog who smells, licks, and gently bites his master or a bitch, combines most of the sensory activities involved in the various forms of the human kiss. As practiced by man, the kiss involves mainly either the sense of touch or that of smell. Occasionally it involves to some extent both sensory elements.[197] The tactile kiss is certainly very ancient and primitive. It is common among mammals generally. The human infant exhibits, in a very marked degree, the impulse to carry everything to the mouth and to lick or attempt to taste it, possibly, as Compayre suggests,[198] from a memory of the action of the lips protruded to seize the maternal nipple. The affectionate child, as Mantegazza remarks,[199] not only applies inanimate objects to its lips or tongue, but of its own impulse licks the people it likes. Stanley Hall, in the light of a large amount of information he obtained on this point, found that "some children insist on licking the cheeks, necks, and hands of those they wish to caress," or like having animals lick them.[200] This impulse in children may be associated with the maternal impulse in animals to lick the young. "The method of licking the young practiced by the mother," remarks S.S. Buckman, "would cause licking to be associated with happy feelings. And, further, there is the allaying of parasitical irritation which is afforded by the rubbing and hence results in pleasure. It may even be suggested that the desire of the mother to lick her young was prompted in the first place by a desire to bestow on her offspring a pleasure she felt herself." The licking impulse in the child may thus, it is possible, be regarded as the evanescent manifestation of a more fundamental animal impulse,[201] a manifestation which is liable to appear in adult life under the stress of strong sexual emotion. Such an association is of interest if, as there is some reason to believe, the kiss of sexual love originated as a development of the more primitive kiss bestowed by the mother on her child, for it is sometimes found that the maternal kiss is practiced where the sexual kiss is unknown. The impulse to bite is also a part of the tactile element which lies at the origin of kissing. As Stanley Hall notes, children are fond of biting, though by no means always as a method of affection. There is, however, in biting a distinctly sexual origin to invoke, for among many animals the teeth (and among birds the bill) are used by the male to grasp the female more firmly during intercourse. This point has been discussed in the previous volume of these _Studies_ in reference to "Love and Pain," and it is unnecessary to enter into further details here. The heroine of Kleist's _Penthesilea_ remarks: "Kissing (Küsse) rhymes with biting (Bisse), and one who loves with the whole heart may easily confound the two." The kiss, as known in Europe, has developed on a sensory basis that is mainly tactile, although an olfactory element may sometimes coexist. The kiss thus understood is not very widely spread and is not usually found among rude and uncultured peoples. We can trace it in Aryan and Semitic antiquity, but in no very pronounced form; Homer scarcely knew it, and the Greek poets seldom mention it. Today it may be said to be known all over Europe except in Lapland. Even in Europe it is probably a comparatively modern discovery; and in all the Celtic tongues, Rhys states, there is no word for "kiss," the word employed being always borrowed from the Latin _pax_.[202] At a fairly early historic period, however, the Welsh Cymri, at all events, acquired a knowledge of the kiss, but it was regarded as a serious matter and very sparingly used, being by law only permitted on special occasions, as at a game called rope-playing or a carousal; otherwise a wife who kissed a man not her husband could be repudiated. Throughout eastern Asia it is unknown; thus, in Japanese literature kisses and embraces have no existence. "Kisses, and embraces are simply unknown in Japan as tokens of affection," Lafcadio Hearn states, "if we except the solitary fact that Japanese mothers, like mothers all over the world, lip and hug their little ones betimes. After babyhood there is no more hugging or kisses; such actions, except in the case of infants, are held to be immodest. Never do girls kiss one another; never do parents kiss or embrace their children who have become able to walk." This holds true, and has always held true, of all classes; hand-clasping is also foreign to them. On meeting after a long absence, Hearn remarks, they smile, perhaps cry a little, they may even stroke each other, but that is all. Japanese affection "is chiefly shown in acts of exquisite courtesy and kindness."[203] Among nearly all of the black races of Africa lovers never kiss nor do mothers usually kiss their babies.[204] Among the American Indians the tactile kiss is, for the most part, unknown, though here and there, as among the Fuegians, lovers rub their cheeks together.[205] Kissing is unknown to the Malays. In North Queensland, however, Roth states, kissing takes place between mothers (not fathers) and infants, also between husbands and wives; but whether it is an introduced custom Roth is unable to say; he adds that the Pitta-pitta language possesses a word for kissing.[206] It must be remarked, however, that in many parts of the world where the tactile kiss, as we understand it, is usually said to be unknown, it still exists as between a mother and her baby, and this seems to support the view advocated by Lombroso that the lovers' kiss is developed from the maternal kiss. Thus, the Angoni Zulus to the north of the Zambesi, Wiese states, kiss their small children on both cheeks[207] and among the Fuegians, according to Hyades, mothers kiss their small children. Even in Europe the kiss in early mediæval days was, it seems probable, not widely known as an expression of sexual love; it would appear to have been a refinement of love only practiced by the more cultivated classes. In the old ballad of Glasgerion the lady suspected that her secret visitor was only a churl, and not the knight he pretended to be, because when he came in his master's place to spend the night with her he kissed her neither coming nor going, but simply got her with child. It is only under a comparatively high stage of civilization that the kiss has been emphasized and developed in the art of love. Thus the Arabic author of the _Perfumed Garden_, a work revealing the existence of a high degree of social refinement, insists on the great importance of the kiss, especially if applied to the inner part of the mouth, and he quotes a proverb that "A moist kiss is better than a hasty coitus." Such kisses, as well as on the face generally, and all over the body, are frequently referred to by Hindu, Latin, and more modern erotic writers as among the most efficacious methods of arousing love.[208] A reason which may have stood in the way of the development of the kiss in a sexual direction has probably been the fact that in the near East the kiss was largely monopolized for sacred uses, so that its erotic potentialities were not easily perceived. Among the early Arabians the gods were worshiped by a kiss.[209] This was the usual way of greeting the house gods on entering or leaving.[210] In Rome the kiss was a sign of reverence and respect far more than a method of sexual excitation.[211] Among the early Christians it had an all but sacramental significance. It retains its ancient and serious meaning in many usages of the Western and still more the Eastern Churches; the relics of saints, the foot of the pope, the hands of bishops, are kissed, just as the ancient Greeks kissed the images of the gods. Among ourselves we still have a legally recognized example of the sacredness of the kiss in the form of taking an oath by kissing the Testament.[212] So far we have been concerned mainly with the tactile kiss, which is sometimes supposed to have arisen in remote times to the east of the Mediterranean--where the vassal kissed his suzerain and where the kiss of love was known, as we learn from the Songs of Songs, to the Hebrews--and has now conquered nearly the whole of Europe. But over a much larger part of the world and even in one corner of Europe (Lapland, as well as among the Russian Yakuts) a different kind of salutation rules, the olfactory kiss. This varies in form in different regions and sometimes simulates a tactile kiss, but, as it exists in a typical form in China, where it has been carefully studied by d'Enjoy, it may be said to be made up of three phases: (1) the nose is applied to the cheek of the beloved person; (2) there is a long nasal inspiration accompanied by lowering of the eyelids; (3) there is a slight smacking of the lips without the application of the mouth to the embraced cheek. The whole process, d'Enjoy considers, is founded on sexual desire and the desire for food, smell being the sense employed in both fields. In the form described by d'Enjoy, we have the Mongolian variety of the olfactory kiss. The Chinese regard the European kiss as odious, suggesting voracious cannibals, and yellow mothers in the French colonies still frighten children by threatening to give them the white man's kiss. Their own kiss the Chinese regard as exclusively voluptuous; it is only befitting as between lovers, and not only do fathers refrain from kissing their children except when very young, but even the mothers only give their children a rare and furtive kiss. Among some of the hill-tribes of south-east India the olfactory kiss is found, the nose being applied to the cheek during salutation with a strong inhalation; instead of saying "Kiss me," they here say "Smell me." The Tamils, I am told by a medical correspondent in Ceylon, do not kiss during coitus, but rub noses and also lick each other's mouth and tongue. The olfactory kiss is known in Africa; thus, on the Gambia in inland Africa when a man salutes a woman he takes her hand and places it to his nose, twice smelling the back of it. Among the Jekris of the Niger coast mothers rub their babies with their cheeks or mouths, but they do not kiss them, nor do lovers kiss, though they squeeze, cuddle, and embrace.[213] Among the Swahilis a smell kiss exists, and very young boys are taught to raise their clothes before women visitors, who thereupon playfully smell the penis; the child who does this is said to "give tobacco."[214] Kissing of any kind appears to be unknown to the Indians throughout a large part of America: Im Thurn states that it is unknown to the Indians of Guiana, and at the other end of South America Hyades and Deniker state that it is unknown to the Fuegians. In Forth America the olfactory kiss is known to the Eskimo, and has been noted among some Indian tribes, as the Blackfeet. It is also known in Polynesia. At Samoa kissing was smelling.[215] In New Zealand, also, the _hongi_, or nose-pressing, was the kiss of welcome, of mourning, and of sympathy.[216] In the Malay archipelago, it is said, the same word is used for "greeting" and "smelling." Among the Dyaks of the Malay archipelago, however, Vaughan Stevens states that any form of kissing is unknown.[217] In Borneo, Breitenstein tells us, kissing is a kind of smelling, the word for smelling being used, but he never himself saw a man kiss a woman; it is always done in private.[218] The olfactory kiss is thus seen to have a much wider extension over the world than the European (or Mediterranean) tactile kiss. In its most complete development, however, it is mainly found among the people of Mongolian race, or those yellow peoples more or less related to them. The literature of the kiss is extensive. So far, however, as that literature is known to me, the following list includes everything that may be profitably studied: Darwin, _The Expression of the Emotions_; Ling Roth, "Salutations," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, November, 1889; K. Andree, "Nasengruss," _Ethnographische Parallelen_, second series, 1889, pp. 223-227; Alfred Kirchhoff, "Vom Ursprung des Küsses," _Deutsche Revue_, May, 1895; Lombroso, "L'Origine du Baiser," _Nouvelle Revue_, 1897, p. 153; Paul d'Enjoy, "Le Baiser en Europe et en Chine," _Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie_, Paris, 1897, fasc. 2. Professor Nyrop's book, _The Kiss and its History_ (translated from the Danish by W.F. Harvey), deals rather with the history of the kiss in civilization and literature than with its biological origins and psychological significance. FOOTNOTES: [196] E. Selous, _Bird Watching_, 1901, p. 191. This author adds: "It seems probable indeed that the conferring a practical benefit of the kind indicated may be the origin of the caress throughout nature." [197] Tylor terms the kiss "the salute by tasting," and d'Enjoy defines it as "a bite and a suction"; there seems, however, little evidence to show that the kiss contains any gustatory element in the strict sense. [198] Compayre, _L'Evolution intellectuelle et morale de l'enfant_, p. 9. [199] Mantegazza, _Physiognomy and Expression_, p. 144. [200] G. Stanley Hall, "The Early Sense of Self," _American Journal of Psychology_, April, 1898, p. 361. [201] In some parts of the world the impulse persists into adult life. Sir S. Baker (_Ismailia_, p. 472) mentions licking the eyes as a sign of affection. [202] _Book of Common Prayer in Manx Gaelic_, edited by A.W. Moore and J. Rhys, 1895. [203] L. Hearn, _Out of the East_, 1895, p. 103. [204] See, e.g., A.B. Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, p. 288. Among the Swahili the kiss is practiced, but exclusively between married people and with very young children. Velten believes they learned it from the Arabs. [205] Hyades and Deniker, _Mission Scientifique du Cap Horn_, vol. vii, p. 245. [206] W. Roth, _Ethnological Notes Among the Queensland Aborigines_, p. 184. [207] _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1900, ht. 5, p. 200. [208] E.g., the _Kama Sutra_ of Vatsyayana, Bk. III, Chapter I. [209] Hosea, Chapter xiii, v. 2; I Kings, Chapter xix, v. 18. [210] Wellhausen, _Reste Arabischen Heidentums_, p. 109. [211] The Romans recognized at least three kinds of kiss: the _osculum_, for friendship, given on the face; the _basium_, for affection, given on the lips; the _suavium_, given between the lips, reserved for lovers. [212] In other parts of the world it would appear that the kiss sometimes has a sacred or ritual character. Thus, according to Rev. J. Macdonald (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, November, 1890, p. 118), it is part of the initiation ceremony of a girl at her first menstruation that the women of the village should kiss her on the cheek, and on the mons veneris and labia. [213] _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, August and November, 1898, p. 107. [214] Velten, _Sitten und Gebraüche der Suaheli_, p. 142. [215] Turner, _Samoa_, p. 45. [216] Tregear, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1889. [217] _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1896, ht. 4, p. 272. [218] Breitenstein, _21 Jahre in India_, vol. i, p. 224. APPENDIX B. HISTORIES OF SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT. The histories here recorded are similar in character to those given in Appendix B of the previous volume. HISTORY I.--C.D., clergyman, age, 34. Height about 5 ft. 8 in. Weight, 8st. 8lb. Complexion, fair. Physical infirmities, very myopic, tendency to consumption. "My family is of old lineage on both sides. My parents were normal and fairly healthy; but I consider that heredity, though not vitiated, is somewhat overrefined, and there is a neuropathic tendency, which has appeared in myself and in one or two other members of the family. As a child, I suffered, though not very frequently, from nocturnal enuresis. My sexual nature, though normal, has been keenly alive and sensitive as far back as I can remember; and as I look back I discern within myself in early childhood what I now understand to be a decided masochistic or passively algolagnic tendency. So far as I remember, this manifested itself in me in two aspects; one psychic or sentimental and free from carnality, expressing itself in imaginative visions such as the following: I used, to imagine myself kneeling before a young and beautiful woman and being sentenced by her to some punishment, and even threatened with death. At other times I would picture myself as a wounded soldier watched over on his sickbed by queenly women. These visions always included an imagination of something heroic in my own personality. No doubt they were the same kind of dreamings as are present in multitudes of imaginative children; they are only of interest in so far as a sexual element was present; and that was algolagnic in character. "I had a small fund of natural common sense; and my surroundings were not favorable to sentimental imaginings; consequently I believe I began to throw them off at an early age, though the temperament which produced them is still a part of my nature. "On the carnal side, the sexual instinct was decidedly algolagnic. Masturbation is one of my earliest recollections; indeed, it was not at first, so far as I remember, associated with any sexual ideas at all; but began as a reflex animal act. I do not remember its first occurrence. It soon, however, became associated in my mind with algolagnic excitement, giving rise to reveries which took the ordinary form of imagining oneself stripped and whipped, etc., by persons of the opposite sex. The _dramatis personæ_ in my own algolagnic reveries were elderly women; somewhat strangely, I did not associate physical sexuality at this period with young and attractive women. If scientific light on these matters were generally available in the practical bringing up of children, persons in charge of young children might refrain from exciting an algolagnic tendency or doing anything calculated to awake sexual emotions prematurely. In my own case, I recollect acts performed by older persons in ignorance and thoughtlessness which undoubtedly tended to foster and strengthen my algolagnic instinct. "Little or nothing was done to prevent, discover, or remedy the pernicious habit into which I was falling unknowingly. Circumcision was perhaps little thought of in those days as a preventive of juvenile masturbation; at any rate, it was not resorted to in my case. I remember, indeed, that a nurse discovered that I was practicing masturbation, and I think she made a few half-hearted attempts to stop it. It was probably these attempts which gave me a growing feeling that there was something wrong about masturbation, and that it must be practiced secretly. But they were unsuccessful in their main object. The practice continued. "I went to school at the age of 10. There I came in contact almost without warning, with the ordinary lewdness and grossness of school conversation, and took to it readily. I soon became conversant with the theory of sexual relations; but never got the opportunity of sexual intercourse, and probably should have felt some moral restraint even had such opportunity presented itself, for coitus, however interesting it might be to talk about, was a bigger thing to practice than masturbation. I masturbated fairly frequently, occasionally producing two orgasms in quick succession. I seldom masturbated with the hand; my method was to lie face downward. There was probably little or no homosexuality at my first school. I never heard of it till later, and it was always repugnant to me, though surrounded with a certain morbid interest. Masturbation was discountenanced openly at the school, but was, I believe, extensively practiced, both at that school and at the two others I afterward attended. The boys often talked about the hygiene of it; and the general theory was that it was somehow physically detrimental; but I heard no arguments advanced sufficiently cogent to make me see the necessity for a real moral effort against the habit, though, as I neared puberty, I was indulging more moderately and with greater misgivings. "The fact of becoming acquainted with the theory of sexual intercourse tended to diminish the algolagnia, and to impel my sexual instinct into an ordinary channel. On one occasion circumstances brought me into close contact with a woman for about three or four weeks, I being a mere boy and she very much my senior. I felt sexually attracted by this woman, and allowed myself a degree of familiarity with her which I have since recognized as undue and have deeply regretted. It did not, however, go to the length of seduction, and I trust may have passed away without leaving any permanent harm. It should, indeed, be remarked here that I never knew a woman sexually till my marriage; and with the one exception mentioned I do not recall any instance of conduct on my part toward a woman which could be described as giving her an impulse downhill. "On the psychic side my sexual emotions awoke in early childhood; and though my love affairs as a boy were not frequent and were kept to myself, they attained a considerable degree of emotional power. Leaving out of account the precocious movements of the sexual instinct to which I have already referred as colored by psychic algolagnia, I may say that somewhat later, from the age of puberty and onward, I had three or four love affairs, devoid of any algolagnic tendency, and considerably more developed on the psychic and emotional, than on the physical, side. In fact, my experience has been that when deeply in love, when the mind is full of the love ecstasy, the physical element of sexuality is kept--doubtless only temporarily--in abeyance. "To return now to the subject of masturbation. Here befell the chief moral struggle of my early life; and no terms that I have at command will adequately describe the stress of it. "A casual remark heard one day as I was arriving at puberty convinced me that there must be truth in the vague schoolboy theory that masturbation was _weakening_. It was to the effect that the evil results of masturbation practiced in boyhood would manifest themselves in later life. I then realized that I must relinquish masturbation, and I set myself to fight it; but with grave misgivings that, owing to the early age at which I had formed the habit, I had already done myself serious harm. "Before many weeks had passed, I had formed a resolution to abstain, which I kept thereafter without--so far as I remember--more than one conscious lapse into my former habit. Here it must be said at once that, so far as touches my own experience of a struggle of this kind, the religious factor is of primary importance as strengthening and sustaining the moral effort which has to be made. I am writing an account of my sexual, not my spiritual, experiences; but I should not only be untrue to my convictions, but unable to give an accurate and penetrating survey of the development of my sex life, unless I were clearly to state that it was to a large extent on that life that my strongest and most valuable religious experiences arose.[219] It is to the endeavor to discipline the sexual instinct, and to grapple with the difficulties and anxieties of the sex life, that I owe what I possess of spiritual religion, of the consciousness that my life has been brought into contact with Divine love and power. "My early habits, after they were broken off, left me none the less a legacy of sexual neurasthenia and a slight varicocele. My nocturnal pollutions were overfrequent; and I brooded over them, being too reticent and too much afraid of exposure at school and possible expulsion to confide in a doctor. Far better for me had I done so, for a few years later I received the truest kindness and sympathy in regard to sexual matters at the hands of more than one medical man. But while at school I was afraid to speak of the trouble which so unnerved and depressed me; and as a consequence my morbid fears grew stronger, being intensified by generalities which I met with from time to time in my reading on the subject of the punishment which nature metes out to impurity. "On leaving school my sex life continued for some years on the same lines: a struggle for chastity, morbid fears and regrets about the past, efforts to cope with the neurasthenia, and a haunting dread of coming insanity. These troubles were increased by my sedentary life. However I obtained medical aid, and put as good a face on matters as possible. "But the most trying thing of all has yet to be mentioned--the discovery that I had not yet got fully clear of the habit of masturbation. I had, indeed, repudiated it as far as my conscious waking moments were concerned, even though strongly impelled by sexual desire; but one night, about a year after I had relinquished the practice, I found myself again giving way to it in those moments between sleeping and waking when the will is only semiconscious. It was as if a race took place for wakefulness between my physical instinct, on the one side, and my moral sense and inhibitory nerves on the other; and very frequently the physical instinct won. This, perhaps, is not an uncommon experience, but it distressed me greatly; and I never felt safe from it until marriage. I resorted to various expedients to combat this tendency, at length having to tie myself in a certain position every night with a cord round my legs, so as to render it impossible to turn over upon my face. "In my early manhood the strain on my constitution was considerable from causes other than the sexual neurasthenia, which, indeed, I am now well aware I exaggerated in importance. Medical advisers whom I consulted in that period assured me that this was so; and, though at the time I often thought that they were concealing the real facts from me out of kindness, my own reading has since convinced me that they spoke nothing but scientific truth. "The years went on. I went through a university course, and in spite of my poor health took a good degree. The agony of my struggle for chastity seemed to come to a climax about four years later when for a long period, partly owing to overstudy and partly to the sexual strain, I fell into a condition of severe nervous exhaustion, one of the most distressing symptoms of which was insomnia. The dreaded cloud of insanity seemed to come closer. I had to use alcohol freely at nights; and might by now have become a drunkard, had I not been casually--or I must say, Providentially--directed to the common sense plan of measuring my whisky in a dram glass; so that the alcohol could not steal a march upon me. "This period was one of acute mental suffering. One cause of the nervous tension was--as I have now no doubt--the need of healthy sexual intercourse. I proved this eventually. My circumstances, which had long been adverse to marriage, at length were shaped in that direction. I renewed acquaintance with a lady whom I had known well some years before; and our friendship ripened until, after much perplexity on my side, owing to the uncertainty of my health and prospects, I decided that it was right to speak. We were married after a few months; and I realized that I had gained an excellent wife. We did not come together sexually for some nights after marriage; but, having once tasted the pleasure of the marriage bed, I have to admit that, partly owing to ignorance of the hygiene of marriage, I was for some time rather unrestrained in conjugal relations, requiring intercourse as often as eight or nine times a month. This was not unnatural when one considers that I had now for the first time free access to a woman, after a long and weary struggle to preserve chastity. Married life, however, tends naturally--or did so in my case--to regulate desire; and when I began to understand the ethics and hygiene of sex, as I did a year or two after marriage, I was enabled to exercise increasing self-restraint. We are now sparing in our enjoyment of conjugal pleasure. We have had no children; and I attribute this chiefly to the remaining sexual weakness in myself.[220] But I may say that not only my sexual power, but my nerve-power and general health, were greatly improved by marriage; and though I have fallen back, the last year or two, into a poor state of health, the cause of this is probably overwork rather than anything to do with sex. Not but what it must be said that, had it not been for the juvenile masturbation superadded to a neuropathic temperament, my constitution would no doubt have endured the general strain of life better than it has done. The algolagnia, being one of the congenital conditions of my sexual instinct, must be considered fundamental, and certainly has not been eliminated. If I were to allow myself indulgence in algolagnic reveries they would even now excite me without difficulty; but I have systematically discouraged them, so that they give me little or no practical trouble. My erotic dreams, which years ago were (to the best of my remembrance) frequently algolagnic, are now almost invariably normal. "My conjugal relations have always been on the lines of strictly normal sexuality. I have a deep sense of the obligations of monogamous marriage, besides a sincere affection for my wife; consequently I repress as far as possible all sexual inclinations, such as will come involuntarily sometimes, toward other women. "From what I have disclosed, it will be seen that I am but a frail man; but for many years I have striven honestly and hard to discipline sexuality within myself, and to regulate it according to right reason, pure hygiene, and the moral law; and I can but hope and believe that the Divine Power in which I have endeavored to trust will in the future, as it has done in the past, working by natural methods and through the current events of my life, amend and control my sex life and conduct it to safe and honorable issues." HISTORY II.--A.B., married, good general health, dark hair, fair complexion, short-sighted, and below medium height. Parents both belong to healthy families, but the mother suffered from nerves during early years of married life, and the father, a very energetic and ambitious man, was cold, passionless, and unscrupulous. A.B. is the oldest child; two of the brothers and sisters are slightly abnormal, nervously. But, so far as is known, none of the family has ever been sexually abnormal. A.B. was a bright, intelligent child, though inclined to be melancholy (and in later years prone to self-analysis). At preparatory school was fairly forward in studies, at public school somewhat backward, at University suddenly took a liking to intellectual pursuits. Throughout he was slack at games. Has never been able to learn to swim from nervousness. Can whistle well. Has always been fond of reading, and would like to have been an author by profession. He married at 24, and has had two children, both of whom showed congenital physical abnormalities. Before the age of 7 or 8 A.B. can remember various trifling incidents. "One of the games I used to play with my sister," he writes, "consisted in pretending we were 'father and mother' and were relieving ourselves at the w.c. We would squat down in various parts of the room, prolong the simulated act, and talk. I do not remember what our conversation was about, nor whether I had an erection. I used also to make water from a balcony into the garden, and in other unusual places. "The first occasion on which I can recollect experiencing sensations or emotions similar in character to later and more developed feelings of desire was at the age of about 7 or 8, when I was a dayboy at a large school in a country town and absolutely innocent as to deed, thought, or knowledge. I fell in love with a boy with whom I was brought in contact in my class, about my own age. I remember thinking him pretty. He paid me no attention. I had no distinct desire, except a wish to be near him, to touch him, and to kiss him. I blushed if I suddenly saw him, and thought of him when absent and speculated on my chances of seeing him again. I was put into a state of high ecstasy when he invited me to join him and some friends one summer evening in a game of rounders. "At the age of 8 I was told by my father's groom where babies came from and how they were produced. (I already knew the difference in sexual organs, as my sister and I were bathed in the same room.) He told me no details about erection, semen, etc. Nor did he take any liberties with me. I used to notice him urinating; he used to push back the foreskin and I thought his penis large. "When about 8 years old the nursemaid told me that the boy at her last place had intercourse with his sister. I thought it disgusting. About a year later I told the nurse I thought the story of Adam and Eve was not true and that when Eve gave Adam the apple he had intercourse with her and she was punished by having children. I don't know if I had thought this out, or if it had been suggested to me by others. This nurse used often to talk about my 'tassel.' "A family of several brothers went to the same school with me, and we used to indulge in dirty stories, chiefly, however, of the w.c. type rather than sexual. "When I was about 10 I learned much from my father's coachman. He used to talk about the girls he had had intercourse with, and how he would have liked this with my nursemaid. "A year later I went to a large day school. I think most of the boys, if not nearly all, were very ignorant and innocent in sexual matters. The only incident in this connection I can recollect is asking a boy to let me see his penis; he did so. "During the summer holidays, at a watering place I attended a theatrical performance and fell in love with a girl of about 12 who acted a part. I bought a photograph of her, which I kept and kissed for several years after. About the same time I thought rather tenderly of a girl of my own age whose parents knew mine. I remember feeling that I should like to kiss her. Once I furtively touched her hair. "When I was 12 I was sent to a small preparatory boarding school, in the country. During the holidays I used to talk about sexual things with my father's footman. He must have told me a good deal. I used to have erections. One evening, when I was in bed and everyone else out (my mother and the children in the country) he came up to my room and tried to put his hand on my penis. I had been thinking of sexual matters and had an erection. I resisted, but he persisted, and when he succeeded in touching me I gave in. He then proceeded to masturbate me. I sank back, overcome by the pleasant sensation. He then stopped and I went on myself. In the meantime he had taken out his penis and masturbated himself before me until the orgasm occurred. I was disgusted at the sight of his large organ and the semen. He then left me. I could hardly sleep from excitement. I felt I had been initiated into a great and delightful mystery. "I at once fell into the habit of masturbation. It was some months before I could produce the orgasm; at about 13 a slight froth came; at about 14 a little semen. I do not know how frequently I did it--perhaps once or twice a week. I used to feel ashamed of myself afterward. I told the man I was doing it and he expressed surprise I had not known about it before he told me. He warned me to stop doing it or it would injure my health. I pretended later that I had stopped doing it. "I practiced solitary masturbation for some months. At first the semen was small in amount and watery. "I had not at this time ever succeeded in drawing the foreskin below the 'corona.' After masturbation I would sometimes feel local pain in the penis, sometimes pains in the testicles, and generally a feeling of shame, but not, I think, any lassitude. The shame was a vague sense of discomfort at having done what I knew others would regard as dirty. I also experienced fears that I was injuring my health. "It was not long before I found other boys at the preparatory school with whom I talked of sexual things and in some cases proceeded to acts. The boys were between the ages of 9 and 14; they left at 14 or 15 for the public schools. We slept in bedrooms--several in one room. "There was no general conversation on sexual matters. Few of the boys knew anything about things--perhaps 7 or 8 out of 40. Before describing my experiences at the school I may mention that I cannot remember having at this period any wish to experience heterosexual intercourse; I knew as yet nothing of homosexual practices; and I did not have, except in one case, any love or affection for any of the boys. "One night, in my bedroom--there were about six of us--we were talking till rather late. My recollection commences with being aware that all the boys were asleep except myself and one other, P. (the son of a clergyman), who was in a bed at exactly the opposite end of the room. I suppose we must have been talking about this sort of thing, for I vividly remember having an erection, and suddenly--as if by premonition--getting out of my bed, and, with heart beating, going softly over to P.'s bed. He exhibited no surprise at my presence; a few whispered words took place; I placed my hand on his penis, and found he had an erection. I started masturbating him, but he said he had just finished. I then suggested, getting into bed with him. (I had never heard at that time of such a thing being done, the idea arose spontaneously.) He said it was not safe, and placed his hand on my penis, I think with the object of satisfying and getting rid of me. He masturbated me till the orgasm occurred. "I had no further relations with him, except on one occasion, shortly afterward, when one day, in the w.c. he asked me to masturbate him. I did so. He did not offer to do the same to me. "He was a delicate, feeble boy; not good at work; womanish in his ways; inclined to go in for petty bullying, until a boy showed fight, when he discovered himself to be an arrant coward. Four or five years later I met him at the university. His greeting was cool. My next affair was with a boy who was about my age (13), strong, full-blooded, coarse, always in 'hot water.' He was the son of the headmaster of one of the best-known public schools. It was reported that two brothers had been expelled from this public school for what we called 'beastliness.' He told me his older brother used to have intercrural intercourse with him. This was the first I had heard of this. We used to masturbate mutually. I had, however, no affection or desire for him. "With E., another boy, I had no relations, but I remember him as the first person of the same sex for whom I experienced love. He was a small, fair, thin, and little boy, some two years younger than myself, so my inferior in the social hierarchy of a school. "At the end of my last term I had two disappointments. I was beaten by a younger and clever boy for the first place in the school, and also beaten by one point in the competition for the Athletic Cup by a stronger boy who had only come to the school that very term. However, as a consolation prize, and as I was leaving, the headmaster gave me a second prize. This soothed my hurt feelings, and I remember, just after the 'head' had read out the prizes, on the last day of term, E., coming up to me, putting his arm on my shoulder, looking at me rather pensively, and in a voice that thrilled me and made me wish to kiss and hug him, tell me he was so glad I had got a prize and that it was a shame that other chap had beaten me for the cup. "I was three years (aged 12 to 15) at the preparatory school. I started in the bottom form and ended second in the school. My reports were generally good, and I was keen to do well in work. I was considerably influenced by the 'head.' He was a clergyman, but a man of wide reading, broad opinion, great scholarship, and great enthusiasm. We became very friendly. "During the holidays I now first practiced intercrural intercourse with a younger brother. I started touching his penis, and causing erections, when he was about 5. Afterward I got him to masturbate me and I masturbated him; I used to get him into bed with me. On one occasion I spontaneously (never having heard of such a thing) made him take my penis in his mouth. "This went on for several years. When I was about 16 and he about 10, the old family nurse spoke to me about it. She told me he had complained of my doing it. I was in great fear that my parents might hear of it. I went to him; told him I was sorry, but I had not understood he disliked it, but that I would not do it again. "About a year later (having persisted in this promise) I made overtures to him, but he refused. I then commended his conduct, and said I knew he was quite right, and begged him to refuse again if I should ever suggest it. I did not ever suggest it again. For many years I bitterly reproached myself for having corrupted him. However, I do not think any harm has been done him. But my self-reproaches have caused me to feel I owe some reparation to him. I also have more affection for him than for my other brothers and sisters. "At the age of 15 I went to one of the large public schools. I was fairly forward for my age, and entered high. But I made small progress. I had bad reports; I was 'slack in games,' and not popular among the boys. In fact, I stood still, so that when I left I was backward in comparison with other boys of even less natural intelligence. "The teaching was certainly bad. Moreover, I had not any friends, and this made me very sensitive. It was to a great extent my fault. When I first went there I was taken up by a set above me--boys who were 'senior' to me in standing. When they left I found myself alone. "My unpopularity was increased by my being considered to put on 'side'; also because I paid attention to my dress. "At the public school I had homosexual relations with various boys, usually without any passion. With one boy, however, I was deeply in love for over a year; I thought of him, dreamed of him, would have been content only to kiss him. But my courtship met with no success. "When carrying on with other boys the desire to reach the crisis was not always strong, perhaps out of shyness or modesty. Occasionally I had intercrural connection, which gave me the first intimation of what intercourse with a woman was like. When I masturbated in solitude I used to continue till the orgasm. "My housemaster one day sent for me and said he had walked through my cubicle and noticed a stain on the sheet. At this time I used to have nocturnal emissions. I cannot remember whether on this occasion the stain was due to one, or to masturbation. But I imagined that one did not have 'wet dreams' unless one masturbated. So when he went on to say that this was a proof that I was immoral I acknowledged I masturbated. He then told me I would injure my health--possibly 'weaken my heart,' or 'send myself mad'; he said that he would ask me to promise never to do it again. "I promised. I left humiliated and ashamed of myself; also generally frightened. He used to send for me every now and then, and ask me if I had kept my promise. For some months I did. Then I relapsed, and told him when he asked me. Ultimately he ceased sending for me--apparently convinced either that I was cured or that I was incorrigible. "A year or so afterward he discovered in my study (for I was now in the upper school and had a study) a French photograph that a boy had given me, entitled '_Qui est dans ma chambre?_' It represented a man going by mistake into the wrong bedroom; inside the room was a woman, in nightdress, in an attitude that suggested she had just been relieving herself. My housemaster told me the picture was terribly indecent, and that, taken with what he knew of my habits, it showed I was not a safe boy to be in the school. He added that he did not wish to make trouble at home, but that he advised me to get my parents to remove me at the end of that term, instead of the following term, when, in the ordinary course of things, I should have left. "I wrote to my people to say I was miserable at school, and I was removed at the end of that term. "My first case of true heterosexual passion was with a girl called D., whom I first knew when she was about 16. My family and hers were friendly. My attraction to her soon became a matter of common knowledge and joking to members of my family. She was a dark, passionate-looking child, with large eyes that--to me--seemed full of an inner knowledge of sexual mysteries. Precocious, vain, jealous, untruthful--those were qualities in her that I myself soon recognized. But the very fact that she was not conventionally 'goody-goody' proved an attraction to me. "I never openly made love to her, but I delighted to be near her. Our ages were sufficiently separated for this to be noticeable. I dreamed of her, and my highest ideal of blessedness was to kiss her and tell her I loved her. I heard that she had been discovered talking indecently in a w.c. to some little boys, sons of a friend of my family's. The knowledge of this precocity on her part intensified my fascination for her. "When I left home to return to school I kissed her--the only time. Absence did nothing to diminish my affection. I thought of her all day long, at work or at play. I wrote her a letter--not openly passionate, but my real feelings toward her must have been apparent. I found out afterward that her mother opened the letter. "When I returned home for the holidays her mother asked me not; to write her any letters and not to pay attentions to her, as I might 'spoil her.' I promised. I was, of course, greatly distressed. "D. used to come to our house to see my younger sister. She had clearly been warned by her mother not to allow me to speak to her. I was too nervous to make any advances; besides, I had promised. As I grew older, my passion died out. I have hardly ever seen her since. She married some years ago. I still retain sentimental feelings toward her. "I was now 18; I had stopped growing and was fairly broad and healthy. Intellectually I was rather precocious, though not ambitious. But I was no good at games, had no tastes for physical exercises, and no hobbies. "During the holidays, in my last year at school, I had gone to the Royal Aquarium with a school companion. This was followed by one or two visits to the Empire Theatre. It was then that I first discovered that sexual intercourse took place outside the limits of married life. On one occasion my friend talked to one of the women who were walking about. This same friend spoke to a prostitute at Oxford. (At this time I went up to the university.) Once or twice I met this girl. She used to ask about my friend. My feelings toward her were a combination of admiration for her physical beauty, a sense of the 'mystery' of her life, and pity for her isolated position. "On the whole, my first university term produced considerable improvement in me. I began to be interested in my work and to read a fair amount of general literature. I learned to bicycle and to row. I also made one intimate friend. "In my first holiday I went to the Empire and made the acquaintance of a girl there, W.H. She attracted me by her quiet appearance. I eventually made arrangements to pay her a visit. My apprehensions consisted of: 1. Fear of catching venereal disease. This I decided to safeguard by using a 'French letter.' 2. Fear that she might have a 'bully.' "The girl showed no sexual desire; but at that time this did not attract my attention. "I got very much 'gone' on her, paid her several visits, gave her some presents I could ill afford, and felt very distressed when she informed me she was to be married and therefore could not see me any more. "My experiences with prostitutes cover a period of twelve years. During three years of this period I was continually in their company. I have had intercourse with some two dozen; in some cases only once; in others on numerous occasions. They have usually been of the class that frequent Piccadilly, St. James Restaurant, the Continental Hotel, and the Dancing Clubs. Usual fee, £2 for the night; in one case, £5. "1. Not one of them, as far as I knew, was a drunkard. "2. As a rule, they were not mercenary or dishonest. "3. In their language and general behavior they compared favorably with respectable women. "4. I never caught venereal disease. "5. I twice caught pediculi. "6. I did not find them, as a rule, very sensual or fond of indecent talk. As a rule, they objected to stripping naked; they did not touch my organs; they did not suggest masturbation, sodomy, or _fellatio_. They seldom exhibited transports, but the better among them seemed sentimental and affectionate. "7. Their accounts of their first fall were nearly always the same. They got to know a 'gentleman,' often by his addressing them in the street; he took them about to dinners and theatres; they were quite innocent and even ignorant; on one occasion they drank too much; and before they knew what was happening they were no longer virgins. They do not, however, apparently round on the man or expose him or refuse to have anything more to do with him. "8. They state--in common with the outwardly 'respectable' women whom I have had a chance of catechising--that before the first intercourse they did not feel any conscious desire for intercourse and hardly devoted any thought to it, that it was very painful the first time, and that some time elapsed before they commenced to derive pleasure from it or to experience the orgasm. "E.B. was the second woman I had intercourse with. She was a prostitute, but very young (about 18) and had only been in London a few months. I met her first in the St. James Restaurant. I spoke a few words to her. The next day I saw her in the Burlington Arcade. I was not much attracted to her; she was pretty, in a coarse, buxom style; vulgar in manners, voice, and dress. She asked me to go home with her; I refused. She pressed me; I said I had no money. She still urged me, just to drive home with her and talk to her while she dressed for the evening. I consented. We drove to lodgings in Albany Street. We went in. She proceeded to kiss me. I remained cold, and told her again I had no money. She then said: 'That does not matter. You remind me of a boy I love. I want you to be my fancy boy.' I was flattered by this. I saw a good deal of her. She was sentimental. I never gave her any money. When I had some, she refused to take it, but allowed me to spend a little in buying her a present. On the night before I left London she wept. She wrote me illiterate, but affectionate letters. One day she wrote to me that she was to be kept by a man, but that she had made it a condition with him that she should be allowed to have me. I had never been in love with her, because of her vulgarity. I therefore took the earliest opportunity of letting matters cool, by not writing often, etc. The next thing I remember was my fascination, a few months later, for S.H. "She was not a regular prostitute. She had taken a very minor part in light opera. She was American by birth, young, slim, and spoke like a lady. Her hair was dyed; her breasts padded. She acted sentiment, but was less affectionate than E.B. I met her when she was out of a job. I gave her £2 whenever I met her. She was not mercenary. She was sensual. I became very much in love with her. I discovered her, however, writing letters to a fellow whom I had met one day when I was walking with her. He was only an acquaintance, but the brother of my most intimate friend. What I objected to was that in this letter to him she protested she did not care for me, but could not afford to give me up. She had to plead guilty, but I was so fascinated by her I still kept in with her, for a time, until she was kept by a man, and I had found other women to interest me. "Owing to the strict regulations made by the university authorities, prostitutes find it hard to make a living there, and I never had anything to do with one. My adventures were among the shopgirl class, and were of a comparatively innocent nature. One of them, however, M.S., a very undemonstrative shopgirl, was the only girl not a prostitute with whom I had so far had intercourse. "About this time I made the acquaintance of three other prostitutes, who, however, were nice, gentle, quiet girls, neither vulgar nor mercenary. A night passed with them always meant to me much more than mere intercourse. They were--especially two of them--of a sentimental nature, and would go to sleep in my arms. There was, on my part, not any passion, but a certain sympathy with them, and pity and affection. I remained faithful to the first, J.H., until she was kept by a man, and gave up her gentlemen friends. Then came D.V. She got in the family way and left London. Last, M.P. She was not pretty, but a good figure, well dressed, a bright conversationalist, and an intelligent mind. Her regular price for the night was £5, but when she got to know one she would take one for less and take one 'on tick.' She was very sensual. On one occasion, between 11 P.M. and about midday the following day I experienced the orgasm eleven or twelve times. "During term time I was often prevented from having women by want of money and absence from London. I considered myself lucky if I could have a woman once or twice a month. My allowance was not large enough to admit of such luxuries; and I was only able to do what I did by being economical in my general expenditure and living, and by running up bills for whatever I could get on credit. I lived in the hopes of picking up 'amateurs' who would give me what I wanted for the love of it and without payment. My efforts were not very successful at present, except in the case of M.S. I considered myself very lucky in having discovered her, and I should have stuck to her for longer but for the rival attraction of another. There was, however, no deep sentiment on either side. "But in order to preserve a continuity in my account of the women, I have left out two cases of temporary reversion to homosexual practices. During the periods when I could not get a woman I had recourse once more to masturbation. At times I had 'wet dreams' in which boys figured; and my thoughts, in waking hours, sometimes reverted to memories of my school experiences. I think, however, that I should have preferred a woman." The homosexual reversions were as follows:-- "1. I had arranged to meet a shopgirl one evening, outside the town. She did not turn up. The meeting place was a railway bridge. Waiting there too, a few feet from me, was a boy of about 15. He was employed (I afterward found) by a gardener, and was waiting to meet his brother, who was engaged on the line. I got into casual conversation with him, and suddenly found myself wondering whether he ever masturbated. With a feeling, that I can only describe by calling it an intuition, I moved nearer him, and asked: 'Do you ever play with yourself?' He did not seem surprised at the abruptness of my question, and answered 'yes.' I thereupon touched his penis, and _found he had an erection_! I suggested retiring to a bench that was near. We sat down. I masturbated him till he experienced the orgasm; then intercrurally. I gave him a shilling, and said good night. "2. During my last summer at the university I took to gardening. There was a small piece of garden behind the house in which I had lodgings. My landlady suggested getting a cousin of hers, employed by a nurseryman, to supply me with plants, etc. He was a youth of about 16 or 17, tall, dark, not bad favored in looks. I forget how many times I saw him--not many, perhaps twice or thrice; but one day, when he came to see me in my room, about something connected with the garden, I gave him some old clothes of mine. He was a great deal taller than myself, and I suggested his trying on the trousers to see if they would fit. I do not know whether I made this suggestion with any ulterior motive or whether I had ever before thought of him in connection with any sexual relations. I only know that once more, as if guided by instinct, I felt he would not rebuff me, although certainly no indecent talk had ever taken place between us. I pretended to help him to pull up the trousers, and let my hand touch his penis. He did not resist; and I felt his penis for a few seconds. I then proposed he should come upstairs to my bedroom. No one was in the house. We went up. He did not at first have an erection. I asked why. He said 'because you are strange to me.' He then felt my penis. Eventually we mutually masturbated one another. I gave him half a crown. "Some short time afterward he came again to the house. On this occasion I attempted _fellatio_. I don't think I had at that time ever heard of such a practice. He said, however, he did not like it. He masturbated intercrurally. He said he had never done this before, although he had had girls. (The other boy also told me he had had girls.) "3. On another occasion I was out bicycling. A boy, of about 10 years of age, offered me a bunch of violets for a penny. I told him I would give him a shilling to pick me a large bunch. I am not sure if I had any ulterior motive. He proceeded into a wood on the side of the road; I dismounted from my machine and followed him. He was a pretty, dark boy. He made water. I went up to him and asked him to let me feel his penis. He at once jumped away, and ran off shrieking. I was frightened, mounted my bicycle, and rode as fast as I could home. "There was no sentiment in the above cases. It is also to be noted that in neither instance did I make any arrangements to see the person again. As far as I can remember, when once I was satisfied I felt disgust for my act. In the case of women this was never so. "Two of the women described in the foregoing pages stand out above the others. Perhaps I have not sufficiently shown that in the cases of W.H. and S.H. I felt a considerable degree of _passion_. W.H. was the first woman with whom I had had intercourse; this invested her in my heart, with a peculiar sentiment. In neither case can I be accused of fickleness. Indeed, I may say that up to this time I had had no opportunity of being fickle. I never saw enough, or had enough, of a woman to get a surfeit of her. "The case I now come to presents the features of the cases of W.H. and S.H. in a stronger form. I was then 20; I have since then married; I am a father; my experiences have been many and varied; but still I must confess that no other woman has ever stirred my emotions more than--I doubt if as much as--D.C. Up to date, if there has been any grand passion in my life, it is my love for her. D.C., when I got to know her--by talking to her in the street--was a girl of about 20. She was short and plump; dark hair; dark, mischievous eyes; a fair complexion; small features; quiet manners, and a sensual _ensemble_. I do not know what her father was. He was dead, her mother kept a university lodging house. She spoke and behaved like a lady. She dressed quietly; was absolutely unmercenary; her intelligence--i.e., her intellectual calibre--was not great. Her master-passion was one thing. The first evening I walked out with her she put her hand down on my penis, before I had even kissed her, and proposed intercourse. I was surprised, almost embarrassed; she herself led me to a wall, and standing up made me do it. "Next day we went away for the day together. I may say she was _always_ ready and never satisfied. She was sensual rather than sentimental. She was ready to shower her favors anywhere and to anyone. My feelings toward her soon became affectionate and sentimental, and then passionate. I thought of nothing else all day long; wrote her long letters daily; simply lived to see her. "I found she was engaged to be married. Her _fiancé_, a schoolmaster, himself used to have intercourse with her, but he had taken a religious turn and thought it was wicked to do it until they married. I had intercourse with her on every possible occasion: in private rooms at hotels, in railway carriages, in a field, against a wall, and--when the holidays came--she stayed a night with me in London. She had apparently no fear of getting in the family way, and never used any precaution. Sensual as she was, she did not show her feelings by outward demonstration. "On one occasion she proposed _fellatio_. She said she had done it to her _fiancé_ and liked it. This is the only case I have known of a woman wishing to do it for the love of it. "The emotional tension on my nerves--the continual jealousy I was in, the knowledge that before long she would marry and we must part--eventually caused me to get ill. She never told me she loved me more than any other man; yet, owing to my importunity, she saw much more of me than anyone else. It came to the ears of her _fiancé_ that she was in my company a great deal; there was a meeting of the three of us--convened at his wish--at which she had formally, before him, to say 'good-bye' to me. Yet we still continued to meet and to have intercourse. "Then the date of her marriage drew near. She wrote me saying that she could not see me any more. I forced myself, however, on her, and our relations still continued. Her elder sister interviewed me and said she would inform the authorities unless I gave her up; a brother, too, came to see me and made a row. "I had what I seriously intended to be a last meeting with her. But after that she came up to London to see me, we went to a hotel together. We arranged to see one another again, but she did not write. I had now left the university. I heard she was married. "It was now four years since I had first had intercourse with a woman. During this time I was almost continually under the influence, either of a definite love affair or of a general lasciviousness and desire for intercourse with women. My character and life were naturally affected by this. My studies were interfered with; I had become extravagant and had run into debt. It is worthy of note that I had never up to this time considered the desirability of marriage. This was perhaps chiefly because I had no means to marry. But even in the midst of my affairs I always retained sufficient sense to criticise the moral and intellectual calibre of the women I loved, and I held strong views on the advisability of mental and moral sympathies and congenital tastes existing between people who married. In my amours I had hitherto found no intellectual equality or sympathies. My passion for D.C. was prompted by (1) the bond that sexual intercourse with a woman has nearly always produced in my feelings, (2) her physical beauty, (3) that she was sensual, (4) that she was a lady, (5) that she was young, (6) that she was not mercenary. It was kept alive by the obstacles in the way of my seeing her enough and by her engagement to another. "The D.C. affair left me worn out emotionally. I reviewed my life of the last four years. It seemed to show much more heartache, anxiety, and suffering than pleasure. I concluded that this unsatisfactory result was inseparable from the pursuit of illegitimate amours. I saw that my work had been interfered with, and that I was in debt, owing to the same cause. Yet I felt that I could never do without a woman. In this quandary I found myself thinking that marriage was the only salvation for me. Then I should always have a woman by me. I was sufficiently sensible to know that unless there were congenial tastes and sympathies, a marriage could not turn out happily, especially as my chief interests in life (after woman) were literature, history, and philosophy. But I imagined that if I could find a girl who would satisfy the condition of being an intellectual companion to me, all my troubles would be over; my sexual desire would be satisfied, and I could devote myself to work. "In this frame of mind I turned my thoughts more seriously in the direction of a girl whom I had known for some two years. Her age was nearly the same as mine. My family and hers were acquainted with one another. I had established a platonic friendship with her. Undoubtedly the prime attraction was that she was young and pretty. But she was also a girl of considerable character. Without being as well educated as I was, she was above the average girl in general intelligence. She was fond of reading; books formed our chief subject of conversation and common interest. She was, in fact, a girl of more intelligence than I had yet encountered. On her side, as I afterward discovered, the interest in me was less purely platonic. Our relations toward one another were absolutely correct. Yet we were intimate, informal, and talked on subjects that would be considered forbidden topics between two young persons by most people. I felt she was a true friend. She, too, confided to me her troubles. "We corresponded with one another frequently. Sometimes it occurred, to me that it was rather strange she should be so keen to write to me, to hear from me, and to see me; but I had never thought of her, consciously, except as a friend; I never for a moment imagined she thought of me except as an interesting and intelligent friend. Nor did the idea of illicit love ever suggest itself to me. She was one of those women whose face and expression put aside any such thought. I was, indeed, inclined to regard her as a good influence on me, but as passionless. I confided to her the affair of D.C., which took place during our acquaintance. She was distressed, but sympathetic and not prudish. I did not suspect the cause of her distress; I thought it was owing to her disappointment in the ideals she had formed of me. She invited me to join her and her family for a part of the summer (I had now left the university, having obtained my degree in low honors) and I decided to join them. At this stage there began to impress itself on my mind the possibility that she cared for me; also the desirability, if that were so, of becoming engaged to her. I found my feelings became warmer. On several occasions we found ourselves alone. Then, one day, our talk became more personal, more tender; and I kissed her. I do recollect distinctly the thought flashing through my mind, as she allowed me to kiss her, that she was not after all the passionless and 'straight' girl I had thought. But the idea must have been a very temporary one; it did not return; she declared her love for me; and without any express 'proposal' on my part we walked home that afternoon mutually taking it for granted that we were engaged. I was happy, and calmly happy; proud and elated. "Circumstances now made it necessary for me to make money for myself and I was forced to enter a profession for which I had never felt any attraction; indeed, I had never considered the possibility of it, until I became engaged, and saw I must support myself if I were ever to marry. I worked hard, and rapidly improved my position. "I think I am correct in stating that from the day I became engaged my sexual troubles seemed to have ceased. My thoughts and passions were centred on one woman. We wrote to one another twice every week, and as far as I was concerned every thought and feeling I had I told her, and the receipt of her letters was for me the event of my life for nearly three years. My anxiety in connection with my work used up a great deal of my energy, and, although I looked forward to the time when I should have a woman at my side every night, my sexual desires were in abeyance. Nor did I feel any desire or temptation for other women. "I masturbated, but not frequently. Generally I did it to the accompaniment of images or scenes associated with my betrothed, sometimes the act was purely auto-erotic. My leisure time was devoted to reading. "On only one occasion did I have intercourse with a woman during my engagement (three years); it was with a girl whose acquaintance I had made at the university and who asked me to come to see her. "I married at the age of 24. Looking back on the early days of my married life it is now a matter of surprise to me that I was so far from exhibiting the transports of passion which since then have accompanied any intercourse with a new woman. Partly I was frightened of shocking her; partly my three years of comparative abstinence had chastened me. It was some weeks before I ever saw my wife entirely naked; I never touched her parts with my hand for many months; and after the first few weeks I did not have intercourse with her frequently. "Perhaps this was to be expected. The basis of my affection for her had always been a moral or mental one rather than physical, although she was a handsome, well-made girl. Besides, money and other worries kept my thoughts busy, as well as struggles to make both ends meet. "Indeed, I may say my sexual nature seemed to be dying out. When I had been married less than six months I discovered that sexual intercourse with my wife no longer meant what sexual intercourse used to mean--no excitement or exaltation or ecstasy. My wife perhaps contributed to this by her attitude. She confessed afterward to me that for the first week or so she positively dreaded bedtime, so physically painful was intercourse to her; that it was many weeks, if not months, before she experienced the orgasm. For the first year and more of marriage she could not endure touching my penis. This at first disappointed me; then annoyed and finally almost disgusted me. "Later on, she learned to experience the orgasm. But she was very undemonstrative during the act, and it was seldom that the orgasm occurred simultaneously; she took a much longer time. "I ceased to think about sexual matters. When I had been married about three years I was aware that, in my case, marriage meant the loss of all mad ecstasy in the act. I knew that if I had no work to do, and plenty of money, and temptation came my way, I should like to have another woman. But there was no particular woman to enchain my fancy and I did not have time or money or inclination to hunt for one. "At times I masturbated. Sometimes I did this to the accompaniment of homosexual desires or memories of the past. Then I got my wife to masturbate me. "About four years after marriage I got a woman from Piccadilly Circus to do _fellatio_. I had never had this done before. She did not do it genuinely, but used her fingers. "As stated above various anxieties, the fact that I could always satisfy my physical desires, all served to calm me. I was also interested in my work and had become ambitious to improve my position and was very energetic. "On the whole, notwithstanding money worries, the first four or five years of my married life were the happiest in my life. Certainly I was very free from sexual desires; and the general effect of marriage was to make me economical, energetic, ambitious, and unselfish. I was certainly overworked. I seldom got to bed before 1 or 2; my meals were irregular; and I became worried and nervous. At the beginning of my fifth year of married life I got run down, and had a severe illness, and at one time my life was in danger, but I had a fairly rapid convalescence. "My illness was critical, in more senses than one. My convalescence was accompanied by a remarkable recrudescence of my sexual feelings. I will trace this in detail: 1. As I got well--but while still in bed--I found myself experiencing, almost continually, violent erections. These were at first of an auto-erotic character, and I masturbated myself, thus gaining relief to my nerves. 2. I also found my thoughts tending toward sexual images, and I felt a desire toward my nurse. I first became conscious of this when I noticed that I experienced an erection during the time that she was washing me. I mentioned the matter to my doctor, who told me not to worry, and said the symptoms were usual in the circumstances. 3. When I got up and about I found myself desiring very keenly to have intercourse with my wife. I can almost say that I felt more sexually excited than I had done for four or five years. As soon, however, as I had had intercourse with my wife a few times I felt my desire toward her cease. 4. My thoughts now centered on having a woman to do _fellatio_, and as soon as I was well enough to go out I got a prostitute to do this. "Just before I was ill my wife had a child, which was born with more than one abnormality. No doubt the shock and worry caused by this got me into a low state and predisposed me to my illness. But the consequences were farther reaching still. The child underwent an operation, and my wife had to take her away into the country for nearly six weeks, so as to give her better air. I was left alone in London, for the first time since my marriage. The worry in connection with the child, and the heavy expense, served to keep me nervously upset after I had apparently recovered physically from the illness. Once more I found myself thinking about women. As an additional factor in the situation I became friendly with an old college-chum whom I had not seen much of for many years. He lived the life of a fashionable young bachelor and was at the time keeping a woman. The only common interest between us was women. I found myself reverting to the old condition of rampant lust that had been such a curse to me in my university days. Some books he lent me had a decided effect. They gave me erections; and it was on top of the excitement thus engendered that one day I got a woman to do _fellatio_, as already mentioned. Moreover, since my illness, I found all my previous energy and ambition had gone. "I have stated that I was in London alone with two servants. The housemaid was a young girl; nice looking, with beautiful eyes and a sensual expression. She had been with us for about a year. I cannot remember when I first thought of her in a sexual way. But one evening I suddenly felt a desire for her. I talked to her; I found my voice trembling; I let my hand, as if by accident, touch hers; she did not withdraw it; and in a second I had kissed her. She did not resist. I took her on my knee, and tried to take liberties, which she resisted, and I desisted. "Next day I kissed her again, and put my hand inside her breasts. The same evening I took her to an exhibition. On the way home, in a hansom cab, I made her masturbate me. This was followed by a feeling of great relief, elation, and _pride_. "Next morning, when she came up to my bedroom to call me, I kissed and embraced her; she allowed me to take liberties, and, reassuring her by saying I would use a preventive, I had intercourse with her. She flinched somewhat. She then told me she was at her period and that she had never had intercourse with a man before. "During the next few weeks I found her an adept pupil, though always shy and undemonstrative. I took her to a hotel, and experienced the intensest pleasure I had ever had in undressing her. I had lately heard about _cunnilingus_. I now did it to her. I soon found I experienced very great pleasure in this, as did she. (I had attempted it with my wife, but found it disgusted me.) I also had intercourse _per anum_. (This again was an act I had heard about, but had never been able to regard as pleasurable. But books I had been reading stated it was most pleasant both to man and woman.) She resisted at first, finding it hurt her much; it excited me greatly; and when I had done it in this way several times she herself seemed to like it, especially if I kept my hand on her clitoris at the same time. "My relations with the housemaid, with whom I cannot pretend that I was in love, were only put an end to by satiety, and when I went away for my holidays I was utterly exhausted. This was, however, only the first of a series of relationships, at least one of which deeply stirred my emotional nature. These experiences, however, it is unnecessary to detail. There have also been occasional homosexual episodes. "I think I am now in a much healthier condition than I have been for some years. (I assume that it is _not_ healthy for all one's thoughts to be always occupied on sexual subjects.) The conclusion I come to is that I can live a normal, healthy life, devoting my thoughts to my work, and finding pleasure in friendship, in my children, in reading, and in other sources of amusement, as long as I can have occasional relations with a young girl--i.e., about once a week. But if this outlet for my sexual emotions is stopped sexual thoughts obsess my brain; I become both useless and miserable. "I have never regretted my marriage. Not only do I feel that life without a wife and home and children would be miserable, but I entertain feelings of great affection toward my wife. We are well suited to one another; she is a woman of character and intelligence; she looks after my home well, is a sensible and devoted mother, and understands me. I have never met a woman I would have sooner married. We have many tastes and likings in common, and--what is not possible with most women--I can, as a rule, speak to her about my feelings and find a listener who understands. "On the other hand, all passion and sentiment have died out. It seems to me that this is inevitable. Perhaps it is a good thing this should be so. If men and women remained in the state of erotic excitement they are in when they marry, the business and work of the world would go hang. Unfortunately, in my case this very erotic excitement is the chief thing in life that appeals to me! "The factors that in my case have produced this death of passion and sentiment are as follows:-- "1. Familiarity. When one is continually in the company of a person all novelty dies out. In the case of husband and wife, the husband sees his wife every day; at all times and seasons; dressed, undressed; ill; good tempered, bad tempered. He sees her wash and perform other functions; he sees her naked whenever he likes; he can have intercourse with her whenever he feels inclined. How can love (as I use the expression--i.e., sexual passion) continue? "2. Satiety. I am of a 'hot,' sensual disposition, inclined to excess, as far as my health and nerves are concerned. The appetite gets jaded. "3. Absence of strong sexual reciprocity on the part of my wife. I have referred to this above. She likes intercourse, but she is never outwardly demonstrative. She has naturally a chaste mind. She never is guilty of those little indecencies which affect some men a great deal. She does not like talking of these things; and she tells me that if I died, she would never want to have intercourse again with anyone. At times, especially recently, she has even asked me to have intercourse with her, or to masturbate her; but it is seldom that the orgasm occurs contemporaneously. In this respect she is different from other women I knew, in whom the mere fact that the orgasm was occurring in me at once produced it in them. At the same time I doubt whether even strong sexual reciprocity would have retained my passion for long. "4. During the early years of our married life money worries caused at times disagreements, reproaches and quarrels. Passion and sentiment are fragile and cannot stand these things. "5. The fact that I had already had other women diminished the feeling of awe with which many regard the sexual act and the violation of sexual conventions. "6. Loss of beauty. Loss of figure is, I fear, inseparable from childbearing especially if the woman works hard. We have always had servants, still my wife has always worked hard, at sewing, etc. "I have stated that I entertain feelings of respect and admiration for my wife. But I almost _loathe_ the idea of intercourse with her. I would sooner masturbate, and think of another woman than have intercourse with her. It causes nausea in me to touch her private parts. Yet with other women it affords me mad pleasure to kiss them, every part of their bodies. But my wife still feels for me the love she had when we first married. There lies the tragedy." The following narrative is a continuation of History XII in the previous volume:-- HISTORY III.--I had become good looking. For a time I knew what it was to have loving looks from every woman I met, and being saner and healthier I would seem to be moving in a divine atmosphere of color and fragrance, pearly teeth and bright eyes. Even the old women with daughters looked at me amiably--married women with challenge and maidens with Paradise in their eyes. "I was standing one morning at St. Peter's corner, with two young friends, when a girl went by, coming over from the Roman Catholic cathedral. When she had passed she looked back, with that imperious swing that is almost a command, at me, as my friends distinctly admitted. They advised me to follow her; I did so, and she turned a pretty, blushing face and pair of dark gray eyes, with just the kind of eyebrows I liked: brown, very level, rather thick, but long. Her teeth and mouth were perfect, and she spoke with a slight Irish brogue. She let me do all the talking while she took my measure. God knows what she saw in me! I spoke in an affected manner, I remember, imitating some swell character I had seen on the stage a night or two before, but I was wise enough not to talk too much and to behave myself. She promised to meet me again and made the appointment. She was a school-teacher and engaged to be married to some one else. She meant to amuse herself her own way before she married. The second night I met her she allowed me to kiss her as much as I liked and promised all her favors for the third night. We took a long walk, and in the dark she gave herself to me, but I hurt her so much I had to stop two or three times. She had had connection only once, years before, when at school herself. She was inclined to be sensual, but she was young, fresh, and pretty, and her kisses turned my head. I fell genuinely in love with her and told her so, one night when she was particularly fascinating, with the tears in my eyes; and her face met mine with equal love. The first night or two I had felt no pleasure--whether through years of self-abuse or not I do not know,--but this night my whole being was excited. I met her once and sometimes twice a week and was always thinking of her. My sister saw me looking love-sick one day and I heard her say 'He's in love,' which rather flattered me, and I looked more love-sick and idiotic than ever. It was all wrong and perverted. She continued to meet her _fiancé_, and intended to marry him. We both spoke of 'him' as an adultress speaks of her husband. That high level of tears and childlike joy in our youth and love was never reached again. But I realized her _sex_, her kisses, her presence--after all those years of horror (if she had only known)--more even than the sexual act itself; while she, as time went on, commenced to show a curiosity which I thought desecrating; she liked to examine--to 'let her hand stray,' were her words. Even her beauty seemed impaired some nights and I caught a gleam in her eye and a curve of her lip I thought vulgar. But perhaps the next night I met her she would be as bright as ever. "I introduced her to my friends, who knew our relations, for I blabbed everything. But she did not mind their knowing and if we met would give them all a kiss, so that I felt I had been rather too profuse in my hospitality, though I still would say: 'Have another one, Bert; I don't mind.' But whatever ass I made of myself she forgave me anything, and was fonder of me every time we met, while I, although I did not know it for a long time, was less fond of her. She knew how to revive my love, however. Some nights she would not meet me, and I would be like a madman. Other nights she would meet me, but not let me raise her dress. She would lie on me, on a moonlit night, and her young face in shadow like a siren's in its frame of hair, merely to kiss me. But what kisses! Slow, cold kisses changing to clinging, passionate ones. She would leave my mouth to look around, as if frightened, and come back, open-mouthed, with a side-contact of lips that brought out unexpected felicities. "One night her _fiancé_ saw us together, and followed me after I left her, but on turning a corner I ran. I ridiculed him to her and despised him. I should have found it difficult to say why. Another night her brother attacked me, and it would have gone hard with me, but Annie pulled me in and banged the door. We were in a friend's house, but her father came around soon and laid a stick about her shoulders, in my presence. I tried to talk big, and said something idiotic about being as good a man as her betrothed, as though my intentions were honorable, which for one brief moment made Anne look at me, paler faced and changed, such a strange glance. But he beat her home, enjoying my rage, and she went away, crying in her hands. I was allowed to go unmolested. "I soon received a letter from her asking me not to mind and making an appointment, at which she turned up cheerful and unconcerned. She went to confession, and would meet me afterwards; and her faith in that, and the difference of our religions (if I had any religion) would make her seem strange and alien to me at times, even banal. At last our meetings became a mere habit of sensuality, with all charm, and suggestion of better things eliminated.... "I went with my friend George (who shared my room) one afternoon and called at Annie's school; she kept an infants' school of her own. She came to the door herself. It was the first time I had seen her in daylight, and I thought her cheek-bones bigger; she certainly was not so pretty as on the first evening I met her. George had told me he would sleep away if I wanted the room, and when next I met her she promised to come and sleep with me. Before I had always met her on the grass, under trees. She came, and the sight of her young limbs and breasts revived something of my love for her, my better love. But she was insatiable and more sensual every day. One day she came when I was not well, and would not go away disappointed. I had met a very pretty girl about this time, and now resolved to give Annie up, which I did in the cruelest manner, cutting her dead, and refusing to answer her letters and touching messages. I heard that she would cry for hours, but I was harder than adamant.... "I thought myself very much in love with the very pretty girl for whom I had thrown up Annie. She lived with her mother and two sisters, one older than herself, the other a mere child. The eldest sister, a handsome, dark girl like a Spaniard, was not virtuous. She was good natured; too much so, and took her pleasure with several of us, dying, not long after, of consumption. I thought her sister, my girl, was virtuous, and I meant to marry her--some day. At any rate, I saw her mother, who lived in a well-furnished house and was a superior woman. This did not prevent my trying to seduce her daughter. I did not succeed for a long time, though she did not cease meeting me. The sisters came to see us. I knew, one night, her sister was upstairs with D. and I guessed what they were at, so I suggested to her she should creep up on them for fun. She did so, came back, excited and pale--and gave herself to me. But she was not a virgin and in time I had a glimpse of her unhappy fate and her mother's position. Her father was dead or divorced, and her mother, I believe, was mistress to some wealthy bookmaker. I am not sure, there was always a mystery hanging over the mother, nor am I certain that she connived at her daughter's seduction, but the girl's account was that after some successful Cup day there had been too much champagne drunk all around, and that a man she looked on as a friend came into her bedroom that night when she was _tête montée_ and seduced or violated her--whichever word you like to choose. Since then his visits had been frequent until she met me, she said, and if I would be true to her she would be a true wife to me, and I believed her and still believe she meant what she said. But I left Melbourne shortly after this, our letters got few and far between, and ultimately I heard she was married to a young man who had always been in love with her.... "Among the inmates of the boarding house was a 'married' couple who stayed for some time; he was an insignificant, ugly, little, crosseyed commercial traveler; she was a pretty, little creature who looked as innocent and was as merry as a child; we all vied in paying her attentions and waiting on her like slaves, the husband always smiling a cryptic smile. After they had left it was hinted they were not married at all; the oldest hands had been taken in.... One afternoon I met Dolly, the commercial traveler's wife, and she stopped and spoke to me. I remembered what I had heard and ventured on some pleasantry at which she laughed, and on my proposing that we should go for a walk she consented. She had left the commercial traveler, it came out in conversation, and we went on talking and walking, one idea only in my mind now; could I detain her till dark? Dolly, who was very pretty indeed, amused herself with me for hours, playing hot and cold, snubbing me one minute, encouraging me with her eyed another. Hour after hour went and she found this game so entertaining that she accompanied me to the park behind the Botanical Gardens, and it was not until it was too late for me to catch a train home that she gave herself to me. In fact, we stayed out the whole of that warm summer night. As the hours went by she told me of her home in London and how she first went wrong. She had been a good girl till one day on an excursion she drank some rum or gin, which seemingly revived some dormant taint of heritage; when she went home that night she fell flat at her mother's feet. Her parents, well-to-do shopkeepers, who had forgiven her several times before, turned her out. She became one man's mistress and then another's. She began early, and was scarcely 19 now. She would leave off the drink for a time and try to be respectable. She loved her father and mother, but she could not help drinking at times. She spoke cheerfully and laughingly about it all; she was young, strong, good natured, and careless. We went to sleep for a little while and then wandered in the early morning down toward the cemetery, when she tried to tidy her hair, asking me how I had enjoyed myself and not waiting for an answer. She was thirsty, she said, and when the public houses opened we went and had a drink. It was the first time I had seen her drink alcohol,--at the boarding house she had always been the picture of health and sweetness,--and I saw a change come over her at once, so that I understood all that she had told me. The sleepless night may have made it worse, but the look that came into her eyes, and the looseness of the fibres not only of her tell-tale wet mouth, but of every muscle of her face was startling and piteous to see. She saw my look and laughed, but her laugh was equally piteous to hear, and when she spoke again her voice had changed too, and was equally piteous. She asked for another. 'No, don't,' I begged, for the pretty girl I had flattered myself I had passed a summer's night with that most young men would envy, showed signs of changing, like some siren, into a flabby, blear-eyed boozer. That hurt my vanity. "I met her another night and she took, me to her lodgings, and I slept with her all night. I no longer tried to stop her drinking, but drank with her. I ceased to treat her with courtesy and gallantry; she noticed it, but only drank the more, drank till she became dirty in her ways, till her good looks vanished. I left her, too drunk to stand, as some friend, a woman, called on her. "She came to see me once more, like her old self, so well dressed and well behaved, and chatted so cheerfully to my landlady that the latter afterward congratulated me on having such a friend. Dolly carried a parcel of underclothing she had made, with a few toys, for the children of a poor man in the suburbs, and I accompanied her to the house. There was great excitement among the ragged children; in fact, the atmosphere became so dangerously full of love and charity that I commenced to feel uncomfortable,--the shower of roses again,--and was glad to find myself in the open air. We went for a walk and had several drinks, which made the usual change in Dolly. I got tired of her, determined I would leave her, spoke cruelly, and finally--after having connection with her on the dry seaweed--rose and left her brutally, walked away faster and faster, deaf to her remonstrances, and careless whether or how she reached the station.... "I had gone to lodge with a family whom I had been accustomed to visit as a friend; there were two daughters; the elder, engaged to a young German who was away with a survey party, had a rather plain face, but a strong one and was herself a strong character, and I came to like her in spite of myself; the second girl had light golden hair, a fresh complexion, a short nose, and rather large mouth, which contained beautiful teeth; they were both good, obedient, innocent church-going daughters. As there was plenty of amusement there of an evening, singing and dancing, I did not go out, got into better ways, and gradually gave up drinking to excess. I was so improved in appearance that an old acquaintance did not recognize me. My anecdotes and fun amused Mrs. S., the mother of the girls. She could be very violent on occasions, I found, and I learned that there had been terrible scenes at times, and that from time to time it had been necessary to place her in an asylum. I went for drives with the girls and to theatres, and ought to have been happy and glad to find myself in such good quarters. The mother trusted me so entirely that she left me for hours with the girls, the younger one of whom I would kiss sometimes. She was engaged to a young fellow whom I spoke to patronizingly, but whose shoes I was not worthy to fasten. I was the cause of quarrels between them. They made it up again but I think he noticed the change that was taking place in Alice. For from kissing her I had gone on--all larking at first. We formed the habit of sitting down on the sofa when alone and kissing steadily for ten minutes or more at a time. She was excited without knowing what was the matter with her--but I knew. And one day when our mouths were together I drew her to me and commenced to stroke her legs gently down. She trembled like a string bow, and allowed my hand to go farther. And then she was frightened and ashamed and commenced to laugh and cry together. She had these hysterical attacks several times and they always frightened me. It ended in my seducing her. She broke off her engagement, and then was sorry; but soon she thought only of me.... One day Alice and I were nearly caught. I had just left her on the sofa and had commenced drawing at a table with my back to her when suddenly her mother came in without her shoes, while Alice had one hand up her clothes arranging her underclothing. The mother stopped dead and shot me one glance I shall never forget. 'Why, Alice, you frighten me!' she said. I feigned surprise and asked 'What is the matter?' Alice, although she was frightened out of her wits, managed to stammer: 'He couldn't see me--you couldn't see me, could you?' appealing to me. But I had managed to collect my senses a bit and although still under that maternal eye I asked,--at last turning slowly around to Alice: 'See? What do you mean? See what?' And I looked so mystified that the mother was deceived, and contented herself with scolding Alice and telling her to run no risks of that sort. I breathed again. "But I was near the end of my tether. Alice and I talked about everything now. She told me about her life at boarding school and the strange ideas some of the girls had about men and marriage. After leaving school she had been sent to a large millinery or drapery establishment to learn sewing and dressmaking. Here, she said, the talk was awful at times, and one girl had a book with pictures of men's organs of generation, which was passed around and excited their curiosity to the highest pitch. "I had days of tenderness and contrition, and even told her I would get on and marry her. Then the tears would come into her eyes and she would say: 'I seem to feel as if you were my husband now.' ... "I had to see a man on business and went to his cottage. The door was opened by his wife, a handsome, dark-eyed young woman, who looked as if butter would not melt in her mouth. After leaving a message I went on talking to her on other subjects. She piqued my vanity in some way, and made me feel curious and restless. I found myself thinking of her after I left and looking back I saw she was still looking at me. "To make a long story short, she encouraged me. It ended by my leaving the S. family and going to board with them. T.D., the husband, was glad of my company and my money. They had a little boy--whose father T. was not. I soon understood her inviting looks at me. For she was a general lover, and an old man, in a good government billet, visited her often when T.D. was away: I will call him Silenus. There was also a dark, handsome man who built organs. The latter came one day and sent for some beer. I was working in my room, and it so happened that before he knocked she had been going further than usual in her talk with me; in fact, as good as giving me the word. When her friend was admitted he had to pass my open door and he gave me a look with his black eyes and I gave him a look which told each what the other's game was. It is wonderful what a lot can be learned from a single glance of the eyes. When I saw the little boy bringing in the beer I felt that he had bested me. But she brought me in a glass first, and putting her down on the sofa I scored first. It was done so suddenly, so brutally, that, accustomed as she must have been to such scenes she turned red and bit her under lip. But she sent the other man away in a few minutes. After that she was insatiable; it was every day and sometimes twice in one day. I commenced to be gloomy and miserable again. And there was not even a pretense of love. There was no deception about her; she even introduced me to Silenus and we made excursions together, for which he paid, as he had plenty of money. We were always drinking, until at last I could eat nothing unless I had two or three whiskies. I became very thin, my horizon seemed black and all things at an end. (But T.D. enjoyed his meals and was really fond of his wife and her boy and his work; life was pleasant to him.) She would go up to town with me and to a certain hotel; after drinking she would leave me waiting while she retired with the handsome young landlord for a short time. She told me when she came back that he was a great favorite with married women. "She told me that Silenus visited a woman who practiced _fellatio_ on him. Mrs. D. thought such practices abominable and could not imagine how a woman could like doing such a thing. "When she was out walking with me one day T.D.'s name came up and she said in a slightly altered voice: 'He told me he loved me!' It was a word seldom used by her except in jest. I threw a startled look at her and caught an inquisitive and apologetic look in return, such a strange and touching glance that I saw I had not yet understood her,--there was an enigma somewhere. When, bit by bit, she told me her life, I understood, or thought I understood, that strange childlike glance in this young woman steeped to her eyes in sin. No one had ever made love to her or spoken to her of love in her life. "It had commenced at school. She must have been a particularly fine and handsome girl, judging from her photographs. She had seen boys playing with girls' privates under the form and felt jealous that they did not play with her's. She had no mother to look after her and she soon found plenty of boys to play with her, and young men, too, as she grew older. She took it as she took her meals. She had been really fond of her child's father, but as he had shown no tenderness for her, nothing but a craving for sensual gratification, she would rather have died than let him know. She soon tired of her attachments, she told me. She did not like T.D. He was not the complacent husband; he was spirited enough, but he believed everything she told him. One day he came home unexpectedly when we were together on the bare palliass in her room. It was a critical moment when his knocks were heard, and in the hurry and excitement some moisture was left on the bed. The knocks became louder, but she was calmer than I, and bade me run down to the closet. I could hear her cheerful and chaffing voice greeting him. When I walked in back to my own room she called out: 'Here's T. home!' I learned afterward that he had been surly and suspicious, and had seen the moisture on the bed, and asked about it, whereupon she had turned the tables upon him completely; he ought to be ashamed of himself; she knew what he meant by his insinuations; if he must know how that moisture come on the bed, why she put the soap there in a hurry to catch a flea. He believed her and brought her a present next day in atonement for his suspicions. "During her monthly periods, when I could not touch her, she would come in and play with me until emissions occurred, and my feelings had become so perverted that I even preferred this to coitus. The orgasm would occur twice in her to once in me, and though her eyes were rather hard and her mouth too, she always looked well and cheerful, while I was gloomy and depressed. In her side, however, was a hard lump, which pained her at times, and which, doubtless, was waiting its time.... "One day I felt so low in health that I proposed to T.D. that we should take a boat and sail out in the bay for a day or two. The sea, the change, the open air revived me, and I even made sketches of the black sailor as he steered the boat. One day when I was left alone in charge of the boat, as I felt the time hanging on my hands, for the sea, the blue sky, the lovely day gave me no real pleasure, I remember abusing myself, the old habit reasserting itself as soon as I was alone and idle. When T.D. came back he brought Mrs. D. with him, laughing and jolly as usual. She was surprised when lying next to me under the deck on our return I did not respond to her advances. It would have pleased her, with her husband only a few feet away. After that I spent a night with her, but she was getting tired of me. I did not care for her, but it hurt my vanity and I made a few attempts to be impertinent. She looked at me coldly and threatened to complain to T.... "I want to relate an impression I received one night about this time when with several friends we called at a brothel. I forget my companion, but I remember two faces. It was winter, and great depression prevailed in Adelaide. We had been talking to the mistress as we drank some beer and were pretending to be jolly fellows, although we were wet, cold, and had not enjoyed ourselves (at least, I had not), and she was speaking harshly and jeeringly about two girls she had now who had not earned a penny for the past week. Just then we heard footsteps and she said in a lower tone: 'Here they are,' They came in, unattended, having ascertained which the brothel-keeper snorted and turned her back to them. The faces of the girls, who were quite young, looked so miserable that even I pitied them. The look on the face of one of those girls as she stood by the hearth drawing off her gloves lives in my memory. Too deep for tears was its sorrow, shame, and hopelessness.... "I had given up drink and was living in the bush. To anyone with normal nerves it would have been a happy time of quiet, rustic peace, beauty, and relief from city life. With me it was restless vanity amounting to madness. In every relation, action, or possible event in which I figured or might figure in the future, I always instantaneously called up an imaginary audience. And then this imaginary audience admired everything I did or might do, and put the most heroic, gallant, and romantic construction on my acts, appearance, lineage, and breeding. Suppose I saw a pretty girl on a bush road. Instead of thinking 'There is a pretty girl; I should like to know her or kiss her,' as I suppose a healthy, normal young man would think, I thought after this fashion: 'There is a pretty girl; now, as I pass her she will think I am a handsome and aristocratic-looking stranger, and, as I carry a sketch-book, an artist--"A landscape painter! How romantic!" she will say, and then she will fall in love with me,' etc. This preoccupation with what other people might think or would think so engrossed all my time that I had no means of enjoying the presence, thought, or favor of the divine creatures I met, and I must have appeared 'cracked' to them with my reticence, pride, and silly airs. "I met girls as foolish as myself sometimes. Once at a _table d'hôte_ I met a young girl who went for a walk with me and let me know her carnally although she was little more than a schoolgirl. She was going down to town soon, she said, and would meet me at a certain hotel (belonging to relations of hers) in Adelaide on a certain date, some time ahead; if I took a room there she would come into it during the night. In the meanwhile I had given way to drink again and abused myself at intervals. I came down to town, drunk, in the coach, and kept my appointment with the young girl at the hotel, expecting a night of pleasure; but she merely stared at me coldly as if she had never seen me before. I abused myself twice in my solitary room.... "I met a middle-aged schoolteacher (who had once been an officer in the army) down for his holidays. As he spoke well, and was a 'gentleman,' I cultivated him. One night he asked me to meet a girl he had an appointment with and tell her he was not well enough to meet her. He foolishly told me the purpose of their intended meeting. I went to the trysting-place, at the back of the hotel, and met the girl. On delivering my message she smiled, made some joke about her friend, and looked at me as much as to say: 'You will do as well.' I had been drinking, and in the most brutal manner I took her into a closet. By some strange chance or state of nerves she gave me exquisite pleasure, but the orgasm came with me before it did with her, and in spite of her disappointment and protests I stood up and pulled her out of the place for fear some one should find us there. Still protesting she followed me, but her foot slipped on the paved court, and she fell down on her face. When she rose I saw that her front teeth were broken. I looked at her without pity, with impatience, and abruptly leaving her I went into the hotel to 'the colonel.' I commenced to tell him lies, when he asked me with a weak laugh what had been keeping me. I smiled with low cunning and drunken vanity, evading the question. Then he accused me directly. I only laughed; but, drunk as I was, I remember the look of the ageing bachelor as he saw he had been betrayed by a younger man. He had known her for years.... "I was now living in the home of a woman who was separated from her husband and kept lodgers. She had a daughter, with whom I walked out, a pretty girl who drank like a fish, as her mother also did. There were other lodgers coming and going. I would lie down all day and keep myself saturated with beer. I commenced to get fat and bloated, with the ways of a brothel bully. A broken-down, drunken old woman who visited the house and had been a beautiful lady in her youth told me I should end my days on the gallows trap. The same woman when drunk would lift up her dress, sardonically, exposing herself. Other old women would congregate in the neglected and dirty bedrooms and tell fortunes with the cards. One little woman, an onanist, was like a character out of Dickens, exaggerated, affected, unnatural, with remains of gentility and society manners. Amidst all this drunkenness and abandonment May, the landlady's daughter, preserved her virginity. Young lodgers would take liberties with her, but at a certain stage would receive a stinger on the face. The girl liked me and would kiss me, but nothing else. And then--out of this home of drunkenness and shame--May fell in love with some pretty boy she met by chance, whom she never asked to her home. She began to neglect me, even to neglect drink, and to dream, preoccupied. I felt a restless jealousy, but she would look at me, without resentment, without recognition, without seeing me, look me straight in the eyes as I was talking to her, and dream and dream. This same pretty boy seduced her, I believe. When next I met her she was 'on the town,' her one dream of spring over.... "About this time I had one of those salutary turns that have marked epochs in my life, and as a result I left that house and resolutely abstained from drink.... I was now in a small up-country town. I commenced to play croquet and to ride out. Sometimes I was invited to dinner by a young man at the bank, whose house was kept by his sister. She had a small figure, a pretty but rather narrow face, and well-bred manners; but there was a look in her asymmetrical eyes, in the shape of her thin hands, even in the stoop of her shoulders, that seemed passionate. One day--when her brother, a fine, sweet-blooded manly young athlete, was absent--I commenced to pull her about. She gave me one passionate kiss, but said: 'No! Do you know what keeps me straight? It is the thought of my brother.' I refrained from molesting her further. I met other girls, some pretty and arrogant, others plain and hungry-eyed; it was a country town where there were four or five females to every male. But I could not speak frankly and candidly to a young woman as the young banker did.... "I remember that one night, when I was living at the Port, I slept all night with a prostitute who had taken a fancy to me and who used to cry on my shoulder, much to my impatience and annoyance. In the same bed with us, lying beside me, was a girl aged about 12. On my expressing surprise I was told she was used to it and noticed nothing. But in the morning I turned my head and looked at her, and even in the dim light of that dirty bedroom I could see that her eyes had noticed and understood. She pressed herself against me and smiled; it was not the smile of an infant. I could record many instances I have observed of the precocity of children. "At one time I made the acquaintance of three young men, two in the customs, the other in a surveyor's office. At the first glance you would have said they were ordinary nice young clerks, but on becoming better acquainted you would notice certain peculiarities, a looseness of mouth, a restless, nervous inquietude of manner, an indescribable gleam of the eye. They were very fond of performing and singing at amateur minstrel shows and developed a certain comic vein they thought original, though it reminded me of professional corner-men. However, I enjoyed their singing and drinking habits and went to their lodgings several nights to play cards, drink beer, and tell funny stories. One night they asked me to stay all night and on going to a room with two beds I was told to have one. Presently one of the young men came in and commenced to undress. But before going to his bed he made a remark which, though I had been drinking, opened my eyes. I told him to shut up and go to bed, speaking firmly and rather coldly, and he went reluctantly to his own bed. But another night when they had shifted their lodgings and were all sleeping in the same room I was drunk and went to bed with the same fair-haired young man. On waking up in the night I found my bedmate tampering with me. The old force came over me and I abused him, but refused to commit the crime he wanted me to. His penis was small and pointed. I rose early in the morning, sobered, suffering, and covered with shame, and went hastily away, refusing to stay for breakfast. I thought I caught an amazed and evil smile on the faces of the other two. Meeting the three the same evening in the street, I passed them blushing, and my bedmate of the previous night blushed also.... "I now took cheap lodgings in North Adelaide. Here I had slight recurrences of the strangeness and fear of going mad which I had experienced once before. I led such a solitary life and fell into such a queer state that I turned to religion and attended church regularly. It was approaching the time for those young men and women who wished to be confirmed to prepare themselves, and a struggle now ensued between my pride and my wish to gain rest and peace of mind in Jesus. I was self-conscious to an incredible degree, and dreaded exposure or making an exhibition of myself, but still went to church, hoping the grace of God would descend on me. I had no other resources. I had no pleasure in life, and was so shattered and in such misery of dread that I welcomed the only refuge that seemed open to me. At last, one Sunday, I had what I thought was a call; I shed a few tears, and although tingling all down my spine I went up in the cathedral and joined those who were going to be confirmed. I attended special meetings and shocked the good bishop very much by telling him I had never been baptized. I had to be baptized first and went one day to the cathedral and he baptized me. When the critical awful moment came the bishop, whose faith even then surprised me somehow, held my hand in his cold palm, and gave it a pressure, eyeing me, expectantly, inquisitively, to see any change for the better. But, it so happened, that morning I was in a horrible temper and black mood, hard and dry-eyed, and no change came. Still, I tried to believe there was a change. "I was confirmed with others, had a prayer-book given me with prayers for nearly every hour in the day, and was always kneeling and praying. I procured a long, white surplice, and assisted at suburban services, even conducting small ones myself, reading the sermons out of books. But my mood of rage increased, and one Sunday I had to walk a long way in a new pair of boots. I shall never forget that hot Sunday afternoon. My feet commenced to ache and a murderous humor seized me. I swore and blasphemed one moment and prayed to God to forgive me the next. When I reached the chapel where I had to assist the chaplain I was exhausted with rage, pain, fear, and religious mania. I thought it probable I had offended the Holy Ghost. When, next Sunday, I went to try my hand at Sunday-school teaching I wore a pair of boots so old that the little boys laughed. I was always talking of my conversion and the spirit of our Saviour. I do not know what the clergymen I met thought of me. I thought I should like to be a minister myself, and questioned a Church of England parson as to the amount of study necessary. He received my question rather coldly, I thought, which discouraged me. As my dread gradually diminished, though I still felt strange, I made excuses for not conducting services, although I continued to read my Bible and prayer-book, and really believed I had been 'born again.' "Surely now, I thought, that I had Christ's aid, I shall be able to break off my habit of self-abuse that had been the curse of my youth. What was my horror and dismay to find that, when the mood came on me next, I went down the same as ever. And after all my suffering and dread and fear of fits! What could I do? Was I mad, or what? I was really frightened at my helplessness in the matter and decided on a course of conduct that ultimately brought me past this danger to better health and comparative happiness. I said to myself that there is always a certain amount of preliminary thought and dalliance before I do this deed; doubtless this it is that renders me incapable of resisting. I decided, therefore, never to let my thoughts _commence_ to dwell on lustful things, but to think of something else on the _first_ intimation of their appearance in my mind. I rigorously followed this rule; and it proved successful, and I recommend it to others in the same predicament as myself. After suffering weeks and months of dread and illness once more, falling away in flesh and turning yellow, I gradually mended a little. I had a better color and tone, and was something like other young men, barring a strange alternate exaltation and depression. Even this gradually became less noticeable, and my moods more even and reliable." FOOTNOTES: [219] My Christian faith is of a somewhat nonemotional, intellectual type, with a considerable element of agnostic reserve. [220] On having connection with my wife I frequently exhibit sufficient sexual power to produce orgasm in her; but on occasion, especially during the first year or so of married life, I have been unable to do this, owing to the too rapid action of the reflexes in myself, and have even, now and again, had emissions _ante portam_. INDEX OF AUTHORS. Adachi Adam, Madame Adler Ælian Allbutt, Gifford Allen, Grant Allin, A. Alrutz Andree Anselm, St. Arbuthnot Ariosto Aristænetus Aristophanes Aristotle Athenæus Aubert Audeoud Avicenna Ayrton Bacarisse Backhouse Bain, A. Baker, Sir S. Bälz Baschet, Armand Batchelor, J. Baudelaire Bazan, Pardo Beatson Beauregard Bendix Benedikt Bernard, L. Bernardin de St. Pierre Bianchi, L. Biérent Binet Bloch, A.G. Bloch, I. Boccaccio Bollinger Borel Botallus Brantôme Breitenstein Brisay, Marquis de Bronson Broune, R. Brown, H. Brunton, Sir Lauder Bücher Buckman, S.S. Bulkley Bullen, F. St. John Burckhardt Burdach Burton, Sir R. Burton, R. Cabanès Cabanis Cadet-Devaux Candolle, A. de Cardano Cardi, Comte di Casanova Castellani Cervantes Chadwick Chamfort Chaucer Clement of Alexandria Cloquet Cocke, J. Coffignon Cohn, Jonas Colegrove Colenso, W. Collet Compayre Cook, Captain Cornish Courtier Crawley Cyples, W. Daniell, W.F. D'Annunzio Dante Darlington, L. Darwin, C. Darwin, E. Davy, J. Deniker D'Enjoy Digby, Sir K. Dillon, E. Distant Dogiel Donaldson, H.H. D'Orbigny Duffield Dufour Dühren, E. Dunlop, W. Edinger Eliot, George Ellis, A.B. Ellis, A.J. Ellis, Havelock Ellis, W. Eloy Eméric-David Emin Pasha Endriss, J. Engelmann, I.J. Epstein Esquirol Eulenburg Féré Ferrand Ferrero Filhés, Margarethe Fillmore Firenzuola Flagy, R. de Fletcher, A.C. Fliess Fol, H. Foley Forster, J.B. Franklin, A. Frazer, J.G. Friedländer Friedreich, J.B. Fromentin Frumerie, G. de Galopin Galton, F. Garbini Garson Giard Giessler Gilman Goblot Goethe Goncourt, E. de Görres Gould Gourmont, Remy de Griffith, W.D.A. Griffiths, A.B. Grimaldi Groos, K. Guibaud Hack Häcker Hagen Hall, G. Stanley Halle, A. de la Haller Harrison, F. Hart, D. Berry Harvey, W.F. Hawkesworth Haycraft Hearn, Lafcadio Heine Hellier, J.B. Helmholtz Henry, C. Hermant, Abel Herodotus Herrick, C.L. Herrick, R. Heschl Hildebrandt Hippocrates Holder, A.B. Hortis Houdoy Houzeau Huart Humboldt, W. von Hutchinson, W.F. Hutchinson, Woods Huysmans Hyades Jäger James, W. Janet Jerome, St. Joal Joest Johnston, Sir H.H. Jorg Jouin Juvenal Kaan Kate, H. ten Kennedy Kiernan, J.G. King, J.S. Kirchhoff, A. Kistemaecker Klein, G. Kleist Krafft-Ebing Krauss Kubary Külpe Lane, E.W. Lancaster, E. Latcham Laycock Layet Léchat Lecky Lejeune Lemaire, J. Léoty Lewin Lewis, A.T. Linnæus Lombard Lombroso, C. Lombroso, Gina Lucian Lucretius Luigini Lumholtz MacCauley MacDonald, J. MacDougall, B. MacKenzie, J.N. MacKenzie, S. Man, E.H. Mantegazza Marholm, L. Marie de France Marro Marston, J. Martial Martineau, Harriet Massinger Matusch Mau Maudsley, H. Maxim, Sir H. McBride McDougall, W. McKendrick Melle, Van Menander Mentz Merensky Mertens Michelet Milton Miner, J.B. Minut, G. de Mironoff Mitford Möbius Moll Moncelon Monin Moore, A.W. Moore, F. Moraglia Motannabi Muir, Sir W. Myers, C.S. Näcke Newman, W.L. Nietzsche Niphus Nordenskjöld Norman, Conolly Nuttall Nyrop O'Donovan Ordericus Vitalis Ovid Papillault Parke, T.H. Parker, Rushton Passy, J. Patrick, G.T.W. Patrizi, M.L. Paulhan Pearson, K. Penta Perls Petrarch Petrie, Flinders Piéron Piesse Pillon, E. Plateau Plato Ploss Plutarch Potwin, E. Pouchet Poulton, E.B. Pruner Bey Pyle Raciborski Raffalovich Ramsey, Sir W. Raseri Raymond Reade, Winwood Remfry Renier, R. Restif de la Bretonne Rhys, J. Ribbert Ribot Ries Ripley Robinson, Louis Rochas, A. de Roger, J.L. Rohlfs Romi, Shereef-Eddin Ronsard Roscoe, J. Rosenbaum Roth, H. Ling Roth, W. Roubaud Rousseau Routh, A. Rowbotham, J.F. Rudeck Rutherford Salmuth, P. Sanborn, L. Santayana, G. Savage, G. Savill Schellong Schiff Schopenhauer Schultz, A. Schurigius Scott, Colin Scripture, E.W. Seligmann Selous, E. Semon, Sir F. Sénancour Sensai, Nagayo Sergi Shakespeare Sharp, D. Shelley Shields, T.E. Shipley Shufeldt Simpson, Sir J.Y. Skeat, W.W. Smith, Sir A. Smith, G. Elliot Smith, H. Smyth, Brough Sonnini Southerden Spencer, Herbert Spinoza Stanley, Hiram Stendhal Stevens, Vaughan Stirling, E.C. Stoddart, W.H.B. Stratz, C.H. Swift Symonds, J.A. Syrus, Publilius Talbot, E.B. Talbot, E.S. Tarchanoff Tardif Tarnowsky Temesvary Tennyson Tinayre, Marcelle Tolstoy Toulouse Tourdes, G. Tregear Tuckey Turner Tylor, E.B. Varigny, O. de Vaschide Vatsyayana Velten Venturi Vinci, L. de Vineberg Volkelt Vurpas Waits Wallace, A.E. Wallaschek Waller, A. Walther, P. von Wartanoff Watts, G.F. Weinhold, K. Wellhausen Wessmann Westermarck Whytt Wiedemann, A. Wiese Wilks, Sir S. Wright, T. Wundt Yellowlees Yung, E. Zola Zurcher Zwaardemaker INDEX OF SUBJECTS. Acne in relation to sexual development Æsthetics, standard modified by love in region of smell in relation to the sexual impulse Ainu Alexander the Great, odor of Ambergris American Indians types of beauty ideas of beauty seldom acquainted with kiss Anæsthesia produced by tuning forks Antisexual instinct Arabs, ideal of beauty kissing among Armpit, odor of Asafoetida Assortative mating Australians ideal of beauty kissing among Bath, its history in modern Europe opposed by early Christians also by Mohammed Baudelaire's olfactory sensibility Beard in relation to beauty Beauty, as the symbol of love the chief agent in sexual selection the sexual element in æsthetic its largely objective character ideals of, among various peoples sometimes found in lowest races primary sex characters as an element of Beauty, clothing in relation to secondary sexual characters as an element of in relation to pigmentation the individual element in ideal of the exotic element in relation to stature Bird song, origin of Biting in relation to origin of kissing Blind, sense of smell in the sensitiveness to voice Blondes, the admiration for Breasts, as an element of beauty as a tactile sexual focus Breath, odor of Brothels, public baths once synonymous with Brummell Brunettes, the admiration for Bustle Capryl odors Carbolic acid disliked by savages Castoreum Cataglottism Catholic theologians, on danger of tactile contacts opposed bathing _Chenopodium vulvaria_ Chinese ideal of beauty odor of music among practice the olfactory kiss Christianity, its use of the kiss opposition to bathing Civet Cleanliness and Christianity Cleanliness in relation to sexual attraction Clitoris, deformation of Clothing, sexual attraction of Codpiece Coitus, body odor during Comic sense Continence, odor of Corset Crinoline Cumarine _Cunnilingus_ Cutaneous excitation, tonic effects of Dancing in sexual selection Death, odor of Degenerates sexually attracted to one another Disparity, the sexual charm of Dogs practice _cunnilingus_ predominance of smell in mental life of susceptibility to music Doves, sexual attraction among Dyeing the hair, origin of Egyptian ideal of beauty Emotional memory English type of beauty Erogenous zone Eskimo Eunuchs, odor of Europeans, odor of Exotic element in ideal of beauty Eyes as a factor of beauty Fairness in relation to vigor the admiration for Farthingale _Fellatio_ Fetichism, olfactory urinary shoe Flowers, occasional injurious effect of perfumes of sexual character of their perfume French ideal of beauty Fuegians German ideal of beauty Goethe's olfactory sensibility Gray eyes, admiration for Greeks, conception of music ideal of beauty pygmalionism among Green eyes, admiration for Gunnings, the Hair as an element of beauty sexual development of suggested function of odor of Hallucinations of smell Hamilton, Lady Hebrews acquainted with kiss ideal of beauty Henna plant, odor of Heterogamy Hindu ideal of beauty Hips as a feature of beauty Homogamy Hottentot apron as a feature of beauty Hura dance Hypnosis, effect of music during Hysteria and the skin Immorality and bathing Incest, origin of the abhorrence of Incontinence, odor of Indians, American, ideas of beauty odor of types of beauty seldom acquainted with kiss Infants, odor of Insects and music smell in their sexual life Inversion, influence of odor in sexual Irish ideal of beauty Italian ideal of beauty Itching, its parallelism to sexual tumescence Japanese, ideal of beauty odor of perfumes among unacquainted with kiss Javanese Jewish ideal of beauty Joan of Aragon as a type of beauty Kiss, the Kwan-yin as a type of beauty Lactation, controlling influences on in relation to menstruation Larynx at puberty Laughter as a form of detumescence Leather, odor of Lily, odor of Longevity and beauty Malays, ideals of beauty the kiss among Maoris Married couples, degree of resemblance between Massage as a sexual stimulant Masturbation, in relation to acne in relation to bleeding of nose in relation to hallucinations of smell Melody, the nature of Memories, olfactory tactile Menstruation, in relation to acne in relation to lactation in relation to body odors in relation to bleeding of nose Mirror as a method of heightening tumescence Mixoscopy Modesty in relation to ticklishness Mohammed, his love of perfumes his opinion of public baths Mohammedans, attitude toward bath preference for musk perfume Mosquitoes, attracted by music Moths, sexual odors of Movement, beauty of Music, among Chinese and Greeks origins of effects of, during hypnosis physiological influence of Music, why it is pleasurable its sexual attraction among animals in man supposed therapeutic effects Musk Mutilations, among savages for magic purposes for sake of beauty Narcissism Nasal mucous membrane and genital sphere Nates as a feature of beauty Necklace, significance of Necrophily Negress, beauty of odor of Negro ideas of beauty odor of mode of kissing Neopallium Neurasthenia and olfactory susceptibility in relation to pruritus Nicobarese Nietzsche's supposed olfactory sensibility Nipple as a sexual focus Nose and sexual organs, supposed connection, between Obesity, the oriental admiration for Odors, artificial classification of as stimulants as medicines distinctive of various human races of sanctity Odors of death of the body Olfaction in relation to sexual selection (See "Odors" and "Smells.") the study of Olfactory area of brain Oöphorectomy and sense of smell Orgasm as a skin reflex founded on tactile sensations produced by various tactile contacts Ornament, its religious significance sexual significance of Overall, Mrs. _Padmini_ Papuans Parity, the sexual charm of Peasants, odor of Peau d'Espagne Perfume, ancient use of sexual influence of results of excessive stimulation by Persian ideal of beauty Phallus worship Pigmentation connected with intensity of odor in relation to beauty in relation to vigor Polynesian dancing Pompeii Preferential mating Pregnancy as an ideal of beauty Primary sex characters as an element of beauty Provençal ideal of beauty Pruritus Puberty, accompanied by increased interest in art olfactory sensibility at Pygmalionism Reeve, Pleasance Renaissance type of beauty Restif de la Bretonne Rhinencephalon Rhythm, as a stimulant the sense of Saddleback as a feature of beauty Salutation by smelling Samoans Sanctity, odor of Savages, important part played by odor in their mental life sometimes beautiful their ideals of beauty Secondary sexual characters in relation to sexual attraction Semen, odor of Sexual differences in admiration of beauty in olfactory acuteness in urination Shoe fetichism Singalese ideal of beauty Singing as affected by sexual emotion Skin, complexity of its functions Smell, antipathies aroused by its evolution sexual significance in animals its significance in man theory of special characteristics of as the sense of the imagination as distinctive of races and individuals hallucinations of in part the foundation of kiss results of its excessive stimulation Sneezing and sexual stimulation Spanish ideal of beauty saddle-back as an element of Stanley, Lady Venetia Statues, sexual love of Statue in relation to beauty Steatopygia Strength, the admiration of women for Suckling as a cause of perversion as a source of sexual emotion Swahilis Tahiti Tallness, the admiration of Taste no part in sexual selection Tattooing Tennyson Thure-Brandt system of massage as a sexual stimulant Ticklishness not a simple reflex explainable by summation-irradiation theory in relation to the sexual embrace diminishes with age also after marriage Touch, of kiss Touch, in part, foundation of kiss the most primitive of all senses the first to prove pleasurable the most emotional sense foundation of sexual orgasm Triangle as a sexual symbol Tumescence as a necessary preliminary to sexual influence of odors the chief stimuli of Urinary fetichism Urination, habits of sexes in Uterus, its relations to breast _Vair_, significance of term Valerianic acid Vanilla Viguier, Paule de Violet perfume Voice as a source of sexual stimulation Vulvar odor, alleged function of Wagner's music, emotional effects of Walk, beauty of Whitman, odor of Walt Zola's olfactory sensibility 
13610	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 13610-h.htm or 13610-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/3/6/1/13610/13610-h/13610-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/3/6/1/13610/13610-h.zip) STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX, VOLUME I The Evolution of Modesty The Phenomena of Sexual Periodicity Auto-Erotism by HAVELOCK ELLIS 1927 GENERAL PREFACE. The origin of these _Studies_ dates from many years back. As a youth I was faced, as others are, by the problem of sex. Living partly in an Australian city where the ways of life were plainly seen, partly in the solitude of the bush, I was free both to contemplate and to meditate many things. A resolve slowly grew up within me: one main part of my life-work should be to make clear the problems of sex. That was more than twenty years ago. Since then I can honestly say that in all that I have done that resolve has never been very far from my thoughts. I have always been slowly working up to this central problem; and in a book published some three years ago--_Man and Woman: a Study of Human Secondary Sexual Characters_--I put forward what was, in my own eyes, an introduction to the study of the primary questions of sexual psychology. Now that I have at length reached the time for beginning to publish my results, these results scarcely seem to me large. As a youth, I had hoped to settle problems for those who came after; now I am quietly content if I do little more than state them. For even that, I now think, is much; it is at least the half of knowledge. In this particular field the evil of ignorance is magnified by our efforts to suppress that which never can be suppressed, though in the effort of suppression it may become perverted. I have at least tried to find out what are the facts, among normal people as well as among abnormal people; for, while it seems to me that the physician's training is necessary in order to ascertain the facts, the physician for the most part only obtains the abnormal facts, which alone bring little light. I have tried to get at the facts, and, having got at the facts, to look them simply and squarely in the face. If I cannot perhaps turn the lock myself, I bring the key which can alone in the end rightly open the door: the key of sincerity. That is my one panacea: sincerity. I know that many of my friends, people on whose side I, too, am to be found, retort with another word: reticence. It is a mistake, they say, to try to uncover these things; leave the sexual instincts alone, to grow up and develop in the shy solitude they love, and they will be sure to grow up and develop wholesomely. But, as a matter of fact, that is precisely what we can not and will not ever allow them to do. There are very few middle-aged men and women who can clearly recall the facts of their lives and tell you in all honesty that their sexual instincts have developed easily and wholesomely throughout. And it should not be difficult to see why this is so. Let my friends try to transfer their feelings and theories from the reproductive region to, let us say, the nutritive region, the only other which can be compared to it for importance. Suppose that eating and drinking was never spoken of openly, save in veiled or poetic language, and that no one ever ate food publicly, because it was considered immoral and immodest to reveal the mysteries of this natural function. We know what would occur. A considerable proportion of the community, more especially the more youthful members, possessed by an instinctive and legitimate curiosity, would concentrate their thoughts on the subject. They would have so many problems to puzzle over: How often ought I to eat? What ought I to eat? Is it wrong to eat fruit, which I like? Ought I to eat grass, which I don't like? Instinct notwithstanding, we may be quite sure that only a small minority would succeed in eating reasonably and wholesomely. The sexual secrecy of life is even more disastrous than such a nutritive secrecy would be; partly because we expend such a wealth of moral energy in directing or misdirecting it, partly because the sexual impulse normally develops at the same time as the intellectual impulse, not in the early years of life, when wholesome instinctive habits might be formed. And there is always some ignorant and foolish friend who is prepared still further to muddle things: Eat a meal every other day! Eat twelve meals a day! Never eat fruit! Always eat grass! The advice emphatically given in sexual matters is usually not less absurd than this. When, however, the matter is fully open, the problems of food are not indeed wholly solved, but everyone is enabled by the experience of his fellows to reach some sort of situation suited to his own case. And when the rigid secrecy is once swept away a sane and natural reticence becomes for the first time possible. This secrecy has not always been maintained. When the Catholic Church was at the summit of its power and influence it fully realized the magnitude of sexual problems and took an active and inquiring interest in all the details of normal and abnormal sexuality. Even to the present time there are certain phenomena of the sexual life which have scarcely been accurately described except in ancient theological treatises. As the type of such treatises I will mention the great tome of Sanchez, _De Matrimonio_. Here you will find the whole sexual life of men and women analyzed in its relationships to sin. Everything is set forth, as clearly and as concisely as it can be--without morbid prudery on the one hand, or morbid sentimentality on the other--in the coldest scientific language; the right course of action is pointed out for all the cases that may occur, and we are told what is lawful, what a venial sin, what a mortal sin. Now I do not consider that sexual matters concern the theologian alone, and I deny altogether that he is competent to deal with them. In his hands, also, undoubtedly, they sometimes become prurient, as they can scarcely fail to become on the non-natural and unwholesome basis of asceticism, and as they with difficulty become in the open-air light of science. But we are bound to recognize the thoroughness with which the Catholic theologians dealt with these matters, and, from their own point of view, indeed, the entire reasonableness; we are bound to recognize the admirable spirit in which, successfully or not, they sought to approach them. We need to-day the same spirit and temper applied from a different standpoint. These things concern everyone; the study of these things concerns the physiologist, the psychologist, the moralist. We want to get into possession of the actual facts, and from the investigation of the facts we want to ascertain what is normal and what is abnormal, from the point of view of physiology and of psychology. We want to know what is naturally lawful under the various sexual chances that may befall man, not as the born child of sin, but as a naturally social animal. What is a venial sin against nature, what a mortal sin against nature? The answers are less easy to reach than the theologians' answers generally were, but we can at least put ourselves in the right attitude; we may succeed in asking that question which is sometimes even more than the half of knowledge. It is perhaps a mistake to show so plainly at the outset that I approach what may seem only a psychological question not without moral fervour. But I do not wish any mistake to be made. I regard sex as the central problem of life. And now that the problem of religion has practically been settled, and that the problem of labor has at least been placed on a practical foundation, the question of sex--with the racial questions that rest on it--stands before the coming generations as the chief problem for solution. Sex lies at the root of life, and we can never learn to reverence life until we know how to understand sex.--So, at least, it seems to me. Having said so much, I will try to present such results as I have to record in that cold and dry light through which alone the goal of knowledge may truly be seen. HAVELOCK ELLIS. July, 1897. PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. The first edition of this volume was published in 1899, following "Sexual Inversion," which now forms Volume II. The second edition, issued by the present publishers and substantially identical with the first edition, appeared in the following year. Ten years have elapsed since then and this new edition will be found to reflect the course of that long interval. Not only is the volume greatly enlarged, but nearly every page has been partly rewritten. This is mainly due to three causes: Much new literature required to be taken into account; my own knowledge of the historical and ethnographic aspects of the sexual impulse has increased; many fresh illustrative cases of a valuable and instructive character have accumulated in my hands. It is to these three sources of improvement that the book owes its greatly revised and enlarged condition, and not to the need for modifying any of its essential conclusions. These, far from undergoing any change, have by the new material been greatly strengthened. It may be added that the General Preface to the whole work, which was originally published in 1898 at the beginning of "Sexual Inversion," now finds its proper place at the outset of the present volume. HAVELOCK ELLIS. Carbis Bay, Cornwall, Eng. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. The present volume contains three studies which seem to me to be necessary _prolegomena_ to that analysis of the sexual instinct which must form the chief part of an investigation into the psychology of sex. The first sketches the main outlines of a complex emotional state which is of fundamental importance in sexual psychology; the second, by bringing together evidence from widely different regions, suggests a tentative explanation of facts that are still imperfectly known; the third attempts to show that even in fields where we assume our knowledge to be adequate a broader view of the phenomena teaches us to suspend judgment and to adopt a more cautious attitude. So far as they go, these studies are complete in themselves; their special use, as an introduction to a more comprehensive analysis of sexual phenomena, is that they bring before us, under varying aspects, a characteristic which, though often ignored, is of the first importance in obtaining a clear understanding of the facts: the tendency of the sexual impulse to appear in a spontaneous and to some extent periodic manner, affecting women differently from men. This is a tendency which, later, I hope to make still more apparent, for it has practical and social, as well as psychological, implications. Here--and more especially in the study of those spontaneous solitary manifestations which I call auto-erotic--I have attempted to clear the ground, and to indicate the main lines along which the progress of our knowledge in these fields may best be attained. It may surprise many medical readers that in the third and longest study I have said little, save incidentally, either of treatment or prevention. The omission of such considerations at this stage is intentional. It may safely be said that in no other field of human activity is so vast an amount of strenuous didactic morality founded on so slender a basis of facts. In most other departments of life we at least make a pretence of learning before we presume to teach; in the field of sex we content ourselves with the smallest and vaguest minimum of information, often ostentatiously second-hand, usually unreliable. I wish to emphasize the fact that before we can safely talk either of curing or preventing these manifestations we must know a great deal more than we know at present regarding their distribution, etiology, and symptomatology; and we must exercise the same coolness and caution as--if our work is to be fruitful--we require in any other field of serious study. We must approach these facts as physicians, it is true, but also as psychologists, primarily concerned to find out the workings of such manifestations in fairly healthy and normal people. If we found a divorce-court judge writing a treatise on marriage we should smile. But it is equally absurd for the physician, so long as his knowledge is confined to disease, to write regarding sex at large; valuable as the facts he brings forward may be, he can never be in a position to generalize concerning them. And to me, at all events, it seems that we have had more than enough pictures of gross sexual perversity, whether furnished by the asylum or the brothel. They are only really instructive when they are seen in their proper perspective as the rare and ultimate extremes of a chain of phenomena which we may more profitably study nearer home. Yet, although we are, on every hand, surrounded by the normal manifestations of sex, conscious or unconscious, these manifestations are extremely difficult to observe, and, in those cases in which we are best able to observe them, it frequently happens that we are unable to make any use of our knowledge. Moreover, even when we have obtained our data, the difficulties--at all events, for an English investigator--are by no means overcome. He may take for granted that any serious and precise study of the sexual instinct will not meet with general approval; his work will be misunderstood; his motives will be called in question; among those for whom he is chiefly working he will find indifference. Indeed, the pioneer in this field may well count himself happy if he meets with nothing worse than indifference. Hence it is that the present volume will not be published in England, but that, availing myself of the generous sympathy with which my work has been received in America, I have sought the wider medical and scientific audience of the United States. In matters of faith, "liberty of prophesying" was centuries since eloquently vindicated for Englishmen; the liberty of investigating facts is still called in question, under one pretence or another, and to seek out the most vital facts of life is still in England a perilous task. I desire most heartily to thank the numerous friends and correspondents, some living in remote parts of the world, who have freely assisted me in my work with valuable information and personal histories. To Mr. F.H. Perry-Coste I owe an appendix which is by far the most elaborate attempt yet made to find evidence of periodicity in the spontaneous sexual manifestations of sleep; my debts to various medical and other correspondents are duly stated in the text. To many women friends and correspondents I may here express my gratitude for the manner in which they have furnished me with intimate personal records, and for the cross-examination to which they have allowed me to subject them. I may already say here, what I shall have occasion to say more emphatically in subsequent volumes, that without the assistance I have received from women of fine intelligence and high character my work would be impossible. I regret that I cannot make my thanks more specific. HAVELOCK ELLIS. CONTENTS. THE EVOLUTION OF MODESTY. I. The Definition of Modesty--The Significance of Modesty--Difficulties in the Way of Its Analysis--The Varying Phenomena of Modesty Among Different Peoples and in Different Ages. II. Modesty an Agglomeration of Fears--Children in Relation to Modesty--Modesty in Animals--The Attitude of the Medicean Venus--The Sexual Factor of Modesty Based on Sexual periodicity and on the Primitive Phenomena of Courtship--The Necessity of Seclusion in Primitive Sexual Intercourse--The Meaning of Coquetry--The Sexual Charm of Modesty--Modesty as an Expression of Feminine Erotic Impulse--The Fear of Causing Disgust as a Factor of Modesty--The Modesty of Savages in Regard to Eating in the Presence of Others--The Sacro-Pubic Region as a Focus of Disgust--The Idea of Ceremonial Uncleanliness--The Custom of Veiling the Face--Ornaments and Clothing--Modesty Becomes Concentrated in the Garment--The Economic Factor in Modesty--The Contribution of Civilization to Modesty--The Elaboration of Social Ritual. III. The Blush the Sanction of Modesty--The Phenomena of Blushing--Influences Which Modify the Aptitude to Blush--Darkness, Concealment of the Face, Etc. IV. Summary of the Factors of Modesty--The Future of Modesty--Modesty an Essential Element of Love. THE PHENOMENA OF SEXUAL PERIODICITY. I. The Various Physiological and Psychological Rhythms--Menstruation--The Alleged Influence of the Moon--Frequent Suppression of Menstruation among Primitive Races--Mittelschmerz--Possible Tendency to a Future Intermenstrual Cycle--Menstruation among Animals--Menstruating Monkeys and Apes--What is Menstruation--Its Primary Cause Still Obscure--The Relation of Menstruation to Ovulation--The Occasional Absence of Menstruation in Health--The Relation of Menstruation to "Heat"--The Prohibition of Intercourse during Menstruation--The Predominance of Sexual Excitement at and around the Menstrual Period--Its Absence during the Period Frequently Apparent only. II. The Question of a Monthly Sexual Cycle in Men--The Earliest Suggestions of a General Physiological Cycle in Men--Periodicity in Disease--Insanity, Heart Disease, etc.--The Alleged Twenty-three Days' Cycle--The Physiological Periodicity of Seminal Emissions during Sleep--Original Observations--Fortnightly and Weekly Rhythms. III. The Annual Sexual Rhythm--In Animals--In Man--Tendency of the Sexual Impulse to become Heightened in Spring and Autumn--The Prevalence of Seasonal Erotic Festivals--The Feast of Fools--The Easter and Midsummer Bonfires--The Seasonal Variations in Birthrate--The Causes of those Variations--The Typical Conception-rate Curve for Europe--The Seasonal Periodicity of Seminal Emissions During Sleep--Original Observations--Spring and Autumn the Chief Periods of Involuntary Sexual Excitement--The Seasonal Periodicity of Rapes--Of Outbreaks among Prisoners--The Seasonal Curves of Insanity and Suicide--The Growth of Children According to Season--The Annual Curve of Bread-consumption in Prisons--Seasonal Periodicity of Scarlet Fever--The Underlying Causes of these Seasonal Phenomena. AUTO-EROTISM: A STUDY OF THE SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS OF THE SEXUAL IMPULSE. I. Definition of Auto-erotism--Masturbation only Covers a Small Portion of the Auto-erotic Field--The Importance of this Study, especially To-day--Auto-erotic Phenomena in Animals--Among Savage and Barbaric Races--The Japanese _rin-no-tama_ and other Special Instruments for Obtaining Auto-erotic Gratification--Abuse of the Ordinary Implements and Objects of Daily Life--The Frequency of Hair-pin in the Bladder--The Influence of Horse-exercise and Railway Traveling--The Sewing-machine and the Bicycle--Spontaneous Passive Sexual Excitement--_Delectatio Morosa_--Day-dreaming--_Pollutio_--Sexual Excitement During Sleep--Erotic Dreams--The Analogy of Nocturnal Enuresis--Differences in the Erotic Dreams of Men and Women--The Auto-erotic Phenomena of Sleep in the Hysterical--Their Frequently Painful Character. II. Hysteria and the Question of Its Relation to the Sexual Emotions--The Early Greek Theories of its Nature and Causation--The Gradual Rise of Modern Views--Charcot--The Revolt Against Charcot's Too Absolute Conclusions--Fallacies Involved--Charcot's Attitude the Outcome of his Personal Temperament--Breuer and Freud--Their Views Supplement and Complete Charcot's--At the Same Time they Furnish a Justification for the Earlier Doctrine of Hysteria--But They Must Not be Regarded as Final--The Diffused Hysteroid Condition in Normal Persons--The Physiological Basis of Hysteria--True Pathological Hysteria is Linked on to almost Normal States, especially to Sex-hunger. III. The Prevalence of Masturbation--Its Occurrence in Infancy and Childhood--Is it More Frequent in Males or Females?--After Adolescence Apparently more Frequent in Women--Reasons for the Sexual Distribution of Masturbation--The Alleged Evils of Masturbation--Historical Sketch of the Views Held on This Point--The Symptoms and Results of Masturbation--Its Alleged Influence in Causing Eye Disorders--Its Relation to Insanity and Nervous Disorders--The Evil Effects of Masturbation Usually Occur on the Basis of a Congenitally Morbid Nervous System--Neurasthenia Probably the Commonest Accompaniment of Excessive Masturbation--Precocious Masturbation Tends to Produce Aversion to Coitus--Psychic Results of Habitual Masturbation--Masturbation in Men of Genius--Masturbation as a Nervous Sedative--Typical Cases--The Greek Attitude toward Masturbation--Attitude of the Catholic Theologians--The Mohammedan Attitude--The Modern Scientific Attitude--In What Sense is Masturbation Normal?--The Immense Part in Life Played by Transmuted Auto-erotic Phenomena. APPENDIX A. The Influence of Menstruation on the Position of Women. APPENDIX B. Sexual Periodicity in Men. APPENDIX C. The Auto-erotic Factor in Religion. INDEX. DIAGRAMS. THE EVOLUTION OF MODESTY. I. The Definition of Modesty--The Significance of Modesty--Difficulties in the Way of Its Analysis--The Varying Phenomena of Modesty Among Different Peoples and in Different Ages. Modesty, which may be provisionally defined as an almost instinctive fear prompting to concealment and usually centering around the sexual processes, while common to both sexes is more peculiarly feminine, so that it may almost be regarded as the chief secondary sexual character of women on the psychical side. The woman who is lacking in this kind of fear is lacking, also, in sexual attractiveness to the normal and average man. The apparent exceptions seem to prove the rule, for it will generally be found that the women who are, not immodest (for immodesty is more closely related to modesty than mere negative absence of the sense of modesty), but without that fear which implies the presence of a complex emotional feminine organization to defend, only make a strong sexual appeal to men who are themselves lacking in the complementary masculine qualities. As a psychical secondary sexual character of the first rank, it is necessary, before any psychology of sex can be arranged in order, to obtain a clear view of modesty. The immense importance of feminine modesty in creating masculine passion must be fairly obvious. I may, however, quote the observations of two writers who have shown evidence of insight and knowledge regarding this matter. Casanova describes how, when at Berne, he went to the baths, and was, according to custom, attended by a young girl, whom he selected from a group of bath attendants. She undressed him, proceeded to undress herself, and then entered the bath with him, and rubbed him thoroughly all over, the operation being performed in the most serious manner and without a word being spoken. When all was over, however, he perceived that the girl had expected him to make advances, and he proceeds to describe and discuss his own feelings of indifference under such circumstances. "Though without gazing on the girl's figure, I had seen enough to recognize that she had all that a man can desire to find in a woman: a beautiful face, lively and well-formed eyes, a beautiful mouth, with good teeth, a healthy complexion, well-developed breasts, and everything in harmony. It is true that I had felt that her hands could have been smoother, but I could only attribute this to hard work; moreover, my Swiss girl was only eighteen, and yet I remained entirely cold. What was the cause of this? That was the question that I asked myself." "It is clear," wrote Stendhal, "that three parts of modesty are taught. This is, perhaps, the only law born of civilization which produces nothing but happiness. It has been observed that birds of prey hide themselves to drink, because, being obliged to plunge their heads in the water, they are at that moment defenceless. After having considered what passes at Otaheite, I can see no other natural foundation for modesty. Love is the miracle of civilization. Among savage and very barbarous races we find nothing but physical love of a gross character. It is modesty that gives to love the aid of imagination, and in so doing imparts life to it. Modesty is very early taught to little girls by their mothers, and with extreme jealousy, one might say, by _esprit de corps_. They are watching in advance over the happiness of the future lover. To a timid and tender woman there ought to be no greater torture than to allow herself in the presence of a man something which she thinks she ought to blush at. I am convinced that a proud woman would prefer a thousand deaths. A slight liberty taken on the tender side by the man she loves gives a woman a moment of keen pleasure, but if he has the air of blaming her for it, or only of not enjoying it with transport, an awful doubt must be left in her mind. For a woman above the vulgar level there is, then, everything to gain by very reserved manners. The play is not equal. She hazards against a slight pleasure, or against the advantage of appearing a little amiable, the danger of biting remorse, and a feeling of shame which must render even the lover less dear. An evening passed gaily and thoughtlessly, without thinking of what comes after, is dearly paid at this price. The sight of a lover with whom one fears that one has had this kind of wrong must become odious for several days. Can one be surprised at the force of a habit, the slightest infractions of which are punished with such atrocious shame? As to the utility of modesty, it is the mother of love. As to the mechanism of the feeling, nothing is simpler. The mind is absorbed in feeling shame instead of being occupied with desire. Desires are forbidden, and desires lead to actions. It is evident that every tender and proud woman--and these two things, being cause and effect, naturally go together--must contract habits of coldness which the people whom she disconcerts call prudery. The power of modesty is so great that a tender woman betrays herself with her lover rather by deeds than by words. The evil of modesty is that it constantly leads to falsehood." (Stendhal, _De l'Amour_, Chapter XXIV.) It thus happens that, as Adler remarks (_Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, p. 133), the sexual impulse in women is fettered by an inhibition which has to be conquered. A thin veil of reticence, shyness, and anxiety is constantly cast anew over a woman's love, and her wooer, in every act of courtship, has the enjoyment of conquering afresh an oft-won woman. An interesting testimony to the part played by modesty in effecting the union of the sexes is furnished by the fact--to which attention has often been called--that the special modesty of women usually tends to diminish, though not to disappear, with the complete gratification of the sexual impulses. This may be noted among savage as well as among civilized women. The comparatively evanescent character of modesty has led to the argument (Venturi, _Degenerazioni Psico-sessuali_, pp. 92-93) that modesty (_pudore_) is possessed by women alone, men exhibiting, instead, a sense of decency which remains at about the same level of persistency throughout life. Viazzi ("Pudore nell 'uomo e nella donna," _Rivista Mensile di Psichiatria Forense_, 1898), on the contrary, following Sergi, argues that men are, throughout, more modest than women; but the points he brings forward, though often just, scarcely justify his conclusion. While the young virgin, however, is more modest and shy than the young man of the same age, the experienced married woman is usually less so than her husband, and in a woman who is a mother the shy reticences of virginal modesty would be rightly felt to be ridiculous. ("Les petites pudeurs n'existent pas pour les mères," remarks Goncourt, _Journal des Goncourt_, vol. iii, p. 5.) She has put off a sexual livery that has no longer any important part to play in life, and would, indeed, be inconvenient and harmful, just as a bird loses its sexual plumage when the pairing season is over. Madame Céline Renooz, in an elaborate study of the psychological sexual differences between men and women (_Psychologie Comparée de l'Homme et de la Femme_, 1898, pp. 85-87), also believes that modesty is not really a feminine characteristic. "Modesty," she argues, "is masculine shame attributed to women for two reasons: first, because man believes that woman is subject to the same laws as himself; secondly, because the course of human evolution has reversed the psychology of the sexes, attributing to women the psychological results of masculine sexuality. This is the origin of the conventional lies which by a sort of social suggestion have intimidated women. They have, in appearance at least, accepted the rule of shame imposed on them by men, but only custom inspires the modesty for which they are praised; it is really an outrage to their sex. This reversal of psychological laws has, however, only been accepted by women with a struggle. Primitive woman, proud of her womanhood, for a long time defended her nakedness which ancient art has always represented. And in the actual life of the young girl to-day there is a moment when, by a secret atavism, she feels the pride of her sex, the intuition of her moral superiority, and cannot understand why she must hide its cause. At this moment, wavering between the laws of Nature and social conventions, she scarcely knows if nakedness should or should not affright her. A sort of confused atavistic memory recalls to her a period before clothing was known, and reveals to her as a paradisaical ideal the customs of that human epoch." In support of this view the authoress proceeds to point out that the _décolleté_ constantly reappears in feminine clothing, never in male; that missionaries experience great difficulty in persuading women to cover themselves; that, while women accept with facility an examination by male doctors, men cannot force themselves to accept examination by a woman doctor, etc. (These and similar points had already been independently brought forward by Sergi, _Archivio di Psichiatria_, vol. xiii, 1892.) It cannot be said that Madame Renooz's arguments will all bear examination, if only on the ground that nakedness by no means involves absence of modesty, but the point of view which she expresses is one which usually fails to gain recognition, though it probably contains an important element of truth. It is quite true, as Stendhal said, that modesty is very largely taught; from the earliest years, a girl child is trained to show a modesty which she quickly begins really to feel. This fact cannot fail to strike any one who reads the histories of pseudo-hermaphroditic persons, really males, who have from infancy been brought up in the belief that they are girls, and who show, and feel, all the shrinking reticence and blushing modesty of their supposed sex. But when the error is discovered, and they are restored to their proper sex, this is quickly changed, and they exhibit all the boldness of masculinity. (See e.g., Neugebauer, "Beobachtungen aus dem Gebiete des Scheinzwittertumes," _Jahrbuch für Sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Jahrgang iv, 1902, esp. p. 92.) At the same time this is only one thread in the tangled skein with which we are here concerned. The mass of facts which meets us when we turn to the study of modesty in women cannot be dismissed as a group of artificially-imposed customs. They gain rather than lose in importance if we have to realize that the organic sexual demands of women, calling for coyness in courtship, lead to the temporary suppression of another feminine instinct of opposite, though doubtless allied, nature. But these somewhat conflicting, though not really contradictory, statements serve to bring out the fact that a woman's modesty is often an incalculable element. The woman who, under some circumstances and at some times, is extreme in her reticences, under other circumstances or at other times, may be extreme in her abandonment. Not that her modesty is an artificial garment, which she throws off or on at will. It is organic, but like the snail's shell, it sometimes forms an impenetrable covering, and sometimes glides off almost altogether. A man's modesty is more rigid, with little tendency to deviate toward either extreme. Thus it is, that, when uninstructed, a man is apt to be impatient with a woman's reticences, and yet shocked at her abandonments. The significance of our inquiry becomes greater when we reflect that to the reticences of sexual modesty, in their progression, expansion, and complication, we largely owe, not only the refinement and development of the sexual emotions,--"_la pudeur_" as Guyau remarked, "_a civilisé l'amour_"--but the subtle and pervading part which the sexual instinct has played in the evolution of all human culture. "It is certain that very much of what is best in religion, art, and life," remark Stanley Hall and Allin, "owes its charm to the progressively-widening irradiation of sexual feeling. Perhaps the reluctance of the female first long-circuited the exquisite sensations connected with sexual organs and acts to the antics of animal and human courtship, while restraint had the physiological function of developing the colors, plumes, excessive activity, and exuberant life of the pairing season. To keep certain parts of the body covered, irradiated the sense of beauty to eyes, hair, face, complexion, dress, form, etc., while many savage dances, costumes and postures are irradiations of the sexual act. Thus reticence, concealment, and restraint are among the prime conditions of religion and human culture." (Stanley Hall and Allin, "The Psychology of Tickling," _American Journal of Psychology_, 1897, p. 31.) Groos attributes the deepening of the conjugal relation among birds to the circumstance that the male seeks to overcome the reticence of the female by the display of his charms and abilities. "And in the human world," he continues, "it is the same; without the modest reserve of the woman that must, in most cases, be overcome by lovable qualities, the sexual relationship would with difficulty find a singer who would extol in love the highest movements of the human soul." (Groos, _Spiele der Menschen_, p. 341.) I have not, however, been, able to find that the subject of modesty has been treated in any comprehensive way by psychologists. Though valuable facts and suggestions bearing on the sexual emotions, on disgust, the origins of tatooing, on ornament and clothing, have been, brought forward by physiologists, psychologists, and ethnographists, few or no attempts appear to have been made to reach a general synthetic statement of these facts and suggestions. It is true that a great many unreliable, slight, or fragmentary efforts have been made to ascertain the constitution or basis of this emotion.[1] Many psychologists have regarded modesty simply as the result of clothing. This view is overturned by the well-ascertained fact that many races which go absolutely naked possess a highly-developed sense of modesty. These writers have not realized that physiological modesty is earlier in appearance, and more fundamental, than anatomical modesty. A partial contribution to the analysis of modesty has been made by Professor James, who, with his usual insight and lucidity, has set forth certain of its characteristics, especially the element due to "the application to ourselves of judgments primarily passed upon our mates." Guyau, in a very brief discussion of modesty, realized its great significance and touched on most of its chief elements.[2] Westermarck, again, followed by Grosse, has very ably and convincingly set forth certain factors in the origin of ornament and clothing, a subject which many writers imagine to cover the whole field of modesty. More recently Ribot, in his work on the emotions, has vaguely outlined most of the factors of modesty, but has not developed a coherent view of their origins and relationships. Since the present _Study_ first appeared, Hohenemser, who considers that my analysis of modesty is unsatisfactory, has made a notable attempt to define the psychological mechanism of shame. ("Versuch einer Analyse der Scham," _Archiv für die Gesamte Psychologie_, Bd. II, Heft 2-3, 1903.) He regards shame as a general psycho-physical phenomenon, "a definite tension of the whole soul," with an emotion superadded. "The state of shame consists in a certain psychic lameness or inhibition," sometimes accompanied by physical phenomena of paralysis, such as sinking of the head and inability to meet the eye. It is a special case of Lipps's psychic stasis or damming up (_psychische Stauung_), always produced when the psychic activities are at the same time drawn in two or more different directions. In shame there is always something present in consciousness which conflicts with the rest of the personality, and cannot be brought into harmony with it, which cannot be brought, that is, into moral (not logical) relationship with it. A young man in love with a girl is ashamed when told that he is in love, because his reverence for one whom he regards as a higher being cannot be brought into relationship with his own lower personality. A child in the same way feels shame in approaching a big, grown-up person, who seems a higher sort of being. Sometimes, likewise, we feel shame in approaching a stranger, for a new person tends to seem higher and more interesting than ourselves. It is not so in approaching a new natural phenomenon, because we do not compare it with ourselves. Another kind of shame is seen when this mental contest is lower than our personality, and on this account in conflict with it, as when we are ashamed of sexual thoughts. Sexual ideas tend to evoke shame, Hohenemser remarks, because they so easily tend to pass into sexual feelings; when they do not so pass (as in scientific discussions) they do not evoke shame. It will be seen that this discussion of modesty is highly generalized and abstracted; it deals simply with the formal mechanism of the process. Hohenemser admits that fear is a form of psychic stasis, and I have sought to show that modesty is a complexus of fears. We may very well accept the conception of psychic stasis at the outset. The analysis of modesty has still to be carried very much further. The discussion of modesty is complicated by the difficulty, and even impossibility, of excluding closely-allied emotions--shame, shyness, bashfulness, timidity, etc.--all of which, indeed, however defined, adjoin or overlap modesty.[3] It is not, however, impossible to isolate the main body of the emotion of modesty, on account of its special connection, on the whole, with the consciousness of sex. I here attempt, however imperfectly, to sketch out a fairly-complete analysis of its constitution and to trace its development. In entering upon this investigation a few facts with regard to the various manifestations of modesty may be helpful to us. I have selected these from scattered original sources, and have sought to bring out the variety and complexity of the problems with which we are here concerned. The New Georgians of the Solomon Islands, so low a race that they are ignorant both of pottery and weaving, and wear only a loin cloth, "have the same ideas of what is decent with regard to certain acts and exposures that we ourselves have;" so that it is difficult to observe whether they practice circumcision. (Somerville, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1897, p. 394.) In the New Hebrides "the closest secrecy is adopted with regard to the penis, not at all from a sense of decency, but to avoid Narak, the _sight_ even of that of another man being considered most dangerous. The natives of this savage island, accordingly, wrap the penis around with many yards of calico, and other like materials, winding and folding them until a preposterous bundle 18 inches, or 2 feet long, and 2 inches or more in diameter is formed, which is then supported upward by means of a belt, in the extremity decorated with flowering grasses, etc. The testicles are left naked." There is no other body covering. (Somerville, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1894, p. 368.) In the Pelew Islands, says Kubary, as quoted by Bastian, it is said that when the God Irakaderugel and his wife were creating man and woman (he forming man and she forming woman), and were at work on the sexual organs, the god wished to see his consort's handiwork. She, however, was cross, and persisted in concealing what she had made. Ever since then women wear an apron of pandanus-leaves and men go naked. (A. Bastian, _Inselgruppen in Oceanien_, p. 112.) In the Pelew Islands, Semper tells us that when approaching a large water-hole he was surprised to hear an affrighted, long-drawn cry from his native friends. "A girl's voice answered out of the bushes, and my people held us back, for there were women bathing there who would not allow us to pass. When I remarked that they were only women, of whom they need not be afraid, they replied that it was not so, that women had an unbounded right to punish men who passed them when bathing without their permission, and could inflict fines or even death. On this account, the women's bathing place is a safe and favorite spot for a secret rendezvous. Fortunately a lady's toilet lasts but a short time in this island." (Carl Semper, _Die Palau-Inseln_, 1873, p. 68.) Among the Western Tribes of Torres Strait, Haddon states, "the men were formerly nude, and the women wore only a leaf petticoat, but I gather that they were a decent people; now both sexes are prudish. A man would never go nude before me. The women would never voluntarily expose their breasts to white men's gaze; this applies to quite young girls, less so to old women. Amongst themselves they are, of course, much less particular, but I believe they are becoming more so.... Formerly, I imagine, there was no restraint in speech; now there is a great deal of prudery; for instance, the men were always much ashamed when I asked for the name of the sexual parts of a woman." (A.C. Haddon, "Ethnography of the Western Tribes of Torres Straits," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1890, p. 336.) After a subsequent expedition to the same region, the author reiterates his observations as to the "ridiculously prudish manner" of the men, attributable to missionary influence during the past thirty years, and notes that even the children are affected by it. "At Mabuiag, some small children were paddling in the water, and a boy of about ten years of age reprimanded a little girl of five or six years because she held up her dress too high." (_Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. v, p. 272.) "Although the women of New Guinea," Vahness says, "are very slightly clothed, they are by no means lacking in a well-developed sense of decorum. If they notice, for instance, that any one is paying special attention to their nakedness, they become ashamed and turn round." When a woman had to climb the fence to enter the wild-pig enclosure, she would never do it in Vahness's presence. (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, Verhdlgen., 1900, Heft 5, p. 415.) In Australia "the feeling of decency is decidedly less prevalent among males than females;" the clothed females retire out of sight to bathe. (Curr, _Australian Race_.) "Except for waist-bands, forehead-bands, necklets, and armlets, and a conventional pubic tassel, shell, or, in the case of the women, a small apron, the Central Australian native is naked. The pubic tassel is a diminutive structure, about the size of a five-shilling piece, made of a few short strands of fur-strings flattened out into a fan-shape and attached to the pubic hair. As the string, especially at _corrobboree_ times, is covered with white kaolin or gypsum, it serves as a decoration rather than a covering. Among the Arunta and Luritcha the women usually wear nothing, but further north, a small apron is made and worn." (Baldwin Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 572.) Of the Central Australians Stirling says: "No sense of shame of exposure was exhibited by the men on removal of the diminutive articles worn as conventional coverings; they were taken off _coram populo_, and bartered without hesitation. On the other hand, some little persuasion was necessary to allow inspection of the effect of [urethral] sub-incision, assent being given only after dismissal to a distance of the women and young children. As to the women, it was nearly always observed that when in camp without clothing they, especially the younger ones, exhibited by their attitude a keen sense of modesty, if, indeed, a consciousness of their nakedness can be thus considered. When we desired to take a photograph of a group of young women, they were very coy at the proposal to remove their scanty garments, and retired behind a wall to do so; but once in a state of nudity they made no objection to exposure to the camera." (_Report of the Horn Scientific Expedition_, 1896, vol. iv, p. 37.) In Northern Queensland "phallocrypts," or "penis-concealers," only used by the males at _corrobborees_ and other public rejoicings, are either formed of pearl-shell or opossum-string. The _koom-pa-ra_, or opossum-string form of phallocrypt, forms a kind of tassel, and is colored red; it is hung from the waist-belt in the middle line. In both sexes the privates are only covered on special public occasions, or when in close proximity to white settlements. (W. Roth, _Ethnological Studies among the Northwest-Central-Queensland Aborigines_, 1897, pp. 114-115.) "The principle of chastity," said Forster, of his experiences in the South Sea Islands in their unspoilt state, "we found in many families exceedingly well understood. I have seen many fine women who, with a modesty mixed with politeness, refuse the greatest and most tempting offers made them by our forward youths; often they excuse themselves with a simple _tirra-tano_, 'I am married,' and at other times they smiled and declined it with _epia_, 'no.' ... Virtuous women hear a joke without emotion, which, amongst us, might put some men to the blush. Neither austerity and anger, nor joy and ecstasy is the consequence, but sometimes a modest, dignified, serene smile spreads itself over their face, and seems gently to rebuke the uncouth jester." (J.R. Forster, _Observations made During a Voyage Round the World_, 1728, p. 392.) Captain Cook, at Tahiti, in 1769, after performing Divine service on Sunday, witnessed "Vespers of a very different kind. A young man, near six feet high, performed the rites of Venus with a little girl about eleven or twelve years of age, before several of our people and a great number of the natives, without the least sense of its being indecent or improper, but, as it appeared, in perfect conformity to the custom of the place. Among the spectators were several women of superior rank, who may properly be said to have assisted at the ceremony; for they gave instructions to the girl how to perform her part, which, young as she was, she did not seem much to stand in need of." (J. Hawkesworth, _Account of the Voyages_, etc., 1775, vol. i, p. 469.) At Tahiti, according to Cook, it was customary to "gratify every appetite and passion before witnesses," and it is added, "in the conversation of these people, that which is the principal source of their pleasure is always the principal topic; everything is mentioned without any restraint or emotion, and in the most direct terms, by both sexes." (Hawkesworth, op. cit., vol ii, p. 45.) "I have observed," Captain Cook wrote, "that our friends in the South Seas have not even the idea of indecency, with respect to any object or any action, but this was by no means the case with the inhabitants of New Zealand, in whose carriage and conversation there was as much modest reserve and decorum with respect to actions, which yet in their opinion were not criminal, as are to be found among the politest people in Europe. The women were not impregnable; but the terms and manner of compliance were as decent as those in marriage among us, and according to their notions, the agreement was as innocent. When any of our people made an overture to any of their young women, he was given to understand that the consent of her friends was necessary, and by the influence of a proper present it was generally obtained; but when these preliminaries were settled, it was also necessary to treat the wife for a night with the same delicacy that is here required by the wife for life, and the lover who presumed to take any liberties by which this was violated, was sure to be disappointed." (Hawkesworth, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 254.) Cook found that the people of New Zealand "bring the prepuce over the gland, and to prevent it from being drawn back by contraction of the part, they tie the string which hangs from the girdle round the end of it. The glans, indeed, seemed to be the only part of their body which they were solicitous to conceal, for they frequently threw off all their dress but the belt and string, with the most careless indifference, but showed manifest signs of confusion when, to gratify our curiosity, they were requested to untie the string, and never consented but with the utmost reluctance and shame.... The women's lower garment was always bound fast round them, except when they went into the water to catch lobsters, and then they took great care not to be seen by the men. We surprised several of them at this employment, and the chaste Diana, with her nymphs, could not have discovered more confusion and distress at the sight of Actæon, than these women expressed upon our approach. Some of them hid themselves among the rocks, and the rest crouched down in the sea till they had made themselves a girdle and apron of such weeds as they could find, and when they came out, even with this veil, we could see that their modesty suffered much pain by our presence." (Hawkesworth, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 257-258.) In Rotuma, in Polynesia, where the women enjoy much freedom, but where, at all events in old days, married people were, as a rule, faithful to each other, "the language is not chaste according to our ideas, and there is a great deal of freedom in speaking of immoral vices. In this connection a man and his wife will speak freely to one another before their friends. I am informed, though, by European traders well conversant with the language, that there are grades of language, and that certain coarse phrases would never be used to any decent woman; so that probably, in their way, they have much modesty, only we cannot appreciate it." (J. Stanley Gardiner, "The Natives of Rotuma," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, May, 1898, p. 481.) The men of Rotuma, says the same writer, are very clean, the women also, bathing twice a day in the sea; but "bathing in public without the _kukuluga_, or _sulu_ [loin-cloth, which is the ordinary dress], around the waist is absolutely unheard of, and would be much looked down upon." (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1898, p. 410.) In ancient Samoa the only necessary garment for either man or woman was an apron of leaves, but they possessed so "delicate a sense of propriety" that even "while bathing they have a girdle of leaves or some other covering around the waist." (Turner, _Samoa a Hundred Years Ago_, p. 121.) After babyhood the Indians of Guiana are never seen naked. When they change their single garment they retire. The women wear a little apron, now generally made of European beads, but the Warraus still make it of the inner bark of a tree, and some of seeds. (Everard im Thurn, _Among the Indians of Guiana_, 1883.) The Mandurucu women of Brazil, according to Tocantins (quoted by Mantegazza), are completely naked, but they are careful to avoid any postures which might be considered indecorous, and they do this so skilfully that it is impossible to tell when they have their menstrual periods. (Mantegazza, _Fisiologia della Donna_, cap 9.) The Indians of Central Brazil have no "private parts." In men the little girdle, or string, surrounding the lower part of the abdomen, hides nothing; it is worn after puberty, the penis being often raised and placed beneath it to lengthen the prepuce. The women also use a little strip of bast that goes down the groin and passes between the thighs. Among some tribes (Karibs, Tupis, Nu-Arwaks) a little, triangular, coquettishly-made piece of bark-bast comes just below the mons veneris; it is only a few centimetres in width, and is called the _uluri. In both sexes concealment of the sexual mucous membrane is attained_. These articles cannot be called clothing. "The red thread of the Trumai, the elegant _uluri_, and the variegated flag of the Bororó attract attention, like ornaments, instead of drawing attention away." Von den Steinen thinks this proceeding a necessary protection against the attacks of insects, which are often serious in Brazil. He does think, however, that there is more than this, and that the people are ashamed to show the glans penis. (Karl von den Steinen, _Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens_, 1894, pp. 190 et seq.) Other travelers mention that on the Amazon among some tribes the women are clothed and the men naked; among others the women naked, and the men clothed. Thus, among the Guaycurus the men are quite naked, while the women wear a short petticoat; among the Uaupás the men always wear a loin-cloth, while the women are quite naked. "The feeling of modesty is very developed among the Fuegians, who are accustomed to live naked. They manifest it in their bearing and in the ease with which they show themselves in a state of nudity, compared with the awkwardness, blushing, and shame which both men and women exhibit if one gazes at certain parts of their bodies. Among themselves this is never done even between husband and wife. There is no Fuegian word for modesty, perhaps because the feeling is universal among them." The women wear a minute triangular garment of skin suspended between the thighs and never removed, being merely raised during conjugal relations. (Hyades and Deniker, _Mission Scientifique du Cap Horn_, vol. vii, pp. 239, 307, and 347.) Among the Crow Indians of Montana, writes Dr. Holder, who has lived with them for several years, "a sense of modesty forbids the attendance upon the female in labor of any male, white man or Indian, physician or layman. This antipathy to receiving assistance at the hands of the physician is overcome as the tribes progress toward civilization, and it is especially noticeable that half-breeds almost constantly seek the physician's aid." Dr. Holder mentions the case of a young woman who, although brought near the verge of death in a very difficult first confinement, repeatedly refused to allow him to examine her; at last she consented; "her modest preparation was to take bits of quilt and cover thighs and lips of vulva, leaving only the aperture exposed.... Their modesty would not be so striking were it not that, almost to a woman, the females of this tribe are prostitutes, and for a consideration will admit the connection of any man." (A.B. Holder, _American Journal of Obstetrics_, vol. xxv, No. 6, 1892.) "In every North American tribe, from the most northern to the most southern, the skirt of the woman is longer than that of the men. In Esquimau land the _parka_ of deerskin and sealskin reaches to the knees. Throughout Central North America the buckskin dress of the women reached quite to the ankles. The West-Coast women, from Oregon to the Gulf of California, wore a petticoat of shredded bark, of plaited grass, or of strings, upon which were strung hundreds of seeds. Even in the most tropical areas the rule was universal, as anyone can see from the codices or in pictures of the natives." (Otis T. Mason, _Woman's Share in Primitive Culture_, p. 237.) Describing the loin-cloth worn by Nicobarese men, Man says: "From the clumsy mode in which this garment is worn by the Shom Pen--necessitating frequent readjustment of the folds--one is led to infer that its use is not _de rigueur_, but reserved for special occasions, as when receiving or visiting strangers." (E.H. Man, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1886, p. 442.) The semi-nude natives of the island of Nias in the Indian Ocean are "modest by nature," paying no attention to their own nudity or that of others, and much scandalized by any attempt to go beyond the limits ordained by custom. When they pass near places where women are bathing they raise their voices in order to warn them of their presence, and even although any bold youth addressed the women, and the latter replied, no attempt would be made to approach them; any such attempt would be severely punished by the head man of the village. (Modigliani, _Un Viaggio a Nias_, p. 460.) Man says that the Andamanese in modesty and self-respect compare favorably with many classes among civilized peoples. "Women are so modest that they will not renew their leaf-aprons in the presence of one another, but retire to a secluded spot for this purpose; even when parting with one of their _bod_ appendages [tails of leaves suspended from back of girdle] to a female friend, the delicacy they manifest for the feelings of the bystanders in their mode of removing it amounts to prudishness; yet they wear no clothing in the ordinary sense." (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1883, pp. 94 and 331.) Of the Garo women of Bengal Dalton says: "Their sole garment is a piece of cloth less than a foot in width that just meets around the loins, and in order that it may not restrain the limbs it is only fastened where it meets under the hip at the upper corners. The girls are thus greatly restricted in the positions they may modestly assume, but decorum is, in their opinion, sufficiently preserved if they only keep their legs well together when they sit or kneel." (E.T. Dalton, _Ethnology of Bengal_, 1872, p. 66.) Of the Naga women of Assam it is said: "Of clothing there was not much to see; but in spite of this I doubt whether we could excel them in true decency and modesty. Ibn Muhammed Wali had already remarked in his history of the conquest of Assam (1662-63), that the Naga women only cover their breasts. They declare that it is absurd to cover those parts of the body which everyone has been able to see from their births, but that it is different with the breasts, which appeared later, and are, therefore, to be covered. Dalton (_Journal of the Asiatic Society_, Bengal, 41, 1, 84) adds that in the presence of strangers Naga women simply cross their arms over their breasts, without caring much what other charms they may reveal to the observer. As regards some clans of the naked Nagas, to whom the Banpara belong, this may still hold good." (K. Klemm, "Peal's Ausflug nach Banpara," _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1898, Heft 5, p. 334.) "In Ceylon, a woman always bathes in public streams, but she never removes all her clothes. She washes under the cloth, bit by bit, and then slips on the dry, new cloth, and pulls out the wet one from underneath (much in the same sliding way as servant girls and young women in England). This is the common custom in India and the Malay States. The breasts are always bare in their own houses, but in the public roads are covered whenever a European passes. The vulva is never exposed. They say that a devil, imagined as a white and hairy being, might have intercourse with them." (Private communication.) In Borneo, "the _sirat_, called _chawal_ by the Malays, is a strip of cloth a yard wide, worn round the loins and in between the thighs, so as to cover the pudenda and perinæum; it is generally six yards or so in length, but the younger men of the present generation use as much as twelve or fourteen yards (sometimes even more), which they twist and coil with great precision round and round their body, until the waist and stomach are fully enveloped in its folds." (H. Ling Roth, "Low's Natives of Borneo," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1892, p. 36.) "In their own houses in the depths of the forest the Dwarfs are said to neglect coverings for decency in the men as in the women, but certainly when they emerge from the forest into the villages of the agricultural Negroes, they are always observed to be wearing some small piece of bark-cloth or skin, or a bunch of leaves over the pudenda. Elsewhere in all the regions of Africa visited by the writer, or described by other observers, a neglect of decency in the male has only been recorded among the Efik people of Old Calabar. The nudity of women is another question. In parts of West Africa, between the Niger and the Gaboon (especially on the Cameroon River, at Old Calabar, and in the Niger Delta), it is, or was, customary for young women to go about completely nude before they were married. In Swaziland, until quite recently, unmarried women and very often matrons went stark naked. Even amongst the prudish Baganda, who made it a punishable offense for a man to expose any part of his leg above the knee, the wives of the King would attend at his Court perfectly naked. Among the Kavirondo, all unmarried girls are completely nude, and although women who have become mothers are supposed to wear a tiny covering before and behind, they very often completely neglect to do so when in their own villages. Yet, as a general rule, among the Nile Negroes, and still more markedly among the Hamites and people of Masai stock, the women are particular about concealing the pudenda, whereas the men are ostentatiously naked. The Baganda hold nudity in the male to be such an abhorrent thing that for centuries they have referred with scorn and disgust to the Nile Negroes as the 'naked people.' Male nudity extends northwest to within some 200 miles of Khartum, or, in fact, wherever the Nile Negroes of the Dinka-Acholi stock inhabit the country." (Sir H.H. Johnston, _Uganda Protectorate_, vol. ii, pp. 669-672.) Among the Nilotic Ja-luo, Johnston states that "unmarried men go naked. Married men who have children wear a small piece of goat skin, which, though quite inadequate for purposes of decency, is, nevertheless, a very important thing in etiquette, for a married man with a child must on no account call on his mother-in-law without wearing this piece of goat's skin. To call on her in a state of absolute nudity would be regarded as a serious insult, only to be atoned for by the payment of goats. Even if under the new dispensation he wears European trousers, he must have a piece of goat's skin underneath. Married women wear a tail of strings behind." It is very bad manners for a woman to serve food to her husband without putting on this tail. (Sir H.H. Johnston, _Uganda Protectorate_, vol. ii, p. 781.) Mrs. French-Sheldon remarks that the Masai and other East African tribes, with regard to menstruation, "observe the greatest delicacy, and are more than modest." (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1894, p. 383.) At the same time the Masai, among whom the penis is of enormous size, consider it disreputable to conceal that member, and in the highest degree reputable to display it, even ostentatiously. (Sir H.H. Johnston, _Kilima-njaro Expedition_, p. 413.) Among the African Dinka, who are scrupulously clean and delicate (smearing themselves with burnt cows' dung, and washing themselves daily with cows' urine), and are exquisite cooks, reaching in many respects a higher stage of civilization, in Schweinfurth's opinion, than is elsewhere attained in Africa, only the women wear aprons. The neighboring tribes of the red soil--Bongo, Mittoo, Niam-Niam, etc.--are called "women" by the Dinka, because among these tribes the men wear an apron, while the women obstinately refuse to wear any clothes whatsoever of skin or stuff, going into the woods every day, however, to get a supple bough for a girdle, with, perhaps, a bundle of fine grass. (Schweinfurth, _Heart of Africa_, vol. i, pp. 152, etc.) Lombroso and Carrara, examining some Dinka negroes brought from the White Nile, remark: "As to their psychology, what struck us first was the exaggeration of their modesty; not in a single case would the men allow us to examine their genital organs or the women their breasts; we examined the tattoo-marks on the chest of one of the women, and she remained sad and irritable for two days afterward." They add that in sexual and all other respects these people are highly moral. (Lombroso and Carrara, _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1896, vol. xvii, fasc. 4.) "The negro is very rarely knowingly indecent or addicted to lubricity," says Sir H.H. Johnston. "In this land of nudity, which I have known for seven years, I do not remember once having seen an indecent gesture on the part of either man or woman, and only very rarely (and that not among unspoiled savages) in the case of that most shameless member of the community--the little boy." He adds that the native dances are only an apparent exception, being serious in character, though indecent to our eyes, almost constituting a religious ceremony. The only really indecent dance indigenous to Central Africa "is one which originally represented the act of coition, but it is so altered to a stereotyped formula that its exact purport is not obvious until explained somewhat shyly by the natives.... It may safely be asserted that the negro race in Central Africa is much more truly modest, is much more free from real vice, than are most European nations. Neither boys nor girls wear clothing (unless they are the children of chiefs) until nearing the age of puberty. Among the Wankonda, practically no covering is worn by the men except a ring of brass wire around the stomach. The Wankonda women are likewise almost entirely naked, but generally cover the pudenda with a tiny bead-work apron, often a piece of very beautiful workmanship, and exactly resembling the same article worn by Kaffir women. A like degree of nudity prevails among many of the Awemba, among the A-lungu, the Batumbuka, and the Angoni. Most of the Angoni men, however, adopt the Zulu fashion of covering the glans penis with a small wooden case or the outer shell of a fruit. The Wa-Yao have a strong sense of decency in matters of this kind, which is the more curious since they are more given to obscenity in their rites, ceremonies, and dances than any other tribe. Not only is it extremely rare to see any Yao uncovered, but both men and women have the strongest dislike to exposing their persons even to the inspection of a doctor. The Atonga and many of the A-nyanga people, and all the tribes west of Nyassa (with the exception possibly of the A-lunda) have not the Yao regard for decency, and, although they can seldom or ever be accused of a deliberate intention to expose themselves, the men are relatively indifferent as to whether their nakedness is or is not concealed, though the women are modest and careful in this respect." (H.H. Johnston, _British Central Africa_, 1897, pp. 408-419.) In Azimba land, Central Africa, H. Crawford Angus, who has spent many years in this part of Africa, writes: "It has been my experience that the more naked the people, and the more to us obscene and shameless their manners and customs, the more moral and strict they are in the matter of sexual intercourse." He proceeds to give a description of the _chensamwali_, or initiation ceremony of girls at puberty, a season of rejoicing when the girl is initiated into all the secrets of marriage, amid songs and dances referring to the act of coition. "The whole matter is looked upon as a matter of course, and not as a thing to be ashamed of or to hide, and, being thus openly treated of and no secrecy made about it, you find in this tribe that the women are very virtuous. They know from the first all that is to be known, and cannot see any reason for secrecy concerning natural laws or the powers and senses that have been given them from birth." (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1898, Heft 6, p. 479.) Of the Monbuttu of Central Africa, another observer says: "It is surprising how a Monbuttu woman of birth can, without the aid of dress, impress others with her dignity and modesty." (_British Medical Journal_. June 14, 1890.) "The women at Upoto wear no clothes whatever, and came up to us in the most unreserved manner. An interesting gradation in the arrangement of the female costume has been observed by us: as we ascended the Congo, the higher up the river we found ourselves, the higher the dress reached, till it has now, at last, culminated in absolute nudity." (T.H. Parke, _My Personal Experiences in Equatorial Africa_, 1891, p. 61.) "There exists throughout the Congo population a marked appreciation of the sentiment of decency and shame as applied to private actions," says Mr. Herbert Ward. In explanation of the nudity of the women at Upoto, a chief remarked to Ward that "concealment is food for the inquisitive." (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1895, p. 293.) In the Gold Coast and surrounding countries complete nudity is extremely rare, except when circumstances make it desirable; on occasion clothing is abandoned with unconcern. "I have on several occasions," says Dr. Freeman, "seen women at Accra walk from the beach, where they have been bathing, across the road to their houses, where they would proceed to dry themselves, and resume their garments; and women may not infrequently be seen bathing in pools by the wayside, conversing quite unconstrainedly with their male acquaintances, who are seated on the bank. The mere unclothed body conveys to their minds no idea of indecency. Immodesty and indelicacy of manner are practically unknown." He adds that the excessive zeal of missionaries in urging their converts to adopt European dress--which they are only too ready to do--is much to be regretted, since the close-fitting, thin garments are really less modest than the loose clothes they replace, besides being much less cleanly. (R.A. Freeman, _Travels and Life in Ashanti and Jaman_, 1898, p. 379.) At Loango, says Pechuel-Loesche, "the well-bred negress likes to cover her bosom, and is sensitive to critical male eyes; if she meets a European when without her overgarment, she instinctively, though not without coquetry, takes the attitude of the Medicean Venus." Men and women bathe separately, and hide themselves from each other when naked. The women also exhibit shame when discovered suckling their babies. (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1878, pp. 27-31.) The Koran (Sura XXIV) forbids showing the pudenda, as well as the face, yet a veiled Mohammedan woman, Stern remarks, even in the streets of Constantinople, will stand still and pull up her clothes to scratch her private parts, and in Beyrout, he saw Turkish prostitutes, still veiled, place themselves in the position for coitus. (B. Stern, _Medizin, etc., in der Türkei_, vol. ii, p. 162.) "An Englishman surprised a woman while bathing in the Euphrates; she held her hands over her face, without troubling as to what else the stranger might see. In Egypt, I have myself seen quite naked young peasant girls, who hastened to see us, after covering their faces." (C. Niebuhr, _Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien_, 1774, vol. i, p. 165.) When Helfer was taken to visit the ladies in the palace of the Imam of Muskat, at Buscheir, he found that their faces were covered with black masks, though the rest of the body might be clothed in a transparent sort of crape; to look at a naked face was very painful to the ladies themselves; even a mother never lifts the mask from the face of her daughter after the age of twelve; that is reserved for her lord and husband. "I observed that the ladies looked at me with a certain confusion, and after they had glanced into my face, lowered their eyes, ashamed. On making inquiries, I found that my uncovered face was indecent, as a naked person would be to us. They begged me to assume a mask, and when a waiting-woman had bound a splendidly decorated one round my head, they all exclaimed: 'Tahip! tahip!'--beautiful, beautiful." (J.W. Helfer, _Reisen in Vorderasian und Indien_, vol. ii, p. 12.) In Algeria--in the provinces of Constantine, in Biskra, even Aures,--"among the women especially, not one is restrained by any modesty in unfastening her girdle to any comer" (when a search was being made for tattoo-marks on the lower extremities). "In spite of the great licentiousness of the manners," the same writer continues, "the Arab and the Kabyle possess great personal modesty, and with difficulty are persuaded to exhibit the body nude; is it the result of real modesty, or of their inveterate habits of active pederasty? Whatever the cause, they always hide the sexual organs with their hands or their handkerchiefs, and are disagreeably affected even by the slightest touch of the doctor." (Batut, _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, January 15, 1893.) "Moslem modesty," remarks Wellhausen, "was carried to great lengths, insufficient clothing being forbidden. It was marked even among the heathen Arabs, as among Semites and old civilizations generally; we must not be deceived by the occasional examples of immodesty in individual cases. The Sunna prescribes that a man shall not uncover himself even to himself, and shall not wash naked--from fear of God and of spirits; Job did so, and atoned for it heavily. When in Arab antiquity grown-up persons showed themselves naked, it was only under extraordinary circumstances, and to attain unusual ends.... Women when mourning uncovered not only the face and bosom, but also tore all their garments. The messenger who brought bad news tore his garments. A mother desiring to bring pressure to bear on her son took off her clothes. A man to whom vengeance is forbidden showed his despair and disapproval by uncovering his posterior and strewing earth on his head, or by raising his garment behind and covering his head with it. This was done also in fulfilling natural necessities." (Wellhausen, _Reste Arabischen Heidentums_, 1897, pp. 173, 195-196.) Mantegazza mentions that a Lapland woman refused even for the sum of 150 francs to allow him to photograph her naked, though the men placed themselves before the camera in the costume of Adam for a much smaller sum. In the same book Mantegazza remarks that in the eighteenth century, travelers found it extremely difficult to persuade Samoyed women to show themselves naked. Among the same people, he says, the newly-married wife must conceal her face from her husband for two months after marriage, and only then yield to his embraces. (Mantegazza, _La Donna_, cap. IV.) "The beauty of a Chinese woman," says Dr. Matignon, "resides largely in her foot. 'A foot which is not deformed is a dishonor,' says a poet. For the husband the foot is more interesting than the face. Only the husband may see his wife's foot naked. A Chinese woman is as reticent in showing her feet to a man as a European woman her breasts. I have often had to treat Chinese women with ridiculously small feet for wounds and excoriations, the result of tight-bandaging. They exhibited the prudishness of school-girls, blushed, turned their backs to unfasten the bandages, and then concealed the foot in a cloth, leaving only the affected part uncovered. Modesty is a question of convention; Chinese have it for their feet," (J. Matignon, "A propos d'un Pied de Chinoise," _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, 1898, p. 445.) Among the Yakuts of Northeast Siberia, "there was a well-known custom according to which a bride should avoid showing herself or her uncovered body to her father-in-law. In ancient times, they say, a bride concealed herself for seven years from her father-in-law, and from the brothers and other masculine relations of her husband.... The men also tried not to meet her, saying, 'The poor child will be ashamed.' If a meeting could not be avoided the young woman put a mask on her face.... Nowadays, the young wives only avoid showing to their male relatives-in-law the uncovered body. Amongst the rich they avoid going about in the presence of these in the chemise alone. In some places, they lay especial emphasis on the fact that it is a shame for young wives to show their uncovered hair and feet to the male relatives of their husbands. On the other side, the male relatives of the husband ought to avoid showing to the young wife the body uncovered above the elbow or the sole of the foot, and they ought to avoid indecent expressions and vulgar vituperations in her presence.... That these observances are not the result of a specially delicate modesty, is proved by the fact that even young girls constantly twist thread upon the naked thigh, unembarrassed by the presence of men who do not belong to the household; nor do they show any embarrassment if a strange man comes upon them when uncovered to the waist. The one thing which they do not like, and at which they show anger, is that such persons look carefully at their uncovered feet.... The former simplicity, with lack of shame in uncovering the body, is disappearing." (Sieroshevski, "The Yakuts," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, Jan.-June, 1901, p. 93.) "In Japan (Captain ---- tells me), the bathing-place of the women was perfectly open (the shampooing, indeed, was done by a man), and Englishmen were offered no obstacle, nor excited the least repugnance; indeed, girls after their bath would freely pass, sometimes as if holding out their hair for innocent admiration, and this continued until countrymen of ours, by vile laughter and jests, made them guard themselves from insult by secrecy. So corruption spreads, and heathenism is blacker by our contact." (Private communication.) "Speaking once with a Japanese gentleman, I observed that we considered it an act of indecency for men and women to wash together. He shrugged his shoulders as he answered: 'But these Westerns have such prurient minds!'" (Mitford, _Tales of Old Japan_, 1871.) Dr. Carl Davidsohn, who remarks that he had ample opportunity of noting the great beauty of the Japanese women in a national dance, performed naked, points out that the Japanese have no æsthetic sense for the nude. "This was shown at the Jubilee Exposition at Kyoto. Here, among many rooms full of art objects, one was devoted to oil pictures in the European manner. Among these only one represented a nude figure, a Psyche, or Truth. It was the first time such a picture had been seen. Men and women crowded around it. After they had gazed at it for a time, most began to giggle and laugh; some by their air and gestures clearly showed their disgust; all found that it was not æsthetic to paint a naked woman, though in Nature, nakedness was in no way offensive to them. In the middle of the same city, at a fountain reputed to possess special virtues, men and women will stand together naked and let the water run over them." (Carl Davidsohn, "Das Nackte bei den Japanern," _Globus_, 1896, No. 16.) "It is very difficult to investigate the hairiness of Ainu women," Baelz remarks, "for they possess a really incredible degree of modesty. Even when in summer they bathe--which happens but seldom--they keep their clothes on." He records that he was once asked to examine a girl at the Mission School, in order to advise as regards the treatment of a diseased spine; although she had been at the school for seven years, she declared that "she would rather die than show her back to a man, even though a doctor." (Baelz, "Die Aino," _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1901, Heft 2, p. 178.) The Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans, appear to have been accustomed to cover the foreskin with the _kynodesme_ (a band), or the _fibula_ (a ring), for custom and modesty demanded that the glans should be concealed. Such covering is represented in persons who were compelled to be naked, and is referred to by Celsus as "decori causâ." (L. Stieda, "Anatomisch-archäologische Studien," _Anatomische Hefte_, Bd. XIX, Heft 2, 1902.) "Among the Lydians, and, indeed, among the barbarians generally, it is considered a deep disgrace, even for a man, to be seen naked." (Herodotus, Book I, Chapter X.) "The simple dress which is now common was first worn in Sparta, and there, more than anywhere else, the life of the rich was assimilated to that of the people. The Lacedæmonians, too, were the first who, in their athletic exercises, stripped naked and rubbed themselves over with oil. This was not the ancient custom; athletes formerly, even when they were contending at Olympia, wore girdles about their loins [earlier still, the Mycenæans had always worn a loin-cloth], a practice which lasted until quite lately, and still persists among barbarians, especially those of Asia, where the combatants at boxing and wrestling matches wear girdles." (Thucydides, _History_, Book I, Chapter VI.) "The notion of the women exercising naked in the schools with the men ... at the present day would appear truly ridiculous.... Not long since it was thought discreditable and ridiculous among the Greeks, as it is now among most barbarous nations, for men to be seen naked. And when the Cretans first, and after them the Lacedæmonians, began the practice of gymnastic exercises, the wits of the time had it in their power to make sport of those novelties.... As for the man who laughs at the idea of undressed women going through gymnastic exercises, as a means of revealing what is most perfect, his ridicule is but 'unripe fruit plucked from the tree of wisdom.'" (Plato, _Republic_, Book V.) According to Plutarch, however, among the Spartans, at all events, nakedness in women was not ridiculous, since the institutes of Lycurgus ordained that at solemn feasts and sacrifices the young women should dance naked and sing, the young men standing around in a circle to see and hear them. Aristotle says that in his time Spartan girls only wore a very slight garment. As described by Pausanias, and as shown by a statue in the Vatican, the ordinary tunic, which was the sole garment worn by women when running, left bare the right shoulder and breast, and only reached to the upper third of the thighs. (M.M. Evans, _Chapters on Greek Dress_, p. 34.) Among the Greeks who were inclined to accept the doctrines of Cynicism, it was held that, while shame is not unreasonable, what is good may be done and discussed before all men. There are a number of authorities who say that Crates and Hipparchia consummated their marriage in the presence of many spectators. Lactantius (_Inst._ iii, 15) says that the practice was common, but this Zeller is inclined to doubt. (Zeller, _Socrates and the Socratic Schools_, translated from the Third German Edition, 1897.) "Among the Tyrrhenians, who carry their luxury to an extraordinary pitch, Timæus, in his first book, relates that the female servants wait on the men in a state of nudity. And Theopompus, in the forty-third book of his _History_, states that it is a law among the Tyrrhenians that all their women should be in common; and that the women pay the greatest attention to their persons, and often practice gymnastic exercises, naked, among the men, and sometimes with one another; for that it is not accounted shameful for them to be seen naked.... Nor is it reckoned among the Tyrrhenians at all disgraceful either to do or suffer anything in the open air, or to be seen while it is going on; for it is quite the custom of their country, and they are so far from thinking it disgraceful that they even say, when the master of the house is indulging his appetite, and anyone asks for him, that he is doing so and so, using the coarsest possible words.... And they are very beautiful, as is natural for people to be who live delicately, and who take care of their persons." (Athenæus, _Deipnosophists_, Yonge's translation, vol. iii, p. 829.) Dennis throws doubt on the foregoing statement of Athenæus regarding the Tyrrhenians or Etruscans, and points out that the representations of women in Etruscan tombs shows them as clothed, even the breast being rarely uncovered. Nudity, he remarks, was a Greek, not an Etruscan, characteristic. "To the nudity of the Spartan women I need but refer; the Thessalian women are described by Persæus dancing at banquets naked, or with a very scanty covering (_apud_ Athenæus, xiii, c. 86). The maidens of Chios wrestled naked with the youths in the gymnasium, which Athenæus (xiii, 20) pronounces to be 'a beautiful sight.' And at the marriage feast of Caranus, the Macedonian women tumblers performed naked before the guests (Athenæus, iv, 3)." (G. Dennis, _Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_, 1883, vol. i, p. 321.) In Rome, "when there was at first much less freedom in this matter than in Greece, the bath became common to both sexes, and though each had its basin and hot room apart, they could see each other, meet, speak, form intrigues, arrange meetings, and multiply adulteries. At first, the baths were so dark that men and women could wash side by side, without recognizing each other except by the voice; but soon the light of day was allowed to enter from every side. 'In the bath of Scipio,' said Seneca, 'there were narrow ventholes, rather than windows, hardly admitting enough light to outrage modesty; but nowadays, baths are called caves if they do not receive the sun's rays through large windows.' ... Hadrian severely prohibited this mingling of men and women, and ordained separate lavaera for the sexes. Marcus Aurelius and Alexander Severus renewed this edict, but in the interval, Heliogabalus had authorized the sexes to meet in the baths." (Dufour, _Histoire de la Prostitution_, vol. ii, Ch. XVIII; cf. Smith's _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities_, Art. Balneæ.) In Rome, according to ancient custom, actors were compelled to wear drawers (_subligaculum_) on the stage, in order to safeguard the modesty of Roman matrons. Respectable women, it seems, also always wore some sort of _subligaculum_, even sometimes when bathing. The name was also applied to a leathern girdle laced behind, which they were occasionally made to wear as a girdle of chastity. (Dufour, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 150.) Greek women also wore a cloth round the loins when taking the bath, as did the men who bathed there; and a woman is represented bathing and wearing a sort of thin combinations reaching to the middle of the thigh. (Smith's _Dictionary_, loc. cit.) At a later period, St. Augustine refers to the _compestria_, the drawers or apron worn by young men who stripped for exercise in the _campus_. (_De Civitate Dei_, Bk. XIV, Ch. XVII.) Lecky (_History of Morals_, vol. ii, p. 318), brings together instances of women, in both Pagan and early Christian times, who showed their modesty by drawing their garments around them, even at the moment that they were being brutally killed. Plutarch, in his essay on the "Virtues of Women,"--moralizing on the well-known story of the young women of Milesia, among whom an epidemic of suicide was only brought to an end by the decree that in future women who hanged themselves should be carried naked through the market-places,--observes: "They, who had no dread of the most terrible things in the world, death and pain, could not abide the imagination of dishonor, and exposure to shame, even after death." In the second century the physician Aretæus, writing at Rome, remarks: "In many cases, owing to involuntary restraint from modesty at assemblies, and at banquets, the bladder becomes distended, and from the consequent loss of its contractile power, it no longer evacuates the urine." (_On the Causes and Symptoms of Acute Diseases_, Book II, Chapter X.) Apuleius, writing in the second century, says: "Most women, in order to exhibit their native gracefulness and allurements, divest themselves of all their garments, and long to show their naked beauty, being conscious that they shall please more by the rosy redness of their skin than by the golden splendor of their robes." (Thomas Taylor's translation of _Metamorphosis_, p. 28.) Christianity seems to have profoundly affected habits of thought and feeling by uniting together the merely natural emotion of sexual reserve with, on the one hand, the masculine virtue of modesty--_modestia_--and, on the other, the prescription of sexual abstinence. Tertullian admirably illustrates this confusion, and his treatises _De Pudicitia_ and _De Cultu Feminarum_ are instructive from the present point of view. In the latter he remarks (Book II, Chapter I): "Salvation--and not of women only, but likewise of men--consists in the exhibition, principally, of modesty. Since we are all the temple of God, modesty is the sacristan and priestess of that temple, who is to suffer nothing unclean or profane to enter it, for fear that the God who inhabits it should be offended.... Most women, either from simple ignorance or from dissimulation, have the hardihood so to walk as if modesty consisted only in the integrity of the flesh, and in turning away from fornication, and there were no need for anything else,--in dress and ornament, the studied graces of form,--wearing in their gait the self-same appearance as the women of the nations from whom the sense of _true_ modesty is absent." The earliest Christian ideal of modesty, not long maintained, is well shown in an epistle which, there is some reason to suppose, was written by Clement of Rome. "And if we see it to be requisite to stand and pray for the sake of the woman, and to speak words of exhortation and edification, we call the brethren and all the holy sisters and maidens, likewise all the other women who are there, with all modesty and becoming behavior, to come and feast on the truth. And those among us who are skilled in speaking, speak to them, and exhort them in those words which God has given us. And then we pray, and salute one another, the men the men. But the women and the maidens will wrap their hands in their garments; we also, with circumspection and with all purity, our eyes looking upward, shall wrap our right hand in our garments; and then they will come and give us the salutation on our right hand, wrapped in our garments. Then we go where God permits us." (_Two Epistles Concerning Virginity_; Second Epistle, Chapter III, vol. xiv. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, p. 384.) "Women will scarce strip naked before their own husbands, affecting a plausible pretense of modesty," writes Clement of Alexandria, about the end of the second century, "but any others who wish may see them at home, shut up in their own baths, for they are not ashamed to strip before spectators, as if exposing their persons for sale. The baths are opened promiscuously to men and women; and there they strip for licentious indulgence (for, from looking, men get to loving), as if their modesty had been washed away in the bath. Those who have not become utterly destitute of modesty shut out strangers, but bathe with their own servants, and strip naked before their slaves, and are rubbed by them, giving to the crouching menial liberty to lust, by permitting fearless handling, for those who are introduced before their naked mistresses while in the bath, study to strip themselves in order to show audacity in lust, casting off fear in consequence of the wicked custom. The ancient athletes, ashamed to exhibit a man naked, preserved their modesty by going through the contest in drawers; but these women, divesting themselves of their modesty along with their chemise, wish to appear beautiful, but, contrary to their wish, are simply proved to be wicked." (Clement of Alexandria, _Pædagogus_, Book III, Chapter V. For elucidations of this passage, see Migne's _Patrologiæ Cursus Completus_, vol. vii.) Promiscuous bathing was forbidden by the early Apostolical Constitutions, but Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, found it necessary, in the third century, to upbraid even virgins vowed to chastity for continuing the custom. "What of those," he asks, "who frequent baths, who prostitute to eyes that are curious to lust, bodies that are dedicated to chastity and modesty? They who disgracefully behold naked men, and are seen naked by men? Do they not themselves afford enticement to vice? Do they not solicit and invite the desires of those present to their own corruption and wrong? 'Let every one,' say you, 'look to the disposition with which he comes thither: my care is only that of refreshing and washing my poor body.' That kind of defence does not clear you, nor does it excuse the crime of lasciviousness and wantonness. Such a washing defiles; it does not purify nor cleanse the limbs, but stains them. You behold no one immodestly, but you, yourself, are gazed upon immodestly; you do not pollute your eyes with disgraceful delight, but in delighting others you yourself are polluted; you make a show of the bathing-place; the places where you assemble are fouler than a theatre. There all modesty is put off; together with the clothing of garments, the honor and modesty of the body is laid aside, virginity is exposed, to be pointed at and to be handled.... Let your baths be performed with women, whose behavior is modest towards you." (Cyprian, _De Habitu Virginum_, cap. 19, 21.) The Church carried the same spirit among the barbarians of northern Europe, and several centuries later the promiscuous bathing of men and women was prohibited in some of the Penitentials. (The custom was, however, preserved here and there in Northern Europe, even to the end of the eighteenth century, or later. In Rudeck's _Geschichte der öffentlichen Sittlichkeit in Deutschland_, an interesting chapter, with contemporary illustrations, is devoted to this custom; also, Max Bauer, _Das Geschlechtsleben in der Deutschen Vergangenheit_, pp. 216-265.) "Women," says Clement again, "should not seek to be graceful by avoiding broad drinking vessels that oblige them to stretch their mouths, in order to drink from narrow alabastra that cause them indecently to throw back the head, revealing to men their necks and breasts. The mere thought of what she is ought to inspire a woman with modesty.... On no account must a woman be permitted to show to a man any portion of her body naked, for fear lest both fall: the one by gazing eagerly, the other by delighting to attract those eager glances." (_Pædagogus_, Book II, Chapter V.) James, Bishop of Nisibis, in the fourth century, was a man of great holiness. We are told by Thedoret that once, when James had newly come into Persia, it was vouchsafed to him to perform a miracle under the following circumstances: He chanced to pass by a fountain where young women were washing their linen, and, his modesty being profoundly shocked by the exposure involved in this occupation, he cursed the fountain, which instantly dried up, and he changed the hair of the girls from black to a sandy color. (Jortin, _Remarks on Ecclesiastical History_, vol. iii, p. 4.) Procopius, writing in the sixth century after Christ, and narrating how the Empress Theodora, in early life, would often appear almost naked before the public in the theatre, adds that she would willingly have appeared altogether nude, but that "no woman is allowed to expose herself altogether, unless she wears at least short drawers over the lower part of the abdomen." Chrysostom mentions, at the end of the fourth century, that Arcadius attempted to put down the August festival (Majuma), during which women appeared naked in the theatres, or swimming in large baths. In mediæval days, "ladies, at all events, as represented by the poets, were not, on the whole, very prudish. Meleranz surprised a lady who was taking a bath under a lime tree; the bath was covered with samite, and by it was a magnificent ivory bed, surrounded by tapestries representing the history of Paris and Helen, the destruction of Troy, the adventures of �neas, etc. As Meleranz rides by, the lady's waiting-maids run away; she herself, however, with quick decision, raises the samite which covers the tub, and orders him to wait on her in place of the maids. He brings her shift and mantle, and shoes, and then stands aside till she is dressed; when she has placed herself on the bed, she calls him back and commands him to drive away the flies while she sleeps. Strange to say, the men are represented as more modest than the women. When two maidens prepared a bath for Parzival, and proposed to bathe him, according to custom, the inexperienced young knight was shy, and would not enter the bath until they had gone; on another occasion, he jumped quickly into bed when the maidens entered the room. When Wolfdieterich was about to undress, he had to ask the ladies who pressed around him to leave him alone for a short time, as he was ashamed they should see him naked. When Amphons of Spain, bewitched by his step-mother into a were-wolf, was at last restored, and stood suddenly naked before her, he was greatly ashamed. The maiden who healed Iwein was tender of his modesty. In his love-madness, the hero wanders for a time naked through the wood; three women find him asleep, and send a waiting-maid to annoint him with salve; when he came to himself, the maiden hid herself. On the whole, however, the ladies were not so delicate; they had no hesitation in bathing with gentlemen, and on these occasions would put their finest ornaments on their heads. I know no pictures of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries representing such a scene, but such baths in common are clearly represented in miniatures of the fifteenth century." (A. Schultz, _Das Höfische Leben zur Zeit der Minnesänger_, vol. i, p. 225.) "In the years 1450-70, the use of the cod-piece was introduced, whereby the attributes of manhood were accentuated in the most shameless manner. It was, in fact, the avowed aim at that period to attract attention to these parts. The cod-piece was sometimes colored differently from the rest of the garments, often stuffed out to enlarge it artificially, and decorated with ribbons." (Rudeck, _Geschichte der öffentlichen Sittlichkeit in Deutschland_, pp. 45-48; Dufour, _Histoire de la Prostitution_, vol. vi, pp. 21-23. Groos refers to the significance of this fashion, _Spiele der Menschen_, p. 337.) "The first shirt began to be worn [in Germany] in the sixteenth century. From this fact, as well as from the custom of public bathing, we reach the remarkable result, that for the German people, the sight of complete nakedness was the daily rule up to the sixteenth century. Everyone undressed completely before going to bed, and, in the vapor-baths, no covering was used. Again, the dances, both of the peasants and the townspeople, were characterized by very high leaps into the air. It was the chief delight of the dancers for the male to raise his partner as high as possible in the air, so that her dress flew up. That feminine modesty was in this respect very indifferent, we know from countless references made in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It must not be forgotten that throughout the middle ages women wore no underclothes, and even in the seventeenth century, the wearing of drawers by Italian women was regarded as singular. That with the disappearance of the baths, and the use of body-linen, a powerful influence was exerted on the creation of modesty, there can be little doubt." (Rudeck, op. cit., pp. 57, 399, etc.) In 1461, when Louis XI entered Paris, three very beautiful maidens, quite naked, represented the Syrens, and declaimed poems before him; they were greatly admired by the public. In 1468, when Charles the Bold entered Lille, he was specially pleased, among the various festivities, with a representation of the Judgment of Paris, in which the three goddesses were nude. When Charles the Fifth entered Antwerp, the most beautiful maidens of the city danced before him, in nothing but gauze, and were closely contemplated by Dürer, as he told his friend, Melancthon. (B. Ritter, "Nuditäten im Mittelalter," _Jahrbücher für Wissenschaft und Kunst_, 1855, p. 227; this writer shows how luxury, fashion, poverty, and certain festivals, all combined to make nudity familiar; cf. Fahne, _Der Carneval_, p. 249. Dulaure quotes many old writers concerning the important part played by nude persons in ancient festivals, _Des Divinités Génératrices_, Chapter XIV.) Passek, a Polish officer who wrote an account of his campaigns, admired the ladies of Denmark in 1658, but considered their customs immodest. "Everyone sleeps naked as at birth, and none consider it shameful to dress or undress before others. No notice, even, is taken of the guest, and in the light one garment is taken off after another, even the chemise is hung on the hook. Then the door is bolted, the light blown out, and one goes to bed. As we blamed their ways, saying that among us a woman would not act so, even in the presence of her husband alone, they replied that they knew nothing of such shame, and that there was no need to be ashamed of limbs which God had created. Moreover, to sleep without a shift was good, because, like the other garments, it sufficiently served the body during the day. Also, why take fleas and other insects to bed with one? Although our men teased them in various ways, they would not change their habits." (Passek, _Denkwürdigkeiten_, German translation, p. 14.) Until late in the seventeenth century, women in England, as well as France, suffered much in childbirth from the ignorance and superstition of incompetent midwives, owing to the prevailing conceptions of modesty, which rendered it impossible (as it is still, to some extent, in some semi-civilized lands) for male physicians to attend them. Dr. Willoughby, of Derby, tells how, in 1658, he had to creep into the chamber of a lying-in woman on his hands and knees, in order to examine her unperceived. In France, Clement was employed secretly to attend the mistresses of Louis XIV in their confinements; to the first he was conducted blindfold, while the King was concealed among the bed-curtains, and the face of the lady was enveloped in a network of lace. (E. Malins, "Midwifery and Midwives," _British Medical Journal_, June 22, 1901; Witkowski, _Histoire des Accouchements_, 1887, pp. 689 et seq.) Even until the Revolution, the examination of women in France in cases of rape or attempted outrage was left to a jury of matrons. In old English manuals of midwifery, even in the early nineteenth century, we still find much insistence on the demands of modesty. Thus, Dr. John Burns, of Glasgow, in his _Principles of Midwifery_, states that "some women, from motives of false delicacy, are averse from examination until the pains become severe." He adds that "it is usual for the room to be darkened, and the bed-curtains drawn close, during an examination." Many old pictures show the accoucheur groping in the dark, beneath the bed-clothes, to perform operations on women in childbirth. (A. Kind, "Das Weib als Gebärerin in der Kunst," _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Bd. II, Heft 5, p. 203.) In Iceland, Winkler stated in 1861 that he sometimes slept in the same room as a whole family; "it is often the custom for ten or more persons to use the same room for living in and sleeping, young and old, master and servant, male and female, and from motives of economy, all the clothes, without exception, are removed." (G. Winkler, _Island; seine Bewohner_, etc., pp. 107, 110.) "At Cork," saye Fynes Moryson, in 1617, "I have seen with these eyes young maids stark naked grinding corn with certain stones to make cakes thereof." (Moryson, _Itinerary_, Part 3, Book III, Chapter V.) "In the more remote parts of Ireland," Moryson elsewhere says, where the English laws and manners are unknown, "the very chief of the Irish, men as well as women, go naked in very winter-time, only having their privy parts covered with a rag of linen, and their bodies with a loose mantle. This I speak of my own experience." He goes on to tell of a Bohemian baron, just come from the North of Ireland, who "told me in great earnestness that he, coming to the house of Ocane, a great lord among them, was met at the door with sixteen women, all naked, excepting their loose mantles; whereof eight or ten were very fair, and two seemed very nymphs, with which strange sight, his eyes being dazzled, they led him into the house, and then sitting down by the fire with crossed legs, like tailors, and so low as could not but offend chaste eyes, desired him to sit down with them. Soon after, Ocane, the lord of the country, came in, all naked excepting a loose mantle, and shoes, which he put off as soon as he came in, and entertaining the baron after his best manner in the Latin tongue, desired him to put off his apparel, which he thought to be a burthen to him, and to sit naked by the fire with this naked company. But the baron... for shame, durst not put off his apparel." (Ib. Part 3, Book IV, Chapter II.) Coryat, when traveling in Italy in the early part of the seventeenth century, found that in Lombardy many of the women and children wore only smocks, or shirts, in the hot weather. At Venice and Padua, he found that wives, widows, and maids, walk with naked breasts, many with backs also naked, almost to the middle. (Coryat, _Crudities_, 1611. The fashion of _décolleté_ garments, it may be remarked, only began in the fourteenth century; previously, the women of Europe generally covered themselves up to the neck.) In Northern Italy, some years ago, a fire occurred at night in a house in which two girls were sleeping, naked, according to the custom. One threw herself out and was saved, the other returned for a garment, and was burnt to death. The narrator of the incident [a man] expressed strong approval of the more modest girl's action. (Private communication.) It may be added that the custom of sleeping naked is still preserved, also (according to Lippert and Stratz), in Jutland, in Iceland, in some parts of Norway, and sometimes even in Berlin. Lady Mary Wortley Montague writes in 1717, of the Turkish ladies at the baths at Sophia: "The first sofas were covered with cushions and rich carpets, on which sat the ladies, and on the second, their slaves behind them, but without any distinction of rank in their dress, all being in a state of Nature; that is, in plain English, stark naked, without any beauty or defect concealed. Yet there was not the least wanton smile or immodest gesture among them. They walked and moved with the same majestic grace which Milton describes of our general mother. I am here convinced of the truth of a reflection I had often made, that if it was the fashion to go naked, the face would be hardly observed." (_Letters and Works_, 1866, vol. i, p. 285.) At St. Petersburg, in 1774, Sir Nicholas Wraxall observed "the promiscuous bathing of not less than two hundred persons, of both sexes. There are several of these public bagnios," he adds, "in Petersburg, and every one pays a few copecks for admittance. There are, indeed, separate spaces for the men and women, but they seem quite regardless of this distinction, and sit or bathe in a state of absolute nudity among each other." (Sir N. Wraxall, _A Tour Through Some of the Northern Parts of Europe_, 3d ed., 1776, p. 248.) It is still usual for women in the country parts of Russia to bathe naked in the streams. In 1790, Wedgwood wrote to Flaxman: "The nude is so general in the work of the ancients, that it will be very difficult to avoid the introduction of naked figures. On the other hand, it is absolutely necessary to do so, or to keep the pieces for our own use; for none, either male or female, of the present generation will take or apply them as furniture if the figures are naked." (Meteyard, _Life of Wedgwood_, vol. ii, p. 589.) Mary Wollstonecraft quotes (for reprobation and not for approval) the following remarks: "The lady who asked the question whether women may be instructed in the modern system of botany, was accused of ridiculous prudery; nevertheless, if she had proposed the question to me, I should certainly have answered: 'They cannot!'" She further quotes from an educational book: "It would be needless to caution you against putting your hand, by chance, under your neck-handkerchief; for a modest woman never did so." (Mary Wollstonecraft, _The Rights of Woman_, 1792, pp. 277, 289.) At the present time a knowledge of the physiology of plants is not usually considered inconsistent with modesty, but a knowledge of animal physiology is still so considered by many. Dr. H.R. Hopkins, of New York, wrote in 1895, regarding the teaching of physiology: "How can we teach growing girls the functions of the various parts of the human body, and still leave them their modesty? That is the practical question that has puzzled me for years." In England, the use of drawers was almost unknown among women half a century ago, and was considered immodest and unfeminine. Tilt, a distinguished gynecologist of that period, advocated such garments, made of fine calico, and not to descend below the knee, on hygienic grounds. "Thus understood," he added, "the adoption of drawers will doubtless become more general in this country, as, being worn without the knowledge of the general observer, they will be robbed of the prejudice usually attached to an appendage deemed masculine." (Tilt, _Elements of Health_, 1852, p. 193.) Drawers came into general use among women during the third quarter of the nineteenth century. Drawers are an Oriental garment, and seem to have reached Europe through Venice, the great channel of communication with the East. Like many other refinements of decency and cleanliness, they were at first chiefly cultivated by prostitutes, and, on this account, there was long a prejudice against them. Even at the present day, it is said that in France, a young peasant girl will exclaim, if asked whether she wears drawers: "I wear drawers, Madame? A respectable girl!" Drawers, however, quickly became acclimatized in France, and Dufour (op. cit., vol. vi, p. 28) even regards them as essentially a French garment. They were introduced at the Court towards the end of the fourteenth century, and in the sixteenth century were rendered almost necessary by the new fashion of the _vertugale_, or farthingale. In 1615, a lady's _caleçons_ are referred to as apparently an ordinary garment. It is noteworthy that in London, in the middle of the same century, young Mrs. Pepys, who was the daughter of French parents, usually wore drawers, which were seemingly of the closed kind. (_Diary_ of S. Pepys, ed. Wheatley, May 15, 1663, vol. iii.) They were probably not worn by Englishwomen, and even in France, with the decay of the farthingale, they seem to have dropped out of use during the seventeenth century. In a technical and very complete book, _L'Art de la Lingerie_, published in 1771, women's drawers are not even mentioned, and Mercier (_Tableau de Paris_, 1783, vol. vii, p. 54) says that, except actresses, Parisian women do not wear drawers. Even by ballet dancers and actresses on the stage, they were not invariably worn. Camargo, the famous dancer, who first shortened the skirt in dancing, early in the eighteenth century, always observed great decorum, never showing the leg above the knee; when appealed to as to whether she wore drawers, she replied that she could not possibly appear without such a "precaution." But they were not necessarily worn by dancers, and in 1727 a young _ballerina_, having had her skirt accidentally torn away by a piece of stage machinery, the police issued an order that in future no actress or dancer should appear on the stage without drawers; this regulation does not appear, however, to have been long strictly maintained, though Schulz (_Ueber Paris und die Pariser_, p. 145) refers to it as in force in 1791. (The obscure origin and history of feminine drawers have been discussed from time to time in the _Intermédiaire des Chercheurs et Curieux_, especially vols. xxv, lii, and liii.) Prof. Irving Rosse, of Washington, refers to "New England prudishness," and "the colossal modesty of some New York policemen, who in certain cases want to give written, rather than oral testimony." He adds: "I have known this sentiment carried to such an extent in a Massachusetts small town, that a shop-keeper was obliged to drape a small, but innocent, statuette displayed in his window." (Irving Rosse, _Virginia Medical Monthly_, October, 1892.) I am told that popular feeling in South Africa would not permit the exhibition of the nude in the Art Collections of Cape Town. Even in Italy, nude statues are disfigured by the addition of tin fig-leaves, and sporadic manifestations of horror at the presence of nude statues, even when of most classic type, are liable to occur in all parts of Europe, including France and Germany. (Examples of this are recorded from time to time in _Sexual-reform_, published as an appendix to _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_.) Some years ago, (1898), it was stated that the Philadelphia _Ladies' Home Journal_ had decided to avoid, in future, all reference to ladies' under-linen, because "the treatment of this subject in print calls for _minutiæ_ of detail which is extremely and pardonably offensive to refined and sensitive women." "A man, married twenty years, told me that he had never seen his wife entirely nude. Such concealment of the external reproductive organs, by married people, appears to be common. Judging from my own inquiry, very few women care to look upon male nakedness, and many women, though not wanting in esthetic feeling, find no beauty in man's form. Some are positively repelled by the sight of nakedness, even that of a husband or lover. On the contrary, most men delight in gazing upon the uncovered figure of women. It seems that only highly-cultivated and imaginative women enjoy the spectacle of a finely-shaped nude man (especially after attending art classes, and drawing from the nude, as I am told by a lady artist). Or else the majority of women dissemble their curiosity or admiration. A woman of seventy, mother of several children, said to a young wife with whom I am acquainted: 'I have never seen a naked man in my life.' This old lady's sister confessed that she had never looked at _her own_ nakedness in the whole course of her life. She said that it 'frightened' her. She was the mother of three sons. A maiden woman of the same family told her niece that women were 'disgusting, because they have monthly discharges.' The niece suggested that women have no choice in the matter, to which the aunt replied: 'I know that; but it doesn't make them less disgusting,' I have heard of a girl who died from hæmorrhage of the womb, refusing, through shame, to make the ailment known to her family. The misery suffered by some women at the anticipation of a medical examination, appears to be very acute. Husbands have told me of brides who sob and tremble with fright on the wedding-night, the hysteria being sometimes alarming. E, aged 25, refused her husband for six weeks after marriage, exhibiting the greatest fear of his approach. Ignorance of the nature of the sexual connection is often the cause of exaggerated alarm. In Jersey, I used to hear of a bride who ran to the window and screamed 'murder,' on the wedding-night." (Private communication.) At the present day it is not regarded as incompatible with modesty to exhibit the lower part of the thigh when in swimming costume, but it is immodest to exhibit the upper part of the thigh. In swimming competitions, a minimum of clothing must be combined with the demands of modesty. In England, the regulations of the Swimming Clubs affiliated to the Amateur Swimming Association, require that the male swimmer's costume shall extend not less than eight inches from the bifurcation downward, and that the female swimmer's costume shall extend to within not more than three inches from the knee. (A prolonged discussion, we are told, arose as to whether the costume should come to one, two, or three inches from the knee, and the proposal of the youngest lady swimmer present, that the costume ought to be very scanty, met with little approval.) The modesty of women is thus seen to be greater than that of men by, roughly speaking, about two inches. The same difference may be seen in the sleeves; the male sleeve must extend for two inches, the female sleeve four inches, down the arm. (Daily Papers, September 26, 1898.) "At ----, bathing in a state of Nature was _de rigueur_ for the _élite_ of the bathers, while our Sunday visitors from the slums frequently made a great point of wearing bathing costumes; it was frequently noticed that those who were most anxious to avoid exposing their persons were distinguished by the foulness of their language. My impression was that their foul-mindedness deprived them of the consciousness of safety from coarse jests. If I were bathing alone among blackguards, I should probably feel uncomfortable myself, if without costume." (Private communication.) A lady in a little city of the south of Italy, told Paola Lombroso that young middle-class girls there are not allowed to go out except to Mass, and cannot even show themselves at the window except under their mother's eye; yet they do not think it necessary to have a cabin when sea-bathing, and even dispense with a bathing costume without consciousness of immodesty. (P. Lombroso, _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1901, p. 306.) "A woman mentioned to me that a man came to her and told her in confidence his distress of mind: he feared he had _corrupted_ his wife because she got into a bath in his presence, with her baby, and enjoyed his looking at her splashing about. He was deeply distressed, thinking he must have done her harm, and destroyed her modesty. The woman to whom this was said felt naturally indignant, but also it gave her the feeling as if every man may secretly despise a woman for the very things he teaches her, and only meets her confiding delight with regret or dislike." (Private communication.) "Women will occasionally be found to hide diseases and symptoms from a bashfulness and modesty so great and perverse as to be hardly credible," writes Dr. W. Wynn Westcott, an experienced coroner. "I have known several cases of female deaths, reported as sudden, and of cause unknown, when the medical man called in during the latter hours of life has been quite unaware that his lady patient was dying of gangrene of a strangulated femoral hernia, or was bleeding to death from the bowel, or from ruptured varices of the vulva." (_British Medical Journal_, Feb. 29, 1908.) The foregoing selection of facts might, of course, be indefinitely enlarged, since I have not generally quoted from any previous collection of facts bearing on the question of modesty. Such collections may be found in Ploss and Max Bartels _Das Weib_, a work that is constantly appearing in new and enlarged editions; Herbert Spencer, _Descriptive Sociology_ (especially under such headings as "Clothing," "Moral Sentiments," and "�sthetic Products"); W.G. Sumner, _Folkways_, Ch. XI; Mantegazza, _Amori degli Uomini_, Chapter II; Westermarck, _Marriage_, Chapter IX; Letourneau, _L'Evolution de la Morale_, pp. 126 et seq.; G. Mortimer, _Chapters on Human Love_, Chapter IV; and in the general anthropological works of Waitz-Gerland, Peschel, Ratzel and others. FOOTNOTES: [1] The earliest theory I have met with is that of St. Augustine, who states (_De Civitate Dei_, Bk. XIV, Ch. XVII) that erections of the penis never occurred until after the Fall of Man. It was the occurrence of this "shameless novelty" which made nakedness indecent. This theory fails to account for modesty in women. [2] Guyau, _L'Irreligion de l'Avenir_, Ch. VII. [3] Timidity, as understood by Dugas, in his interesting essay on that subject, is probably most remote. Dr. H. Campbell's "morbid shyness" (_British Medical Journal_, September 26, 1896) is, in part, identical with timidity, in part, with modesty. The matter is further complicated by the fact that modesty itself has in English (like virtue) two distinct meanings. In its original form it has no special connection with sex or women, but may rather be considered as a masculine virtue. Cicero regards "modestia" as the equivalent of the Greek sôphrosunê. This is the "modesty" which Mary Wollstonecraft eulogized in the last century, the outcome of knowledge and reflection, "soberness of mind," "the graceful calm virtue of maturity." In French, it is possible to avoid the confusion, and _modestie_ is entirely distinct from _pudeur_. It is, of course, mainly with _pudeur_ that I am here concerned. II. Modesty an Agglomeration of Fears--Children in Relation to Modesty--Modesty in Animals--The Attitude of the Medicean Venus--The Sexual Factor of Modesty Based on Sexual Periodicity and on the Primitive Phenomena of Courtship--The Necessity of Seclusion in Primitive Sexual Intercourse--The Meaning of Coquetry--The Sexual Charm of Modesty--Modesty as an Expression of Feminine Erotic Impulse--The Fear of Causing Disgust as a Factor of Modesty--The Modesty of Savages in Regard to Eating in the Presence of Others--The Sacro-Pubic Region as a Focus of Disgust--The Idea of Ceremonial Uncleanliness--The Custom of Veiling the Face--Ornaments and Clothing--Modesty Becomes Concentrated in the Garment--The Economic Factor in Modesty--The Contribution of Civilization to Modesty--The Elaboration of Social Ritual. That modesty--like all the closely-allied emotions--is based on fear, one of the most primitive of the emotions, seems to be fairly evident.[4] The association of modesty and fear is even a very ancient observation, and is found in the fragments of Epicharmus, while according to one of the most recent definitions, "modesty is the timidity of the body." Modesty is, indeed, an agglomeration of fears, especially, as I hope to show, of two important and distinct fears: one of much earlier than human origin, and supplied solely by the female; the other of more distinctly human character, and of social, rather than sexual, origin. A child left to itself, though very bashful, is wholly devoid of modesty.[5] Everyone is familiar with the shocking _inconvenances_ of children in speech and act, with the charming ways in which they innocently disregard the conventions of modesty their elders thrust upon them, or, even when anxious to carry them out, wholly miss the point at issue: as when a child thinks that to put a little garment round the neck satisfies the demands of modesty. Julius Moses states that modesty in the uncovering of the sexual parts begins about the age of four. But in cases when this occurs it is difficult to exclude teaching and example. Under civilized conditions the convention of modesty long precedes its real development. Bell has found that in love affairs before the age of nine the girl is more aggressive than the boy and that at that age she begins to be modest.[6] It may fairly be said that complete development of modesty only takes place at the advent of puberty.[7] We may admit, with Perez, one of the very few writers who touch on the evolution of this emotion, that modesty may appear at a very early age if sexual desire appears early.[8] We should not, however, be justified in asserting that on this account modesty is a purely sexual phenomenon. The social impulses also develop about puberty, and to that coincidence the compound nature of the emotion of modesty may well be largely due. The sexual factor is, however, the simplest and most primitive element of modesty, and may, therefore, be mentioned first. Anyone who watches a bitch, not in heat, when approached by a dog with tail wagging gallantly, may see the beginnings of modesty. When the dog's attentions become a little too marked, the bitch squats firmly down on the front legs and hind quarters though when the period of oestrus comes her modesty may be flung to the air and she eagerly turns her hind quarters to her admirer's nose and elevates her tail high in the air. Her attitude of refusal is equivalent, that is to say, to that which in the human race is typified by the classical example of womanly modesty in the Medicean Venus, who withdraws the pelvis, at the same time holding one hand to guard the pubes, the other to guard the breasts.[9] The essential expression in each case is that of defence of the sexual centers against the undesired advances of the male.[10] Stratz, who criticizes the above statement, argues (with photographs of nude women in illustration) that the normal type of European surprised modesty is shown by an attitude in which the arms are crossed over the breast, the most sexually attractive region, while the thighs are pressed together, one being placed before the other, the shoulder raised and the back slightly curved; occasionally, he adds, the hands may be used to cover the face, and then the crossed arms conceal the breasts. The Medicean Venus, he remarks, is only a pretty woman coquetting with her body. Canova's Venus in the Pitti (who has drapery in front of her, and presses her arms across her breast) being a more accurate rendering of the attitude of modesty. But Stratz admits that when a surprised woman is gazed at for some time, she turns her head away, sinks or closes her eyes, and covers her pubes (or any other part she thinks is being gazed at) with one hand, while with the other she hides her breast or face. This he terms the secondary expression of modesty. (Stratz, _Die Frauenkleidung_, third ed., p. 23.) It is certainly true that the Medicean Venus merely represents an artistic convention, a generalized tradition, not founded on exact and precise observation of the gestures of modesty, and it is equally true that all the instinctive movements noted by Stratz are commonly resorted to by a woman whose nakedness is surprised. But in the absence of any series of carefully recorded observations, one may doubt whether the distinction drawn by Stratz between the primary and the secondary expression of modesty can be upheld as the general rule, while it is most certainly not true for every case. When a young woman is surprised in a state of nakedness by a person of the opposite, or even of the same, sex, it is her instinct to conceal the primary centers of sexual function and attractiveness, in the first place, the pubes, in the second place the breasts. The exact attitude and the particular gestures of the hands in achieving the desired end vary with the individual, and with the circumstances. The hand may not be used at all as a veil, and, indeed, the instinct of modesty itself may inhibit the use of the hand for the protection of modesty (to turn the back towards the beholder is often the chief impulse of blushing modesty, even when clothed), but the application of the hand to this end is primitive and natural. The lowly Fuegian woman, depicted by Hyades and Deniker, who holds her hand to her pubes while being photographed, is one at this point with the Roman Venus described by Ovid (_Ars Amatoria_, Book II):-- "Ipsa Venus pubem, quoties velamnia ponit, Protegitur læva semireducta manus." It may be added that young men of the lower social classes, at all events in England, when bathing at the seaside in complete nudity, commonly grasp the sexual organs with one hand, for concealment, as they walk up from the sea. The sexual modesty of the female animal is rooted in the sexual periodicity of the female, and is an involuntary expression of the organic fact that the time for love is not now. Inasmuch as this fact is true of the greater part of the lives of all female animals below man, the expression itself becomes so habitual that it even intrudes at those moments when it has ceased to be in place. We may see this again illustrated in the bitch, who, when in heat, herself runs after the male, and again turns to flee, perhaps only submitting with much persuasion to his embrace. Thus, modesty becomes something more than a mere refusal of the male; it becomes an invitation to the male, and is mixed up with his ideas of what is sexually desirable in the female. This would alone serve to account for the existence of modesty as a psychical secondary sexual character. In this sense, and in this sense only, we may say, with Colin Scott, that "the feeling of shame is made to be overcome," and is thus correlated with its physical representative, the hymen, in the rupture of which, as Groos remarks, there is, in some degree, a disruption also of modesty. The sexual modesty of the female is thus an inevitable by-product of the naturally aggressive attitude of the male in sexual relationships, and the naturally defensive attitude of the female, this again being founded on the fact that, while--in man and the species allied to him--the sexual function in the female is periodic, and during most of life a function to be guarded from the opposite sex, in the male it rarely or never needs to be so guarded.[11] Both male and female, however, need to guard themselves during the exercise of their sexual activities from jealous rivals, as well as from enemies who might take advantage of their position to attack them. It is highly probable that this is one important sexual factor in the constitution of modesty, and it helps to explain how the male, not less than the female, cultivates modesty, and shuns publicity, in the exercise of sexual functions. Northcote has especially emphasized this element in modesty, as originating in the fear of rivals. "That from this seeking after secrecy from motives of fear should arise an instinctive feeling that the sexual act must always be hidden, is a natural enough sequence. And since it is not a long step between thinking of an act as needing concealment and thinking of it as wrong, it is easily conceivable that sexual intercourse comes to be regarded as a stolen and therefore, in some degree, a sinful pleasure."[12] Animals in a state of nature usually appear to seek seclusion for sexual intercourse, although this instinct is lost under domestication. Even the lowest savages, also, if uncorrupted by civilized influences, seek the solitude of the forest or the protection of their huts for the same purpose; the rare cases in which coitus is public seem usually to involve a ceremonial or social observance, rather than mere personal gratification. At Loango, for instance, it would be highly improper to have intercourse in an exposed spot; it must only be performed inside the hut, with closed doors, at night, when no one is present.[13] It is on the sexual factor of modesty, existing in a well-marked form even among animals, that coquetry is founded. I am glad to find myself on this point in agreement with Professor Groos, who, in his elaborate study of the play-instinct, has reached the same conclusion. So far from being the mere heartless play by which a woman shows her power over a man, Groos points out that coquetry possesses "high biological and psychological significance," being rooted in the antagonism between the sexual instinct and inborn modesty. He refers to the roe, who runs away from the stag--but in a circle. (Groos, _Die Spiele der Menschen_, 1899, p. 339; also the same author's _Die Spiele der Thiere_, pp. 288 _et seq._) Another example of coquetry is furnished by the female kingfisher (_Alcedo ispida_), which will spend all the morning in teasing and flying away from the male, but is careful constantly to look back, and never to let him out of her sight. (Many examples are given by Büchner, in _Liebe und Liebesleben in der Tierwelt_.) Robert Müller (_Sexualbiologie_, p. 302) emphasizes the importance of coquetry as a lure to the male. "It is quite true," a lady writes to me in a private letter, "that 'coquetry is a poor thing,' and that every milkmaid can assume it, but a woman uses it principally in self-defence, while she is finding out what the man himself is like." This is in accordance with the remark of Marro, that modesty enables a woman "to put lovers to the test, in order to select him who is best able to serve the natural ends of love." It is doubtless the necessity for this probationary period, as a test of masculine qualities, which usually leads a woman to repel instinctively a too hasty and impatient suitor, for, as Arthur Macdonald remarks, "It seems to be instinctive in young women to reject the impetuous lover, without the least consideration of his character, ability, and fitness." This essential element in courtship, this fundamental attitude of pursuer and pursued, is clearly to be seen even in animals and savages; it is equally pronounced in the most civilized men and women, manifesting itself in crude and subtle ways alike. Shakespeare's Angelo, whose virtue had always resisted the temptations of vice, discovered at last that "modesty may more betray our sense Than woman's lightness." "What," asked the wise Montaigne, "is the object of that virginal shame, that sedate coldness, that severe countenance, that pretence of not knowing things which they understand better than we who teach them, except to increase in us the desire to conquer and curb, to trample under our appetite, all that ceremony and those obstacles? For there is not only matter for pleasure, but for pride also, in ruffling and debauching that soft sweetness and infantine modesty."[14] The masculine attitude in the face of feminine coyness may easily pass into a kind of sadism, but is nevertheless in its origin an innocent and instinctive impulse. Restif de la Bretonne, describing his own shame and timidity as a pretty boy whom the girls would run after and kiss, adds: "It is surprising that at the same time I would imagine the pleasure I should have in embracing a girl who resisted, in inspiring her with timidity, in making her flee and in pursuing her; that was a part which I burned to play."[15] It is the instinct of the sophisticated and the unsophisticated alike. The Arabs have developed an erotic ideal of sensuality, but they emphasize the importance of feminine modesty, and declare that the best woman is "she who sees not men and whom they see not."[16] This deep-rooted modesty of women towards men in courtship is intimately interwoven with the marriage customs and magic rites of even the most primitive peoples, and has survived in many civilized practices to-day.[17] The prostitute must be able to simulate the modesty she may often be far from feeling, and the immense erotic advantage of the innocent over the vicious woman lies largely in the fact that in her the exquisite reactions of modesty are fresh and vigorous. "I cannot imagine anything that is more sexually exciting," remarks Hans Menjago, "than to observe a person of the opposite sex, who, by some external or internal force, is compelled to fight against her physical modesty. The more modest she is the more sexually exciting is the picture she presents."[18] It is notable that even in abnormal, as well as in normal, erotic passion the desire is for innocent and not for vicious women, and, in association with this, the desired favor to be keenly relished must often be gained by sudden surprise and not by mutual agreement. A foot fetichist writes to me: "It is the _stolen_ glimpse of a pretty foot or ankle which produces the greatest effect on me." A urolagnic symbolist was chiefly excited by the act of urination when he caught a young woman unawares in the act. A fetichistic admirer of the nates only desired to see this region in innocent girls, not in prostitutes. The exhibitionist, almost invariably, only exposes himself to apparently respectable girls. A Russian correspondent, who feels this charm of women in a particularly strong degree, is inclined to think that there is an element of perversity in it. "In the erotic action of the idea of feminine enjoyment," he writes, "I think there are traces of a certain perversity. In fact, owing to the impressions of early youth, woman (even if we feel contempt for her in theory) is placed above us, on a certain pedestal, as an almost sacred being, and the more so because mysterious. Now sensuality and sexual desire are considered as rather vulgar, and a little dirty, even ridiculous and degrading, not to say bestial. The woman who enjoys it, is, therefore, rather like a profaned altar, or, at least, like a divinity who has descended on to the earth. To give enjoyment to a woman is, therefore, like perpetrating a sacrilege, or at least like taking a liberty with a god. The feelings bequeathed to us by a long social civilization maintain themselves in spite of our rational and deliberate opinions. Reason tells us that there is nothing evil in sexual enjoyment, whether in man or woman, but an unconscious feeling directs our emotions, and this feeling (having a germ that was placed in modern men by Christianity, and perhaps by still older religions) says that woman _ought_ to be an absolutely pure being, with ethereal sensations, and that in her sexual enjoyment is out of place, improper, scandalous. To arouse sexual emotions in a woman, if not to profane a sacred host, is, at all events, the staining of an immaculate peplos; if not sacrilege, it is, at least, irreverence or impertinence. For all men, the chaster a woman is, the more agreeable it is to bring her to the orgasm. That is felt as a triumph of the body over the soul, of sin over virtue, of earth over heaven. There is something diabolic in such pleasure, especially when it is felt by a man intoxicated with love, and full of religious respect for the virgin of his election. This feeling is, from a rational point of view, absurd, and in its tendencies, immoral; but it is delicious in its sacredly voluptuous subtlety. Defloration thus has its powerful fascination in the respect consciously or unconsciously felt for woman's chastity. In marriage, the feeling is yet more complicated: in deflowering his bride, the Christian (that is, any man brought up in a Christian civilization) has the feeling of committing a sort of sin (for the 'flesh' is, for him, always connected with sin) which, by a special privilege, has for him become legitimate. He has received a special permit to corrupt innocence. Hence, the peculiar prestige for civilized Christians, of the wedding night, sung by Shelley, in ecstatic verses:-- "'Oh, joy! Oh, fear! What will be done In the absence of the sun!'" This feeling has, however, its normal range, and is not, _per se_, a perversity, though it may doubtless become so when unduly heightened by Christian sentiment, and especially if it leads, as to some extent it has led in my Russian correspondent, to an abnormal feeling of the sexual attraction of girls who have only or scarcely reached the age of puberty. The sexual charm of this period of girlhood is well illustrated in many of the poems of Thomas Ashe, and it is worthy of note, as perhaps supporting the contention that this attraction is based on Christian feeling, that Ashe had been a clergyman. An attentiveness to the woman's pleasure remains, in itself, very far from a perversion, but increases, as Colin Scott has pointed out, with civilization, while its absence--the indifference to the partner's pleasure--is a perversion of the most degraded kind. There is no such instinctive demand on the woman's part for innocence in the man.[19] In the nature of things that could not be. Such emotion is required for properly playing the part of the pursued; it is by no means an added attraction on the part of the pursuer. There is, however, an allied and corresponding desire which is very often clearly or latently present in the woman: a longing for pleasure that is stolen or forbidden. It is a mistake to suppose that this is an indication of viciousness or perversity. It appears to be an impulse that occurs quite naturally in altogether innocent women. The exciting charm of the risky and dangerous naturally arises on a background of feminine shyness and timidity. We may trace its recognition at a very early stage of history in the story of Eve and the forbidden fruit that has so often been the symbol of the masculine organs of sex. It is on this ground that many have argued the folly of laying external restrictions on women in matters of love. Thus in quoting the great Italian writer who afterwards became Pope Pius II, Robert Burton remarked: "I am of �neas Sylvius' mind, 'Those jealous Italians do very ill to lock up their wives; for women are of such a disposition they will mostly covet that which is denied most, and offend least when they have free liberty to trespass.'"[20] It is the spontaneous and natural instinct of the lover to desire modesty in his mistress, and by no means any calculated opinion on his part that modesty is the sign of sexual emotion. It remains true, however, that modesty is an expression of feminine erotic impulse. We have here one of the instances, of which there, are so many, of that curious and instinctive harmony by which Nature has sought the more effectively to bring about the ends of courtship. As to the fact itself there can be little doubt. It constantly forces itself on the notice of careful observers, and has long been decided in the affirmative by those who have discussed the matter. Venette, one of the earliest writers on the psychology of sex, after discussing the question at length, decided that the timid woman is a more ardent lover than the bold woman.[21] "It is the most pudent girl," remarked Restif de la Bretonne whose experience of women was so extensive, "the girl who blushes most, who is most disposed to the pleasures of love," he adds that, in girls and boys alike, shyness is a premature consciousness of sex.[22] This observation has even become embodied in popular proverbs. "Do as the lasses do--say no, but take it," is a Scotch saying, to which corresponds the Welsh saying, "The more prudish the more unchaste."[23] It is not, at first, quite clear why an excessively shy and modest woman should be the most apt for intimate relationships with a man, and in such a case the woman is often charged with hypocrisy. There is, however, no hypocrisy in the matter. The shy and reserved woman holds herself aloof from intimacy in ordinary friendship, because she is acutely sensitive to the judgments of others, and fears that any seemingly immodest action may make an unfavorable opinion. With a lover, however, in whose eyes she feels assured that her actions can not be viewed unfavorably, these barriers of modesty fall down, and the resulting intimacy becomes all the more fascinating to the woman because of its contrast with the extreme reserve she is impelled to maintain in other relationships. It thus happens that many modest women who, in non-sexual relationships with their own sex, are not able to act with the physical unreserve not uncommon with women among themselves, yet feel no such reserve with a man, when they are once confident of his good opinion. Much the same is true of modest and sensitive men in their relations with women. This fundamental animal factor of modesty, rooted in the natural facts of the sexual life of the higher mammals, and especially man, obviously will not explain all the phenomena of modesty. We must turn to the other great primary element of modesty, the social factor. We cannot doubt that one of the most primitive and universal of the social characteristics of man is an aptitude for disgust, founded, as it is, on a yet more primitive and animal aptitude for disgust, which has little or no social significance. In nearly all races, even the most savage, we seem to find distinct traces of this aptitude for disgust in the presence of certain actions of others, an emotion naturally reflected in the individual's own actions, and hence a guide to conduct. Notwithstanding our gastric community of disgust with lower animals, it is only in man that this disgust seems to become transformed and developed, to possess a distinctly social character, and to serve as a guide to social conduct.[24] The objects of disgust vary infinitely according to the circumstances and habits of particular races, but the reaction of disgust is fundamental throughout. The best study of the phenomena of disgust known to me is, without doubt, Professor Richet's.[25] Richet concludes that it is the _dangerous_ and the _useless_ which evoke disgust. The digestive and sexual excretions and secretions, being either useless or, in accordance with widespread primitive ideas, highly dangerous, the genito-anal region became a concentrated focus of disgust.[26] It is largely for this reason, no doubt, that savage men exhibit modesty, not only toward women, but toward their own sex, and that so many of the lowest savages take great precautions in obtaining seclusion for the fulfillment of natural functions. The statement, now so often made, that the primary object of clothes is to accentuate, rather than to conceal, has in it--as I shall point out later--a large element of truth, but it is by no means a complete account of the matter. It seems difficult not to admit that, alongside the impulse to accentuate sexual differences, there is also in both men and women a genuine impulse to concealment among the most primitive peoples, and the invincible repugnance often felt by savages to remove the girdle or apron, is scarcely accounted for by the theory that it is solely a sexual lure. In this connection it seems to me instructive to consider a special form of modesty very strongly marked among savages in some parts of the world. I refer to the feeling of immodesty in eating. Where this feeling exists, modesty is offended when one eats in public; the modest man retires to eat. Indecency, said Cook, was utterly unknown among the Tahitians; but they would not eat together; even brothers and sisters had their separate baskets of provisions, and generally sat some yards apart, with their backs to each other, when they ate.[27] The Warrua of Central Africa, Cameron found, when offered a drink, put up a cloth before their faces while they swallowed it, and would not allow anyone to see them eat or drink; so that every man or woman must have his own fire and cook for himself.[28] Karl von den Steinen remarks, in his interesting book on Brazil, that though the Bakairi of Central Brazil have no feeling of shame about nakedness, they are ashamed to eat in public; they retire to eat, and hung their heads in shame-faced confusion when they saw him innocently eat in public. Hrolf Vaughan Stevens found that, when he gave an Orang Laut (Malay) woman anything to eat, she not only would not eat it if her husband were present, but if any man were present she would go outside before eating or giving her children to eat.[29] Thus among these peoples the act of eating in public produces the same feelings as among ourselves the indecent exposure of the body in public.[30] It is quite easy to understand how this arises. Whenever there is any pressure on the means of subsistence, as among savages at some time or another there nearly always is, it must necessarily arouse a profound and mixed emotion of desire and disgust to see another person putting into his stomach what one might just as well have put into one's own.[31] The special secrecy sometimes observed by women is probably due to the fact that women would be less able to resist the emotions that the act of eating would arouse in onlookers. As social feeling develops, a man desires not only to eat in safety, but also to avoid being an object of disgust, and to spare his friends all unpleasant emotions. Hence it becomes a requirement of ordinary decency to eat in private. A man who eats in public becomes--like the man who in our cities exposes his person in public--an object of disgust and contempt. Long ago, when a hospital student on midwifery duty in London slums, I had occasion to observe that among the women of the poor, and more especially in those who had lost the first bloom of youth, modesty consisted chiefly in the fear of being disgusting. There was an almost pathetic anxiety, in the face of pain and discomfort, not to be disgusting in the doctor's eyes. This anxiety expressed itself in the ordinary symptoms of modesty. But, as soon as the woman realized that I found nothing disgusting in whatever was proper and necessary to be done under the circumstances, it almost invariably happened that every sign of modesty at once disappeared.[32] In the special and elementary conditions of parturition, modesty is reduced to this one fear of causing disgust; so that, when that is negated, the emotion is non-existent, and the subject becomes, without effort, as direct and natural as a little child. A fellow-student on similar duty, who also discovered for himself the same character of modesty--that if he was careful to guard her modesty the woman was careful also, and that if he was not the woman was not--remarked on it to me with sadness; it seemed to him derogatory to womanhood that what he had been accustomed to consider its supreme grace should be so superficial that he could at will set limits to it.[33] I thought then, as I think still, that that was rather a perversion of the matter, and that nothing becomes degrading because we happen to have learned something about its operations. But I am more convinced than ever that the fear of causing disgust--a fear quite distinct from that of losing a sexual lure or breaking a rule of social etiquette--plays a very large part in the modesty of the more modest sex, and in modesty generally. Our Venuses, as Lucretius long since remarked and Montaigne after him, are careful to conceal from their lovers the _vita postscenia_, and that fantastic fate which placed so near together the supreme foci of physical attraction and physical repugnance, has immensely contributed to build up all the subtlest coquetries of courtship. Whatever stimulates self-confidence and lulls the fear of evoking disgust--whether it is the presence of a beloved person in whose good opinion complete confidence is felt, or whether it is merely the grosser narcotizing influence of a slight degree of intoxication--always automatically lulls the emotion of modesty.[34] Together with the animal factor of sexual refusal, this social fear of evoking disgust seems to me the most fundamental element in modesty. It is, of course, impossible to argue that the fact of the sacro-pubic region of the body being the chief focus of concealment proves the importance of this factor of modesty. But it may fairly be argued that it owes this position not merely to being the sexual centre, but also as being the excretory centre. Even among many lower mammals, as well as among birds and insects, there is a well-marked horror of dirt, somewhat disguised by the varying ways in which an animal may be said to define "dirt." Many animals spend more time and energy in the duties of cleanliness than human beings, and they often show well-marked anxiety to remove their own excrement, or to keep away from it.[35] Thus this element of modesty also may be said to have an animal basis. It is on this animal basis that the human and social fear of arousing disgust has developed. Its probably wide extension is indicated not only by the strong feeling attached to the constant presence of clothing on this part of the body,--such constant presence being quite uncalled for if the garment or ornament is merely a sort of sexual war-paint,--but by the repugnance felt by many savages very low down in the scale to the public satisfaction of natural needs, and to their more than civilized cleanliness in this connection;[36] it is further of interest to note that in some parts of the world the covering is not in front, but behind; though of this fact there are probably other explanations. Among civilized people, also, it may be added, the final and invincible seat of modesty is sometimes not around the pubes, but the anus; that is to say, that in such cases the fear of arousing disgust is the ultimate and most fundamental element of modesty.[37] The concentration of modesty around the anus is sometimes very marked. Many women feel so high a degree of shame and reserve with regard to this region, that they are comparatively indifferent to an anterior examination of the sexual organs. A similar feeling is not seldom found in men. "I would permit of an examination of my genitals by a medical man, without any feeling of discomfort," a correspondent writes, "but I think I would rather die than submit to any rectal examination." Even physicians have been known to endure painful rectal disorders for years, rather than undergo examination. "Among ordinary English girls," a medical correspondent writes, "I have often noticed that the dislike and shame of allowing a man to have sexual intercourse with them, when newly married, is simply due to the fact that the sexual aperture is so closely apposed to the anus and bladder. If the vulva and vagina were situated between a woman's shoulder blades, and a man had a separate instrument for coitus, not used for any excretory purpose, I do not think women would feel about intercourse as they sometimes do. Again, in their ignorance of anatomy, women often look upon the vagina and womb as part of the bowel and its exit of discharge, and sometimes say, for instance, 'inflammation of the _bowel_', when they mean _womb_. Again, many, perhaps most, women believe that they pass water through the vagina, and are ignorant of the existence of the separate urethral orifice. Again, women associate the vulva with the anus, and so feel ashamed of it; even when speaking to their husbands, or to a doctor, or among themselves; they have absolutely no name for the vulva (I mean among the upper classes, and people of gentle birth), but speak of it as 'down below,' 'low down,' etc." Even though this feeling is largely based on wrong and ignorant ideas, it must still be recognized that it is to some extent natural and inevitable. "How much is risked," exclaims Dugas, "in the privacies of love! The results may be disillusion, disgust, the consciousness of physical imperfection, of brutality or coldness, of æsthetic disenchantment, of a sentimental shock, seen or divined. To be without modesty, that is to say, to have no fear of the ordeals of love, one must be sure of one's self, of one's grace, of one's physical emotions, of one's feelings, and be sure, moreover, of the effect of all these on the nerves, the imagination, and the heart of another person. Let us suppose modesty reduced to æsthetic discomfort, to a woman's fear of displeasing, or of not seeming beautiful enough. Even thus defined, how can modesty avoid being always awake and restless? What woman could repeat, without risk, the tranquil action of Phryne? And even in that action, who knows how much may not have been due to mere professional insolence!" (Dugas, "La Pudeur," _Revue Philosophique_, November, 1903.) "Men and Women," Schurtz points out (_Altersklassen und Männerbünde_, pp. 41-51), "have certainly the capacity mutually to supplement and enrich each other; but when this completion fails, or is not sought, the difference may easily become a strong antipathy;" and he proceeds to develop the wide-reaching significance of this psychic fact. I have emphasized the proximity of the excretory centres to the sexual focus in discussing this important factor of modesty, because, in analyzing so complex and elusive an emotion as modesty it is desirable to keep as near as possible to the essential and fundamental facts on which it is based. It is scarcely necessary to point out that, in ordinary civilized society, these fundamental facts are not usually present at the surface of consciousness and may even be absent altogether; on the foundation of them may arise all sorts of idealized fears, of delicate reserves, of æsthetic refinements, as the emotions of love become more complex and more subtle, and the crude simplicity of the basis on which they finally rest becomes inevitably concealed. Another factor of modesty, which reaches a high development in savagery, is the ritual element, especially the idea of ceremonial uncleanness, based on a dread of the supernatural influences which the sexual organs and functions are supposed to exert. It may be to some extent rooted in the elements already referred to, and it leads us into a much wider field than that of modesty, so that it is only necessary to touch slightly on it here; it has been exhaustively studied by Frazer and by Crawley. Offences against the ritual rendered necessary by this mysterious dread, though more serious than offences against sexual reticence or the fear of causing disgust, are so obviously allied that they all reinforce one another and cannot easily be disentangled. Nearly everywhere all over the world at a primitive stage of thought, and even to some extent in the highest civilization, the sight of the sexual organs or of the sexual act, the image or even the names of the sexual parts of either man or woman, are believed to have a curiously potent influence, sometimes beneficent, but quite as often maleficent. The two kinds of influence may even be combined, and Riedel, quoted by Ploss and Bartels,[38] states that the Ambon islanders carve a schematic representation of the vulva on their fruit trees, in part to promote the productiveness of the trees, and in part to scare any unauthorized person who might be tempted to steal the fruit. The precautions prescribed as regards coitus at Loango[39] are evidently associated with religious fears. In Ceylon, again (as a medical correspondent there informs me), where the penis is worshipped and held sacred, a native never allows it to be seen, except under compulsion, by a doctor, and even a wife must neither see it nor touch it nor ask for coitus, though she must grant as much as the husband desires. All savage and barbarous peoples who have attained any high degree of ceremonialism have included the functions not only of sex, but also of excretion, more or less stringently within the bounds of that ceremonialism.[40] It is only necessary to refer to the Jewish ritual books of the Old Testament, to Hesiod, and to the customs prevalent among Mohammedan peoples. Modesty in eating, also, has its roots by no means only in the fear of causing disgust, but very largely in this kind of ritual, and Crawley has shown how numerous and frequent among primitive peoples are the religious implications of eating and drinking.[41] So profound is this dread of the sacred mystery of sex, and so widespread is the ritual based upon it, that some have imagined that here alone we may find the complete explanation of modesty, and Salomon Reinach declares that "at the origin of the emotion of modesty lies a taboo."[42] Durkheim ("La Prohibition de l'Inceste," _L'Année Sociologique_, 1898, p. 50), arguing that whatever sense of repugnance women may inspire must necessarily reach the highest point around the womb, which is hence subjected to the most stringent taboo, incidentally suggests that here is an origin of modesty. "The sexual organs must be veiled at an early period, to prevent the dangerous effluvia which they give off from reaching the environment. The veil is often a method of intercepting magic action. Once constituted, the practice would be maintained and transformed." It was doubtless as a secondary and derived significance that the veil became, as Reinach ("Le Voile de l'Oblation," op. cit., pp. 299-311) shows it was, alike among the Romans and in the Catholic Church, the sign of consecration to the gods. At an early stage of culture, again, menstruation is regarded as a process of purification, a dangerous expulsion of vitiated humors. Hence the term _katharsis_ applied to it by the Greeks. Hence also the mediæval view of women: "_Mulier speciosa templum ædificatum super cloacam_," said Boethius. The sacro-pubic region in women, because it includes the source of menstruation, thus becomes a specially heightened seat of taboo. According to the Mosiac law (Leviticus, Chapter XX, v. 18), if a man uncovered a menstruating woman, both were to be cut off. It is probable that the Mohammedan custom of veiling the face and head really has its source solely in another aspect of this ritual factor of modesty. It must be remembered that this custom is not Mohammedan in its origin, since it existed long previously among the Arabians, and is described by Tertullian.[43] In early Arabia very handsome men also veiled their faces, in order to preserve themselves from the evil eye, and it has been conjectured with much probability that the origin of the custom of women veiling their faces may be traced to this magico-religious precaution.[44] Among the Jews of the same period, according to Büchler,[45] the women had their heads covered and never cut their hair; to appear in the streets without such covering would be like a prostitute and was adequate ground for divorce; adulterous women were punished by uncovering their heads and cutting their hair. It is possible, though not certain, that St. Paul's obscure injunction to women to cover their heads "because of the angels," may really be based on the ancient reason, that when uncovered they would be exposed to the wanton assaults of spirits (1 Corinthians, Ch. XI, vv. 5-6),[46] exactly as Singhalese women believe that they must keep the vulva covered lest demons should have intercourse with them. Even at the present day St. Paul's injunction is still observed by Christendom, which is, however, far from accepting, or even perhaps understanding, the folk-lore ground on which are based such injunctions. Crawley thus summarizes some of the evidence concerning the significance of the veil:-- "Sexual shyness, not only in woman, but in man, is intensified at marriage, and forms a chief feature of the dangerous sexual properties mutually feared. When fully ceremonial, the idea takes on the meaning that satisfaction of these feelings will lead to their neutralization, as, in fact, it does. The bridegroom in ancient Sparta supped on the wedding night at the men's mess, and then visited his bride, leaving her before daybreak. This practice was continued, and sometimes children were born before the pair had ever seen each other's faces by day. At weddings in the Babar Islands, the bridegroom has to hunt for his bride in a darkened room. This lasts a good while if she is shy. In South Africa, the bridegroom may not see his bride till the whole of the marriage ceremonies have been performed. In Persia, a husband never sees his wife till he has consummated the marriage. At marriages in South Arabia, the bride and bridegroom have to sit immovable in the same position from noon till midnight, fasting, in separate rooms. The bride is attended by ladies, and the groom by men. They may not see each other till the night of the fourth day. In Egypt, the groom cannot see the face of his bride, even by a surreptitious glance, till she is in his absolute possession. Then comes the ceremony, which he performs, of uncovering her face. In Egypt, of course, this has been accentuated by the seclusion and veiling of women. In Morocco, at the feast before the marriage, the bride and groom sit together on a sort of throne; all the time, the poor bride's eyes are firmly closed, and she sits amidst the revelry as immovable as a statue. On the next day is the marriage. She is conducted after dark to her future home, accompanied by a crowd with lanterns and candles. She is led with closed eyes along the street by two relatives, each holding one of her hands. The bride's head is held in its proper position by a female relative, who walks behind her. She wears a veil, and is not allowed to open her eyes until she is set on the bridal bed, with a girl friend beside her. Amongst the Zulus, the bridal party proceeds to the house of the groom, having the bride hidden amongst them. They stand facing the groom, while the bride sings a song. Her companions then suddenly break away, and she is discovered standing in the middle, with a fringe of beads covering her face. Amongst the people of Kumaun, the husband sees his wife first after the joining of hands. Amongst the Bedui of North East Africa, the bride is brought on the evening of the wedding-day by her girl friends, to the groom's house. She is closely muffled up. Amongst the Jews of Jerusalem, the bride, at the marriage ceremony, stands under the nuptial canopy, her eyes being closed, that she may not behold the face of her future husband before she reaches the bridal chamber. In Melanesia, the bride is carried to her new home on some one's back, wrapped in many mats, with palm-fans held about her face, because she is supposed to be modest and shy. Among the Damaras, the groom cannot see his bride for four days after marriage. When a Damara woman is asked in marriage, she covers her face for a time with the flap of a headdress made for this purpose. At the Thlinkeet marriage ceremony, the bride must look down, and keep her head bowed all the time; during the wedding-day, she remains hiding in a corner of the house, and the groom is forbidden to enter. At a Yezedee marriage, the bride is covered from head to foot with a thick veil, and when arrived at her new home, she retires behind a curtain in the corner of a darkened room, where she remains for three days before her husband is permitted to see her. In Corea, the bride has to cover her face with her long sleeves, when meeting the bridegroom at the wedding. The Manchurian bride uncovers her face for the first time when she descends from the nuptial couch. It is dangerous even to see dangerous persons. Sight is a method of contagion in primitive science, and the idea coincides with the psychological aversion to see dangerous things, and with sexual shyness and timidity. In the customs noticed, we can distinguish the feeling that it is dangerous to the bride for her husband's eyes to be upon her, and the feeling of bashfulness in her which induces her neither to see him nor to be seen by him. These ideas explain the origin of the bridal veil and similar concealments. The bridal veil is used, to take a few instances, in China, Burmah, Corea, Russia, Bulgaria, Manchuria, and Persia, and in all these cases it conceals the face entirely." (E. Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_, pp. 328 et seq.) Alexander Walker, writing in 1846, remarks: "Among old-fashioned people, of whom a good example may be found in old country people of the middle class in England, it is indecent to be seen with the head unclothed; such a woman is terrified at the chance of being seen In that condition, and if intruded on at that time, she shrieks with terror, and flies to conceal herself." (A. Walker, _Beauty_, p. 15.) This fear of being seen with the head uncovered exists still, M. Van Gennep informs me, in some regions of France, as in Brittany. So far it has only been necessary to refer incidentally to the connection of modesty with clothing. I have sought to emphasize the unquestionable, but often forgotten, fact that modesty is in its origin independent of clothing, that physiological modesty takes precedence of anatomical modesty, and that the primary factors of modesty were certainly developed long before the discovery of either ornament or garments. The rise of clothing probably had its first psychical basis on an emotion of modesty already compositely formed of the elements we have traced. Both the main elementary factors, it must be noted, must naturally tend to develop and unite in a more complex, though--it may well be--much less intense, emotion. The impulse which leads the female animal, as it leads some African women when found without their girdles, to squat firmly down on the earth, becomes a more refined and extended play of gesture and ornament and garment. A very notable advance, I may remark, is made when this primary attitude of defence against the action of the male becomes a defence against his eyes. We may thus explain the spread of modesty to various parts of the body, even when we exclude the more special influence of the evil eye. The breasts very early become a focus of modesty in women; this may be observed among many naked, or nearly naked, negro races; the tendency of the nates to become the chief seat of modesty in many parts of Africa may probably be, in large part, thus explained, since the full development of the gluteal regions is often the greatest attraction an African woman can possess.[47] The same cause contributes, doubtless, to the face becoming, in some races, the centre of modesty. We see the influence of this defence against strange eyes in the special precautions in gesture or clothing taken by the women in various parts of the world, against the more offensive eyes of civilized Europeans. But in thus becoming directed only against sight, and not against action, the gestures of modesty are at once free to become merely those of coquetry. When there is no real danger of offensive action, there is no need for more than playful defence, and no serious anxiety should that defence be taken as a disguised invitation. Thus the road is at once fully open toward the most civilized manifestations of the comedy of courtship. In the same way the social fear of arousing disgust combines easily and perfectly with any new development in the invention of ornament or clothing as sexual lures. Even among the most civilized races it has often been noted that the fashion of feminine garments (as also sometimes the use of scents) has the double object of concealing and attracting. It is so with the little apron of the young savage belle. The heightening of the attraction is, indeed, a logical outcome of the fear of evoking disgust. It is possible, as some ethnographists have observed,[48] that intercrural cords and other primitive garments have a physical ground, inasmuch as they protect the most sensitive and unprotected part of the body, especially in women. We may note in this connection the significant remarks of K. von den Steinen, who argues that among Brazilian tribes the object of the _uluri_, etc., is to obtain a maximum of protection for the mucous membrane with a minimum of concealment. Among the Eskimo, as Nansen noted, the corresponding intercrural cord is so thin as to be often practically invisible; this may be noted, I may add, in the excellent photographs of Eskimo women given by Holm. But it is evident that, in the beginning, protection is to little or no extent the motive for attaching foreign substances to the body. Thus the tribes of Central Australia wear no clothes, although they often suffer from the cold. But, in addition to armlets, neck-bands and head-bands, they have string or hair girdles, with, for the women, a very small apron and, for the men, a pubic tassel. The latter does not conceal the organs, being no larger than a coin, and often brilliantly coated with white pipeclay, especially during the progress of _corrobborees_, when a large number of men and women meet together; it serves the purpose of drawing attention to the organs.[49] When Forster visited the unspoilt islanders of the Pacific early in the eighteenth century, he tells us that, though they wore no clothes, they found it necessary to cover themselves with various ornaments, especially on, the sexual parts. "But though their males," he remarks, "were to all appearances equally anxious in this respect with their females, this part of their dress served only to make that more conspicuous which it intended to hide."[50] He adds the significant remark that "these ideas of decency and modesty are only observed at the age of sexual maturity," just as in Central Australia women may only wear aprons after the initiation of puberty. "There are certain things," said Montaigne, "which are hidden in order to be shown;" and there can be no doubt that the contention of Westermarck and others, that ornament and clothing were, in the first place, intended, not to conceal or even to protect the body, but, in large part, to render it sexually attractive, is fully proved.[51] We cannot, in the light of all that has gone before, regard ornaments and clothing as the sole cause of modesty, but the feelings that are thus gathered around the garment constitute a highly important factor of modesty. Among some Australian tribes it is said that the sexual organs are only covered during their erotic dances; and it is further said that in some parts of the world only prostitutes are clothed. "The scanty covering," as Westermarck observes, "was found to act as the most powerful obtainable sexual stimulus." It is undoubtedly true that this statement may be made not merely of the savage, but of the most civilized world. All observers agree that the complete nudity of savages, unlike the civilized _décolleté_ or _détroussé_, has no suggestion of sexual allurement. (Westermarck quotes numerous testimonies on this point, op. cit., pp. 192 et seq.) Dr. R.W. Felkin remarks concerning Central Africa, that he has never met more indecency than in Uganda, where the penalty of death is inflicted on an adult found naked in the street. (_Edinburgh Medical Journal_, April, 1884.) A study of pictures or statuary will alone serve to demonstrate that nakedness is always chaster in its effects than partial clothing. As a well-known artist, Du Maurier, has remarked (in _Trilby_), it is "a fact well known to all painters and sculptors who have used the nude model (except a few shady pretenders, whose purity, not being of the right sort, has gone rank from too much watching) that nothing is so chaste as nudity. Venus herself, as she drops her garments and steps on to the model-throne, leaves behind her on the floor every weapon in her armory by which she can pierce to the grosser passions of men." Burton, in the _Anatomy of Melancholy_ (Part III, Sect. II, Subsect. 3), deals at length with the "Allurements of Love," and concludes that "the greatest provocations of lust are from our apparel." The artist's model, as one informs me, is much less exposed to liberties from men when nude than when she is partially clothed, and it may be noted that in Paris studios the model who poses naked undresses behind a screen. An admirable poetic rendering of this element in the philosophy of clothing has been given by Herrick, that master of erotic psychology, in "A Lily in Crystal," where he argues that a lily in crystal, and amber in a stream, and strawberries in cream, gain an added delight from semi-concealment; and so, he concludes, we obtain "A rule, how far, to teach, Your nakedness must reach." In this connection, also, it is worth noting that Stanley Hall, in a report based on returns from nearly a thousand persons, mostly teachers, ("The Early Sense of Self," _American Journal of Psychology_, 1898, p. 366), finds that of the three functions of clothes--protection, ornament, and Lotzean "self-feeling"--the second is by far the most conspicuous in childhood. The attitude of children is testimony to the primitive attitude toward clothing. It cannot, however, be said that the use of clothing for the sake of showing the natural forms of the body has everywhere been developed. In Japan, where nakedness is accepted without shame, clothes are worn to cover and conceal, and not to reveal, the body. It is so, also, in China. A distinguished Chinese gentleman, who had long resided in Europe, once told Baelz that he had gradually learnt to grasp the European point of view, but that it would be impossible to persuade his fellow-countrymen that a woman who used her clothes to show off her figure could possibly possess the least trace of modesty. (Baelz, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1901, Heft 2, p. 179.) The great artistic elaboration often displayed by articles of ornament or clothing, even when very small, and the fact--as shown by Karl von den Steinen regarding the Brazilian _uluri_--that they may serve as common motives in general decoration, sufficiently prove that such objects attract rather than avoid attention. And while there is an invincible repugnance among some peoples to remove these articles, such repugnance being often strongest when the adornment is most minute, others have no such repugnance or are quite indifferent whether or not their aprons are accurately adjusted. The mere presence or possession of the article gives the required sense of self-respect, of human dignity, of sexual desirability. Thus it is that to unclothe a person, is to humiliate him; this was so even in Homeric times, for we may recall the threat of Ulysses to strip Thyestes.[52] When clothing is once established, another element, this time a social-economic element, often comes in to emphasize its importance and increase the anatomical modesty of women. I mean the growth of the conception of women as property. Waitz, followed by Schurtz and Letourneau, has insisted that the jealousy of husbands is the primary origin of clothing, and, indirectly, of modesty. Diderot in the eighteenth century had already given clear expression to the same view. It is undoubtedly true that only married women are among some peoples clothed, the unmarried women, though full grown, remaining naked. In many parts of the world, also, as Mantegazza and others have shown, where the men are naked and the women covered, clothing is regarded as a sort of disgrace, and men can only with difficulty be persuaded to adopt it. Before marriage a woman was often free, and not bound to chastity, and at the same time was often naked; after marriage she was clothed, and no longer free. To the husband's mind, the garment appears--illogically, though naturally--a moral and physical protection against any attack on his property.[53] Thus a new motive was furnished, this time somewhat artificially, for making nakedness, in women at all events, disgraceful. As the conception of property also extended to the father's right over his daughters, and the appreciation of female chastity developed, this motive spread to unmarried as well as married women. A woman on the west coast of Africa must always be chaste because she is first the property of her parents and afterwards of her husband,[54] and even in the seventeenth century of Christendom so able a thinker as Bishop Burnet furnished precisely the same reason for feminine chastity.[55] This conception probably constituted the chief and most persistent element furnished to the complex emotion of modesty by the barbarous stages of human civilization. This economic factor necessarily involved the introduction of a new moral element into modesty. If a woman's chastity is the property of another person, it is essential that she shall be modest in order that men may not be tempted to incur the penalties involved by the infringement of property rights. Thus modesty is strictly inculcated on women in order that men may be safeguarded from temptation. The fact was overlooked that modesty is itself a temptation. Immodesty being, on this ground, disapproved by men, a new motive for modesty is furnished to women. In the book which the Knight of the Tower, Landry, wrote in the fourteenth century, for the instruction of his daughters, this factor of modesty is naïvely revealed. He tells his daughters of the trouble that David got into through the thoughtlessness of Bathsheba, and warns them that "every woman ought religiously to conceal herself when dressing and washing, and neither out of vanity nor yet to attract attention show either her hair, or her neck, or her breast, or any part which ought to be covered." Hinton went so far as to regard what he termed "body modesty," as entirely a custom imposed upon women by men with the object of preserving their own virtue. While this motive is far from being the sole source of modesty, it must certainly be borne in mind as an inevitable outcome of the economic factor of modesty. In Europe it seems probable that the generally accepted conceptions of mediæval chivalry were not without influence in constituting the forms in which modesty shows itself among us. In the early middle ages there seems to have been a much greater degree of physical familiarity between the sexes than is commonly found among barbarians elsewhere. There was certainly considerable promiscuity in bathing and indifference to nakedness. It seems probable, as Durkheim points out,[56] that this state of things was modified in part by the growing force of the dictates of Christian morality, which regarded all intimate approaches between the sexes as sinful, and in part by the influence of chivalry with its æsthetic and moral ideals of women, as the representative of all the delicacies and elegancies of civilization. This ideal was regarded as incompatible with the familiarities of the existing social relationships between the sexes, and thus a separation, which at first existed only in art and literature, began by a curious reaction to exert an influence on real life. The chief new feature--it is scarcely a new element--added to modesty when an advanced civilization slowly emerges from barbarism is the elaboration of its social ritual.[57] Civilization expands the range of modesty, and renders it, at the same time, more changeable. The French seventeenth century, and the English eighteenth, represent early stages of modern European civilization, and they both devoted special attention to the elaboration of the minute details of modesty. The frequenters of the Hotel Rambouillet, the _précieuses_ satirized by Molière, were not only engaged in refining the language; they were refining feelings and ideas and enlarging the boundaries of modesty.[58] In England such famous and popular authors as Swift and Sterne bear witness to a new ardor of modesty in the sudden reticences, the dashes, and the asterisks, which are found throughout their works. The altogether new quality of literary prurience, of which Sterne is still the classical example, could only have arisen on the basis of the new modesty which was then overspreading society and literature. Idle people, mostly, no doubt, the women in _salons_ and drawing-rooms, people more familiar with books than with the realities of life, now laid down the rules of modesty, and were ever enlarging it, ever inventing new subtleties of gesture and speech, which it would be immodest to neglect, and which are ever being rendered vulgar by use and ever changing. It was at this time, probably, that the custom of inventing an arbitrary private vocabulary of words and phrases for the purpose of disguising references to functions and parts of the body regarded as immodest and indecent, first began to become common. Such private slang, growing up independently in families, and especially among women, as well as between lovers, is now almost universal. It is not confined to any European country, and has been studied in Italy by Niceforo (_Il Gergo_, 1897, cap. 1 and 2), who regards it as a weapon of social defence against an inquisitive or hostile environment, since it enables things to be said with a meaning which is unintelligible to all but the initiated person. While it is quite true that the custom is supported by the consciousness of its practical advantages, it has another source in a desire to avoid what is felt to be the vulgar immodesty of direct speech. This is sufficiently shown by the fact that such slang is mostly concerned with the sacro-pubic sphere. It is one of the chief contributions to the phenomena of modesty furnished by civilization. The claims of modesty having effected the clothing of the body, the impulse of modesty finds a further sphere of activity--half-playful, yet wholly imperative--in the clothing of language. Modesty of speech has, however, a deep and primitive basis, although in modern Europe it only became conspicuous at the beginning of the eighteenth century. "All over the world," as Dufour put it, "to do is good, to say is bad." Reticences of speech are not adequately accounted for by the statement that modesty tends to irradiate from the action to the words describing the action, for there is a tendency for modesty to be more deeply rooted in the words than in the actions. "Modest women," as Kleinpaul truly remarks, "have a much greater horror of saying immodest things than of doing them; they believe that fig-leaves were especially made for the mouth." (Kleinpaul, _Sprache ohne Worte_, p. 309.) It is a tendency which is linked on to the religious and ritual feeling which we have already found to be a factor of modesty, and which, even when applied to language, appears to have an almost or quite instinctive basis, for it is found among the most primitive savages, who very frequently regard a name as too sacred or dangerous to utter. Among the tribes of Central Australia, in addition to his ordinary name, each individual has his sacred or secret name, only known to the older and fully initiated members of his own totemic group; among the Warramunga, it is not permitted to women to utter even a man's ordinary name, though she knows it. (Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 581.) In the mysterious region of sex, this feeling easily takes root. In many parts of the world, men use among themselves, and women use among themselves, words and even languages which they may not use without impropriety in speaking to persons of the opposite sex, and it has been shown that exogamy, or the fact that the wife belongs to a different tribe, will not always account for this phenomenon. (Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_, p. 46.) A special vocabulary for the generative organs and functions is very widespread. Thus, in northwest Central Queensland, there is both a decent and an indecent vocabulary for the sexual parts; in Mitakoodi language, for instance, _me-ne_ may be used for the vulva in the best aboriginal society, but _koon-ja_ and _pukkil_, which are names for the same parts, are the most blackguardly words known to the natives. (W. Roth, _Ethnological Studies Among the Queensland Aborigines_, p. 184.) Among the Malays, _puki_ is also a name for the vulva which it is very indecent to utter, and it is only used in public by people under the influence of an obsessive nervous disorder. (W. Gilman Ellis, "Latah," _Journal of Mental Science_, Jan., 1897.) The Swahili women of Africa have a private metaphorical language of their own, referring to sexual matters (Zache, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1899, Heft 2-3, pp. 70 et seq.), and in Samoa, again, young girls have a euphemistic name for the penis, _aualuma_, which is not that in common use (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1899, Heft 1, p. 31); exactly the same thing is found in Europe, to-day, and is sometimes more marked among young peasant women than among those of better social class, who often avoid, under all circumstances, the necessity for using any definite name. Singular as it may seem, the Romans, who in their literature impress us by their vigorous and naked grip of the most private facts of life, showed in familiar intercourse a dread of obscene language--a dread ultimately founded, it is evident, on religious grounds--far exceeding that which prevails among ourselves to-day in civilization. "It is remarkable," Dufour observes, "that the prostitutes of ancient Rome would have blushed to say an indecent word in public. The little tender words used between lovers and their mistresses were not less correct and innocent when the mistress was a courtesan and the lover an erotic poet. He called her his rose, his queen, his goddess, his dove, his light, his star, and she replied by calling him her jewel, her honey, her bird, her ambrosia, the apple of her eye, and never with any licentious interjection, but only 'I will love!' (_Amabo_), a frequent exclamation, summing up a whole life and vocation. When intimate relations began, they treated each other as 'brother' and 'sister.' These appellations were common among the humblest and the proudest courtesans alike." (Dufour, _Histoire de la Prostitution_, vol. ii, p. 78.) So excessive was the Roman horror of obscenity that even physicians were compelled to use a euphemism for _urina_, and though the _urinal_ or _vas urinarium_ was openly used at the dining-table (following a custom introduced by the Sybarites, according to Athenæus, Book XII, cap. 17), the decorous guest could not ask for it by name, but only by a snap of the fingers (Dufour, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 174). In modern Europe, as seems fairly evident from the early realistic dramatic literature of various countries, no special horror of speaking plainly regarding the sacro-pubic regions and their functions existed among the general population until the seventeenth century. There is, however, one marked exception. Such a feeling clearly existed as regards menstruation. It is not difficult to see why it should have begun at this function. We have here not only a function confined to one sex and, therefore, easily lending itself to a vocabulary confined to one sex; but, what is even of more importance, the belief which existed among the Romans, as elsewhere throughout the world, concerning the specially dangerous and mysterious properties of menstruation, survived throughout mediæval times. (See e.g., Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, Bd. I, XIV; also Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth ed. Ch. XI.) The very name, _menses_ ("monthlies"), is a euphemism, and most of the old scientific names for this function are similarly vague. As regards popular feminine terminology previous to the eighteenth century, Schurig gives us fairly ample information (_Parthenologia_, 1729, pp. 27 et seq.). He remarks that both in Latin and Germanic countries, menstruation was commonly designated by some term equivalent to "flowers," because, he says, it is a blossoming that indicates the possibility of fruit. German peasant women, he tells us, called it the rose-wreath (Rosenkrantz). Among the other current feminine names for menstruation which he gives, some are purely fanciful; thus, the Italian women dignified the function with the title of "marchese magnifico;" German ladies, again, would use the locution, "I have had a letter," or would say that their cousin or aunt had arrived. These are closely similar to the euphemisms still used by women. It should be added that euphemisms for menstruation are not confined to Europe, and are found among savages. According to Hill Tout (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1904, p. 320; and 1905, p. 137), one of these euphemisms was "putting on the moccasin," and in another branch of the same people, "putting the knees together," "going outside" (in allusion to the customary seclusion at this period in a solitary hut), and so on. It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that this process is an intensification of modesty. It is, on the contrary, an attenuation of it. The observances of modesty become merely a part of a vast body of rules of social etiquette, though a somewhat stringent part on account of the vague sense still persisting of a deep-lying natural basis. It is a significant coincidence that the eighteenth century, which was marked by this new extension of the social ritual of modesty, also saw the first appearance of a new philosophic impulse not merely to analyze, but to dissolve the conception of modesty. This took place more especially in France. The swift rise to supremacy, during the seventeenth century, of logical and rational methods of thinking, in conjunction with the new development of geometrical and mathematical science, led in the eighteenth century to a widespread belief in France that human customs and human society ought to be founded on a strictly logical and rational basis. It was a belief which ignored those legitimate claims of the emotional nature which the nineteenth century afterwards investigated and developed, but it was of immense service to mankind in clearing away useless prejudices and superstitions, and it culminated in the reforms of the great Revolution which most other nations have since been painfully struggling to attain. Modesty offered a tempting field for the eighteenth century philosophic spirit to explore. The manner in which the most distinguished and adventurous minds of the century approached it, can scarcely be better illustrated than by a conversation, reported by Madame d'Epinay, which took place in 1750 at the table of Mlle. Quinault, the eminent actress. "A fine virtue," Duclos remarked, "which one fastens on in the morning with pins." He proceeded to argue that "a moral law must hold good always and everywhere, which modesty does not." Saint-Lambert, the poet, observed that "it must be acknowledged that one can say nothing good about innocence without being a little corrupted," and Duclos added "or of modesty without being impudent." Saint-Lambert finally held forth with much poetic enthusiasm concerning the desirability of consummating marriages in public.[59] This view of modesty, combined with the introduction of Greek fashions, gained ground to such an extent that towards the end of the century women, to the detriment of their health, were sometimes content to dress in transparent gauze, and even to walk abroad in the Champs Elysées without any clothing; that, however, was too much for the public.[60] The final outcome of the eighteenth century spirit in this direction was, as we know, by no means the dissolution of modesty. But it led to a clearer realization of what is permanent in its organic foundations and what is merely temporary in its shifting manifestations. That is a realization which is no mean task to achieve, and is difficult for many, even yet. So intelligent a traveler as Mrs. Bishop (Miss Bird), on her first visit to Japan came to the conclusion that Japanese women had no modesty, because they had no objection to being seen naked when bathing. Twenty years later she admitted to Dr. Baelz that she had made a mistake, and that "a woman may be naked and yet behave like a lady."[61] In civilized countries the observances of modesty differ in different regions, and in different social classes, but, however various the forms may be, the impulse itself remains persistent.[62] Modesty has thus come to have the force of a tradition, a vague but massive force, bearing with special power on those who cannot reason, and yet having its root in the instincts of all people of all classes.[63] It has become mainly transformed into the allied emotion of decency, which has been described as "modesty fossilized into social customs." The emotion yields more readily than in its primitive state to any sufficiently-strong motive. Even fashion in the more civilized countries can easily inhibit anatomical modesty, and rapidly exhibit or accentuate, in turn, almost any part of the body, while the savage Indian woman of America, the barbarous woman of some Mohammedan countries, can scarcely sacrifice her modesty in the pangs of childbirth. Even when, among uncivilized races, the focus of modesty may be said to be eccentric and arbitrary, it still remains very rigid. In such savage and barbarous countries modesty possesses the strength of a genuine and irresistible instinct. In civilized countries, however, anyone who places considerations of modesty before the claims of some real human need excites ridicule and contempt. FOOTNOTES: [4] Fliess (_Die Beziehungen zwischen Nase und weiblichen Geschlechts-Organen_, p. 194) remarks on the fact that, in the Bible narrative of Eden, shame and fear are represented as being brought into the world together: Adam feared God because he was naked. Melinaud ("Psychologie de la Pudeur," _La Revue_, Nov. 15, 1901) remarks that shame differs from modesty in being, not a fear, but a kind of grief; this position seems untenable. [5] Bashfulness in children has been dealt with by Professor Baldwin; see especially his _Mental Development in the Child and the Race_, Chapter VI, pp. 146 et seq., and _Social Interpretations in Mental Development_, Chapter VI. [6] Bell, "A Preliminary Study of the Emotion of Love Between the Sexes," _American Journal Psychology_, July, 1902. [7] Professor Starbuck (_Psychology of Religion_, Chapter XXX) refers to unpublished investigations showing that recognition of the rights of others also exhibits a sudden increment at the age of puberty. [8] Perez, _L'Enfant de Trois à Sept Ans_, 1886, pp. 267-277. [9] It must be remembered that the Medicean Venus is merely a comparatively recent and familiar embodiment of a natural attitude which is very ancient, and had impressed sculptors at a far earlier period. Reinach, indeed, believes ("La Sculpture en Europe," _L'Anthropologie_, No. 5, 1895) that the hand was first brought to the breast to press out the milk, and expresses the idea of exuberance, and that the attitude of the Venus of Medici as a symbol of modesty came later; he remarks that, as regards both hands, this attitude may be found in a figurine of Cyprus, 2,000 years before Christ. This is, no doubt, correct, and I may add that Babylonian figurines of Ishtar, the goddess of fertility, represent her as clasping her hands to her breasts or her womb. [10] When there is no sexual fear the impulse of modesty may be entirely inhibited. French ladies under the old Régime (as A. Franklin points out in his _Vie Privée d'Autrefois_) sometimes showed no modesty towards their valets, not admitting the possibility of any sexual advance, and a lady would, for example, stand up in her bath while a valet added hot water by pouring it between her separated feet. [11] I do not hereby mean to deny a certain degree of normal periodicity even to the human male; but such periodicity scarcely involves any element of sexual fear or attitude of sexual defence, in man because it is too slight to involve complete latency of the sexual functions, in other species because latency of sexual function in the male is always accompanied by corresponding latency in the female. [12] H. Northcote, _Christianity and the Sex Problem_, p. 8. Crawley had previously argued (_The Mystic Rose_, pp. 134, 180) that this same necessity for solitude during the performance of nutritive, sexual, and excretory functions, is a factor in investing such functions with a potential sacredness, so that the concealment of them became a religious duty. [13] _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1878, p. 26. [14] _Essais_, livre ii, Ch. XV. [15] _Monsieur Nicolas_, vol. i, p. 89. [16] Lane, _Arabian Society_, p. 228. The Arab insistence on the value of virginal modesty is well brought out in one of the most charming stories of the _Arabian Nights_, "The History of the Mirror of Virginity." [17] This has especially been emphasized by Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_, pp. 181, 324 et seq., 353. [18] _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Bd. II, Heft 8, p. 358. [19] This, however, is not always or altogether true of experienced women. Thus, the Russian correspondent already referred to, who as a youth was accustomed, partly out of shyness, to feign complete ignorance of sexual matters, informs me that it repeatedly happened to him at this time that young married women took pleasure in imposing on themselves, not without shyness but with evident pleasure, the task of initiating him, though they always hastened to tell him that it was for his good, to preserve him from bad women and masturbation. Prostitutes, also, often take pleasure in innocent men, and Hans Ostwald tells (_Sexual-Probleme_, June, 1908, p. 357) of a prostitute who fell violently in love with a youth who had never known a woman before; she had never met an innocent man before, and it excited her greatly. And I have been told of an Italian prostitute who spoke of the exciting pleasure which an unspoilt youth gave her by his freshness, _tutta questa freschezza_. [20] _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part III, Sect. III. Mem. IV. Subs. I. [21] N. Venette, _La Génération de l'Homme_, Part II, Ch. X. [22] _Monsieur Nicolas_, vol. i, p. 94. [23] Kryptadia, vol. ii, p. 26, 31. Ib. vol. iii, p. 162. [24] "Modesty is, at first," said Renouvier, "a fear which we have of displeasing others, and of blushing at our own natural imperfections." (Renouvier and Prat, _La Nouvelle Monadologie_, p. 221.) [25] C. Richet, "Les Causes du Dégoût," _L'Homme et l'Intelligence_, 1884. This eminent physiologist's elaborate study of disgust was not written as a contribution to the psychology of modesty, but it forms an admirable introduction to the investigation of the social factor of modesty. [26] It is interesting to note that where, as among the Eskimo, urine, for instance, is preserved as a highly-valuable commodity, the act of urination, even at table, is not regarded as in the slightest degree disgusting or immodest (Bourke, _Scatologic Rites_, p. 202). [27] Hawkesworth, _An Account of the Voyages_, etc., 1775, vol. ii, p. 52. [28] _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, vol. vi, p. 173. [29] Stevens, "Mittheilungen aus dem Frauenleben der Orang Belendas," _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, Heft 4, p. 167, 1896. Crawley, (_Mystic Rose_, Ch. VIII, p. 439) gives numerous other instances, even in Europe, with, however, special reference to sexual taboo. I may remark that English people of lower class, especially women, are often modest about eating in the presence of people of higher class. This feeling is, no doubt, due, in part, to the consciousness of defective etiquette, but that very consciousness is, in part, a development of the fear of causing disgust, which is a component of modesty. [30] Shame in regard to eating, it may be added, occasionally appears as a neurasthenic obsession in civilization, and has been studied as a form of psychasthenia by Janet. See e.g., (Raymond and Janet, _Les Obsessions et la Psychasthénie_, vol. ii, p. 386) the case of a young girl of 24, who, from the age of 12 or 13 (the epoch of puberty) had been ashamed to eat in public, thinking it nasty and ugly to do so, and arguing that it ought only to be done in private, like urination. [31] "Desire and disgust are curiously blended," remarks Crawley (_The Mystic Rose_, p. 139), "when, with one's own desire unsatisfied, one sees the satisfaction of another; and here we may see the altruistic stage beginning; this has two sides, the fear of causing desire in others, and the fear of causing disgust; in each case, personal isolation is the psychological result." [32] Hohenemser argues that the fear of causing disgust cannot be a part of shame. But he also argues that shame is simply psychic stasis, and it is quite easy to see, as in the above case, that the fear of causing disgust is simply a manifestation of psychic stasis. There is a conflict in the woman's mind between the idea of herself which she has already given, and the more degraded idea of herself which she fears she is likely to give, and this conflict is settled when she is made to feel that the first idea may still be maintained under the new circumstances. [33] We neither of us knew that we had merely made afresh a very ancient discovery. Casanova, more than a century ago, quoted the remark of a friend of his, that the easiest way to overcome the modesty of a woman is to suppose it non-existent; and he adds a saying, which he attributes to Clement of Alexandria, that modesty, which seems so deeply rooted in women, only resides in the linen that covers them, and vanishes when it vanishes. The passage to which Casanova referred occurs in the _Pædagogus_, and has already been quoted. The observation seems to have appealed strongly to the Fathers, always glad to make a point against women, and I have met with it in Cyprian's _De Habitu Feminarum_. It also occurs in Jerome's treatise against Jovinian. Jerome, with more scholarly instinct, rightly presents the remark as a quotation: "_Scribit Herodotus quod mulier cum veste deponat et verecundiam_." In Herodotus the saying is attributed to Gyges (Book I, Chapter VIII). We may thus trace very far back into antiquity an observation which in English has received its classical expression from Chaucer, who, in his "Wife of Bath's Prologue," has:-- "He sayde, a woman cast hir shame away, When she cast of hir smok." I need not point out that the analysis of modesty offered above robs this venerable saying of any sting it may have possessed as a slur upon women. In such a case, modesty is largely a doubt as to the spectator's attitude, and necessarily disappears when that doubt is satisfactorily resolved. As we have seen, the Central Australian maidens were very modest with regard to the removal of their single garment, but when that removal was accomplished and accepted, they were fearless. [34] The same result occurs more markedly under the deadening influence of insanity. Grimaldi (_Il Manicomio Moderno_, 1888) found that modesty is lacking in 50 per cent, of the insane. [35] For some facts bearing on this point, see Houssay, _Industries of Animals_, Chapter VII. "The Defence and Sanitation of Dwellings;" also P. Ballion, _De l'Instinct de Propreté chez les Animaux_. [36] Thus, Stevens mentions (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, p. 182, 1897) that the Dyaks of Malacca always wash the sexual organs, even after urination, and are careful to use the left hand in doing so. The left hand is also reserved for such uses among the Jekris of the Niger coast (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, p. 122, 1898). [37] Lombroso and Ferrero--who adopt the derivation of _pudor_ from _putere_; i.e., from the repugnance caused by the decomposition of the vaginal secretions--consider that the fear of causing disgust to men is the sole origin of modesty among savage women, as also it remains the sole form of modesty among some prostitutes to-day. (_La Donna Delinquente_, p. 540.) Important as this factor is in the constitution of the emotion of modesty, I need scarcely add that I regard so exclusive a theory as altogether untenable. [38] _Das Weib_, Ch. VI. [39] For references as to a similar feeling among other savages, see Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, p. 152. [40] See e.g., Bourke, _Scatologic Rites_, pp. 141, 145, etc. [41] Crawley, op. cit., Ch. VII. [42] S, Reinach, _Cultes, Mythes et Religions_, p. 172. [43] Tertullian, _De Virginibus Velandis_, cap. 17. Hottentot women, also (Fritsch, _Eingeborene Südafrika's_, p. 311), cover their head with a cloth, and will not be persuaded to remove it. [44] Wellhausen, _Reste Arabischen Heidentums_, p. 196. The same custom is found among Tuareg men though it is not imperative for the women (Duveyrier, _Les Touaregs du Nord_, p. 291). [45] Quoted in _Zentralblatt für Anthropologie_, 1906, Heft I, p. 21. [46] Or rather, perhaps, because the sight of their nakedness might lead the angels into sin. See W.G. Sumner, _Folkways_, p. 431. [47] In Moruland, Emin Bey remarked that women are mostly naked, but some wear a girdle, with a few leaves hanging behind. The women of some negro tribes, who thus cover themselves behind, if deprived of this sole covering, immediately throw themselves on the ground on their backs, in order to hide their nakedness. [48] E.g., Letourneau, _L'Evolution de la Morale_, p. 146. [49] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 683. [50] J.R. Forster, _Observations Made During a Voyage Round the World_, 1728, p. 395. [51] Westermarck (_History of Human Marriage_, Ch. IX) ably sets forth this argument, with his usual wealth of illustration. Crawley (_Mystic Rose_, p. 135) seeks to qualify this conclusion by arguing that tattooing, etc., of the sex organs is not for ornament but for the purpose of magically insulating the organs, and is practically a permanent amulet or charm. [52] _Iliad_, II, 262. Waitz gives instances (_Anthropology_, p. 301) showing that nakedness is sometimes a mark of submission. [53] The Celtic races, in their days of developed barbarism, seem to have been relatively free from the idea of proprietorship in women, and it was probably among the Irish (as we learn from the seventeenth century _Itinerary_ of Fynes Moryson) that the habit of nakedness was longest preserved among the upper social class women of Western Europe. [54] A.B. Ellis, _Tshi-Speaking Peoples_, p. 280. [55] Burnet, _Life and Death of Rochester_, p. 110. [56] _L'Année Sociologique_, seventh year, 1904, p. 439. [57] Tallemont des Réaux, who began to write his _Historiettes_ in 1657, says of the Marquise de Rambouillet: "Elle est un peu trop délicate ... on n'oscrait prononcer le mot de _cul_. Cela va dans l'excès." Half a century later, in England, Mandeville, in the Remarks appended to his _Fable of the Bees_, refers to the almost prudish modesty inculcated on children from their earliest years. [58] In one of its civilized developments, this ritualized modesty becomes prudery, which is defined by Forel (_Die Sexuelle Frage_, Fifth ed., p. 125) as "codified sexual morality." Prudery is fossilized modesty, and no longer reacts vitally. True modesty, in an intelligent civilized person, is instinctively affected by motives and circumstances, responding sensitively to its relationships. [59] _Memoires de Madame d'Epinay_, Part I, Ch. V. Thirty years earlier, Mandeville had written, in England, that "the modesty of women is the result of custom and education." [60] Goncourt, _Histoire de la Société Française pendant le Directoire_, p. 422. Clothes became so gauze-like, and receded to such an extent from the limbs, that for a time the chemise was discarded as an awkward and antiquated garment. [61] _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1901, Heft 2, p. 179. [62] In the rural districts of Hanover, Pastor Grashoff states, "even when natural necessities are performed with the greatest possible freedom, there is no offence to modesty, in rural opinion." But he makes a statement which is both contradictory and false, when he adds that "modesty is, to the country man in general, a foreign idea." (_Geschlechtlich-Sittliche Verhältnisse im Deutsche Reiche_, vol. ii, p. 45.) [63] It is frequently stated that prostitutes are devoid of modesty, but this is incorrect; they possess a partial and diminished modesty which, for a considerable period still remains genuine (see e.g., Reuss, _La Prostitution_, p. 58). Lombroso and Ferrero (_La Donna_, p. 540) refer to the objection of prostitutes to be examined during the monthly periods as often greater than that of respectable women. Again, Callari states ("Prostituzione in Sicilia," _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1903, p. 205), that Sicilian prostitutes can only with difficulty be persuaded to expose themselves naked in the practice of their profession. Aretino long since remarked (in _La Pippa_) that no women so detest gratuitous _décolletage_ as prostitutes. When prostitutes do not possess modesty, they frequently simulate it, and Ferriani remarks (in his _Delinquenti Minorenni_) that of ninety-seven minors (mostly females) accused of offences against public decency, seventy-five simulated a modesty which, in his opinion, they were entirely without. III. The Blush the Sanction of Modesty--The Phenomena of Blushing--Influences Which Modify the Aptitude to Blush--Darkness, Concealment of the Face, Etc. It is impossible to contemplate this series of phenomena, so radically persistent whatever its changes of form, and so constant throughout every stage of civilization, without feeling that, although modesty cannot properly be called an instinct, there must be some physiological basis to support it. Undoubtedly such a basis is formed by that vasomotor mechanism of which the most obvious outward sign is, in human beings, the blush. All the allied emotional forms of fear--shame, bashfulness, timidity--are to some extent upheld by this mechanism, but such is especially the case with the emotion we are now concerned with.[64] The blush is the sanction of modesty. The blush is, indeed, only a part, almost, perhaps, an accidental part, of the organic turmoil with which it is associated. Partridge, who has studied the phenomena of blushing in one hundred and twenty cases (_Pedagogical Seminary_, April, 1897), finds that the following are the general symptoms: tremors near the waist, weakness in the limbs, pressure, trembling, warmth, weight or beating in the chest, warm wave from feet upward, quivering of heart, stoppage and then rapid beating of heart, coldness all over followed by heat, dizziness, tingling of toes and fingers, numbness, something rising in throat, smarting of eyes, singing in ears, prickling sensations of face, and pressure inside head. Partridge considers that the disturbance is primarily central, a change in the cerebral circulation, and that the actual redness of the surface comes late in the nerve storm, and is really but a small part of it. There has been some discussion as to why, and indeed how far, blushing is confined to the face. Henle (_Ueber das Erröthen_) thought that we blush in the face because all nervous phenomena produced by mental states appear first in the face, owing to the anatomical arrangement of the nerves of the body. Darwin (_Expression of the Emotions_) argued that attention to a part tends to produce capillary activity in the part, and that the face has been the chief object of attention. It has also been argued, on the other hand, that the blush is the vestigial remains of a general erethism of sex, in which shame originated; that the blush was thus once more widely diffused, and is so still among the women of some lower races, its limitation to the face being due to sexual selection and the enhanced beauty thus achieved. Féré once had occasion to examine, when completely nude, a boy of thirteen whose sexual organs were deformed; when accused of masturbation he became covered by a blush which spread uniformly over his face, neck, body and limbs, before and behind, except only the hands and feet. Féré asks whether such a universal blush is more common than we imagine, or whether the state of nudity favors its manifestation. (_Comptes Rendus, Société de Biologie_, April 1, 1905.) It may be added that Partridge mentions one case in which the hands blushed. The sexual relationships of blushing are unquestionable. It occurs chiefly in women; it attains its chief intensity at puberty and during adolescence; its most common occasion is some more or less sexual suggestion; among one hundred and sixty-two occasions of blushing enumerated by Partridge, by far the most frequent cause was teasing, usually about the other sex. "An erection," it has been said, "is a blushing of the penis." Stanley Hall seems to suggest that the sexual blush is a vicarious genital flushing of blood, diverted from the genital sphere by an inhibition of fear, just as, in girls, giggling is also very frequently a vicarious outlet of shame; the sexual blush would thus be the outcome of an ancestral sex-fear; it is as an irradiation of sexual erethism that the blush may contain an element of pleasure.[65] Bloch remarks that the blush is sexual, because reddening of the face, as well as of the genitals, is an accompaniment of sexual emotion (_Beiträge zur �tiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil II, p. 39). "Do you not think," a correspondent writes, "that the sexual blush, at least, really represents a vaso-relaxor effect quite the same as erection? The embarrassment which arises is due to a perception of this fact under circumstances which are felt to be unsuited for such a condition. There may arise the fear of awakening disgust by the exhibition of a state which is out of place. I have noticed that such a blush is produced when a sufficiently young and susceptible woman is pumped full of compliments. This blush seems accompanied by pleasure which does not always change to fear or disgust, but is felt to be attractive. When discomfort arises, most women say that they feel this because 'it looks as if they had no control over themselves.' When they feel that there is no need for control, they no longer feel fear, and the relaxor effect has a wider field of operation, producing a general rosiness, erection of spinal sexual organs, etc. Such a blush would thus be a partial sexual equivalent, and allow of the inhibition of other sexual effects, through the warning it gives, and the fear aroused, as well as being in itself a slight outlet of relaxor energy. When the relationships of the persons concerned allow freedom to the special sexual stimuli, as in marriage, blushing does not occur so often, and when it does it has not so often the consequent of fear." There can be no doubt that the blush is sexually attractive. The blush is the expression of an impulse to concealment and flight, which tends automatically to arouse in the beholder the corresponding impulse of pursuit, so that the central situation of courtship is at once presented. Women are more or less conscious of this, as well as men, and this recognition is an added source of embarrassment when it cannot become a source of pleasure. The ancient use of rouge testifies to the beauty of the blush, and Darwin stated that, in Turkish slave-markets, the girls who readily blushed fetched the highest prices. To evoke a blush, even by producing embarrassment, is very commonly a cause of masculine gratification. Savages, both men and women, blush even beneath a dusky skin (for the phenomenon of blushing among different races, see Waitz, _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, Bd. I, pp. 149-150), and it is possible that natural selection, as well as sexual selection, has been favorable to the development of the blush. It is scarcely an accident that, as has been often observed, criminals, or the antisocial element of the community--whether by the habits of their lives or by congenital abnormality--blush less easily than normal persons. Kroner (_Das körperliche Gefühl_, 1887, p. 130) remarks: "The origin of a specific connection between shame and blushing is the work of a _social selection_. It is certainly an immediate advantage for a man not to blush; indirectly, however, it is a disadvantage, because in other ways he will be known as shameless, and on that account, as a rule, he will be shut out from propagation. This social selection will be specially exercised on the female sex, and on this account, women blush to a greater extent, and more readily, than men." The importance of the blush, and the emotional confusion behind it, as the sanction of modesty is shown by the significant fact that, by lulling emotional confusion, it is possible to inhibit the sense of modesty. In other words, we are here in the presence of a fear--to a large extent a sex-fear--impelling to concealment, and dreading self-attention; this fear naturally disappears, even though its ostensible cause remains, when it becomes apparent that there is no reason for fear. That is the reason why nakedness in itself has nothing to do with modesty or immodesty; it is the conditions under which the nakedness occurs which determine whether or not modesty will be roused. If none of the factors of modesty are violated, if no embarrassing self-attention is excited, if there is a consciousness of perfect propriety alike in the subject and in the spectator, nakedness is entirely compatible with the most scrupulous modesty. A. Duval, a pupil of Ingres, tells that a female model was once quietly posing, completely nude, at the �cole des Beaux Arts. Suddenly she screamed and ran to cover herself with her garments. She had seen a workman on the roof gazing inquisitively at her through a skylight.[66] And Paola Lombroso describes how a lady, a diplomatist's wife, who went to a gathering where she found herself the only woman in evening dress, felt, to her own surprise, such sudden shame that she could not keep back her tears. It thus comes about that the emotion of modesty necessarily depends on the feelings of the people around. The absence of the emotion by no means signifies immodesty, provided that the reactions of modesty are at once set in motion under the stress of a spectator's eye that is seen to be lustful, inquisitive, or reproachful. This is proved to be the case among primitive peoples everywhere. The Japanese woman, naked as in daily life she sometimes is, remains unconcerned because she excites no disagreeable attention, but the inquisitive and unmannerly European's eye at once causes her to feel confusion. Stratz, a physician, and one, moreover, who had long lived among the Javanese who frequently go naked, found that naked Japanese women felt no embarrassment in his presence. It is doubtless as a cloak to the blush that we must explain the curious influence of darkness in restraining the manifestations of modesty, as many lovers have discovered, and as we may notice in our cities after dark. This influence of darkness in inhibiting modesty is a very ancient observation. Burton, in the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, quotes from Dandinus the saying "_Nox facit impudentes_," directly associating this with blushing, and Bargagli, the Siennese novelist, wrote in the sixteenth century that, "it is commonly said of women, that they will do in the dark what they would not do in the light." It is true that the immodesty of a large city at night is to some extent explained by the irruption of prostitutes at that time; prostitutes, being habitually nearer to the threshold of immodesty, are more markedly affected by this influence. But it is an influence to which the most modest women are, at all events in some degree, susceptible. It has, indeed, been said that a woman is always more her real self in the dark than in the glare of daylight; this is part of what Chamberlain calls her night-inspiration. "Traces of the night-inspiration, of the influence of the primitive fire-group, abound in woman. Indeed, it may be said (the life of Southern Europe and of American society of to-day illustrates this point abundantly) that she is, in a sense, a night-being, for the activity, physical and moral, of modern women (revealed e.g. in the dance and the nocturnal intellectualities of society) in this direction is remarkable. Perhaps we may style a good deal of her ordinary day-labor as rest, or the commonplaces and banalities of her existence, her evening and night life being the true side of her activities" (A.F. Chamberlain, "Work and Rest," _Popular Science Monthly_, March, 1902). Giessler, who has studied the general influence of darkness on human psychic life, reaches conclusions which harmonize with these (C.M. Giessler, "Der Einfluss der Dunkelheit auf das Seelenleben des Menschen," _Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie_, 1904, pp. 255-279). I have not been able to see Giessler's paper, but, according to a summary of it, he comes to the result that in the dark the soul's activities are nearer to its motor pole than to its sensitive pole, and that there is a tendency for phenomena belonging to the early period of development to be prominent, motor memory functioning more than representative memory, attention more than apperception, imagination more than logical thinking, egoistic more than altruistic morals. It is curious to note that short-sightedness, naturally, though illogically, tends to exert the same influence as darkness in this respect; I am assured by short-sighted persons of both sexes that they are much more liable to the emotions of shyness and modesty with their glasses than without them; such persons with difficulty realize that they are not so dim to others as others are to them. To be in the company of a blind person seems also to be a protection against shyness.[67] It is interesting to learn that congenitally blind children are as sensitive to appearances as normal children, and blush as readily.[68] This would seem to be due to the fact that the habitually blind have permanently adjusted their mental focus to that of normal persons, and react in the same manner as normal persons; blindness is not for them, as it is for the short-sighted without their glasses, a temporary and relative, almost unconscious refuge from clear vision. It is, of course, not as the mere cloak of a possible blush that darkness gives courage; it is because it lulls detailed self-realization, such conscious self-realization being always a source of fears, and the blush their definite symbol and visible climax. It is to the blush that we must attribute a curious complementary relationship between the face and the sacro-pubic region as centres of anatomical modesty. The women of some African tribes who go naked, Emin Bey remarked, cover the face with the hand under the influence of modesty. Martial long since observed (Lib. iii, LXVIII) that when an innocent girl looks at the penis she gazes through her fingers. Where, as among many Mohammedan peoples, the face is the chief focus of modesty, the exposure of the rest of the body, including sometimes even the sacro-pubic region, and certainly the legs and thighs, often becomes a matter of indifference.[69] This concealment of the face is more than a convention; it has a psychological basis. We may observe among ourselves the well-marked feminine tendency to hide the face in order to cloak a possible blush, and to hide the eyes as a method of lulling self-consciousness, a method fabulously attributed to the ostrich with the same end of concealment.[70] A woman who is shy with her lover will sometimes experience little or no difficulty in showing any part of her person provided she may cover her face. When, in gynecological practice, examination of the sexual organs is necessary, women frequently find evident satisfaction in concealing the face with the hands, although not the slightest attention is being directed toward the face, and when an unsophisticated woman is betrayed into a confession which affects her modesty she is apt to turn her back to her interlocutor. "When the face of woman is covered," it has been said, "her heart is bared," and the Catholic Church has recognized this psychological truth by arranging that in the confessional the penitent's face shall not be visible. The gay and innocent freedom of southern women during Carnival is due not entirely to the permitted license of the season or the concealment of identity, but to the mask that hides the face. In England, during Queen Elizabeth's reign and at the Restoration, it was possible for respectable women to be present at the theatre, even during the performance of the most free-spoken plays, because they wore masks. The fan has often subserved a similar end.[71] All such facts serve to show that, though the forms of modesty may change, it is yet a very radical constituent of human nature in all stages of civilization, and that it is, to a large extent, maintained by the mechanism of blushing. FOOTNOTES: [64] Melinaud ("Pourquoi Rougit-on?" _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1 Octobre, 1893) points out that blushing is always associated with fear, and indicates, in the various conditions under which it may arise,--modesty, timidity, confusion,--that we have something to conceal which we fear may be discovered. "All the evidence," Partridge states, "seems to point to the conclusion that the mental state underlying blushing belongs to the fear family. The presence of the feeling of dread, the palpitation of the heart, the impulse to escape, to hide, the shock, all confirms this view." [65] G. Stanley Hall, "A Study of Fears," _American Journal Psychology_, 1897. [66] Men are also very sensitive to any such inquisitiveness on the part of the opposite sex. To this cause, perhaps, and possibly, also, to the fear of causing disgust, may be ascribed the objection of men to undress before women artists and women doctors. I am told there is often difficulty in getting men to pose nude to women artists. Sir Jonathan Hutchinson was compelled, some years ago, to exclude lady members of the medical profession from the instructive demonstrations at his museum, "on account of the unwillingness of male patients to undress before them." A similar unwillingness is not found among women patients, but it must be remembered that, while women are accustomed to men as doctors, men (in England) are not yet accustomed to women as doctors. [67] "I am acquainted with the case of a shy man," writes Dr. Harry Campbell, in his interesting study of "Morbid Shyness" (_British Medical Journal_, September 26, 1896), "who will make himself quite at home in the house of a blind person, and help himself to wine with the utmost confidence, whereas if a member of the family, who can see, comes into the room, all his old shyness returns, and he wishes himself far away." [68] Stanley Hall ("Showing Off and Bashfulness," _Pedagogical Seminary_, June, 1903), quotes Dr. Anagnos, of the Perkins Institute for the Blind, to this effect. [69] Thus, Sonnini, in the eighteenth century, noted that the country women in Egypt only wore a single garment, open from the armpits to the knees on each side, so that it revealed the body at every movement; "but this troubles the women little, provided the face is not exposed." (_Voyage dans la Haute et Basse Egypte_, 1779, vol. i, p, 289.) When Casanova was at Constantinople, the Comte de Bonneval, a convert to Islam, assured him that he was mistaken in trying to see a woman's face when he might easily obtain greater favors from her. "The most reserved of Turkish women," the Comte assured him, "only carries her modesty in her face, and as soon as her veil is on she is sure that she will never blush at anything." (_Mémoires_, vol. i, p. 429.) [70] It is worth noting that this impulse is rooted in the natural instinctive acts and ideas of childhood. Stanley Hall, dealing with the "Early Sense of Self," in the report already mentioned, refers to the eyes as perhaps even more than the hands, feet, and mouth, "the centres of that kind of self-consciousness which is always mindful of how the self appears to others," and proceeds to mention "the very common impression of young children that if the eyes are covered or closed they cannot be seen. Some think the entire body thus vanishes from sight of others; some, that the head also ceases to be visible; and a still higher form of this curious psychosis is that, when they are closed, the soul cannot be seen." (_American Journal of Psychology_, vol. ix, No. 3, 1898.) The instinctive and unreasoned character of this act is further shown by its occurrence in idiots. Näcke mentions that he once had occasion to examine the abdomen of an idiot, who, thereupon, attempted to draw down his shirt with the left hand, while with the right he covered his eyes. [71] Cf. Stanley Hall and T. Smith, "Showing Off and Bashfulness," _American Journal of Psychology_, June, 1903. IV. Summary of the Factors of Modesty--The Future of Modesty--Modesty an Essential Element of Love. We have seen that the factors of modesty are numerous. To attempt to explain modesty by dismissing it as merely an example of psychic paralysis, of _Stauung_, is to elude the problem by the statement of what is little more than a truism. Modesty is a complexus of emotions with their concomitant ideas which we must unravel to comprehend. We have found among the factors of modesty: (1) the primitive animal gesture of sexual refusal on the part of the female when she is not at that moment of her generative life at which she desires the male's advances; (2) the fear of arousing disgust, a fear primarily due to the close proximity of the sexual centre to the points of exit of those excretions which are useless and unpleasant, even in many cases to animals; (3) the fear of the magic influence of sexual phenomena, and the ceremonial and ritual practices primarily based on this fear, and ultimately passing into simple rules of decorum which are signs and guardians of modesty; (4) the development of ornament and clothing, concomitantly fostering alike the modesty which represses male sexual desire and the coquetry which seeks to allure it; (5) the conception of women as property, imparting a new and powerful sanction to an emotion already based on more natural and primitive facts. It must always be remembered that these factors do not usually occur separately. Very often they are all of them implied in a single impulse of modesty. We unravel the cord in order to investigate its construction, but in real life the strands are more or less indistinguishably twisted together. It may still be asked finally whether, on the whole, modesty really becomes a more prominent emotion as civilization advances. I do not think this position can be maintained. It is a great mistake, as we have seen, to suppose that in becoming extended modesty also becomes intensified. On the contrary, this very extension is a sign of weakness. Among savages, modesty is far more radical and invincible than among the civilized. Of the Araucanian women of Chile, Treutler has remarked that they are distinctly more modest than the Christian white population, and such observations might be indefinitely extended. It is, as we have already noted, in a new and crude civilization, eager to mark its separation from a barbarism it has yet scarcely escaped, that we find an extravagant and fantastic anxiety to extend the limits of modesty in life, and art, and literature. In older and more mature civilizations--in classical antiquity, in old Japan, in France--modesty, while still a very real influence, becomes a much less predominant and all-pervading influence. In life it becomes subservient to human use, in art to beauty, in literature to expression. Among ourselves we may note that modesty is a much more invincible motive among the lower social classes than among the more cultivated classes. This is so even when we should expect the influence of occupation to induce familiarity. Thus I have been told of a ballet-girl who thinks it immodest to bathe in the fashion customary at the seaside, and cannot make up her mind to do so, but she appears on the stage every night in tights as a matter of course; while Fanny Kemble, in her _Reminiscences_, tells of an actress, accustomed to appear in tights, who died a martyr to modesty rather than allow a surgeon to see her inflamed knee. Modesty is, indeed, a part of self-respect, but in the fully-developed human being self-respect itself holds in check any excessive modesty.[72] We must remember, moreover, that there are more definite grounds for the subordination of modesty with the development of civilization. We have seen that the factors of modesty are many, and that most of them are based on emotions which make little urgent appeal save to races in a savage or barbarous condition. Thus, disgust, as Richet has truly pointed out, necessarily decreases as knowledge increases.[73] As we analyze and understand our experiences better, so they cause us less disgust. A rotten egg is disgusting, but the chemist feels no disgust toward sulphuretted hydrogen; while a solution of propylamin does not produce the disgusting impression of that human physical uncleanliness of which it is an odorous constituent. As disgust becomes analyzed, and as self-respect tends to increased physical purity, so the factor of disgust in modesty is minimized. The factor of ceremonial uncleanness, again, which plays so urgent a part in modesty at certain stages of culture, is to-day without influence except in so far as it survives in etiquette. In the same way the social-economic factor of modesty, based on the conception of women as property, belongs to a stage of human development which is wholly alien to an advanced civilization. Even the most fundamental impulse of all, the gesture of sexual refusal, is normally only imperative among animals and savages. Thus civilization tends to subordinate, if not to minimize, modesty, to render it a grace of life rather than a fundamental social law of life. But an essential grace of life it still remains, and whatever delicate variations it may assume we can scarcely conceive of its disappearance. In the art of love, however, it is more than a grace; it must always be fundamental. Modesty is not indeed the last word of love, but it is the necessary foundation for all love's most exquisite audacities, the foundation which alone gives worth and sweetness to what Sénancour calls its "delicious impudence."[74] Without modesty we could not have, nor rightly value at its true worth, that bold and pure candor which is at once the final revelation of love and the seal of its sincerity. Even Hohenemser--who argues that for the perfect man there could be no shame, because shame rests on an inner conflict in one's own personality, and "the perfect man knows no inner conflict"--believes that, since humanity is imperfect, modesty possesses a high and, indeed, symptomatic value, for "its presence shows that according to the measure of a man's ideal personality, his valuations are established." Dugas goes further, and asserts that the ideals of modesty develop with human development, and forever take on new and finer forms. "There is," he declares, "a very close relationship between naturalness, or sincerity, and modesty, for in love, naturalness is the ideal attained, and modesty is only the fear of coming short of that ideal. Naturalness is the sign and the test of perfect love. It is the sign of it, for, when love can show itself natural and true, one may conclude that it is purified of its unavowable imperfections or defects, of its alloy of wretched and petty passions, its grossness, its chimerical notions, that it has become strong and healthy and vigorous. It is the ordeal of it, for to show itself natural, to be always true, without shrinking, it must have all the lovable qualities, and have them without seeking, as a second nature. What we call 'natural,' is indeed really acquired; it is the gift of a physical and moral evolution which it is precisely the object of modesty to keep. Modesty is the feeling of the true, that is to say, of the healthy, in love; it long exists as a vision, not yet attained; vague, yet sufficiently clear for all that deviates from it to be repelled as offensive and painful. At first, a remote and seemingly inaccessible ideal, as it comes nearer it grows human and individual, and emerges from the region of dream, ceasing not to be loved as ideal, even when it is possessed as real. "At first sight, it seems paradoxical to define modesty as an aspiration towards truth in love; it seems, on the contrary, to be an altogether factitious feeling. But to simplify the problem, we have to suppose modesty reduced to its normal functions, disengaged from its superstitions, its variegated customs and prejudices, the true modesty of simple and healthy natures, as far removed from prudery as from immodesty. And what we term the natural, or the true in love, is the singular mingling of two forms of imaginations, wrongly supposed to be incompatible: ideal aspiration and the sense for the realities of life. Thus defined, modesty not only repudiates that cold and dissolving criticism which deprives love of all poetry, and prepares the way for a brutal realism; it also excludes that light and detached imagination which floats above love, the mere idealism of heroic sentiments, which cherishes poetic illusions, and passes, without seeing it, the love that is real and alive. True modesty implies a love not addressed to the heroes of vain romances, but to living people, with their feet on the earth. But on the other hand, modesty is the respect of love; if it is not shocked by its physical necessities, if it accepts physiological and psychological conditions, it also maintains the ideal of those moral proprieties outside of which, for all of us, love cannot be enjoyed. When love is really felt, and not vainly imagined, modesty is the requirement of an ideal of dignity, conceived as the very condition of that love. Separate modesty from love, that is, from love which is not floating in the air, but crystallized around a real person, and its psychological reality, its poignant and tragic character, disappears." (Dugas, "La Pudeur," _Revue Philosophique_, Nov., 1903.) So conceived, modesty becomes a virtue, almost identical with the Roman _modestia_. FOOTNOTES: [72] Freud remarks that one may often hear, concerning elderly ladies, that in their youth in the country, they suffered, almost to collapse, from hæmorrhages from the genital passage, because they were too modest to seek medical advice and examination; he adds that it is extremely rare to find such an attitude among our young women to-day. (S. Freud, _Zur Neurosenlehre_, 1906, p. 182.) It would be easy to find evidence of the disappearance of misplaced signs of modesty formerly prevalent, although this mark of increasing civilization has not always penetrated to our laws and regulations. [73] "Disgust," he remarks, "is a sort of synthesis which attaches to the total form of objects, and which must diminish and disappear as scientific analysis separates into parts what, as a whole, is so repugnant." [74] Sénancour, _De l'Amour_, 1834, vol. i, p. 316. He remarks that a useless and false reserve is due to stupidity rather than to modesty. THE PHENOMENA OF SEXUAL PERIODICITY. I. The Various Physiological and Psychological Rhythms--Menstruation--The Alleged Influence of the Moon--Frequent Suppression of Menstruation among Primitive Races--Mittelschmerz--Possible Tendency to a Future Intermenstrual Cycle--Menstruation among Animals--Menstruating Monkeys and Apes--What is Menstruation--Its Primary Cause Still Obscure--The Relation of Menstruation to Ovulation--The Occasional Absence of Menstruation in Health--The Relation of Menstruation to "Heat"--The Prohibition of Intercourse during Menstruation--The Predominance of Sexual Excitement at and around the Menstrual Period--Its Absence during the Period Frequently Apparent only. Throughout the vegetable and animal worlds the sexual functions are periodic. From the usually annual period of flowering in plants, with its play of sperm-cell and germ-cell and consequent seed-production, through the varying sexual energies of animals, up to the monthly effervescence of the generative organism in woman, seeking not without the shedding of blood for the gratification of its reproductive function, from first to last we find unfailing evidence of the periodicity of sex. At first the sun, and then, as some have thought, the moon, have marked throughout a rhythmic impress on the phenomena of sex. To understand these phenomena we have not only to recognize the bare existence of that periodic fact, but to realize its implications. Rhythm, it is scarcely necessary to remark, is far from characterizing sexual activity alone. It is the character of all biological activity, alike on the physical and the psychic sides. All the organs of the body appear to be in a perpetual process of rhythmic contraction and expansion. The heart is rhythmic, so is the respiration. The spleen is rhythmic, so also the bladder. The uterus constantly undergoes regular rhythmic contractions at brief intervals. The vascular system, down to the smallest capillaries, is acted on by three series of vibrations, and every separate fragment of muscular tissue possesses rhythmic contractility. Growth itself is rhythmic, and, as Malling-Hansen and subsequent observers have found, follows a regular annual course as well as a larger cycle. On the psychic sides attention is rhythmic. We are always irresistibly compelled to impart a rhythm to every succession of sounds, however uniform and monotonous. A familiar example of this is the rhythm we can seldom refrain from hearing in the puffing of an engine. A series of experiments, by Bolton, on thirty subjects showed that the clicks of an electric telephone connected in an induction-apparatus nearly always fell into rhythmic groups, usually of two or four, rarely of three or five, the rhythmic perception being accompanied by a strong impulse to make corresponding muscular movements.[75] It is, however, with the influence--to some extent real, to some extent, perhaps, only apparent--of cosmic rhythm that we are here concerned. The general tendency, physical and psychic, of nervous action to fall into rhythm is merely interesting from the present point of view as showing a biological predisposition to accept any periodicity that is habitually imposed upon the organism.[76] Menstruation has always been associated with the lunar revolutions.[77] Darwin, without specifically mentioning menstruation, has suggested that the explanation of the allied cycle of gestation in mammals, as well as incubation in birds, may be found in the condition under which ascidians live at high and low water in consequence of the phenomena of tidal change.[78] It must, however, be remembered that the ascidian origin of the vertebrates has since been contested from many sides, and, even if we admit that at all events some such allied conditions in the early history of vertebrates and their ancestors tended to impress a lunar cycle on the race, it must still be remembered that the monthly periodicity of menstruation only becomes well marked in the human species.[79] Bearing in mind the influence exerted on both the habits and the emotions even of animals by the brightness of moonlight nights, it is perhaps not extravagant to suppose that, on organisms already ancestrally predisposed to the influence of rhythm in general and of cosmic rhythm in particular, the periodically recurring full moon, not merely by its stimulation of the nervous system, but possibly by the special opportunities which it gave for the exercise of the sexual functions, served to implant a lunar rhythm on menstruation. How important such a factor may be we have evidence in the fact that the daily life of even the most civilized peoples is still regulated by a weekly cycle which is apparently a segment of the cosmic lunar cycle. Mantegazza has suggested that the sexual period became established with relation to the lunar period because moonlight nights were favorable to courting,[80] and Nelson remarks that in his experience young and robust persons are subject to recurrent periods of wakefulness at night which they attribute to the action of the full moon. One may perhaps refer also to the tendency of bright moonlight to stir the emotions of the young, especially at puberty, a tendency which in neurotic persons may become almost morbid.[81] It is interesting to point out that, the farther back we are able to trace the beginnings of culture, the more important we find the part played by the moon. Next to the alteration of day and night, the moon's changes are the most conspicuous and startling phenomena of Nature; they first suggest a basis for reckoning time; they are of the greatest use in primitive agriculture; and everywhere the moon is held to have vast influence on the whole of organic life. Hahn has suggested that the reason why mythological systems do not usually present the moon in the supreme position which we should expect, is that its immense importance is so ancient a fact that it tends, with mythological development, to become overlaid by other elements.[82] According to Seler, Quetzalcouatl and Tezeatlipoca, the two most considerable figures in the Mexican pantheon, are to be regarded mainly as complementary forms of the moon divinity, and the moon was the chief Mexican measurer of time.[83] Even in Babylonia, where the sun was most specially revered, at the earliest period the moon ranked higher, being gradually superseded by the worship of the sun.[84] Although such considerations as these will by no means take us as far back as the earliest appearance of menstruation, they may serve to indicate that the phases of the moon probably played a large part in the earliest evolution of man. With that statement we must at present rest content. It is possible that the monthly character of menstruation, while representing a general tendency of the human race, always and everywhere prevalent, may be modified in the future. It is a noteworthy fact that among many primitive races menstruation only occurs at long intervals. Thus among Eskimo women menstruation follows the peculiar cosmic conditions to which the people are subjected; Cook, the ethnologist of the Peary North Greenland expedition, found that menstruation only began after the age of nineteen, and that it was usually suppressed during the winter months, when there is no sun, only about one in ten women continuing to menstruate during this period.[85] It was stated by Velpeau that Lapland and Greenland women usually only menstruate every three months, or even only two or three times during the year. On the Faroe Islands it is said that menstruation is frequently absent. Among the Samoyeds, Mantegazza mentions that menstruation is so slight that some travelers have denied its existence. Azara noted among the Guaranis of Paraguay that menstruation was not only slight in amount, but the periods were separated by long intervals. Among the Indians in North America, again, menstruation appears to be scanty. Thus, Holder, speaking of his experience with the Crow Indians of Montana, says: "I am quite sure that full-blood Indians in this latitude do not menstruate so freely as white women, not usually exceeding three days."[86] Among the naked women of Tierra del Fuego, it is said that there is often no physical sign of the menses for six months at a time. These observations are noteworthy, though they clearly indicate, on the whole, that primitiveness in race is a very powerless factor without a cold climate. On the other hand, again, there is some reason to suppose that in Europe there is a latent tendency in some women for the menstrual cycle to split up further into two cycles, by the appearance of a latent minor climax in the middle of the monthly interval. I allude to the phenomenon usually called _Mittelschmerz_, middle period, or intermenstrual pain. Since the investigations of Goodman, Stephenson, Van Ott, Reinl, Jacobi, and others, it has been generally recognized that menstruation is a continuous process, the flow being merely the climax of a menstrual cycle, a physiological wave which is in constant flux or reflux. This cycle manifests itself in all a woman's activities, in metabolism, respiration, temperature, etc., as well as on the nervous and psychic side. The healthier the woman is, the less conscious is the cyclic return of her life, but the cycle may be traced (as Hegar has found) even before puberty takes place, while Salerni has found that even in amenorrhoea the menstrual cycle still manifests itself in the temperature and respiration. (_Rivista Sperimentale di Freniatria_, XXX, fasc. 2-3.) For a summary of the phenomena of the menstrual cycle, see Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth ed., revised and enlarged, Ch. XI; "The Functional Periodicity of Women." Cf. Keller, _Archives Générales de Médecine_, May, 1897; Hegar, _Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, 1901, Heft 2 and 3; Helen MacMurchy, _Lancet_, Oct. 5. 1901; A.E. Giles, _Transactions Obstetrical Society London_, vol. xxxix, p. 115, etc. _Mittelschmerz_ is a condition of pain occurring about the middle of the intermenstrual period, either alone or accompanied by a slight sanguineous discharge, or, more frequently, a non-sanguineous discharge. (In a case described by Van Voornveld, the manifestation was confined to a regularly occurring rise of temperature.) The phenomenon varies, but seems usually to occur about the fourteenth day, and to last two or three days. Laycock, in 1840 (_Nervous Diseases of Women_, p. 46), gave instances of women with an intermenstrual period. Depaul and Guéniot (_Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_, Art., "Menstruation," p. 694) speak of intermenstrual symptoms, and even actual flow, as occurring in women who are in a perfect state of health, and constituting genuine "_règles surnuméraries_." The condition is, however, said to have been first fully described by Valleix; then, in 18725 by Sir William Priestley; and subsequently by Fehling, Fasbender, Sorel, Halliday Croom, Findley, Addinsell, and others. (See, for instance, "Mittelschmerz," by J. Halliday Croom, _Transactions of Edinburgh Obstetrical Society_, vol. xxi, 1896. Also, Krieger, _Menstruation_, pp. 68-69.) Fliess (_Die Beziehungen zwischen Nase und weiblichen Geschlechts-Organen_, p. 118) goes so far as to assert that an intermenstrual period of menstrual symptoms--which he terms _Nebenmenstruation_--is "a phenomenon well known to most healthy women." Observations are at present too few to allow any definite conclusions, and in some of the cases so far recorded a pathological condition of the sexual organs has been found to exist. Rosner, of Cracow, however, found that only in one case out of twelve was there any disease present (_La Gynécologie_, June, 1905), and Storer, who has met with twenty cases, insists on the remarkable and definite regularity of the manifestations, wholly unlike those of neuralgia (_Boston Medical and Surgical Journal_, April 19, 1900). There is no agreement as to the cause of _Mittelschmerz_. Addinsell attributed it to disease of the Fallopian tubes. This, however, is denied by such competent authorities as Cullingworth and Bland Sutton. Others, like Priestley, and subsequently Marsh (_American Journal of Obstetrics_, July, 1897), have sought to find the explanation in the occurrence of ovulation. This theory is, however, unsupported by facts, and eventually rests on the exploded belief that ovulation is the cause of menstruation. Rosner, following Richelet, vaguely attributes it to the diffused hyperæmia which is generally present. Van de Velde also attributes it to an abnormal fall of vascular tone, causing passive congestion of the pelvic viscera. Others again, like Armand Routh and MacLean, in the course of an interesting discussion on _Mittelschmerz_ at the Obstetric Society of London, on the second day of March, 1898, believe that we may trace here a double menstruation, and would explain the phenomenon by assuming that in certain cases there is an intermenstrual as well as a menstrual cycle. The question is not yet ripe for settlement, though it is fully evident that, looking broadly at the phenomena of rut and menstruation, the main basis of their increasing frequency as we rise toward civilized man is increase of nutrition, heat and sunlight being factors of nutrition. When dealing with civilized man, however, we are probably concerned not merely with general nutrition, but with the nervous direction of that nutrition. At this stage it is natural to inquire what the corresponding phenomena are among animals. Unfortunately, imperfect as is our comprehension of the human phenomena, our knowledge of the corresponding phenomena among animals is much more fragmentary and incomplete. Among most animals menstruation does not exist, being replaced by what is known as heat, or oestrus, which usually occurs once or twice a year, in spring and in autumn, sometimes affecting the male as well as the female.[87] There is, however, a great deal of progression in the upward march of the phenomena, as we approach our own and allied zoölogical series. Heat in domesticated cows usually occurs every three weeks. The female hippopotamus in the Zoölogical Gardens has been observed to exhibit monthly sexual excitement, with swelling and secretion from the vulva. Progression is not only toward greater frequency with higher evolution or with increased domestication, but there is also a change in the character of the flow. As Wiltshire,[88] in his remarkable lectures on the "Comparative Physiology of Menstruation," asserted as a law, the more highly evolved the animal, the more sanguineous the catamenial flow. It is not until we reach the monkeys that this character of the flow becomes well marked. Monthly sanguineous discharges have been observed among many monkeys. In the seventeenth century various observers in many parts of the world--Bohnius, Peyer, Helbigius, Van der Wiel, and others--noted menstruation in monkeys.[89] Buffon observed it among various monkeys as well as in the orang-utan. J.G. St. Hilaire and Cuvier, many years ago, declared that menstruation exists among a variety of monkeys and lower apes. Rengger described a vaginal discharge in a species of cebus in Paraguay, while Raciborski observed in the Jardin des Plantes that the menstrual hæmorrhage in guenons was so abundant that the floor of the cage was covered by it to a considerable extent; the same variety of monkey was observed at Surinam, by Hill, a surgeon in the Dutch army, who noted an abundant sanguineous flow occurring at every new moon, and lasting about three days, the animal at this time also showing signs of sexual excitement.[90] The macaque and the baboon appear to be the non-human animals, in which menstruation has been most carefully observed. In the former, besides the flow, Bland Sutton remarks that "all the naked or pale-colored parts of the body, such as the face, neck, and ischial regions, assume a lively pink color; in some cases, it is a vivid red."[91] The flow is slight, but the coloring lasts several days, and in warm weather the labia are much swollen. Heape[92] has most fully and carefully described menstruation in monkeys. He found at Calcutta that the _Macacus cynomolgus_ menstruated regularly on the 20th of December, 20th of January, and about the 20th of February. The _Cynocephalus porcaria_ and the _Semnopithecus entellus_ both menstruated each month for about four days. In the _Macaci rhesus_ and _cynomolgus_ at menstruation "the nipples and vulva become swollen and deeply congested, and the skin of the buttocks swollen, tense, and of a brilliant-red or even purple color. The abdominal wall also, for a short space upward, and the inside of the thighs, sometimes as far down as the heel, and the under surface of the tail for half its length or more, are all colored a vivid red, while the skin of the face, especially about the eyes, is flushed or blotched with red." In late gestation the coloring is still more vivid. Something similar is to be seen in the males also. Distant, who kept a female baboon for some time, has recorded the dates of menstruation during a year. He found that nine periods occurred during the year. The average length between the periods was nearly six weeks, but they occurred more frequently in the late autumn and the winter than in the summer.[93] It is an interesting fact, Heape noted, that, notwithstanding menstruation, the seasonal influence, or rut, still persisted in the monkeys he investigated. In the anthropoid apes, Hartmann remarks that several observers have recorded periodic menstruation in the chimpanzee, with flushing and enlargement of the external parts, and protrusion of the external lips, which are not usually visible, while there is often excessive enlargement and reddening of these parts and of the posterior callosities during sexual excitement. Very little, however, appears to be definitely known regarding any form of menstruation in the higher apes. M. Deniker, who has made a special study of the anthropoid apes, informs me that he has so far been unable to make definite observations regarding the existence of menstruation. Moll remarks that he received information regarding such a phenomenon in the orang-utan. A pair of orang-utans was kept in the Berlin Zoölogical Gardens some years ago, and the female was stated to have at intervals a menstrual flow resembling that of women, and during this period to refrain from sexual congress, which was otherwise usually exercised at regular intervals, at least every two or three days; Moll adds, however, that, while his informant is a reliable man, the length of time that has elapsed may have led him to make mistakes in details. Keith, in a paper read before the Zoölogical Society of London, has described menstruation in a chimpanzee; it occurred every twenty-third or twenty-fourth day, and lasted for three days; the discharge was profuse, and first appeared in about the ninth or tenth year.[94] What is menstruation? It is easy to describe it, by its obvious symptoms, as a monthly discharge of blood from the uterus, but nearly as much as that was known in the infancy of the world. When we seek to probe more intimately into the nature of menstruation we are still baffled, not merely as regards its cause, but even as regards its precise mechanism. "The primary cause of menstruation remains unexplained"; "the cause of menstruation remains as obscure as ever"; so conclude two of the most thorough and cautious investigators into this subject.[95] It is, however, widely accepted that the main cause of menstruation is a rhythmic contraction of the uterus,--the result of a disappointed preparation for impregnation,--a kind of miniature childbirth. This seems to be the most reasonable view of menstruation; i.e., as an abortion of a decidua. Burdach (according to Beard) was the first who described menstruation as an abortive parturition. "The hypothesis," Marshall and Jolly conclude, "that the entire pro-oestrous process is of the nature of a preparation for the lodgment of the ovum is in accordance with the facts."[96] Fortunately, since we are here primarily concerned with its psychological aspects, the precise biological cause and physiological nature of menstruation do not greatly concern us. There is, however, one point which of late years has been definitely determined, and which should not be passed without mention: the relation of menstruation to ovulation. It was once supposed that the maturation of an ovule in the ovaries was the necessary accompaniment, and even cause, of menstruation. We now know that ovulation proceeds throughout the whole of life, even before birth, and during gestation,[97] and that removal of the ovaries by no means necessarily involves a cessation of menstruation. It has been shown that regular and even excessive menstruation may take place in the congenital absence of a trace of ovaries or Fallopian tubes.[98] On the other hand, a rudimentary state of the uterus, and a complete absence of menstruation, may exist with well-developed ovaries and normal ovulation.[99] We must regard the uterus as to some extent an independent organ, and menstruation as a process which arose, no doubt, with the object, teleologically speaking, of cooperating more effectively with ovulation, but has become largely independent.[100] It is sometimes stated that menstruation may be entirely absent in perfect health. Few cases of this condition have, however, been recorded with the detail necessary to prove the assertion. One such case was investigated by Dr. H.W. Mitchell, and described in a paper read to the New York County Medical Society, February 22, 1892 (to be found in _Medical Reprints_, June, 1892). The subject was a young, unmarried woman, 24 years of age. She was born in Ireland, and, until her emigration, lived quietly at home with her parents. Being then twenty years of age, she left home and came to New York. Up to that time no signs of menstruation had appeared, and she had never heard that such a function existed. Soon after her arrival in New York, she obtained a situation as a waiting-maid, and it was noticed, after a time, that she was not unwell at each month. Friends filled her ears with wild stories about the dreadful effects likely to follow the absence of menstruation. This worried her greatly, and as a consequence she became pale and anæmic, with loss of flesh, appetite, and sleep, and a long train of imaginary nervous symptoms. She presented herself for treatment, and insisted upon a uterine examination. This revealed no pathological condition of her uterus. She was assured that she would not die, or become insane, nor a chronic invalid. In consequence she soon forgot that she differed in any way from other girls. A course of chalybeate tonics, generous diet, and proper care of her general health, soon restored her to her normal condition. After close observation for several years, she submitted to a thorough examination, although entirely free from any abnormal symptoms. The examination revealed the following physical condition: Weight, 105 pounds (her weight before leaving Ireland was 130); girth of chest, twenty-nine and a half inches; girth of abdomen, twenty-five inches; girth of pelvis, thirty-four and a half inches; girth of thigh, upper third, twenty inches; heart healthy, sounds and rhythm perfectly normal; pulse, 76; lungs healthy; respiratory murmur clear and distinct over every part; respiration, easy and twenty per minute; the mammæ are well developed, firm, and round; nipples, small, no areola; her skin is soft, smooth, and healthy; figure erect, plump, and symmetrical; her bowels are regular; kidneys, healthy. She has a good appetite, sleeps well, and in no particular shows any sign of ill health. The uterine examination reveals a short vagina, and a small, round cervix uteri, rather less in size than the average, and projecting very slightly into the vaginal canal. Depth of uterus from os to fundus, two and a quarter inches, is very nearly normal. No external sign of abnormal ovaries. She is a well-developed, healthy young woman, performing all her physiological functions naturally and regularly, except the single function of menstruation. No vicarious menstruation takes the place of the natural function, though she has been watched very closely during the past two years, nor the least periodical excitement. It is added that, though the clitoris is normal, the mons veneris is almost destitute of hair, and the labia rather undeveloped, while, "as far as is known," sexual instincts and desire are entirely absent. These latter facts, I may add, would seem to suggest that, in spite of the health of the subject, there is yet some concealed lack of development of the sexual system, of congenital character. In a case recorded by Plant (_Centralblatt für Gynäkologie_, No. 9, 1896, summarized in the _British Medical Journal_, April 4, 1896), in which the internal sexual organs were almost wholly undeveloped, and menstruation absent, the labia were similarly undeveloped, and the pubic hair scanty, while the axillary hair was wholly absent, though that of the head was long and strong. We may now regard as purely academic the discussion formerly carried on as to whether menstruation is to be regarded as analogous to heat in female animals. For many centuries at least the resemblance has been sufficiently obvious. Raciborski and Pouchet, who first established the regular periodicity of ovulation in mammals, identified heat and menstruation.[101] During the past century there was, notwithstanding, an occasional tendency to deny any real connection. No satisfactory grounds for this denial have, however, been brought forward. Lawson Tait, indeed, and more recently Beard, have stated that menstruation cannot be the period of heat, because women have a disinclination to the approach of the male at that time.[102] But, as we shall see later, this statement is unfounded. An argument which might, indeed, be brought forward is the very remarkable fact that, while in animals the period of heat is the only period for sexual intercourse, among all human races, from the very lowest, the period of menstruation is the one period during which sexual intercourse is strictly prohibited, sometimes under severe penalties, even life itself. This, however, is a social, not a physiological, fact. Ploss and Bartels call attention to the curious contrast, in this respect, between heat and menstruation. The same authors also mention that in the Middle Ages, however, preachers found it necessary to warn their hearers against the sin of intercourse during the menstrual period. It may be added that Aquinas and many other early theologians held, not only that such intercourse was a deadly sin, but that it engendered leprous and monstrous children. Some later theologians, however, like Sanchez, argued that the Mosaic enactments (such as Leviticus, Ch. XX, v. 18) no longer hold good. Modern theologians--in part influenced by the tolerant traditions of Liguori, and, in part, like Debreyne (_Moechialogie_, pp. 275 et seq.) informed by medical science--no longer prohibit intercourse during menstruation, or regard it as only a venial sin. We have here a remarkable, but not an isolated, example of the tendency of the human mind in its development to rebel against the claims of primitive nature. The whole of religion is a similar remolding of nature, a repression of natural impulses, an effort to turn them into new channels. Prohibition of intercourse during menstruation is a fundamental element of savage ritual, an element which is universal merely because the conditions which caused it are universal, and because--as is now beginning to be generally recognized--the causes of human psychic evolution are everywhere the same. A strictly analogous phenomenon, in the sexual sphere itself, is the opposed attitude in barbarism and civilization toward the sexual organs. Under barbaric conditions and among savages, when no magico-religious ideas intervene, the sexual organs are beautiful and pleasurable objects. Under modern conditions this is not so. This difference of attitude is reflected in sculpture. In savage and barbaric carvings of human beings, the sexual organs of both sexes are often enormously exaggerated. This is true of the archaic European figures on which Salomon Reinach has thrown so much light, but in modern sculpture, from the time when it reached its perfection in Greece onward, the sexual regions in both men and women are systematically minimized.[103] With advancing culture--as again we shall see later--there is a conflict of claims, and certain considerations are regarded as "higher" and more potent than merely "natural" claims. Nakedness is more natural than clothing, and on many grounds more desirable under the average circumstances of life, yet, everywhere, under the stress of what are regarded as higher considerations, there is a tendency for all races to add more and more to the burden of clothes. In the same way it happens that the tendency of the female to sexual intercourse during menstruation[104] has everywhere been overlaid by the ideas of a culture which has insisted on regarding menstruation as a supernatural phenomenon which, for the protection of everybody, must be strictly tabooed.[105] This tendency is reinforced, and in high civilization replaced, by the claims of an æsthetic regard for concealment and reserve during this period. Such facts are significant for the early history of culture, but they must not blind us to the real analogy between heat and menstruation, an analogy or even identity which may be said to be accepted now by most careful investigators.[106] If it is, perhaps, somewhat excessive to declare, with Johnstone, that "woman is the only animal in which rut is omnipresent," we must admit that the two groups of phenomena merge into or replace each other, that their object is identical, that they involve similar psychic conditions. Here, also, we see a striking example of the way in which women preserve a primitive phenomenon which earlier in the zoölogical series was common to both sexes, but which man has now lost. Heat and menstruation, with whatever difference of detail, are practically the same phenomenon. We cannot understand menstruation unless we bear this in mind. On the psychic side the chief normal and primitive characteristic of the menstrual state is the more predominant presence of the sexual impulse. There are other mental and emotional signs of irritability and instability which tend to slightly impair complete mental integrity, and to render, in some unbalanced individuals explosions of anger or depression, in rarer cases crime, more common;[107] but the heightening of the sexual impulse, languor, shyness, and caprice are the more human manifestations of an emotional state which in some of the lower female animals during heat may produce a state of fury. The actual period of the menstrual flow, at all events the first two or three days, does not, among European women, usually appear to show any heightening of sexual emotion.[108] This heightening occurs usually a few days before, and especially during, the latter part of the flow, and immediately after it ceases.[109] I have, however, convinced myself by inquiry that this absence of sexual feeling during the height of the flow is, in large part, apparent only. No doubt, the onset of the flow, often producing a general depression of vitality, may tend directly to depress the emotions, which are heightened by the general emotional state and local congestion of the days immediately preceding; but among some women, at all events, who are normal and in good health, I find that the period of menstruation itself is covered by the period of the climax of sexual feeling. Thus, a married lady writes: "My feelings are always very strong, not only just before and after, but during the period; very unfortunately, as, of course, they cannot then be gratified"; while a refined girl of 19, living a chaste life, without either coitus or masturbation, which she has never practiced, habitually feels very strong sexual excitement about the time of menstruation, and more especially during the period; this desire torments her life, prevents her from sleeping at these times, and she looks upon it as a kind of illness.[110] I could quote many other similar and equally emphatic statements, and the fact that so cardinal a relationship of the sexual life of women should be ignored or denied by most writers on this matter, is a curious proof of the prevailing ignorance.[111] This ignorance has been fostered by the fact that women, often disguise even to themselves the real state of their feelings. One lady remarks that while she would be very ready for coitus during menstruation, the thought that it is impossible during that time makes her put the idea of it out of her mind. I have reason to think that this statement may be taken to represent the real feelings of very many women. The aversion to coitus is real, but it is often due, not to failure of sexual desire, but to the inhibitory action of powerful extraneous causes. The absence of active sexual desire in women during the height of the flow may thus be regarded as, in part, a physiological fact, following from the correspondence of the actual menstrual flow to the period of _pro-oestrum_, and in part, a psychological fact due to the æsthetic repugnance to union when in such a condition, and to the unquestioned acceptance of the general belief that at such a period intercourse is out of the question. Some of the strongest factors of modesty, especially the fear of causing disgust and the sense of the demands of ceremonial ritual, would thus help to hold in check the sexual emotions during this period, and when, under the influence of insanity, these motives are in abeyance, the coincidence of sexual desire with the menstrual flow often becomes more obvious.[112] It must be added that, especially among the lower social classes, the primitive belief of the savage that coitus during menstruation is bad for the man still persists. Ploss and Bartels mention that among the peasants in some parts of Germany, where it is believed that impregnation is impossible during menstruation, coitus at that time would be frequent were it not thought dangerous for the man.[113] It has also been a common belief both in ancient and modern times that coitus during menstruation engenders monsters.[114] Notwithstanding all the obstacles that are thus placed in the way of coitus during menstruation, there is nevertheless good reason to believe that the first coitus very frequently takes place at this point of least psychic resistance. When still a student I was struck by the occurrence of cases in which seduction took place during the menstrual flow, though at that time they seemed to me inexplicable, except as evidencing brutality on the part of the seducer. Négrier,[115] in the lying-in wards of the Hôtel-Dieu at Angers, constantly found that the women from the country who came there pregnant as the result of a single coitus had been impregnated at or near the menstrual epoch, more especially when the period coincided with a feast-day, as St. John's Day or Christmas. Whatever doubt may exist as to the most frequent state of the sexual emotions during the period of menstruation, there can be no doubt whatever that immediately before and immediately after, very commonly at both times,--this varying slightly in different women,--there is usually a marked heightening of actual desire. It is at this period (and sometimes during the menstrual flow) that masturbation may take place in women who at other times have no strong auto-erotic impulse. The only women who do not show this heightening of sexual emotion seem to be those in whom sexual feelings have not yet been definitely called into consciousness, or the small minority, usually suffering from some disorder of sexual or general health, in whom there is a high degree of sexual anæsthesia.[116] The majority of authorities admit a heightening of sexual emotion before or after the menstrual crisis. See e.g., Krafft-Ebing, who places it at the post-menstrual period (_Psychopathia Sexualis_, Eng. translation of tenth edition, p. 27). Adler states that sexual feeling is increased before, during and after menstruation (_Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, 1904, p. 88). Kossmann (Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage_, I, 249), advises intercourse just after menstruation, or even during the latter days of the flow, as the period when it is most needed. Guyot says that the eight days after menstruation are the period of sexual desire in women (_Bréviaire de l'Amour Expérimentale_, p. 144). Harry Campbell investigated the periodicity of sexual desire in healthy women of the working classes, in a series of cases, by inquiries made of their husbands who were patients at a London hospital. People of this class are not always skilful in observation, and the method adopted would permit many facts to pass unrecorded; it is, therefore, noteworthy that only in one-third of the cases had no connection between menstruation and sexual feeling been observed; in the other two-thirds, sexual feeling was increased, either before, after, or during the flow, or at all of these times; the proportion of cases in which sexual feeling was increased before the flow, to those in which it was increased after, was as three to two. (H. Campbell, _Nervous Organization of Men and Women_, p. 203.) Even this elementary fact of the sexual life has, however, been denied, and, strange to say, by two women doctors. Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, of New York, who furnished valuable contributions to the physiology of menstruation, wrote some years ago, in a paper on "The Theory of Menstruation," in reference to the question of the connection between oestrus and menstruation: "Neither can any such rhythmical alternation of sexual instinct be demonstrated in women as would lead to the inference that the menstrual crisis was an expression of this," i.e., of oestrus. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, again, in her book on _The Human Element in Sex_, asserts that the menstrual flow itself affords complete relief for the sexual feelings in women (like sexual emissions during sleep in men), and thus practically denies the prevalence of sexual desire in the immediately post-menstrual period, when, on such a theory, sexual feeling should be at its minimum. It is fair to add that Dr. Blackwell's opinion is merely the survival of a view which was widely held a century ago, when various writers (Bordeu, Roussel, Duffieux, J. Arnould, etc.), as Icard has pointed out, regarded menstruation as a device of Providence for safeguarding the virginity of women. FOOTNOTES: [75] Thaddeus L. Bolton, "Rhythm," _American Journal of Psychology_, January, 1894. [76] It is scarcely necessary to warn the reader that this statement does not prejudge the question of the inheritance of acquired characters, although it fits in with Semon's Mnemic theory. We can, however, very well suppose that the organism became adjusted to the rhythms of its environment by a series of congenital variations. Or it might be held, on the basis of Weismann's doctrine, that the germ-plasm has been directly modified by the environment. [77] Thus, the Papuans, in some districts, believe that the first menstruation is due to an actual connection, during sleep, with the moon in the shape of a man, the girl dreaming that a real man is embracing her. (_Reports Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. v, p. 206.) [78] Darwin, _Descent of Man_, p. 164. [79] While in the majority of women the menstrual cycle is regular for the individual, and corresponds to the lunar month of 28 days, it must be added that in a considerable minority it is rather longer, or, more usually, shorter than this, and in many individuals is not constant. Osterloh found a regular type of menstruation in 68 per cent, healthy women, four weeks being the most usual length of the cycle; in 21 per cent, the cycle was always irregular. See Näcke, "Die Menstruation und ihr Einfluss bei chronischen Psychosen," _Archiv für Psychiatrie_, 1896, Bd, 28, Heft 1. [80] Among the Duala and allied negro peoples of Bantu stock dances of markedly erotic character take place at full moon. Gason describes the dances and sexual festivals of the South Australian blacks, generally followed by promiscuous intercourse, as taking place at full moon. (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, November, 1894, p. 174.) In all parts of the world, indeed, including Christendom, festivals are frequently regulated by the phases of the moon. [81] It has often been held that the course of insanity is influenced by the moon. Of comparatively recent years, this thesis has been maintained by Koster (_Ueber die Gesetze des periodischen Irreseins und verwandter Nervenzustände_, Bonn, 1882), who argues in detail that periodic insanity tends to fall into periods of seven days or multiples of seven. [82] Ed. Hahn, _Demeter und Baubo_, p. 23. [83] E. Seler, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1907, Heft I, p. 39. And as regards the primitive importance of the moon, see also Frazer, _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, Ch. VIII. [84] Jastrow, _Religion of Babylonia_, 1898, pp. 68, 75-79, 461. [85] Even in England, Barnes has known women of feeble sexual constitution who menstruated only in summer (R. Barnes, _Diseases of Women_, 1878, p. 192). [86] A.B. Holder, "Gynecic Notes among American Indians," _American Journal of Obstetrics_, No. 6, 1892. [87] In the male, the phenomenon is termed rut, and is most familiar in the stag. I quote from Marshall and Jolly some remarks on the infrequency of rut: "'The male wild Cat,' Mr. Cocks informs us, (like the stag), 'has a rutting season, calls loudly, almost day and night, making far more noise than the female.' This information is of interest, inasmuch as the males of most carnivores, although they undoubtedly show signs of increased sexual activity at some times more than at others, are not known to have anything of the nature of a regularly recurrent rutting season. Nothing of the kind is known in the Dog, nor, so far as we are aware, in the males of the domestic Cat, or the Ferret, all of which seem to be capable of copulation at any time of the year. On the other hand, the males of Seals appear to have a rutting season at the same time as the sexual season of the female." (Marshall and Jolly, "Contributions to the Physiology of Mammalian Reproduction," _Philosophical Transactions_, 1905, B. 198.) [88] A. Wiltshire, _British Medical Journal_, March, 1883. The best account of heat known to me is contained in Ellenberger's _Vergleichende Physiologie der Haussaügethiere_, 1892, Band 4, Theil 2, pp. 276-284. [89] Schurig (_Parthenologia_, 1729, p. 125), gives numerous references and quotations. [90] Quoted by Icard, _La Femme_, etc., p. 63. [91] Bland Sutton, _Surgical Diseases of the Ovaries_, and _British Gynecological Journal_, vol. ii. [92] W. Heape, "The Menstruation of _Semnopithecus Entellus_," _Philosophical Transactions_, 1894; "Menstruation and Ovulation of _Macacus Rhesus_," _Philosophical Transactions_, 1897. [93] W.L. Distant, "Notes on the Chacma Baboon," _Zoölogist_, January, 1897, p, 29. [94] _Nature_, March 23, 1899. [95] W. Heape, "The Menstruation of _Semnopithecus Entellus_," _Philosophical Transactions_, 1894, p. 483; Bland Sutton, _Surgical Diseases of the Ovaries_, 1896. [96] T. Bryce and J. Teacher (_Contributions to the Study of the Early Development of the Human Ovum_, 1908), putting the matter somewhat differently, regard menstruation as a cyclical process, providing for the maintenance of the endometrium in a suitable condition of immaturity for the production of the decidua of pregnancy, which they believe may take place at any time of the month, though most favorably shortly before or after a menstrual period which has been accompanied by ovulation. [97] Robinson, _American Gynecological and Obstetrical Journal_, August, 1905. [98] Bossi, _Annali di Ostetrica e Ginecologia_, September, 1896; summarized in the _British Medical Journal_, October 31, 1896. As regards the more normal influence of the ovaries over the uterus, see e.g. Carmichael and F.H.A. Marshall, "Correlation of the Ovarian and Uterine Functions," _Proceedings Royal Society_, vol. 79, Series B, 1907. [99] Beuttner, _Centralblatt für Gynäkologie_, No. 49, 1893; summarized in _British Medical Journal_, December, 1893. Many cases show that pregnancy may occur in the absence of menstruation. See, e.g., _Nouvelles Archives d'Obstétrique et de Gynécologie_, 25 Janvier, 1894, supplement, p. 9. [100] It is still possible, and even probable, that the primordial cause of both phenomena is the same. Heape (_Transactions Obstetrical Society of London_, 1898, vol. xl, p. 161) argues that both menstruation and ovulation are closely connected with and influenced by congestion, and that in the primitive condition they are largely due to the same cause. This primary cause he is inclined to regard as a ferment, due to a change in the constitution of the blood brought about by climatic influences and food, which he proposes to call gonadin. (W. Heape, _Proceedings of Royal Society_, 1905, vol. B. 76, p. 266.) Marshall, who has found that in the ferret and other animals, ovulation may be dependent upon copulation, also considers that ovulation and menstruation, though connected and able to react on each other, may both be dependent upon a common cause; he finds that in bitches and rats heat can be produced by injection of extract from ovaries in the oestrous state (F.H.A. Marshall, _Philosophical Transactions_, 1903, vol. B. 196; also Marshall and Jolly, id., 1905, B. 198). Cf. C.J. Bond, "An Inquiry Into Some Points in Uterine and Ovarian Physiology and Pathology in Rabbits," _British Medical Journal_, July 21, 1906. [101] Pouchet, _Théorie de l'Ovulation Spontanée_, 1847. As Blair Bell and Pontland Hick remark ("Menstruation," _British Medical Journal_, March 6, 1909), the repeated oestrus of unimpregnated animals (once a fortnight in rabbits) is surely comparable to menstruation. [102] Tait, _Provincial Medical Journal_, May, 1891; J. Beard, _The Span of Gestation_, 1897, p. 69. Lawson Tait is reduced to the assertion that ovulation and menstruation are identical. [103] As Moll points out, even the secondary sexual characters have undergone a somewhat similar change. The beard was once an important sexual attraction, but men can now afford to dispense with it without fear of loss in attractiveness. (_Libido Sexualis_, Band I, p. 387.) These points are discussed at greater length in the fourth volume of these _Studies_, "Sexual Selection in Man." [104] It is not absolutely established that in menstruating animals the period of menstruation is always a period of sexual congress; probably not, the influence of menstruation being diminished by the more fundamental influence of breeding seasons, which affect the male also; monkeys have a breeding season, though they menstruate regularly all the year round. [105] See Appendix A. [106] Bland Sutton, loc. cit., p. 896. [107] See H. Ellis, _Man and Woman_, Chapter XI. [108] This is by no means true of European women only. Thus, we read in an Arabic book, _The Perfumed Garden_, that women have an aversion to coitus during menstruation. On the other hand, the old Hindoo physician, Susruta, appears to have stated that a tendency to run after men is one of the signs of menstruation. [109] The actual period of the menstrual flow corresponds, in Heape's terminology, to the congestive stage, or _pro-oestrum_, in female animals; the _oestrus_, or period of sexual desire, immediately follows the _pro-oestrum_, and is the direct result of it. See Heape, "The 'Sexual Season' of Mammals," _Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science_, 1900, vol. xliv, Part I. [110] It may be noted that (as Barnes, Oliver, and others have pointed out) there is heightened blood-pressure during menstruation. Haig remarks that he has found a tendency for high pressure to be accompanied by increased sexual appetite (_Uric Acid_, 6th edition, p. 155). [111] Sir W.F. Wade, however, remarked, some years ago, in his Ingleby Lectures (_Lancet_, June 5, 1886): "It is far from exceptional to find that there is an extreme enhancement of concupiscence in the immediate precatamenial period," and adds, "I am satisfied that evidence is obtainable that in some instances, ardor is at its maximum during the actual period, and suspect that cases occur in which it is almost, if not entirely, limited to that time." Long ago, however, the genius of Haller had noted the same fact. More recently, Icard (_La Femme_, Chapter VI and elsewhere, e.g., p. 125) has brought forward much evidence in confirmation of this view. It may be added that there is considerable significance in the fact that the erotic hallucinations, which are not infrequently experienced by women under the influence of nitrous oxide gas, are more likely to appear at the monthly period than at any other time. (D.W. Buxton, _Anesthetics_, 1892, p. 61.) [112] Gehrung considers that in healthy young girls amorous sensations are normal during menstruation, and in some women persist, during this period, throughout life. More usually, however, as menstrual period after menstrual period recurs, without the natural interruption of pregnancy, the feeling abates, and gives place to sensations of discomfort or pain. He ascribes this to the vital tissues being sapped of more blood than can be replaced in the intervals. "The vital powers, being thus kept in abeyance, the amative sensations are either not developed, or destroyed. This, superadded by the usual moral and religious teachings, is amply sufficient, by degrees, to extinguish or prevent such feelings with the great majority. The sequestration as 'unclean,' of women during their catamenial period, as practiced in olden times, had the same tendency." (E.C. Gehrung, "The Status of Menstruation," _Transactions American Gynecology Society_, 1901, p. 48.) [113] It is possible there may be an element of truth in this belief. Diday, of Lyons, found that chronic urethorrhoea is an occasional result of intercourse during menstruation. Raciborski (_Traité de la Menstruation_, 1868, p. 12), who also paid attention to this point, while confirming Diday, came to the conclusion that some special conditions must be present on one or both sides. [114] See, e.g., Ballantyne, "Teratogenesis," _Transactions of the Edinburgh Obstetrical Society_, 1896, vol. xxi, pp. 324-25. [115] As quoted by Icard, _La Femme_, etc., p. 194. I have not been able to see Négrier's work. [116] I deal with the question of sexual anæsthesia in women in the third volume of these _Studies_: "The Sexual Impulse in Women." II. The Question of a Monthly Sexual Cycle in Men--The Earliest Suggestions of a General Physiological Cycle in Men--Periodicity in Disease--Insanity, Heart Disease, etc.--The Alleged Twenty-three Days' Cycle--The Physiological Periodicity of Seminal Emissions during Sleep--Original Observations--Fortnightly and Weekly Rhythms. For some centuries, at least, inquisitive observers here and there have thought they found reason to believe that men, as well as women, present various signs of a menstrual physiological cycle. It would be possible to collect a number of opinions in favor of such a monthly physiological periodicity in men. Precise evidence, however, is, for the most part, lacking. Men have expended infinite ingenuity in establishing the remote rhythms of the solar system and the periodicity of comets. They have disdained to trouble about the simpler task of proving or disproving the cycles of their own organisms.[117] It is over half a century since Laycock wrote that "the _scientific_ observation and treatment of disease are impossible without a knowledge of the mysterious revolutions continually taking place in the system"; yet the task of summarizing the whole of our knowledge regarding these "mysterious revolutions" is even to-day no heavy one. As to the existence of a monthly cycle in the sexual instincts of men, with a single exception, I am not aware that any attempt has been made to bring forward definite evidence.[118] A certain interest and novelty attaches, therefore, to the evidence I am able to produce, although that evidence will not suffice to settle the question finally. The great Italian physician, Sanctorius, who was in so many ways the precursor of our modern methods of physiological research by the means of instruments of precision, was the first, so far as I am aware, to suggest a monthly cycle of the organism in men. He had carefully studied the weight of the body with reference to the amount of excretions, and believed that a monthly increase in weight to the amount of one or two pounds occurred in men, followed by a critical discharge of urine, this crisis being preceded by feelings of heaviness and lassitude.[119] Gall, another great initiator of modern views, likewise asserted a monthly cycle in men. He insisted that there is a monthly critical period, more marked in nervous people than in others, and that at this time the complexion becomes dull, the breath stronger, digestion more laborious, while there is sometimes disturbance of the urine, together with general _malaise_, in which the temper takes part; ideas are formed with more difficulty, and there is a tendency to melancholy, with unusual irascibility and mental inertia, lasting a few days. More recently Stephenson, who established the cyclical wave-theory of menstruation, argued that it exists in men also, and is really "a general law of vital energy."[120] Sanctorius does not appear to have published the data on which his belief was founded. Keill, an English, follower of Sanctorius, in his _Medicina Statica Britannica_ (1718), published a series of daily (morning and evening) body-weights for the year, without referring to the question of a monthly cycle. A period of maximum weight is shown usually, by Keill's figures, to occur about once a month, but it is generally irregular, and cannot usually be shown to occur at definite intervals. Monthly discharges of blood from the sexual organs and other parts of the body in men have been recorded in ancient and modern times, and were treated of by the older medical writers as an affliction peculiar to men with a feminine system. (Laycock, _Nervous Diseases of Women_, p. 79.) A summary of such cases will be found in Gould and Pyle (_Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine_, 1897, pp. 27-28). Laycock (_Lancet_, 1842-43, vols. i and ii) brought forward cases of monthly and fortnightly cycles in disease, and asserted "the general principle that there are greater and less cycles of movements going on in the system, involving each other, and closely connected with the organization of the individual." He was inclined to accept lunar influence, and believed that the physiological cycle is made up of definite fractions and multiples of a period of seven days, especially a unit of three and a half days. Albrecht, a somewhat erratic zoölogist, put forth the view a few years ago that there are menstrual periods in men, giving the following reasons: (1) males are rudimentary females, (2) in all males of mammals, a rudimentary masculine uterus (Müller's ducts) still persists, (3) totally hypospadic male individuals menstruate; and believed that he had shown that in man there is a rudimentary menstruation consisting in an almost monthly periodic appearance, lasting for three or four days, of white corpuscles in the urine (_Anomalo_, February, 1890). Dr. Campbell Clark, some years since, made observations on asylum attendants in regard to the temperature, during five weeks, which tended to show that the normal male temperature varies considerably within certain limits, and that "so far as I have been able to observe, there is one marked and prolonged rise every month or five weeks, averaging three days, occasional lesser rises appearing irregularly and of shorter duration. These observations are only made in three cases, and I have no proof that they refer to the sexual appetite" (Campbell Clark, "The Sexual Reproductive Functions," Psychological Section, British Medical Association, Glasgow, 1888; also, private letters). Hammond (_Treatise on Insanity_, p. 114) says: "I have certainly noted in some of my friends, the tendency to some monthly periodic abnormal manifestations. This may be in the form of a headache, or a nasal hæmorrhage, or diarrhoea, or abundant discharge of uric acid, or some other unusual occurrence. I think," he adds, "this is much more common than is ordinarily supposed, and a careful examination or inquiry will generally, if not invariably, establish the existence of a periodicity of the character referred to." Dr. Harry Campbell, in his book on _Differences in the Nervous Organization of Men and Women_, deals fully with the monthly rhythm (pp. 270 et seq.), and devotes a short chapter to the question, "Is the Menstrual Rhythm peculiar to the Female Sex?" He brings forward a few pathological cases indicating such a rhythm, but although he had written a letter to the _Lancet_, asking medical men to supply him with evidence bearing on this question, it can scarcely be said that he has brought forward much evidence of a convincing kind, and such as he has brought forward is purely pathological. He believes, however, that we may accept a monthly cycle in men. "We may," he concludes, "regard the human being--both male and female--as the subject of a monthly pulsation which begins with the beginning of life, and continues till death," menstruation being regarded as a function accidentally ingrafted upon this primordial rhythm. It is not unreasonable to argue that the possibility of such a menstrual cycle is increased, if we can believe that in women, also, the menstrual cycle persists even when its outward manifestations no longer occur. Aëtius said that menstrual changes take place during gestation; in more modern times, Buffon was of the same opinion. Laycock also maintained that menstrual changes take place during pregnancy (_Nervous Diseases of Women_, p. 47). Fliess considers that it is certainly incorrect to assert that the menstrual process is arrested during pregnancy, and he refers to the frequency of monthly epistaxis and other nasal symptoms throughout this period (W. Fliess, _Beziehungen zwischen Nase und Geschlechts-Organen_, pp. 44 et seq.). Beard, who attaches importance to the persistence of a cyclical period in gestation, calls it the muffled striking of the clock. Harry Campbell (_Causation of Disease_, p. 54) has found post-climacteric menstrual rhythm in a fair sprinkling of cases up to the age of sixty. It is somewhat remarkable that, so far as I have observed, none of these authors refer to the possibility of any heightening of the sexual appetite at the monthly crisis which they believe to exist in men. This omission indicates that, as is suggested by the absence of definite statements on the matter of increase of sexual desire at menstruation, it was an ignored or unknown fact. Of recent years, however, many writers, especially alienists, have stated their conviction that sexual desire in men tends to be heightened at approximately monthly intervals, though they have not always been able to give definite evidence in support of their statements. Clouston, for instance, has frequently asserted this monthly periodic sexual heightening in men. In the article, "Developmental Insanity," in Tuke's _Psychological Dictionary_, he refers to the periodic physiological heightening of the reproductive _nisus_; and, again, in an article on "Alternation, Periodicity, and Relapse in Mental Diseases" (_Edinburgh Medical Journal_, July, 1882), he records the case of "an insane gentleman, aged 49, who, for the past twenty-six years, has been subject to the most regularly occurring brain-exaltation every four weeks, almost to a day. It sometimes passes off without becoming acutely maniacal, or even showing itself in outward acts; at other times it becomes so, and lasts for periods of from one to four weeks. It is always preceded by an uncomfortable feeling in the head, and pain in the back, mental hebetude, and slight depression. The _nisus generativus_ is greatly increased, and he says that, if in that condition, he has full and free seminal emissions during sleep, the excitement passes off; if not, it goes on. A full dose of bromide or iodide of potassium often, but not always, has the effect of stopping the excitement, and a very long walk sometimes does the same. When the excitement gets to a height, it is always followed by about a week of stupid depression." In the same article Clouston remarks: "I have for a long time been impressed with the relationship of the mental and bodily alternations and periodicities in insanity to the great physiological alternations and periodicities, and I have generally been led to the conclusion that they are the same in all essential respects, and only differ in degree of intensity or duration. By far the majority of the cases in women follow the law of the menstrual and sexual periodicity; the majority of the cases in men follow the law of the more irregular periodicities of the _nisus generativus_ in that sex. Many of the cases in both sexes follow the seasonal periodicity which perhaps in man is merely a reversion to the seasonal generative activities of the majority of the lower animals." He found that among 338 cases of insanity, chiefly mania and melancholia, 46 per cent, of females and 40 per cent, of males showed periodicity,--diurnal, monthly, seasonal, or annual, and more marked in women than in men, and in mania than in melancholia,--and adds: "I found that the younger the patient, the greater is the tendency to periodic remission and relapse. The phenomenon finds its acme in the cases of pubescent and adolescent insanity." Conolly Norman, in the article "Mania, Hysterical" (Tuke's _Psychological Dictionary_), states that "the activity of the sexual organs is probably in both sexes fundamentally periodic." Krafft-Ebing records the case of a neurasthenic Russian, aged 24, who experienced sexual desires of urologinic character, with fair regularity, every four weeks (_Psychopathia Sexualis_), and Näcke mentions the case of a man who had nocturnal emissions at intervals of four weeks (_Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie_, 1908, p. 363), while Moll (_Libido Sexualis_, Bd. I, pp. 621-623) recorded the case of a man, otherwise normal, who had attacks of homosexual feeling every four weeks, and Rohleder (_Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, Nov., 1908) gives the case of an unmarried slightly neuropathic physician who for several days every three to five weeks has attacks of almost satyriacal sexual excitement. Féré, whose attention was called to this point, from time to time noted the existence of sexual periodicity. Thus, in a case of general paralysis, attacks of continuous sexual excitement, with sleeplessness, occurred every twenty-eight days; at other times, the patient, a man of 42, in the stage of dementia, slept well, and showed no signs of sexual excitation (_Société de Biologie_, October 6, 1900). In another case, of a man of sound heredity and good health till middle life, periodic sexual manifestations began from puberty, with localized genital congestion, erotic ideas, and copious urination, lasting for two or three days. These manifestations became menstrual, with a period of intermenstrual excitement appearing regularly, but never became intense. Between the age of 36 and 42, the intermenstrual crises gradually ceased; at about 45, the menstrual crises ceased; the periodic crises continued, however, with the sole manifestation of increased frequency of urination (_Société de Biologie_, July 23, 1904). In a third case, of sexual neurasthenia, Féré found that from puberty, onwards to middle life, there appeared, every twenty-five to twenty-eight days, tenderness and swelling below the nipple, accompanied by slight sexual excitation and erotic dreams, lasting for one or two days (_Revue de Médecine_, March, 1905). It is in the domain of disease that the most strenuous and, on the whole, the most successful efforts have been made to discover a menstrual cycle in men. Such a field seems promising at the outset, for many morbid exaggerations or defects of the nervous system might be expected to emphasize, or to free from inhibition, fundamental rhythmical processes of the organism which in health, and under the varying conditions of social existence, are overlaid by the higher mental activities and the pressure of external stimuli. In the eighteenth century Erasmus Darwin wrote a remarkable and interesting chapter on "The Periods of Disease," dealing with solar and lunar influence on biological processes.[121] Since then, many writers have brought forward evidence, especially in the domain of nervous and mental disease, which seems to justify a belief that, under pathological conditions, a tendency to a male menstrual rhythm may be clearly laid bare. We should expect an organ so primitive in character as the heart, and with so powerful a rhythm already stamped upon its nervous organization, to be peculiarly apt to display a menstrual rhythm under the stress of abnormal conditions. This expectation might be strengthened by the menstrual rhythm which Mr. Perry-Coste has found reason to suspect in pulse-frequency during health. I am able to present a case in which such a periodicity seems to be indicated. It is that of a gentleman who suffered severely for some years before his death from valvular disease of the heart, with a tendency to pulmonary congestion, and attacks of "cardiac asthma." His wife, a lady of great intelligence, kept notes of her husband's condition,[122] and at last observed that there was a certain periodicity in the occurrence of the exacerbations. The periods were not quite regular, but show a curious tendency to recur at about thirty days' interval, a few days before the end of every month; it was during one of these attacks that he finally died. There was also a tendency to minor attacks about ten days after the major attacks. It is noteworthy that the subject showed a tendency to periodicity when in health, and once remarked laughingly before his illness: "I am just like a woman, always most excitable at a particular time of the month." Periodicity has been noted in various disorders of nervous character. Periodic insanity has long been known and studied (see, e.g., Pilcz, _Die periodischen Geistesstörungen_, 1901); it is much commoner in women than in men. Periodicity has been observed in stammering (a six-weekly period in one case), and notably in hemicrania or migraine, by Harry Campbell, Osler, etc. (The periodicity of a case of hemicrania has been studied in detail by D. Fraser Harris, _Edinburgh Medical Journal_, July, 1902.) But the cycle in these cases is not always, or even usually, of a menstrual type. It is now possible to turn to an investigation which, although of very limited extent, serves to place the question of a male menstrual cycle for the first time on a sound basis. If there is such a cycle analogous to menstruation in women, it must be a recurring period of nervous erethism, and it must be demonstrably accompanied by greater sexual activity. In the _American Journal of Psychology_ for 1888, Mr. Julius Nelson, afterward Professor of Biology at the Rutgers College of Agriculture, New Brunswick, published a study of dreams in which he recorded the results of detailed observations of his dreams, and also of seminal emissions during sleep (by him termed "gonekbole" or "ecbole"), during a period of something over two years. Mr. Nelson found that both dreams and ecboles fell into a physiological cycle of 28 days. The climax of maximum dreaming (as determined by the number of words in the dream record) and the climax of maximum ecbole fell at the same point of the cycle, the ecbolic climax being more distinctly marked than the dream climax. The question of cyclic physiological changes is considerably complicated by our uncertainty regarding the precise length of the cycle we may expect to find. Nelson finds a 28-day cycle satisfactory. Perry-Coste, as we shall see, accepts a strictly lunar cycle of 29½ days. Fliess has argued that in both women and men, many physiological facts fall into a cycle of 23 days, which he calls male, the 28-day cycle being female. (W. Fliess, _Die Beziehungen zwischen Nase und weiblichen Geschlechts-Organen_, 1897, pp. 113 et seq.) Although Fliess brings forward a number of minutely-observed cases, I cannot say that I am yet convinced of the reality of this 23-day cycle. It is somewhat curious, however, that at the same time as Fliess, though in apparent independence, and from a different point of view, another worker also suggested that there is a 23-day physiological cycle (John Beard, _The Span of Gestation and the Cause of Birth_, Jena, 1897). Beard approaches the question from the embryological standpoint, and argues that there is what he terms an "ovulation unit" of about 23½ days, in the interval from the end of one menstruation to the beginning of the next. Two "ovulation units" make up one "critical unit," and the length of pregnancy, according to Beard, is always a multiple of the "critical unit;" in man, the gestation period amounts to six critical units. These attempts to prove a new physiological cycle deserve careful study and further investigation. The possibility of such a cycle should be borne in mind, but at present we are scarcely entitled to accept it. So far as I am aware, Professor Nelson's very interesting series of observations, which, for the first time, placed the question of a menstrual rhythm in men on a sound and workable basis, have not directly led to any further observations. I am, however, in possession of a much more extended series of ecbolic observations completed before Nelson's paper was published, although the results have only been calculated at a comparatively-recent date. I now propose to present a summary of these observations, and consider how far they confirm Nelson's conclusions. These observations cover no less a period than twelve years, between the ages of 17 and 29, the subject, W.K., being a student, and afterward schoolmaster, leading, on the whole, a chaste life. The records were faithfully made throughout the whole of this long period. Here, if anywhere, should be material for the construction of a menstrual rhythm on an ecbolic basis. While the results are in many respects instructive, it can scarcely, perhaps, be said that they absolutely demonstrate a monthly cycle. When summated in a somewhat similar manner to that adopted by Nelson in his ecbolic observations, it is not difficult to regard the maximum, which is reached on the 19th to 21st days of the summated physiological month, as a real menstrual ecbolic climax, for no other three consecutive days at all approach these in number of ecboles, while there is a marked depression occurring four days earlier, on the 16th day of the month. If, however, we split up the curve by dividing the period of twelve years into two nearly equal periods, the earlier of about seven years and the latter of about four years, and summate these separately, the two curves do not present any parallel as regards the menstrual cycle. It scarcely seems to me, therefore, that these curves present any convincing evidence in this case of a monthly ecbolic cycle (and, therefore, I refrain from reproducing them), although they seem to suggest such a cycle. Nor is there any reason to suppose that by adopting a different cycle of thirty days, or of twenty-three days, any more conclusive results would be obtained. It seems, however, when we look at these curves more closely, that they are not wholly without significance. If I am justified in concluding that they scarcely demonstrate a monthly cycle, it may certainly be added that they show a rudimentary tendency for the ecboles to fall into a fortnightly rhythm, and a very marked and unmistakable tendency to a weekly rhythm. The fortnightly rhythm is shown in the curve for the earlier period, but is somewhat disguised in the curve for the total period, because the first climax is spread over two days, the 7th and 8th of the month. If we readjust the curve for the total period by presenting the days in pairs, the fortnightly tendency is more clearly brought out (Chart I). A more pronounced tendency still is traceable to a weekly rhythm. This is, indeed, the most unquestionable fact brought out by these curves. All the maxima occur on Saturday or Sunday, with the minima on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. This very pronounced weekly rhythm will serve to swamp more or less completely any monthly rhythm on a 28-day basis. Although here probably seen in an exaggerated form, it is almost certainly a characteristic of the ecbolic curve generally.[123] I have been told by several young men and women, especially those who work hard during the week, that Saturday, and especially Sunday afternoon, are periods when the thoughts spontaneously go in an erotic direction, and at this time there is a special tendency to masturbation or to spontaneous sexual excitement. It is on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, according to Guerry's tables,[124] that the fewest suicides are committed, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with, however, a partial fall on Wednesday, those on which most suicides are committed, so that there would appear to be an antagonism between sexual activity and the desire to throw off life. It also appears (in the reports of the Bavarian factory inspectors) that accidents in factories have a tendency to occur chiefly at the beginning of the week, and toward the end rather than in the middle.[125] Even growth, as Fleischmann has shown in the case of children, tends to fall into weekly cycles. It is evident that the nervous system is profoundly affected by the social influences resulting from the weekly cycle. The analysis of this series of ecbolic curves may thus be said to recall the suggestion of Laycock, that the menstrual cycle is really made up of four weekly cycles, the periodic unit, according to Laycock, being three and one-half days. I think it would, however, be more correct to say that the menstrual cycle, perhaps originally formed with reference to the influence of the moon on the sexual and social habits of men and other animals, tends to break up by a process of segmentation into fortnightly and weekly cycles. If we are justified in assuming that there is a male menstrual cycle, we must conclude that in such a case as that just analyzed, the weekly rhythm has become so marked as almost entirely to obliterate the larger monthly rhythm. However constituted, there seems little doubt that a physiological weekly cycle really exists. This was, indeed, very clearly indicated many years ago by the observations of Edward Smith, who showed that there are weekly rhythms in pulse, respiration, temperature, carbonic acid evolution, urea, and body-weight, Sunday being the great day of repair and increase of weight.[126] In an appendix to this volume I am able to present the results of another long series of observations of nocturnal ecbolic manifestations carried out by Mr. Perry-Coste, who has elaborately calculated the results, and has convinced himself that on the basis of a strictly lunar month, thus abolishing the disturbing influence of the weekly rhythm, which in his case also appears, a real menstrual rhythm may be traced.[127] It does not appear to me, however, even yet, that a final answer to the question whether a menstrual sexual rhythm occurs in men can be decisively given in the affirmative. That such a cycle will be proved in many cases seems to me highly probable, but before this can be decisively affirmed it is necessary that a much larger number of persons should be induced to carry out on themselves the simple, but protracted, series of observations that are required. Since the first edition of this volume appeared, numerous series of ecbolic records have reached me from different parts of the world. The most notable of these series comes from a professional man, of scientific training, who has for the past six years lived in different parts of India, where the record was kept. Though the record extends over nearly six years, there are two breaks in it, due to a visit to England, and to loss of interest. Both involuntary and voluntary discharges are included in the record. The involuntary discharges occurred during sleep, usually with an erotic dream, in which the subject invariably awaked and frequently made an effort to check the emission. The voluntary discharges in most cases commenced during sleep, or in the half-waking state; deliberate masturbation, when fully awake, was comparatively rare. The proportion of involuntary to more or less voluntary ecboles was about 3 to 1. A third kind of sexual manifestation (of frequency intermediate between the other two forms) is also included, in which a high degree of erethism is induced during the half waking state, culminating in an orgasm in which the power of preventing discharge has been artificially acquired. The subject, E.M., was 32 years of age when the record began. He belongs to a healthy family, and is himself physically sound, 5 feet 6 inches in height, but weight low, due to rickets in infancy. In early life he stammered badly; his temperament is emotional and self-conscious, while his work is unusually exacting, and he lives for most of the year in a very trying climate. As a boy he was very religious, and has always felt obliged to resist sexual vice to the utmost, though there have been occasional lapses. As regards lunar periodicity, E.M., has summated his results in a curve, after the same manner as Mr. Perry-Coste, beginning with the new moon. The periods covered include 54 lunar months, and the total number of discharges is 176; the average frequency is about 3 per month of twenty-eight days. The curve, for the most part, zigzags between a frequency of 4 and 9, but on the twenty-fourth day it falls to 1, and then rises uninterruptedly to a height of 11 on the twenty-seventh day, falling to 2 on the next day. Whether a really menstrual rhythm is thus indicated I do not undertake to decide, but I am inclined to agree with E.M. himself that there is no definite evidence of it. "It looks to me," he writes, "as if the only real rhythm (putting aside the annual cycle) will be found to be the average period between the ecboles, varying in different persons, but in my case, about nine and one-eighth days. May not the ecbolic period in men be compared to the menstrual period in women, and be an example of the greater katabolic activity of men? There is the period of tumescence, and the ecbole constituting the detumescence. The week-end holiday would hasten the detumescence, but about every third week-end there would tend to be delay to enable the system to get back into its regulation nine or ten days' stride. This might possibly be the explanation of the curves. The recent emissions were nearly all involuntary during sleep. Age may have something to do with the change in character." E.M.'s curves frequently show the influence of weekly periodicity, in the tendency to ecbole on Sunday, or sometimes on Saturday or Monday. In recent years there has been some tendency for this climax to be thrown towards the middle of the week, but, on the whole, Wednesday is the point of lowest frequency. In another case, the subject, A.N., who has spent nearly all his life in the State of Indiana, has kept a record of sexual manifestations between the ages of 30 and 34. The data, which cover four years, have not been sent to me in a form which enables the possibility of a monthly curve to be estimated, but A.N., who has himself arranged the data on a lunar monthly basis, considers that a monthly curve is thus revealed. "My memoranda," he writes, "show that discharges occur most frequently on the first, second, and third days after new moon. There is also another period on the fourteenth and fifteenth, which might indicate a semi-lunar rhythm. The days of minimum discharge are the seventh, eighth, twenty-second, and twenty-third." It may be added that the yearly average of ecbolic manifestations, varying between 50 and 55, comes out as 52, or exactly one per week. A weekly periodicity is very definitely shown by A.N.'s data. Sunday once more stands at the head of the week as regards frequency, in this case very decisively. The figures are as follows:-- Sun. Mon. Tues. Wed. Thurs. Fri. Sat. 48 21 24 35 28 26 27 In another case which has reached me from the United States, the data are slighter, but deserve note, as the subject is a trained psychologist, and I quote the case in his own words. Here, it will be seen, there appears to be a tendency for the ecbolic cycle to cover a period of about six weeks. In this case, also, there is a tendency for the climax to occur about Saturday or Sunday. "X. is 38 years old, unmarried, fair health, pretty good heredity; university trained, and engaged in academic pursuits. He thinks he may have completed puberty at about 13, though he has no proof that he was in the full possession of his sex-powers until he was 15 years 3 months old (when he had his first emission). His sex life has been normal. He masturbated somewhat when he slept with other boys (or men) during early manhood, but not to excess. "During the autumn of 1889 (when 28 years of age) he observed that at certain times he had an itching feeling about the testicles; that he felt slightly irritable; that the penis erected with the slightest provocation, and that this peculiar feeling usually passed away with a nightly emission. Indeed, so regular was the matter that he usually wore a loin garment at these times, to prevent the semen getting on the bedding. This peculiar feeling ordinarily continued for two or three days. He recalls at these times that he felt that he would like to wrestle with some one, for there seemed to be a muscular tension. These states returned with apparent regularity, and the intervals seemed to be about six weeks, though no effort was made to measure the periods until 1893. The following notes are taken from the diaries of X.:-- "Thursday, December 29, 1892. The peculiar feeling. (This is the only entry.) "Thursday, February 9, 1893. The peculiar feeling. (The diary notes that X. awoke nights to find erections, and that the feeling continued until Sunday night following, when there was an emission.) "Friday, March 27, 1893. The peculiar feeling. (The diary notes that there was an emission the next night, and that the feeling disappeared.) "Wednesday, May 3, 1893. The peculiar feeling. (The diary notes that it continued until Saturday night, when X. had sexual relations, and that it then disappeared.) "Wednesday, June 14, 1893. The peculiar feeling. (The diary states that the next night X. had an emission, and the disappearance of the feeling.) "Thursday, July 27, 1893. The peculiar feeling. (The diary notes that it was apparent at about 3 o'clock that afternoon. That night at 10 o'clock, X. had sexual intercourse, and the feeling was not noted the next day.) "Friday, September 8, 1893. The peculiar feeling. (Continued until Tuesday, the 11th, and then disappeared. No sexual intercourse, and no nightly emission.) "Wednesday, October 25, 1893. The peculiar feeling. (Continued until Saturday night, when there was a nightly emission.) "Saturday, December 9, 1893. The peculiar feeling. (Continued until Monday night, when there was sexual relations.) "It will be noted that the intervals observed were of about six weeks' duration, excepting one, that from September to October, when it was nearly seven weeks. "These observations were not recorded after 1893. X. thinks that in 1894 the intervals were longer, an opinion which is based on the fact that for a period of six months he had no sexual intercourse and no nightly emissions. The times during this six months when he had the 'peculiar feeling,' the sensation was so slight as to be scarcely noted. In 1895, the feeling seemed more pronounced than ever before, and X. thinks that it may have recurred as often as once a month. In 1896, 1897, and 1898, the intervals, he thinks, lengthened--at times, he thought, wholly disappeared. During 1899, while they did not recur often, when they did come the sensation was pronounced, although the emission was less common. There was a peculiar 'heavy' feeling about the testicles, and a marked tendency towards erection of the penis, especially at night-time (while sleeping). X. often awoke to find a tense erection. Moreover, these feelings usually continued a week. "1. In general, X. is of the opinion that as he grows older these intervals lengthen, though this inference is not based on _recorded_ data. "2. He notes that a discharge (through sexual intercourse or in sleep) invariably brings the peculiar feeling to a close for the time being. "3. He notes that sexual intercourse _at the time_ stops it; but, when there has been sexual intercourse within a week or ten days of the time (based upon the observations of 1893), that it had no tendency to check the feeling." In another case, that of F.C., an Irish farmer, born in Waterford, the data are still more meagre, though the periodicity is stated to be very pronounced. He is chaste, steady, with occasional lapses from strict sobriety, healthy and mentally normal, living a regular open-air life, far from the artificial stimuli of towns. The observations refer to a period when he was from 20 to 27 years of age. During this period, nocturnal emissions occurred at regular intervals of exactly a month. They were ushered in by fits of irritability and depression, and usually occurred in dreamless sleep. The discharges were abundant and physically weakening, but they relieved the psychic symptoms, though they occasioned mental distress, since F.C. is scrupulous in a religious sense, and also apprehensive of bad constitutional effects, the result of reading alarmist quack pamphlets. In another case known to me, a young man leading a chaste life, experienced crises of sexual excitement every ten to fourteen days, the crisis lasting for several days. Finally, an interesting contribution to this subject, suggested by this _Study_, has been made and published (in the proceedings of the Amsterdam International Congress of Psychology, in 1907) by the well-known Amsterdam neurologist and psychologist, Dr. L.S.A.M. Von Römer under the title, "Ueber das Verhältniss zwischen Mondalter und Sexualität." Von Römer's data are made up not of nocturnal involuntary emissions, but of the voluntary acts of sexual intercourse of an unmarried man, during a period of four years. Von Römer believes that these, to a much greater extent than those of a married man, would be liable to periodic influence, if such exist. On making a curve of exact lunar length (similarly to Perry-Coste), he finds that there are, every month, two maxima and two minima, in a way that approximately resemble Perry-Coste's curve. The main point in Von Römer's results is, however, the correspondence that he finds with the actual lunar phases; the chief maximum occurs at the time of the full moon, and the secondary maximum at the time of the new moon, the minima being at the first and fourth quarters. He hazards no theory in explanation of this coincidence, but insists on the need for further observations. It will be seen that A.N.'s results (_ante_ p. 117) seem in the main to correspond to Von Römer's. FOOTNOTES: [117] Even counting the pulse is a comparatively recent method of physiological examination. It was not until 1450 that Nicolas of Cusa advocated counting the pulse-beats. (Binz, _Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift_, October 6, 1898.) [118] I leave this statement as it stands, though since the first publication of this book it has ceased to be strictly accurate. [119] Sanctorius, _Medicina Statica_, Sect. I, aph. lxv. [120] _American Journal of Obstetrics_, xiv, 1882. [121] _Zoönomia_, Section XXXVI. [122] I reproduced these notes in full in earlier editions of this volume. [123] Moll refers to the case of a man whose erotic dreams occurred every fortnight, and always on Friday night (_Libido Sexualis_, Band I, p. 136). One is inclined to suspect an element of autosuggestion in such a case; still, the coincidence is noteworthy. [124] See Durkheim, _Le Suicide_, p. 101. [125] We must, of course, see here the results of the disorganization produced by holidays, and the exhaustion produced by the week's labor; but such influences are still the social effects of the cosmic week. [126] E. Smith, _Health and Disease_, Chapter III. I may remark that, according to Kemsoes (_Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift_, January 20, 1908, and _British Medical Journal_, January 29, 1898), school-children work best on Monday and Tuesday. [127] See Appendix B. III. The Annual Sexual Rhythm--In Animals--In Man--Tendency of the Sexual Impulse to become Heightened in Spring and Autumn--The Prevalence of Seasonal Erotic Festivals--The Feast of Fools--The Easter and Midsummer Bonfires--The Seasonal Variations in Birthrate--The Causes of those Variations--The Typical Conception-rate Curve for Europe--The Seasonal Periodicity of Seminal Emissions During Sleep--Original Observations--Spring and Autumn the Chief Periods of Involuntary Sexual Excitement--The Seasonal Periodicity of Rapes--Of Outbreaks among Prisoners--The Seasonal Curves of Insanity and Suicide--The Growth of Children According to Season--The Annual Curve of Bread-consumption in Prisons--Seasonal Periodicity of Scarlet Fever--The Underlying Causes of these Seasonal Phenomena. That there are annual seasonal changes in the human organism, especially connected with the sexual function, is a statement that has been made by physiologists and others from time to time, and the statement has even reached the poets, who have frequently declared that spring is the season of love. Thus, sixty years ago, Laycock, an acute pioneer in the investigation of the working of the human organism, brought together (in a chapter on "The Periodic Movements in the Reproductive Organs of Woman," in his _Nervous Diseases of Women_, 1840, pp. 61-70) much interesting evidence to show that the system undergoes changes about the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, and that these changes are largely sexual. Edward Smith, also a notable pioneer in this field of human periodicity, and, indeed, the first to make definite observations on a number of points bearing on it, sums up, in his remarkable book, _Health and Disease as Influenced by Daily, Seasonal, and Other Cyclical Changes in the Human System_ (1861), to the effect that season is a more powerful influence on the system than temperature or atmospheric pressure; "in the early and middle parts of spring every function of the body is in its highest degree of efficiency," while autumn is "essentially a period of change from the minimum toward the maximum of vital conditions." He found that in April and May most carbonic acid is evolved, there being then a progressive diminution to September, and then a progressive increase; the respiratory rate also fell from a maximum in April to a minimum maintained at exactly the same level throughout August, September, October, and November; spring was found to be the season of maximum, autumn of minimum, muscular power; sensibility to tactile and temperature impressions was also greater in spring. Kulischer, studying the sexual customs of various human races, concluded that in primitive times, only at two special seasons--at spring and in harvest-time--did pairing take place; and that, when pairing ceased to be strictly confined to these periods, its symbolical representation was still so confined, even among the civilized nations of Europe. He further argued that the physiological impulse was only felt at these periods. (Kulischer, "Die geschlechtliche Zuchtwahl bei den Menschen in der Urzeit," _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1876, pp. 152 and 157.) Cohnstein ("Ueber Prädilectionszeiten bei Schwangerschaft," _Archiv für Gynäkologie_, 1879) also suggested that women sometimes only conceive at certain periods of the year. Wiltshire, who made various interesting observations regarding the physiology of menstruation, wrote: "Many years ago, I concluded that every women had a law peculiar to herself, which governed the times of her bringing forth (and conceiving); that she was more prone to bring forth at certain epochs than at others; and subsequent researches have established the accuracy of the forecast." He further stated his belief in a "primordial seasonal aptitude for procreation, the impress of which still remains, and, to some extent, governs the breeding-times of humanity." (A. Wiltshire, "Lectures on the Comparative Physiology of Menstruation," _British Medical Journal_, March, 1883, pp. 502, etc.) Westermarck, in a chapter of his _History of Human Marriage_, dealing with the question of "A Human Pairing Season in Primitive Times," brings forward evidence showing that spring, or, rather, early summer, is the time for increase of the sexual instinct, and argues that this is a survival of an ancient pairing season; spring, he points out, is a season of want, rather than abundance, for a frugivorous species, but when men took to herbs, roots, and animal food, spring became a time of abundance, and suitable for the birth of children. He thus considers that in man, as in lower animals, the times of conception are governed by the times most suitable for birth. Rosenstadt, as we shall see later, also believes that men to-day have inherited a physiological custom of procreating at a certain epoch, and he thus accounts for the seasonal changes in the birthrate. Heape, who also believes that "at one period of its existence the human species had a special breeding season," follows Wiltshire in suggesting that "there is some reason to believe that the human female is not always in a condition to breed." (W. Heape, "Menstruation and Ovulation of _Macacus rhesus_," _Philosophical Transactions_, 1897; id. "The Sexual Season of Mammals," _Quarterly Journal Microscopical Science_, 1900.) Except, however, in one important respect, with which we shall presently have to deal, few attempts have been made to demonstrate any annual organic sexual rhythm. The supposition of such annual cycle is usually little more than a deduction from the existence of the well-marked seasonal sexual rhythm in animals. Most of the higher animals breed only once or twice a year, and at such a period that the young are born when food is most plentiful. At other periods the female is incapable of breeding, and without sexual desires, while the male is either in the same condition or in a condition of latent sexuality. Under the influence of domestication, animals tend to lose the strict periodicity of the wild condition, and become apt for breeding at more frequent intervals. Thus among dogs in the wild state the bitch only experiences heat once a year, in the spring. Among domesticated dogs, there is not only the spring period of heat, early in the year, but also an autumn period, about six months later; the primitive period, however, remains the most important one, and the best litters of pups are said to be produced in the spring. The mare is in season in spring and summer; sheep take the ram in autumn.[128] Many of the menstruating monkeys also, whether or not sexual desire is present throughout the year, only conceive in spring and in autumn. Almost any time of the year may be an animal's pairing season, this season being apparently in part determined by the economic conditions which will prevail at birth. While it is essential that animals should be born during the season of greatest abundance, it is equally essential that pairing, which involves great expenditure of energy, should also take place at a season of maximum physical vigor. As an example of the sexual history of an animal through the year, I may quote the following description, by Dr. A.W. Johnstone, of the habits of the American deer: "Our common American deer, in winter-time, is half-starved for lack of vegetation in the woods; the low temperature, snow, and ice, make his conditions of life harder for lack of the proper amount of food, whereby he becomes an easier prey to carnivorous animals. He has difficulty even in preserving life. In spring he sheds his winter coat, and is provided with a suit of lighter hair, and while this is going on the male grows antlers for defence. The female about this time is far along in pregnancy, and when the antlers are fully grown she drops the fawn. When the fawns are dropped vegetation is plentiful and lactation sets in. During this time the male is kept fully employed in getting food and guarding his more or less helpless family. As the season advances the vegetation increases and the fawn begins to eat grass. When the summer heat commences the little streams begin to dry up, and the animal once more has difficulty in supporting life because of the enervating heat, the effect of drought on the vegetation, and the distance which has to be traveled to get water; therefore, fully ten months in each year the deer has all he can do to live without extra exertion incident to rutting. Soon after the autumn rains commence vegetation becomes more luxurious, the antlers of the male and new suits of hair for both are fully grown, heat of the summer is gone, food and drink are plentiful everywhere, the fawns are weaned, and both sexes are in the very finest condition. Then, and then only, in the whole year, comes the rut, which, to them as to most other animals, means an unwonted amount of physical exercise besides the everyday runs for life from their natural enemies, and an unusual amount of energy is used up. If a doe dislikes the attention of a special buck, miles of racing result. If jealous males meet, furious battles take place. The strain on both sexes could not possibly be endured at any other season of the year. With approach of cold weather, climatic deprivations and winter dangers commence and rut closes. In all wild animals, rut occurs only when the climatic and other conditions favor the highest physical development. This law holds good in all wild birds, for it is then only that they can stand the strain incident to love-making. The common American crow is a very good study. In the winter he travels around the ricefields of the South, leading a tramp's existence in a country foreign to him, and to which he goes only to escape the rigors of the northern climate. For several weeks in the spring he goes about the fields, gathering up the worms and grubs. After his long flight from the South he experiences several weeks of an almost ideal existence, his food is plentiful, he becomes strong and hearty, and then he turns to thoughts of love. In the pairing season he does more work than at any other time in the year: fantastic dances, racing and chasing after the females, and savage fights with rivals. He endures more than would be possible in his ordinary physical state. Then come the care of the young and the long flights for water and food during the drought of the summer. After the molt, autumn finds him once more in flock, and with the first frosts he is off again to the South. In the wild state, rut is the capstone of perfect physical condition." (A.W. Johnstone, "The Relation of Menstruation to the other Reproductive Functions," _American Journal of Obstetrics_, vol. xxxii, 1895.) Wiltshire ("Lectures on the Comparative Physiology of Menstruation," _British Medical Journal_, March, 1888) and Westermarck (_History of Human Marriage_, Chapter II) enumerate the pairing season of a number of different animals. With regard to the breeding seasons of monkeys, little seems to be positively known. Heape made special inquiries with reference to the two species whose sexual life he investigated. He was informed that _Semnopithecus entellus_ breeds twice a year, in April and in October. He accepts Aitcheson's statement that the _Macacus rhesus_, in Simla, copulates in October, and adds that in the very different climate of the plains it appears to copulate in May. He concludes that the breeding season varies greatly in dependence on climate, but believes that the breeding season is always preserved, and that it affects the sexual aptitude of the male. He could not make his monkeys copulate during February or March, but is unable to say whether or not sexual intercourse is generally admitted outside the breeding season. He quotes the observation of Breschet that monkeys copulate during pregnancy. In primitive human races we very frequently trace precisely the same influence of the seasonal impulse as may be witnessed in the higher animals, although among human races it does not always result that the children are born at the time of the greatest plenty, and on account of the development of human skill such a result is not necessary. Thus Dr. Cook found among the Eskimo that during the long winter nights the secretions are diminished, muscular power is weak, and the passions are depressed. Soon after the sun appears a kind of rut affects the young population. They tremble with the intensity of sexual passion, and for several weeks much of the time is taken up with courtship and love. Hence, the majority of the children are born nine months later, when the four months of perpetual night are beginning. A marked seasonal periodicity of this kind is not confined to the Arctic regions. We may also find it in the tropics. In Cambodia, Mondière has found that twice a year, in April and September, men seem to experience a "veritable rut," and will sometimes even kill women who resist them.[129] These two periods, spring and autumn--the season for greeting the appearance of life and the season for reveling in its final fruition--seem to be everywhere throughout the world the most usual seasons for erotic festivals. In classical Greece and Rome, in India, among the Indians of North and South America, spring is the most usual season, while in Africa the yam harvest of autumn is the season chiefly selected. There are, of course, numerous exceptions to this rule, and it is common to find both seasons observed. Taking, indeed, a broad view of festivals throughout the world, we may say that there are four seasons when they are held: the winter solstice, when the days begin to lengthen and primitive man rejoices in the lengthening and seeks to assist it;[130] the vernal equinox, the period of germination and the return of life; the summer solstice, when the sun reaches its height; and autumn, the period of fruition, of thankfulness, and of repose. But it is rarely that we find a people seriously celebrating more than two of these festival seasons. In Australia, according to Müller as quoted by Ploss and Bartels, marriage and conception take place during the warm season, when there is greatest abundance of food, and to some extent is even confined to that period. Oldfield and others state that the Australian erotic festivals take place only in spring. Among some tribes, Müller adds, such as the Watschandis, conception is inaugurated by a festival called _kaaro_, which takes place in the warm season at the first new moon after the yams are ripe. The leading feature of this festival is a moonlight dance, representing the sexual act symbolically. With their spears, regarded as the symbols of the male organ, the men attack bushes, which represent the female organs. They thus work themselves up to a state of extreme sexual excitement.[131] Among the Papuans of New Guinea, also, according to Miklucho-Macleay, conceptions chiefly occur at the end of harvest, and Guise describes the great annual festival of the year which takes place at the time of the yam and banana harvest, when the girls undergo a ceremony of initiation and marriages are effected.[132] In Central Africa, says Sir H.H. Johnston, in his _Central Africa_, sexual orgies are seriously entered into at certain seasons of the year, but he neglects to mention what these seasons are. The people of New Britain, according to Weisser (as quoted by Ploss and Bartels), carefully guard their young girls from the young men. At certain times, however, a loud trumpet is blown in the evening, and the girls are then allowed to go away into the bush to mix freely with the young men. In ancient Peru (according to an account derived from a pastoral letter of Archbishop Villagomez of Lima), in December, when the fruit of the _paltay_ is ripe, a festival was held, preceded by a five days' fast. During the festival, which lasted six days and six nights, men and women met together in a state of complete nudity at a certain spot among the gardens, and all raced toward a certain hill. Every man who caught up with a woman in the race was bound at once to have intercourse with her. Very instructive, from our present point of view, is the account given by Dalton, of the festivals of the various Bengal races. Thus the Hos (a Kolarian tribe), of Bengal, are a purely agricultural people, and the chief festival of the year with them is the _mágh parah_. It is held in the month of January, "when the granaries are full of grain, and the people, to use their own expression, full of devilry." It is the festival of the harvest-home, the termination of the year's toil, and is always held at full moon. The festival is a _saturnalia_, when all rules of duty and decorum are forgotten, and the utmost liberty is allowed to women and girls, who become like bacchantes. The people believe that at this time both men and women become overcharged with vitality, and that a safety valve is absolutely necessary. The festival begins with a religious sacrifice made by the village priest or elders, and with prayers for the departed and for the vouchsafing of seasonable rain and good crops. The religious ceremonies over, the people give themselves up to feasting and to drinking the home-made beer, the preparation of which from fermented rice is one of a girl's chief accomplishments. "The Ho population," wrote Dalton, "are at other seasons quiet and reserved in manner, and in their demeanor toward women gentle and decorous; even in their flirtations they never transcend the bounds of decency. The girls, though full of spirits and somewhat saucy, have innate notions of propriety that make them modest in demeanor, though devoid of all prudery, and of the obscene abuse, so frequently heard from the lips of common women in Bengal, they appear to have no knowledge. They are delicately sensitive under harsh language of any kind, and never use it to others; and since their adoption of clothing they are careful to drape themselves decently, as well as gracefully; but they throw all this aside during the _mágh_ feast. Their nature appears to undergo a temporary change. Sons and daughters revile their parents in gross language, and parents their children; men and women become almost like animals in the indulgence of their amorous propensities. They enact all that was ever portrayed by prurient artists in a bacchanalian festival or pandean orgy; and as the light of the sun they adore, and the presence of numerous spectators, seems to be no restraint on their indulgence, it cannot be expected that chastity is preserved when the shades of night fall on such a scene of licentiousness and debauchery." While, however, thus representing the festival as a mere debauch, Dalton adds that relationships formed at this time generally end in marriage. There is also a flower festival in April and May, of religious nature, but the dances at this festival are quieter in character.[133] In Burmah the great festival of the year is the full moon of October, following the Buddhist Lent season (which is also the wet season), during which there is no sexual intercourse. The other great festival is the New Year in March.[134] In classical times the great festivals were held at the same time as in northern and modern Europe. The _brumalia_ took place in midwinter, when the days were shortest, and the _rosalia_, according to early custom in May or June, and at a later time about Easter. After the establishment of Christianity the Church made constant efforts to suppress this latter festival, and it was referred to by an eighth century council as "a wicked and reprehensible holiday-making." These festivals appear to be intimately associated with Dionysus worship, and the flower-festival of Dionysus, as well as the Roman Liberales in honor of Bacchus, was celebrated in March with worship of Priapus. The festivals of the Delian Apollo and of Artemis, both took place during the first week in May and the Roman Bacchanales in October.[135] The mediæval Feast of Fools was to a large extent a seasonal orgy licensed by the Church. It may be traced directly back through the barbatories of the lower empire to the Roman _saturnalia_, and at Sens, the ancient ecclesiastical metropolis of France, it was held at about the same time as the _saturnalia_, on the Feast of the Circumcision, i.e., New Year's Day. It was not, however, always held at this time; thus at Evreux it took place on the 1st of May.[136] The Easter bonfires of northern-central Europe, the Midsummer (St. John's Eve) fires of southern-central Europe, still bear witness to the ancient festivals.[137] There is certainly a connection between these bonfires and erotic festivals; it is noteworthy that they occur chiefly at the period of spring and early summer, which, on other grounds, is widely regarded as the time for the increase of the sexual instinct, while the less frequent period for the bonfires is that of the minor sexual climax. Mannhardt was perhaps the first to show how intimately these spring and early summer festivals--held with bonfires and dances and the music of violin--have been associated with love-making and the choice of a mate.[138] In spring, the first Monday in Lent (Quadrigesima) and Easter Eve were frequent days for such bonfires. In May, among the Franks of the Main, the unmarried women, naked and adorned with flowers, danced on the Blocksberg before the men, as described by Herbels in the tenth century.[139] In the central highlands of Scotland the Beltane fires were kindled on the 1st of May. Bonfires sometimes took place on Halloween (October 31st) and Christmas. But the great season all over Europe for these bonfires, then often held with erotic ceremonial, is the summer solstice, the 23d of June, the eve of Midsummer, or St. John's Day.[140] The Bohemians and other Slavonic races formerly had meetings with sexual license. This was so up to the beginning of the sixteenth century on the banks of rivers near Novgorod. The meetings took place, as a rule, the day before the Festival of John the Baptist, which, in pagan times, was that of a divinity known by the name of Jarilo (equivalent to Priapus). Half a century later, a new ecclesiastical code sought to abolish every vestige of the early festivals held on Christmas Day, on the Day of the Baptism, of Our Lord, and on John the Baptist's Day. A general feature of all these festivals (says Kowalewsky) was the prevalence of the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes. Among the Ehstonians, at the end of the eighteenth century, thousands of persons would gather around an old ruined church (in the Fellinschen) on the Eve of St. John, light a bonfire, and throw sacrificial gifts into it. Sterile women danced naked among the ruins; much eating and drinking went on, while the young men and maidens disappeared into the woods to do what they would. Festivals of this character still take place at the end of June in some districts. Young unmarried couples jump barefoot over large fires, usually near rivers or ponds. Licentiousness is rare.[141] But in many parts of Russia the peasants still attach little value to virginity, and even prefer women who have been mothers. The population of the Grisons in the sixteenth century held regular meetings not less licentious than those of the Cossacks. These were abolished by law. Kowalewsky regards all such customs as a survival of early forms of promiscuity.[142] Frazer (_Golden Bough_, 2d ed., 1900, vol. iii, pp. 236-350) fully describes and discusses the dances, bonfires and festivals of spring and summer, of Halloween (October 31), and Christmas. He also explains the sexual character of these festivals. "There are clear indications," he observes (p. 305), "that even human fecundity is supposed to be promoted by the genial heat of the fires. It is an Irish belief that a girl who jumps thrice over the midsummer bonfire will soon marry and become the mother of many children; and in various parts of France they think that if a girl dances round nine fires she will be sure to marry within a year. On the other hand, in Lechrain, people say that if a young man and woman, leaping over the midsummer fire together, escape unsmirched, the young woman will not become a mother within twelve months--the flames have not touched and fertilized her. The rule observed in some parts of France and Belgium, that the bonfires on the first Sunday in Lent should be kindled by the person who was last married, seems to belong to the same class of ideas, whether it be that such a person is supposed to receive from, or impart to, the fire a generative and fertilizing influence. The common practice of lovers leaping over the fires hand-in-hand may very well have originated in a notion that thereby their marriage would be more likely to be blessed with offspring. And the scenes of profligacy which appear to have marked the midsummer celebration among the Ehstonians, as they once marked the celebration of May Day among ourselves, may have sprung, not from the mere license of holiday-makers, but from a crude notion that such orgies were justified, if not required, by some mysterious bond which linked the life of man, to the courses of the heavens at the turning-point of the year." As regards these primitive festivals, although the evidence is scattered and sometimes obscure, certain main conclusions clearly emerge. In early Europe there were, according to Grimm, only two seasons, sometimes regarded as spring and winter, sometimes as spring and autumn, and for mythical purposes these seasons were alone available.[143] The appearance of each of these two seasons was inaugurated by festivals which were religious and often erotic in character. The Slavonic year began in March, at which time there was formerly, it is believed, a great festival, not only in Slavonic but also in Teutonic countries. In Northern Germany there were Easter bonfires always associated with mountains or hills. The Celtic bonfires were held at the beginning of May, while the Teutonic May-day, or _Walpurgisnacht_, is a very ancient sacred festival, associated with erotic ceremonial, and regarded by Grimm as having a common origin with the Roman _floralia_ and the Greek _dionysia_. Thus, in Europe, Grimm concludes: "there are four different ways of welcoming summer. In Sweden and Gothland a battle of winter and summer, a triumphal entry of the latter. In Schonen, Denmark, Lower Saxony, and England, simply May-riding, or fetching of the May-wagon. On the Rhine merely a battle of winter and summer, without immersion, without the pomp of an entry. In Franconia, Thuringia, Meissen, Silesia, and Bohemia only the carrying out of wintry death; no battle, no formal introduction of summer. Of these festivals the first and second fall in May, the third and fourth in March. In the first two, the whole population take part with unabated enthusiasm; in the last two only the lower poorer class.... Everything goes to prove that the approach of summer was to our forefathers a holy tide, welcomed by sacrifice, feast, and dance, and largely governing and brightening the people's life."[144] The early spring festival of March, the festival of Ostara, the goddess of spring, has become identified with the Christian festival of Resurrection (just as the summer solstice festival has been placed beneath the patronage of St. John the Baptist); but there has been only an amalgamation of closely-allied rites, for the Christian festival also may be traced back to a similar origin. Among the early Arabians the great _ragab_ feast, identified by Ewald and Robertson Smith with the Jewish _paschal_ feast, fell in the spring or early summer, when the camels and other domestic animals brought forth their young and the shepherds offered their sacrifices.[145] Babylonia, the supreme early centre of religious and cosmological culture, presents a more decisive example of the sex festival. The festival of Tammuz is precisely analogous to the European festival of St. John's Day. Tammuz was the solar god of spring vegetation, and closely associated with Ishtar, also an agricultural deity of fertility. The Tammuz festival was, in the earliest times, held toward the summer solstice, at the time of the first wheat and barley harvest. In Babylonia, as in primitive Europe, there were only two seasons; the festival of Tammuz, coming at the end of winter and the beginning of summer, was a fast followed by a feast, a time of mourning for winter, of rejoicing for summer. It is part of the primitive function of sacred ritual to be symbolical of natural processes, a mysterious representation of natural processes with the object of bringing them about.[146] The Tammuz festival was an appeal to the powers of Nature to exhibit their generative functions; its erotic character is indicated not only by the well-known fact that the priestesses of Ishtar (the Kadishtu, or "holy ones") were prostitutes, but by the statements in Babylonian legends concerning the state of the earth during Ishtar's winter absence, when the bull, the ass, and man ceased to reproduce. It is evident that the return of spring, coincident with the Tammuz festival, was regarded as the period for the return of the reproductive instinct even in man.[147] So that along this line also we are led back to a great procreative festival. Thus the great spring festivals were held between March and June, frequently culminating in a great orgy on Midsummer's Eve. The next great season of festivals in Europe was in autumn. The beginning of August was a great festival in Celtic lands, and the echoes of it, Rhys remarks, have not yet died out in Wales.[148] The beginning of November, both in Celtic and Teutonic countries, was a period of bonfires.[149] In Germanic countries especially there was a great festival at the time. The Germanic year began at Martinmas (November 11th), and the great festival of the year was then held. It is the oldest Germanic festival on record, and retained its importance even in the Middle Ages. There was feasting all night, and the cattle that were to be killed were devoted to the gods; the goose was associated with this festival.[150] These autumn festivals culminated in the great festival of the winter solstice which we have perpetuated in the celebrations of Christmas and New Year. Thus, while the two great primitive culminating festivals of spring and autumn correspond exactly (as we shall see) with the seasons of maximum fecundation, even in the Europe of to-day, the earlier spring (March) and--though less closely--autumn (November) festivals correspond with the periods of maximum spontaneous sexual disturbance, as far as I have been able to obtain precise evidence of such disturbance. That the maximum of physiological sexual excitement should tend to appear earlier than the maximum of fecundation is a result that might be expected. The considerations so far brought forward clearly indicate that among primitive races there are frequently one or two seasons in the year--especially spring and autumn--during which sexual intercourse is chiefly or even exclusively carried on, and they further indicate that these primitive customs persist to some extent even in Europe to-day. It would still remain, to determine whether any such influence affects the whole mass of the civilized population and determines the times at which intercourse, or fecundation, most frequently takes place. This question can be most conveniently answered by studying the seasonal variation in the birthrate, calculating back to the time of conception. Wargentin, in Sweden, first called attention to the periodicity of the birthrate in 1767.[151] The matter seems to have attracted little further attention until Quetelet, who instinctively scented unreclaimed fields of statistical investigation, showed that in Belgium and Holland there is a maximum of births in February, and, consequently, of conceptions in May, and a minimum of births about July, with consequent minimum of conceptions in October. Quetelet considered that the spring maximum of conceptions corresponded to an increase of vitality after the winter cold. He pointed out that this sexual climax was better marked in the country than in towns, and accounted for this by the consideration that in the country the winter cold is more keenly felt. Later, Wappäus investigated the matter in various parts of northern and southern Europe as well as in Chile, and found that there was a maximum of conceptions in May and June attributable to season, and in Catholic countries strengthened by customs connected with ecclesiastical seasons. This maximum was, he found, followed by a minimum in September, October, and November, due to gradually increasing exhaustion, and the influence of epidemic diseases, as well as the strain of harvest-work. The minimum is reached in the south earlier than in the north. About November conceptions again become more frequent, and reach the second maximum at about Christmas and New Year. This second maximum is very slightly marked in southern countries, but strongly marked in northern countries (in Sweden the absolute maximum of conceptions is reached in December), and is due, in the opinion of Wappäus, solely to social causes. Villermé reached somewhat similar results. Founding his study on 17,000,000 births, he showed that in France it was in April, May, and June, or from the spring equinox to the summer solstice, and nearer to the solstice than the equinox, that the maximum of fecundations takes place; while the minimum of births is normally in July, but is retarded by a wet and cold summer in such a manner that in August there are scarcely more births than in July, and, on the other hand, a very hot summer, accelerating the minimum of births, causes it to fall in June instead of in July.[152] He also showed that in Buenos Ayres, where the seasons are reversed, the conception-rate follows the reversed seasons, and is also raised by epochs of repose, of plentiful food, and of increased social life. Sormani studied the periodicity of conception in Italy, and found that the spring maximum in the southern provinces occurs in May, and gradually falls later as one proceeds northward, until, in the extreme north of the peninsula, it occurs in July. In southern Italy there is only one maximum and one minimum; in the north there are two. The minimum which follows the spring or summer maximum increases as we approach the south, while the minimum associated with the winter cold increases as we approach the north.[153] Beukemann, who studied the matter in various parts of Germany, found that seasonal influence was specially marked in the case of illegitimate births. The maximum of conceptions of illegitimate children takes place in the spring and summer of Europe generally; in Russia it takes place in the autumn and winter, when the harvest-working months for the population are over, and the period of rest, and also of minimum deathrate (September, October, and November), comes round. In Russia the general conception-rate has been studied by various investigators. Here the maximum number of conceptions is in winter, the minimum varying among different elements of the population. Looked at more closely, there are maxima of conceptions in Russia in January and in April. (In Russian towns, however, the maximum number of conceptions occurs in the autumn.) The special characteristics of the Russian conception-rate are held to be due to the prevalence of marriages in autumn and winter,[154] to the severely observed fasts of spring, and to the exhausting harvest-work of summer. It is instructive to compare the conception-rate of Europe with that of a non-European country. Such a comparison has been made by S.A. Hill for the Northwest Provinces of India. Here the Holi and other erotic festivals take place in spring; but spring is not the period when conceptions chiefly take place; indeed, the prevalence of erotic festivals in spring appears to Hill an argument in favor of those festivals having originated in a colder climate. The conceptions show a rise through October and November to a maximum in December and January, followed by a steady and prolonged fall to a minimum in September. This curve can be accounted for by climatic and economic conditions. September is near the end of the long and depressing hot season, when malarial influences are rapidly increasing to a maximum, the food-supply is nearly exhausted, and there is the greatest tendency to suicide. With October it forms the period of greatest mortality. December, on the other hand, is the month when food is most abundant, and it is also a very healthy month.[155] For a summary of the chief researches into this question, see Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_; also, Rosenstadt, "Zur Frage nach den Ursachen welche die Zahl der Conceptionen, etc," _Mittheilungen aus den embryologischen Institute Universität Wien_, second series, fasc. 4, 1890. Rosenstadt concludes that man has inherited from animal ancestors a "physiological custom" which has probably been further favored by climatic and social conditions. "Primitive man," he proceeds, "had inherited from his ancestors the faculty of only reproducing himself at determined epochs. On the arrival of this period of rut, fecundation took place on a large scale, this being very easy, thanks to the promiscuity in which primitive man lived. With the development of civilization, men give themselves up to sexual relations all the year around, but the 'physiological custom' of procreating at a certain epoch has not completely disappeared; it remains as a survival of the animal condition, and manifests itself in the recrudescence of the number of conceptions during certain months of the year." O. Rosenbach ("Bemerkungen über das Problem einer Brunstzeit beim Menschen," _Archiv für Rassen und Gesellschafts-Biologie_, Bd. III, Heft 5) has also argued in favor of a chief sexual period in the year in man, with secondary and even tertiary climaxes, in March, August, and December. He finds that in some families, for several generations, birthdays tend to fall in the same months, but his paper is, on the whole, inconclusive. Some years ago, Prof. J.B. Haycraft argued, on the basis of data furnished by Scotland, that the conception-rate corresponds to the temperature-curve (Haycraft, "Physiological Results of Temperature Variation," _Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh_, vol. xxix, 1880). "Temperature," he concluded, "is the main factor regulating the variations in the number of conceptions which occur during the year. It increases their number with its elevation, and this on an average of 0.5 per cent, for an elevation of 1° F." Whether or not this theory may fit the facts as regards Scotland, it is certainly altogether untenable when we take a broader view of the phenomena. Recently Dr. Paul Gaedeken of Copenhagen has argued in a detailed statistical study ("La Réaction de l'Organisme sous l'Influence Physico-Chimiques des Agents Météorologiques," _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Feb., 1909) that the conception-rate, as well as the periodicity of suicide and allied phenomena, is due to the action of the chemical rays on the unpigmented skin in early spring, this action being physiologically similar to that of alcohol. He seeks thus to account for the marked and early occurrence of such periodic phenomena in Greenland and other northern countries where there is much chemical action (owing to the clear air) in early spring, but little heat. This explanation would not cover an autumnal climax, the existence of which Gaedeken denies. In order to obtain a fairly typical conception-curve for Europe, and to allow the variations of local habit and custom to some extent to annihilate each other, I have summated the figures given by Mayr for about a quarter of a million births in Germany, France, and Italy,[156] obtaining a curve (Chart 2) of the conception-rate which may be said roughly to be that of Europe generally. If we begin at September as the lowest point, we find an autumn rise culminating in the lesser maximum of Christmas, followed by a minor depression in January and February. Then comes the great spring rise, culminating in May, and followed after June by a rapid descent to the minimum. In Canada (see e.g., _Report of the Registrar General of the Province of Ontario_ for 1904), the maximum and minimum of conceptions alike fall later than in Europe; the months of maximum conception are June, July, and August; of minimum conception, January, February, and March. June is the favorite month for marriage. It would be of some interest to know the conception-curve for the well-to-do classes, who are largely free from the industrial and social influences which evidently, to a great extent, control the conception-rate. It seems probable that the seasonal influence would here be specially well shown. The only attempt I have made in this direction is to examine a well-filled birthday-book. The entries show a very high and equally maintained maximum of conceptions throughout April, May and June, followed by a marked minimum during the next three months, and an autumn rise very strongly marked, in November. There is no December rise. As will be seen, there is here a fairly exact resemblance to the yearly ecbolic curve of people of the same class. The inquiry needs, however, to be extended to a very much larger number of cases. Mr. John Douglass Brown, of Philadelphia, has kindly prepared and sent me, since the above was written, a series of curves showing the, annual periodicity of births among the educated classes in the State of Pennsylvania, using the statistics as to 4,066 births contained in the Biographical Catalogue of Matriculates of the College of the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Brown prepared four curves: the first, covering the earliest period, 1757-1859; the second, the period 1860-1876; the third, 1877-1893; while the fourth presented the summated results for the whole period. (The dates named are those of the entry to classes, and not of actual occurrence of birth.) A very definite and well-marked curve is shown, and the average number of births (not conceptions) per day, for the whole period, is as follows:-- Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. 10.5 11.4 11 8.3 10.2 10.5 11.5 12.6 12.3 11.6 12 11.7 There is thus a well-marked minimum of conceptions (a depression appearing here in each of the three periods, separately) about the month of July. (In the second period, however, which contains the smallest number of births, the minimum occurs in September.) From that low minimum there is steady and unbroken rise up to the chief maximum in November. (In the first period, however, the maximum is delayed till January, and in the second period it is somewhat diffused.) There is a tendency to a minor maximum in February, specially well marked in the third and most important period, and in the first period delayed until March. A very curious and perhaps not accidental coincidence might be briefly pointed out before we leave this part of the subject. It is found[157] by taking 3000 cases of children dying under one year that, among the general population, children born in February and September (and therefore conceived in May and December) appear to possess the greatest vitality, and those born in June, and, therefore, conceived in September, the least vitality.[158] As we have seen, May and December are precisely the periods when conceptions in Europe generally are at a maximum, and September is precisely the period when they are at a minimum, so that, if this coincidence is not accidental, the strongest children are conceived when there is the strongest tendency to procreate, and the feeblest children when that tendency is feeblest. Nelson, in his study of dreams and their relation to seasonal ecbolic manifestations, does not present any yearly ecbolic curve, as the two years and a half over which his observations extend scarcely supply a sufficient basis. On examining his figures, however, I find there is a certain amount of evidence of a yearly rhythm. There are spring and autumn climaxes throughout (in February and in November); there is no December rise. During one year there is a marked minimum from May to September, though it is but slightly traceable in the succeeding year. These figures are too uncertain to prove anything, but, as far as they go, they are in fair agreement with the much more extensive record, that of W.K. (_ante_ p. 113), which I have already made use of in discussing the question of a monthly rhythm. This record, covering nearly twelve years, shows a general tendency, when the year is divided into four periods (November-January, February-April, May-July, August-October) and the results summated, to rise steadily throughout, from the minimum in the winter period to the maximum in the autumn period. This steady upward progress is not seen in each year taken separately. In three years there is a fall in passing from the November-January to the February-April quarter (always followed by a rise in the subsequent quarter); in three cases there is a fall in passing from the second to the third quarter (again always followed by a rise in the following quarter), and in two successive years there is a fall in passing from the third to the fourth quarter. If, however, beginning at the second year, we summate the results for each year with those for all previous years, a steady rise from season to season is seen throughout. If we analyze the data according to the months of the year, still more precise and interesting results (as shown in the curve, Chart 3) are obtained; two maximum points are seen, one in spring (March), one in autumn (October, or, rather, August-October), and each of these maximum points is followed by; a steep and sudden descent to the minimum points in April and in December. If we compare this result with Perry-Coste's also extending over a long series of years, we find a marked similarity. In both alike there are spring and autumn maxima, in both the autumn maximum is the highest, and in both also there is an intervening fall. In both cases, again, the maxima are followed by steep descents, but while in both the spring maximum occurs in March, in Perry-Coste's case the second maximum, though of precisely similar shape, occurs earlier, in June-September instead of August-October. In Perry-Coste's case, also, there is an apparently abnormal tendency, only shown in the more recent years of the record, to an additional maximum in January. The records certainly show far more points of agreement than of discrepancy, and by their harmony, as well with each other as with themselves, when the years are taken separately, certainly go far to prove that there is a very marked annual rhythm in the phenomena of seminal emissions during sleep, or, as Nelson has termed it, the ecbolic curve. We see, also, that the great yearly organic climax of sexual effervescence corresponds with the period following harvest, which, throughout the primitive world, has been a season of sexual erethism and orgy; though those customs have died out of our waking lives, they are still imprinted on our nervous texture, and become manifest during sleep. The fresh records that have reached me since the first edition of this book was published show well-marked annual curves, though each curve always has some slight personal peculiarities of its own. The most interesting and significant is that of E.M. (see _ante_ p. 116), covering four years. It is indicated by the following monthly frequencies, summated for the four years:-- Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. 16 13 14 22 19 19 12 12 14 14 12 24 E.M. lives in India. April, May, and June, are hot months, but not unhealthy, and during this season, moreover, he lives in the hills, under favorable conditions, getting plenty of outdoor exercise. July, August, and September, are nearly as hot, but much damper, and more trying; during these months, E.M. is living in the city, and his work is then, also, more exacting than at other times, September is the worst month of all; he has a short holiday at the end of it. During December, January, and February, the climate is very fine, and E.M.'s work is easier. It will be seen that his ecbolic curve corresponds to his circumstances and environment, although until he analyzed the record he had no idea that any such relationship existed. Unfavorable climatic conditions and hard work, favorable conditions and lighter work, happen to coincide in his life, and the former depress the frequency of seminal emissions; the latter increase their frequency. At the same time, the curve is not out of harmony with the northern curves. There is what corresponds to a late spring (April) climax, and another still higher, late autumn (December) climax. A very interesting point is the general resemblance of the ecbolic curves to the Indian conception-curves as set forth by Hill (_ante_ p. 140). The conception-curve is at its lowest point in September, and at its highest point in December-January, and this ecbolic curve follows it, except that both the minimum and the maximum are reached a little earlier. When compared with the English annual ecbolic curves (W.K. and Perry-Coste), both spring and autumn maxima fall rather later, but all agree in representing the autumn rise as the chief climax. The annual curve of A.N. (_ante_ p. 117), who lives in Indiana, U.S.A., also covers four years. It presents the usual spring (May-June, in this case) and autumn (September-October) climaxes. The exact monthly results, summated for the four years, are given below; in order to allow for the irregular lengths of the months, I have reduced them to daily averages, for convenience treating the four years as one year:-- Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. 13 9 13 20 23 22 20 20 21 23 9 16 .42 .32 .42 .66 .74 .73 .64 .64 .70 .74 .30 .52 In his book on _Adolescence_, Stanley Hall refers to three ecbolic records in his possession, all made by men who were doctors of philosophy, and all considering themselves normal. The best of these records made by "a virtuous, active and able man," covered nearly eight years. Stanley Hall thus summarizes the records, which are not presented in detail: "The best of these records averages about three and a half such experiences per month, the most frequent being 5.14 for July, and the least frequent 2.28, for September, for all the years taken together. There appears also a slight rise in April, and another in November, with a fall in December." The frequency varies in the different individuals. There was no tendency to a monthly cycle. In the best case, the minimum number for the year was thirty-seven, and the maximum, fifty. Fifty-nine per cent. of all were at an interval of a week or less; forty per cent. at an interval of from one to four days; thirty-four per cent, at an interval of from eight to seventeen days, the longest being forty-two days. Poor condition, overwork, and undersleep, led to infrequency. Early morning was the most common time. Normally there was a sense of distinct relief, but in low conditions, or with over-frequency, depression. (G.S. Hall, _Adolescence_, vol. i, p. 453.) I may add that an anonymous article on "Nocturnal Emissions" (_American Journal of Psychology_, Jan., 1904) is evidently a fuller presentation of the first of Stanley Hall's three cases. It is the history of a healthy, unmarried, chaste man, who kept a record of his nocturnal emissions (and their accompanying dreams) from the age of thirty to thirty-eight. In what American State he lived is not mentioned. He was ignorant of the existence of any previous records. The yearly average was 37 to 50, remaining fairly constant; the monthly average was 3.43. I reproduce the total results summated for the months, separately, and I have worked out the daily average for each month, for convenience counting the summated eight years as one year:-- Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. 27 27 27 31 29 28 36 25 18 27 30 24 .87 .94 .87 1.03 .93 .93 1.16 .81 .60 .87 1.00 .77 Here, as in all the other curves we have been able to consider, we may see the usual two points of climax in spring and in autumn; the major climax covers April, May, June, and July, the minor autumnal climax is confined to November. In the light of the evidence which has thus accumulated, we may conclude that the existence of an annual ecbolic curve, with its spring and autumn climaxes, as described in the first edition of this book, is now definitely established. If we are to believe, as these records tend to show, that the nocturnal and involuntary voice of the sexual impulse usually speaks at least as loudly in autumn as in spring, we are confronted by a certain divergence of the sleeping sexual impulse from the waking sexual instinct, as witnessed by the conception-curve, and also, it may be added, by the general voice of tradition, and, indeed, of individual feeling, which concur, on the whole, in placing the chief epoch of sexual activity in spring and early summer, more especially as regards women.[159] It is not impossible to reconcile the contradiction, assuming it to be real, but I will refrain here from suggesting the various explanations which arise. We need a broader basis of facts. There are many facts to show that early spring and, to a certain extent, autumn are periods of visible excitement, mainly sexual in character. We have already seen that among the Eskimo menstruation and sexual desire occur chiefly in spring, but cases are known of healthy women in temperate climes who only menstruate twice a year, and in such cases the menstrual epochs appear to be usually in spring and autumn. Such, at all events, was the case in a girl of 20, whose history has been recorded by Dr. Mary Wenck, of Philadelphia.[160] She menstruated first when 15 years old. Six months later the flow again appeared for the second time, and lasted three weeks, without cessation. Since then, for five years, she menstruated during March and September only, each time for three weeks, the flow being profuse, but not exhaustingly so, without pain or systemic disturbance. Examination revealed perfectly normal uterus and ovarian organs. Treatment, accompanied by sitz-baths during the time of month the flow should appear, accomplished nothing. The semi-annual flow continued and the girl seemed in excellent health. It is a remarkable fact that, as noted by Dr. Hamilton Wey at Elmira, sexual outbursts among prisoners appear to occur at about March and October. "Beginning with the middle of February," writes Dr. Wey in a private letter, "and continuing for about two months, is a season of ascending sexual wave; also the latter half of September and the month of October. We are now (March 30th) in the midst of a wave." According to Chinese medicine, it is the spring which awakens human passions. In early Greek tradition, spring and summer were noted as the time of greatest wantonness. "In the season of toilsome summer," says Hesiod (_Works and Days_, xi, 569-90), "the goats are fattest, wine is best, women most wanton, and men weakest." It was so, also, in the experience of the Romans. Pliny (_Natural History_, Bk. XII, Ch. XLIII) states that when the asparagus blooms and the cicada sings loudest, is the season when women are most amorous, but men least inclined to pleasure. Paulus �gineta said that hysteria specially abounds during spring and autumn in lascivious girls and sterile women, while more recent observers have believed that hysteria is particularly difficult to treat in autumn. Oribasius (_Synopsis_, lib. i, cap. 6) quotes from Rufus to the effect that sexual feeling is most strong in spring, and least so in summer. Rabelais said that it was in March that the sexual impulse is strongest, referring this to the early warmth of spring, and that August is the month least favorable to sexual activity (_Pantagruel_, liv. v, Ch. XXIX). Nipho, in his book on love dedicated to Joan of Aragon, discussed the reasons why "women are more lustful and amorous in summer, and men in winter." Venette, in his _Génération de l'homme_, harmonized somewhat conflicting statements with the observation that spring is the season of love for both men and women; in summer, women are more amorous than men; in autumn, men revive to some extent, but are still oppressed by the heat, which, sexually, has a less depressing effect on women. There is probably a real element of truth in this view, and both extremes of heat and cold may be regarded as unfavorable to masculine virility. It is highly probable that the well-recognized tendency of piles to become troublesome in spring and in autumn, is due to increased sexual activity. Piles are favored by congestion, and sexual excitement is the most powerful cause of sudden congestion in the genito-anal region. Erasmus Darwin called attention to the tendency of piles to recur about the equinoxes (_Zoönomia_, Section XXXVI), and since his days Gant, Bonavia, and Cullimore have correlated this periodicity with sexual activity. Laycock, quoting the opinions of some earlier authorities as to the prevalence of sexual feeling in spring, stated that that popular opinion "appears to be founded on fact" (_Nervous Diseases of Women_, p. 69). I find that many people, and perhaps especially women, confirm from their own experience, the statement that sexual feeling is strongest in spring and summer. Wichmann states that pollutions are most common in spring (being perhaps the first to make that statement), and also nymphomania. (In the eighteenth century, Schurig recorded a case of extreme and life-long sexual desire in a woman whose salacity was always at its height towards the festival of St. John, _Gynæcologia_, p. 16.) A correspondent in the Argentine Republic writes to me that "on big estancias, where we have a good many shepherds, nearly always married, or, rather, I should say, living with some woman (for our standard of morality is not very high in these parts), we always look out for trouble in springtime, as it is a very common thing at this season for wives to leave their husbands and go and live with some other man." A corresponding tendency has been noted even among children. Thus, Sanford Bell ("The Emotion of Love Between the Sexes," _American Journal Psychology_, July, 1902) remarks: "The season of the year seems to have its effect upon the intensity of the emotion of sex-love among children. One teacher, from Texas, who furnished me with seventy-six cases, said that he had noticed that in the matter of love children seemed 'fairly to break out in the springtime.' Many of the others who reported, incidentally mentioned the love affairs as beginning in the spring. This also agrees with my own observations." Crichton-Browne remarks that children in springtime exhibit restlessness, excitability, perversity, and indisposition to exertion that are not displayed at other times. This condition, sometimes known as "spring fever," has been studied in over a hundred cases, both children and adults, by Kline. The majority of these report a feeling of tiredness, languor, lassitude, sometimes restlessness, sometimes drowsiness. There is often a feeling of suffocation, and a longing for Nature and fresh air and day-dreams, while work seems distasteful and unsatisfactory. Change is felt to be necessary at all costs, and sometimes there is a desire to begin some new plan of life.[161] In both sexes there is frequently a wave of sexual emotion, a longing for love. Kline also found by examination of a very large number of cases that between the ages of four and seventeen it is in spring that running away from home most often occurs. He suggests that this whole group of phenomena may be due to the shifting of the metabolic processes from the ordinary grooves into reproductive channels, and seeks to bring it into connection with the migrations of animals for reproductive purposes.[162] It has long been known that the occurrence of insanity follows an annual curve,[163] and though our knowledge of this curve, being founded on the date of admissions to asylums, cannot be said to be quite precise, it fairly corresponds to the outbreaks of acute insanity. The curve presented in Chart 4 shows the admissions to the London County Council Lunatic Asylums during the years 1893 to 1897 inclusive; I have arranged it in two-month periods, to neutralize unimportant oscillations. In order to show that this curve is not due to local or accidental circumstances, we may turn to France and take a special and chronic form of mental disease: Garnier, in his _Folie à Paris_, presents an almost exactly similar curve of the admissions of cases of general paralysis to the Infirmerie Spéciale at Paris during the years 1886-88 (Chart 5). Both curves alike show a major climax in spring and a minor climax in autumn. Crime in general in temperate climates tends to reach its maximum at the beginning of the hot season, usually in June. Thus, in Belgium, the minimum is in February; the maximum in June, thence gradually diminishing (Lentz, _Bulletin Société Médecine Mentale Belgique_, March, 1901). In France, Lacassagne has summated the data extending over more than 40 years, and finds that for all crimes June is the maximum month, the minimum being reached in November. He also gives the figures for each class of crime separately, and every crime is found to have its own yearly curve. Poisonings show a chief maximum in May, with slow fall and a minor climax in December; assassinations have a February and a November climax. Parricides culminate in May-June, and in October (Lacassagne's tables are given by Laurent, _Les Habitués des Prisons de Paris_, Ch. 1). Notwithstanding the general tendency for crime to reach its maximum in the first hot month (a tendency not necessarily due to the direct influence of heat), we also find, when we consider the statistics of crime generally (including sexual crime), that there is another tendency for minor climaxes in spring and autumn. Thus, in Italy, Penta, taking the statistics of nearly four thousand crimes (murder, highway robbery, and sexual offences), found the maximum in the first summer months, but there were also minor climaxes in spring and in August and September (Penta, _Rivista Mensile di Psichiatria_, 1899). In nearly all Europe (as is shown by a diagram given by Lombroso and Laschi, at the end of the first volume of _Le Crime Politique_), while the chief climaxes occur about July, there is, in most countries, a distinct tendency to spring (usually about March) and autumn (September and November) climaxes, though they rarely rise as high as the July climax. If we consider the separate periodicity of sexual offences, we find that they follow the rule for crimes generally, and usually show a chief maximum in early summer. Aschaffenburg finds that the annual periodicity of the sexual impulse appears more strongly marked the more abnormal its manifestations, which he places in the following order of increasing periodicity: conceptions in marriage, conceptions out of marriage, offences against decency, rape, assaults on children (_Centralblatt für Nervenheilkunde_, January, 1903). In France, rapes and offences against modesty are most numerous in May, June, and July, as Villermé, Lacassagne, and others have shown. Villermé, investigating 1,000 such cases, found a gradual ascent in frequency (only slightly broken in March) to a maximum in June (oscillating between May and July, when the years are considered separately), and then a gradual descent to a minimum in December. Legludic gives, for the 159 cases he had investigated, a table showing a small February-March climax, and a large June-August maximum, the minimum being reached in November-January. (Legludic, _Attentats aux Moeurs_, 1896, p. 16.) In Germany, Aschaffenburg finds that sexual offences begin to increase in March and April, reach a maximum in June or July, and fall to a minimum in winter (_Monatsschrift für Psychiatrie_, 1903, Heft 2). In Italy, Penta shows that sexual offences reach a minor climax in May (corresponding, in his experience, with the maximum for crimes generally, as well as with the maximum for conceptions), and a more marked climax in August-September (Penta, _I Pervertimenti Sessuali_, 1893, p. 115; id. _Rivista Mensile di Psichiatria_, 1899). Corre, in his _Crime en Pays Créole_, presents charts of the seasonal distribution of crime in Guadeloupe, with relation to temperature, which show that while, in a mild temperature like that of France and England, crime attains its maximum in the hot season, it is not so in a more tropical climate; in July, when in Guadeloupe the heat attains its maximum degree, crime of all kinds falls suddenly to a very low minimum. Even in the United States, where the summer heat is often excessive, it tends to produce a diminution of crime. Dexter, in an elaborate study of the relationship of conduct to the weather, shows that in the United States assaults present the maximum of frequency in April and October, with a decrease during the summer and the winter. "The unusual and interesting fact demonstrated here with a certainty that cannot be doubted is," he concludes, "that the unseasonably hot days of spring and autumn are the pugnacious ones, even though the actual heat be much less than for summer. We might infer from this that conditions of heat, up to a certain extent, are vitalizing, while, at the same time, irritating, but above that limit, heat is so devitalizing in its effects as to leave hardly energy enough to carry on a fight." (E.G. Dexter, _Conduct and the Weather_, 1899, pp. 63 _et seq._) It is not impossible that the phenomena of seasonal periodicity in crimes may possess a real significance in relation to sexual periodicity. If, as is possible, the occurrence of spring and autumn climaxes of criminal activity is due less to any special exciting causes at these seasons than to the depressing influences of heat and cold in summer and winter, it may appear reasonable to ask whether the spring and autumn climaxes of sexual activity are not really also largely due to a like depressing influence of extreme temperatures at the other two seasons. Not only is there periodicity in criminal conduct, but even within the normal range of good and bad conduct seasonal periodicity may still be traced. In his _Physical and Industrial Training of Criminals_, H.D. Wey gives charts of the conduct of seven prisoners during several years, as shown by the marks received. These charts show that there is a very decided tendency to good behavior during summer and winter, while in spring (February, March, and April) and in autumn (August, September and October) there are very marked falls to bad conduct, each individual tending to adhere to a conduct-curve of his own. Wey does not himself appear to have noticed this seasonal periodicity. Marro, however, has investigated this question in Turin on a large scale and reaches results not very dissimilar from those shown by Wey's figures in New York. He noted the months in which over 4,000 punishments were inflicted on prisoners for assaults, insults, threatening language, etc., and shows the annual curve in Tavola VI of his _Caratteri dei Delinquenti_. There is a marked and isolated climax in May; a still more sudden rise leads to the chief maximum of punishment in August; and from the minimum in October there is rapid ascent during the two following months to a climax much inferior to that of May. The seasonal periodicity of bad conduct in prisons is of interest as showing that we cannot account for psychic periodicity by invoking exclusively social causes. This theory of psychic periodicity has been seriously put forward, but has been investigated and dismissed, so far as crime in Holland is concerned, by J.R.B. de Roos, in the Transactions of the sixth Congress of Criminal Anthropology, at Turin, in 1906 (_Archivio di Psichiatria_ fasc. 3, 1906). The general statistics of suicides in Continental Europe show a very regular and unbroken curve, attaining a maximum in June and a minimum in December, the curve rising steadily through the first six months, sinking steadily through the last six months, but always reaching a somewhat greater height in May than in July.[164] Morselli shows that in various European countries there is always a rise in spring and in autumn (October or November).[165] Morselli attributes these spring and autumn rises to the influence of the strain of the early heat and the early cold.[166] In England, also, if we take a very large number of statistics, for instance, the figures for London during the twenty years between 1865 and 1884, as given by Ogle (in a paper read before the Statistical Society in 1886), we find that, although the general curve has the same maximum and minimum points, it is interrupted by a break on each side of the maximum, and these two breaks occur precisely at about March and October.[167] This is shown in the curve in Chart 6, which presents the daily average for the different months. The growth of children follows an annual rhythm. Wahl, the director of an educational establishment for homeless girls in Denmark, who investigated this question, found that the increase of weight for all the ages investigated was constantly about 33 per cent. greater in the summer half-year than in the winter half-year. It was noteworthy that even the children who had not reached school-age, and therefore could not be influenced by school-life, showed a similar, though slighter, difference in the same direction. It is, however, Malling-Hansen, the director of an institution for deaf-mutes in Copenhagen, who has most thoroughly investigated this matter over a great many years. He finds that there are three periods of growth throughout the year, marked off in a fairly sharp manner, and that during each of these periods the growth in weight and height shows constant characteristics. From about the end of November up to about the end of March is a period when growth, both in height and weight, proceeds at a medium rate, reaching neither a maximum nor a minimum; increase in weight is slight, the increase in height, although trifling, preponderating. After this follows a period during which the children show a marked increase in height, while increase in weight is reduced to a minimum. The children constantly lose in weight during this period of growth in height almost as much as they gain in the preceding period. This period lasts from March and April to July and August. Then follows the third period, which continues until November and December. During this period increase in height is very slight, being at its early minimum; increase in weight, on the other hand, at the beginning of the period (in September and October), is rapid and to the middle of December very considerable, daily increase in weight being three times as great as during the winter months. Thus it may be said that the spring sexual climax corresponds, roughly, with growth in height and arrest of growth in weight, while the autumn climax corresponds roughly with a period of growth in weight and arrest of growth in height. Malling-Hansen found that slight variations in the growth of the children were often dependent on changes in temperature, in such a way that a rise of temperature, even lasting for only a few days, caused an increase of growth, and a fall of temperature a decrease in growth. At Halle, Schmid-Monnard found that nearly all growth in weight took place in the second half of the year, and that the holidays made little difference. In America, Peckham has shown that increase of growth is chiefly from the 1st of May to the 1st of September.[168] Among young girls in St. Petersburg, Jenjko found that increase in weight takes place in summer. Goepel found that increase in height takes place mostly during the first eight months of the year, reaching a maximum in August, declining during the autumn and winter, in February being _nil_, while in March there is sometimes loss in weight even in healthy children. In the course of a study as to the consumption of bread in Normal schools during each month of the year, as illustrating the relationship between intellectual work and nutrition, Binet presents a number of curves which bring out results to which he makes no allusion, as they are outside his own investigation. Almost without exception, these curves show that there is an increase in the consumption of bread in spring and in autumn, the spring rise being in February, March, and April; the autumn rise in October or November. There are, however, certain fallacies in dealing with institutions like Normal schools, where the conditions are not perfectly regular throughout the year, owing to vacations, etc. It is, therefore, instructive to find that under the monotonous conditions of prison-life precisely the same spring and autumn rises are found. Binet takes the consumption of bread in the women's prison at Clermont, where some four hundred prisoners, chiefly between the ages of thirty and forty, are confined, and he presents two curves for the years 1895 and 1896. The curves for these two years show certain marked disagreements with each other, but both unite in presenting a distinct rise in April, preceded and followed by a fall, and both present a still more marked autumn rise, in one case in September and November, in the other case in October.[169] Some years ago, Sir J. Crichton-Browne stated that a manifestation of the sexual stimulus of spring is to be found in the large number of novels read during the month of March ("Address in Psychology" at the annual meeting of the British Medical Association, Leeds, 1889; _Lancet_, August 14, 1889). The statement was supported by figures furnished by lending libraries, and has since been widely copied. It would certainly be interesting if we could so simply show the connection between love and season, by proving that when the birds began to sing their notes, the young person's fancy naturally turns to brood over the pictures of mating in novels. I accordingly applied to Mr. Capel Shaw, Chief Librarian of the Birmingham Free Libraries (specially referred to by Sir J. Crichton-Browne), who furnished me with the Reports for 1896 and 1897-98 (this latter report is carried on to the end of March, 1898). The readers who use the Birmingham Free Lending Libraries are about 30,000 in number; they consist very largely of young people between the ages of 14 and 25; somewhat less than half are women. Certainly we seem to have here a good field for the determination of this question. The monthly figures for each of the ten Birmingham libraries are given separately, and it is clear at a glance that without exception the maximum number of readers of prose-fiction at all the libraries during 1897-98 is found in the month of March. (I have chiefly taken into consideration the figures for 1897-98; the figures for 1896 are somewhat abnormal and irregular, probably owing to a decrease in readers, attributed to increased activity in trade, and partly to a disturbing influence caused by the opening of a large new library in the course of the year, suddenly increasing the number of readers, and drafting off borrowers from some of the other libraries.) Not only so, but there is a second, or autumnal climax, almost equaling the spring climax, and occuring with equal certainty, appearing during 1897-98 either in October or November, and during 1896, constantly in October. Thus, the periodicity of the rate of consumption of prose-fiction corresponds with the periodicity which is found to occur in the conception rate and in sexual ecbolic manifestations. It is necessary, however, to examine somewhat more closely the tables presented in these reports, and to compare the rate of the consumption of novels with that of other classes of literature. In the first place, if, instead of merely considering the consumption of novels per month, we make allowance for the varying length of the months, and consider the average _daily_ consumption per month, the supremacy of March at once vanishes. February is really the month during which most novels were read during the first quarter of 1898, except at two libraries, where February and March are equal. The result is similar if we ascertain the daily averages for the first quarter in 1897, while, in 1896 (which, however, as I have already remarked, is a rather abnormal year), the daily average for March in many of the libraries falls below that for January, as well as for February. Again, when we turn to the other classes of books, we find that this predominance which February possesses, and to some extent shares with March and January, by no means exclusively applies to novels. It is not only shared by both music and poetry,--which would fit in well with the assumption of a sexual _nisus_,--but the department of "history, biography, voyages, and travels" shares it also with considerable regularity; so, also, does that of "arts, sciences, and natural history," and it is quite well marked in "theology, moral philosophy, etc.," and in "juvenile literature." We even have to admit that the promptings of the sexual instinct bring an increased body of visitors to the reference library (where there are no novels), for here, also, both the spring and autumnal climaxes are quite distinct. Certainly this theory carries us a little too far. The main factor in producing this very marked annual periodicity seems to me to be wholly unconnected with the sexual impulse. The winter half of the year (from the beginning of October to the end of March), when outdoor life has lost its attractions, and much time must be spent in the house, is naturally the season for reading. But during the two central months of winter, December and January, the attraction of reading meets with a powerful counter-attraction in the excitement produced by the approach of Christmas, and the increased activity of social life which accompanies and for several weeks follows Christmas. In this way the other four winter months--October and November at the autumnal end, and February and March at the spring end--must inevitably present the two chief reading climaxes of the year; and so the reports of lending libraries present us with figures which show a striking, but fallacious, resemblance to the curves which are probably produced by more organic causes. I am far from wishing to deny that the impulse which draws young men and women to imaginative literature is unconnected with the obscure promptings of the sexual instinct. But, until the disturbing influence I have just pointed out is eliminated, I see no evidence here for any true seasonal periodicity. Possibly in prisons--the value of which, as laboratories of experimental psychology we have scarcely yet begun to realize--more reliable evidence might be obtained; and those French and other prisons where novels are freely allowed to the prisoners might yield evidence as regards the consumption of fiction as instructive as that yielded at Clermont concerning the consumption of bread. Certain diseases show a very regular annual curve. This is notably the case with scarlet fever. Caiger found in a London fever hospital a marked seasonal prevalence: there was a minor climax in May (repeated in July), and a great autumnal climax in October, falling to a minimum in December and January. This curve corresponds closely to that usually observed in London.[170] It is not peculiar to London, or to urban districts, for in rural districts we find nearly the same spring minor maximum and major autumnal maximum. In Russia it is precisely the same. Many other epidemic diseases show very similar curves. An annual curve may be found in the expulsive force of the bladder as measured by the distance to which the urinary stream can be projected. This curve, as ascertained for one case, is interesting on account of the close relationship between sexual and vesical activity. After a minimum point in autumn there is a rise through the early part of the year to a height maintained through spring and summer, and reaching its maximum in August.[171] This may be said to correspond with the general tendency found in some cases of nocturnal seminal emissions from a winter minimum to an autumn maximum. There is an annual curve in voluntary muscle strength. Thus in Antwerp, where the scientific study of children is systematically carried out by a Pedological Bureau, Schuyten found that, measured by the dynamometer, both at the ages of 8 and 9, both boys and girls showed a gradual increase of strength from October to January, a fall from January to March and a rise to June or July. March was the weakest month, June and July the strongest.[172] Schuyten also found an annual curve for mental ability, as tested by power of attention, which for much of the year corresponded to the curve of muscular strength, being high during the cold winter months. Lobsien, at Kiel, seeking to test Schuyten's results and adopting a different method so as to gauge memory as well as attention, came to conclusions which confirmed those of Schuyten. He found a very marked increase of ability in December and January, with a fall in April; April and May were the minimum months, while July and October also stood low.[173] The inquiries of Schuyten and Lobsien thus seem to indicate that the voluntary aptitudes of muscular and mental force in children reach their maximum at a time of the year when most of the more or less involuntary activities we have been considering show a minimum of energy. If this conclusion should be confirmed by more extended investigations, it would scarcely be matter for surprise and would involve no true contradiction. It would, indeed, be natural to suppose that the voluntary and regulated activities of the nervous system should work most efficiently at those periods when they are least exposed to organic and emotional disturbance. So persistent a disturbing element in spring and autumn suggests that some physiological conditions underlie it, and that there is a real metabolic disturbance at these times of the year. So few continuous observations have yet been made on the metabolic processes of the body that it is not easy to verify such a surmise with absolute precision. Edward Smith's investigations, so far as they go, support it, and Perry-Coste's long-continued observations of pulse-frequency seem to show with fair regularity a maximum in early spring and another maximum in late autumn.[174] I may also note that Haig, who has devoted many years of observations to the phenomena of uric-acid excretion, finds that uric acid tends to be highest in the spring months, (March, April, May) and lowest at the first onset of cold in October.[175] Thus, while the sexual climaxes of spring and autumn are rooted in animal procreative cycles which in man have found expression in primitive festivals--these, again, perhaps, strengthening and developing the sexual rhythm--they yet have a wider significance. They constitute one among many manifestations of spring and autumn physiological disturbance corresponding with fair precision to the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. They resemble those periods of atmospheric tension, of storm and wind, which accompany the spring and autumn phases in the earth's rhythm, and they may fairly be regarded as ultimately a physiological reaction to those cosmic influences. FOOTNOTES: [128] F. Smith, _Veterinary Physiology_; Dalziel, _The Collie_. [129] Mondière, Art "Cambodgiens," _Dictionnaire des Sciences Anthropologiques_. [130] This primitive aspect of the festival is well shown by the human sacrifices which the ancient Mexicans offered at this time, in order to enable the sun to recuperate his strength. The custom survives in a symbolical form among the Mokis, who observe the festivals of the winter solstice and the vernal equinox. ("Aspects of Sun-worship among the Moki Indians," _Nature_, July 28, 1898.) The Walpi, a Tusayan people, hold a similar great sun-festival at the winter solstice, and December is with them a sacred month, in which there is no work and little play. This festival, in which there is a dance dramatizing the fructification of the earth and the imparting of virility to the seeds of corn, is fully described by J. Walter Fewkes (_American Anthropologist_, March, 1898). That these solemn annual dances and festivals of North America frequently merge into "a lecherous _saturnalia_" when "all is joy and happiness," is stated by H.H. Bancroft (_Native Races of Pacific States_, vol. i, p. 352). [131] As regards the northern tribes of Central Australia, Spencer and Gillen state that, during the performance of certain ceremonies which bring together a large number of natives from different parts, the ordinary marital rules are more or less set aside (_Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 136). Just in the same way, among the Siberian Yakuts, according to Sieroshevski, during weddings and at the great festivals of the year, the usual oversight of maidens is largely removed. (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, Jan.-June, 1901, p. 96.) [132] R.E. Guise, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1899, pp. 214-216. [133] Dalton, _Ethnology of Bengal_, pp. 196 et seq. W. Crooke (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, p. 243, 1899) also refers to the annual harvest-tree dance and _saturnalia_, and its association with the seasonal period for marriage. We find a similar phenomenon in the Malay Peninsula: "In former days, at harvest-time, the Jakuns kept an annual festival, at which, the entire settlement having been called together, fermented liquor, brewed from jungle fruits, was drunk; and to the accompaniments of strains of their rude and incondite music, both sexes, crowning themselves with fragrant leaves and flowers, indulged in bouts of singing and dancing, which grew gradually wilder throughout the night, and terminated in a strange kind of sexual orgie." (W.W. Skeat, "The Wild Tribes of the Malay Peninsula," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1902, p. 133.) [134] Fielding Hall, _The Soul of a People_, 1898, Chapter XIII. [135] See e.g., L. Dyer, _Studies of the Gods in Greece_, 1891, pp. 86-89, 375, etc. [136] For a popular account of the Feast of Fools, see Loliée, "La Fête des Fous," _Revue des Revues_, May 15, 1898; also, J.G. Bourke, _Scatologic Rites of all Nations_, pp. 11-23. [137] J. Grimm (_Teutonic Mythology_, p. 615) points out that the observance of the spring or Easter bonfires marks off the Saxon from the Franconian peoples. The Easter bonfires are held in Lower Saxony, Westphalia, Lower Hesse, Geldern, Holland, Friesland, Jutland, and Zealand. The Midsummer bonfires are held on the Rhine, in Franconia, Thuringia, Swabia, Bavaria, Austria, and Silesia. Schwartz (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1896, p. 151) shows that at Lauterberg, in the Harz Mountains, the line of demarcation between these two primitive districts may still be clearly traced. [138] _Wald und Feldkulte_, 1875, vol. i, pp. 422 et seq. He also mentions (p. 458) that St. Valentine's Day (14th of February),--or Ember Day, or the last day of February,--when the pairing of birds was supposed to take place, was associated, especially in England, with love-making and the choice of a mate. In Lorraine, it may be added, on the 1st of May, the young girls chose young men as their valentines, a custom known by this name to Rabelais. [139] Rochholz, _Drei gaugöttinnen_, p, 37. [140] Mannhardt, ibid., pp. 466 et seq. Also J.G. Frazer, _Golden Bough_, vol ii, Chapter IV. For further facts and references, see K. Pearson (_The Chances of Death_, 1897, vol, ii, "Woman as Witch," "Kindred Group-marriage," and Appendix on "The '_Mailehn_' and '_Kiltgang_,'") who incidentally brings together some of the evidence concerning primitive sex-festivals in Europe. Also, E. Hahn, _Demeter und Baubo_, 1896, pp. 38-40; and for some modern survivals, see Deniker, _Races of Man_, 1900, Chapter III. On a lofty tumulus near the megalithic remains at Carnac, in Brittany, the custom still prevails of lighting a large bonfire at the time of the summer solstice; it is called Tan Heol, or Tan St. Jean. In Ireland, the bonfires also take place on St. John's Eve, and a correspondent, who has often witnessed them in County Waterford, writes that "women, with garments raised, jump through these fires, and conduct which, on ordinary occasions would be reprobated, is regarded as excusable and harmless." Outside Europe, the Berbers of Morocco still maintain this midsummer festival, and in the Rif they light bonfires; here the fires seem to be now regarded as mainly purificatory, but they are associated with eating ceremonies which are still regarded as multiplicative. (Westermarck, "Midsummer Customs in Morocco," _Folk-Lore_, March, 1905.) [141] Mannhardt (op. cit., p. 469) quotes a description of an Ehstonian festival in the Island of Moon, when the girls dance in a circle round the fire, and one of them,--to the envy of the rest, and the pride of her own family,--is chosen by the young men, borne away so violently that her clothes are often torn, and thrown down by a youth, who places one leg over her body in a kind of symbolical coitus, and lies quietly by her side till morning. The spring festivals of the young people of Ukrainia, in which, also, there is singing, dancing, and sleeping together, are described in "Folk-Lore de l'Ukrainie." Kryptadia, vol. v, pp. 2-6, and vol. viii, pp. 303 et seq. [142] M. Kowalewsky, "Marriage Among the Early Slavs," _Folk-Lore_, December, 1890. [143] A. Tille, however (_Yule and Christmas_, 1899), while admitting that the general Aryan division of the year was dual, follows Tacitus in asserting that the Germanic division of the year (like the Egyptian) was tripartite: winter, spring, and summer. [144] Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_ (English translation by Stallybrass), pp. 612-630, 779, 788. [145] Wellhausen, _Reste Arabischen Heidentums_, 1897, p. 98. [146] See, e.g., the chapter on ritual in Gérard-Varet's interesting book, _L'Ignorance et l'Irreflexion_, 1899, for a popular account of this and allied primitive conceptions. [147] Jastrow, _Religion of Babylonia_, especially pp. 485, 571; regarding the priestesses, Jastrow remarks: "Among many nations, the mysterious aspects of woman's fertility lead to rites that, by a perversion of their original import, appear to be obscene. The prostitutes were priestesses attached to the Ishtar cult, and who took part in ceremonies intended to symbolize fertility." Whether there is any significance in the fact that the first two months of the Babylonian year (roughly corresponding to our March and April), when we should expect births to be at a maximum, were dedicated to Ea and Bel, who, according to varying legends, were the creators of man, and that New Year's Day was the festival of Bau, regarded as the mother of mankind, I cannot say, but the suggestion may be put forward. [148] _Celtic Heathendom_, p. 421. [149] Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_, p. 1465. In England, the November, bonfires have become merged into the Guy Fawkes celebrations. In the East, the great primitive autumn festivals seem to have fallen somewhat earlier. In Babylonia, the seventh month (roughly corresponding to September) was specially sacred, though nothing is known of its festivals, and this also was the sacred festival month of the Hebrews, and originally of the Arabs. In Europe, among the southern Slavs, the Reigen, or Kolo--wild dances by girls, adorned with flowers, and with skirts girt high, followed by sexual intercourse--take place in autumn, during the nights following harvest time. [150] A. Tille, _Yule and Christmas_, p. 21, etc. [151] Long before Wargentin, however, Rabelais had shown some interest in this question, and had found that there were most christenings in October and November, this showing, he pointed out, that the early warmth of spring influenced the number of conceptions (_Pantagruel_, liv. v, Ch. XXIX). The spring maximum of conceptions is not now so early in France. [152] Villermé, "De la Distribution par mois des conceptions," _Annales d'Hygiène Publique_, tome v, 1831, pp. 55-155. [153] Sormani, _Giornale di Medicina Militare_, 1870. [154] Throughout Europe, it may be said, marriages tend to take place either in spring or autumn (Oettinger _Moralstatistik_, p. 181, gives details). That is to say, that there is a tendency for marriages to take place at the season of the great public festivals, during which sexual intercourse was prevalent in more primitive times. [155] Hill, _Nature_, July 12, 1888. [156] G. Mayr, _Die Gesetzmässigkeit im Gesellschaftsleben_, 1877, p. 240. [157] Edward Smith (_Health and Disease_), who attributes this to the lessened vitality of offspring at that season. Beukemann also states that children born in September have most vitality. [158] Westermarck has even suggested that the December maximum of conceptions may be due to better chance of survival for September offspring (_Human Marriage_, Chapter II). It may be noted that though the maximum of conceptions is in May, relatively the smallest proportion of boys is conceived at that time. (Rauber, _Der Ueberschuss an Knabengeburten_, p. 39.) [159] Krieger found that the great majority of German women investigated by him menstruated for the first time in September, October, or November. In America, Bowditch states that the first menstruation of country girls more often occurs in spring than at any other season. [160] _Women's Medical Journal_, 1894. [161] It is, perhaps, worth while noting that the wisdom of the mediæval Church found an outlet for this "spring fever" in pilgrimages to remote shrines. As Chaucer wrote, in the _Canterbury Tales_:-- "Whané that Aprille with his showers sote The droughts of March hath piercèd to the root, Thaen longen folk to gon on pilgrimages, And palmers for to seeken strangé stronds." [162] L.W. Kline, "The Migratory Impulse," _American Journal of Psychology_, 1898, vol. x, especially pp. 21-24. [163] Mania comes to a crisis in spring, said the old physician, Aretæus (Bk. 1, Ch. V). [164] This is, at all events, the case in France, Prussia, and Italy. See, for instance, Durkheim's discussion of the cosmic factors of suicide, _Le Suicide_, 1897, Chapter III. In Spain, as Bernaldo de Quirós shows (_Criminologia_, p. 69), there is a slight irregular rise in December, but otherwise the curve is perfectly regular, with maximum in June, and minimum in January. [165] This holds good of a south European country, taken separately. A chart of the annual incidence of suicide by hanging, in Roumania, presented by Minovici (_Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, 1905, p. 587), shows climaxes of equal height in May and September. [166] Morselli, _Suicide_, pp. 55-72. [167] Ogle himself was inclined to think that these breaks were accidental, being unaware of the allied phenomena with which they may be brought into line. It is true that (as Gaedeken objects to me) the autumnal break is very slight, but it is probably real when we are dealing with so large a mass of data. [168] _Pedagogical Seminary_, June, 1891, p. 298. For a very full summary and bibliography of investigations regarding growth, see F. Burk, "Growth of Children in Height and Weight," _American Journal of Psychology_, April, 1898. [169] _L'Année Psychologique_, 1898. [170] _Lancet_, June 6, 1891. Edward Smith had pointed out many years earlier that scarlet fever is most fatal in periods of increasing vitality. [171] Havelock Ellis, "The Bladder as a Dynamometer," _American Journal of Dermatology_, May, 1902. [172] See, e.g., summary in _Internationales Centrablatt für Anthropologie_, 1902, Heft 4, p. 207. [173] Summarized in _Zeitschrift für Psychologie der Sinnesorgane_, 1903, p. 135. [174] Camerer found that from September to November is the period of greatest metabolic activity. [175] Haig, _Uric Acid_, 6th edition, 1903, p. 33. AUTO-EROTISM: A STUDY OF THE SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS OF THE SEXUAL IMPULSE. I. Definition of Auto-erotism--Masturbation only Covers a Small Portion of the Auto-erotic Field--The Importance of this Study, especially To-day--Auto-erotic Phenomena in Animals--Among Savage and Barbaric Races--The Japanese _rin-no-tama_ and other Special Instruments for Obtaining Auto-erotic Gratification--Abuse of the Ordinary Implements and Objects of Daily Life--The Frequency of Hair-pin in the Bladder--The Influence of Horse-exercise and Railway Traveling--The Sewing-machine and the Bicycle--Spontaneous Passive Sexual Excitement--_Delectatio Morosa_--Day-dreaming--_Pollutio_--Sexual Excitement During Sleep--Erotic Dreams--The Analogy of Nocturnal Enuresis--Differences in the Erotic Dreams of Men and Women--The Auto-erotic Phenomena of Sleep in the Hysterical--Their Frequently Painful Character. By "auto-erotism" I mean the phenomena of spontaneous sexual emotion generated in the absence of an external stimulus proceeding, directly or indirectly, from another person. In a wide sense, which cannot be wholly ignored here, auto-erotism may be said to include those transformations of repressed sexual activity which are a factor of some morbid conditions as well as of the normal manifestation of art and poetry, and, indeed, more or less color the whole of life. Such a definition excludes the normal sexual excitement aroused by the presence of a beloved person of the opposite sex; it also excludes the perverted sexuality associated with an attraction to a person of the same sex; it further excludes the manifold forms of erotic fetichism, in which the normal focus of sexual attraction is displaced, and voluptuous emotions are only aroused by some object--hair, shoes, garments, etc.--which, to the ordinary lover, are of subordinate--though still, indeed, considerable--importance.[176] The auto-erotic field remains extensive; it ranges from occasional voluptuous day-dreams, in which the subject is entirely passive, to the perpetual unashamed efforts at sexual self-manipulation witnessed among the insane. It also includes, though chiefly as curiosities, those cases in which individuals fall in love with themselves. Among auto-erotic phenomena, or on the borderland, we must further include those religious sexual manifestations for an ideal object, of which we may find evidence in the lives of saints and ecstatics.[177] The typical form of auto-erotism is the occurrence of the sexual orgasm during sleep. I do not know that any apology is needful for the invention of the term "auto-erotism."[178] There is no existing word in current use to indicate the whole range of phenomena I am here concerned with. We are familiar with "masturbation," but that, strictly speaking, only covers a special and arbitrary subdivision of the field, although, it is true, the subdivision with which physicians and alienists have chiefly occupied themselves. "Self-abuse" is somewhat wider, but by no means covers the whole ground, while for various reasons it is an unsatisfactory term. "Onanism" is largely used, especially in France, and some writers even include all forms of homosexual connection under this name; it may be convenient to do so from a physiological point of view, but it is a confusing and antiquated mode of procedure, and from the psychological standpoint altogether illegitimate; "onanism" ought never to be used in this connection, if only on the ground that Onan's device was not auto-erotic, but was an early example of withdrawal before emission, or _coitus interruptus_. While the name that I have chosen may possibly not be the best, there should be no question as to the importance of grouping all these phenomena together. It seems to me that this field has rarely been viewed in a scientifically sound and morally sane light, simply because it has not been viewed as a whole. We have made it difficult so to view it by directing our attention on the special group of auto-erotic facts--that group included under masturbation--which was most easy to observe and which in an extreme form came plainly under medical observation in insanity and allied conditions, and we have wilfully torn this group of facts away from the larger group to which it naturally belongs. The questions which have been so widely, so diversely, and--it must unfortunately be added--often so mischievously discussed, concerning the nature and evils of masturbation are not seen in their true light and proportions until we realize that masturbation is but a specialized form of a tendency which in some form or in some degree normally affects not only man, but all the higher animals. From a medical point of view it is often convenient to regard masturbation as an isolated fact; but in order to understand it we must bear in mind its relationships. In this study of auto-erotism I shall frequently have occasion to refer to the old entity of "masturbation," because it has been more carefully studied than any other part of the auto-erotic field; but I hope it will always be borne in mind that the psychological significance and even the medical diagnostic value of masturbation cannot be appreciated unless we realize that it is an artificial subdivision of a great group of natural facts. The study of auto-erotism is far from being an unimportant or merely curious study. Yet psychologists, medical and non-medical, almost without exception, treat its manifestations--when they refer to them at all--in a dogmatic and off-hand manner which is far from scientific. It is not surprising, therefore, that the most widely divergent opinions are expressed. Nor is it surprising that ignorant and chaotic notions among the general population should lead to results that would be ludicrous if they were not pathetic. To mention one instance known to me: a married lady who is a leader in social-purity movements and an enthusiast for sexual chastity, discovered, through reading some pamphlet against solitary vice, that she had herself been practicing masturbation for years without knowing it. The profound anguish and hopeless despair of this woman in face of what she believed to be the moral ruin of her whole life cannot well be described. It would be easy to give further examples, though scarcely a more striking one, to show the utter confusion into which we are thrown by leaving this matter in the hands of blind leaders of the blind. Moreover, the conditions of modern civilization render auto-erotism a matter of increasing social significance. As our marriage-rate declines, and as illicit sexual relationships continue to be openly discouraged, it is absolutely inevitable that auto-erotic phenomena of one kind or another, not only among women but also among men, should increase among us both in amount and intensity. It becomes, therefore, a matter of some importance, both to the moralist and the physician, to investigate the psychological nature of these phenomena and to decide precisely what their attitude should be toward them. I do not purpose to enter into a thorough discussion of all the aspects of auto-erotism. That would involve a very extensive study indeed. I wish to consider briefly certain salient points concerning auto-erotic phenomena, especially their prevalence, their nature, and their moral, physical, and other effects. I base my study partly on the facts and opinions which during the last thirty years have been scattered through the periodical and other medical literature of Europe and America, and partly on the experience of individuals, especially of fairly normal individuals. Among animals in isolation, and sometimes in freedom--though this can less often be observed--it is well known that various forms of spontaneous solitary sexual excitement occur. Horses when leading a lazy life may be observed flapping the penis until some degree of emission takes place. Welsh ponies, I learn from a man who has had much experience with these animals, habitually produce erections and emissions in their stalls; they do not bring their hind quarters up during this process, and they close their eyes, which does not take place when they have congress with mares. The same informant observed that bulls and goats produce emissions by using their forelegs as a stimulus, bringing up their hind quarters, and mares rub themselves against objects. I am informed by a gentleman who is a recognized authority on goats, that they sometimes take the penis into the mouth and produce actual orgasm, thus practicing auto-fellatio. As regards ferrets, the Rev. H. Northcote states: "I am informed by a gentleman who has had considerable experience of ferrets, that if the bitch, when in heat, cannot obtain a dog she pines and becomes ill. If a smooth pebble is introduced into the hutch, she will masturbate upon it, thus preserving her normal health for one season. But if this artificial substitute is given to her a second season, she will not, as formerly, be content with it."[179] Stags in the rutting season, when they have no partners, rub themselves against trees to produce ejaculation. Sheep masturbate; as also do camels, pressing themselves down against convenient objects; and elephants compress the penis between the hind legs to obtain emissions.[180] Blumenbach observed a bear act somewhat similarly on seeing other bears coupling, and hyenas, according to Ploss and Bartels, have been seen practicing mutual masturbation by licking each other's genitals. Mammary masturbation, remarks Féré, is found in certain female and even male animals, like the dog and the cat.[181] Apes are much given to masturbation, even in freedom, according to the evidence of good observers; for while no female apes are celibates, many of the males are obliged to lead a life of celibacy.[182] Male monkeys use the hand in masturbation, to rub and shake the penis.[183] In the human species these phenomena are by no means found in civilization alone. To whatever extent masturbation may have been developed by the conditions of European life, which carry to the utmost extreme the concomitant stimulation, and repression of the sexual emotions, it is far from being, as Mantegazza has declared it to be, one of the moral characteristics of Europeans.[184] It is found among the people of nearly every race of which we have any intimate knowledge, however natural the conditions under which men and women may live.[185] Thus, among the Nama Hottentots, among the young women at all events, Gustav Fritsch found that masturbation is so common that it is regarded as a custom of the country; no secret is made of it, and in the stories and legends of the race it is treated as one of the most ordinary facts of life. It is so also among the Basutos, and the Kaffirs are addicted to the same habit.[186] The Fuegians have a word for masturbation, and a special word for masturbation by women.[187] When the Spaniards first arrived at Vizcaya, in the Philippines, they found that masturbation was universal, and that it was customary for the women to use an artificial penis and other abnormal methods of sexual gratification. Among the Balinese, according to Jacobs (as quoted by Ploss and Bartels), masturbation is general; in the boudoir of many a Bali beauty, he adds, and certainly in every harem, may be found a wax penis to which many hours of solitude are devoted. Throughout the East, as Eram, speaking from a long medical experience, has declared, masturbation is very prevalent, especially among young girls. In Egypt, according to Sonnini, it is prevalent in harems. In India, a medical correspondent tells me, he once treated the widow of a wealthy Mohammedan, who informed him that she began masturbation at an early age, "just like all other women." The same informant tells me that on the _façade_ of a large temple in Orissa are bas-reliefs, representing both men and women, alone, masturbating, and also women masturbating men. Among the Tamils of Ceylon masturbation is said to be common. In Cochin China, Lorion remarks, it is practiced by both sexes, but especially by the married women.[188] Japanese women have probably carried the mechanical arts of auto-erotism to the highest degree of perfection. They use two hollow balls about the size of a pigeon's egg (sometimes one alone is used), which, as described by Joest, Christian, and others,[189] are made of very thin leaf of brass; one is empty, the other (called the little man) contains a small heavy metal ball, or else some quicksilver, and sometimes metal tongues which vibrate when set in movement; so that if the balls are held in the hand side by side there is a continuous movement. The empty one is first introduced into the vagina in contact with the uterus, then the other; the slightest movement of the pelvis or thighs, or even spontaneous movement of the organs, causes the metal ball (or the quicksilver) to roll, and the resulting vibration produces a prolonged voluptuous titillation, a gentle shock as from a weak electric inductive apparatus; the balls are called _rin-no-tama_, and are held in the vagina by a paper tampon. The women who use these balls delight to swing themselves in a hammock or rocking-chair, the delicate vibration of the balls slowly producing the highest degree of sexual excitement. Joest mentions that this apparatus, though well known by name to ordinary girls, is chiefly used by the more fashionable _geishas_, as well as by prostitutes. Its use has now spread to China, Annam, and India. Japanese women also, it is said, frequently use an artificial penis of paper or clay, called e.g.. Among the Atjeh, again, according to Jacobs (as quoted by Ploss), the young of both sexes masturbate and the elder girls use an artificial penis of wax. In China, also, the artificial penis--made of rosin, supple and (like the classical instrument described by Herondas) rose-colored--is publicly sold and widely used by women.[190] It may be noticed that among non-European races it is among women, and especially among those who are subjected to the excitement of a life professionally devoted to some form of pleasure, that the use of the artificial instruments of auto-erotism is chiefly practiced. The same is markedly true in Europe. The use of an artificial penis in solitary sexual gratification may be traced down from classic times, and doubtless prevailed in the very earliest human civilization, for such an instrument is said to be represented in old Babylonian sculptures, and it is referred to by Ezekiel (Ch. XVI. v. 17). The Lesbian women are said to have used such instruments, made of ivory or gold with silken stuffs and linen. Aristophanes (_Lysistrata_, v. 109) speaks of the manufacture by the Milesian women of a leather artificial penis, or olisbos. In the British Museum is a vase representing a _hetaira_ holding such instruments, which, as found at Pompeii, may be seen in the museum at Naples. One of the best of Herondas's mimes, "The Private Conversation," presents a dialogue between two ladies concerning a certain olisbos (or nbôn), which one of them vaunts as a dream of delight. Through the Middle Ages (when from time to time the clergy reprobated the use of such instruments[191]) they continued to be known, and after the fifteenth century the references to them became more precise. Thus Fortini, the Siennese novelist of the sixteenth century, refers in his _Novelle dei Novizi_ (7th Day, Novella XXXIX) to "the glass object filled with warm water which nuns use to calm the sting of the flesh and to satisfy themselves as well as they can"; he adds that widows and other women anxious to avoid pregnancy availed themselves of it. In Elizabethan England, at the same time, it appears to have been of similar character and Marston in his satires tells how Lucea prefers "a glassy instrument" to "her husband's lukewarm bed." In sixteenth century France, also, such instruments were sometimes made of glass, and Brantôme refers to the godemiche; in eighteenth century Germany they were called _Samthanse_, and their use, according to Heinse, as quoted by Dühren, was common among aristocratic women. In England by that time the dildo appears to have become common. Archemholtz states that while in Paris they are only sold secretly, in London a certain Mrs. Philips sold them openly on a large scale in her shop in Leicester Square. John Bee in 1835, stating that the name was originally dil-dol, remarks that their use was formerly commoner than it was in his day. In France, Madame Gourdan, the most notorious brothel-keeper of the eighteenth century, carried on a wholesale trade in _consolateurs_, as they were called, and "at her death numberless letters from abbesses and simple nuns were found among her papers, asking for a 'consolateur' to be sent."[192] The modern French instrument is described by Gamier as of hardened red rubber, exactly imitating the penis and capable of holding warm milk or other fluid for injection at the moment of orgasm; the compressible scrotum is said to have been first added in the eighteenth century.[193] In Islam the artificial penis has reached nearly as high a development as in Christendom. Turkish women use it and it is said to be openly sold in Smyrna. In the harems of Zanzibar, according to Baumann, it is of considerable size, carved out of ebony or ivory, and commonly bored through so that warm water may be injected. It is here regarded as an Arab invention.[194] Somewhat similar appliances may be traced in all centres of civilization. But throughout they appear to be frequently confined to the world of prostitutes and to those women who live on the fashionable or semi-artistic verge of that world. Ignorance and delicacy combine with a less versatile and perverted concentration on the sexual impulse to prevent any general recourse to such highly specialized methods of solitary gratification. On the other hand, the use, or rather abuse, of the ordinary objects and implements of daily life in obtaining auto-erotic gratification, among the ordinary population in civilized modern lands, has reached an extraordinary degree of extent and variety we can only feebly estimate by the occasional resulting mischances which come under the surgeon's hands, because only a certain proportion of such instruments are dangerous. Thus the banana seems to be widely used for masturbation by women, and appears to be marked out for the purpose by its size and shape[195]; it is, however, innocuous, and never comes under the surgeon's notice; the same may probably be said of the cucumbers and other vegetables more especially used by country and factory girls in masturbation; a lady living near Vichy told Pouillet that she had often heard (and had herself been able to verify the fact) that the young peasant women commonly used turnips, carrots, and beet-roots. In the eighteenth century Mirabeau, in his _Erotikca Biblion_ gave a list of the various objects used in convents (which he describes as "vast theatres" of such practices) to obtain solitary sexual excitement. In more recent years the following are a few of the objects found in the vagina or bladder whence they could only be removed by surgical interference[196]: Pencils, sticks of sealing-wax, cotton-reels, hair-pins (and in Italy very commonly the bone-pins used in the hair), bodkins, knitting-needles, crochet-needles, needle-cases, compasses, glass stoppers, candles, corks, tumblers, forks, tooth-picks, toothbrushes, pomade-pots (in a case recorded by Schroeder with a cockchafer inside, a makeshift substitute for the Japanese _rin-no-tama_), while in one recent English case a full-sized hen's egg was removed from the vagina of a middle-aged married woman. More than nine-tenths of the foreign bodies found in the female bladder or urethra are due to masturbation. The age of the individuals in whom such objects have been found is usually from 17 to 30, but in a few cases they have been found in girls below 14, infrequently in women between 40 and 50; the large objects, naturally, are found chiefly in the vagina, and in married women.[197] Hair-pins have, above all, been found in the female bladder with special frequency; this point is worth some consideration as an illustration of the enormous frequency of this form of auto-erotism. The female urethra is undoubtedly a normal centre of sexual feeling, as Pouillet pointed out many years ago; a woman medical correspondent, also, writes that in some women the maximum of voluptuous sensation is at the vesical sphincter or orifice, though not always so limited. E.H. Smith, indeed, considers that "the urethra is the part in which the orgasm occurs," and remarks that in sexual excitement mucus always flows largely from the urethra.[198] It should be added that when once introduced the physiological mechanism of the bladder apparently causes the organ to tend to "swallow" the foreign object. Yet for every case in which the hair-pin disappears and is lost in the bladder, from carelessness or the oblivion of the sexual spasm, there must be a vast number of cases in which the instrument is used without any such unfortunate result. There is thus great significance in the frequency with which cases of hair-pin in the bladder are strewn through the medical literature of all countries. In 1862, a German surgeon found the accident so common that he invented a special instrument for extracting hair-pins from the female bladder, as, indeed, Italian and French surgeons have also done. In France, Denucé, of Bordeaux, came to the conclusion that hair-pin in the bladder is the commonest result of masturbation as known to the surgeon. In England cases are constantly being recorded. Lawson Tait, stating that most cases of stone in the bladder in women are due to the introduction of a foreign body, very often a hair-pin, adds: "I have removed hair-pins encrusted with phosphates from ten different female bladders, and not one of the owners of these bladders would give any account of the incident."[199] Stokes, again, records that during four years he had four cases of hair-pin in the female urethra.[200] In New York one physician met with four cases in a short experience.[201] In Switzerland Professor Reverdin had a precisely similar experience.[202] There is, however, another class of material objects, widely employed for producing physical auto-erotism, which in the nature of things never reaches the surgeon. I refer to the effects that, naturally or unnaturally, may be produced by many of the objects and implements of daily life that do not normally come in direct contact with the sexual organs. Children sometimes, even when scarcely more than infants, produce sexual excitement by friction against the corner of a chair or other piece of furniture, and women sometimes do the same.[203] Guttceit, in Russia, knew women who made a large knot in their chemises to rub against, and mentions a woman who would sit on her naked heel and rub it against her. Girls in France, I am informed, are fond of riding on the _chevaux-de-bois_, or hobby-horses, because of the sexual excitement thus aroused; and that the sexual emotions play a part in the fascination exerted by this form of amusement everywhere is indicated by the ecstatic faces of its devotees.[204] At the temples in some parts of Central India, I am told, swings are hung up in pairs, men and women swinging in these until sexually excited; during the months when the men in these districts have to be away from home the girls put up swings to console themselves for the loss of their husbands. It is interesting to observe the very wide prevalence of swinging, often of a religious or magic character, and the evident sexual significance underlying it, although this is not always clearly brought out. Groos, discussing the frequency of swinging (_Die Spiele der Menschen_, p. 114) refers, for instance, to the custom of the Gilbert Islanders for a young man to swing a girl from a coco palm, and then to cling on and swing with her. In ancient Greece, women and grown-up girls were fond of see-saws and swings. The Athenians had, indeed, a swinging festival (Athenæus, Bk. XIV, Ch. X). Songs of a voluptuous character, we gather from Athenæus, were sung by the women at this festival. J.G. Frazer (_The Golden Bough_, vol. ii, note A, "Swinging as a Magical Rite") discusses the question, and brings forward instances in which men, or, especially, women swing. "The notion seems to be," he states, "that the ceremony promotes fertility, whether in the vegetable or in the animal kingdom; though why it should be supposed to do so, I confess myself unable to explain" (loc. cit., p. 450). The explanation seems, however, not far to seek, in view of the facts quoted above, and Frazer himself refers to the voluptuous character of the songs sometimes sung. Even apart from actual swinging of the whole body, a swinging movement may suffice to arouse sexual excitement, and may,--at all events, in women,--constitute an essential part of methods of attaining solitary sexual gratification. Kiernan thus describes the habitual auto-erotic procedure of a young American woman: "The patient knelt before a chair, let her elbows drop on its seat, grasping the arms with a firm grip, then commenced a swinging, writhing motion, seeming to fix her pelvis, and moving her trunk and limbs. The muscles were rigid, the face took on a passionate expression; the features were contorted, the eyes rolled, the teeth were set, and the lips compressed, while the cheeks were purple. The condition bore a striking resemblance to the passional stage of grand hysteria. The reveling took only a moment to commence, but lasted a long time. Swaying induced a pleasurable sensation, accompanied with a feeling of suction upon the clitoris. Almost immediately after, a sensation of bursting, caused by discharge from the vulvo-vaginal glands, occurs, followed by a rapture prolonged for an indefinite time." The accompanying sexual imagery is so vivid as almost to become hallucinatory. (J.G. Kiernan, "Sex Transformation and Psychic Impotence," _American Journal of Dermatology_, vol. ix, No. 2.) Somewhat similarly sensations of sexual character are sometimes experienced by boys when climbing up a pole. It is not even necessary that there should be direct external contact with the sexual organs, and Howe states that gymnastic swinging poles around which boys swing while supporting the whole weight on the hands, may suffice to produce sexual excitement. Several writers have pointed out that riding, especially in women, may produce sexual excitement and orgasm.[205] It is well-known, also, that both in men and women the vibratory motion of a railway-train frequently produces a certain degree of sexual excitement, especially when sitting forward. Such excitement may remain latent and not become specifically sexual.[206] I am not aware that this quality of railway traveling has ever been fostered as a sexual perversion, but the sewing-machine has attracted considerable attention on account of its influence in exciting auto-erotic manifestations. The early type of sewing-machine, especially, was of very heavy character and involved much up and down movement of the legs; Langdon Down pointed out many years ago that this frequently produced great sexual erethism which led to masturbation.[207] According to one French authority, it is a well-recognized fact that to work a sewing-machine with the body in a certain position produces sexual excitement leading to the orgasm. The occurrence of the orgasm is indicated to the observer by the machine being worked for a few seconds with uncontrollable rapidity. This sound is said to be frequently heard in large French workrooms, and it is part of the duty of the superintendents of the rooms to make the girls sit properly.[208] "During a visit which I once paid to a manufactory of military clothing," Pouillet writes, "I witnessed the following scene. In the midst of the uniform sound produced by some thirty sewing-machines, I suddenly heard one of the machines working with much more velocity than the others. I looked at the person who was working it, a brunette of 18 or 20. While she was automatically occupied with the trousers she was making on the machine, her face became animated, her mouth opened slightly, her nostrils dilated, her feet moved the pedals with constantly increasing rapidity. Soon I saw a convulsive look in her eyes, her eyelids were lowered, her face turned pale and was thrown backward; hands and legs stopped and became extended; a suffocated cry, followed by a long sigh, was lost in the noise of the workroom. The girl remained motionless a few seconds, drew out her handkerchief to wipe away the pearls of sweat from her forehead, and, after casting a timid and ashamed glance at her companions, resumed her work. The forewoman, who acted as my guide, having observed the direction of my gaze, took me up to the girl, who blushed, lowered her face, and murmured some incoherent words before the forewoman had opened her mouth, to advise her to sit fully on the chair, and not on its edge. "As I was leaving, I heard another machine at another part of the room in accelerated movement. The forewoman smiled at me, and remarked that that was so frequent that it attracted no notice. It was specially observed, she told me, in the case of young work-girls, apprentices, and those who sat on the edge of their seats, thus much facilitating friction of the labia." In cases where the sewing-machine does not lead to direct self-excitement it has been held, as by Fothergill,[209] to predispose to frequency of involuntary sexual orgasm during sleep, from the irritation set up by the movement of the feet in the sitting posture during the day. The essential movement in working the sewing-machine is the flexion and extension of the ankle, but the muscles of the thighs are used to maintain the feet firmly on the treadle, the thighs are held together, and there is a considerable degree of flexion or extension of the thighs on the trunk; by a special adjustment of the body, and sometimes perhaps merely in the presence of sexual hyperæsthesia, it is thus possible to act upon the sexual organs; but this is by no means a necessary result of using the sewing-machine, and inquiry of various women, with well-developed sexual feelings, who are accustomed to work the treadle, has not shown the presence of any tendency in this direction. Sexual irritation may also be produced by the bicycle in women. Thus, Moll[210] remarks that he knows many married women, and some unmarried, who experience sexual excitement when cycling; in several cases he has ascertained that the excitement is carried as far as complete orgasm. This result cannot, however, easily happen unless the seat is too high, the peak in contact with the organs, and a rolling movement is adopted; in the absence of marked hyperæsthesia these results are only effected by a bad seat or an improper attitude, the body during cycling resting under proper conditions on the buttocks, and the work being mainly done by the muscles of the thighs and legs which control the ankles, flexion of the thigh on the pelvis being very small. Most medical authorities on cycling are of opinion that when cycling leads to sexual excitement the fault lies more with the woman than with the machine. This conclusion does not appear to me to be absolutely correct. I find on inquiry that with the old-fashioned saddle, with an elevated peak rising toward the pubes, a certain degree of sexual excitement, not usually producing the orgasm (but, as one lady expressed it, making one feel quite ready for it), is fairly common among women. Lydston finds that irritation of the genital organs may unquestionably be produced in both males and females by cycling. The aggravation of hæmorrhoids sometimes produced by cycling indicates also the tendency to local congestion. With the improved flat saddles, however, constructed with more definite adjustment to the anatomical formation of the parts, this general tendency is reduced to a negligible minimum. Reference may be made at this point to the influence of tight-lacing. This has been recognized by gynæcologists as a factor of sexual excitement and a method of masturbation.[211] Women who have never worn corsets sometimes find that, on first putting them on, sexual feeling is so intensified that it is necessary to abandon their use.[212] The reason of this (as Siebert points out in his _Buch für Eltern_) seems to be that the corset both favors pelvic congestion and at the same time exerts a pressure on the abdominal muscles which brings them into the state produced during coitus. It is doubtless for the same reason that, as some women have found, more distension of the bladder is possible without corsets than with them. In a further class of cases no external object whatever is used to procure the sexual orgasm, but the more or less voluntary pressure of the thighs alone is brought to bear upon the sexual regions. It is done either when sitting or standing, the thighs being placed together and firmly crossed, and the pelvis rocked so that the sexual organs are pressed against the inner and posterior parts of the thighs.[213] This is sometimes done by men, and is fairly common among women, especially, according to Martineau,[214] among those who sit much, such as dressmakers and milliners, those who use the sewing-machine, and those who ride. Vedeler remarks that in his experience in Scandinavia, thigh-friction is the commonest form of masturbation in women. The practice is widespread, and a medical correspondent in India tells me of a Brahmin widow who confessed to this form of masturbation. I am told that in London Board Schools, at the present time, thigh-rubbing is not infrequent among the girl scholars; the proportion mentioned in one school was about ten per cent, of the girls over eleven; the thigh-rubbing is done more or less openly and is interpreted by the uninitiated as due merely to a desire to relieve the bladder. It is found in female infants. Thus, Townsend records the case of an infant, 8 months old, who would cross her right thigh over the left, close her eyes and clench her fists; after a minute or two there would be complete relaxation, with sweating and redness of face; this would occur about once a week or oftener; the child was quite healthy, with no abnormal condition of the genital organs.[215] The frequency of thigh-friction among women as a form of masturbation is due to the fact that it is usually acquired innocently and it involves no indecorum. Thus Soutzo reports the case of a girl of 12 who at school, when having to wait her turn at the water-closet, for fear of wetting herself would put her clothes between her legs and press her thighs together, moving them backwards and forwards in the effort to control the bladder; she discovered that a pleasurable sensation was thus produced and acquired the habit of practicing the manoeuvre for its own sake; at the age of 17 she began to vary it in different ways; thus she would hang from a tree with her legs swinging and her chemise pressed between her thighs which she would rub together.[216] Thigh-friction in some of its forms is so comparatively decorous a form of masturbation that it may even be performed in public places; thus, a few years ago, while waiting for a train at a station on the outskirts of a provincial town, I became aware of the presence of a young woman, sitting alone on a seat at a little distance, whom I could observe unnoticed. She was leaning back with legs crossed, swinging the crossed foot vigorously and continuously; this continued without interruption for some ten minutes after I first observed her; then the swinging movement reached a climax; she leant still further back, thus bringing the sexual region still more closely in contact with the edge of the bench and straightened and stiffened her body and legs in what appeared to be a momentary spasm; there could be little doubt as to what had taken place. A few moments later she slowly walked from her solitary seat into the waiting-room and sat down among the other waiting passengers, quite still now and with uncrossed legs, a pale quiet young woman, possibly a farmer's daughter, serenely unconscious that her manoeuvre had been detected, and very possibly herself ignorant of its true nature. There are many other forms in which the impulse of auto-erotism presents itself. Dancing is often a powerful method of sexual excitement, not only among civilized but among savage peoples, and Zache describes the erotic dances of Swaheli women as having a masturbatory object.[217] Stimulation of the nates is a potent adjuvant to the production of self-excitement, and self-flagellation with rods, etc., is practiced by some individuals, especially young women.[218] Urtication is another form of this stimulation; Reverdin knew a young woman who obtained sexual gratification by flogging herself with chestnut burrs, and it is stated that in some parts of France (departments of the Ain and Côte d'Or) it is not uncommon for young girls to masturbate by rubbing the leaves of the _Linaria cymbalaria_ (here called "pinton" or "timbarde") on to the sexual parts, thus producing a burning sensation.[219] Stimulation of the mamma, normally an erogenous centre in women, may occasionally serve as a method for obtaining auto-erotic satisfaction, including the orgasm, in both sexes. I have been told of a case in a man, and a medical correspondent in India informs me that he knows a Eurasian woman, addicted to masturbation, who can only obtain the orgasm by rubbing the genitals with one hand while with the other she rubs and finally squeezes her breasts. The tactile stimulation even of regions of the body which are not normally erogenous zones in either sex may sometimes lead on to sexual excitement; Hirschsprung, as well as Freud, believes that this is often the case as regards finger-sucking and toe-sucking in infancy. Even stroking the chin, remarks Debreyne, may produce a pollution.[220] Taylor refers to the case of a young woman of 22, who was liable to attacks of choreic movements of the hands which would terminate in alternately pressing the middle finger on the tip of the nose and the tragus of the ear, when a "far-away, pleased expression" would appear on her face; she thus produced sexual excitement and satisfaction. She had no idea of wrong-doing and was surprised and ashamed when she realized the nature of her act.[221] Most of the foregoing examples of auto-erotism, are commonly included, by no means correctly, under the heading of "masturbation." There are, however, a vast number of people, possessing strong sexual emotions and living a solitary life, who experience, sometimes by instinct and sometimes on moral grounds, a strong repugnance for these manifestations of auto-erotism. As one highly intelligent lady writes: "I have sometimes wondered whether I could produce it (complete sexual excitement) mechanically, but I have a curious unreasonable repugnance to trying the experiment. It would materialize it too much." The same repugnance may be traced in the tendency to avoid, so far as possible, the use of the hands. It is quite common to find this instinctive unreasoning repugnance among women, a healthy repugnance, not founded on any moral ground. In men the same repugnance exists, more often combined with, or replaced by, a very strong moral and æsthetic objection to such practices. But the presence of such a repugnance, however invincible, is very far from carrying us outside the auto-erotic field. The production of the sexual orgasm is not necessarily dependent on any external contact or voluntary mechanical cause. As an example, though not of specifically auto-erotic manifestations, I may mention the case of a man of 57, a somewhat eccentric preacher, etc., who writes: "My whole nature goes out so to some persons, and they thrill and stir me so that I have an emission while sitting by them with no thought of sex, only the gladness of soul found its way out thus, and a glow of health suffused the whole body. There was no spasmodic conclusion, but a pleasing gentle sensation as the few drops of semen passed." (In reality, no doubt, not semen, but urethral fluid.) This man's condition may certainly be considered somewhat morbid; he is attracted to both men and women, and the sexual impulse seems to be irritable and weak; but a similar state of things exists so often in women, no doubt due to sexual repression, and in individuals who are in a general state of normal and good health, that in these it can scarcely be called morbid. Brooding on sexual images, which the theologians termed _delectatio morosa_, may lead to spontaneous orgasm in either sex, even in perfectly normal persons. Hammond described as a not uncommon form of "psychic coitus," a condition in which the simple act of imagination alone, in the presence of the desired object, suffices to produce orgasm. In some public conveyance, theatre, or elsewhere, the man sees a desirable woman and by concentrating his attention on her person and imagining all the stages of intimacy he quickly succeeds in producing orgasm.[222] Niceforo refers to an Italian work-girl of 14 who could obtain ejaculation of mucus four times a day, in the workroom in the presence of the other girls, without touching herself or moving her body, by simply thinking of sexual things.[223] If the orgasm occurs spontaneously, without the aid of mental impressions, or any manipulations _ad hoc_, though under such conditions it ceases to be sinful from the theological standpoint, it certainly ceases also to be normal. Sérieux records the case of a somewhat neurotic woman of 50, who had been separated from her husband for ten years, and since lived a chaste life; at this age, however, she became subject to violent crises of sexual orgasm, which would come on without any accompaniment of voluptuous thoughts. MacGillicuddy records three cases of spontaneous orgasm in women coming under his notice.[224] Such crises are frequently found in both men and women, who, from moral reasons, ignorance, or on other grounds are restrained from attaining the complete sexual orgasm, but whose sexual emotions are, literally, continually dribbling from them. Schrenck-Notzing knows a lady who is spontaneously sexually excited on hearing music or seeing pictures without anything lascivious in them; she knows nothing of sexual relationships. Another lady is sexually excited on seeing beautiful and natural scenes, like the sea; sexual ideas are mixed up in her mind with these things, and the contemplation of a specially strong and sympathetic man brings the orgasm on in about a minute. Both these ladies "masturbate" in the streets, restaurants, railways, theatres, without anyone perceiving it.[225] A Brahmin woman informed a medical correspondent in India that she had distinct though feeble orgasm, with copious outflow of mucus, if she stayed long near a man whose face she liked, and this is not uncommon among European women. Evidently under such conditions there is a state of hyperæsthetic weakness. Here, however, we are passing the frontiers of strictly auto-erotic phenomena. _Delectatio morosa_, as understood by the theologians, is distinct from desire, and also distinct from the definite intention of effecting the sexual act, although it may lead to those things. It is the voluntary and complacent dallying in imagination with voluptuous thoughts, when no effort is made to repel them. It is, as Aquinas and others point out, constituted by this act of complacent dallying, and has no reference to the duration of the imaginative process. Debreyne, in his _Moechialogie_ (pp. 149-163), deals fully with this question, and quotes the opinions of theologians. I may add that in the early Penitentials, before the elaboration of Catholic theology, the voluntary emission of semen through the influence of evil thoughts, was recognized as a sin, though usually only if it occurred in church. In Egbert's Penitential of the eighth or ninth century (cap. IX, 12), the penance assigned for this offence in the case of a deacon, is 25 days; in the case of a monk, 30 days; a priest, 40 days; a bishop, 50. (Haddon and Stubbs, _Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents_, vol. iii, p. 426.) The frequency of spontaneous orgasm in women seems to have been recognized in the seventeenth century. Thus, Schurig (_Syllepsilogia_, p. 4), apparently quoting Riolan, states that some women are so wanton that the sight of a handsome man, or of their lover, or speech with such a one, will cause them to ejaculate their semen. There is, however, a closely allied, and, indeed, overlapping form of auto-erotism which may be considered here: I mean that associated with revery, or day-dreaming. Although this is a very common and important form of auto-erotism, besides being in a large proportion of cases the early stage of masturbation, it appears to have attracted little attention.[226] The day-dream has, indeed, been studied in its chief form, in the "continued story," by Mabel Learoyd, of Wellesley College. The continued story is an imagined narrative, more or less peculiar to the individual, by whom it is cherished with fondness, and regarded as an especially sacred mental possession, to be shared only, if at all, with very sympathizing friends. It is commoner among girls and young women than among boys and young men; among 352 persons of both sexes, 47 per cent. among the women and only 14 per cent. among the men, have any continued story. The starting-point is an incident from a book, or, more usually, some actual experience, which the subject develops; the subject is nearly always the hero or the heroine of the story. The growth of the story is favored by solitude, and lying in bed before going to sleep is the time specially sacred to its cultivation.[227] No distinct reference, perhaps naturally enough, is made by Miss Learoyd to the element of sexual emotion with which these stories are often strongly tinged, and which is frequently their real motive. Though by no means easy to detect, these elaborate and more or less erotic day-dreams are not uncommon in young men and especially in young women. Each individual has his own particular dream, which is always varying or developing, but, except in very imaginative persons, to no great extent. Such a day-dream is often founded on a basis of pleasurable personal experience, and develops on that basis. It may involve an element of perversity, even though that element finds no expression in real life. It is, of course, fostered by sexual abstinence; hence its frequency in young women. Most usually there is little attempt to realize it. It does not necessarily lead to masturbation, though it often causes some sexual congestion or even spontaneous sexual orgasm. The day-dream is a strictly private and intimate experience, not only from its very nature, but also because it occurs in images which the subject finds great difficulty in translating into language, even when willing to do so. In other cases it is elaborately dramatic or romantic in character, the hero or heroine passing through many experiences before attaining the erotic climax of the story. This climax tends to develop in harmony with the subject's growing knowledge or experience; at first, merely a kiss, it may develop into any refinement of voluptuous gratification. The day-dream may occur either in normal or abnormal persons. Rousseau, in his _Confessions_, describes such dreams, in his case combined with masochism and masturbation. A distinguished American novelist, Hamlin Garland, has admirably described in _Rose of Dutcher's Coolly_ the part played in the erotic day-dreams of a healthy normal girl at adolescence by a circus-rider, seen on the first visit to a circus, and becoming a majestic ideal to dominate the girl's thoughts for many years.[228] Raffalovich[229] describes the process by which in sexual inverts the vision of a person of the same sex, perhaps seen in the streets or the theatre, is evoked in solitary reveries, producing a kind of "psychic onanism," whether or not it leads on to physical manifestations. Although day-dreaming of this kind has at present been very little studied, since it loves solitude and secrecy, and has never been counted of sufficient interest for scientific inquisition, it is really a process of considerable importance, and occupies a large part of the auto-erotic field. It is frequently cultivated by refined and imaginative young men and women who lead a chaste life and would often be repelled by masturbation. In such persons, under such circumstances, it must be considered as strictly normal, the inevitable outcome of the play of the sexual impulse. No doubt it may often become morbid, and is never a healthy process when indulged in to excess, as it is liable to be by refined young people with artistic impulses, to whom it is in the highest degree seductive and insidious.[230] As we have seen, however, day-dreaming is far from always colored by sexual emotion; yet it is a significant indication of its really sexual origin that, as I have been informed by persons of both sexes, even in these apparently non-sexual cases it frequently ceases altogether on marriage. Even when we have eliminated all these forms of auto-erotic activity, however refined, in which the subject takes a voluntary part, we have still left unexplored an important portion of the auto-erotic field, a portion which many people are alone inclined to consider normal: sexual orgasm during sleep. That under conditions of sexual abstinence in healthy individuals there must inevitably be some auto-erotic manifestations during waking life, a careful study of the facts compels us to believe. There can be no doubt, also, that, under the same conditions, the occurrence of the complete orgasm during sleep with, in men, seminal emissions, is altogether normal. Even Zeus himself, as Pausanias has recorded, was liable to such accidents: a statement which, at all events, shows that to the Greek mind there was nothing derogatory in such an occurrence.[231] The Jews, however, regarded it as an impurity,[232] and the same idea was transmitted to the Christian church and embodied in the word _pollutio_, by which the phenomenon was designated in ecclesiastical phraseology.[233] According to Billuart and other theologians, pollution in sleep is not sin, unless voluntarily caused; if, however, it begins in sleep, and is completed in the half-waking state, with a sense of pleasure, it is a venial sin. But it seems allowable to permit a nocturnal pollution to complete itself on awaking, if it occurs without intention; and St. Thomas even says "_Si pollutio placeat ut naturæ exoneratio vel alleviatio peccatum non creditur_." Notwithstanding the fair and logical position of the more distinguished Latin theologians, there has certainly been a widely prevalent belief in Catholic countries that pollution during sleep is a sin. In the "Parson's Tale," Chaucer makes the parson say: "Another sin appertaineth to lechery that cometh in sleeping; and the sin cometh oft to them that be maidens, and eke to them that be corrupt; and this sin men clepe pollution, that cometh in four manners;" these four manners being (1) languishing of body from rank and abundant humors, (2) infirmity, (3) surfeit of meat and drink, and (4) villainous thoughts. Four hundred years later, Madame Roland, in her _Mémoires Particulières_, presented a vivid picture of the anguish produced in an innocent girl's mind by the notion of the sinfulness of erotic dreams. She menstruated first at the age of 14. "Before this," she writes, "I had sometimes been awakened from the deepest sleep in a surprising manner. Imagination played no part; I exercised it on too many serious subjects, and my timorous conscience preserved it from amusement with other subjects, so that it could not represent what I would not allow it to seek to understand. But an extraordinary effervescence aroused my senses in the heat of repose, and, by virtue of my excellent constitution, operated by itself a purification which was as strange to me as its cause. The first feeling which resulted was, I know not why, a sort of fear. I had observed in my _Philotée_, that we are not allowed to obtain any pleasure from our bodies except in lawful marriage. What I had experienced could be called a pleasure. I was then guilty, and in a class of offences which caused me the most shame and sorrow, since it was that which was most displeasing to the Spotless Lamb. There was great agitation in my poor heart, prayers and mortifications. How could I avoid it? For, indeed, I had not foreseen it, but at the instant when I experienced it, I had not taken the trouble to prevent it. My watchfulness became extreme. I scrupulously avoided positions which I found specially exposed me to the accident. My restlessness became so great that, at last I was able to awake before the catastrophe. When I was not in time to prevent it, I would jump out of bed, with naked feet on to the polished floor, and with crossed arms pray to the Saviour to preserve me from the wiles of the devil. I would then impose some penance on myself, and I have carried out to the letter what the prophet King probably only transmitted to us as a figure of Oriental speech, mixing ashes with my bread and watering it with my tears." To the early Protestant mind, as illustrated by Luther, there was something diseased, though not impure, in sexual excitement during sleep; thus, in his _Table Talk_ Luther remarks that girls who have such dreams should be married at once, "taking the medicine which God has given." It is only of comparatively recent years that medical science has obtained currency for the belief that this auto-erotic process is entirely normal. Blumenbach stated that nocturnal emissions are normal.[234] Sir James Paget declared that he had never known celibate men who had not such emissions from once or twice a week to twice every three months, both extremes being within the limits of good health, while Sir Lauder Brunton considers once a fortnight or once a month about the usual frequency, at these periods the emissions often following two nights in succession. Rohleder believes that they may normally follow for several nights in succession. Hammond considers that they occur about once a fortnight.[235] Ribbing regards ten to fourteen days as the normal interval.[236] Löwenfeld puts the normal frequency at about once a week;[237] this seems to be nearer the truth as regards most fairly healthy young men. In proof of this it is only necessary to refer to the exact records of healthy young adults summarized in the study of periodicity in the present volume. It occasionally happens, however, that nocturnal emissions are entirely absent. I am acquainted with some cases. In other fairly healthy young men they seldom occur except at times of intellectual activity or of anxiety and worry. Lately there has been some tendency for medical opinion to revert to the view of Luther, and to regard sexual excitement during sleep as a somewhat unhealthy phenomenon. Moll is a distinguished advocate of this view. Sexual excitement during sleep is the normal result of celibacy, but it is another thing to say that it is, on that account, satisfactory. We might, then, Moll remarks, maintain that nocturnal incontinence of urine is satisfactory, since the bladder is thus emptied. Yet, we take every precaution against this by insisting that the bladder shall be emptied before going to sleep. (_Libido Sexualis_, Bd. I, p. 552.) This remark is supported by the fact, to which I find that both men and women can bear witness, that sexual excitement during sleep is more fatiguing than in the waking state, though this is not an invariable rule, and it is sometimes found to be refreshing. In a similar way, Eulenburg (_Sexuale Neuropathie_, p. 55) states that nocturnal emissions are no more normal than coughing or vomiting. Nocturnal emissions are usually, though not invariably, accompanied by dreams of a voluptuous character in which the dreamer becomes conscious in a more or less fantastic manner of the more or less intimate presence or contact of a person of the opposite sex. It would seem, as a general rule, that the more vivid and voluptuous the dream, the greater is the physical excitement and the greater also the relief experienced on awakening. Sometimes the erotic dream occurs without any emission, and not infrequently the emission takes place after the dreamer has awakened. The widest and most comprehensive investigation of erotic dreams is that carried out by Gualino, in northern Italy, and based on inquiries among 100 normal men--doctors, teachers, lawyers, etc.--who had all had experience of the phenomenon. (L. Gualino, "Il Sogno Erotico nell' Uomo Normale," _Rivista di Psicologia_, Jan.-Feb., 1907.) Gualino shows that erotic dreams, with emissions (whether or not seminal), began somewhat earlier than the period of physical development as ascertained by Marro for youths of the same part of northern Italy. Gualino found that all his cases had had erotic dreams at the age of seventeen; Marro found 8 per cent, of youths still sexually undeveloped at that age, and while sexual development began at thirteen years, erotic dreams began at twelve. Their appearance was preceded, in most cases for some months, by erections. In 37 per cent, of the cases there had been no actual sexual experiences (either masturbation or intercourse); in 23 per cent, there had been masturbation; in the rest, some form of sexual contact. The dreams are mainly visual, tactual elements coming second, and the _dramatis persona_ is either an unknown woman (27 per cent, cases), or only known by sight (56 per cent.), and in the majority is, at all events in the beginning, an ugly or fantastic figure, becoming more attractive later in life, but never identical with the woman loved during waking life. This, as Gualino points out, accords with the general tendency for the emotions of the day to be latent in sleep. Masturbation only formed the subject of the dream in four cases. The emotional state in the pubertal stage, apart from pleasure, was anxiety (37 per cent.), desire (17 per cent.), fear (14 per cent.). In the adult stage, anxiety and fear receded to 7 per cent, and 6 per cent., respectively. Thirty-three of the subjects, as a result of sexual or general disturbances, had had nocturnal emissions without dreams; these were always found exhausting. Normally (in more than 90 per cent.) erotic dreams are the most vivid of all dreams. In no case was there knowledge of any monthly or other cyclic periodicity in the occurrence of the manifestations. In 34 per cent, of cases, they tended to occur very soon after sexual intercourse. In numerous cases they were peculiarly frequent (even three in one night) during courtship, when the young man was in the habit of kissing and caressing his betrothed, but ceased after marriage. It was not noted that position in bed or a full bladder exerted any marked influence in the occurrence of erotic dreams; repletion of the seminal vesicles is regarded as the main factor. In Germany erotic dreams have been discussed by Volkelt (_Die Traum-Phantasie_, 1875, pp. 78-82), and especially by Löwenfeld (_Sexual-Probleme_, Oct., 1908), while in America, Stanley Hall thus summarizes the general characteristics of erotic dreams in men: "In by far the most cases, consciousness, even when the act causes full awakening from sleep, finds only scattered images, single words, gestures, and acts, many of which would perhaps normally constitute no provocation. Many times the mental activity seems to be remote and incidental, and the mind retains in the morning nothing except, perhaps, a peculiar dress pattern, the shape of a finger-nail, the back of a neck, the toss of a head, the movement of a foot, or the dressing of the hair. In such cases, these images stand out for a time with the distinctness of a cameo, and suggest that the origin of erotic fetichisms is largely to be found in sexual dreams. Very rarely is there any imagery of the organs themselves, but the tendency to irradiation is so strong as to re-enforce the suggestion of so many other phenomena in this field, that nature designs this experience to be long circuited, and that it may give a peculiar ictus to almost any experience. When waking occurs just afterward, it seems at least possible that there may be much imagery that existed, but failed to be recalled to memory, possibly because the flow of psychic impressions was over very familiar fields, and this, therefore, was forgotten, while any eruption into new or unwonted channels, stood out with distinctness. All these psychic phenomena, although very characteristic of man in his prime, are not so of the dreams of dawning puberty, which are far more vivid." (G. Stanley Hall, _Adolescence_, vol. i, p. 455.) I may, further, quote the experience of an anonymous contributor--a healthy and chaste man between 30 and 38 years of age--to the _American Journal of Psychology_ ("Nocturnal Emissions," Jan., 1904): "Legs and breasts often figured prominently in these dreams, the other sexual parts, however, very seldom, and then they turned out to be male organs in most cases. There were but two instances of copulation dreamt. Girls and young women were the, usual _dramatis personæ_, and, curiously enough, often the aggressors. Sometimes the face or faces were well known; sometimes, only once seen; sometimes, entirely unknown. The orgasm occurs at the most erotic part of the dream, the physical and psychical running parallel. This most erotic or suggestive part of the dream was very often quite an innocent looking incident enough. As, for example: while passing a strange young woman, overtaken on the street, she calls after me some question. At first, I pay no heed, but when she calls again, I hesitate whether to turn back and answer or not--emission. Again, walking beside a young woman, she said, 'Shall I take your arm?' I offered it, and she took it, entwining her arm around it, and raising it high--emission. I could feel stronger erection as she asked the question. Sometimes, a word was enough; sometimes, a gesture. Once emission took place on my noticing the young woman's diminished finger-nails. Another example of fetichism was my being curiously attracted in a dream by the pretty embroidered figure on a little girl's dress. As an illustration of the strange metamorphoses that occur in dreams, I one night, in my dream (I had been observing partridges in the summer) fell in love with a partridge, which changed under my caresses to a beautiful girl, who yet retained an indescribable wild-bird innocence, grace, and charm--a sort of Undina!" These experiences may be regarded as fairly typical of the erotic dreams of healthy and chaste young men. The bird, for instance, that changes into a woman while retaining some elements of the bird, has been encountered in erotic dreams by other young men. It is indeed remarkable that, as De Gubernatis observes, "the bird is a well-known phallic symbol," while Maeder finds ("Interprétations de Quelques Rêves," _Archives de Psychologie_, April, 1907) that birds have a sexual significance both in life and in dreams. The appearance of male organs in the dream-woman is doubtless due to the dreamer's greater familiarity with those organs; but, though it occurs occasionally, it can scarcely be said to be the rule in erotic dreams. Even men who have never had connection with a woman, are quite commonly aware of the presence of a woman's sexual organs in their erotic dreams. Moll's comparison of nocturnal emissions of semen with nocturnal incontinence of urine suggests an interesting resemblance, and at the same time seeming contrast. In both cases we are concerned with viscera which, when overfilled or unduly irritable, spasmodically eject their contents during sleep. There is a further resemblance which usually becomes clear when, as occasionally happens, nocturnal incontinence of urine persists on to late childhood or adolescence: both phenomena are frequently accompanied by vivid dreams of appropriate character. (See e.g. Ries, "Ueber Enuresis Nocturna," _Monatsschrift für Harnkrankheiten und Sexuelle Hygiene_, 1904; A.P. Buchan, nearly a century ago, pointed out the psychic element in the experiences of young persons who wetted the bed, _Venus sine Concubitu_, 1816, p. 47.) Thus, in one case known to me, a child of seven, who occasionally wetted the bed, usually dreamed at the same time that she wanted to make water, and was out of doors, running to find a suitable spot, which she at last found, and, on awaking, discovered that she had wetted the bed; fifteen years later she still sometimes had similar dreams, which caused her much alarm until, when thoroughly awake, she realized that no accident had happened; these later dreams were not the result of any actual strong desire to urinate. In another case with which I am acquainted, a little girl of eight, after mental excitement or indigestible meals, occasionally wetted the bed, dreaming that she was frightened by some one running after her, and wetted herself in consequence, after the manner of the Ganymede in the eagle's clutch, as depicted by Rembrandt. These two cases, it may be noted, belong to two quite different types. In the first case, the full bladder suggests to imagination the appropriate actions for relief, and the bladder actually accepts the imaginative solution offered; it is, according to Fiorani's phrase, "somnambulism of the bladder." In the other case, there is no such somnambulism, but a psychic and nervous disturbance, not arising in the bladder at all, irradiates convulsively, and whether or not the bladder is overfull, attacks a vesical nervous system which is not yet sufficiently well-balanced to withstand the inflow of excitement. In children of somewhat nervous temperament, manifestations of this kind may occur as an occasional accident, up to about the age of seven or eight; and thereafter, the nervous control of the bladder having become firmly established, they cease to happen, the nervous energy required to affect the bladder sufficing to awake the dreamer. In very rare cases, however, the phenomenon may still occasionally happen, even in adolescence or later, in individuals who are otherwise quite free from it. This is most apt to occur in young women even in waking life. In men it is probably extremely rare. The erotic dream seems to differ flagrantly from the vesical dream, in that it occurs in adult life, and is with difficulty brought under control. The contrast is, however, very superficial. When we remember that sexual activity only begins normally at puberty, we realize that the youth of twenty is, in the matter of sexual control, scarcely much older than in the matter of vesical control he was at the age of six. Moreover, if we were habitually, from our earliest years, to go to bed with a full bladder, as the chaste man goes to bed with unrelieved sexual system, it would be fully as difficult to gain vesical control during sleep as it now is to gain sexual control. Ultimately, such sexual control is attained; after the age of forty, it seems that erotic dreams with emission become more and more rare; either the dream occurs without actual emission, exactly as dreams of urination occur in adults with full bladder, or else the organic stress, with or without dreams, serves to awaken the sleeper before any emission has occurred. But this stage is not easily or completely attained. St. Augustine, even at the period when he wrote his _Confessions_, mentions, as a matter of course, that sexual dreams "not merely arouse pleasure, but gain the consent of the will." (X. 41.) Not infrequently there is a struggle in sleep, just as the hypnotic subject may resist suggestions; thus, a lady of thirty-five dreamed a sexual dream, and awoke without excitement; again she fell asleep, and had another dream of sexual character, but resisted the tendency to excitement, and again awoke; finally, she fell asleep and had a third sexual dream, which was this time accompanied by the orgasm. (This has recently been described also by Näcke, who terms it _pollutio interrupta, Neurologisches Centralblatt_, Oct. 16, 1909; the corresponding voluntary process in the waking state is described by Rohleder and termed _masturbatio interrupta, Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, Aug., 1908.) The factors involved in the acquirement of vesical and sexual control during sleep are the same, but the conditions are somewhat different. There is a very intimate connection between the vesical and the sexual spheres, as I have elsewhere pointed out (see e.g. in the third volume of these _Studies_, "Analysis of the Sexual Impulse"). This connection is psychic as well as organic. Both in men and women, a full bladder tends to develop erotic dreams. (See e.g. K.A. Scherner, _Das Leben des Traums_, 1861, pp. 187 et seq.; Spitta also points out the connection between vesical and erotic dreams, _Die Schlaf und Traumzustände_, 2d ed., 1882, pp. 250 et seq.) Raymond and Janet state (_Les Obscessions_, vol. ii, p. 135) that nocturnal incontinence of urine, accompanied by dreams of urination, may be replaced at puberty by masturbation. In the reverse direction, Freud believes (_Monatsschrift für Psychiatrie_, Bd. XVIII, p. 433) that masturbation plays a large part in causing the bed-wetting of children who have passed the age when that usually ceases, and he even finds that children are themselves aware of the connection. The diagnostic value of sexual dreams, as an indication of the sexual nature of the subject when awake, has been emphasized by various writers. (E.g., Moll, _Die Konträre Sexualempfindung_, Ch. IX; Näcke, "Der Traum als feinstes Reagens für die Art des sexuellen Empfindens," _Monatsschrift für Kriminalpsychologie_, 1905, p. 500.) Sexual dreams tend to reproduce, and even to accentuate, those characteristics which make the strongest sexual appeal to the subject when awake. At the same time, this general statement has to be qualified, more especially as regards inverted dreams. In the first place, a young man, however normal, who is not familiar with the feminine body when awake, is not likely to see it when asleep, even in dreams of women; in the second place, the confusions and combinations of dream imagery often tend to obliterate sexual distinctions, however free from perversions the subjects may be. Thus, a correspondent tells me of a healthy man, of very pure character, totally inexperienced in sexual matters, and never having seen a woman naked, who, in his sexual dreams, always sees the woman with male organs, though he has never had any sexual inclinations for men, and is much in love with a lady. The confusions and associations of dream imagery, leading to abnormal combinations, may be illustrated by a dream which once occurred to me after reading Joest's account of how a young negress, whose tattoo-marks he was sketching, having become bored, suddenly pressed her hands to her breasts, spirting two streams of lukewarm milk into his face, and ran away laughing; I dreamed of a woman performing a similar action, not from her breasts, however, but from a penis with which she was furnished. Again, by another kind of confusion, a man dreams sexually that he is with a man, although the figure of the partner revealed in the dream is a woman. The following dream, in a normal man who had never been, or wished to be, in the position shown by the dream, may be quoted: "I dreamed that I was a big boy, and that a younger boy lay close beside me, and that we (or, certainly, he) had seminal emissions; I was complacently passive, and had a feeling of shame when the boy was discovered. On awaking I found I had had no emission, but was lying very close to my wife. The day before, I had seen boys in a swimming-match." This was, it seems to me, an example of dream confusion, and not an erotic inverted dream. (Näcke also brings forward inverted dreams by normal persons; see e.g. his "Beiträge zu den sexuellen Träumen," _Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie_, Bd. XX, 1908, p. 366.) So far as I have been able to ascertain, there seem to be, generally speaking, certain differences in the manifestations of auto-erotism during sleep in men and women which I believe to be not without psychological significance. In men the phenomenon is fairly simple; it usually appears about puberty continues at intervals of varying duration during sexual life provided the individual is living chastely, and is generally, though not always, accompanied by erotic dreams which lead up to the climax, its occurrence being, to some extent, influenced by a variety of circumstances: physical, mental, or emotional excitement, alcohol taken before retiring, position in bed (as lying on the back), the state of the bladder, sometimes the mere fact of being in a strange bed, and to some extent apparently by the existence of monthly and yearly rhythms. On the whole, it is a fairly definite and regular phenomenon which usually leaves little conscious trace on awaking, beyond probably some sense of fatigue and, occasionally, a headache. In women, however, the phenomena of auto-erotism during sleep seem to be much more irregular, varied, and diffused. So far as I have been able to make inquiries, it is the exception rather than the rule for girls to experience definitely erotic dreams about the period of puberty or adolescence.[238] Auto-erotic phenomena during sleep in women who have never experienced the orgasm when awake are usually of a very vague kind; while it is the rule in a chaste youth for the orgasm thus to manifest itself, it is the exception in a chaste girl. It is not, as a rule, until the orgasm has been definitely produced in the waking state--under whatever conditions it may have been produced--that it begins to occur during sleep, and even in a strongly sexual woman living a repressed life it is often comparatively infrequent.[239] Thus, a young medical woman who endeavors to deal strenuously with her physical sexual emotions writes: "I sleep soundly, and do not dream at all. Occasionally, but very rarely, I have had sensations which awakened me suddenly. They can scarcely be called dreams, for they are mere impulses, nothing connected or coherent, yet prompted, I know, by sexual feeling. This is probably an experience common to all." Another lady (with a restrained psycho-sexual tendency to be attracted to both sexes), states that her first sexual sensations with orgasm were felt in dreams at the age of 16, but these dreams, which she has now forgotten, were not agreeable and not erotic; two or three years later spontaneous orgasm began to occur occasionally when awake, and after this, orgasm took place regularly once or twice a week in sleep, but still without erotic dreams; she merely dreamt that the orgasm was occurring and awoke as it took place. It is possible that to the comparative rarity in chaste women of complete orgasm during sleep, we may in part attribute the violence with which repressed sexual emotion in women often manifests itself.[240] There is thus a difference here between men and women which is of some significance when we are considering the natural satisfaction of the sexual impulse in chaste women. In women, who have become accustomed to sexual intercourse, erotic dreams of fully developed character occur, with complete orgasm and accompanying relief--as may occasionally be the case in women who are not acquainted with actual intercourse;[241] some women, however, even when familiar with actual coitus, find that sexual dreams, though accompanied by emissions, are only the symptoms of desire and do not produce actual relief. Some interest attaches to cases in which young women, even girls at puberty, experience dreams of erotic character, or at all events dream concerning coitus or men in erection, although they profess, and almost certainly with truth, to be quite ignorant of sexual phenomena. Several such dreams of remarkable character have been communicated to me. One can imagine that the psychologists of some schools would see in these dreams the spontaneous eruption of the experiences of the race. I am inclined to regard them as forgotten memories, such as we know to occur sometimes in sleep. The child has somehow seen or heard of sexual phenomena and felt no interest, and the memory may subsequently be aroused in sleep, under the stimulation of new-born sexual sensations. It is a curious proof of the ignorance which has prevailed in recent times concerning the psychic sexual nature of women that, although in earlier ages the fact that women are normally liable to erotic dreams was fully recognized, in recent times it has been denied, even by writers who have made a special study of the sexual impulse in women. Eulenburg (_Sexuale Neuropathie_, 1895, pp. 31, 79) appears to regard the appearances of sexual phenomena during sleep, in women, as the result of masturbation. Adler, in what is in many respects an extremely careful study of sexual phenomena in women (_Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, 1904, p. 130), boldly states that they do not have erotic dreams. In 1847, E. Guibout ("Des Pollutions Involontaires chez la Femme," _Union Médicale_, p. 260) presented the case of a married lady who masturbated from the age of ten, and continued the practice, even after her marriage at twenty-four, and at twenty-nine began to have erotic dreams with emissions every few nights, and later sometimes even several times a night, though they ceased to be voluptuous; he believed the case to be the first ever reported of such a condition in a woman. Yet, thousands of years ago, the Indian of Vedic days recognized erotic dreams in women as an ordinary and normal occurrence. (Löwenfeld quotes a passage to this effect from the Oupnek'hat, _Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_, 2d ed., p. 114.) Even savages recognize the occurrence of erotic dreams in women as normal, for the Papuans, for instance, believe that a young girl's first menstruation is due to intercourse with the moon in the shape of a man, the girl dreaming that a man is embracing her. (_Reports Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. v., p. 206.) In the seventeenth century, Rolfincius, in a well-informed study (_De Pollutione Nocturna_, a Jena Inaugural Dissertation, 1667), concluded that women experience such manifestations, and quotes Aristotle, Galen, and Fernelius, in the same sense. Sir Thomas Overbury, in his _Characters_, written in the early part of the same century, describing the ideal milkmaid, says that "her dreams are so chaste that she dare tell them," clearly implying that It was not so with most women. The notion that women are not subject to erotic dreams thus appears to be of comparatively recent origin. One of the most interesting and important characters by which the erotic dreams of women--and, indeed, their dreams generally--differ from those of men is in the tendency to evoke a repercussion on the waking life, a tendency more rarely noted in men's erotic dreams, and then only to a minor extent. This is very common, even in healthy and normal women, and is exaggerated to a high degree in neurotic subjects, by whom the dream may even be interpreted as a reality, and so declared on oath, a fact of practical importance. Hersman--having met with a case in which a school-girl with chorea, after having dreamed of an assault, accused the principal of a school of assault, securing his conviction--obtained the opinions of various American alienists as to the frequency with which such dreams in unstable mental subjects lead to delusions and criminal accusations. Dercum, H.C. Wood, and Rohé had not personally met with such cases; Burr believed that there was strong evidence "that a sexual dream may be so vivid as to make the subject believe she has had sexual congress"; Kiernan knew of such cases; C.H. Hughes, in persons with every appearance of sanity, had known the erotic dreams of the night to become the erotic delusions of the day, the patient protesting violently the truth of her story; while Hersman reports the case[242] of a young lady in an asylum who had nightly delusions that a medical officer visited her every night, and had to do with her, coming up the hot-air flue. I am acquainted with a similar case in a clever, but highly neurotic, young woman, who writes: "For years I have been trying to stamp out my passional nature, and was beginning to succeed when a strange thing happened to me last autumn. One night, as I lay in bed, I felt an influence so powerful that a man seemed present with me. I crimsoned with shame and wonder. I remember that I lay upon my back, and marveled when the spell had passed. The influence, I was assured, came from a priest whom I believed in and admired above everyone in the world. I had never dreamed of love in connection with him, because I always thought him so far above me. The influence has been upon me ever since--sometimes by day and nearly always by night; from it I generally go into a deep sleep, which lasts until morning. I am always much refreshed when I awake. This influence has the best effect upon my life that anything has ever had as regards health and mind. It is the knowledge that I am loved _fittingly_ that makes me so indifferent to my future. What worries me is that I sometimes wonder if I suffer from a nervous disorder merely." The subject thus seemed to regard these occurrences as objectively caused, but was sufficiently sane to wonder whether her experiences were not due to mental disorder.[243] The tendency of the auto-erotic phenomena of sleep to be manifested with such energy as to flow over into the waking life and influence conscious emotion and action, while very well marked in normal and healthy women, is seen to an exaggerated extent in hysterical women, in whom it has, therefore, chiefly been studied. Sante de Sanctis, who has investigated the dreams of many classes of people, remarks on the frequently sexual character of the dreams of hysterical women, and the repercussion of such dreams on the waking life of the following day; he gives a typical case of hysterical erotic dreaming in an uneducated servant-girl of 23, in whom such dreams occur usually a few days before the menstrual period; her dreams, especially if erotic, make an enormous impression on her; in the morning she is bad-tempered if they were unpleasant, while she feels lascivious and gives herself up to masturbation if she has had erotic dreams of men; she then has a feeling of pleasure throughout the day, and her sexual organs are bathed with moisture.[244] Pitres and Gilles de la Tourette, two of Charcot's most distinguished pupils, in their elaborate works on hysteria, both consider that dreams generally have a great influence on the waking life of the hysterical, and they deal with the special influence of erotic dreams, to which, doubtless, we must refer those conceptions of _incubi_ and _succubi_ which played so vast and so important a part in the demonology of the Middle Ages, and while not unknown in men were most frequent in women. Such erotic dreams--as these observers, confirming the experience of old writers, have found among the hysterical to-day--are by no means always, or even usually, of a pleasurable character. "It is very rare," Pitres remarks, when insisting on the sexual character of the hallucinations of the hysterical, "for these erotic hallucinations to be accompanied by agreeable voluptuous sensations. In most cases the illusion of sexual intercourse even provokes acute pain. The witches of old times nearly all affirmed that in their relations with the devil they suffered greatly.[245] They said that his organ was long and rough and pointed, with scales which lifted on withdrawal and tore the vagina." (It seems probable, I may remark, that the witches' representations, both of the devil and of sexual intercourse, were largely influenced by familiarity with the coupling of animals). As Gilles de la Tourette is careful to warn his readers, we must not too hastily assume, from the prevalence of nocturnal auto-erotic phenomena in hysterical women, that such women are necessarily sexual and libidinous in excess; the disorder is in them psychic, he points out, and not physical, and they usually receive sexual approaches with indifference and repugnance, because their sexual centres are anæsthetic or hyperæsthetic. "During the period of sexual activity they seek much more the care and delicate attention of men than the genital act, which they often only tolerate. Many households, begun under the happiest auspices--the bride all the more apt to believe that she loves her betrothed in virtue of her suggestibility, easily exalted, perhaps at the expense of the senses--become hells on earth. The sexual act has for the hysterical woman more than one disillusion; she cannot understand it; it inspires her with insurmountable repugnance."[246] I refer to these hysterical phenomena because they present to us, in an extreme form, facts which are common among women whom, under the artificial conditions of civilized life, we are compelled to regard as ordinarily healthy and normal. The frequent painfulness of auto-erotic phenomena is by no means an exclusively hysterical phenomenon, although often seen in a heightened form in hysterical conditions. It is probably to some extent simply the result of a conflict in consciousness with a merely physical impulse which is strong enough to assert itself in spite of the emotional and intellectual abhorrence of the subject. It is thus but an extreme form of the disgust which all sexual physical manifestations tend to inspire in a person who is not inclined to respond to them. Somewhat similar psychic disgust and physical pain are produced in the attempts to stimulate the sexual emotions and organs when these are exhausted by exercise. In the detailed history which Moll presents, of the sexual experiences of a sister in an American nursing guild,--a most instructive history of a woman fairly normal except for the results of repressed sexual emotion, and with strong moral tendencies,--various episodes are narrated well illustrating the way in which sexual excitement becomes unpleasant or even painful when it takes place as a physical reflex which the emotions and intellect are all the time struggling against.[247] It is quite probable, however, that there is a physiological, as well as a psychic, factor in this phenomenon, and Sollier, in his elaborate study of the nature and genesis of hysteria, by insisting on the capital importance of the disturbance of sensibility in hysteria, and the definite character of the phenomena produced in the passage between anæsthesia and normal sensation, has greatly helped to reveal the mechanism of this feature of auto-erotic excitement in the hysterical. No doubt there has been a tendency to exaggerate the unpleasant character of the auto-erotic phenomena of hysteria. That tendency was an inevitable reaction against an earlier view, according to which hysteria was little more than an unconscious expression of the sexual emotions and as such was unscientifically dismissed without any careful investigation. I agree with Breuer and Freud that the sexual needs of the hysterical are just as individual and various as those of normal women, but that they suffer from them more, largely through a moral struggle with their own instincts, and the attempt to put them into the background of consciousness.[248] In many hysterical and psychically abnormal women, auto-erotic phenomena, and sexual phenomena generally, are highly pleasurable, though such persons may be quite innocent of any knowledge of the erotic character of the experience. I have come across interesting and extreme examples of this in the published experiences of the women followers of the American religious leader, T.L. Harris, founder of the "Brotherhood of the New Life." Thus, in a pamphlet entitled "Internal Respiration," by Respiro, a letter is quoted from a lady physician, who writes: "One morning I awoke with a strange new feeling in the womb, which lasted for a day or two; I was so very happy, but the joy was in my womb, not in my heart."[249] "At last," writes a lady quoted in the same pamphlet, "I fell into a slumber, lying on my back with arms and feet folded, a position I almost always find myself in when I awake, no matter in which position I may go to sleep. Very soon I awoke from this slumber with a most delightful sensation, every fibre tingling with an exquisite glow of warmth. I was lying on my left side (something I am never able to do), and was folded in the arms of my counterpart. Unless you have seen it, I cannot give you an idea of the beauty of his flesh, and with what joy I beheld and felt it. Think of it, luminous flesh; and Oh! such tints, you never could imagine without seeing. He folded me so closely in his arms," etc. In such cases there is no conflict between the physical and the psychic, and therefore the resulting excitement is pleasurable and not painful. At this point our study of auto-erotism brings us into the sphere of mysticism. Leuba, in a penetrating and suggestive essay on Christian mysticism, after quoting the present _Study_, refers to the famous passages in which St. Theresa describes how a beautiful little angel inserted a flame-tipped dart into her heart until it descended into her bowels and left her inflamed with divine love. "What physiological difference," he asks, "is there between this voluptuous sensation and that enjoyed by the disciple of the Brotherhood of New Life? St. Theresa says 'bowels,' the woman doctor says 'womb,' that is all."[250] The extreme form of auto-erotism is the tendency for the sexual emotion to be absorbed and often entirely lost in self-admiration. This Narcissus-like tendency, of which the normal germ in women is symbolized by the mirror, is found in a minor degree in some men, and is sometimes well marked in women, usually in association with an attraction for other persons, to which attraction it is, of course, normally subservient. "The mirror," remarks Bloch (_Beiträge_ 1, p. 201), "plays an important part in the genesis of sexual aberration.... It cannot be doubted that many a boy and girl have first experienced sexual excitement at the sight of their own bodies in a mirror." Valera, the Spanish novelist, very well described this impulse in his _Genio y Figura_. Rafaela, the heroine of this novel, says that, after her bath: "I fall into a puerility which may be innocent or vicious, I cannot decide. I only know that it is a purely contemplative act, a disinterested admiration of beauty. It is not coarse sensuality, but æsthetic platonism. I imitate Narcissus; and I apply my lips to the cold surface of the mirror and kiss my image. It is the love of beauty, the expression of tenderness and affection for what God has made manifest, in an ingenuous kiss imprinted on the empty and incorporeal reflection." In the same spirit the real heroine of the _Tagebuch einer Verlorenen_ (p. 114), at the point when she was about to become a prostitute, wrote: "I am pretty. It gives me pleasure to throw off my clothes, one by one, before the mirror, and to look at myself, just as I am, white as snow and straight as a fir, with my long, fine, hair, like a cloak of black silk. When I spread abroad the black stream of it, with both hands, I am like a white swan with black wings." A typical case known to me is that of a lady of 28, brought up on a farm. She is a handsome woman, of very large and fine proportions, active and healthy and intelligent, with, however, no marked sexual attraction to the opposite sex; at the same time she is not inverted, though she would like to be a man, and has a considerable degree of contempt for women. She has an intense admiration for her own person, especially her limbs; she is never so happy as when alone and naked in her own bedroom, and, so far as possible, she cultivates nakedness. She knows by heart the various measurements of her body, is proud of the fact that they are strictly in accordance with the canons of proportion, and she laughs proudly at the thought that her thigh is larger than many a woman's waist. She is frank and assured in her manners, without sexual shyness, and, while willing to receive the attention and admiration of others, she makes no attempt to gain it, and seems never to have experienced any emotions stronger than her own pleasure in herself. I should add that I have had no opportunity of detailed examination, and cannot speak positively as to the absence of masturbation. In the extreme form in which alone the name of Narcissus may properly be invoked, there is comparative indifference to sexual intercourse or even the admiration of the opposite sex. Such a condition seems to be rare, except, perhaps, in insanity. Since I called attention to this form of auto-erotism (_Alienist and Neurologist_, April, 1898), several writers have discussed the condition, especially Näcke, who, following out the suggestion, terms the condition Narcissism. Among 1,500 insane persons, Näcke has found it in four men and one woman (_Psychiatrische en Neurologische Bladen_, No. 2, 1899), Dr. C.H. Hughes writes (in a private letter) that he is acquainted with such cases, in which men have been absorbed in admiration of their own manly forms, and of their sexual organs, and women, likewise, absorbed in admiration of their own mammæ and physical proportions, especially of limbs. "The whole subject," he adds, "is a singular phase of psychology, and it is not all morbid psychology, either. It is closely allied to that æsthetic sense which admires the nude in art." Féré (_L'Instinct Sexuel_, 2d ed., p. 271) mentions a woman who experienced sexual excitement in kissing her own hand. Näcke knew a woman in an asylum who, during periodical fits of excitement, would kiss her own arms and hands, at the same time looking like a person in love. He also knew a young man with dementia præcox? who would kiss his own image ("Der Kuss bei Geisteskranken," _Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, Bd. LXIII, p. 127). Moll refers to a young homosexual lawyer, who experienced great pleasure in gazing at himself in a mirror (_Konträre Sexualempfindung_, 3d ed., p. 228), and mentions another inverted man, an admirer of the nates of men, who, chancing to observe his own nates in a mirror, when changing his shirt, was struck by their beauty, and subsequently found pleasure in admiring them (_Libido Sexualis_, Bd. I, Theil I, p. 60). Krafft-Ebing knew a man who masturbated before a mirror, imagining, at the same time, how much better a real lover would be. The best-observed cases of Narcissism have, however, been recorded by Rohleder, who confers upon this condition the ponderous name of automonosexualism, and believes that it has not been previously observed (H. Rohleder, _Der Automonosexualismus_, being Heft 225 of _Berliner Klinik_, March, 1907). In the two cases investigated by Rohleder, both men, there was sexual excitement in the contemplation of the individual's own body, actually or in a mirror, with little or no sexual attraction to other persons. Rohleder is inclined to regard the condition as due to a congenital defect in the "sexual centre" of the brain. FOOTNOTES: [176] All the above groups of phenomena are dealt with in other volumes of these _Studies_: the manifestations of normal sexual excitement, in vols. iii, iv, and v; homosexuality, in vol. ii, and erotic fetichism, in vol. v. [177] See Appendix C. [178] Letamendi, of Madrid, has suggested "_auto-erastia_" to cover what is probably much the same field. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, Hufeland, in his _Makrobiotic_, invented the term "_geistige Onanie_," to express the filling and heating of the imagination with voluptuous images, without unchastity of body; and in 1844, Kaan, in his _Psychopathia Sexualis_, used, but did not invent, the term "_onania psychica_." Gustav Jaeger, in his _Entdeckung der Seele_, proposed "monosexual idiosyncrasy," to indicate the most animal forms of masturbation taking place without any correlative imaginative element, a condition illustrated by cases given in Moll's _Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, Bd. I, pp. 13 et seq. Dr. Laupts (a pseudonym for the accomplished psychologist, Dr. Saint-Paul) uses the term _autophilie_, for solitary vice. (_Perversion et Perversité Sexuelles_, 1896, p. 337.) But all these terms only cover a portion of the field. [179] H. Northcote, _Christianity and Sex Problems_, p. 231. [180] Rosse observed two elephants procuring erection by entwining their proboscides, the act being completed by one elephant opening his mouth and allowing the other to tickle the roof of it. (I. Rosse, _Virginia Medical Monthly_, October, 1892.) [181] Féré, "Perversions sexuelles chez les animaux," _Revue Philosophique_, May, 1897. [182] Tillier, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, 1889, p. 270. [183] Moll, _Libido Sexualis_, Bd. I, p. 76. The same author mentions (ibid., p. 373) that parrots living in solitary confinement masturbate by rubbing the posterior part of the body against some object until ejaculation occurs. Edmund Selous ("Habits of the Peewit," _Zoölogist_, April, 1902) suggests that the peewit, when rolling on the ground, and exerting pressure on the anal region, is moved by a sexual impulse to satisfy desire; he adds that actual orgasm appears eventually to take place, a spasm of energy passing through the bird. [184] Dr. J.W. Howe (_Excessive Venery, Masturbation, and Continence_, London and New York, 1883, p. 62) writes of masturbation: "In savage lands it is of rare occurrence. Savages live in a state of Nature. No moral obligations exist which compel them to abstain from a natural gratification of their passions. There is no social law which prevents them from following the dictates of their lower nature. Hence, they have no reason for adopting onanism as an outlet for passions. The moral trammels of civilized society, and ignorance of physiological laws, give origin to the vice." Every one of these six sentences is incorrect or misleading. They are worth quoting as a statement of the popular view of savage life. [185] I can recall little evidence of its existence among the Australian aborigines, though there is, in the Wiradyuri language, spoken over a large part of New South Wales, a word (whether ancient or not, I do not know) meaning masturbation (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, July-Dec., 1904, p. 303). Dr. W. Roth (_Ethnological Studies Among the Northwest-Central Queensland Aborigines_, p. 184), who has carefully studied the blacks of his district, remarks that he has no evidence as to the practice of either masturbation or sodomy among them. More recently (1906) Roth has stated that married men in North Queensland and elsewhere masturbate during their wives' absence. As regards the Maori of New Zealand, Northcote adds, there is a rare word for masturbation (as also at Rarotonga), but according to a distinguished Maori scholar there are no allusions to the practice in Maori literature, and it was probably not practiced in primitive times. The Maori and the Polynesians of the Cook Islands, Northcote remarks, consider the act unmanly, applying to it a phrase meaning "to make women of themselves." (Northcote, loc. cit., p. 232.) [186] Greenlees, _Journal of Mental Science_, July, 1895. A gentleman long resident among the Kaffirs of South Natal, told Northcote, however, that he had met with no word for masturbation, and did not believe the practice prevailed there. [187] Hyades and Deniker, _Mission Scientifique du Cap Horn_, vol. vii, p. 295. [188] _La Criminalité en Cochin-Chine_, 1887, p. 116; also Mondière, "Monographie de la Femme Annamite," _Mémoires Société d'Anthropologie_, tome ii, p. 465. [189] Christian, article on "Onanisme," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_; Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_; Moraglia, "Die Onanie beim normalen Weibe," _Zeitschrift für Criminal-Anthropologie_, 1897; Dartigues, _De la Procréation Volontaire des Sexes_, p. 32. In the eighteenth century, the _rin-no-tama_ was known in France, sometimes as "pommes d'amour." Thus Bachaumont, in his Journal (under date July 31, 1773), refers to "a very extraordinary instrument of amorous mystery," brought by a traveler from India; he describes this "boule erotique" as the size of a pigeon's egg, covered with soft skin, and gilded. Cf. F.S. Krauss, _Geschlechtsleben in Brauch und Sitte der Japaner_, Leipzig, 1907. [190] It may be worth mentioning that the Salish Indians of British Columbia have a myth of an old woman having intercourse with young women, by means of a horn worn as a penis (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, July-Dec., 1904, p. 342). [191] In Burchard's Penitential (cap. 142-3), penalties are assigned to the woman who makes a phallus for use on herself or other women. (Wasserschleben, _Bussordnungen der abendländlichen Kirche_, p. 658.) The _penis succedaneus_, the Latin _phallus_ or _fascinum_, is in France called _godemiche_; in Italy, _passatempo_, and also _diletto_, whence _dildo_, by which it is most commonly known in England. For men, the corresponding _cunnus succedaneus_ is, in England, called _merkin_, which meant originally (as defined in old editions of Bailey's _Dictionary_) "counterfeit hair for women's privy parts." [192] Dühren, _Der Marquis de Sade und Seine Zeit_, 3d ed., pp. 130, 232; id. _Geschlechtsleben in England_, Bd. II, pp. 284 et seq. [193] Gamier, _Onanisme_, p. 378. [194] _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1899, p. 669. [195] The mythology of Hawaii, one may note, tells of goddesses who were impregnated by bananas they had placed beneath their garments. B. Stern mentions (_Medizin in der Türkei_, Bd. II, p. 24) that the women of Turkey and Egypt use the banana, as well as the cucumber, etc., for masturbation. In a poem in the _Arabian Nights_, also ("History of the Young Nour with the Frank"), we read: "O bananas, of soft and smooth skins, which dilate the eyes of young girls ... you, alone among fruits are endowed with a pitying heart, O consolers of widows and divorced women." In France and England they are not uncommonly used for the same purpose. [196] See, e.g., Winckel, _Die Krankheiten der weiblichen Harnrohre und Blase_, 1885, p. 211; and "Lehrbuch der Frauenkrankheiten," 1886, p. 210; also, Hyrtl, _Handbuch du Topographischen Anatomie_, 7th ed., Bd. II, pp. 212-214. Grünfeld (_Wiener medizinische Blätter_, November 26, 1896), collected 115 cases of foreign body in the bladder--68 in men, 47 in women; but while those found in men were usually the result of a surgical accident, those found in women were mostly introduced by the patients themselves. The patient usually professes profound ignorance as to how the object came there; or she explains that she accidentally sat down upon it, or that she used it to produce freer urination. The earliest surgical case of this kind I happen to have met with, was recorded by Plazzon, in Italy, in 1621 (_De Partibus Generationi Inservientibus_, lib. ii, Ch. XIII); it was that of a certain honorable maiden with a large clitoris, who, seeking to lull sexual excitement with the aid of a bone needle, inserted it in the bladder, whence it was removed by Aquapendente. [197] A. Poulet, _Traité des Corps étrangers en Chirurgie_, 1879. English translation, 1881, vol. ii, pp. 209, 230. Rohleder (_Die Masturbation_, 1899, pp. 24-31) also gives examples of strange objects found in the sexual organs. [198] E.H. Smith, "Signs of Masturbation in the Female," _Pacific Medical Journal_, February, 1903, quoted by R.W. Taylor, _Practical Treatise on Sexual Disorders_, 3d ed., p. 418. [199] L. Tait, _Diseases of Women_, 1889, vol. i, p. 100. [200] _Obstetric Journal_, vol. i, 1873, p. 558. Cf. G.J. Arnold, _British, Medical Journal_, January 6, 1906, p. 21. [201] Dudley, _American Journal of Obstetrics_, July, 1889, p. 758. [202] A. Reverdin, "Epingles à Cheveux dans la Vessie," _Revue Médicale de la Suisse Romande_, January 20, 1888. His cases are fully recorded, and his paper is an able and interesting contribution to this by-way of sexual psychology. The first case was a school-master's wife, aged 22, who confessed in her husband's presence, without embarrassment or hesitation, that the manoeuvre was habitual, learned from a school-companion, and continued after marriage. The second was a single woman of 42, a _curé's_ servant, who attempted to elude confession, but on leaving the doctor's house remarked to the house-maid, "Never go to bed without taking out your hair-pins; accidents happen so easily." The third was an English girl of 17 who finally acknowledged that she had lost two hair-pins in this way. The fourth was a child of 12, driven by the pain to confess that the practice had become a habit with her. [203] "One of my patients," remarks Dr. R.T. Morris, of New York, (_Transactions of the American Association of Obstetricians_, for 1892, Philadelphia, vol. v), "who is a devout church-member, had never allowed herself to entertain sexual thoughts referring to men, but she masturbated every morning, when standing before the mirror, by rubbing against a key in the bureau-drawer. A man never excited her passions, but the sight of a key in any bureau-drawer aroused erotic desires." [204] Freud (_Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie_, p. 118) refers to the sexual pleasure of swinging. Swinging another person may be a source of voluptuous excitement, and one of the 600 forms of sexual pleasure enumerated in De Sade's _Les 120 Journées de Sodome_ is (according to Dühren) to propel a girl vigorously in a swing. [205] The fact that horse exercise may produce pollutions was well recognized by Catholic theologians, and Sanchez states that this fact need not be made a reason for traveling on foot. Rolfincius, in 1667, pointed out that horse-riding, in those unaccustomed to it, may lead to nocturnal pollutions. Rohleder (_Die Masturbation_, pp. 133-134) brings together evidence regarding the influence of horse exercise in producing sexual excitement. [206] A correspondent, to whom the idea was presented for the first time, wrote: "Henceforward I shall know to what I must attribute the bliss--almost the beatitude--I so often have experienced after traveling for four or five hours in a train." Penta mentions the case of a young girl who first experienced sexual desire at the age of twelve, after a railway journey. [207] Langdon Down, _British Medical Journal_, January 12, 1867. [208] Pouillet, _L'Onanisme chez la Femme_, Paris, 1880; Fournier, _De l'Onanisme_, 1885; Rohleder, _Die Masturbation_, p. 132. [209] _West-Riding Asylum Reports_, 1876, vol. vi. [210] _Das Nervöse Weib_, 1898, p. 193. [211] In the Appendix to volume iii of these _Studies_, I have recorded the experience of a lady who found sexual gratification in this manner. [212] Dr. J.G. Kiernan, to whom I am indebted for a note on this point, calls my attention also to the case of a homosexual and masochistic man (_Medical Record_, vol. xix) whose feelings were intensified by tight-lacing. [213] Some women are also able to produce the orgasm, when in a state of sexual excitement, by placing a cushion between the knees and pressing the thighs firmly together. [214] _Leçons sur les Déformations Vulvaires_, p. 64. Martineau was informed by a dressmaker that it is very frequent in workrooms and can usually be done without attracting attention. An ironer informed him that while standing at her work, she crossed her legs, slightly bending the trunk forward and supporting herself on the table by the hands; then a few movements of contraction of the adductor muscles of the thigh would suffice to produce the orgasm. [215] C.W. Townsend, "Thigh-friction in Children under one Year," Annual Meeting of the American Pediatric Society, Montreal, 1896. Five cases are recorded by this writer, all in female infants. [216] Soutzo, _Archives de Neurologie_, February, 1903, p. 167. [217] Zache, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1899, p. 72. I have discussed what may be regarded as the normally sexual influence of dancing, in the third volume of these _Studies_, "The Analysis of the Sexual Impulse." [218] The case has been recorded of a Russian who had the spontaneous impulse to self-flagellation on the nates with a rod, for the sake of sexual excitement, from the age of 6. (_Rivista Mensile di Psichiatria_ April, 1900, p. 102.) [219] Kryptadia, vol. v, p. 358. As regards the use of nettles, see Dühren, _Geschlechtsleben in England_, Bd. II, p. 392. [220] Debreyne, _Moechialogie_, p. 177. [221] R.W. Taylor, _A Practical Treatise on Sexual Disorders_, 3rd ed., Ch. XXX. [222] Hammond, _Sexual Impotence_, pp. 70 et seq. [223] Niceforo, _Il Gergo_, p. 98. [224] _Functional Disorders of the Nervous System in Women_, p. 114. [225] Schrenck-Notzing, _Suggestions-therapie_, p. 13. A. Kind (_Jahrbuch für Sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Jahrgang ix, 1908, p. 58) gives the case of a young homosexual woman, a trick cyclist at the music halls, who often, when excited by the sight of her colleague in tights, would experience the orgasm while cycling before the public. [226] Janet has, however, used day-dreaming--which he calls "_reveries subconscients_"--to explain a remarkable case of demon-possession, which he investigated and cured. (_Névroses et Idées fixes_, vol. i, pp. 390 et seq.) [227] "Minor Studies from the Psychological Laboratory of Wellesley College," _American Journal of Psychology_, vol. vii, No. 1. G.E. Partridge ("Reverie," _Pedagogical Seminary_, April, 1898) well describes the physical accompaniments of day-dreaming, especially in Normal School girls between sixteen and twenty-two. Pick ("Clinical Studies in Pathological Dreaming," _Journal of Mental Sciences_, July, 1901) records three more or less morbid cases of day-dreaming, usually with an erotic basis, all in apparently hysterical men. An important study of day-dreaming, based on the experiences of nearly 1,500 young people (more than two-thirds girls and women), has been published by Theodate L. Smith ("The Psychology of Day Dreams," _American Journal Psychology_, October, 1904). Continued stories were found to be rare--only one per cent. Healthy boys, before fifteen, had day-dreams in which sports, athletics, and adventure had a large part; girls put themselves in the place of their favorite heroines in novels. After seventeen, and earlier in the case of girls, day-dreams of love and marriage were found to be frequent. A typical confession is that of a girl of nineteen: "I seldom have time to build castles in Spain, but when I do, I am not different from most Southern girls; i.e., my dreams are usually about a pretty fair specimen of a six-foot three-inch biped." [228] The case has been recorded of a married woman, in love with her doctor, who kept a day-dream diary, at last filling three bulky volumes, when it was discovered by her husband, and led to an action for divorce; it was shown that the doctor knew nothing of the romance in which he played the part of hero. Kiernan, in referring to this case (as recorded in John Paget's _Judicial Puzzles_), mentions a similar case in Chicago. [229] _Uranisme_, p. 125. [230] The acute Anstie remarked, more than thirty years ago, in his work on _Neuralgia_: "It is a comparatively frequent thing to see an unsocial, solitary life (leading to the habit of masturbation) joined with the bad influence of an unhealthy ambition, prompting to premature and false work in literature and art." From the literary side, M. Léon Bazalgette has dealt with the tendency of much modern literature to devote itself to what he calls "mental onanism," of which the probable counterpart, he seems to hint, is a physical process of auto-erotism. (Léon Bazalgette, "L'onanisme considéré comme principe createur en art," _L'Esprit Nouveau_, 1898.) [231] Pausanias, _Achaia_, Chapter XVII. The ancient Babylonians believed in a certain "maid of the night," who appeared to men in sleep and roused without satisfying their passions. (Jastrow, _Religion of Babylonia_, p. 262.) This succubus was the Assyrian Liler, connected with the Hebrew Lilith. There was a corresponding incubus, "the little night man," who had nocturnal intercourse with women. (Cf. Ploss, _Das Weib_, 7th ed., pp. 521 et seq.) The succubus and the incubus (the latter being more common) were adopted by Christendom; St. Augustine (_De Civitate Dei_, Bk. XV, Ch. XXIII) said that the wicked assaults of sylvans and fauns, otherwise called incubi, on women, are so generally affirmed that it would be impudent to deny them. Incubi flourished in mediæval belief, and can scarcely, indeed, be said to be extinct even to-day. They have been studied by many authors; see, e.g., Dufour, _Histoire de la Prostitution_, vol. v, Ch. XXV, Saint-André, physician-in-ordinary to the French King, pointed out in 1725 that the incubus was a dream. It may be added that the belief in the succubus and incubus appears to be widespread. Thus, the West African Yorubas (according to A.B. Ellis) believe that erotic dreams are due to the god Elegbra, who, either as a male or a female, consorts with men and women in sleep. [232] "If any man's seed of copulation go out from him, then he shall bathe all his flesh in water and be unclean until the even. And every garment, and every skin, whereon is the seed of copulation, shall be washed with water and be unclean until the even." Leviticus, XV, v. 16-17. [233] It should be added that the term _pollutio_ also covers voluntary effusion of semen outside copulation. (Debreyne, _Moechialogie_, p. 8; for a full discussion of the opinions of theologians concerning nocturnal and diurnal pollutions, see the same author's _Essai sur la Théologie Morale_, pp. 100-149.) [234] _Memoirs_, translated by Bendyshe, p. 182. [235] _Sexual Impotence_, p. 137. [236] _L'Hygiène Sexuelle_, p. 169. [237] _Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_, p. 164. [238] I may here refer to the curious opinion expressed by Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, that, while the sexual impulse in man is usually relieved by seminal emissions during sleep, in women it is relieved by the occurrence of menstruation. This latter statement is flagrantly at variance with the facts; but it may perhaps be quoted in support of the view expressed above as to the comparative rarity of sexual excitement during sleep in young girls. [239] Löwenfeld has recently expressed the same opinion. Rohleder believes that pollutions are physically impossible in a _real_ virgin, but that opinion is too extreme. [240] It may be added that in more or less neurotic women and girls, erotic dreams may be very frequent and depressing. Thus, J.M. Fothergill (_West-Riding Asylum Report_, 1876, vol. vi) remarks: "These dreams are much more frequent than is ordinarily thought, and are the cause of a great deal of nervous depression among women. Women of a highly-nervous diathesis suffer much more from these drains than robust women. Not only are these involuntary orgasms more frequent among such women, but they cause more disturbance of the general health in them than in other women." [241] I may remark here that a Russian correspondent considers that I have greatly underestimated the frequency of erotic manifestations during sleep in young girls. "All the women I have interrogated on this point," he informs me, "say that they have had such pollutions from the time of puberty, or even earlier, accompanied by erotic dreams. I have put the question to some twenty or thirty women. It is true that they were of southern race (Italian, Spanish, and French), and I believe that Southerners are, in this matter, franker than northern women, who consider the activity of the flesh as shameful, and seek to conceal it." My correspondent makes no reference to the chief point of sexual difference, so far as my observation goes, which is that erotic dreams are comparatively rare in those women "_who have yet had no sort of sexual experience in waking life_." Whether or not this is correct, I do not question the frequency of erotic dreams in girls who have had such experience. [242] C.C. Hersman, "Medico-legal Aspects of Eroto-Choreic Insanities," _Alienist and Neurologist_, July, 1897. I may mention that Pitres (_Leçons cliniques sur l'Hystérie_, vol. ii, p. 34) records the almost identical case of a hysterical girl in one of his wards, who was at first grateful to the clinical clerk to whom her case was intrusted, but afterward changed her behavior, accused him of coming nightly through the window, lying beside her, caressing her, and then exerting violent coitus three or four times in succession, until she was utterly exhausted. I may here refer to the tendency to erotic excitement in women under the influence of chloroform and nitrous oxide, a tendency rarely or never noted in men, and of the frequency with which the phenomenon is attributed by the subject to actual assault. See H. Ellis, _Man and Woman_, pp. 269-274. [243] In Australia, some years ago, a man was charged with rape, found guilty of "attempt," and sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment, on the accusation of a girl of 13, who subsequently confessed that the charge was imaginary; in this case, the jury found it impossible to believe that so young a girl could have been lying, or hallucinated, because she narrated the details of the alleged offence with such circumstantial detail. Such cases are not uncommon, and in some measure, no doubt, they may be accounted for by auto-erotic nocturnal hallucinations. [244] Sante de Sanctis, _I sogni e il sonno nell'isterismo e nella epilessia_, Rome, 1896, p. 101. [245] Pitres, _Leçons cliniques sur l'Hystérie_, vol. ii, pp. 37 et seq. The Lorraine inquisitor, Nicolas Remy, very carefully investigated the question of the feelings of witches when having intercourse with the Devil, questioning them minutely, and ascertained that such intercourse was usually extremely painful, filling them with icy horror (See, e.g., Dufour, _Histoire de la Prostitution_, vol. v, p. 127; the same author presents an interesting summary of the phenomena of the Witches' Sabbath). But intercourse with the Devil was by no means always painful. Isabel Gowdie, a Scotch witch, bore clear testimony to this point: "The youngest and lustiest women," she stated, "will have very great pleasure in their carnal copulation with him, yea, much more than with their own husbands.... He is abler for us than any man can be. (Alack! that I should compare him to a man!)" Yet her description scarcely sounds attractive; he was a "large, black, hairy man, very cold, and I found his nature as cold within me as spring well-water." His foot was forked and cloven; he was sometimes like a deer, or a roe; and he would hold up his tail while the witches kissed that region (Pitcairn, _Criminal Trials in Scotland_, vol. iii, Appendix VII; see, also, the illustrations at the end of Dr. A. Marie's _Folie et Mysticisme_, 1907). [246] Gilles de la Tourette, loc. cit., p. 518. Erotic hallucinations have also been studied by Bellamy, in a Bordeaux thesis, _Hallucinations Erotiques_, 1900-1901. [247] On one occasion, when still a girl, whenever an artist whom she admired touched her hand she felt erection and moisture of the sexual parts, but without any sensation of pleasure; a little later, when an uncle's knee casually came in contact with her thigh, ejaculation of mucus took place, though she disliked the uncle; again, when a nurse, on casually seeing a man's sexual organs, an electric shock went through her, though the sight was disgusting to her; and when she had once to assist a man to urinate, she became in the highest degree excited, though without pleasure, and lay down on a couch in the next room, while a conclusive ejaculation took place. (Moll, _Libido Sexualis_, Bd. I, p. 354.) [248] Breuer and Freud, _Studien über Hysterie_, 1895, p. 217. [249] Calmeil (_De la Folie_, vol. i, p. 252) called attention to the large part played by uterine sensations in the hallucinations of some famous women ascetics, and added: "It is well recognized that the narrative of such sensations nearly always occupies the first place in the divagations of hysterical virgins." [250] H. Leuba, "Les Tendances Religieuses chez les Mystiques Chrétiens," _Revue Philosophique_, November, 1902, p. 465. St. Theresa herself states that physical sensations played a considerable part in this experience. II. Hysteria and the Question of Its Relation to the Sexual Emotions--The Early Greek Theories of its Nature and Causation--The Gradual Rise of Modern Views--Charcot--The Revolt Against Charcot's Too Absolute Conclusions--Fallacies Involved--Charcot's Attitude the Outcome of his Personal Temperament--Breuer and Freud--Their Views Supplement and Complete Charcot's--At the Same Time they Furnish a Justification for the Earlier Doctrine of Hysteria--But They Must Not be Regarded as Final--The Diffused Hysteroid Condition in Normal Persons--The Physiological Basis of Hysteria--True Pathological Hysteria is Linked on to almost Normal States, especially to Sex-hunger. The nocturnal hallucinations of hysteria, as all careful students of this condition now seem to agree, are closely allied to the hysterical attack proper. Sollier, indeed, one of the ablest of the more recent investigators of hysteria, has argued with much force that the subjects of hysteria really live in a state of pathological sleep, of vigilambulism.[251] He regards all the various accidents of hysteria as having a common basis in disturbances of sensibility, in the widest sense of the word "sensibility,"--as the very foundation of personality,--while anæsthesia is "the real _sigillum hysteriæ_." Whatever the form of hysteria, we are thus only concerned with a more or less profound state of vigilambulism: a state in which the subject seems, often even to himself, to be more or less always asleep, whether the sleep may be regarded as local or general. Sollier agrees with Féré that the disorder of sensibility may be regarded as due to an exhaustion of the sensory centres of the brain, whether as the result of constitutional cerebral weakness, of the shock of a violent emotion, or of some toxic influence on the cerebral cells. We may, therefore, fitly turn from the auto-erotic phenomena of sleep which in women generally, and especially in hysterical women, seem to possess so much importance and significance, to the question--which has been so divergently answered at different periods and by different investigators--concerning the causation of hysteria, and especially concerning its alleged connection with conscious or unconscious sexual emotion.[252] It was the belief of the ancient Greeks that hysteria came from the womb; hence its name. We first find that statement in Plato's _Timæus_: "In men the organ of generation--becoming rebellious and masterful, like an animal disobedient to reason, and maddened with the sting of lust--seeks to gain absolute sway; and the same is the case with the so-called womb, or uterus, of women; the animal within them is desirous of procreating children, and, when remaining unfruitful long beyond its proper time, gets discontented and angry, and, wandering in every direction through the body, closes up the passages of the breath, and, by obstructing respiration,[253] drives them to extremity, causing all varieties of disease." Plato, it is true, cannot be said to reveal anywhere a very scientific attitude toward Nature. Yet he was here probably only giving expression to the current medical doctrine of his day. We find precisely the same doctrine attributed to Hippocrates, though without a clear distinction between hysteria and epilepsy.[254] If we turn to the best Roman physicians we find again that Aretæus, "the Esquirol of antiquity," has set forth the same view, adding to his description of the movements of the womb in hysteria: "It delights, also, in fragrant smells, and advances toward them; and it has an aversion to foetid smells, and flies from them; and, on the whole, the womb is like an animal within an animal."[255] Consequently, the treatment was by applying foetid smells to the nose and rubbing fragrant ointments around the sexual parts.[256] The Arab physicians, who carried on the traditions of Greek medicine, appear to have said nothing new about hysteria, and possibly had little knowledge of it. In Christian mediæval Europe, also, nothing new was added to the theory of hysteria; it was, indeed, less known medically than it had ever been, and, in part it may be as a result of this ignorance, in part as a result of general wretchedness (the hysterical phenomena of witchcraft reaching their height, Michelet points out, in the fourteenth century, which was a period of special misery for the poor), it flourished more vigorously. Not alone have we the records of nervous epidemics, but illuminated manuscripts, ivories, miniatures, bas-reliefs, frescoes, and engravings furnish the most vivid iconographic evidence of the prevalence of hysteria in its most violent forms during the Middle Ages. Much of this evidence is brought to the service of science in the fascinating works of Dr. P. Richer, one of Charcot's pupils.[257] In the seventeenth century Ambroise Paré was still talking, like Hippocrates, about "suffocation of the womb"; Forestus was still, like Aretæus, applying friction to the vulva; Fernel was still reproaching Galen, who had denied that the movements of the womb produced hysteria. It was in the seventeenth century (1618) that a French physician, Charles Lepois (Carolus Piso), physician to Henry II, trusting, as he said, to experience and reason, overthrew at one stroke the doctrine of hysteria that had ruled almost unquestioned for two thousand years, and showed that the malady occurred at all ages and in both sexes, that its seat was not in the womb, but in the brain, and that it must be considered a nervous disease.[258] So revolutionary a doctrine could not fail to meet with violent opposition, but it was confirmed by Willis, and in 1681, we owe to the genius of Sydenham a picture of hysteria which for lucidity, precision, and comprehensiveness has only been excelled in our own times. It was not possible any longer to maintain the womb theory of Hippocrates in its crude form, but in modified forms, and especially with the object of preserving the connection which many observers continued to find between hysteria and the sexual emotions, it still found supporters in the eighteenth and even the nineteenth centuries. James, in the middle of the eighteenth century, returned to the classical view, and in his _Dictionary of Medicine_ maintained that the womb is the seat of hysteria. Louyer Villermay in 1816 asserted that the most frequent causes of hysteria are deprivation of the pleasures of love, griefs connected with this passion, and disorders of menstruation. Foville in 1833 and Landouzy in 1846 advocated somewhat similar views. The acute Laycock in 1840 quoted as "almost a medical proverb" the saying, "_Salacitas major, major ad hysteriam proclivitas_," fully indorsing it. More recently still Clouston has defined hysteria as "the loss of the inhibitory influence exercised on the reproductive and sexual instincts of women by the higher mental and moral functions" (a position evidently requiring some modification in view of the fact that hysteria is by no means confined to women), while the same authority remarks that more or less concealed sexual phenomena are the chief symptoms of "hysterical insanity."[259] Two gynæcologists of high position in different parts of the world, Hegar in Germany and Balls-Headley in Australia, attribute hysteria, as well as anæmia, largely to unsatisfied sexual desire, including the non-satisfaction of the "ideal feelings."[260] Lombroso and Ferrero, again, while admitting that the sexual feelings might be either heightened or depressed in hysteria, referred to the frequency of what they termed "a paradoxical sexual instinct" in the hysterical, by which, for instance, sexual frigidity is combined with intense sexual pre-occupations; and they also pointed out the significant fact that the crimes of the hysterical nearly always revolve around the sexual sphere.[261] Thus, even up to the time when the conception of hysteria which absolutely ignored and excluded any sexual relationship whatever had reached its height, independent views favoring such a relationship still found expression. Of recent years, however, such views usually aroused violent antagonism. The main current of opinion was with Briquet (1859), who, treating the matter with considerable ability and a wide induction of facts, indignantly repelled the idea that there is any connection between hysteria and the sexual facts of life, physical or psychic. As he himself admitted, Briquet was moved to deny a sexual causation of hysteria by the thought that such an origin would be degrading for women ("_a quelque chose de dégradant pour les femmes_"). It was, however, the genius of Charcot, and the influence of his able pupils, which finally secured the overthrow of the sexual theory of hysteria. Charcot emphatically anathematized the visceral origin of hysteria; he declared that it is a psychic disorder, and to leave no loop-hole of escape for those who maintained a sexual causation he asserted that there are no varieties of hysteria, that the disease is one and indivisible. Charcot recognized no primordial cause of hysteria beyond heredity, which here plays a more important part than in any other neuropathic condition. Such heredity is either direct or more occasionally by transformation, any deviation of nutrition found in the ancestors (gout, diabetes, arthritis) being a possible cause of hysteria in the descendants. "We do not know anything about the nature of hysteria," Charcot wrote in 1892; "we must make it objective in order to recognize it. The dominant idea for us in the etiology of hysteria is, in the widest sense, its hereditary predisposition. The greater number of those suffering from this affection are simply born _hystérisables_, and on them the occasional causes act directly, either through autosuggestion or by causing derangement of general nutrition, and more particularly of the nutrition of the nervous system."[262] These views were ably and decisively stated in Gilles de la Tourette's _Traité de l'Hystérie_, written under the inspiration of Charcot. While Charcot's doctrine was thus being affirmed and generally accepted, there were at the same time workers in these fields who, though they by no means ignored this doctrine of hysteria or even rejected it, were inclined to think that it was too absolutely stated. Writing in the _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_ at the same time as Charcot, Donkin, while deprecating any exclusive emphasis on the sexual causation, pointed out the enormous part played by the emotions in the production of hysteria, and the great influence of puberty in women due to the greater extent of the sexual organs, and the consequently large area of central innervation involved, and thus rendered liable to fall into a state of unstable equilibrium. Enforced abstinence from the gratification of any of the inherent and primitive desires, he pointed out, may be an adequate exciting cause. Such a view as this indicated that to set aside the ancient doctrine of a physical sexual cause of hysteria was by no means to exclude a psychic sexual cause. Ten years earlier Axenfeld and Huchard had pointed out that the reaction against the sexual origin of hysteria was becoming excessive, and they referred to the evidence brought forward by veterinary surgeons showing that unsatisfied sexual desire in animals may produce nervous symptoms very similar to hysteria.[263] The present writer, when in 1894 briefly discussing hysteria as an element in secondary sexual characterization, ventured to reflect the view, confirmed by his own observation, that there was a tendency to unduly minimize the sexual factor in hysteria, and further pointed out that the old error of a special connection between hysteria and the female sexual organs, probably arose from the fact that in woman the organic sexual sphere is larger than in man.[264] When, indeed, we analyze the foundation of the once predominant opinions of Charcot and his school regarding the sexual relationships of hysteria, it becomes clear that many fallacies and misunderstandings were involved. Briquet, Charcot's chief predecessor, acknowledged that his own view was that a sexual origin of hysteria would be "degrading to women"; that is to say, he admitted that he was influenced by a foolish and improper prejudice, for the belief that the unconscious and involuntary morbid reaction of the nervous system to any disturbance of a great primary instinct can have "_quelque chose de dégradant_" is itself an immoral belief; such disturbance of the nervous system might or might not be caused, but in any case the alleged "degradation" could only be the fiction of a distorted imagination. Again, confusion had been caused by the ancient error of making the physical sexual organs responsible for hysteria, first the womb, more recently the ovaries; the outcome of this belief was the extirpation of the sexual organs for the cure of hysteria. Charcot condemned absolutely all such operations as unscientific and dangerous, declaring that there is no such thing as hysteria of menstrual origin.[265] Subsequently, Angelucci and Pierracini carried out an international inquiry into the results of the surgical treatment of hysteria, and condemned it in the most unqualified manner.[266] It is clearly demonstrated that the physical sexual organs are not the seat of hysteria. It does not, however, follow that even physical sexual desire, when repressed, is not a cause of hysteria. The opinion that it was so formed an essential part of the early doctrine of hysteria, and was embodied in the ancient maxim: "_Nubat illa et morbus effugiet_." The womb, it seemed to the ancients, was crying out for satisfaction, and when that was received the disease vanished.[267] But when it became clear that sexual desire, though ultimately founded on the sexual apparatus, is a nervous and psychic fact, to put the sexual organs out of count was not sufficient; for the sexual emotions may exist before puberty, and persist after complete removal of the sexual organs. Thus it has been the object of many writers to repel the idea that unsatisfied sexual desire can be a cause of hysteria. Briquet pointed out that hysteria is rare among nuns and frequent among prostitutes. Krafft-Ebing believed that most hysterical women are not anxious for sexual satisfaction, and declared that "hysteria caused through the non-satisfaction of the coarse sensual sexual impulse I have never seen,"[268] while Pitres and others refer to the frequently painful nature of sexual hallucinations in the hysterical. But it soon becomes obvious that the psychic sexual sphere is not confined to the gratification of conscious physical sexual desire. It is not true that hysteria is rare among nuns, some of the most tremendous epidemics of hysteria, and the most carefully studied, having occurred in convents,[269] while the hysterical phenomena sometimes associated with revivals are well known. The supposed prevalence among prostitutes would not be evidence against the sexual relationships of hysteria; it has, however, been denied, even by so great an authority as Parent-Duchâtelet who found it very rare, even in prostitutes in hospitals, when it was often associated with masturbation; in prostitutes, however, who returned to a respectable life, giving up their old habits, he found hysteria common and severe.[270] The frequent absence of physical sexual feeling, again, may quite reasonably be taken as evidence of a disorder of the sexual emotions, while the undoubted fact that sexual intercourse usually has little beneficial effect on pronounced hysteria, and that sexual excitement during sleep and sexual hallucinations are often painful in the same condition, is far from showing that injury or repression of the sexual emotions had nothing to do with the production of the hysteria. It would be as reasonable to argue that the evil effect of a heavy meal on a starving man must be taken as evidence that he was not suffering from starvation. The fact, indeed, on which Gilles de la Tourette and others have remarked, that the hysterical often desire not so much sexual intercourse as simple affection, would tend to show that there is here a real analogy, and that starvation or lesion of the sexual emotions may produce, like bodily starvation, a rejection of those satisfactions which are demanded in health. Thus, even a mainly _a priori_ examination of the matter may lead us to see that many arguments brought forward in favor of Charcot's position on this point fall to the ground when we realize that the sexual emotions may constitute a highly complex sphere, often hidden from observation, sometimes not conscious at all, and liable to many lesions besides that due to the non-satisfaction of sexual desire. At the same time we are not thus enabled to overthrow any of the positive results attained by Charcot and his school. It may, however, be pointed out that Charcot's attitude toward hysteria was the outcome of his own temperament. He was primarily a neurologist, the bent of his genius was toward the investigation of facts that could be objectively demonstrated. His first interest in hysteria, dating from as far back as 1862, was in hystero-epileptic convulsive attacks, and to the last he remained indifferent to all facts which could not be objectively demonstrated. That was the secret of the advances he was enabled to make in neurology. For purely psychological investigation he had no liking, and probably no aptitude. Anyone who was privileged to observe his methods of work at the Salpêtrière will easily recall the great master's towering figure; the disdainful expression, sometimes, even, it seemed, a little sour; the lofty bearing which enthusiastic admirers called Napoleonic. The questions addressed to the patient were cold, distant, sometimes impatient. Charcot clearly had little faith in the value of any results so attained. One may well believe, also, that a man whose superficial personality was so haughty and awe-inspiring to strangers would, in any case, have had the greatest difficulty in penetrating the mysteries of a psychic world so obscure and elusive as that presented by the hysterical.[271] The way was thus opened for further investigations on the psychic side. Charcot had affirmed the power, not only of physical traumatism, but even of psychic lesions--of moral shocks--to provoke its manifestations, but his sole contribution to the psychology of this psychic malady,--and this was borrowed from the Nancy school,--lay in the one word "suggestibility"; the nature and mechanism of this psychic process he left wholly unexplained. This step has been taken by others, in part by Janet, who, from 1889 onward, has not only insisted that the emotions stand in the first line among the causes of hysteria, but has also pointed out some portion of the mechanism of this process; thus, he saw the significance of the fact, already recognized, that strong emotions tend to produce anæsthesia and to lead to a condition of mental disaggregation, favorable to abulia, or abolition of will-power. It remained to show in detail the mechanism by which the most potent of all the emotions effects its influence, and, by attempting to do this, the Viennese investigators, Breuer and especially Freud, have greatly aided the study of hysteria.[272] They have not, it is important to remark, overturned the positive elements in their great forerunner's work. Freud began as a disciple of Charcot, and he himself remarks that, in his earlier investigations of hysteria, he had no thought of finding any sexual etiology for that malady; he would have regarded any such suggestion as an insult to his patient. The results reached by these workers were the outcome of long and detailed investigation. Freud has investigated many cases of hysteria in minute detail, often devoting to a single case over a hundred hours of work. The patients, unlike those on whom the results of the French school have been mainly founded, all belonged to the educated classes, and it was thus possible to carry out an elaborate psychic investigation which would be impossible among the uneducated. Breuer and Freud insist on the fine qualities of mind and character frequently found among the hysterical. They cannot accept suggestibility as an invariable characteristic of hysteria, only abnormal excitability; they are far from agreeing with Janet (although on many points at one with him), that psychic weakness marks hysteria; there is merely an appearance of mental weakness, they say, because the mental activity of the hysterical is split up, and only a part of it is conscious.[273] The superiority of character of the hysterical is indicated by the fact that the conflict between their ideas of right and the bent of their inclinations is often an element in the constitution of the hysterical state. Breuer and Freud are prepared to assert that the hysterical are among "the flower of humanity," and they refer to those qualities of combined imaginative genius and practical energy which characterized St. Theresa, "the patron saint of the hysterical." To understand the position of Breuer and Freud we may start from the phenomenon of "nervous shock" produced by physical traumatism, often of a very slight character. Charcot had shown that such "nervous shock," with the chain of resulting symptoms, is nothing more or less than hysteria. Breuer and Freud may be linked on to Charcot at this point. They began by regarding the most typical hysteria as really a _psychic traumatism_; that is to say, that it starts in a lesion, or rather in repeated lesions, of the emotional organism. It is true that the school of Charcot admitted the influence of moral shock, especially of the emotion of fear, but that merely as an "_agent provocateur_," and with a curious perversity Gilles de la Tourette, certainly reflecting the attitude of Charcot, in his elaborate treatise on hysteria fails to refer to the sphere of the sexual emotions even when enumerating the "_agents provocateurs_."[274] The influence of fear is not denied by Breuer and Freud, but they have found that careful psychic analysis frequently shows that the shock of a commonplace "fear" is really rooted in a lesion of the sexual emotions. A typical and very simple illustration is furnished in a case, recorded by Breuer, in which a young girl of seventeen had her first hysterical attack after a cat sprang on her shoulders as she was going downstairs. Careful investigation showed that this girl had been the object of somewhat ardent attentions from a young man whose advances she had resisted, although her own sexual emotions had been aroused. A few days before, she had been surprised by this young man on these same dark stairs, and had forcibly escaped from his hands. Here was the real psychic traumatism, the operation of which merely became manifest in the cat. "But in how many cases," asks Breuer, "is a cat thus reckoned as a completely sufficient _causa efficiens_?" In every case that they have investigated Breuer and Freud have found some similar secret lesion of the psychic sexual sphere. In one case a governess, whose training has been severely upright, is, in spite of herself and without any encouragement, led to experience for the father of the children under her care an affection which she refuses to acknowledge even to herself; in another, a young woman finds herself falling in love with her brother-in-law; again, an innocent girl suddenly discovers her uncle in the act of sexual intercourse with her playmate, and a boy on his way home from school is subjected to the coarse advances of a sexual invert. In nearly every case, as Freud eventually found reason to believe, a primary lesion of the sexual emotions dates from the period of puberty and frequently of childhood, and in nearly every case the intimately private nature of the lesion causes it to be carefully hidden from everyone, and even to be unacknowledged by the subject of it. In the earlier cases Breuer and Freud found that a slight degree of hypnosis is necessary to bring the lesion into consciousness, and the accuracy of the revelations thus obtained has been tested by independent witness. Freud has, however, long abandoned the induction of any degree of hypnosis; he simply tries to arrange that the patient shall feel absolutely free to tell her own story, and so proceeds from the surface downwards, slowly finding and piecing together such essential fragments of the history as may be recovered, in the same way he remarks, as the archæologist excavates below the surface and recovers and puts together the fragments of an antique statue. Much of the material found, however, has only a symbolic value requiring interpretation and is sometimes pure fantasy. Freud now attaches great importance to dreams as symbolically representing much in the subject's mental history which is otherwise difficult to reach.[275] The subtle and slender clues which Freud frequently follows in interpreting dreams cannot fail sometimes to arouse doubt in his readers' minds, but he certainly seems to have been often successful in thus reaching latent facts in consciousness. The primary lesion may thus act as "a foreign body in consciousness." Something is introduced into psychic life which refuses to merge in the general flow of consciousness. It cannot be accepted simply as other facts of life are accepted; it cannot even be talked about, and so submitted to the slow usure by which our experiences are worn down and gradually transformed. Breuer illustrates what happens by reference to the sneezing reflex. "When an irritation to the nasal mucous membrane for some reason fails to liberate this reflex, a feeling of excitement and tension arises. This excitement, being unable to stream out along motor channels, now spreads itself over the brain, inhibiting other activities.... _In the highest spheres of human activity we may watch the same process_." It is a result of this process that, as Breuer and Freud found, the mere act of confession may greatly relieve the hysterical symptoms produced by this psychic mechanism, and in some cases may wholly and permanently remove them. It is on this fact that they founded their method of treatment, devised by Breuer and by him termed the cathartic method, though Freud prefers to call it the "analytic" method. It is, as Freud points out, the reverse of the hypnotic method of suggestive treatment; there is the same difference, Freud remarks, between the two methods as Leonardo da Vinci found for the two technical methods of art, _per via di porre_ and _per via di levare_; the hypnotic method, like painting, works by putting in, the cathartic or analytic method, like sculpture, works by taking out.[276] It is part of the mechanism of this process, as understood by these authors, that the physical symptoms of hysteria are constituted, by a process of conversion, out of the injured emotions, which then sink into the background or altogether out of consciousness. Thus, they found the prolonged tension of nursing a near and dear relative to be a very frequent factor in the production of hysteria. For instance, an originally rheumatic pain experienced by a daughter when nursing her father becomes the symbol in memory of her painful psychic excitement, and this perhaps for several reasons, but chiefly because _its presence in consciousness almost exactly coincided with that excitement_. In another way, again, nausea and vomiting may become a symbol through the profound sense of disgust with which some emotional shock was associated. Then the symbol begins to have a life of its own, and draws hidden strength from the emotion with which it is correlated. Breuer and Freud have found by careful investigation that the pains and physical troubles of hysteria are far from being capricious, but may be traced in a varying manner to an origin in some incident, some pain, some action, which was associated with a moment of acute psychic agony. The process of conversion was an involuntary escape from an intolerable emotion, comparable to the physical pain sometimes sought in intense mental grief, and the patient wins some relief from the tortured emotions, though at the cost of psychic abnormality, of a more or less divided state of consciousness and of physical pain, or else anæsthesia. In Charcot's third stage of the hysterical convulsion, that of "_attitudes passionnelles_," Breuer and Freud see the hallucinatory reproduction of a recollection which is full of significance for the origin of the hysterical manifestations. The final result reached by these workers is clearly stated by each writer. "The main observation of our predecessors," states Breuer,[277] "still preserved in the word 'hysteria,' is nearer to the truth than the more recent view which puts sexuality almost in the last line, with the object of protecting the patient from moral reproaches. Certainly the sexual needs of the hysterical are just as individual and as various in force as those of the healthy. But they suffer from them, and in large measure, indeed, they suffer precisely through the struggle with them, through the effort to thrust sexuality aside." "The weightiest fact," concludes Freud,[278] "on which we strike in a thorough pursuit of the analysis is this: From whatever side and from whatever symptoms we start, we always unfailingly reach the region of the sexual life. Here, first of all, an etiological condition of hysterical states is revealed.... At the bottom of every case of hysteria--and reproducible by an analytical effort after even an interval of long years--may be found one or more facts of precocious sexual experience belonging to earliest youth. I regard this as an important result, as the discovery of a _caput Nili_ of neuropathology." Ten years later, enlarging rather than restricting his conception, Freud remarks: "Sexuality is not a mere _deus ex machina_ which intervenes but once in the hysterical process; it is the motive force of every separate symptom and every expression of a symptom. The morbid phenomena constitute, to speak plainly, the patient's sexual activity."[279] The actual hysterical fit, Freud now states, may be regarded as "the substitute for a once practiced and then abandoned _auto-erotic_ satisfaction," and similarly it may be regarded as an equivalent of coitus.[280] It is natural to ask how this conception affects that elaborate picture of hysteria laboriously achieved by Charcot and his school. It cannot be said that it abolishes any of the positive results reached by Charcot, but it certainly alters their significance and value; it presents them in a new light and changes the whole perspective. With his passion for getting at tangible definite physical facts, Charcot was on very safe ground. But he was content to neglect the psychic analysis of hysteria, while yet proclaiming that hysteria is a purely psychic disorder. He had no cause of hysteria to present save only heredity. Freud certainly admits heredity, but, as he points out, the part it plays has been overrated. It is too vague and general to carry us far, and when a specific and definite cause can be found, the part played by heredity recedes to become merely a condition, the soil on which the "specific etiology" works. Here probably Freud's enthusiasm at first carried him too far and the most important modification he has made in his views occurs at this point: he now attaches a preponderant influence to heredity. He has realized that sexual activity in one form or another is far too common in childhood to make it possible to lay very great emphasis on "traumatic lesions" of this character, and he has also realized that an outcrop of fantasies may somewhat later develop on these childish activities, intervening between them and the subsequent morbid symptoms. He is thus led to emphasize anew the significance of heredity, not, however, in Charcot's sense, as general neuropathic disposition but as "sexual constitution." The significance of "infantile sexual lesions" has also tended to give place to that of "infantilism of sexuality."[281] The real merit of Freud's subtle investigations is that--while possibly furnishing a justification of the imperfectly-understood idea that had floated in the mind of observers ever since the name "hysteria" was first invented--he has certainly supplied a definite psychic explanation of a psychic malady. He has succeeded in presenting clearly, at the expense of much labor, insight, and sympathy, a dynamic view of the psychic processes involved in the constitution of the hysterical state, and such a view seems to show that the physical symptoms laboriously brought to light by Charcot are largely but epiphenomena and by-products of an emotional process, often of tragic significance to the subject, which is taking place in the most sensitive recess of the psychic organism. That the picture of the mechanism involved, presented to us by Professor Freud, cannot be regarded as a final and complete account of the matter, may readily be admitted. It has developed in Freud's own hands, and some of the developments will require very considerable confirmation before they can be accepted as generally true.[282] But these investigations have at least served to open the door, which Charcot had inconsistently held closed, into the deeper mysteries of hysteria, and have shown that here, if anywhere, further research will be profitable. They have also served to show that hysteria may be definitely regarded as, in very many cases at least, a manifestation of the sexual emotions and their lesions; in other words, a transformation of auto-erotism. The conception of hysteria so vigorously enforced by Charcot and his school is thus now beginning to appear incomplete. But we have to recognize that that incompleteness was right and necessary. A strong reaction was needed against a widespread view of hysteria that was in large measure scientifically false. It was necessary to show clearly that hysteria is a definite disorder, even when the sexual organs and emotions are swept wholly out of consideration; and it was also necessary to show that the lying and dissimulation so widely attributed to the hysterical were merely the result of an ignorant and unscientific misinterpretation of psychic elements of the disease. This was finally and triumphantly achieved by Charcot's school. There is only one other point in the explanation of hysteria which I will here refer to, and that because it is usually ignored, and because it has relationship to the general psychology of the sexual emotions. I refer to that physiological hysteria which is the normal counterpart of the pathological hysteria which has been described in its physical details by Charcot, and to which alone the term should strictly be applied. Even though hysteria as a disease may be described as one and indivisible, there are yet to be found, among the ordinary and fairly healthy population, vague and diffused hysteroid symptoms which are dissipated in a healthy environment, or pass nearly unnoted, only to develop in a small proportion of cases, under the influence of a more pronounced heredity, or a severe physical or psychic lesion, into that definite morbid state which is properly called hysteria. This diffused hysteroid condition may be illustrated by the results of a psychological investigation carried on in America by Miss Gertrude Stein among the ordinary male and female students of Harvard University and Radcliffe College. The object of the investigation was to study, with the aid of a planchette, the varying liability to automatic movements among normal individuals. Nearly one hundred students were submitted to experiment. It was found that automatic responses could be obtained in two sittings from all but a small proportion of the students of both sexes, but that there were two types of individual who showed a special aptitude. One type (probably showing the embryonic form of neurasthenia) was a nervous, high-strung, imaginative type, not easily influenced from without, and not so much suggestible as autosuggestible. The other type, which is significant from our present point of view, is thus described by Miss Stein: "In general the individuals, often blonde and pale, are distinctly phlegmatic. If emotional, decidedly of the weakest, sentimental order. They may be either large, healthy, rather heavy, and lacking in vigor or they may be what we call anæmic and phlegmatic. Their power of concentrated attention is very small. They describe themselves as never being held by their work; they say that their minds wander easily; that they work on after they are tired, and just keep pegging away. They are very apt to have premonitory conversations, they anticipate the words of their friends, they imagine whole conversations that afterward come true. The feeling of having been there is very common with them; that is, they feel under given circumstances that they have had that identical experience before in all its details. They are often fatalistic in their ideas. They indulge in day-dreams. As a rule, they are highly suggestible."[283] There we have a picture of the physical constitution and psychic temperament on which the classical symptoms of hysteria might easily be built up.[284] But these persons were ordinary students, and while a few of their characteristics are what is commonly and vaguely called "morbid," on the whole they must be regarded as ordinarily healthy individuals. They have the congenital constitution and predisposition on which some severe psychic lesion at the "psychological moment" might develop the most definite and obstinate symptoms of hysteria, but under favorable circumstances they will be ordinary men and women, of no more than ordinary abnormality or ordinary power. They are among the many who have been called to hysteria at birth; they may never be among the few who are chosen. We may have to recognize that on the side of the sexual emotions, as well as in general constitution, a condition may be traced among normal persons that is hysteroid in character, and serves as the healthy counterpart of a condition which in hysteria is morbid. In women such a condition Has been traced (though misnamed) by Dr. King.[285] Dr. King describes what he calls "sexual hysteria in women," which he considers a chief variety of hysteria. He adds, however, that it is not strictly a disease, but simply an automatic reaction of the reproductive system, which tends to become abnormal under conditions of civilization, and to be perpetuated in a morbid form. In this condition he finds twelve characters: 1. Time of life, usually between puberty and climacteric. 2. Attacks rarely occur when subject is alone. 3. Subject appears unconscious, but is not really so. 4. She is instinctively ashamed afterward. 5. It occurs usually in single women, or in those, single or married, whose sexual needs are unsatisfied. 6. No external evidence of disease, and (as Aitken pointed out) the nates are not flattened; the woman's physical condition is not impaired, and she may be specially attractive to men. 7. Warmth of climate and the season of spring and summer are conducive to the condition. 8. The paroxysm in short and temporary. 9. While light touches are painful, firm pressure and rough handling give relief. 10. It may occur in the occupied, but an idle, purposeless life is conducive. 11. The subject delights in exciting sympathy and in being fondled and caressed. 12. There is defect of will and a strong stimulus is required to lead to action. Among civilized women, the author proceeds, this condition does not appear to subserve any useful purpose. "Let us, however, go back to aboriginal woman--to woman of the woods and the fields. Let us picture ourselves a young aboriginal Venus in one of her earliest hysterical paroxysms. In doing so, let us not forget some of the twelve characteristics previously mentioned. She will not be 'acting her part' alone, or, if alone, it will be in a place where someone else is likely soon to discover her. Let this Venus be now discovered by a youthful Apollo of the woods, a man with fully developed animal instincts. He and she, like any other animals, are in the free field of Nature. He cannot but observe to himself: 'This woman is not dead; she breathes and is warm; she does not look ill; she is plump and rosy.' He speaks to her; she neither hears (apparently) nor responds. Her eyes are closed. He touches, moves, and handles her at his pleasure. She makes no resistance. What will this primitive Apollo do next? He will cure the fit, and bring the woman back to consciousness, satisfy her emotions, and restore her volition--not by delicate touches that might be 'agonizing' to her hyperesthetic skin, but by vigorous massage, passive motions, and succussion that would be painless. The emotional process on the part of the woman would end, perhaps, with mingled laughter, tears, and shame; and when accused afterward of the part which the ancestrally acquired properties of her nervous system had compelled her to act, as a preliminary to the event, what woman would not deny it and be angry? But the course of Nature having been followed, the natural purpose of the hysterical paroxysm accomplished, there would remain as a result of the treatment--instead of one discontented woman--two happy people, and the possible beginning of a third." "Natural, primary sexual hysteria in woman," King concludes, "is a temporary modification of the nervous government of the body and the distribution of nerve-force (occurring for the most part, as we see it to-day, in prudish women of strong moral principle, whose volition has disposed them to resist every sort of liberty or approach from the other sex), consisting in a transient abdication of the general, volitional, and self-preservational ego, while the reins of government are temporarily assigned to the usurping power of the reproductive ego, so that the reproductive government overrules the government by volition, and thus, as it were, forcibly compels the woman's organism to so dispose itself, at a suitable time and place, as to allow, invite, and secure the approach of the other sex, whether she will or not, to the end that Nature's imperious demand for reproduction shall be obeyed." This perhaps rather fantastic description is not a presentation of hysteria in the technical sense, but we may admit that it presents a state which, if not the real physiological counterpart of the hysterical convulsion, is yet distinctly analogous to the latter. The sexual orgasm has this correspondence with the hysterical fit, that they both serve to discharge the nervous centres and relieve emotional tension. It may even happen, especially in the less severe forms of hysteria, that the sexual orgasm takes place during the hysterical fit; this was found by Rosenthal, of Vienna, to be always the case in the semiconscious paroxysms of a young girl whose condition was easily cured;[286] no doubt such cases would be more frequently found if they were sought for. In severe forms of hysteria, however, it frequently happens, as so many observers have noted, that normal sexual excitement has ceased to give satisfaction, has become painful, perverted, paradoxical. Freud has enabled us to see how a shock to the sexual emotions, injuring the emotional life at its source, can scarcely fail sometimes to produce such a result. But the necessity for nervous explosion still persists.[287] It may, indeed, persist, even in an abnormally strong degree, in consequence of the inhibition of normal activities generally. The convulsive fit is the only form of relief open to the tension. "A lady whom I long attended," remarks Ashwell, "always rejoiced when the fit was over, since it relieved her system generally, and especially her brain, from painful irritation which had existed for several previous days." That the fit mostly fails to give real satisfaction, and that it fails to cure the disease, is due to the fact that it is a morbid form of relief. The same character of hysteria is seen, with more satisfactory results for the most part, in the influence of external nervous shock. It was the misunderstood influence of such shocks in removing hysteria which in former times led to the refusal to regard hysteria as a serious disease. During the Rebellion of 1745-46 in Scotland, Cullen remarks that there was little hysteria. The same was true of the French Revolution and of the Irish Rebellion, while Rush (in a study _On the Influence of the American Revolution on the Human Body_) observed that many hysterical women were "restored to perfect health by the events of the time." In such cases the emotional tension is given an opportunity of explosion in new and impersonal channels, and the chain of morbid personal emotions is broken. It has been urged by some that the fact that the sexual orgasm usually fails to remove the disorder in true hysteria excludes a sexual factor of hysteria. It is really, one may point out, an argument in favor of such an element as one of the factors of hysteria. If there were no initial lesion of the sexual emotions, if the natural healthy sexual channel still remained free for the passage of the emotional overflow, then we should expect that it would much oftener come into play in the removal of hysteria. In the more healthy, merely hysteroid condition, the psychic sexual organism is not injured, and still responds normally, removing the abnormal symptoms when allowed to do so. It is the confusion between this almost natural condition and the truly morbid condition, alone properly called hysteria, which led to the ancient opinion, inaugurated by Plato and Hippocrates, that hysteria may be cured by marriage.[288] The difference may be illustrated by the difference between a distended bladder which is still able to contract normally on its contents when at last an opportunity of doing so is afforded and the bladder in which distension has been so prolonged that nervous control had been lost and spontaneous expulsion has become impossible. The first condition corresponds to the constitution, which, while simulating the hysterical condition, is healthy enough to react normally in spite of psychic lesions; the second corresponds to a state in which, owing to the prolonged stress of psychic traumatism,--sexual or not,--a definite condition of hysteria has arisen. The one state is healthy, though abnormal; the other is one of pronounced morbidity. The condition of true hysteria is thus linked on to almost healthy states, and especially to a condition which may be described as one of sex-hunger. Such a suggestion may help us to see these puzzling phenomena in their true nature and perspective. At this point I may refer to the interesting parallel, and probable real relationship, between hysteria and chlorosis. As Luzet has said, hysteria and chlorosis are sisters. We have seen that there is some ground for regarding hysteria as an exaggerated form of a normal process which is really an auto-erotic phenomenon. There is some ground, also, for regarding chlorosis as the exaggeration of a physiological state connected with sexual conditions, more specifically with the preparation for maternity. Hysteria is so frequently associated with anæmic conditions that Biernacki has argued that such conditions really constitute the primary and fundamental cause of hysteria (_Neurologisches Centralblatt_, March, 1898). And, centuries before Biernacki, Sydenham had stated his belief that poverty of the blood is the chief cause of hysteria. It would be some confirmation of this position if we could believe that chlorosis, like hysteria, is in some degree a congenital condition. This was the view of Virchow, who regarded chlorosis as essentially dependent on a congenital hyoplasia of the arterial system. Stieda, on the basis of an elaborate study of twenty-three cases, has endeavored to prove that chlorosis is due to a congenital defect of development (_Zeitschrift für Geburtshülfe und Gynäkologie_, vol. xxxii, Part I, 1895). His facts tend to prove that in chlorosis there are signs of general ill-development, and that, in particular, there is imperfect development of the breasts and sexual organs, with a tendency to contracted pelvis. Charrin, again, regards utero-ovarian inadequacy as at least one of the factors of chlorosis. Chlorosis, in its extreme form, may thus be regarded as a disorder of development, a sign of physical degeneracy. Even if not strictly a cause, a congenital condition may, as Stockman believes (_British Medical Journal_, December 14, 1895), be a predisposing influence. However it may be in extreme cases, there is very considerable evidence to indicate that the ordinary anæmia of young women may be due to a storing up of iron in the system, and is so far normal, being a preparation for the function of reproduction. Some observations of Bunge's seem to throw much light on the real cause of what may be termed physiological chlorosis. He found by a series of experiments on animals of different ages that young animals contain a much greater amount of iron in their tissues than adult animals; that, for instance, the body of a rabbit an hour after birth contains more than four times as much iron as that of a rabbit two and a half months old. It thus appears probable that at the period of puberty, and later, there is a storage of iron in the system preparatory to the exercise of the maternal functions. It is precisely between the ages of fifteen and twenty-three, as Stockman found by an analysis of his own cases (_British Medical Journal_, December 14, 1895), that the majority of cases occur; there was, indeed, he found, no case in which the first onset was later than the age of twenty-three. A similar result is revealed by the charts of Lloyd Jones, which cover a vastly greater number of cases. We owe to Lloyd Jones an important contribution to the knowledge of chlorosis in its physiological or normal relationships. He has shown that chlorosis is but the exaggeration of a condition that is normal at puberty (and, in many women, at each menstrual period), and which, there is good reason to believe, even has a favorable influence on fertility. He found that light-complexioned persons are more fertile than the dark-complexioned, and that at the same time the blood of the latter is of less specific gravity, containing less hæmoglobin. Lloyd Jones also reached the generalization that girls who have had chlorosis are often remarkably pretty, so that the tendency to chlorosis is associated with all the sexual and reproductive aptitudes that make a woman attractive to a man. His conclusion is that the normal condition of which chlorosis is the extreme and pathological condition, is a preparation for motherhood (E. Lloyd Jones, "Chlorosis: The Special Anæmia of Young Women," 1897; also numerous reports to the British Medical Association, published in the _British Medical Journal_. There was an interesting discussion of the theories of chlorosis at the Moscow International Medical Congress, in 1898; see proceedings of the congress, volume in, section v, pp. 224 et seq.). We may thus, perhaps, understand why it is that hysteria and anæmia are often combined, and why they are both most frequently found in adolescent young women who have yet had no sexual experiences. Chlorosis is a physical phenomenon; hysteria, largely a psychic phenomenon; yet, both alike may, to some extent at least, be regarded as sexual aptitude showing itself in extreme and pathological forms. FOOTNOTES: [251] _Genèse et Nature de l'Hystérie_, 1898; and, for Sollier's latest statement, see "Hystérie et Sommeil," _Archives de Neurologie_, May and June, 1907. Lombroso (_L'Uomo Delinquente_, 1889, vol. ii, p. 329), referring to the diminished metabolism of the hysterical, had already compared them to hibernating animals, while Babinsky states that the hysterical are in a state of subconsciousness, a state, as Metchnikoff remarks (_Essais optimistes_, p. 270), reminiscent of our prehistoric past. [252] Professor Freud, while welcoming the introduction of the term "auto-erotism," remarks that it should not be made to include the whole of hysteria. This I fully admit, and have never questioned. Hysteria is far too large and complex a phenomenon to be classed as entirely a manifestation of auto-erotism, but certain aspects of it are admirable illustrations of auto-erotic transformation. [253] The hysterical phenomenon of _globus hystericus_ was long afterward attributed to obstruction of respiration by the womb. The interesting case has been recorded by E. Bloch (_Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift_, 1907, p. 1649) of a lady who had the feeling of a ball rising from her stomach to her throat, and then sinking. This feeling was associated with thoughts of her husband's rising and falling penis, and was always most liable to occur when she wished for coitus. [254] As Gilles de la Tourette points out, it is not difficult to show that epilepsy, the _morbus sacer_ of the ancients, owed much of its sacred character to this confusion with hysteria. Those priestesses who, struck by the _morbus sacer_, gave forth their oracles amid convulsions, were certainly not the victims of epilepsy, but of hysteria (_Traité de l'Hystérie_, vol. i, p. 3). [255] Aretæus, _On the Causes and Symptoms of Acute Diseases_, Book ii, Chapter II. [256] It may be noted that this treatment furnishes another instance of the continuity of therapeutic methods, through all changes of theory, from the earliest to the latest times. Drugs of unpleasant odor, like asafoetida, have always been used in hysteria, and scientific medicine to-day still finds that asafoetida is a powerful sedative to the uterus, controlling nervous conditions during pregnancy and arresting uterine irritation when abortion is threatened (see, e.g., Warman, _Der Frauenarzt_, August, 1895). Again, the rubbing of fragrant ointments into the sexual regions is but a form of that massage which is one of the modern methods of treating the sexual disorders of women. [257] _Les Démoniaques dans l'Art_, 1887; _Les Malades et les Difformes dans l'Art_, 1889. [258] Glafira Abricosoff, of Moscow, in her Paris thesis, _L'Hystérie aux xvii et xviii siécles_, 1897, presents a summary of the various views held at this time; as also Gilles de la Tourette, _Traité de l'Hystérie_, vol. i, Chapter I. [259] _Edinburgh Medical Journal_, June, 1883, p. 1123, and _Mental Diseases_, 1887, p. 488. [260] Hegar, _Zusammenhang der Geschlechtskrankheiten mit nervösen Leiden_, Stuttgart, 1885. (Hegar, however, went much further than this, and was largely responsible for the surgical treatment of hysteria now generally recognized as worse than futile.) Balls-Headley, "Etiology of Nervous Diseases of the Female Genital Organs," Allbutt and Playfair, _System of Gynecology_, 1896, p. 141. [261] Lombroso and Ferrero, _La Donna Delinquente_, 1893, pp. 613-14. [262] Charcot and Marie, article on "Hysteria," Tuke's _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_. [263] Axenfeld and Huchard, _Traité des Névroses_, 1883, pp. 1092-94. Icard (_La Femme pendant la Période Menstruelle_, pp. 120-21) has also referred to recorded cases of hysteria in animals (Coste's and Peter's cases), as has Gilles de la Tourette (op. cit., vol. i, p. 123). See also, for references, Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, p. 59. [264] _Man and Woman_, 4th ed., p. 326. A distinguished gynæcologist, Matthews Duncan, had remarked some years earlier (_Lancet_, May 18, 1889) that hysteria, though not a womb disease, "especially attaches itself to the generative system, because the genital system, more than any other, exerts emotional power over the individual, power also in morals, power in social questions." [265] Gilles de la Tourette, _Archives de Tocologie et de Gynécologie_, June, 1895. [266] _Rivista Sperimentale di Freniatria_, 1897, p. 290; summarized in the _Journal of Mental Science_, January, 1898. [267] From the earliest times it was held that menstruation favors hysteria; more recently, Landouzy recorded a number of observations showing that hysterical attacks coincide with perfectly healthy menstruation; while Ball has maintained that it is only during menstruation that hysteria appears in its true color. See the opinions collected by Icard, _La Femme pendant la Période Menstruelle_, pp. 75-81. [268] Krafft-Ebing, "Ueber Neurosen und Psychosen durch Sexuelle Abstinenz," _Jahrbücher für Psychiatrie_, vol. iii, 1888. It must, however, be added that the relief of hysteria by sexual satisfaction is not rare, and that Rosenthal finds that the convulsions are thus diminished. (_Allgemeine Wiener Medizinal-Zeitung_, Nos. 46 and 47, 1887.) So they are also, in simple and uncomplicated cases, according to Mongeri, by pregnancy. [269] "All doctors who have patients in convents," remarks Marro (_La Pubertà_, p. 338), "know how hysteria dominates among them;" he adds that his own experience confirms that of Raciborski, who found that nuns devoted to the contemplative life are more liable to hysteria than those who are occupied in teaching or in nursing. It must be added, however, that there is not unanimity as to the prevalence of hysteria in convents. Brachet was of the same opinion as Briquet, and so considered it rare. Imbert-Goubeyre, also (_La Stigmatisation_, p. 436) states that during more than forty years of medical life, though he has been connected with a number of religious communities, he has not found in them a single hysterical subject, the reason being, he remarks, that the unbalanced and extravagant are refused admission to the cloister. [270] Parent-Duchâtelet, _De la Prostitution_, vol. i, p. 242. [271] It may not be unnecessary to point out that here and throughout, in speaking of the psychic mechanism of hysteria, I do not admit that any process can be _purely_ psychic. As Féré puts it in an admirable study of hysteria (_Twentieth Century Practice of Medicine_, 1897, vol. x, p. 556): "In the genesis of hysterical troubles everything takes place as if the psychical and the somatic phenomena were two aspects of the same biological fact." [272] Pierre Janet, _L'Automatisme Psychologique_, 1889; _L'Etat mental des Hystériques_, 1894; _Névroses et Idées fixes_, 1898; Breuer und Freud, _Studien über Hysterie_, Vienna, 1895; the best introduction to Freud's work is, however, to be found in the two series of his _Sammlung Kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre_, published in a collected form in 1906 and 1909. It may be added that a useful selection of Freud's papers has lately (1909) been published in English. [273] We might, perhaps, even say that in hysteria the so-called higher centres have an abnormally strong inhibitory influence over the lower centres. Gioffredi (_Gazzetta degli Ospedali_, October 1, 1895) has shown that some hysterical symptoms, such as mutism, can be cured by etherization, thus loosening the control of the higher centres. [274] Charcot's school could not fail to recognize the erotic tone which often dominates hysterical hallucinations. Gilles de la Tourette seeks to minimize it by the remark that "it is more mental than real." He means to say that it is more psychic than physical, but he implies that the physical element in sex is alone "real," a strange assumption in any case, as well as destructive of Gilles de la Tourette's own fundamental assertion that hysteria is a real disease and yet purely psychic. [275] See, e.g., his substantial volume, _Die Traumdeutung_, 1900, 2d ed. 1909. [276] _Sammlung_, first series, p. 208. [277] _Studien über Hysterie_, p. 217. [278] _Sammlung_, first series, p. 162. [279] _Sammlung_, second series, p. 102. [280] Ib. p. 146. [281] _Sammlung_, first series, p. 229. Freud has developed his conception of sexual constitution in _Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie_, 1905. [282] As Moll remarks, Freud's conceptions are still somewhat subjective, and in need of objective demonstration; but whatever may be thought of their theories, he adds, there can be no doubt that Breuer and Freud have done a great service by calling attention to the important action of the sexual life on the nervous system. [283] Gertrude Stein, "Cultivated Motor Automatism," _Psychological Review_, May, 1898. [284] Charcot's most faithful followers refuse to recognize a "hysteric temperament," and are quite right, if such a conception is used to destroy the conception of hysteria as a definite disease. We cannot, however, fail to recognize a diathesis which, while still apparently healthy, is predisposed to hysteria. So distinguished a disciple of Charcot as Janet thoroughly recognizes this, and argues (_L'Etat mental_, etc., p. 298) that "we may find in the habits, the passions, the psychic automatism of the normal man, the germ of all hysterical phenomena." Féré held a somewhat similar view. [285] A.F.A. King, "Hysteria," _American Journal of Obstetrics_, May 18, 1891. [286] M. Rosenthal, _Diseases of the Nervous System_, vol. ii, p. 44. Féré notes similar cases (_Twentieth Century Practice of Medicine_, vol. x, p. 551). Long previously, Gall had recorded the case of a young widow of ardent temperament who had convulsive attacks, apparently of hysterical nature, which always terminated in sexual orgasm (_Fonctions du Cerveau_, 1825, vol. iii, p. 245). [287] There seems to be a greater necessity for such explosive manifestations in women than in men, whatever the reason may be. I have brought together some of the evidence pointing in this direction in _Man and Woman_, 4th ed., revised and enlarged, Chapters xii and xiii. [288] There is no doubt an element of real truth in this ancient belief, though it mainly holds good of minor cases of hysteria. Many excellent authorities accept it. "Hysteria is certainly common in the single," Herman remarks (_Diseases of Women_, 1898, p. 33), "and is generally cured by a happy marriage." Löwenfeld (_Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_, p. 153) says that "it cannot be denied that marriage produces a beneficial change in the general condition of many hysterical patients," though, he adds, it will not remove the hysterical temperament. The advantage of marriage for the hysterical is not necessarily due, solely or at all, to the exercise of sexual functions. This is pointed out by Mongeri, who observes (_Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, 1901, Heft 5, p. 917): "I have known and treated several hysterical girls who are now married, and do not show the least neuropathic indications. Some of these no longer have any wish for sexual gratification, and even fulfil their marital duties unwillingly, though loving their husbands and living with them in an extremely happy way. In my opinion, marriage is a sovereign remedy for neuropathic women, who need to find a support in another personality, able to share with them the battle of life." III. The Prevalence of Masturbation--Its Occurrence in Infancy and Childhood--Is it More Frequent in Males or Females?--After Adolescence Apparently more Frequent in Women--Reasons for the Sexual Distribution of Masturbation--The Alleged Evils of Masturbation--Historical Sketch of the Views Held on This Point--The Symptoms and Results of Masturbation--Its Alleged Influence in Causing Eye Disorders--Its Relation to Insanity and Nervous Disorders--The Evil Effects of Masturbation Usually Occur on the Basis of a Congenitally Morbid Nervous System--Neurasthenia Probably the Commonest Accompaniment of Excessive Masturbation--Precocious Masturbation Tends to Produce Aversion to Coitus--Psychic Results of Habitual Masturbation--Masturbation in Men of Genius--Masturbation as a Nervous Sedative--Typical Cases--The Greek Attitude toward Masturbation--Attitude of the Catholic Theologians--The Mohammedan Attitude--The Modern Scientific Attitude--In What Sense is Masturbation Normal?--The Immense Part in Life Played by Transmuted Auto-erotic Phenomena. The foregoing sketch will serve to show how vast is the field of life--of normal and not merely abnormal life--more or less infused by auto-erotic phenomena. If, however, we proceed to investigate precisely the exact extent, degree, and significance of such phenomena, we are met by many difficulties. We find, indeed, that no attempts have been made to study auto-erotic phenomena, except as regards the group--a somewhat artificial group, as I have already tried to show--collected under the term "masturbation" while even here such attempts have only been made among abnormal classes of people, or have been conducted in a manner scarcely likely to yield reliable results.[289] Still there is a certain significance in the more careful investigations which have been made to ascertain the precise frequency of masturbation. Berger, an experienced specialist in nervous diseases, concluded, in his _Vorlesungen_, that 99 per cent. of young men and women masturbate occasionally, while the hundredth conceals the truth;[290] and Hermann Cohn appears to accept this statement as generally true in Germany. So high an estimate has, of course, been called in question, and, since it appears to rest on no basis of careful investigation, we need not seriously consider it. It is useless to argue on suppositions; we must cling to our definite evidence, even though it yields figures which are probably below the mark. Rohleder considers that during adolescence at least 95 per cent. of both sexes masturbate, but his figures are not founded on precise investigation.[291] Julian Marcuse, on the basis of his own statistics, concludes that 92 per cent. male individuals have to some extent masturbated in youth. Perhaps, also, weight attaches to the opinion of Dukes, physician to Rugby School, who states that from 90 to 95 per cent. of all boys at boarding school masturbate.[292] Seerley, of Springfield, Mass., found that of 125 academic students only 8 assured him they had never masturbated; while of 347, who answered his questions, 71 denied that they practiced masturbation, which seems to imply that 79 per cent. admitted that they practiced it.[293] Brockman, also in America, among 232 theological students, of the average age of 23½ years and coming from various parts of the United States, found that 132 spontaneously admitted that masturbation was their most serious temptation and all but one of these admitted that he yielded, 69 of them to a considerable extent. This is a proportion of at least 56 per cent., the real proportion being doubtless larger, since no question had been asked as to sexual offenses; 75 practiced masturbation after conversion, and 24 after they had decided to become ministers; only 66 mentioned sexual intercourse as their chief temptation; but altogether sexual temptations outnumbered all others together.[294] Moraglia, who made inquiry of 200 women of the lower class in Italy, found that 120 acknowledged either that they still masturbate or that they had done so during a long period.[295] Gualino found that 23 per cent. men of the professional classes in North Italy masturbate about puberty; no account was taken of those who began later. "Here in Switzerland," a correspondent writes, "I have had occasion to learn from adult men, whom I can trust, that they have reached the age of twenty-five, or over, without sexual congress. '_Wir haben nicht dieses Bedürfniss_,' is what they say. But I believe that, in the case of the Swiss mountaineers, moderate onanism is practiced, as a rule." In hot countries the same habits are found at a more precocious age. In Venezuela, for instance, among the Spanish creoles, Ernst found that in all classes boys and girls are infested with the vice of onanism. They learn it early, in the very beginning of life, from their wet-nurses, generally low Mulatto women, and many reasons help to foster the habit; the young men are often dissipated and the young women often remain single.[296] Niceforo, who shows a special knowledge of the working-girl class at Rome, states that in many milliners' and dressmakers' workrooms, where young girls are employed, it frequently happens that during the hottest hours of the day, between twelve and two, when the mistress or forewoman is asleep, all the girls without exception give themselves up to masturbation.[297] In France a country _curé_ assured Debreyne that among the little girls who come up for their first communion, 11 out of 12 were given to masturbation.[298] The medical officer of a Prussian reformatory told Rohleder that nearly all the inmates over the age of puberty masturbated. Stanley Hall knew a reform school in America where masturbation was practiced without exception, and he who could practice it oftenest was regarded with hero-worship.[299] Ferriani, who has made an elaborate study of youthful criminality in Italy, states that even if all boys and girls among the general population do not masturbate, it is certainly so among those who have a tendency to crime. Among 458 adult male criminals, Marro (as he states in his _Caratteri dei Delinquenti_) found that only 72 denied masturbation, while 386 had practiced it from an early age, 140 of them before the age of thirteen. Among 30 criminal women Moraglia found that 24 acknowledged the practice, at all events in early youth (8 of them before the age of 10, a precocity accompanied by average precocity in menstruation), while he suspected that most of the remainder were not unfamiliar with the practice. Among prostitutes of whatever class or position Moraglia found masturbation (though it must be pointed out that he does not appear to distinguish masturbation very clearly from homosexual practices) to be universal; in one group of 50 prostitutes everyone had practiced masturbation at some period; 28 began between the ages of 6 and 11; 19, between 12 and 14, the most usual period--a precocious one--of commencing puberty; the remaining 3 at 15 and 16; the average age of commencing masturbation, it may be added, was 11, while that of the first sexual intercourse was 15.[300] In a larger group of 180 prostitutes, belonging to Genoa, Turin, Venice, etc., and among 23 "elegant cocottes," of Italian and foreign origin, Moraglia obtained the same results; everyone admitted masturbation, and not less than 113 preferred masturbation, either solitary or mutual, to normal coitus. Among the insane, as among idiots, masturbation is somewhat more common among males, according to Blandford, in England, as also it is in Germany, according to Näcke,[301] while Venturi, in Italy, has found it more common among females.[302] There appears to be no limit to the age at which spontaneous masturbation may begin to appear. I have already referred to the practice of thigh-rubbing in infants under one year of age. J.P. West has reported in detail 3 cases of masturbation in very early childhood--2 in girls, 1 in a boy--in which the practice had been acquired spontaneously, and could only be traced to some source of irritation in pressure from clothing, etc.[303] Probably there is often in such cases some hereditary lack of nervous stability. Block has recorded the case of a girl--very bright for her age, though excessively shy and taciturn--who began masturbating spontaneously at the age of two; in this case the mother had masturbated all her life, even continuing the practice after marriage, and, though she succeeded in refraining during pregnancy, her thoughts still dwelt upon it, while the maternal grandmother had died in an asylum from "masturbatory insanity." Freud considers that auto-erotic manifestations are common in infancy, and that the rhythmic function of any sensitive spot, primarily the lips, may easily pass into masturbation. He regards the infantile manifestations of which thumb-sucking is the most familiar example (Lüdeln or Lutschen in German) as auto-erotic, the germ arising in sucking the breasts since the lips are an erogenous zone which may easily be excited by the warm stream of milk. But this only occurs, he points out, in subjects in whom the sensitivity of the lip zone is heightened and especially in those who at a later age are liable to become hysterical.[304] Shuttleworth also points out that the mere fidgetiness of a neurotic infant, even when only a few months old, sometimes leads to the spontaneous and accidental discovery of pleasurable sexual sensations, which for a time appease the restlessness of nervous instability, though a vicious circle is thus established. He has found that, especially among quite young girls of neurotic heredity, self-induced excitement, often in the form of thigh-friction, is more common than is usually supposed.[305] Normally there appears to be a varying aptitude to experience the sexual organism, or any voluptuous sensations before puberty. I find, on eliciting the recollections of normal persons, that in some cases there have been voluptuous sensations from casual contact with the sexual organs at a very early age; in other cases there has been occasional slight excitement from early years; in yet other cases complete sexual anæsthesia until the age of puberty. That the latter condition is not due to mere absence of peripheral irritation is shown by a case I am acquainted with, in which a boy of 7, incited by a companion, innocently attempted, at intervals during several weeks, to produce erection by friction of the penis; no result of any kind followed, although erections occurred spontaneously at puberty, with normal sexual feelings.[306] I am indebted to a correspondent for the following notes:-- "From my observation during five years at a boarding-school, it _seems_ that eight out of ten boys were more or less addicted to the practice. But I would not state _positively_ that such was the proportion of masturbators among an average of thirty pupils, though the habit was very common. I know that in one bedroom, sleeping seven boys, the whole number masturbated frequently. The act was performed in bed, in the closets, and sometimes in the classrooms during lessons. Inquiry among my friends as to onanism in the boarding-schools to which they were sent, elicited somewhat contradictory answers concerning the frequency of the habit. Dr. ----, who went to a French school, told me that _all_ the older boys had younger accomplices in mutual masturbation. He also spoke with experience of the prevalence of the practice in a well-known public school in the west of England. B. said _all_ the boys at his school masturbated; G. stated that _most_ of his schoolmates were onanists; L. said 'more than half' was the proportion. "At my school, manual masturbation was both solitary and mutual; and sometimes younger boys, who had not acquired the habit, were induced to manipulate bigger boys. One very precocious boy of fifteen always chose a companion of ten 'because his hand was like a woman's.' Sometimes boys entered their friend's bed for mutual excitement. In after-life they showed no signs of inversion. Another boy, aged about fourteen, who had been seduced by a servant-girl, embraced the bolster; the pleasurable sensations, according to his statement, were heightened by imagining that the bolster was a woman. He said that the enjoyment of the act was greatly increased during the holidays, when he was able to spread a pair of his sister's drawers upon the pillow, and so intensify the illusion. "Before puberty the boys appeared to be more continent than afterward. A few of the older and more intelligent masturbators regulated the habit, as some married men regulate intercourse. The big boy referred to, who chose always the same manipulator, professed to indulge only once in twenty days, his reason being that more frequent repetition of the act would injure his health. About twice a week for boys who had reached puberty, and once a week for younger boys, was, I think, about the average indulgence. I have never met with a parallel of one of those cases of excessive masturbation recorded by many doctors. There may have been such cases at this school; but, if so, the boys concealed the frequency of their gratifications. "My experience proved that many of the lads regarded masturbation as reprehensible; but their plea was 'everyone does it.' Some, often those who indulged inordinately and more secretly than their companions, gravely condemned the practice as sinful. A few seemed to think there was 'no harm in it,' but that the habit might stunt the growth and weaken the body if practiced very frequently. The greater number made no attempt to conceal the habit, they enlarged upon the pleasure of it; it was 'ever so much nicer than eating tarts,' etc. "The chief cause I believe to be initiation by an older schoolmate. But I have known accidental causes, such as the discovery that swarming up a pole pleasurably excited the organ, rubbing to allay irritation, and simple, curious handling of the erect penis in the early morning before rising from bed." I quote the foregoing communication as perhaps a fairly typical experience in a British school, though I am myself inclined to think that the prevalence of masturbation in schools is often much overrated, for, while in some schools the practice is doubtless rampant, in others it is practically unknown, or, at all events, only practiced by a few individuals in secret. My own early recollections of (private) school-life fail to yield any reminiscences of any kind connected with either masturbation or homosexuality; and, while such happy ignorance may be the exception rather than the rule, I am certainly inclined to believe that--owing to race and climate, and healthier conditions of life--the sexual impulse is less precocious and less prominently developed during the school-age in England than in some Continental countries. It is probably to this delayed development that we should attribute the contrast that Ferrero finds (_L'Europa Giovane_, pp. 151-56), and certainly states too absolutely, between the sexual reserve of young Englishmen and the sexual immodesty of his own countrymen. In Germany, Näcke has also stated ("Kritisches zum Kapitel der Sexualität," _Archiv für Psychiatrie_, pp. 354-56, 1899) that he heard nothing at school either of masturbation or homosexuality, and he records the experience of medical friends who stated that such phenomena were only rare exceptions, and regarded by the majority of the boys as exhibitions of "_Schweinerei_." At other German schools, as Hoche has shown, sexual practices are very prevalent. It is evident that at different schools, and even at the same school at different times, these manifestations vary in frequency within wide limits. Such variations, it seems to me, are due to two causes. In the first place, they largely depend upon the character of the more influential elder boys. In the second place, they depend upon the attitude of the head-master. With reference to this point I may quote from a letter written by an experienced master in one of the most famous English public schools: "When I first came to ----, a quarter of a century ago, Dr. ---- was making a crusade against this failing; boys were sent away wholesale; the school was summoned and lectured solemnly; and the more the severities, the more rampant the disease. I thought to myself that the remedy was creating the malady, and I heard afterward, from an old boy, that in those days they used to talk things over by the fireside, and think there must be something very choice in a sin that braved so much. Dr. ---- went, and, under ----, we never spoke of such things. Curiosity died down, and the thing itself, I believe, was lessened. We were told to warn new boys of the dangers to health and morals of such offences, lest the innocent should be caught in ignorance. I have only spoken to a few; I think the great thing is not to put it in boys' heads. I have noticed solitary faults most commonly, and then I tell the boy how he is physically weakening himself. If you notice, it is puppies that seem to go against Nature, but grown dogs, never. So, if two small boys acted thus, I should think it merely an instinctive feeling after Nature, which would amend itself. Many here would consider it a heinous sin, but those who think such things sins make them sins. I have seen, in the old days, most delightful little children sent away, branded with infamy, and scarce knowing why--you might as well expel a boy for scratching his head when it itched. I am sure the soundest way is to treat it as a doctor would, and explain to the boy the physical effects of over-indulgence of any sort. When it is combated from the monkish standpoint, the evil becomes an epidemic." I am, however, far from anxious to indorse the policy of ignoring the sexual phenomena of youth. It is not the speaking about such things that should be called in question, but the wisdom and good sense of the speaker. We ought to expect a head-master to possess both an adequate acquaintance with the nature of the phenomena of auto-erotism and homosexuality, and a reasonable amount of tact in dealing with boys; he may then fairly be trusted to exercise his own judgment. It may be doubted whether boys should be made too alive to the existence of sexual phenomena; there can be no doubt about their teachers. The same is, of course, true as regards girls, among whom the same phenomena, though less obtrusive, are not less liable to occur. As to whether masturbation is more common in one sex than the other, there have been considerable differences of opinion. Tissot considered it more prevalent among women; Christian believed it commoner among men; Deslandes and Iwan Bloch hold that there are no sexual differences, and Garnier was doubtful. Lawson Tait, in his _Diseases of Women_, stated his opinion that in England, while very common among boys, it is relatively rare among women, and then usually taught. Spitzka, in America, also found it relatively rare among women, and Dana considers it commoner in boys than in girls or adults.[307] Moll is inclined to think that masturbation is less common in women and girls than in the male sex. Rohleder believes that after puberty, when it is equally common in both sexes, it is more frequently found in men, but that women masturbate with more passion and imaginative fervor.[308] Kellogg, in America, says it is equally prevalent in both sexes, but that women are more secretive. Morris, also in America, considers, on the other hand, that persistent masturbation is commoner in women, and accounts for this by the healthier life and traditions of boys. Pouillet, who studied the matter with considerable thoroughness in France, came to the conclusion that masturbation is commoner among women, among whom he found it to be equally prevalent in rich and poor, and especially so in the great centres of civilization. In Russia, Guttceit states in his _Dreissig Jahre Praxis_, that from the ages of 10 to 16 boys masturbate more than girls, who know less about the practice which has not for them the charm of the forbidden, but after 16 he finds the practice more frequent in girls and women than in youths and men. Näcke, in Germany, believes that there is much evidence pointing in the same direction, and Adler considers masturbation very common in women. Moraglia is decidedly of the opinion, on the ground of his own observations already alluded to, that masturbation is more frequent among women; he refers to the fact--a very significant fact, as I shall elsewhere have to point out--that, while in man there is only one sexual centre, the penis, in woman there are several centres,--the clitoris, the vagina, the uterus, the breasts,[309]--and he mentions that he knew a prostitute, a well-developed brunette of somewhat nervous temperament, who boasted that she knew fourteen ways of masturbating herself. My own opinion is that the question of the sexual distribution of masturbation has been somewhat obscured by that harmful tendency, to which I have already alluded, to concentrate attention on a particular set of auto-erotic phenomena. We must group and divide our facts rationally if we wish to command them. If we confine our attention to very young children, the available evidence shows that the practice is much more common in females,[310] and such a result is in harmony with the fact that precocious puberty is most often found in female children.[311] At puberty and adolescence occasional or frequent masturbation is common in both boys and girls, though, I believe, less common than is sometimes supposed; it is difficult to say whether it is more prevalent among boys or girls; one is inclined to conclude that it prevails more widely among boys. The sexual impulse, and consequently the tendency to masturbation, tend to be aroused later, and less easily in girls than in youths, though it must also be remembered that boys' traditions and their more active life keep the tendency in abeyance, while in girls there is much less frequently any restraining influence of corresponding character.[312] In my study of inversion I have found that ignorance and the same absence of tradition are probably factors in the prevalence of homosexual tendencies among women.[313] After adolescence I think there can be no doubt that masturbation is more common in women than in men. Men have, by this time, mostly adopted some method of sexual gratification with the opposite sex; women are to a much larger extent shut out from such gratification; moreover, while in rare cases women are sexually precocious, it more often happens that their sexual impulses only gain strength and self-consciousness after adolescence has passed. I have been much impressed by the frequency with which masturbation is occasionally (especially about the period of menstruation) practiced by active, intelligent, and healthy women who otherwise lead a chaste life. This experience is confirmed by others who are in a position to ascertain the facts among normal people; thus a lady, who has received the confidence of many women, told me that she believes that all women who remain unmarried masturbate, as she found so much evidence pointing in this direction.[314] This statement certainly needs some qualification, though I believe it is not far from the truth as regards young and healthy women who, after having normal sexual relationships, have been compelled for some reason or other to break them off and lead a lonely life.[315] But we have to remember that there are some women, evidently with a considerable degree of congenital sexual anæsthesia (no doubt, in some respect or another below the standard of normal health), in whom the sexual instinct has never been aroused, and who not only do not masturbate, but do not show any desire for normal gratification; while in a large proportion of other cases the impulse is gratified passively in ways I have already referred to. The auto-erotic phenomena which take place in this way, spontaneously, by yielding to revery, with little or no active interference, certainly occur much more frequently in women than in men. On the other hand, contrary to what one might be led to expect, the closely-related auto-erotic phenomena during sleep seem to take place more frequently in men, although in women, as we have found ground for concluding, they reverberate much more widely and impressively on the waking psychical life. We owe to Restif de la Bretonne what is perhaps the earliest precise description of a woman masturbating. In 1755 he knew a dark young woman, plain but well-made, and of warm temperament, educated in a convent. She was observed one day, when gazing from her window at a young man in whom she was tenderly interested, to become much excited. "Her movements became agitated; I approached her, and really believe that she was uttering affectionate expressions; she had become red. Then she sighed deeply, and became motionless, stretching out her legs, which she stiffened, as if she felt pain." It is further hinted that her hands took part in this manoeuvre (_Monsieur Nicolas_, vol. vi, p. 143). Pictorial representations of a woman masturbating also occur in eighteenth century engravings. Thus, in France, Baudouin's "Le Midi" (reproduced in Fuchs's _Das Erotische Element in der Karikatur_, Fig. 92), represents an elegant young lady in a rococo garden-bower; she has been reading a book she has now just dropped, together with her sunshade; she leans languorously back, and her hand begins to find its way through her placket-hole. Adler, who has studied masturbation in women with more care than any previous writer, has recorded in detail the auto-erotic manifestations involved in the case of an intelligent and unprejudiced woman, aged 30, who had begun masturbating when twenty, and practiced it at intervals of a few weeks. She experienced the desire for sexual gratification under the following circumstances: (1) spontaneously, directly before or after menstruation; (2) as a method to cure sleeplessness; (3) after washing the parts with warm (but not cold) water; (4) after erotic dreams; (5) quite suddenly, without definite cause. The phenomena of the masturbatory process fell into two stages: (1) incomplete excitement, (2) the highest pleasurable gratification. It only took place in the evening, or at night, and a special position was necessary, with the right knee bent, and the right foot against the knee of the extended left leg. The bent index and middle fingers of the right hand were then applied firmly to the lower third of the left labium minus, which was rubbed against the underlying parts. At this stage, the manifestations sometimes stopped, either from an effort of self-control or from fatigue of the arm. There was no emission of mucus, or general perspiration, but some degree of satisfaction and of fatigue, followed by sleep. If, however, the manipulation was continued, the second stage was reached, and the middle finger sank into the vagina, while the index finger remained on the labium, the rest of the hand holding and compressing the whole of the vulva, from pubes to anus, against the symphysis, with a backwards and forwards movement, the left hand also being frequently used to support and assist the right. The parts now gave a mushroom-like feeling to the touch, and in a few seconds, or after a longer interval, the complete feeling of pleasurable satisfaction was attained. At the same moment there was (but only after she had had experience of coitus) an involuntary elevation of the pelvis, together with emission of mucus, making the hand wet, this mucus having an odor, and being quite distinct from the ordinary odorless mucus of the vagina; at the same time, the finger in the vagina felt slight contractions of the whole vaginal wall. The climax of sexual pleasure lasted a few seconds, with its concomitant vaginal contractions, then slowly subsided with a feeling of general well-being, the finger at the same time slipping out of the vagina, and she was left in a state of general perspiration, and sleep would immediately follow; when this was not the case, she was frequently conscious of some degree of sensibility in the sacrum, lasting for several hours, and especially felt when sitting. When masturbation was the result of an erotic dream (which occurred but seldom), the first stage was already reached in sleep, and the second was more quickly obtained. During the act it was only occasionally that any thoughts of men or of coitus were present, the attention being fixed on the coming climax. The psychic state afterwards was usually one of self-reproach. (O. Adler, _Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, 1904, pp. 26-29.) The phenomena in this case may be regarded as fairly typical, but there are many individual variations; mucus emissions and vaginal contractions frequently occur before actual orgasm, and there is not usually any insertion of the finger into the vagina in women who have never experienced coitus, or, indeed, even in those who have. We must now turn to that aspect of our subject which in the past has always seemed the only aspect of auto-erotic phenomena meriting attention: the symptoms and results of chronic masturbation. It appears to have been an Englishman who, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, first called popular attention to the supposed evils of masturbation. His book was published in London, and entitled: _Onania, or the Heinous Sin of Self-pollution, and all its Frightful Consequences in both Sexes, Considered, with Spiritual and Physical Advice_, etc. It is not a serious medical treatise, but an early and certainly superior example of a kind of literature which we have since become familiar with through the daily newspapers. A large part of the book, which is cleverly written, is devoted in the later editions to the letters of nervous and hypochondriacal young men and women, who are too shy to visit the author, but request him to send a bottle of his "Strengthening Tincture," and mention that they are inclosing half a guinea, a guinea, or still larger sum. Concerning the composition of the "Strengthening Tincture" we are not informed.[316] This work, which was subsequently attributed to a writer named Bekkers, is said to have passed through no less than eighty editions, and it was translated into German. Tissot, a physician of Lausanne, followed with his _Traité de l'Onanisme: Dissertation sur les Maladies produites par la Masturbation_, first published in Latin (1760), then in French (1764), and afterward in nearly all European languages. He regarded masturbation as a crime, and as "an act of suicide." His book is a production of amusing exaggeration and rhetoric, zealously setting forth the prodigious evils of masturbation in a style which combines, as Christian remarks, the strains of Rousseau with a vein of religious piety. Tissot included only manual self-abuse under the term "onanism;" shortly afterward, Voltaire, in his _Dictionnaire Philosophique_, took up the subject, giving it a wider meaning and still further popularizing it. Finally Lallemand, at a somewhat later period (1836), wrote a book which was, indeed, more scientific in character, but which still sought to represent masturbation as the source of all evils. These four writers--the author of _Onania_, Tissot, Voltaire, Lallemand--are certainly responsible for much. The mistaken notions of many medical authorities, carried on by tradition, even down to our own time; the powerful lever which has been put into the hand of unscrupulous quacks; the suffering, dread, and remorse experienced in silence by many thousands of ignorant and often innocent young people may all be traced in large measure back to these four well-meaning, but (on this question) misguided, authors. There is really no end to the list of real or supposed symptoms and results of masturbation, as given by various medical writers during the last century. Insanity, epilepsy, numerous forms of eye disease, supra-orbital headache, occipital headache (Spitzka), strange sensations at the top of the head (Savage), various forms of neuralgia (Anstie, J. Chapman), tenderness of the skin in the lower dorsal region (Chapman), mammary tenderness in young girls (Lacassagne), mammary hypertrophy (Ossendovsky), asthma (Peyer), cardiac murmurs (Seerley), the appearance of vesicles on wounds (Baraduc), acne and other forms of cutaneous eruptions (the author of _Onania_, Clipson), dilated pupils (Skene, Lewis, Moraglia), eyes directed upward and sideways (Pouillet), dark rings around the eyes, intermittent functional deafness (Bonnier), painful menstruation (J. Chapman), catarrh of uterus and vagina (Winckel, Pouillet), ovarian disease (Jessett), pale and discolored skin (Lewis, Moraglia), redness of nose (Gruner), epistaxis (Joal, J.N. Mackenzie), morbid changes in nose (Fliess), convulsive cough of puberty (Gowers), acidity of vagina (R.W. Shufeldt), incontinence of urine in young women (Girandeau), warts on the hands in women (Durr, Kreichmar, von Oye), hallucinations of smell and hearing, (Griesinger, Lewis), intermittent functional deafness (Bonnier), indican in the urine (Herter), an indescribable odor of the skin in women (Skene), these are but a few of the signs and consequences of masturbation given by various prominent authorities.[317] That many of these manifestations do occur in connection with masturbation is unquestionable; there is also good reason to believe that some of them may be the results of masturbation acting on an imperfectly healthy organism. But in all such cases we must speak with great caution, for there appears to be little reliable evidence to show that simple masturbation, in a well-born and healthy individual, can produce any evil results beyond slight functional disturbances, and these only when it is practiced in excess. To illustrate the real pathological relationships of masturbation, a few typical and important disorders may be briefly considered. The delicate mechanism of the eye is one of the first portions of the nervous apparatus to be disturbed by any undue strain on the system; it is not surprising that masturbation should be widely incriminated as a cause of eye troubles. If, however, we inquire into the results obtained by the most cautious and experienced ophthalmological observers, it grows evident that masturbation, as a cause of disease of the eye, becomes merged into wider causes. In Germany, Hermann Cohn, the distinguished ophthalmic surgeon of Breslau, has dealt fully with the question.[318] Cohn, who believes that all young men and women masturbate to some extent, finds that masturbation must be excessive for eye trouble to become apparent. In most of his cases there was masturbation several times daily during from five to seven years, in many during ten years, and in one during twenty-three years. In such cases we are obviously dealing with abnormal persons, and no one will dispute the possibility of harmful results; in some of the cases, when masturbation was stopped, the eye trouble improved. Even in these cases, however, the troubles were but slight, the chief being, apparently, photopsia (a subjective sensation of light) with otherwise normal conditions of pupil, vision, color-sense, and retina. In some cases there was photophobia, and he has also found paralysis of accommodation and conjunctivitis. At a later date Salmo Cohn, in his comprehensive monograph on the relationship between the eye and the sexual organs in women, brought together numerous cases of eye troubles in young women associated with masturbation, but in most of these cases masturbation had been practiced with great frequency for a long period and the ocular affections were usually not serious.[319] In England, Power has investigated the relations of the sexual system to eye disease. He is inclined to think that the effects of masturbation have been exaggerated, but he believes that it may produce such for the most part trivial complaints as photopsisæ, muscsæ, muscular asthenopia, possibly blepharospasm, and perhaps conjunctivitis. He goes on, however, to point out that more serious complaints of the eye are caused by excess in normal coitus, by sexual abstinence, and especially by disordered menstruation. Thus we see that even when we are considering a mechanism so delicately poised and one so easily disturbed by any jar of the system as vision, masturbation produces no effect except when carried to an extent which argues a hereditarily imperfect organism, while even in these cases the effects are usually but slight, moreover, in no respect specific, but are paralleled and even exceeded by the results of other disturbances of the sexual system. Let us turn to the supposed influence of masturbation in causing insanity and nervous diseases. Here we may chiefly realize the immense influence exerted on medical science by Tissot and his followers during a hundred years. Mental weakness is the cause and not the result of excessive masturbation, Gall declared,[320] but he was a man of genius, in isolation. Sir William Ellis, an alienist of considerable reputation at the beginning of the last century, could write with scientific equanimity: "I have no hesitation in saying that, in a very large number of patients in all public asylums, the disease may be attributed to that cause." He does, indeed, admit that it may be only a symptom sometimes, but goes on to assert that masturbation "has not hitherto been exhibited in the awful light in which it deserves to be shown," and that "in by far the greater number of cases" it is the true cause of dementia.[321] Esquirol lent his name and influence to a similar view of the pernicious influence of masturbation. Throughout the century, even down to the present day, this point of view has been traditionally preserved in a modified form. In apparent ignorance of the enormous prevalence of masturbation, and without, so far as can be seen, any attempt to distinguish between cause and effect or to eliminate the hereditary neuropathic element, many alienists have set down a large proportion of cases of insanity, idiocy, epilepsy, and disease of the spinal cord to uncomplicated masturbation. Thus, at the Matteawan State Hospital (New York) for criminal lunatics and insane prisoners, from 1875 to 1907, masturbation was the sole assigned cause of insanity in 160 men (out of 2,595); while, according to Dr. Clara Barrus, among 121 cases of insanity in young women, masturbation is the cause in ten cases.[322] It is unnecessary to multiply examples, for this traditional tendency is familiar to all. It appears to have been largely due to Griesinger, in the middle of the last century, that we owe the first authoritative appearance of a saner, more discriminating view regarding the results of masturbation. Although still to some extent fettered by the traditions prevalent in his day, Griesinger saw that it was not so much masturbation itself as the feelings aroused in sensitive minds by the social attitude toward masturbation which produced evil effects. "That constant struggle," he wrote, "against a desire which is even overpowering, and to which the individual always in the end succumbs, that hidden strife between shame, repentance, good intentions, and the irritation which impels to the act, this, after not a little acquaintance with onanists, we consider to be far more important than the primary direct physical effect." He added that there are no specific signs of masturbation, and concluded that it is oftener a symptom than a cause. The general progress of educated opinions since that date has, in the main, confirmed and carried forward the results cautiously stated by Griesinger. This distinguished alienist thought that, when practiced in childhood, masturbation might lead to insanity. Berkhan, in his investigation of the psychoses of childhood, found that in no single case was masturbation a cause. Vogel, Uffelmann, and Emminghaus, in the course of similar studies, have all come to almost similar conclusions.[323] It is only on a congenitally morbid nervous system, Emminghaus insists, that masturbation can produce any serious results. "Most of the cases charged to masturbation," writes Kiernan (in a private letter), basing his opinion on wide clinical experience, "are either hebephrenia or hysteria in which an effect is taken for the cause." Christian, during twenty years' experience in hospitals, asylums, and private practice in town and country, has not found any seriously evil effects from masturbation.[324] He thinks, indeed, that it may be a more serious evil in women than in men. But Yellowlees considers that in women "it is possibly less exhausting and injurious than in the other sex," which was also the opinion of Hammond, as well as of Guttceit, though he found that women pushed the practice much further than men, and Näcke, who has given special attention to this point, could not find that masturbation is a definite cause of insanity in women in a single case.[325] Koch also reaches a similar conclusion, as regards both sexes, though he admits that masturbation may cause some degree of psychopathic deterioration. Even in this respect, however, he points out that "when practiced in moderation it is not injurious in the certain and exceptionless way in which it is believed to be in many circles. It is the people whose nervous systems are already injured who masturbate most easily and practice it more immoderately than others"; the chief source of its evil is self-reproach and the struggle with the impulse.[326] Kahlbaum, it is true, under the influence of the older tradition, when he erected katatonia into a separate disorder (not always accepted in later times), regarded prolonged and excessive masturbation as a chief cause, but I am not aware that he ever asserted that it was a sole and sufficient cause in a healthy organism. Kiernan, one of the earliest writers on katatonia, was careful to point out that masturbation was probably as much effect as cause of the morbid nervous condition.[327] Maudsley (in _Body and Mind_) recognized masturbation as a special exciting cause of a characteristic form of insanity; but he cautiously added: "Nevertheless, I think that self-abuse seldom, if ever, produces it without the co-operation of the insane neurosis."[328] Schüle also recognized a specific masturbatory insanity, but the general tendency to reject any such nosological form is becoming marked; Krafft-Ebing long since rejected it and Näcke decidedly opposes it. Kraepelin states that excessive masturbation can only occur in a dangerous degree in predisposed subjects; so, also, Forel and Löwenfeld, as at an earlier period, Trousseau.[329] It is true that Marro, in his admirable and detailed study of the normal and abnormal aspects of puberty, accepts a form of masturbatory insanity; but the only illustrative case he brings forward is a young man possessing various stigmata of degeneracy and the son of an alcoholic father; such a case tells us nothing regarding the results of simple masturbation.[330] Even Spitzka, who maintained several years ago the traditional views as to the terrible results of masturbation, and recognized a special "insanity of masturbation," stated his conclusions with a caution that undermined his position: "Self-abuse," he concluded, "to become a sole cause of insanity, must be begun early and carried very far. In persons of sound antecedents it rarely, under these circumstances, suffices to produce an actual vesania."[331] When we remember that there is no convincing evidence to show that masturbation is "begun early and carried very far" by "persons of sound antecedents," the significance of Spitzka's "typical psychosis of masturbation" is somewhat annulled. It is evident that these distinguished investigators, Marro and Spitzka, have been induced by tradition to take up a position which their own scientific consciences have compelled them practically to evacuate. Recent authorities are almost unanimous in rejecting masturbation as a cause of insanity. Thus, Rohleder, in his comprehensive monograph (_Die Masturbation_, 1899, pp. 185-92), although taking a very serious view of the evil results of masturbation, points out the unanimity which is now tending to prevail on this point, and lays it down that "masturbation is never the direct cause of insanity." Sexual excesses of any kind, he adds (following Curschmann), can, at the most, merely give an impetus to a latent form of insanity. On the whole, he concludes, the best authorities are unanimous in agreeing that masturbation may certainly injure mental capacity, by weakening memory and depressing intellectual energy; that, further, in hereditarily neurotic subjects, it may produce slight psychoses like _folie du doute_, hypochondria, hysteria; that, finally, under no circumstances can it produce severe psychoses like paranoia or general paralysis. "If it caused insanity, as often as some claim," as Kellogg remarks, "the whole race would long since have passed into masturbatic degeneracy of mind.... It is especially injurious in the very young, and in all who have weak nervous systems," but "the physical traits attributed to the habit are common to thousands of neurasthenic and neurotic individuals." (Kellogg, _A Text-book of Mental Diseases_, 1897, pp. 94-95.) Again, at the outset of the article on "Masturbation," in Tuke's _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_, Yellowlees states that, on account of the mischief formerly done by reckless statements, it is necessary to state plainly that "unless the practice has been long and greatly indulged, no permanent evil effects may be observed to follow." Näcke, again, has declared ("Kritisches zum Kapitel der Sexualität," _Archiv für Psychiatrie_, 1899): "There are neither somatic nor psychic symptoms peculiar on onanism. Nor is there any specific onanistic psychosis. I am prepared to deny that onanism ever produces any psychoses in those who are not already predisposed." That such a view is now becoming widely prevalent is illustrated by the cautious and temperate discussion of masturbation in a recent work by a non-medical writer, Geoffrey Mortimer (_Chapters on Human Love_, pp. 199-205). The testimony of expert witnesses with regard to the influence of masturbation in producing other forms of psychoses and neuroses is becoming equally decisive; and here, also, the traditions of Tissot are being slowly effaced. "I have not, in the whole of my practice," wrote West, forty years ago, "out of a large experience among children and women, seen convulsions, epilepsy, or idiocy _induced_ by masturbation in any child of either sex. Neither have I seen any instance in which hysteria, epilepsy, or insanity in women after puberty was _due_ to masturbation, as its efficient cause."[332] Gowers speaks somewhat less positively, but regards masturbation as not so much a cause of true epilepsy as of atypical attacks, sometimes of a character intermediate between the hysteroid and the epileptoid form; this relationship he has frequently seen in boys.[333] Leyden, among the causes of diseases of the spinal cord, does not include any form of sexual excess. "In moderation," Erb remarks, "masturbation is not more dangerous to the spinal cord than natural coitus, and has no bad effects";[334] it makes no difference, Erb considers, whether the orgasm is effected normally or in solitude. This is also the opinion of Toulouse, of Fürbringer, and of Curschmann, as at an earlier period it was of Roubaud. While these authorities are doubtless justified in refusing to ascribe to masturbation any part in the production of psychic or nervous diseases, it seems to me that they are going somewhat beyond their province when they assert that masturbation has no more injurious effect than coitus. If sexual coitus were a purely physiological phenomenon, this position would be sound. But the sexual orgasm is normally bound up with a mass of powerful emotions aroused by a person of the opposite sex. It is in the joy caused by the play of these emotions, as well as in the discharge of the sexual orgasm, that the satisfaction of coitus resides. In the absence of the desired partner the orgasm, whatever relief it may give, must be followed by a sense of dissatisfaction, perhaps of depression, even of exhaustion, often of shame and remorse. The same remark has since been made by Stanley Hall.[335] Practically, also, as John Hunter pointed out, there is more probability of excess in masturbation than in coitus. Whether, as some have asserted, masturbation involves a greater nervous effort than coitus is more doubtful.[336] It thus seems somewhat misleading to assert that masturbation has no more injurious effect than coitus.[337] Reviewing the general question of the supposed grave symptoms and signs of masturbation, and its pernicious results, we may reach the conclusion that in the case of moderate masturbation in healthy, well-born individuals, no seriously pernicious results necessarily follow.[338] With regard to the general signs, we may accept, as concerns both sexes, what the Obstetrical and Gynecological Society of Berlin decided in 1861, in a discussion of it in women, that there are none which can be regarded as reliable.[339] We may conclude finally, with Clouston, that the opposing views on the subject may be simply explained by the fact that the writers on both sides have ignored or insufficiently recognized the influence of heredity and temperament. They have done precisely what so many unscientific writers on inebriety have continued to do unto the present day, when describing the terrible results of alcohol without pointing out that the chief factor in such cases has not been the alcohol, but the organization on which the alcohol acted. Excess may act, according to the familiar old-fashioned adage, like the lighted match. But we must always remember the obvious truth, that it makes a considerable difference whether you threw your lighted match into a powder magazine or into the sea. While we may thus dismiss the extravagant views widely held during the past century, concerning the awful results of masturbation, as due to ignorance and false tradition, it must be pointed out that, even in healthy or moderately healthy individuals, any excess in solitary self-excitement may still produce results which, though slight, are yet harmful. The skin, digestion, and circulation may all be disordered; headache and neuralgia may occur; and, as in normal sexual excess or in undue frequency of sexual excitement during sleep, there is a certain general lowering of nervous tone. Probably the most important of the comparatively frequent results--though this also arises usually on a somewhat morbid soil--is neurasthenia with its manifold symptoms. There can be little doubt that the ancient belief, dating from the time of Hippocrates, that sexual excesses produce spinal disease, as well as the belief that masturbation causes insanity, are largely due to the failure to diagnose neurasthenia. The following case of neurasthenia, recorded by Eulenburg, may be given as a classical picture of the nervous disturbances which may be associated with masturbation, and are frequently regarded as solely caused by habits of masturbation: Miss H.H., 28 years of age, a robust brunette, with fully developed figure, without any trace of anæmia or chlorosis, but with an apathetic expression, bluish rings around the eyes, with hypochondriacal and melancholy feelings. She complains of pressure on the head ("as if head would burst"), giddiness, ringing in the ears, photopsia, hemicrania, pains in the back and at sacrum, and symptoms of spinal adynamia, with a sense of fatigue on the least exertion in walking or standing; she sways when standing with closed eyes, tendon-reflexes exaggerated; there is a sense of oppression, intercostal neuralgia, and all the signs of neurasthenic dyspepsia; and cardialgia, nausea, flatulence, meteorism, and alternate constipation and diarrhoea. She chiefly complains of a feeling of weight and pain in the abdomen, caused by the slightest movement, and of a form of pollution (with clitoridian spasms), especially near menstruation, with copious flow of mucus, characteristic pains, and hyperexcitability. Menstruation was irregular and profuse. Examination showed tumid and elongated nymphæ, with brown pigmentation; rather large vagina, with rudimentary hymen; and retroflexion of uterus. After much persuasion the patient confessed that, when a girl of 12, and as the result of repeated attempts at coitus by a boy of 16, she had been impelled to frequent masturbation. This had caused great shame and remorse, which, however, had not sufficed to restrain the habit. Her mother having died, she lived alone with her invalid father, and had no one in whom to confide. Regarding herself as no longer a virgin, she had refused several offers of marriage, and thus still further aggravated her mental condition. (Eulenburg, _Sexuale Neuropathie_, p. 31.) Since Beard first described neurasthenia, many diverse opinions have been expressed concerning the relationships of sexual irregularities to neurasthenia. Gilles de la Tourette, in his little monograph on neurasthenia, following the traditions of Charcot's school, dismisses the question of any sexual causation without discussion. Binswanger (_Die Pathologie und Therapie der Neurasthenie_), while admitting that nearly all neurasthenic persons acknowledge masturbation at some period, considers it is not an important cause of neurasthenia, only differing from coitus by the fact that the opportunities for it are more frequent, and that the sexual disturbances of neurasthenia are, in the majority of cases, secondary. Rohleder, on the other hand, who takes a very grave view of the importance of masturbation, considers that its most serious results are a question of neurasthenia. Krafft-Ebing has declared his opinion that masturbation is a cause of neurasthenia. Christian, Leyden, Erb, Rosenthal, Beard, Hummel, Hammond, Hermann Cohn, Curschmann, Savill, Herman, Fürbringer, all attach chief importance to neurasthenia as a result of masturbation. Collins and Phillip (_Medical Record_, March 25, 1899), in an analysis of 333 cases of neurasthenia, found that 123 cases were apparently due to overwork or masturbation. Freud concludes that neurasthenia proper can nearly always be traced to excessive masturbation, or to spontaneous pollutions. (E.g., _Sammlung Kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre_, first series, p. 187.) This view is confirmed by Gattel's careful study (_Ueber die Sexuellen Ursachen der Neurasthenie und Angstneurose_, 1898). Gattel investigated 100 consecutive cases of severe functional nervous disorder in Krafft-Ebing's clinic at Vienna, and found that in every case of neurasthenia in a male (28 in all) there was masturbation, while of the 15 women with neurasthenia, only one is recorded as not masturbating, and she practiced _coitus reservatus_. Irrespective of the particular form of the nervous disorder, Gattel found that 18 women out of 42, and 36 men out of 58, acknowledged masturbation. (This shows a slightly larger proportion among the men, but the men were mostly young, while the women were mostly of more mature age.) It must, however, always be remembered that we have no equally careful statistics of masturbation in perfectly healthy persons. We must also remember that we have to distinguish between the _post_ and the _propter_, and that it is quite possible that neurasthenic persons are specially predisposed to masturbation. Bloch is of this opinion, and remarks that a vicious circle may thus be formed. On the whole, there can be little doubt that neurasthenia is liable to be associated with masturbation carried to an excessive extent. But, while neurasthenia is probably the severest affection that is liable to result from, or accompany, masturbation, we are scarcely yet entitled to accept the conclusion of Gattel that in such cases there is no hereditary neurotic predisposition. We must steer clearly between the opposite errors of those, on the one hand, who assert that heredity is the sole cause of functional nervous disorders, and those, on the other hand, who consider that the incident that may call out the disorder is itself a sole sufficient cause. In many cases it has seemed to me that masturbation, when practiced in excess, especially if begun before the age of puberty, leads to inaptitude for coitus, as well as to indifference to it, and sometimes to undue sexual irritability, involving premature emission and practical impotence. This is, however, the exception, especially if the practice has not been begun until after puberty. In women I attach considerable importance, as a result of masturbation, to an aversion for normal coitus in later life. In such cases some peripheral irritation or abnormal mental stimulus trains the physical sexual orgasm to respond to an appeal which has nothing whatever to do with the fascination normally exerted by the opposite sex. At puberty, however, the claim of passion and the real charm of sex begin to make themselves felt, but, owing to the physical sexual feelings having been trained into a foreign channel, these new and more normal sex associations remain of a purely ideal and emotional character, without the strong sensual impulses with which under healthy conditions they tend to be more and more associated as puberty passes on into adolescence or mature adult life. I am fairly certain that in many women, often highly intellectual women, the precocious excess in masturbation has been a main cause, not necessarily the sole efficient cause, in producing a divorce in later life between the physical sensuous impulses and the ideal emotions. The sensuous impulse having been evolved and perverted before the manifestation of the higher emotion, the two groups of feelings have become divorced for the whole of life. This is a common source of much personal misery and family unhappiness, though at the same time the clash of contending impulses may lead to a high development of moral character. When early masturbation is a factor in producing sexual inversion it usually operates in the manner I have here indicated, the repulsion for normal coitus helping to furnish a soil on which the inverted impulse may develop unimpeded. This point has not wholly escaped previous observers, though they do not seem to have noted its psychological mechanism. Tissot stated that masturbation causes an aversion to marriage. More recently, Loiman ("Ueber Onanismus beim Weibe," _Therapeutische Monatshefte_, April, 1890) considered that masturbation in women, leading to a perversion of sexual feeling, including inability to find satisfaction in coitus, affects the associated centres. Smith Baker, again ("The Neuropsychical Element in Conjugal Aversion," _Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease_, September, 1892), finds that a "source of marital aversion seems to lie in the fact that substitution of mechanical and iniquitous excitations affords more thorough satisfaction than the mutual legitimate ones do," and gives cases in point. Savill, also, who believes that masturbation is more common in women than is usually supposed, regards dyspareunia, or pain in coition, as one of the signs of the habit. Masturbation in women thus becomes, as Raymond and Janet point out (_Les Obsessions_, vol. ii, p. 307) a frequent cause of sexual frigidity in marriage. These authors illustrate the train of evils which may thus be set up, by the case of a lady, 26 years of age, a normal woman, of healthy family, who, at the age of 15, was taught by a servant to masturbate. At the age of 18 she married. She loved her husband, but she had no sexual feelings in coitus, and she continued to masturbate, sometimes several times a day, without evil consequences. At 24 she had to go into a hospital for floating kidney, and was so obliged to stop masturbating. She here accidentally learnt of the evil results attributed to the habit. She resolved not to do it again, and she kept her resolution. But while still in hospital she fell wildly in love with a man. To escape from the constant thought of this man, she sought relations with her husband, and at times masturbated, but now it no longer gave her pleasure. She wished to give up sexual things altogether. But that was easier said than done. She became subject to nervous crises, often brought on by the sight of a man, and accompanied by sexual excitement. They disappeared under treatment, and she thereupon became entirely frigid sexually. But, far from being happy, she has lost all energy and interest in life, and it is her sole desire to attain the sexual feelings she has lost. Adler considers that even when masturbation in women becomes an overmastering passion, so far as organic effects are concerned it is usually harmless, its effects being primarily psychic, and he attaches especial significance to it as a cause of sexual anæsthesia in normal coitus, being, perhaps, the most frequent cause of such anæsthesia. He devotes an important chapter to this matter, and brings forward numerous cases in illustration (Adler, _Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, pp. 93-119, also 21-23). Adler considers that the frequency of masturbation in women is largely due to the fact that women experience greater difficulties than men in obtaining sexual satisfaction, and so are impelled by unsatisfying coitus to continue masturbation after marriage. He adds that partly from natural shyness, partly from shame of acknowledging what is commonly accounted a sin, and partly from the fear of seeming disgusting or unworthy of sympathy in the doctor's eyes, women are usually silent on this matter, and very great tact and patience may be necessary before a confession is obtained. On the psychic side, no doubt, the most frequent and the most characteristic result of persistent and excessive masturbation is a morbid heightening of self-consciousness without any co-ordinated heightening of self-esteem.[340] The man or woman who is kissed by a desirable and desired person of the opposite sex feels a satisfying sense of pride and elation, which must always be absent from the manifestations of auto-erotic activity.[341] This must be so, even apart from the masturbator's consciousness of the general social attitude toward his practices and his dread of detection, for that may also exist as regards normal coitus without any corresponding psychic effects. The masturbator, if his practice is habitual, is thus compelled to cultivate an artificial consciousness of self-esteem, and may show a tendency to mental arrogance. Self-righteousness and religiosity constitute, as it were, a protection against the tendency to remorse. A morbid mental soil is, of course, required for the full development of these characteristics. The habitual male masturbator, it must be remembered, is often a shy and solitary person; individuals of this temperament are especially predisposed to excesses in all the manifestations of auto-erotism, while the yielding to such tendencies increases the reserve and the horror of society, at the same time producing a certain suspicion of others. In some extreme cases there is, no doubt, as Kraepelin believes, some decrease of psychic capacity, an inability to grasp and co-ordinate external impressions, weakness of memory, deadening of emotions, or else the general phenomena of increased irritability, leading on to neurasthenia. I find good reason to believe that in many cases the psychic influence of masturbation on women is different from its effect on men. As Spitzka observed, although it may sometimes render women self-reproachful and hesitant, it often seems to make them bold. Boys, as we have seen, early assimilate the tradition that self-abuse is "unmanly" and injurious, but girls have seldom any corresponding tradition that it is "unwomanly," and thus, whether or not they are reticent on the matter, before the forum of their own conscience they are often less ashamed of it than men are and less troubled by remorse. Eulenburg considers that the comparative absence of bad effects from masturbation in girls is largely due to the fact that, unlike boys, they are not terrorized by exaggerated warnings and quack literature concerning the awful results of the practice. Forel, who has also remarked that women are often comparatively little troubled by qualms of conscience after masturbation, denies that this is due to a lower moral tone than men possess (Forel, _Die Sexuelle Frage_, p. 247). In this connection, I may refer to History IV, recorded in the Appendix to the fifth volume of these _Studies_, in which it is stated that of 55 prostitutes of various nationalities, with whom the subject had had relations, 18 spontaneously told him that they were habitual masturbators, while of 26 normal women, 13 made the same confession, unasked. Guttceit, in Russia, after stating that women of good constitution had told him that they masturbated as much as six or ten times a day or night (until they fell asleep, tired), without bad results, adds that, according to his observations, "masturbation, when not excessive, is, on the whole, a quite innocent matter, which exerts little or no permanent effect," and adds that it never, in any case, leads to _hypochondria onanica_ in women, because they have not been taught to expect bad results (_Dreissig Jahre Praxis_, p. 306). There is, I think, some truth--though the exceptions are doubtless many--in the distinction drawn by W.C. Krauss ("Masturbational Neuroses," _Medical News_, July 13, 1901): "From my experience it [masturbation] seems to have an opposite effect upon the two sexes, dulling the mental and making clumsy the physical exertions of the male, while in the female it quickens and excites the physical and psychical movements. The man is rendered hypoesthetic, the woman hyperesthetic." In either sex auto-erotic excesses during adolescence in young men and women of intelligence--whatever absence of gross injury there may be--still often produce a certain degree of psychic perversion, and tend to foster false and high-strung ideals of life. Kraepelin refers to the frequency of exalted enthusiasms in masturbators, and I have already quoted Anstie's remarks on the connection between masturbation and premature false work in literature and art. It may be added that excess in masturbation has often occurred in men and women whose work in literature and art cannot be described as premature and false. K.P. Moritz, in early adult life, gave himself up to excess in masturbation, and up to the age of thirty had no relations with women. Lenau is said--though the statement is sometimes denied--to have been a masturbator from early life, the habit profoundly effecting his life and work. Rousseau, in his _Confessions_, admirably describes how his own solitary, timid, and imaginative life found its chief sexual satisfaction in masturbation.[342] Gogol, the great Russian novelist, masturbated to excess, and it has been suggested that the dreamy melancholy thus induced was a factor in his success as a novelist. Goethe, it has been asserted, at one time masturbated to excess; I am not certain on what authority the statement is made, probably on a passage in the seventh book of _Dichtung und Wahrheit_, in which, describing his student-life at Leipzig, and his loss of Aennchen owing to his neglect of her, he tells how he revenged that neglect on his own physical nature by foolish practices from which he thinks he suffered for a considerable period.[343] The great Scandinavian philosopher, Sören Kierkegaard, suffered severely, according to Rasmussen, from excessive masturbation. That, at the present day, eminence in art, literature, and other fields may be combined with the excessive practice of masturbation is a fact of which I have unquestionable evidence. I have the detailed history of a man of 30, of high ability in a scientific direction, who, except during periods of mental strain, has practiced masturbation nightly (though seldom more than once a night) from early childhood, without any traceable evil results, so far as his general health and energy are concerned. In another case, a schoolteacher, age 30, a hard worker and accomplished musician, has masturbated every night, sometimes more than once a night, ever since he was at school, without, so far as he knows, any bad results; he has never had connection with a woman, and seldom touches wine or tobacco. Curschmann knew a young and able author who, from the age of 11 had masturbated excessively, but who retained physical and mental freshness. It would be very easy to refer to other examples, and I may remark that, as regards the histories recorded in various volumes of these _Studies_, a notable proportion of those in which excessive masturbation is admitted, are of persons of eminent and recognized ability. It is often possible to trace the precise mechanism of the relationship between auto-erotic excitement and intellectual activity. Brown-Séquard, in old age, considered that to induce a certain amount of sexual excitement, not proceeding to emission, was an aid to mental work. Raymond and Janet knew a man considering himself a poet, who, in order to attain the excitation necessary to compose his ideal verses, would write with one hand while with the other he caressed his penis, though not to the extent of producing ejaculation.[344] We must not believe, however, that this is by any means the method of workers who deserve to be accepted seriously; it would be felt, to say the least, as unworthy. It is indeed a method that would only appeal to a person of feeble or failing mental power. What more usually happens is that the auto-erotic excitement develops, _pari passu_ and spontaneously, with the mental activity and at the climax of the latter the auto-erotic excitement also culminates, almost or even quite spontaneously, in an explosion of detumescence which relieves the mental tension. I am acquainted with such cases in both young men and women of intellectual ability, and they probably occur much more frequently than we usually suspect. In illustration of the foregoing observations, I may quote the following narrative, written by a man of letters: "From puberty to the age of 30 (when I married), I lived in virgin continence, in accord with my principle. During these years I worked exceedingly hard--chiefly at art (music and poetry). My days being spent earning my livelihood, these art studies fell into my evening time. I noticed that productive power came in periods--periods of irregular length, and which certainly, to a partial extent, could be controlled by the will. Such a period of vital power began usually with a sensation of melancholy, and it quickened my normal revolt against the narrowness of conventional life into a red-hot detestation of the paltriness and pettiness with which so many mortals seem to content themselves. As the mood grew in intensity, this scorn of the lower things mixed with and gave place to a vivid insight into higher truths. The oppression began to give place to a realization of the eternity of the heroic things; the fatuities were seen as mere fashions; love was seen as the true lord of life; the eternal romance was evident in its glory; the naked strength and beauty of men were known despite their clothes. In such mood my work was produced; bitter protest and keen-sighted passion mingled in its building. The arising vitality had certainly deep relation to the periodicity of the sex-force of manhood. At the height of the power of the art-creative mood would come those natural emissions with which Nature calmly disposes of the unused force of the male. Such emissions were natural and healthy, and not exhaustive or hysterical. The process is undoubtedly sane and protective, unless the subject be unhealthy. The period of creative art power extended a little beyond the end of the period of natural seed emission--the art work of this last stage being less vibrant, and of a gentler force. Then followed a time of calm natural rest, which gradually led up to the next sequence of melancholy and power. The periods certainly varied in length of time, controlled somewhat by the force of the mind and the mental will to create; that is to say, I could somewhat delay the natural emission, by which I gained an extension of the period of power." How far masturbation in moderately healthy persons living without normal sexual relationships may be considered normal is a difficult question only to be decided with reference to individual cases. As a general rule, when only practiced at rare intervals, and _faute de mieux_, in order to obtain relief for physical oppression and mental obsession, it may be regarded as the often inevitable result of the unnatural circumstances of our civilized social life. When, as often happens in mental degeneracy,--and as in shy and imaginative persons, perhaps of neurotic temperament, may also sometimes become the case,--it is practiced in preference to sexual relationships, it at once becomes abnormal and may possibly lead to a variety of harmful results, mental and physical.[345] It must always be remembered, however, that, while the practice of masturbation may be harmful in its consequences, it is also, in the absence of normal sexual relationships, frequently not without good results. In the medical literature of the last hundred years a number of cases have been incidentally recorded in which the patients found masturbation beneficial, and such cases might certainly have been enormously increased if there had been any open-eyed desire to discover them. My own observations agree with those of Sudduth, who asserts that "masturbation is, in the main, practiced for its sedative effect on the nervous system. The relaxation that follows the act constitutes its real attraction.... Both masturbation and sexual intercourse should be classed as typical sedatives."[346] Gall (_Fonctions du Cerveau_, 1825, vol. iii, p. 235) mentioned a woman who was tormented by strong sexual desire, which she satisfied by masturbation ten or twelve times a day; this caused no bad results, and led to the immediate disappearance of a severe pain in the back of the neck, from which she often suffered. Clouston (_Mental Diseases_, 1887, p. 496) quotes as follows from a letter written by a youth of 22: "I am sure I cannot explain myself, nor give account of such conduct. Sometimes I felt so uneasy at my work that I would go to the water-closet to do it, and it seemed to give me ease, and then I would work like a hatter for a whole week, till the sensation overpowered me again. I have been the most filthy scoundrel in existence," etc. Garnier presents the case of a monk, aged 33, living a chaste life, who wrote the following account of his experiences: "For the past three years, at least, I have felt, every two or three weeks, a kind of fatigue in the penis, or, rather, slight shooting pains, increasing during several days, and then I feel a strong desire to expel the semen. When no nocturnal pollution follows, the retention of the semen causes general disturbance, headache, and sleeplessness. I must confess that, occasionally, to free myself from the general and local oppression, I lie on my stomach and obtain ejaculation. I am at once relieved; a weight seems to be lifted from my chest, and sleep returns." This patient consulted Gamier as to whether this artificial relief was not more dangerous than the sufferings it relieved. Gamier advised that if the ordinary _régime_ of a well-ordered monastry, together with anaphrodisiac sedatives, proved inefficacious, the manoeuvre might be continued when necessary (P. Garnier, _Célibat et Célibataires_, 1887, p. 320). H.C. Coe (_American Journal of Obstetrics_, p. 766, July, 1889) gives the case of a married lady who was deeply sensitive of the wrong nature of masturbation, but found in it the only means of relieving the severe ovarian pain, associated with intense sexual excitement, which attended menstruation. During the intermenstrual period the temptation was absent. Turnbull knew a youth who found that masturbation gave great relief to feelings of heaviness and confusion which came on him periodically; and Wigglesworth has frequently seen masturbation after epileptic fits in patients who never masturbated at other times. Moll (_Libido Sexualis_, Bd. I, p. 13) refers to a woman of 28, an artist of nervous and excitable temperament, who could not find sexual satisfaction with her lover, but only when masturbating, which she did once or twice a day, or oftener; without masturbation, she said, she would be in a much more nervous state. A friend tells me of a married lady of 40, separated from her husband on account of incompatibility, who suffered from irregular menstruation; she tried masturbation, and, in her own words, "became normal again;" she had never masturbated previously. I have also been informed of the case of a young unmarried woman, intellectual, athletic, and well developed, who, from the age of seven or eight, has masturbated nearly every night before going to sleep, and would be restless and unable to sleep if she did not. Judging from my own observations among both sexes, I should say that in normal persons, well past the age of puberty, and otherwise leading a chaste life, masturbation would be little practiced except for the physical and mental relief it brings. Many vigorous and healthy unmarried women or married women apart from their husbands, living a life of sexual abstinence, have asserted emphatically that only by sexually exciting themselves, at intervals, could they escape from a condition of nervous oppression and sexual obsession which they felt to be a state of hysteria. In most cases this happens about the menstrual period, and, whether accomplished as a purely physical act--in the same way as they would soothe a baby to sleep by rocking it or patting it--or by the co-operation of voluptuous mental imagery, the practice is not cultivated for its own sake during the rest of the month. In illustration of the foregoing statements I will here record a few typical observations of experiences with regard to masturbation. The cases selected are all women, and are all in a fairly normal, and, for the most part, excellent, state of health; some of them, however, belong to somewhat neurotic families, and these are persons of unusual mental ability and intelligence. OBSERVATION I.--Unmarried, aged 38. She is very vigorous and healthy, of a strongly passionate nature, but never masturbated until a few years ago, when she was made love to by a man who used to kiss her, etc. Although she did not respond to these advances, she was thrown into a state of restless sexual excitement; on one occasion, when in bed in this restless state, she accidentally found, on passing her hand over her body, that, by playing with "a round thing" [clitoris] a pleasurable feeling was produced. She found herself greatly relieved and quieted by these manipulations, though there remained a feeling of tiredness afterward. She has sometimes masturbated six times in a night, especially before and after the menstrual period, until she was unable to produce the orgasm or any feeling of pleasure. OBSERVATION II.--Unmarried, aged 45, of rather nervous temperament. She has for many years been accustomed, usually about a week before the appearance of the menses, to obtain sexual relief by kicking out her legs when lying down. In this way, she says, she obtains complete satisfaction. She never touches herself. On the following day she frequently has pains over the lower part of the abdomen, such pains being apparently muscular and due to the exertion. OBSERVATION III.--Aged 29, recently married, belonging to a neurotic and morbid family, herself healthy, and living usually in the country; vivacious, passionate, enthusiastic, intellectual, and taking a prominent part in philanthropic schemes and municipal affairs; at the same time, fond of society, and very attractive to men. For many years she had been accustomed to excite herself, though she felt it was not good for her. The habit was merely practiced _faute de mieux_. "I used to sit on the edge of the bed sometimes," she said, "and it came over me so strongly that I simply couldn't resist it. I felt that I should go mad, and I thought it was better to touch myself than be insane.... I used to press my clitoris in.... It made me very tired afterward--not like being with my husband." The confession was made from a conviction of the importance of the subject, and with the hope that some way might be found out of the difficulties which so often beset women. OBSERVATION IV.--Unmarried, aged 27; possesses much force of character and high intelligence; is actively engaged in a professional career. As a child of seven or eight she began to experience what she describes as lightning-like sensations, "mere, vague, uneasy feelings or momentary twitches, which took place alike in the vulva or the vagina or the uterus, not amounting to an orgasm and nothing like it." These sensations, it should be added, have continued into adult life. "I always experience them just before menstruation, and afterward for a few days, and, occasionally, though it seems to me not so often, during the period itself. I may have the sensation four or five times during the day; it is not dependent at all upon external impressions, or my own thoughts, and is sometimes absent for days together. It is just one flash, as if you would snap your fingers, and it is over." As a child, she was, of course, quite unconscious that there was anything sexual in these sensations. They were then usually associated with various imaginary scenes. The one usually indulged in was that a black bear was waiting for her up in a tree, and that she was slowly raised up toward the bear by means of ropes and then lowered again, and raised, feeling afraid of being caught by the bear, and yet having a morbid desire to be caught. In after years she realized that there was a physical sexual cause underlying these imaginations, and that what she liked was a feeling of resistance to the bear giving rise to the physical sensation. At a somewhat later age, though while still a child, she cherished an ideal passion for a person very much older than herself, this passion absorbing her thoughts for a period of two years, during which, however, there was no progress made in physical sensation. It was when she was nearly thirteen years of age, soon after the appearance of menstruation, and under the influence of this ideal passion, that she first learned to experience conscious orgasm, which was not associated with the thought of any person. "I did not associate it with anything high or beautiful, owing to the fact that I had imbibed our current ideas in regard to sexual feelings, and viewed them in a very poor light indeed." She considers that her sexual feelings were stronger at this period than at any other time in her life. She could, however, often deny herself physical satisfaction for weeks at a time, in order that she might not feel unworthy of the object of her ideal passion. "As for the sexual satisfaction," she writes, "it was experimental. I had heard older girls speak of the pleasure of such feelings, but I was not taught anything by example, or otherwise. I merely rubbed myself with the wash-rag while bathing, waiting for a result, and having the same peculiar feeling I had so often experienced. I am not aware of any ill effects having resulted, but I felt degraded, and tried hard to overcome the habit. No one had spoken to me of the habit, but from the secrecy of grown people, and passages I had heard from the Bible, I conceived the idea that it was a reprehensible practice. And, while this did not curb my desire, it taught me self-control, and I vowed that each time should be the last. I was often able to keep the resolution for two or three weeks." Some four years later she gradually succeeded in breaking herself of the practice in so far as it had become a habit; she has, however, acquired a fuller knowledge of sexual matters, and, though she has still a great dread of masturbation as a vice, she does not hesitate to relieve her physical feelings when it seems best to her to do so. "I am usually able to direct my thoughts from these sensations," she writes, "but if they seem to make me irritable or wakeful, I relieve myself. It is a physical act, unassociated with deep feeling of any kind. I have always felt that it was a rather unpleasant compromise with my physical nature, but certainly necessary in my case. Yet, I have abstained from gratification for very long periods. If the feeling is not strong at the menstrual period, I go on very well without either the sensation or the gratification until the next period. And, strange as it may seem, the best antidote I have found and the best preventive is to think about spiritual things or someone whom I love. It is simply a matter of training, I suppose,--a sort of mental gymnastics,--which draws the attention away from the physical feelings." This lady has never had any sexual relationships, and, since she is ambitious, and believes that the sexual emotions may be transformed so as to become a source of motive power throughout the whole of life, she wishes to avoid such relationships. OBSERVATION V.--Unmarried, aged 31, in good health, with, however, a somewhat hysterical excess of energy. "When I was about 26 years of age," she writes, "a friend came to me with the confession that for several years she had masturbated, and had become such a slave to the habit that she severely suffered from its ill effects. At that time I had never heard of self-abuse by women. I listened to her story with much sympathy and interest, but some skepticism, and determined to try experiments upon myself, with the idea of getting to understand the matter in order to assist my friend. After some manipulation, I succeeded in awakening what had before been unconscious and unknown. I purposely allowed the habit to grow upon me, and one night--for I always operated upon myself before going to sleep, never in the morning--I obtained considerable pleasurable satisfaction, but the following day my conscience awoke; I also felt pain located at the back of my head and down the spinal column. I ceased my operations for a time, and then began again somewhat regularly, once a month, a few days after menstruation. During those months in which I exercised moderation, I think I obtained much local relief with comparatively little injury, but, later on, finding myself in robust health, I increased my experiments, the habit grew upon me, and it was only with an almost superhuman effort that I broke myself free. Needless to say that I gave no assistance to my suffering friend, nor did I ever refer to the subject after her confession to me. "Some two years later I heard of sexual practices between women as a frequent habit in certain quarters. I again interested myself in masturbation, for I had been told something that led me to believe that there was much more for me to discover. Not knowing the most elementary physiology, I questioned some of my friends, and then commenced again. I restricted myself to relief from local congestion and irritation by calling forth the emission of mucus, rather than by seeking pleasure. At the same time, I sought to discover what manipulation of the clitoris would lead to. The habit grew upon me with startling rapidity, and I became more or less its slave, but I suffered from no very great ill effects until I started in search of more discoveries. I found that I was a complete ignoramus as to the formation of a woman's body, and by experiments upon myself sought to discover the vagina. I continued my operations until I obtained an entrance. I think the rough handling of myself during this final stage disturbed my nervous system, and caused me considerable pain and exhaustion at the back of my head, the spinal column, the back of my eyes, and a general feeling of languor, etc. "I could not bear to be the slave of a habit, and after much suffering and efforts, which only led to falls to lower depths of conscious failure, my better self rebelled, until, by a great effort and much prayer, I kept myself pure for a whole week. This partial recovery gave me hope, but then I again fell a victim to the habit, much to my chagrin, and became hopeless of ever retracing my steps toward my ideal of virtue. For some days I lost energy, spirit, and hope; my nervous system appeared to be ruined, but I did not really despair of victory in the end. I thought of all the drunkards chained by their intemperate habits, of inveterate smokers who could not exist without tobacco, and of all the various methods by which men were slaves, and the longing to be freed of what had, in my case, proved to be a painful and unnecessary habit, increased daily until, after one night when I struggled with myself for hours, I believed I had finally succeeded. "At times, when I reached a high degree of sexual excitement, I felt that I was at least one step removed from those of morbid and repressed sex, who had not the slightest suspicion of the latent joys of womanhood within them. For a little while the habit took the shape of an exalted passion, but I rapidly tired it out by rough, thoughtless, and too impatient handling. Revulsion set in with the pain of an exhausted and badly used nervous system, and finding myself the slave of a passion, I determined to endeavor to be its master. "In conclusion, I should say that masturbation has proved itself to be to me one of the blind turnings of my life's history, from which I have gained much valuable experience." The practice was, however, by no means thus dismissed. Some time later the subject writes: "I have again restarted masturbation for the relief of localized feelings. One morning I was engaged in reading a very heavy volume which, for convenience sake, I held in my lap, leaning back on my chair. I had become deep in my study for an hour or so when I became aware of certain feelings roused by the weight of the book. Being tempted to see what would happen by such conduct, I shifted so that the edge of the volume came in closer contact. The pleasurable feelings increased, so I gave myself up to my emotions for some thirty minutes. "Notwithstanding the intense pleasure I enjoyed for so long a period, I maintain that it is wiser to refrain, and, although I admit in the same breath that, by gentle treatment, such pleasure may be harmless to the general health, it does lead to a desire for solitude, which is not conducive to a happy frame of mind. There is an accompanying reticence of speech concerning the pleasure, which, therefore, appears to be unnatural, like the eating of stolen fruit. After such an event, one seems to require to fly to the woods, and to listen to the song of the birds, so as to shake off after-effects." In a letter dated some months later, she writes: "I think I have risen above the masturbation habit." In the same letter the writer remarks: "If I had consciously abnormal or unsatisfied appetites I would satisfy them in the easiest and least harmful way." Again, eighteen months later, she writes: "It is curious to note that for months this habit is forgotten, but awakens sometimes to self-assertion. If a feeling of pressure is felt in the head, and a slight irritation elsewhere, and experience shows that the time has come for pacification, exquisite pleasure can be enjoyed, never more than twice a month, and sometimes less often." OBSERVATION VI.--Unmarried, actively engaged in the practice of her profession. Well-developed, feminine in contour, but boyish in manner and movements; strong, though muscles small, and healthy, with sound nervous system; never had anæmia. Thick brown hair; pubic hair thick, and hair on toes and legs up to umbilicus; it began to appear at the age of 10 (before pubic hair) and continued until 18. A few stray hairs round nipples, and much dark down on upper lip, as well as light down on arms and hands. Hips, normal; nates, small; labia minora, large; and clitoris, deeply hooded. Hymen thick, vagina, probably small. Considerable pigmentation of parts. Menstruation began at 15, but not regular till 17; is painless and scanty; the better the state of health, the less it is. No change of sexual or other feelings connected with it; it lasts one to three days. "I believe," she writes, "my first experience of physical sex sensations was when I was about 16, and in sleep. But I did not then recognize it, and seldom, indeed, gave the subject of sex a thought. I was a child far beyond the age of childhood. The accompanying dreams were disagreeable, but I cannot remember what they were about. It was not until I was nearly 19 that I knew the sexual orgasm in my waking state. It surprised me completely, but I knew that I had known it before in my sleep. "The knowledge came one summer when I was leading a rather isolated life, and my mind was far from sex subjects, being deep in books, Carlyle, Ruskin, Huxley, Darwin, Scott, etc. I noticed that when I got up in the morning I felt very hot and uncomfortable. The clitoris and the parts around were swollen and erect, and often tender and painful. I had no idea what it was, but found I was unable to pass my water for an hour or two. One day, when I was straining a little to pass water, the full orgasm occurred. The next time it happened, I tried to check it by holding myself firmly, of course, with the opposite result. I do not know that I found it highly pleasurable, but it was a very great relief. I allowed myself a good many experiments, to come to a conclusion in the matter, and I thought about it. I was much too shy to speak to any one, and thought it was probably a sin. I tried not to do it, and not to think about it, saying to myself that surely I was lord of my body. But I found that the matter was not entirely under my control. However unwilling or passive I might be, there were times when the involuntary discomfort was not in my keeping. My touching myself or not did not save me from it. Because it sometimes gave me pleasure, I thought it might be a form of self-indulgence, and did not do it until it could scarcely be helped. Soon the orgasm began to occur fairly frequently in my sleep, perhaps once or twice a week. I had no erotic dreams, then or at any other time, but I had nights of restless sleep, and woke as it occurred, dreaming that it was happening, as, in fact, it was. At times I hardly awoke, but went to sleep again in a moment. I continued for two or three years to be sorely tried by day at frequent intervals. I acquired a remarkable degree of control, so that, though one touch or steadily directed thought would have caused the orgasm, I could keep it off, and go to sleep without 'wrong doing.' Of course, when I fell asleep, my control ended. All this gave me a good deal of physical worry, and kept my attention unwillingly fixed upon the matter. I do not think my body was readily irritable, but I had unquestionably very strong sexual impulses. "After a year or two, when I was working hard, I could not afford the attention the control cost me, or the prolonged mitigated sexual excitement it caused. I took drugs for a time, but they lost effect, produced lassitude, and agreed with me badly. I therefore put away my scruples and determined to try the effect of giving myself an instant and business-like relief. Instead of allowing my feelings to gather strength, I satisfied them out of hand. Instead of five hours of heat and discomfort, I did not allow myself five minutes, if I could help it. "The effect was marvelous. I practically had no more trouble. The thing rarely came to me at all by day, and though it continued at times by night, it became less frequent and less strong; often it did not wake me. The erotic images and speculations that had begun to come to me died down. I left off being afraid of my feelings, or, indeed, thinking about them. I may say that I had decided that I should be obliged to lead a single life, and that the less I thought about matters of sex, the more easy I should find life. Later on I had religious ideas which helped me considerably in my ideals of a decent, orderly, self-contained life. I do not lay stress on these; they were not at all emotional, and my physical and psychical development do not appear to have run much on parallel lines. I had a strong moral sense before I had a religious one, and a 'common-sense' which I perhaps trusted more than either. "When I was about 28 I thought I might perhaps leave off the habit of regular relief I had got into. (It was not regular as regards time, being anything from one day to six weeks.) The change was probably made easier by a severe illness I had had. I gave this abstinence a fair trial for several years (until I was about 34), but my nocturnal manifestations certainly gathered strength, especially when I got much better in health, and, finally, as at puberty, began to worry my waking life. I reasoned that by my attempt at abstinence I had only exchanged control for uncontrol, and reverted to my old habits of relief, with the same good results as before. The whole trouble subsided and I got better at once. (The orgasm during sleep continued, and occurs about once a fortnight; it is increased by change of air, especially at the seaside, when it may occur on two or three nights running.) I decided that, for the proper control of my single life, relief was normal and right. It would be very difficult for anyone to demonstrate the contrary to me. My aim has always been to keep myself in the best condition of physical and mental balance that a single person is capable of." There is some interest in briefly reviewing the remarkable transformations in the attitude toward masturbation from Greek times down to our own day. The Greeks treated masturbation with little opprobrium. At the worst they regarded it as unmanly, and Aristophanes, in various passages, connects the practice with women, children, slaves, and feeble old men. �schines seems to have publicly brought it as a charge against Demosthenes that he had practiced masturbation, though, on the other hand, Plutarch tells us that Diogenes--described by Zeller, the historian of Greek philosophy, as "the most typical figure of ancient Greece"--was praised by Chrysippus, the famous philosopher, for masturbating in the market-place. The more strenuous Romans, at all events as exemplified by Juvenal and Martial, condemned masturbation more vigorously.[347] Aretæus, without alluding to masturbation, dwells on the tonic effects of retaining the semen; but, on the other hand, Galen regarded the retention of semen as injurious, and advocated its frequent expulsion, a point of view which tended to justify masturbation. In classical days, doubtless, masturbation and all other forms of the auto-erotic impulse were comparatively rare. So much scope was allowed in early adult age for homosexual and later for heterosexual relationships that any excessive or morbid development of solitary self-indulgence could seldom occur. The case was altered when Christian ideals became prominent. Christian morality strongly proscribed sexual relationships except under certain specified conditions. It is true that Christianity discouraged all sexual manifestations, and that therefore its ban fell equally on masturbation, but, obviously, masturbation lay at the weakest line of defence against the assaults of the flesh; it was there that resistance would most readily yield. Christianity thus probably led to a considerable increase of masturbation. The attention which the theologians devoted to its manifestations clearly bears witness to their magnitude. It is noteworthy that Mohammedan theologians regarded masturbation as a Christian vice. In Islam both doctrine and practice tended to encourage sexual relationships, and not much attention was paid to masturbation, nor even any severe reprobation directed against it. Omer Haleby remarks that certain theologians of Islam are inclined to consider the practice of masturbation in vogue among Christians as allowable to devout Mussulmans when alone on a journey; he himself regards this as a practice good neither for soul nor body (seminal emissions during sleep providing all necessary relief); should, however, a Mussulman fall into this error, God is merciful![348] In Theodore's Penitential of the seventh century, forty days' penance is prescribed for masturbation. Aquinas condemned masturbation as worse than fornication, though less heinous than other sexual offences against Nature; in opposition, also, to those who believed that _distillatio_ usually takes place without pleasure, he observed that it was often caused by sexual emotion, and should, therefore, always be mentioned to the confessor. Liguori also regarded masturbation as a graver sin than fornication, and even said that _distillatio_, if voluntary and with notable physical commotion, is without doubt a mortal sin, for in such a case it is the beginning of a pollution. On the other hand, some theologians have thought that _distillatio_ may be permitted, even if there is some commotion, so long as it has not been voluntarily procured, and Caramuel, who has been described as a theological _enfant terrible_, declared that "natural law does not forbid masturbation," but that proposition was condemned by Innocent XI. The most enlightened modern Catholic view is probably represented by Debreyne, who, after remarking that he has known pious and intelligent persons who had an irresistible impulse to masturbate, continues: "Must we excuse, or condemn, these people? Neither the one nor the other. If you condemn and repulse absolutely these persons as altogether guilty, against their own convictions, you will perhaps throw them into despair; if, on the contrary, you completely excuse them, you maintain them in a disorder from which they may, perhaps, never emerge. Adopt a wise middle course, and, perhaps, with God's aid, you may often cure them." Under certain circumstances some Catholic theologians have permitted a married woman to masturbate. Thus, the Jesuit theologian, Gury, asserts that the wife does not sin "_quæ se ipsam tactibus excitat ad seminationem statim post copulam in quâ vir solus seminavit_." This teaching seems to have been misunderstood, since ethical and even medical writers have expended a certain amount of moral indignation on the Church whose theologians committed themselves to this statement. As a matter of fact, this qualified permission to masturbate merely rests on a false theory of procreation, which is clearly expressed in the word _seminatio_. It was believed that ejaculation in the woman is as necessary to fecundation as ejaculation in the man. Galen, Avicenna, and Aquinas recognized, indeed, that such feminine semination was not necessary; Sanchez, however, was doubtful, while Suarez and Zacchia, following Hippocrates, regarded it as necessary. As sexual intercourse without fecundation is not approved by the Catholic Church, it thus became logically necessary to permit women to masturbate whenever the ejaculation of mucus had not occurred at or before coitus. The belief that the emission of vaginal mucus, under the influence of sexual excitement in women, corresponded to spermatic emission, has led to the practice of masturbation on hygienic grounds. Garnier (_Célibat_, p. 255) mentions that Mesué, in the eighteenth century, invented a special pessary to take the place of the penis, and, as he stated, effect the due expulsion of the feminine sperm. Protestantism, no doubt, in the main accepted the general Catholic, tradition, but the tendency of Protestantism, in reaction against the minute inquisition of the earlier theologians, has always been to exercise a certain degree of what it regarded as wholesome indifference toward the less obvious manifestations of the flesh. Thus in Protestant countries masturbation seems to have been almost ignored until Tissot, combining with his reputation as a physician the fanaticism of a devout believer, raised masturbation to the position of a colossal bogy which during a hundred years has not only had an unfortunate influence on medical opinion in these matters, but has been productive of incalculable harm to ignorant youth and tender consciences. During the past forty years the efforts of many distinguished physicians--a few of whose opinions I have already quoted--have gradually dragged the bogy down from its pedestal, and now, as I have ventured to suggest, there is a tendency for the reaction to be excessive. There is even a tendency to-day to regard masturbation, with various qualifications, as normal. Remy de Gourmont, for instance, considers that masturbation is natural because it is the method by which fishes procreate: "All things considered, it must be accepted that masturbation is part of the doings of Nature. A different conclusion might be agreeable, but in every ocean and under the reeds of every river, myriads of beings would protest."[349] Tillier remarks that since masturbation appears to be universal among the higher animals we are not entitled to regard it as a vice; it has only been so considered because studied exclusively by physicians under abnormal conditions.[350] Hirth, while asserting that masturbation must be strongly repressed in the young, regards it as a desirable method of relief for adults, and especially, under some circumstances, for women.[351] Venturi, a well-known Italian alienist, on the other hand, regards masturbation as strictly physiological in youth; it is the normal and natural passage toward the generous and healthy passion of early manhood; it only becomes abnormal and vicious, he holds, when continued into adult life. The appearance of masturbation at puberty, Venturi considers, "is a moment in the course of the development of the function of that organ which is the necessary instrument of sexuality." It finds its motive in the satisfaction of an organic need having much analogy with that which arises from the tickling of a very sensitive cutaneous surface. In this masturbation of early adolescence lies, according to Venturi, the germ of what will later be love: a pleasure of the body and of the spirit, following the relief of a satisfied need. "As the youth develops, onanism becomes a sexual act comparable to coitus as a dream is comparable to reality, imagery forming in correspondence with the desires. In its fully developed form in adolescence," Venturi continues, "masturbation has an almost hallucinatory character; onanism at this period psychically approximates to the true sexual act, and passes insensibly into it. If, however, continued on into adult age, it becomes morbid, passing into erotic fetichism; what in the inexperienced youth is the natural auxiliary and stimulus to imagination, in the degenerate onanist of adult age is a sign of arrested development. Thus, onanism," the author concludes, "is not always a vice such as is fiercely combated by educators and moralists. It is the natural transition by which we reach the warm and generous love of youth, and, in natural succession to this, the tranquil, positive, matrimonial love of the mature man." (Silvio Venturi, _Le Degenerazioni Psico-sessuale_, 1892, pp. 6-9.) It may be questioned whether this view is acceptable even for the warm climate of the south of Europe, where the impulses of sexuality are undoubtedly precocious. It is certainly not in harmony with general experience and opinion in the north; this is well expressed in the following passage by Edward Carpenter (_International Journal of Ethics_, July, 1899): "After all, purity (in the sense of continence) _is_ of the first importance to boyhood. To prolong the period of continence in a boy's life is to prolong the period of _growth_. This is a simple physiological law, and a very obvious one; and, whatever other things may be said in favor of purity, it remains, perhaps, the most weighty. To introduce sensual and sexual habits--and one of the worst of them is self-abuse--at an early age, is to arrest growth, both physical and mental. And what is even more, it means to arrest the capacity for affection. All experience shows that the early outlet toward sex cheapens and weakens affectional capacity." I do not consider that we can decide the precise degree in which masturbation may fairly be called normal so long as we take masturbation by itself. We are thus, in conclusion, brought back to the point which I sought to emphasize at the outset: masturbation belongs to a group of auto-erotic phenomena. From one point of view it may be said that all auto-erotic phenomena are unnatural, since the natural aim of the sexual impulse is sexual conjunction, and all exercise of that impulse outside such conjunction is away from the end of Nature. But we do not live in a state of Nature which answers to such demands; all our life is "unnatural." And as soon as we begin to restrain the free play of sexual impulse toward sexual ends, at once auto-erotic phenomena inevitably spring up on every side. There is no end to them; it is impossible to say what finest elements in art, in morals, in civilization generally, may not really be rooted in an auto-erotic impulse. "Without a certain overheating of the sexual system," said Nietzsche, "we could not have a Raphael." Auto-erotic phenomena are inevitable. It is our wisest course to recognize this inevitableness of sexual and transmuted sexual manifestations under the perpetual restraints of civilized life, and, while avoiding any attitude of excessive indulgence or indifference,[352] to avoid also any attitude of excessive horror, for our horror not only leads to the facts being effectually veiled from our sight, but itself serves to manufacture artificially a greater evil than that which we seek to combat. The sexual impulse is not, as some have imagined, the sole root of the most massive human emotions, the most brilliant human aptitudes,--of sympathy, of art, of religion. In the complex human organism, where all the parts are so many-fibred and so closely interwoven, no great manifestation can be reduced to one single source. But it largely enters into and molds all of these emotions and aptitudes, and that by virtue of its two most peculiar characteristics: it is, in the first place, the deepest and most volcanic of human impulses, and, in the second place,--unlike the only other human impulse with which it can be compared, the nutritive impulse,--it can, to a large extent, be transmuted into a new force capable of the strangest and most various uses. So that in the presence of all these manifestations we may assert that in a real sense, though subtly mingled with very diverse elements, auto-erotism everywhere plays its part. In the phenomena of auto-erotism, when we take a broad view of those phenomena, we are concerned, not with a form of insanity, not necessarily with a form of depravity, but with the inevitable by-products of that mighty process on which the animal creation rests. FOOTNOTES: [289] For a bibliography of masturbation, see Rohleder, _Die Masturbation_, pp. 11-18; also, Arthur MacDonald, _Le Criminel Type_, pp. 227 et seq.; cf. G. Stanley Hall, _Adolescence_, vol. i, pp. 432 _et seq._ [290] Oskar Berger, _Archiv für Psychiatrie_, Bd. 6, 1876. [291] _Die Masturbation_, p. 41. [292] Dukes, _Preservation of Health_, 1884, p. 150. [293] G. Stanley Hall, _Adolescence_, vol. i, p. 434. [294] F.S. Brockman, "A Study of the Moral and Religious Life of Students in the United States," _Pedagogical Seminary_, September, 1902. Many pitiful narratives are reproduced. [295] Moraglia, "Die Onanie beim normalen Weibe und bei den Prostituten," _Zeitschrift für Criminal-Anthropologie_, 1897, p. 489. It should be added that Moraglia is not a very critical investigator. It is probable, however, that on this point his results are an approximation to the truth. [296] Ernst, "Anthropological Researches on the Population of Venezuela," _Memoirs of the Anthropological Society_, vol. iii, 1870, p. 277. [297] Niceforo, _Il Gergo nei Normali_, etc., 1897, cap. V. [298] Debreyne, _Moechialogie_, p. 64. Yet theologians and casuists, Debreyne remarks, frequently never refer to masturbation in women. [299] Stanley Hall, op. cit., vol. i, p. 34. Hall mentions, also, that masturbation is specially common among the blind. [300] Moraglia, _Archivio di Psichiatria_, vol. xvi, fasc. 4 and 5, p. 313. [301] See his careful study, "Die Sexuellen Perversitäten in der Irrenanstalt," _Psychiatrische Bladen_, No. 2. 1899. [302] Venturi, _Degenerazioni Psico-sessuali_, pp. 105, 133, 148, 152. [303] J.P. West, _Transactions of the Ohio Pediatric Society_, 1895. _Abstract in Medical Standard_, November, 1895; cases are also recorded by J.T. Winter, "Self-abuse in Infancy and Childhood," _American Journal Obstetrics_, June, 1902. [304] Freud, _Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie_, pp. 36 et seq. [305] G.E. Shuttleworth, _British Medical Journal_, October 3, 1903. [306] See for a detailed study of sexuality in childhood, Moll's valuable book, _Das Sexualleben des Kindes_; cf. vol. vi of these _Studies_, Ch. II. [307] This is, no doubt, the most common opinion, and it is frequently repeated in text-books. It is scarcely necessary, however, to point out that only the opinions of those who have given special attention to the matter can carry any weight. R.W. Shufeldt ("On a Case of Female Impotency," pp. 5-7) quotes the opinions of various cautious observers as to the difficulty of detecting masturbation in women. [308] This latter opinion is confirmed by Näcke so far as the insane are concerned. In a careful study of sexual perversity in a large asylum, Näcke found that, while moderate masturbation could be more easily traced among men than among women, excessive masturbation was more common among women. And, while among the men masturbation was most frequent in the lowest grades of mental development (idiocy and imbecility), and least frequent in the highest grades (general paralysis), in the women it was the reverse. (P. Näcke, "Die Sexuellen Perversitäten in der Irrenanstalt," _Psychiatrische en Neurologische Bladen_, No. 2, 1899.) [309] Mammary masturbation sometimes occurs; see, e.g., Rohleder, _Die Masturbation_ (pp. 32-33); it is, however, rare. [310] Hirschsprung pointed out this, indeed, many years ago, on the ground of his own experience. And see Rohleder, op. cit., pp. 44-47. [311] In many cases, of course, the physical precocity is associated with precocity in sexual habits. An instructive case is reported (_Alienist and Neurologist_, October, 1895) of a girl of 7, a beautiful child, of healthy family, and very intelligent, who, from the age of three, was perpetually masturbating, when not watched. The clitoris and mons veneris were those of a fully-grown woman, and the child was as well informed upon most subjects as an average woman. She was cured by care and hygienic attention, and when seen last was in excellent condition. A medical friend tells me of a little girl of two, whose external genital organs are greatly developed, and who is always rubbing herself. [312] R.T. Morris, of New York, has also pointed out the influence of traditions in this respect. "Among boys," he remarks, "there are traditions to the effect that self-abuse is harmful. Among girls, however, there are no such saving traditions." Dr. Kiernan writes in a private letter: "It has been by experience, that from ignorance or otherwise, there are young women who do not look upon sexual manipulation with the same fear that men do." Guttceit, similarly, remarks that men have been warned of masturbation, and fear its evil results, while girls, even if warned, attach little importance to the warning; he adds that in healthy women, masturbation, even in excess, has little bad results. The attitude of many women in this matter may be illustrated by the following passage from a letter written by a medical friend in India: "The other day one of my English women patients gave me the following reason for having taught the 17-year-old daughter of a retired Colonel to masturbate: 'Poor girl, she was troubled with dreams of men, and in case she should be tempted with one, and become pregnant, I taught her to bring the feeling on herself--as it is safer, and, after all, nearly as nice as with a man.'" [313] H. Ellis, _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, volume ii, "Sexual Inversion," Chapter IV. [314] See, also, the Appendix to the third volume of these _Studies_, in which I have brought forward sexual histories of normal persons. [315] E.H. Smith, also, states that from 25 to 35 is the age when most women come under the physician's eye with manifest and pronounced habits of masturbation. [316] It may, however, be instructive to observe that at the end of the volume we find an advertisement of "Dr. Robinson's Treatise on the Virtues and Efficacy of a Crust of Bread, Eat Early in the Morning Fasting." [317] Pouillet alone enumerates and apparently accepts considerably over one hundred different morbid conditions as signs and results of masturbation. [318] "Augenkrankheiten bei Masturbanten," Knapp-Schweigger's _Archiv für Augenheitkunde_, Bd. II, 1882, p. 198. [319] Salmo Cohn, _Uterus und Auge_, 1890, pp. 63-66. [320] _Fonctions du Cerveau_, 1825, vol. iii, p. 337. [321] W. Ellis, _Treatise on Insanity_, 1838, pp. 335, 340. [322] Clara Barrus, "Insanity in Young Women," _Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease_, June, 1896. [323] See, for instance, H. Emminghaus, "Die Psychosen des Kindesalters," Gerlandt's _Handbuch der Kinder-Krankheiten_, Nachtrag II, pp. 61-63. [324] Christian, article "Onanisme," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_. [325] Näcke, _Verbrechen und Wahnsinn beim Weibe_, 1894, p. 57. [326] J.L.A. Koch, _Die Psychopathischen Minderwertigkeiten_, 1892, p. 273 et seq. [327] J.G. Kiernan, _American Journal of Insanity_, July, 1877. [328] Maudsley dealt, in his vigorous, picturesque manner, with the more extreme morbid mental conditions sometimes found associated with masturbation, in "Illustrations of a Variety of Insanity," _Journal of Mental Science_, July, 1868. [329] See, e.g., Löwenfeld, _Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_, 2d. ed., Ch. VIII. [330] Marro, _La Pubertà_, Turin, 1898, p. 174. [331] E.C. Spitzka, "Cases of Masturbation," _Journal of Mental Science_, July, 1888. [332] Charles West, _Lancet_, November 17, 1866. [333] Gowers, _Epilepsy_, 1881, p. 31. Löwenfeld believes that epileptic attacks are certainly caused by masturbation. Féré thought that both epilepsy and hysteria may be caused by masturbation. [334] Ziemssen's _Handbuch_, Bd. XI. [335] _Adolescence_, vol. i, p. 441. [336] See a discussion of these points by Rohleder, _Die Masturbation_, pp. 168-175. [337] The surgeons, it may be remarked, have especially stated the harmlessness of masturbation in too absolute a manner. Thus, John Hunter (_Treatise on the Venereal Disease_, 1786, p. 200), after pointing out that "the books on this subject have done more harm than good," adds, "I think I may affirm that this act does less harm to the constitution in general than the natural." And Sir James Paget, in his lecture on "Sexual Hypochondriasis," said: "Masturbation does neither more nor less harm than sexual intercourse practiced with the same frequency, in the same conditions of general health and age and circumstances." [338] It is interesting to note that an analogous result seems to hold with animals. Among highly-bred horses excessive masturbation is liable to occur with injurious results. It is scarcely necessary to point out that highly-bred horses are apt to be abnormal. [339] With regard to the physical signs, the same conclusion is reached by Legludic (in opposition to Martineau) on the basis of a large experience. He has repeatedly found, in young girls who acknowledged frequent masturbation, that the organs were perfectly healthy and normal, and his convictions are the more noteworthy, since he speaks as a pupil of Tardieu, who attached very grave significance to the local signs of sexual perversity and excess. (Legludic, _Notes et Observations de Médecine Légale_, 1896, p. 95.) Matthews Duncan (_Goulstonian Lectures on Sterility in Women_, 1884, p. 97) was often struck by the smallness, and even imperfect development, of the external genitals of women who masturbate. Clara Barrus considers that there is no necessary connection between hypertrophy of the external female genital organs and masturbation, though in six cases of prolonged masturbation she found such a condition in three (_American Journal of Insanity_, April, 1895, p. 479). Bachterew denies that masturbation produces enlargement of the penis, and Hammond considers there is no evidence to show that it enlarges the clitoris, while Guttceit states that it does not enlarge the nymphæ; this, however, is doubtful. It would not suffice in many cases to show that large sexual organs are correlated with masturbation; it would still be necessary to show whether the size of the organs stood to masturbation in the relation of effect or of cause. [340] Thus, Bechterew ("La Phobie du Regard," _Archives de Neurologie_, July, 1905) considers that masturbation plays a large part in producing the morbid fear of the eyes of others. [341] It is especially an undesirable tendency of masturbation, that it deadens the need for affection, and merely eludes, instead of satisfying, the sexual impulse. "Masturbation," as Godfrey well says (_The Science of Sex_, p. 178), "though a manifestation of sexual activity, is not a sexual act in the higher, or even in the real fundamental sense. For sex implies duality, a characteristic to which masturbation can plainly lay no claim. The physical, moral, and mental reciprocity which gives stability and beauty to a normal sexual intimacy, are as foreign to the masturbator as to the celibate. In a sense, therefore, masturbation is as complete a negative of the sexual life as chastity itself. It is, therefore, an evasion of, not an answer to, the sexual problem; and it will ever remain so, no matter how surely we may be convinced of its physical harmlessness." [342] "I learnt that dangerous supplement," Rousseau tells us (Part I, Bk. III), "which deceives Nature. This vice, which bashfulness and timidity find so convenient, has, moreover, a great attraction for lively imaginations, for it enables them to do what they will, so to speak, with the whole fair sex, and to enjoy at pleasure the beauty who attracts them, without having obtained her consent." [343] "Ich hatte sie wirklich verloren, und die Tollheit, mit der ich meinen Fehler an mir selbst rächte, indem ich auf mancherlei unsinnige Weise in meine physische Natur sturmte, um der sittlichen etwas zu Leide zu thun, hat sehr viel zu den körperlichen Uebeln beigetragen, unter denen ich einige der besten Jahre meines Lebens verlor; ja ich wäre vielleicht an diesem Verlust vollig zu Grunde gegangen, hätte sich hier nicht das poetische Talent mit seinen Heilkraften besonders hülfreich erwiesen." This is scarcely conclusive, and it may be added that there were many reasons why Goethe should have suffered physically at this time, quite apart from masturbation. See, e.g., Bielschowsky, _Life of Goethe_, vol. i, p. 88. [344] _Les Obsessions_, vol. ii, p. 136. [345] A somewhat similar classification has already been made by Max Dessoir, who points out that we must distinguish between onanists _aus Noth_, and onanists _aus Leidenschaft_, the latter group alone being of really serious importance. The classification of Dallemagne is also somewhat similar; he distinguishes _onanie par impulsion_, occurring in mental degeneration and in persons of inferior intelligence, from _onanie par evocation ou obsession_. [346] W. Xavier Sudduth, "A Study in the Psycho-physics of Masturbation," _Chicago Medical Recorder_, March, 1898. Haig, who reaches a similar conclusion, has sought to find its precise mechanism in the blood-pressure. "As the sexual act produces lower and falling blood-pressure," he remarks, "it will of necessity relieve conditions which are due to high and rising blood-pressure, such, for instance, as mental depression and bad temper; and, unless my observation deceives me, we have here a connection between conditions of high blood-pressure with mental and bodily depression and acts of masturbation, for this act will relieve these conditions and tend to be practiced for this purpose." (_Uric Acid_, 6th edition, p. 154.) [347] Northcote discusses the classic attitude towards masturbation, _Christianity and Sex Problems_, p. 233. [348] _El Ktab_, traduction de Paul de Régla, Paris, 1893. [349] Remy de Gourmont, _Physique de l'Amour_, p. 133. [350] Tillier, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, Paris, 1889, p. 270. [351] G. Hirth, _Wege zur Heimat_, p. 648. [352] Féré, in the course of his valuable work, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, stated that my conclusion is that masturbation is normal, and that "_l'indulgence s'impose_." I had, however, already guarded myself against this misinterpretation. APPENDIX A. THE INFLUENCE OF MENSTRUATION ON THE POSITION OF WOMEN. A question of historical psychology which, so far as I know, has never been fully investigated is the influence of menstruation in constituting the emotional atmosphere through which men habitually view women.[353] I do not purpose to deal fully with this question, because it is one which may be more properly dealt with at length by the student of culture and by the historian, rather than from the standpoint of empirical psychology. It is, moreover, a question full of complexities in regard to which it is impossible to speak with certainty. But we here strike on a factor of such importance, such neglected importance, for the proper understanding of the sexual relations of men and women, that it cannot be wholly ignored. Among the negroes of Surinam a woman must live in solitude during the time of her period; it is dangerous for any man or woman to approach her, and when she sees a person coming near she cries out anxiously: "_Mi kay! Mi kay!_"--I am unclean! I am unclean! Throughout the world we find traces of the custom of which this is a typical example, but we must not too hastily assume that this custom is evidence of the inferior position occupied by semi-civilized women. It is necessary to take a broad view, not only of the beliefs of semi-civilized man regarding menstruation, but of his general beliefs regarding the supernatural forces of the world. There is no fragment of folk-lore so familiar to the European world as that which connects woman with the serpent. It is, indeed, one of the foundation stones of Christian theology.[354] Yet there is no fragment of folk-lore which remains more obscure. How has it happened that in all parts of the world the snake or his congeners, the lizard and the crocodile, have been credited with some design, sinister or erotic, on women? Of the wide prevalence of the belief there can be no doubt. Among the Port Lincoln tribe of South Australia a lizard is said to have divided man from woman.[355] Among the Chiriguanos of Bolivia, on the appearance of menstruation, old women ran about with sticks to hunt the snake that had wounded the girl. Frazer, who quotes this example from the "_Lettres édifiantes et curieuses_," also refers to a modern Greek folk-tale, according to which a princess at puberty must not let the sun shine upon her, or she would be turned into a lizard.[356] The lizard was a sexual symbol among the Mexicans. In some parts of Brazil at the onset of puberty a girl must not go into the woods for fear of the amorous attacks of snakes, and so it is also among the Macusi Indians of British Guiana, according to Schomburgk. Among the Basutos of South Africa the young girls must dance around the clay image of a snake. In Polynesian mythology the lizard is a very sacred animal, and legends represent women as often giving birth to lizards.[357] At a widely remote spot, in Bengal, if you dream of a snake a child will be born to you, reports Sarat Chandra Mitra.[358] In the Berlin Museum für Volkerkunde there is a carved wooden figure from New Guinea of a woman into whose vulva a crocodile is inserting its snout, while the same museum contains another figure of a snake-like crocodile crawling out of a woman's vulva, and a third figure shows a small round snake with a small head, and closely resembling a penis, at the mouth of the vagina. All these figures are reproduced by Ploss and Bartels. Even in modern Europe the same ideas prevail. In Portugal, according to Reys, it is believed that during menstruation women are liable to be bitten by lizards, and to guard against this risk they wear drawers during the period. In Germany, again, it was believed, up to the eighteenth century at least, that the hair of a menstruating woman, if buried, would turn into a snake. It may be added that in various parts of the world virgin priestesses are dedicated to a snake-god and are married to the god.[359] At Rome, it is interesting to note, the serpent was the symbol of fecundation, and as such often figures at Pompeii as the _genius patrisfamilias_, the generative power of the family.[360] In Rabbinical tradition, also, the serpent is the symbol of sexual desire. There can be no doubt that--as Ploss and Bartels, from whom some of these examples have been taken, point out--in widely different parts of the world menstruation is believed to have been originally caused by a snake, and that this conception is frequently associated with an erotic and mystic idea.[361] How the connection arose Ploss and Bartels are unable to say. It can only be suggested that its shape and appearance, as well as its venomous nature, may have contributed to the mystery everywhere associated with the snake--a mystery itself fortified by the association with women--to build up this world-wide belief regarding the origin of menstruation. This primitive theory of the origin of menstruation probably brings before us in its earliest shape the special and intimate bond which has ever been held to connect women, by virtue of the menstrual process, with the natural or supernatural powers of the world. Everywhere menstruating women are supposed to be possessed by spirits and charged with mysterious forces. It is at this point that a serious misconception, due to ignorance of primitive religious ideas, has constantly intruded. It is stated that the menstruating woman is "unclean" and possessed by an evil spirit. As a matter of fact, however, the savage rarely discriminates between bad and good spirits. Every spirit may have either a beneficial or malignant influence. An interesting instance of this is given in Colenso's _Maori Lexicon_ as illustrated by the meaning of the Maori word _atua_. The importance of recognizing the special sense in which the word "unclean" is used in this connection was clearly pointed out by Robertson Smith in the case of the Semites. "The Hebrew word _tame_ (unclean)," he remarked, "is not the ordinary word for things physically foul; it is a ritual term, and corresponds exactly to the idea of _taboo_. The ideas 'unclean' and 'holy' seem to us to stand in polar opposition to one another, but it was not so with the Semites. Among the later Jews the Holy Books 'defiled the hands' of the reader as contact with an impure thing did; among Lucian's Syrians the dove was so holy that he who touched it was unclean for a day; and the _taboo_ attaching to the swine was explained by some, and beyond question correctly explained, in the same way. Among the heathen Semites,[362] therefore, unclean animals, which it was pollution to eat, were simply holy animals." Robertson Smith here made no reference to menstruation, but he exactly described the primitive attitude toward menstruation. Wellhausen, however, dealing with the early Arabians, expressly mentions that in pre-Islamic days, "clean" and "unclean" were used solely with reference to women in and out of the menstrual state. At a later date Frazer developed this aspect of the conception of taboo, and showed how it occurs among savage races generally. He pointed out that the conceptions of holiness and pollution not having yet been differentiated, women at childbirth and during menstruation are on the same level as divine kings, chiefs, and priests, and must observe the same rules of ceremonial purity. To seclude such persons from the rest of the world, so that the dreaded spiritual danger shall not spread, is the object of the taboo, which Frazer compares to "an electrical insulator to preserve the spiritual force with which these persons are charged from suffering or inflicting, harm by contact with the outer world." After describing the phenomena (especially the prohibition to touch the ground or see the sun) found among various races, Frazer concludes: "The object of secluding women at menstruation is to neutralize the dangerous influences which are supposed to emanate from them at such times. The general effect of these rules is to keep the girl suspended, so to say, between heaven and earth. Whether enveloped in her hammock and slung up to the roof, as in South America, or elevated above the ground in a dark and narrow cage, as in New Zealand, she may be considered to be out of the way of doing mischief, since, being shut off both from the earth and from the sun, she can poison neither of these great sources of life by her deadly contagion. The precautions thus taken to isolate or insulate the girl are dictated by regard for her own safety as well as for the safety of others.... In short, the girl is viewed as charged with a powerful force which, if not kept within bounds, may prove the destruction both of the girl herself and of all with whom she comes in contact. To repress this force within the limits necessary for the safety of all concerned is the object of the taboos in question. The same explanation applies to the observance of the same rules by divine kings and priests. The uncleanliness, as it is called, of girls at puberty and the sanctity of holy men do not, to the primitive mind, differ from each other. They are only different manifestations of the same supernatural energy, which, like energy in general, is in itself neither good nor bad, but becomes beneficent or malignant according to its application."[363] More recently this view of the matter has been further extended by the distinguished French sociologist, Durkheim. Investigating the origins of the prohibition of incest, and arguing that it proceeds from the custom of exogamy (or marriage outside the clan), and that this rests on certain ideas about blood, which, again, are traceable to totemism,--a theory which we need not here discuss,--Durkheim is brought face to face with the group of conceptions that now concern us. He insists on the extreme ambiguity found in primitive culture concerning the notion of the divine, and the close connection between aversion and veneration, and points out that it is not only at puberty and each recurrence of the menstrual epoch that women have aroused these emotions, but also at childbirth. "A sentiment of religious horror," he continues, "which can reach such a degree of intensity, which can be called forth by so many circumstances, and reappears regularly every month to last for a week at least, cannot fail to extend its influence beyond the periods to which it was originally confined, and to affect the whole course of life. A being who must be secluded or avoided for weeks, months, or years preserves something of the characteristics to which the isolation was due, even outside those special periods. And, in fact, in these communities, the separation of the sexes is not merely intermittent; it has become chronic. The two elements of the population live separately." Durkheim proceeds to argue that the origin of the occult powers attributed to the feminine organism is to be found in primitive ideas concerning blood. Not only menstrual blood but any kind of blood is the object of such feelings among savage and barbarous peoples. All sorts of precautions must be observed with regard to blood; in it resides a divine principle, or as Romans, Jews, and Arabs believed, life itself. The prohibition to drink wine, the blood of the grape, found among some peoples, is traced to its resemblance to blood, and to its sacrificial employment (as among the ancient Arabians and still in the Christian sacrament) as a substitute for drinking blood. Throughout, blood is generally taboo, and it taboos everything that comes in contact with it. Now woman is chronically "the theatre of bloody manifestations," and therefore she tends to become chronically taboo for the other members of the community. "A more or less conscious anxiety, a certain religious fear, cannot fail to enter into all the relations of her companions with her, and that is why all such relations are reduced to a minimum. Relations of a sexual character are specially excluded. In the first place, such relations are so intimate that they are incompatible with the sort of repulsion which the sexes must experience for each other; the barrier between them does not permit of such a close union. In the second place, the organs of the body here specially concerned are precisely the source of the dreaded manifestations. Thus it is natural that the feelings of aversion inspired by women attain their greatest intensity at this point. Thus it is, also, that of all parts of the feminine organization it is this region which is most severely shut out from commerce." So that, while the primitive emotion is mainly one of veneration, and is allied to that experienced for kings and priests, there is an element of fear in such veneration, and what men fear is to some extent odious to them.[364] These conceptions necessarily mingled at a very early period with men's ideas of sexual intercourse with women and especially with menstruating women. Contact with women, as Crawley shows by abundant illustration, is dangerous. In any case, indeed, the same ideas being transferred to women also, coitus produces weakness, and it prevents the acquisition of supernatural powers. Thus, among the western tribes of Canada, Boas states: "Only a youth who has never touched a woman, or a virgin, both being called _te 'e 'its_, can become shamans. After having had sexual intercourse men as well as women, become _t 'k-e 'el_, i.e., weak, incapable of gaining supernatural powers. The faculty cannot be regained by subsequent fasting and abstinence."[365] The mysterious effects of sexual intercourse in general are intensified in the case of intercourse with a menstruating woman. Thus the ancient Indian legislator declares that "the wisdom, the energy, the strength, the sight, and the vitality of a man who approaches a woman covered with menstrual excretions utterly perish."[366] It will be seen that these ideas are impartially spread over the most widely separated parts of the globe. They equally affected the Christian Church, and the Penitentials ordained forty or fifty days penance for sexual intercourse during menstruation. Yet the twofold influence of the menstruating woman remains clear when we review the whole group of influences which in this state she is supposed to exert. She by no means acts only by paralyzing social activities and destroying the powers of life, by causing flowers to fade, fruit to fall from the trees, grains to lose their germinative power, and grafts to die. She is not accurately summed up in the old lines:-- "Oh! menstruating woman, thou'rt a fiend From whom all nature should be closely screened." Her powers are also beneficial. A woman at this time, as �lian expressed it, is in regular communication with the starry bodies. Even at other times a woman when led naked around the orchard protected it from caterpillars, said Pliny, and this belief is acted upon (according to Bastanzi) even in the Italy of to-day.[367] A garment stained with a virgin's menstrual blood, it is said in Bavaria, is a certain safeguard against cuts and stabs. It will also extinguish fire. It was valuable as a love-philter; as a medicine its uses have been endless.[368] A sect of Valentinians even attributed sacramental virtues to menstrual blood, and partook of it as the blood of Christ. The Church soon, however, acquired a horror of menstruating women; they were frequently not allowed to take the sacrament or to enter sacred places, and it was sometimes thought best to prohibit the presence of women altogether.[369] The Anglo-Saxon Penitentials declared that menstruating women must not enter a church. It appears to have been Gregory II who overturned this doctrine. In our own time the slow disintegration of primitive animistic conceptions, aided certainly by the degraded conception of sexual phenomena taught by mediæval monks--for whom woman was "_templum ædificatum super cloacam_"--has led to a disbelief in the more salutary influences of the menstruating woman. A fairly widespread faith in her pernicious influence alone survives. It may be traced even in practical and commercial--one might add, medical--quarters. In the great sugar-refineries in the North of France the regulations strictly forbid a woman to enter the factory while the sugar is boiling or cooling, the reason given being that, if a woman were to enter during her period, the sugar would blacken. For the same reason--to turn to the East--no woman is employed in the opium manufactory at Saigon, it being said that the opium would turn and become bitter, while Annamite women say that it is very difficult for them to prepare opium-pipes during the catamenial period.[370] In India, again, when a native in charge of a limekiln which had gone wrong, declared that one of the women workers must be menstruating, all the women--Hindus, Mahometans, aboriginal Gonds, etc.,--showed by their energetic denials that they understood this superstition.[371] In 1878 a member of the British Medical Association wrote to the _British Medical Journal_, asking whether it was true that if a woman cured hams while menstruating the hams would be spoiled. He had known this to happen twice. Another medical man wrote that if so, what would happen to the patients of menstruating lady doctors? A third wrote (in the _Journal_ for April 27, 1878): "I thought the fact was so generally known to every housewife and cook that meat would spoil if salted at the menstrual period, that I am surprised to see so many letters on the subject in the _Journal_. If I am not mistaken, the question was mooted many years ago in the periodicals. It is undoubtedly the fact that meat will be tainted if cured by women at the catamenial period. Whatever the rationale may be, I can speak positively as to the fact." It is probably the influence of these primitive ideas which has caused surgeons and gynæcologists to dread operations during the catamenial period. Such, at all events, is the opinion of a distinguished authority, Dr. William Goodell, who wrote in 1891[372]: "I have learned to unlearn the teaching that women must not be subjected to a surgical operation during the monthly flux. Our forefathers, from time immemorial, have thought and taught that the presence of a menstruating woman would pollute solemn religious rites, would sour milk, spoil the fermentation in wine-vats, and much other mischief in a general way. Influenced by hoary tradition, modern physicians very generally postpone all operative treatment until the flow has ceased. But why this delay, if time is precious, and it enters as an important factor in the case? I have found menstruation to be the very best time to curette away fungous vegetations of the endometrium, for, being swollen then by the afflux of blood, they are larger than at any other time, and can the more readily be removed. There is, indeed, no surer way of checking or of stopping a metrorrhagia than by curetting the womb during the very flow. While I do not select this period for the removal of ovarian cysts, or for other abdominal work, such as the extirpation of the ovaries, or a kidney, or breaking up intestinal adhesions, etc., yet I have not hesitated to perform these operations at such a time, and have never had reason to regret the course. The only operations that I should dislike to perform during menstruation would be those involving the womb itself." It must be added to this that we still have to take into consideration not merely the surviving influence of ancient primitive beliefs, but the possible existence of actual nervous conditions during the menstrual period, producing what may be described as an abnormal nervous tension. In this way, we are doubtless concerned with a tissue of phenomena, inextricably woven of folk-lore, autosuggestion, false observation, and real mental and nervous abnormality. Laurent (loc. cit.) has brought forward several cases which may illustrate this point. Thus, he speaks of two young girls of about 16 and 17, slightly neuropathic, but without definite hysterical symptoms, who, during the menstrual period, feel themselves in a sort of electrical state, "with tingling and prickling sensations and feelings of attraction or repulsion at the contact of various objects." These girls believe their garments stick to their skin during the periods; it was only with difficulty that they could remove their slippers, though fitting easily; stockings had to be drawn off violently by another person, and they had given up changing their chemises during the period because the linen became so glued to the skin. An orchestral performer on the double-bass informed Laurent that whenever he left a tuned double-bass in his lodgings during his wife's period a string snapped; consequently he always removed his instrument at this time to a friend's house. He added that the same thing happened two years earlier with a mistress, a _café-concert_ singer, who had, indeed, warned him beforehand. A harpist also informed Laurent that she had been obliged to give up her profession because during her periods several strings of her harp, always the same strings, broke, especially when she was playing. A friend of Laurent's, an official in Cochin China, also told him that the strings of his violin often snapped during the menstrual periods of his Annamite mistress, who informed him that Annamite women are familiar with the phenomenon, and are careful not to play on their instruments at this time. Two young ladies, both good violinists, also affirmed that ever since their first menstruation they had noted a tendency for the strings to snap at this period; one, a genuine artist, who often performed at charity concerts, systematically refused to play at these times, and was often embarrassed to find a pretext; the other, who admitted that she was nervous and irritable at such times, had given up playing on account of the trouble of changing the strings so frequently. Laurent also refers to the frequency with which women break things during the menstrual periods, and considers that this is not simply due to the awkwardness caused by nervous exhaustion or hysterical tremors, but that there is spontaneous breakage. Most usually it happens that a glass breaks when it is being dried with a cloth; needles also break with unusual facility at this time; clocks are stopped by merely placing the hand upon them. I do not here attempt to estimate critically the validity of these alleged manifestations (some of which may certainly be explained by the unconscious muscular action which forms the basis of the phenomena of table-turning and thought-reading); such a task may best be undertaken through the minute study of isolated cases, and in this place I am merely concerned with the general influence of the menstrual state in affecting the social position of women, without reference to the analysis of the elements that go to make up that influence. There is only one further point to which attention may be called. I allude to the way in which the more favorable side of the primitive conception of the menstruating woman--as priestess, sibyl, prophetess, an almost miraculous agent for good, an angel, the peculiar home of the divine element--was slowly and continuously carried on side by side with the less favorable view, through the beginnings of European civilization until our own times. The actual physical phenomena of menstruation, with the ideas of taboo associated with that state, sank into the background as culture evolved; but, on the other hand, the ideas of the angelic position and spiritual mission of women, based on the primitive conception of the mystery associated with menstruation, still in some degree persisted. It is evident, however, that, while, in one form or another, the more favorable aspect of the primitive view of women's magic function has never quite died out, the gradual decay and degradation of the primitive view has, on the whole, involved a lower estimate of women's nature and position. Woman has always been the witch; she was so even in ancient Babylonia; but she has ceased to be the priestess. The early Teutons saw "_sanctum aliquid et providum_" in women who, for the mediæval German preacher, were only "_bestiæ bipedales_"; and Schopenhauer and even Nietzsche have been more inclined to side with the preacher than with the half-naked philosophers of Tacitus's day. But both views alike are but the extremes of the same primitive conception; and the gradual evolution from one extreme of the magical doctrine to the other was inevitable. In an advanced civilization, as we see, these ideas having their ultimate basis on the old story of the serpent, and on a special and mysterious connection between the menstruating woman and the occult forces of magic, tend to die out. The separation of the sexes they involve becomes unnecessary. Living in greater community with men, women are seen to possess something, it may well be, but less than before, of the angel-devil of early theories. Menstruation is no longer a monstrific state requiring spiritual taboo, but a normal physiological process, not without its psychic influences on the woman herself and on those who live with her. FOOTNOTES: [353] Several recent works, however, notably Frazer's _Golden Bough_ and Crawley's _Mystic Rose_, throw light directly or indirectly on this question. [354] Robertson Smith points out that since snakes are the last noxious animals which man is able to exterminate, they are the last to be associated with demons. They were ultimately the only animals directly and constantly associated with the Arabian _jinn_, or demon, and the serpent of Eden was a demon, and not a temporary disguise of Satan (_Religion of Semites_, pp. 129 and 442). Perhaps it was, in part, because the snake was thus the last embodiment of demonic power that women were associated with it, women being always connected with the most ancient religious beliefs. [355] In the northern territory of the same colony menstruation is said to be due to a bandicoot scratching the vagina and causing blood to flow (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, p. 177, November, 1894). At Glenelg, and near Portland, in Victoria, the head of a snake was inserted into a virgin's vagina, when not considered large enough for intercourse (Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, vol. ii, p. 319). [356] Frazer, _Golden Bough_, vol. ii, p. 231. Crawley (_The Mystic Rose_, p. 192) also brings together various cases of primitive peoples who believe the bite of a snake to be the cause of menstruation. [357] Meyners d'Estrez, "Etude ethnographique sur le lézard chez les peuples malais et polynésiens," _L'Anthropologie_, 1892; see also, as regards the lizard in Samoan folk-lore, _Globus_, vol. lxxiv, No. 16. [358] _Journal Anthropological Society of Bombay_, 1890, p. 589. [359] Boudin (_Etude Anthropologique: Culte du Serpent_, Paris, 1864, pp. 66-70) brings forward examples of this aspect of snake-worship. [360] Attilio de Marchi, _Il Culto privato di Roma_, p. 74. The association of the power of generation with a god in the form of a serpent is, indeed, common; see, e.g. Sir W.M. Ramsay, _Cities of Phrygia_, vol. i, p. 94. [361] It is noteworthy that one of the names for the penis used by the Swahili women of German East Africa, in a kind of private language of their own, is "the snake" (Zache, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, p. 73, 1899). It may be added that Maeder ("Interprétation de Quelques Rêves," _Archives de Psychologie_, April, 1907) brings forward various items of folk-lore showing the phallic significance of the serpent, as well as evidence indicating that, in the dreams of women of to-day, the snake sometimes has a sexual significance. [362] W.R. Smith, _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_, 1885, p. 307. The point is elaborated in the same author's _Religion of Semites_, second edition, Appendix on "Holiness, Uncleanness, and Taboo," pp. 446-54. See also Wellhausen, _Reste Arabischen Heidentums_, second edition, pp. 167-77. Even to the early Arabians, Wellhausen remarks (p. 168), "clean" meant "profane and allowed," while "unclean" meant "sacred and forbidden." It was the same, as Jastrow remarks (_Religion of Babylonia_, p. 662), among the Babylonian Semites. [363] J.C. Frazer, _The Golden Bough_, Chapter IV. [364] E. Durkheim, "La Prohibition de l'Inceste et ses Origines," _L'Année Sociologique_, Première Année, 1898, esp. pp. 44, 46-47, 48, 50-57. Crawley (_Mystic Rose_, p. 212) opposes Durkheim's view as to the significance of blood in relation to the attitude towards women. [365] _British Association Report on North Western Tribes of Canada_, 1890, p. 581. [366] _Laws of Manu_, iv, 41. [367] Pliny, who, in Book VII, Chapter XIII, and Book XXVIII, Chapter XXIII, of his _Natural History_, gives long lists of the various good and evil influences attributed to menstruation, writes in the latter place: "Hailstorms, they say, whirlwinds, and lightnings, even, will be scared away by a woman uncovering her body while her monthly courses are upon her. The same, too, with all other kinds of tempestuous weather; and out at sea, a storm may be stilled by a woman uncovering her body merely, even though not menstruating at the time. At any other time, also, if a woman strips herself naked while she is menstruating, and walks round a field of wheat, the caterpillars, worms, beetles, and other vermin will fall from off the ears of corn." [368] See Bourke, _Scatologic Rites of all Nations_, 1891, pp. 217-219, 250 and 254; Ploss and Max Bartels, _Das Weib_, vol. i; H.L. Strack, _Der Blutaberglaube in der Menschheit_, fourth edition, 1892, pp. 14-18. The last mentioned refers to the efficacy frequently attributed to menstrual blood in the Middle Ages in curing leprosy, and gives instances, occurring even in Germany to-day, of girls who have administered drops of menstrual blood in coffee to their sweethearts, to make sure of retaining their affections. [369] See, e.g., Dufour, _Histoire de la Prostitution_, vol. iii, p. 115. [370] Dr. L. Laurent gives these instances, "De Quelques Phenomènes Mécaniques produits au moment de la Menstruation," _Annales des Sciences Psychiques_, September and October, 1897. [371] _Journal Anthropological Society of Bombay_, 1890, p. 403. Even the glance of a menstruating woman is widely believed to have serious results. See Tuchmann, "La Fascination," _Mélasine_, 1888, pp. 347 _et seq._ [372] As quoted in the _Provincial Medical Journal_, April, 1891. APPENDIX B. SEXUAL PERIODICITY IN MEN. BY F.H. PERRY-COSTE, B. Sc. (LOND.). In a recent _brochure_ on the "Rhythm of the Pulse"[373] I showed _inter alia_ that the readings of the pulse, in both man and woman, if arranged in lunar monthly periods, and averaged over several years, displayed a clear, and sometimes very strongly marked and symmetrical, rhythm.[374] After pointing out that, in at any rate some cases, the male and female pulse-curves, both monthly and annual, seemed to be converse to one another, I added: "It is difficult to ignore the suggestion that in this tracing of the monthly rhythm of the pulse we have a history of the monthly function in women; and that, if so, the tracing of the male pulse may eventually afford us some help in discovering a corresponding monthly period in men: the existence of which has been suggested by Mr. Havelock Ellis and Professor Stanley Hall, among other writers. Certainly the mere fact that we can trace a clear monthly rhythm in man's pulse seems to point strongly to the existence of a monthly physiological period in him also." Obviously, however, it is only indirectly and by inference that we can argue from a monthly rhythm of the pulse in men to a male sexual periodicity; but I am now able to adduce more direct evidence that will fairly demonstrate the existence of a sexual periodicity in men. We will start from the fact that celibacy is profoundly unnatural, and is, therefore, a physical--as well as an emotional and intellectual--abnormality. This being so, it is entirety in accord with all that we know of physiology that, when relief to the sexual secretory system by Nature's means is denied, and when, in consequence, a certain degree of tension or pressure has been attained, the system should relieve itself by a spontaneous discharge--such discharge being, of course, in the strict sense of the term, pathological, since it would never occur in any animal that followed the strict law of its physical being without any regard to other and higher laws of concern for its fellows. Notoriously, that which we should have anticipated _a priori_ actually occurs; for any unmarried man, who lives in strict chastity, periodically experiences, while sleeping, a loss of seminal fluid--such phenomena being popularly referred to as _wet dreams_.[375] During some eight or ten years I have carefully recorded the occurrence of such discharges as I have experienced myself, and I have now accumulated sufficient data to justify an attempt to formulate some provisional conclusions.[376] In order to render these observations as serviceable as may be to students of periodicity, I here repeat (at the request of Mr. Havelock Ellis) the statement which was subjoined, for the same reasons, to my "Rhythm of the Pulse." These observations upon myself were made between the ages of 20 and 33. I am about 5 feet, 9 inches tall, broad-shouldered, and weigh about 10 stone 3 lbs. _net_--this weight being, I believe, about 7 lbs. below the normal for my height. Also I have green-brown eyes, very dark-brown hair, and a complexion that leads strangers frequently to mistake me for a foreigner--this complexion being, perhaps, attributable to some Huguenot blood, although on the maternal side I am, so far as all information goes, pure English. I can stand a good deal of heat, enjoy relaxing climates, am at once upset by "bracing" sea-air, hate the cold, and sweat profusely after exercise. To this it will suffice to add that my temperament is of a decidedly nervous and emotional type. Before proceeding to remark upon the various rhythms that I have discovered, I will tabulate the data on which my conclusions are founded. The numbers of discharges recorded in the years in question are as follows:-- In 1886, 30. (Records commenced in April.) In 1887, 40. In 1888, 37. In 1889, 18. (Pretty certainly not fully recorded.) In 1890, 0 (No records kept this year.[377]) In 1891, 19. (Records recommenced in June.) In 1892, 35. In 1893, 40. In 1894, 38. In 1895, 36. In 1896, 36. In 1897, 35. Average, 37. (Omitting 1886, 1889, and 1891.) Thus I have complete records for eight years, and incomplete records for three more; and the remarkable concord between the respective annual numbers of observations in these eight years not only affords us intrinsic evidence of the accuracy of my records, but, also, at once proves that there is an undeniable regularity in the occurrence of these sexual discharges, and, therefore, gives us reason for expecting to find this regularity rhythmical. Moreover, since it seemed reasonable to expect that there might be more than one rhythm, I have examined my data with a view to discovering (1) an annual, (2) a lunar-monthly, and (3) a weekly rhythm, and I now proceed to show that all three such rhythms exist. THE ANNUAL RHYTHM. It is obvious that, in searching for an annual rhythm, we must ignore the records of the three incomplete years; but those of the remaining eight are graphically depicted upon Chart 8. The curves speak so plainly for themselves that any comment were almost superfluous, and the concord between the various curves, although, of course, not perfect, is far greater than the scantiness of the data would have justified us in expecting. The curves all agree in pointing to the existence of three well-defined maxima,--viz., in March, June, and September,--these being, therefore, the months in which the sexual instinct is most active; and the later curves show that there is also often a fourth maximum in January. In the earlier years the March and June maxima are more strikingly marked than the September one; but the uppermost curve shows that on the average of all eight years the September maximum is the highest, the June and January maxima occupying the second place, and the March maximum being the least strongly marked of all. Now, remembering that, in calculating the curves of the annual rhythm of the pulse, I had found it necessary to average two months' records together, in order to bring out the full significance of the rhythm, I thought it well to try the effect upon these curves also of similarly averaging two months together. At first my results were fairly satisfactory; but, as my data increased year by year, I found that these curves were contradicting one another, and therefore concluded that I had selected unnatural periods for my averaging. My first attempted remedy was to arrange the months in the pairs December-January, February-March, etc., instead of in January-February, March-April, etc.; but with these pairs I fared no better than with the former. I then arranged the months in the triplets, January-February-March, etc.; and the results are graphically recorded on Chart 7. Here, again, comment would be quite futile, but I need only point out that, _on the whole_, the sexual activity rises steadily during the first nine months in the year to its maximum in September, and then sinks rapidly and abruptly during the next three to its minimum in December. The study of these curves suggests two interesting questions, to neither of which, however, do the data afford us an answer. In the first place, are the alterations, in my case, of the maximum of the discharges from March and June in the earlier years to September in the later, and the interpolation of a new secondary maximum in January, correlated with the increase in age; or is the discrepancy due simply to a temporary irregularity that would have been equally averaged out had I recorded the discharges of 1881-89 instead of those from 1887 to 1897? The second question is one of very great importance--socially, ethically, and physically. How often, in this climate, should a man have sexual connection with his wife in order to maintain himself in perfect physiological equilibrium? My results enable us to state definitely the minimum limits, and to reply that 37 embraces annually would be too few; but, unfortunately, they give us no clue to the maximum limit. It is obvious that the necessary frequency should be greater than 37 times annually,--possibly very considerably in excess thereof,--seeing that the spontaneous discharges, with which we are dealing, are due to over-pressure, and occur only when the system, being denied natural relief, can no longer retain its secretions; and, therefore, it seems very reasonable to suggest that the frequency of natural relief should be some multiple of 37. I do not perceive, however, that the data in hand afford us any clue to this multiple, or enable us to suggest either 2, 3, 4, or 5 as the required multiple of 37. It is true that other observations upon myself have afforded me what I believe to be a fairly satisfactory and reliable answer so far as concerns myself; but these observations are of such a nature that they cannot be discussed here, and I have no inclination to offer as a counsel to others an opinion which I am unable to justify by the citation of facts and statistics. Moreover, I am quite unable to opine whether, given 37 as the annual frequency of spontaneous discharges in a number of men, the multiple required for the frequency of natural relief should be the same in every case. For aught I know to the contrary, the physiological idiosyncrasies of men may be so varied that, given two men with an annual frequency of 37 spontaneous discharges, the desired multiple may be in one case X and in the other 2X.[378] Our data, however, do clearly denote that the frequency in the six or eight summer months should bear to the frequency of the six or four winter months the proportion of three or four to two.[379] It should never be forgotten, however, that, under all conditions, both man and wife should exercise prudence, both _selfward_ and _otherward_, and that each should utterly refuse to gratify self by accepting a sacrifice, however willingly offered, that may be gravely prejudicial to the health of the other; for only experience can show whether, in any union, the receptivity of the woman be greater or less than, or equal to, the _physical_ desire of the man. To those, of course, who regard marriage from the old-fashioned and grossly immoral standpoint of Melancthon and other theologians, and who consider a wife as the divinely ordained vehicle for the chartered intemperance of her husband, it will seem grotesque in the highest degree that a physiological inquirer should attempt to advise them how often to seek the embraces of their wives; but those who regard woman from the standpoint of a higher ethics, who abhor the notion that she should be only the vehicle for her husband's passions, and who demand that she shall be mistress of her own body, will not be ungrateful for any guidance that physiology can afford them. It will be seen presently, moreover, that the study of the weekly rhythm does afford us some less inexact clue to the desired solution. One curious fact may be mentioned before we quit this interesting question. It is stated that "Solon required [of the husband] three _payments_ per month. By the Misna a daily debt was imposed upon an idle vigorous young husband; _twice a week_ on a citizen; once in thirty days on a camel-driver; once in six months on a seaman."[380] Now it is certainly striking that Solon's "three payments per month" exactly correspond with my records of 37 discharges annually. Had Solon similarly recorded a series of observations upon himself? THE LUNAR-MONTHLY RHYTHM. We now come to that division of the inquiry which is of the greatest physiological interest, although of little social import. Is there a monthly period in man as well as in woman? My records indicate clearly that there is. In searching for this monthly rhythm I have utilized not only the data of the eight completely-recorded years, but also those of the three years of 1886, 1889, and 1891, for, although it would obviously have been inaccurate to utilize these incomplete records when calculating the yearly rhythm, there seems no objection to making use of them in the present section of the inquiry. It is hardly necessary to remark that the terms "first day of the month," "second day," "third day," etc., are to be understood as denoting "new-moon day," "day after new moon," "third lunar day," and so on; but it should be explained that, since these discharges occur at night, I have adopted the astronomical, instead of the civil, day; so that a new moon occurring between noon yesterday and noon to-day is reckoned as occurring yesterday, and yesterday is regarded as the first lunar day: thus, a discharge occurring in the night between December 31st and January 1st is tabulated as occurring on December 31st, and, in the present discussion, is assigned to the lunar day comprised between noon of December 31st and noon of January 1st. Since it is obvious that the number of discharges in any one year--averaging, as they do, only 1.25 per day--are far too few to yield a curve of any value, I have combined my data in two series. The dotted curve on Chart 9 is obtained by combining the results of the years 1886-92: two of these years are incompletely recorded, and there are no records for 1890; the total number of observations was 179. The broken curve is obtained by combining those of the years 1893-97, the total number of observations being 185. Even so, the data are far too scanty to yield a really characteristic curve; but the _continuous_ curve, which sums up the results of the eleven years, is more reliable, and obviously more satisfactory. If the two former curves be compared, it will be seen that, on the whole, they display a general concordance, such differences as exist being attributable chiefly to two facts: (1) that the second curve is more even throughout, neither maximum nor minimum being so strongly marked as in the first; and (2) that the main maximum occurs in the middle of the month instead of on the second lunar day, and the absence of the marked initial maximum alters the character of the first week or so of this curve. It is, however, scarcely fair to lay any great stress on the characters of curves obtained from such scanty data, and we will, therefore, pass to the continuous curve, the study of which will prove more valuable.[381] Now, even a cursory examination of this continuous curve will yield the following results:-- 1. The discharges occur most frequently on the second lunar day. 2. The days of the next most frequent discharges are the 22d; the 13th; the 7th, 20th, and 26th; the 11th and 16th; so that, if we regard only the first six of these, we find that the discharges occur most frequently on the 2d, 7th, 13th, 20th, 22d, and 26th lunar days--i.e., the discharges occur most frequently on days separated, on the average, by four-day intervals; but actually the period between the 20th and 22d days is that characterized by the most frequent discharges. 3. The days of minimum of discharge are the 1st, 5th, 15th, 18th, and 21st. 4. The curve is characterized by a continual see-sawing; so that every notable maximum is immediately followed by a notable minimum. Thus, the curve is of an entirely different character from that representing the monthly rhythm of the pulse,[382] and this is only what one might have expected; for, whereas the _mean_ pulsations vary only very slightly from day to day,--thus giving rise to a gradually rising or sinking curve,--a discharge from the sexual system relieves the tension by exhausting the stored-up secretion, and is necessarily followed by some days of rest and inactivity. In the very nature of the case, therefore, a curve of this kind could not possibly be otherwise than most irregular if the discharges tended to occur most frequently upon definite days of the month; and thus the very irregularity of the curve affords us proof that there is a regular male periodicity, such that on certain days of the month there is greater probability of a spontaneous discharge than on any other days. 5. Gratifying, however, though this irregularity of the curve may be, yet it entails a corresponding disadvantage, for we are precluded thereby from readily perceiving the characteristics of the monthly rhythm as a whole. I thought that perhaps this aspect of the rhythm might be rendered plainer if I calculated the data into two-day averages; and the result, as shown in Chart 10, is extremely satisfactory. Here we can at once perceive the wonderful and almost geometric symmetry of the monthly rhythm; indeed, if the third maximum were one unit higher, if the first minimum were one unit lower, and if the lines joining the second minimum and third maximum, and the fourth maximum and fourth minimum, were straight instead of being slightly broken, then the curve would, in its chief features, be geometrically symmetrical; and this symmetry appears to me to afford a convincing proof of the representative accuracy of the curve. We see that the month is divided into five periods; that the maxima occur on the following pairs of days: the 19th-20th, 13th-14th, 25th-26th, 1st-2d, 7th-8th; and that the minima occur at the beginning, end, and exact middle of the month. There have been many idle superstitions as to the influence of the moon upon the earth and its inhabitants, and some beliefs that--once deemed equally idle--have now been re-instated in the regard of science; but it would certainly seem to be a very fascinating and very curious fact if the influence of the moon upon men should be such as to regulate the spontaneous discharges of their sexual system. Certainly the lovers of all ages would then have "builded better than they knew," when they reared altars of devotional verse to that chaste goddess Artemis. THE WEEKLY RHYTHM. We now come to the third branch of our inquiry, and have to ask whether there be any weekly rhythm of the sexual activity. _A priori_ it might be answered that to expect any such weekly rhythm were absurd, seeing that our week--unlike the lunar month of the year--is a purely artificial and conventional period; while, on the other hand, it might be retorted that the existence of an _induced_ weekly periodicity is quite conceivable, such periodicity being induced by the habitual difference between our occupation, or mode of life, on one or two days of the week and that on the remaining days. In such an inquiry, however, _a priori_ argument is futile, as the question can be answered only by an induction from observations, and the curves on Chart 11 (_A_ and _B_) prove conclusively that there is a notable weekly rhythm. The existence of this weekly rhythm being granted, it would naturally be assumed that either the maximum or the minimum would regularly occur on Saturday or Sunday; but an examination of the curves discloses the unexpected result that the day of maximum discharge varies from year to year. Thus it is[383] Sunday in 1888, 1892, 1896. Tuesday in 1894. Thursday in 1886, 1897. Friday in 1887. Saturday in 1893 and 1895. Since, in Chart 11, the curves are drawn from Sunday to Sunday, it is obvious that the real symmetry of the curve is brought out in those years only which are characterized by a Sunday maximum; and, accordingly, in Chart 12 I have depicted the curves in a more suitable form. Chart 12 _A_ is obtained by combining the data of 1888, 1892, and 1896: the years of a Sunday maximum. Curve 12 _B_ represents the results of 1894, the year of a Tuesday maximum--multiplied throughout by three in order to render the curve strictly comparable with the former. Curve 12 _C_ represents 1886 and 1897--the years of a Thursday maximum--similarly multiplied by 1.5. In Curve 12 _D_ we have the results of 1887--the year of a Friday maximum--again multiplied by three; and in Curve 12 _E_ those of 1893 and 1895--the years of a Saturday maximum--multiplied by 1.5. Finally, Curve 12 _F_ represents the combined results of all nine years plus (the latter half of) 1891; and this curve shows that, on the whole period, there is a very strongly marked Sunday maximum. I hardly think that these curves call for much comment. In their general character they display a notable concord among themselves; and it is significant that the most regular of the five curves are _A_ and _E_, representing the combinations of three years and of two years, respectively, while the least regular is _B_, which is based upon the records of one year only. In every case we find that the maximum which opens the week is rapidly succeeded by a minimum, which is itself succeeded by a secondary maximum,--usually very secondary, although in 1894 it nearly equals the primary maximum,--followed again by a second minimum--usually nearly identical with the first minimum,--after which there is a rapid rise to the original maximum. The study of these curves fortunately amplifies the conclusion drawn from our study of the annual rhythm, and suggests that, in at least part of the year, the physiological condition of man requires sexual union at least twice a week. As to Curve 12_F_, its remarkable symmetry speaks for itself. The existence of two secondary maxima, however, has not the same significance as had that of our secondary maximum in the preceding curves; for one of these secondary maxima is due to the influence of the 1894 curve with its primary Tuesday maximum, and the other to the similar influence of Curve _C_ with its primary Thursday maximum. Similarly, the veiled third secondary maximum is due to the influence of Curve _E_. Probably, any student of curves will concede that, on a still larger average, the two secondary maxima of Curve _F_ would be replaced by a single one on Wednesday or Thursday. One more question remains for consideration in connection with this weekly rhythm. Is it possible to trace any connection between the weekly and yearly rhythms of such a character that the weekly day of maximum discharge should vary from month to month in the year; in other words, does the greater frequency of a Sunday discharge characterize one part of the year, that of a Tuesday another, and so on? In order to answer this question I have re-calculated all my data, with results that are graphically represented in Chart 13. These curves prove that the Sunday maxima discharges occur in March and September, and the minima in June; that the Monday maxima discharges occur in September, Friday in July, and so on. Thus, there is a regular rhythm, according to which the days of maximum discharge vary from one month of the year to another; and the existence of this final rhythm appears to me very remarkable. I would especially direct attention to the almost geometric symmetry of the Sunday curve, and to the only less complete symmetry of the Thursday and Friday curves. Certainly in these rhythms we have an ample field for farther study and speculation. I have now concluded my study of this fascinating inquiry; a study that is necessarily incomplete, since it is based upon records furnished by one individual only. The fact, however, that, even with so few observations, and notwithstanding the consequently exaggerated disturbing influence of minor irregularities, such remarkable and unexpected symmetry is evidenced by these curves, only increases one's desire to have the opportunity of handling a series of observations sufficiently numerous to render the generalizations induced from them absolutely conclusive. I would again appeal[384] to heads of colleges to assist this inquiry by enlisting in its aid a band of students. If only one hundred students, living under similar conditions, could be induced to keep such records with scrupulous regularity for only twelve months, the results induced from such a series of observations would be more than ten times as valuable as those which have only been reached after ten years' observations on my part; and, if other centuries of students in foreign and colonial colleges--e.g., in Italy, India, Australia, and America--could be similarly enlisted in this work, we should quickly obtain a series of results exhibiting the sexual needs and sexual peculiarities of the male human animal in various climates. Obviously, however, the records of any such students would be worse than useless unless their care and accuracy, on the one hand, and their habitual chastity, on the other, could be implicitly guaranteed. FOOTNOTES: [373] First published in the _University Magazine and Free Review_ of February, 1898, and since reprinted as a pamphlet. A preliminary communication appeared in _Nature_, May 14, 1891. [374] [Later study (1906) has convinced me that my attempt to find a lunar-monthly period in the female pulse was vitiated by a hopeless error: for any monthly rhythm in a woman must be sought by arranging her records according to her own menstrual month; and this menstrual month may vary in different women, from considerably less than a lunar month to thirty days or more.] [375] I may add, however, that in my own case these discharges are--so far as I can trust my waking consciousness--frequently, if not usually, dreamless; and that strictly sexual dreams are extremely rare, notwithstanding the possession of a strongly emotional temperament. [376] If I can trust my memory, I first experienced this discharge when a few months under fifteen years of age, and, if so, within a few weeks of the time when I was, in an instant, suddenly struck with the thought that possibly the religion in which I had been educated might be false. It is curiously interesting that the advent of puberty should have been heralded by this intellectual crisis. [377] This unfortunate breach in the records was due to the fact that, failing to discover any regularity in, or law of, the occurrences of the discharges, I became discouraged and abandoned my records. In June, 1891, a re-examination of my pulse-records having led to my discovery of a lunar-monthly rhythm of the pulse, my interest in other physiological periodicities was reawakened, and I recommenced my records of these discharges. [378] As a matter of fact, I take it that we may safely assert that no man who is content to be guided by his own instinctive cravings, and who neither suppresses these, on the one hand, nor endeavors to force himself, on the other hand, will be in any danger of erring by either excess or the contrary. [379] [It is obvious that the opportunity of continuing such an inquiry as that described in this Appendix, ceases with marriage; but I may add (1906) that certain notes that I have kept with scrupulous exactness during eight years of married life, lend almost no support to the suggestion made in the text--i.e., that sexual desire is greater at one season of the year than at another. The nature of these notes I cannot discuss; but, they clearly indicate that, although there is a slight degree more of sexual desire in the second and third quarters of the year, than in the first and fourth, yet, this difference is so slight as to be almost negligible. Even if the months be rearranged in the triplets--November-December-January, etc.,--so as to bring the maximum months of May, June, and July together, the difference between the highest quarter and the lowest amounts to an increase of only ten per cent, upon the latter--after allowing, of course, for the abnormal shortness of February; and, neglecting February, the increase in the maximum months (June and July) over the minimum (November) is equal to an increase of under 14 per cent, upon the latter. These differences are so vastly less than those shown on Chart 7 that they possess almost no significance: but, lest too much stress be laid upon the apparently _equalizing_ influence of married life, it must be added that the records discussed in the text were obtained during residence in London, whereas, since my marriage, I have lived in South Cornwall, where the climate is both milder and more equable.] [380] Selden's _Uxor Hebraica_ as quoted in Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_, vol. v, p. 52, of Bonn's edition. [381] I may add that the curve yielded by 1896-97 is remarkably parallel with that yielded by the preceding nine years, but I have not thought it worth while to chart these two additional curves. [382] See "Rhythm of the Pulse," Chart 4. [383] As will be observed, I have omitted the results of the incompletely recorded years of 1889 and 1891. The apparent explanation of this curious oscillation will be given directly. [384] See "Rhythm of the Pulse," p. 21. APPENDIX C. THE AUTO-EROTIC FACTOR IN RELIGION. The intimate association between the emotions of love and religion is well known to all those who are habitually brought into close contact with the phenomena of the religious life. Love and religion are the two most volcanic emotions to which the human organism is liable, and it is not surprising that, when there is a disturbance in one of these spheres, the vibrations should readily extend to the other. Nor is it surprising that the two emotions should have a dynamic relation to each other, and that the auto-erotic impulse, being the more primitive and fundamental of the two impulses, should be able to pass its unexpended energy over to the religious emotion, there to find the expansion hitherto denied it, the love of the human becoming the love of the divine. "I was not good enough for man, And so am given to God." Even when there is absolute physical suppression on the sexual side, it seems probable that thereby a greater intensity of spiritual fervor is caused. Many eminent thinkers seem to have been without sexual desire. It is a noteworthy and significant fact that the age of love is also the age of conversion. Starbuck, for instance, in his very elaborate study of the psychology of conversion shows that the majority of conversions take place during the period of adolescence; that is, from the age of puberty to about 24 or 25.[385] It would be easy to bring forward a long series of observations, from the most various points of view, to show the wide recognition of this close affinity between the sexual and the religious emotions. It is probable, as Hahn points out, that the connection between sexual suppression and religious rites, which we may trace at the very beginning of culture, was due to an instinctive impulse to heighten rather than abolish the sexual element. Early religious rites were largely sexual and orgiastic because they were largely an appeal to the generative forces of Nature to exhibit a beneficial productiveness. Among happily married people, as Hahn remarks, the sexual emotions rapidly give place to the cares and anxieties involved in supporting children; but when the exercise of the sexual function is prevented by celibacy, or even by castration, the most complete form of celibacy, the sexual emotions may pass into the psychical sphere to take on a more pronounced shape.[386] The early Christians adopted the traditional Eastern association between religion and celibacy, and, as the writings of the Fathers amply show, they expended on sexual matters a concentrated fervor of thought rarely known to the Greek and Roman writers of the best period.[387] As Christian theology developed, the minute inquisition into sexual things sometimes became almost an obsession. So far as I am aware, however (I cannot profess to have made any special investigation), it was not until the late Middle Ages that there is any clear recognition of the fact that, between the religious emotions and the sexual emotions, there is not only a superficial antagonism, but an underlying relationship. At this time so great a theologian and philosopher as Aquinas said that it is especially on the days when a man is seeking to make himself pleasing to God that the Devil troubles him by polluting him with seminal emissions. With somewhat more psychological insight, the wise old Knight of the Tower, Landry, in the fourteenth century, tells his daughters that "no young woman, in love, can ever serve her God with that unfeignedness which she did aforetime. For I have heard it argued by many who, in their young days, had been in love that, when they were in the church, the condition and the pleasing melancholy in which they found themselves would infallibly set them brooding over all their tender love-sick longings and all their amorous passages, when they should have been attending to the service which was going on at the time. And such is the property of this mystery of love that it is ever at the moment when the priest is holding our Saviour upon the altar that the most enticing emotions come." After narrating the history of two queens beyond the seas who indulged in amours even on Holy Thursday and Good Friday, at midnight in their oratories, when the lights were put out, he concludes: "Every woman in love is more liable to fall in church or at her devotion than at any other time." The connection between religious emotion and sexual emotion was very clearly set forth by Swift about the end of the seventeenth century, in a passage which it may be worth while to quote from his "Discourse Concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit." After mentioning that he was informed by a very eminent physician that when the Quakers first appeared he was seldom without female Quaker patients affected with nymphomania, Swift continues: "Persons of a visionary devotion, either men or women, are, in their complexion, of all others the most amorous. For zeal is frequently kindled from the same spark with other fires, and from inflaming brotherly love will proceed to raise that of a gallant. If we inspect into the usual process of modern courtship, we shall find it to consist in a devout turn of the eyes, called _ogling_; an artificial form of canting and whining, by rote, every interval, for want of other matter, made up with a shrug, or a hum; a sigh or a groan; the style compact of insignificant words, incoherences, and repetitions. These I take to be the most accomplished rules of address to a mistress; and where are these performed with more dexterity than by the _saints_? Nay, to bring this argument yet closer, I have been informed by certain sanguine brethren of the first class, that in the height and _orgasmus_ of their spiritual exercise, it has been frequent with them[388]; ... immediately after which, they found the _spirit_ to relax and flag of a sudden with the nerves, and they were forced to hasten to a conclusion. This may be farther strengthened by observing with wonder how unaccountably all females are attracted by visionary or enthusiastic preachers, though never so contemptible in their _outward mien_; which is usually supposed to be done upon considerations purely spiritual, without any carnal regards at all. But I have reason to think, the sex hath certain characteristics, by which they form a truer judgment of human abilities and performings than we ourselves can possibly do of each other. Let that be as it will, thus much is certain, that however spiritual intrigues begin, they generally conclude like all others; they may branch upwards toward heaven, but the root is in the earth. Too intense a contemplation is not the business of flesh and blood; it must, by the necessary course of things, in a little time let go its hold, and fall into _matter_. Lovers for the sake of celestial converse, are but another sort of Platonics, who pretend to see stars and heaven in ladies' eyes, and to look or think no lower; but the same _pit_ is provided for both." To come down to recent times, in the last century the head-master of Clifton College, when discussing the sexual vices of boyhood, remarked that the boys whose temperament exposes them to these faults are usually far from destitute of religious feelings; that there is, and always has been, an undoubted co-existence of religion and animalism; that emotional appeals and revivals are far from rooting out carnal sin; and that in some places, as is well known, they seem actually to stimulate, even at the present day, to increased licentiousness.[389] It is not difficult to see how, even in technique, the method of the revivalist is a quasi-sexual method, and resembles the attempt of the male to overcome the sexual shyness of the female. "In each case," as W. Thomas remarks, "the will has to be set aside, and strong suggestive means are used; and in both cases the appeal is not of the conflict type, but of an intimate, sympathetic and pleading kind. In the effort to make a moral adjustment it consequently turns out that a technique is used which was derived originally from sexual life, and the use, so to speak, of the sexual machinery for a moral adjustment involves, in some cases, the carrying over into the general process of some sexual manifestations."[390] The relationship of the sexual and the religious emotions--like so many other of the essential characters of human nature--is seen in its nakedest shape by the alienist. Esquirol referred to this relationship, and, many years ago, J.B. Friedreich, a German alienist of wide outlook and considerable insight, emphasized the connection between the sexual and the religious emotions, and brought forward illustrative cases.[391] Schroeder van der Kolk also remarked: "I venture to express my conviction that we should rarely err if, in a case of religious melancholy, we assumed the sexual apparatus to be implicated."[392] Régis, in France, lays it down that "there exists a close connection between mystic ideas and erotic ideas, and most often these two orders of conception are associated in insanity."[393] Berthier considered that erotic forms of insanity are those most frequently found in convents. Bevan-Lewis points out how frequently religious exaltation occurs at puberty in women, and religious depression at the climacteric, the period of sexual decline.[394] "Religion is very closely allied to love," remarks Savage, "and the love of woman and the worship of God are constantly sources of trouble in unstable youth; it is very interesting to note the frequency with which these two deep feelings are associated."[395] "Closely connected with salacity, particularly in women," remarks Conolly Norman, when discussing mania (Tuke's _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_), "is religious excitement.... Ecstasy, as we see in cases of acute mental disease, is probably always connected with sexual excitement, if not with sexual depravity. The same association is constantly seen in less extreme cases, and one of the commonest features in the conversation of an acutely maniacal woman is the intermingling of erotic and religious ideas." "Patients who believe," remarks Clara Barrus, "that they are the Virgin Mary, the bride of Christ, the Church, 'God's wife,' and 'Raphael's consort,' are sure, sooner or later, to disclose symptoms which show that they are some way or other sexually depraved."[396] Forel, who devotes a chapter of his book _Die Sexuelle Frage_, to the subject, argues that the strongest feelings of religious emotion are often unconsciously rooted in erotic emotion or represent a transformation of such emotion; and, in an interesting discussion (Ch. VI) of this question in his _Sexualleben unserer Zeit_, Bloch states that "in a certain sense we may describe the history of religions as the history of a special manifestation of the human sexual instinct." Ball, Brouardel, Morselli, Vallon and Marie,[397] C.H. Hughes,[398] to mention but a few names among many, have emphasized the same point.[399] Krafft-Ebing deals briefly with the connection between holiness and the sexual emotion, and the special liability of the saints to sexual temptations; he thus states his own conclusions: "Religious and sexual emotional states at the height of their development exhibit a harmony in quantity and quality of excitement, and can thus in certain circumstances act vicariously. Both," he adds, "can be converted into cruelty under pathological conditions."[400] After quoting these opinions it is, perhaps, not unnecessary to point out that, while sexual emotion constitutes the main reservoir of energy on which religion can draw, it is far from constituting either the whole content of religion or its root. Murisier, in an able study of the psychology of religious ecstasy, justly protests against too crude an explanation of its nature, though at the same time he admits that "the passion of the religious ecstatic lacks nothing of what goes to make up sexual love, not even jealousy."[401] Sérieux, in his little work, _Recherches Cliniques sur les Anomalies de l'Instinct Sexuel_, valuable on account of its instructive cases, records in detail a case which so admirably illustrates this phase of auto-erotism on the borderland between ordinary erotic day-dreaming and religious mysticism, the phenomena for a time reaching an insane degree of intensity, that I summarize it. "Thérèse M., aged 24, shows physical stigmata of degeneration. The heredity is also bad; the father is a man of reckless and irregular conduct; the mother was at one time in a lunatic asylum. The patient was brought up in an orphanage, and was a troublesome, volatile child; she treated household occupations with contempt, but was fond of study. Even at an early age her lively imagination attracted attention, and the pleasure which she took in building castles in the air. From the age of seven to ten she masturbated. At her first communion she felt that Jesus would for ever be the one master of her heart. At thirteen, after the death of her mother, she seemed to see her, and to hear her say that she was watching over her child. Shortly afterward she was overwhelmed by a new grief, the death of a teacher for whom she cherished great affection on account of her pure character. On the following day she seemed to see and hear this teacher, and would not leave the house where the body lay. Tendencies to melancholy appeared. Saddened by the funeral ceremonies, exhorted by nuns, fed on mystic revery, she passed from the orphanage to a convent. She devoted herself solely to the worship of Jesus; to be like Jesus, to be near Jesus, became her constant pre-occupations. The Virgin's name was rarely seen in her writings, God's name never. 'I wanted', she said, 'to love Jesus more than any of the nuns I saw, and I even thought that he had a partiality for me.' She was also haunted by the idea of preserving her purity. She avoided frivolous conversation, and left the room when marriage was discussed, such a union being incompatible with a pure life; 'it was my fixed idea for two years to make my soul ever more pure in order to be agreeable to Him; the Beloved is well pleased among the lilies.' "Already, however, in a rudimentary form appeared contrary tendencies [strictly speaking they were not contrary, but related, tendencies]. Beneath the mystic passion which concealed it sexual desire was sometimes felt. At sixteen she experienced emotions which she could not master, when thinking of a priest who, she said, loved her. In spite of all remorse she would have been willing to have relations with him. Notwithstanding these passing weaknesses, the idea of purity always possessed her. The nuns, however, were concerned about her exaltation. She was sent away from the convent, became discouraged, and took a place as a servant, but her fervor continued. Her confessor inspired her with great affection; she sends him tender letters. She would be willing to have relations with him, even though she considers the desire a temptation of the devil. The ground was now prepared for the manifestation of hallucinations. 'One evening in May', she writes, 'after being absorbed in thoughts of my confessor, and feeling discouraged, as I thought that Jesus, whom I loved so much, would have nothing to do with me, "Mother," I cried out, "what must I do to win your son?" My eyes were fixed on the sky, and I remained in a state of mad expectation. It was absurd. I to become the mother of the World! My heart went on repeating: "Yes, he is coming; Jesus is coming!"' The psychic erethism, reverberating on the sensorial and sensory centres, led to genital, auditory, and visual hallucinations, which produced the sensation of sexual connection. 'For the first time I went to bed and was not alone. As soon as I felt that touch, I heard the words: "Fear not, it is I." I was lost in Him whom I loved. For many days I was cradled in a world of pleasure; I saw Him everywhere, overwhelming me with His chaste caresses.' On the following day at mass she seemed to see Calvary before her. 'Jesus was naked and surrounded by a thousand voluptuous imaginations; His arms were loosened from the cross, and he said to me: "Come!" I longed to fly to Him with my body, but could not make up my mind to show myself naked. However, I was carried away by a force I could not control, I threw myself on my Saviour's neck, and felt that all was over between the world and me.' From that day, 'by sheer reasoning,' she has understood everything. Previously she thought that the religious life was a renunciation of the joys of marriage and enjoyment generally; now she understands its object. Jesus Christ desires that she should have relations with a priest; he is himself incarnated in priests; just as St. Joseph was the guardian of the Virgin, so are priests the guardians of nuns. She has been impregnated by Jesus, and this imaginary pregnancy pre-occupies her in the highest degree. From this time she masturbated daily. She cannot even go to communion without experiencing voluptuous sensations. Her delusions having thus become systematized, nothing shakes her tenacity in seeking to carry them out; she attempts at all costs to have relations with her confessor, embraces him, throws herself at his knees, pursues him, and so becomes a cause of scandal. When brought to the asylum, there is intense sexual excitement, and she masturbates a dozen times a day, even when talking to the doctor. The sexual organs are normal, the vulva moist and red, the vagina is painful to touch; the contact of the finger causes erectile turgescence. She has had no rest, she says, since she has learned to love her Jesus. He desires her to have sexual relations with someone, and she cannot succeed; 'all my soul's strength is arrested by this constant endeavor.' Her new surroundings modify her behavior, and now it is the doctor whom she pursues with her obsessions. 'I expected everything from the charity of the priests I have known; I have not deserved what I wanted from them. But is not a doctor free to do everything for the good of the patients intrusted to him by Providence? Cannot a doctor thus devote himself? Since I have tasted the tree of life I am tormented by the desire to share it with a loving friend.' Then she falls in love with an employee, and makes the crudest advances to him, believing that she is thus executing the will of Jesus. 'Necessity makes laws,' she exclaims to him, 'the moments are pressing, I have been waiting too long.' She still speaks of her religious vocation which might be compromised by so long a delay. 'I do not want to get married.' Gradually a transformation took place; the love of God was effaced and earthly love became more intense than ever. 'Quitting the heights in which I wished to soar, I am coming so near to earth that I shall soon fix my desires there.' In a last letter Thérèse recognizes with terror the insanity to which the exaltation of her imagination had led her. 'Now I only believe in God and in suffering; I feel that it is necessary for me to get married.'" Mariani[402] has very fully described a case of erotico-religious insanity (climacteric paranoia on an hysterical basis) in a married woman of 44. During the early stages of her disorder she inflicted all sorts of penances upon herself (fasting, constant prayer, drinking her own urine, cleaning dirty plates with her tongue, etc.). Finally she felt that by her penances she had obtained forgiveness of her sins, and then began a stage of joy and satisfaction during which she believed that she had entered into a state of the most intimate personal relationship with Jesus. She finally recovered. Mariani shows how closely this history corresponds with the histories of the saints, and that all the acts and emotions of this woman can be exactly paralleled in the lives of famous saints.[403] The justice of these comparisons becomes manifest when we turn to the records that have been left by holy persons. A most instructive record from this point of view is the autobiography of Soeur Jeanne des Anges, superior of the Ursulines of Loudun in the seventeenth century.[404] She was clever, beautiful, ambitious, fond of pleasure, still more of power. With this, as sometimes happens, she was highly hysterical, and in the early years of her religious life was possessed by various demons of unchastity and blasphemy with whom for many years she was in constant struggle. She fell in love with a priest of Loudun, Grandier, a man whom she had never even seen, only knowing of him as a powerful and fascinating personality at whose feet all women fell, and she imagined that she and the other nuns of her convent were possessed through his influence. She was thus the cause of the trial and execution of Grandier, a famous case in the annals of witchcraft. In her autobiography Soeur Jeanne describes in detail how the demons assailed her at night, appearing in lascivious attitudes, making indecent proposals, raising the bed-clothes, touching all parts of her body, imploring her to yield to them, and she tells how strong her temptation was to yield. On one night, for instance, she writes: "I seemed to feel someone's breath, and I heard a voice saying: 'The time for resistance has gone by, you must no longer rebel; by putting off your consent to what has been proposed you will be injured; you cannot persist in this resistance; God has subjected you to the demands of a nature which you must satisfy on occasions so urgent.' Then I felt impure impressions in my imagination and disordered movements in my body. I persisted in saying at the bottom of my heart that I would do nothing. I turned to God and asked Him for strength in this extraordinary struggle. Then there was a loud noise in my room, and I felt as if someone had approached me and put his hand into my bed and touched me; and having perceived this I rose, in a state of restlessness, which lasted for a long time afterward. Some days later, at midnight, I began to tremble all over my body as I lay in bed, and to experience much mental anxiety without knowing the cause. After this had lasted for some time I heard noises in various parts of my room; the sheet was twice pulled without entirely uncovering me; the oratory close to my bed was upset. I heard a voice on the left side, toward which I was lying. I was asked if I had thought over the advantageous offer that had been made to me. It was added: 'I have come to know your reply; I will keep my promise if you will give your consent; if, on the contrary, you refuse, you will be the most miserable girl in the world, and all sorts of mischances will happen to you.' I replied: 'If there were no God I would fear those threats; I am consecrated to Him.' It was replied to me: 'You will not get much help from God; He will abandon you.' I replied: 'God is my father; He will take care of me; I have resolved to be faithful to Him.' He said: 'I will give you three days to think over it.' I rose and went to the Holy Sacrament with an anxious mind. Having returned to my room, and being seated on a chair, it was drawn from under me so that I fell on the floor. Then the same things happened again. I heard a man's voice saying lascivious and pleasant things to seduce me; he pressed me to give him room in my bed; he tried to touch me in an indecent way; I resisted and prevented him, calling the nuns who were near my room; the window had been open, it was closed; I felt strong movements of love for a certain person, and improper desire for dishonorable things." She writes again, at a later period: "These impurities and the fire of concupiscence which the evil spirit caused me to feel, beyond all that I can say, forced me to throw myself on to braziers of hot coal, where I would remain for half an hour at a time, in order to extinguish that other fire, so that half my body was quite burnt. At other times, in the depth of winter, I have sometimes passed part of the night entirely naked in the snow, or in tubs of icy water. I have besides often gone among thorns so that I have been torn by them; at other times I have rolled in nettles, and I have passed whole nights defying my enemies to attack me, and assuring them that I was resolved to defend myself with the grace of God." With her confessor's permission, she also had an iron girdle made, with spikes, and wore this day and night for nearly six months until the spikes so entered her flesh that the girdle could only be removed with difficulty. By means of these austerities she succeeded in almost exorcising the demons of unchastity, and a little later, after a severe illness, of which she believed that she was miraculously cured by St. Joseph, she appeared before the world almost as a saint, herself possessing a miraculous power of healing; she traveled through France, bringing healing wherever she went; the king, the queen, and Cardinal Richelieu were at her feet, and so great became the fame of her holiness that her tomb was a shrine for pilgrims for more than a century after her death. It was not until late in life, and after her autobiography terminates, that sexual desire in Soeur Jeanne (though its sting seems never to have quite disappeared) became transformed into passionate love of Jesus, and it is only in her later letters that we catch glimpses of the complete transmutation. Thus, in one of her later letters we read: "I cried with ardor, 'Lord! join me to Thyself, transform Thyself into me!' It seemed to me that that lovable Spouse was reposing in my heart as on His throne. What makes me almost swoon with love and admiration is a certain pleasure which it seems to me that He takes when all my being flows into His, restoring to Him with respect and love all that He has given to me. Sometimes I have permission to speak to our Lord with more familiarity, calling Him my Love, interesting Him in all that I ask of Him, as well for myself as for others." The lives of all the great saints and mystics bear witness to operations similar to those so vividly described by Soeur Jeanne des Anges, though it is very rarely that any saint has so frankly presented the dynamic mechanism of the auto-erotic process. The indications they give us, however, are sufficiently clear. It is enough to refer to the special affection which the mystics have ever borne toward the Song of Songs,[405] and to note how the most earthly expressions of love in that poem enter as a perpetual refrain into their writings.[406] The courage of the early Christian martyrs, it is abundantly evident, was in part supported by an exaltation which they frankly drew from the sexual impulse. Felicula, we are told in the acts of Achilles and Nereus,[407] preferred imprisonment, torture, and death to marriage or pagan sacrifices. When on the rack she was bidden to deny Christianity, she exclaimed: "_Ego non nego amatorem meum!_"--I will not deny my lover who for my sake has eaten gall and drunk vinegar, crowned with thorns, and fastened to the cross. Christian mysticism and its sexual coloring was absorbed by the Islamic world at a very early period and intensified. In the thirteenth century it was reintroduced into Christendom in this intensified form by the genius of Raymond Lull who had himself been born on the confines of Islam, and his "Book of the Lover and the Friend" is a typical manifestation of sexual mysticism which inspired the great Spanish school of mystics a few centuries later. The "delicious agony" the "sweet martyrdom," the strongly combined pleasure and pain experienced by St. Theresa were certainly associated with physical sexual sensations.[408] The case of Marguerite-Marie Alacoque is typical. Jesus, as her autobiography shows, was always her lover, her husband, her dear master; she is betrothed to Him, He is the most passionate of lovers, nothing can be sweeter than His caresses, they are so excessive she is beside herself with the delight of them. The central imagination of the mystic consists essentially, as Ribot remarks, in a love romance.[409] If we turn to the most popular devotional work that was ever written, _The Imitation of Christ_, we shall find that the "love" there expressed is precisely and exactly the love that finds its motive power in the emotions aroused by a person of the other sex. (A very intellectual woman once remarked to me that the book seemed to her "a sort of religious aphrodisiac.") If we read, for instance, Book III, Chapter V, of this work ("De Mirabili affectu Divini amoris"), we shall find in the eloquence of this solitary monk in the Low Countries neither more nor less than the emotions of every human lover at their highest limit of exaltation. "Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, nothing higher, nothing broader, nothing pleasanter, nothing fuller nor better in heaven or in earth. He who loves, flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free and cannot be held. He gives all in exchange for all, and possesses all in all. He looks not at gifts, but turns to the giver above all good things. Love knows no measure, but is fervent beyond all measure. Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of labor, strives beyond its force, reckons not of impossibility, for it judges that all things are possible. Therefore it attempts all things, and therefore it effects much when he who is not a lover fails and falls.... My Love! thou all mine, and I all thine." There is a certain natural disinclination in many quarters to recognize any special connection between the sexual emotions and the religious emotions. But this attitude is not reasonable. A man who is swayed by religious emotions cannot be held responsible for the indirect emotional results of his condition; he can be held responsible for their control. Nothing is gained by refusing to face the possibility that such control may be necessary, and much is lost. There is certainly, as I have tried to indicate, good reason to think that the action and interaction between the spheres of sexual and religious emotion are very intimate. The obscure promptings of the organism at puberty frequently assume on the psychic side a wholly religious character; the activity of the religious emotions sometimes tends to pass over into the sexual region; the suppression of the sexual emotions often furnishes a powerful reservoir of energy to the religious emotions; occasionally the suppressed sexual emotions break through all obstacles. FOOTNOTES: [385] Starbuck, _The Psychology of Religion_, 1899. Also, A.H. Daniels, "The New Life," _American Journal of Psychology_, vol. vi, 1893. Cf. William James, _The Varieties of Religious Experience_. [386] Ed. Hahn, _Demeter und Baubo_, 1896, pp. 50-51. Hahn is arguing for the religious origin of the plough, as a generative implement, drawn by a sacred and castrated animal, the ox. G. Herman, in his _Genesis_, develops the idea that modern religious rites have arisen out of sexual feasts and mysteries. [387] Bloch (_Beiträge zur �tiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Bd. I, p. 98) points out the great interest taken by the saints and ascetics in sex matters. [388] This omission was made by the original publisher of the "Discourse;" several of the most important passages throughout have been similarly cut out. [389] Rev. J.M. Wilson, _Journal of Education_, 1881. At about the same period (1882) Spurgeon pointed out in one of his sermons that by a strange, yet natural law, excess of spirituality is next door to sensuality. Theodore Schroeder has recently brought together a number of opinions of religious teachers, from Henry More the Platonist to Baring Gould, concerning the close relationship between sexual passion and religious passion, _American Journal of Religious Psychology_, 1908. [390] W. Thomas, "The Sexual Element in Sensibility," _Psychological Review_, Jan., 1904. [391] _System der gerichtlichen Psychologie_, second edition, 1842, pp. 266-68; and more at length in his _Allgemeine Diagnostik der psychischen Krankheiten_, second edition, 1832, pp. 247-51. [392] _Handboek van de Pathologie en Therapie der Krankzinnigheid_, 1863, p. 139 of English edition. [393] _Manuel pratique de Médecine mentale_, 1892, p. 31. [394] _Text-book of Mental Diseases_, p. 393. [395] G.H. Savage, _Insanity_, 1886. [396] _American Journal of Insanity_, April, 1895. [397] "Des Psychoses Religieuses," _Archives de Neurologie_, 1897. [398] "Erotopathia," _Alienist and Neurologist_, October, 1893. [399] Reference may be specially made to the interesting chapter on "Délire Religieux" in Icard's _La Femme pendant la Période Menstruelle_, pp. 211-234. [400] _Psychopathia Sexualis_, eighth edition, pp. 8 and 11. Gannouchkine ("La Volupté, la Cruanté et la Religion," _Annales Medico-Psychologique_, 1901, No. 3) has further emphasized this convertibility. [401] E. Murisier, "Le Sentiment Religieux dans l'Extase," _Revue Philosophique_, November, 1898. Starbuck, again (_Psychology of Religion_, Chapter XXX), in a brief discussion of this point, concludes that "the sexual life, although it has left its impress on fully developed religion, seems to have originally given the psychic impulse which called out the latent possibilities of developments, rather than to have furnished the raw material out of which religion was constructed." [402] "Una Santa," _Archivio di Psichiatria_, vol. xix, pp. 438-47, 1898. [403] With regard to the sexual element in the worship of the Virgin, see "Ueber den Mariencultus," L. Feuerbach's _Sammtliche Werke_, Bd. I, 1846. [404] Published for the first time (with a Preface by Charcot) in a volume of the _Bibliothèque Diabolique_, 1886. [405] The Hebrews, themselves, used the same word for the love of woman and for the Divine love (Northcote, _Christianity and Sex Problems_, p. 140). [406] Thus, in St. Theresa's _Conceptos del Amor de Dios_, the words "_Beseme con el beso de su boca_,"--Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth--constantly recur. [407] _Acta Sanctorum_, May 12th. [408] Leuba and Montmorand, in their valuable and detailed studies of Christian mysticism, though differing from each other in some points, are agreed on this; H. Leuba, "Les Tendances Religieuses chez les Mystiques Chrétiens," _Revue Philosophique_, July and Nov., 1902; B. de Montmorand, "L'Erotomanie des Mystiques Chrétiens," id., Oct., 1903. Montmorand points out that physical sexual manifestations were sometimes recognized and frankly accepted by mystics. He quotes from Molinos, a passage in which the famous Spanish quietist states that there is no reason to be disquieted even at the occurrence of pollutions or masturbation, _et etiam pejora_. [409] Ribot, _La Logique des Sentiments_, p. 174. INDEX OF AUTHORS. Abricosoff, G. Addinsell Adler �lian �schines Aëtius Alacoque, M. Albrecht Allin Anagnos Angelucci Anges, Soeur Jeanne des Angus, H.C. Anstie Apuleius Aquinas, St. Thomas Archemholtz Aretæus Aretino Aristophanes Aristotle Arnold, G.J. Aschaffenburg Ashe, T. Ashwell Athenæus Augustine, St. Avicenna Axenfeld Azara Babinsky Bachaumont Baelz Baker, Smith Baldwin, J.M. Ball Ballantyne Ballion Balls-Headley Bancroft, H.H. Baraduc Bargagli Barnes, K. Barrus, Clara Bartels, Max Bastanzi Bastian Batut Bauer, Max Baumann Bazalgette Beard Beard, J. Bechterew Bee, J. Bekkers Bell, Blair Bell, Sanford Berger Bellamy Berkhan Berthier Beukemann Beuttner Bevan-Lewis Biernacki Billuart Binet Binswanger Bishop, Mrs. Blackwell, Elizabeth Blandford Bloch, Iwan Block Blumenbach Boas, F. Boethius Bohnius Bolton, T.L. Bonavia Bond, C.H. Bonnier Bossi Boudin Bourke, J.G. Brachet Brantôme Breuer Briquet Brockman Brouardel Brown, J.D. Brown-Séquard Brunton, Sir Lauder Bryce, T. Buchan, A.P. Büchler Büchner Buffon Bunge Burchard Burdach Burk, F. Burnet Burns, J. Burr Burton, Robert Buxton, D.W. Caiger Callari Calmeil Camerer Cameron Campbell, H. Caramuel Carmichael Carpenter, E. Carrara Casanova Chamberlain, A.F. Chapman, J. Charcot Charrin Chaucer Christian Chrysostom Cicero Clark, Campbell Clement of Alexandria Clement of Rome Clipson Clouston Coe, H.C. Cohn, Hermann Cohn, Salmo Cohnstein Colenso, W. Cook, Capt. Cook, Dr. F. Corre Coryat Crawley, A.E. Crichton-Browne, Sir J. Crooke, W. Croom, Sir J. Halliday Cullen Cullingworth Curr Curschmann Cuvier Cyprian Dallemagne Dalton, E.T. Dalziel Dana Dandinus Daniels Dartigues Darwin, C. Darwin, Erasmus Davidsohn Debreyne Deniker Dennis Denucé Depaul D'Epinay, Mme. Dercum Deslandes Dessoir, Max Dexter Diday Diderot Distant, W.L. Donkin Down, Langdon Dudley Dufour, P. Dugas Dühren, _see_ Bloch, Iwan. Dukes, C. Dulaure Du Maurier Duncan, Matthews Durr Duval, A. Duveyrier Dyer, L. Ellenberger Ellis, Sir A.B. Ellis, Havelock Ellis, Sir W. Ellis, W.G. Emin, Pasha Emminghaus Epicharmus Eram Erb Ernst Esquirol Eulenburg Evans, M.M. Ezekiel Fahne Fasbender Fehling Felkin Féré Fernel Ferrero Ferriani Fewkes, J.W. Findley Fleischmann Fliess Forel Forestus Forster, J.R. Fortini Fothergill, J.M. Fournier Foville Franklin, A. Frazer, J.G. Freeman, R.A. French-Sheldon, Mrs. Freud Friedreich, J.B. Fritsch, G. Fuchs Fürbringer Gaedeken Galen Gall Gant Gardiner, J.S. Garland, Hamlin Gamier Gason Gattel Gehrung Gennep, A. von Gérard-Varet Gerland Gibbon Giessler Giles, A.E. Gillen Gilles de la Tourette Gioffredi Girandeau Godfrey Goepel Goethe Goncourt Goodell, W. Goodman Gould Gourmont, Remy de Gowers, Sir W.R. Grashoff Greenlees Griesinger Grimaldi Grimm, J. Groos Grosse Gruner Grünfeld Gualino Gubernatis Guéniot Guerry Guibout Guise, R.E. Gury Guttceit Guyau Guyot Haddon, A.C. Hahn, E. Haig Hall, Fielding Hall, G. Stanley Haller Hammond, W. Harris, D.F. Hartmann Hawkesworth, J. Haycraft Heape, W. Hegar Helbigius, O. Heifer, J.W. Henle Herman Herodotus Herondas Herrick Hersman Herter Hesiod Hick, P. Hill, S.A. Hinton, James Hippocrates Hirschsprung Hirth, G. Hoche Hohenemser Holder, A.B. Holm Homer Hopkins, H.R. Houssay Howe, J.W. Huchard Hufeland Hughes, C.H. Hummel Hunter, John Hutchinson, Sir J. Hyades Hyrtl Icard Imbert-Goubeyre Jacobi, M.P. Jacobs Jaeger James James, W. Janet, Pierre Jastrow, Morris Jenjko Jerome, St. Jessett Joal Joest Johnston, Sir H.H. Johnstone, A.W. Jolly Jones, Lloyd Jortin Juvenal Kaan Kahlbaum Keill Keith Keller Kellogg Kemble, Fanny Kemsoes Kiernan, J.G. Kind, A. King, A.F.A. Kleinpaul Klemm, K. Kline, L.W. Koch, J.L.A. Koster Kossmann Kowalewsky, M. Kraepelin Krafft-Ebing Krauss, F.S. Krauss, W.C. Krieger Kreichmar Kroner Kulischer Lacassagne Lactantius Lallemand Landouzy Landry Lane Laschi Laupts Laurent, L. Laycock Learoyd, Mabel Lecky Legludic Lentz Lepois, C. Letamendi Letourneau Leuba Leyden Liguori Lippert Lipps Lobsien Loiman Loliée Lombroso, C. Lombroso, P. Lorion Löwenfeld Lucretius Lull, Raymond Luther Luzet Lydston MacDonald, A. MacGillicuddy Mackenzie, J.N. MacLean MacMurchy Maeder Malins Malling-Hansen Man, E.H. Mandeville Mannhardt Mantegazza Marchi, Attilio de Marcuse, J. Mariani Marie, A. Marie, P. Marro Marsh Marshall, F. Marston Martial Martineau Mason, Otis Matignon Maudsley Mayr, G. Melinaud Menjago Mercier Metchnikoff Meteyard Meyners, d'Estrez Michelet Miklucho-Macleay Minovici Mirabeau Mitchell, H.W. Mitford Modigliani Molière Moll Mondière Mongeri Montague, Lady M.W. Montaigne Montmorand Moraglia Morris, R.T. Morselli Mortimer, G. Moryson, Fynes Moses, Julius Müller, R. Murisier Näcke Nansen Négrier Nelson, J. Neugebauer Niceforo Nicolas of Cusa Niebuhr, C. Nietzsche Nipho Norman, Conolly Northcote, H. Oettinger Ogle Oldfield Oliver Omer, Haleby Oribasius Osier Ossendovsky Osterloh Ostwald, Hans Ott, von Overbury, Sir T. Ovid Paget, Sir J. Paget, John Paré, A. Parent-Duchâtelet Parke, T.H. Partridge Passek Paulus, �gineta Pausanias Pearson, K. Pechuel-Loesche Peckham Penta Pepys, S. Perez Perry-Coste Peschel Peyer, A. Peyer, J. Pick Pierracini Pilcz Pitcairn Pitres Plant Plato Plazzon Pliny the Elder Ploss Plutarch Pouchet Pouillet Poulet Power Prat Priestley, Sir W. Procopius Pyle Quetelet Quirós, Bernaldo de Rabelais Raciborski Raffalovich Ramsay, Sir W.M. Rasmussen Ratzel Rauber Raymond Régis Reinach, S. Reinl Rengger Renooz, Mine. Céline Renouvier Restif de la Bretonne Reuss Reverdin Reys Rhys, Sir J. Ribbing Ribot Richelet Richer Richet Riedel Ries Riolan Ritter Rochholz Rohé Rohleder Roland, Mme. Rolfincius Römer, L.S.A.M. von Roos, J. de Rosenbach Rosenstadt Rosenthal Rosner Rosse, Irving Roth, H. Ling Roth, W. Roubaud Rousseau Routh, A. Rudeck Rush Sade, De St. André St. Hilaire, J.G. St. Paul, Dr. Salerni Sanchez, T. Sanctis, Sante de Sanctorius Savage Savill Schemer Schmid-Monnard Schrenck-Notzing Schroeder, T. Schroeder, van der Kolk Schüle Schultz, Alwyn Schulz Schurig Schurtz Schuyten Schwartz Schweinfurth Scott, Colin Seerley Selden Seler Selous, E. Semon Semper Sénancour Sérieux Sergi Shakespeare Shaw, Capel Shufeldt, R.W. Shuttleworth Siebert Sieroshevski Skeat, W.W. Skene Smith, E. Smith, E.H. Smith, F. Smith, Robertson Smith, Theodate Smyth, Brough Sollier Solon Somerville Sonnini Sorel Sormani Soutzo Spencer, Baldwin Spencer, Herbert Spitta Spitzka, E.C. Spurgeon Starbuck Stein, G. Steinen, Karl von den Stendhal Stephenson Stern, B. Sterne Stevens, H.V. Stieda Stirling Stockman Stokes Storer Strack Stratz Stubbs Sudduth Sumner, W.G. Susruta Sutton, Bland Swift Sydenham Tacitus Tait, Lawson Tallemont des Réaux Tardieu Taylor, R.W. Teacher, J. Tertullian Theresa, St. Thomas, W. Thucydides Thurn, Sir E. im Tille Tillier Tilt Tissot Toulouse Tout, Hill Townsend, C.W. Treutler Trousseau Tuchmann Turner Uffelmann Vahness Valera Valleix Vallon Vedeler Velde, van de Velpeau Venette Venturi Viazzi Villagomez Villermay Villermé Virchow Vogel Volkelt Voltaire Voornveld, van Wade, Sir W.F. Wahl Waitz Walker, A. Wappäus Ward, H. Wargentin Warman Wasserschleben Wedge wood Weismann Weisser Wellhausen Wenck West, C. West, J.P. Westcott, Wynn Westermarck Wey, H.D. Wichmann Wiel, Van der Willis Wilson, J.M. Wiltshire, A. Winckel Winkler, G. Winter, J.T. Witkowski Wollstonecraft, M. Wood, H.C. Wraxall, Sir N. Yellowlees Zacchia Zache Zeller INDEX OF SUBJECTS. Africa, modesty in sexual periodicity in Ainu, modesty of American Indians, menstruation in modesty of Anæmia and hysteria Andamanese modesty Animals, breeding season of hysteria in masturbation in modesty in their dislike of dirt Annual sexual rhythm Anus as a centre of modesty Apes, masturbation in menstruation in Arabian festivals Arabs, modesty in their ancient conception of uncleanness Art and auto-erotism Asafoetida in hysteria _Attitudes passionnelles_ Australia, modesty in sexual festivals in Autumn festivals Baboon, menstruation in Babylonian festivals Bashfulness Bathing, promiscuous Beltane fires Bengal, modesty in sexual periodicity in Birds, dreams of Birthrate, periodicity of Bladder, as a source of dreams foreign bodies in periodicity in expulsive force of Blindness in relation to modesty Blood, primitive ideas about supposed virtues of menstrual Blood-pressure Blushing, the significance of Bonfire festivals Borneo, modesty in Bosom in relation to modesty Brazil, modesty in Bread, periodicity in consumption of Breeding season _Brumalia_ Camargo Catholic theologians, on _delectatio morosa_ on erotic dreams on masturbation Celibacy and religion Ceremonial element in religion Chastity in Polynesia Chemical rays and sexual periodicity Childbirth, modesty in Children, masturbation in periodicity of growth in spring fever in their lack of modesty Chimpanzee, menstruation in Chinese modesty Chivalry and modesty Chlorosis and hysteria Christianity, in relation to modesty its attitude towards masturbation Christmas festivals Clothing and modesty Cod-piece Coitus, and ceremonial ritual as a sedative in relation to masturbation in relation to menstruation in relation to modesty often painful in hysteria Conception rate Conduct, periodicity in Continence, importance of Convents, hysteria in Coquetry, function of Courtship, the essential element in Crime, periodicity of Criminals, masturbation among sexual outbursts in Crow, breeding habits of Cycling in relation to sexual excitement Dancing, auto-erotic aspects of Dancing and modesty Darkness in relation to blushing Day-dreaming Deer, breeding habits of _Delectatio morosa_ Denmark, modesty in Diogenes Dionysian festivals Disgust as a factor of modesty _Distillatio_ Dog, breeding season of Drawers, origin of feminine Dreams, and sexual periodicity day erotic Freud on inverted vesical Easter festivals Eating, modesty in Ecbolic curve Economic factor of modesty Elephants, masturbation in Enuresis, nocturnal Epilepsy, anciently confused with hysteria in relation to masturbation Erotic dreams festivals hallucinations Eskimo, menstruation in modesty of sexual habits of Etruscans, modesty among Evil eye and modesty Excretory customs and modesty Eye disorders and masturbation Face as a centre of modesty Fear, modesty based on Ferrets, masturbation in Festivals, erotic Fools, Feast of Foot and modesty Frigidity caused by masturbation Fuegians, modesty of General paralysis, annual curve of _Globus hystericus_ Goethe Gogol Greeks, festivals of modesty among their attitude towards masturbation Growth, periodicity in Hair-pin used in masturbation Hallucinations, erotic Head, covering the Heart disease, monthly rhythm in "Heat" in animals its relation to menstruation Hemicrania, periodicity in Horse exercise and sexual excitement Horses, masturbation in Hottentots, masturbation among Hymen in relation to modesty Hysteria, alleged seasonal prevalence of and chlorosis and masturbation Breuer and Freud on Charcot and coitus often painful in in relation to sexual emotion nocturnal hallucinations of physiological the theory of Iceland, modesty in Illegitimate births, periodicity of Incubus India, conception rate in masturbation in modesty in Infants, masturbation in Insane, masturbation in the modesty in the Insanity and masturbation periodicity of Inversion, dreams in Ireland, modesty in Ishtar Italy, modesty in Japanese, masturbation among modesty of Jealousy in relation to modesty Kadishtu Kierkegaard Lapps, menstruation among modesty of Lizard and women in folk-lore Love largely based on modesty Macaque, menstruation in Malay festivals Maori, modesty Marriage caused by masturbation, aversion to Marriage and the hysterical Masturbation among animals among lower human races among higher human races as a sedative combined with religious emotions in men of genius interrupted in the insane methods of periodicity of prevalence of symptoms and results of May-day festivals Mediæval modesty Medicean Venus, attitude of Menstrual blood, supposed virtues of Menstrual cycle in men Menstruation, among primitive peoples and hysteria and modesty and pregnancy and social position of women as a continuous process as a process of purification cause doubtful euphemisms for in animals occasional absence in health origin of precocity in primitive theory of relation to "heat" relation to ovulation relation to sexual desire Mental energy, periodicity of Metabolism, seasonal influences on _Mittelschmerz_ Mohammedans, attitude towards menstruation modesty of mysticism among Midsummer festivals Monkeys, breeding season of masturbation in menstruation in Moon and masturbation Moral element in modesty Moritz, K.P. Muscular force, periodicity of Mysticism and sexual emotion Nakedness, chaste in its effects in relation to modesty Narcissism Nates as a centre of modesty Negroes, modesty of Nervous diseases and masturbation Neurasthenia and masturbation New England, modesty in New Georgians, modesty among New Guinea, folk-lore of menstruation in modesty in New Hebrides, modesty in New Zealand, modesty in Nicobarese modesty Night-inspiration Novel-reading, alleged sexual periodicity in Obscenity, Roman horror of Oestrus "Onanism," the term Orang-utan, menstruation in Orgasm, spontaneous Ornament as a sexual lure Ovaries with hysteria, alleged association of Ovulation and menstruation Papuans, modesty of sexual periodicity among _Penis suecedaneus_ _Pollutio_ _Pollutio interruptus_ Polynesian modesty Precocity, sexual Pregnancy, menstrual cycle during Prostitutes, hysteria among masturbation in modesty of Prudery Prurience based on modesty Psychic coitus Psychic traumatism Pulse, periodicity of the Railway travelling as cause of sexual excitement Rapes, periodicity of Religion and sexual emotions Revery Rhythm Riding as a cause of sexual excitement Ritual factor of modesty Roland, Mme. Romans, modesty of Rosalia Rousseau Russia, conception rate in modesty in Rest Sacro-pubic region as a centre of modesty St. John's Eve, festival of Samoa Samoyeds, menstruation among Saturnalia Scarlet fever, periodicity of Schools, auto-erotic phenomena in Seasonal periodicity of sexual impulse Seduction and menstruation Seminal emissions during sleep Serpent in folk-lore Sewing-machine as a cause of sexual excitement Sexual anæsthesia induced by masturbation Sexual factor of modesty Sexual desire, in relation to blushing in relation to hysteria in relation to menstruation in relation to modesty in relation to season in women Sexual periodicity in men what we owe to irradiations of Sexual organs viewed differently by savage and civilized peoples Shame, definition and nature of Short sight and modesty Shyness Slang, private Sleep in relation to sexual activity Snake and women in folk-lore Somnambulism of bladder Speech, modesty in Spring, as season of sexual excitement festivals of Swinging, auto-erotic aspects of Succubus Suicide, periodicity of Taboo and menstruation and modesty Tahiti Tammuz festival Theologians, opinions of Theresa, St. Thigh-friction Thumb-sucking Timidity Tight-lacing as a cause of sexual excitement Torres Straits, modesty at Turkish modesty Uncleanness, primitive conception of Uric acid, excretion, periodicity of Urine, incontinence of Urtication, as a form of auto-erotism Valentine's Day Veil, origin of the Vesical dreams Vocabularies, private _Walpurgisnacht_ Weekly sexual rhythm Witches, erotic hallucinations of Womb anciently thought source of hysteria Women, as property in relation to modesty masturbation among menstruation in sexual impulse in their auto-erotic manifestations in sleep their night-inspiration whether more modest than men Year, primitive divisions of Zeus, auto-erotic manifestations in DIAGRAMS I.--The Monthly Ecbolic Curve. II.--The Annual Curve of the Conception-rate in Europe. III.--The Annual Ecbolic Curve. IV.--Curve of the Annual Incidence of Insanity in London. V.--Curve of the Annual Incidence of General Paralysis in Paris (Garnier). VI.--The Suicide-rate in London. VII. VIII. IX.--Lunar-monthly Rhythm of Male Sexual Period. X.--Curves of Lunar-monthly Rhythm as Smoothed by taking Pairs of Days. XIa.--Weekly Rhythm of Male Sexual Period. XIb.--Weekly Rhythm of Male Sexual Period. XII.--Weekly Rhythm of Male Sexual Period. XIII.--Joint Weekly Rhythm of Male Sexual Period, years 1886, 1887, 1888, 1892, 1893, 1894, 1895, 1896, 1897 combined. 
13612	----	STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX, VOLUME III Analysis of the Sexual Impulse Love and Pain The Sexual Impulse in Women by HAVELOCK ELLIS 1927 PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. This volume has been thoroughly revised for the present edition and considerably enlarged throughout, in order to render it more accurate and more illustrative, while bringing it fairly up to date with reference to scientific investigation. Numerous histories have also been added to the Appendix. It has not been found necessary to modify the main doctrines set forth ten years ago. At the same time, however, it may be mentioned, as regards the first study in the volume, that our knowledge of the physiological mechanism of the sexual instinct has been revolutionized during recent years. This is due to the investigations that have been made, and the deductions that have been built up, concerning the part played by hormones, or internal secretions of the ductless glands, in the physical production of the sexual instinct and the secondary sexual characters. The conception of the psychology of the sexual impulse here set forth, while correlated to terms of a physical process of tumescence and detumescence, may be said to be independent of the ultimate physiological origins of that process. But we cannot fail to realize the bearing of physiological chemistry in this field; and the doctrine of internal secretions, since it may throw light on many complex problems presented by the sexual instinct, is full of interest for us. HAVELOCK ELLIS. June, 1913. PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. The present volume of _Studies_ deals with some of the most essential problems of sexual psychology. The _Analysis of the Sexual Impulse_ is fundamental. Unless we comprehend the exact process which is being worked out beneath the shifting and multifold phenomena presented to us we can never hope to grasp in their true relations any of the normal or abnormal manifestations of this instinct. I do not claim that the conception of the process here stated is novel or original. Indeed, even since I began to work it out some years ago, various investigators in these fields, especially in Germany, have deprived it of any novelty it might otherwise have possessed, while at the same time aiding me in reaching a more precise statement. This is to me a cause of satisfaction. On so fundamental a matter I should have been sorry to find myself tending to a peculiar and individual standpoint. It is a source of gratification to me that the positions I have reached are those toward which current intelligent and scientific opinions are tending. Any originality in my study of this problem can only lie in the bringing together of elements from somewhat diverse fields. I shall be content if it is found that I have attained a fairly balanced, general, and judicial statement of these main factors in the sexual instinct. In the study of _Love and Pain_ I have discussed the sources of those aberrations which are commonly called, not altogether happily, "sadism" and "masochism." Here we are brought before the most extreme and perhaps the most widely known group of sexual perversions. I have considered them from the medico-legal standpoint, because that has already been done by other writers whose works are accessible. I have preferred to show how these aberrations may be explained; how they may be linked on to normal and fundamental aspects of the sexual impulse; and, indeed, in their elementary forms, may themselves be regarded as normal. In some degree they are present, in every case, at some point of sexual development; their threads are subtly woven in and out of the whole psychological process of sex. I have made no attempt to reduce their complexity to a simplicity that would be fallacious. I hope that my attempt to unravel these long and tangled threads will be found to make them fairly clear. In the third study, on _The Sexual Impulse in Women_, we approach a practical question of applied sexual psychology, and a question of the first importance. No doubt the sex impulse in men is of great moment from the social point of view. It is, however, fairly obvious and well understood. The impulse in women is not only of at least equal moment, but it is far more obscure. The natural difficulties of the subject have been increased by the assumption of most writers who have touched it--casually and hurriedly, for the most part--that the only differences to be sought in the sexual impulse in man and in woman are quantitative differences. I have pointed out that we may more profitably seek for qualitative differences, and have endeavored to indicate such of these differences as seem to be of significance. In an Appendix will be found a selection of histories of more or less normal sexual development. Histories of gross sexual perversion have often been presented in books devoted to the sexual instinct; it has not hitherto been usual to inquire into the facts of normal sexual development. Yet it is concerning normal sexual development that our ignorance is greatest, and the innovation can scarcely need justification. I have inserted these histories not only because many of them are highly instructive in themselves, but also because they exhibit the nature of the material on which my work is mainly founded. I am indebted to many correspondents, medical and other, in various parts of the world, for much valuable assistance. When they have permitted me to do so I have usually mentioned their names in the text. This has not been possible in the case of many women friends and correspondents, to whom, however, my debt is very great. Nature has put upon women the greater part of the burden of sexual reproduction; they have consequently become the supreme authorities on all matters in which the sexual emotions come into question. Many circumstances, however, that are fairly obvious, conspire to make it difficult for women to assert publicly the wisdom and knowledge which, in matters of love, the experiences of life have brought to them. The ladies who, in all earnestness and sincerity, write books on these questions are often the last people to whom we should go as the representatives of their sex; those who know most have written least. I can therefore but express again, as in previous volumes I have expressed before, my deep gratitude to these anonymous collaborators who have aided me in throwing light on a field of human life which is of such primary social importance and is yet so dimly visible. HAVELOCK ELLIS. Carbis Water, Lelant, Cornwall, England. CONTENTS. ANALYSIS OF THE SEXUAL IMPULSE. Definition of Instinct--The Sexual Impulse a Factor of the Sexual Instinct--Theory of the Sexual Impulse as an Impulse of Evacuation--The Evidence in Support of this Theory Inadequate--The Sexual Impulse to Some Extent Independent of the Sexual Glands--The Sexual Impulse in Castrated Animals and Men--The Sexual Impulse in Castrated Women, After the Menopause, and in the Congenital Absence of the Sexual Glands--The Internal Secretions--Analogy between the Sexual Relationship and that of the Suckling Mother and her Child--The Theory of the Sexual Impulse as a Reproductive Impulse--This Theory Untenable--Moll's Definition--The Impulse of Detumescence--The Impulse of Contrectation--Modification of this Theory Proposed--Its Relation to Darwin's Sexual Selection--The Essential Element in Darwin's Conception--Summary of the History of the Doctrine of Sexual Selection. Its Psychological Aspect--Sexual Selection a Part of Natural Selection--The Fundamental Importance of Tumescence--Illustrated by the Phenomena of Courtship in Animals and in Man--The Object of Courtship is to Produce Sexual Tumescence--The Primitive Significance of Dancing in Animals and Man--Dancing is a Potent Agent for Producing Tumescence--The Element of Truth in the Comparison of the Sexual Impulse with an Evacuation, Especially of the Bladder--Both Essentially Involve Nervous Explosions--Their Intimate and Sometimes Vicarious Relationships--Analogy between Coitus and Epilepsy--Analogy of the Sexual Impulse to Hunger--Final Object of the Impulses of Tumescence and Detumescence. LOVE AND PAIN. I. The Chief Key to the Relationship between Love and Pain to be Found in Animal Courtship--Courtship a Source of Combativity and of Cruelty--Human Play in the Light of Animal Courtship--The Frequency of Crimes Against the Person in Adolescence--Marriage by Capture and its Psychological Basis--Man's Pleasure in Exerting Force and Woman's Pleasure in Experiencing it--Resemblance of Love to Pain even in Outward Expression--The Love-bite--In What Sense Pain May be Pleasurable--The Natural Contradiction in the Emotional Attitude of Women Toward Men--Relative Insensibility to Pain of the Organic Sexual Sphere in Women--The Significance of the Use of the Ampallang and Similar Appliances in Coitus--The Sexual Subjection of Women to Men in Part Explainable as the Necessary Condition for Sexual Pleasure. II. The Definition of Sadism--De Sade--Masochism to some Extent Normal--Sacher-Masoch--No Real Line of Demarcation between Sadism and Masochism--Algolagnia Includes Both Groups of Manifestations--The Love-bite as a Bridge from Normal Phenomena to Algolagnia--The Fascination of Blood--The Most Extreme Perversions are Linked on to Normal Phenomena. III. Flagellation as a Typical Illustration of Algolagnia--Causes of Connection between Sexual Emotion and Whipping--Physical Causes--Psychic Causes Probably More Important--The Varied Emotional Associations of Whipping--Its Wide Prevalence. IV. The Impulse to Strangle the Object of Sexual Desire--The Wish to be Strangled. Respiratory Disturbance the Essential Element in this Group of Phenomena--The Part Played by Respiratory Excitement in the Process of Courtship--Swinging and Suspension--The Attraction Exerted by the Idea of being Chained and Fettered. V. Pain, and not Cruelty, the Essential Element in Sadism and Masochism--Pain Felt as Pleasure--Does the Sadist Identify Himself with the Feelings of his Victim?--The Sadist Often a Masochist in Disguise--The Spectacle of Pain or Struggle as a Sexual Stimulant. VI. Why is Pain a Sexual Stimulant?--It is the Most Effective Method of Arousing Emotion--Anger and Fear the Most Powerful Emotions--Their Biological Significance in Courtship--Their General and Special Effects in Stimulating the Organism--Grief as a Sexual Stimulant--The Physiological Mechanism of Fatigue Renders Pain Pleasurable. VII. Summary of Results Reached--The Joy of Emotional Expansion--The Satisfaction of the Craving for Power--The Influence of Neurasthenic and Neuropathic Conditions--The Problem of Pain in Love Largely Constitutes a Special Case of Erotic Symbolism. THE SEXUAL IMPULSE IN WOMEN. Introduction. I. The Primitive View of Women--As a Supernatural Element in Life--As Peculiarly Embodying the Sexual Instinct--The Modern Tendency to Underestimate the Sexual Impulse in Women--This Tendency Confined to Recent Times--Sexual Anæsthesia--Its Prevalence--Difficulties in Investigating the Subject--Some Attempts to Investigate it--Sexual Anæsthesia Must be Regarded as Abnormal--The Tendency to Spontaneous Manifestations of the Sexual Impulse in Young Girls at Puberty. II. Special Characters of the Sexual Impulse in Women--The More Passive Part Played by Women in Courtship--This Passivity Only Apparent--The Physical Mechanism of the Sexual Process in Women More Complex--The Slower Development of Orgasm in Women--The Sexual Impulse in Women More Frequently Needs to be Actively Aroused--The Climax of Sexual Energy Falls Later in Women's Lives than in Men's--Sexual Ardor in Women increased After the Establishment of Sexual Relationships--Women Bear Sexual Excesses Better than Men--The Sexual Sphere Larger and More Diffused in Women--The Sexual Impulse in Women Shows a Greater Tendency to Periodicity and a Wider Range of Variation. III. Summary of Conclusions. APPENDIX A. The Sexual Instinct in Savages. APPENDIX B. The Development of the Sexual Instinct. INDEX OF AUTHORS. INDEX OF SUBJECTS. ANALYSIS OF THE SEXUAL IMPULSE. Definition of Instinct--The Sexual Impulse a Factor of the Sexual Instinct--Theory of the Sexual Impulse as an Impulse of Evacuation--The Evidence in Support of this Theory Inadequate--The Sexual Impulse to Some Extent Independent of the Sexual Glands--The Sexual Impulse in Castrated Animals and Men--The Sexual Impulse in Castrated Women, after the Menopause, and in the Congenital Absence of the Sexual Glands--The Internal Secretions--Analogy between the Sexual Relationship and that of the Suckling Mother and her Child--The Theory of the Sexual Impulse as a Reproductive Impulse--This Theory Untenable--Moll's Definition--The Impulse of Detumescence--The Impulse of Contrectation--Modification of this Theory Proposed--Its Relation to Darwin's Sexual Selection--The Essential Element in Darwin's Conception--Summary of the History of the Doctrine of Sexual Selection--Its Psychological Aspect--Sexual Selection a Part of Natural Selection--The Fundamental Importance of Tumescence--Illustrated by the Phenomena of Courtship in Animals and in Man--The Object of Courtship is to Produce Sexual Tumescence--The Primitive Significance of Dancing in Animals and Man--Dancing is a Potent Agent for Producing Tumescence--The Element of Truth in the Comparison of the Sexual Impulse with an Evacuation, Especially of the Bladder--Both Essentially Involve Nervous Explosions--Their Intimate and Sometimes Vicarious Relationships--Analogy between Coitus and Epilepsy--Analogy of the Sexual Impulse to Hunger--Final Object of the Impulses of Tumescence and Detumescence. The term "sexual instinct" may be said to cover the whole of the neuropsychic phenomena of reproduction which man shares with the lower animals. It is true that much discussion has taken place concerning the proper use of the term "instinct," and some definitions of instinctive action would appear to exclude the essential mechanism of the process whereby sexual reproduction is assured. Such definitions scarcely seem legitimate, and are certainly unfortunate. Herbert Spencer's definition of instinct as "compound reflex action" is sufficiently clear and definite for ordinary use. A fairly satisfactory definition of instinct is that supplied by Dr. and Mrs. Peckham in the course of their study _On the Instincts and Habits of Solitary Wasps_. "Under the term 'instinct,'" they say, "we place all complex acts which are performed previous to experience and in a similar manner by all members of the same sex and race, leaving out as non-essential, at this time, the question of whether they are or are not accompanied by consciousness." This definition is quoted with approval by Lloyd Morgan, who modifies and further elaborates it (_Animal Behavior_, 1900, p. 21). "The distinction between instinctive and reflex behavior," he remarks, "turns in large degree on their relative complexity," and instinctive behavior, he concludes, may be said to comprise "those complex groups of co-ordinated acts which are, on their first occurrence, independent of experience; which tend to the well-being of the individual and the preservation of the race; which are due to the co-operation of external and internal stimuli; which are similarly performed by all the members of the same more or less restricted group of animals; but which are subject to variation, and to subsequent modification under the guidance of experience." Such a definition clearly justifies us in speaking of a "sexual instinct." It may be added that the various questions involved in the definition of the sexual instinct have been fully discussed by Moll in the early sections of his _Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_. Of recent years there has been a tendency to avoid the use of the term "instinct," or, at all events, to refrain from attaching any serious scientific sense to it. Loeb's influence has especially given force to this tendency. Thus, while Piéron, in an interesting discussion of the question ("Les Problèmes Actuels de l'Instinct," _Revue Philosophique_, Oct., 1908), thinks it would still be convenient to retain the term, giving it a philosophical meaning, Georges Bohn, who devotes a chapter to the notion of instinct (_La Naissance de l'Intelligence_, 1909), is strongly in favor of eliminating the word, as being merely a legacy of medieval theologians and metaphysicians, serving to conceal our ignorance or our lack of exact analysis. It may be said that the whole of the task undertaken in these _Studies_ is really an attempt to analyze what is commonly called the sexual instinct. In order to grasp it we have to break it up into its component parts. Lloyd Morgan has pointed out that the components of an instinct may be regarded as four: first, the internal messages giving rise to the impulse; secondly, the external stimuli which co-operate with the impulse to affect the nervous centers; thirdly, the active response due to the co-ordinate outgoing discharges; and, fourthly, the message from the organs concerned in the behavior by which the central nervous system is further affected.[1] In dealing with the sexual instinct the first two factors are those which we have most fully to discuss. With the external stimuli we shall be concerned in a future volume (IV). We may here confine ourselves mainly to the first factor: the nature of the internal messages which prompt the sexual act. We may, in other words, attempt to analyze the _sexual impulse_. The first definition of the sexual impulse we meet with is that which regards it as an impulse of evacuation. The psychological element is thus reduced to a minimum. It is true that, especially in early life, the emotions caused by forced repression of the excretions are frequently massive or acute in the highest degree, and the joy of relief correspondingly great. But in adult life, on most occasions, these desires can be largely pushed into the background of consciousness, partly by training, partly by the fact that involuntary muscular activity is less imperative in adult life; so that the ideal element in connection with the ordinary excretions is almost a negligible quantity. The evacuation theory of the sexual instinct is, however, that which has most popular vogue, and the cynic delights to express it in crude language. It is the view that appeals to the criminal mind, and in the slang of French criminals the brothel is _le cloaque_. It was also the view implicitly accepted by medieval ascetic writers, who regarded woman as "a temple built over a sewer," and from a very different standpoint it was concisely set forth by Montaigne, who has doubtless contributed greatly to support this view of the matter: "I find," he said, "that Venus, after all, is nothing more than the pleasure of discharging our vessels, just as nature renders pleasurable the discharges from other parts."[2] Luther, again, always compared the sexual to the excretory impulse, and said that marriage was just as necessary as the emission of urine. Sir Thomas More, also, in the second book of _Utopia_, referring to the pleasure of evacuation, speaks of that felt "when we do our natural easement, or when we be doing the act of generation." This view would, however, scarcely deserve serious consideration if various distinguished investigators, among whom Féré may be specially mentioned, had not accepted it as the best and most accurate definition of the sexual impulse. "The genesic need may be considered," writes Féré, "as a need of evacuation; the choice is determined by the excitations which render the evacuation more agreeable."[3] Certain facts observed in the lower animals tend to support this view; it is, therefore, necessary, in the first place, to set forth the main results of observation on this matter. Spallanzani had shown how the male frog during coitus will undergo the most horrible mutilations, even decapitation, and yet resolutely continue the act of intercourse, which lasts from four to ten days, sitting on the back of the female and firmly clasping her with his forelegs. Goltz confirmed Spallanzani's observations and threw new light on the mechanism of the sexual instinct and the sexual act in the frog. By removing various parts of the female frog Goltz found that every part of the female was attractive to the male at pairing time, and that he was not imposed on when parts of a male were substituted. By removing various of the sense-organs of the male Goltz[4] further found that it was not by any special organ, but by the whole of his sensitive system, that this activity was set in action. If, however, the skin of the arms and of the breast between was removed, no embrace took place; so that the sexual sensations seemed to be exerted through this apparatus. When the testicles were removed the embrace still took place. It could scarcely be said that these observations demonstrated, or in any way indicated, that the sexual impulse is dependent on the need of evacuation. Professor Tarchanoff, of St. Petersburg, however, made an experiment which seemed to be crucial. He took several hundred frogs (_Rana temporaria_), nearly all in the act of coitus, and in the first place repeated Goltz's experiments. He removed the heart; but this led to no direct or indirect stoppage of coitus, nor did removal of the lungs, parts of the liver, the spleen, the intestines, the stomach, or the kidneys. In the same way even careful removal of both testicles had no result. But on removing the seminal receptacles coitus was immediately or very shortly stopped, and not renewed. Thus, Tarchanoff concluded that in frogs, and possibly therefore in mammals, the seminal receptacles are the starting-point of the centripetal impulse which by reflex action sets in motion the complicated apparatus of sexual activity.[5] A few years later the question was again taken up by Steinach, of Prague. Granting that Tarchanoff's experiments are reliable as regards the frog, Steinach points out that we may still ask whether in mammals the integrity of the seminal receptacles is bound up with the preservation of sexual excitability. This cannot be taken for granted, nor can we assume that the seminal receptacles of the frog are homologous with the seminal vesicles of mammals. In order to test the question, Steinach chose the white rat, as possessing large seminal vesicles and a very developed sexual impulse. He found that removal of the seminal sacs led to no decrease in the intensity of the sexual impulse; the sexual act was still repeated with the same frequency and the same vigor. But these receptacles, Steinach proceeded to argue, do not really contain semen, but a special secretion of their own; they are anatomically quite unlike the seminal receptacles of the frog; so that no doubt is thus thrown on Tarchanoff's observations. Steinach remarked, however, that one's faith is rather shaken by the fact that in the _Esculenta_, which in sexual life closely resembles _Rana temporaria_, there are no seminal receptacles. He therefore repeated Tarchanoff's experiments, and found that the seminal receptacles were empty before coitus, only becoming gradually filled during coitus; it could not, therefore, be argued that the sexual impulse started from the receptacles. He then extirpated the seminal receptacles, avoiding hemorrhage as far as possible, and found that, in the majority of cases so operated on, coitus still continued for from five to seven days, and in the minority for a longer time. He therefore concluded, with Goltz, that it is from the swollen testicles, not from the seminal receptacles, that the impulse first starts. Goltz himself pointed out that the fact that the removal of the testicles did not stop coitus by no means proves that it did not begin it, for, when the central nervous mechanism is once set in action, it can continue even when the exciting stimulus is removed. By extirpating the testicles some months before the sexual season he found that no coitus occurred. At the same time, even in these frogs, a certain degree of sexual inclination and a certain excitability of the embracing center still persisted, disappearing when the sexual epoch was over. According to most recent writers, the seminal vesicles of mammals are receptacles for their own albuminous secretion, the function of which is unknown. Steinach could find no spermatozoa in these "seminal" sacs, and therefore he proposed to use Owen's name of _glandulæ vesiculares_. After extirpation of these vesicular glands in the white rat typical coitus occurred. But the capacity for _procreation_ was diminished, and extirpation of both _glandulæ vesiculares_ and _glandulæ prostaticæ_ led to disappearance of the capacity for procreation. Steinach came to the conclusion that this is because the secretions of these glands impart increased vitality to the spermatozoa, and he points out that great fertility and high development of the accessory sexual glands go together. Steinach found that, when sexually mature white rats were castrated, though at first they remained as potent as ever, their potency gradually declined; sexual excitement, however, and sexual inclination always persisted. He then proceeded to castrate rats before puberty and discovered the highly significant fact that in these also a quite considerable degree of sexual inclination appeared. They followed, sniffed, and licked the females like ordinary males; and that this was not a mere indication of curiosity was shown by the fact that they made attempts at coitus which only differed from those of normal males by the failure of erection and ejaculation, though, occasionally, there was imperfect erection. This lasted for a year, and then their sexual inclinations began to decline, and they showed signs of premature age. These manifestations of sexual sense Steinach compares to those noted in the human species during childhood.[6] The genesic tendencies are thus, to a certain degree, independent of the generative glands, although the development of these glands serves to increase the genesic ability and to furnish the impulsion necessary to assure procreation, as well as to insure the development of the secondary sexual characters, probably by the influence of secretions elaborated and thrown into the system from the primary sexual glands.[7] Halban ("Die Entstehung der Geschlechtscharaktere," _Archiv für Gynäkologie_, 1903, pp. 205-308) argues that the primary sex glands do not necessarily produce the secondary sex characters, nor inhibit the development of those characteristic of the opposite sex. It is indeed the rule, but it is not the inevitable result. Sexual differences exist from the first. Nussbaum made experiments on frogs (_Rana fusca_), which go through a yearly cycle of secondary sexual changes at the period of heat. These changes cease on castration, but, if the testes of other frogs are introduced beneath the skin of the castrated frogs, Nussbaum found that they acted as if the frog had not been castrated. It is the secretion of the testes which produces the secondary sexual changes. But Nussbaum found that the testicular secretion does not work if the nerves of the secondary sexual region are cut, and that the secretion has no direct action on the organism. Pflüger, discussing these experiments (_Archiv für die Gesammte Physiologie_, 1907, vol. cxvi, parts 5 and 6), disputes this conclusion, and argues that the secretion is not dependent on the action of the nervous system, and that therefore the secondary sexual characters are independent of the nervous system. Steinach has also in later experiments ("Geschlechtstrieb und echt Sekundäre Geschlechtsmerkmale als Folge der innerskretorischen Funktion der Keimdrusen," _Zentralblatt für Physiologie_, Bd. xxiv, Nu. 13, 1910) argued against any local nervous influence. He found in _Rana fusca_ and _esculenta_ that after castration in autumn the impulse to grasp the female persisted in some degrees and then disappeared, reappearing in a slight degree, however, every winter at the normal period of sexual activity. But when the testicular substance of actively sexual frogs was injected into the castrated frogs it exerted an elective action on the sexual reflex, sometimes in a few hours, but the action is, Steinach concludes, first central. The testicular secretion of frogs that were not sexually active had no stimulating action, but if the frogs were sexually active the injection of their central nervous substance was as effective as their testicular substance. In either case, Steinach concludes, there is the removal of an inhibition which is in operation at sexually quiescent periods. Speaking generally, Steinach considers that there is a process of "erotisation" (Erotisieurung) of the nervous center under the influence of the internal testicular secretions, and that this persists even when the primary physical stimulus has been removed. The experience of veterinary surgeons also shows that the sexual impulse tends to persist in animals after castration. Thus the ox and the gelding make frequent efforts to copulate with females in heat. In some cases, at all events in the case of the horse, castrated animals remain potent, and are even abnormally ardent, although impregnation cannot, of course, result.[8] The results obtained by scientific experiment and veterinary experience on the lower animals are confirmed by observation of various groups of phenomena in the human species. There can be no doubt that castrated men may still possess sexual impulses. This has been noted by observers in various countries in which eunuchs are made and employed.[9] It is important to remember that there are different degrees of castration, for in current language these are seldom distinguished. The Romans recognized four different degrees: 1. True _castrati_, from whom both the testicles and the penis had been removed. 2. _Spadones_, from whom the testicles only had been removed; this was the most common practice. 3. _Thlibiæ_, in whom the testicles had not been removed, but destroyed by crushing; this practice is referred to by Hippocrates. 4. _Thlasiæ_, in whom the spermatic cord had simply been cut. Millant, from whose Paris thesis (_Castration Criminelle et Maniaque_, 1902) I take these definitions, points out that it was recognized that _spadones_ remained apt for coitus if the operation was performed after puberty, a fact appreciated by many Roman ladies, _ad seouras libidinationes_, as St. Jerome remarked, while Martial (lib. iv) said of a Roman lady who sought eunuchs: "Vult futui Gallia, non parere." (See also Millant, _Les Eunuques à Travers les Ages_, 1909, and articles by Lipa Bey and Zambaco, _Sexual-Probleme_, Oct. and Dec., 1911.) In China, Matignon, formerly physician to the French legation in Pekin, tells us that eunuchs are by no means without sexual feeling, that they seek the company of women and, he believes, gratify their sexual desires by such methods as are left open to them, for the sexual organs are entirely removed. It would seem probable that, the earlier the age at which the operation is performed, the less marked are the sexual desires, for Matignon mentions that boys castrated before the age of 10 are regarded by the Chinese as peculiarly virginal and pure.[10] At Constantinople, where the eunuchs are of negro race, castration is usually complete and performed before puberty, in order to abolish sexual potency and desire as far as possible. Even when castration is effected in infancy, sexual desire is not necessarily rendered impossible. Thus Marie has recorded the case of an insane Egyptian eunuch whose penis and scrotum were removed in infancy; yet, he had frequent and intense sexual desire with ejaculation of mucus and believed that an invisible princess touched him and aroused voluptuous sensations. Although the body had a feminine appearance, the prostate was normal and the vesiculæ seminales not atrophied.[11] It may be added that Lancaster[12] quotes the following remark, made by a resident for many years in the land, concerning Nubian eunuchs: "As far as I can judge, sex feeling exists unmodified by absence of the sexual organs. The eunuch differs from the man not in the absence of sexual passion, but only in the fact that he cannot fully gratify it. As far as he can approach a gratification of it he does so." In this connection it may be noted that (as quoted by Moll) Jäger attributes the preference of some women--noted in ancient Rome and in the East--for castrated men as due not only to the freedom from risk of impregnation in such intercourse, but also to the longer duration of erection in the castrated. When castration is performed without removal of the penis it is said that potency remains for at least ten years afterward, and Disselhorst, who in his _Die accessorischen Geschlechtsdrüsen der Wirbelthiere_ takes the same view as has been here adopted, mentions that, according to Pelikan (_Das Skopzentum in Rüssland_), those castrated at puberty are fit for coitus long afterward. When castration is performed for surgical reasons at a later age it is still less likely to affect potency or to change the sexual feelings.[13] Guinard concludes that the sexual impulse after castration is relatively more persistent in man than in the lower animals, and is sometimes even heightened, being probably more dependent on external stimuli.[14] Except in the East, castration is more often performed on women than on men, and then the evidence as to the influence of the removal of the ovaries on the sexual emotions shows varying results. It has been found that after castration sexual desire and sexual pleasure in coitus may either remain the same, be diminished or extinguished, or be increased. By some the diminution has been attributed to autosuggestion, the woman being convinced that she can no longer be like other women; the augmentation of desire and pleasure has been supposed to be due to the removal of the dread of impregnation. We have, of course, to take into account individual peculiarities, method of life, and the state of the health. In France Jayle ("Effets physiologiques de la Castration chez la Femme," _Revue de Gynécologie_, 1897, pp. 403-57) found that, among 33 patients in whom ovariotomy had been performed, in 18 sexual desire remained the same, in 3 it was diminished, in 8 abolished, in 3 increased; while pleasure in coitus remained the same in 17, was diminished in 1, abolished in 4, and increased in 5, in 6 cases sexual intercourse was very painful. In two other groups of cases--one in which both ovaries and uterus were removed and another in which the uterus alone was removed--the results were not notably different. In Germany Gläveke (_Archiv für Gynäkologie_, Bd. xxxv, 1889) found that desire remained in 6 cases, was diminished in 10, and disappeared in 11, while pleasure in intercourse remained in 8, was diminished in 10, and was lost in 8. Pfister, again (_Archiv für Gynäkologie_, Bd. lvi, 1898), examined this point in 99 castrated women; he remarks that sexual desire and sexual pleasure in intercourse were usually associated, and found the former unchanged in 19 cases, decreased in 24, lost in 35, never present in 21, while the latter was unchanged in 18 cases and diminished or lost in 60. Keppler (International Medical Congress, Berlin, 1890) found that among 46 castrated women sexual feeling was in no case abolished. Adler also, who discusses this question (_Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, 1904, p. 75 et seq.), criticises Gläveke's statements and concludes that there is no strict relation between the sexual organs and the sexual feelings. Kisch, who has known several cases in which the feelings remained the same as before the operation, brings together (_The Sexual Life of Women_) varying opinions of numerous authors regarding the effects of removal of the ovaries on the sexual appetite. In America Bloom (as quoted in _Medical Standard_, 1896, p. 121) found that in none of the cases of women investigated, in which oöphorectomy had been performed before the age of 33, was the sexual appetite entirely lost; in most of them it had not materially diminished and in a few it was intensified. There was, however, a general consensus of opinion that the normal vaginal secretion during coitus was greatly lessened. In the cases of women over 33, including also hysterectomies, a gradual lessening of sexual feeling and desire was found to occur most generally. Dr. Isabel Davenport records 2 cases (reported in _Medical Standard_, 1895, p. 346) of women between 30 and 35 years of age whose erotic tendencies were extreme; the ovaries and tubes were removed, in one case for disease, in the other with a view of removing the sexual tendencies; in neither case was there any change. Lapthorn Smith (_Medical Record_, vol. xlviii) has reported the case of an unmarried woman of 24 whose ovaries and tubes had been removed seven years previously for pain and enlargement, and the periods had disappeared for six years; she had had experience of sexual intercourse, and declared that she had never felt such extreme sexual excitement and pleasure as during coitus at the end of this time. In England Lawson Tait and Bantock (_British Medical Journal_, October 14, 1899, p. 975) have noted that sexual passion seems sometimes to be increased even after the removal of ovaries, tubes, and uterus. Lawson Tait also stated (_British Gynæcological Journal_, Feb., 1887, p. 534) that after systematic and extensive inquiry he had not found a single instance in which, provided that sexual appetite existed before the removal of the appendages, it was abolished by that operation. A Medical Inquiry Committee appointed by the Liverpool Medical Institute (ibid., p. 617) had previously reported that a considerable number of patients stated that they had suffered a distinct loss of sexual feeling. Lawson Tait, however, throws doubts on the reliability of the Committee's results, which were based on the statements of unintelligent hospital patients. I may quote the following remarks from a communication sent to me by an experienced physician in Australia: "No rule can be laid down in cases in which both ovaries have been extirpated. Some women say that, though formerly passionate, they have since become quite indifferent, but I am of opinion that the majority of women who have had prior sexual experience retain desire and gratification in an equal degree to that they had before operation. I know one case in which a young girl hardly 19 years old, who had been accustomed to congress for some twelve months, had trouble which necessitated the removal of the ovaries and tubes on both sides. Far from losing all her desire or gratification, both were very materially increased in intensity. Menstruation has entirely ceased, without loss of femininity in either disposition or appearance. During intercourse, I am told, there is continuous spasmodic contraction of various parts of the vagina and vulva." The independence of the sexual impulse from the distention of the sexual glands is further indicated by the great frequency with which sexual sensations, in a faint or even strong degree, are experienced in childhood and sometimes in infancy, and by the fact that they often persist in women long after the sexual glands have ceased their functions. In the study of auto-erotism in another volume of these _Studies_ I have brought together some of the evidence showing that even in very young children spontaneous self-induced sexual excitement, with orgasm, may occur. Indeed, from an early age sexual differences pervade the whole nervous tissue. I may here quote the remarks of an experienced gynecologist: "I venture to think," Braxton Hicks said many years ago, "that those who have much attended to children will agree with me in saying that, almost from the cradle, a difference can be seen in manner, habits of mind, and in illness, requiring variations in their treatment. The change is certainly hastened and intensified at the time of puberty; but there is, even to an average observer, a clear difference between the sexes from early infancy, gradually becoming more marked up to puberty. That sexual feelings exist [it would be better to say 'may exist'] from earliest infancy is well known, and therefore this function does not depend upon puberty, though intensified by it. Hence, may we not conclude that the progress toward development is not so abrupt as has been generally supposed?... The changes of puberty are all of them dependent on the primordial force which, gradually gathering in power, culminates in the perfection both of form and of the sexual system, primary and secondary." There appear to have been but few systematic observations on the persistence of the sexual impulse in women after the menopause. It is regarded as a fairly frequent phenomenon by Kisch, and also by Löwenfeld (_Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_, p. 29). In America, Bloom (as quoted in _Medical Standard_, 1896), from an investigation of four hundred cases, found that in some cases the sexual impulse persisted to a very advanced age, and mentions a case of a woman of 70, twenty years past the menopause, who had been long a widow, but had recently married, and who declared that both desire and gratification were as great, if not greater, than before the menopause. Reference may finally be made to those cases in which the sexual impulse has developed notwithstanding the absence, verified or probable, of any sexual glands at all. In such cases sexual desire and sexual gratification are sometimes even stronger than normal. Colman has reported a case in which neither ovaries nor uterus could be detected, and the vagina was too small for coitus, but pleasurable intercourse took place by the rectum and sexual desire was at times so strong as to amount almost to nymphomania. Clara Barrus has reported the case of a woman in whom there was congenital absence of uterus and ovaries, as proved subsequently by autopsy, but the sexual impulse was very strong and she had had illicit intercourse with a lover. She suffered from recurrent mania, and then masturbated shamelessly; when sane she was attractively feminine. Macnaughton-Jones describes the case of a woman of 32 with normal sexual feelings and fully developed breasts, clitoris, and labia, but no vagina or internal genitalia could be detected even under the most thorough examination. In a case of Bridgman's, again, the womb and ovaries were absent, and the vagina small, but coitus was not painful, and the voluptuous sensations were complete and sexual passion was strong. In a case of Cotterill's, the ovaries and uterus were of minute size and functionless, and the vagina was absent, but the sexual feelings were normal, and the clitoris preserved its usual sensibility. Mundé had recorded two similar cases, of which he presents photographs. In all these cases not only was the sexual impulse present in full degree, but the subjects were feminine in disposition and of normal womanly conformation; in most cases the external sexual organs were properly developed.[15] Féré (_L'Instinct sexuel_, p. 241) has sought to explain away some of these phenomena, in so far as they may be brought against the theory that the secretions and excretions of the sexual glands are the sole source of the sexual impulse. The persistence of sexual feelings after castration may be due, he argues, to the presence of the nerves in the cicatrices, just as the amputated have the illusion that the missing limb is still there. Exactly the same explanation has since been put forward by Moll, _Medizinische Klinik_, 1905, Nrs. 12 and 13. In the same way the presence of sexual feelings after the menopause may be due to similar irritation determined by degeneration during involution of the glands. The precocious appearance of the sexual impulse in childhood he would explain as due to an anomaly of development in the sexual organs. Féré makes no attempt to explain the presence of the sexual impulse in the congenital absence of the sexual glands; here, however, Mundé intervenes with the suggestion that it is possible that in most cases "an infinitesimal trace of ovary" may exist, and preserve femininity, though insufficient to produce ovulation or menstruation. It is proper to mention these ingenious arguments. They are, however, purely hypothetical, obviously invented to support a theory. It can scarcely be said that they carry conviction. We may rather agree with Guinard that so great is the importance of reproduction that nature has multiplied the means by which preparation is made for the conjunction of the sexes and the roads by which sexual excitation may arrive. As Hirschfeld puts it, in a discussion of this subject (_Sexual-Probleme_, Feb., 1912), "Nature has several irons in the fire." It will be seen that the conclusions we have reached indirectly involve the assumption that the spinal nervous centers, through which the sexual mechanism operates, are not sufficient to account for the whole of the phenomena of the sexual impulse. The nervous circuit tends to involve a cerebral element, which may sometimes be of dominant importance. Various investigators, from the time of Gall onward, have attempted to localize the sexual instinct centrally. Such attempts, however, cannot be said to have succeeded, although they tend to show that there is a real connection between the brain and the generative organs. Thus Ceni, of Modena, by experiments on chickens, claims to have proved the influence of the cortical centers of procreation on the faculty of generation, for he found that lesions of the cortex led to sterility corresponding in degree to the lesion; but as these results followed even independently of any disturbance of the sexual instinct, their significance is not altogether clear (Carlo Ceni, "L'Influenza dei Centri Corticali sui Fenomeni della Generazione," _Revista Sperimentale di Freniatria_, 1907, fasc. 2-3). At present, as Obici and Marchesini have well remarked, all that we can do is to assume the existence of cerebral as well as spinal sexual centers; a cerebral sexual center, in the strictest sense, remains purely hypothetical. Although Gall's attempt to locate the sexual instinct in the cerebellum--well supported as it was by observations--is no longer considered to be tenable, his discussion of the sexual instinct was of great value, far in advance of his time, and accompanied by a mass of facts gathered from many fields. He maintained that the sexual instinct is a function of the brain, not of the sexual organs. He combated the view ruling in his day that the seat of erotic mania must be sought in the sexual organs. He fully dealt with the development of the sexual instinct in many children before maturity of the sexual glands, the prolongation of the instinct into old age, its existence in the castrated and in the congenital absence of the sexual glands; he pointed out that even with an apparently sound and normal sexual apparatus all sorts of psychic pathological deviations may yet occur. In fact, all the lines of argument I have briefly indicated in the foregoing pages--although when they were first written this fact was unknown to me--had been fully discussed by this remarkable man nearly a century ago. (The greater part of the third volume of Gall's _Sur les Fonctions du Cerveau_, in the edition of 1825, is devoted to this subject. For a good summary, sympathetic, though critical, of Gall's views on this matter, see Möbius, "Ueber Gall's Specielle Organologie," _Schmidt's Jahrbücher der Medicin_, 1900, vol. cclxvii; also _Ausgewahlte Werke_, vol. vii.) It will be seen that the question of the nature of the sexual impulse has been slowly transformed. It is no longer a question of the formation of semen in the male, of the function of menstruation in the female. It has become largely a question of physiological chemistry. The chief parts in the drama of sex, alike on its psychic as on its physical sides, are thus supposed to be played by two mysterious protagonists, the hormones, or internal secretions, of the testes and of the ovary. Even the part played by the brain is now often regarded as chemical, the brain being considered to be a great chemical laboratory. There is a tendency, moreover, to extend the sexual sphere so as to admit the influence of internal secretions from other glands. The thymus, the adrenals, the thyroid, the pituitary, even the kidneys: it is possible that internal secretions from all these glands may combine to fill in the complete picture of sexuality as we know it in men and women.[16] The subject is, however, so complex and at present so little known that it would be hazardous, and for the present purpose it is needless, to attempt to set forth any conclusions. It is sufficiently clear that there is on the surface a striking analogy between sexual desire and the impulse to evacuate an excretion, and that this analogy is not only seen in the frog, but extends also to the highest vertebrates. It is quite another matter, however, to assert that the sexual impulse can be adequately defined as an impulse to evacuate. To show fully the inadequate nature of this conception would require a detailed consideration of the facts of sexual life. That is, however, unnecessary. It is enough to point out certain considerations which alone suffice to invalidate this view. In the first place, it must be remarked that the trifling amount of fluid emitted in sexual intercourse is altogether out of proportion to the emotions aroused by the act and to its after-effect on the organism; the ancient dictum _omne animal post coitum triste_ may not be exact, but it is certain that the effect of coitus on the organism is far more profound than that produced by the far more extensive evacuation of the bladder or bowels. Again, this definition leaves unexplained all those elaborate preliminaries which, both in man and the lower animals, precede the sexual act, preliminaries which in civilized human beings sometimes themselves constitute a partial satisfaction to the sexual impulse. It must also be observed that, unlike the ordinary excretions, this discharge of the sexual glands is not always, or in every person, necessary at all. Moreover, the theory of evacuation at once becomes hopelessly inadequate when we apply it to women; no one will venture to claim that an adequate psychological explanation of the sexual impulse in a woman is to be found in the desire to expel a little bland mucus from the minute glands of the genital tract. We must undoubtedly reject this view of the sexual impulse. It has a certain element of truth and it permits an instructive and helpful analogy; but that is all. The sexual act presents many characters which are absent in an ordinary act of evacuation, and, on the other hand, it lacks the special characteristic of the evacuation proper, the elimination of waste material; the seminal fluid is not a waste material, and its retention is, to some extent perhaps, rather an advantage than a disadvantage to the organism. Eduard von Hartmann long since remarked that the satisfaction of what we call the sexual instinct through an act carried out with a person of the opposite sex is a very wonderful phenomenon. It cannot be said, however, that the conception of the sexual act as a simple process of evacuation does anything to explain the wonder. We are, at most, in the same position as regards the stilling of normal sexual desire as we should be as regards the emptying of the bladder, supposing it were very difficult for either sex to effect this satisfactorily without the aid of a portion of the body of a person of the other sex acting as a catheter. In such a case our thoughts and ideals would center around persons of opposite sex, and we should court their attention and help precisely as we do now in the case of our sexual needs. Some such relationship does actually exist in the case of the suckling mother and her infant. The mother is indebted to the child for the pleasurable relief of her distended breasts; and, while in civilization more subtle pleasures and intelligent reflection render this massive physical satisfaction comparatively unessential to the act of suckling, in more primitive conditions and among animals the need of this pleasurable physical satisfaction is a real bond between the mother and her offspring. The analogy is indeed very close: the erectile nipple corresponds to the erectile penis, the eager watery mouth of the infant to the moist and throbbing vagina, the vitally albuminous milk to the vitally albuminous semen.[17] The complete mutual satisfaction, physical and psychic, of mother and child, in the transfer from one to the other of a precious organized fluid, is the one true physiological analogy to the relationship of a man and a woman at the climax of the sexual act. Even this close analogy, however, fails to cover all the facts of the sexual life. A very different view is presented to us in the definition of the sexual instinct as a reproductive impulse, a desire for offspring. Hegar, Eulenburg, Näcke, and Löwenfeld have accepted this as, at all events, a partial definition.[18] No one, indeed, would argue that it is a complete definition, although a few writers appear to have asserted that it is so sometimes as regards the sexual impulse in women. There is, however, considerable mental confusion in the attempt to set up such a definition. If we define an instinct as an action adapted to an end which is not present to consciousness, then it is quite true that the sexual instinct is an instinct of reproduction. But we do not adequately define the sexual instinct by merely stating its ultimate object. We might as well say that the impulse by which young animals seize food is "an instinct of nutrition." The object of reproduction certainly constitutes no part of the sexual impulse whatever in any animal apart from man, and it reveals a lack of the most elementary sense of biological continuity to assert that in man so fundamental and involuntary a process can suddenly be revolutionized. That the sexual impulse is very often associated with a strong desire for offspring there can be no doubt, and in women the longing for a child--that is to say, the longing to fulfill those functions for which their bodies are constituted--may become so urgent and imperative that we may regard it as scarcely less imperative than the sexual impulse. But it is not the sexual impulse, though intimately associated with it, and though it explains it. A reproductive instinct might be found in parthenogenetic animals, but would be meaningless, because useless, in organisms propagating by sexual union. A woman may not want a lover, but may yet want a child. This merely means that her maternal instincts have been aroused, while her sexual instincts are still latent. A desire for reproduction, as soon as that desire becomes instinctive, necessarily takes on the form of the sexual impulse, for there is no other instinctive mechanism by which it can possibly express itself. A "reproductive instinct," apart from the sexual instinct and apart from the maternal instinct, cannot be admitted; it would be an absurdity. Even in women in whom the maternal instincts are strong, it may generally be observed that, although before a woman is in love, and also during the later stages of her love, the conscious desire for a child may be strong, during the time when sexual passion is at its highest the thought of offspring, under normally happy conditions, tends to recede into the background. Reproduction is the natural end and object of the sexual instinct, but the statement that it is part of the contents of the sexual impulse, or can in any way be used to define that impulse, must be dismissed as altogether inacceptable. Indeed, although the term "reproductive instinct" is frequently used, it is seldom used in a sense that we need take seriously; it is vaguely employed as a euphemism by those who wish to veil the facts of the sexual life; it is more precisely employed mainly by those who are unconsciously dominated by a superstitious repugnance to sex. I now turn to a very much more serious and elaborate attempt to define the constitution of the sexual impulse, that of Moll. He finds that it is made up of two separate components, each of which may be looked upon as an uncontrollable impulse.[19] One of these is that by which the tension of the sexual organs is spasmodically relieved; this he calls the _impulse of detumescence_,[20] and he regards it as primary, resembling the impulse to empty a full bladder. The other impulse is the "instinct to approach, touch, and kiss another person, usually of the opposite sex"; this he terms the _impulse of contrectation_, and he includes under this head not only the tendency to general physical contact, but also the psychic inclination to become generally interested in a person of the opposite sex. Each of these primary impulses Moll regards as forming a constituent of the sexual instinct in both men and women. It seems to me undoubtedly true that these two impulses do correspond to the essential phenomena. The awkward and unsatisfactory part of Moll's analysis is the relation of the one to the other. It is true that he traces both impulses back to the sexual glands, that of detumescence directly, that of contrectation indirectly; but evidently he does not regard them as intimately related to each other; he insists on the fact that they may exist apart from each other, that they do not appear synchronously in youth: the contrectation impulse he regards as secondary; it is, he states, an indirect result of the sexual glands, "only to be understood by the developmental history of these glands and the object which they subserve"; that is to say, that it is connected with the rise of the sexual method of reproduction and the desirability of the mingling of the two sexes in procreation, while the impulse of detumescence arose before the sexual method of reproduction had appeared; thus the contrectation impulse was propagated by natural selection together with the sexual method of reproduction. The impulse of contrectation is secondary, and Moll even regards it as a secondary sexual character. While, therefore, this analysis seems to include all the phenomena and to be worthy of very careful study as a serious and elaborate attempt to present an adequate psychological definition of the sexual impulse, it scarcely seems to me that we can accept it in precisely the form in which Moll presents it. I believe, however, that by analyzing the process a little more minutely we shall find that these two constituents of the sexual impulse are really much more intimately associated than at the first glance appears, and that we need by no means go back to the time when the sexual method of reproduction arose to explain the significance of the phenomena which Moll includes under the term contrectation. To discover the true significance of the phenomena in men it is necessary to observe carefully the phenomena of love-making not only among men, but among animals, in which the impulse of contrectation plays a very large part, and involves an enormous expenditure of energy. Darwin was the first to present a comprehensive view of, at all events a certain group of, the phenomena of contrectation in animals; on his interpretation of those phenomena he founded his famous theory of sexual selection. We are not primarily concerned with that theory; but the facts on which Darwin based his theory lie at the very roots of our subject, and we are bound to consider their psychological significance. In the first place, since these phenomena are specially associated with Darwin's name, it may not be out of place to ask what Darwin himself considered to be their psychological significance. It is a somewhat important question, even for those who are mainly concerned with the validity of the theory which Darwin established on those facts, but so far as I know it has not hitherto been asked. I find that a careful perusal of the _Descent of Man_ reveals the presence in Darwin's mind of two quite distinct theories, neither of them fully developed, as to the psychological meaning of the facts he was collecting. The two following groups of extracts will serve to show this very conclusively: "The lower animals have a sense of beauty," he declares, "powers of discrimination and taste on the part of the female" (p. 211[21]); "the females habitually or occasionally prefer the more beautiful males," "there is little improbability in the females of insects appreciating beauty in form or color" (p. 329); he speaks of birds as the most "esthetic" of all animals excepting man, and adds that they have "nearly the same taste for the beautiful as we have" (p. 359); he remarks that a change of any kind in the structure or color of the male bird "appears to have been admired by the female" (p. 385). He speaks of the female Argus pheasant as possessing "this almost human degree of taste." Birds, again, "seem to have some taste for the beautiful both in color and sound," and "we ought not to feel too sure that the female does not attend to each detail of beauty" (p. 421). Novelty, he says, is "admired by birds for its own sake" (p. 495). "Birds have fine powers of discrimination and in some few instances it can be shown that they have a taste for the beautiful" (p. 496). The "esthetic capacity" of female animals has been advanced by exercise just as our own taste has improved (p. 616). On the other hand, we find running throughout the book quite another idea. Of cicadas he tells us that it is probable that, "like female birds, they are excited or allured by the male with the most attractive voice" (p. 282); and, coming to _Locustidæ_, he states that "all observers agree that the sounds serve either to call or excite the mute females" (p. 283). Of birds he says, "I am led to believe that the females prefer or are most excited by the more brilliant males" (p. 316). Among birds also the males "endeavor to charm or excite their mates by love-notes," etc., and "the females are excited by certain males, and thus unconsciously prefer them" (p. 367), while ornaments of all kinds "apparently serve to excite, attract, or fascinate the female" (p. 394). In a supplemental note, also, written in 1876, five years after the first publication of the _Descent of Man_, and therefore a late statement of his views, Darwin remarks that "no supporter of the principle of sexual selection believes that the females select particular points of beauty in the males; they are merely excited or attracted in a greater degree by one male than by another, and this seems often to depend, especially with birds, on brilliant coloring" (p. 623). Thus, on the one hand, Darwin interprets the phenomena as involving a real esthetic element, a taste for the beautiful; on the other hand, he states, without apparently any clear perception that the two views are quite distinct, that the colors and sounds and other characteristics of the male are not an appeal to any esthetic sense of the female, but an appeal to her sexual emotions, a stimulus to sexual excitement, an allurement to sexual contact. According to the first theory, the female admires beauty, consciously or unconsciously, and selects the most beautiful partner[22]; according to the second theory, there is no esthetic question involved, but the female is unconsciously influenced by the most powerful or complex organic stimulus to which she is subjected. There can be no question that it is the second, and not the first, of these two views which we are justified in accepting. Darwin, it must be remembered, was not a psychologist, and he lived before the methods of comparative psychology had begun to be developed; had he written twenty years later we may be sure he would never have used so incautiously some of the vague and hazardous expressions I have quoted. He certainly injured his theory of sexual selection by stating it in too anthropomorphic language, by insisting on "choice," "preference," "esthetic sense," etc. There is no need whatever to burden any statement of the actual facts by such terms borrowed from human psychology. The female responds to the stimulation of the male at the right moment just as the tree responds to the stimulation of the warmest days in spring. We should but obscure this fact by stating that the tree "chooses" the most beautiful days on which to put forth its young sprouts. In explaining the correlation between responsive females and accomplished males the supposition of esthetic choice is equally unnecessary. It is, however, interesting to observe that, though Darwin failed to see that the love-combats, pursuits, dances, and parades of the males served as a method of stimulating the impulse of contrectation--or, as it would be better to term it, tumescence--in the male himself,[23] he to some extent realized the part thus played in exciting the equally necessary activity of tumescence in the female. The justification for using the term "tumescence," which I here propose, is to be found in the fact that vascular congestion, more especially of the parts related to generation, is an essential preliminary to acute sexual desire. This is clearly brought out in Heape's careful study of the "sexual season" in mammals. Heape distinguishes between the "pro-estrum," or preliminary period of congestion, in female animals and the immediately following "estrus," or period of desire. The latter period is the result of the former, and, among the lower animals at all events, intercourse only takes place during the estrus, not during the pro-estrum. Tumescence must thus be obtained before desire can become acute, and courtship runs _pari passu_ with physiological processes. "Normal estrus," Heape states, "occurs in conjunction with certain changes in the uterine tissue, and this is accompanied by congestion and stimulation or irritation of the copulatory organs.... Congestion is invariably present and is an essential condition.... The first sign of pro-estrum noticed in the lower mammals is a swollen and congested vulva and a general restlessness, excitement, or uneasiness. There are other signs familiar to breeders of various mammals, such as the congested conjunctiva of the rabbit's eye and the drooping ears of the pig. Many monkeys exhibit congestion of the face and nipples, as well as of the buttocks, thighs, and neighboring parts; sometimes they are congested to a very marked extent, and in some species a swelling, occasionally prodigious, of the soft tissues round the anal and generative openings, which is also at the time brilliantly congested, indicates the progress of the pro-estrum.... The growth of the stroma-tissue [in the uterus of monkeys during the pro-estrum] is rapidly followed by an increase in the number and size of the vessels of the stroma; the whole becomes richly supplied with blood, and the surface is flushed and highly vascular. This process goes on until the whole of the internal stroma becomes tense and brilliantly injected with blood.... In all essential points the menstruation or pro-estrum of the human female is identical with that of monkeys.... Estrus is possible only after the changes due to pro-estrum have taken place in the uterus. A wave of disturbance, at first evident in the external generative organs, extends to the uterus, and after the various phases of pro-estrum have been gone through in that organ, and the excitement there is subsiding, it would seem as if the external organs gain renewed stimulus, and it is then that estrus takes place.... In all animals which have been investigated coition is not allowed by the female until some time after the swelling and congestion of the vulva and surrounding tissue are first demonstrated, and in those animals which suffer from a considerable discharge of blood the main portion of that discharge, if not the whole of it, will be evacuated before sexual intercourse is allowed." (W. Heape, "The 'Sexual Season' of Mammals," _Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science_, vol. xliv, Part I, 1900. Estrus has since been fully discussed in Marshall's _Physiology of Reproduction_.) This description clearly brings out the fundamentally vascular character of the process I have termed "tumescence"; it must be added, however, that in man the nervous elements in the process tend to become more conspicuous, and more or less obliterate these primitive limitations of sexual desire. (See "Sexual Periodicity" in the first volume of these _Studies_.) Moll subsequently restated his position with reference to my somewhat different analysis of the sexual impulse, still maintaining his original view ("Analyse des Geschlechtstriebes," _Medizinische Klinik_, Nos. 12 and 13, 1905; also _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, vol. ii, Nos. 9 and 10). Numa Praetorius (_Jahrbuch für Sexeuelle Zwischenstufen_, 1904, p. 592) accepts contrectation, tumescence, and detumescence as all being stages in the same process, contrectation, which he defines as the sexual craving for a definite individual, coming first. Robert Müller (_Sexualbiologie_, 1907, p. 37) criticises Moll much in the same sense as I have done and considers that contrectation and detumescence cannot be separated, but are two expressions of the same impulse; so also Max Katte, "Die Präliminarien des Geschlechtsaktes," _Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, Oct., 1908, and G. Saint-Paul, _L'Homosexualité et les Types Homosexuels_, 1910, p. 390. While I regard Moll's analysis as a valuable contribution to the elucidation of the sexual impulse, I must repeat that I cannot regard it as final or completely adequate. As I understand the process, contrectation is an incident in the development of tumescence, an extremely important incident indeed, but not an absolutely fundamental and primitive part of it. It is equally an incident, highly important though not primitive and fundamental, of detumescence. Contrectation, from first to last; furnishes the best conditions for the exercise of the sexual process, but it is not an absolutely essential part of the process and in the early stages of zoölogical development it had no existence at all. Tumescence and detumescence are alike fundamental, primitive, and essential; in resting the sexual impulse on these necessarily connected processes we are basing ourselves on the solid bedrock of nature. Moreover, of the two processes, tumescence, which in time comes first, is by far the most important, and nearly the whole of sexual psychology is rooted in it. To assert, with Moll, that the sexual process may be analyzed into contrectation and detumescence alone is to omit the most essential part of the process. It is much the same as to analyze the mechanism of a gun into probable contact with the hand, and a more or less independent discharge, omitting all reference to the loading of the gun. The essential elements are the loading and the discharging. Contrectation is a part of loading, though not a necessary part, since the loading may be effected mechanically. But to understand the process of firing a gun and to comprehend the mechanism of the discharge, we must insist on the act of loading and not merely on the contact of the hand. So it is in analyzing the sexual impulse. Contrectation is indeed highly important, but it is important only in so far as it aids tumescence, and so may be subordinated to tumescence, exactly as it may also be subordinated to detumescence. It is tumescence which is the really essential part of the process, and we cannot afford, with Moll, to ignore it altogether. Wallace opposed Darwin's theory of sexual selection, but it can scarcely be said that his attitude toward it bears critical examination. On the one hand, as has already been noted, he saw but one side of that theory and that the unessential side, and, on the other hand, his own view really coincided with the more essential elements in Darwin's theory. In his _Tropical Nature_ he admitted that the male's "persistency and energy win the day," and also that this "vigor and liveliness" of the male are usually associated with intense coloration, while twenty years later (in his _Darwinism_) he admitted also that it is highly probable that the female is pleased or excited by the male's display. But all that is really essential in Darwin's theory is involved, directly or indirectly, in these admissions. Espinas, in 1878, in his suggestive book, _Des Sociétés Animales_, described the odors, colors and forms, sounds, games, parades, and mock battles of animals, approaching the subject in a somewhat more psychological spirit than either Darwin or Wallace, and he somewhat more clearly apprehended the object of these phenomena in producing mutual excitement and stimulating tumescence. He noted the significance of the action of the hermaphroditic snails in inserting their darts into each other's flesh near the vulva in order to cause preliminary excitation. He remarks of this whole group of phenomena: "It is the preliminary of sexual union, it constitutes the first act of it. By it the image of the male is graven on the consciousness of the female, and in a manner impregnates it, so as to determine there, as the effects of this representation descend to the depths of the organism, the physiological modifications necessary to fecundation." Beaunis, again, in an analysis of the sexual sensations, was inclined to think that the dances and parades of the male are solely intended to excite the female, not perceiving, however, that they at the same time serve to further excite the male also.[24] A better and more comprehensive statement was reached by Tillier, who, to some extent, may be said to have anticipated Groos. Darwin, Tillier pointed out, had not sufficiently taken into account the coexistence of combat and courtship, nor the order of the phenomena. Courtship without combat, Tillier argued, is rare; "there is a normal coexistence of combat and courtship."[25] Moreover, he proceeded, force is the chief factor in determining the possession of the female by the male, who in some species is even prepared to exert force on her; so that the female has little opportunity of sexual selection, though she is always present at these combats. He then emphasized the significant fact that courtship takes place long after pairing has ceased, and the question of selection thus been eliminated. The object of courtship, he concluded, is not sexual selection by the female, but the sexual excitement of both male and female, such excitement, he asserted, not only rendering coupling easier, but favoring fecundation. Modesty, also, Tillier further argued, again anticipating Groos, works toward the same end; it renders the male more ardent, and by retarding coupling may also increase the secretions of the sexual glands and favor the chances of reproduction.[26] In a charming volume entitled _The Naturalist in La Plata_ (1892) Mr. W.H. Hudson included a remarkable chapter on "Music and Dancing in Nature." In this chapter he described many of the dances, songs, and love-antics of birds, but regarded all such phenomena as merely "periodical fits of gladness." While, however, we may quite well agree with Mr. Hudson that conscious sexual gratification on the part of the female is not the cause of music and dancing performances in birds, nor of the brighter colors and ornaments that distinguish the male, such an opinion by no means excludes the conclusion that these phenomena are primarily sexual and intimately connected with the process of tumescence in both sexes. It is noteworthy that, according to H.E. Howard ("On Sexual Selection in Birds," _Zoölogist_, Nov., 1903), color is most developed just before pairing, rapidly becoming less beautiful--even within a few hours--after this, and the most beautiful male is most successful in getting paired. The fact that, as Mr. Hudson himself points out, it is at the season of love that these manifestations mainly, if not exclusively, appear, and that it is the more brilliant and highly endowed males which play the chief part in them, only serves to confirm such a conclusion. To argue, with Mr. Hudson, that they cannot be sexual because they sometimes occur before the arrival of the females, is much the same as to argue that the antics of a kitten with a feather or a reel have no relationship whatever to mice. The birds that began earliest to practise their accomplishments would probably have most chance of success when the females arrived. Darwin himself said that nothing is commoner than for animals to take pleasure in practising whatever instinct they follow at other times for some real good. These manifestations are primarily for the sake of producing sexual tumescence, and could not well have been developed to the height they have reached unless they were connected closely with propagation. That they may incidentally serve to express "gladness" one need not feel called upon to question. Another observer of birds, Mr. E. Selous, has made observations which are of interest in this connection. He finds that all bird-dances are not nuptial, but that some birds--the stone-curlew (or great plover), for example--have different kinds of dances. Among these birds he has made the observation, very significant from our present point of view, that the nuptial dances, taken part in by both of the pair, are immediately followed by intercourse. In spring "all such runnings and chasings are, at this time, but a part of the business of pairing, and one divines at once that such attitudes are of a sexual character.... Here we have a bird with distinct nuptial (sexual) and social (non-sexual) forms of display or antics, and the former as well as the latter are equally indulged in by both sexes." (E. Selous, _Bird Watching_, pp. 15-20.) The same author (ibid., pp. 79, 94) argues that in the fights of two males for one female--with violent emotion on one side and interested curiosity on the other--the attitude of the former "might gradually come to be a display made entirely for the female, and of the latter a greater or less degree of pleasurable excitement raised by it, with a choice in accordance." On this view the interest of the female would first have been directed, not to the plumage, but to the frenzied actions and antics of the male. From these antics in undecorated birds would gradually develop the interest in waving plumes and fluttering wings. Such a dance might come to be of a quite formal and non-courting nature. Last, we owe to Professor Häcker what may fairly be regarded, in all main outlines, as an almost final statement of the matter. In his _Gesang der Vögel_ (1900) he gives a very clear account of the evolution of bird-song, which he regards as the most essential element in all this group of manifestations, furnishing the key also to the dancing and other antics. Originally the song consists only of call-cries and recognition-notes. Under the parallel influence of natural selection and sexual selection they become at the pairing season reflexes of excitement and thus develop into methods of producing excitement, in the male by the muscular energy required, and in the female through the ear; finally they become play, though here also it is probable that use is not excluded. Thus, so far as the male bird is concerned, bird-song possesses a primary prenuptial significance in attracting the female, a secondary nuptial significance in producing excitement (p. 48). He holds also that the less-developed voices of the females aid in attaining the same end (p. 51). Finally, bird-song possesses a tertiary extranuptial significance (including exercise play, expression of gladness). Häcker points out, at the same time, that the maintenance of some degree of sexual excitement beyond pairing time may be of value for the preservation of the species, in case of disturbance during breeding and consequent necessity for commencing breeding over again. Such a theory as this fairly coincides with the views brought forward in the preceding pages,--views which are believed to be in harmony with the general trend of thought today,--since it emphasizes the importance of tumescence and all that favors tumescence in the sexual process. The so-called esthetic element in sexual selection is only indirectly of importance. The male's beauty is really a symbol of his force. It will be seen that this attitude toward the facts of tumescence among birds and other animals includes the recognition of dances, songs, etc., as expressions of "gladness." As such they are closely comparable to the art manifestations among human races. Here, as Weismann in his _Gedanken über Musik_ has remarked, we may regard the artistic faculty as a by-product: "This [musical] faculty is, as it were, the mental hand with which we play on our own emotional nature, a hand not shaped for this purpose, not due to the necessity for the enjoyment of music, but owing its origin to entirely different requirements." The psychological significance of these facts has been carefully studied and admirably developed by Groos in his classic works on the play instinct in animals and in men.[27] Going beyond Wallace, Groos denies _conscious_ sexual selection, but, as he points out, this by no means involves the denial of unconscious selection in the sense that "the female is most easily won by the male who most strongly excites her sexual instincts." Groos further quotes a pregnant generalization of Ziegler: "In all animals a high degree of excitement of the nervous system is _necessary to procreation_, and thus we find an excited prelude to procreation widely spread."[28] Such a stage, indeed, as Groos points out, is usually necessary before any markedly passionate discharge of motor energy, as may be observed in angry dogs and the Homeric heroes. While, however, in other motor explosions the prelude may be reduced to a minimum, in courtship it is found in a highly marked degree. The primary object of courtship, Groos insists, is to produce sexual excitement. It is true that Groos's main propositions were by no means novel. Thus, as I have pointed out, he was at most points anticipated by Tillier. But Groos developed the argument in so masterly a manner, and with so many wide-ranging illustrations, that he has carried conviction where the mere insight of others had passed unperceived. Since Darwin wrote the _Descent of Man_ the chief step in the development of the theory of sexual selection has been taken by Groos, who has at the same time made it clear that sexual selection is largely a special case of natural selection.[29] The conjunction of the sexes is seen to be an end only to be obtained with much struggle; the difficulty of achieving sexual erethism in both sexes, the difficulty of so stimulating such erethism in the female that her instinctive coyness is overcome, these difficulties the best and most vigorous males,[30] those most adapted in other respects to carry on the race, may most easily overcome. In this connection we may note what Marro has said in another connection, when attempting to answer the question why it is that among savages courtship becomes so often a matter in which persuasion takes the form of force. The explanation, he remarks, is yet very simple. Force is the foundation of virility, and its psychic manifestation is courage. In the struggle for life violence is the first virtue. The modesty of women--in its primordial form consisting in physical resistance, active or passive, to the assaults of the male--aided selection by putting to the test man's most important quality, force. Thus it is that when choosing among rivals for her favors a woman attributes value to violence.[31] Marro thus independently confirms the result reached by Groos. The debate which has for so many years been proceeding concerning the validity of the theory of sexual selection may now be said to be brought to an end. Those who supported Darwin and those who opposed him were, both alike, in part right and in part wrong, and it is now possible to combine the elements of truth on either side into a coherent whole. This is now beginning to be widely recognized; Lloyd Morgan,[32] for instance, has readjusted his position as regards the "pairing instinct" in the light of Groos's contribution to the subject. "The hypothesis of sexual selection," he concludes, "suggests that the accepted male is the one which adequately evokes the pairing impulse.... Courtship may thus be regarded from the physiological point of view as a means of producing the requisite amount of pairing hunger; of stimulating the whole system and facilitating general and special vascular changes; of creating that state of profound and explosive irritability which has for its psychological concomitant or antecedent an imperious and irresistible craving.... Courtship is thus the strong and steady bending of the bow that the arrow may find its mark in a biological end of the highest importance in the survival of a healthy and vigorous race." Having thus viewed the matter broadly, we may consider in detail a few examples of the process of tumescence among the lower animals and man, for, as will be seen, the process in both is identical. As regards animal courtship, the best treasury of facts is Brehm's _Thierleben_, while Büchner's _Liebe und Liebes-Leben in der Thierwelt_ is a useful summary; the admirable discussion of bird-dancing and other forms of courtship in Häcker's _Gesang der Vögel_, chapter iv, may also be consulted. As regards man, Wallaschek's _Primitive Music_, chapter vii, brings together much scattered material, and is all the more valuable since the author rejects any form of sexual selection; Hirn's _Origins of Art_, chapter xvii, is well worth reading, and Finck's _Primitive Love and Love-stories_ contains a large amount of miscellaneous information. I have preferred not to draw on any of these easily accessible sources (except that in one or two cases I have utilized references they supplied), but here simply furnish illustrations met with in the course of my own reading. Even in the hermaphroditic slugs (_Limax maximus_) the process of courtship is slow and elaborate. It has been described by James Bladon ("The Loves of the Slug [_Limax cinereus_]," _Zoölogist_, vol. xv, 1857, p. 6272). It begins toward midnight on sultry summer nights, one slug slowly following another, resting its mouth on what may be called the tail of the first, and following its every movement. Finally they stop and begin crawling around each other, emitting large quantities of mucus. When this has constituted a mass of sufficient size and consistence they suspend themselves from it by a cord of mucus from nine to fifteen inches in length, continuing to turn round each other till their bodies form a cone. Then the organs of generation are protruded from their orifice near the mouth and, hanging down a short distance, touch each other. They also then begin again the same spiral motion, twisting around each other, like a two-strand cord, assuming various and beautiful forms, sometimes like an inverted agaric, or a foliated murex, or a leaf of curled parsley, the light falling on the ever-varying surface of the generative organs sometimes producing iridescence. It is not until after a considerable time that the organs untwist and are withdrawn and the bodies separate, to crawl up the suspending cord and depart. Some snails have a special organ for creating sexual excitement. A remarkable part of the reproductive system in many of the true Helicidæ is the so-called _dart, Liebespfeil_, or _telum Veneris_. It consists of a straight or curved, sometimes slightly twisted, tubular shaft of carbonate of lime, tapering to a fine point above, and enlarging gradually, more often somewhat abruptly, to the base. The sides of the shaft are sometimes furnished with two or more blades; these are apparently not for cutting purposes, but simply to brace the stem. The dart is contained in a dart-sac, which is attached as a sort of pocket to the vagina, at no great distance from its orifice. In _Helix aspersa_ the dart is about five-sixteenths of an inch in length, and one-eighth of an inch in breadth at its base. It appears most probable that the dart is employed as an adjunct for the sexual act. Besides the fact of the position of the dart-sac anatomically, we find that the darts are extended and become imbedded in the flesh, just before or during the act of copulation. It may be regarded, then, as an organ whose functions induce excitement preparatory to sexual union. It only occurs in well-grown specimens. (Rev. L.H. Cooke, "Molluscs," _Cambridge Natural History_, vol. iii, p. 143.) Racovitza has shown that in the octopus (_Octopus vulgaris_) courtship is carried on with considerable delicacy, and not brutally, as had previously been supposed. The male gently stretches out his third arm on the right and caresses the female with its extremity, eventually passing it into the chamber formed by the mantle. The female contracts spasmodically, but does not attempt to move. They remain thus about an hour or more, and during this time the male shifts the arm from one oviduct to the other. Finally he withdraws his arm, caresses her with it for a few moments, and then replaces it with his other arm. (E.G. Racovitza, in _Archives de Zoölogie Expérimentale_, quoted in _Natural Science_, November, 1894.) The phenomena of courtship are very well illustrated by spiders. Peckham, who has carefully studied them, tells us of _Saitis pulex_: "On May 24th we found a mature female, and placed her in one of the larger boxes, and the next day we put a male in with her. He saw her as she stood perfectly still, twelve inches away; the glance seemed to excite him, and he at once moved toward her; when some four inches from her he stood still, and then began the most remarkable performances that an amorous male could offer to an admiring female. She eyed him eagerly, changing her position from time to time so that he might be always in view. He, raising his whole body on one side by straightening out the legs, and lowering it on the other by folding the first two pairs of legs up and under, leaned so far over as to be in danger of losing his balance, which he only maintained by sliding rapidly toward the lowered side. The palpus, too, on this side was turned back to correspond to the direction of the legs nearest it. He moved in a semicircle for about two inches, and then instantly reversed the position of the legs and circled in the opposite direction, gradually approaching nearer and nearer to the female. Now she dashes toward him, while he, raising his first pair of legs, extends them upward and forward as if to hold her off, but withal slowly retreats. Again and again he circles from side to side, she gazing toward him in a softer mood, evidently admiring the grace of his antics. This is repeated until we have counted one hundred and eleven circles made by the ardent little male. Now he approaches nearer and nearer, and when almost within reach whirls madly around and around her, she joining and whirling with him in a giddy maze. Again he falls back and resumes his semicircular motions, with his body tilted over; she, all excitement, lowers her head and raises her body so that it is almost vertical; both draw nearer; she moves slowly under him, he crawling over her head, and the mating is accomplished." The same author thus describes the courtship of _Dendryphantes elegans_: "While from three to five inches distant from her, he begins to wave his plumy first legs in a way that reminds one of a windmill. She eyes him fiercely, and he keeps at a proper distance for a long time. If he comes close she dashes at him, and he quickly retreats. Sometimes he becomes bolder, and when within an inch, pauses, with the first legs outstretched before him, not raised as is common in other species; the palpi also are held stiffly out in front with the points together. Again she drives him off, and so the play continues. Now the male grows excited as he approaches her, and while still several inches away, whirls completely around and around; pausing, he runs closer and begins to make his abdomen quiver as he stands on tiptoe in front of her. Prancing from side to side, he grows bolder and bolder, while she seems less fierce, and yielding to the excitement, lifts up her magnificently iridescent abdomen, holding it at one time vertical, and at another sideways to him. She no longer rushes at him, but retreats a little as he approaches. At last he comes close to her, lying flat, with his first legs stretched out and quivering. With the tips of his front legs he gently pats her; this seems to arouse the old demon of resistance, and she drives him back. Again and again he pats her with a caressing movement, gradually creeping nearer and nearer, which she now permits without resistance, until he crawls over her head to her abdomen, far enough to reach the epigynum with his palpus." (G.W. Peckham, "Sexual Selection of Spiders," _Occasional Papers of the Natural History Society of Wisconsin_, 1889, quoted in _Nature_, August 21, 1890.) The courtship of another spider, the _Agelena labyrinthica_, has been studied by Lécaillon ("Les Instincts et les Psychismes des Araignées," _Revue Scientifique_, Sept. 15, 1906.) The male enters the female's web and may be found there about the middle of July. When courtship has begun it is not interrupted by the closest observation, even under the magnifying glass. At first it is the male which seeks to couple and he pursues the female over her web till she consents. The pursuit may last some hours, the male agitating his abdomen in a peculiar way, while the female simply retreats a short distance without allowing herself to be approached. At last the female holds herself completely motionless, and then the male approaches, seizes her, places her on her side, sometimes carrying her to a more suitable part of the web. Then one of his copulative apparatus is applied to the female genital opening, and copulation begins. When completed (on an average in about two hours) the male withdraws his copulatory palpus and turns over the female, who is still inert, on to her other side, then brings his second copulatory apparatus to the female opening and starts afresh. When the process is definitely completed the male leaves the female, suddenly retiring to a little distance. The female, who had remained completely motionless for four hours, suddenly runs after the male. But she only pursues him for a short distance, and the two spiders remain together without any danger to either. Lécaillon disbelieves the statement of Romanes (in his _Animal Intelligence_) that the female eats the male after copulation. But this certainly seems to occur sometimes among insects, as illustrated by the following instance described by so careful an observer of insects as Fabre. The _Mantis religiosa_ is described by Fabre as contemplating the female for a long time in an attitude of ecstasy. She remains still and seems indifferent. He is small and she is large. At last he approaches; spreads his wings, which tremble convulsively; leaps on her back, and fixes himself there. The preludes are long and the coupling itself sometimes occupies five or six hours. Then they separate. But the same day or the following day she seizes him and eats him up in small mouthfuls. She will permit a whole series of males to have intercourse with her, always eating them up directly afterward. Fabre has even seen her eating the male while still on her back, his head and neck gone, but his body still firmly attached. (J.H. Fabre, _Souvenirs Entomologiques_, fifth series, p. 307.) Fabre also describes in great detail (ibid., ninth series, chs. xxi-xxii) the sexual parades of the Languedoc scorpion (_Scorpio occitanus_), an arachnid. These parades are in public; for their subsequent intercourse the couple seek complete seclusion, and the female finally eats the male. An insect (a species of _Empis_) has been described which excites the female by manipulating a large balloon. "This is of elliptical shape, about seven millimeters long (nearly twice as long as the fly), hollow, and composed entirely of a single layer of minute bubbles, nearly uniform in size, arranged in regular circles concentric with the axis of the structure. The beautiful, glistening whiteness of the object when the sun shines upon it makes it very conspicuous. The bubbles were slightly viscid, and in nearly every case there was a small fly pressed into the front end of the balloon, apparently as food for the _Empis_. In all cases they were dead. The balloon appears to be made while the insect is flying in the air. Those flying highest had the smallest balloons. The bubbles are probably produced by some modification of the anal organs. It is possible that the captured fly serves as a nucleus to begin the balloon on. One case of a captured fly but no balloon was observed. After commencing, it is probable that the rest of the structure is made by revolving the completed part between the hind legs and adding more bubbles somewhat spirally. The posterior end of the balloon is left more or less open. The purpose of this structure is to attract the female. When numerous males were flying up and down the road, it happened several times that a female was seen to approach them from some choke-cherry blossoms near by. The males immediately gathered in her path, and she with little hesitation selected for a mate the one with the largest balloon, taking a position _upon his back_. After copulation had begun, the pair would settle down toward the ground, select a quiet spot, and the female would alight by placing her front legs across a horizontal grass blade, her head resting against the blade so as to brace the body in position. Here she would continue to hold the male beneath her for a little time, until the process was finished. The male, meanwhile, would be rolling the balloon about in a variety of positions, juggling with it, one might almost say. After the male and female parted company, the male immediately dropped the balloon upon the ground, and it was greedily seized by ants. No illustration could properly show the beauty of the balloon." (Aldrich and Turley, "A Balloon-making Fly," _American Naturalist_, October, 1899.) "In many species of moths the males 'assemble' around the freshly emerged female, but no special advantage appears to attend on early arrival. The female sits apparently motionless, while the little crowd of suitors buzz around her for several minutes. Suddenly, and, as far as one can see, without any sign from the female, one of the males pairs with her and all the others immediately disappear. In these cases the males do not fight or struggle in any way, and as one watches the ceremony the wonder arises as to how the moment is determined, and why the pairing did not take place before. Proximity does not decide the point, for long beforehand the males often alight close to the female and brush against her with fluttering wings. I have watched the process exactly as I have described it in a common Northern _Noctua_, the antler moth (_Charæax graminis_), and I have seen the same thing among beetles." (E.B. Poulton, _The Colors of Animals_, 1890, p. 391.) This author mentions that among some butterflies the females take the active part. The example here quoted of courtship among moths illustrates how phenomena which are with difficulty explicable by the theory of sexual selection in its original form become at once intelligible when we realize the importance of tumescence in courtship. Of the Argentine cow-bird (_Molothrus bonariensis_) Hudson says (_Argentine Ornithology_, vol. i, p. 73): "The song of the male, particularly when making love, is accompanied with gestures and actions somewhat like those of the domestic pigeon. He swells himself out, beating the ground with his wings, and uttering a series of deep internal notes, followed by others loud and clear; and occasionally, when uttering them, he suddenly takes wing and flies directly away from the female to a distance of fifty yards, and performs a wide circuit about her in the air, singing all the time. The homely object of his passion always appears utterly indifferent to this curious and pretty performance; yet she must be even more impressionable than most female birds, since she continues scattering about her parasitical and often wasted eggs during four months in every year." Of a tyrant-bird (_Pitangus Bolivianus_) Hudson writes (_Argentine Ornithology_, vol. i, p. 148): "Though the male and female are greatly attached, they do not go afield to hunt in company, but separate to meet again at intervals during the day. One of a couple (say, the female) returns to the trees where they are accustomed to meet, and after a time, becoming impatient or anxious at the delay of her consort, utters a very long, clear call-note. He is perhaps a quarter of a mile away, watching for a frog beside a pool, or beating over a thistle-bed, but he hears the note and presently responds with one of equal power. Then, perhaps, for half an hour, at intervals of half a minute, the birds answer each other, though the powerful call of the one must interfere with his hunting. At length he returns; then the two birds, perched close together, with their yellow bosoms almost touching, crests elevated, and beating the branch with their wings, scream their loudest notes in concert--a confused jubilant noise that rings through the whole plantation. Their joy at meeting is patent, and their action corresponds to the warm embrace of a loving human couple." Of the red-breasted marsh-bird (_Leistes superciliaris_) Hudson (_Argentine Ornithology_, vol. i, p. 100) writes: "These birds are migratory, and appear everywhere in the eastern part of the Argentine country early in October, arriving singly, after which each male takes up a position in a field or open space abounding with coarse grass and herbage, where he spends most of his time perched on the summit of a tall stalk or weed, his glowing crimson bosom showing at a distance like some splendid flower above the herbage. At intervals of two or three minutes he soars vertically up to a height of twenty or twenty-five yards to utter his song, composed of a single long, powerful and rather musical note, ending with an attempt at a flourish, during which the bird flutters and turns about in the air; then, as if discouraged at his failure, he drops down, emitting harsh, guttural chirps, to resume his stand. Meanwhile the female is invisible, keeping closely concealed under the long grass. But at length, attracted perhaps by the bright bosom and aërial music of the male, she occasionally exhibits herself for a few moments, starting up with a wild zigzag flight, and, darting this way and that, presently drops into the grass once more. The moment she appears above the grass the male gives chase, and they vanish from sight together." "Courtship with the mallard," says J.G. Millais (_Natural History of British Ducks_, p. 6), "appears to be carried on by both sexes, though generally three or four drakes are seen showing themselves off to attract the attention of a single duck. Swimming round her, in a coy and semi-self-conscious manner, they now and again all stop quite still, nod, bow, and throw their necks out in token of their admiration and their desire of a favorable response. But the most interesting display is when all the drakes simultaneously stand up in the water and rapidly pass their bills down their breasts, uttering at the same time a low single note somewhat like the first half of the call that teal and pintail make when 'showing off.' At other times the love-making of the drake seems to be rather passive than active. While graciously allowing himself to be courted, he holds his head high with conscious pride, and accepts as a matter of course any attention that may be paid to him. A proud bird is he when three or four ducks come swimming along beside and around him, uttering a curious guttural note, and at the same time dipping their bills in quick succession to right and left. He knows what that means, and carries himself with even greater dignity than before. In the end, however, he must give in. As a last appeal, one of his lady lovers may coyly lower herself in the water till only the top of her back, head, and neck is seen, and so fascinating an advance as this no drake of any sensibility can withstand." The courting of the Argus pheasant, noted for the extreme beauty of the male's plumage, was observed by H.O. Forbes in Sumatra. It is the habit of this bird to make "a large circus, some ten or twelve feet in diameter, in the forest, which it clears of every leaf and twig and branch, till the ground is perfectly swept and garnished. On the margin of this circus there is invariably a projecting branch or high-arched root, at a few feet elevation above the ground, on which the female bird takes its place, while in the ring the male--the male birds alone possess great decoration--shows off all its magnificence for the gratification and pleasure of his consort and to exalt himself in her eyes." (H.O. Forbes, _A. Naturalist's Wanderings_, 1885, p. 131.) "All ostriches, adults as well as chicks, have a strange habit known as 'waltzing.' After running for a few hundred yards they will also stop, and, with raised wings, spin around rapidly for some time after until quite giddy, when a broken leg occasionally occurs.... Vicious cocks 'roll' when challenging to fight or when wooing the hen. The cock will suddenly bump down on to his knees (the ankle-joint), open his wings, and then swing them alternately backward and forward, as if on a pivot.... While rolling, every feather over the whole body is on end, and the plumes are open, like a large white fan. At such a time the bird sees very imperfectly, if at all; in fact, he seems so preoccupied that, if pursued, one may often approach unnoticed. Just before rolling, a cock, especially if courting the hen, will often run slowly and daintily on the points of his toes, with neck slightly inflated, upright, and rigid, the tail half-drooped, and all his body-feathers fluffed up; the wings raised and expanded, the inside edges touching the sides of the neck for nearly the whole of its length, and the plumes showing separately, like an open fan. In no other attitude is the splendid beauty of his plumage displayed to such advantage." (S.C. Cronwright Schreiner, "The Ostrich," _Zoölogist_, March, 1897.) As may be seen from the foregoing fairly typical examples, the phenomena of courtship are highly developed, and have been most carefully studied, in animals outside the mammal series. It may seem a long leap from birds to man; yet, as will be seen, the phenomena among primitive human peoples, if not, indeed, among many civilized peoples also, closely resemble those found among birds, though, unfortunately, they have not usually been so carefully studied. In Australia, where dancing is carried to a high pitch of elaboration, its association with the sexual impulse is close and unmistakable. Thus, Mr. Samuel Gason (of whom it has been said that "no man living has been more among blacks or knows more of their ways") remarks concerning a dance of the Dieyerie tribe: "This dance men and women only take part in, in regular form and position, keeping splendid time to the rattle of the beat of two boomerangs; some of the women keep time by clapping their hands between their thighs; promiscuous sexual intercourse follows after the dance; jealousy is forbidden." Again, at the Mobierrie, or rat-harvest, "many weeks' preparation before the dance comes off; no quarreling is allowed; promiscuous sexual intercourse during the ceremony." The fact that jealousy is forbidden at these festivals clearly indicates that sexual intercourse is a recognized and probably essential element in the ceremonies. This is further emphasized by the fact that at other festivals open sexual intercourse is not allowed. Thus, at the Mindarie, or dance at a peace festival (when a number of tribes comes together), "there is great rejoicing at the coming festival, which is generally held at the full of the moon, and kept up all night. The men are artistically decorated with down and feathers, with all kinds of designs. The down and feathers are stuck on their bodies with blood freshly taken from their penis; they are also nicely painted with various colors; tufts of boughs are tied on their ankles to make a noise while dancing. Promiscuous sexual intercourse is carried on _secretly_; many quarrels occur at this time." (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, vol. xxiv, November, 1894, p. 174.) In Australian dances, sometimes men and women dance together, sometimes the men dance alone, sometimes the women. In one dance described by Eyre: "Women are the chief performers; their bodies are painted with white streaks, and their hair adorned with cockatoo feathers. They carry large sticks in their hands, and place themselves in a row in front, while the men with their spears stand in a row behind them. They then all commence their movements, but without intermingling, the males and females dancing by themselves. The women have occasionally another mode of dancing, by joining the hands together over the head, closing the feet, and bringing the knees into contact. The legs are then thrown outward from the knee, while the feet and hands are kept in their original position, and, being drawn quickly in again, a sharp sound is produced by the collision. This is also practised alone by young girls or by several together for their own amusement. It is adopted also when a single woman is placed in front of a row of male dancers to excite their passions." (E.J. Eyre, _Journals of Expeditions into Central Australia_, vol. ii, p. 235.) A charming Australian folk-tale concerning two sisters with wings, who disliked men, and their wooing by a man, clearly indicates, even among the Australians (whose love-making is commonly supposed to be somewhat brutal in character), the consciousness that it is by his beauty, charm, and skill in courtship that a man wins a woman. Unahanach, the lover, stole unperceived to the river where the girls were bathing and at last showed himself carelessly sitting on a high tree. The girls were startled, but thought it would be safe to amuse themselves by looking at the intruder. "Young and with the most active figure, yet of a strength that defied the strongest emu, and even enabled him to resist an 'old man' kangaroo, he had no equal in the chase, and conscious power gave a dignity to his expression that at one glance calmed the fears of the two girls. His large brilliant eyes, shaded by a deep fringe of soft black eyelashes, gazed down upon them admiringly, and his rich black hair hung around his well-formed face, smooth and shining from the emu-oil with which it was abundantly covered." At last he persuaded them to talk and by and by induced them to call him husband. Then they went off with him, with no thought of flight in their hearts. ("Australian Folklore Stories," collected by W. Dunlop, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, new series, vol. i, 1898, p. 33.) Of the people of Torres Straits Haddon states (_Reports Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. v, p. 222): "It was during the secular dance, or _Kap_, that the girls usually lost their hearts to the young men. A young man who was a good dancer would find favor in the sight of the girls. This can be readily understood by anyone who has seen the active, skilful, and fatiguing dances of these people. A young man who could acquit himself well in these dances must be possessed of no mean strength and agility, qualities which everywhere appeal to the opposite sex. Further, he was decorated, according to local custom, with all that would render him more imposing in the eyes of the spectators. As the former chief of Mabuiag put it, 'In England if a man has plenty of money, women want to marry him; so here, if a man dances well they too want him.' In olden days the war-dance, which was performed after a successful foray, would be the most powerful excitement to a marriageable girl, especially if a young man had distinguished himself sufficiently to bring home the head of someone he had killed." Among the tribes inhabiting the mouth of the Wanigela River, New Guinea, "when a boy admires a girl, he will not look at her, speak to her, or go near her. He, however, shows his love by athletic bounds, posing, and pursuit, and by the spearing of imaginary enemies, etc., before her, to attract her attention. If the girl reciprocates his love she will employ a small girl to give to him an _ugauga gauna_, or love invitation, consisting of an areca-nut whose skin has been marked with different designs, significant of her wish to _ugauga_. After dark he is apprised of the place where the girl awaits him; repairing thither, he seats himself beside her as close as possible, and they mutually share in the consumption of the betel-nut." This constitutes betrothal; henceforth he is free to visit the girl's house and sleep there. Marriages usually take place at the most important festival of the year, the _kapa_, preparations for which are made during the three previous months, so that there may be a bountiful and unfailing supply of bananas. Much dancing takes place among the unmarried girls, who, also, are tattooed at this time over the whole of the front of the body, special attention being paid to the lower parts, as a girl who is not properly tattooed there possesses no attraction in the eyes of young men. Married women and widows and divorced women are not forbidden to take part in these dances, but it would be considered ridiculous for them to do so. (R.E. Guise, "On the Tribes of the Wanigela River," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, new series, vol. i, 1899, pp. 209, 214 et seq.) In the island of Nias in the Malay Archipelago, Modigliani (mainly on the excellent authority of Sundermann, the missionary) states, at a wedding "dancing and singing go on throughout the day. The women, two or three at a time, a little apart from the men, take part in the dancing, which is very well adapted to emphasize the curves of the flanks and the breasts, though at the same time the defects of their legs are exhibited in this series of rhythmic contortions which constitute a Nias dance. The most graceful movement they execute is a lascivious undulation of the flanks while the face and breast are slowly wound round by the _sarong_ [a sort of skirt] held in the hands, and then again revealed. These movements are executed with jerks of the wrist and contortions of the flanks, not always graceful, but which excite the admiration of the spectators, even of the women, who form in groups to sing in chorus a compliment, more or less sincere, in which they say: 'They dance with the grace of birds when they fly. They dance as the hawk flies; it is lovely to see.' They sing and dance both at weddings and at other festivals." (Elio Modigliani, _Un Viaggio a Nias_, 1890, p. 549.) In Sumatra Marsden states that chastity prevails more, perhaps, than among any other people: "But little apparent courtship precedes their marriages. Their manners do not admit of it, the _boojong_ and _geddas_ (youths of each sex) being carefully kept asunder and the latter seldom trusted from under the wings of their mothers.... The opportunities which the young people have of seeing and conversing with each other are at the _birnbangs_, or public festivals. On these occasions the young people meet together and dance and sing in company. The men, when determined in their regard, generally employ an old woman as their agent, by whom they make known their sentiments, and send presents to the female of their choice. The parents then interfere, and the preliminaries being settled, a _birnbang_ takes place. The young women proceed in a body to the upper end of the _balli_ (hall), where there is a part divided off for them by a curtain. They do not always make their appearance before dinner, that time, previous to a second or third meal, being appropriated to cock-fighting or other diversions peculiar to men. In the evening their other amusements take place, of which the dances are the principal. These are performed either singly or by two women, two men, or with both mixed. Their motions and attitudes are usually slow, approaching often to the lascivious. They bend forward as they dance, and usually carry a fan, which they close and strike smartly against their elbows at particular cadences.... The assembly seldom breaks up before daylight and these _birnbangs_ are often continued for several days together. The young men frequent them in order to look out for wives, and the lasses of course set themselves off to the best advantage. They wear their best silken dresses, of their own weaving, as many ornaments of filigree as they possess, silver rings upon their arms and legs, and ear-rings of a particular construction. Their hair is variously adorned with flowers, and perfumed with oil of benjamin. Civet is also in repute, but more used by the men. To render their skin fine, smooth, and soft they make use of a white cosmetic called _poopoor_ [a mixture of ginger, patch-leaf, maize, sandal-wood, fairy-cotton, and mush-seed with a basis of fine rice]." (W. Marsden, _History of Sumatra_, 1783, p. 230.) The Alfurus of Seram in the Moluccas, who have not yet been spoilt by foreign influences, are very fond of music and dancing. Their _maku_ dances, which take place at night, have been described by Joest: "Great torches of dry bamboos and piles of burning resinous leaves light up the giant trees to their very summits and reveal in the distance the little huts which the Alfuras have built in the virgin forests, as well as the skulls of the slain. The women squat together by the fire, making a deafening noise with the gongs and the drums, while the young girls, richly adorned with pearls and fragrant flowers, await the beginning of the dance. Then appear the men and youths without weapons, but in full war-costume, the girdle freshly marked with the number of slain enemies. [Among the Alfuras it is the man who has the largest number of heads to show who has most chance of winning the object of his love.] They hold each other's arms and form a circle, which is not, however, completely closed. A song is started, and with small, slow steps this ring of bodies, like a winding snake, moves sideways, backward, closes, opens again, the steps become heavier, the songs and drums louder, the girls enter the circle and with closed eyes grasp the girdle of their chosen youths, who clasp them by the hips and necks, the chain becomes longer and longer, the dance and song more ardent, until the dancers grow tired and disappear in the gloom of the forest." (W. Joest, _Welt-Fahrten_, 1895, Bd. ii, p. 159.) The women of the New Hebrides dance, or rather sway, to and fro in the midst of a circle formed by the men, with whom they do not directly mingle. They leap, show their genital parts to the men, and imitate the movements of coitus. Meanwhile the men unfasten the _manou_ (penis-wrap) from their girdles with one hand, with the other imitating the action of seizing a woman, and, excited by the women, also go through a mock copulation. Sometimes, it is said, the dancers masturbate. This takes place amid plaintive songs, interrupted from time to time by loud cries and howls. (_Untrodden Fields of Anthropology_, by a French army-surgeon, 1898, vol. ii, p. 341.) Among the hill tribes of the Central Indian Hills may be traced a desire to secure communion with the spirit of fertility embodied in vegetation. This appears, for instance, in a tree-dance, which is carried out on a date associated not only with the growths of the crops or with harvest, but also with the seasonal period for marriage and the annual Saturnalia. (W. Crooke, "The Hill Tribes," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, new series, vol. i, 1899, p. 243.) The association of dancing with seasonal ritual festivals of a generative character--of which the above is a fairly typical instance--leads us to another aspect of these phenomena on which I have elsewhere touched in these _Studies_ (vol. i) when discussing the "Phenomena of Periodicity." The Tahitians, when first discovered by Europeans, appear to have been highly civilized on the sexual side and very licentious. Yet even at Tahiti, when visited by Cook, the strict primitive relationship between dancing and courtship still remained traceable. Cook found "a dance called Timorodee, which is performed by young girls, whenever eight or ten of them can be collected together, consisting of motions and gestures beyond imagination wanton, in the practice of which they are brought up from their earliest childhood, accompanied by words which, if it were possible, would more explicitly convey the same ideas. But the practice which is allowed to the virgin is prohibited to the woman from the moment that she has put these hopeful lessons in practice and realized the symbols of the dance." He added, however, that among the specially privileged class of the Areoi these limitations were not observed, for he had heard that this dance was sometimes performed by them as a preliminary to sexual intercourse. (Hawkesworth, _An Account of the Voyages_, etc., 1775, vol. ii, p. 54.) Among the Marquesans at the marriage of a woman, even of high rank, she lies with her head at the bridegroom's knees and all the male guests come in single file, singing and dancing--those of lower class first and the great chiefs last--and have connection with the woman. There are often a very large number of guests and the bride is sometimes so exhausted at the end that she has to spend several days in bed. (Tautain, "Etude sur le Mariage chez les Polynésiens," _L'Anthropologie_, November-December, 1895, p. 642.) The interesting point for us here is that singing and dancing are still regarded as a preliminary to a sexual act. It has been noted that in sexual matters the Polynesians, when first discovered by Europeans, had largely gone beyond the primitive stage, and that this applies also to some of their dances. Thus the _hula-hula_ dance, while primitive in origin, may probably be compared more to a civilized than to a primitive dance, since it has become divorced from real life. In the same way, while the sexual pantomime dance of the Azimba girls of central Africa has a direct and recognized relationship to the demands of real life, the somewhat allied _danses du ventre_ of the Hamitic peoples of northern Africa are merely an amusement, a play more or less based on the sexual instinct. At the same time it is important to bear in mind that there is no rigid distinction between dances that are, and those that are not, primitive. As Haddon truly points out in a book containing valuable detailed descriptions of dances, even among savages dances are so developed that it is difficult to trace their origin, and at Torres Straits, he remarks, "there are certainly play or secular dances, dances for pure amusement without any ulterior design." (A.C. Haddon, _Head Hunters_, p. 233.) When we remember that dancing had probably become highly developed long before man appeared on the earth, this difficulty in determining the precise origin of human dancing cannot cause surprise. Spix and Martius described how the Muras of Brazil by moonlight would engage all night in a Bacchantic dance in a great circle, hand in hand, the men on one side, the women on the other, shouting out all the time, the men "Who will marry me?" the women, "You are a beautiful devil; all women will marry you," (Spix and Martius, _Reise in Brasilien_, 1831, vol. iii, p. 1117.) They also described in detail the dance of the Brazilian Puris, performed in a state of complete nakedness, the men in a row, the women in another row behind them. They danced backward and forward, stamping and singing, at first in a slow and melancholy style, but gradually with increasing vigor and excitement. Then the women began to rotate the pelvis backward and forward, and the men to thrust their bodies forward, the dance becoming a pantomimic representation of sexual intercourse (ibid., vol. i, 1823, pp. 373-5). Among the Apinages of Brazil, also, the women stand in a row, almost motionless, while the men dance and leap in front of them, both men and women at the same time singing. (Buscalioni, "Reise zu den Apinages," _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1899, ht. 6, p. 650.) Among the Gilas of New Mexico, "when a young man sees a girl whom he desires for a wife, he first endeavors to gain the good-will of the parents; this accomplished, he proceeds to serenade his lady-love, and will often sit for hours, day after day, near her home, playing on his flute. Should the girl not appear, it is a sign she rejects him; but if, on the other hand, she comes out to meet him, he knows that his suit is accepted, and he takes her to his home. No marriage ceremony is performed."[33] (H.H. Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific_, vol. i, p. 549.) "Among the Minnetarees a singular night-dance is, it is said, sometimes held. During this amusement an opportunity is given to the squaws to select their favorites. A squaw, as she dances, will advance to a person with whom she is captivated, either for his personal attractions or for his renown in arms; she taps him on the shoulder and immediately runs out of the lodge and betakes herself to the bushes, followed by the favorite. But if it should happen that he has a particular preference for another from whom he expects the same favor, or if he is restrained by a vow, or is already satiated with indulgence, he politely declines her offer by placing his hand in her bosom, on which they return to the assembly and rejoin the dance." It is worthy of remark that in the language of the Omahas the word _watche_ applies equally to the amusement of dancing and to sexual intercourse. (S.H. Long, _Expedition to the Rocky Mountains_, 1823, vol. i, p. 337.) At a Kaffir marriage "singing and dancing last until midnight. Each party [the bride's and the bridegroom's] dances in front of the other, but they do not mingle together. As the evening advances, the spirits and passions of all become greatly excited; and the power of song, the display of muscular action, and the gesticulations of the dancers and leapers are something extraordinary. The manner in which, at certain times, one man or woman, more excited than the rest, bounds from the ranks, leaps into the air, bounces forward, and darts backward beggars all description. These violent exercises usually close about midnight, when each party retires; generally, each man selects a paramour, and, indulging in sexual gratification, spends the remainder of the night." (W.C. Holden, _The Kaffir Race_, 1866, p. 192.) At the initiation of Kaffir boys into manhood, as described by Holden, they were circumcised. "Cattle are then slaughtered by the parents, and the boys are plentifully supplied with flesh meat; a good deal of dancing also ensues at this stage of the proceedings. The _ukut-shila_ consists in attiring themselves with the leaves of the wild date in the most fantastic manner; thus attired they visit each of the kraals to which they belong in rotation, for the purpose of dancing. These dances are the most licentious which can be imagined. The women act a prominent part in them, and endeavor to excite the passions of the novices by performing all sorts of obscene gesticulations. As soon as the soreness occasioned by the act of circumcision is healed the boys are, as it were, let loose upon society, and exempted from nearly all the restraints of law; so that should they even steal and slaughter their neighbor's cattle they would not be punished; and they have the special privilege of seizing by force, if force be necessary, every unmarried woman they choose, for the purpose of gratifying their passions." Similar festivals take place at the initiation of girls. (W.C. Holden, _The Kaffir Race_, 1866, p. 185.) The Rev. J. Macdonald has described the ceremonies and customs attending and following the initiation-rites of a young girl on her first menstruation among the Zulus between the Tugela and Delagoa Bay. At this time the girl is called an _intonjane_. A beast is killed as a thank-offering to the ancestral spirits, high revel is held for several days, and dancing and music take place every night till those engaged in it are all exhausted or daylight arrives. "After a few days and when dancing has been discontinued, young men and girls congregate in the outer apartment of the hut, and begin singing, clapping their hands, and making a grunting noise to show their joy. At nightfall most of the young girls who were the intonjane's attendants, leave for their own homes for the night, to return the following morning. Thereafter the young men and girls who gathered into the hut in the afternoon separate into pairs and sleep together _in puris naturalibus_, for that is strictly ordained by custom. Sexual intercourse is not allowed, but what is known as _metsha_ or _ukumetsha_ is the sole purpose of the novel arrangement. _Ukumetsha_ may be defined as partial intercourse. Every man who sleeps thus with a girl has to send to the father of the intonjane an assegai; should he have formed an attachment for his partner of the night and wish to pay her his addresses, he sends two assegais." (Rev. J. Macdonald, "Manners, etc., of South African Tribes," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, vol. xx, November, 1890, p. 117.) Goncourt reports the account given him by a French officer from Senegal of the dances of the women, "a dance which is a gentle oscillation of the body, with gradually increasing excitement, from time to time a woman darting forward from the group to stand in front of her lover, contorting herself as though in a passionate embrace, and, on passing her hand between her thighs, showing it covered with the moisture of amorous enjoyment." (_Journal_, vol. ix, p. 79.) The dance here referred to is probably the Bamboula dance of the Wolofs, a spring festival which has been described by Pierre Loti in his _Roman d'un Spahi_, and concerning which various details are furnished by a French army-surgeon, acquainted with Senegal, in his _Untrodden Fields of Anthropology_. The dance, as described by the latter, takes place at night during full moon, the dancers, male and female, beginning timidly, but, as the beat of the tam-tams and the encouraging cries of the spectators become louder, the dance becomes more furious. The native name of the dance is _anamalis fobil_, "the dance of the treading drake." "The dancer in his movements imitates the copulation of the great Indian duck. This drake has a member of a corkscrew shape, and a peculiar movement is required to introduce it into the duck. The woman tucks up her clothes and convulsively agitates the lower part of her body; she alternately shows her partner her vulva and hides it from him by a regular movement, backward and forward, of the body." (_Untrodden Fields of Anthropology_, Paris, 1898, vol. ii, p. 112.) Among the Gurus of the Ivory Coast (Gulf of Guinea), Eysséric observes, dancing is usually carried on at night and more especially by the men, and on certain occasions women must not appear, for if they assisted at fetichistic dances "they would die." Under other circumstances men and women dance together with ardor, not forming couples but often _vis-à-vis_: their movements are lascivious. Even the dances following a funeral tend to become sexual in character. At the end of the rites attending the funeral of a chief's son the entire population began to dance with ever-growing ardor; there was nothing ritualistic or sad in these contortions, which took on the character of a lascivious dance. Men and women, boys and girls, young and old, sought to rival each other in suppleness, and the festival became joyous and general, as if in celebration of a marriage or a victory. (Eysséric, "La Côte d'Ivoire," _Nouvelles Archives des Missions Scientifiques_, tome ix, 1890, pp. 241-49.) Mrs. French-Sheldon has described the marriage-rites she observed at Taveta in East Africa. "During this time the young people dance and carouse and make themselves generally merry and promiscuously drunk, carrying the excess of their dissipation to such an extent that they dance until they fall down in a species of epileptic fit." It is the privilege of the bridegroom's four groomsmen to enjoy the bride first, and she is then handed over to her legitimate husband. This people, both men and women, are "great dancers and merry-makers; the young fellows will collect in groups and dance as though in competition one with the other; one lad will dash out from the circle of his companions, rush into the middle of a circumscribed space, and scream out 'Wow, wow!' Another follows him and screams; then a third does the same. These men will dance with their knees almost rigid, jumping into the air until their excitement becomes very great and their energy almost spasmodic, leaving the ground frequently three feet as they spring into the air. At some of their festivals their dancing is carried to such an extent that I have seen a young fellow's muscles quiver from head to foot and his jaws tremble without any apparent ability on his part to control them, until, foaming at the mouth and with his eyes rolling, he falls in a paroxysm upon the ground, to be carried off by his companions." The writer adds significantly that this dancing "would seem to emanate from a species of voluptuousness." (Mrs. French-Sheldon, "Customs among the Natives of East Africa," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, vol. xxi, May, 1892, pp. 366-67.) It may be added that among the Suaheli dances are intimately associated with weddings; the Suaheli dances have been minutely described by Velten (_Sitten und Gebraüche der Suaheli_, pp. 144-175). Among the Akamba of British East Africa, also, according to H.R. Tate (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, Jan.-June, 1904, p. 137), the dances are followed by connection between the young men and girls, approved of by the parents. The dances of the Faroe Islanders have been described by Raymond Pilet ("Rapport sur une Mission en Islande et aux lies Féroë," _Nouvelles Archives des Missions Scientifiques_, tome vii, 1897, p. 285). These dances, which are entirely decorous, include poetry, music, and much mimicry, especially of battle. They sometimes last for two consecutive days and nights. "The dance is simply a permitted and discreet method by which the young men may court the young girls. The islander enters the circle and places himself beside the girl to whom he desires to show his affection; if he meets with her approval she stays and continues to dance at his side; if not, she leaves the circle and appears later at another spot." Pitre (_Usi, etc., del Popolo Siciliano_, vol. ii, p. 24, as quoted in Marro's _Pubertà_) states that in Sicily the youth who wishes to marry seeks to give some public proof of his valor and to show himself off. In Chiaramonte, in evidence of his virile force, he bears in procession the standard of some confraternity, a high and richly adorned standard which makes its staff bend to a semicircle, of such enormous weight that the bearer must walk in a painfully bent position, his head thrown back and his feet forward. On reaching the house of his betrothed he makes proof of his boldness and skill in wielding this extremely heavy standard which at this moment seems a plaything in his hands, but may yet prove fatal to him through injury to the loins or other parts. This same tendency, which we find in so highly developed a degree among animals and primitive human peoples, is also universal among the children of even the most civilized human races, although in a less organized and more confused way. It manifests itself as "showing-off." Sanford Bell, in his study of the emotion of love in children, finds that "showing-off" is an essential element in the love of children in what he terms the second stage (from the eighth to the twelfth year in girls and the fourteenth in boys). "It constitutes one of the chief numbers in the boy's repertory of love charms, and is not totally absent from the girl's. It is a most common sight to see the boys taxing their resources in devising means of exposing their own excellencies, and often doing the most ridiculous and extravagant things. Running, jumping, dancing, prancing, sparring, wrestling, turning handsprings, somersaults, climbing, walking fences, swinging, giving yodels and yells, whistling, imitating the movements of animals, 'taking people off,' courting danger, affecting courage are some of its common forms.... This 'showing-off' in the boy lover is the forerunner of the skilful, purposive, and elaborate means of self-exhibition in the adult male and the charming coquetry in the adult female, in their love-relations." (Sanford Bell, "The Emotion of Love Between the Sexes," _American Journal Psychology_, July, 1902; cf. "Showing-off and Bashfulness," _Pedagogical Seminary_, June, 1903.) If, in the light of the previous discussion, we examine such facts as those here collected, we may easily trace throughout the perpetual operations of the same instinct. It is everywhere the instinctive object of the male, who is very rarely passive in the process of courtship, to assure by his activity in display, his energy or skill or beauty, both his own passion and the passion of the female. Throughout nature sexual conjugation only takes place after much expenditure of energy.[34] We are deceived by what we see among highly fed domesticated animals, and among the lazy classes of human society, whose sexual instincts are at once both unnaturally stimulated and unnaturally repressed, when we imagine that the instinct of detumescence is normally ever craving to be satisfied, and that throughout nature it can always be set off at a touch whenever the stimulus is applied. So far from the instinct of tumescence naturally needing to be crushed, it needs, on the contrary, in either sex to be submitted to the most elaborate and prolonged processes in order to bring about those conditions which detumescence relieves. A state of tumescence is not normally constant, and tumescence must be obtained before detumescence is possible.[35] The whole object of courtship, of the mutual approximation and caresses of two persons of the opposite sex, is to create the state of sexual tumescence. It will be seen that the most usual method of attaining tumescence--a method found among the most various kinds of animals, from insects and birds to man--is some form of the dance. Among the Negritos of the Philippines dancing is described by A.B. Meyer as "jumping in a circle around a girl and stamping with the feet"; as we have seen, such a dance is, essentially, a form of courtship that is widespread among animals. "The true cake-walk," again, Stanley Hall remarks, "as seen in the South is perhaps the purest expression of this impulse to courtship antics seen in man."[36] Muscular movement of which the dance is the highest and most complex expression, is undoubtedly a method of auto-intoxication of the very greatest potency. All energetic movement, indeed, tends to produce active congestion. In its influence on the brain violent exercise may thus result in a state of intoxication even resembling insanity. As Lagrange remarks, the visible effects of exercise--heightened color, bright eyes, resolute air and walk--are those of slight intoxication, and a girl who has waltzed for a quarter of an hour is in the same condition as if she had drunk champagne.[37] Groos regards the dance as, above all, an intoxicating play of movement, possessing, like other methods of intoxication,--and even apart from its relationship to combat and love,--the charm of being able to draw us out of our everyday life and lead us into a self-created dream-world.[38] That the dance is not only a narcotic, but also a powerful stimulant, we may clearly realize from the experiments which show that this effect is produced even by much less complex kinds of muscular movement. This has been clearly determined, for instance, by Féré, in the course of a long and elaborate series of experiments dealing with the various influences that modify work as measured by Mosso's ergograph. This investigator found that muscular movement is the most efficacious of all stimulants in increasing muscular power.[39] It is easy to trace these pleasurable effects of combined narcotic and stimulant motion in everyday life and it is unnecessary to enumerate its manifestations.[40] Dancing is so powerful an agent on the organism, as Sergi truly remarks (_Les Emotions_, p. 288), because its excitation is general, because it touches every vital organ, the higher centers no longer dominating. Primitive dancing differs very widely from that civilized kind of dancing--finding its extreme type in the ballet--in which energy is concentrated into the muscles below the knee. In the finest kinds of primitive dancing all the limbs, the whole body, take part. For instance, "the Marquisan girls," Herman Melville remarked in _Typee_, "dance all over, as it were; not only do their feet dance, but their arms, hands, fingers,--ay, their very eyes seem to dance in their heads. In good sooth, they so sway their floating forms, arch their necks, toss aloft their naked arms, and glide, and swim, and whirl," etc. If we turn to a very different people, we find this characteristic of primitive dancing admirably illustrated by the missionary, Holden, in the case of Kaffir dances. "So far as I have observed," he states, "the perfection of the art or science consists in their _being able to put every part of the body into motion at the same time_. And as they are naked, the bystander has a good opportunity of observing the whole process, which presents a remarkably odd and grotesque appearance,--the head, the trunk, the arms, the legs, the hands, the feet, bones, muscles, sinews, skin, scalp, and hair, each and all in motion at the same time, with feathers waving, tails of monkeys and wild beasts dangling, and shields beating, accompanied with whistling, shouting, and leaping. It would appear as though the whole frame was hung on springing wires or cords. Dances are held in high repute, being the natural expression of joyous emotion, or creating it when absent. There is, perhaps, no exercise in greater accordance with the sentiments or feelings of a barbarous people, or more fully calculated to gratify their wild and ungoverned passions." (W.C. Holden, _The Kaffir Race_, 1866, p. 274.) Dancing, as the highest and most complex form of muscular movement, is the most potent method of obtaining the organic excitement muscular movement yields, and thus we understand how from the earliest zoölogical ages it has been brought to the service of the sexual instinct as a mode of attaining tumescence. Among savages this use of dancing works harmoniously with the various other uses which dancing possesses in primitive times and which cause it to occupy so large and vital a part in savage life that it may possibly even affect the organism to such an extent as to mold the bones; so that some authorities have associated platycnemia with dancing. As civilization advances, the other uses of dancing fall away, but it still remains a sexual stimulant. Burton, in his _Anatomy of Melancholy_, brings forward a number of quotations from old authors showing that dancing is an incitement to love.[41] The Catholic theologians (Debreyne, _Moechialogie_, pp. 190-199) for the most part condemn dancing with much severity. In Protestant Germany, also, it is held that dance meetings and musical gatherings are frequent occasions of unchastity. Thus in the Leipzig district when a girl is asked "How did you fall?" she nearly always replies "At the dance." (_Die Geschlechtlich-Sittliche Verhältnisse im Deutschen Reiche_, vol. i, p. 196.) It leads quite as often, and no doubt oftener, to marriage. Rousseau defended it on this account (_Nouvelle Heloïse_, bk. iv, letter x); dancing is, he held, an admirable preliminary to courtship, and the best way for young people to reveal themselves to each other, in their grace and decorum, their qualities and defects, while its publicity is its safeguard. An International Congress of Dancing Masters was held at Barcelona in 1907. In connection with this Congress, Giraudet, president of the International Academy of Dancing Masters, issued an inquiry to over 3000 teachers of dancing throughout the world in order to ascertain the frequency with which dancing led to marriage. Of over one million pupils of dancing, either married or engaged to be married, it was found that in most countries more than 50 per cent. met their conjugal partners at dances. The smallest proportion was in Norway, with only 39 per cent., and the highest, Germany, with 97 per cent. Intermediate are France, 83 per cent.; America, 80 per cent.; Italy, 70 per cent.; Spain, 68 per cent.; Holland, Bulgaria, and England, 65 per cent.; Australia and Roumania, 60 per cent., etc. Of the teachers themselves 92 per cent. met their partners at dances. (Quoted from the _Figaro_ in Beiblatt "Sexualreform" to _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, 1907, p. 175.) In civilization, however, dancing is not only an incitement to love and a preliminary to courtship, but it is often a substitute for the normal gratification of the sexual instinct, procuring something of the pleasure and relief of gratified love. In occasional abnormal cases this may be consciously realized. Thus Sadger, who regards the joy of dancing as a manifestation of "muscular eroticism," gives the case of a married hysterical woman of 21, with genital anesthesia, but otherwise strongly developed skin eroticism, who was a passionate dancer: "I often felt as though I was giving myself to my partner in dancing," she said, "and was actually having coitus with him. I have the feeling that in me dancing takes the place of coitus."[42] Normally something of the same feeling is experienced by many young women, who will expend a prodigious amount of energy in dancing, thus procuring, not fatigue, but happiness and relief.[43] It is significant that, after sexual relations have begun, girls generally lose much of their ardor in dancing. Even our modern dances, it is worthy of note, are often of sexual origin; thus, the most typical of all, the waltz, was originally (as Schaller, quoted by Groos, states) the close of a complicated dance which "represented the romance of love, the seeking and the fleeing, the playful sulking and shunning, and finally the jubilation of the wedding."[44] Not only is movement itself a source of tumescence, but even the spectacle of movement tends to produce the same effect. The pleasure of witnessing movement, as represented by its stimulating effect on the muscular system,--for states of well-being are accompanied by an increase of power,--has been found susceptible of exact measurement by Féré. He has shown that to watch a colored disk when in motion produced stronger muscular contractions, as measured by the dynamometer, than to watch the same disk when motionless. Even in the absence of color a similar influence of movement was noted, and watching a modified metronome produced a greater increase of work with the ergograph than when working to the rhythm of the metronome without watching it.[45] This psychological fact has been independently discovered by advertisers, who seek to impress the value of their wares on the public by the device of announcing them by moving colored lights. The pleasure given by the ballet largely depends on the same fact. Not only is dancing an excitation, but the spectacle of dancing is itself exciting, and even among savages dances have a public which becomes almost as passionately excited as the dancers themselves.[46] It is in virtue of this effect of dancing and similar movements that we so frequently find, both among the lower animals and savage man, that to obtain tumescence in both sexes, it is sufficient for one sex alone, usually the male, to take the active part. This point attracted the attention of Kulischer many years ago, and he showed how the dances of the men, among savages, excite the women, who watch them intently though unobtrusively, and are thus influenced in choosing their lovers. He was probably the first to insist that in man sexual selection has taken place mainly through the agency of dances, games, and festivals.[47] It is now clear, therefore, why the evacuation theory of the sexual impulse must necessarily be partial and inadequate. It leaves out of account the whole of the phenomena connected with tumescence, and those phenomena constitute the most prolonged, the most important, the most significant stage of the sexual process. It is during tumescence that the whole psychology of the sexual impulse is built up; it is as an incident arising during tumescence and influencing its course that we must probably regard nearly every sexual aberration. It is with the second stage of the sexual process, when the instinct of detumescence arises, that the analogy of evacuation can alone be called in. Even here, that analogy, though real, is not complete, the nervous element involved in detumescence being out of all proportion to the extent of the evacuation. The typical act of evacuation, however, is a nervous process, and when we bear this in mind we may see whatever truth the evacuation theory possesses. Beaunis classes the sexual impulse with the "needs of activity," but under this head he coordinates it with the "need of urination." That is to say, that both alike are nervous explosions. Micturition, like detumescence, is a convulsive act, and, like detumescence also, it is certainly connected with cerebral processes; thus in epilepsy the passage of urine which may occur (as in a girl described by Gowers with minor attacks during which it was emitted consciously, but involuntarily) is really a part of the process.[48] There appears, indeed, to be a special and intimate connection between the explosion of sexual detumescence and the explosive energy of the bladder; so that they may reinforce each other and to a limited extent act vicariously in relieving each other's tension. It is noteworthy that nocturnal and diurnal incontinence of urine, as well as "stammering" of the bladder, are all specially liable to begin or to cease at puberty. In men and even infants, distention of the bladder favors tumescence by producing venous congestion, though at the same time it acts as a physical hindrance to sexual detumescence[49]; in women--probably not from pressure alone, but from reflex nervous action--a full bladder increases both sexual excitement and pleasure, and I have been informed by several women that they have independently discovered this fact for themselves and acted in accordance with it. Conversely, sexual excitement increases the explosive force of the bladder, the desire to urinate is aroused, and in women the sexual orgasm, when very acute and occurring with a full bladder, is occasionally accompanied, alike in savage and civilized life, by an involuntary and sometimes full and forcible expulsion of urine.[50] The desire to urinate may possibly be, as has been said, the normal accompaniment of sexual excitement in women (just as it is said to be in mares; so that the Arabs judge that the mare is ready for the stallion when she urinates immediately on hearing him neigh). The association may even form the basis of sexual obsessions.[51] I have elsewhere shown that, of all the influences which increase the expulsive force of the bladder, sexual excitement is the most powerful.[52] It may also have a reverse influence and inhibit contraction of the bladder, sometimes in association with shyness, but also independently of shyness. There is also reason to suppose that the nervous energy expended in an explosion of the tension of the sexual organs may sometimes relieve the bladder; it is well recognized that a full bladder is a factor in producing sexual emissions during sleep, the explosive energy of the bladder being inhibited and passing over into the sexual sphere. Conversely, it appears that explosion of the bladder relieves sexual tension. An explosion of the nervous centers connected with the contraction of the bladder will relieve nervous tension generally; there are forms of epilepsy in which the act of urination constitutes the climax, and Gowers, in dealing with minor epilepsy, emphasizes the frequency of micturition, which "may occur with spasmodic energy when there is only the slightest general stiffness," especially in women. He adds the significant remark that it "sometimes seems to relieve the cerebral tension,"[53] and gives the case of a girl in whom the aura consisted mainly of a desire to urinate; if she could satisfy this the fit was arrested; if not she lost consciousness and a severe fit followed. If micturition may thus relieve nervous tension generally, it is not surprising that it should relieve the tension of the centers with which it is most intimately connected. Sérieux records the case of a girl of 12, possessed by an impulse to masturbation which she was unable to control, although anxious to conquer it, who only found relief in the act of urination; this soothed her and to some extent satisfied the sexual excitement; when the impulse to masturbate was restrained the impulse to urinate became imperative; she would rise four or five times in the night for this purpose, and even urinate in bed or in her clothes to obtain the desired sexual relief.[54] I am acquainted with a lady who had a similar, but less intense, experience during childhood. Sometimes, especially in children, the act of urination becomes an act of gratification at the climax of sexual pleasure, the imitative symbol of detumescence. Thus Schultze-Malkowsky describes a little girl of 7 who would bribe her girl companions with little presents to play the part of horses on all fours while she would ride on their necks with naked thighs in order to obtain the pleasurable sensation of close contact. With one special friend she would ride facing backward, and leaning forward to embrace her body impulsively, and at the same time pressing the neck closely between her thighs, would urinate.[55] Féré has recorded the interesting case of a man who, having all his life after puberty been subject to monthly attacks of sexual excitement, after the age of 45 completely lost the liability to these manifestations, but found himself subject, in place of them, to monthly attacks of frequent and copious urination, accompanied by sexual day-dreams, but by no genital excitement.[56] Such a case admirably illustrates the compensatory relation of sexual and vesical excitation. This mutual interaction is easily comprehensible when we recall the very close nervous connection which exists between the mechanisms of the sexual organs and the bladder. Nor are such relationships found to be confined to these two centers; in a lesser degree the more remote explosive centers are also affected; all motor influences may spread to related muscles; the convulsion of laughter, for instance, seems to be often in relation with the sexual center, and Groos has suggested that the laughter which, especially in the sexually minded, often follows allusions to the genital sphere is merely an effort to dispel nascent sexual excitement by liberating an explosion of nervous energy in another direction.[57] Nervous discharges tend to spread, or to act vicariously, because the motor centers are more or less connected.[58] Of all the physiological motor explosions, the sexual orgasm, or detumescence, is the most massive, powerful, and overwhelming. So volcanic is it that to the ancient Greek philosophers it seemed to be a minor kind of epilepsy. The relief of detumescence is not merely the relief of an evacuation; it is the discharge, by the most powerful apparatus for nervous explosion in the body, of the energy accumulated and stored up in the slow process of tumescence, and that discharge reverberates through all the nervous centers in the organism. "The sophist of Abdera said that coitus is a slight fit of epilepsy, judging it to be an incurable disease." (Clement of Alexandria, _Pædagogus_, bk. ii, chapter x.) And Coelius Aurelianus, one of the chief physicians of antiquity, said that "coitus is a brief epilepsy." Féré has pointed out that both these forms of nervous storm are sometimes accompanied by similar phenomena, by subjective sensations of sight or smell, for example; and that the two kinds of discharge may even be combined. (Féré, _Les Epileptiques_, pp. 283-84; also "Exces Vénériens et Epilepsie," _Comptes-rendus de la Société de Biologie_, April 3, 1897, and the same author's _Instinct Sexuel_, pp. 209, 221, and his "Priapisme Epileptique," _La Médecine Moderne_, February 4, 1899.) The epileptic convulsion in some cases involves the sexual mechanism, and it is noteworthy that epilepsy tends to appear at puberty. In modern times even so great a physician as Boerhaave said that coitus is a "true epilepsy," and more recently Roubaud, Hammond, and Kowalevsky have emphasized the resemblance between coitus and epilepsy, though without identifying the two states. Some authorities have considered that coitus is a cause of epilepsy, but this is denied by Christian, Strümpell, and Löwenfeld. (Löwenfeld, _Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_, 1899, p. 68.) Féré has recorded the case of a youth in whom the adoption of the practice of masturbation, several times a day, was followed by epileptic attacks which ceased when masturbation was abandoned. (Féré, _Comptes-rendus de la Socitété de Biologie_, April 3, 1897.) It seems unprofitable at present to attempt any more fundamental analysis of the sexual impulse. Beaunis, in the work already quoted, vaguely suggests that we ought possibly to connect the sexual excitation which leads the male to seek the female with chemical action, either exercised directly on the protoplasm of the organism or indirectly by the intermediary of the nervous system, and especially by smell in the higher animals. Clevenger, Spitzka, Kiernan, and others have also regarded the sexual impulse as protoplasmic hunger, tracing it back to the presexual times when one protozoal form absorbed another. In the same way Joanny Roux, insisting that the sexual need is a need of the whole organism, and that "we love with the whole of our body," compares the sexual instinct to hunger, and distinguishes between "sexual hunger" affecting the whole system and "sexual appetite" as a more localized desire; he concludes that the sexual need is an aspect of the nutritive need.[59] Useful as these views are as a protest against too crude and narrow a conception of the part played by the sexual impulse, they carry us into a speculative region where proof is difficult. We are now, however, at all events, in a better position to define the contents of the sexual impulse. We see that there are certainly, as Moll has indicated, two constituents in that impulse; but, instead of being unrelated, or only distantly related, we see that they are really so intimately connected as to form two distinct stages in the same process: a first stage, in which--usually under the parallel influence of internal and external stimuli--images, desires, and ideals grow up within the mind, while the organism generally is charged with energy and the sexual apparatus congested with blood; and a second stage, in which the sexual apparatus is discharged amid profound sexual excitement, followed by deep organic relief. By the first process is constituted the tension which the second process relieves. It seems best to call the first impulse the _process of tumescence_; the second the _process of detumescence_.[60] The first, taking on usually a more active form in the male, has the double object of bringing the male himself into the condition in which discharge becomes imperative, and at the same time arousing in the female a similar ardent state of emotional excitement and sexual turgescence. The second process has the object, directly, of discharging the tension thus produced and, indirectly, of effecting the act by which the race is propagated. It seems to me that this is at present the most satisfactory way in which we can attempt to define the sexual impulse. FOOTNOTES: [1] C. Lloyd Morgan, "Instinct and Intelligence in Animals," _Nature_, February 3, 1898. [2] _Essais_, livre iii, ch. v. [3] Féré, "La Prédisposition dans l'étiologie des perversions sexuelles," _Revue de médecine_, 1898. In his more recent work on the evolution and dissolution of the sexual instinct Féré perhaps slightly modified his position by stating that "the sexual appetite is, above all, a general need of the organism based on a sensation of fullness, a sort of need of evacuation," _L'Instinct sexuel_, 1899, p. 6. Löwenfeld (_Ueber die Sexuelle Konstitution_, p. 30) gives a qualified acceptance to the excretory theory, as also Rohleder (_Die Zeugung beim Menschen_, p. 25). [4] Goltz, _Centralblatt für die med. Wissenschaften_, 1865, No. 19, and 1866, No. 18; also _Beiträge zur Lehre von den Funktionen des Frosches_, Berlin, 1869, p. 20. [5] J. Tarchanoff, "Zur Physiologie des Geschlechtsapparatus des Frosches," _Archiv für die Gesammte Physiologie_, 1887, vol. xl, p. 330. [6] E. Steinach, "Untersuchungen zur vergleichenden Physiologie der männlicher Geschlechtsorgane insbesondere der accessorischen Geschlechtsdrüsen," _Archiv für die Gesammte Physiologie_, vol. lvi, 1894, pp. 304-338. [7] See, e.g., Shattock and Seligmann, "The Acquirement of Secondary Sexual Characters," _Proceedings of the Royal Society_, vol. lxxiii, 1904, p. 49. [8] For facts bearing on this point, see Guinard, art. "Castration," Richet's _Dictionnaire de Physiologie_. The general results of castration are summarized by Robert Müller in ch. vii of his _Sexualbiologie_; also by F.H.A. Marshall, _The Physiology of Reproduction_, ch, ix; see also E. Pittard, "Les Skoptzy," _L'Anthropologie_, 1903, p. 463. [9] For an ancient discussion of this point, see Schurig, _Spermatologia_, 1720, cap. ix. [10] J.J. Matignon, _Superstition, Crime, et Misère en Chine_, "Les Eunuques du Palais Impérial de Pékin," 1901. [11] P. Marie, "Eunuchisme et Erotisme," _Nouvelle Iconographie de la Salpêtrière_, 1906, No. 5, and _Progrès médical_, Jan. 26, 1907. [12] _Pedagogical Seminary_, July, 1897, p. 121. [13] See, for instance, the case reported in another volume of these _Studies_ ("Sexual Inversion"), in which castration was performed on a sexual invert without effecting any change. [14] Guinard, art. "Castration," _Dictionnaire de Physiologie_. [15] M.A. Colman, _Medical Standard_, August, 1895; Clara Barrus, _American Journal of Insanity_, April, 1895; Macnaughton-Jones, _British Gynæcological Journal_, August, 1902; W.G. Bridgman, _Medical Standard_, 1896; J.M. Cotterill, _British Medical Journal_, April 7, 1900 (also private communication); Paul F. Mundé, _American Journal of Obstetrics_, March, 1899. [16] See Swale Vincent, _Internal Secretion and the Ductless Glands_, 1912; F.H.A. Marshall, _The Physiology of Reproduction_, 1910, ch. ix; Munzer, _Berliner klinische Wochenschrift_, Nov., 1910; C. Sajous, _The Internal Secretions_, vol. i, 1911. The adrenal glands have been fully and interestingly studied by Glynn, _Quarterly Journal of Medicine_, Jan., 1912; the thyroid, by Ewan Waller, _Practitioner_, Aug., 1912; the internal secretion of the ovary, by A. Louise McIlroy, _Proceedings Royal Society Medicine_, July, 1912. For a discussion at the Neurology Section of the British Medical Association Meeting, 1912, see _British Medical Journal_, Nov. 16, 1912. [17] Since this was written I have come across a passage in _Hampa_ (p. 228), by Rafael Salillas, the Spanish sociologist, which shows that the analogy has been detected by the popular mind and been embodied in popular language: "A significant anatomico-physiological concordance supposes a resemblance between the mouth and the sexual organs of a woman, between coitus and the ingestion of food, and between foods which do not require mastication and the spermatic ejaculation; these representations find expression in the popular name _papo_ given to women's genital organs. 'Papo' is the crop of birds, and is derived from 'papar' (Latin, _papare_), to eat soft food such as we call pap. With this representation of infantile food is connected the term _leche_ [milk] as applied to the ejaculated genital fluid." Cleland, it may be added, in the most remarkable of English erotic novels, _The Memoirs of Fanny Hill_, refers to "the compressive exsuction with which the sensitive mechanism of that part [the vagina] thirstily draws and drains the nipple of Love," and proceeds to compare it to the action of the child at the breast. It appears that, in some parts of the animal world at least, there is a real analogy of formation between the oral and vaginal ends of the trunk. This is notably the case in some insects, and the point has been elaborately discussed by Walter Wesché, "The Genitalia of Both the Sexes in Diptera, and their Relation to the Armature of the Mouth," _Transactions of the Linnean Society_, second series, vol. ix, Zoölogy, 1906. [18] Näcke now expresses himself very dubiously on the point; see, e.g., _Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie_, 1905, p. 186. [19] _Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, Berlin, 1897-98. [20] Moll adopts the term "impulse of detumescence" (_Detumescenztrieb_) instead of "impulse of ejaculation," because in women there is either no ejaculation or it cannot be regarded as essential. [21] I quote from the second edition, as issued in 1881. [22] This is the theory which by many has alone been seen in Darwin's _Descent of Man_. Thus even his friend Wallace states unconditionally (_Tropical Nature_, p. 193) that Darwin accepted a "voluntary or conscious sexual selection," and seems to repeat the same statement in _Darwinism_ (1889), p. 283. Lloyd Morgan, in his discussion of the pairing instinct in _Habit and Instinct_ (1896), seems also only to see this side of Darwin's statement. [23] In his _Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication_, Darwin was puzzled by the fact that, in captivity, animals often copulate without conceiving and failed to connect that fact with the processes behind his own theory of sexual selection. [24] Beaunis, _Sensations Internes_, ch. v, "Besoins Sexuels," 1889. It may be noted that many years earlier Burdach (in his _Physiologie als Erfahrungswissenschaft_, 1826) had recognized that the activity of the male favored procreation, and that mental and physical excitement seemed to have the same effect in the female also. [25] It is scarcely necessary to point out that this is too extreme a position. As J.G. Millais remarks of ducks (_Natural History of British Ducks_, p. 45), in courtship "success in winning the admiration of the female is rather a matter of persistent and active attention than physical force," though the males occasionally fight over the female. The ruff (_Machetes pugnax_) is a pugnacious bird, as his name indicates. Yet, the reeve, the female of this species, is, as E. Selous shows ("Sexual Selection in Birds," _Zoölogist_, Feb. and May, 1907), completely mistress of the situation. "She seems the plain and unconcerned little mistress of a numerous and handsome seraglio, each member of which, however he flounce and bounce, can only wait to be chosen." Any fighting among the males is only incidental and is not a factor in selection. Moreover, as R. Müller points out (loc. cit., p. 290), fighting would not usually attain the end desired, for if the males expend their time and strength in a serious combat they merely afford a third less pugnacious male a better opportunity of running off with the prize. [26] L. Tillier, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, 1889, pp. 74, 118, 119, 124 et seq., 289. [27] K. Groos, _Die Spiele der Thiere_, 1896; _Die Spiele der Menschen_, 1899; both are translated into English. [28] Prof. H.E. Ziegler, in a private letter to Professor Groos, _Spiele der Thiere_, p. 202. [29] _Die Spiele der Thiere_, p. 244. This had been briefly pointed out by earlier writers. Thus, Haeckel (_Gen. Morph._, ii, p. 244) remarked that fighting for females is a special or modified kind of struggle for existence, and that it acts on both sexes. [30] It may be added that in the human species, as Bray remarks ("Le Beau dans la Nature," _Revue Philosophique_, October, 1901, p. 403), "the hymen would seem to tend to the same end, as if nature had wished to reinforce by a natural obstacle the moral restraint of modesty, so that only the vigorous male could insure his reproduction." There can be no doubt that among many animals pairing is delayed so far as possible until maturity is reached. "It is a strict rule amongst birds," remarks J.G. Millais (op. cit., p. 46), "that they do not breed until both sexes have attained the perfect adult plumage." Until that happens, it seems probable, the conditions for sexual excitation are not fully established. We know little, says Howard (_Zoölogist_, 1903, p. 407), of the age at which birds begin to breed, but it is known that "there are yearly great numbers of individuals who do not breed, and the evidence seems to show that such individuals are immature." [31] A. Marro, _La Puberté_, 1901, p. 464. [32] Lloyd Morgan, _Animal Behavior_, 1900, pp. 264-5. It may be added that, on the esthetic side, Hirn, in his study (_The Origins of Art_, 1900), reaches conclusions which likewise, in the main, concord with those of Groos. [33] It may be noted that the marriage ceremony itself is often of the nature of a courtship, a symbolic courtship, embodying a method of attaining tumescence. As Crawley, who has brought out this point, puts it, "Marriage-rites of union are essentially identical with love charms," and he refers in illustration to the custom of the Australian Arunta, among whom the man or woman by making music on the bull-roarer compels a person of the opposite sex to court him or her, the marriage being thus completed. (E. Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_, p. 318.) [34] The more carefully animals are observed, the more often this is found to be the case, even with respect to species which possess no obvious and elaborate process for obtaining tumescence. See, for instance, the detailed and very instructive account--too long to quote here--given by E. Selous of the preliminaries to intercourse practised by a pair of great crested grebes, while nest-building. Intercourse only took place with much difficulty, after many fruitless invitations, more usually given by the female. ("Observational Diary of the Habits of the Great Crested Grebe," _Zöologist_, September, 1901.) It is exactly the same with savages. The observation of Foley (_Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie de Paris_, November 6, 1879) that in savages "sexual erethism is very difficult" is of great significance and certainly in accordance with the facts. This difficulty of erethism is the real cause of many savage practices which to the civilized person often seem perverse; the women of the Caroline Islands, for instance, as described by Finsch, require the tongue or even the teeth to be applied to the clitoris, or a great ant to be applied to bite the parts, in order to stimulate orgasm. Westermarck, after quoting a remark of Mariner's concerning the women of Tonga,--"it must not be supposed that these women are always easily won; the greatest attentions and the most fervent solicitations are sometimes requisite, even though there be no other lover in the way,"--adds that these words "hold true for a great many, not to say all, savage and barbarous races now existing." (_Human Marriage_, p. 163.) The old notions, however, as to the sexual licentiousness of peoples living in natural conditions have scarcely yet disappeared. See Appendix A; "The Sexual Instinct in Savages." [35] In men a certain degree of tumescence is essential before coitus can be effected at all; in women, though tumescence is not essential to coitus, it is essential to orgasm and the accompanying physical and psychic relief. The preference which women often experience for prolonged coitus is not, as might possibly be imagined, due to sensuality, but has a profound physiological basis. [36] Stanley Hall, _Adolescence_, vol. i, p. 223. [37] See Lagrange's _Physiology of Bodily Exercise_, especially chapter ii. It is a significant fact that, as Sergi remarks (_Les Emotions_, p. 330), the physiological results of dancing are identical with the physiological results of pleasure. [38] Groos, _Spiele der Menschen_, p. 112. Zmigrodzki (_Die Mutter bei den Volkern des Arischen Stammes_, p. 414 et seq.) has an interesting passage describing the dance--especially the Russian dance--in its orgiastic aspects. [39] Féré, "L'Influence sur le Travail Volontaire d'un muscle de l'activité d'autres muscles," _Nouvelles Iconographie de la Salpêtrière_, 1901. [40] "The sensation of motion," Kline remarks ("The Migratory Impulse," _American Journal of Psychology_, October, 1898, p. 62), "as yet but little studied from a pleasure-pain standpoint, is undoubtedly a pleasure-giving sensation. For Aristippus the end of life is pleasure, which he defines as gentle motion. Motherhood long ago discovered its virtue as furnished by the cradle. Galloping to town on the parental knee is a pleasing pastime in every nursery. The several varieties of swings, the hammock, see-saw, flying-jenny, merry-go-round, shooting the chutes, sailing, coasting, rowing, and skating, together with the fondness of children for rotating rapidly in one spot until dizzy and for jumping from high places, are all devices and sports for stimulating the sense of motion. In most of these modes of motion the body is passive or semipassive, save in such motions as skating and rotating on the feet. The passiveness of the body precludes any important contribution of stimuli from kinesthetic sources. The stimuli are probably furnished, as Dr. Hall and others have suggested, by a redistribution of fluid pressure (due to the unusual motions and positions of the body) to the inner walls of the several vascular systems of the body." [41] _Anatomy of Melancholy_, part iii., sect. ii, mem. ii, subs. iv. [42] Sadger, "Haut-, Schleimhaut-, und Muskel-erotik," _Jahrbuch für psychoanalytische Forschungen_, Bd. iii, 1912, p. 556. [43] Marro (_Pubertà_, p. 367 et seq.) has some observations on this point. It was an insight into this action of dancing which led the Spanish clergy of the eighteenth century to encourage the national enthusiasm for dancing (as Baretti informs us) in the interests of morality. [44] It is scarcely necessary to remark that a primitive dance, even when associated with courtship, is not necessarily a sexual pantomime; as Wallaschek, in his comprehensive survey of primitive dances, observes, it is more usually an animal pantomime, but nonetheless connected with the sexual instinct, separation of the sexes, also, being no proof to the contrary. (Wallaschek, _Primitive Music_, pp. 211-13.) Grosse (_Anfänge der Kunst_, English translation, p. 228) has pointed out that the best dancer would be the best fighter and hunter, and that sexual selection and natural selection would thus work in harmony. [45] Féré, "Le plaisir de la vue du Mouvement," _Comptes-rendus de la Société de Biologie_, November 2, 1901; also _Travail et Plaisir_, ch. xxix. [46] Groos repeatedly emphasizes the significance of this fact (_Spiele der Menschen_, pp. 81-9, 460 et seq.); Grosse (_Anfänge der Kunst_, p. 215) had previously made some remarks on this point. [47] M. Kulischer, "Die Geschlechtliche Zuchtwahl bei den Menschen in der Urzeit," _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1876, p. 140 _et seq._ [48] Sir W.R. Gowers, _Epilepsy_, 2d ed., 1901, pp. 61, 138. [49] Guyon, _Leçons Cliniques sur les Maladies des Voies Urinaires_, 3d ed., 1896, vol. ii, p. 397. [50] See, e.g., Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, pp. 222-23: Brantôme was probably the first writer in modern times who referred to this phenomenon. MacGillicuddy (_Functional Disorders of the Nervous System in Women_, p. 110) refers to the case of a lady who always had sudden and uncontrollable expulsion of urine whenever her husband even began to perform the marital act, on which account he finally ceased intercourse with her. Kubary states that in Ponape (Western Carolines) the men are accustomed to titillate the vulva of their women with the tongue until the excitement is so intense that involuntary emission of urine takes place; this is regarded as the proper moment for intercourse. [51] Thus Pitres and Régis (_Transactions of the International Medical Congress, Moscow_, vol. iv, p. 19) record the case of a young girl whose life was for some years tormented by a groundless fear of experiencing an irresistible desire to urinate. This obsession arose from once seeing at a theater a man whom she liked, and being overcome by sexual feeling accompanied by so strong a desire to urinate that she had to leave the theater. An exactly similar case in a young woman of erotic temperament, but prudish, has been recorded by Freud (_Zur Neurosenlehre_, Bd. i, p. 54). Morbid obsessions of modesty involving the urinary sphere and appearing at puberty are evidently based on transformed sexual emotion. Such a case has been recorded by Marandon de Montyel (_Archives de Neurologie_, vol. xii, 1901, p. 36); this lady, who was of somewhat neuropathic temperament, from puberty onward, in order to be able to urinate found it necessary not only to be absolutely alone, but to feel assured that no one even knew what was taking place. [52] H. Ellis, "The Bladder as a Dynamometer," _American Journal of Dermatology_, May, 1902. [53] Sir W. Gowers, "Minor Epilepsy," _British Medical Journal_, January 6, 1900; ib., _Epilepsy_, 2d ed., 1901, p. 106; see also H. Ellis, art. "Urinary Bladder, Influence of the Mind on the," in Tuke's _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_. [54] Sérieux, _Recherches Cliniques sur les Anomalies de l'Instinct Sexuel_, p. 22. [55] Emil Schultze-Malkowsky, "Der Sexuelle Trieb in Kindesalter," _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, vol. ii, part 8, p. 372. [56] Féré, "Note sur un Cas de Periodicité Sexuelle chez l'Homme," _Comptes-rendus Société de Biologie_, July 23, 1904. [57] It is a familiar fact that, in women, occasionally, a violent explosion of laughter may be propagated to the bladder-center and produce urination. "She laughed till she nearly wetted the floor," I have heard a young woman in the country say, evidently using without thought a familiar locution. Professor Bechterew has recorded the case of a young married lady who, from childhood, wherever she might be--in friends' houses, in the street, in her own drawing-room--had always experienced an involuntary and forcible emission of urine, which could not be stopped or controlled, whenever she laughed; the bladder was quite sound and no muscular effort produced the same result. (W. Bechterew, _Neurologisches Centralblatt_, 1899.) In women these relationships are most easily observed, partly because in them the explosive centers are more easily discharged, and partly, it is probable, so far as the bladder is concerned, because, although after death the resistance to the emission of urine is notably less in women, during life about the same amount of force is necessary in both sexes; so that a greater amount of energy flows to the bladder in women, and any nervous storm or disturbance is thus specially apt to affect the bladder. [58] "Every pain," remarks Marie de Manacéine, "produces a number of movements which are apparently useless: we cry out, we groan, we move our limbs, we throw ourselves from one side to the other, and at bottom all these movements are logical because by interrupting and breaking our attention they render us less sensitive to the pain. In the days before chloroform, skillful surgeons requested their patients to cry out during the operation, as we are told by Gratiolet, who could not explain so strange a fact, for in his time the antagonism of movements and attention was not recognized." (Marie de Manacéine, _Archives Italiennes de Biologie_, 1894, p. 250.) This antagonism of attention by movement is but another way of expressing the vicarious relationship of motor discharges. [59] Joanny Roux, _Psychologie de l'Instinct Sexuel_, 1899, pp. 22-23. It is disputed whether hunger is located in the whole organism, and powerful arguments have been brought against the view. (W. Cannon, "The Nature of Hunger," _Popular Science Monthly_, Sept., 1912.) Thirst is usually regarded as organic (A. Mayer, _La Soif_, 1901). [60] If there is any objection to these terms it is chiefly because they have reference to vascular congestion rather than to the underlying nervous charging and discharging, which is equally fundamental, and in man more prominent than the vascular phenomena. LOVE AND PAIN. I. The Chief Key to the Relationship between Love and Pain to be Found in Animal Courtship--Courtship a Source of Combativity and of Cruelty--Human Play in the Light of Animal Courtship--The Frequency of Crimes Against the Person in Adolescence--Marriage by Capture and its Psychological Basis--Man's Pleasure in Exerting Force and Woman's Pleasure in Experiencing it--Resemblance of Love to Pain even in Outward Expression--The Love-bite--In what Sense Pain may be Pleasurable--The Natural Contradiction in the Emotional Attitude of Women Toward Men--Relative Insensibility to Pain of the Organic Sexual Sphere in Women--The Significance of the Use of the Ampallang and Similar Appliances in Coitus--The Sexual Subjection of Women to Men in Part Explainable as the Necessary Condition for Sexual Pleasure. The relation of love to pain is one of the most difficult problems, and yet one of the most fundamental, in the whole range of sexual psychology. Why is it that love inflicts, and even seeks to inflict, pain? Why is it that love suffers pain, and even seeks to suffer it? In answering that question, it seems to me, we have to take an apparently circuitous route, sometimes going beyond the ostensible limits of sex altogether; but if we can succeed in answering it we shall have come very near one of the great mysteries of love. At the same time we shall have made clear the normal basis on which rest the extreme aberrations of love. The chief key to the relationship of love to pain is to be found by returning to the consideration of the essential phenomena of courtship in the animal world generally. Courtship is a play, a game; even its combats are often, to a large extent, mock-combats; but the process behind it is one of terrible earnestness, and the play may at any moment become deadly. Courtship tends to involve a mock-combat between males for the possession of the female which may at any time become a real combat; it is a pursuit of the female by the male which may at any time become a kind of persecution; so that, as Colin Scott remarks, "Courting may be looked upon as a refined and delicate form of combat." The note of courtship, more especially among mammals, is very easily forced, and as soon as we force it we reach pain.[61] The intimate and inevitable association in the animal world of combat--of the fighting and hunting impulses--with the process of courtship alone suffices to bring love into close connection with pain. Among mammals the male wins the female very largely by the display of force. The infliction of pain must inevitably be a frequent indirect result of the exertion of power. It is even more than this; the infliction of pain by the male on the female may itself be a gratification of the impulse to exert force. This tendency has always to be held in check, for it is of the essence of courtship that the male should win the female, and she can only be won by the promise of pleasure. The tendency of the male to inflict pain must be restrained, so far as the female is concerned, by the consideration of what is pleasing to her. Yet, the more carefully we study the essential elements of courtship, the clearer it becomes that, playful as these manifestations may seem on the surface, in every direction they are verging on pain. It is so among animals generally; it is so in man among savages. "It is precisely the alliance of pleasure and pain," wrote the physiologist Burdach, "which constitutes the voluptuous emotion." Nor is this emotional attitude entirely confined to the male. The female also in courtship delights to arouse to the highest degree in the male the desire for her favors and to withhold those favors from him, thus finding on her part also the enjoyment of power in cruelty. "One's cruelty is one's power," Millament says in Congreve's _Way of the World_, "and when one parts with one's cruelty one parts with one's power." At the outset, then, the impulse to inflict pain is brought into courtship, and at the same time rendered a pleasurable idea to the female, because with primitive man, as well as among his immediate ancestors, the victor in love has been the bravest and strongest rather than the most beautiful or the most skilful. Until he can fight he is not reckoned a man and he cannot hope to win a woman. Among the African Masai a man is not supposed to marry until he has blooded his spear, and in a very different part of the world, among the Dyaks of Borneo, there can be little doubt that the chief incentive to head-hunting is the desire to please the women, the possession of a head decapitated by himself being an excellent way of winning a maiden's favor.[62] Such instances are too well known to need multiplication here, and they survive in civilization, for, even among ourselves, although courtship is now chiefly ruled by quite other considerations, most women are in some degree emotionally affected by strength and courage. But the direct result of this is that a group of phenomena with which cruelty and the infliction of pain must inevitably be more or less allied is brought within the sphere of courtship and rendered agreeable to women. Here, indeed, we have the source of that love of cruelty which some have found so marked in women. This is a phase of courtship which helps us to understand how it is that, as we shall see, the idea of pain, having become associated with sexual emotion, may be pleasurable to women. Thus, in order to understand the connection between love and pain, we have once more to return to the consideration, under a somewhat new aspect, of the fundamental elements in the sexual impulse. In discussing the "Evolution of Modesty" we found that the primary part of the female in courtship is the playful, yet serious, assumption of the rôle of a hunted animal who lures on the pursuer, not with the object of escaping, but with the object of being finally caught. In considering the "Analysis of the Sexual Impulse" we found that the primary part of the male in courtship is by the display of his energy and skill to capture the female or to arouse in her an emotional condition which leads her to surrender herself to him, this process itself at the same time heightening his own excitement. In the playing of these two different parts is attained in both male and female that charging of nervous energy, that degree of vascular tumescence, necessary for adequate discharge and detumescence in an explosion by which sperm-cells and germ-cells are brought together for the propagation of the race. We are now concerned with the necessary interplay of the differing male and female rôles in courtship, and with their accidental emotional by-products. Both male and female are instinctively seeking the same end of sexual union at the moment of highest excitement. There cannot, therefore, be real conflict.[63] But there is the semblance of a conflict, an apparent clash of aim, an appearance of cruelty. Moreover,--and this is a significant moment in the process from our present point of view,--when there are rivals for the possession of one female there is always a possibility of actual combat, so tending to introduce an element of real violence, of undisguised cruelty, which the male inflicts on his rival and which the female views with satisfaction and delight in the prowess of the successful claimant. Here we are brought close to the zoölogical root of the connection between love and pain.[64] In his admirable work on play in man Groos has fully discussed the plays of combat (_Kampfspiele_), which begin to develop even in childhood and assume full activity during adolescence; and he points out that, while the impulse to such play certainly has a wider biological significance, it still possesses a relationship to the sexual life and to the rivalries of animals in courtship which must not be forgotten.[65] Nor is it only in play that the connection between love and combativity may still be traced. With the epoch of the first sexual relationship, Marro points out, awakes the instinct of cruelty, which prompts the youth to acts which are sometimes in absolute contrast to his previous conduct, and leads him to be careless of the lives of others as well as of his own life.[66] Marro presents a diagram showing how crimes against the person in Italy rise rapidly from the age of 16 to 20 and reach a climax between 21 and 25. In Paris, Gamier states, crimes of blood are six times more frequent in adolescents (aged 16 to 20) than in adults. It is the same elsewhere.[67] This tendency to criminal violence during the age-period of courtship is a by-product of the sexual impulse, a kind of tertiary sexual character. In the process of what is commonly termed "marriage by capture" we have a method of courtship which closely resembles the most typical form of animal courtship, and is yet found in all but the highest and most artificial stages of human society. It may not be true that, as MacLennan and others have argued, almost every race of man has passed through an actual stage of marriage by capture, but the phenomena in question have certainly been extremely widespread and exist in popular custom even among the highest races today. George Sand has presented a charming picture of such a custom, existing in France, in her _Mare au Diable_. Farther away, among the Kirghiz, the young woman is pursued by all her lovers, but she is armed with a formidable whip, which she does not hesitate to use if overtaken by a lover to whom she is not favorable. Among the Malays, according to early travelers, courtship is carried on in the water in canoes with double-bladed paddles; or, if no water is near, the damsel, stripped naked of all but a waistband, is given a certain start and runs off on foot followed by her lover. Vaughan Stevens in 1896 reported that this performance is merely a sport; but Skeat and Blagden, in their more recent and very elaborate investigations in the Malay States, find that it is a rite. Even if we regard "marriage by capture" as simply a primitive human institution stimulated by tribal exigencies and early social conditions, yet, when we recall its widespread and persistent character, its close resemblance to the most general method of courtship among animals, and the emotional tendencies which still persist even in the most civilized men and women, we have to recognize that we are in presence of a real psychological impulse which cannot fail in its exercise to introduce some element of pain into love. There are, however, two fundamentally different theories concerning "marriage by capture." According to the first, that of MacLennan, which, until recently, has been very widely accepted, and to which Professor Tylor has given the weight of his authority, there has really been in primitive society a recognized stage in which marriages were effected by the capture of the wife. Such a state of things MacLennan regarded as once world-wide. There can be no doubt that women very frequently have been captured in this way among primitive peoples. Nor, indeed, has the custom been confined to savages. In Europe we find that even up to comparatively recent times the abduction of women was not only very common, but was often more or less recognized. In England it was not until Henry VII's time that the violent seizure of a woman was made a criminal offense, and even then the statute was limited to women possessed of lands and goods. A man might still carry off a girl provided she was not an heiress; but even the abduction of heiresses continued to be common, and in Ireland remained so until the end of the eighteenth century. But it is not so clear that such raids and abductions, even when not of a genuinely hostile character, have ever been a recognized and constant method of marriage. According to the second set of theories, the capture is not real, but simulated, and may be accounted for by psychological reasons. Fustel de Coulanges, in _La Cité Antique_,[68] discussing simulated marriage by capture among the Romans, mentioned the view that it was "a symbol of the young girl's modesty," but himself regarded it as an act of force to symbolize the husband's power. He was possibly alluding to Herbert Spencer, who suggested a psychological explanation of the apparent prevalence of marriage by capture based on the supposition that, capturing a wife being a proof of bravery, such a method of obtaining a wife would be practised by the strongest men and be admired, while, on the other hand, he considered that "female coyness" was "an important factor" in constituting the more formal kinds of marriage by capture ceremonial.[69] Westermarck, while accepting true marriage by capture, considers that Spencer's statement "can scarcely be disproved."[70] In his valuable study of certain aspects of primitive marriage Crawley, developing the explanation rejected by Fustel de Coulanges, regards the fundamental fact to be the modesty of women, which has to be neutralized, and this is done by "a ceremonial use of force, which is half real and half make-believe." Thus the manifestations are not survivals, but "arising in a natural way from normal human feelings. It is not the tribe from which the bride is abducted, nor, primarily, her family and kindred, but her _sex_"; and her "sexual characters of timidity, bashfulness, and passivity are sympathetically overcome by make-believe representations of male characteristic actions."[71] It is not necessary for the present purpose that either of these two opposing theories concerning the origin of the customs and feelings we are here concerned with should be definitely rejected. Whichever theory is adopted, the fundamental psychic element which here alone concerns us still exists intact.[72] It may be pointed out, however, that we probably have to accept two groups of such phenomena: one, seldom or never existing as the sole form of marriage, in which the capture is real; and another in which the "capture" is more or less ceremonial or playful. The two groups coexist among the Turcomans, as described by Vambery, who are constantly capturing and enslaving the Persians of both sexes, and, side by side with this, have a marriage ceremonial of mock-capture of entirely playful character. At the same time the two groups sometimes overlap, as is indicated by cases in which, while the "capture" appears to be ceremonial, the girl is still allowed to escape altogether if she wishes. The difficulty of disentangling the two groups is shown by the fact that so careful an investigator as Westermarck cites cases of real capture and mock-capture together without attempting to distinguish between them. From our present point of view it is quite unnecessary to attempt such a distinction. Whether the capture is simulated or real, the man is still playing the masculine and aggressive part proper to the male; the woman is still playing the feminine and defensive part proper to the female. The universal prevalence of these phenomena is due to the fact that manifestations of this kind, real or pretended, afford each sex the very best opportunity for playing its proper part in courtship, and so, even when the force is real, must always gratify a profound instinct. It is not necessary to quote examples of marriage by capture from the numerous and easily accessible books on the evolution of marriage. (Sir A.B. Ellis, adopting MacLennan's standpoint, presented a concise statement of the facts in an article on "Survivals from Marriage by Capture," _Popular Science Monthly_, 1891, p. 207.) It may, however, be worth while to bring together from scattered sources a few of the facts concerning the phenomena in this group and their accompanying emotional state, more especially as they bear on the association of love with force, inflicted or suffered. In New Caledonia, Foley remarks, the successful coquette goes off with her lover into the bush. "It usually happens that, when she is successful, she returns from her expedition, tumbled, beaten, scratched, even bitten on the nape and shoulders, her wounds thus bearing witness to the quadrupedal attitude she has assumed amid the foliage." (Foley, _Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie_, Paris, November 6, 1879.) Of the natives of New South Wales, Turnbull remarked at the beginning of the nineteenth century that "their mode of courtship is not without its singularity. When a young man sees a female to his fancy he informs her she must accompany him home; the lady refuses; he not only enforces compliance with threats but blows; thus the gallant, according to the custom, never fails to gain the victory, and bears off the willing, though struggling pugilist. The colonists for some time entertained the idea that the women were compelled and forced away against their inclinations; but the young ladies informed them that this mode of gallantry was the custom, and perfectly to their taste," (J. Turnbull, _A Voyage Round the World_, 1813, p. 98; cf. Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, 1878, vol. i, p. 81.) As regards capture of women among Central Australian tribes, Spencer and Gillen remark: "We have never in any of these central tribes met with any such thing, and the clubbing part of the story may be dismissed, so far as the central area of the continent is concerned. To the casual observer what looks like a capture (we are, of course, only speaking of these tribes) is in reality an elopement, in which the woman is an aiding and abetting party." (_Northern Tribes of Central Australia_. p. 32.) "The New Zealand method of courtship and matrimony is a most extraordinary one. A man sees a woman whom he fancies he should like for a wife; he asks the consent of her father, or, if an orphan, of her nearest relative, which, if he obtain, he carries his intended off by force, she resisting with all her strength, and, as the New Zealand girls are generally fairly robust, sometimes a dreadful struggle takes place; both are soon stripped to the skin and it is sometimes the work of hours to remove the fair prize a hundred yards. It sometimes happens that she secures her retreat into her father's house, and the lover loses all chance of ever obtaining her." (A. Earle, _Narratives of Residence in New Zealand_, 1832, p. 244.) Among the Eskimos (probably near Smith Sound) "there is no marriage ceremony further than that the boy is required to carry off his bride by main force, for even among these blubber-eating people the woman only saves her modesty by a show of resistance, although she knows years beforehand that her destiny is sealed and that she is to become the wife of the man from whose embraces, when the nuptial day comes, she is obliged by the inexorable law of public opinion to free herself, if possible, by kicking and screaming with might and main until she is safely landed in the hut of her future lord, when she gives up the combat very cheerfully and takes possession of her new abode. The betrothal often takes place at a very early period of life and at very dissimilar ages." Marriage only takes place when the lover has killed his first seal; this is the test of manhood and maturity. (J.J. Hayes, _Open Polar Sea_, 1867, p. 432.) Marriage by "capture" is common in war and raiding in central Africa. "The women, as a rule," Johnston says, "make no very great resistance on these occasions. It is almost like playing a game. A woman is surprised as she goes to get water at the stream, or when she is on the way to or from the plantation. The man has only got to show her she is cornered and that escape is not easy or pleasant and she submits to be carried off. As a general rule, they seem to accept very cheerfully these abrupt changes in their matrimonial existence." (Sir H.H. Johnston, _British Central Africa_, p. 412.) Among the wild tribes of the Malay Peninsula in one form of wedding rite the bridegroom is required to run seven times around an artificial mound decorated with flowers and the emblem of the people's religion. In the event of the bridegroom failing to catch the bride the marriage has to be postponed. Among the Orang Laut, or sea-gipsies, the pursuit sometimes takes the form of a canoe-race; the woman is given a good start and must be overtaken before she has gone a certain distance. (W.W. Skeat, _Journal Anthropological Institute_, Jan.-June, 1902, p. 134; Skeat and Blagden, _Pagan Races of the Malay_, vol. ii, p. 69 et seq., fully discuss the ceremony around the mound.) "Calmuck women ride better than the men. A male Calmuck on horseback looks as if he was intoxicated, and likely to fall off every instant, though he never loses his seat; but the women sit with more ease, and ride with extraordinary skill. The ceremony of marriage among the Calmucks is performed on horseback. A girl is first mounted, who rides off at full speed. Her lover pursues, and if he overtakes her she becomes his wife and the marriage is consummated upon the spot, after which she returns with him to his tent. But it sometimes happens that the woman does not wish to marry the person by whom she is pursued, in which case she will not suffer him to overtake her; and we were assured that no instance occurs of a Calmuck girl being thus caught, unless she has a partiality for her pursuer. If she dislikes him, she rides, to use the language of English sportsmen, 'neck or nothing,' until she has completely escaped or until the pursuer's horse is tired out, leaving her at liberty to return, to be afterward chased by some more favored admirer." (E.D. Clarke, _Travels_, 1810, vol. i, p. 333.) Among the Bedouins marriage is arranged between the lover and the girl's father, often without consulting the girl herself. "Among the Arabs of Sinai the young maid comes home in the evening with the cattle. At a short distance from the camp she is met by the future spouse and a couple of his young friends and carried off by force to her father's tent. If she entertains any suspicion of their designs she defends herself with stones, and often inflicts wounds on the young men, even though she does not dislike the lover, for, according to custom, the more she struggles, bites, kicks, cries, and strikes, the more she is applauded ever after by her own companions." After being taken to her father's tent, where a man's cloak is thrown over her by one of the bridegroom's relations, she is dressed in garments provided by her future husband, and placed on a camel, "still continuing to struggle in a most unruly manner, and held by the bridegroom's friends on both sides." She is then placed in a recess of the husband's tent. Here the marriage is finally consummated, "the bride still continuing to cry very loudly. It sometimes happens that the husband is obliged to tie his bride, and even to beat her, before she can be induced to comply with his desires." If, however, she really does not like her husband, she is perfectly free to leave him next morning, and her father is obliged to receive her back whether he wishes to or not. It is not considered proper for a widow or divorced woman to make any resistance on being married. (J.L. Burckhardt, _Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys_, 1830, p. 149 et seq.) Among the Turcomans forays for capturing and enslaving their Persian neighbors were once habitual. Vambery describes their "marriage ceremonial when the young maiden, attired in bridal costume, mounts a high-bred courser, taking on her lap the carcass of a lamb or goat, and setting off at full gallop, followed by the bridegroom and other young men of the party, also on horseback; she is always to strive, by adroit turns, etc., to avoid her pursuers, that no one approach near enough to snatch from her the burden on her lap. This game, called _kökbüri_ (green wolf), is in use among all the nomads of central Asia." (A. Vambery, _Travels in Central Asia_, 1864, p. 323.) In China, a missionary describes how, when he was called upon to marry the daughter of a Chinese Christian brought up in native customs, he was compelled to wait several hours, as the bride refused to get up and dress until long after the time appointed for the wedding ceremony, and then only by force. "Extreme reluctance and dislike and fear are the true marks of a happy and lively wedding." (A.E. Moule, _New China and Old_, p. 128.) It is interesting to find that in the Indian art of love a kind of mock-combat, accompanied by striking, is a recognized and normal method of heightening tumescence. Vatsyayana has a chapter "On Various Manners of Striking," and he approves of the man striking the woman on the back, belly, flanks, and buttocks, before and during coitus, as a kind of play, increasing as sexual excitement increases, which the woman, with cries and groans, pretends to bid the man to stop. It is mentioned that, especially in southern India, various instruments (scissors, needles, etc.) are used in striking, but this practice is condemned as barbarous and dangerous. (_Kama Sutra_, French translation, iii, chapter v.) In the story of Aladdin, in the _Arabian Nights_, the bride is undressed by the mother and the other women, who place her in the bridegroom's bed "as if by force, and, according to the custom of the newly married, she pretends to resist, twisting herself in every direction, and seeking to escape from their hands." (_Les Mille Nuits_, tr. Mardrus, vol. xi, p. 253.) It is said that in those parts of Germany where preliminary _Probenächte_ before formal marriage are the rule it is not uncommon for a young woman before finally giving herself to a man to provoke him to a physical struggle. If she proves stronger she dismisses him; if he is stronger she yields herself willingly. (W. Henz, "Probenächte," _Sexual-Probleme_, Oct., 1910, p. 743.) Among the South Slavs of Servia and Bulgaria, according to Krauss, it is the custom to win a woman by seizing her by the ankle and bringing her to the ground by force. This method of wooing is to the taste of the woman, and they are refractory to any other method. The custom of beating or being beaten before coitus is also found among the South Slavs. (Kryptadia, vol. vi, p. 209.) In earlier days violent courtship was viewed with approval in the European world, even among aristocratic circles. Thus in the medieval _Lai de Graélent_ of Marie de France this Breton knight is represented as very chaste, possessing a high ideal of love and able to withstand the wiles of women. One day when he is hunting in a forest he comes upon a naked damsel bathing, together with her handmaidens. Overcome by her beauty, he seizes her clothes in case she should be alarmed, but is persuaded to hand them to her; then he proceeds to make love to her. She replies that his love is an insult to a woman of her high lineage. Finding her so proud, Graélent sees that his prayers are in vain. He drags her by force into the depth of the forest, has his will of her, and begs her very gently not to be angry, promising to love her loyally and never to leave her. The damsel saw that he was a good knight, courteous, and wise. She thought within herself that if she were to leave him she would never find a better friend. Brantôme mentions a lady who confessed that she liked to be "half-forced" by her husband, and he remarks that a woman who is "a little difficult and resists" gives more pleasure also to her lover than one who yields at once, just as a hard-fought battle is a more notable triumph than an easily won victory. (Brantôme, _Vie des Dames Galantes_, discours i.) Restif de la Bretonne, again, whose experience was extensive, wrote in his _Anti-Justine_ that "all women of strong temperament like a sort of brutality in sexual intercourse and its accessories." Ovid had said that a little force is pleasing to a woman, and that she is grateful to the ravisher against whom she struggles (_Ars Amatoria_, lib. i). One of Janet's patients (Raymond and Janet, _Les Obsessions et la Psychasthénie_, vol. ii, p. 406) complained that her husband was too good, too devoted. "He does not know how to make me suffer a little. One cannot love anyone who does not make one suffer a little." Another hysterical woman (a silk fetichist, frigid with men) had dreams of men and animals abusing her: "I cried with pain and was happy at the same time." (Clérambault, _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, June, 1908, p. 442.) It has been said that among Slavs of the lower class the wives feel hurt if they are not beaten by their husbands. Paullinus, in the seventeenth century, remarked that Russian women are never more pleased and happy than when beaten by their husbands, and regard such treatment as proof of love. (See, e.g., C.F. von Schlichtegroll, _Sacher-Masoch und der Masochismus_, p. 69.) Krafft-Ebing believes that this is true at the present day, and adds that it is the same in Hungary, a Hungarian official having informed him that the peasant women of the Somogyer Comitate do not think they are loved by their husbands until they have received the first box on the ear. (Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia Sexualis_, English translation of the tenth edition, p. 188.) I may add that a Russian proverb says "Love your wife like your soul and beat her like your _shuba_" (overcoat); and, according to another Russian proverb, "a dear one's blows hurt not long." At the same time it has been remarked that the domination of men by women is peculiarly frequent among the Slav peoples. (V. Schlichtegroll, op. cit., p. 23.) Cellini, in an interesting passage in his _Life_ (book ii, chapters xxxiv-xxxv), describes his own brutal treatment of his model Caterina, who was also his mistress, and the pleasure which, to his surprise, she took in it. Dr. Simon Forman, also, the astrologist, tells in his _Autobiography_ (p. 7) how, as a young and puny apprentice to a hosier, he was beaten, scolded, and badly treated by the servant girl, but after some years of this treatment he turned on her, beat her black and blue, and ever after "Mary would do for him all that she could." That it is a sign of love for a man to beat his sweetheart, and a sign much appreciated by women, is illustrated by the episode of Cariharta and Repolido, in "Rinconete and Cortadillo," one of Cervantes's _Exemplary Novels_. The Indian women of South America feel in the same way, and Mantegazza when traveling in Bolivia found that they complained when they were not beaten by their husbands, and that a girl was proud when she could say "He loves me greatly, for he often beats me." (_Fisiologia della Donna_, chapter xiii.) The same feeling evidently existed in classic antiquity, for we find Lucian, in his "Dialogues of Courtesans," makes a woman say: "He who has not rained blows on his mistress and torn her hair and her garments is not yet in love," while Ovid advises lovers sometimes to be angry with their sweethearts and to tear their dresses. Among the Italian Camorrista, according to Russo, wives are very badly treated. Expression is given to this fact in the popular songs. But the women only feel themselves tenderly loved when they are badly treated by their husbands; the man who does not beat them they look upon as a fool. It is the same in the east end of London. "If anyone has doubts as to the brutalities practised on women by men," writes a London magistrate, "let him visit the London Hospital on a Saturday night. Very terrible sights will meet his eye. Sometimes as many as twelve or fourteen women may be seen seated in the receiving room, waiting for their bruised and bleeding faces and bodies to be attended to. In nine cases out of ten the injuries have been inflicted by brutal and perhaps drunken husbands. The nurses tell me, however, that any remarks they may make reflecting on the aggressors are received with great indignation by the wretched sufferers. They positively will not hear a single word against the cowardly ruffians. 'Sometimes,' said a nurse to me, 'when I have told a woman that her husband is a brute, she has drawn herself up and replied: "You mind your own business, miss. We find the rates and taxes, and the likes of you are paid out of 'em to wait on us."'" (Montagu Williams, _Round London_, p. 79.) "The prostitute really loves her _souteneur_, notwithstanding all the persecutions he inflicts on her. Their torments only increase the devotion of the poor slaves to their 'Alphonses.' Parent-Duchâtelet wrote that he had seen them come to the hospital with their eyes out of their heads, faces bleeding, and bodies torn by the blows of their drunken lovers, but as soon as they were healed they went back to them. Police-officers tell us that it is very difficult to make a prostitute confess anything concerning her _souteneur_. Thus, Rosa L., whom her 'Alphonse' had often threatened to kill, even putting the knife to her throat, would say nothing, and denied everything when the magistrate questioned her. Maria R., with her face marked by a terrible scar produced by her _souteneur_, still carefully preserved many years afterward the portrait of the aggressor, and when we asked her to explain her affection she replied: 'But he wounded me because he loved me.' The _souteneur's_ brutality only increases the ill-treated woman's love; the humiliation and slavery in which the woman's soul is drowned feed her love." (Niceforo, _Il Gergo_, etc., 1897, p. 128.) In a modern novel written in autobiographic form by a young Australian lady the heroine is represented as striking her betrothed with a whip when he merely attempts to kiss her. Later on her behavior so stings him that his self-control breaks down and he seizes her fiercely by the arms. For the first time she realizes that he loves her. "I laughed a joyous little laugh, saying 'Hal, we are quits'; when on disrobing for the night I discovered on my soft white shoulders and arms--so susceptible to bruises--many marks, and black. It had been a very happy day for me." (Miles Franklin, _My Brilliant Career_.) It is in large measure the existence of this feeling of attraction for violence which accounts for the love-letters received by men who are accused of crimes of violence. Thus in one instance, in Chicago (as Dr. Kiernan writes to me), "a man arrested for conspiracy to commit abortion, and also suspected of being a sadist, received many proposals of marriage and other less modest expressions of affection from unknown women. To judge by the signatures, these women belonged to the Germans and Slavs rather than to the Anglo-Celts." Neuropathic or degenerative conditions sometimes serve to accentuate or reveal ancestral traits that are very ancient in the race. Under such conditions the tendency to find pleasure in subjection and pain, which is often faintly traceable even in normal civilized women, may become more pronounced. This may be seen in a case described in some detail in the _Archivio di Psichiatria_. The subject was a young lady of 19, of noble Italian birth, but born in Tunis. On the maternal side there is a somewhat neurotic heredity, and she is herself subject to attacks of hystero-epileptoid character. She was very carefully, but strictly, educated; she knows several languages, possesses marked intellectual aptitudes, and is greatly interested in social and political questions, in which she takes the socialistic and revolutionary side. She has an attractive and sympathetic personality; in complexion she is dark, with dark eyes and very dark and abundant hair; the fine down on the upper lip and lower parts of the cheeks is also much developed; the jaw is large, the head acrocephalic, and the external genital organs of normal size, but rather asymmetric. Ever since she was a child she has loved to work and dream in solitude. Her dreams have always been of love, since menstruation began as early as the age of 10, and accompanied by strong sexual feelings, though at that age these feelings remained vague and indefinite; but in them the desire for pleasure was always accompanied by the desire for pain, the desire to bite and destroy something, and, as it were, to annihilate herself. She experienced great relief after periods of "erotic rumination," and if this rumination took place at night she would sometimes masturbate, the contact of the bedclothes, she said, giving her the illusion of a man. In time this vague longing for the male gave place to more definite desires for a man who would love her, and, as she imagined, strike her. Eventually she formed secret relationships with two or three lovers in succession, each of these relationships being, however, discovered by her family and leading to ineffectual attempts at suicide. But the association of pain with love, which had developed spontaneously in her solitary dreams, continued in her actual relations with her lovers. During coitus she would bite and squeeze her arms until the nails penetrated the flesh. When her lover asked her why at the moment of coitus she would vigorously repel him, she replied: "Because I want to be possessed by force, to be hurt, suffocated, to be thrown down in a struggle." At another time she said: "I want a man with all his vitality, so that he can torture and kill my body." We seem to see here clearly the ancient biological character of animal courtship, the desire of the female to be violently subjugated by the male. In this case it was united to sensitiveness to the sexual domination of an intellectual man, and the subject also sought to stimulate her lovers' intellectual tastes. (_Archivio di Psichiatria_, vol. xx, fasc. 5-6, p. 528.) This association between love and pain still persists even among the most normal civilized men and women possessing well-developed sexual impulses. The masculine tendency to delight in domination, the feminine tendency to delight in submission, still maintain the ancient traditions when the male animal pursued the female. The phenomena of "marriage by capture," in its real and its simulated forms, have been traced to various causes. But it has to be remembered that these causes could only have been operative in the presence of a favorable emotional aptitude, constituted by the zoölogical history of our race and still traceable even today. To exert power, as psychologists well recognize, is one of our most primary impulses, and it always tends to be manifested in the attitude of a man toward the woman he loves.[73] It might be possible to maintain that the primitive element of more or less latent cruelty in courtship tends to be more rather than less marked in civilized man. In civilization the opportunity of dissipating the surplus energy of the courtship process by inflicting pain on rivals usually has to be inhibited; thus the woman to be wooed tends to become the recipient of the whole of this energy, both in its pleasure-giving and its pain-giving aspects. Moreover, the natural process of courtship, as it exists among animals and usually among the lower human races, tends to become disguised and distorted in civilization, as well by economic conditions as by conventional social conditions and even ethical prescription. It becomes forgotten that the woman's pleasure is an essential element in the process of courtship. A woman is often reduced to seek a man for the sake of maintenance; she is taught that pleasure is sinful or shameful, that sex-matters are disgusting, and that it is a woman's duty, and also her best policy, to be in subjection to her husband. Thus, various external checks which normally inhibit any passing over of masculine sexual energy into cruelty are liable to be removed. We have to admit that a certain pleasure in manifesting his power over a woman by inflicting pain upon her is an outcome and survival of the primitive process of courtship, and an almost or quite normal constituent of the sexual impulse in man. But it must be at once added that in the normal well-balanced and well-conditioned man this constituent of the sexual impulse, when present, is always held in check. When the normal man inflicts, or feels the impulse to inflict, some degree of physical pain on the woman he loves he can scarcely be said to be moved by cruelty. He feels, more or less obscurely, that the pain he inflicts, or desires to inflict, is really a part of his love, and that, moreover, it is not really resented by the woman on whom it is exercised. His feeling is by no means always according to knowledge, but it has to be taken into account as an essential part of his emotional state. The physical force, the teasing and bullying, which he may be moved to exert under the stress of sexual excitement, are, he usually more or less unconsciously persuades himself, not really unwelcome to the object of his love.[74] Moreover, we have to bear in mind the fact--a very significant fact from more than one point of view--that the normal manifestations of a woman's sexual pleasure are exceedingly like those of pain. "The outward expressions of pain," as a lady very truly writes,--"tears, cries, etc.,--which are laid stress on to prove the cruelty of the person who inflicts it, are not so different from those of a woman in the ecstasy of passion, when she implores the man to desist, though that is really the last thing she desires."[75] If a man is convinced that he is causing real and unmitigated pain, he becomes repentant at once. If this is not the case he must either be regarded as a radically abnormal person or as carried away by passion to a point of temporary insanity. The intimate connection of love with pain, its tendency to approach cruelty, is seen in one of the most widespread of the occasional and non-essential manifestations of strong sexual emotion, especially in women, the tendency to bite. We may find references to love-bites in the literature of ancient as well as of modern times, in the East as well as in the West. Plautus, Catullus, Propertius, Horace, Ovid, Petronius, and other Latin writers refer to bites as associated with kisses and usually on the lips. Plutarch says that Flora, the mistress of Cnæus Pompey, in commending her lover remarked that he was so lovable that she could never leave him without giving him a bite. In the Arabic _Perfumed Garden_ there are many references to love-bites, while in the Indian _Kama Sutra_ of Vatsyayana a chapter is devoted to this subject. Biting in love is also common among the South Slavs.[76] The phenomenon is indeed sufficiently familiar to enable Heine, in one of his _Romancero_, to describe those marks by which the ancient chronicler states that Edith Swanneck recognized Harold, after the Battle of Hastings, as the scars of the bites she had once given him. It would be fanciful to trace this tendency back to that process of devouring to which sexual congress has, in the primitive stages of its evolution, been reduced. But we may probably find one of the germs of the love-bite in the attitude of many mammals during or before coitus; in attaining a firm grip of the female it is not uncommon (as may be observed in the donkey) for the male to seize the female's neck between his teeth. The horse sometimes bites the mare before coitus and it is said that among the Arabs when a mare is not apt for coitus she is sent to pasture with a small ardent horse, who excites her by playing with her and biting her.[77] It may be noted, also, that dogs often show their affection for their masters by gentle bites. Children also, as Stanley Hall has pointed out, are similarly fond of biting. Perhaps a still more important factor is the element of combat in tumescence, since the primitive conditions associated with tumescence provide a reservoir of emotions which are constantly drawn on even in the sexual excitement of individuals belonging to civilization. The tendency to show affection by biting is, indeed, commoner among women than among men and not only in civilization. It has been noted among idiot girls as well as among the women of various savage races. It may thus be that the conservative instincts of women have preserved a primitive tendency that at its origin marked the male more than the female. But in any case the tendency to bite at the climax of sexual excitement is so common and widespread that it must be regarded, when occurring in women, as coming within the normal range of variation in such manifestations. The gradations are of wide extent; while in its slight forms it is more or less normal and is one of the origins of the kiss,[78] in its extreme forms it tends to become one of the most violent and antisocial of sexual aberrations. A correspondent writes regarding his experience of biting and being bitten: "I have often felt inclination to bite a woman I love, even when not in coitus or even excited. (I like doing so also with my little boy, playfully, as a cat and kittens.) There seem to be several reasons for this: (1) the muscular effect relieves me; (2) I imagine I am giving the woman pleasure; (3) I seem to attain to a more intimate possession of the loved one. I cannot remember when I first felt desire to be bitten in coitus, or whether the idea was first suggested to me. I was initiated into pinching by a French prostitute who once pinched my nates in coitus, no doubt as a matter of business; it heightened my pleasure, perhaps by stimulating muscular movement. It does not occur to me to ask to be pinched when I am very much excited already, but only at an earlier stage, no doubt with the object of promoting excitement. Apart altogether from sexual excitement, being pinched is unpleasant to me. It has not seemed to me that women usually like to be bitten. One or two women have bitten and sucked my flesh. (The latter does not affect me.) I like being bitten, partly for the same reason as I like being pinched, because if spontaneous it is a sign of my partner's amorousness and the biting never seems too hard. Women do not usually seem to like being bitten, though there are exceptions; 'I should like to bite you and I should like you to bite me,' said one woman; I did so hard, in coitus, and she did not flinch." "She is particularly anxious to eat me alive," another correspondent writes, "and nothing gives her greater satisfaction than to tear open my clothes and fasten her teeth into my flesh until I yell for mercy. My experience has generally been, however," the same correspondent continues, "that the cruelty is _unconscious_. A woman just grows mad with the desire to squeeze or bite something, with a complete unconsciousness of what result it will produce in the victim. She is astonished when she sees the result and will hardly believe she has done it." It is unnecessary to accumulate evidence of a tendency which is sufficiently common to be fairly well known, but one or two quotations may be presented to show its wide distribution. In the _Kama Sutra_ we read: "If she is very exalted, and if in the exaltation of her passionate transports she begins a sort of combat, then she takes her lover by the hair, draws his head to hers, kisses his lower lip, and then in her delirium bites him all over his body, shutting her eyes"; it is added that with the marks of such bites lovers can remind each other of their affections, and that such love will last for ages. In Japan the maiden of Ainu race feels the same impulse. A.H. Savage Landor (_Alone with the Hairy Ainu_, 1893, p. 140) says of an Ainu girl: "Loving and biting went together with her. She could not do the one without the other. As we sat on a stone in the twilight she began by gently biting my fingers without hurting me, as affectionate dogs do to their masters. She then bit my arm, then my shoulder, and when she had worked herself up into a passion she put her arms around my neck and bit my cheeks. It was undoubtedly a curious way of making love, and, when I had been bitten all over, and was pretty tired of the new sensation, we retired to our respective homes. Kissing, apparently, was an unknown art to her." The significance of biting, and the close relationship which, as will have to be pointed out later, it reveals to other phenomena, may be illustrated by some observations which have been made by Alonzi on the peasant women of Sicily. "The women of the people," he remarks, "especially in the districts where crimes of blood are prevalent, give vent to their affection for their little ones by kissing and sucking them on the neck and arms till they make them cry convulsively; all the while they say: 'How sweet you are! I will bite you, I will gnaw you all over,' exhibiting every appearance of great pleasure. If a child commits some slight fault they do not resort to simple blows, but pursue it through the street and bite it on the face, ears, and arms until the blood flows. At such moments the face of even a beautiful woman is transformed, with injected eyes, gnashing teeth, and convulsive tremors. Among both men and women a very common threat is 'I will drink your blood.' It is told on ocular evidence that a man who had murdered another in a quarrel licked the hot blood from the victim's hand." (G. Alonzi, _Archivio di Psichiatria_, vol. vi, fasc. 4.) A few years ago a nurse girl in New York was sentenced to prison for cruelty to the baby in her charge. The mother had frequently noticed that the child was in pain and at last discovered the marks of teeth on its legs. The girl admitted that she had bitten the child because that action gave her intense pleasure. (_Alienist and Neurologist_, August, 1901, p. 558.) In the light of such observations as these we may understand a morbid perversion of affection such as was recorded in the London police news some years ago (1894). A man of 30 was charged with ill-treating his wife's illegitimate daughter, aged 3, during a period of many months; her lips, eyes, and hands were bitten and bruised from sucking, and sometimes her pinafore was covered with blood. "Defendant admitted he had bitten the child because he loved it." It is not surprising that such phenomena as these should sometimes be the stimulant and accompaniment to the sexual act. Ferriani thus reports such a case in the words of the young man's mistress: "Certainly he is a strange, maddish youth, though he is fond of me and spends money on me when he has any. He likes much sexual intercourse, but, to tell the truth, he has worn out my patience, for before our embraces there are always struggles which become assaults. He tells me he has no pleasure except when he sees me crying on account of his bites and vigorous pinching. Lately, just before going with me, when I was groaning with pleasure, he threw himself on me and at the moment of emission furiously bit my right cheek till the blood came. Then he kissed me and begged my pardon, but would do it again if the wish took him." (L. Ferriani, _Archivio di Psicopatie Sessuale_, vol. i, fasc. 7 and 8, 1896, p. 107.) In morbid cases biting may even become a substitute for coitus. Thus, Moll (_Die Konträre Sexualempfindung_, second edition, p. 323) records the case of a hysterical woman who was sexually anesthetic, though she greatly loved her husband. It was her chief delight to bite him till the blood flowed, and she was content if, instead of coitus, he bit her and she him, though she was grieved if she inflicted much pain. In other still more morbid cases the fear of inflicting pain is more or less abolished. An idealized view of the impulse of love to bite and devour is presented in the following passage from a letter by a lady who associates this impulse with the idea of the Last Supper: "Your remarks about the Lord's Supper in 'Whitman' make it natural to me to tell you my thoughts about that 'central sacrament of Christianity.' I cannot tell many people because they misunderstand, and a clergyman, a very great friend of mine, when I once told what I thought and felt, said I was carnal. He did not understand the divinity and intensity of human love as I understand it. Well, when one loves anyone very much,--a child, a woman, or a man,--one loves everything belonging to him: the things he wears, still more his hands, and his face, every bit of his body. We always want to have all, or part, of him as part of ourselves. Hence the expression: I could _devour_ you, I love you so. In some such warm, devouring way Jesus Christ, I have always felt, loved each and every human creature. So it was that he took this mystery of food, which by eating became part of ourselves, as the symbol of the most intense human love, the most intense Divine love. Some day, perhaps, love will be so understood by all that this sacrament will cease to be a superstition, a bone of contention, an 'article' of the church, and become, in all simplicity, a symbol of pure love." While in men it is possible to trace a tendency to inflict pain, or the simulacrum of pain, on the women they love, it is still easier to trace in women a delight in experiencing physical pain when inflicted by a lover, and an eagerness to accept subjection to his will. Such a tendency is certainly normal. To abandon herself to her lover, to be able to rely on his physical strength and mental resourcefulness, to be swept out of herself and beyond the control of her own will, to drift idly in delicious submission to another and stronger will--this is one of the commonest aspirations in a young woman's intimate love-dreams. In our own age these aspirations most often only find their expression in such dreams. In ages when life was more nakedly lived, and emotion more openly expressed, it was easier to trace this impulse. In the thirteenth century we have found Marie de France--a French poetess living in England who has been credited with "an exquisite sense of the generosities and delicacy of the heart," and whose work was certainly highly appreciated in the best circles and among the most cultivated class of her day--describing as a perfect, wise, and courteous knight a man who practically commits a rape on a woman who has refused to have anything to do with him, and, in so acting, he wins her entire love. The savage beauty of New Caledonia furnishes no better illustration of the fascination of force, for she, at all events, has done her best to court the violence she undergoes. In Middleton's _Spanish Gypsy_ we find exactly the same episode, and the unhappy Portuguese nun wrote: "Love me for ever and make me suffer still more." To find in literature more attenuated examples of the same tendency is easy. Shakespeare, whose observation so little escaped, has seldom depicted the adult passion of a grown woman, but in the play which he has mainly devoted to this subject he makes Cleopatra refer to "amorous pinches," and she says in the end: "The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch, which hurts and is desired." "I think the Sabine woman enjoyed being carried off like that," a woman remarked in front of Rubens's "Rape of the Sabines," confessing that such a method of love-making appealed strongly to herself, and it is probable that the majority of women would be prepared to echo that remark. It may be argued that pain cannot give pleasure, and that when what would usually be pain is felt as pleasure it cannot be regarded as pain at all. It must be admitted that the emotional state is often somewhat complex. Moreover, women by no means always agree in the statement of their experience. It is noteworthy, however, that even when the pleasurableness of pain in love is denied it is still admitted that, under some circumstances, pain, or the idea of pain, is felt as pleasurable. I am indebted to a lady for a somewhat elaborate discussion of this subject, which I may here quote at length: "As regards physical pain, though the idea of it is sometimes exciting, I think the reality is the reverse. A very slight amount of pain destroys my pleasure completely. This was the case with me for fully a month after marriage, and since. When pain has occasionally been associated with passion, pleasure has been sensibly diminished. I can imagine that, when there is a want of sensitiveness so that the tender kiss or caress might fail to give pleasure, more forcible methods are desired; but in that case what would be pain to a sensitive person would be only a pleasant excitement, and it could not be truly said that such obtuse persons liked pain, though they might appear to do so. I cannot think that anyone enjoys what is pain _to them_, if only from the fact that it detracts and divides the attention. This, however, is only my own idea drawn from my own negative experience. No woman has ever told me that she would like to have pain inflicted on her. On the other hand, the desire to inflict pain seems almost universal among men. I have only met one man in whom I have never at any time been able to detect it. At the same time most men shrink from putting their ideas into practice. A friend of my husband finds his chief pleasure in imagining women hurt and ill-treated, but is too tender-hearted ever to inflict pain on them in reality, even when they are willing to submit to it. Perhaps a woman's readiness to submit to pain to please a man may sometimes be taken for pleasure in it. Even when women like the idea of pain, I fancy it is only because it implies subjection to the man, from association with the fact that physical pleasure must necessarily be preceded by submission to his will." In a subsequent communication this lady enlarged and perhaps somewhat modified her statements on this point:-- "I don't think that what I said to you was quite correct. _Actual_ pain gives me no pleasure, yet the _idea_ of pain does, _if inflicted by way of discipline and for the ultimate good of the person suffering it_. This is essential. For instance, I once read a poem in which the devil and the lost souls in hell were represented as recognizing that they could not be good except under torture, but that while suffering the purifying actions of the flames of hell they so realized the beauty of holiness that they submitted willingly to their agony and praised God for the sternness of his judgment. This poem gave me decided physical pleasure, yet I know that if my hand were held in a fire for five minutes I should feel nothing but the pain of the burning. To get the feeling of pleasure, too, I must, for the moment, revert to my old religious beliefs and my old notion that mere suffering has an elevating influence; one's emotions are greatly modified by one's beliefs. When I was about fifteen I invented a game which I played with a younger sister, in which we were supposed to be going through a process of discipline and preparation for heaven after death. Each person was supposed to enter this state on dying and to pass successively into the charge of different angels named after the special virtues it was their function to instill. The last angel was that of Love, who governed solely by the quality whose name he bore. In the lower stages, we were under an angel called Severity who prepared us by extreme harshness and by exacting implicit obedience to arbitrary orders for the acquirement of later virtues. Our duties were to superintend the weather, paint the sunrise and sunset, etc., the constant work involved exercising us in patience and submission. The physical pleasure came in in inventing and recounting to each other our day's work and the penalties and hardships we had been subjected to. We never told each other that we got any physical pleasure out of this, and I cannot therefore be sure that my sister did so; I only imagine she did because she entered so heartily into the spirit of the game. I could get as much pleasure by imagining myself the angel and inflicting the pain, under the conditions mentioned; but my sister did not like this so much, as she then had no companion in subjection. I could not, however, thus reverse my feelings in regard to a man, as it would appear to me unnatural, and, besides, the greater physical strength is essential in the superior position. I can, however, by imagining myself a man, sometimes get pleasure in conceiving myself as educating and disciplining a woman by severe measures. There is, however, no real cruelty in this idea, as I always imagine her liking it. "I only get pleasure in the idea of a woman submitting herself to pain and harshness from the man she loves when the following conditions are fulfilled: 1. She must be absolutely sure of the man's love. 2. She must have perfect confidence in his judgment. 3. The pain must be deliberately inflicted, not accidental. 4. It must be inflicted in kindness and for her own improvement, not in anger or with any revengeful feelings, as that would spoil one's ideal of the man. 5. The pain must not be excessive and must be what when we were children we used to call a 'tidy' pain; i.e., there must be no mutilation, cutting, etc. 6. Last, one would have to feel very sure of one's own influence over the man. So much for the idea. As I have never suffered pain under a combination of all these conditions, I have no right to say that I should or should not experience pleasure from its infliction in reality." Another lady writes: "I quite agree that the idea of pain may be pleasurable, but must be associated with something to be gained by it. My experience is that it [coitus] does often hurt for a few moments, but that passes and the rest is easy; so that the little hurt is nothing terrible, but all the same annoying if only for the sake of a few minutes' pleasure, which is not long enough. I do not know how my experience compares with other women's, but I feel sure that in my case the time needed is longer than usual, and the longer the better, always, with me. As to liking pain--no, I do not really like it, although I can tolerate pain very well, of any kind; but I like to feel force and strength; this is usual, I think, women being--or supposed to be--passive in love. I have not found that 'pain at once kills pleasure.'" Again, another lady briefly states that, for her, pain has a mental fascination, and that such pain as she has had she has liked, but that, if it had been any stronger, pleasure would have been destroyed. The evidence thus seems to point, with various shades of gradation, to the conclusion that the idea or even the reality of pain in sexual emotion is welcomed by women, provided that this element of pain is of small amount and subordinate to the pleasure which is to follow it. Unless coitus is fundamentally pleasure the element of pain must necessarily be unmitigated pain, and a craving for pain unassociated with a greater satisfaction to follow it cannot be regarded as normal. In this connection I may refer to a suggestive chapter on "The Enjoyment of Pain" in Hirn's _Origins of Art_. "If we take into account," says Hirn, "the powerful stimulating effect which is produced by acute pain, we may easily understand why people submit to momentary unpleasantness for the sake of enjoying the subsequent excitement. This motive leads to the deliberate creation, not only of pain-sensations, but also of emotions in which pain enters as an element. The violent activity which is involved in the reaction against fear, and still more in that against anger, affords us a sensation of pleasurable excitement which is well worth the cost of the passing unpleasantness. It is, moreover, notorious that some persons have developed a peculiar art of making the initial pain of anger so transient that they can enjoy the active elements in it with almost undivided delight. Such an accomplishment is far more difficult in the case of sorrow.... The creation of pain-sensations may be explained as a desperate device for enhancing the intensity of the emotional state." The relation of pain and pleasure to emotion has been thoroughly discussed, I may add, by H.R. Marshall in his _Pain, Pleasure, and Æsthetics_. He contends that pleasure and pain are "general qualities, one of which must, and either of which may, belong to any fixed element of consciousness." "Pleasure," he considers, "is experienced whenever the physical activity coincident with the psychic state to which the pleasure is attached involves the use of surplus stored force." We can see, therefore, how, if pain acts as a stimulant to emotion, it becomes the servant of pleasure by supplying it with surplus stored force. This problem of pain is thus one of psychic dynamics. If we realize this we shall begin to understand the place of cruelty in life. "One ought to learn anew about cruelty," said Nietzsche (_Beyond Good and Evil_, 229), "and open one's eyes. Almost everything that we call 'higher culture' is based upon the spiritualizing and intensifying of _cruelty_.... Then, to be sure, we must put aside teaching the blundering psychology of former times, which could only teach with regard to cruelty that it originated at the sight of the suffering of _others_; there is an abundant, superabundant enjoyment even in one's own suffering, in causing one's own suffering." The element of paradox disappears from this statement if we realize that it is not a question of "cruelty," but of the dynamics of pain. Camille Bos in a suggestive essay ("Du Plaisir de la Douleur," _Revue Philosophique_, July, 1902) finds the explanation of the mystery in that complexity of the phenomena to which I have already referred. Both pain and pleasure are complex feelings, the resultant of various components, and we name that resultant in accordance with the nature of the strongest component. "Thus we give to a complexus a name which strictly belongs only to one of its factors, _and in pain all is not painful_." When pain becomes a desired end Camille Bos regards the desire as due to three causes: (1) the pain contrasts with and revives a pleasure which custom threatens to dull; (2) the pain by preceding the pleasure accentuates the positive character of the latter; (3) pain momentarily raises the lowered level of sensibility and restores to the organism for a brief period the faculty of enjoyment it had lost. It must therefore be said that, in so far as pain is pleasurable, it is so only in so far as it is recognized as a prelude to pleasure, or else when it is an actual stimulus to the nerves conveying the sensation of pleasure. The nymphomaniac who experienced an orgasm at the moment when the knife passed through her clitoris (as recorded by Mantegazza) and the prostitute who experienced keen pleasure when the surgeon removed vegetations from her vulva (as recorded by Féré) took no pleasure in pain, but in one case the intense craving for strong sexual emotion, and in the other the long-blunted nerves of pleasure, welcomed the abnormally strong impulse; and the pain of the incision, if felt at all, was immediately swallowed up in the sensation of pleasure. Moll remarks (_Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, p. 278) that even in man a trace of physical pain may be normally combined with sexual pleasure, when the vagina contracts on the penis at the moment of ejaculation, the pain, when not too severe, being almost immediately felt as pleasure. That there is no pleasure in the actual pain, even in masochism, is indicated by the following statement which Krafft-Ebing gives as representing the experiences of a masochist (_Psychopathia Sexualis_ English translation, p. 201): "The relation is not of such a nature that what causes physical pain is simply perceived as physical pleasure, for the person in a state of masochistic ecstasy feels no pain, either because by reason of his emotional state (like that of the soldier in battle) the physical effect on his cutaneous nerves is not apperceived, or because (as with religious martyrs and enthusiasts) in the preoccupation of consciousness with sexual emotion the idea of maltreatment remains merely a symbol, without its quality of pain. To a certain extent there is overcompensation of physical pain in psychic pleasure, and only the excess remains in consciousness as psychic lust. This also undergoes an increase, since, either through reflex spinal influence or through a peculiar coloring in the sensorium of sensory impressions, a kind of hallucination of bodily pleasure takes place, with a vague localization of the objectively projected sensation. In the self-torture of religious enthusiasts (fakirs, howling dervishes, religious flagellants) there is an analogous state, only with a difference in the quality of pleasurable feeling. Here the conception of martyrdom is also apperceived without its pain, for consciousness is filled with the pleasurably colored idea of serving God, atoning for sins, deserving Heaven, etc., through martyrdom." This statement cannot be said to clear up the matter entirely; but it is fairly evident that, when a woman says that she finds pleasure in the pain inflicted by a lover, she means that under the special circumstances she finds pleasure in treatment which would at other times be felt as pain, or else that the slight real pain experienced is so quickly followed by overwhelming pleasure that in memory the pain itself seems to have been pleasure and may even be regarded as the symbol of pleasure. There is a special peculiarity of physical pain, which may be well borne in mind in considering the phenomena now before us, for it helps to account for the tolerance with which the idea of pain is regarded. I refer to the great ease with which physical pain is forgotten, a fact well known to all mothers, or to all who have been present at the birth of a child. As Professor von Tschisch points out ("Der Schmerz," _Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane_, Bd. xxvi, ht. 1 and 2, 1901), memory can only preserve impressions as a whole; physical pain consists of a sensation and of a feeling. But memory cannot easily reproduce the definite sensation of the pain, and thus the whole memory is disintegrated and speedily forgotten. It is quite otherwise with moral suffering, which persists in memory and has far more influence on conduct. No one wishes to suffer moral pain or has any pleasure even in the idea of suffering it. It is the presence of this essential tendency which leads to a certain apparent contradiction in a woman's emotions. On the one hand, rooted in the maternal instinct, we find pity, tenderness, and compassion; on the other hand, rooted in the sexual instinct, we find a delight in roughness, violence, pain, and danger, sometimes in herself, sometimes also in others. The one impulse craves something innocent and helpless, to cherish and protect; the other delights in the spectacle of recklessness, audacity, sometimes even effrontery.[79] A woman is not perfectly happy in her lover unless he can give at least some satisfaction to each of these two opposite longings. The psychological satisfaction which women tend to feel in a certain degree of pain in love is strictly co-ordinated with a physical fact. Women possess a minor degree of sensibility in the sexual region. This fact must not be misunderstood. On the one hand, it by no means begs the question as to whether women's sensibility generally is greater or less than that of men; this is a disputed question and the evidence is still somewhat conflicting.[80] On the other hand, it also by no means involves a less degree of specific sexual pleasure in women, for the tactile sensibility of the sexual organs is no index to the specific sexual sensibility of those organs when in a state of tumescence. The real significance of the less tactile sensibility of the genital region in women is to be found in parturition and the special liability of the sexual region in women to injury.[81] The women who are less sensitive in this respect would be better able and more willing to endure the risks of childbirth, and would therefore tend to supplant those who were more sensitive. But, as a by-product of this less degree of sensibility, we have a condition in which physical irritation amounting even to pain may become to normal women in the state of extreme tumescence a source of pleasurable excitement, such as it would rarely be to normal men. To Calmann appear to be due the first carefully made observations showing the minor sensibility of the genital tract in women. (Adolf Calmann, "Sensibilitütsprufungen am weiblicken Genitale nach forensichen Gesichtspunkten," _Archiv für Gynäkologie_, 1898, p. 454.) He investigated the vagina, urethra, and anus in eighteen women and found a great lack of sensibility, least marked in anus, and most marked in vagina. [This distribution of the insensitiveness alone indicates that it is due, as I have suggested, to natural selection.] Sometimes a finger in the vagina could not be felt at all. One woman, when a catheter was introduced into the anus, said it might be the vagina or urethra, but was certainly not the anus. (Calmann remarks that he was careful to put his questions in an intelligible form.) The women were only conscious of the urine being drawn off when they heard the familiar sound of the stream or when the bladder was very full; if the sound of the stream was deadened by a towel they were quite unconscious that the bladder had been emptied. [In confirmation of this statement I have noticed that in a lady whose distended bladder it was necessary to empty by the catheter shortly before the birth of her first child--but who had, indeed, been partly under the influence of chloroform--there was no consciousness of the artificial relief; she merely remarked that she thought she could now relieve herself.] There was some sense of temperature, but sense of locality, tactile sense, and judgment of size were often widely erroneous. It is significant that virgins were just as insensitive as married women or those who had had children. Calmann's experiments appear to be confirmed by the experiments of Marco Treves, of Turin, on the thermoesthesiometry of mucous membranes, as reported to the Turin International Congress of Physiology (and briefly noted in _Nature_, November 21, 1901). Treves found that the sensitivity of mucous membranes is always less than that of the skin. The mucosa of the urethra and of the cervix uteri was quite incapable of heat and cold sensations, and even the cautery excited only slight, and that painful, sensation. In further illustration of this point reference may be made to the not infrequent cases in which the whole process of parturition and the enormous distention of tissues which it involves proceed throughout in an almost or quite painless manner. It is sufficient to refer to two cases reported in Paris by Macé and briefly summarized in the _British Medical Journal_, May 25, 1901. In the first the patient was a primipara 20 years of age, and, until the dilatation of the cervix was complete and efforts at expulsion had commenced, the uterine contractions were quite painless. In the second case, the mother, aged 25, a tripara, had previously had very rapid labors; she awoke in the middle of the night without pains, but during micturition the fetal head appeared at the vulva, and was soon born. Further illustration may be found in those cases in which severe inflammatory processes may take place in the genital canal without being noticed. Thus, Maxwell reports the case of a young Chinese woman, certainly quite normal, in whom after the birth of her first child the vagina became almost obliterated, yet beyond slight occasional pain she noticed nothing wrong until the husband found that penetration was impossible (_British Medical Journal_, January 11, 1902, p. 78). The insensitiveness of the vagina and its contrast, in this respect, with the penis--though we are justified in regarding the penis as being, like organs of special sense, relatively deficient in general sensibility--are vividly presented in such an incident as the following, reported a few years ago in America by Dr. G.W. Allen in the _Boston Medical and Surgical Journal_: A man came under observation with an edematous, inflamed penis. The wife, the night previous, on advice of friends, had injected pure carbolic acid into the vagina just previous to coitus. The husband, ignorant of the fact, experienced untoward burning and smarting during and after coitus, but thought little of it, and soon fell asleep. The next morning there were large blisters on the penis, but it was no longer painful. When seen by Dr. Allen the prepuce was retracted and edematous, the whole penis was much swollen, and there were large, perfectly raw surfaces on either side of the glans. In this connection we may well bring into line a remarkable group of phenomena concerning which much evidence has now accumulated. I refer to the use of various appliances, fixed in or around the penis, whether permanently or temporarily during coitus, such appliance being employed at the woman's instigation and solely in order to heighten her excitement in congress. These appliances have their great center among the Indonesian peoples (in Borneo, Java, Sumatra, the Malay peninsula, the Philippines, etc.), thence extending in a modified form through China, to become, it appears, considerably prevalent in Russia; I have also a note of their appearance in India. They have another widely diffused center, through which, however, they are more sparsely scattered, among the American Indians of the northern and more especially of the southern continents. Amerigo Vespucci and other early travelers noted the existence of some of these appliances, and since Miklucho-Macleay carefully described them as used in Borneo[82] their existence has been generally recognized. They are usually regarded merely as ethnological curiosities. As such they would not concern us here. Their real significance for us is that they illustrate the comparative insensitiveness of the genital canal in women, while at the same time they show that a certain amount of what we cannot but regard as painful stimulation is craved by women, in order to heighten tumescence and increase sexual pleasure, even though it can only by procured by artificial methods. It is, of course, possible to argue that in these cases we are not concerned with pain at all, but with a strong stimulation that is felt as purely pleasurable. There can be no doubt, however, that in the absence of sexual excitement this stimulation would be felt as purely painful, and--in the light of our previous discussion--we may, perhaps, fairly regard it as a painful stimulation which is craved, not because it is itself pleasurable, but because it heightens the highly pleasurable state of tumescence. Borneo, the geographical center of the Indonesian world, appears also to be the district in which these instruments are most popular. The _ampallang, palang, kambion_, or _sprit-sail yard_, as it is variously termed, is a little rod of bone or metal nearly two inches in length, rounded at the ends, and used by the Kyans and Dyaks of Borneo. Before coitus it is inserted into a transverse orifice in the penis, made by a painful and somewhat dangerous operation and kept open by a quill. Two or more of these instruments are occasionally worn. Sometimes little brushes are attached to each end of the instrument. Another instrument, used by the Dyaks, but said to have been borrowed from the Malays, is the _palang anus_, which is a ring or collar of plaited palm-fiber, furnished with a pair of stiffish horns of the same wiry material; it is worn on the neck of the glans and fits tight to the skin so as not to slip off. (Brooke Low, "The Natives of Borneo," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, August and November, 1892, p. 45; the _ampallang_ and similar instruments are described by Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, Bd. i, chapter xvii; also in _Untrodden Fields of Anthropology_, by a French army surgeon, 1898, vol. ii, pp. 135-141; also Mantegazza, _Gli Amori degli Uomini_, French translation, p. 83 et seq.) Riedel informed Miklucho-Macleay that in the Celebes the Alfurus fasten the eyelids of goats with the eyelashes round the corona of the glans penis, and in Java a piece of goatskin is used in a similar way, so as to form a hairy sheath (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1876, pp. 22-25), while among the Batta, of Sumatra, Hagen found that small stones are inserted by an incision under the skin of the penis (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1891, ht. 3, p. 351). In the Malay peninsula Stevens found instruments somewhat similar to the _ampallang_ still in use among some tribes, and among others formerly in use. He thinks they were brought from Borneo. (H.V. Stevens, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1896, ht. 4, p. 181.) Bloch, who brings forward other examples of similar devices (_Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, pp. 56-58), considers that the Australian mica operation may thus in part be explained. Such instruments are not, however, entirely unknown in Europe. In France, in the eighteenth century, it appears that rings, sometimes set with hard knobs, and called "aides," were occasionally used by men to heighten the pleasure of women in intercourse. (Dühren, _Marquis de Sade_, 1901, p. 130.) In Russia, according to Weissenberg, of Elizabethsgrad, it is not uncommon to use elastic rings set with little teeth; these rings are fastened around the base of the glans. (Weissenberg, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1893, ht. 2, p. 135.) This instrument must have been brought to Russia from the East, for Burton (in the notes to his _Arabian Nights_) mentions a precisely similar instrument as in use in China. Somewhat similar is the "Chinese hedgehog," a wreath of fine, soft feathers with the quills solidly fastened by silver wire to a ring of the same metal, which is slipped over the glans. In South America the Araucanians of Argentina use a little horsehair brush fastened around the penis; one of these is in the museum at La Plata; it is said the custom may have been borrowed from the Patagonians; these instruments, called _geskels_, are made by the women and the workmanship is very delicate. (Lehmann-Nitsche, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1900, ht. 6, p. 491.) It is noteworthy that a somewhat similar tuft of horsehair is also worn in Borneo. (Breitenstein, _21 Jahre in India_, 1899, pt. i, p. 227.) Most of the accounts state that the women attach great importance to the gratification afforded by such instruments. In Borneo a modest woman symbolically indicates to her lover the exact length of the ampallang she would prefer by leaving at a particular spot a cigarette of that length. Miklucho-Macleay considers that these instruments were invented by women. Brooke Low remarks that "no woman once habituated to its use will ever dream of permitting her bedfellow to discontinue the practice of wearing it," and Stevens states that at one time no woman would marry a man who was not furnished with such an apparatus. It may be added that a very similar appliance may be found in European countries (especially Germany) in the use of a condom furnished with irregularities, or a frill, in order to increase the woman's excitement. It is not impossible to find evidence that, in European countries, even in the absence of such instruments, the craving which they gratify still exists in women. Thus, Mauriac tells of a patient with vegetations on the glans who delayed treatment because his mistress liked him so best (art. "Végétations," _Dictionnaire de Médecine et Chirurgie pratique_). It may seem that such impulses and such devices to gratify them are altogether unnatural. This is not so. They have a zoölogical basis and in many animals are embodied in the anatomical structure. Many rodents, ruminants, and some of the carnivora show natural developments of the penis closely resembling some of those artificially adopted by man. Thus the guinea-pigs possess two horny styles attached to the penis, while the glans of the penis is covered with sharp spines. Some of the Caviidæ also have two sharp, horny saws at the side of the penis. The cat, the rhinoceros, the tapir, and other animals possess projecting structures on the penis, and some species of ruminants, such as the sheep, the giraffe, and many antelopes, have, attached to the penis, long filiform processes through which the urethra passes. (F.H.A. Marshall, _The Physiology of Reproduction_, pp. 246-248.) We find, even in creatures so delicate and ethereal as the butterflies, a whole armory of keen weapons for use in coitus. These were described in detail in an elaborate and fully illustrated memoir by P.H. Gosse ("On the Clasping Organs Ancillary to Generation in Certain Groups of the Lepidoptera," _Transactions of the Linnæan Society_, second series, vol. ii, Zoölogy, 1882). These organs, which Gosse terms _harpes_ (or grappling irons), are found in the Papilionidæ and are very beautiful and varied, taking the forms of projecting claws, hooks, pikes, swords, knobs, and strange combinations of these, commonly brought to a keen edge and then cut into sharp teeth. It is probable that all these structures serve to excite the sexual apparatus of the female and to promote tumescence. To the careless observer there may seem to be something vicious or perverted in such manifestations in man. That opinion becomes very doubtful when we consider how these tendencies occur in people living under natural conditions in widely separated parts of the world. It becomes still further untenable if we are justified in believing that the ancestors of men possessed projecting epithelial appendages attached to the penis, and if we accept the discovery by Friedenthal of the rudiment of these appendages on the penis of the human fetus at an early stage (Friedenthal, "Sonderformen der menschlichen Leibesbildung," _Sexual-Probleme_, Feb., 1912, p. 129). In this case human ingenuity would merely be seeking to supply an organ which nature has ceased to furnish, although it is still in some cases needed, especially among peoples whose aptitude for erethism has remained at, or fallen to, a subhuman level. At first sight the connection between love and pain--the tendency of men to delight in inflicting it and women in suffering it--seems strange and inexplicable. It seems amazing that a tender and even independent woman should maintain a passionate attachment to a man who subjects her to physical and moral insults, and that a strong man, often intelligent, reasonable, and even kind-hearted, should desire to subject to such insults a woman whom he loves passionately and who has given him every final proof of her own passion. In understanding such cases we have to remember that it is only within limits that a woman really enjoys the pain, discomfort, or subjection to which she submits. A little pain which the man knows he can himself soothe, a little pain which the woman gladly accepts as the sign and forerunner of pleasure--this degree of pain comes within the normal limits of love and is rooted, as we have seen, in the experience of the race. But when it is carried beyond these limits, though it may still be tolerated because of the support it receives from its biological basis, it is no longer enjoyed. The natural note has been too violently struck, and the rhythm of love has ceased to be perfect. A woman may desire to be forced, to be roughly forced, to be ravished away beyond her own will. But all the time she only desires to be forced toward those things which are essentially and profoundly agreeable to her. A man who fails to realize this has made little progress in the art of love. "I like being knocked about and made to do things I don't want to do," a woman said, but she admitted, on being questioned, that she would not like to have _much_ pain inflicted, and that she might not care to be made to do important things she did not want to do. The story of Griselda's unbounded submissiveness can scarcely be said to be psychologically right, though it has its artistic rightness as an elaborate fantasia on this theme justified by its conclusion. This point is further illustrated by the following passage from a letter written by a lady: "Submission to the man's will is still, and always must be, the prelude to pleasure, and the association of ideas will probably always produce this much misunderstood instinct. Now, I find, indirectly from other women and directly from my own experience, that, when the point in dispute is very important and the man exerts his authority, the desire to get one's own way completely obliterates the sexual feeling, while, conversely, in small things the sexual feeling obliterates the desire to have one's own way. Where the two are nearly equal a conflict between them ensues, and I can stand aside and wonder which will get the best of it, though I encourage the sexual feeling when possible, as, if the other conquers, it leaves a sense of great mental irritation and physical discomfort. A man should command in small things, as in nine cases out of ten this will produce excitement. He should _advise_ in large matters, or he may find either that he is unable to enforce his orders or that he produces a feeling of dislike and annoyance he was far from intending. Women imagine men must be stronger than themselves to excite their passion. I disagree. A passionate man has the best chance, for in him the primitive instincts are strong. The wish to subdue the female is one of them, and in small things he will exert his authority to make her feel his power, while she knows that on a question of real importance she has a good chance of getting her own way by working on his greater susceptibility. Perhaps an illustration will show what I mean. I was listening to the band and a girl and her _fiancé_ came up to occupy two seats near me. The girl sank into one seat, but for some reason the man wished her to take the other. She refused. He repeated his order twice, the second time so peremptorily that she changed places, and I heard him say: 'I don't think you heard what I said. I don't expect to give an order three times.' "This little scene interested me, and I afterward asked the girl the following questions:-- "'Had you any reason for taking one chair more than the other?' "'No.' "'Did Mr. ----'s insistence on your changing give you any pleasure?' "'Yes' (after a little hesitation). "'Why?' "'I don't know.' "'Would it have done so if you had particularly wished to sit in that chair; if, for instance, you had had a boil on your cheek and wished to turn that side away from him?' "'No; certainly not. The worry of thinking he was looking at it would have made me too cross to feel pleased.' "Does this explain what I mean? The occasion, by the way, need not be really important, but, as in this imaginary case of the boil, if it _seems important_ to the woman, irritation will outweigh the physical sensation." I am well aware that in thus asserting a certain tendency in women to delight in suffering pain--however careful and qualified the position I have taken--many estimable people will cry out that I am degrading a whole sex and generally supporting the "subjection of women." But the day for academic discussion concerning the "subjection of women" has gone by. The tendency I have sought to make clear is too well established by the experience of normal and typical women--however numerous the exceptions may be--to be called in question. I would point out to those who would deprecate the influence of such facts in relation to social progress that nothing is gained by regarding women as simply men of smaller growth. They are not so; they have the laws of their own nature; their development must be along their own lines, and not along masculine lines. It is as true now as in Bacon's day that we only learn to command nature by obeying her. To ignore facts is to court disappointment in our measure of progress. The particular fact with which we have here come in contact is very vital and radical, and most subtle in its influence. It is foolish to ignore it; we must allow for its existence. We can neither attain a sane view of life nor a sane social legislation of life unless we possess a just and accurate knowledge of the fundamental instincts upon which life is built. FOOTNOTES: [61] Various mammals, carried away by the reckless fury of the sexual impulse, are apt to ill-treat their females (R. Müller, _Sexualbiologie_, p. 123). This treatment is, however, usually only an incident of courtship, the result of excess of ardor. "The chaffinches and saffron-finches (_Fringella_ and _Sycalis_) are very rough wooers," says A.G. Butler (_Zoölogist_, 1902, p. 241); "they sing vociferously, and chase their hens violently, knocking them over in their flight, pursuing and savagely pecking them even on the ground; but when once the hens become submissive, the males change their tactics, and become for the time model husbands, feeding their wives from their crop, and assisting in rearing the young." [62] Cf. A.C. Haddon, _Head Hunters_, p. 107. [63] Marro considers that there may be transference of emotion,--the impulse of violence generated in the male by his rivals being turned against his partner,--according to a tendency noted by Sully and illustrated by Ribot in his _Psychology of the Emotions_, part i, chapter xii. [64] Several writers have found in the facts of primitive animal courtship the explanation of the connection between love and pain. Thus, Krafft-Ebing (_Psychopathia Sexualis_, English translation of tenth German edition, p. 80) briefly notes that outbreaks of sadism are possibly atavistic. Marro (_La Pubertà_, 1898, p. 219 et seq.) has some suggestive pages on this subject. It would appear that this explanation was vaguely outlined by Jäger. Laserre, in a Bordeaux thesis mentioned by Féré, has argued in the same sense. Féré (_L'Instinct Sexuel_, p. 134), on grounds that are scarcely sufficient, regards this explanation as merely a superficial analogy. But it is certainly not a complete explanation. [65] Schäfer (_Jahrbücher für Psychologie_, Bd. ii, p. 128, and quoted by Krafft-Ebing in _Psychopathia Sexualis_), in connection with a case in which sexual excitement was produced by the sight of battles or of paintings of them, remarks: "The pleasure of battle and murder is so predominantly an attribute of the male sex throughout the animal kingdom that there can be no question about the close connection between this side of the masculine character and male sexuality. I believe that I can show by observation that in men who are absolutely normal, mentally and physically, the first indefinite and incomprehensible precursors of sexual excitement may be induced by reading exciting scenes of chase and war. These give rise to unconscious longings for a kind of satisfaction in warlike games (wrestling, etc.) which express the fundamental sexual impulse to close and complete contact with a companion, with a secondary more or less clearly defined thought of conquest." Groos (_Spiele der Menschen_, 1899, p. 232) also thinks there is more or less truth in this suggestion of a subconscious sexual element in the playful wrestling combats of boys. Freud considers (_Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie_, p. 49) that the tendency to sexual excitement through muscular activity in wrestling, etc., is one of the roots of sadism. I have been told of normal men who feel a conscious pleasure of this kind when lifted in games, as may happen, for instance, in football. It may be added that in some parts of the world the suitor has to throw the girl in a wrestling-bout in order to secure her hand. [66] A minor manifestation of this tendency, appearing even in quite normal and well-conditioned individuals, is the impulse among boys at and after puberty to take pleasure in persecuting and hurting lower animals or their own young companions. Some youths display a diabolical enjoyment and ingenuity in torturing sensitive juniors, and even a boy who is otherwise kindly and considerate may find enjoyment in deliberately mutilating a frog. In some cases, in boys and youths who have no true sadistic impulse and are not usually cruel, this infliction of torture on a lower animal produces an erection, though not necessarily any pleasant sexual sensations. [67] Marro, _La Pubertà_, 1898, p. 223; Garnier, "La Criminalité Juvenile," _Comptes-rendus Congrès Internationale d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Amsterdam, 1901, p. 296; _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1899, fasc. v-vi, p. 572. [68] Bk. ii, ch. ii. [69] Herbert Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, 1876, vol. i, p. 651. [70] Westermarck, _Human Marriage_, p. 388. Grosse is of the same opinion; he considers also that the mock-capture is often an imitation, due to admiration, of real capture; he does not believe that the latter has ever been a form of marriage recognized by custom and law, but only "an occasional and punishable act of violence." (_Die Formen der Familie_, pp. 105-7.) This position is too extreme. [71] Ernest Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_, 1902, p. 350 et seq. Van Gennep rightly remarks that we cannot correctly say that the woman is abducted from "her sex," but only from her "sexual society." [72] A. Van Gennep (_Rites de Passage_, 1909, pp. 175-186) has put forward a third theory, though also of a psychological character, according to which the "capture" is a rite indicating the separation of the young girl from the special societies of her childhood. Gennep regards this rite as one of a vast group of "rites of passage," which come into action whenever a person changes his social or natural environment. [73] Féré (_L'Instinct Sexuel_, p. 133) appears to regard the satisfaction, based on the sentiment of personal power, which may be experienced in the suffering and subjection of a victim as an adequate explanation of the association of pain with love. This I can scarcely admit. It is a factor in the emotional attitude, but when it only exists in the sexual sphere it is reasonable to base this attitude largely on the still more fundamental biological attitude of the male toward the female in the process of courtship. Féré regards this biological element as merely a superficial analogy, on the ground that an act of cruelty may become an equivalent of coitus. But a sexual perversion is quite commonly constituted by the selection and magnification of a single moment in the normal sexual process. [74] The process may, however, be quite conscious. Thus, a correspondent tells me that he not only finds sexual pleasure in cruelty toward the woman he loves, but that he regards this as an essential element. He is convinced that it gives the woman pleasure, and that it is possible to distinguish by gesture, inflection of voice, etc., an hysterical, assumed, or imagined feeling of pain from real pain. He would not wish to give real pain, and would regard that as sadism. [75] De Sade had already made the same remark, while Duchenne, of Boulogne, pointed out that the facial expressions of sexual passion and of cruelty are similar. [76] Kryptadia, vol. vi, p. 208. [77] Daumas, _Chevaux de Sahara_, p. 49. [78] See in vol. iv of these _Studies_ ("Sexual Selection in Man"), Appendix A, on "The Origins of the Kiss." [79] De Stendhal (_De l'Amour_) mentions that when in London he was on terms of friendship with an English actress who was the mistress of a wealthy colonel, but privately had another lover. One day the colonel arrived when the other man was present. "This gentleman has called about the pony I want to sell," said the actress. "I have come for a very different purpose," said the little man, and thus aroused a love which was beginning to languish. [80] See Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, chapter vi, "The Senses." [81] This liability is emphasized by Adler, _Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, p. 125. [82] _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, Bd. viii, 1876, pp. 22-28. II. The Definition of Sadism--De Sade--Masochism to some Extent Normal--Sacher-Masoch--No Real Line of Demarcation between Sadism and Masochism--Algolagnia includes both Groups of Manifestations--The Love-bite as a Bridge from Normal Phenomena to Algolagnia--The Fascination of Blood--The Most Extreme Perversions are Linked on to Normal Phenomena. We thus see that there are here two separate groups of feelings: one, in the masculine line, which delights in displaying force and often inflicts pain or the simulacrum of pain; the other, in the feminine line, which delights in submitting to that force, and even finds pleasure in a slight amount of pain, or the idea of pain, when associated with the experiences of love. We see, also, that these two groups of feelings are complementary. Within the limits consistent with normal and healthy life, what men are impelled to give women love to receive. So that we need not unduly deprecate the "cruelty" of men within these limits, nor unduly commiserate the women who are subjected to it. Such a conclusion, however, as we have also seen, only holds good within those normal limits which an attempt has here been made to determine. The phenomena we have been considering are strictly normal phenomena, having their basis in the conditions of tumescence and detumescence in animal and primitive human courtship. At one point, however, when discussing the phenomena of the love-bite, I referred to the facts which indicate how this purely normal manifestation yet insensibly passes over into the region of the morbid. It is an instance that enables us to realize how even the most terrible and repugnant sexual perversions are still demonstrably linked on to phenomena that are fundamentally normal. The love-bite may be said to give us the key to that perverse impulse which has been commonly called sadism. There is some difference of opinion as to how "sadism" may be best defined. Perhaps the simplest and most usual definition is that of Krafft-Ebing, as sexual emotion associated with the wish to inflict pain and use violence, or, as he elsewhere expresses it, "the impulse to cruel and violent treatment of the opposite sex, and the coloring of the idea of such acts with lustful feeling."[83] A more complete definition is that of Moll, who describes sadism as a condition in which "the sexual impulse consists in the tendency to strike, ill-use, and humiliate the beloved person."[84] This definition has the advantage of bringing in the element of moral pain. A further extension is made in Féré's definition as "the need of association of violence and cruelty with sexual enjoyment, such violence or cruelty not being necessarily exerted by the person himself who seeks sexual pleasure in this association."[85] Garnier's definition, while comprising all these points, further allows for the fact that a certain degree of sadism may be regarded as normal. "Pathological sadism," he states, "is an impulsive and obsessing sexual perversion characterized by a close connection between suffering inflicted or mentally represented and the sexual orgasm, without this necessary and sufficing condition frigidity usually remaining absolute."[86] It must be added that these definitions are very incomplete if by "sadism" we are to understand the special sexual perversions which are displayed in De Sade's novels. Iwan Bloch ("Eugen Dühren"), in the course of his book on De Sade, has attempted a definition strictly on this basis, and, as will be seen, it is necessary to make it very elaborate: "A connection, whether intentionally sought or offered by chance, of sexual excitement and sexual enjoyment with the real or only symbolic (ideal, illusionary) appearance of frightful and shocking events, destructive occurrences and practices, which threaten or destroy the life, health, and property of man and other living creatures, and threaten and interrupt the continuity of inanimate objects, whereby the person who from such occurrences obtains sexual enjoyment may either himself be the direct cause, or cause them to take place by means of other persons, or merely be the spectator, or, finally, be, voluntarily or involuntarily, the object against which these processes are directed."[87] This definition of sadism as found in De Sade's works is thus, more especially by its final clause, a very much wider conception than the usual definition. Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis De Sade, was born in 1740 at Paris in the house of the great Condé. He belonged to a very noble, ancient, and distinguished Provençal family; Petrarch's Laura, who married a De Sade, was one of his ancestors, and the family had cultivated both arms and letters with success. He was, according to Lacroix, "an adorable youth whose delicately pale and dusky face, lighted up by two large black [according to another account blue] eyes, already bore the languorous imprint of the vice which was to corrupt his whole being"; his voice was "drawling and caressing"; his gait had "a softly feminine grace." Unfortunately there is no authentic portrait of him. His early life is sketched in letter iv of his _Aline et Valcourt_. On leaving the Collège-Louis-le-Grand he became a cavalry officer and went through the Seven Years' War in Germany. There can be little doubt that the experiences of his military life, working on a femininely vicious temperament, had much to do with the development of his perversion. He appears to have got into numerous scrapes, of which the details are unknown, and his father sought to marry him to the daughter of an aristocratic friend of his own, a noble and amiable girl of 20. It so chanced that when young De Sade first went to the house of his future wife only her younger sister, a girl of 13, was at home; with her he at once fell in love and his love was reciprocated; they were both musical enthusiasts, and she had a beautiful voice. The parents insisted on carrying out the original scheme of marriage. De Sade's wife loved him, and, in spite of everything, served his interests with Griselda-like devotion; she was, Ginisty remarks, a saint, a saint of conjugal life; but her love was from the first only requited with repulsion, contempt, and suspicion. There were, however, children of the marriage; the career of the eldest--an estimable young man who went into the army and also had artistic ability, but otherwise had no community of tastes with his father--has been sketched by Paul Ginisty, who has also edited the letters of the Marquise. De Sade's passion for the younger sister continued (he idealized her as Juliette), though she was placed in a convent beyond his reach, and at a much later period he eloped with her and spent perhaps the happiest period of his life, soon terminated by her death. It is evident that this unhappy marriage was decisive in determining De Sade's career; he at once threw himself recklessly into every form of dissipation, spending his health and his substance sometimes among refinedly debauched nobles and sometimes among coarsely debauched lackeys. He was, however, always something of an artist, something of a student, something of a philosopher, and at an early period he began to write, apparently at the age of 23. It was at this age, and only a few months after his marriage, that on account of some excess he was for a time confined in Vincennes. He was destined to spend 27 years of his life in prisons, if we include the 13 years which in old age he passed in the asylum at Charenton. His actual offenses were by no means so terrible as those he loved to dwell on in imagination, and for the most part they have been greatly exaggerated. His most extreme offenses were the indecent and forcible flagellation in 1768 of a young woman, Rosa Keller, who had accosted him in the street for alms, and whom he induced by false pretenses to come to his house, and the administration of aphrodisiacal bonbons to some prostitutes at Marseilles. It is owing to the fact that the prime of his manhood was spent in prisons that De Sade fell back on dreaming, study, and novel-writing. Shut out from real life, he solaced his imagination with the perverted visions--to a very large extent, however, founded on knowledge of the real facts of perverted life in his time--which he has recorded in _Justine_ (1781); _Les 120 Journées de Sodome ou l'Ecole du Libertinage_ (1785); _Aline et Valcour ou le Roman Philosophique_ (1788); _Juliette_ (1796); _La Philosophie dans le Boudoir_ (1795). These books constitute a sort of encyclopedia of sexual perversions, an eighteenth century _Psychopathia Sexualis_, and embody, at the same time, a philosophy. He was the first, Bloch remarks, who realized the immense importance of the sexual question. His general attitude may be illustrated by the following passage (as quoted by Lacassagne): "If there are beings in the world whose acts shock all accepted prejudices, we must not preach at them or punish them ... because their bizarre tastes no more depend upon themselves than it depends on you whether you are witty or stupid, well made or hump-backed.... What would become of your laws, your morality, your religion, your gallows, your Paradise, your gods, your hell, if it were shown that such and such fluids, such fibers, or a certain acridity in the blood, or in the animal spirits, alone suffice to make a man the object of your punishments or your rewards?" He was enormously well read, Bloch points out, and his interest extended to every field of literature: _belles lettres_, philosophy, theology, politics, sociology, ethnology, mythology, and history. Perhaps his favorite reading was travels. He was minutely familiar with the bible, though his attitude was extremely critical. His favorite philosopher was Lamettrie, whom he very frequently quotes, and he had carefully studied Machiavelli. De Sade had foreseen the Revolution; he was an ardent admirer of Marat, and at this period he entered into public life as a mild, gentle, rather bald and gray-haired person. Many scenes of the Revolution were the embodiment in real life of De Sade's imagination; such, for instance, were the barbaric tortures inflicted, at the instigation of Théroigne de Méricourt, on La Belle Bouquetière. Yet De Sade played a very peaceful part in the events of that time, chiefly as a philanthropist, spending much of his time in the hospitals. He saved his parents-in-law from the scaffold, although they had always been hostile to him, and by his moderation aroused the suspicions of the revolutionary party, and was again imprisoned. Later he wrote a pamphlet against Napoleon, who never forgave him and had him shut up in Charenton as a lunatic; it was a not unusual method at that time of disposing of persons whom it was wished to put out of the way, and, notwithstanding De Sade's organically abnormal temperament, there is no reason to regard him as actually insane. Royer-Collard, an eminent alienist of that period, then at the head of Charenton, declared De Sade to be sane, and his detailed report is still extant. Other specialists were of the same opinion. Bloch, who quotes these opinions (_Neue Forschungen_, etc., p. 370), says that the only possible conclusion is that De Sade was sane, but neurasthenic, and Eulenburg also concludes that he cannot be regarded as insane, although he was highly degenerate. In the asylum he amused himself by organizing a theater. Lacroix, many years later, questioning old people who had known him, was surprised to find that even in the memory of most virtuous and respectable persons he lived merely as an "_aimable mauvais sujet_." It is noteworthy that De Sade aroused, in a singular degree, the love and devotion of women,--whether or not we may regard this as evidence of the fascination exerted on women by cruelty. Janin remarks that he had seen many pretty little letters written by young and charming women of the great world, begging for the release of the "_pauvre marquis_." Sardou, the dramatist, has stated that in 1855 he visited the Bicêtre and met an old gardener who had known De Sade during his reclusion there. He told that one of the marquis's amusements was to procure baskets of the most beautiful and expensive roses; he would then sit on a footstool by a dirty streamlet which ran through the courtyard, and would take the roses, one by one, gaze at them, smell them with a voluptuous expression, soak them in the muddy water, and fling them away, laughing as he did so. He died on the 2d of December, 1814, at the age of 74. He was almost blind, and had long been a martyr to gout, asthma, and an affection of the stomach. It was his wish that acorns should be planted over his grave and his memory effaced. At a later period his skull was examined by a phrenologist, who found it small and well formed; "one would take it at first for a woman's head." The skull belonged to Dr. Londe, but about the middle of the century it was stolen by a doctor who conveyed it to England, where it may possibly yet be found. [The foregoing account is mainly founded on Paul Lacroix, _Revue de Paris_, 1837, and _Curiosités de l'Histoire de France_, second series, _Procès Célèbres_, p. 225; Janin, _Revue de Paris_, 1834; Eugen Dühren (Iwan Bloch), _Der Marquis de Sade und Seine Zeit_, third edition, 1901; id., _Neue Forschungen über den Marquis de Sade und Seine Zeit_, 1904; Lacassagne, _Vacher l'Eventreur et les Crimes Sadiques_, 1899; Paul Ginisty, _La Marquise de Sade_, 1901.] The attempt to define sadism strictly and penetrate to its roots in De Sade's personal temperament reveals a certain weakness in the current conception of this sexual perversion. It is not, as we might infer, both from the definition usually given and from its probable biological heredity from primitive times, a perversion due to excessive masculinity. The strong man is more apt to be tender than cruel, or at all events knows how to restrain within bounds any impulse to cruelty; the most extreme and elaborate forms of sadism (putting aside such as are associated with a considerable degree of imbecility) are more apt to be allied with a somewhat feminine organization. Montaigne, indeed, observed long ago that cruelty is usually accompanied by feminine softness. In the same way it is a mistake to suppose that the very feminine woman is not capable of sadistic tendencies. Even if we take into account the primitive animal conditions of combat, the male must suffer as well as inflict pain, and the female must not only experience subjection to the male, but also share in the emotions of her partner's victory over his rivals. As bearing on these points, I may quote the following remarks written by a lady: "It is said that, the weaker and more feminine a woman is, the greater the subjection she likes. I don't think it has anything at all to do with the general character, but depends entirely on whether the feeling of constraint and helplessness affects her sexually. In men I have several times noticed that those who were most desirous of subjection to the women they loved had, in ordinary life, very strong and determined characters. I know of others, too, who with very weak characters are very imperious toward the women they care for. Among women I have often been surprised to see how a strong, determined woman will give way to a man she loves, and how tenacious of her own will may be some fragile, clinging creature who in daily life seems quite unable to act on her own responsibility. A certain amount of passivity, a desire to have their emotions worked on, seems to me, so far as my small experience goes, very common among ordinary, presumably normal men. A good deal of stress is laid on femininity as an attraction in a woman, and this may be so to very strong natures, but, so far as I have seen, the women who obtain extraordinary empire over men are those with a certain _virility_ in their character and passions. If with this virility they combine a fragility or childishness of appearance which appeals to a man in another way at the same time, they appear to be irresistible." I have noted some of the feminine traits in De Sade's temperament and appearance. The same may often be noted in sadists whose crimes were very much more serious and brutal than those of De Sade. A man who stabbed women in the streets at St. Louis was a waiter with a high-pitched, effeminate voice and boyish appearance. Reidel, the sadistic murderer, was timid, modest, and delicate; he was too shy to urinate in the presence of other people. A sadistic zoöphilist, described by A. Marie, who attempted to strangle a woman fellow-worker, had always been very timid, blushed with much facility, could not look even children in the eyes, or urinate in the presence of another person, or make sexual advances to women. Kiernan and Moyer are inclined to connect the modesty and timidity of sadists with a disgust for normal coitus. They were called upon to examine an inverted married woman who had inflicted several hundred wounds, mostly superficial, with forks, scissors, etc., on the genital organs and other parts of a girl whom she had adopted from a "Home." This woman was very prominent in church and social matters in the city in which she lived, so that many clergymen and local persons of importance testified to her chaste, modest, and even prudish character; she was found to be sane at the time of the acts. (Moyer, _Alienist and Neurologist_, May, 1907, and private letter from Dr. Kiernan.) We are thus led to another sexual perversion, which is usually considered the opposite of sadism. Masochism is commonly regarded as a peculiarly feminine sexual perversion, in women, indeed, as normal in some degree, and in man as a sort of inversion of the normal masculine emotional attitude, but this view of the matter is not altogether justified, for definite and pronounced masochism seems to be much rarer in women than sadism.[88] Krafft-Ebing, whose treatment of this phenomenon is, perhaps, his most valuable and original contribution to sexual psychology, has dealt very fully with the matter and brought forward many cases. He thus defines this perversion: "By masochism I understand a peculiar perversion of the psychical _vita sexualis_ in which the individual affected, in sexual feeling and thought, is controlled by the idea of being completely and unconditionally subject to the will of a person of the opposite sex, of being treated by this person as by a master, humiliated and abused. This idea is colored by sexual feeling; the masochist lives in fancies in which he creates situations of this kind, and he often attempts to realize them."[89] In a minor degree, not amounting to a complete perversion of the sexual instinct, this sentiment of abnegation, the desire to be even physically subjected to the adored woman, cannot be regarded as abnormal. More than two centuries before Krafft-Ebing appeared, Robert Burton, who was no mean psychologist, dilated on the fact that love is a kind of slavery. "They are commonly slaves," he wrote of lovers, "captives, voluntary servants; _amator amicæ mancipium_, as Castilio terms him; his mistress's servant, her drudge, prisoner, bondman, what not?"[90] Before Burton's time the legend of the erotic servitude of Aristotle was widely spread in Europe, and pictures exist of the venerable philosopher on all fours ridden by a woman with a whip.[91] In classic times various masochistic phenomena are noted with approval by Ovid. It has been pointed out by Moll[92] that there are traces of masochistic feeling in some of Goethe's poems, especially "Lilis Park" and "Erwin und Elmire." Similar traces have been found in the poems of Heine, Platen, Hamerling, and many other poets.[93] The poetry of the people is also said to contain many such traces. It may, indeed, be said that passion in its more lyric exaltations almost necessarily involves some resort to masochistic expression. A popular lady novelist in a novel written many years ago represents her hero, a robust soldier, imploring the lady of his love, in a moment of passionate exaltation, to trample on him, certainly without any wish to suggest sexual perversion. If it is true that the Antonio of Otway's _Venice Preserved_ is a caricature of Shaftesbury, then it would appear that one of the greatest of English statesmen was supposed to exhibit very pronounced and characteristic masochistic tendencies; and in more recent days masochistic expressions have been noted as occurring in the love-letters of so emphatically virile a statesman as Bismarck. Thus a minor degree of the masochistic tendency may be said to be fairly common, while its more pronounced manifestations are more common than pronounced sadism.[94] It very frequently affects persons of a sensitive, refined, and artistic temperament. It may even be said that this tendency is in the line of civilization. Krafft-Ebing points out that some of the most delicate and romantic love-episodes of the Middle Ages are distinctly colored by masochistic emotion.[95] The increasing tendency to masochism with increasing civilization becomes explicable if we accept Colin Scott's "secondary law of courting" as accessory to the primary law that the male is active, and the female passive and imaginatively attentive to the states of the excited male. According to the secondary law, "the female develops a superadded activity, the male becoming relatively passive and imaginatively attentive to the psychical and bodily states of the female."[96] We may probably agree that this "secondary law of courting" does really represent a tendency of love in individuals of complex and sensitive nature, and the outcome of such a receptive attitude on the part of the male is undoubtedly in well-marked cases a desire of submission to the female's will, and a craving to experience in some physical or psychic form, not necessarily painful, the manifestations of her activity. When we turn from vague and unpronounced forms of the masochistic tendency to the more definite forms in which it becomes an unquestionable sexual perversion, we find a very eminent and fairly typical example in Rousseau, an example all the more interesting because here the subject has himself portrayed his perversion in his famous _Confessions_. It is, however, the name of a less eminent author, the Austrian novelist, Sacher-Masoch, which has become identified with the perversion through the fact that Krafft-Ebing fixed upon it as furnishing a convenient counterpart to the term "sadism." It is on the strength of a considerable number of his novels and stories, more especially of _Die Venus im Pelz_, that Krafft-Ebing took the scarcely warrantable liberty of identifying his name, while yet living, with a sexual perversion. Sacher-Masoch's biography has been written with intimate knowledge and much candor by C.F. von Schlichtegroll (_Sacher-Masoch und der Masochismus_, 1901) and, more indirectly, by his first wife Wanda von Sacher-Masoch in her autobiography (_Meine Lebensbeichte_, 1906; French translation, _Confession de ma Vie_, 1907). Schlichtegroll's book is written with a somewhat undue attempt to exalt his hero and to attribute his misfortunes to his first wife. The autobiography of the latter, however, enables us to form a more complete picture of Sacher-Masoch's life, for, while his wife by no means spares herself, she clearly shows that Sacher-Masoch was the victim of his own abnormal temperament, and she presents both the sensitive, refined, exalted, and generous aspects of his nature, and his morbid, imaginative, vain aspects. Leopold von Sacher-Masoch was born in 1836 at Lemberg in Galicia. He was of Spanish, German, and more especially Slavonic race. The founder of the family may be said to be a certain Don Matthias Sacher, a young Spanish nobleman, in the sixteenth century, who settled in Prague. The novelist's father was director of police in Lemberg and married Charlotte von Masoch, a Little Russian lady of noble birth. The novelist, the eldest child of this union, was not born until after nine years of marriage, and in infancy was so delicate that he was not expected to survive. He began to improve, however, when his mother gave him to be suckled to a robust Russian peasant woman, from whom, as he said later, he gained not only health, but "his soul"; from her he learned all the strange and melancholy legends of her people and a love of the Little Russians which never left him. While still a child young Sacher-Masoch was in the midst of the bloody scenes of the revolution which culminated in 1848. When he was 12 the family migrated to Prague, and the boy, though precocious in his development, then first learned the German language, of which he attained so fine a mastery. At a very early age he had found the atmosphere, and even some of the most characteristic elements, of the peculiar types which mark his work as a novelist. It is interesting to trace the germinal elements of those peculiarities which so strongly affected his imagination on the sexual side. As a child, he was greatly attracted by representations of cruelty; he loved to gaze at pictures of executions, the legends of martyrs were his favorite reading, and with the onset of puberty he regularly dreamed that he was fettered and in the power of a cruel woman who tortured him. It has been said by an anonymous author that the women of Galicia either rule their husbands entirely and make them their slaves or themselves sink to be the wretchedest of slaves. At the age of 10, according to Schlichtegroll's narrative, the child Leopold witnessed a scene in which a woman of the former kind, a certain Countess Xenobia X., a relative of his own on the paternal side, played the chief part, and this scene left an undying impress on his imagination. The Countess was a beautiful but wanton creature, and the child adored her, impressed alike by her beauty and the costly furs she wore. She accepted his devotion and little services and would sometimes allow him to assist her in dressing; on one occasion, as he was kneeling before her to put on her ermine slippers, he kissed her feet; she smiled and gave him a kick which filled him with pleasure. Not long afterward occurred the episode which so profoundly affected his imagination. He was playing with his sisters at hide-and-seek and had carefully hidden himself behind the dresses on a clothes-rail in the Countess's bedroom. At this moment the Countess suddenly entered the house and ascended the stairs, followed by a lover, and the child, who dared not betray his presence, saw the countess sink down on a sofa and begin to caress her lover. But a few moments later the husband, accompanied by two friends, dashed into the room. Before, however, he could decide which of the lovers to turn against the Countess had risen and struck him so powerful a blow in the face with her fist that he fell back streaming with blood. She then seized a whip, drove all three men out of the room, and in the confusion the lover slipped away. At this moment the clothes-rail fell and the child, the involuntary witness of the scene, was revealed to the Countess, who now fell on him in anger, threw him to the ground, pressed her knee on his shoulder, and struck him unmercifully. The pain was great, and yet he was conscious of a strange pleasure. While this castigation was proceeding the Count returned, no longer in a rage, but meek and humble as a slave, and kneeled down before her to beg forgiveness. As the boy escaped he saw her kick her husband. The child could not resist the temptation to return to the spot; the door was closed and he could see nothing, but he heard the sound of the whip and the groans of the Count beneath his wife's blows. It is unnecessary to insist that in this scene, acting on a highly sensitive and somewhat peculiar child, we have the key to the emotional attitude which affected so much of Sacher-Masoch's work. As his biographer remarks, woman became to him, during a considerable part of his life, a creature at once to be loved and hated, a being whose beauty and brutality enabled her to set her foot at will on the necks of men, and in the heroine of his first important novel, the _Emissär_, dealing with the Polish Revolution, he embodied the contradictory personality of Countess Xenobia. Even the whip and the fur garments, Sacher-Masoch's favorite emotional symbols, find their explanation in this early episode. He was accustomed to say of an attractive woman: "I should like to see her in furs," and, of an unattractive woman: "I could not imagine her in furs." His writing-paper at one time was adorned with the figure of a woman in Russian Boyar costume, her cloak lined with ermine, and brandishing a scourge. On his walls he liked to have pictures of women in furs, of the kind of which there is so magnificent an example by Rubens in the gallery at Munich. He would even keep a woman's fur cloak on an ottoman in his study and stroke it from time to time, finding that his brain thus received the same kind of stimulation as Schiller found in the odor of rotten apples.[97] At the age of 13, in the revolution of 1848, young Sacher-Masoch received his baptism of fire; carried away in the popular movement, he helped to defend the barricades together with a young lady, a relative of his family, an amazon with a pistol in her girdle, such as later he loved to depict. This episode was, however, but a brief interruption of his education; he pursued his studies with brilliance, and on the higher side his education was aided by his father's esthetic tastes. Amateur theatricals were in special favor at his home, and here even the serious plays of Goethe and Gogol were performed, thus helping to train and direct the boy's taste. It is, perhaps, however, significant that it was a tragic event which, at the age of 16, first brought to him the full realization of life and the consciousness of his own power. This was the sudden death of his favorite sister. He became serious and quiet, and always regarded this grief as a turning-point in his life. At the Universities of Prague and Graz he studied with such zeal that when only 19 he took his doctor's degree in law and shortly afterward became a _privatdocent_ for German history at Graz. Gradually, however, the charms of literature asserted themselves definitely, and he soon abandoned teaching. He took part, however, in the war of 1866 in Italy, and at the battle of Solferino he was decorated on the field for bravery in action by the Austrian field-marshal. These incidents, however, had little disturbing influence on Sacher-Masoch's literary career, and he was gradually acquiring a European reputation by his novels and stories. A far more seriously disturbing influence had already begun to be exerted on his life by a series of love-episodes. Some of these were of slight and ephemeral character; some were a source of unalloyed happiness, all the more so if there was an element of extravagance to appeal to his Quixotic nature. He always longed to give a dramatic and romantic character to his life, his wife says, and he spent some blissful days on an occasion when he ran away to Florence with a Russian princess as her private secretary. Most often these episodes culminated in deception and misery. It was after a relationship of this kind from which he could not free himself for four years that he wrote _Die Geschiedene Frau, Passionsgeschichte eines Idealisten_, putting into it much of his own personal history. At one time he was engaged to a sweet and charming young girl. Then it was that he met a young woman at Graz, Laura Rümelin, 27 years of age, engaged as a glove-maker, and living with her mother. Though of poor parentage, with little or no knowledge of the world, she had great natural ability and intelligence. Schlichtegroll represents her as spontaneously engaging in a mysterious intrigue with the novelist. Her own detailed narrative renders the circumstances more intelligible. She approached Sacher-Masoch by letter, adopting for disguise the name of his heroine Wanda von Dunajev, in order to recover possession of some compromising letters which had been written to him, as a joke, by a friend of hers. Sacher-Masoch insisted on seeing his correspondent before returning the letters, and with his eager thirst for romantic adventure he imagined that she was a married woman of the aristocratic world, probably a Russian countess, whose simple costume was a disguise. Not anxious to reveal the prosaic facts, she humored him in his imaginations and a web of mystification was thus formed. A strong attraction grew up on both sides and, though for some time Laura Rümelin maintained the mystery and held herself aloof from him, a relationship was formed and a child born. Thereupon, in 1893, they married. Before long, however, there was disillusion on both sides. She began to detect the morbid, chimerical, and unpractical aspects of his character, and he realized that not only was his wife not an aristocrat, but, what was of more importance to him, she was by no means the domineering heroine of his dreams. Soon after marriage, in the course of an innocent romp in which the whole of the small household took part, he asked his wife to inflict a whipping on him. She refused, and he thereupon suggested that the servant should do it; the wife failed to take this idea seriously; but he had it carried out, with great satisfaction at the severity of the castigation he received. When, however, his wife explained to him that, after this incident, it was impossible for the servant to stay, Sacher-Masoch quite agreed and she was at once discharged. But he constantly found pleasure in placing his wife in awkward or compromising circumstances, a pleasure she was too normal to share. This necessarily led to much domestic wretchedness. He had persuaded her, against her wish, to whip him nearly every day, with whips which he devised, having nails attached to them. He found this a stimulant to his literary work, and it enabled him to dispense in his novels with his stereotyped heroine who is always engaged in subjugating men, for, as he explained to his wife, when he had the reality in his life he was no longer obsessed by it in his imaginative dreams. Not content with this, however, he was constantly desirous for his wife to be unfaithful. He even put an advertisement in a newspaper to the effect that a young and beautiful woman desired to make the acquaintance of an energetic man. The wife, however, though she wished to please her husband, was not anxious to do so to this extent. She went to an hotel by appointment to meet a stranger who had answered this advertisement, but when she had explained to him the state of affairs he chivalrously conducted her home. It was some time before Sacher-Masoch eventually succeeded in rendering his wife unfaithful. He attended to the minutest details of her toilette on this occasion, and as he bade her farewell at the door he exclaimed: "How I envy him!" This episode thoroughly humiliated the wife, and from that moment her love for her husband turned to hate. A final separation was only a question of time. Sacher-Masoch formed a relationship with Hulda Meister, who had come to act as secretary and translator to him, while his wife became attached to Rosenthal, a clever journalist later known to readers of the _Figaro_ as "Jacques St.-Cère," who realized her painful position and felt sympathy and affection for her. She went to live with him in Paris and, having refused to divorce her husband, he eventually obtained a divorce from her; she states, however, that she never at any time had physical relationships with Rosenthal, who was a man of fragile organization and health. Sacher-Masoch united himself to Hulda Meister, who is described by the first wife as a prim and faded but coquettish old maid, and by the biographer as a highly accomplished and gentle woman, who cared for him with almost maternal devotion. No doubt there is truth in both descriptions. It must be noted that, as Wanda clearly shows, apart from his abnormal sexual temperament, Sacher-Masoch was kind and sympathetic, and he was strongly attached to his eldest child. Eulenburg also quotes the statement of a distinguished Austrian woman writer acquainted with him that, "apart from his sexual eccentricities, he was an amiable, simple, and sympathetic man with a touchingly tender love for his children." He had very few needs, did not drink or smoke, and though he liked to put the woman he was attached to in rich furs and fantastically gorgeous raiment he dressed himself with extreme simplicity. His wife quotes the saying of another woman that he was as simple as a child and as naughty as a monkey. In 1883 Sacher-Masoch and Hulda Meister settled in Lindheim, a village in Germany near the Taunus, a spot to which the novelist seems to have been attached because in the grounds of his little estate was a haunted and ruined tower associated with a tragic medieval episode. Here, after many legal delays, Sacher-Masoch was able to render his union with Hulda Meister legitimate; here two children were in due course born, and here the novelist spent the remaining years of his life in comparative peace. At first, as is usual, treated with suspicion by the peasants, Sacher-Masoch gradually acquired great influence over them; he became a kind of Tolstoy in the rural life around him, the friend and confidant of all the villagers (something of Tolstoy's communism is also, it appears, to be seen in the books he wrote at this time), while the theatrical performances which he inaugurated, and in which his wife took an active part, spread the fame of the household in many neighboring villages. Meanwhile his health began to break up; a visit to Nauheim in 1894 was of no benefit, and he died March 9, 1895. A careful consideration of the phenomena of sadism and masochism may be said to lead us to the conclusion that there is no real line of demarcation. Even De Sade himself was not a pure sadist, as Bloch's careful definition is alone sufficient to indicate; it might even be argued that De Sade was really a masochist; the investigation of histories of sadism and masochism, even those given by Krafft-Ebing (as, indeed, Colin Scott and Féré have already pointed out), constantly reveals traces of both groups of phenomena in the same individual. They cannot, therefore, be regarded as opposed manifestations. This has been felt by some writers, who have, in consequence, proposed other names more clearly indicating the relationship of the phenomena. Féré speaks of sexual algophily[98]; he only applies the term to masochism; it might equally well be applied to sadism. Schrenck-Notzing, to cover both sadism and masochism, has invented the term algolagnia (algos, pain, and lagnos sexually excited), and calls the former active, the latter passive, algolagnia.[99] Eulenburg has also emphasized the close connection between these groups of perverted sexual manifestations, and has adopted the same terms, adding the further group of ideal (illusionary) algolagnia, to cover the cases in which the mere autosuggestive representation of pain, inflicted or suffered, suffices to give sexual gratification.[100] A brief discussion of the terms "sadism" and "masochism" has imposed itself upon us at this point because as soon as, in any study of the relationship between love and pain, we pass over the limits of normal manifestations into a region which is more or less abnormal, these two conceptions are always brought before us, and it was necessary to show on what grounds they are here rejected as the pivots on which the discussion ought to turn. We may accept them as useful terms to indicate two groups of clinical phenomena; but we cannot regard them as of any real scientific value. Having reached this result, we may continue our consideration of the love-bite, as the normal manifestation of the connection between love and pain which most naturally leads us across the frontier of the abnormal. The result of the love-bite in its extreme degree is to shed blood. This cannot be regarded as the direct aim of the bite in its normal manifestations, for the mingled feelings of close contact, of passionate gripping, of symbolic devouring, which constitute the emotional accompaniments of the bite would be too violently discomposed by actual wounding and real shedding of blood. With some persons, however, perhaps more especially women, the love-bite is really associated with a conscious desire, even if more or less restrained, to draw blood, a real delight in this process, a love of blood. Probably this only occurs in persons who are not absolutely normal, but on the borderland of the abnormal. We have to admit that this craving has, however, a perfectly normal basis. There is scarcely any natural object with so profoundly emotional an effect as blood, and it is very easy to understand why this should be so.[101] Moreover, blood enters into the sphere of courtship by virtue of the same conditions by which cruelty enters into it; they are both accidents of combat, and combat is of the very essence of animal and primitive human courtship, certainly its most frequent accompaniment. So that the repelling or attracting fascination of blood may be regarded as a by-product of normal courtship, which, like other such by-products, may become an essential element of abnormal courtship.[102] Normally the fascination of blood, if present at all during sexual excitement, remains more or less latent, either because it is weak or because the checks that inhibit it are inevitably very powerful. Occasionally it becomes more clearly manifest, and this may happen early in life. Féré records the case of a man of Anglo-Saxon origin, of sound heredity so far as could be ascertained and presenting no obvious stigmata of degeneration, who first experienced sexual manifestations at the age of 5 when a boy cousin was attacked by bleeding at the nose. It was the first time he had seen such a thing and he experienced erection and much pleasure at the sight. This was repeated the next time the cousin's nose bled and also whenever he witnessed any injuries or wounds, especially when occurring in males. A few years later he began to find pleasure in pinching and otherwise inflicting slight suffering. This sadism was not, however, further developed, although a tendency to inversion persisted.[103] Somewhat similar may have been the origin of the attraction of blood in a case which has been reported to me of a youth of 17, the youngest of a large family who are all very strong and entirely normal. He is himself, however, delicate, overgrown, with a narrow chest, a small head, and babyish features, while mentally he is backward, with very defective memory and scant powers of assimilation. He is intensely nervous, peevish, and subject to fits of childish rage. He takes violent fancies to persons of his own sex. But he appears to have only one way of obtaining sexual excitement and gratification. It is his custom to get into a hot bath and there to produce erection and emission, not by masturbation, but by thinking of flowing blood. He does not associate himself with the causation of this imaginary flow of blood; he is merely the passive but pleased spectator. He is aware of his peculiarity and endeavors to shake it off, but his efforts to obtain normal pleasure by thinking of a girl are vain. I may here narrate a case which has been communicated to me of algolagnia in a woman, combined with sexual hyperesthesia. R.D., aged 25, married, and of good social position; she is a small and dark woman, restless and alert in manner. She has one child. She has practised masturbation from an early age--ever since she can remember--by the method of external friction and pressure. From the age of 17 she was able (and is still) to produce the orgasm almost without effort, by calling up the image of any man who had struck her fancy. She has often done so while seated talking to such a man, even when he is almost a stranger; in doing it, she says, a tightening of the muscles of the thighs and the slightest movement are sufficient. Ugly men (if not deformed), as well as men with the reputation of being _roués_, greatly excite her sexually, more especially if of good social position, though this is not essential. At the age of 18 she became hysterical, probably, she herself believes, in consequence of a great increase at that time of indulgence in masturbation. The doctors, apparently suspecting her habits, urged her parents to get her married early. She married, at the age of 20, a man about twice her own age. As a child (and in a less degree still) she was very fond of watching dog-fights. This spectacle produced strong sexual feelings and usually orgasm, especially if much blood was shed during the fight. Clean cuts and wounds greatly attract her, whether on herself or a man. She has frequently slightly cut or scratched herself "to see the blood," and likes to suck the wound, thinking the taste "delicious." This produces strong sexual feelings and often orgasm, especially if at the time she thinks of some attractive man and imagines that she is sucking his blood. The sight of injury to a woman only very slightly affects her, and that, she thinks, only because of an involuntary association of ideas. Nor has the sight of suffering in illness any exciting effects, only that which is due to violence, and when there is a visible cause for the suffering, such as cuts and wounds. (Bruises, from the absence of blood, have only a slight effect.) The excitement is intensified if she imagines that she has herself inflicted the injury. She likes to imagine that the man wished to rape her, and that she fought him in order to make him more greatly value her favor, so wounding him. Impersonal ideas of torture also excite her. She thinks Fox's _Book of Martyrs_ "lovely," and the more horrible and bloody the tortures described the greater is the sexual excitement produced. The book excites her from the point of view of the torturer, not that of the victim. She has frequently masturbated while reading it. So far as practicable she has sought to carry out these ideas in her relations with her husband. She has several times bitten him till the blood came and sucked the bite during coitus. She likes to bite him enough to make him wince. The pleasure is greatly heightened by thinking of various tortures, chiefly by cutting. She likes to have her husband talk to her, and she to him, of all the tortures they could inflict on each other. She has, however, never actually tried to carry out these tortures. She would like to, but dares not, as she is sure he could not endure them. She has no desire for her husband to try them on her, although she likes to hear him talk about it. She is at the same time fond of normal coitus, even to excess. She likes her husband to remain entirely passive during connection, so that he can continue in a state of strong erection for a long time. She can thus, she says, procure for herself the orgasm a number of times in succession, even nine or ten, quite easily. On one occasion she even had the orgasm twenty-six times within about one and a quarter hours, her husband during this time having two orgasms. (She is quite certain about the accuracy of this statement.) During this feat much talk about torture was indulged in, and it took place after a month's separation from her husband, during which she was careful not to masturbate, so that she might have "a real good time" when he came back. She acknowledges that on this occasion she was a "complete wreck" for a couple of days afterward, but states that usually ten or a dozen orgasms (or spasms, as she terms them) only make her "feel lively." She becomes frenzied with excitement during intercourse and insensible to everything but the pleasure of it. She has never hitherto allowed anyone (except her husband after marriage) to know of her sadistic impulses, nor has she carried them out with anyone, though she would like to, if she dared. Nor has she allowed any man but her husband to have connection with her or to take any liberties. Outbursts of sadism may occur episodically in fairly normal persons. Thus, Coutagne describes the case of a lad of 17--always regarded as quite normal, and without any signs of degeneracy, even on careful examination, or any traces of hysteria or alcoholism, though there was insanity among his cousins--who had had occasional sexual relations for a year or two, and on one occasion, being in a state of erection, struck the girl three times on the breast and abdomen with a kitchen knife bought for the purpose. He was much ashamed of his act immediately afterward, and, all the circumstances being taken into consideration, he was acquitted by the court.[104] Here we seem to have the obscure and latent fascination of blood, which is almost normal, germinating momentarily into an active impulse which is distinctly abnormal, though it produced little beyond those incisions which Vatsyayana disapproved of, but still regarded as a part of courtship. One step more and we are amid the most outrageous and extreme of all forms of sexual perversion: with the heroes of De Sade's novels, who, in exemplification of their author's most cherished ideals, plan scenes of debauchery in which the flowing of blood is an essential element of coitus; with the Marshall Gilles de Rais and the Hungarian Countess Bathory, whose lust could only be satiated by the death of innumerable victims. This impulse to stab--with no desire to kill, or even in most cases to give pain, but only to draw blood and so either stimulate or altogether gratify the sexual impulse--is no doubt the commonest form of sanguinary sadism. These women-stabbers have been known in France as _piqueurs_ for nearly a century, and in Germany are termed _Stecher_ or _Messerstecher_ (they have been studied by Näcke, "Zur Psychologie der sadistischen Messerstecher," _Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie_, Bd. 35, 1909). A case of this kind where a man stabbed girls in the abdomen occurred in Paris in the middle of the eighteenth century, and in 1819 or 1820 there seems to have been an epidemic of _piqueurs_ in Paris; as we learn from a letter of Charlotte von Schiller's to Knebel; the offenders (though perhaps there was only one) frequented the Boulevards and the Palais Royal and stabbed women in the buttocks or thighs; they were never caught. About the same time similar cases of a slighter kind occurred in London, Brussels, Hamburg, and Munich. Stabbers are nearly always men, but cases of the same perversion in women are not unknown. Thus Dr. Kiernan informs me of an Irish woman, aged 40, and at the beginning of the menopause, who, in New York in 1909, stabbed five men with a hatpin. The motive was sexual and she told one of the men that she stabbed him because she "loved" him. Gilles de Rais, who had fought beside Joan of Arc, is the classic example of sadism in its extreme form, involving the murder of youths and maidens. Bernelle considers that there is some truth in the contention of Huysmans that the association with Joan of Arc was a predisposing cause in unbalancing Gilles de Rais. Another cause was his luxurious habit of life. He himself, no doubt rightly, attached importance to the suggestions received in reading Suetonius. He appears to have been a sexually precocious child, judging from an obscure passage in his confessions. He was artistic and scholarly, fond of books, of the society of learned men, and of music. Bernelle sums him up as "a pious warrior, a cruel and keen artist, a voluptuous assassin, an exalted mystic," who was at the same time unbalanced, a superior degenerate, and morbidly impulsive. (The best books on Gilles de Rais are the Abbé Bossard's _Gilles de Rais_, in which, however, the author, being a priest, treats his subject as quite sane and abnormally wicked; Huysmans's novel, _La-Bas_, which embodies a detailed study of Gilles de Rais, and F.H. Bernelle's Thèse de Paris, _La Psychose de Gilles de Rais_, 1910.) The opinion has been hazarded that the history of Gilles de Rais is merely a legend. This view is not accepted, but there can be no doubt that the sadistic manifestations which occurred in the Middle Ages were mixed up with legendary and folk-lore elements. These elements centered on the conception of the _werwolf_, supposed to be a man temporarily transformed into a wolf with blood-thirsty impulses. (See, e.g., articles "Werwolf" and "Lycanthropy" in _Encyclopædia Britannica_.) France, especially, was infested with werwolves in the sixteenth century. In 1603, however, it was decided at Bordeaux, in a trial involving a werwolf, that lycanthropy was only an insane delusion. Dumas ("Les Loup-Garous," _Journal de Psychologie Normale et Pathologique_, May-June, 1907) argues that the medieval werwolves were sadists whose crimes were largely imaginative, though sometimes real, the predecessor of the modern Jack the Ripper. The complex nature of the elements making up the belief in the werwolf is emphasized by Ernest Jones, _Der Alptraum_, 1912. Related to the werwolf, but distinct, was the _vampire_, supposed to be a dead person who rose from the dead to suck the blood of the living during sleep. By way of reprisal the living dug up, exorcised, and mutilated the supposed vampires. This was called vampirism. The name vampire was then transferred to the living person who had so treated a corpse. All profanation of the corpse, whatever its origin, is now frequently called vampirism (Epaulow, _Vampirisme_, Thèse de Lyon, 1901; id., "Le Vampire du Muy," _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Sept., 1903). The earliest definite reference to necrophily is in Herodotus, who tells (bk. ii, ch. lxxxix) of an Egyptian who had connection with the corpse of a woman recently dead. Epaulow gives various old cases and, at full length, the case which he himself investigated, of Ardisson, the "Vampire du Muy." W.A.F. Browne also has an interesting article on "Necrophilism" (_Journal of Mental Science_, Jan., 1875) which he regards as atavistic. When there is, in addition, mutilation of the corpse, the condition is termed necrosadism. There seems usually to be no true sadism in either necrosadism or necrophilism. (See, however, Bloch, _Beiträge_, vol. ii, p. 284 et seq.) It must be said also that cases of rape followed by murder are quite commonly not sadistic. The type of such cases is represented by Soleilland, who raped and then murdered children. He showed no sadistic perversion. He merely killed to prevent discovery, as a burglar who is interrupted may commit murder in order to escape. (E. Dupré, "L'Affaire Soleilland," _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Jan.-Feb., 1910.) A careful and elaborate study of a completely developed sadist has been furnished by Lacassagne, Rousset, and Papillon ("L'Affaire Reidal," _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Oct.-Nov., 1907). Reidal, a youth of 18, a seminarist, was a congenital sanguinary sadist who killed another youth and was finally sent to an asylum. From the age of 4 he had voluptuous ideas connected with blood and killing, and liked to play at killing with other children. He was of infantile physical development, with a pleasant, childish expression of face, very religious, and hated obscenity and immorality. But the love of blood and murder was an irresistible obsession and its gratification produced immense emotional relief. Sadism generally has been especially studied by Lacassagne, _Vacher l'Eventreur et les Crimes Sadiques_, 1899. Zoösadism, or sadism toward animals, has been dealt with by P. Thomas, "Le Sadisme sur les Animaux," _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Sept., 1903. Auto-sadism, or "auto-erotic cruelty," that is to say, injuries inflicted on a person by himself with a sexual motive, has been investigated by G. Bach (_Sexuelle Verrirungen des Menschen und der Nature_, p. 427); this condition seems, however, a form of algolagnia more masochistic than sadistic in character. With regard to the medico-legal aspects, Kiernan ("Responsibility in Active Algophily," _Medicine_, April, 1903) sets forth the reasons in favor of the full and complete responsibility of sadists, and Harold Moyer comes to the same conclusion ("Is Sexual Perversion Insanity?" _Alienist and Neurologist_, May, 1907). See also Thoinot's _Medico-legal Aspects of Moral Offenses_ (edited by Weysse, 1911), ch. xviii. While we are probably justified in considering the sadist as morally not insane in the technical sense, we must remember that he is, for the most part, highly abnormal from the outset. As Gaupp points out (_Sexual-Probleme_, Oct., 1909, p. 797), we cannot measure the influences which create the sadist and we must not therefore attempt to "punish" him, but we are bound to place him in a position where he will not injure society. It is enough here to emphasize the fact that there is no solution of continuity in the links that bind the absolutely normal manifestations of sex with the most extreme violations of all human law. This is so true that in saying that these manifestations are violations of all human law we cannot go on to add, what would seem fairly obvious, that they are violations also of all natural law. We have but to go sufficiently far back, or sufficiently far afield, in the various zoölogical series to find that manifestations which, from the human point of view, are in the extreme degree abnormally sadistic here become actually normal. Among very various species wounding and rending normally take place at or immediately after coitus; if we go back to the beginning of animal life in the protozoa sexual conjugation itself is sometimes found to present the similitude, if not the actuality, of the complete devouring of one organism by another. Over a very large part of nature, as it has been truly said, "but a thin veil divides love from death."[105] There is, indeed, on the whole, a point of difference. In that abnormal sadism which appears from time to time among civilized human beings it is nearly always the female who becomes the victim of the male. But in the normal sadism which occurs throughout a large part of nature it is nearly always the male who is the victim of the female. It is the male spider who impregnates the female at the risk of his life and sometimes perishes in the attempt; it is the male bee who, after intercourse with the queen, falls dead from that fatal embrace, leaving her to fling aside his entrails and calmly pursue her course.[106] If it may seem to some that the course of our inquiry leads us to contemplate with equanimity, as a natural phenomenon, a certain semblance of cruelty in man in his relations with woman, they may, if they will, reflect that this phenomenon is but a very slight counterpoise to that cruelty which has been naturally exerted by the female on the male long even before man began to be. FOOTNOTES: [83] Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia Sexualis_, English translation of tenth German edition, pp. 80, 209. It should be added that the object of the sadistic impulse is not necessarily a person of the opposite sex. [84] A. Moll, _Die Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, 1899, p. 309. [85] Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, p. 133. [86] P. Garnier, "Des Perversions Sexuelles," Thirteenth International Congress of Medicine, Section of Psychiatry, Paris, 1900. [87] E. Dühren, _Der Marquis de Sade und Seine Zeit_, third edition, 1901, p. 449. [88] See, for instance, Bloch's _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, part ii, p. 178. [89] Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia Sexualis_, English translation of tenth German edition, p. 115. Stefanowsky, who also discussed this condition (_Archives de l'Anthropologie Criminelle_, May, 1892, and translation, with notes by Kiernan, _Alienist and Neurologist_, Oct., 1892), termed it passivism. [90] _Anatomy of Melancholy_, part iii, section 2, mem. iii, subs, 1. [91] "Aristoteles als Masochist," _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Bd. ii, ht. 2. [92] _Die Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, p. 277. Cf. C.F. von Schlichtegroll, _Sacher-Masoch und der Masochismus_, p. 120. [93] See C.F. von Schlichtegroll, loc. cit., p. 124 et seq. [94] Iwan Bloch considers that it is the commonest of all sexual perversions, more prevalent even than homosexuality. [95] It has no doubt been prominent in earlier civilization. A very pronounced masochist utterance may be found in an ancient Egyptian love-song written about 1200 B.C.: "Oh! were I made her porter, I should cause her to be wrathful with me. Then when I did but hear her voice, the voice of her anger, a child shall I be for fear." (Wiedemann, _Popular Literature in Ancient Egypt_, p. 9.) The activity and independence of the Egyptian women at the time may well have offered many opportunities to the ancient Egyptian masochist. [96] Colin Scott, "Sex and Art," _American Journal of Psychology_, vol. vii, No. 2, p. 208. [97] It must not be supposed that the attraction of fur or of the whip is altogether accounted for by such a casual early experience as in Sacher-Masoch's case served to evoke it. The whip we shall have to consider briefly later on. The fascination exerted by fur, whether manifesting itself as love or fear, would appear to be very common in many children, and almost instinctive. Stanley Hall, in his "Study of Fears" (_American Journal of Psychology_, vol. viii, p. 213) has obtained as many as 111 well-developed cases of fear of fur, or, as he terms it, doraphobia, in some cases appearing as early as the age of 6 months, and he gives many examples. He remarks that the love of fur is still more common, and concludes that "both this love and fear are so strong and instinctive that they can hardly be fully accounted for without recourse to a time when association with animals was far closer than now, or perhaps when our remote ancestors were hairy." (Cf. "Erotic Symbolism," iv, in the fifth volume of these _Studies_.) [98] Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, p. 138. [99] Schrenck-Notzing, _Zeitschrift für Hypnotismus_, Bd. ix, ht. 2, 1899. [100] Eulenburg, _Sadismus und Masochismus_, second edition, 1911, p. 5. [101] I have elsewhere dealt with this point in discussing the special emotional tone of red (Havelock Ellis, "The Psychology of Red," _Popular Science Monthly_, August and September, 1900). [102] It is probable that the motive of sexual murders is nearly always to shed blood, and not to cause death. Leppmann (_Bulletin Internationale de Droit Pénal_, vol. vi, 1896, p. 115) points out that such murders are generally produced by wounds in the neck or mutilation of the abdomen, never by wounds of the head. T. Claye Shaw, who terms the lust for blood hemothymia, has written an interesting and suggestive paper ("A Prominent Motive in Murder," _Lancet_, June 19, 1909) on the natural fascination of blood. Blumröder, in 1830, seems to have been the first who definitely called attention to the connection between lust and blood. [103] Féré, _Revue de Chirurgie_, March 10, 1905. [104] H. Coutagne, "Cas de Perversion Sanguinaire de l'Instinct Sexuel," _Annales Médico-Psychologiques_, July and August, 1893. D.S. Booth (_Alienist and Neurologist_, Aug., 1906) describes the case of a man of neurotic heredity who slightly stabbed a woman with a penknife when on his way to a prostitute. [105] Kiernan appears to have been the first to suggest the bearing of these facts on sadism, which he would regard as the abnormal human form of phenomena which may be found at the very beginning of animal life, as, indeed, the survival or atavistic reappearance of a primitive sexual cannibalism. See his "Psychological Aspects of the Sexual Appetite," _Alienist and Neurologist_, April, 1891, and "Responsibility in Sexual Perversion," _Chicago Medical Recorder_, March, 1892. Penta has also independently developed the conception of the biological basis of sadism and other sexual perversions (_I Pervertimenti Sessuali_, 1893). It must be added that, as Remy de Gourmont points out (_Promenades Philosophiques_, 2d series, p. 273), this sexual cannibalism exerted by the female may have, primarily, no erotic significance: "She eats him because she is hungry and because when exhausted he is an easy prey." [106] In the chapter entitled "Le Vol Nuptial" of his charming book on the life of bees Maeterlinck has given an incomparable picture of the tragic courtship of these insects. III. Flagellation as a Typical Illustration of Algolagnia--Causes of Connection between Sexual Emotion and Whipping--Physical Causes--Psychic Causes probably more Important--The Varied Emotional Associations of Whipping--Its Wide Prevalence. The whole problem of love and pain, in its complementary sadistic and masochistic aspects, is presented to us in connection with the pleasure sometimes experienced in whipping, or in being whipped, or in witnessing or thinking about scenes of whipping. The association of sexual emotion with bloodshed is so extreme a perversion, it so swiftly sinks to phases that are obviously cruel, repulsive, and monstrous in an extreme degree, that it is necessarily rare, and those who are afflicted by it are often more or less imbecile. With whipping it is otherwise. Whipping has always been a recognized religious penance; it is still regarded as a beneficial and harmless method of chastisement; there is nothing necessarily cruel, repulsive, or monstrous in the idea or the reality of whipping, and it is perfectly easy and natural for an interest in the subject to arise in an innocent and even normal child, and thus to furnish a germ around which, temporarily at all events, sexual ideas may crystallize. For these reasons the connection between love and pain may be more clearly brought out in connection with whipping than with blood. There is, by no means, any necessary connection between flagellation and the sexual emotions. If there were, this form of penance would not have been so long approved or at all events tolerated by the Church.[107] As a matter of fact, indeed, it was not always approved or even tolerated. Pope Adrian IV in the eighth century forbade priests to beat their penitents, and at the time of the epidemic of flagellation in the thirteenth century, which was highly approved by many holy men, the abuses were yet so frequent that Clement VI issued a bull against these processions. All such papal prohibitions remained without effect. The association of religious flagellation with perverted sexual motives is shown by its condemnation in later ages by the Inquisition, which was accustomed to prosecute the priests who, in prescribing flagellation as a penance, exerted it personally, or caused it to be inflicted on the stripped penitent in his presence, or made a woman penitent discipline him, such offences being regarded as forms of "solicitation."[108] There seems even to be some reason to suppose that the religious flagellation mania which was so prevalent in the later Middle Ages, when processions of penitents, male and female, eagerly flogged themselves and each other, may have had something to do with the discovery of erotic flagellation,[109] which, at all events in Europe, seems scarcely to have been known before the sixteenth century. It must, in any case, have assisted to create a predisposition. The introduction of flagellation as a definitely recognized sexual stimulant is by Eulenburg, in his interesting book, _Sadismus und Masochismus_, attributed to the Arabian physicians. It would appear to have been by the advice of an Arabian physician that the Duchess Leonora Gonzaga, of Mantua, was whipped by her mother to aid her in responding more warmly to her husband's embraces and to conceive. Whatever the precise origin of sexual flagellation in Europe, there can be no doubt that it soon became extremely common, and so it remains at the present day. Those who possess a special knowledge of such matters declare that sexual flagellation is the most frequent of all sexual perversions in England.[110] This belief is, I know, shared by many people both inside and outside England. However this may be, the tendency is certainly common. I doubt if it is any or at all less common in Germany, judging by the large number of books on the subject of flagellation which have been published in German. In a catalogue of "interesting books" on this and allied subjects issued by a German publisher and bookseller, I find that, of fifty-five volumes, as many as seventeen or eighteen, all in German, deal solely with the question of flagellation, while many of the other books appear to deal in part with the same subject.[111] It is, no doubt, true that the large part which the rod has played in the past history of our civilization justifies a considerable amount of scientific interest in the subject of flagellation, but it is clear that the interest in these books is by no means always scientific, but very frequently sexual. It is remarkable that, while the sexual associations of whipping, whether in slight or in marked degrees, are so frequent in modern times, they appear to be by no means easy to trace in ancient times. "Flagellation," I find it stated by a modern editor of the _Priapeia_, "so extensively practised in England as a provocation to venery, is almost entirely unnoticed by the Latin erotic writers, although, in the _Satyricon_ of Petronius (ch. cxxxviii), Encolpius, in describing the steps taken by OEnothea to undo the temporary impotence to which he was subjected, says: 'Next she mixed nasturtium-juice with southern wood, and, having bathed my foreparts, she took a bunch of green nettles, and gently whipped my belly all over below the navel.'" It appears also that many ancient courtesans dedicated to Venus as ex-votos a whip, a bridle, or a spur as tokens of their skill in riding their lovers. The whip was sometimes used in antiquity, but if it aroused sexual emotions they seem to have passed unregarded. "We naturally know nothing," Eulenburg remarks (_Sadismus und Masochismus_, p. 72), "of the feelings of the priestess of Artemis at the flagellation of Spartan youths; or what emotions inspired the priestess of the Syrian goddess under similar circumstances; or what the Roman Pontifex Maximus felt when he castigated the exposed body of a negligent vestal (as described by Plutarch) behind a curtain, and the 'plagosus Orbilius' only practised on children." It was at the Renaissance that cases of abnormal sexual pleasure in flagellation began to be recorded. The earliest distinct reference to a masochistic flagellant seems to have been made by Pico della Mirandola, toward the end of the fifteenth century, in his _Disputationes Adversus Astrologiam Divinatricem_, bk. iii, ch. xxvii. Coelius Rhodiginus in 1516, again, narrated the case of a man he knew who liked to be severely whipped, and found this a stimulant to coitus. Otto Brunfels, in his _Onomasticon_ (1534), art. "Coitus," refers to another case of a man who could not have intercourse with his wife until he had been whipped. Then, a century later, in 1643, Meibomius wrote _De Usu Flagrorum in re Venerea_, the earliest treatise on this subject, narrating various cases. Numerous old cases of pleasure in flagellation and urtication were brought together by Schurig in 1720 in his _Spermatologia_, pp. 253-258. The earliest definitely described medical case of sadistic pleasure in the sight of active whipping which I have myself come across belongs to the year 1672, and occurs in a letter in which Nesterus seeks the opinion of Garmann. He knows intimately, he states, a very learned man--whose name, for the honor he bears him, he refrains from mentioning--who, whenever in a school or elsewhere he sees a boy unbreeched and birched, and hears him crying out, at once emits semen copiously without any erection, but with great mental commotion. The same accident frequently happens to him during sleep, accompanied by dreams of whipping. Nesterus proceeds to mention that this "_laudatus vir_" was also extremely sensitive to the odor of strawberries and other fruits, which produced nausea. He was evidently a neurotic subject. (L.C.F. Garmanni et Aliorum Virorum Clarissimorum, _Epistolarum Centuria_, Rostochi et Lipsiæ, 1714.) In England we find that toward the end of the sixteenth century one of Marlowe's epigrams deals with a certain Francus who before intercourse with his mistress "sends for rods and strips himself stark naked," and by the middle of the seventeenth century the existence of an association between flagellation and sexual pleasure seems to have been popularly recognized. In 1661, in a vulgar "tragicomedy" entitled _The Presbyterian Lash_, we find: "I warrant he thought that the tickling of the wench's buttocks with the rod would provoke her to lechery." That whipping was well known as a sexual stimulant in England in the eighteenth century is sufficiently indicated by the fact that in one of Hogarth's series representing the "Harlot's Progress" a birch rod hangs over the bed. The prevalence of sexual flagellation in England at the end of that century and the beginning of the nineteenth is discussed by Dühren (Iwan Bloch) in his _Geschlechtsleben in England_ (1901-3), especially vol. ii, ch. vi. While, however, the evidence regarding sexual flagellation is rare, until recent times whipping as a punishment was extremely common. It is even possible that its very prevalence, and the consequent familiarity with which it was regarded, were unfavorable to the development of any mysterious emotional state likely to act on the sexual sphere, except in markedly neurotic subjects. Thus, the corporal chastisement of wives by husbands was common and permitted. Not only was this so to a proverbial extent in eastern Europe, but also in the extreme west and among a people whose women enjoyed much freedom and honor. Cymric law allowed a husband to chastise his wife for angry speaking, such as calling him a cur; for giving away property she was not entitled to give away; or for being found in hiding with another man. For the first two offenses she had the option of paying him three kine. When she accepted the chastisement she was to receive "three strokes with a rod of the length of her husband's forearm and the thickness of his long finger, and that wheresoever he might will, excepting on the head"; so that she was to suffer pain only, and not injury. (R.B. Holt, "Marriage Laws and Customs of the Cymri," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, August-November, 1898, p. 162.) "The Cymric law," writes a correspondent, "seems to have survived in popular belief in the Eastern and Middle States of the United States. In police-courts in New York, for example, it has been unsuccessfully pleaded that a man is entitled to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb. In Pennsylvania actual acquittals have been rendered." Among all classes children were severely whipped by their parents and others in authority over them. It may be recalled that in the twelfth century when Abelard became tutor to Heloise, then about 18 years of age, her uncle authorized him to beat her, if negligent in her studies. Even in the sixteenth century Jeanne d'Albert, who became the mother of Henry IV of France, at the age of 13½ was married to the Duke of Cleves, and to overcome her resistance to this union the Queen, her mother, had her whipped to such an extent that she thought she would die of it. The whip on this occasion was, however, only partially successful, for the Duke never succeeded in consummating the marriage, which was, in consequence, annulled. (Cabanès brings together numerous facts regarding the prevalence of flagellation as a chastisement in ancient France in the interesting chapter on "La Flagellation a la Cour et à la Ville" in his _Indiscretions de l'Histoire_, 1903.) As to the prevalence of whipping in England evidence is furnished by Andrews, in the chapter on "Whipping and Whipping Posts," in his book on ancient punishments. It existed from the earliest times and was administered for a great variety of offenses, to men and women alike, for vagrancy, for theft, to the fathers and mothers of illegitimate children, for drunkenness, for insanity, even sometimes for small-pox. At one time both sexes were whipped naked, but from Queen Elizabeth's time only from the waist upward. In 1791 the whipping of female vagrants ceased by law. (W. Andrews, _Bygone Punishments_, 1899.) It must, however, be remarked that law always lags far behind social feeling and custom, and flagellation as a common punishment had fallen into disuse or become very perfunctory long before any change was made in the law, though it is not absolutely extinct, even by law, today. There is even an ignorant and retrograde tendency to revive it. Thus, even in severe Commonwealth days, the alleged whipping with rods of a servant-girl by her master, though with no serious physical injury, produced a great public outcry, as we see by the case of the Rev. Zachary Crofton, a distinguished London clergyman, who was prosecuted in 1657 on the charge of whipping his servant-girl, Mary Cadman, because she lay in bed late in the morning and stole sugar. This incident led to several pamphlets. In _The Presbyterian, Lash or Noctroff's Maid Whipt_ (1661), a satire on Crofton, we read: "It is not only contrary to Gospel but good manners to take up a wench's petticoats, smock and all"; and in the doggerel ballad of "Bo-Peep," which was also written on the same subject, it is said that Crofton should have left his wife to chastise the maid. Crofton published two pamphlets, one under his own name and one under that of Alethes Noctroff (1657), in which he elaborately dealt with the charge as both false and frivolous. In one passage he offers a qualified defense of such an act: "I cannot but bewail the exceeding rudeness of our times to suffer such foolery to be prosecuted as of some high and notorious crime. Suppose it were (as it is not) true, may not some eminent congregational brother be found guilty of the same act? Is it not much short of drinking an health naked on a signpost? May it not be as theologically defended as the husband's correction of his wife?" This passage, and the whole episode, show that feeling in regard to this matter was at that time in a state of transition. Flagellation as a penance, whether inflicted by the penitent himself or by another person, was also extremely common in medieval and later days. According to Walsingham ("Master of the Rolls' Collection," vol. i, p. 275), in England, in the middle of the fourteenth century, penitents, sometimes men of noble birth, would severely flagellate themselves, even to the shedding of blood, weeping or singing as they did so; they used cords with knots containing nails. At a later time the custom of religious flagellation was more especially preserved in Spain. The Countess d'Aulnoy, who visited Spain in 1685, has described the flagellations practised in public at Madrid. After giving an account of the dress worn by these flagellants, which corresponds to that worn in Spain in Holy Week at the present time by the members of the _Cofradias_, the face concealed by the high sugar-loaf head-covering, she continues: "They attach ribbons to their scourges, and usually their mistresses honor them with their favors. In gaining public admiration they must not gesticulate with the arm, but only move the wrist and hand; the blows must be given without haste, and the blood must not spoil the costume. They make terrible wounds on their shoulders, from which the blood flows in streams; they march through the streets with measured steps; they pass before the windows of their mistresses, where they flagellate themselves with marvelous patience. The lady gazes at this fine sight through the blinds of her room, and by a sign she encourages him to flog himself, and lets him understand how much she likes this sort of gallantry. When they meet a good-looking woman they strike themselves in such a way that the blood goes on to her; this is a great honor, and the grateful lady thanks them.... All this is true to the letter." The Countess proceeds to describe other and more genuine penitents, often of high birth, who may be seen in the street naked above the waist, and with naked feet on the rough and sharp pavement; some had swords passed through the skin of their body and arms, others heavy crosses that weighed them down. She remarks that she was told by the Papal Nuncio that he had forbidden confessors to impose such penances, and that they were due to the devotion of the penitents themselves. (_Relation du Voyage d'Espagne_, 1692, vol. ii, pp. 158-164.) The practice of public self-flagellation in church during Lent existed in Spain and Portugal up to the early years of the nineteenth century. Descriptions of it will often be met with in old volumes of travel. Thus, I find a traveler through Spain in 1786 describing how, at Barcelona, he was present when, in Lent, at a Miserere in the Convent Church of San Felipe Neri on Friday evening the doors were shut, the lights put out, and in perfect darkness all bared their backs and applied the discipline, singing while they scourged themselves, ever louder and harsher and with ever greater vehemence until in twenty minutes' time the whole ended in a deep groan. It is mentioned that at Malaga, after such a scene, the whole church was in the morning sprinkled with blood. (Joseph Townsend, _A Journey through Spain in 1786_, vol. i, p. 122; vol. iii, p. 15.) Even to our own day religious self-flagellation is practised by Spaniards in the Azores, in the darkened churches during Lent, and the walls are often spotted and smeared with blood at this time. (O.H. Howarth, "The Survival of Corporal Punishment," _Journal Anthropological Institute_, Feb., 1889.) In remote districts of Spain (as near Haro in Rioja) there are also brotherhoods who will flagellate themselves on Good Friday, but not within the church. (Dario de Regoyos, _España Negra_, 1899, p. 72.) When we glance over the history of flagellation and realize that, though whipping as a punishment has been very widespread and common, there have been periods and lands showing no clear knowledge of any sexual association of whipping, it becomes clear that whipping is not necessarily an algolagnic manifestation. It seems evident that there must be special circumstances, and perhaps a congenital predisposition, to bring out definitely the relationship of flagellation to the sexual impulse. Thus, Löwenfeld considers that only about 1 per cent, of people can be sexually excited by flagellation of the buttocks,[112] and Näcke also is decidedly of opinion that there can be no sexual pleasure in flagellation without predisposition, which is rare.[113] On these grounds many are of opinion that physical chastisement, provided it is moderate, seldom applied, and only to children who are quite healthy and vigorous, need not be absolutely prohibited.[114] But, however rare and abnormal a sexual response to actual flagellation may be in adults, we shall see that the general sexual association of whipping in the minds of children, and frequently of their elders, is by; no means rare and scarcely abnormal. What is the cause of the connection between sexual emotion and whipping? A very simple physical cause has been believed by some to account fully for the phenomena. It is known that strong stimulation of the gluteal region may, especially under predisposing conditions, produce or heighten sexual excitement, by virtue of the fact that both regions are supplied by branches of the same nerve. There is another reason why whipping should exert a sexual influence. As Féré especially has pointed out, in moderate amount it has a tonic effect, and as such has a general beneficial result in stimulating the whole body. This fact was, indeed, recognized by the classic physicians, and Galen regarded flagellation as a tonic.[115] Thus, not only must it be said that whipping, when applied to the gluteal region, has a direct influence in stimulating the sexual organs, but its general tonic influence must naturally extend to the sexual system. It is possible that we must take into account here a biological factor, such as we have found involved in other forms of sadism and masochism. In this connection a lady writes to me: "With regard to the theory which connects the desire for whipping with the way in which animals make love, where blows or pressure on the hindquarters are almost a necessary preliminary to pleasure, have you ever noticed the way in which stags behave? Their does seem as timid as the males are excitable, and the blows inflicted on them by the horns of their mates to reduce them to submission must be, I should think, an exact equivalent to being beaten with a stick." It is remarkable that in some cases the whip would even appear to have a psychic influence in producing sexual excitement in animals accustomed to its application as a stimulant to action. Thus, Professor Cornevin, of Lyons, describes the case of a Hungarian stallion, otherwise quite potent, in whom erection could only be produced in the presence of a mare in heat when a whip was cracked near him, and occasionally applied gently to his legs. (Cornevin, _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, January, 1896.) Here, undoubtedly, we have a definite anatomical and physiological relationship which often serves as a starting-point for the turning of the sexual feelings in this direction, and will sometimes support the perversion when it has otherwise arisen. But this relationship, even if we regard it as a fairly frequent channel by which sexual emotion is aroused, will not suffice to account for most, or even many, of the cases in which whipping exerts a sexual fascination. In many, if not most, cases it is found that the idea of whipping asserts its sexual significance quite apart from any personal experience, even in persons who have never been whipped;[116] not seldom also in persons who have been whipped and who feel nothing but repugnance for the actual performance, attractive as it may be in imagination. It is evident that we have to seek the explanation of this phenomenon largely in psychic causes. Whipping, whether inflicted or suffered, tends to arouse, vaguely but massively, the very fundamental and primitive emotions of anger and fear, which, as we have seen, have always been associated with courtship, and it tends to arouse them at an age when the sexual emotions have not become clearly defined, and under circumstances which are likely to introduce sexual associations. From their earliest years children have been trained to fear whipping, even when not actually submitted to it, and an unjust punishment of this kind, whether inflicted on themselves or others, frequently arouses intense anger, nervous excitement, or terror in the sensitive minds of children.[117] Moreover, as has been pointed out to me by a lady who herself in early life was affected by the sexual associations of whipping, a child only sees the naked body of elder children when uncovered for whipping, and its sexual charm may in part be due to this cause. We further have to remark that the spectacle of suffering itself is, to some extent and under some circumstances, a stimulant of sexual emotion. It is evident that a number of factors contribute to surround whipping at a very early age with powerful emotional associations, and that these associations are of such a character that in predisposed subjects they are very easily led into a sexual channel.[118] Various lines of evidence support this conclusion. Thus, from several reliable quarters I learn that the sight of a boy being caned at school may produce sexual excitement in the boys who look on. The association of sexual emotion with whipping is, again, very liable to show itself in schoolmasters, and many cases have been recorded in which the flogging of boys, under the stress of this impulse, has been carried to extreme lengths. An early and eminent example is furnished by Udall, the humanist, at one time headmaster of Eton, who was noted for his habit of inflicting frequent corporal punishment for little or no cause, and who confessed to sexual practices with the boys under his care.[119] Sanitchenko has called attention to the case of a Russian functionary, a school inspector, who every day had some fifty pupils flogged in his presence, as evidence of a morbid pleasure in such scenes. Even when no sexual element can be distinctly traced, scenes of whipping sometimes exert a singular fascination on some persons of sensitive emotional temperament. A friend, a clergyman, who has read many novels tells me that he has been struck by the frequency with which novelists describe such scenes with much luxury of detail; his list includes novels by well-known religious writers of both sexes. In some of these cases there is reason to believe that the writers felt this sexual association of whipping. It is natural that an interest in whipping should be developed very early in childhood, and, indeed, it enters very frequently into the games of young children, and constitutes a much relished element of such games, more especially among girls. I know of many cases in which young girls between 6 and 12 years of age took great pleasure in games in which the chief point consisted in unfastening each other's drawers and smacking each other, and some of these girls, when they grew older, realized that there was an element of sexual enjoyment in their games. It has indeed, it seems, always been a child's game, and even an amusement of older persons, to play at smacking each other's nates. In _The Presbyter's Lash_ in 1661 a young woman is represented as stating that she had done this as a child, and in ancient France it was a privileged custom on Innocents' Day (December 28th) to smack all the young people found lying late in bed; it was a custom which, as Clement Marot bears witness, was attractive to lovers. If we turn to the histories I have brought together in Appendix B we find various references to whipping more or less clearly connected with the rudimentary sexual feelings of childhood. I am acquainted with numerous cases in which the idea of whipping, or the impulse to whip or be whipped, distinctly exists, though usually, when persisting to adult life, only in a rudimentary form. History I in the Appendix B presents a well-marked instance. I may quote the remarks in another case of a lady regarding her early feelings: "As a child the idea of being whipped excited me, but only in connection with a person I loved, and, moreover, one who had the right to correct me. On one occasion I was beaten with the back of a brush, and the pain was sufficient to overcome any excitement; so that, ever after, this particular form of whipping left me unaffected, though the excitement still remained connected with forms of which I had no experience." Another lady states that when a little girl of 4 or 5 the servants used to smack her nates with a soft brush to amuse themselves (undoubtedly, as she now believes, this gave them a kind of sexual pleasure); it did not hurt her, but she disliked it. Her father used to whip her severely on the nates at this age and onward to the age of 13, but this never gave her any pleasure. When, however, she was about 9 she began in waking dreams to imagine that she was whipping somebody, and would finish by imagining that she was herself being whipped. She would make up stories of which the climax was a whipping, and felt at the same time a pleasurable burning sensation in her sexual parts; she used to prolong the preliminaries of the story to heighten the climax; she felt more pleasure in the idea of being whipped than of whipping, although she never experienced any pleasure from an actual whipping. These day-dreams were most vivid when she was at school, between the ages of 11 and 14. They began to fade with the growth of affection for real persons. But in dreams, even in adult life, she occasionally experienced sexual excitement accompanied by images of smacking. Another correspondent, this time a man, writes: "I experienced the connection between sexual excitement and whipping long before I knew what sexuality meant or had any notion regarding the functions of the sexual organs. What I now know to be distinct sexual feeling used to occur whenever the idea of whipping arose or the mention of whipping was made in a way to arrest my attention. I well remember the strange, mysterious fascination it had, even apart from any actual physical excitement. I have been told by many men and a few women that it was the same with them. Even now the feeling exists sometimes, especially when reading about whipping." The following confession, which I find recorded by a German manufacturer's wife, corresponds with those I have obtained in England: "When about 5 years old I was playing with a little girl friend in the park. Our governesses sat on a bench talking. For some reason--perhaps because we had wandered away too far and failed to hear a call to return--my friend aroused the anger of the governess in charge of her. That young lady, therefore, took her aside, raised her dress, and vigorously smacked her with the flat hand. I looked on fascinated, and possessed by an inexplicable feeling to which I naïvely gave myself up. The impression was so deep that the scene and the persons concerned are still clearly present to my mind, and I can even recall the little details of my companion's underclothing." When sexual associations are permanently brought into play through such an early incident it is possible that a special predisposition exists. (_Gesellschaft und Geschlecht_, Bd. ii, ht. 4, p. 120.) It would certainly seem that we must look upon this association as coming well within the normal range of emotional life in childhood, although after puberty, when the sexual feelings become clearly defined, the attraction of whipping normally tends to be left behind as a piece of childishness, only surviving in the background of consciousness, if at all, to furnish a vaguely sexual emotional tone to the subject of whipping, but not affecting conduct, sometimes only emerging in erotic dreams. This, however, is not invariably the case in persons who are organically abnormal. In such cases, and especially, it would seem, in highly sensitive and emotional children, the impress left by the fact or the image of whipping may be so strong that it affects not only definitely, but permanently, the whole subsequent course of development of the sexual impulse. Régis has recorded a case which well illustrates the circumstances and hereditary conditions under which the idea of whipping may take such firm root in the sexual emotional nature of a child as to persist into adult life; at the same time the case shows how a sexual perversion may, in an intelligent person, take on an intellectual character, and it also indicates a rational method of treatment. Jules P., aged 22, of good heredity on father's side, but bad on that of mother, who is highly hysterical, while his grandmother was very impulsive and sometimes pursued other women with a knife. He has one brother and one sister, who are somewhat morbid and original. He is himself healthy, intelligent, good looking, and agreeable, though with slightly morbid peculiarities. At the age of 4 or 5 he suddenly opened a door and saw his sister, then a girl of 14 or 15, kneeling, with her clothes raised and her head on her governess's lap, at the moment of being whipped for some offense. This trivial incident left a profound impression on his mind, and he recalls every detail of it, especially the sight of his sister's buttocks,--round, white, and enormous as they seemed to his childish eyes,--and that momentary vision gave a permanent direction to the whole of his sexual life. Always after that he desired to touch and pat his sister's gluteal regions. He shared her bed, and, though only a child, acquired great skill in attaining his ends without attracting her attention, lifting her night-gown when she slept and gently caressing the buttocks, also contriving to turn her over on to her stomach and then make a pillow of her hips. This went on until the age of 7, when he began to play with two little girls of the neighborhood, the eldest of whom was 10; he liked to take the part of the father and whip them. The older girl was big for her age, and he would separate her drawers and smack her with much voluptuous emotion; so that he frequently sought opportunities to repeat the experience, to which the girl willingly lent herself, and they were constantly together in dark corners, the girl herself opening her drawers to enable him to caress her thighs and buttocks with his hand until he became conscious of an erection. Sometimes he would gently use a whip. On one occasion she asked him if he would not now like to see her in front, but he declined. One day, when 8 or 9 years old, being with a boy companion, he came upon a picture of a monk being flagellated, and thereupon persuaded his companion to let himself be whipped; the boy enjoyed the experience, which was therefore often repeated. Jules P. himself, however, never took the slightest pleasure in playing the passive part. These practices were continued even after the friend became a conscript, when, however, they became very rare. Only once or twice has he ever done anything of this kind to girls who were strangers to him. Nor has he ever masturbated or had any desire for sexual intercourse. He contents himself with the pleasure of being occasionally able to witness scenes of whipping in public places--parks and gardens--or of catching glimpses of the thighs and buttocks of young girls or, if possible, women. His principal enjoyment is in imagination. From the first he has loved to invent stories in which whippings were the climax, and at 13 such stories produced the first spontaneous emission. Thus, he imagines, for instance, a young girl from the country who comes up to Paris by train; on the way a lady is attracted by her, takes an interest in her, brings her home to dinner, and at last can no longer resist the temptation to take the girl in her arms and whip her amorously. He writes out these scenes and illustrates them with drawings, many of which Régis reproduces. He has even written comedies in which whipping plays a prominent part. He has, moreover, searched public libraries for references to flagellation, inserted queries in the _Intermédiare des Chercheurs et des Curieux_, and thus obtained a complete bibliography of flagellation which is of considerable value. Régis is acquainted with these _Archives de la Fessée_, and states that they are carried on with great method and care. He is especially interested in the whipping of women by women. He considers that the pleasure of whippings should always be shared by the person whipped, and he is somewhat concerned to find that he has an increasing inclination to imagine an element of cruelty in the whipping. Emissions are somewhat frequent. According to the latest information, he is much better; he has entered into sexual relationship with a woman who is much in love with him, and to whom he has confided his peculiarities. With her aid and suggestions he has been able to have intercourse with her, at the moment of coitus whipping her with a harmless India-rubber tube. (E. Régis, "Un Cas de Perversion Sexuelle, a forme Sadique," _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelles_, July, 1899.) In a case also occurring in a highly educated man (narrated by Marandon de Montyel) a doctor of laws, brilliantly intellectual and belonging to a family in which there had been some insanity, when at school at the age of 11, saw for the first time a schoolfellow whipped on the nates, and experienced a new pleasure and emotion. He was never himself whipped at school, but would invent games with his sisters and playfellows in which whipping formed an essential part. At the age of 13 he teased a young woman, a cook, until she seized him and whipped him. He put his arms around her and experienced his first voluptuous spasm of sex. The love of flagellation temporarily died out, however, and gave place to masturbation and later to a normal attraction to women. But at the age of 32 the old ideas were aroused anew by a story his mistress told him. He suffered from various obsessions and finally committed suicide. (Marandon de Montyel, "Obsessions et Vie Sexuelle," _Archives de Neurologie_, Oct., 1904.) In a case that has been reported to me, somewhat similar ideas played a part. The subject is a tall, well-developed man, aged 28, delicate in childhood, but now normal in health and physical condition, though not fond of athletics. His mental ability is much above the average, especially in scientific directions; he was brought up in narrow and strict religious views, but at an early age developed agnostic views of his own. From the age of 6, and perhaps earlier, he practised masturbation almost every night. This was a habit which he carried on in all innocence. It was as invariable a preliminary, he states, to going to sleep as was lying down, and at this period he would have felt no hesitation in telling all about it had the question been asked. At the age of 12 or 13 he recognized the habit as abnormal, and fear of ridicule then caused him to keep silence and to avoid observation. In carrying it out he would lie on his stomach with the penis directed downward, and not up, and the thumb resting on the region above the root of the penis. There was desire for micturition after the act, and when that was satisfied sound sleep followed. When he realized that the habit was abnormal he began to make efforts to discontinue it, and these efforts have been continued up to the present. The chief obstacle has been the difficulty of sleep without carrying out the practice. Emissions first began to occur at the age of 13 and at first caused some alarm. During the six following years indulgence was irregular, sometimes occurring every other night and sometimes with a week's intermission. Then at the age of 19 the habit was broken for a year, during which nocturnal emissions took place during sleep about every three weeks. Since this, shorter periods of non-indulgence have occurred, these periods always coinciding with unusual mental or physical strain, as of examinations. He has some degree of attraction for women; this is strongest during cessation from masturbation and tends to disappear when the habit is resumed. He has never had sexual intercourse because he prefers his own method of gratification and feels great abhorrence for professional prostitutes; he could not afford to marry. Any indecency or immorality, except (he observes) his own variety, disgusts him. At the earliest period no mental images accompanied the act of masturbation. At about the age of 8, however, sexual excitement began to be constantly associated with ideas of being whipped. At or soon after this age only the fear of disgrace prevented him from committing serious childish offenses likely to be punished by a good whipping. Parents and masters, however, seem to have used corporal punishment very sparingly. At first this desire was for whipping in general, without reference to the operator. Soon after the age of 10, however, he began to wish that certain boy friends should be the operators. At about the same time definite desire arose for closer contact with these friends and later for definite indecent acts which, however, the subject failed to specify; he probably meant mutual masturbation. These desires were under control, and the fear of ridicule seems to have been the chief restraining cause. At about the age of 15 he began to realize that such acts might be considered morally bad and wrong, and this led to reticence and careful concealment. Up to the age of 20 there were four definite attachments to persons of his own sex. There was a tendency, sometimes, to regard women as possible whippers, and this became stronger at 22, the images of the two sexes then mingling in his thoughts of flagellation. Latterly the mental accompaniments of masturbation have been less personal, lapsing into the mental picture of being whipped by an unknown and vague somebody. When definite it has always been a man, and preferably of the type of a schoolmaster. His desire has been for punishment by whips, canes, or birches, especially upon the buttocks. He has always shrunk from the thought of the production of blood or bruises. He wishes, in mental contemplation, for a punishment sufficiently severe to make him anxious to stop it, and yet not able to stop it. He also takes pleasure in the idea of being tied up so as to be unable to move. He has at times indulged in self-whipping, of no great severity. In the preceding case we see a tendency to erotic self-flagellation which in a minor degree is not uncommon. Occasionally it becomes highly developed. Max Marcuse has presented such a case in elaborate detail (_Zeitschrift für die Gesamte Neurologie_, 1912, ht. 3, fully summarized in _Sexual-Probleme_, Nov., 1912, pp. 815-820). This is the case of a Catholic priest of highly neurotic heredity, who spontaneously began to whip himself at the age of 12, this self-flagellation being continued and accompanied by masturbation after the age of 15. Other associated perversions were Narcissism and nates fetichism, as well as homosexual phantasies. He experienced a certain pleasure (with erection, not ejaculation) in punishing his boy pupils. It is not uncommon for all forms of erotic flagellation to be associated with a homosexual element. I have elsewhere brought forward a case of this kind (the case of A.F., vol. ii of these _Studies_). Significant is Rousseau's account of the origin of his own masochistic pleasure in whipping at the age of 8: "Mademoiselle Lambercier showed toward me a mother's affection and also a mother's authority, which she sometimes carried so far as to inflict on us the usual punishment of children when we had deserved it. For a long time she was content with the threat, and that threat of a chastisement which for me was quite new seemed very terrible; but after it had been executed I found the experience less terrible than the expectation had been; and, strangely enough, this punishment increased my affection for her who had inflicted it. It needed all my affection and all my natural gentleness to prevent me from seeking a renewal of the same treatment by deserving it, for I had found in the pain and even in the shame of it an element of sensuality which left more desire than fear of receiving the experience again from the same hand. It is true that, as in all this a precocious sexual element was doubtless mixed, the same chastisement if inflicted by her brother would not have seemed so pleasant." He goes on to say that the punishment was inflicted a second time, but that that time was the last, Mademoiselle Lambercier having apparently noted the effects it produced, and, henceforth, instead of sleeping in her room, he was placed in another room and treated by her as a big boy. "Who would have believed," he adds, "that this childish punishment, received at the age of 8 from the hand of a young woman of 30, would have determined my tastes, my desires, my passions, for the rest of my life?" He remarks that this strange taste drove him almost to madness, but maintained the purity of his morals, and the joys of love existed for him chiefly in imagination. (J.J. Rousseau, _Les Confessions_, partie i, livre i.) It will be seen how all the favoring conditions of fear, shame, and precocious sexuality were here present in an extremely sensitive child destined to become the greatest emotional force of his century, and receptive to influences which would have had no permanent effect on any ordinary child. (When, as occasionally happens, the first sexual feelings are experienced under the stimulation of whipping in normal children, no permanent perversion necessarily follows; Moll mentions that he knows such cases, _Zeitschrift für Pädagogie, Psychiatrie, und Pathologie_, 1901.) It may be added that it is, perhaps, not fanciful to see a certain inevitableness in the fact that on Rousseau's highly sensitive and receptive temperament it was a masochistic germ that fell and fructified, while on Régis's subject, with his more impulsive ancestral antecedents, a sadistic germ found favorable soil. It may be noted that in Régis's sadistic case the little girl who was the boy's playmate found scarcely less pleasure in the passive part of whipping than he found in the active. There is ample evidence to show that this is very often the case, and that the attractiveness of the idea of being whipped often even arises spontaneously in children. Lombroso (_La Donna Delinquente_, p. 404) refers to a girl of 7 who had voluptuous pleasure in being whipped, and Hammer (_Monatschrift für Harnkrankheiten_, 1906, p. 398) speaks of a young girl who similarly experienced pleasure in punishment by whipping. Krafft-Ebing records the case of a girl of between 6 and 8 years of age, never at that time having been whipped or seen anyone else whipped, who spontaneously acquired--how she did not know--the desire to be castigated in this manner. It gave her very great pleasure to imagine a woman friend doing this to her. She never desired to be whipped by a man, though there was no trace of inversion, and she never masturbated until the age of 24, when a marriage engagement was broken off. At the age of 10 this longing passed away before it was ever actually realized. (Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia Sexualis_, eighth edition, p. 136.) In the case of another young woman described by Krafft-Ebing--where there was neurasthenia with other minor morbid conditions in the family, but the girl herself appears to have been sound--the desire to be whipped existed from a very early age. She traced it to the fact that when she was 5 years old a friend of her father's playfully placed her across his knees and pretended to whip her. Since then she has always longed to be caned, but to her great regret the wish has never been realized. She longs to be the slave of a man whom she loves: "Lying in fancy before him, he puts one foot on my neck while I kiss the other. I revel in the idea of being whipped by him and imagine different scenes in which he beats me. I take the blows as so many tokens of love; he is at first extremely kind and tender, but then in the excess of his love he beats me. I fancy that to beat me for love's sake gives him the highest pleasure." Sometimes she imagines that she is his slave, but not his female slave, for every woman may be her husband's slave. She is of proud and independent nature in all other matters, and to imagine herself a man who consents to be a slave gives her a more satisfying sense of humiliation. She does not understand that these manifestations are of a sexual nature. (Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia Sexualis_, English translation of tenth edition, p. 189.) Sometimes a woman desires to take the active part in whipping. Thus Marandon de Montyel records the case of a girl of 19, hereditarily neuropathic (her father was alcoholic), but very intelligent and good-hearted, who had never been whipped or seen anyone whipped. At this age, however, she happened to visit a married friend who was just about to punish her boy of 9 by whipping him with a wet towel. The girl spectator was much interested, and though the boy screamed and struggled she experienced a new sensation she could not define. "At every stroke," she said, "a strange shiver went through all my body from my brain to my heels." She would like to have whipped him herself and felt sorry when it was over. She could not forget the scene and would dream of herself whipping a boy. At last the desire became irresistible and she persuaded a boy of 12, whom she was very fond of, and who was much attached to her, to let her whip him on the naked nates. She did this so ferociously that he at last fainted. She was overcome by grief and remorse. (Marandon de Montyel, _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Jan., 1906, p. 30.) Although masochism in a pronounced degree may be said to be rare in women, the love of active flagellation, and sadistic impulses generally are not uncommon among them. Bloch believes they are especially common among English women. Cases occur from time to time of extreme harshness, cruelty, degrading punishment, and semi-starvation inflicted upon children. The accused are most usually women, and when a man and woman in conjunction are accused it appears generally to have been the woman who played the more active part. But it is rarely demonstrated in these cases that the cruelty exercised had a definite sexual origin. There is nothing, for instance, to indicate true sadism in the famous English case in the eighteenth century of Mrs. Brownrigg (Bloch, _Geschlechtsleben in England_, vol. ii, p. 425). It may well be, however, in many of these cases that the real motive is sexual, although latent and unconscious. The normal sexual impulse in women is often obscured and disguised, and it would not be surprising if the perverse instinct is so likewise. It is noteworthy that a passion for whipping may be aroused by contact with a person who desires to be whipped. This is illustrated by the following case which has been communicated to me: "K. is a Jew, about 40 years of age, apparently normal. Nothing is known of his antecedents. He is a manufacturer with several shops. S., an Englishwoman, aged 25, entered his service; she is illegitimate, believed to have been reared in a brothel kept by her mother, is prepossessing in appearance. On entering K.'s service S. was continually negligent and careless. This so provoked K. that on one occasion he struck her. She showed great pleasure and confessed that her blunder had been deliberately intended to arouse him to physical violence. At her suggestion K. ultimately consented to thrash her. This operation took place in K.'s office, S. stripping for the purpose, and the leather driving band from a sewing-machine was used. S. manifested unmistakable pleasure during the flagellation, and connection occurred after it. These thrashings were repeated at frequent intervals, and K. found a growing liking for the operation on his own part. Once, at the suggestion of S., a girl of 13 employed by K. was thrashed by both K. and S. alternately. The child complained to her parents and K. made a money payment to them to avoid scandal, the parents agreeing to keep silence. Other women (Jewish tailoresses) employed by K. were subsequently thrashed by him. He asserts that they enjoyed the experience. Mrs. K., discovering her husband's infatuation for S., commenced divorce proceedings. S. consented to leave the country at K.'s request, but returned almost immediately and was kept in hiding until the decree was granted. The mutual infatuation of K. and S. continues, though K. asserts that he cares less for her than formerly. Flagellation has, however, now become a passion with him, though he declares that the practice was unknown to him before he met S. His great fear is that he will kill S. during one of these operations. He is convinced that S. is not an isolated case, and that all women enjoy flagellation. He claims that the experiences of the numerous women whom he has now thrashed bear out this opinion; one of them is a wealthy woman separated from her husband, and is now infatuated with K." Flagellation, more especially in its masochistic form, is sometimes associated with true inversion. Moll presents the case of a young inverted woman of 26, showing, indeed, many other minor sexual anomalies, who is sexually excited when beaten with a switch. A whip would not do, and the blows must only be on the nates; she cannot imagine being beaten by a small woman. She has often in this way been beaten by a friend, who should be naked at the time, and must submit afterward to cunnilinctus. (Moll, _Konträre Sexualempfindung_ third edition, p. 568.) In the preceding case there were no masochistic ideas; it is likely that in such a case beating is desired largely on account of that purely physical effect to which attention has already been called. In the same way self-beating with a switch or whip has sometimes been spontaneously discovered as a method of self-excitement preliminary to masturbation. I am acquainted with a lady of much intellectual ability, sexually normal, who made this discovery at the age of 18, and practised it for a time. Professor Reverdin, also, speaks of the case of a young girl under his care who, after having exhausted all the resources of her intelligence, finally discovered that the climax of enjoyment was best reached by violently whipping her own buttocks and thighs. She had invented for this purpose a whip composed of twelve cords each of which terminated in a large chestnut-burr provided with its spines. (A. Reverdin, _Revue Médicale de la Suisse Romande_, January 20, 1888, p. 17.) FOOTNOTES: [107] The discipline or scourge was classed with fasting as a method of mastering the flesh and of penance. See, e.g., Lea, _History of Auricular Confession_, vol. ii, p. 122. For many centuries bishops and priests used themselves to apply the discipline to their penitents. At first it was applied to the back; later, especially in the case of female penitents, it was frequently applied to the nates. Moreover, partial or complete nudity came to be frequently demanded, the humiliation thereby caused being pleasant in the sight of God. [108] Dulaure, _Des Divinités Génératrices_, ch. xv; Lea, _History of Sacerdotal Celibacy_, 3d ed., vol. ii, p. 278; Kiernan, "Asceticism as an Auto-erotism," _Alienist and Neurologist_, Aug., 1911. [109] This is the opinion of Löwenfeld, _Ueber die Sexuelle Konstitution_, p. 43. [110] Thus, Dühren (Iwan Bloch) remarks (_Der Marquis de Sade und Seine Zeit_, 1901, p. 211): "It is well known that England is today the classic land of sexual flagellation." See the same author's _Geschlechtsleben in England_, vol. ii, ch. vi. In America it appears also to be common, and Kiernan mentions that in advertisements of Chicago "massage shops" there often appears the announcement: "Flagellation a Specialty." The reports of police inspectors in eighteenth century France show how common flagellation then was in Paris. It may be added that various men of distinguished intellectual ability of recent times and earlier are reported as addicted to passive flagellation; this was the case with Helvétius. [111] A full bibliography of flagellation would include many hundred items. The more important works on this subject, in connection with the sexual impulse, are enumerated by Eulenburg, in his _Sadismus und Masochismus_. An elaborate history of flagellation generally is now being written by Georg Collas, _Geschichte des Flagellantismus_, vol. i, 1912. [112] Löwenfeld, _Ueber die Sexuelle Konstitution_, p. 43. [113] _Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie_, 1909, p. 361. He brings forward the evidence of a reliable and cultured man who at one time sought to obtain the pleasures of passive sexual flagellation. But in spite of his expectation and good will the only result was to disperse every trace of sexual desire. [114] E.g., Kiefer, _Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, Aug., 1908. [115] Féré, _Revue de Médecine_, August, 1900. In this paper Féré brings together many interesting facts concerning flagellation in ancient times. [116] Schmidt-Heuert (_Monatschrift für Harnkrankheiten_, 1906, ht. 7) argues that it is not so much the actual use of the rod as playful, threatening and mysterious suggestions playing around it which nowadays gives it sexual fascination. [117] Moll (_Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, Bd. 1, p. 18) points out that these emotions frequently suffice to cause sexual emissions in schoolboys. [118] As Eulenburg truly points out, the circumstances attending the whipping of a woman may be sexually attractive, even in the absence of any morbid impulse. Such circumstances are "the sight of naked feminine charms and especially--in the usual mode of flagellation--of those parts which possess for the sexual epicure a peculiar esthetic attraction; the idea of treating a loved, or at all events desired, person as a child, of having her in complete subjection and being able to dispose of her despotically; and finally the immediate results of whipping: the changes in skin-color, the to and fro movements which simulate or anticipate the initial phenomena of coitus." (Eulenburg, _Sexuale Neuropathie_, p. 121.) [119] See the article on Udall in the _Dictionary of National Biography_. IV. The Impulse to Strangle the Object of Sexual Desire--The Wish to be Strangled--Respiratory Disturbance the Essential Element in this Group of Phenomena--The Part Played by Respiratory Excitement in the Process of Courtship--Swinging and Suspension--The Attraction Exerted by the Idea of being Chained and Fettered. There is another impulse which it may be worth while to consider briefly here, for the sake of the light it throws on the relationship between love and pain. I allude to the impulse to strangle the object of sexual desire, and to the corresponding craving to be strangled. Cases have been recorded in which this impulse was so powerful that men have actually strangled women at the moment of coitus.[120] Such cases are rare; but, as a mere idea, the thought of strangling a woman appears to be not infrequently associated with sexual emotion. We must probably regard it as, in the main,--with whatever subsidiary elements,--an aspect of that physical seizure, domination, and forcible embrace of the female which is one of the primitive elements of courtship.[121] The corresponding idea--the pleasurable connection of the thought of being strangled with sexual emotion--appears to occur still more frequently, perhaps especially in women. Here we seem to have, as in the case of whipping, a combination of a physical with a psychic element. Not only is the idea attractive, but, as a matter of fact, strangulation, suffocation, or any arrest of respiration, even when carried to the extent of producing death, may actually provoke emission, as is observed after death by hanging.[122] It is noteworthy that, as Eulenburg remarks, the method of treating diseases of the spinal cord by suspension--a method much in vogue a few years ago--often produced sexual excitement.[123] In brothels, it is said, some of the clients desire to be suspended vertically by a cord furnished with pads.[124] A playful attempt to throttle her on the part of her lover is often felt by a woman as pleasurable, though it may not necessarily produce definite sexual excitement. Sometimes, however, this feeling becomes so strong that it must be regarded as an actual perversion, and I have been told of a woman who is indifferent to the ordinary sexual embrace; her chief longing is to be throttled, and she will do anything to have her neck squeezed by her lover till her eyeballs bulge.[125] "I think if I could be left my present feelings," a lady writes, "and be changed into a male imbecile,--that is, given a man's strength, but deprived, to a large extent, of reasoning power,--I might very likely act in the apparently cruel way they do. And this partly because many of their actions appeal to me on the passive side. The idea of being _strangled_ by a person I love does. The great sensitiveness of one's throat and neck come in here as well as the loss of breath. Once when I was about to be separated from a man I cared for I put his hands on my throat and implored him to kill me. It was a moment of madness, which helps me to understand the feelings of a person always insane. Even now that I am cool and collected I know that if I were deeply in love with a man who I thought was going to kill me, especially in that way, I would make no effort to save myself beforehand, though, of course, in the final moments nature would assert herself without my volition. What makes the horror of such cases in insanity is the fact of the love being left out. But I think I find no greater difficulty in picturing the mental attitude of a sadistic lunatic than that of a normal man who gets pleasure out of women for whom he has no love." The imagined pleasure of being strangled by a lover brings us to a group of feelings which would seem to be not unconnected with respiratory elements. I refer to the pleasurable excitement experienced by some in suspension, swinging, restraint, and fetters. Strangulation is the extreme and most decided type of this group of imagined or real situations, in all of which a respiratory disturbance seems to be an essential element.[126] In explaining these phenomena we have to remark that respiratory excitement has always been a conspicuous part of the whole process of tumescence and detumescence, of the struggles of courtship and of its climax, and that any restraint upon respiration, or, indeed, any restraint upon muscular and emotional activity generally, tends to heighten the state of sexual excitement associated with such activity. I have elsewhere, when studying the spontaneous solitary manifestation of the sexual instinct (_Auto-erotism_, in vol. i of these _Studies_), referred to the pleasurably emotional, and sometimes sexual, effects of swinging and similar kinds of movement. It is possible that there is a certain significance in the frequency with which the eighteenth-century French painters, who lived at a time when the refinements of sexual emotion were carefully sought out, have painted women in the act of swinging. Fragonard mentions that in 1763 a gentleman invited him into the country, with the request to paint his mistress, especially stipulating that she should be depicted in a swing. The same motive was common among the leading artists of that time. It may be said that this attitude was merely a pretext to secure a vision of ankles, but that result could easily have been attained without the aid of the swing. I may here quote, as bearing on this and allied questions, a somewhat lengthy communication from a lady to whom I am indebted for many subtle and suggestive remarks on the whole of this group of manifestations:-- "With regard to the connection between swinging and suspension, perhaps the physical basis of it is the loss of breath. Temporary loss of breath with me produces excitement. Swinging at a height or a fall from a height would cause loss of breath; in a state of suspension the imagination would suggest the idea of falling and the attendant loss of breath. People suffering from lung disease are often erotically inclined, and anesthetics affect the breathing. Men also seem to like the idea of suspension, but from the active side. One man used to put his wife on a high swinging shelf when she displeased him, and my husband told me once he would like to suspend me to a crane we were watching at work, though I have never mentioned my own feeling on this point to him. Suspension is often mentioned in descriptions of torture. Beatrice Cenci was hung up by her hair and the recently murdered Queen of Korea was similarly treated. In Tolstoi's _My Husband and I_ the girl says she would like her husband to hold her over a precipice. That passage gave me great pleasure.[127] "The idea of slipping off an inclined plane gives me the same sensation. I always feel it on seeing Michael Angelo's 'Night,' though the slipping look displeases me artistically. I remember that when I saw the 'Night' first I did feel excited and was annoyed, and it seemed to me it was the slipping-off look that gave it; but I think I am now less affected by that idea. Certain general ideas seem to excite one, but the particular forms under which they are presented lose their effect and have to be varied. The sentence mentioned in Tolstoi leaves me now quite cold, but if I came across the same idea elsewhere, expressed differently, then it would excite me. I am very capricious in the small things, and I think women are so more than men. The idea of slipping down a plank formerly produced excitement with me; now it has a less vivid effect, though the idea of loss of breath still produces excitement. The idea of the plank does not now affect me unless there is a certain amount of drapery. I think, therefore, that the feeling must come in part from the possibility of the drapery catching on some roughness of the surface of the slope, and so producing pressure on the sexual organs. The effect is still produced, however, even without any clothing, if the slope is supposed to end in a deep drop, so that the idea of falling is strongly presented. I cannot recollect any early associations that would tend to explain these feelings, except that jumping from a height, which I used frequently to do as a child, has a tendency to create excitement. "With me, I may add, it is when I cannot express myself, or am trying to understand what I feel is beyond my grasp, that the first stage of sexual excitement results. For instance, I never get excited in thinking over sexual questions, because my ideas, correct or incorrect, are fairly clear and definite. But I often feel sexually excited over that question of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, not because I can't decide between the two sets of evidence, but because I don't feel confident of having fully grasped the true significance of either. This feeling of want of power, mental or physical, always has the same effect. I feel it if my eyes are blindfolded or my hands tied. I don't like to see the Washington Post dance, in which the man stands behind the woman and holds her hands, on that account. If he held her wrists the feeling would be stronger, as her apparent helplessness would be increased. The nervous irritability that is caused by being under restraint seems to manifest itself in that way, while in the case of mental disability the excitement, which should flow down a mental channel, being checked, seems to take a physical course instead. "Possibly this would help to explain masochistic sexual feelings. A physical cause working in the present would be preferable as an explanation to a psychological cause to be traced back through heredity to primitive conditions. I believe such feelings are very common in men as well as in women, only people do not care to admit them, as a rule." The idea of being chained and fettered appears to be not uncommonly associated with pleasurable sexual feelings, for I have met with numerous cases in both men and women, and it not infrequently coexists with a tendency to inversion. It often arises at a very early age, and it is of considerable interest because we cannot account for its frequency by any chance association nor by any actual experiences. It would appear to be a purely psychic fantasia founded on the elementary physical fact that restraint of emotion, like suspension, produces a heightening of emotion. In any case the spontaneous character of such ideas and emotions in children of both sexes suffices to show that they must possess a very definite organic basis. In one of the histories (X) contained in Appendix B at the end of the present volume a lady describes how, as a child, she reveled in the idea of being chained and tortured, these ideas appearing to rise spontaneously. In another case, that of A.N. (for the most part reproduced in "Erotic Symbolism," in vol. v of these _Studies_), whose ideals are inverted and who is also affected by boot-fetichism, the idea of fetters is very attractive. In this case self-excitement was produced at a very early age, without the use of the hands, by strapping the legs together. We can, however, scarcely explain away the idea of fetters in this case as merely the result of an early association, for it may well be argued that the idea led to this method of self-excitement. "The mere idea of fetters," this subject writes, "produces the greatest excitement, and the sight of pictures representing such things is a temptation. The reading of books dealing with prison life, etc., anywhere where physical restraint is treated of, is a temptation. The temptation is aggravated when the picture represents the person booted. I suppose all this will have been intensified in my case by my practices as a child. But why should a child of 6 do such things unless it were a natural instinct in him? Nobody showed me; I have never mentioned such things to anyone. I used to read historical romances for the pleasure of reading of people being put in prison, in fetters, and tortured, and always envied them. I feel now that I should like to undergo the sensation. If I could get anyone to humor me without losing their self-respect, I should jump at the opportunity. I have been most powerfully excited by visiting an old Australian convict-ship, where all the means of restraint are shown; I have been attracted to it night after night, wanting, but not daring to ask, to be allowed to have a practical experience." Stcherbak, of Warsaw, has recorded a case which resembles that of A.N., but there was no inversion and the attraction of fetters was active rather than passive; the subject desired to fetter and not to be fettered. It is possible that this difference is not fundamental, though Stcherbak regards the case as one of fetichism of sadistic origin ("Contribution à l'Etude des Perversions Sexuelles," _Archives de Neurologie_, Oct., 1907). The subject was a highly intelligent though neurasthenic youth, who from the age of 5 had been deeply interested in criminals who were fettered and sent to prison. The fate of Siberian prisoners was a frequent source of prolonged meditations. It was the fettering which alone interested him, and he spent much time in trying to imagine the feelings of the fettered prisoners, and he often imagined that he was himself a prisoner in fetters. (This seems to indicate that the impulse was in its origin masochistic as much as sadistic, and better described as algolagnia than as sadism.) He delighted in stories and pictures of fettered persons. At the age of 15 the sex of the fettered person became important and he was interested chiefly in fettered women. A new element also appeared; he was attracted to well-dressed women and especially to those wearing elegant shoes, delighting to imagine them fettered. He fastened his own feet together with chains, attempting to walk about his room in this condition, but experienced comparatively little pleasure in this way. At the age of 15 he met a lady 10 years older than himself and of great intelligence. As he began to know her more intimately she allowed him to take liberties with her; he fastened her hands behind her back, and this caused him a violent but delicious emotion which he had never experienced before. Next time he fastened her feet together as well as her hands; as he did so her shoes slightly touched his sexual organs; this caused erection and ejaculation, accompanied by the most acute sexual pleasure he had ever felt. He had no wish to see her naked or to uncover himself, and as long as this relationship lasted he had no abnormal thoughts at other times, or in connection with other people. He never masturbated, and his sexual dreams were of fettered men or women. Stcherbak discusses the case at length and considers that it is essentially an example of sadism, on the ground that the impulse of fettering was prompted by the desire to humiliate. There is, however, no evidence of any such desire, and, as a matter of fact, no humiliation was effected. The primary and fundamental element in this and similar cases is an almost abstract sexual fascination in the idea of restraint, whether endured, inflicted, or merely witnessed or imagined; the feet become the chief focus of this fascination, and the basis on which a foot-fetichism or shoe-fetichism tends to arise, because restraint of the feet produces a more marked effect than restraint of the hands. FOOTNOTES: [120] An attenuated and symbolic form of this impulse is seen in the desire to strangle birds with the object of stimulating or even satisfying sexual desire. Prostitutes are sometimes acquainted with men who bring a live pigeon with them to be strangled just before intercourse. Lanphear, of St. Louis (_Alienist and Neurologist_, May, 1907, p. 204) knew a woman, having learned masturbation in a convent school, who was only excited and not satisfied by coitus with her husband, and had to rise from bed, catch and caress a chicken, and finally wring its neck, whereupon orgasm occurred. [121] Even young girls, however, may experience pleasure in the playful attempt to strangle. Thus a lady speaking of herself at the time of puberty, when she was in the habit of masturbating, writes (_Sexual-Probleme_, Aug., 1909, p. 636): "I acquired a desire to seize people, especially girls, by the throat, and I enjoyed their way of screaming out." [122] Godard observed that when animals are bled, or felled, as well as strangled, there is often abundant emission, rich in spermatozoa, but without erection, though accompanied by the same movements of the tail as during copulation. Robin (art. "Fécondation," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_), who quotes this observation, has the following remarks on this subject: "Ejaculation occurring at the moment when the circulation, maintained artificially, stops is a fact of significance. It shows how congestive conditions--or inversely anemic conditions--constitute organic states sufficient to set in movement the activity of the nerve-centers, as is the case for muscular contractility.... Everything leads us to believe that at the moment when the motor nervous action takes place the corresponding sensitive centers also come into play." It must be added that Minovici, in his elaborate study of death by hanging ("Etude sur la Pendaison," _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, 1905, especially p. 791 et seq.), concludes that the turgescence of penis and flow of spermatic fluid (sometimes only prostatic secretion) usually observed in these cases is purely passive and generally, though not always, of post-mortem occurrence. There is, therefore, no sexual pleasure in death by hanging, and persons who have been rescued at the last moment have experienced no voluptuous sensations. This was so even in the case, referred to by Minovici, of a man who hanged himself solely with the object of producing sexual pleasure. [123] Eulenburg, _Sexuale Neuropathie_, p. 114. [124] Bernaldo de Quirós and Llanos Aguilaniedo (_La Mala Vida en Madrid_, p. 294) knew the case of a man who found pleasure in lying back on an inclined couch while a prostitute behind him pulled at a slipknot until he was nearly suffocated; it was the only way in which he could attain sexual gratification. [125] Arrest of respiration, it may be noted, may accompany strong sexual excitement, as it may some other emotional states; one recalls passages in the _Arabian Nights_ in which we are told of ladies who at the sight of a very beautiful youth "felt their reason leave them, yearned to embrace the marvelous youth, and _ceased breathing_." Inhibited respiration is indeed, as Stevens shows ("Study of Attention," _American Journal of Psychology_, Oct., 1905), a characteristic of all active attention. [126] The exact part played by the respiration and even the circulation in constituting emotional states is still not clear, although various experiments have been made; see, e.g., Angell and Thompson, "A Study of the Relations between Certain Organic Processes and Consciousness," _Psychological Review_, January, 1899. A summary statement of the relations of the respiration and circulation to emotional states will be found in Külpe's _Outlines of Psychology_, part i, section 2, § 37. [127] The words alluded to by my correspondent are as follows: "I needed a struggle; what I needed was that feeling should guide life, and not that life should guide feeling. I wanted to go with him to the edge of an abyss and say: 'Here a step and I will throw myself over; and here a motion and I have gone to destruction'; and for him, turning pale, to seize me in his strong arms, hold me back over it till my heart grew cold within me, and then carry me away wherever he pleased." The whole of the passage in which these lines occur is of considerable psychological interest. In one English translation the story is entitled _Family Happiness_. V. Pain, and Not Cruelty, the Essential Element in Sadism and Masochism--Pain Felt as Pleasure--Does the Sadist Identify Himself with the Feelings of his Victim?--The Sadist often a Masochist in Disguise--The Spectacle of Pain or Struggle as a Sexual Stimulant. In the foregoing rapid survey of the great group of manifestations in which the sexual emotions come into intimate relationship with pain, it has become fairly clear that the ordinary division between "sadism" and "masochism," convenient as these terms may be, has a very slight correspondence with facts. Sadism and masochism may be regarded as complementary emotional states; they cannot be regarded as opposed states.[128] Even De Sade himself, we have seen, can scarcely be regarded as a pure sadist. A passage in one of his works expressing regret that sadistic feeling is rare among women, as well as his definite recognition of the fact that the suffering of pain may call forth voluptuous emotions, shows that he was not insensitive to the charm of masochistic experience, and it is evident that a merely blood-thirsty vampire, sane or insane, could never have retained, as De Sade retained, the undying devotion of two women so superior in heart and intelligence as his wife and sister-in-law. Had De Sade possessed any wanton love of cruelty, it would have appeared during the days of the Revolution, when it was safer for a man to simulate blood-thirstiness, even if he did not feel it, than to show humanity. But De Sade distinguished himself at that time not merely by his general philanthropic activities, but by saving from the scaffold, at great risk to himself, those who had injured him. It is clear that, apart from the organically morbid twist by which he obtained sexual satisfaction in his partner's pain,--a craving which was, for the most part, only gratified in imaginary visions developed to an inhuman extent under the influence of solitude,--De Sade was simply, to those who knew him, "_un aimable mauvais sujet_" gifted with exceptional intellectual powers. Unless we realize this we run the risk of confounding De Sade and his like with men of whom Judge Jeffreys was the sinister type. It is necessary to emphasize this point because there can be no doubt that De Sade is really a typical instance of the group of perversions he represents, and when we understand that it is pain only, and not cruelty, that is the essential in this group of manifestations we begin to come nearer to their explanation. The masochist desires to experience pain, but he generally desires that it should be inflicted in love; the sadist desires to inflict pain, but in some cases, if not in most, he desires that it should be felt as love. How far De Sade consciously desired that the pain he sought to inflict should be felt as pleasure it may not now be possible to discover, except by indirect inference, but the confessions of sadists show that such a desire is quite commonly essential. I am indebted to a lady for the following communication on the foregoing aspect of this question: "I believe that, when a person takes pleasure in inflicting pain, he or she imagines himself or herself in the victim's place. This would account for the transmutability of the two sets of feelings. This might be particularly so in the case of men. A man may not care to lower his dignity and vanity by putting himself in subjection to a woman, and he might fear she would feel contempt for him. By subduing her and subjecting her to passive restraint he would preserve, even enhance, his own power and dignity, while at the same time obtaining a reflected pleasure from what he imagined she was feeling. "I think that when I get pleasure out of the idea of subduing another it is this reflected pleasure I get. And if this is so one could thus feel more kindly to persons guilty of cruelty, which has hitherto always seemed the one unpardonable sin. Even criminals, if it is true that they are themselves often very insensitive, may, in the excitement of the moment, imagine that they are only inflicting trifling pain, as it would be to them, and that their victim's feelings are really pleasurable. The men I have known most given to inflicting pain are all particularly tender-hearted when their passions are not in question. I cannot understand how (as in a case mentioned by Krafft-Ebing) a man could find any pleasure in binding a girl's hands except by imagining what he supposed were her feelings, though he would probably be unconscious that he put himself in her place. "As a child I exercised a good deal of authority and influence over my youngest sister. It used to give me considerable pleasure to be somewhat arbitrary and severe with her, but, though I never admitted it to myself or to her, I knew instinctively that she took pleasure in my treatment. I used to give her childish lessons, over which I was very strict. I invented catechisms and chapters of the Bible in which elder sisters were exhorted to keep their juniors under discipline, and younger sisters were commanded to give implicit submission and obedience. Some parts of the _Imitation_ lent themselves to this sort of parody, which never struck me as in any way irreverent. I used to give her arbitrary orders to 'exercise her in obedience,' as I told her, and I used to punish her if she disobeyed me. In all this I was, _though only half consciously_, guided through my own feelings as to what I should have liked in her place. For instance, I would make her put down her playthings and come and repeat a lesson; but, though she was in appearance having her will subdued to mine, I always chose a moment when I foresaw she would soon be tired of play. There was sufficient resistance to make restraint pleasurable, not enough to render it irksome. In my punishments I acted on a similar principle. I used to tie her hands behind her (like the man in Krafft-Ebing's case), but only for a few moments; I once shut her in a sort of cupboard-room, also for a very short time. On two or three occasions I completely undressed her, made her lie down on the bed, tied her hands and feet to the bedstead, and gave her a slight whipping. I did not wish to hurt her, only to inflict just enough pain to produce the desire to move or resist. _My pleasure, a very keen one, came from the imagined excitement produced by the thwarting of this desire_. (Are not your own words--that 'emotion' is 'motion in a more or less arrested form'--an epigrammatic summary of all this, though in a somewhat different connection?) I did not undress her from any connection of nakedness with sexual feeling, but simply to enhance her feeling of helplessness and defenselessness under my hands. If I were a man and the woman I loved were refractory I should undress her before finding fault with her. A woman's dress symbolizes to her the protection civilization affords to the weak and gives her a fictitious strength. Naked, she is face to face with primitive conditions, her weakness opposed to the man's power. Besides, the sense of shame at being naked under the eyes of a man who regarded her with displeasure would extend itself to her offense and give him a distinct, though perhaps unfair, advantage. I used the bristle side of a brush to chastise her with, as suggesting the greatest amount of severity with the least possible pain. In fact, my idea was to produce the maximum of emotion with the minimum of actual discomfort. "You must not, however, suppose that at the time I reasoned about it at all in this way. I was very fond of her, and honestly believed I was doing it for her good. Had I realized then, as I do now, that my sole aim and object was physical pleasure, I believe my pleasure would have ceased; in any case I should not have felt justified in so treating her. Do I at all persuade you that my pleasure was a reflection of hers? That it was, I think, is clear from the fact that I only obtained it when she was willing to submit. Any _real_ resistance or signs that I was overpassing the boundary of pleasure in her and urging on pain without excitement caused me to desist and my own pleasure to cease. "I disclaim all altruism in my dealings with my sister. What occurs appears to me to be this: A situation appeals to one in imagination and one at once desires to transfer it to the realms of fact, being one's self one of the principal actors. If it is the passive side which appeals to one, one would prefer to be passive; but if that is not obtainable then one takes the active part as next best. In either case, however, it is _the realization of the imagined situation_ that gives the pleasure, not the other person's pleasure as such, although his or her supposed pleasure creates the situation. If I were a man it would afford me great delight to hold a woman over a precipice, even if she disliked it. The idea appeals to me so strongly that I could not help _imagining_ her pleasure, though I might _know_ she got none, and even though she made every demonstration of fear and dislike of it. The situation so often imagined would have become a fact. It seems to me I have to say a thing is and is not in the same breath, but the confusion is only in the words. "Let me give you another example: I have a tame pigeon which has a great affection for me. It sits on my shoulder and squats down with its wings out as birds do when courting, pecking me to make me take notice of it, and flickering its wings. I like to hold it so that it can't move its wings, because I imagine this increases its excitement. If it struggles, or seems to dislike my holding it, I let it go. "In an early engagement (afterward broken off) my _fiancé_ used to take an evident pleasure in telling me how he would punish me if I disobeyed him when we were married. Though we had but little in common mentally, I was frequently struck with the similarity between his ideas and what my own had been in regard to my sister. He used his authority over me most capriciously. On one occasion he would not let me have any supper at a dance. On another he objected to my drinking black coffee. No day passed without a command or prohibition on some trifling point. Whenever he saw, though, that I really disliked the interference or made any decided resistance, which happened very seldom, he let me have my own way at once. I cannot but think, when I recall the various circumstances, that he got a certain pleasure, as I had done with my sister, by an almost unconscious transference of my feelings to himself. "I find, too, that, when I want a man to say or do to me what would cause me pleasure and he does not gratify me, I feel an intense longing to change places, to be the man and make him, as the woman, feel what I want to feel. Combined with this is a sense of irritation at not being gratified and a desire to punish him for my deprivation, for his stupidity in not saying or doing the right thing. I don't feel any anger at a man not caring for me, but only for not divining my feelings when he does care. "Now let me take another case: that of the man who used to experience pleasure when surprising a woman making water. (Cf. _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Nov. 15, 1900.) Here the woman's embarrassment appears to be a factor; but it seems to me there must be more than this, as confusion might be produced in so many other ways, as if she were found bathing, or undressed, though it might not be so acute. In reality, I fancy she would be checked in what she was doing, and that the man, perhaps unconsciously, imagined this check and a resulting excitement. That such a check does sometimes produce excitement I know from experience in traveling. If the bladder is not emptied before connection the pleasure is often more intense. Long before I understood these things at all I was struck by this quotation: 'Cette volupté que ressentent les bords de la mer, d'être toujours pleins sans jamais déborder?' What would be the effect on a man of a sudden check at the supreme moment of sexual pleasure? In reality, I suppose, pain, as the nerves would be at their full tension and unable to respond to any further stimulus; but, in imagination, one's nerves are _not_ at their highest tension, and one imagines an increase or, at any rate, a prolongation of the pleasurable sensations. Something of all this, some vague _reflection_ of the woman's possible sensations, seems to enter in the man's feelings in surprising the woman. In any case his pleasure in her confusion seems to me a reflection of her feelings, for the sense of shame and embarrassment before a man is very exciting, and doubly so if one realizes that the man enjoys it. Ouida speaks of the 'delicious shame' experienced by 'Folle Farine.' "It seems to me that whenever we are affected by another's emotion we do practically, though unconsciously, put ourselves in his place; but we are not always able to gauge accurately its intensity or to allow for differences between ourselves and another, and, in the case of pain, it is doubly difficult, as we can never recall the pain itself, but only the mental effects upon us of the pain. We cannot even recall the feeling of heat when we are cold, or _vice versâ_, with any degree of vividness. "A woman tells me of a man who frequently asks her if she would not like him to whip her. He is greatly disappointed when she says she gets no pleasure from it, as it would give him so much to do it. He cannot believe she experiences none, because he would enjoy being whipped so keenly if he were a girl. In another case the man thinks the woman _must_ enjoy suffering, _because_ he would get intense pleasure from inflicting it! Why is this, unless he would like it if a woman, and confuses in his mind the two personalities? All the men I know who are sadistically inclined admit that if they were women they would like to be harshly treated. "Of course, I quite see there may be many complications; a man's natural anger at resistance may come in, and also simple, not sexual, pleasure in acts of crushing, etc. I always feel inclined to crush anything very soft or a person with very pretty thick hair, to rub together two shining surfaces, two bits of satin, etc., apart from any feelings of excitement. My explanation only refers to that part of sadism which is sexual enjoyment of another's pain." That the foregoing view holds good as regards the traces of sadism found within the normal limits of sexual emotion has already been stated. We may also believe that it is true in many genuinely perverse cases. In this connection reference may be made to an interesting case, reported by Moll, of a married lady 23 years of age, with pronounced sadistic feelings. She belongs to a normal family and is herself apparently quite healthy, a tall and strongly built person, of feminine aspect, fond of music and dancing, of more than average intelligence. Her perverse inclinations commenced obscurely about the age of 14, when she began to be dominated by the thought of the pleasure it would be to strike and torture a man, but were not clearly defined until the age of 18, while at an early age she was fond of teasing and contradicting men, though she never experienced the same impulse toward women. She has never, except in a very slight degree, actually carried her ideas into practice, either with her husband or anyone else, being restrained, she says, by a feeling of shame. Coitus, though frequently practised, gives her no pleasure, seems, indeed, somewhat disgusting to her, and has never produced orgasm. Her own ideas, also, though very pleasurable to her, have not produced definite sexual excitement, except on two or three occasions, when they had been combined with the influence of alcohol. She frankly regrets that modern social relationship makes it impossible for her to find sexual satisfaction in the only way in which such satisfaction would be possible to her. Her chief delight would be to torture the man she was attached to in every possible way; to inflict physical pain and mental pain would give her equal pleasure. "I would bite him till the blood came, as I have often done to my husband. At that moment all sympathy for him would disappear." She frequently identifies her imaginary lover with a real man to whom she feels that she could be much more attracted than she is to her husband. She imagines to herself that she makes appointments with this lover, and that she reaches the rendezvous in her carriage, but only after her lover has been waiting for her a very long time in the cold. Then he must feel all her power, he must be her slave with no will of his own, and she would torture him with various implements as seemed good to her. She would use a rod, a riding-whip, bind him and chain him, and so on. But it is to be noted that she declares "_this could, in general, only give me enjoyment if the man concerned endured such torture with a certain pleasure_. He must, indeed, writhe with pain, but at the same time be in a state of sexual ecstasy, followed by satisfaction." His pleasure must not, however, be so great that it overwhelms his pain; if it did, her own pleasure would vanish, and she has found witty her husband that when in kissing him her bites have given him much pleasure she has at once refrained. It is further noteworthy that only the pain she herself had inflicted would give her pleasure. If the lover suffered pain from an accident or a wound she is convinced that she would be full of sympathy for him. Outside her special sexual perversion she is sympathetic and very generous. (Moll, _Konträre Sexualempfindung_, 1899, pp. 507-510.) This case is interesting as an uncomplicated example of almost purely ideal sadism. It is interesting to note the feelings of the sadist subject toward her imaginary lover's feelings. It is probably significant that, while his pleasure is regarded as essential, his pain is regarded as even more essential, and the resulting apparent confusion may well be of the very essence of the whole phenomenon. The pleasure of the imaginary lover must be secured or the manifestation passes out of the sexual sphere; but his pleasure must, at all costs, be conciliated with his pain, for in the sadist's eyes the victim's pain has become a vicarious form of sexual emotion. That, at the same time, the sadist desires to give pleasure rather than pain finds confirmation in the fact that he often insists on pleasure being feigned even though it is not felt. Some years ago a rich Jewish merchant became notorious for torturing girls with whom he had intercourse; his performances acquired for him the title of "_l'homme qui pique_," and led to his prosecution. It was his custom to spend some hours in sticking pins into various parts of the girl's body, but it was essential that she should wear a smiling face throughout the proceedings. (Hamon, _La France Sociale et Politique_, 1891, p. 445 et seq.) We have thus to recognize that sadism by no means involves any love of inflicting pain outside the sphere of sexual emotion, and is even compatible with a high degree of general tender-heartedness. We have also to recognize that even within the sexual sphere the sadist by no means wishes to exclude the victim's pleasure, and may even regard that pleasure as essential to his own satisfaction. We have, further, to recognize that, in view of the close connection between sadism and masochism, it is highly probable that in some cases the sadist is really a disguised masochist and enjoys his victim's pain because he identifies himself with that pain. But there is a further group of cases, and a very important group, on account of the light it throws on the essential nature of these phenomena, and that is the group in which the thought or the spectacle of pain acts as a sexual stimulant, without the subject identifying himself clearly either with the inflicter or the sufferer of the pain. Such cases are sometimes classed as sadistic; but this is incorrect, for they might just as truly be called masochistic. The term algolagnia might properly be applied to them (and Eulenburg now classes them as "ideal algolagnia"), for they reveal an undifferentiated connection between sexual excitement and pain not developed into either active or passive participation. Such feelings may arise sporadically in persons in whom no sadistic or masochistic perversion can be said to exist, though they usually appear in individuals of neurotic temperament. Casanova describes an instance of this association which came immediately under his own eyes at the torture and execution of Damiens in 1757.[129] W.G. Stearns knew a man (having masturbated and had intercourse to excess) who desired to see his wife delivered of a child, and finally became impotent without this idea. He witnessed many deliveries and especially obtained voluptuous gratification at the delivery of a primipara when the suffering was greatest.[130] A very trifling episode may, however, suffice. In one case known to me a man, neither sadistic nor masochistic in his tendencies, when sitting looking out of his window saw a spider come out of its hole to capture and infold a fly which had just been caught in its web; as he watched the process he became conscious of a powerful erection, an occurrence which had never taken place under such circumstances before.[131] Under favoring conditions some incident of this kind at an early age may exert a decisive influence on the sexual life. Tambroni, of Ferrara, records the case of a boy of 11 who first felt voluptuous emotions on seeing in an illustrated journal the picture of a man trampling on his daughter; ever afterward he was obliged to evoke this image in masturbation or coitus.[132] An instructive case has been recorded by Féré. In this case a lady of neurotic heredity on one side, and herself liable to hysteria, experienced her first sexual crisis at the age of 13, not long after menstruation had become established, and when she had just recovered from an attack of chorea. Her old nurse, who had remained in the service of the family, had a ne'er-do-well son who had disappeared for some years and had just now suddenly returned and thrown himself, crying and sobbing, at the knees of his mother, who thrust him away. The young girl accidentally witnessed this scene. The cries and the sobs provoked in her a sexual excitement she had never experienced before. She rushed away in surprise to the next room, where, however, she could still hear the sobs, and soon she was overcome by a sexual orgasm. She was much troubled at this occurrence, and at the attraction which she now experienced for a man she had never seen before and whom she had always looked upon as a worthless vagabond. Shortly afterward she had an erotic dream concerning a man who sobbed at her knees. Later she again saw the nurse's son, but was agreeably surprised to find that, though a good-looking youth, he no longer caused her any emotion, and he disappeared from her mind, though the erotic dreams concerning an unknown sobbing man still occurred rather frequently. During the next ten years she suffered from various disorders of more or less hysterical character, and, although not disinclined to the idea of marriage, she refused all offers, for no man attracted her. At the age of 23, when staying in the Pyrenees, she made an excursion into Spain, and was present at a bull-fight. She was greatly excited by the charges of the bull, especially when the charge was suddenly arrested.[133] She felt no interest in any of the men who took part in the performance or were present; no man was occupying her imagination. But she experienced sexual sensations and accompanying general exhilaration, which were highly agreeable. After one bull had charged successively several times the orgasm took place. She considered the whole performance barbarous, but could not resist the desire to be present at subsequent bull-fights, a desire several times gratified, always with the same results, which were often afterward repeated in dreams. From that time she began to take an interest in horse-races, which she now found produced the same effect, though not to the same degree, especially when there was a fall. She subsequently married, but never experienced sexual satisfaction except under these abnormal circumstances or in dreams.[134] As the foregoing case indicates, horses, and especially running or struggling horses, sometimes have the same effect in stimulating the sexual emotions, especially on persons predisposed by neurotic heredity, as we have found that the spectacle of pain possesses. A medical correspondent in New Zealand tells me of a patient of his own, a young carpenter of 26, not in good health, who had never masturbated or had connection with a woman. He lived in a room overlooking a livery-stable yard where was kept, among other animals, a large black horse. Nearly every night he had a dream in which he seemed to be pursuing this large black horse, and when he caught it, which he invariably did, there was a copious emission. A holiday in the country and tonic treatment dispelled the dreams and reduced the nocturnal emissions to normal frequency. Féré has recorded a case of a boy, of neuropathic heredity, who, when 14 years of age, was one day about to practise mutual masturbation with another boy of his own age. They were seated on a hillside overlooking a steep road, and at this moment a heavy wagon came up the road drawn by four horses, which struggled painfully up, encouraged by the cries and the whip of the driver. This sight increased the boy's sexual excitement, which reached its climax when one of the horses suddenly fell. He had never before experienced such intense excitement, and always afterward a similar spectacle of struggling horses produced a similar effect.[135] In this connection reference may be made to the frequency with which dreams of struggling horses occur in connection with disturbance or disease of the heart. In such cases it is clear that the struggling horses seem to dream-consciousness to embody and explain the panting struggles to which the heart is subjected. They become, as it were, a visual symbol of the cardiac oppression. In much the same way, it would appear, under the influence of sexual excitement, in which cardiac disturbance is one of the chief constituent elements, the struggling horses became a sexual symbol, and, having attained that position, they are henceforth alone adequate to produce sexual excitement. FOOTNOTES: [128] This opinion appears to be in harmony with the conclusions of Eulenburg, who has devoted special study to De Sade, and points out that the ordinary conception of "sadism" is much too narrow. (Eulenburg, _Sexuale Neuropathie_, 1895, p. 110 et seq.) [129] Casanova, _Mémoires_, vol. viii, pp. 74-76. Goncourt in his _Journal_, under date of April, 1862 (vol. ii, p. 27), tells a story of an Englishman who engaged a room overlooking a scaffold where a murderer was to be hanged, proposing to take a woman with him and to avail himself of the excitement aroused by the scene. This scheme was frustrated by the remission of the death penalty. [130] _Alienist and Neurologist_, May, 1907, p. 204. [131] This spectacle of the spider and the fly seems indeed to be specially apt to exert a sexual influence. I have heard of a precisely similar case in a man of intellectual distinction, and another in a lady who acknowledged to a feeling of "exquisite pleasure," on one occasion, at the mere sound of the death agony of a fly in a spider's web. [132] Quoted by Obici and Marchesini, _Le Amicizie di Collegio_, p. 245. [133] It may be noted that we have already several times encountered this increase of excitement produced by arrest of movement. The effect is produced whether the arrest is witnessed or is actually experienced. "A man can increase a woman's excitement," a lady writes, "by forbidding her to respond in any way to his caresses. It is impossible to remain quite passive for more than a few seconds, but, during these few, excitement is considerably augmented." In a similar way I have been told of a man of brilliant intellectual ability who very seldom has connection with a woman without getting her to compress with her hand the base of the urethral canal to such an extent as to impede the passage of the semen. On withdrawal of the hand copious emission occurs, but it is the shock of the arrest caused by the constriction which gives him supreme pleasure. He has practised this method for years without evil results. [134] Féré, "Le Sadisme aux Courses de Taureaux," _Revue de médecine_, August, 1900. [135] Féré, _L'Instinct sexuel_, p. 255. VI. Why is Pain a Sexual Stimulant?--It is the Most Effective Method of Arousing Emotion--Anger and Fear the Most Powerful Emotions--Their Biological Significance in Courtship--Their General and Special Effects in Stimulating the Organism--Grief as a Sexual Stimulant--The Physiological Mechanism of Fatigue Renders Pain Pleasurable. We have seen that the distinction between "sadism" and "masochism" cannot be maintained; not only was even De Sade himself something of a masochist and Sacher-Masoch something of a sadist, but between these two extreme groups of phenomena there is a central group in which the algolagnia is neither active nor passive. "Sadism" and "masochism" are simply convenient clinical terms for classes of manifestations which quite commonly occur in the same person. We have further found that--as might have been anticipated in view of the foregoing result--it is scarcely correct to use the word "cruelty" in connection with the phenomena we have been considering. The persons who experience these impulses usually show no love of cruelty outside the sphere of sexual emotion; they may even be very intolerant of cruelty. Even when their sexual impulses come into play they may still desire to secure the pleasure of the persons who arouse their sexual emotions, even though it may not be often true that those who desire to inflict pain at these moments identify themselves with the feelings of those on whom they inflict it. We have thus seen that when we take a comprehensive survey of all these phenomena a somewhat general formula will alone cover them. Our conclusion so far must be that under certain abnormal circumstances pain, more especially the mental representation of pain, acts as a powerful sexual stimulant. The reader, however, who has followed the discussion to this point will be prepared to take the next and final step in our discussion and to reach a more definite conclusion. The question naturally arises: By what process does pain or its mental representation thus act as a sexual stimulant? The answer has over and over again been suggested by the facts brought forward in this study. Pain acts as a sexual stimulant because it is the most powerful of all methods for arousing emotion. The two emotions most intimately associated with pain are anger and fear. The more masculine and sthenic emotion of anger, the more passive and asthenic emotion of fear, are the fundamental animal emotions through which, on the psychic side, the process of natural selection largely works. Every animal in some degree owes its survival to the emotional reaction of anger against weaker rivals, to the emotional reaction of fear against stronger rivals. To this cause we owe it that these two emotions are so powerfully and deeply rooted in the whole zoölogical series to which we belong. But anger and fear are not less fundamental in the sexual life. Courtship on the male's part is largely a display of combativity, and even the very gestures by which the male seeks to appeal to the female are often those gestures of angry hostility by which he seeks to intimidate enemies. On the female's part courtship is a skillful manipulation of her own fears, and, as we have seen elsewhere, when studying the phenomena of modesty, that fundamental attitude of the female in courtship is nothing but an agglomeration of fears. The biological significance of the emotions is now well recognized. "In general," remarks one of the shrewdest writers on animal psychology, "we may say that emotional states are, under natural conditions, closely associated with behavior of biological value--with tendencies that are beneficial in self-preservation and race preservation--with actions that promote survival, and especially with the behavior which clusters round the pairing and parental instincts. The value of the emotions in animals is that they are an indirect means of furthering survival." (Lloyd Morgan, _Animal Behavior_, p. 293.) Emotional aptitudes persist not only by virtue of the fact that they are still beneficial, but because they once were; that is to say, they may exist as survivals. In this connection I may quote from a suggestive paper on "Teasing and Bullying," by F.L. Burk; at the conclusion of this study, which is founded on a large body of data concerning American children, the author asks: "Accepting for the moment the theories of Spencer and Ribot upon the transmission of rudimentary instincts, is it possible that the movements which comprise the chief elements of bullying, teasing, and the egotistic impulses in general of the classes cited--pursuing, throwing down, punching, striking, throwing missiles, etc.--are, from the standpoint of consciousness, broken neurological fragments, which are parts of old chains of activity involved in the pursuit, combat, capture, torture, and killing of men and enemies?... Is not this hypothesis of transmitted fragments of instincts in accord with the strangely anomalous fact that children are at one moment seemingly cruel and at the next affectionate and kind, vibrating, as it were, between two worlds, egotistic and altruistic, without conscious sense of incongruity?" (F.L. Burk, "Teasing and Bullying," _Pedagogical Seminary_, April, 1897.) The primitive connection of the special emotions of anger and fear with the sexual impulse has been well expressed by Colin Scott in his remarkable study of "Sex and Art": "If the higher forms of courting are based on combat, among the males at least anger must be intimately associated with love. And below both of these lies the possibility of fear. In combat the animal is defeated who is first afraid. Competitive exhibition of prowess will inspire the less able birds with a deterring fear. Young grouse and woodcock do not enter the lists with the older birds, and sing very quietly. It is the same with the very oldest birds. Audubon says that the old maids and bachelors of the Canada goose move off by themselves during the courting of the younger birds. In order to succeed in love, fear must be overcome in the male as well as in the female. Courage is the essential male virtue, love is its outcome and reward. The strutting, crowing, dancing, and singing of male birds and the preliminary movements generally of animals must gorge the neuromotor and muscular systems with blood and put them in better fighting trim. The effects of this upon the feelings of the animal himself must be very great. Hereditary tendencies swell his heart. He has 'the joy that warriors feel.' He becomes regardless of danger, and sometimes almost oblivious of his surroundings. This intense passionateness must react powerfully on the whole system, and more particularly on those parts which are capable, such as the brain, of using up a great surplus of blood, and on the naturally erethic functions of sex. The flood of anger or fighting instinct is drained off by the sexual desires, the antipathy of the female is overcome, and sexual union successfully ensues.... Courting and combat shade into one another, courting tending to take the place of the more basal form of combat. The passions which thus come to be associated with love are those of fear and anger, both of which, by arousing the whole nature and stimulating the nutritive sources from which they flow, come to increase the force of the sexual passion to which they lead up and in which they culminate and are absorbed," (Colin Scott, "Sex and Art," _American Journal of Psychology_, vol. vii, No. 2, pp. 170 and 215.) It must be remembered that fear is an element liable to arise in all courtship on one side or the other. It is usually on the side of the female, but not invariably. Among spiders, for instance, it is usually the male who feels fear, and very reasonably, for he is much weaker than the female. "Courtship by the male spider" says T.H. Montgomery ("The Courtship of Araneads," _American Naturalist_, March, 1910, p. 166), "results from a combination of the state of desire for and fear of the female." It is by his movements of fear that he advertises himself to the female as a male, and it is by the same movements that he is unconsciously impelled to display prominently his own ornamentation. We are thus brought to those essential facts of primitive courtship with which we started. But we are now able to understand more clearly how it is that alien emotional states became abnormally associated with the sexual life. Normally the sexual impulse is sufficiently reinforced by the ordinary active energies of the organism which courtship itself arouses, energies which, while they may be ultimately in part founded on anger and fear, rarely allow these emotions to be otherwise than latent. Motion, it may be said, is more prominent than emotion. Even normally a stimulant to emotional activities is pleasurable, just as motion itself is pleasurable. It may even be useful, as was noted long ago by Erasmus Darwin; he tells of a friend of his who, when painfully fatigued by riding, would call up ideas arousing indignation, and thus relieve the fatigue, the indignation, as Darwin pointed out, increasing muscular activity.[136] It is owing to this stimulating action that discomfort, even pain, may be welcomed on account of the emotional waves they call up, because they "lash into movement the dreary calm of the sea's soul," and produce that alternation of pain and enjoyment for which Faust longed. Groos, who recalls this passage in his very thorough and profound discussion of the region wherein tragedy has its psychological roots, points out that it is the overwhelming might of the storm itself, and not the peace of calm after the storm, which appeals to us. In the same way, he observes, even surprise and shock may also be pleasurable, and fear, though the most depressing of emotional states, by virtue of the joy produced by strong stimuli is felt as attractive; we not only experience an impulse of pleasure in dominating our environment, but also have pleasure in being dominated and rendered helpless by a higher power.[137] Hirn, again, in his work on the origins of art, has an interesting chapter on "The Enjoyment of Pain," a phenomenon which he explains by its resultant reactions in increase of outward activity, of motor excitement. Anger, he observes elsewhere, is "in its active stage a decidedly pleasurable emotion. Fear, which in its initial stage is paralyzing and depressing, often changes in time when the first shock has been relieved by motor reaction.... Anger, fear, sorrow, notwithstanding their distinctly painful initial stage, are often not only not avoided, but even deliberately sought."[138] In the ordinary healthy organism, however, although the stimulants of strong emotion may be vaguely pleasurable, they do not have more than a general action on the sexual sphere, nor are they required for the due action of the sexual mechanism. But in a slightly abnormal organism--whether the anomaly is due to a congenital neuropathic condition, or to a possibly acquired neurasthenic condition, or merely to the physiological inadequacy of childhood or old age--the balance of nervous energy is less favorable for the adequate play of the ordinary energies in courtship. The sexual impulse is itself usually weaker, even when, as often happens, its irritability assumes the fallacious appearance of strength. It has become unusually sensitive to unusual stimuli and also, it is possible,--perhaps as a result of those conditions,--more liable to atavistic manifestations. An organism in this state becomes peculiarly apt to seize on the automatic sources of energy generated by emotion. The parched sexual instinct greedily drinks up and absorbs the force it obtains by applying abnormal stimuli to its emotional apparatus. It becomes largely, if not solely, dependent on the energy thus secured. The abnormal organism in this respect may become as dependent on anger or fear, and for the same reason, as in other respects it may become dependent on alcohol. We see the process very well illustrated by the occasional action of the emotion of anger. In animals the connection between love and anger is so close that even normally, as Groos points out, in some birds the sight of an enemy may call out the gestures of courtship.[139] As Krafft-Ebing remarks, both love and anger "seek their object, try to possess themselves of it, and naturally exhaust themselves in a physical effect on it; both throw the psychomotor sphere into the most intense excitement, and by means of this excitement reach their normal expression."[140] Féré has well remarked that the impatience of desire may itself be regarded as a true state of anger, and Stanley Hall, in his admirable study of anger, notes that "erethism of the breasts or sexual parts" was among the physical manifestations of anger occurring in some of his cases, and in one case a seminal emission accompanied every violent outburst.[141] Thus it is that anger may be used to reinforce a weak sexual impulse, and cases have been recorded in which coitus could only be performed when the man had succeeded in working himself up into an artificial state of anger.[142] On the other hand, Féré has recorded a case in which the sexual excitement accompanying delayed orgasm was always transformed into anger, though without any true sadistic manifestations.[143] As a not unexpected complementary phenomenon to this connection of anger and sexual emotion in the male, it is sometimes found that the spectacle of masculine anger excites pleasurable emotion in women. The case has been recorded of a woman who delighted in arousing anger for the pleasure it gave her, and who advised another woman to follow her example and excite her husband's anger, as nothing was so enjoyable as to see a man in a fury of rage[144]; Lombroso mentions a woman who was mostly frigid, but experienced sexual feelings when she heard anyone swearing; and a medical friend tells me of a lady considerably past middle age who experienced sexual erethism after listening to a heated argument between her husband and a friend on religious topics. The case has also been recorded of a masochistic man who found sexual satisfaction in masturbating while a woman, by his instructions, addressed him in the lowest possible terms of abuse.[145] Such a feeling doubtless underlies that delight in teasing men which is so common among young women. Stanley Hall, referring to the almost morbid dread of witnessing manifestations of anger felt by many women, remarks: "In animals, females are often described as watching with complacency the conflict of rival males for their possession, and it seems probable that the intense horror of this state, which many females report, is associated more or less unconsciously with the sexual rage which has followed it."[146] The dread may well be felt at least as much as regards the emotional state in themselves as in the males. Even when the emotion aroused is disgust it may still act as a sexual stimulant. Stcherbak has narrated the instructive case of a very intelligent and elegant married lady of rather delicate constitution, an artist of some talent, who never experienced any pleasure in sexual intercourse, but ever since sexual feelings first began to be manifested at all (at the age of 18) has only experienced them in relation to disgusting things. Anything that is repulsive, like vomit, etc., causes vague but pleasurable feelings which she gradually came to recognize as sexual. The sight of a crushed frog will cause very definite sexual sensations. She has had many admirers and she has observed that a declaration of love by a disagreeable or even repulsive man sexually excites her, though she has no desire for sexual intercourse with him.[147] After all that has gone before it is easy to see how the emotion of fear may act in an analogous manner to anger. Just as anger may reinforce the active forms of the sexual impulse to which it is allied, so fear may reinforce the passive forms of that impulse. The following observations, written by a lady, very well show how we may thus explain the sexual attractiveness of whipping: "The fascination of whipping, which has always greatly puzzled me, seems to be a sort of hankering after the stimulus of fear. In a wild state animals live in constant fear. In civilized life one but rarely feels it. A woman's pleasure in being afraid of a husband or lover may be an equivalent of a man's love of adventure; and the fear of children for their parents may be the dawning of the love of adventure. In a woman this desire of adventure receives a serious check when she begins to realize what she might be subjected to by a man if she gratified it. Excessive fear is demoralizing, but it seems to me that the idea of being whipped gives a sense of fear which is not excessive. It is almost the only kind of pain (physical) which is inflicted on children or women by persons whom they can love and trust, and with a moral object. Any other kind of bodily ill treatment suggests malignity and may rouse resentment, and, in extreme cases, an excess of fear which goes beyond the limits of pleasurable excitement. Given a hereditary feeling of this sort, I think it is helped by the want of actual experience, as the association with excitement is freed from the idea of pain as such." In his very valuable and suggestive study of fears, Stanley Hall, while recognizing the evil of excessive fear, has emphasized the emotional and even the intellectual benefits of fear, and the great part played by fear in the evolution of the race as "the rudimentary organ on the full development and subsequent reduction of which many of the best things in the soul are dependent." "Fears that paralyze some brains," he remarks, "are a good tonic for others. In some form and degree all need it always. Without the fear apparatus in us, what a wealth of motive would be lost!"[148] It is on the basis of this tonic influence of fear that in some morbidly sensitive natures fear acts as a sexual stimulant. Cullerre has brought together a number of cases in both men and women, mostly neurasthenic, in which fits of extreme anxiety and dread, sometimes of a religious character and often in highly moral people, terminate in spontaneous orgasm or in masturbation.[149] Professor Gurlitt mentions that his first full sexual emission took place in class at school, when he was absorbed in writing out the life of Aristides and very anxious lest he should not be able to complete it within the set time.[150] Dread and anxiety not only excite sexual emotion, but in the more extreme morbid cases they may suppress and replace it. Terror, say Fliess, is transmuted coitus, and Freud believes that the neurosis of anxiety always has a sexual cause, while Ballet, Capgras, Löwenfeld, and others, though not regarding a sexual traumatism as the only cause, still regard it as frequent. It is worthy of note that not only fear, but even so depressing an emotion as grief, may act as a sexual stimulant, more especially in women. This fact is not sufficiently recognized, though probably everyone can recall instances from his personal knowledge, such cases being generally regarded as inexplicable. It is, however, not more surprising that grief should be transformed into sexual emotion than that (as in a case recorded by Stanley Hall) it should manifest itself as anger. In any case we have to bear in mind the frequency of this psychological transformation in the presence of cases which might otherwise seem to call for a cynical interpretation. The case has been recorded of an English lady of good social position who fell in love with an undertaker at her father's funeral and insisted on marrying him. It is known that some men have been so abnormally excited by the funeral trappings of death that only in such surroundings have they been able to effect coitus. A case has been recorded of a physician of unimpeachable morality who was unable to attend funerals, even of his own relatives, on account of the sexual excitement thus aroused. Funerals, tragedies at the theater, pictures of martyrdom, scenes of execution, and trials at the law-courts have been grouped together as arousing pleasure in many people, especially women. (C.F. von Schlichtegroll, _Sacher-Masoch und der Masochismus_, pp. 30-31.) Wakes and similar festivals may here find their psychological basis, and funerals are an unquestionable source of enjoyment among some people, especially of so-called "Celtic" race. The stimulating reaction after funerals is well known to many, and Leigh Hunt refers to this (in his _Autobiography_) as affecting the sincerely devoted friends who had just cremated Shelley. It may well be, as Kiernan has argued (_Alienist and Neurologist_, 1891; ibid., 1902, p. 263), that in the disturbance of emotional balance caused by grief the primitive instincts become peculiarly apt to respond to stimulus, and that in the aboulia of grief the mind is specially liable to become the prey to obsessions. "When my child died at the age of 6 months," a correspondent writes, "I had a violent paroxysm of weeping and for some days I could not eat. When I kissed the dead boy for the last time (I had never seen a corpse before) I felt I had reached the depths of misery and could never smile or have any deep emotions again. Yet that night, though my thoughts had not strayed to sexual subjects since the child's death, I had a violent erection. I felt ashamed to desire carnal things when my dead child was still in the house, and explained to my wife. She was sympathetic, for her idea was that our common grief had intensified my love for her. I feel convinced, however, that my desire was the result of a stimulus propagated to the sexual centers from the centers affected by my grief, the transference of my emotion from one set of nerves to another. I do not perhaps express my meaning clearly." How far the emotional influence of grief entered into the following episode it is impossible to say, for here it is probable that we are mainly concerned with one of those almost irresistible impulses by which adolescent girls are sometimes overcome. The narrative is from the lips of a reliable witness, a railway guard, who, some thirty years ago, when a youth of 18, in Cornwall, lodged with a man and woman who had a daughter of his own age. Some months later, when requiring a night's lodging, he called at the house, and was greeted warmly by the woman, who told him her husband had just died and that she and her daughter were very nervous and would be glad if he would stay the night, but that as the corpse occupied the other bedroom he would have to share their bed ("We don't think very much of that among us," my informant added). He agreed, and went to bed, and when, a little later, the two women also came to bed, the girl, at her own suggestion, lay next to the youth. Nothing happened during the night, but in the morning, when the mother went down to light the fire, the daughter immediately threw off the bedclothes, exposing her naked person, and before the youth had realized what was happening she had drawn him over on to her. He was so utterly surprised that nothing whatever happened, but the incident made a life-long impression on him. In this connection reference may be made to the story of the Ephesian matron in Petronius; the story of the widow, overcome by grief, who watches by her husband's tomb, and very speedily falls into the arms of the soldier who is on guard. This story, in very various forms, is found in China and India, and has occurred repeatedly in European literature during the last two thousand years. The history of the wanderings of this story has been told by Grisebach (Eduard Grisebach, _Die Treulose Witwe_, third edition, 1877). It is not probable, however, that all the stories of this type are actually related; in any case it would seem that their vitality is due to the fact that they have been found to show a real correspondence to life; one may note, for instance, the curious tone of personal emotion with which George Chapman treated this theme in his play, _Widow's Tears_. It may be added that, in explaining the resort to pain as an emotional stimulus, we have to take into account not only the biological and psychological considerations here brought forward, but also the abnormal physiological conditions under which stimuli usually felt as painful come specially to possess a sexually exciting influence. The neurasthenic and neuropathic states may be regarded as conditions of more or less permanent fatigue. It is true that under the conditions we are considering there may be an extreme sensitiveness to stimuli not usually felt as of sexual character, a kind of hyperesthesia; but hyperesthesia, it has well been said, is nothing but the beginning of anesthesia.[151] Sergeant Bertrand, the classical example of necrophily,[152] began to masturbate at the age of 9, stimulating a sexual impulse which may have been congenitally feeble by accompanying thoughts of ill-treating women. It was not till subsequently that he began to imagine that the women were corpses. The sadistic thoughts were only incidents in the emotional evolution, and the real object throughout was to procure strong emotion and not to inflict cruelty. Some observations of Féré's as to the conditions which influence the amount of muscular work accomplished with the ergograph are instructive from the present point of view: "Although sensibility diminishes in the course of fatigue," Féré found that "there are periods during which the excitability increases before it disappears. As fatigue increases, the perception of the intercurrent excitation is retarded; an odor is perceived as exciting before it is perceived as a differentiated sensation; the most fetid odors arouse feelings of well-being before being perceived as odors, and their painful quality only appears afterward, or is not noticed at all." And after recording a series of results with the ergograph obtained under the stimulus of unpleasant odors he remarks: "We are thus struck by two facts: the diminution of work during painful excitation, and its increase when the excitation has ceased. When the effects following the excitation have disappeared the diminution is more rapid than in the ordinary state. When the fatigue is manifested by a notable diminution, if the same excitation is brought into action again, no diminution is produced, but a more or less durable increase, exactly as though there had been an agreeable excitation. Moreover, the stimulus which appears painful in a state of repose loses that painful character either partially or completely when acting on the same subject in a more and more fatigued state." Féré defines a painful stimulus as a strong excitation which causes displays of energy which the will cannot utilize; when, as a result of diminished sensibility, the excitants are attenuated, the will can utilize them, and so there is no pain.[153] These experiments had no reference to the sexual instinct, but it will be seen at once that they have an extremely significant bearing on the subject before us, for they show us the mechanism of the process by which in an abnormal organism pain becomes a sexual stimulant. FOOTNOTES: [136] Erasmus Darwin, _Zoönomia_, vol. i, p. 496. [137] K. Groos, _Spiele der Menschen_, pp. 200-210. [138] Hirn, _Origins of Art_, p. 54. Reference may here perhaps be made to the fact that unpleasant memories persist in women more than in men (_American Journal of Psychology_, 1899, p. 244). This had already been pointed out by Coleridge. "It is a remark that I have made many times," we find it said in one of his fragments (_Anima Poetæ_, p. 89), "and many times, I guess, shall repeat, that women are infinitely fonder of clinging to and beating about, hanging upon and keeping up, and reluctantly letting fall any doleful or painful or unpleasant subject, than men of the same class and rank." [139] Groos, _Spiele der Thiere_, p. 251. Maeder (_Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische Forschungen_, 1909, vol. i, p. 149) mentions an epileptic girl of 22 who masturbates when she is in a rage with anyone. [140] Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia Sexualis_, English translation of tenth edition, p. 78. [141] Stanley Hall, "A Study of Anger," _American Journal of Psychology_, July, 1899, p. 549. [142] Krafft-Ebing refers to such a case as recorded by Schulz, _Psychopathia Sexualis_, p. 78. [143] Féré, _L'Instinct sexuel_, p. 213. [144] C.F. von Schlichtegroll, _Sacher-Masoch und der Masochismus_, p. 31. [145] _Archivio di Psichiatria_, vol. xv, p. 120. Mention may also be made of the cases (described as hysterical mixoscopia by Kiernan, _Alienist and Neurologist_, May, 1903) in which young women address to themselves anonymous letters of an abusive and disgusting character, and show them to others. [146] Stanley Hall, loc. cit., p. 587. [147] _Archives de Neurologie_, Oct., 1907. [148] G. Stanley Hall, "A Study of Fears," _American Journal of Psychology_, vol. viii, No. 2. [149] A. Cullerre, "De l'Excitation Sexuelle dans les Psychopathies Anxieuses," _Archives de Neurologie_, Feb., 1905. [150] L. Gurlitt (_Die Neue Generation_, July, 1909). Moll (_Sexualleben des Kindes_, p. 84) also give examples of the connection between anxiety and sexual excitement. Freud (_Der Wahn und die Traüme in Jensen's Gradiva_, p. 52) considers that in dream-interpretation we may replace "terror" by "sexual excitement." In noting the general sexual effects of fear, we need not strictly separate the group of cases in which the sexual effects are physical only, and fail to be circuited through the brain. [151] See the article on "Neurasthenia" by Rudolf Arndt in Tuke's _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_. [152] Lunier, _Annales Médico-psychologiques_, 1849, p. 153. [153] Féré, _Comptes-rendus de la Société de Biologie_, December 15 and 22, 1900; id., _Année Psychologique_, seventh year, 1901, pp. 82-129; more especially the same author's _Travail et Plaisir_, 1904. VII. Summary of Results Reached--The Joy of Emotional Expansion--The Satisfaction of the Craving for Power--The Influence of Neurasthenic and Neuropathic Conditions--The Problem of Pain in Love Largely Constitutes a Special Case of Erotic Symbolism. It may seem to some that in our discussion of the relationships of love and pain we have covered a very wide field. This was inevitable. The subject is peculiarly difficult and complex, and if we are to gain a real insight into its nature we must not attempt to force the facts to fit into any narrow and artificial formulas of our own construction. Yet, as we have unraveled this seemingly confused mass of phenomena it will not have escaped the careful reader that the apparently diverse threads we have disentangled run in a parallel and uniform manner; they all have a like source and they all converge to a like result. We have seen that the starting-point of the whole group of manifestations must be found in the essential facts of courtship among animal and primitive human societies. Pain is seldom very far from some of the phases of primitive courtship; but it is not the pain which is the essential element in courtship, it is the state of intense emotion, of tumescence, with which at any moment, in some shape or another, pain may, in some way or another, be brought into connection. So that we have come to see that in the phrase "love and pain" we have to understand by "pain" a state of intense emotional excitement with which pain in the stricter sense may be associated, but is by no means necessarily associated. It is the strong emotion which exerts the irresistible fascination in the lover, in his partner, or in both. The pain is merely the means to that end. It is the lever which is employed to bring the emotional force to bear on the sexual impulse. The question of love and pain is mainly a question of emotional dynamics. In attaining this view of our subject we have learned that any impulse of true cruelty is almost outside the field altogether. The mistake was indeed obvious and inevitable. Let us suppose that every musical instrument is sensitive and that every musical performance involves the infliction of pain on the instrument. It would then be very difficult indeed to realize that the pleasure of music lies by no means in the infliction of pain. We should certainly find would-be scientific and analytical people ready to declare that the pleasure of music is the pleasure of giving pain, and that the emotional effects of music are due to the pain thus inflicted. In algolagnia, as in music, it is not cruelty that is sought; it is the joy of being plunged among the waves of that great primitive ocean of emotions which underlies the variegated world of our everyday lives, and pain--a pain which, as we have seen, is often deprived so far as possible of cruelty, though sometimes by very thin and feeble devices--is merely the channel by which that ocean is reached. If we try to carry our inquiry beyond the point we have been content to reach, and ask ourselves why this emotional intoxication exerts so irresistible a fascination, we might find a final reply in the explanation of Nietzsche--who regarded this kind of intoxication as of great significance both in life and in art--that it gives us the consciousness of energy and the satisfaction of our craving for power.[154] To carry the inquiry to this point would be, however, to take it into a somewhat speculative and metaphysical region, and we have perhaps done well not to attempt to analyze further the joy of emotional expansion. We must be content to regard the profound satisfaction of emotion as due to a widespread motor excitement, the elements of which we cannot yet completely analyze.[155] It is because the joy of emotional intoxication is the end really sought that we have to regard the supposed opposition between "sadism" and "masochism" as unimportant and indeed misleading. The emotional value of pain is equally great whether the pain is inflicted, suffered, witnessed, or merely exists as a mental imagination, and there is no reason why it should not coexist in all these forms in the same person, as, in fact, we frequently find it. The particular emotions which are invoked by pain to reinforce the sexual impulse are more especially anger and fear, and, as we have seen, these two very powerful and primitive emotions are--on the active and passive sides, respectively--the emotions most constantly brought into play in animal and early human courtship; so that they naturally constitute the emotional reservoirs from which the sexual impulse may still most easily draw. It is not difficult to show that the various forms in which "pain"--as we must here understand pain--is employed in the service of the sexual impulse are mainly manifestations or transformations of anger or fear, either in their simple or usually more complex forms, in some of which anger and fear may be mingled. We thus accept the biological origin of the psychological association between love and pain; it is traceable to the phenomena of animal courtship. We do not on this account exclude the more direct physiological factor. It may seem surprising that manifestations that have their origin in primeval forms of courtship should in many cases coincide with actual sensations of definite anatomical base today, and still more surprising that these traditional manifestations and actual sensations should so often be complementary to each other in their active and passive aspects: that is to say, that the pleasure of whipping should be matched by the pleasure of being whipped, the pleasure of mock strangling by the pleasure of being so strangled, that pain inflicted is not more desirable than pain suffered. But such coincidence is of the very essence of the whole group of phenomena. The manifestations of courtship were from the first conditioned by physiological facts; it is not strange that they should always tend to run _pari passu_ with physiological facts. The manifestations which failed to find anchorage in physiological relationships might well tend to die out. Even under the most normal circumstances, in healthy persons of healthy heredity, the manifestations we have been considering are liable to make themselves felt. Under such circumstances, however, they never become of the first importance in the sexual process; they are often little more than play. It is only under neurasthenic or neuropathic conditions--that is to say, in an organism which from acquired or congenital causes, and usually perhaps both, has become enfeebled, irritable, "fatigued"--that these manifestations are liable to flourish vigorously, to come to the forefront of sexual consciousness, and even to attain such seriously urgent importance that they may in themselves constitute the entire end and aim of sexual desire. Under these pathological conditions, pain, in the broad and special sense in which we have been obliged to define it, becomes a welcome tonic and a more or less indispensable stimulant to the sexual system. It will not have escaped the careful reader that in following out our subject we have sometimes been brought into contact with manifestations which scarcely seem to come within any definition of pain. This is undoubtedly so, and the references to these manifestations were not accidental, for they serve to indicate the real bearings of our subject. The relationships of love and pain constitute a subject at once of so much gravity and so much psychological significance that it was well to devote to them a special study. But pain, as we have here to understand it, largely constitutes a special case of what we shall later learn to know as erotic symbolism: that is to say, the psychic condition in which a part of the sexual process, a single idea or group of ideas, tends to assume unusual importance, or even to occupy the whole field of sexual consciousness, the part becoming a symbol that stands for the whole. When we come to the discussion of this great group of abnormal sexual manifestations it will frequently be necessary to refer to the results we have reached in studying the sexual significance of pain. FOOTNOTES: [154] See, for instance, the section "Zur Physiologie der Kunst" in Nietzsche's fragmentary work, _Der Wille zur Macht_, Werke, Bd. xv. Groos (_Spiele der Menschen_, p. 89) refers to the significance of the fact that nearly all races have special methods of procuring intoxication. Cf. Partridge's study of the psychology of alcohol (_American Journal of Psychology_, April, 1900). "It is hard to imagine," this writer remarks of intoxicants, "what the religious or social consciousness of primitive man would have been without them." [155] The muscular element is the most conspicuous in emotion, though it is not possible, as a careful student of the emotions (H.R. Marshall, _Pain, Pleasure, and Æsthetics_, p. 84) well points out, "to limit the physical activities involved with the emotions to such effects of voluntary innervation or alteration of size of blood-vessels or spasm of organic muscle, as Lange seems to think determines them; nor to increase or decrease of muscle-power, as Féré's results might suggest; nor to such changes, in relation of size of capillaries, in voluntary innervation, in respiratory and heart functioning, as Lehmann has observed. Emotions seem to me to be coincidents of reactions of the whole organism tending to certain results." THE SEXUAL IMPULSE IN WOMEN. A special and detailed study of the normal characters of the sexual impulse in men seems unnecessary. I have elsewhere discussed various aspects of the male sexual impulse, and others remain for later discussion. But to deal with it broadly as a whole seems unnecessary, if only because it is predominantly open and aggressive. Moreover, since the constitution of society has largely been in the hands of men, the nature of the sexual impulse in men has largely been expressed in the written and unwritten codes of social law. The sexual instinct in women is much more elusive. This, indeed, is involved at the outset in the organic psychological play of male and female, manifesting itself in the phenomena of modesty and courting. The same elusiveness, the same mocking mystery, meet us throughout when we seek to investigate the manifestations of the sexual impulse in women. Nor is it easy to find any full and authentic record of a social state clearly founded in sexual matters on the demands of woman's nature. An illustration of our ignorance and bias in these matters is furnished by the relationship of marriage, celibacy, and divorce to suicide in the two sexes. There can be no doubt that the sexual emotions of women have a profound influence in determining suicide. This is indicated, among other facts, by a comparison of the suicide-rate in the sexes according to age; while in men the frequency of suicide increases progressively throughout life, in women there is an arrest after the age of 30; that is to say, when the period of most intense sexual emotion has been passed. This phenomenon is witnessed among peoples so unlike as the French, the Prussians, and the Italians. Now, how do marriage and divorce affect the sexual liability to suicide? We are always accustomed to say that marriage protects women, and it is even asserted that men have self-sacrificingly maintained the institution of marriage mainly for the benefit of women. Professor Durkheim, however, who has studied suicide elaborately from the sociological standpoint, so far as possible eliminating fallacies, has in recent years thrown considerable doubt on the current assumption. He shows that if we take the tendency to suicide as a test, and eliminate the influence of children, who are an undoubted protection to women, it is not women, but men, who are protected by marriage, and that the protection of women from suicide increases regularly as divorces increase. After discussing these points exhaustively, "we reach a conclusion," he states, "considerably removed from the current view of marriage and the part it plays. It is regarded as having been instituted for the sake of the wife and to protect her weakness against masculine caprices. Monogamy, especially, is very often presented as a sacrifice of man's polygamous instincts, made in order to ameliorate the condition of woman in marriage. In reality, whatever may have been the historical causes which determined this restriction, it is man who has profited most. The liberty which he has thus renounced could only have been a source of torment to him. Woman had not the same reasons for abandoning freedom, and from this point of view we may say that in submitting to the same rule it is she who has made the sacrifice." (E. Durkheim, _Le Suicide_, 1897, pp. 186-214, 289-311.) There is possibly some significance in the varying incidence of insanity in unmarried men and unmarried women as compared with the married. At Erlangen, for example, Hagen found that among insane women the preponderance of the single over the married is not nearly so great as among insane men, marriage appearing to exert a much more marked prophylactic influence in the case of men than of women. (F.W. Hagen, _Statistische Untersuchungen über Geisteskrankheiten_, 1876, p. 153.) The phenomena are here, however, highly complex, and, as Hagen himself points out, the prophylactic influence of marriage, while very probable, is not the only or even the chief factor at work. It is worth noting that exactly the same sexual difference may be traced in England. It appears that, in ratio to similar groups in the general population (taking the years 1876-1900, inclusive), the number of admissions to asylums is the same for both sexes among married people (i.e., 8.5), but for the single it is larger among the men (4.8 to 4.5), as also it is among the widowed (17.9 to 13.9) (_Fifty-sixth Annual Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy, England and Wales_, 1902, p. 141). This would seem to indicate that when living apart from men the tendency to insanity is less in women, but is raised to the male level when the sexes live together in marriage. Much the same seems to hold true of criminality. It was long since noted by Horsley that in England marriage decidedly increases the tendency to crime in women, though it decidedly decreases it in men. Prinzing has shown (_Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft_, Bd. ii, 1899) that this is also the case in Germany. Similarly marriage decreases the tendency of men to become habitual drunkards and increases that of women. Notwithstanding the fact that the average age of the men is greater than that of the women, the majority of the men admitted to the inebriate reformatories under the English Inebriates Acts are single; the majority of the women are married; of 865 women so admitted 32 per cent, were single, 50 per cent, married, and 18 per cent, widows. (_British Medical Journal_, Sept. 2, 1911, p. 518.) It thus happens that even the elementary characters of the sexual impulse in women still arouse, even among the most competent physiological and medical authorities,--not least so when they are themselves women,--the most divergent opinions. Its very existence even may be said to be questioned. It would generally be agreed that among men the strength of the sexual impulse varies within a considerable range, but that it is very rarely altogether absent, such total absence being abnormal and probably more or less pathological. But if applied to women, this statement is by no means always accepted. By many, sexual anesthesia is considered natural in women, some even declaring that any other opinion would be degrading to women; even by those who do not hold this opinion it is believed that there is an unnatural prevalence of sexual frigidity among civilized women. On these grounds it is desirable to deal generally with this and other elementary questions of allied character. I. The Primitive View of Women--As a Supernatural Element in Life--As Peculiarly Embodying the Sexual Instinct--The Modern Tendency to Underestimate the Sexual Impulse in Women--This Tendency Confined to Recent Times--Sexual Anæsthesia--Its Prevalence--Difficulties in Investigating the Subject--Some Attempts to Investigate it--Sexual Anesthesia must be Regarded as Abnormal--The Tendency to Spontaneous Manifestations of the Sexual Impulse in Young Girls at Puberty. From very early times it seems possible to trace two streams of opinion regarding women: on the one hand, a tendency to regard women as a supernatural element in life, more or less superior to men, and, on the other hand, a tendency to regard women as especially embodying the sexual instinct and as peculiarly prone to exhibit its manifestations. In the most primitive societies, indeed, the two views seem to be to some extent amalgamated; or, it should rather be said, they have not yet been differentiated; and, as in such societies it is usual to venerate the generative principle of nature and its embodiments in the human body and in human functions, such a co-ordination of ideas is entirely rational. But with the development of culture the tendency is for this homogeneous conception to be split up into two inharmonious tendencies. Even apart from Christianity and before its advent this may be noted. It was, however, to Christianity and the Christian ascetic spirit that we owe the complete differentiation and extreme development which these opposing views have reached. The condemnation of sexuality involved the glorification of the virgin; and indifference, even contempt, was felt for the woman who exercised sexual functions. It remained open to anyone, according to his own temperament, to identify the typical average woman with the one or with the other type; all the fund of latent sexual emotion which no ascetic rule can crush out of the human heart assured the picturesque idealization alike of the angelic and the diabolic types of woman. We may trace the same influence subtly lurking even in the most would-be scientific statements of anthropologists and physicians today.[156] It may not be out of place to recall at this point, once more, the fact, fairly obvious indeed, that the judgments of men concerning women are very rarely matters of cold scientific observation, but are colored both by their own sexual emotions and by their own moral attitude toward the sexual impulse. The ascetic who is unsuccessfully warring with his own carnal impulses may (like the voluptuary) see nothing in women but incarnations of sexual impulse; the ascetic who has subdued his own carnal impulses may see no elements of sex in women at all. Thus the opinions regarding this matter are not only tinged by elements of primitive culture, but by elements of individual disposition. Statements about the sexual impulses of women often tell us less about women than about the persons who make them. The curious manner in which for men women become incarnations of the sexual impulse is shown by the tendency of both general and personal names for women to become applicable to prostitutes only. This is the case with the words "garce" and "fille" in French, "Mädchen" and "Dirne" in German, as well as with the French "catin" (Catherine) and the German "Metze" (Mathilde). (See, e.g., R. Kleinpaul, _Die Räthsel der Sprache_, 1890, pp. 197-198.) At the same time, though we have to recognize the presence of elements which color and distort in various ways the judgments of men regarding women, it must not be hastily assumed that these elements render discussion of the question altogether unprofitable. In most cases such prejudices lead chiefly to a one-sided solution of facts, against which we can guard. While, however, these two opposing currents of opinion are of very ancient origin, it is only within quite recent times, and only in two or three countries, that they have led to any marked difference of opinion regarding the sexual aptitude of women. In ancient times men blamed women for concupiscence or praised them for chastity, but it seems to have been reserved for the nineteenth century to state that women are apt to be congenitally incapable of experiencing complete sexual satisfaction, and peculiarly liable to sexual anesthesia. This idea appears to have been almost unknown to the eighteenth century. During the last century, however, and more especially in England, Germany, and Italy, this opinion has been frequently set down, sometimes even as a matter of course, with a tincture of contempt or pity for any woman afflicted with sexual emotions. In the treatise _On Generation_ (chapter v), which until recent times was commonly ascribed to Hippocrates, it is stated that men have greater pleasure in coitus than women, though the pleasure of women lasts longer, and this opinion, though not usually accepted, was treated with great respect by medical authors down to the end of the seventeenth century. Thus A. Laurentius (Du Laurens), after a long discussion, decides that men have stronger sexual desire and greater pleasure in coitus than women. (_Historia Anatomica Humani Corporis_, 1599, lib. viii, quest, ii and vii.) About half a century ago a book entitled _Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs_, by W. Acton, a surgeon, passed through many editions and was popularly regarded as a standard authority on the subjects with which it deals. This extraordinary book is almost solely concerned with men; the author evidently regards the function of reproduction as almost exclusively appertaining to men. Women, if "well brought up," are, and should be, he states, in England, absolutely ignorant of all matters concerning it. "I should say," this author again remarks, "that the majority of women (happily for society) are not very much troubled with sexual feeling of any kind." The supposition that women do possess sexual feelings he considers "a vile aspersion." In the article "Generation," contained in another medical work belonging to the middle of the nineteenth century,--Rees's _Cyclopedia_,--we find the following statement: "That a mucous fluid is sometimes found in coition from the internal organs and vagina is undoubted; but this only happens in lascivious women, or such as live luxuriously." Gall had stated decisively that the sexual desires of men are stronger and more imperious than those of women. (_Fonctions du Cerveau_, 1825, vol. iii, pp. 241-271.) Raciborski declared that three-fourths of women merely endure the approaches of men. (_De la Puberté chez la Femme_, 1844, p. 486.) "When the question is carefully inquired into and without prejudice," said Lawson Tait, "it is found that women have their sexual appetites far less developed than men." (Lawson Tait, "Remote Effects of Removal of the Uterine Appendages," _Provincial Medical Journal_, May, 1891.) "The sexual instinct is very powerful in man and comparatively weak in women," he stated elsewhere (_Diseases of Women_, 1889, p. 60). Hammond stated that, leaving prostitutes out of consideration, it is doubtful if in one-tenth of the instances of intercourse they [women] experience the slightest pleasurable sensation from first to last (Hammond, _Sexual Impotence_, p. 300), and he considered (p. 281) that this condition was sometimes congenital. Lombroso and Ferrero consider that sexual sensibility, as well as all other forms of sensibility, is less pronounced in women, and they bring forward various facts and opinions which seem to them to point in the same direction. "Woman is naturally and organically frigid." At the same time they consider that, while erethism is less, sexuality is greater than in men. (Lombroso and Ferrero, _La Donna Delinquente, la Prostituta, e la Donna Normale_, 1893, pp. 54-58.) "It is an altogether false idea," Fehling declared, in his rectorial address at the University of Basel in 1891, "that a young woman has just as strong an impulse to the opposite sex as a young man.... The appearance of the sexual side in the love of a young girl is pathological." (H. Fehling, _Die Bestimmung der Frau_, 1892, p. 18.) In his _Lehrbuch der Frauenkrankheiten_ the same gynecological authority states his belief that half of all women are not sexually excitable. Krafft-Ebing was of opinion that women require less sexual satisfaction than men, being less sensual. (Krafft-Ebing, "Ueber Neurosen und Psychosen durch sexuelle Abstinenz," _Jahrbücher für Psychiatrie_, 1888, Bd. viii, ht. I and 2.) "In the normal woman, especially of the higher social classes," states Windscheid, "the sexual instinct is acquired, not inborn; when it is inborn, or awakes by itself, there is abnormality. Since women do not know this instinct before marriage, they do not miss it when they have no occasion in life to learn it." (F. Windscheid, "Die Beziehungen zwischen Gynäkologie und Neurologie," _Zentralblatt für Gynäkologie_, 1896, No. 22; quoted by. Moll, _Libido Sexualis_, Bd. i, p. 271.) "The sensuality of men," Moll states, "is in my opinion very much greater than that of women." (A. Moll, _Die Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, 1899, p. 592.) "Women are, in general, less sensual than men," remarks Näcke, "notwithstanding the alleged greater nervous supply of their sexual organs." (P. Näcke, "Kritisches zum Kapitel der Sexualität," _Archiv für Psychiatrie_, 1899, p. 341.) Löwenfeld states that in normal young girls the specifically sexual feelings are absolutely unknown; so that desire cannot exist in them. Putting aside the not inconsiderable proportion of women in whom this absence of desire may persist and be permanent, even after sexual relationships have begun, thus constituting absolute frigidity, in a still larger number desire remains extremely moderate, constituting a state of relative frigidity. He adds that he cannot unconditionally support the view of Fürbringer, who is inclined to ascribe sexual coldness to the majority of German married women. (L. Löwenfeld, _Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_, 1899, second edition, p. 11.) Adler, who discusses the question at some length, decides that the sexual needs of women are less than those of men, though in some cases the orgasm in quantity and quality greatly exceeds that of men. He believes, not only that the sexual impulse in women is absolutely less than in men, and requires stronger stimulation to arouse it, but that also it suffers from a latency due to inhibition, which acts like a foreign body in the brain (analogous to the psychic trauma of Breuer and Freud in hysteria), and demands great skill in the man who is to awaken the woman to love. (O. Adler, _Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, 1904, pp. 47, 126 et seq.; also enlarged second edition, 1911; id., "Die Frigide Frau," _Sexual-Probleme_, Jan., 1912.) It must not, however, be supposed that this view of the natural tendency of women to frigidity has everywhere found acceptance. It is not only an opinion of very recent growth, but is confined, on the whole, to a few countries. "Turn to history," wrote Brierre de Boismont, "and on every page you will be able to recognize the predominance of erotic ideas in women." It is the same today, he adds, and he attributes it to the fact that men are more easily able to gratify their sexual impulses. (_Des Hallucinations_, 1862, p. 431.) The laws of Manu attribute to women concupiscence and anger, the love of bed and of adornment. The Jews attributed to women greater sexual desire than to men. This is illustrated, according to Knobel (as quoted by Dillmann), by _Genesis_, chapter iii, v. 16. In Greek antiquity the romance and sentiment of love were mainly felt toward persons of the same sex, and were divorced from the more purely sexual feelings felt for persons of opposite sex. Theognis compared marriage to cattle-breeding. In love between men and women the latter were nearly always regarded as taking the more active part. In all Greek love-stories of early date the woman falls in love with the man, and never the reverse. Æschylus makes even a father assume that his daughters will misbehave if left to themselves. Euripides emphasized the importance of women; "The Euripidean woman who 'falls in love' thinks first of all: 'How can I seduce the man I love?"' (E.F.M. Benecke, _Antimachus of Colophon and the Position of Women in Greek Poetry_, 1896, pp. 34, 54.) The most famous passage in Latin literature as to the question of whether men or women obtain greater pleasure from sexual intercourse is that in which Ovid narrates the legend of Tiresias (_Metamorphoses_, iii, 317-333). Tiresias, having been both a man and a woman, decided in favor of women. This passage was frequently quoted down to the eighteenth century. In a passage quoted from a lost work of Galen by the Arabian biographer, Abu-l-Faraj, that great physician says of the Christians "that they practice celibacy, that even many of their women do so." So that in Galen's opinion it was more difficult for a woman than for a man to be continent. The same view is widely prevalent among Arabic authors, and there is an Arabic saying that "The longing of the woman for the penis is greater than that of the man for the vulva." In China, remarks Dr. Coltman, "when an old gentleman of my acquaintance was visiting me my little daughter, 5 years old, ran into the room, and, climbing upon my knee, kissed me. My visitor expressed his surprise, and remarked: 'We never kiss our daughters when they are so large; we may when they are very small, but not after they are 3 years old,' said he, 'because it is apt to excite in them bad emotions.'" (Coltman, _The Chinese_, 1900, p. 99.) The early Christian Fathers clearly show that they regard women as more inclined to sexual enjoyment than men. That was, for instance, the opinion of Tertullian (_De Virginibus Velandis_, chapter x), and it is clearly implied in some of St. Jerome's epistles. Notwithstanding the influence of Christianity, among the vigorous barbarian races of medieval Europe, the existence of sexual appetite in women was not considered to be, as it later became, a matter to be concealed or denied. Thus in 1068 the ecclesiastical historian, Ordericus Vitalis (himself half Norman and half English), narrates that the wives of the Norman knights who had accompanied William the Conqueror to England two years earlier sent over to their husbands to say that they were consumed by the fierce names of desire ("sæva libidinis face urebantur"), and that if their husbands failed to return very shortly they proposed to take other husbands. It is added that this threat brought a few husbands back to their wanton ladies ("lascivis dominabus suis"). During the medieval period in Europe, largely in consequence, no doubt, of the predominance of ascetic ideals set up by men who naturally regarded woman as the symbol of sex, the doctrine of the incontinence of woman became firmly fixed, and it is unnecessary and unprofitable to quote examples. It is sufficient to mention the very comprehensive statement of Jean de Meung (in the _Roman de la Rose_, 9903):-- "Toutes estes, serés, ou fûtes De fait ou de volunté putes." The satirical Jean de Meung was, however, a somewhat extreme and untypical representative of his age, and the fourteenth century Johannes de Sancto Amando (Jean de St. Amand) gives a somewhat more scientifically based opinion (quoted by Pagel, _Neue litterarische Beiträge zur Mittelalterlichen Medicin_, 1896, p. 30) that sexual desire is stronger in women than in men. Humanism and the spread of the Renaissance movement brought in a spirit more sympathetic to women. Soon after, especially in Italy and France, we begin to find attempts at analyzing the sexual emotions, which are not always without a certain subtlety. In the seventeenth century a book of this kind was written by Venette. In matters of love, Venette declared, "men are but children compared to women. In these matters women have a more lively imagination, and they usually have more leisure to think of love. Women are much more lascivious and amorous than men." This is the conclusion reached in a chapter devoted to the question whether men or women are the more amorous. In a subsequent chapter, dealing with the question whether men or women receive more pleasure from the sexual embrace, Venette concludes, after admitting the great difficulty of the question, that man's pleasure is greater, but woman's lasts longer. (N. Venette, _De la Génération de l'Homme ou Tableau de l'Amour Conjugal_, Amsterdam, 1688.) At a much earlier date, however, Montaigne had discussed this matter with his usual wisdom, and, while pointing out that men have imposed their own rule of life on women and their own ideals, and have demanded from them opposite and contradictory virtues,--a statement not yet antiquated,--he argues that women are incomparably more apt and more ardent in love than men are, and that in this matter they always know far more than men can teach them, for "it is a discipline that is born in their veins." (Montaigne, _Essais_, book iii, chapter v.) The old physiologists generally mentioned the appearance of sexual desire in girls as one of the normal signs of puberty. This may be seen in the numerous quotations brought together by Schurig, in his _Parthenologia_, cap. ii. A long succession of distinguished physicians throughout the seventeenth century discussed at more or less length the relative amount of sexual desire in men and women, and the relative degree of their pleasure in coitus. It is remarkable that, although they usually attach great weight to the supposed opinion of Hippocrates in the opposite sense, most of them decide that both desire and pleasure are greater in women. Plazzonus decides that women have more sources of pleasure in coitus than men because of the larger extent of surface excited; and if it were not so, he adds, women would not be induced to incur the pains and risks of pregnancy and childbirth. (Plazzonus, _De Partibus Generationi Inservientibus_, 1621, lib. ii, cap. xiii.) "Without doubt," says Ferrand, "woman is more passionate than man, and more often torn by the evils of love." (Ferrand, _De la Maladie d'Amour_, 1623, chapter ii.) Zacchia, mainly on _a priori_ grounds, concludes that women have more pleasure in coitus than men. (Zacchia, _Quæstiones Medico-legales_, 1630, lib. iii, quest, vii.) Sinibaldus, discussing whether men or women have more salacity, decides in favor of women. (J.B. Sinibaldus, _Geneanthropeia_, 1642, lib. ii, tract. ii, cap. v.) Hornius believed that women have greater sexual pleasure than men, though he mainly supported his opinion by the authority of classical poets. (Hornius, _Historic Naturalis_, 1670, lib. iii, cap. i.) Nenter describes what we may now call women's affectability, and considers that it makes them more prone than men to the sexual emotions, as is shown by the fact that, notwithstanding their modesty, they sometimes make sexual advances. This greater proneness of women to the sexual impulse is, he remarks, entirely natural and right, for the work of generation is mainly carried on by women, and love is its basis: "generationis fundamentum est amor." (G.P. Nenter, _Theoria Hominis Sani_, 1714, cap. v, memb. ii.) The above opinions of seventeenth-century physicians are quoted from the original sources. Schurig, in his _Gynæcologia_, (pp. 46-50 and 71-81), quotes a number of passages on this subject from medical authorities of the same period, on which I have not drawn. Sénancour, in his fine and suggestive book on love, first published in 1806, asks: "Has sexual pleasure the same power on the sex which less loudly demands it? It has more, at all events in some respects. The very vigor and laboriousness of men may lead them to neglect love, but the constant cares of maternity make women feel how important it must ever be to them. We must remember also that in men the special emotions of love only have a single focus, while in women the organs of lactation are united to those of conception. Our feelings are all determined by these material causes." (Sénancour, _De l'Amour_, fourth edition, 1834, vol. i, p. 68.) A later psychologist of love, this time a woman, Ellen Key, states that woman's erotic demands, though more silent than man's, are stronger. (Ellen Key, _Ueber Liebe und Ehe_, p. 138.) Michael Ryan considered that sexual enjoyment "is more delicious and protracted" in women, and ascribed this to a more sensitive nervous system, a finer and more delicate skin, more acute feelings, and the fact that in women the mammæ are the seat of a vivid sensibility in sympathy with the uterus. (M. Ryan, _Philosophy of Marriage_, 1837, p. 153.) Busch was inclined to think women have greater sexual pleasure than men. (D.W.H. Busch, _Das Geschlechtsleben des Weibes_, 1839, vol. i, p. 69.) Kobelt held that the anatomical conformation of the sexual organs in women led to the conclusion that this must be the case. Guttceit, speaking of his thirty years' medical experience in Russia, says: "In Russia at all events, a girl, as very many have acknowledged to me, cannot resist the ever stronger impulses of sex beyond the twenty-second or twenty-third year. And if she cannot do so in natural ways she adopts artificial ways. The belief that the feminine sex feels the stimulus of sex less than the male is quite false." (Guttceit, _Dreissig Jahre Praxis_, 1873, theil i, p. 313.) In Scandinavia, according to Vedeler, the sexual emotions are at least as strong in women as in men (Vedeler, "De Impotentia Feminarum," _Norsk Magazin for Laegevidenskaben_, March, 1894). In Sweden, Dr. Eklund, of Stockholm, remarking that from 25 to 33 per cent. of the births are illegitimate, adds: "We hardly ever hear anyone talk of a woman having been seduced, simply because the lust is at the worst in the woman, who, as a rule, is the seducing party." (Eklund, _Transactions of the American Association of Obstetricians_, Philadelphia, 1892, p. 307.) On the opposite side of the Baltic, in the Königsberg district, the same observation has been made. Intercourse before marriage is the rule in most villages of this agricultural district, among the working classes, with or without intention of subsequent marriage; "the girls are often the seducing parties, or at least very willing; they seek to bind their lovers to them and compel them to marriage." In the Köslin district of Pomerania, where intercourse between the girls and youths is common, the girls come to the youths' rooms even more frequently than the youths to the girls'. In some of the Dantzig districts the girls give themselves to the youths, and even seduce them, sometimes, but not always, with a view of marriage. (Wittenberg, _Die geschlechtsittlichen Verhalten der Landbewohner im Deutschen Reiche_, 1895, Bd. i, pp. 47, 61, 83.) Mantegazza devoted great attention to this point in several of the works he published during fifty years, and was decidedly of the opinion that the sexual emotions are much stronger in women than in men, and that women have much more enjoyment in sexual intercourse. In his _Fisiologia del Piacere_ he supports this view, and refers to the greater complexity of the genital apparatus in women (as well as its larger surface and more protected position), to what he considers to be the keener sensibility of women generally, to the passivity of women, etc.; and he considers that sexual pleasure is rendered more seductive to women by the mystery in which it is veiled for them by modesty and our social habits. In a more recent work (_Fisiologia della Donna_, cap. viii) Mantegazza returns to this subject, and remarks that long experience, while confirming his early opinion, has modified it to the extent that he now believes that, as compared with men, the sexual emotions of women vary within far wider limits. Among men few are quite insensitive to the physical pleasures of love, while, on the other hand, few are thrown by the violence of its emotional manifestations into a state of syncope or convulsions. Among women, while some are absolutely insensitive, others (as in cases with which he was acquainted) are so violently excited by the paradise of physical love that, after the sexual embrace, they faint or fall into a cataleptic condition for several hours. "Physical sex is a larger factor in the life of the woman.... If this be true of the physical element, it is equally true of the mental element." (Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, _The Human Element in Sex_, fifth edition, 1894, p. 47.) "In the female sex," remarks Clouston, "reproduction is a more dominant function of the organism than in the male, and has far larger, if not more intense, relationships to feeling, judgment, and volition." (Clouston, _Neuroses of Development_, 1891.) "It may be said," Marro states, "that in woman the visceral system reacts, if not with greater intensity, certainly in a more general manner, to all the impressions, having a sexual basis, which dominate the life of woman, if not as sexual emotions properly so called, as related emotions closely dependent on the reproductive instinct." (A. Marro, _La Pubertà_, 1898, p. 233.) Forel also believed (_Die Sexuelle Frage_, p. 274) that women are more erotic than men. The gynecologist Kisch states his belief that "The sexual impulse is so powerful in women that at certain periods of life its primitive force dominates her whole nature, and there can be no room left for reason to argue concerning reproduction; on the contrary, union is desired even in the presence of the fear of reproduction or when there can be no question of it." He regards absence of sexual feeling in women as pathological. (Kisch, _Sterilität des Weibes_, second edition, pp. 205-206.) In his later work (_The Sexual Life of Woman_) Kisch again asserts that sexual impulse always exists in mature women (in the absence of organic sexual defect and cerebral disease), though it varies in strength and may be repressed. In adolescent girls, however, it is weaker than in youths of the same age. After she has had sexual experiences, Kisch maintains, a woman's sexual emotions are just as powerful as a man's, though she has more motives than a man for controlling them. Eulenburg is of the same opinion as Kisch, and sharply criticises the loose assertion of some authorities who have expressed themselves in an opposite sense. (A. Eulenburg, _Sexuale Neuropathie_, pp. 88-90; the same author has dealt with the point in the _Zukunft_, December 2, 1893.) Kossmann states that the opinion as to the widespread existence of frigidity among women is a fable. (Kossmann, _Allgemeine Gynæcologie_, 1903, p. 362.) Bloch concludes that "in most cases the sexual coldness of women is in fact only apparent, either due to the concealment of glowing sexuality beneath the veil of outward reticence prescribed by conventional morality, or else to the husband who has not succeeded in arousing erotic sensations which are complicated and with difficulty awakened.... The sexual sensibility of women is certainly different from that of men, but in strength it is at least as great." (Iwan Bloch, _Das Sexualleben unserer Zeit_ 1907, ch. v.) Nyström, also, after devoting a chapter to the discussion of the causes of sexual coldness in women, concludes: "My conviction, founded on experience, is, that only a small number of women would be without sexual feeling if sound views and teaching prevailed in respect to the sexual life, if due weight were given to inner devotion and tender caresses as the preliminaries of love in marriage, and if couples who wish to avoid pregnancy would adopt sensible preventive methods instead of _coitus interruptus_." (A. Nyström, _Das Geschlichtsleben und seine Gesetze_, eighth edition, 1907, p. 177.) We thus find two opinions widely current: one, of world-wide existence and almost universally accepted in those ages and centers in which life is lived most nakedly, according to which the sexual impulse is stronger in women than in men; another, now widely prevalent in many countries, according to which the sexual instinct is distinctly weaker in women, if, indeed, it may not be regarded as normally absent altogether. A third view is possible: it may be held that there is no difference at all. This view, formerly not very widely held, is that of the French physiologist, Beaunis, as it is of Winckel; while Rohleder, who formerly held that sexual feeling tends to be defective in women, now believes that men and women are equal in sexual impulse. At an earlier period, however, Donatus (_De Medica Historia Mirabili_, 1613, lib. iv, cap. xvii) held the same view, and remarked that sometimes men and sometimes women are the more salacious, varying with the individual. Roubaud (_De l'Impuissance_, 1855, p. 38) stated that the question is so difficult as to be insoluble. In dealing with the characteristics of the sexual impulse in women, it will be seen, we have to consider the prevalence in them of what is commonly termed (in its slightest forms) frigidity or hyphedonia, and (in more complete form) sexual anesthesia or anaphrodism, or erotic blindness, or anhedonia.[157] Many modern writers have referred to the prevalence of frigidity among women. Shufeldt believes (_Pacific Medical Journal_, Nov., 1907) that 75 per cent, of married women in New York are afflicted with sexual frigidity, and that it is on the increase; it is rare, however, he adds, among Jewish women. Hegar gives 50 per cent, as the proportion of sexually anesthetic women; Fürbringer says the majority of women are so. Effertz (quoted by Löwenfeld, _Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_, p. 11, apparently with approval) regards 10 per cent, among women generally as sexually anesthetic, but only 1 per cent, men. Moll states (Eulenburg's _Encyclopädie_, fourth edition, art. "Geschlechtstrieb") that the prevalence of sexual anesthesia among German women varies, according to different authorities, from 10 to 66 per cent. Elsewhere Moll (_Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, 1890, p. 510) emphasizes the statement that "sexual anesthesia in women is much more frequent than is generally supposed." He explains that he is referring to the physical element of pleasure and satisfaction in intercourse, and of desire for intercourse. He adds that the psychic side of love is often more conspicuous in women than in men. He cannot agree with Sollier that this kind of sexual frigidity is a symptom of hysteria. Féré (_L'Instinct Sexuel_, second edition, p. 112), in referring to the greater frequency of sexual anesthesia in women, remarks that it is often associated with neuropathic states, as well as with anomalies of the genital organs, or general troubles of nutrition, and is usually acquired. Some authors attribute great importance to amenorrhea in this connection; one investigator has found that in 4 out of 14 cases of absolute amenorrhea sexual feeling was absent. Löwenfeld, again (_Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_), referring to the common misconception that nervous disorder is associated with increased sexual desire, points out that nervously degenerate women far more often display frigidity than increased sexual desire. Elsewhere (_Ueber die Sexuelle Konstitution_) Löwenfeld says it is only among the upper classes that sexual anesthesia is common. Campbell Clark, also, showed some years ago that, in young women with a tendency to chlorosis and a predisposition to insanity, defects of pelvic and mammary development are very prevalent. (_Journal of Mental Science_, October, 1888.) As regards the older medical authors, Schurig (_Spermatologia_, 1720, p. 243, and _Gynæcologia_, 1730, p. 81) brought together from the literature and from his own knowledge cases of women who felt no pleasure in coitus, as well as of some men who had erections without pleasure. There is, however, much uncertainty as to what precisely is meant by sexual frigidity or anesthesia. All the old medical authors carefully distinguish between the heat of sexual desire and the actual presence of pleasure in coitus; many modern writers also properly separate _libido_ from _voluptas_, since it is quite possible to experience sexual desires and not to be able to obtain their gratification during sexual intercourse, and it is possible to hold, with Mantegazza, that women naturally have stronger sexual impulses than men, but are more liable than men to experience sexual anesthesia. But it is very much more difficult than most people seem to suppose, to obtain quite precise and definite data concerning the absence of either _voluptas_ or _libido_ in a woman. Even if we accept the statement of the woman who asserts that she has either or both, the statement of their absence is by no means equally conclusive and final. As even Adler--who discusses this question fully and has very pronounced opinions about it--admits, there are women who stoutly deny the existence of any sexual feelings until such feelings are actually discovered.[158] Some of the most marked characteristics of the sexual impulse in women, moreover,--its association with modesty, its comparatively late development, its seeming passivity, its need of stimulation,--all combine to render difficult the final pronouncement that a woman is sexually frigid. Most significant of all in this connection is the complexity of the sexual apparatus in women and the corresponding psychic difficulty--based on the fundamental principle of sexual selection--of finding a fitting mate. The fact that a woman is cold with one man or even with a succession of men by no means shows that she is not apt to experience sexual emotions; it merely shows that these men have not been able to arouse them. "I recall two very striking cases," a distinguished gynecologist, the late Dr. Engelmann, of Boston, wrote to me, "of very attractive young married women--one having had a child, the other a miscarriage--who were both absolutely cold to their husbands, as told me by both husband and wife. They could not understand desire or passion, and would not even believe that it existed. Yet, both these women with other men developed ardent passion, all the stronger perhaps because it had been so long latent." In such cases it is scarcely necessary to invoke Adler's theory of a morbid inhibition, or "foreign body in consciousness," which has to be overcome. We are simply in the presence of the natural fact that the female throughout nature not only requires much loving, but is usually fastidious in the choice of a lover. In the human species this natural fact is often disguised and perverted. Women are not always free to choose the man whom they would prefer as a lover, nor even free to find out whether the man they prefer sexually fits them; they are, moreover, very often extremely ignorant of the whole question of sex, and the victims of the prejudice and false conventions they have been taught. On the one hand, they are driven into an unnatural primness and austerity; on the other hand, they rebound to an equally unnatural facility or even promiscuity. Thus it happens that the men who find that a large number of women are not so facile as they themselves are, and as they have found a large number of women to be, rush to the conclusion that women tend to be "sexually anesthetic." If we wish to be accurate, it is very doubtful whether we can assert that a woman is ever absolutely without the aptitude for sexual satisfaction.[159] She may unquestionably be without any conscious desire for actual coitus. But if we realize to how large an extent woman is a sexual organism, and how diffused and even unconscious the sexual impulses may be, it becomes very difficult to assert that she has never shown any manifestation of the sexual impulse. All we can assert with some degree of positiveness in some cases is that she has not manifested sexual gratification, more particularly as shown by the occurrence of the orgasm, but that is very far indeed from warranting us to assert that she never will experience such gratification or still less that she is organically incapable of experiencing it.[160] It is therefore quite impossible to follow Adler when he asks us to accept the existence of a condition which he solemnly terms _anæsthesia sexualis completa idiopathica_, in which there is no mechanical difficulty in the way or psychic inhibition, but an "absolute" lack of sexual sensibility and a complete absence of sexual inclination.[161] It is instructive to observe that Adler himself knows no "pure" case of this condition. To find such a case he has to go back nearly two centuries to Madame de Warens, to whom he devotes a whole chapter. He has, moreover, had the courage in writing this chapter to rely entirely on Rousseau's _Confessions_, which were written nearly half a century later than the episodes they narrated, and are therefore full of inaccuracies, besides being founded on an imperfect and false knowledge of Madame de Warens's earlier life, and written by a man who was, there can be no doubt, not able to arouse women's passions. Adler shows himself completely ignorant of the historical investigations of De Montet, Mugnier, Ritter, and others which, during recent years, have thrown a flood of light on the life and character of Madame de Warens, and not even acquainted with the highly significant fact that she was hysterical.[162] This is the basis of "fact" on which we are asked to accept _anæsthesia sexualis completa idiopathica!_[163] "In dealing with the alleged absence of the sexual impulse," a well-informed medical correspondent writes from America, "much caution has to be used in accepting statements as to its absence, from the fact that most women fear by the admission to place themselves in an impure category. I am also satisfied that influx of women into universities, etc., is often due to the sexual impulse causing restlessness, and that this factor finds expression in the prurient prudishness so often presenting itself in such women, which interferes with coeducation. This is becoming especially noticeable at the University of Chicago, where prudishness interferes with classical, biological, sociological, and physiological discussion in the classroom. There have been complaints by such women that a given professor has not left out embryological facts not in themselves in any way implying indelicacy. I have even been informed that the opinion is often expressed in college dormitories that embryological facts and discussions should be left out of a course intended for both sexes." Such prudishness, it is scarcely necessary to remark, whether found in women or men, indicates a mind that has become morbidly sensitive to sexual impressions. For the healthy mind embryological and allied facts have no emotionally sexual significance, and there is, therefore, no need to shun them. Kolischer, of Chicago ("Sexual Frigidity in Women," _American Journal of Obstetrics_, Sept., 1905), points out that it is often the failure of the husband to produce sexual excitement in the wife which leads to voluntary repression of sexual sensation on her part, or an acquired sexual anesthesia. "Sexual excitement," he remarks, "not brought to its natural climax, the reaction leaves the woman in a very disagreeable condition, and repeated occurrences of this kind may even lead to general nervous disturbances. Some of these unfortunate women learn to suppress their sexual sensation so as to avoid all these disagreeable sequelæ. Such a state of affairs is not only unfortunate, because it deprives the female partner of her natural rights, but it is also to be deplored because it practically brings down such a married woman to the level of the prostitute." In illustration of the prevalence of inhibitions of various kinds, from without and from within, in suppressing or disguising sexual feeling in women, I may quote the following observations by an American lady concerning a series of women of her acquaintance:-- "Mrs. A. This woman is handsome and healthy. She has never had children, much to the grief of herself and her husband. The man is also handsome and attractive. Mrs. A. once asked me if love-making between me and my husband ever originated with me. I replied it was as often so as not, and she said that in that event she could not see how passion between husband and wife could be regulated. When I seemed not to be ashamed of the matter, but rather to be positive in my views that it should be so, she at once tried to impress me with the fact that she did not wish me to think she 'could not be aroused.' This woman several times hinted that she had learned a great amount that was not edifying at boarding school, and I always felt that, with proper encouragement, she would have retailed suggestive stories. "Mrs. B. This woman lives to please her husband, who is a spoiled man. She gave birth to a child soon after marriage, but was left an invalid for some years. She told me coition always hurt her, and she said it made her sick to see her husband nude. I was therefore surprised, years afterward, to hear her say, in reply to a remark of another person, 'Yes; women are not only as passionate as men, I am sure they are more so.' I therefore questioned the lack of passion she had on former occasions avowed, or else felt convinced her improvement in health had made intercourse pleasant. "Miss C. A teacher. She is emotional and easily becomes hysterical. Her life has been one of self-sacrifice and her rearing most Puritanical. She told me she thought women did not crave sexual satisfaction unless it had been aroused in them. I consider her one who physically is injured by not having it. "Mrs. D. After being married a few years this person told me she thought intercourse 'horrid.' Some years after this, however, she fell in love with a man not her husband, which caused their separation. She always fancied men in love with her, and she told me that she and her husband tried to live without intercourse, fearing more children, but they could not do it; she also told of trying to refrain, for the same purpose, until safe parts of the menstrual month, but that 'was just the time she cared least for it.' These remarks made me doubt the sincerity of the first. "Mrs. E. said she enjoyed intercourse as well as her husband, and she 'didn't see why she should not say so.' This same woman, whether using a current phrase or not, afterward said her husband 'did not bother her very often.' "Mrs. F., the mother of several children, was married to a man she neither loved nor respected, but she said that when a strange man touched her it made her tremble all over. "Mrs. G., the mother of many children, divorced on account of the dissipation, drinking and otherwise, of her husband. She is of the creole type, but large and almost repulsive. She is a brilliant talker and she supports herself by writing. She has fallen in love with a number of young men, 'wildly, madly, passionately,' as one of them told me, and I am sure she suffers greatly from the lack of satisfaction. She would no doubt procure it if it were possible. "I believe," the writer concludes, "women are as passionate as men, but the enforced restraint of years possibly smothers it. The fear of having children and the methods to prevent conception are, I am sure, potent factors in the injury to the emotions of married women. Perhaps the lack of intercourse acts less disastrously upon a woman because of the renewed feeling which comes after each menstrual period." As bearing on the causes which have led to the disguise and misinterpretation of the sexual impulse in women I may quote the following communication from another lady:-- "I do think the coldness of women has been greatly exaggerated. Men's theoretically ideal woman (though they don't care so much about it in practice) is passionless, and women are afraid to admit that they have any desire for sexual pleasure. Rousseau, who was not very straight-laced, excuses the conduct of Madame de Warens on the ground that it was not the result of passion: an aggravation rather than a palliation of the offense, if society viewed it from the point of view of any other fault. Even in the modern novels written by the 'new woman' the longing for maternity, always an honorable sentiment, is dragged in to veil the so-called 'lower' desire. That some women, at any rate, have very strong passions and that great suffering is entailed by their repression is not, I am sure, sufficiently recognized, even by women themselves. "Besides the 'passionless ideal' which checks their sincerity, there are many causes which serve to disguise a woman's feelings to herself and make her seem to herself colder than she really is. Briefly these are:-- "1. Unrecognized disease of the reproductive organs, especially after the birth of children. A friend of mine lamented to me her inability to feel pleasure, though she had done so before the birth of her child, then 3 years old. With considerable difficulty I persuaded her to see a doctor, who told her all the reproductive organs were seriously congested; so that for three years she had lived in ignorance and regret for her husband's sake and her own. "2. The dread of recommencing, once having suffered them, all the pains and discomforts of child-bearing. "3. Even when precautions are taken, much bother and anxiety is involved, which has a very dampening effect on excitement. "4. The fact that men will never take any trouble to find out what specially excites a woman. A woman, as a rule, is at some pains to find out the little things which particularly affect the man she loves,--it may be a trick of speech, a rose in her hair, or what not,--and she makes use of her knowledge. But do you know one man who will take the same trouble? (It is difficult to specify, as what pleases one person may not another. I find that the things that affect me personally are the following: [_a_] Admiration for a man's mental capacity will translate itself sometimes into direct physical excitement. [_b_] Scents of white flowers, like tuberose or syringa. [_c_] The sight of fireflies. [_d_] The idea or the reality of suspension. [_e_] Occasionally absolute passivity.) "5. The fact that many women satisfy their husbands when themselves disinclined. This is like eating jam when one does not fancy it, and has a similar effect. It is a great mistake, in my opinion, to do so, except very rarely. A man, though perhaps cross at the time, prefers, I believe, to gratify himself a few times, when the woman also enjoys it, to many times when she does not. "6. The masochistic tendency of women, or their desire for subjection to the man they love. I believe no point in the whole question is more misunderstood than this. Nearly every man imagines that to secure a woman's love and respect he must give her her own way in small things, and compel her obedience in great ones. Every man who desires success with a woman should exactly reverse that theory." When we are faced by these various and often conflicting statements of opinion it seems necessary to obtain, if possible, a definite basis of objective fact. It would be fairly obvious in any case, and it becomes unquestionable in view of the statements I have brought together, that the best-informed and most sagacious clinical observers, when giving an opinion on a very difficult and elusive subject which they have not studied with any attention and method, are liable to make unguarded assertions; sometimes, also, they become the victims of ethical or pseudoethical prejudices, so as to be most easily influenced by that class of cases which happens to fit in best with their prepossessions.[164] In order to reach any conclusions on a reasonable basis it is necessary to take a series of unselected individuals and to ascertain carefully the condition of the sexual impulse in each. At present, however, this is extremely difficult to do at all satisfactorily, and quite impossible, indeed, to do in a manner likely to yield absolutely unimpeachable results. Nevertheless, a few series of observations have been made. Thus, Dr. Harry Campbell[165] records the result of an investigation, carried on in his hospital practice, of 52 married women of the poorer class; they were not patients, but ordinary, healthy working-class women, and the inquiry was not made directly, but of the husbands, who were patients. Sexual instinct was said to be present in 12 cases before marriage, and absent in 40; in 13 of the 40 it never appeared at all; so that it altogether appeared in 39, or in the ratio of something over 75 per cent. Among the 12 in whom it existed before marriage it was said to have appeared in most with puberty; in 3, however, a few years before puberty, and in 2 a few years later. In 2 of those in whom it appeared before puberty, menstruation began late; in the third it rose almost to nymphomania on the day preceding the first menstruation. In nearly all the cases desire was said to be stronger in the husband than in the wife; when it was stronger in the wife, the husband was exceptionally indifferent. Of the 13 in whom desire was absent after marriage, 5 had been married for a period under two years, and Campbell remarks that it would be wrong to conclude that it would never develop in these cases, for in this group of cases the appearance of sexual instinct was sometimes a matter of days, sometimes of years, after the date of marriage. In two-thirds of the cases there was a diminution of desire, usually gradual, at the climacteric; in the remaining third there was either no change or exaltation of desire. The most important general result, Campbell concludes, is that "the sexual instinct is very much less intense in woman than in man," and to this he elsewhere adds a corollary that "the sexual instinct in the civilized woman is, I believe, tending to atrophy." An eminent gynecologist, the late Dr. Matthews Duncan, has (in his work on _Sterility in Women_) presented a table which, although foreign to this subject, has a certain bearing on the matter. Matthews Duncan, believing that the absence of sexual desire and of sexual pleasure in coitus are powerful influences working for sterility, noted their presence or absence in a number of cases, and found that, among 191 sterile women between the ages of 15 and 45, 152, or 79 per cent., acknowledged the presence of sexual desire; and among 196 sterile women (mostly the same cases), 134, or 68 per cent., acknowledged the presence of sexual pleasure in coitus. Omitting the cases over 35 years of age, which were comparatively few, the largest proportion of affirmative answers, both as regards sexual pleasure and sexual desire, was from between 30 and 34 years of age. Matthews Duncan assumes that the absence of sexual desire and sexual pleasure in women is thoroughly abnormal.[166] An English non-medical author, in the course of a thoughtful discussion of sexual phenomena, revealing considerable knowledge and observation,[167] has devoted a chapter to this subject in another of its aspects. Without attempting to ascertain the normal strength of the sexual instinct in women, he briefly describes 11 cases of "sexual anesthesia" in Women (in 2 or 3 of which there appears, however, to be an element of latent homosexuality) from among the circle of his own friends. This author concludes that sexual coldness is very common among English women, and that it involves questions of great social and ethical importance. I have not met with any series of observations made among seemingly healthy and normal women in other countries; there are, however, various series of somewhat abnormal cases in which the point was noted, and the results are not uninstructive. Thus, in Vienna at Krafft-Ebing's psychiatric clinic, Gattel (_Ueber die sexuellen Ursachen der Neurasthenie und Angstneurose_, 1898) carefully investigated the cases of 42 women, mostly at the height of sexual life,--i.e., between 20 and 35,--who were suffering from slight nervous disorders, especially neurasthenia and mild hysteria, but none of them from grave nervous or other disease. Of these 42, at least 17 had masturbated, at one time or another, either before or after marriage, in order to obtain relief of sexual feelings. In the case of 4 it is stated that they do not obtain sexual satisfaction in marriage, but in these cases only _coitus interruptus_ is practised, and the fact that the absence of sexual satisfaction was complained of seems to indicate an aptitude for experiencing it. These 4 cases can therefore scarcely be regarded as exceptions. In all the other cases sexual desire, sexual excitement, or sexual satisfaction is always clearly indicated, and in a considerable proportion of cases it is noted that the sexual impulse is very strongly developed. This series is valuable, since the facts of the sexual life are, as far as possible, recorded with much precision. The significance of the facts varies, however, according to the view taken as to the causation of neurasthenia and allied conditions of slight nervous disorder. Gattel argues that sexual irregularities are a peculiarly fruitful, if not invariable, source of such disorders; according to the more commonly accepted view this is not so. If we accept the more usual view, these women fairly correspond to average women of lower class; if, however, we accept Gattel's view, they may possess the sexual instinct in a more marked degree than average women. In a series of 116 German women in whom the operation of removing the ovaries was performed, Pfister usually noted briefly in what way the sexual impulse was affected by the operation ("Die Wirkung der Castration auf den Weiblichen Organismus," _Archiv für Gynäkologie_, 1898, p. 583). In 13 cases (all but 3 unmarried) the presence of sexual desire at any time was denied, and 2 of these expressed disgust of sexual matters. In 12 cases the point is left doubtful. In all the other cases sexual desire had once been present, and in 2 or 3 cases it was acknowledged to be so strong as to approach nymphomania. In about 30 of these (not including any in which it was previously very strong) it was extinguished by castration, in a few others it was diminished, and in the rest unaffected. Thus, when we exclude the 12 cases in which the point was not apparently investigated, and the 10 unmarried women, in whom it may have been latent or unavowed, we find that, of 94 married women, 91 women acknowledged the existence of sexual desire and only 3 denied it. Schröter, again in Germany, has investigated the manifestations of the sexual impulse among 402 insane women in the asylum at Eichberg in Rheingau. ("Wird bei jungen Unverheiratheten zur Zeit der Menstruation stärkere sexuelle Erregheit beobaehtet?" _Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, vol. lvi, 1899, pp. 321-333.) There is no reason to suppose that the insane represent a class of the community specially liable to sexual emotion, although its manifestations may become unrestrained and conspicuous under the influence of insanity; and at the same time, while the appearance of such manifestations is evidence of the aptitude for sexual emotions, their absence may be only due to disease, seclusion, or to an intact power of self-control. Of the 402 women, 166 were married and 236 unmarried. Schröter divided them into four groups: (1) those below 20; (2) those between 20 and 30; (3) those between 30 and 40; (4) those from 40 to the menopause. The patients included persons from the lowest class of the population, and only about a quarter of them could fairly be regarded as curable. Thus the manifestations of sexuality were diminished, for with advance of mental disease sexual manifestations cease to appear. Schröter only counted those cases in which the sexual manifestations were decided and fairly constant at the menstrual epoch; if not visibly manifested, sexual feeling was not taken into account. Sexual phenomena accompanied the entry of the menstrual epoch in 141 cases: i.e., in 20 (or in the proportion of 72 per cent.) of the first group, consisting entirely of unmarried women; in 33 (or 28 per cent.) of the second group; in 55 (or 35 per cent.) of the third group; and in 33 (or 33 per cent.) of the fourth group. It was found that 181 patients showed no sexual phenomena at any time, while 80 showed sexual phenomena frequently between the menstrual epochs, but only in a slight degree, and not at all during the period. At all ages sexual manifestations were more prevalent among the unmarried than among the married, though this difference became regularly and progressively less with increase in age. Schröter inclines to think that sexual excitement is commoner among insane women belonging to the lower social classes than in those belonging to the better classes. Among 184 women in a private asylum, only 13 (6.13 per cent.) showed very marked and constant excitement at menstrual periods. He points out, however, that this may be due to a greater ability to restrain the manifestations of feeling. There is some interest in Schröter's results, though they cannot be put on a line with inquiries made among the sane; they only represent the prevalence of the grossest and strongest sexual manifestations when freed from the restraints of sanity. As a slight contribution toward the question, I have selected a series of 12 cases of women of whose sexual development I possess precise information, with the following results: In 2 cases distinct sexual feeling was experienced spontaneously at the age of 7 and 8, but the complete orgasm only occurred some years after puberty; in 5 cases sexual feeling appeared spontaneously for a few months to a year after the appearance of menstruation, which began between 12 and 14 years of age, usually at 13; in another case sexual feeling first appeared shortly after menstruation began, but not spontaneously, being called out by a lover's advances; in the remaining 4 cases sexual emotion never became definite and conscious until adult life (the ages being 26, 27, 34, 35), in 2 cases through being made love to, and in 2 cases through self-manipulation out of accident or curiosity. It is noteworthy that the sexual feelings first developed in adult life were usually as strong as those arising at puberty. It may be added that, of these 12 women, 9 had at some time or another masturbated (4 shortly after puberty, 5 in adult life), but, except in 1 case, rarely and at intervals. All belong to the middle class, 2 or 3 leading easy, though not idle, lives, while all the others are engaged in professional or other avocations often involving severe labor. They differ widely in character and mental ability; but, while 2 or 3 might be regarded as slightly abnormal, they are all fairly healthy. I am inclined to believe that the experiences of the foregoing group are fairly typical of the social class to which they belong. I may, however, bring forward another series of 35 women, varying in age from 18 to 40 (with 2 exceptions all over 25), and in every respect comparable with the smaller group, but concerning whom my knowledge, though reliable, is usually less precise and detailed. In this group 5 state that they have never experienced sexual emotion, these being all unmarried and leading strictly chaste lives; in 18 cases the sexual impulse may be described as strong, or is so considered by the subject herself; in 9 cases it is only moderate; in 3 it is very slight when evoked, and with difficulty evoked, in 1 of these only appearing two years after marriage, in another the exhaustion and worry of household cares being assigned for its comparative absence. It is noteworthy that all the more highly intelligent, energetic women in the series appear in the group of those with strong sexual emotions, and also that severe mental and physical labor, even when cultivated for this purpose, has usually had little or no influence in relieving sexual emotion. An American physician in the State of Connecticut sends me the following notes concerning a series of 13 married women, taken, as they occurred, in obstetric practice. They are in every way respectable and moral women:-- "Mrs. A. says that her husband does not give her sufficient sexual attention, as he fears they will have more children than he can properly care for. Mrs. B. always enjoys intercourse; so does Mrs. C. Mrs. D. is easily excited and very fond of sexual attention. Mrs. E. likes intercourse if her husband is careful not to hurt her. Mrs. F. never had any sexual desire until after second marriage, but it is now very urgent at times. Mrs. G. is not easily excited, but has never objected to her husband's attention. Mrs. H. would prefer to have her husband exhibit more attention. Mrs. I. never refused her husband, but he does not trouble her much. Mrs. J. thinks that three or four times a week is satisfactory, but would not object to nightly intercourse. Mrs. K. does not think that her husband could give her more than she would like. Mrs. L. would prefer to live with a woman if it were not for sexual intercourse. Mrs. M., aged 40, says that her husband, aged 65, insists upon intercourse three times every night, and that he keeps her tired and disgusted. She each time has at least one orgasm, and would not object to reasonable attention." It may be remarked that, while these results in English women of the middle class are in fair agreement with the German and Austrian observations I have quoted, they differ from Campbell's results among women of the working class in London. This discrepancy is, perhaps, not difficult to explain. While the conditions of upper-class life may possibly be peculiarly favorable to the development of the sexual emotions, among the working classes in London, where the stress of the struggle for existence under bad hygienic conditions is so severe, they may be peculiarly unfavorable. It is thus possible that there really are a smaller number of women experiencing sexual emotion among the class dealt with by Campbell than among the class to which my series belong.[168] A more serious consideration is the method of investigation. A working man, who is perhaps unintelligent outside his own work, and in many cases married to a woman who is superior in refinement, may possibly be able to arouse his wife's sexual emotions, and also able to ascertain what those emotions are, and be willing to answer questions truthfully on this point, to the best of his ability, but he is by no means a witness whose evidence is final. While, however, Campbell's facts may not be quite unquestionable, I am inclined to agree with his conclusion, and Mantegazza's, that there is a very great range of variation in this matter, and that there is no age at which the sexual impulse in women may not appear. A lady who has received the confidence of very many women tells me that she has never found a woman who was without sexual feeling. I should myself be inclined to say that it is extremely difficult to find a woman who is without the aptitude for sexual emotion, although a great variety of circumstances may hinder, temporarily or permanently, the development of this latent aptitude. In other words, while the latent sexual aptitude may always be present, the sexual impulse is liable to be defective and the aptitude to remain latent, with consequent deficiency of sexual emotion, and absence of sexual satisfaction. This is not only indicated by the considerable proportion of my cases in which there is only moderate or slight sexual feeling. I have ample evidence that in many cases the element of pain, which may almost be said to be normal in the establishment of the sexual function, is never merged, as it normally is, in pleasurable sensations on the full establishment of sexual relationships. Sometimes, no doubt, this may be due to dyspareunia. Sometimes there may be an absolute sexual anesthesia, whether of congenital or hysterical origin. I have been told of the case of a married lady who has never been able to obtain sexual pleasure, although she has had relations with several men, partly to try if she could obtain the experience, and partly to please them; the very fact that the motives for sexual relationships arose from no stronger impulse itself indicates a congenital defect on the psychic as well as on the physical side. But, as a rule, the sexual anesthesia involved is not absolute, but lies in a disinclination to the sexual act due to various causes, in a defect of strong sexual impulse, and an inaptitude for the sexual orgasm. I am indebted to a lady who has written largely on the woman question, and is herself the mother of a numerous family, for several letters in regard to the prevalence among women of sexual coldness, a condition which she regards as by no means to be regretted. She considers that in all her own children the sexual impulse is very slightly developed, the boys being indifferent to women, the girls cold toward men and with no desire to marry, though all are intelligent and affectionate, the girls showing a very delicate and refined kind of beauty. (A large selection of photographs accompanied this communication.) Something of the same tendency is said to mark the stocks from which this family springs, and they are said to be notable for their longevity, healthiness, and disinclination for excesses of all kinds. It is scarcely necessary to remark that a mother, however highly intelligent, is by no means an infallible judge as to the presence or absence in her children of so shy, subtle, and elusive an impulse as that of sex. At the same time I am by no means disposed to question the existence in individuals, and even in families or stocks, of a relatively weak sexual impulse, which, while still enabling procreation to take place, is accompanied by no strong attraction to the opposite sex and no marked inclination for marriage. (Adler, op. cit., p. 168, found such a condition transmitted from mother to daughter.) Such persons often possess a delicate type of beauty. Even, however, when the health is good there seems usually to be a certain lack of vitality. It seems to me that a state of sexual anesthesia, relative or absolute, cannot be considered as anything but abnormal. To take even the lowest ground, the satisfaction of the reproductive function ought to be at least as gratifying as the evacuation of the bowels or bladder; while, if we take, as we certainly must, higher ground than this, an act which is at once the supreme fact and symbol of love and the supreme creative act cannot under normal conditions be other than the most pleasurable of all acts, or it would stand in violent opposition to all that we find in nature. How natural the sexual impulse is in women, whatever difficulties may arise in regard to its complete gratification, is clearly seen when we come to consider the frequency with which in young women we witness its more or less instinctive manifestations. Such manifestations are liable to occur in a specially marked manner in the years immediately following the establishment of puberty, and are the more impressive when we remember the comparatively passive part played by the female generally in the game of courtship, and the immense social force working on women to compel them to even an unnatural extension of that passive part. The manifestations to which I allude not only occur with most frequency in young girls, but, contrary to the common belief, they seem to occur chiefly in innocent and unperverted girls. The more vicious are skillful enough to avoid the necessity for any such open manifestations. We have to bear this in mind when confronted by flagrant sexual phenomena in young girls. "A young girl," says Hammer ("Ueber die Sinnlichkeit gesunder Jungfrauen," _Die Neue Generation_, Aug., 1911), "who has not previously adopted any method of self-gratification experiences at the beginning of puberty, about the time of the first menstruation and the sprouting of the pubic hair, in the absence of all stimulation by a man, spontaneous sexual tendencies of both local and psychic nature. On the psychic side there is a feeling of emptiness and dissatisfaction, a need of subjection and of serving, and, if the opportunity has so far been absent, the craving to see masculine nudity and to learn the facts of procreation. Side by side with these wishes, there are at the same time inhibitory desires, such as the wish to keep herself pure, either for a man whom she represents to herself as the 'ideal,' or for her parents, who must not be worried, or as a member of a chosen people in whose spirit she must live and die, or out of love to Jesus or to some saint. On the physical side, there is the feeling of fresh power and energy, of enterprise; the agreeable tension of the genital regions, which easily become moist. Then there is the feeling of overirritability and excess of tension, and the need of relieving the tension through pinches, blows, tight lacing, and so forth. If the girl remains innocent of sex satisfaction, there takes place during sleep, at regular intervals of about three days, more or less the relief and emission of the tense glands, not corresponding to the menstrual period, but to intercourse, and serving better than sexual instruction to represent to her the phenomena of intercourse. If at this period actual intercourse takes place, it is, as a rule, free from pain, as also is the introduction of the speculum. Without any seduction from without, the chaste girl now frequently finds a way to relieve the excessive tension without the aid of a man. It is self-abuse that leads gradually to the production of pain in defloration. The menstrual phenomena correspond to birth; self-gratification or relief during sleep to intercourse." This statement of the matter is somewhat too absolute and unqualified. Under the artificial conditions of civilization the inhibitory influences of training speedily work powerfully, and more or less successfully, in banishing sexual phenomena into the subconscious, sometimes to work all the mischief there which Freud attributes to them. It must also be said (as I have pointed out in the discussion of Auto-erotism in another volume) that sexual dreams seem to be the exception rather than the rule in innocent girls. It remains true that sexual phenomena in girls at puberty must not be regarded as morbid or unnatural. There is also very good reason for believing (even apart from the testimony of so experienced a gynecologist as Hammer) that on the physical side sexual processes tend to be accomplished with a facility that is often lost in later years with prolonged chastity. This is true alike of intercourse and of childbirth. (See vol. vi of these _Studies_, ch. xii.) Even, however, in the case of adults the active part played by women in real life in matters of love by no means corresponds to the conventional ideas on these subjects. No doubt nearly every woman receives her sexual initiation from an older and more experienced man. But, on the other hand, nearly every man receives his first initiation through the active and designed steps taken by an older and more experienced woman. It is too often forgotten by those who write on these subjects that the man who seduces a woman has usually himself in the first place been "seduced" by a woman. A well-known physician in Chicago tells me that on making inquiry of 25 middle-class married men in succession be found that 16 had been first seduced by a woman. An officer in the Indian Medical Service writes to me as follows: "Once at a club in Burma we were some 25 at table and the subject of first intercourse came up. All had been led astray by servants save 2, whom their sisters' governesses had initiated. We were all men in the 'service,' so the facts may be taken to be typical of what occurs in our stratum of society. All had had sexual relations with respectable unmarried girls, and most with the wives of men known to their fathers, in some instances these being old enough to be their lovers' mothers. Apparently up to the age of 17 none had dared to make the first advances, yet from the age of 13 onward all had had ample opportunity for gratifying their sexual instincts with women. Though all had been to public schools where homosexuality was known to occur, yet (as I can assert from intimate knowledge) none had given signs of inversion or perversion in Burma." In Russia, Tchlenoff, investigating the sexual life of over 2000 Moscow students of upper and middle class (_Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Oct.-Nov., 1908), found that in half of them the first coitus took place between 14 and 17 years of age; in 41 per cent, with prostitutes, in 39 per cent, with servants, and in 10 per cent, with married women. In 41 per cent, the young man declared that he had taken the initiative, in 25 per cent, the women took it, and in 23 per cent, the incitement came from a comrade. The histories I have recorded in Appendix B (as well as in the two following volumes of these _Studies_) very well illustrate the tendency of young girls to manifest sexual impulses when freed from the constraint which they feel in the presence of adult men and from the fear of consequences. These histories show especially how very frequently nurse-maids and servant-girls effect the sexual initiation of the young boys intrusted to them. How common this impulse is among adolescent girls of low social class is indicated by the fact that certainly the majority of middle-class men can recall instances from their own childhood. (I here leave out of account the widespread practice among nurses of soothing very young children in their charge by manipulating the sexual organs.) A medical correspondent, in emphasizing this point, writes that "many boys will tell you that, if a nurse-girl is allowed to sleep in the same room with them, she will attempt sexual manipulations. Either the girl gets into bed with the boy and pulling him on to her tickles the penis and inserts it into the vulva, making the boy imitate sexual movements, or she simply masturbates the child, to get him excited and interested, often showing him the female sexual opening in herself or in his sisters, teaching him to finger it. In fact, a nurse-girl may ruin a boy, chiefly, I think, because she has been brought up to regard the sexual organs as a mystery, and is in utter ignorance about them. She thus takes the opportunity of investigating the boy's penis to find out how it works, etc., in order to satisfy her curiosity. I know of a case in which a nurse in a fashionable London Square garden used to collect all the boys and girls (gentlemen's children) in a summer-house when it grew dark, and, turning up her petticoats, invite all the boys to look at and feel her vulva, and also incite the older boys of 12 or 14 to have coitus with her. Girls are afraid of pregnancy, so do not allow an adult penis to operate. I think people should take on a far higher class of nurses, than they do." "Children ought never to be allowed, under any circumstances whatever," wrote Lawson Tait (_Diseases of Women_, 1889, p. 62), "to sleep with servants. In every instance where I have found a number of children affected [by masturbation] the contagion has been traced to a servant." Freud has found (_Neurologisches Centralblatt_, No. 10, 1896) that in cases of severe youthful hysteria the starting point may frequently be traced to sexual manipulations by servants, nurse-girls, and governesses. "When I was about 8 or 9," a friend writes, "a servant-maid of our family, who used to carry the candle out of my bedroom, often drew down the bedclothes and inspected my organs. One night she put the penis in her mouth. When I asked her why she did it her answer was that 'sucking a boy's little dangle' cured her of pains in her stomach. She said that she had done it to other little boys, and declared that she liked doing it. This girl was about 16; she had lately been 'converted.' Another maid in our family used to kiss me warmly on the naked abdomen when I was a small boy. But she never did more than that. I have heard of various instances of servant-girls tampering with boys before puberty, exciting the penis to premature erection by manipulation, suction, and contact with their own parts." Such overstimulation must necessarily in some cases have an injurious influence on the boy's immature nervous system. Thus, Hutchinson (_Archives of Surgery_, vol. iv, p. 200) describes a case of amblyopia in a boy, developing after he had been placed to sleep in a servant-girl's room. Moll (_Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, 1899, p. 325) refers to the frequency with which servant-girls (between the ages of 18 and 30) carry on sexual practices with young boys (between 5 and 13) committed to their care. More than a century earlier Tissot, in his famous work on onanism, referred to the frequency with which servant-girls corrupt boys by teaching them to masturbate; and still earlier, in England, the author of _Onania_ gave many such cases. We may, indeed, go back to the time of Rabelais, who (as Dr. Kiernan reminds me) represents the governesses of Gargantua, when he was a child, as taking pleasure in playing with his penis till it became wet, and joking with each other about it. (_Gargantua_, book i, chapter ix.) The prevalence of such manifestations among servant-girls witnesses to their prevalence among lower-class girls generally. In judging such acts, even when they seem to be very deliberate, it is important to remember that at this age unreasoning instinct plays a very large part in the manifestations of the sexual impulse. This is clearly indicated by the phenomena observed in the insane. Thus, as we have seen (page 214), Schröter has found that, among girls of low social class under 20 years of age, spontaneous periodical sexual manifestations at menstrual epochs occurred in as large a proportion as 72 per cent. Among girls of better social position these impulses are inhibited, or at all events modified, by good taste or good feeling, the influences of tradition or education; it is only to the latter that children should be intrusted. Hoche mentions a case in which a man was accused of repeatedly exhibiting his sexual organs to the servant-girl at a house; she enjoyed the spectacle (_Neurologisches Centralblatt_, 1896, No. 2). It may well be that in some cases of self-exhibition the offender has good reason, on the ground of previous experience, for thinking that he is giving pleasure. "When we used to go to bathe while I was at school," writes a correspondent, "girls from a poor quarter of the lower town (some quite 16) often followed us and stood to watch about a hundred yards from the river. They used to 'giggle' and 'pass remarks.' I have seen girls of this class peeping through chinks of a palisade around a bathing-place on the Thames." A correspondent who has given special attention to the point tells me of the great interest displayed by young girls of the people in Italy in the sexual organs of men. Curiosity--whether in the form of the desire for knowledge or the desire for sensation--is, of course, not confined to young girls and women of lower social strata, though in them it is less often restrained by motives of self-respect and good feeling. "At the age of 8," writes a correspondent, "I was one day playing in a spare room with a girl of about 12 or 13. She gave me a penholder, and, crouching upon her hands and knees, with her posterior toward me, invited me to introduce the instrument into the vulva. This was the first time I had seen the female parts, and, as I appeared to be somewhat repelled, she coaxed me to comply with her desire. I did as she directed, and she said that it gave her pleasure. Several times after I repeated the same act at her request. A friend tells me that when he was 10 a girl of 16 asked him to lace up her boots. While he was kneeling at her feet his hand touched her ankle. She asked him to put his hand higher, and repeated 'Higher, higher,' till he touched the pudenda, and finally, at her request, put his finger into the vestibule. This girl was very handsome and amiable, and a favorite of the boy's mother. No one suspected this propensity." Again, a correspondent (a man of science) tells me of a friend who lately, when dining out, met a girl, the daughter of a country vicar; he was not specially attracted to her and paid her no special attention. "A few days afterward he was astonished to receive a call from her one afternoon (though his address is not discoverable from any recognized source). She sat down as near to him as she could, and rested her hand on his thigh, etc., while talking on different subjects and drinking tea. Then without any verbal prelude she asked him to have connection with her. Though not exactly a Puritan, he is not the man to jump at such an offer from a woman he is not in love with, so, after ascertaining that the girl was _virgo intacta_, he declined and she went away. A fortnight or so later he received a letter from her in the country, making no reference to what had passed, but giving an account of her work with her Sunday-school class. He did not reply, and then came a curt note asking him to return her letter. My friend feels sure she was devoted to auto-erotic performances, but, having become attracted to him, came to the conclusion she would like to try normal intercourse." Wolbarst, studying the prevalence of gonorrhea among boys in New York (especially, it would appear, in quarters where the foreign-born elements--mainly Russian Jew and south Italian--are large), states: "In my study of this subject there have been observed 3 cases of gonorrheal urethritis, in boys aged, respectively, 4, 10, and 12 years, which were acquired in the usual manner, from girls ranging between 10 and 12 years of age. In each case, according to the story told by the victim, the girl made the first advances, and in I case, that of the 4-year-old boy, the act was consummated in the form of an assault, by a girl 12 years old, in which the child was threatened with injury unless he performed his part." (A.L. Wolbarst, _Journal of the American Medical Association_, Sept. 28, 1901.) In a further series of cases (_Medical Record_, Oct. 29, 1910) Wolbarst obtained similar results, though he recognizes also the frequency of precocious sexuality in the young boys themselves. Gibb states, concerning assaults on children by women: "It is undeniably true that they occur much more frequently than is generally supposed, although but few of the cases are brought to public notice, owing to the difficulty of proving the charge." (W.T. Gibb, article "Indecent Assaults upon Children," in A. McLane Hamilton's _System of Legal Medicine_, vol. i, p. 651.) Gibb's opinion carries weight, since he is medical adviser for the New York Society for the Protection of Children, and compelled to sift the evidence carefully in such cases. It should be mentioned that, while a sexual curiosity exercised on younger children is, in girls about the age of puberty, an ill-regulated, but scarcely morbid, manifestation, in older women it may be of pathological origin. Thus, Kisch records the case of a refined and educated lady of 30 who had been married for nine years, but had never experienced sexual pleasure in coitus. For a long time past, however, she had felt a strong desire to play with the genital organs of children of either sex, a proceeding which gave her sexual pleasure. She sought to resist this impulse as much as possible, but during menstruation it was often irresistible. Examination showed an enlarged and retroflexed uterus and anesthesia of vagina. (Kisch, _Die Sterilität des Weibes_, 1886, p. 103.) The psychological mechanism by which an anesthetic vagina leads to a feeling of repulsion for normal coitus and normal sexual organs, and directs the sexual feelings toward more infantile forms of sexuality, is here not difficult to trace. It is not often that the sexual attempts of girls and young women on boys--notwithstanding their undoubted frequency--become of medico-legal interest. In France in the course of ten years (1874 to 1884) only 181 women, who were mostly between 20 and 30 years of age, were actually convicted of sexual attempts on children below 15. (Paul Bernard, "Viols et attentats a la Pudeur," _Archives de l'Anthropologie Criminelle_, 1887.) Lop ("Attentats à la Pudeur commis par des Femmes sur des Petits Enfants," id., Aug., 1896) brings together a number of cases chiefly committed by girls between the ages of 18 and 20. In England such accusations against a young woman or girl may easily be circumvented. If she is under 16 she is protected by the Criminal Law Amendment Act and cannot be punished. In any case, when found out, she can always easily bring the sympathy to her side by declaring that she is not the aggressor, but the victim. Cases of violent sexual assault upon girls, Lawson Tait remarks, while they undoubtedly do occur, are very much rarer than the frequency with which the charge is made would lead us to suspect. At one time, by arrangement with the authority, 70 such charges at Birmingham were consecutively brought before Lawson Tait. These charges were all made under the Criminal Law Amendment Act. In only 6 of these cases was he able to advise prosecution, in all of which cases conviction was obtained. In 7 other cases in which the police decided to prosecute there was either no conviction or a very light sentence. In at least 26 cases the charge was clearly trumped up. The average age of these girls was 12. "There is not a piece of sexual argot that ever had before reached my ears," remarks Mr. Tait, "but was used by these children in the descriptions given by them of what had been done to them; and they introduced, in addition, quite a new vocabulary on the subject. The minute and detailed descriptions of the sexual act given by chits of 10 and 11 would do credit to the pages of Mirabeau. At first sight it is a puzzle to see how children so young obtained their information." "About the use of the word 'seduced,'" the same writer remarks, "I wish to say that the class of women from amongst whom the great bulk of these cases are drawn seem to use it in a sense altogether different from that generally employed. It is not with them a process in which male villainy succeeds by various arts in overcoming female virtue and reluctance, but simply a date at which an incident in their lives occurs for the first time; and, according to their use of the phrase, the ancient legend of the Sacred Scriptures, had it ended in the more ordinary and usual way by the virtue of Joseph yielding to the temptation offered, would have to read as a record of the seduction of Mrs. Potiphar." With reference to Lawson Tait's observation that violent assaults on women, while they do occur, are very much rarer than the frequency with which such charges are made would lead us to believe, it may be remarked that many medico-legal authorities are of the same opinion. (See, e.g., G. Vivian Poore's _Treatise on Medical Jurisprudence_, 1901, p. 325. This writer also remarks: "I hold very strongly that a woman may rape a man as much as a man may rape a woman.") There can be little doubt that the plea of force is very frequently seized on by women as the easiest available weapon of defense when her connection with a man has been revealed. She has been so permeated by the current notion that no "respectable" woman can possibly have any sexual impulses of her own to gratify that, in order to screen what she feels to be regarded as an utterly shameful and wicked, as well as foolish, act, she declares it never took place by her own will at all. "Now, I ask you, gentlemen," I once heard an experienced counsel address the jury in a criminal case, "as men of the world, have you ever known or heard of a woman, a single woman, confess that she had had sexual connection and not declare that force had been used to compel her to such connection?" The statement is a little sweeping, but in this matter there is some element of truth in the "man of the world's" opinion. One may refer to the story (told by Etienne de Bourbon, by Francisco de Osuna in a religious work, and by Cervantes in _Don Quixote_, part ii, ch. xlv) concerning a magistrate who, when a girl came before him to complain of rape, ordered the accused young man either to marry her or pay her a sum of money. The fine was paid, and the magistrate then told the man to follow the girl and take the money from her by force; the man obeyed, but the girl defended herself so energetically that he could not secure the money. Then the judge, calling the parties before him again, ordered the fine to be returned: "Had you defended your chastity as well as you have defended your money it could not have been taken away from you." In most cases of "rape," in the case of adults, there has probably been some degree of consent, though that partial assent may have been basely secured by an appeal to the lower nervous centers alone, with no participation of the intelligence and will. Freud (_Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens_, p. 87) considers that on this ground the judge's decision in _Don Quixote_ is "psychologically unjust," because in such a case the woman's strength is paralyzed by the fact that an unconscious instinct in herself takes her assailant's part against her own conscious resistance. But it must be remembered that the factor of instinct plays a large part even when no violence is attempted. Such facts and considerations as these tend to show that the sexual impulse is by no means so weak in women as many would lead us to think. It would appear that, whereas in earlier ages there was generally a tendency to credit women with an unduly large share of the sexual impulse, there is now a tendency to unduly minimize the sexual impulse in women. FOOTNOTES: [156] I have had occasion to refer to the historic evolution of male opinion regarding women in previous volumes, as, e.g., _Man and Woman_, chapter i, and the appendix on "The Influence of Menstruation on the Position of Women" in the first volume of these _Studies_. [157] The terminology proposed by Ziehen ("Zur Lehre von den psychopathischen Konstitutionen," _Charité Annalen_, vol. xxxxiii, 1909) is as follows: For absence of sexual feeling, _anhedonia_; for diminution of the same, _hyphedonia_; for excess of sexual feeling, _hyperhedonia_; for qualitative sexual perversions, _parhedonia_. "Erotic blindness" was suggested by Nardelli. [158] O. Adler, _Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, 1904, p. 146. [159] A correspondent tells me that he knows a woman who has been a prostitute since the age of 15, but never experienced sexual pleasure and a real, non-simulated orgasm till she was 23; since then she has become very sensual. In other similar cases the hitherto indifferent prostitute, having found the man who suits her, abandons her profession, even though she is thereby compelled to live in extreme poverty. "An insensible woman," as La Bruyère long ago remarked in his chapter "Des Femmes," "is merely one who has not yet seen the man she must love." [160] Guttceit (_Dreissig Jahre Praxis_, vol. i, p. 416) pointed out that the presence or absence of the orgasm is the only factor in "sexual anesthesia" of which we can speak at all definitely; and he believed that anaphrodism, in the sense of absence of the sexual impulse, never occurs at all, many women having confided to him that they had sexual desires, although those desires were not gratified by coitus. [161] _Op. cit._, p. 164. [162] Havelock Ellis, "Madame de Warens," _The Venture_, 1903. [163] It is interesting to observe that finally even Adler admits (op. cit., p. 155) that there is no such thing as _congenital_ lack of aptitude for sexual sensibility. [164] "I am not entirely satisfied with the testimony as to the alleged sexual anesthesia," a medical correspondent writes. "The same principle which makes the young harlot an old saint makes the repentant rake a believer in sexual anesthesia. Most of the medical men who believe, or claim to believe, that sexual anesthesia is so prevalent do so either to flatter their hysterical patients or because they have the mentality of the Hyacinthe of Zola's _Paris_." [165] _Differences in the Nervous Organization of Man and Woman_, 1891; chapter xiii, "Sexual Instinct in Men and Women Compared." [166] Matthews Duncan considered that "the healthy performance of the functions of child-bearing is surely connected with a well-regulated condition of desire and pleasure." "Desire and pleasure," he adds, "may be excessive, furious, overpowering, without bringing the female into the class of maniacs; they may be temporary, healthy, and moderate; they may be absent or dull." (Matthews Duncan, _Goulstonian Lectures on Sterility in Woman_, pp. 91, 121.) [167] Geoffrey Mortimer, _Chapters on Human Love_, 1898, ch. xvi. [168] I do not, however, attach much weight to this possibility. The sexual instinct among the lower social classes everywhere is subject to comparatively weak inhibition, and Löwenfeld is probably right in believing the women of the lower class do not suffer from sexual anesthesia to anything like the same extent as upper-class women. In England most women of the working class appear to have had sexual intercourse at some time in their lives, notwithstanding the risks of pregnancy, and if pregnancy occurs they refer to it calmly as an "accident," for which they cannot be held responsible; "Well, I couldn't help that," I have heard a young widow remark when mildly reproached for the existence of her illegitimate child. Again, among American negresses there seems to be no defect of sexual passion, and it is said that the majority of negresses in the Southern States support not only their children, but their lovers and husbands. II. Special Characters of the Sexual Impulse in Women--The More Passive Part Played by Women in Courtship--This Passivity only Apparent--The Physical Mechanism of the Sexual Process in Women More Complex--The Slower Development of Orgasm in Women--The Sexual Impulse in Women More Frequently Needs to be Actively Aroused--The Climax of Sexual Energy Falls Later in Women's Lives than in Men's--Sexual Ardor in Women Increased After the Establishment of Sexual Relationships--Women bear Sexual Excesses better than Men--The Sexual Sphere Larger and More Diffused in Women--The Sexual Impulse in Women Shows a Greater Tendency to Periodicity and a Wider Range of Variation. So far I have been discussing the question of the sexual impulse in women on the ground upon which previous writers have usually placed it. The question, that is, has usually presented itself to them as one concerning the relative strength of the impulse in men and women. When so considered, not hastily and with prepossession, as is too often the case, but with a genuine desire to get at the real facts in all their aspects, there is no reason, as we have seen, to conclude that, on the whole, the sexual impulse in women is lacking in strength. But we have to push our investigation of the matter further. In reality, the question as to whether the sexual impulse is or is not stronger in one sex than in the other is a somewhat crude one. To put the question in that form is to reveal ignorance of the real facts of the matter. And in that form, moreover, no really definite and satisfactory answer can be given. It is necessary to put the matter on different ground. Instead of taking more or less insolvable questions as to the strength of the sexual impulse in the two sexes, it is more profitable to consider its differences. What are the special characters of the sexual impulse in women? There is certainly one purely natural sexual difference of a fundamental character, which lies at the basis of whatever truth may be in the assertion that women are not susceptible of sexual emotion. As may he seen when considering the phenomena of modesty, the part played by the female in courtship throughout nature is usually different from that played by the male, and is, in some respects, a more difficult and complex part. Except when the male fails to play his part properly, she is usually comparatively passive; in the proper playing of her part she has to appear to shun the male, to flee from his approaches--even actually to repel them.[169] Courtship resembles very closely, indeed, a drama or game; and the aggressiveness of the male, the coyness of the female, are alike unconsciously assumed in order to bring about in the most effectual manner the ultimate union of the sexes. The seeming reluctance of the female is not intended to inhibit sexual activity either in the male or in herself, but to increase it in both. The passivity of the female, therefore, is not a real, but only an apparent, passivity, and this holds true of our own species as much as of the lower animals. "Women are like delicately adjusted alembics," said a seventeenth-century author. "No fire can be seen outside, but if you look underneath the alembic, if you place your hand on the hearts of women, in both places you will find a great furnace."[170] Or, as Marro has finely put it, the passivity of women in love is the passivity of the magnet, which in its apparent immobility is drawing the iron toward it. An intense energy lies behind such passivity, an absorbed preoccupation in the end to be attained. Tarde, when exercising magistrate's functions, once had to inquire into a case in which a young man was accused of murder. In questioning a girl of 18, a shepherdess, who appeared before him as a witness, she told him that on the morning following the crime she had seen the footmarks of the accused up to a certain point. He asked how she recognized them, and she replied, ingenuously but with assurance, that she could recognize the footprints of every young man in the neighborhood, even in a plowed field.[171] No better illustration could be given of the real significance of the sexual passivity of women, even at its most negative point. "The women I have known," a correspondent writes, "do not express their sensations and feelings as much as I do. Nor have I found women usually anxious to practise 'luxuries.' They seldom care to practice _fellatio_; I have only known one woman who offered to do _fellatio_ because she liked it. Nor do they generally care to masturbate a man; that is, they do not care greatly to enjoy the contemplation of the other person's excitement. (To me, to see the woman excited means almost more than my own pleasure.) They usually resist _cunnilinctus_, although they enjoy it. They do not seem to care to touch or look at a man's parts so much as he does at theirs. And they seem to dislike the tongue-kiss unless they feel very sexual or really love a man." My correspondent admits that his relationships have been numerous and facile, while his erotic demands tend also to deviate from the normal path. Under such circumstances, which not uncommonly occur, the woman's passions fail to be deeply stirred, and she retains her normal attitude of relative passivity. It is owing to the fact that the sexual passivity of women is only an apparent, and not a real, passivity that women are apt to suffer, as men are, from prolonged sexual abstinence. This, indeed, has been denied, but can scarcely be said to admit of doubt. The only question is as to the relative amount of such suffering, necessarily a very difficult question. As far back as the fourteenth century Johannes de Sancto Amando stated that women are more injured than men by sexual abstinence. In modern times Maudsley considers that women "suffer more than men do from the entire deprivation of sexual intercourse" ("Relations between Body and Mind," _Lancet_, May 28, 1870). By some it has been held that this cause may produce actual disease. Thus, Tilt, an eminent gynecologist of the middle of the nineteenth century, in discussing this question, wrote: "When we consider how much of the lifetime of woman is occupied by the various phases of the generative process, and how terrible is often the conflict within her between the impulse of passion and the dictates of duty, it may be well understood how such a conflict reacts on the organs of the sexual economy in the unimpregnated female, and principally on the ovaria, causing an orgasm, which, if often repeated, may _possibly_ be productive of subacute ovaritis." (Tilt, _On Uterine and Ovarian Inflammation_, 1862, pp. 309-310.) Long before Tilt, Haller, it seems, had said that women are especially liable to suffer from privation of sexual intercourse to which they have been accustomed, and referred to chlorosis, hysteria, nymphomania, and simple mania curable by intercourse. Hegar considers that in women an injurious result follows the nonsatisfaction of the sexual impulse and of the "ideal feelings," and that symptoms thus arise (pallor, loss of flesh, cardialgia, malaise, sleeplessness, disturbances of menstruation) which are diagnosed as "chlorosis." (Hegar, _Zusammenhang der Geschlechtskrankheiten mit nervösen Leiden_, 1885, p. 45.) Freud, as well as Gattel, has found that states of anxiety (_Angstzustände_) are caused by sexual abstinence. Löwenfeld, on careful examination of his own cases, is able to confirm this connection in both sexes. He has specially noticed it in young women who marry elderly husbands. Löwenfeld believes, however, that, on the whole, healthy unmarried women bear sexual abstinence better than men. If, however, they are of at all neuropathic disposition, ungratified sexual emotions may easily lead to various morbid conditions, especially of a hysteroneurasthenic character. (Löwenfeld, _Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_, second edition, 1899, pp. 44, 47, 54-60.) Balls-Headley considers that unsatisfied sexual desires in women may lead to the following conditions: general atrophy, anemia, neuralgia and hysteria, irregular menstruation, leucorrhea, atrophy of sexual organs. He also refers to the frequency of myoma of the uterus among those who have not become pregnant or who have long ceased to bear children. (Balls-Headley, art. "Etiology of Diseases of Female Genital Organs," Allbutt and Playfair, _System of Gynæcology_, 1896, p. 141.) It cannot, however, be said that he brings forward substantial evidence in favor of these beliefs. It may be added that in America, during recent years, leading gynecologists have recorded a number of cases in which widows on remarriage have shown marked improvement in uterine and pelvic conditions. The question as to whether men or women suffer most from sexual abstinence, as well as the question whether definite morbid conditions are produced by such abstinence, remains, however, an obscure and debated problem. The available data do not enable us to answer it decisively. It is one of those subtle and complex questions which can only be investigated properly by a gynecologist who is also a psychologist. Incidentally, however, we have met and shall have occasion to meet with evidence bearing on this question. It is sufficient to say here, briefly, that it is impossible to believe, even if no evidence were forthcoming, that the exercise or non-exercise of so vastly important a function can make no difference to the organism generally. So far as the evidence goes, it may be said to indicate that the results of the abeyance of the sexual functions in healthy women in whom the sexual emotions have never been definitely aroused tend to be diffused and unconscious, as the sexual impulse itself often is, but that, in women in whom the sexual emotions have been definitely aroused and gratified, the results of sexual abstinence tend to be acute and conscious. These acute results are at the present day very often due to premature ejaculation by nervous or neurasthenic husbands, the rapidity with which detumescence is reached in the husband allowing insufficient time for tumescence in the wife, who consequently fails to reach the orgasm. This has of late been frequently pointed out. Thus Kafemann (_Sexual-Probleme_, March, 1910, p. 194 et seq.) emphasizes the prevalence of sexual incompetence in men. Ferenczi, of Budapest (_Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse_, 1910, ht. 1 and 2, p. 75), believes that the combination of neurasthenic husbands with resultantly nervous wives is extraordinarily common; even putting aside the neurasthenic, he considers it may be said that the whole male sex in relation to women suffer from precocious ejaculation. He adds that it is often difficult to say whether the lack of harmony may not be due to retarded orgasm in the woman. He regards the influence of masturbation in early life as tending to quicken orgasm in man, while when practised by the other sex it tends to slow orgasm, and thus increases the disharmony. He holds, however, that the chief cause lies in the education of women with its emphasis on sexual repression; this works too well and the result is that when the external impediments to the sexual impulse are removed the impulse has become incapable of normal action. Porosz (_British Medical Journal_, April 1, 1911) has brought forward cases of serious nervous trouble in women which have been dispersed when the sexual weakness and premature ejaculation of the husband have been cured. The true nature of the passivity of the female is revealed by the ease with which it is thrown off, more especially when the male refuses to accept his cue. Or, if we prefer to accept the analogy of a game, we may say that in the play of courtship the first move belongs to the male, but that, if he fails to play, it is then the female's turn to play. Among many birds the males at mating time fall into a state of sexual frenzy, but not the females. "I cannot call to mind a single case," states an authority on birds (H.E. Howard, _Zoölogist_, 1902, p. 146), "where I have seen anything approaching frenzy in the female of any species while mating." Another great authority on birds, a very patient and skillful observer, Mr. Edmund Selous, remarks, however, in describing the courting habits of the ruffs and reeves (_Machetes pugnax_) that, notwithstanding the passivity of the females beforehand, their movements during and after coitus show that they derive at least as much pleasure as the males. (E. Selous, "Selection in Birds," _Zoölogist_, Feb. and May, 1907.) The same observer, after speaking of the great beauty of the male eider duck, continues: "These glorified males--there were a dozen of these, perhaps, to some six or seven females--swam closely about the latter, but more in attendance upon them than as actively pursuing them, for the females seemed themselves almost as active agents in the sport of being wooed as were their lovers in wooing them. The male bird first dipped down his head till his beak just touched the water, then raised it again in a constrained and tense manner,--the curious rigid action so frequent in the nuptial antics of birds,--at the same time uttering his strange haunting note. The air became filled with it; every moment one or other of the birds--sometimes several together--with upturned bill would softly laugh or exclaim, and while the males did this, the females, turning excitedly, and with little eager demonstrations from one to another of them, kept lowering and extending forward the head and neck in the direction of each in turn.... I noticed that a female would often approach a male bird with her head and neck laid flat along the water as though in a very 'coming on' disposition, and that the male bird declined her advances. This, taken in conjunction with the actions of the female when courted by the male, appears to me to raise a doubt as to the universal application of the law that throughout nature the male, in courtship, is eager, and the female coy. Here, to all appearances, courtship was proceeding, and the birds had not yet mated. The female eider ducks, however,--at any rate, some of them,--appeared to be anything but coy." (_Bird Watching_, pp. 144-146.) Among moor-hens and great-crested grebes sometimes what Selous terms "functional hermaphroditism" occurs and the females play the part of the male toward their male companions, and then repeat the sexual act with a reversion to the normal order, the whole to the satisfaction of both parties. (E. Selous, _Zoölogist_, 1902, p. 196.) It is not only among birds that the female sometimes takes the active part, but also among mammals. Among white rats, for instance, the males are exceptionally eager. Steinach, who has made many valuable experiments on these animals (_Archiv für die Gesammte Physiologie_, Bd. lvi, 1894, p. 319), tells us that, when a female white rat is introduced into the cage of a male, he at once leaves off eating, or whatever else he may be doing, becomes indifferent to noises or any other source of distraction, and devotes himself entirely to her. If, however, he is introduced into her cage the new environment renders him nervous and suspicious, and then it is she who takes the active part, trying to attract him in every way. The impetuosity during heat of female animals of various species, when at length admitted to the male, is indeed well known to all who are familiar with animals. I have referred to the frequency with which, in the human species,--and very markedly in early adolescence, when the sexual impulse is in a high degree unconscious and unrestrainedly instinctive,--similar manifestations may often be noted. We have to recognize that they are not necessarily abnormal and still less pathological. They merely represent the unseasonable apparition of a tendency which in due subordination is implied in the phases of courtship throughout the animal world. Among some peoples and in some stages of culture, tending to withdraw the men from women and the thought of women, this phase of courtship and this attitude assume a prominence which is absolutely normal. The literature of the Middle Ages presents a state of society in which men were devoted to war and to warlike sports, while the women took the more active part in love-making. The medieval poets represent women as actively encouraging backward lovers, and as delighting to offer to great heroes the chastity they had preserved, sometimes entering their bed-chambers at night. Schultz (_Das Höfische Leben_, Bd. i, pp. 594-598) considers that these representations are not exaggerated. Cf. Krabbes, _Die Frau im Altfranzösischen Karls-Epos_, 1884, p. 20 et seq.; and M.A. Potter, _Sohrab and Rustem_, 1902, pp. 152-163. Among savages and barbarous races in various parts of the world it is the recognized custom, reversing the more usual method, for the girl to take the initiative in courtship. This is especially so in New Guinea. Here the girls almost invariably take the initiative, and in consequence hold a very independent position. Women are always regarded as the seducers: "Women steal men." A youth who proposed to a girl would be making himself ridiculous, would be called a woman, and be laughed at by the girls. The usual method by which a girl proposes is to send a present to the youth by a third party, following this up by repeated gifts of food; the young man sometimes waits a month or two, receiving presents all the time, in order to assure himself of the girl's constancy before decisively accepting her advances. (A.C. Haddon, _Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. v, ch. viii; id., "Western Tribes of Torres Straits," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, vol. xix, February, 1890, pp. 314, 356, 394, 395, 411, 413; id., _Head Hunters_, pp. 158-164; R.E. Guise, "Tribes of the Wanigela River," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, new series, vol. i, February-May, 1899, p. 209.) Westermarck gives instances of races among whom the women take the initiative in courtship. (_History of Marriage_, p. 158; so also Finck, _Primitive Love and Love-stories_, 1899, p. 109 et seq.; and as regards Celtic women, see Rhys and Brynmor Jones, _The Welsh People_.) There is another characteristic of great significance by which the sexual impulse in women differs from that in men: the widely unlike character of the physical mechanism involved in the process of coitus. Considering how obvious this difference is, it is strange that its fundamental importance should so often be underrated. In man the process of tumescence and detumescence is simple. In women it is complex. In man we have the more or less spontaneously erectile penis, which needs but very simple conditions to secure the ejaculation which brings relief. In women we have in the clitoris a corresponding apparatus on a small scale, but behind this has developed a much more extensive mechanism, which also demands satisfaction, and requires for that satisfaction the presence of various conditions that are almost antagonistic. Naturally the more complex mechanism is the more easily disturbed. It is the difference, roughly speaking, between a lock and a key. This analogy is far from indicating all the difficulties involved. We have to imagine a lock that not only requires a key to fit it, but should only be entered at the right moment, and, under the best conditions, may only become adjusted to the key by considerable use. The fact that the man takes the more active part in coitus has increased these difficulties; the woman is too often taught to believe that the whole function is low and impure, only to be submitted to at her husband's will and for his sake, and the man has no proper knowledge of the mechanism involved and the best way of dealing with it. The grossest brutality thus may be, and not infrequently is, exercised in all innocence by an ignorant husband who simply believes that he is performing his "marital duties." For a woman to exercise this physical brutality on a man is with difficulty possible; a man's pleasurable excitement is usually the necessary condition of the woman's sexual gratification. But the reverse is not the case, and, if the man is sufficiently ignorant or sufficiently coarse-grained to be satisfied with the woman's submission, he may easily become to her, in all innocence, a cause of torture. To the man coitus must be in some slight degree pleasurable or it cannot take place at all. To the woman the same act which, under some circumstances, in the desire it arouses and the satisfaction it imparts, will cause the whole universe to shrivel into nothingness, under other circumstances will be a source of anguish, physical and mental. This is so to some extent even in the presence of the right and fit man. There can be no doubt whatever that the mucus which is so profusely poured out over the external sexual organs in woman during the excitement of sexual desire has for its end the lubrication of the parts and the facilitation of the passage of the intromittent organ. The most casual inspection of the cold, contracted, dry vulva in its usual aspect and the same when distended, hot, and moist suffices to show which condition is and which is not that ready for intercourse, and until the proper condition is reached it is certain that coitus should not be attempted. The varying sensitiveness of the female parts again offers difficulties. Sexual relations in women are, at the onset, almost inevitably painful; and to some extent the same experience may be repeated at every act of coitus. Ordinary tactile sensibility in the female genitourinary region is notably obtuse, but at the beginning of the sexual act there is normally a hyperesthesia which may be painful or pleasurable as excitement culminates, passing into a seeming anesthesia, which even craves for rough contact; so that in sexual excitement a woman normally displays in quick succession that same quality of sensibility to superficial pressure and insensibility to deep pressure which the hysterical woman exhibits simultaneously. Thus we see that a highly important practical result follows from the greater complexity of the sexual apparatus in women and the greater difficulty with which it is aroused. In coitus the orgasm tends to occur more slowly in women than in men. It may easily happen that the whole process of detumescence is completed in the man before it has begun in his partner, who is left either cold or unsatisfied. This is one of the respects in which women remain nearer than men to the primitive stage of humanity. In the Hippocratic treatise, _Of Generation_, it is stated that, while woman has less pleasure in coitus than man, her pleasure lasts longer. (_Oeuvres d'Hippocrate_, edition Littré, vol. vii, p. 477.) Beaunis considers that the slower development of the orgasm in women is the only essential difference in the sexual process in men and women. (Beaunis, _Les Sensations Internes_, 1889, p. 151.) This characteristic of the sexual impulse in women, though recognized for so long a period, is still far too often ignored or unknown. There is even a superstition that injurious results may follow if the male orgasm is not effected as rapidly as possible. That this is not so is shown by the experiences of the Oneida community in America, who in their system of sexual relationship carried prolonged intercourse without ejaculation to an extreme degree. There can be no doubt whatever that very prolonged intercourse gives the maximum amount of pleasure and relief to the woman. Not only is this the very decided opinion of women who have experienced it, but it is also indicated by the well-recognized fact that a woman who repeats the sexual act several times in succession often experiences more intense orgasm and pleasure with each repetition. This point is much better understood in the East than in the West. The prolongation of the man's excitement, in order to give the woman time for orgasm, is, remarks Sir Richard Burton (_Arabian Nights_, vol. v, p. 76), much studied by Moslems, as also by Hindoos, who, on this account, during the orgasm seek to avoid overtension of muscles and to preoccupy the brain. During coitus they will drink sherbet, chew betel-nut, and even smoke. Europeans devote no care to this matter, and Hindoo women, who require about twenty minutes to complete the act, contemptuously call them "village cocks." I have received confirmation of Burton's statements on this point from medical correspondents in India. While the European desires to perform as many acts of coitus in one night as possible, Breitenstein remarks, the Malay, as still more the Javanese, wishes, not to repeat the act many times, but to prolong it. His aim is to remain in the vagina for about a quarter of an hour. Unlike the European, also, he boasts of the pleasure he has given his partner far more than of his own pleasure. (Breitenstein, _21 Jahre in India_, theil i, "Borneo," p. 228.) Jäger (_Entdeckung der Seele_, second edition, vol. i, 1884, p. 203), as quoted by Moll, explains the preference of some women for castrated men as due, not merely to the absence of risk of impregnation, but to the prolonged erections that take place in the castrated. Aly-Belfàdel remarks (_Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1903, p. 117) that he knows women who prefer old men in coitus simply because of their delay in ejaculation which allows more time to the women to become excited. A Russian correspondent living in Italy informs me that a Neapolitan girl of 17, who had only recently ceased to be a virgin, explained to him that she preferred _coitus in ore vulvæ_ to real intercourse because the latter was over before she had time to obtain the orgasm (or, as she put it, "the big bird has fled from the cage and I am left in the lurch"), while in the other way she was able to experience the orgasm twice before her partner reached the climax. "This reminds me," my correspondent continues, "that a Milanese cocotte once told me that she much liked intercourse with Jews because, on account of the circumcised penis being less sensitive to contact, they ejaculate more slowly then Christians. 'With Christians,' she said, 'it constantly happens that I am left unsatisfied because they ejaculate before me, while in coitus with Jews I sometimes ejaculate twice before the orgasm occurs in my partner, or, rather, I hold back the second orgasm until he is ready.' This is confirmed," my correspondent continues, "by what I was told by a Russian Jew, a student at the Zürich Polytechnic, who had a Russian comrade living with a mistress, also a Russian student, or pseudostudent. One day the Jew, going early to see his friend, was told to enter by a woman's voice and found his friend's mistress alone and in her chemise beside the bed. He was about to retire, but the young woman bade him stay and in a few minutes he was in bed with her. She told him that her lover had just gone away and that she never had sexual relief with him because he always ejaculated too soon. That morning he had left her so excited and so unrelieved that she was just about to masturbate--which she rarely did because it gave her headache--when she heard the Jew's voice, and, knowing that Jews are slower in coitus than Christians, she had suddenly resolved to give herself to him." I am informed that the sexual power of negroes and slower ejaculation (see Appendix A) are the cause of the favor with which they are viewed by some white women of strong sexual passions in America, and by many prostitutes. At one time there was a special house in New York City to which white women resorted for these "buck lovers"; the women came heavily veiled and would inspect the penises of the men before making their selection. It is thus a result of the complexity of the sexual mechanism in women that the whole attitude of a woman toward the sexual relationship is liable to be affected disastrously by the husband's lack of skill or consideration in initiating her into this intimate mystery. Normally the stage of apparent repulsion and passivity, often associated with great sensitiveness, physical and moral, passes into one of active participation and aid in the consummation of the sexual act. But if, from whatever cause, there is partial arrest on the woman's side of this evolution in the process of courtship, if her submission is merely a mental and deliberate act of will, and not an instinctive and impulsive participation, there is a necessary failure of sexual relief and gratification. When we find that a woman displays a certain degree of indifference in sexual relationships, and a failure of complete gratification, we have to recognize that the fault may possibly lie, not in her, but in the defective skill of a lover who has not known how to play successfully the complex and subtle game of courtship. Sexual coldness due to the shock and suffering of the wedding-night is a phenomenon that is far too frequent.[172] Hence it is that many women may never experience sexual gratification and relief, through no defect on their part, but through the failure of the husband to understand the lover's part. We make a false analogy when we compare the courtship of animals exclusively with our own courtships before marriage. Courtship, properly understood, is the process whereby both the male and the female are brought into that state of sexual tumescence which is a more or less necessary condition for sexual intercourse. The play of courtship cannot, therefore, be considered to be definitely brought to an end by the ceremony of marriage; it may more properly be regarded as the natural preliminary to every act of coitus. Tumescence is not merely a more or less essential condition for proper sexual intercourse. It is probably of more fundamental significance as one of the favoring conditions of impregnation. This has, indeed, been long recognized. Van Swieten, when consulted by the childless Maria Theresa, gave the opinion "Ego vero censeo, vulvam Sacratissimæ Majestatis ante coitum diutius esse titillandam," and thereafter she had many children. "I think it very nearly certain," Matthews Duncan wrote (_Goulstonian Lectures on Sterility in Woman_, 1884, p. 96), "that desire and pleasure in due or moderate degree are very important aids to, or predisposing causes of, fecundity," as bringing into action the complicated processes of fecundation. Hirst (_Text-book of Obstetrics_, 1899, p. 67) mentions the case of a childless married woman who for six years had had no orgasm during intercourse; then it occurred at the same time as coitus, and pregnancy resulted. Kisch is very decidedly of the same opinion, and considers that the popular belief on this point is fully justified. It is a fact, he states, that an unfaithful wife is more likely to conceive with her lover than with her husband, and he concludes that, whatever the precise mechanism may be, "sexual excitement on the woman's part is a necessary link in the chain of conditions producing impregnation." (E.H. Kisch, _Die Sterilität des Weibes_, 1886, p. 99.) Kisch believes (p. 103) that in the majority of women sexual pleasure only appears gradually, after the first cohabitation, and then develops progressively, and that the first conception usually coincides with its complete awakening. In 556 cases of his own the most frequent epoch of first impregnation was found to be between ten and fifteen months after marriage. The removal of sexual frigidity thus becomes a matter of some importance. This removal may in some cases be effected by treatment through the husband, but that course is not always practicable. Dr. Douglas Bryan, of Leicester, informs me that in several cases he has succeeded in removing sexual coldness and physical aversion in the wife by hypnotic suggestion. The suggestions given to the patient are "that all her womanly natural feelings would be quickly and satisfactorily developed during coitus; that she would experience no feeling of disgust and nausea, would have no fear of the orgasm not developing; that there would be no involuntary resistance on her part." The fact that such suggestions can be permanently effective tends to show how superficial the sexual "anesthesia" of women usually is. Not only, therefore, is the apparatus of sexual excitement in women more complex than in men, but--in part, possibly as a result of this greater complexity--it much more frequently requires to be actively aroused. In men tumescence tends to occur almost spontaneously, or under the simple influence of accumulated semen. In women, also, especially in those who live a natural and healthy life, sexual excitement also tends to occur spontaneously, but by no means so frequently as in men. The comparative rarity of sexual dreams in women who have not had sexual relationships alone serves to indicate this sexual difference. In a very large number of women the sexual impulse remains latent until aroused by a lover's caresses. The youth spontaneously becomes a man; but the maiden--as it has been said--"must be kissed into a woman." One result of this characteristic is that, more especially when love is unduly delayed beyond the first youth, this complex apparatus has difficulty in responding to the unfamiliar demands of sexual excitement. Moreover, delayed normal sexual relations, when the sexual impulse is not absolutely latent, tend to induce all degrees of perverted or abnormal sexual gratification, and the physical mechanism when trained to respond in other ways often fails to respond normally when, at last, the normal conditions of response are presented. In all these ways passivity and even aversion may be produced in the conjugal relationship. The fact that it is almost normally the function of the male to arouse the female, and that the greater complexity of the sexual mechanism in women leads to more frequent disturbance of that mechanism, produces a simulation of organic sexual coldness which has deceived many. An instructive study of cases in which the sexual impulse has been thus perverted has been presented by Smith Baker ("The Neuropsychical Element in Conjugal Aversion," _Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease_, vol. xvii, September, 1892). Raymond and Janet, who believes that sexual coldness is extremely frequent in marriage, and that it plays an important part in the causation of physical and moral troubles, find that it is most often due to masturbation. (_Les Obsessions_, vol. ii, p. 307.) Adler, after discussing the complexity of the feminine sexual mechanism, and the difficulty which women find in obtaining sexual gratification in normal coitus, concludes that "masturbation is a frequent, perhaps the most frequent, cause of defective sexual sensibility in women." (_Op. cit._, p. 119.) He remarks that in women masturbation usually has less resemblance to normal coitus than in men and involves very frequently the special excitation of parts which are not the chief focus of excitement in coitus, so that coitus fails to supply the excitation which has become habitual (pp. 113-116). In the discussion of "Auto-erotism" in the first volume of these _Studies_, I had already referred to the divorce between the physical and the ideal sides of love which may, especially in women, be induced by masturbation. Another cause of inhibited sexual feeling has been brought forward. A married lady with normal sexual impulse states (_Sexual-Probleme_, April, 1912, p. 290) that she cannot experience orgasm and sexual satisfaction when the intercourse is not for conception. This is a psychic inhibition independent of any disturbance due to the process of prevention. She knows other women who are similarly affected. Such an inhibition must be regarded as artificial and abnormal, since the final result of sexual intercourse, under natural and normal conditions, forms no essential constituent of the psychic process of intercourse. As a result of the fact that in women the sexual emotions tend not to develop great intensity until submitted to powerful stimulation, we find that the maximum climax of sexual emotion tends to fall somewhat later in a woman's life than in a man's. Among animals generally there appears to be frequently traceable a tendency for the sexual activities of the male to develop at a somewhat earlier age than those of the female. In the human, species we may certainly trace the same tendency. As the great physiologist, Burdach, pointed out, throughout nature, with the accomplishment of the sexual act the part of the male in the work of generation comes to an end; but that act represents only the beginning of a woman's generative activity. A youth of 20 may often display a passionate ardor in love which is very seldom indeed found in women who are under 25. It is rare for a woman, even though her sexual emotions may awaken at puberty or earlier, to experience the great passion of her life until after the age of 25 has been passed. In confirmation of this statement, which is supported by daily observation, it may be pointed out that nearly all the most passionate love-letters of women, as well as their most passionate devotions, have come from women who had passed, sometimes long passed, their first youth. When Heloise wrote to Abelard the first of the letters which have come down to us she was at least 32. Mademoiselle Aissé's relation with the Chevalier began when she was 32, and when she died, six years later, the passion of each was at its height. Mary Wollstonecraft was 34 when her love-letters to Imlay began, and her child was born in the following year. Mademoiselle de Lespinasse was 43 when she began to write her letters to M. de Guibert. In some cases the sexual impulse may not even appear until after the period of the menopause has been passed.[173] In Roman times Ovid remarked (_Ars Amatoria_, lib. ii) that a woman fails to understand the art of love until she has reached the age of 35. "A girl of 18," said Stendhal (_De l'Amour_, ch. viii), "has not the power to crystallize her emotions; she forms desires that are too limited by her lack of experience in the things of life, to be able to love with such passion as a woman of 28." "Sexual needs," said Restif de la Bretonne (_Monsieur Nicolas_, vol. xi, p. 221), "often only appears in young women when they are between 26 and 27 years of age; at least, that is what I have observed." Erb states that it is about the middle of the twenties that women begin to suffer physically, morally, and intellectually from their sexual needs. Nyström (_Das Geschlechtsleben_, p. 163) considers that it is about the age of 30 that a woman first begins to feel conscious of sex needs. In a case of Adler's (_op. cit._, p. 141), sexual feelings first appeared after the birth of the third child, at the age of 30. Forel (_Die Sexuelle Frage_, 1906, p. 219) considers that sexual desire in woman is often strongest between the ages of 30 and 40. Leith Napier (_Menopause_, p. 94) remarks that from 28 to 30 is often an important age in woman who have retained their virginity, erotism then appearing with the full maturity of the nervous system. Yellowlees (art. "Masturbation," _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_), again, states that at about the age of 33 some women experience great sexual irritability, often resulting in masturbation. Audiffrent (_Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Jan. 15, 1902, p. 3) considers that it is toward the age of 30 that a woman reaches her full moral and physical development, and that at this period her emotional and idealizing impulses reach a degree of intensity which is sometimes irresistible. It has already been mentioned that Matthews Duncan's careful inquiries showed that it is between the ages of 30 and 34 that the largest proportion of women experience sexual desire and sexual pleasure. It may be remarked, also, that while the typical English novelists, who have generally sought to avoid touching the deeper and more complex aspects of passion, often choose very youthful heroines, French novelists, who have frequently had a predilection for the problems of passion, often choose heroines who are approaching the age of 30. Hirschfeld (_Von Wesen der Liebe_, p. 26) was consulted by a lady who, being without any sexual desires or feelings, married an inverted man in order to live with him a life of simple comradeship. Within six months, however, she fell violently in love with her husband, with the full manifestation of sexual feelings and accompanying emotions of jealousy. Under all the circumstances, however, she would not enter into sexual relationship with her husband, and the torture she endured became so acute that she desired to be castrated. In this connection, also, I may mention a case, which has been communicated to me from Glasgow, of a girl--strong and healthy and menstruating regularly since the age of 17--who was seduced at the age of 20 without any sexual desire on her part, giving birth to a child nine months later. Subsequently she became a prostitute for three years, and during this period had not the slightest sexual desire or any pleasure in sexual connection. Thereafter she met a poor lad with whom she has full sexual desire and sexual pleasure, the result being that she refuses to go with any other man, and consequently is almost without food for several days every week. The late appearance of the great climax of sexual emotion in women is indicated by a tendency to nervous and psychic disturbances between the ages of 25 and about 33, which has been independently noted by various alienists (though it may be noted that 25 to 30 is not an unusual age for first attacks of insanity in men also). Thus, Krafft-Ebing states that adult unmarried women between the ages of 25 and 30 often show nervous symptoms and peculiarities. (Krafft-Ebing, "Ueber Neurosen und Psychosen durch Sexuelle Abstinenz," _Jahrbücher für Psychiatrie_, Bd. viii, ht. 1-4, 1888.) Pitres and Régis find also (_Comptes-rendus XIIe Congrès International de Médecine_, Moscow, 1897, vol. iv, p. 45) that obsessions, which are commoner in women than in men and are commonly connected in their causation with strong moral emotion, occur in women chiefly between the ages of 26 and 30, though in men much earlier. The average age at which in England women inebriates begin drinking in excess is 26. (_British Medical Journal_, Sept. 2, 1911, p. 518.) A case recorded by Sérieux is instructive as regards the development of the sexual impulse, although it comes within the sphere of mental disorder. A woman of 32 with bad heredity had in childhood had weak health and become shy, silent, and fond of solitude, teased by her companions and finding consolation in hard work. Though very emotional, she never, even in the vaguest form, experienced any of those feelings and aspirations which reveal the presence of the sexual impulse. She had no love of dancing and was indifferent to any embraces she might chance to receive from young men. She never masturbated or showed inverted feelings. At the age of 23 she married. She still, however, experienced no sexual feelings; twice only she felt a faint sensation of pleasure. A child was born, but her home was unhappy on account of her husband's drunken habits. He died and she worked hard for her own living and the support of her mother. Then at the age of 31 a new phase occurs in her life: she falls in love with the master of her workshop. It was at first a purely psychic affection, without any mixture of physical elements; it was enough to see him, and she trembled when she touched anything that belonged to him. She was constantly thinking about him; she loved him for his eyes, which seemed to her those of her own child, and especially for his intelligence. Gradually, however, the lower nervous centers began to take part in these emotions; one day in passing her the master chanced to touch her shoulder; this contact was sufficient to produce sexual turgescence. She began to masturbate daily, thinking of her master, and for the first time in her life she desired coitus. She evoked the image of her master so constantly and vividly that at last hallucinations of sight, touch, and hearing appeared, and it seemed to her that he was present. These hallucinations were only with difficulty dissipated. (P. Sérieux, _Les Anomalies de L'Instinct Sexuel_, 1888, p. 50.) This case presents in an insane form a phenomenon which is certainly by no means uncommon and is very significant. Up to the age of 31 we should certainly have been forced to conclude that this woman was sexually anesthetic to an almost absolute degree. In reality, we see this was by no means the case. Weak health, hard work, and a brutal husband had prolonged the latency of the sexual emotions; but they were there, ready to explode with even insane intensity (this being due to the unsound heredity) in the presence of a man who appealed to these emotions. In connection with the late evolution of the sexual emotions in women reference may be made to what is usually termed "old maid's insanity," a condition not met with in men. In these cases, which are not, indeed, common, single women who have led severely strict and virtuous lives, devoting themselves to religious or intellectual work, and carefully repressing the animal side of their natures, at last, just before the climacteric, experience an awakening of the erotic impulse; they fall in love with some unfortunate man, often a clergyman, persecute him with their attentions, and frequently suffer from the delusion that he reciprocates their affections. When once duly aroused, there cannot usually be any doubt concerning the strength of the sexual impulse in normal and healthy women. There would, however, appear to be a distinct difference between the sexes at this point also. Before sexual union the male tends to be more ardent; after sexual union it is the female who tends to be more ardent. The sexual energy of women, under these circumstances, would seem to be the greater on account of the long period during which it has been dormant. Sinibaldus in the seventeenth century, in his _Geneanthropeia_, argued that, though women are cold at first, and aroused with more difficulty and greater slowness than men, the flame of passion spreads in them the more afterward, just as iron is by nature cold, but when heated gives a great degree of heat. Similarly Mandeville said of women that "their passions are not so easily raised nor so suddenly fixed upon any particular object; but when this passion is once rooted in women it is much stronger and more durable than in men, and rather increases than diminishes by enjoying the person of the beloved." (_A Modest Defence of Public Stews_, 1724, p. 34.) Burdach considered that women only acquire the full enjoyment of their general strength after marriage and pregnancy, while it is before marriage that men have most vigor. Schopenhauer also said that a man's love decreases with enjoyment, and a woman's increases. And Ellen Key has remarked (_Love and Marriage_) that "where there is no mixture of Southern blood it is a long time, sometimes indeed not till years after marriage, that the senses of the Northern women awake to consciousness." Even among animals this tendency seems to be manifested. Edmund Selous (_Bird Watching_, p. 112) remarks, concerning sea-gulls: "Always, or almost always, one of the birds--and this I take to be the female--is more eager, has a more soliciting manner and tender begging look than the other. It is she who, as a rule, draws the male bird on. She looks fondly up at him, and, raising her bill to his, as though beseeching a kiss, just touches with it, in raising, the feathers of the throat--an action light, but full of endearment. And in every way she shows herself the most desirous, and, in fact, so worries and pesters the poor male gull that often, to avoid her importunities, he flies away. This may seem odd, but I have seen other instances of it. No doubt, in actual courting, before the sexes are paired, the male bird is usually the most eager, but after marriage the female often becomes the wooer. Of this I have seen some marked instances." Selous mentions especially the plover, kestrel hawk, and rook. In association with the fact that women tend to show an increase of sexual ardor after sexual relationships have been set up may be noted the probably related fact that sexual intercourse is undoubtedly less injurious to women than to men. Other things being equal, that is to say, the threshold of excess is passed very much sooner by the man than by the woman. This was long ago pointed out by Montaigne. The ancient saying, "_Omne animal post coitum triste_," is of limited application at the best, but certainly has little reference to women.[174] Alacrity, rather than languor, as Robin has truly observed,[175] marks a woman after coitus, or, as a medical friend of my own has said, a woman then goes about the house singing.[176] It is, indeed, only after intercourse with a woman for whom, in reality, he feels contempt that a man experiences that revulsion of feeling described by Shakespeare (sonnet cxxix). Such a passage should not be quoted, as it sometimes has been quoted, as the representation of a normal phenomenon. But, with equal gratification on both sides, it remains true that, while after a single coitus the man may experience a not unpleasant lassitude and readiness for sleep, this is rarely the case with his partner, for whom a single coitus is often but a pleasant stimulus, the climax of satisfaction not being reached until a second or subsequent act of intercourse. "Excess in venery," which, rightly or wrongly, is set down as the cause of so many evils in men, seldom, indeed, appears in connection with women, although in every act of venery the woman has taken part.[177] That women bear sexual excesses better than men was noted by Cabanis and other early writers. Alienists frequently refer to the fact that women are less liable to be affected by insanity following such excesses. (See, e.g., Maudsley, "Relations between Body and Mind," _Lancet_, May 28, 1870; and G. Savage, art. "Marriage and Insanity" in _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_.) Trousseau remarked on the fact that women are not exhausted by repeated acts of coitus within a short period, notwithstanding that the nervous excitement in their case is as great, if not greater, and he considered that this showed that the loss of semen is a cause of exhaustion in men. Löwenfeld (_Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_, pp. 74, 153) states that there cannot be question that the nervous system in women is less influenced by the after-effects of coitus than in men. Not only, he remarks, are prostitutes very little liable to suffer from nervous overstimulation, and neurasthenia and hysteria when occurring in them be easily traceable to other causes, but "healthy women who are not given to prostitution, when they indulge in very frequent sexual intercourse, provided it is practised normally, do not experience the slightest injurious effect. I have seen many young married couples where the husband had been reduced to a pitiable condition of nervous prostration and general discomfort by the zeal with which he had exercised his marital duties, while the wife had been benefited and was in the uninterrupted enjoyment of the best health." This experience is by no means uncommon. A correspondent writes: "It is quite true that the threshold of excess is less easily reached by women than by men. I have found that women can reach the orgasm much more frequently than men. Take an ordinary case. I spend two hours with ----. I have the orgasm 3 times, with difficulty; she has it 6 or 8, or even 10 or 12, times. Women can also experience it a second or third time in succession, with no interval between. Sometimes the mere fact of realizing that the man is having the orgasm causes the woman to have it also, though it is true that a woman usually requires as many minutes to develop the orgasm as a man does seconds." I may also refer to the case recorded in another part of this volume in which a wife had the orgasm 26 times to her husband's twice. Hutchinson, under the name of post-marital amblyopia (_Archives of Surgery_, vol. iv, p. 200), has described a condition occurring in men in good health who soon after marriage become nearly blind, but recover as soon as the cause is removed. He mentions no cases in women due to coitus, but finds that in women some failure of sight may occur after parturition. Näcke states that, in his experience, while masturbation is, apparently, commoner in insane men than in insane women, masturbation repeated several times a day is much commoner in the women. (P. Näcke, "Die Sexuellen Perversitäten in der Irrenanstalt," _Psychiatrische Bladen_, 1899, No. 2.) Great excesses in masturbation seem also to be commoner among women who may be said to be sane than among men. Thus, Bloch (_New Orleans Medical Journal_, 1896) records the case of a young married woman of 25, of bad heredity, who had suffered from almost life-long sexual hyperesthesia, and would masturbate fourteen times daily during the menstrual periods. With regard to excesses in coitus the case may be mentioned of a country girl of 17, living in a rural district in North Carolina where prostitution was unknown, who would cohabit with men almost openly. On one Sunday she went to a secluded school-house and let three or four men wear themselves out cohabiting with her. On another occasion, at night, in a field, she allowed anyone who would to perform the sexual act, and 25 men and boys then had intercourse with her. When seen she was much prostrated and with a tendency to spasm, but quite rational. Subsequently she married and attacks of this nature became rare. Mr. Lawson made an "attested statement" of what he had observed among the Marquesan women. "He mentions one case in which he heard a parcel of boys next morning count over and _name_ 103 men who during the night had intercourse with _one_ woman." (_Medico-Chirurgical Review_, 1871, vol. ii, p. 360, apparently quoting Chevers.) This statement seems open to question, but, if reliable, would furnish a case which must be unique. There is a further important difference, though intimately related to some of the differences already mentioned, between the sexual impulse in women and in men. In women it is at once larger and more diffused. As Sinibaldus long ago said, the sexual pleasure of men is intensive, of women extensive. In men the sexual impulse is, as it were, focused to a single point. This is necessarily so, for the whole of the essentially necessary part of the male in the process of human procreation is confined to the ejaculation of semen into the vagina. But in women, mainly owing to the fact that women are the child-bearers, in place of one primary sexual center and one primary erogenous region, there are at least three such sexual centers and erogenous regions: the clitoris (corresponding to the penis), the vaginal passage up to the womb, and the nipple. In both sexes there are other secondary and reflex centers, but there is good reason for believing that these are more numerous and more widespread in women than in men.[178] How numerous the secondary sexual centers in women may be is indicated by the case of a woman mentioned by Moraglia, who boasted that she knew fourteen different ways of masturbating herself. This great diffusion of the sexual impulse and emotions in women is as visible on the psychic as on the physical side. A woman can find sexual satisfaction in a great number of ways that do not include the sexual act proper, and in a great number of ways that apparently are not physical at all, simply because their physical basis is diffused or is to be found in one of the outlying sexual zones. It is, moreover, owing to the diffused character of the sexual emotions in women that it so often happens that emotion really having a sexual origin is not recognized as such even by the woman herself. It is possible that the great prevalence in women of the religious emotional state of "storm and stress," noted by Professor Starbuck,[179] is largely due to unemployed sexual impulse. In this and similar ways it happens that the magnitude of the sexual sphere in woman is unrealized by the careless observer. A number of converging facts tend to indicate that the sexual sphere is larger, and more potent in its influence on the organism, in women than in men. It would appear that among the males and females of lower animals the same difference may be found. It is stated that in birds there is a greater flow of blood to the ovaries than to the testes. In women the system generally is more affected by disturbances in the sexual sphere than in men. This appears to be the case as regards the eye. "The influence of the sexual system upon the eye in man," Power states, "is far less potent, and the connection, in consequence, far less easy to trace than in woman." (H. Power, "Relation of Ophthalmic Disease to the Sexual Organs," _Lancet_, November 26, 1887.) The greater predominance of the sexual system in women on the psychic side is clearly brought out in insane conditions. It is well known that, while satyriasis is rare, nymphomania is comparatively common. These conditions are probably often forms of mania, and in mania, while sexual symptoms are common in men, they are often stated to be the rule in women (see, e.g., Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia Sexualis_, tenth edition, English translation, p. 465). Bouchereau, in noting this difference in the prevalence of sexual manifestations during insanity, remarks that it is partly due to the naturally greater dependence of women on the organs of generation, and partly to the more active, independent, and laborious lives of men; in his opinion, satyriasis is specially apt to develop in men who lead lives resembling those of women. (Bouchereau, art. "Satyriasis," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_.) Again, postconnubial insanity is very much commoner in women than in men, a fact which may indicate the more predominant part played by the sexual sphere in women. (Savage, art. "Marriage and Insanity," _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_.) Insanity tends to remove the artificial inhibitory influences that rule in ordinary life, and there is therefore significance in such a fact as that the sexual appetite is often increased in general paralysis and to a notable extent in women. (Pactet and Colin, _Les Aliénés devant la Justice_, 1902, p. 122.) Näcke, from his experiences among the insane, makes an interesting and possibly sound distinction regarding the character of the sexual manifestations in the two sexes. Among men he finds these manifestations to be more of a reflex and purely spinal nature and chiefly manifested in masturbation; in women he finds them to be of a more cerebral character, and chiefly manifested in erotic gestures, lascivious conversation, etc. The sexual impulse would thus tend to involve to a greater extent the higher psychic region in women than in men. Forel likewise (_Die Sexuelle Frage_, 1906, p. 276), remarking on the much greater prevalence of erotic manifestations among insane women than insane men (and pointing out that it is by no means due merely to the presence of a male doctor, for it remains the same when the doctor is a woman), considers that it proves that in women the sexual impulse resides more prominently in the higher nervous centers and in men in the lower centers. (As regards the great prevalence of erotic manifestations among the female insane, I may also refer to Claye Shaw's interesting observations, "The Sexes in Lunacy," _St. Bartholomew's Hospital Reports_, vol. xxiv, 1888; also quoted in Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, p. 370 et seq.) Whether or not we may accept Näcke's and Forel's interpretation of the facts, which is at least doubtful, there can be little doubt that the sexual impulse is more fundamental in women. This is indicated by Näcke's observation that among idiots sexual manifestations are commoner in females than in males. Of 16 idiot girls, of the age of 16 and under, 15 certainly masturbated, sometimes as often as fourteen times a day, while the remaining girl probably masturbated; but of 25 youthful male idiots only 1 played with his penis. (P. Näcke, "Die Sexuellen Perversitäten in der Irrenanstalt," _Psychiatrische Bladen_, 1899, No. 2, pp. 9, 12.) On the physical side Bourneville and Sollier found (_Progrès médical_, 1888) that puberty is much retarded in idiot and imbecile boys, while J. Voisin (_Annales d'Hygiène Publique_, June, 1894) found that in idiot and imbecile girls, on the contrary, there is no lack of full sexual development or retardation of puberty, while masturbation is common. In women, it may be added, as Ball pointed out (_Folie érotique_, p. 40), sexual hallucinations are especially common, while under the influence of anesthetics erotic manifestations and feelings are frequent in women, but rare in men. (Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, p. 256.) The fact that the first coitus has a much more profound moral and psychic influence on a woman than on a man would also seem to indicate how much more fundamental the sexual region is in women. The fact may be considered as undoubted. (It is referred to by Marro, _La Pubertà_, p. 460.) The mere physical fact that, while in men coitus remains a merely exterior contact, in women it involves penetration into the sensitive and virginal interior of the body would alone indicate this difference. We are told that in the East there was once a woman named Moârbeda who was a philosopher and considered to be the wisest woman of her time. When Moârbeda was once asked: "In what part of a woman's body does her mind reside?" she replied: "Between her thighs." To many women,--perhaps, indeed, we might even say to most women,--to a certain extent may be applied--and in no offensive sense--the dictum of the wise woman of the East; in a certain sense their brains are in their wombs. Their mental activity may sometimes seem to be limited; they may appear to be passing through life always in a rather inert or dreamy state; but, when their sexual emotions are touched, then at once they spring into life; they become alert, resourceful, courageous, indefatigable. "But when I am not in love I am nothing!" exclaimed a woman when reproached by a French magistrate for living with a thief. There are many women who could truly make the same statement, not many men. That emotion, which, one is tempted to say, often unmans the man, makes the woman for the first time truly herself. "Women are more occupied with love than men," wrote De Sénancour (_De l'Amour_, vol. ii, p. 59); "it shows itself in all their movements, animates their looks, gives to their gestures a grace that is always new, to their smiles and voices an inexpressible charm; they live for love, while many men in obeying love feel that they are forgetting themselves." Restif de la Bretonne (_Monsieur Nicolas_, vol. vi, p. 223) quotes a young girl who well describes the difference which love makes to a woman: "Before I vegetated; now all my actions have a motive, an end; they have become important. When I wake my first thought is 'Someone is occupied with me and desires me.' I am no longer alone, as I was before; another feels my existence and cherishes it," etc. "One is surprised to see in the south," remarks Bonstetten, in his suggestive book, _L'Homme du Midi et l'Homme du Nord_ (1824),--and the remark by no means applies only to the south,--"how love imparts intelligence even to those who are most deficient in ideas. An Italian woman in love is inexhaustible in the variety of her feelings, all subordinated to the supreme emotion which dominates her. Her ideas follow one another with prodigious rapidity, and produce a lambent play which is fed by her heart alone. If she ceases to love, her mind becomes merely the scoria of the lava which yesterday had been so bright." Cabanis had already made some observations to much the same effect. Referring to the years of nubility following puberty, he remarks: "I have very often seen the greatest fecundity of ideas, the most brilliant imagination, a singular aptitude for the arts, suddenly develop in girls of this age, only to give place soon afterward to the most absolute mental mediocrity." (Cabanis, "De l'Influence des Sexes," etc., _Rapports du Physique et du Morale de l'Homme_.) This phenomenon seems to be one of the indications of the immense organic significance of the sexual relations. Woman's part in the world is less obtrusively active than man's, but there is a moment when nature cannot dispense with energy and mental vigor in women, and that is during the reproductive period. The languidest woman must needs be alive when her sexual emotions are profoundly stirred. People often marvel at the infatuation which men display for women who, in the eyes of all the world, seem commonplace and dull. This is not, as we usually suppose, always entirely due to the proverbial blindness of love. For the man whom she loves, such a woman is often alive and transformed. He sees a woman who is hidden from all the world. He experiences something of that surprise and awe which Dostoieffsky felt when the seemingly dull and brutish criminals of Siberia suddenly exhibited gleams of exquisite sensibility. In women, it must further be said, the sexual impulse shows a much more marked tendency to periodicity than in men; not only is it less apt to appear spontaneously, but its spontaneous manifestations are in a very pronounced manner correlated with menstruation. A woman who may experience almost overmastering sexual desire just before, during, or after the monthly period may remain perfectly calm and self-possessed during the rest of the month. In men such irregularities of the sexual impulse are far less marked. Thus it is that a woman may often appear capricious, unaccountable, or cold, merely because her moments of strong emotion have been physiologically confined within a limited period. She may be one day capable of audacities of which on another the very memory might seem to have left her. Not only is the intensity of the sexual impulse in women, as compared to men, more liable to vary from day to day, or from week to week, but the same greater variability is marked when we compare the whole cycle of life in women to that of men. The stress of early womanhood, when the reproductive functions are in fullest activity, and of late womanhood, when they are ceasing, produces a profound organic fermentation, psychic as much as physical, which is not paralleled in the lives of men. This greater variability in the cycle of a woman's life as compared with a man's is indicated very delicately and precisely by the varying incidence of insanity, and is made clearly visible in a diagram prepared by Marro showing the relative liability to mental diseases in the two sexes according to age.[180] At the age of 20 the incidence of insanity in both sexes is equal; from that age onward the curve in men proceeds in a gradual and equable manner, with only the slightest oscillation, on to old age. But in women the curve is extremely irregular; it remains high during all the years from 20 to 30, instead of falling like the masculine curve; then it falls rapidly to considerably below the masculine curve, rising again considerably above the masculine level during the climacteric years from 40 to 50, after which age the two sexes remain fairly close together to the end of life. Thus, as measured by the test of insanity, the curve of woman's life, in the sudden rise and sudden fall of its sexual crisis, differs from the curve of man's life and closely resembles the minor curve of her menstrual cycle. The general tendency of this difference in sexual life and impulse is to show a greater range of variation in women than in men. Fairly uniform, on the whole, in men generally and in the same man throughout mature life, sexual impulse varies widely between woman and woman, and even in the same woman at different periods. FOOTNOTES: [169] Ovid remarks (_Ars Amatoria_, bk. i) that, if men were silent, women would take the active and suppliant part. [170] Ferrand, _De la Maladie d'Amour_, 1623, ch. ii. [171] Tarde, _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, May 15, 1897. Marro, who quotes this observation (_Pubertà_, p. 467; in French edition, p. 61), remarks that his own evidence lends some support to Lombroso's conclusion that under ordinary circumstances woman's sensory acuteness is less than that of man. He is, however, inclined to impute this to defective attention; within the sexual sphere women's attention becomes concentrated, and their sensory perceptions then go far beyond those of men. There is probably considerable truth in this subtle observation. [172] A well-known gynecologist writes from America: "Abhorrence due to suffering on first nights I have repeatedly seen. One very marked case is that of a fine womanly young woman with splendid figure; she is a very good woman, and admires her husband, but, though she tries to develop desire and passion, she cannot succeed. I fear the man will some day appear who will be able to develop the latent feelings." [173] It is curious that, while the sexual impulse in women tends to develop at a late age more frequently than in men, it would also appear to develop more frequently at a very early age than in the other sex. The majority of cases of precocious sexual development seems to be in female children. W. Roger Williams ("Precocious Sexual Development," _British Gynæcological Journal_, May, 1902) finds that 80 such cases have been recorded in females and only 20 in males, and, while 13 is the earliest age at which boys have proved virile, girls have been known to conceive at 8. [174] I find the same remark made by Plazzonus in the seventeenth century. [175] Art. "Fécondation," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_. [176] This also is an ancient remark, for in the early treatise _De Secretis Mulierum_, once attributed to Michael Scot, it is stated, concerning the woman who finds pleasure in coitus, "cantat libenter." [177] It is scarcely necessary to add that prostitutes can furnish little evidence one way or the other. Not only may prostitutes refuse to participate in the sexual orgasm, but the evils of a prostitute's life are obviously connected with causes quite other than mere excess of sexual gratification. [178] This is, for instance, indicated by the experiments of Gualino concerning the sexual sensitiveness of the lips (_Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1904, fasc. 3). He found that mechanical irritation applied to the lips produced more or less sexual feeling in 12 out of 20 women, but in only 10 out of 25 men, i.e., in three-fifths of the women and two-fifths of the men. [179] "Adolescence is for women primarily a period of storm and stress, while for men it is in the highest sense a period of doubt," (Starbuck, _Psychology of Religion_, p. 241.) It is interesting to note that in the religious sphere, also, the emotions of women are more diffused than those of men; Starbuck confirms the conclusion of Professor Coe that, while women have at least as much religious emotion as men, in them it is more all pervasive, and they experience fewer struggles and acute crises. (Ibid., p. 80.) [180] Marro, _La Pubertà_, p. 233. This table covers all those cases, nearly 3000, of patients entering the Turin asylum, from 1886 to 1895, in which the age of the first appearance of insanity was known. III. Summary of Conclusions. In conclusion it may be worth while to sum up the main points brought out in this brief discussion of a very large question. We have seen that there are two streams of opinion regarding the relative strength of the sexual impulse in men and women: one tending to regard it as greater in men, the other as greater in women. We have concluded that, since a large body of facts may be brought forward to support either view, we may fairly hold that, roughly speaking, the distribution of the sexual impulse between the two sexes is fairly balanced. We have, however, further seen that the phenomena are in reality too complex to be settled by the usual crude method of attempting to discover quantitative differences in the sexual impulse. We more nearly get to the bottom of the question by a more analytic method, breaking up our mass of facts into groups. In this way we find that there are certain well-marked characteristics by which the sexual impulse in women differs from the same impulse in men: 1. It shows greater apparent passivity. 2. It is more complex, less apt to appear spontaneously, and more often needing to be aroused, while the sexual orgasm develops more slowly than in men. 3. It tends to become stronger after sexual relationships are established. 4. The threshold of excess is less easily reached than in men. 5. The sexual sphere is larger and more diffused. 6. There is a more marked tendency to periodicity in the spontaneous manifestations of sexual desire. 7. Largely as a result of these characteristics, the sexual impulse shows a greater range of variation in women than in men, both as between woman and woman and in the same woman at different periods. It may be added that a proper understanding of these sexual differences in men and women is of great importance, both in the practical management of sexual hygiene and in the comprehension of those wider psychological characteristics by which women differ from men. APPENDICES. APPENDIX A. THE SEXUAL INSTINCT IN SAVAGES. I. In the eighteenth century, when savage tribes in various parts of the world first began to be visited, extravagantly romantic views widely prevailed as to the simple and idyllic lives led by primitive peoples. During the greater part of the nineteenth century the tendency of opinion was to the opposite extreme, and it became usual to insist on the degraded and licentious morals of savages.[181] In reality, however, savage life is just as little a prolonged debauch as a prolonged idyll. The inquiries of such writers as Westermarck, Frazer, and Crawley are tending to introduce a sounder conception of the actual, often highly complex, conditions of primitive life in its relations to the sexual instinct. At the same time it is not difficult to account for the belief, widely spread during the nineteenth century, in the unbridled licentiousness of savages. In the first place, the doctrine of evolution inevitably created a prejudice in favor of such a view. It was assumed that modesty, chastity, and restraint were the finest and ultimate flowers of moral development; therefore at the beginnings of civilization we must needs expect to find the opposite of these things. Apart, however, from any mere prejudice of this kind, a superficial observation of the actual facts necessarily led to much misunderstanding. Just as the nakedness of many savage peoples led to the belief that they were lacking in modesty, although, as a matter of fact, modesty is more highly developed in savage life than in civilization,[182] so the absence of our European rules of sexual behavior among savages led to the conclusion that they were abandoned to debauchery. The widespread custom of lending the wife under certain circumstances was especially regarded as indicating gross licentiousness. Moreover, even when intercourse was found to be free before marriage, scarcely any investigator sought to ascertain what amount of sexual intercourse this freedom involved. It was not clearly understood that such freedom must by no means be necessarily assumed to involve very frequent intercourse. Again, it often happened that no clear distinction was made between peoples contaminated by association with civilization, and peoples not so contaminated. For instance, when prostitution is attributed to a savage people we must usually suppose either that a mistake has been made or that the people in question have been degraded by intercourse with white peoples, for among unspoilt savages customs that can properly be called prostitution rarely prevail. Nor, indeed, would they be in harmony with the conditions of primitive life. It has been seriously maintained that the chastity of savages, so far as it exists at all, is due to European civilization. It is doubtless true that this is the case with individual persons and tribes, but there is ample evidence from various parts of the world to show that this is by no means the rule. And, indeed, it may be said--with no disregard of the energy and sincerity of missionary efforts--that it could not be so. A new system of beliefs and practices, however excellent it may be in itself, can never possess the same stringent and unquestionable force as the system in which an individual and his ancestors have always lived, and which they have never doubted the validity of. That this is so we may have occasion to observe among ourselves. Christian teachers question the wisdom of bringing young people under free-thinking influence, because, although they do not deny the morals of free-thinkers, they believe that to unsettle the young may have a disastrous effect, not only on belief, but also on conduct. Yet this dangerously unsettling process has been applied by missionaries on a wholesale scale to races which in some respect are often little more than children. When, therefore, we are considering the chastity of savages we must not take into account those peoples which have been brought into close contact with Europeans. In order to understand the sexual habits of savages generally there are two points which always have to be borne in mind as of the first importance: (1) the checks restraining sexual intercourse among savages, especially as regards time and season, are so numerous, and the sanctions upholding those checks so stringent, that sexual excess cannot prevail to the same extent as in civilization; (2) even in the absence of such checks, that difficulty of obtaining sexual erethism which has been noted as so common among savages, when not overcome by the stimulating influences prevailing at special times and seasons, and which is probably in large measure dependent on hard condition of life as well as an insensitive quality of nervous texture, still remains an important factor, tending to produce a natural chastity. There is a third consideration which, though from the present point of view subsidiary, is not without bearing on our conception of chastity among savages: the importance, even sacredness, of procreation is much more generally recognized by savage than by civilized peoples, and also a certain symbolic significance is frequently attached to human procreation as related to natural fruitfulness generally; so that a primitive sexual orgy, instead of being a mere manifestation of licentiousness, may have a ritual significance, as a magical means of evoking the fruitfulness of fields and herds.[183] When a savage practises extraconjugal sexual intercourse, the act is frequently not, as it has come to be conventionally regarded in civilization, an immorality or at least an illegitimate indulgence; it is a useful and entirely justifiable act, producing definite benefits, conducing alike to cosmic order and social order, although these benefits are not always such as we in civilization believe to be caused by the act. Thus, speaking of the northern tribes of central Australia, Spencer and Gillen remark: "It is very usual amongst all of the tribes to allow considerable license during the performance of certain of their ceremonies when a large number of natives, some of them coming often from distant parts, are gathered together--in fact, on such occasions all of the ordinary marital rules seem to be more or less set aside for the time being. Each day, in some tribes, one or more women are told off whose duty it is to attend at the corrobboree grounds,--sometimes only during the day, sometimes at night,--and all of the men, except those who are fathers, elder and younger brothers, and sons, have access to them.... The idea is that the sexual intercourse assists in some way in the proper performance of the ceremony, causing everything to work smoothly and preventing the decorations from falling off."[184] It is largely this sacred character of sexual intercourse--the fact that it is among the things that are at once "divine" and "impure," these two conceptions not being differentiated in primitive thought--which leads to the frequency with which in savage life a taboo is put upon its exercise. Robertson Smith added an appendix to his _Religion of the Semites_ on "Taboo on the Intercourse of the Sexes."[185] Westermarck brought together evidence showing the frequency with which this and allied causes tended to the chastity of savages.[186] Frazer has very luminously expounded the whole primitive conception of sexual intercourse, and showed how it affected chastity.[187] Warriors must often be chaste; the men who go on any hunting or other expedition require to be chaste to be successful; the women left behind must be strictly chaste; sometimes even the whole of the people left behind, and for long periods, must be chaste in order to insure the success of the expedition. Hubert and Maus touched on the same point in their elaborate essay on sacrifice, pointing out how frequently sexual relationships are prohibited on the occasion of any ceremony whatever.[188] Crawley, in elaborating the primitive conception of taboo, has dealt fully with ritual and traditional influences making for chastity among savages. He brings forward, for instance, a number of cases, from various parts of the world, in which intercourse has to be delayed for days, weeks, even months, after marriage. He considers that the sexual continence prevalent among savages is largely due to a belief in the enervating effects of coitus; so dangerous are the sexes to each other that, as he points out, even now sexual separation of the sexes commonly occurs.[189] There are thus a great number of constantly recurring occasions in savage life when continence must be preserved, and when, it is firmly believed, terrible risks would be incurred by its violation--during war, after victory, after festivals, during mourning, on journeys, in hunting and fishing, in a vast number of agricultural and industrial occupations. It might fairly be argued that the facility with which the savage places these checks on sexual intercourse itself bears witness to the weakness of the sexual impulse. Evidence of another order which seems to point to the undeveloped state of the sexual impulse among savages may be found in the comparatively undeveloped condition of their sexual organs, a condition not, indeed, by any means constant, but very frequently noted. As regards women, it has in many parts of the world been observed to be the rule, and the data which Ploss and Bartels have accumulated seem to me, on the whole, to point clearly in this direction.[190] At another point, also, it may be remarked, the repulsion between the sexes and the restraints on intercourse may be associated with weak sexual impulse. It is not improbable that a certain horror of the sexual organs may be a natural feeling which is extinguished in the intoxication of desire, yet still has a physiological basis which renders the sexual organs--disguised and minimized by convention and by artistic representation--more or less disgusting in the absence of erotic emotion.[191] And this is probably more marked in cases in which the sexual instinct is constitutionally feeble. A lady who had no marked sexual desires, and who considered it well bred to be indifferent to such matters, on inspecting her sexual parts in a mirror for the first time in her life was shocked and disgusted at the sight. Certainly many women could record a similar experience on being first approached by a man, although artistic conventions present the male form with greater truth than the female. Moreover,--and here is the significant point,--this feeling is by no means restricted to the refined and cultured. "When working at Michelangelo," wrote a correspondent from Italy, "my upper gondolier used to see photographs and statuettes of all that man's works. Stopping one day before the Night and Dawn of S. Lorenzo, sprawling naked women, he exclaimed: 'How hideous they are!' I pressed him to explain himself. He went on: 'The ugliest man naked is handsomer than the finest woman naked. Women have crooked legs, and their sexual organs stink. I only once saw a naked woman. It was in a brothel, when I was 18. The sight of her "natura" made me go out and vomit into the canal. You know I have been twice married, but I never saw either of my wives without clothing.' Of very rank cheese he said one day: 'Puzza come la natura d'una donna.'" This man, my correspondent added, was entirely normal and robust, but seemed to regard sexual congress as a mere evacuation, the sexual instinct apparently not being strong. It seems possible that, if the sexual impulse had no existence, all men would regard women with this _horror feminæ_. As things are, however, at all events in civilization, sexual emotions begin to develop even earlier, usually, than acquaintance with the organs of the other sex begins; so that this disgust is inhibited. If, however, among savages the sexual impulse is habitually weak, and only aroused to strength under the impetus of powerful stimuli, often acting periodically, then we should expect the _horror_ to be a factor of considerable importance. The weakness of the physical sexual impulse among savages is reflected in the psychic sphere. Many writers have pointed out that love plays but a small part in their lives. They practise few endearments; they often only kiss children (Westermarck notes that sexual love is far less strong than parental love); love-poems are among some primitive peoples few (mostly originating with the women), and their literature often gives little or no attention to passion.[192] Affection and devotion are, however, often strong, especially in savage women. It is not surprising that jealousy should often, though not by any means invariably, be absent, both among men and among women. Among savages this is doubtless a proof of the weakness of the sexual impulse. Spencer and Gillen note the comparative absence of jealousy in men among the Central Australian tribes they studied.[193] Negresses, it is said by a French army surgeon in his _Untrodden Fields of Anthropology_, do not know what jealousy is, and the first wife will even borrow money to buy the second wife. Among a much higher race, the women in a Korean household, it is said, live together happily, as an almost invariable rule, though it appears that this was not always the case among a polygamous people of European race, the Mormons. The tendency of the sexual instinct in savages to periodicity, to seasonal manifestations, I do not discuss here, as I have dealt with it in the first volume of these _Studies_.[194] It has, however, a very important bearing on this subject. Periodicity of sexual manifestations is, indeed, less absolute in primitive man than in most animals, but it is still very often quite clearly marked. It is largely the occurrence of these violent occasional outbursts of the sexual instinct--during which the organic impulse to tumescence becomes so powerful that external stimuli are no longer necessary--that has led to the belief in the peculiar strength of the impulse in savages.[195] FOOTNOTES: [181] Thus, Lubbock (Lord Avebury), in the _Origin of Civilization_, fifth edition, 1889, brings forward a number of references in evidence of this belief. More recently Finck, in his _Primitive Love and Love-stories_, 1899, seeks to accumulate data in favor of the unbounded licentiousness of savages. He admits, however, that a view of the matter opposed to his own is now tending to prevail. [182] See "The Evolution of Modesty" in the first volume of these _Studies_. [183] The sacredness of sexual relations often applies also to individual marriage. Thus, Skeat, in his _Malay Magic_, shows that the bride and bridegroom are definitely recognized as sacred, in the same sense that the king is, and in Malay States the king is a very sacred person. See also, concerning the sacred character of coitus, whether individual or collective, A. Van Gennep, _Rites de Passage, passim_. [184] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 136. [185] _Religion of the Semites_, second edition, 1894, p. 454 _et seq._ [186] _History of Marriage_, pp. 66-70, 150-156, etc. [187] _Golden Bough_, third edition, part ii, _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_. Frazer has discussed taboo generally. For a shorter account of taboo, see art. "Taboo" by Northcote Thomas in _Encyclopædia Britannica_, eleventh edition, 1911. Freud has lately (_Imago_, 1912) made an attempt to explain the origin of taboo psychologically by comparing it to neurotic obsessions. Taboo, Freud believes, has its origin in a forbidden act to perform which there is a strong unconscious tendency; an ambivalent attitude, that is, combining the opposite tendencies, is thus established. In this way Freud would account for the fact that tabooed persons and things are both sacred and unclean. [188] "Essai sur le Sacrifice," _L'Année Sociologique_, 1899, pp. 50-51. [189] _The Mystic Rose_, 1902, p. 187 et seq., 215 et seq., 342 et seq. [190] _Das Weib_, vol. i, section 6. [191] This statement has been questioned. It should, however, be fairly evident that the sexual organs in either sex, when closely examined, can scarcely be regarded as beautiful except in the eyes of a person of the opposite sex who is in a condition of sexual excitement, and they are not always attractive even then. Moreover, it must be remembered that the snake-like aptitude of the penis to enter into a state of erection apart from the control of the will puts it in a different category from any other organ of the body, and could not fail to attract the attention of primitive peoples so easily alarmed by unusual manifestations. We find even in the early ages of Christianity that St. Augustine attached immense importance to this alarming aptitude of the penis as a sign of man's sinful and degenerate state. [192] Lubbock, _Origin of Civilization_, fifth edition, pp. 69, 73; Westermarck, _History of Marriage_, p. 357; Grosse, _Anfänge der Kunst_, p. 236; Herbert Spencer, "Origin of Music," _Mind_, Oct., 1890. [193] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 99; cf. Finck, _Primitive Love and Love-stories_, p. 89 et seq. [194] "The Phenomena of Sexual Periodicity." The subject has also been more recently discussed by Walter Heape, "The 'Sexual Season' of Mammals," _Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science_, vol. xliv, 1900. See also F.H.A. Marshall, _The Physiology of Reproduction_, 1910. [195] This view finds a belated supporter in Max Marcuse ("Geschlechtstrieb des Urmenschens," _Sexual-Probleme_, Oct., 1909), who, on grounds which I cannot regard as sound, seeks to maintain the belief that the sexual instinct is more highly developed among savage than among civilized peoples. II. The facts thus seem to indicate that among primitive peoples, while the magical, ceremonial, and traditional restraints on sexual intercourse are very numerous, very widespread, and nearly always very stringent, there is, underlying this prevalence of restraints on intercourse, a fundamental weakness of the sexual instinct, which craves less, and craves less frequently, than is the case among civilized peoples, but is liable to be powerfully manifested at special seasons. It is perfectly true that among savages, as Sutherland states, "there is no ideal which makes chastity a thing beautiful in itself"; but when the same writer goes on to state that "it is untrue that in sexual license the savage has everything to learn," we must demand greater precision of statement.[196] Travelers, and too often would-be scientific writers, have been so much impressed by the absence among savages of the civilized ideal of chastity, and by the frequent freedom of sexual intercourse, that they have not paused to inquire more carefully into the phenomena, or to put themselves at the primitive point of view, but have assumed that freedom here means all that it would mean in a European population. In order to illustrate the actual circumstances of savage life in this respect from the scanty evidence furnished by the most careful observers, I have brought together from scattered sources a few statements concerning primitive peoples in very various parts of the world.[197] Among the Andamanese, Portman, who knows them well, says that sexual desire is very moderate; in males it appears at the age of 18, but, as "their love for sport is greater than their passions, these are not gratified to any great extent till after marriage, which rarely takes place till a man is about 26."[198] Although chastity is not esteemed by the Fuegians, and virginity is lost at a very early age, yet both men and women are extremely moderate in sexual indulgence.[199] Among the Eskimo at the other end of the American continent, according to Dr. F. Cook, the sexual passions are suppressed during the long darkness of winter, as also is the menstrual function usually, and the majority of the children are born nine months after the appearance of the sun.[200] Among the Indians of North America it is the custom of many tribes to refrain from sexual intercourse during the whole period of lactation, as also D'Orbigny found to be the case among South American Indians, although suckling went on for over three years.[201] Many of the Indian tribes have now been rendered licentious by contact with civilization. In the primitive condition their customs were entirely different. Dr. Holder, who knows many tribes of North American Indians well, has dealt in some detail with this point. "Several of the virtues," he states, "and among them chastity, were more faithfully practised by the Indian race before the invasion from the East than these same virtues are practised by the white race of the present day.... The race is less salacious than either the negro or white race.... That the women of some tribes are now more careful of their virtue than the women of any other community whose history I know, I am fully convinced."[202] It is not only on the women that sexual abstinence is imposed. Among some branches of the Salish Indians of British Columbia a young widower must refrain from sexual intercourse for a year, and sometimes lives entirely apart during that period.[203] In many parts of Polynesia, although the sexual impulse seems often to have been highly developed before the arrival of Europeans, it is very doubtful whether license, in the European sense, at all generally prevailed. The Marquesans, who have sometimes been regarded as peculiarly licentious, are especially mentioned by Foley as illustrating his statement that sexual erethism is with difficulty attained by primitive peoples except during sexual seasons.[204] Herman Melville's detailed account in _Typee_ of the Marquesans (somewhat idealized, no doubt) reveals nothing that can fairly be called licentiousness. At Rotuma, J. Stanley Gardiner remarks, before the missionaries came sexual intercourse before marriage was free, but gross immorality and prostitution and adultery were unknown. Matters are much worse now.[205] The Maoris of New Zealand, in the old days, according to one who had lived among them, were more chaste than the English, and, though a chief might lend his wife to a friend as an honor, it would be very difficult to take her (_private communication_).[206] Captain Cook also represented these people as modest and virtuous. Among the Papuans of New Guinea and Torres Straits, although intercourse before marriage is free, it is by no means unbridled, nor is it carried to excess. There are many circumstances restraining intercourse. Thus, unmarried men must not indulge in it during October and November at Torres Straits. It is the general rule also that there should be no sexual intercourse during pregnancy, while a child is being suckled (which goes on for three or four years), or even until it can speak or walk.[207] In Astrolabe Bay, New Guinea, according to Vahness, a young couple must abstain from intercourse for several weeks after marriage, and to break this rule would be disgraceful.[208] As regards Australia, Brough Smyth wrote: "Promiscuous intercourse between the sexes is not practised by the aborigines, and their laws on the subject, particularly those of New South Wales, are very strict. When at camp all the young unmarried men are stationed by themselves at the extreme end, while the married men, each with his family, occupy the center. No conversation is allowed between the single men and the girls or the married women. Infractions of these laws were visited by punishment; ... five or six warriors threw from a comparatively short distance several spears at him [the offender]. The man was often severely wounded and sometimes killed."[209] This author mentions that a black woman has been known to kill a white man who attempted to have intercourse with her by force. Yet both sexes have occasional sexual intercourse from an early age. After marriage, in various parts of Australia, there are numerous restraints on intercourse, which is forbidden not merely during menstruation, but during the latter part of pregnancy and for one moon after childbirth.[210] Concerning the people of the Malay Peninsula, Hrolf Vaughan Stevens states: "The sexual impulse among the Belendas is only developed to a slight extent; they are not sensual, and the husband has intercourse with his wife not oftener than three times a month. The women also are not ardent.... The Orang Lâut are more sensual than the Dyaks, who are, however, more given to obscene jokes than their neighbors.... With the Belendas there is little or no love-play in sexual relations".[211] Skeat tells us also that among Malays in war-time strict chastity must be observed in a stockade, or the bullets of the garrison will lose their power.[212] It is a common notion that the negro and negroid races of Africa are peculiarly prone to sexual indulgence. This notion is not supported by those who have had the most intimate knowledge of these peoples. It probably gained currency in part owing to the open and expansive temperament of the negro, and in part owing to the extremely sexual character of many African orgies and festivals, though those might quite as legitimately be taken as evidence of difficulty in attaining sexual erethism. A French army surgeon, speaking from knowledge of the black races in various French colonies, states in his _Untrodden Fields of Anthropology_ that it is a mistake to imagine that the negress is very amorous. She is rather cold, and indifferent to the refinements of love, in which respects she is very unlike the mulatto. The white man is usually powerless to excite her, partly from his small penis, partly from his rapidity of emission; the black man, on account of his blunter nervous system, takes three times as long to reach emission as the white man. Among the Mohammedan peoples of West Africa, Daniell remarks, as well as in central and northern Africa, it is usual to suckle a child for two or more years. From the time when pregnancy becomes apparent to the end of weaning no intercourse takes place. It is believed that this would greatly endanger the infant, if not destroy it. This means that for every child the woman, at all events, must remain continent for about three years.[213] Sir H.H. Johnston, writing concerning the peoples of central Africa, remarks that the man also must remain chaste during these periods. Thus, among the Atonga the wife leaves her husband at the sixth month of pregnancy, and does not resume relations with him until five or six months after the birth of the child. If, in the interval, he has relations with any other woman, it is believed his wife will certainly die. "The negro is very rarely vicious," Johnston says, "after he has attained to the age of puberty. He is only more or less uxorious. The children are vicious, as they are among most races of mankind, the boys outrageously so. As regards the little girls over nearly the whole of British Central Africa, chastity before puberty is an unknown condition, except perhaps among the A-nyanja. Before a girl is become a woman it is a matter of absolute indifference what she does, and scarcely any girl remains a virgin after about 5 years of age."[214] Among the Bangala of the upper Congo a woman suckles her child for six to eighteen months and during all this period the husband has no intercourse with his wife, for that, it is believed, would kill the child.[215] Among the Yoruba-speaking people of West Africa A.B. Ellis mentions that suckling lasts for three years, during the whole of which period the wife must not cohabit with her husband.[216] Although chastity before marriage appears to be, as a rule, little regarded in Africa, this is not always so. In some parts of West Africa, a girl, at all events if of high birth, when found guilty of unchastity may be punished by the insertion into her vagina of bird pepper, a kind of capsicum, beaten into a mass; this produces intense pain and such acute inflammation that the canal may even be obliterated.[217] Among the Dahomey women there is no coitus during pregnancy nor during suckling, which lasts for nearly three years. The same is true among the Jekris and other tribes on the Niger, where it is believed that the milk would suffer if intercourse took place during lactation.[218] In another part of Africa, among the Suaheli, even after marriage only incomplete coitus is at first allowed and there is no intercourse for a year after the child's birth.[219] Farther south, among the Ba Wenda of north Transvaal, says the Rev. R. Wessmann, although the young men are permitted to "play" with the young girls before marriage, no sexual intercourse is allowed. If it is seen that a girl's labia are apart when she sits down on a stone, she is scolded, or even punished, as guilty of having had intercourse.[220] Among the higher races in India the sexual instinct is very developed, and sexual intercourse has been cultivated as an art, perhaps more elaborately than anywhere else. Here, however, we are far removed from primitive conditions and among a people closely allied to the Europeans. Farther to the east, as among the Cambodians, strict chastity seems to prevail, and if we cross the Himalayas to the north we find ourselves among wild people to whom sexual license is unknown. Thus, among the Turcomans, even a few days after the marriage has been celebrated, the young couple are separated for an entire year.[221] All the great organized religions have seized on this value of sexual abstinence, already consecrated by primitive magic and religion, and embodied it in their system. It was so in ancient Egypt. Thus, according to Diodorus, on the death of a king, the entire population of Egypt abstained from sexual intercourse for seventy-two days. The Persians, again, attached great value to sexual as to all other kinds of purity. Even involuntary seminal emissions were severely punishable. To lie with a menstruating woman, according to the _Vendidad_, was as serious a matter as to pollute holy fire, and to lie with a pregnant woman was to incur a penalty of 2000 strokes. Among the modern Parsees a man must not lie with his wife after she is four months and ten days pregnant. Mohammedanism cannot be described as an ascetic religion, yet long and frequent periods of sexual abstinence are enjoined. There must be no sexual intercourse during the whole of pregnancy, during suckling, during menstruation (and for eight days before and after), nor during the thirty days of the Ramedan fast. Other times of sexual abstinence are also prescribed; thus among the Mohammedan Yezidis of Mardin in northern Mesopotamia there must be no sexual intercourse on Wednesdays or Fridays.[222] In the early Christian Church many rules of sexual abstinence still prevailed, similar to those usual among savages, though not for such prolonged periods. In Egbert's Penitential, belonging to the ninth century, it is stated that a woman must abstain from intercourse with her husband three months after conception and for forty days after birth. There were a number of other occasions, including Lent, when a husband must not know his wife.[223] "Some canonists say," remarks Jeremy Taylor, "that the Church forbids a mutual congression of married pairs upon festival days.... The Council of Eliberis commanded abstinence from conjugal rights for three or four or seven days before the communion. Pope Liberius commanded the same during the whole time of Lent, supposing the fast is polluted by such congressions."[224] FOOTNOTES: [196] A. Sutherland, _Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct_, vol. i, pp. 8, 187. As has been shown by, for instance, Dr. Iwan Bloch (_Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Erster Theil, 1902), every perverse sexual practice may be found, somewhere or other, among savages or barbarians; but, as the same writer acutely points out (p. 58), these devices bear witness to the need of overcoming frigidity rather than to the strength of the sexual impulse. [197] Ploss and Bartels have brought together in _Das Weib_ a large number of facts in the same sense, more especially under the headings of _Abstinenz-Vorschriften_ and _Die Fernhaltung der Schwangeren_. I have not drawn upon their collection. [198] _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, May, 1896, p. 369. [199] Hyades and Deniker, _Mission Scientifique du Cap Horn_, vol. vii, p. 188. [200] F. Cook, _New York Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics_, 1894. [201] A. d'Orbigny, _L'Homme Américain_, 1839, vol. i, p. 47. [202] A.B. Holder, "Gynecic Notes Among the American Indians," _American Journal of Obstetrics_, 1892, vol. xxvi, No. 1. [203] _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1905, p. 139. [204] Foley, _Bulletin de la Société d' Anthropologie_, Paris, November 6, 1879. [205] J.S. Gardiner, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, February, 1898, p. 409. [206] As regards the modern Maoris, a medical correspondent in New Zealand writes: "It is nothing for members of both sexes to live in the same room, and for promiscuous intercourse to take place between father and daughter or brother and sister. Maori women, who will display a great deal of modesty when in the presence of male Maoris, will openly ask strange Europeans to have sexual intercourse with them, and without any desire for reward. The men, however, seem to prefer their own women, and even when staying in towns, where they can obtain prostitutes, they will remain continent until they return home again, a period of perhaps a month." [207] Schellong, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1889, i, pp. 17, 19; Haddon, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, February, 1890, pp. 316, 397; Guise, ib., February and May, 1899, p. 207; Seligmann, ib., 1902, pp. 298, 301-302; _Reports Cambridge Expedition_, vol. v, pp. 199-200, 275. [208] _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1900, ht. v, p. 414. [209] R. Brough Smyth, _The Aborigines of Victoria_, vol. ii, p. 318. [210] _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1894, pp. 170, 177, 187. [211] _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1896, iv, pp. 180-181. [212] W.W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_, p. 524. [213] W.F. Daniell, _Medical Topography of Gulf of Guinea_, 1849, p. 55. [214] Sir H.H. Johnston, _British Central Africa_, 1899, pp. 409, 414. [215] Rev. J.H. Weeks, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1910, p. 418. [216] Sir A.B. Ellis, _Yoruba-Speaking Peoples_, p. 185. [217] W.F. Daniell, op. cit., p. 36. [218] _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, August and November, 1898, p. 106. [219] _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1899, ii and iii, p. 84; Velten, _Sitten und Gebraüche der Suaheli_, p. 12. [220] _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1896, p. 364. [221] Vambery, _Travels in Central Asia_, 1864, p. 323. [222] Heard, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, Jan.-June, 1911, p. 210. The same rule is also observed by the Christians of this district. [223] Haddon and Stubbs, _Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents_, vol. iii, p. 423. [224] Jeremy Taylor, _The Rule of Conscience_, bk. iii, ch. iv, rule xx. III. Thus it would seem probable that, contrary to a belief once widely prevalent, the sexual instinct has increased rather than diminished with the growth of civilization. This fact was clear to the insight of Lucretius, though it has often been lost sight of since.[225] Yet even observation of animals might have suggested the real bearing of the facts. The higher breeds of cattle, it is said, require the male more often than the inferior breeds.[226] Thorough-bred horses soon reach sexual maturity, and I understand that since pains have been taken to improve cart-horses the sexual instincts of the mares have become less trustworthy. There is certainly no doubt that in our domestic animals generally, which live under what may be called civilized conditions, the sexual system and the sexual needs are more developed than in the wild species most closely related to them.[227] All observers seem to agree on this point, and it is sufficient to refer to the excellent summary of the question furnished by Heape in the study of "The 'Sexual Season' of Mammals," to which reference has already been made. He remarks, moreover, that, "while the sexual activity of domestic animals and of wild animals in captivity may be more frequently exhibited, it is not so violent as is shown by animals in the wild state."[228] So that, it would seem, the greater periodicity of the instinct in the wild state, alike in animals and in man, is associated with greater violence of the manifestations when they do appear. Certain rodents, such as the rat and the mouse, are well known to possess both great reproductive power and marked sexual proclivities. Heape suggests that this also is "due to the advantages derived from their intimate relations with the luxuries of civilization." Heape recognizes that, as regards reproductive power, the same development may be traced in man: "It would seem highly probable that the reproductive power of man has increased with civilization, precisely as it may be increased in the lower animals by domestication; that the effect of a regular supply of good food, together with all the other stimulating factors available and exercised in modern civilized communities, has resulted in such great activity of the generative organs, and so great an increase in the supply of the reproductive elements, that conception in the healthy human female may be said to be possible almost at any time during the reproductive period." "People of sense and reflection are most apt to have violent and constant passions," wrote Mary Wollstonecraft, "and to be preyed on by them."[229] It is that fact which leads to the greater importance of sexual phenomena among the civilized as compared to savages. The conditions of civilization increase the sexual instinct, which consequently tends to be more intimately connected with moral feelings. Morality is bound up with the development of the sexual instinct. The more casual and periodic character of the impulse in animals, since it involves greater sexual indifference, tends to favor a loose tie between the sexes, and hence is not favorable to the development of morals as we understand morals. In man the ever-present impulse of sex, idealizing each sex to the other sex, draws men and women together and holds them together. Foolish and ignorant persons may deplore the full development which the sexual instinct has reached in civilized man; to a finer insight that development is seen to be indissolubly linked with all that is most poignant and most difficult, indeed, but also all that is best, in human life as we know it. FOOTNOTES: [225] _De Rerum Naturâ_, v, 1016. [226] Raciborski (_Traité de la Menstruation_, p. 43) quotes the observation of an experienced breeder of choice cattle to this effect. [227] "The organs which in the feral state," as Adlerz remarks (_Biologisches Centralblatt_, No. 4, 1902; quoted in _Science_, May 16, 1902), "are continually exercised in a severe struggle for existence, do not under domestication compete so closely with one another for the less needed nutriment. Hence, organs like the reproductive glands, which are not so directly implicated in self-preservation, are able to avail themselves of more food." [228] _Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science_, vol. xliv, 1900, p. 12, 31, 39. [229] "Love," in _Thoughts on the Education of Daughters_. APPENDIX B. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SEXUAL INSTINCT. It is a very remarkable fact that, although for many years past serious attempts have been made to elucidate the psychology of sexual perversions, little or no endeavor has been made to study the development of the normal sexual emotions. Nearly every writer seems either to take for granted that he and his readers are so familiar with all the facts of normal sex psychology that any detailed statement is altogether uncalled for, or else he is content to write a few fragmentary remarks, mostly made up of miscellaneous extracts from anatomical, philosophical, and historical works. Yet it is as unreasonable to take normal phenomena for granted here as in any other region of science. A knowledge of such phenomena is as necessary here as physiology is to pathology or anatomy to surgery. So far from the facts of normal sex development, sex emotions, and sex needs being uniform and constant, as is assumed by those who consider their discussion unnecessary, the range of variation within fairly normal limits is immense, and it is impossible to meet with two individuals whose records are nearly identical. There are two fundamental reasons why the endeavor should be made to obtain a broad basis of clear information on the subject. In the first place, the normal phenomena give the key to the abnormal phenomena, and the majority of sexual perversions, including even those that are most repulsive, are but exaggerations of instincts and emotions that are germinal in normal human beings. In the second place, we cannot even know what is normal until we are acquainted with the sexual life of a large number of healthy individuals. And until we know the limits of normal sexuality we are not in position to lay down any reasonable rules of sexual hygiene. On these grounds I have for some time sought to obtain the sexual histories, and more especially the early histories, of men and women who, on _prima facie_ grounds, may fairly be considered, or are at all events by themselves and others considered, ordinarily healthy and normal. There are many difficulties about such a task, difficulties which are sufficiently obvious. There is, first of all, the natural reticence to reveal facts of so intimately personal a character. There is the prevailing ignorance and unintelligence which leads to the phenomena being obscure to the subject himself. When the first difficulty has been overcome, and the second is non-existent, there is still a lack of sufficiently strong motive to undertake the record, as well as a failure to realize the value of such records. I have, however, received a large number of such histories, for the most part offered spontaneously with permission to make such further inquiries as I thought desirable. Some of these histories are extremely interesting and instructive. In the present Appendix, and in a corresponding Appendix to the two following volumes of these _Studies_, I bring forward a varied selection of these narratives. In a few cases, it will be seen, the subjects are, to say the least, on the borderland of the abnormal, but they do not come before us as patients desiring treatment. They are playing their, usually active, sometimes even distinguished, part in the world, which knows nothing of their intimate histories. HISTORY I.--E.T. (I reproduce this history, written in the third person, as it reached my hands.) T.'s earliest recollections of ideas of a sexual character are vaguely associated with thoughts upon whipping inflicted on companions by their parents, and sometimes upon his own person. About the age of 7 T. occasionally depicted to himself the appearance of the bare nates and genitalia of boys during flagellation. Reflection upon whipping gave rise to slight curious sensations at the base of the abdomen and in the nerves of the sexual system. The sight of a boy being whipped upon the bare nates caused erection before the age of 9. He cannot account for these excitations, as at the time he had not learned the most rudimentary facts of sex. The spectacle of the boy's nudity had no attraction for him, while the beating aroused his indignation against the person who administered it. T. knew a boy and girl of about his own age whose imaginations dwelt somewhat morbidly upon whipping. The three used to talk together about such chastisement, and the little girl liked to read "stories that had whippings in them." None of these children delighted in cruelty; the fascination in the theme of castigation seemed to be in imagining the spectacle of the exposed nates, though actual witnessing of the whipping made them angry at the time. Accustomed to watch a young sister being bathed, T. had no distinct curiosity concerning the differences in sex until the age of 9. About this time he asked his father where babies came from, and was told to be quiet. When he persisted in the inquiry his father threatened to box his ears. His mother told him subsequently that doctors brought babies to mothers. He credited the story so far as to carefully watch the doctor who came when his mother "was going to have a new baby," in the hope of seeing a bundle in his arm. T. was 9 when he interrogated a servant-girl of 16 about babies and their origin. She laughed and said that one day she would tell him how children came. One Sunday this servant took T. for a country walk and initiated him in sexual intercourse, telling him he was too young to be a father, but that was the way babies were made. The girl took him into a field, saying she would show him how to do something which would make him "feel as though he was in heaven," informing him that she had often done this with young men. She then succeeded in causing erection and instructed him how to act. His feeling at the time was one of disgust; the appearance and odor of the female genitalia repelled him. Afterward, however, he wished to repeat the experience with girls of his own age. Finding the boy unresponsive, the girl took the masculine position and embraced him with great passion. T. can recall the expression of the girl's face, the perspiration on her forehead, and the whispered query whether it pleased him. The embrace lasted for about ten minutes, when the girl said it had "done her good." Later the same day they met a girl cousin of this servant about 10 or 12 years old. The three went to a lonely part of the seashore. The servant there suggested that T. should repeat the act with the little girl. T. was too shy, though the girl seemed quite willing and experienced. The older girl told the younger to keep watch a few yards away, while she again brought about intercourse in the same way. The servant told T. not to tell anyone. Intercourse with the servant was never repeated after that day; from shame he kept the promise for many years. After this episode T. began to speculate about sexual matters and to observe the coupling of dogs with newly acquired interest. At 10 years he often lay awake, listening to a woman of 25 singing to a piano accompaniment. The woman's voice seemed very beautiful, and so strongly impressed him that he fell in love with her and longed to embrace her sexually. This secret attachment was much more romantic than sensual, though the idea of embracing the woman seemed to T. a natural part of the romance. He was beginning to invest the sex with angelic qualities. The thought of his adventure with the servant no longer caused repulsion, but rather pleasure. He reflected that if he could meet the girl now he could be very fond of her and understand things better. At this time he had not masturbated, nor even heard of the practice. One day, while playing with a girl of his own age, he succeeded in overcoming her shyness and induced her to expose herself, at the same time uncovering his own sexual parts. On this occasion and once afterward he succeeded in penetrating the vulva. Both he and the girl experienced imperfect enjoyment. At boarding-school, where he was sent at 10, T. learned the vulgar phrases for sexual organs and sexual acts, and acquired the habit of moderate masturbation. Coarse talk and indecent jests about the opposite sex were common amusements of the playroom and dormitories. At first the obscene conversation was very distasteful; later he became more used to it, but thought it strange that sex intimacy should be a subject for ridicule and jest. He began to read love-stories and think much about girls. At the same time he learned the nature of "the sin of fornication," and wondered why it should be considered so heinous. Parts of the Bible condemning intercourse between the unmarried alarmed him. Being of a serious as well as emotional and amorous nature, he became converted to evangelic belief. His mother warned him to beware of unclean companions at school. He tried to act as a Christian and think only pure thoughts about women. The talk, however, was always of girls and of being in love. His mind was often engrossed with amatory ideas of a poetic, sensuous nature, his sexual experiences having a firm hold on his imagination, while they gave him gratifying assurance of actual knowledge concerning things merely imagined by most of his companions. His health was vigorous and he keenly enjoyed all outdoor games and excelled in daring and schoolboy mischief. At 12 he fell deeply in love with a girl of corresponding age. He never felt any powerful sexual desire for his sweetheart, and never attempted anything but kissing and decorous caresses. He liked to walk and sit with the girl, to hold her hand, and stroke her soft hair. He felt real grief when separated from her. His thoughts of her were seldom sensual. A year or so afterward he had a temporary passion for a woman of 30, who used to flirt with him and allow kissing. T. thought her queen-like and very lovely, and wished to be her knight. One day he saw, for a moment, in a friend's house, a dark, earnest-looking girl of 13, who made a very deep impression upon him, and, though he did not exchange a word with her, he often thought about her afterward. Five years later he met the dark girl again, and the pair were mutually drawn to one another. He proposed marriage and avowed a most desperate passion. A refusal on the plea of youth caused him the deepest misery. About eight years thereafter T. married the girl, and the marriage proved a very happy one for both. When he was 15 T. made the acquaintance of a pretty blonde of the same age. She was a high-spirited hoiden. They were soon close friends and later lovers. They wrote a number of letters to each other and exchanged locks of hair and presents. Their talk about love was unreserved. One day she told T. that she had been sexually embraced by a former lover, a boy of 16, hinting very plainly that she would like T. to embrace her. This amour lasted for about six months. The lovers had many opportunities for clandestine intercourse. They used to consummate their passion in a part of a wood they called "the bower." Now and then one or the other would experience a pricking of conscience, but they were too passionately attached to each other to sever the intimacy. At length the girl began to dread the risk of conception and the intercourse ceased. Looking back upon this episode T. avers that the attachment and its physical expression seemed quite natural, poetic, and beautiful, though at times his religious principles condemned his conduct. He now thinks that the experience is by no means to be regretted either by the girl or himself. It was a wholesome youthful passion, as innocent as the mating of birds, and the insight which it gave to both of the hidden emotions of human nature was morally advantageous in after-life. T. believes that his amative precocity was due to the early awakening of sex feeling by the servant-girl. But he also believes that the love passion would have asserted itself early in any case, since he inherits a warm temperament, had erectile power long before puberty, and has considerable seminal capacity. Having closely watched the effects of suppressed normal emotions and desires in youth at the time of pubescence, he maintains that such suppression is disastrous, causing unhealthy thoughts and leading to the formation of a habit of masturbation which may persist throughout life. He believes that temporary sexual intimacies between boys and girls under 20 from the period of puberty would be far less harmful than separation of the sexes until marriage, with its resultants: masturbation, hysteria, repressed and disordered functions in young women, seduction, prostitution, venereal affections, and many other evils. HISTORY II.--The following narrative was written by a married lady: "My mother (herself a very passionate and attractive woman) recognized the difficulty for English girls of getting satisfactorily married, and determined, if possible, to shield us from disappointment by turning our thoughts in a different direction. Theoretically the idea was perhaps good, but in practice it proved useless. The natural desires were there. Disappointment and disillusion followed their repression none the less surely for having altered their natural shape. I think the love I had for my mother was almost sexual, as to be with her was a keen pleasure, and to be long away from her an almost unendurable pain. She used to talk to us a good deal on all sorts of subjects, but she never troubled about education in the ordinary sense. When 9 years old I had been taught nothing except to read and write. She never forbade us to read anything, but if by accident we got hold of a book of which she did not approve she used to say: 'I think that is rather a silly story, don't you?' We were so eager to come up to her standard of taste that we at once imagined we thought it silly, too. In the same way she discouraged ideas about love or marriage, not by suggesting there was anything wrong or improper about them, but by implying great contempt for girls who thought about lovers, etc. Up to the age of about 20 I had a vague general impression that love was very well for ordinary women, but far beneath the dignity of a somewhat superior person like myself. To show how little it entered my thoughts I may add that, up to 17, I fancied a woman got a child by being kissed on the lips by a man. Hence all the fuss in novels about the kiss on the mouth. "When I was 9 years old I began to feel a great craving for scientific knowledge. _A Child's Guide to Science_, which I discovered at a second-hand book-stall (and which, by the way, informed me that heat is due to a substance called caloric), became a constant companion. In order to learn about light and gravitation, I saved up my money and ordered (of all books) Newton's _Principia_, shedding bitter tears when I found I could not understand a word of it. At the same time I was horribly ashamed of this desire for knowledge. I got such books as I could surreptitiously and hid them in odd corners. Why, I cannot imagine, as no one would have objected, but, on the contrary, I should have been helped to suitable books. "My sisters and I were all violently argumentative, but our quarrels were all on abstract subjects. We saw little of other children and made no friendships, preferring each other's society to that of outsiders. When I was about 10 a girl of the same age came to stay with us for a few days. When we went to bed the first night she asked me if I ever played with myself, whereupon I took a great dislike to her. No sexual ideas or feelings were excited. When still quite a child, however, I had feelings of excitement which I now recognize as sexual. Such feelings always came to me in bed (at least I cannot remember them at any other time) and were generally accompanied by a gradually increasing desire to make water. For a long time I would not dare to get out of bed for fear of being scolded for staying awake, and only did so at last when actually compelled. In the mean time the sexual excitement increased also, and I believe I thought the latter was the result of the former, or, perhaps, rather, that both were the same thing. (This was when I was about 7 or 8 years old.) So far as I can recollect, the excitement did not recur when the desire to make water had been gratified. I seemed to remember wondering why thinking of certain things (I can't remember what these were) should make one want to urinate. (In later life I have found that, if the bladder is not emptied before coitus, pleasure is often more intense.) There were also feelings, which I now recognize as sexual, in connection with ideas of whipping. "As a child and girl I had very strong religious feelings (I should have now if I could believe in the reality of religion), which were absent in my sisters. These feelings were much the same as I experienced later sexually; I felt toward God what I imagined I should like to feel to my husband if I married. This, I fancy, is what usually occurs. At 14 I went to a boarding-school where there were seventy girls between 7 and 19. I think it goes to show that there is but very little sexual precocity among English girls that during the three years I stayed there I never heard a word the strictest mother would have objected to. One or two of the older girls were occasionally a little sentimental, but on no occasion did I hear the physical side of things touched upon. I think this is partly due to the amount of exercise we took. When picturing my childhood I always see myself racing about, jumping walls, climbing trees. In France and Italy I have been struck by the greater sedateness of Continental children. Our idea of naughtiness consisted chiefly in having suppers in our bedrooms and sliding down the banisters after being sent to bed. The first gratified our natural appetite, while the second supplied the necessary thrill in the fear of being caught. "I made no violent friendships with the other girls, but I became much attached to the French governess. She was 30, and a born teacher, very strict with all of us, and doubly so with me for fear of showing favoritism. But she was never unjust, and I was rather proud of her severity and took a certain pleasure in being punished by her, the punishment always taking the form of learning by heart, which I rather liked doing. So I had my thrill, excitement, I don't quite know what to call it, without any very great inconvenience to myself. Just before we left school the sexual instinct began to show itself in enthusiasm for art with a capital A, Ouida's novels being mainly responsible. My sister and I agreed that we would spend our lives traveling about France, Italy, and the Continent, generally _à la Tricotrin_, with a violin in one pocket and an Atravante Dante in the other. To do this satisfactorily to ourselves we must be artists, and I resolved to go in for music and become a second Liszt. When my father offered to take us to Italy, the artist's Mecca, for a couple of years, we were wild with delight. We went, and disillusionment began. It may perhaps seem absurd, but we suffered acutely that first summer. Our villa was quite on the beach, the lowest of its flight of steps being washed by the Mediterranean. At the back were grounds which seemed a paradise. Long alleys covered over with vines and carpeted with long grass and poppies, grassy slopes dotted with olives and ilex, roses everywhere, and almost every flower in profusion, with, at night, the fireflies and the heavy scents of syringa and orange blossoms. In the midst of every possible excitement to the senses there was one thing wanting, and we did not know what that was. "We attributed our restlessness and dissatisfaction to the slow progress in our artistic education, and consoled ourselves by thinking when once we had mastered the technical difficulties we should feel all right. And of course we did derive a very real pleasure from all the beauties of art and nature with which Italy abounds. "It seems to me, however, that the art craze is one of the modern phases of woman's sexual life. When we were in Italy the great centers of the country were simply overrun with girls studying art, most of whom had very little talent, but who had mistaken the restlessness due to the first awakening of the sexual instinct for the divine flame of genius. In our case it did not matter, as we were not dependent upon our own exertions. But it must have been terribly hard for girls who had burned their boats and chosen art as a career, to have added to the repression of their natural desires the bitterness of knowing that in their chosen walk of life they were failures. The results as far as work goes might not be so bad if the passions, as in men, were occasionally gratified. It is the constant drudgery combined with the disappointment and finding that art alone does not satisfy which is so paralyzing. Besides, sexual gratification is always followed by exaltation of the mental faculties, with, in my experience, no depressing reaction such as follows pleasure excited by mental causes alone. "At one time when living at the villa I met a man about 45, who took rather a fancy to me. I mention this because it woke me up; no emotion was excited, but I realized for the first time (I must have been nearly 20) that I was no longer a child, and that a man could think of me in connection with love. It was only after this, and not immediately after, either, that men's society began to have an interest for me, and that I began to think a man's love would be a pleasant thing to possess, after all. "The sexual instinct, at any rate as regards consciousness, thus developed slowly and in what I believe to be a very usual sequence: religion, admiration for an older woman, and art. I am not sure that I have made quite enough of the first, yet I do not know that there is any more to say. There were very strong physical feelings connected with all these which were identical with those now connected with passion, but they were completely satisfied by the mental idea which excited them. "The first time I can remember feeling keen physical pleasure was when I was between 7 and 8 years old. I can't recollect the cause, but I remember lying quite still in my little cot clasping the iron rails at the top. It may be said that this is hardly slow development, but I mean slow as regards (1) any connection of the idea with a man or (2) any physical means of excitation. "I have laid stress on my desire for knowledge, as I think my sexual feelings were affected by it. A great part of my feeling for my mother was due to the stores of information she appeared to possess. The omniscience of God was to me his most striking attribute. My French teacher's capacity was her chief attraction. When, as a girl, I thought of marriage, I desired a man who 'could explain things to me.' One learns later to live one's mental and sexual life separately to a great extent. But at 20 I could not have done so; given the opportunity, I should have made the mistake of Dorothea in _Middlemarch_. "I have spoken of the depressing after-effects of pleasure brought about by a purely mental cause, but I do not think this is the case in childhood and early youth. (Perhaps some women feel no such depression afterward, and this may account for their coldness in regard to men.) This may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that it occurs much more rarely, and also it is perhaps a natural process before the sexual organs fully develop, and so not harmful. "I always find it difficult in expressing the different degrees of physical excitement even to myself, though I know exactly what I felt. As a child, from the time of the early experience already mentioned (about the age of 7 or 8), and as a young girl, the second stage (secretion of mucus) was always reached. The amount of secretion has always been excessive, but at first secretion only lasted a short time; later it began to last for several hours, or even sometimes the whole night, if the natural gratification has been withheld for a long time (say, three months). I do not remember ever feeling the third stage (complete orgasm) until I saw the first man I fancied I cared for. I do not think that mental causes alone have ever produced more than the first two stages (general diffuse excitement and secretion). I have sometimes wondered whether I could produce the third mechanically, but I have a curious unreasonable repugnance to trying the experiment; it would seem to materialize it too much. As a child and a girl I was contented to arrive at the second stage, possibly because I did not realize that there was any other, and perhaps this is why I have experienced no evil results. "In dreams the third stage seems to come suddenly without any leading up to it, either mental or physical, of which I am conscious. I do not, however, remember having any such dreams before I was engaged. They came at a later period; even then, when great pleasure was experienced, it came, as a rule, suddenly and sharply, with no dreams leading up to it. The dreams generally take a sad form (an Evangeline and Gabriel business), where one vainly seeks the person who eludes one. I have, however, sometimes had pleasurable dreams of men who were quite indifferent to me and of whom I never thought when awake. The impression on waking is so strong one could almost fancy one's self really in love with them. I can quite understand falling in love with a person by dreaming of him in this way. "The first time I remember experiencing the third stage in waking moments was at a picnic, when the man, to whom I have before referred as the first that I fancied I cared for, leaned against me accidentally in passing a plate or dish; but I was already in a violent state of excitement at being with him. There was no possibility of anything between us, as he was married. If he guessed my feelings, they were never admitted, as I did my best to hide them. I never experienced this, except at the touch of some one I loved. (I think the saying about the woman 'desiring the desire of the man' is just about as true as most epigrams. It is the man's personality alone which affects me. His feelings toward me are of--I was going to say--indifference, but at any rate quite secondary importance, and the gratification of my own vanity counts as nothing in such relations.) "As a rule, to reach even the second stage the exciting ideas must be associated with some particular person, except in the case of a story, where one identifies one's self with one of the characters. In childhood and early youth it was, in the case of religion, the idea of God and the presence and the personality of God which aroused my feelings and always seemed very vivid to me. In the case of my governess, my feelings were aroused in exactly the same way as later they would be by one's lover. In the art craze I am rather vague as to how it came about, but I think, as a rule, there was rather a craving for pleasure than pleasure itself. I do not remember ever thinking much about the physical feeling. It seemed as natural that a pleasant emotion should produce pleasant physical effects as that a painful one should cause tears. As a child, one takes so much for granted, and later on my mind was so much occupied with worrying about the truth of religion that I hardly thought enough about anything else to analyze it carefully. "I may summarize my own feelings thus: First, exciting ideas alone produce, as a rule, merely the first stage of sexual excitement. Second, the same ideas connected with a particular person will produce the second stage. Third, the same may be said of the presence of the beloved person. Fourth, actual contact appears necessary for the third stage. If the first stage only be reached, the sensation is not pleasurable in reality, or would not be but for its association. If produced, as I have sometimes found it to be, by a sense of mental incapacity, it is distinctly disagreeable, especially if one feels that the energy which might have been used in coping with the difficulty is being thus dissipated. If it be produced, as it may be, as the result of physical or mental restraint, it is also unpleasant unless the restraint were put upon one by a person one loves. Then, however, the second stage would probably be reached, but this would depend a good deal on one's mood. If the first stage only were reached, I think it would be disagreeable; it would mean a conflict between one's will and sexual feeling. Perhaps women who feel actual repugnance to the sexual act with a man they love have never gone beyond the first stage, when their dislike to it would be quite intelligible to me. "Some time after the life in Italy had come to an end I became engaged. There was considerable difficulty in the way of marriage, but we saw a good deal of each other. My _fiancé_ often dined with us, and we met every day. The result of seeing him so frequently was that I was kept in a constant state of strong, but suppressed, sexual excitement. This was particularly the case when we met in the evening and wandered about the moonlit garden together. When this had gone on about three months I began to experience a sense of discomfort after each of his visits. The abdomen seemed to swell with a feeling of fullness and congestion; but, though these sensations were closely connected with the physical excitement, they were not sufficiently painful to cause me any alarm or make me endeavor to avoid their pleasurable cause. The symptoms got worse, however, and no longer passed off quickly as at first. The swelling increased; considerable pain and a dragged-down sensation resulted the moment I tried to walk even a short distance. I was troubled with constant indigestion, weight in the chest, pain in the head and eyes, and continual slight diarrhea. This went on for about nine months, and then my _fiancé_ was called away from the neighborhood. After his departure I got a trifle better, but the symptoms remained, though in less acute form. A few months later the engagement was broken off, and for some weeks I was severely ill with influenza and was on my back for several weeks. When I could get about a little, though very weak, all the swelling was gone, but pain returned whenever I tried to walk or stand for long. The indigestion and diarrhea were also very troublesome. I was treated for both by a physician, but without success. Next year I became engaged to my husband and was shortly after married. The indigestion and diarrhea disappeared soon after. The pain and dragging feeling in the abdomen bothered me much in walking or any kind of exercise. One day I came across a medical work, _The Elements of Social Science_, in which I found descriptions of symptoms like those I suffered from ascribed to uterine disease. I again applied to a doctor, telling him I thought there was displacement and possibly congestion. He confirmed my opinion and told me to wear a pessary. He ascribed the displacement to the relaxing climate, and said he did not think I should ever get quite right again. After the pessary had been placed in position every trace of pain, etc., left me. A year later I thought I would try and do without the pessary, and to my great satisfaction none of the old trials came back after its removal, in spite of much trouble, anxiety, sick nursing, and fatigue. I attribute the disorder entirely to violent sexual excitement which was not permitted its natural gratification and relief. "I have reason to believe that suppression acts very injuriously on a woman's mental capacity. When excitement is naturally relieved the mind turns of its own accord to another subject, but when suppressed it is unable to do this. Personally, in the latter event, I find the greatest difficulty in concentrating my thoughts, and mental effort becomes painful. Other women have complained to me of the same difficulty. I have tried mechanical mental work, such as solving arithmetical or algebraic problems, but it does no good; in fact, it seems only to increase the excitement. (I may remark here that my feelings are always very strong not only before and after the monthly period, but also during the time itself; very unfortunately, as, of course, they cannot then be gratified. This only applies to desire from within, as I am strongly susceptible to influences from without at any time.) There seems nothing to be done but to bow to the storm till it passes over. Anything I do during the time it lasts, even household work, is badly done. The brain seems to become addled for the time being, while after gratification of desire it seems to attain an additional quickness and cleverness. Perhaps this cause contributes to the small amount of intellectual and artistic work done by women, admitting their natural inferiority to men in artistic impulse. A woman whose passions are satisfied generally has her strength sapped by maternity, while her attention is drawn from abstract ideas to her children." HISTORY III.--B. states that his first sexual thoughts and acts were curiously connected with whipping. At 12 he and another boy used to beat each other with a cricket bat upon the bare nates, and afterward indulge in mutual masturbation. He cannot remember the beginning of his sexual speculation as a child, nor how he learned masturbation. When he was 13 he used to discuss erotic matters with a schoolfellow who was in the habit of engaging in vulvar intercourse with a girl of his own age. The intercourse was practised on the way home from school, and in a standing posture. B. embraced the girl in the same way. He is not interested in the psychological aspects of the sexual emotion. Although his sex passion was early kindled, he never had commerce with prostitutes. He thinks that his youthful experiences had no ill effect upon him morally, mentally, or physically. He practised masturbation in moderation till he married, at the age of 31. HISTORY IV.--"I can remember" (writes the subject) "trotting away as a youngster about 5 with another boy to 'see a girl's legs'; the idea emanated from the other boy, but I was vaguely interested. How or where we were going to see the object in question I do not remember nor anything further than the intention. When 6 or 7 I remember being put to bed with the nurse girl and feeling her bare arm with undoubted sexual excitement; I remember, too, gradually feeling along the arm very cautiously, fearing the girl would wake and being bitterly disappointed to find it was merely the arm. I am almost certain I had then no idea of sex, but the disappointment was actual. "These are the only early experiences of the sort I can remember. When about 9 I had others. On the coast of the north of England, which had then very few visitors and seemed to me very remote, I lived in a farm-house and used to assist the girls of the farm in looking after young cattle. These girls certainly instilled sexual ideas, though I did not realize them with precision. They used to talk about things a good many of which, I can now see, I did not then understand as they did. I liked to see these girls wading with their dresses tucked up. About this time I fell passionately in love with a girl cousin, but do not remember having any sensual ideas in regard to her. I cannot say that these early experiences had any influence on my later sexual development so far as I am consciously aware. I have always remembered them vaguely, never with sexual excitement. "Sexual dreams took place first at about the age of 13; there was then emission and sensation in sleep. These were, however, not much associated with distinctly sexual dreams. All that I recall after them was the sensation, which, however, I did not even then absolutely localize. Masturbation was undoubtedly the direct result of these dreams. It was tried at first tentatively, out of curiosity to determine if the sensation of the dream could be so reproduced. Sexual dreams, such as I have described, occurred frequently, although I cannot say at what interval. I have never experienced the slightest attraction for the same sex." HISTORY V.--"My maternal grandfather" (writes the subject of this history) "was a small farmer who kept a few beagles and greyhounds for hare-hunting. He had three daughters, one of whom became my mother. One of his sporting companions, a doctor of profligate habits and a drunkard, seduced my mother at the age of 20. When her condition was discovered she had to flee from the violence of her father, and I was born some distance from her home. After my grandfather's death I was reared by my grandmother, and saw nothing of my mother until I was nearly 16; she had left the country in shame and disgrace. "I believe that in my heredity the transmission comes chiefly from my mother, who is now 58 years old. Although her life has been blameless in every particular since her youthful indiscretion, she has never got over it. I feel in my character a reflection of her overstrung condition during pregnancy. "I can distinctly remember from the age of 9 years, and am sure that I had no sexual feelings before the age of 13, though always in the company of girls. I had many boyish passions for girls, always older than myself, but these were never accompanied by sexual desires. I deified all my sweethearts, and was satisfied if I got a flower, a handkerchief, or even a shred of clothing of my inamorata for the time being. These things gave me a strange idealistic emotion, but caused no sexual desire or erection. "At 13 a 26-year-old sister of a boy companion once sat down on a sheaf of corn so as to expose the mons veneris and enticed me to copulate. There was slight erection, and after the act had been continued some time a pleasurable sensation of ejaculation, but without true emission. I had frequent relations with this woman after that. "About this time the farm servant of a neighbor taught me masturbation. The mistress of the farm, a thin, willowy, dark woman, the mother of several children, treated me with such familiarity as once to urinate in my presence, so that I saw her very hirsute mons veneris. From that moment I conceived a great passion for her, and used to tremble as soon as I saw her. I had become well developed and virile, but, though I think she was a lustful woman, I never ventured to touch her. I found an extreme ecstasy in masturbating while gazing upon some article of her clothing. This gave me much greater sexual pleasure than actual connection with the ever-willing sister of my schoolfellow. I think I loved the married woman best because the mons veneris was more covered with hair. "This has always had a peculiar attraction for me. Later, when accosted by prostitutes, I never would go with them unless I was assured the mons veneris was very hirsute. Never much addicted to masturbation, I derived no great enjoyment therefrom unless I had hair or part of the clothing of the woman with whom I was indulging in psychic coitus. "At 16 I left school and went to a large city to learn a business. At this time the sexual appetite was very strong. I frequently had intercourse with three women in one evening. "I have had but few lascivious dreams. In these the phantom partner was almost invariably a dead woman. (When about 8 I had seen the dead body of an aunt who died at 24.) "When 20 I went to London and took all the pleasure which came my way. I cared only for normal coitus. Offers of another type created disgust. I once allowed a woman to exhaust me sexually orally, but felt degraded thereby. Women with whom I had become very intimate often urged me to _cunnilingus_, but I could not do it. I have practised intermammary coitus a very few times. "At 26 I married a pure, gentle woman, after having for ten months before marriage led a life of celibacy. My wife died when I was 30, and for about eight months I lived a celibate life. Lascivious dreams sometimes occurred, but I invariably awoke before ejaculation. Eventually I gave way to the cravings of my strong sexual nature, but never wished for anything out of the usual except intercourse from behind. A woman with marked development of the nates has great attraction for me. Solitary masturbation has for some time ceased, but a nude woman in the act of masturbation with her back to me gives me great pleasure. I am as strong sexually at 38 as I was at 20, only I never want women unless I am brought into actual contact with them and they are hairy and have large pelvic development. I am in excellent health. Genitals are well developed, and I am clothed with hair from the chin to the genitals. My skull is dolichocephalic. I am violent and tenacious in temper, high-strung, and rapid in thought and action. My digestion is good, but I have a tendency to constipation. Occasionally I have a twinge of pain below the occipital region. "My early views of women have changed; I no longer deify them, though I study them. I have known very sensual women living at home in respectable middle-class society. One, in particular, a girl of 18, after coitus used to excite me lingually. I have had a sweetheart who remained _virgo intacta_. Had I seduced her, as I could have done, I should have lost all interest in her. I could never bear the presence of naked men, and would never go to a public swimming bath for that reason. I regard myself as a man of abnormally strong, but, on the whole, healthy and wholesome, sexual feelings. As a rule, I have coitus twice or oftener in one week and I practise withdrawal. I am a total abstainer, and never could embrace a woman who smelled of drink." HISTORY VI.--The writer of the following is a man of letters, married. "Quite early I remember a strange and romantic interest in the feminine. Certainly before I was 9 I had a strong affection for a little girl playmate; our family lost sight of hers, and I saw and heard nothing of her for sixteen years; then, hearing she was coming to town, I experienced quite a flutter of heart, so strong had been the impression caused at even the early age of our acquaintance. Not that I mean to say I never wavered in between! Through the whole of my boyhood I remember persistent romantic interests in girls and women, whose smooth, fair faces and sweet voices exercised ever a subtle attraction over me. Before I was 12 I had picked out my 'future wife' a dozen times at least! (A different one each time of course!) Curiosity as to the physical detail of sex and birth was singularly absent. Possibly this was partly due to the fact that the only younger member of our family was born when I was but 4 years old. Grave, shy, and reserved, I was never taken into the counsels of prurient schoolmates. I was unaware that there was such discussion between them--though it is, I suppose, not probable that our school was exempt. I was a great reader, and when about 12 or 13 I came across a reference to an illegitimate child which puzzled me. Ere long, however, in my random and extensive reading I hit on a book that touched on phallicism, and I learned that there were male and female organs of generation. I had neither shame nor curiosity; I jumped to the conclusion that during close caresses somehow a subtle aroma arose from the man to fertilize the woman; I left the subject at this, satisfied, and had no inkling of the real intimacy of the embrace. "About 14, much interested in Bradlaugh, I bought both the Knowlton pamphlet and Mrs. Besant's population book. I found the physical details in scientific language so dull that I could not peruse them. By reading the argumentative passages I learned that _somehow_ (I knew not how) children could be produced or not produced as desired; and in this stage of the matter it seemed to me so admirable that it should be so that I wondered why there should be cavil. "About this age my elder brother believed it to be his duty to tell me the secrets of sex; I remember his talking to me, while I, bored and uninterested, thought of something else. When he finished I had heard nothing. Remember, I felt no shame on the matter--none at all. I was simply bored. This I attribute to two things: first, my preponderating interest in the romantic side of things; secondly (and this bears with it a strong moral), _the feeling that the knowledge lay always within my grasp kept me from that curiosity which so oft consumes those who think it is hidden away from them_. "The changes of puberty came naturally and without startling me. Even the fact of emissions--which took place during sleep at intervals, unaccompanied by dreams or by any physical prostration afterward--has left on my memory no recollection of surprise; I knew it to be somehow connected with generation, but I had no physical trouble, and I am quite sure I did not bother further about it. The best possible proof of this lies in the fact that my memory is a blank on the matter. At the age of 21 (I take this from a diary, so I know it is correct) I was still ignorant as to intrinsic fact. Then I pulled myself together and felt it was really time I learned the actual details of the matter. I went to a clever friend of mine and asked him to tell me all about it. He expressed himself astounded at my not knowing; and he had very great shyness about telling me. In fact, I had to drag facts out of him by a real cross-examination, during which he persistently marveled at my ignorance. Though he had a great deal of false shame about the matter, I had none at all. His revelations considerably surprised me, because I had no idea that there was actual intromission. When I came to reflect on what I had learned the fact of this close physical intimacy appealed to me as being quite poetic and beautiful between two lovers; and I have had no reason since to change my opinion. "_Summary._--1. Romantic interest in girls and women commencing early and remaining persistently. "2. Knowledge before puberty of the fact that this interest was based on the all-important process of reproduction. "3. Absence of further physical curiosity even at puberty itself. "4. Knowledge ultimately acquired without shock. "The physical in sex has never been any bother to me, neither have I bothered about it. I have recognized it, frankly, and don't see why I shouldn't, but my unashamed recognition has probably been because the merely physical is less absorbing to me than to most. Mental and emotional interest in passion has absorbed me greatly, but the merely physical has sunk into what I call its natural place of subordination. Nature is kind. It is our 'conspiracy of silence' which tends to emphasize physical detail." HISTORY VII.--G.D., who is a doctor and a man of science, writes: "There is a strong history of gout on the paternal side. No history of alcohol, tubercle, brain trouble, or of the arthropathies. There is some reason to believe that two of my maternal aunts were sexually frigid, and perhaps this was true to a less extent of my mother, who had a contracted pelvis, necessitating the induction of labor at the eighth month of pregnancy. "About the age of 7 a German nursery governess, B., took charge of me, and I soon became devoted to her. I was then a delicate child, and used to suffer frequently from nightmare, waking up screaming and covered with sweat. When this happened, B. would sometimes take me into her bed and soothe me with kisses, etc. These I returned, and can remember that I was particularly fond of kissing her breasts. "About this time a girl cousin, A., about a year older than myself, was one of my most frequent playmates. I endeavored to monopolize her company and attention, and on this account often came to blows with C., a cousin rather younger than myself, who has since told me that he was then 'in love' with A. and 'jealous' of me. I believe I was really jealous and in love at the time, but cannot remember that anything in the nature of caresses took place between A. and myself. "Some time later, probably when I was about 9, something led up to B. saying that she was not built like I was, that she had no penis, etc. (I cannot remember my nursery term for penis.) I was incredulous, and demanded to be allowed to see if it was true; this was refused, and I made many plans to gratify my curiosity, such as slipping into her room when she was dressing, tipping up the chair she was sitting in, and trying to suddenly thrust my hand up under her skirts. I did not succeed in finding out, but have since thought that, although she did not allow me to attain the object of my efforts, the later game caused her pleasurable sensations. I regard these efforts as being prompted purely by curiosity; I had no feelings of warmth or irritations of the genitals, and I certainly never manipulated them, nor was I, as far as I can judge, an unusually prurient small boy. B. left when I was about 10, when I went to a preparatory school. "At 12½ I was sent to a public school, and was then told by my father the chief facts of sex and warned to avoid masturbation. My first wet dream took place when I was 14. Rather before this I had begun to suffer with severe intermittent testicular neuralgia which practically defied all treatment and continued on and off for four or five years, the attacks gradually becoming fewer and less severe. "When 15, circumstances compelled me to leave school and to live for two years at the seaside with no companions of my own age. I had, however, the run of a well-stocked library, and fished and collected insects energetically. "At 16 I made love to the trained nurse attending my mother, but, owing more, I think, to my timidity than to the austerity of her virtue, got no further than kissing. About this time wet dreams became inconveniently frequent; they would occur three or four times weekly, and resisted the stock remedies. At 17 I was advised to try connection. This I did, and found but little pleasure in the act, there being a strong esthetic objection to the 'love that keeps awake for lure.' "About this time I found in the United States Pharmacopoeia a remedy for my emissions, which have, however, always remained rather more frequent than those of the average individual, judging from the experience of my friends. Emissions are generally accompanied by lascivious dreams, but at times take place when I dream that I am hurrying to catch a train, or to micturate against time. "I have of late years (not noticed till after 20) observed that the dream accompanying emission is shorter; so that, whereas up to, say, 21 I generally performed the whole physiological act with my dream-charmer, I now almost invariably emit and awake before intromission has taken place. There has been no alternation comparable to this in the performance of the act while I am awake. "As regards my physique I should mention that all my reflexes are very brisk, though I am only slightly ticklish in the ordinary sense of the term. I sweat easily and am very shy, not only with women, but with any strangers. I have, however, trained myself not to show this. About averagely passionate, I should say, and extremely critical where women are concerned, the latter quality often keeping me chaste for months at a time." HISTORY VIII.--"When I was about 8 years old" (states the lady who is the subject of the present observation) "I remember that, with several other children, we used to play in an old garden at being father and mother, unfastening our drawers and bringing the sexual parts together, as we imagined married people to do, but no sexual feelings were aroused, nor did the boys have erections." When about 10 years old she became conscious of a pleasurable sensation associated with the smell of leather, which has ever since persisted. At that age she was sometimes left to wait in the office of a wholesale business house full of leather-bound ledgers. She did not then notice the sensation particularly, and was certainly not conscious of any connection with sexual emotion. Menstruation was established at 13½ years. Distinct sexual feelings were first observed a few months later. "The first feelings of love which I ever felt were at the age of 14 for a nice, manly boy of my own age, who often came to our house. He liked me, but was not in love with me. It was very seldom that he would sit by me and hold my hand, as I wished him. This went on till I was about 17, when he went to the university. After his first term he came back and was then attracted to me; but, though I loved him very much, I was too proud to show it. When he tried to kiss me, I resisted, though I longed for it. Thinking I was greatly offended, he apologized, which only made me angry. All these years I was worshiping at his shrine and mixed him up with all my ideas of life." Whenever she was near him she experienced physical sensations, with moistening of the vulva. This continued till she was about 20, but the object of these emotions never again attempted any advances. At 19 she became engaged to someone else. At the beginning she was physically indifferent to her lover, but when he first kissed her she became greatly excited. The engagement, however, was soon broken off from absence of strong affection on either side and chiefly, it would seem, from the cooling of the lover's ardor. She thinks he would have been more strongly attached to her if she had been colder to him, or pretended to be, instead of responding with simplicity and frankness. During the next few years little occurred. She was working hard, and her amusements would mostly, she says, be regarded as rather childish. She was extremely fond of dancing, and she was always pleased when anyone paid her attention. She was frequently conscious of sexual feelings, sometimes tormented by them, and she regarded this as something to be ashamed of. The constant longing for love was affected little or not at all by hard work. "At about this time I was very fond of abandoning myself to day-dreams. I was very glad if I could get everyone out of the house and lie on an easy chair or the bed. I liked especially to read poetry, all the more if I did not quite understand it. This would lead me on to all sorts of dreams of love, which, however, never went beyond the preliminaries of actual love--as that was all I then knew of love." The only climax to her dream of love was founded on a piece of information volunteered by a married woman many years earlier, when she was about 12. This lady--evidently agreeing with Rousseau (who in _Emile_ commended the mother's reply to the child's query whence babies come, "Les femmes les pissent, mon enfant, avec des grands douleurs") that the unknown should first be explained to the young in terms of the known--told her that the husband micturated into the wife. She therefore used to imagine a lover who would bear her away into a forest and do this on her as she lay at the foot of a tree. (At a later date she accidentally discovered that a full bladder tended to enhance sexual feelings, and occasionally resorted to this physical measure of heightening excitement.) All the physical sensations of sexual desire were called out by these day-dreams, with abundant secretion, but never the orgasm. Her reveries never led to masturbation or to allied manifestations, which have never taken place. Such a method of relief has, indeed, never offered any temptation to her and she doubts even its possibility in her case. (At a later period of life, however, at the age of 31, masturbation began and was practised at intervals.) At the same time she remarks that, while no orgasm (of which, indeed, she was then ignorant) ever occurred, the sexual excitement produced by the day-dreams was sufficiently great to cause a feeling of relief afterward. These day-dreams were the only way in which the sexual erethism was discharged. She cannot recall having erotic dreams or any sexual manifestations during sleep. Spontaneous sexual excitement was present a few days before menstruation, and fairly marked during and immediately after the period. It also tended to recur in the middle of the intermenstrual period. The pleasurable sensation connected with the smell of leather became more marked as she approached adult age. It was especially pronounced about the age of 24, and the sexual emotion it produced (with moisture of the vulva) was then clearly conscious. No other odor produced this effect in such a marked degree. It was often associated with leather bags, but not with boots, though on rubbing the leather of shoes she found that this odor was given out. She cannot account for its origin, and does not connect any association with it. It never affected her conduct or led to fetichistic habits. Some other odors affect her in the same way, though not to the same degree as leather. This is more especially the case with some flowers, especially white flowers with heavy odors, like gardenias. Many flowers, on the other hand, like primroses, seem rather opposed to sex effect, too fresh, though stimulating to the mind. Some artificial scents tend to produce sexual effects also. Personal odors have no influence of this kind. (At a later period the sexual influence of personal odors was occasionally experienced, but the present history deals only with the period before marriage.) She believes that most beautiful things, however unconnected with sex, have a tendency to produce distinctively sexual feelings in a faint degree, although sometimes more marked, with secretion. She has, however, never experienced homosexual feeling, and, on first consideration, was inclined to believe that the sight of a beautiful woman had no sexual effect on her, though she could quite understand such an effect. Subsequently, on recalling as well as observing her experiences more carefully, she found that a lovely woman's face and figure (especially on one occasion the very graceful figure of a beautiful fairy in a ballet) produced distinct sexual sensations (with mucous emission). Music, however, has strongly emotional effects upon her, and she cannot recall that she ever felt any equally powerful influence of this kind in the absence of music. Looking back on the development of her feelings she finds that, though in some respects they may have been slow, they were simple, natural, spontaneous, and correspond to "the dawning and progress which go on in the development of every girl. While it is going on in actual fact, the girl does not know or bother herself about trying to understand it. Afterward it seems quite clear and simple. Full occupation of the brain, and hands too, while it does not do away with desire, is a great help and safeguard to a growing girl, when combined with proper information about herself and her relation to man the animal, so that she may realize where she is and how to choose the right man--though under the best conditions failure may occur." HISTORY IX.--The subject belongs to a large family having some neurotic members; she spent her early life on a large farm. She is vigorous and energetic, has intellectual tastes, and is accustomed to think for herself, from unconventional standpoints, on many subjects. Her parents were very religious, and not, she thinks, of sensual temperament. Her own early life was free from associations of a sexual character, and she can recall little that now seems to be significant in this respect. She remembers that in childhood and for some time later she believed that children were born through the navel. Her activities went chiefly into humanitarian and utopian directions, and she cherished ideas of a large, healthy, free life, untrammeled by civilization. She regards herself as very passionate, but her sexual emotions appear to have developed very slowly and have been somewhat intellectualized. After reaching adult life she has formed several successive relationships with men to whom she has been attracted by affinity in temperament, in intellectual views, and in tastes. These relationships have usually been followed by some degree of disillusion, and so have been dissolved. She does not believe in legal marriage, though under fitting circumstances she would much like to have a child. She never masturbated until the age of 27. At that time a married friend told her that such a thing could be done. She found it gave her decided pleasure, indeed, more than coitus had ever given her except with one man. She has never practised it to excess, only at rare intervals, and is of the opinion that it is decidedly beneficial when thus moderately indulged in. She has sometimes found, for instance, that, after the mental excitement produced by delivering a lecture, sleep would be impossible if masturbation were not resorted to as a sedative to relieve the tension. Spontaneous sexual excitement is strongest just before the monthly period. Definite sexual dreams and sexual excitement during sleep have not occurred except possibly on one or two occasions. She has from girlhood experienced erotic day-dreams, imagining love-stories of which she herself was the heroine; the climax of these stories has developed with her own developing knowledge of sexual matters. She is not inverted, and has never been in love with a woman. She finds, however, that a beautiful woman is distinctly a sexual excitation, calling out definite physical manifestations of sexual emotion. She explains this by saying that she thinks she instinctively puts herself in the place of a man and feels as it seems to her a man would feel. She finds that music excites the sexual emotions, as well as many scents, whether of flowers, the personal odor of the beloved person, or artificial perfumes. HISTORY X.--The subject is of German extraction on both sides. The father is of marked intellectual tastes, as also is she herself. There is no unhealthy strain in the family so far as she is aware, though they all have very strong passions. She is well developed, healthy, vigorous, and athletic, any trouble to which she is subject being mainly due to overwork. Looking back on her childhood, she can now see various sexual manifestations occurring at a period when she was quite ignorant of sex matters. "The very first," she writes, "was at the age of 6. I remember once sitting astride a banister while my parents were waiting for me outside. I distinctly remember a pleasurable sensation--probably in part due to a physical feeling--in the thought of staying there when I knew I ought to have run out to them. From that year till the age of 10 I simply reveled in the idea of being tortured. I went gladly to bed every night to imagine myself a slave, chained, beaten, made to carry loads and do ignominious work. One of my imaginings, I remember, was that I was chained to a moldering skeleton." As she grew older these fancies were discontinued. At the same time there was a trace of sadistic tendency: "I used to frighten and tease a young child, driven to it by an irresistible impulse, and experiencing a certain pleasurable feeling in so doing. But this, I am glad to say, was rare, as I hate all cruelty." One of her favorite imaginings as a child was that she was a boy, and especially that she was a knight rescuing damsels in distress. She was not fond of girls' occupations, and has always had a sort of chivalrous feeling toward women. "When I first heard of the sexual act," she writes, "it appeared to me so absurd that I took little notice. About the age of 10 I discussed it a good deal with other girls, and we used to play childishly indecent games--out of pure mischief and not from any definite physical feeling." About a year after menstruation was established she accidentally discovered the act of masturbation by leaning over a table. "I discovered it naturally; no one taught me; and the very naturalness of the impulse that led me to it often made me in later years question the harmfulness." Both her sisters masturbated from a very early age, but not, to her knowledge, her brother. The practice of masturbation was continued. "For many years, imbued with the old ideas of morality, I struggled against it in vain. The sight of animals copulating, the perusal of various books (Shakespeare, Rabelais, Gautier's _Mademoiselle de Maupin_, etc.), the sight of the nude in some Bacchanalian pictures (such as Rubens's), all aroused passion. Coexistent with this--perhaps (though I doubt it) due to it--arose a disgust for normal intercourse. I fell in love and enjoyed kisses, etc., but the mere thought of anything beyond disgusted me. Had my lover suggested such a thing I would have lost all love for him. But all this time I went on masturbating, though as seldom as possible and without thought of my lover. Love was to me a thing ideal and quite apart from lust, and I still think that it is false to try to connect the two. I fear that even now, if I fell in love, sexual intercourse would break the charm. At the age of 18 I came across Tolstoy's _Kreutzer Sonata_ and was overjoyed to find all I had thought written down there. Gradually, through seeing a friend happily married, I have grown to a more normal view of things. I am very critical of men and have never met one liberal-minded and just enough to please me. Perhaps if I did I might take a perfectly healthy view of things." In course of time various devices had been adopted to heighten sexual excitement when indulging in masturbation. Thus, for instance, she found that the effects of sexual excitement are increased by keeping the bladder full. But the chief method which she had devised for heightening and prolonging the preliminary excitement consisted in wearing tight stays (as a rule, she wears loose stays) and in painting her face. She cannot herself explain this. Self-excitement is completed by friction, or sometimes by the introduction of a piece of wood into the vagina. She finds that, the more frequently she masturbates, the more easily she is excited. Spontaneous sexual feeling is strongest before and after the menstrual period; not so much so during the periods. There are various faint traces of homosexuality, it may be gathered, in the history of this subject's sexual development. Recently these have come to a climax in the formation of a homosexual relationship with a girl friend. This relationship has given her great pleasure and satisfaction. She does not, however, regard herself as being a really inverted person. There have been vivid sexual dreams from about 17 (apparently about the period of the relationship with the lover). These dreams have not, however, had special reference to persons of either sex. Apart from the influence of books and pictures already mentioned, she remarks that she is sexually affected by the personal odor of a beloved person, but is not consciously affected by any other odors. HISTORY XI.--Widower, aged 40 years. Surgeon. "My experience of sexual matters began early. When I was about 10 years of age a boy friend who was staying with us told me that his sister made him uncover his person, with which she played and encouraged him to do the same for her. He said it was great fun, and suggested that we should take two of my sisters into an old barn and repeat his experience on them. This we did, and tried all we could to have connection with them; they were nothing loath and did all they could to help us, but nothing was effected and I experienced no pleasure in it. "When I went back to school I attracted the attention of one of the big boys who slept in the same room with me; he came into my bed and began to play with my member, saying that it was the usual thing to do and would give me pleasure. I did not feel any pleasure, but I liked the attention, and rather enjoyed playing with his member, which was of large size, and surrounded by thick pubic hair. After I had played with him for some time I was surprised at his having an emission of sticky matter. Afterward he rubbed me again, saying that if I let him do it long enough he would produce the same substance from me. This he failed to do, however, though he rubbed me long and frequently, on that and many other occasions. I was very disappointed at not being able to have an emission, and on every occasion that offered I endeavored to excite myself to the extent of compassing this. I used to ask to go out of school two or three times a day, and retired to the closet, where I practised on myself most diligently, but to no purpose, at that time, though I began to have pleasurable emotions in the act. "When I went home for the holidays I took a great interest in one of my father's maids, whose legs I felt as she ran upstairs one day. I was in great fear that she would complain of what I had done, but I was delighted to find that she did nothing of the sort; on the contrary, she took to kissing and fondling me, calling me her sweetheart and saying that I was a forward boy. This encouraged me greatly, and I was not long in getting to more intimate relations with her. She called me into her room one day when we were alone in the house, she being in a half-dressed condition, and put me on the bed and laid herself on me, kissing me passionately on the mouth. She next unbuttoned my trousers and fondled and kissed my member, and directed my hand to her privates. I became very much excited and trembled violently, but was able to do for her what she wanted in the way of masturbation until she became wet. After this we had many meetings in which we embraced and she let me introduce my member until she had satisfied herself, though I was too young to have an emission. "On return to school I practised mutual masturbation with several of my schoolfellows, and finally, at the age of 14 years, had my first real emission. I was greatly pleased thereat, and, with this and the growth of hair which began to show on my pubis, began to feel myself quite a man. I loved lying in the arms of another boy, pressing against his body, and fondling his person and being fondled by him in return. We always finished up with mutual masturbation. We never indulged in any unnatural connections. "After leaving school I had no opportunity of indulging in relations with my own sex, and, indeed, did not wish for such, as I became a slave to the charms of the other sex, and passed most of my time in either enjoying, or planning to enjoy, love passages with them. "The sight of a woman's limbs or bust, especially if partly hidden by pretty underclothing, and the more so if seen by stealth, was sufficient to give a lustful feeling and a violent erection, accompanied by palpitation of the heart and throbbing in the head. "I had frequent coitus at the age of 17, as well as masturbating regularly. I liked to perform masturbation on a girl, even more than I liked having connection with her; and this was especially so in the case of girls who had never had masturbation practised on them before; I loved to see the look of surprised pleasure appear on their faces as they felt the delightful and novel sensation. "To gratify this desire I persuaded dozens of girls to allow me to take liberties with them, and it would surprise you to learn what a number of girls, many of them in good social position, permitted me the liberty I desired, though the supply was never equal to my demand. "With a view to enlarging my opportunities I took up the study of medicine as a profession, and reveled in the chances it gave of being on intimate sexual terms with many who would have been, otherwise, out of my reach. "At the age of 25 I married the daughter of an officer, a beautiful girl with a fully developed figure and an amorous disposition. While engaged, we used to pass hours wrapped in each other's arms, practising mutual masturbation, or I would kiss her passionately on the mouth, introducing my tongue into her mouth at intervals, with the invariable result that I had an emission and she went off into sighs and shivers. After marriage we practised all sorts of fancy coitus, _coitus reservatus_, etc., and rarely passed twenty-four hours without two conjunctions, until she got far on in the family way, and our play had to cease for a while. "During this interval I went to stay at the house of an old schoolfellow, who had been one of my lovers of days gone by. It happened that on account of the number of guests staying in the house the bed accommodation was somewhat scanty, and I agreed to share my friend's bedroom. The sight of his naked body as he undressed gave rise to lustful feelings in me; and when he had turned out the light I stole across to his bed and got in beside him. He made no objection, and we passed the night in mutual masturbation and embraces, _coitus inter femora_, etc. I was surprised to find how much I preferred this state of affairs to coitus with my wife, and determined to enjoy the occasion to the full. We passed a fortnight together in the above fashion, and, though I afterward went back and did my duty by my wife, I never took the same pleasure in her again, and when she died, five years later, I felt no inclination to contract another marriage, but devoted myself heart and soul to my old school-friend, with whom I continued tender relations until his death by accident last year. Since then I have lost all interest in life." "The patient," writes the well-known alienist to whom I am indebted for the above history, "consulted me lately. I found him a fairly healthy man to look at, suffering from some neurasthenia and a tendency to melancholia. Generative organs large, one testicle shows some wasting, pubic hair abundant, form of body distinctly masculine; temperament neurotic. He improved under treatment, and, after seeing me three times and writing out the above history, came no more." HISTORY XII.--Mrs. B., aged 32. Father's family normal; mother's family clever, eccentric, somewhat neuropathic. She is herself normal, good-looking, usually healthy, highly intelligent, and with much practical ability, though at some periods of life, and especially in childhood, she has shared to some extent in the high-strung and supersensitive temperament of her mother's family. As a child she was sometimes spoiled and sometimes cuffed, and suffered tortures from nervousness. She has, however, acquired a large measure of self-control. The first sensations which she now recognizes as sexual were experienced at the age of 3, when her mother gave her an injection; afterward she declared herself unable to relieve her bowels naturally in order to obtain a repetition of this experience, which was several times repeated. At the age of 7 a man pursued her with attentions and attempted to take liberties, but she rejected his advances in terror; four years later another man attempted to assault her, but she resisted vigorously, struck him, and escaped by running. Neither of these sexual attempts appears to have left any serious permanent impression on the child's mind. At the age of 11, when her mother was giving her a bath, the sensation of her mother's fingers touching her private parts gave her what she now knows to be sexual feelings, and a year later when taking her bath she would pour hot water on to the sexual region in order to cause these sensations; this did not lead to masturbation, but she had a vague idea that it was "wrong." At the age of 12 menstruation began; she suffered very severely from dysmenorrhea, the period sometimes lasting for ten days, and the pain being often extreme. She was not treated for this condition, her mother being of opinion that she would outgrow it. From the age of 14 or 15 until 23, or about the period of her marriage, she suffered from anemia. She had little curiosity about sexual matters; her mother wished that she should always come to her for information about things she became acquainted with as to the general facts of sex; she did not, however, know definitely the facts of copulation until her marriage. She knew nothing of erection or semen, and thought that when a man and woman placed their organs together a child resulted. She hated talking about these subjects indecently, and would not listen to the sexual conversation of her schoolfellows. She never felt any homosexual attraction. Once another girl was much in love with her, but she despised and disliked her attentions; again, when a girl much older than herself, a friend of her mother's, slept with her and made advances, she repelled her and refused to sleep with her again. She always got on well with men, and men were attracted to her. She was direct and sincere, without undue modesty. But she never allowed men to touch her or kiss her. She was a good dancer, and fond of dancing, but denies that it ever led to sexual feelings. She never felt any sexual attraction for a man until, at the age of 20, she fell in love with her future husband five years or more before marriage. At this period she began to feel vague discomfort, which she knew to be localized near her sexual organs. She was aware, in a dim way, that it was connected with her love, and was of a sexual nature. But there was no definite idea of sexual intercourse. She felt nervous and depressed. If she had been asked to state what would relieve her, she could only have said B.'s presence and tenderness. A few days before he declared his love she experienced the nearest approach to sexual feeling she had ever had. It was summer and, with B. and some of her family, she had gone on a little expedition. One evening, in the train after a day's excursion, B. took her hand (unperceived by the others) and held it for some time. This aroused the strongest emotions in her; she closed her eyes, and, though she was not at the time aware that her sensations were localized in her sexual organs, she thinks, in the light of subsequent knowledge, that she then experienced the orgasm. During the engagement, which lasted between two and three years, circumstances prevented frequent meetings. B. would kiss her, suck her nipples, which became erect, and lie on her. She allowed him to take these liberties, feeling that if she refused him all satisfaction he might have relations with other women. She still felt no definite desire for contact of the sexual organs. She longed rather to be embraced and kissed, and to lie in her lover's arms all night. A few months before marriage, however, she masturbated occasionally, just before or just after menstruation, imagining, while doing it, that she was in her lover's arms. The act was usually followed by a sick feeling. Just before marriage she underwent an operation for the relief of the dysmenorrhea. She was somewhat shocked and sickened by the experiences of the wedding night. It seemed to her that her husband approached her with the violence of an animal, and there was some difficulty in effecting entrance. Coitus, though incomplete, took place some seven times on this first night. The bleeding from rupture of the hymen continued, so that for two days she had to wear a towel. For two months subsequently there was great pain during intercourse, although she suppressed the indications of this. There were several children born of the marriage and for some years she lived happily, on the whole, with her husband, notwithstanding various hardships and difficulties and some incompatibility of temper. As regards her sexual feelings she considers, from what other women have told her, that her feelings are, if anything, stronger than the average. The orgasm, however, was not fully developed until about five years after marriage. Sexual feeling is most pronounced before, during, and after the menstrual period, more especially before and about the third day (the period usually lasts from five to seven days). There is more sexual desire during pregnancy, especially toward the end, than at any other time. She never refused normal intercourse to her husband, but any abnormal or perverted method of sexual gratification is repellent. She was awakened one night about the third month of pregnancy by her husband inserting his penis _in ore_; the child was born with palate defect and she is herself inclined to believe that this incident was the cause of the defect. Though she desires normal intercourse, she has seldom obtained complete gratification. For a long time she disliked seeing or touching the penis, and the feel, and especially the smell, of the semen produced nausea and even vomiting. (She has a very delicate sense of smell as well as of taste; though fond of the scent of flowers, no sexual feelings are thus aroused.) Withdrawal and the use of condoms are unsatisfactory to her, and mutual masturbation gives no relief and produces headache. Feelings of friendship for her husband have been most potent in arousing the sexual emotions, and she has had most pleasure in intercourse after a day spent in bicycling together. She has been for many months at a time without sexual intercourse, and during such periods has suffered much from pain in the head; this, however, she has now completely surmounted. She eventually discovered that her husband's abstinence from marital intercourse was due to infidelity. This led to a definite separation. She still occasionally experiences sexual desire, but has no inclination to masturbate. Her life is full and busy, affording ample scope for her energies and intelligence; moreover, she has her children to train and educate. She herself believes that her sexual life is at an end. HISTORY XIII.--G.R., army officer. "I am 35 years of age. My parents married at the ages of 38 and 25, and my father is now 84 and my mother 71; both are particularly strong and healthy in body and mind. I am of old lineage on both sides, and know of no disease, defect, or abnormality among any of my ancestors or relations, except that my mother's family has a slight tendency to drink and excess, the present members of it all being considered eccentric. I have one brother and one sister living (brother unmarried, sister with several children) and am the youngest of a family of five. My brother is abnormal, but I don't know exactly in what way or from what cause. I have a strong suspicion that he masturbates to excess. My father is artistic and my mother musical. I have no aptitude for either, but appreciate both enormously, though not until about ten years ago. My principal reading is religion, science, and philosophy, with an occasional standard novel, or a modern novel of the 'improper' type by way of relaxation. I became a convinced and militant rationalist about five years ago, but have been an unbeliever since I left school. I was anemic and threatened with bowel complaint at the age of 7, and was in consequence taken abroad for my health. I am now strong and vigorous, with great powers of endurance, and enjoy all forms of sport and exercise, particularly hunting, pig-sticking, and polo. I drink a lot, and am never fitter than when eating, drinking, and taking exercise in what most people would call excess. It takes more alcohol than I can hold to make me drunk when in England; but not so in the East. I have been told that I am very good-looking. "When I was about 4 or 5 I was constantly chaffed by my older companions about putting my hand down my trousers and playing with my privates. I don't remember getting an erection, nor at what age this first occurred with me. At one time my brother and I used to play about with my sister's underclothing, and took great pleasure in it, but we never saw her genitals. She told us that on carefully examining herself one day she was glad to find that she had a small penis like boys had--doubtless the clitoris. When in France, at the age of 8 to 10, I began to notice the sexual parts of animals, and was very keen to know what mares kept between their hind legs. Later on I took great pleasure with another boy in feeling the teats of a she-ass, and, by myself, the penis of a donkey, as I had seen the French grooms do; but I took no interest in my own penis. I used to put my finger as far up the anus as it would go, and got a vague satisfaction from it. I went to a small private school at the age of 11, having been previously told by my mother of the manner of birth of men and animals, of which I was quite ignorant till then. She made no mention of the part taken by the father, and I never thought about it. Even then I was left with the impression that one was born through the navel. I was initiated at school, and used to handle the penis of the boy who told me. On several occasions I did _fellatio_ for him, and liked it, but he never offered to do the same for me, and I don't think he got much satisfaction out of it. Soon after this I became conscious of pleasurable sensations when lying on my stomach with an erection, and used occasionally to gratify myself that way, caring little for the school tradition that it was 'wicked' and bad for one. On one occasion, when talking at night with another boy, we compared our organs, both in erection, and I then for the first time thought of trying what I had heard vaguely mentioned, viz., two boys playing at man and woman. I lay on him with my penis on his stomach and almost at once had an orgasm with emission, and experienced acute pleasure, though both he and I supposed that I had involuntarily micturated. I was 13 when this happened. I did it once more with him before I left, this time the other way up, so as to spare him the unpleasantness. I used to like kissing and hugging the smaller boys, and had a great eye for good looks. On going home for the holidays I masturbated with my hand out of curiosity to see what happened when the orgasm occurred, and then only did I fully understand the nature of the act. After this the rush and strangeness of a large public school distracted my attention, but I heard about wet dreams, masturbation, and homosexuality from the other boys, and soon became thoroughly initiated. I believe the tone of my house, if not of the whole school, was exceptionally bad; though it may only be that I saw more of it because I was attracted by it, and that other schools are the same really. Things involving certain expulsion if found out were done more or less in public, and I have myself openly got into bed with or masturbated other boys, and on more than one occasion have helped forcibly to masturbate small boys or to hold them while others had connection with them, the idea of the last two acts being that the boy would thereby be seduced and become available for, and willing to perform, homosexuality. Before I became big enough to have boys myself I masturbated frequently (on one occasion three times in the day), and invariably by lying on my stomach without the use of the hands. In having connection with other boys I used to do it between the thighs or on the stomach, and I never heard of any other way at that school. _Pædicatio_ would disgust me, and, moreover, would deprive me of the principal pleasure of intercourse, viz., the feeling of lying face to face and stomach to stomach. Of course, the satisfaction used to be mutual, but, though good-looking, I was never the passive party only, like some small boys who might be called professionals and whom I used to pay for their services. I went back after I had left and had a boy in the dark whom I had never seen before, having been told that he was all right. I used to have a very genuine affection for any party to my pleasure, though I took delight in torturing one in particular, but for what reason I cannot say. For one boy I developed a deep love, which lasted long after we had left school and had ceased all sexual connection. This love was as strong as anything I have ever felt since. "I don't remember whether it was while I was at school or later that I first began again to take a sexual interest in animals. I used to masturbate a good deal and was always trying to find new ways of doing it and new substances to lie on. It was while feeling the vulva of a young mare that the brilliant thought struck me of trying to copulate with her, and thus getting the advantage of the soft vagina. It afforded me great satisfaction and I had an emission, though I did not then, nor at any other time with any other animal, succeed in penetrating properly. I afterward did the same with other mares and with a certain cow whenever I got a safe opportunity, which was not as often as I could have wished. I have not had connection with an animal for about ten years, but would have no objection to doing so, and feel sure I could perform the act properly now. After I left school at 17, I occasionally had longings for boys, but it was the exception and not the rule. I continued to masturbate, but not to excess, and used to make ineffectual efforts to stop it, but never succeeded for very long. When I was confirmed, at the age of 15, I became intensely religious, and was so remorseful at my first lapse from virtue that I burnt my leg with a red-hot poker, and I bear the scar still. On leaving school I went to Germany and there had my first coitus with a woman, a fat old German who gave me very little satisfaction. My next, a Jewess, gave me more than I asked for, in the shape of a soft chancre. In my ignorance I never had it treated, but it must have been very mild, for it disappeared of its own accord. When cramming in England I occasionally went home with a prostitute, but did not care much about them and could not afford good ones. On one occasion I was impotent. It may have been through drink, but it disgusted me with myself. I liked seeing the women naked, and always insisted that they should strip, especially the breasts, which I liked large and full. I had not learned to kiss on the lips, and had no desire to kiss the body, except the breasts, which I was generally too shy to do. But as I nearly always wore a condom and found penetration difficult I did not much enjoy the actual coitus. I am fully convinced that if women had been more accessible, if I had not thought myself bound to use preventives in self-defense, and if the act had not been looked upon with such disfavor by those in authority over me, I should have masturbated less or not at all, and would not have been tempted to bestiality. When I was 22 I had coitus with a girl who was not a prostitute for the first time. I was violently excited and enjoyed it more than anything I had yet experienced, in spite of the facts that she would not undress and insisted on withdrawal before emission. On one other occasion only have I had coitus with a non-professional unmarried woman. Shortly after this I caught syphilis from a girl of the streets. I was circumcised and stayed in a private hospital for six weeks. It never went beyond the primary stage, and I have felt no ill effects from it, except that I have got a hydrocele in the right testicle. Of course, this incident necessitated the use of a condom on every occasion, and it greatly spoiled my pleasure. About this time a brother-officer older than myself made advances to me. He compared me to a Greek statue, and wanted to kiss me. I would have nothing to do with him, but was glad to have his confessions of homosexuality and somewhat surprised to learn that he was not alone in the regiment. I afterward fell in love with his sister, and he married and had children. He was bisexual in his inclinations, but was really in love with me for a short time. "I had little to do with professionals until I went to South Africa, and though I was fond of ladies' society, and liked by ladies, I looked upon them as something apart, especially married women, and never attempted to take liberties with them; though I used to with shopgirls, etc., in my cramming days, and had often been in love. In South Africa I first began really to enjoy coitus, and on going to India continued to do so; in fact, I thought sexually of nothing else and rarely masturbated,--perhaps once in three weeks. I would go to brothels wherever they were available, Durban, Cape Town, Colombo, Calcutta, Bombay, and at one time preferred black women to white. I used to have horrible orgies with my brother-officers, and on one occasion I ordered six women to my bungalow in order to celebrate my birthday, and made a present of them to five of my friends after dinner. During this period, and until I went home, I rarely spoke to a lady, the chief exception being No. 1, a brother-officer's wife, with whom I began to be in love. "Shortly after the South African War I fell violently in love with a young brother-officer, 'Z.' It amounted to a passion and I was forced to make overtures to him. He did not understand, being ignorant of homosexuality and quite virile, and would have nothing to do with me, though he was very nice about it. This lasted for about a year, and then, thinking no doubt that he had better stop it, as I was really making myself very ridiculous and was mad with love, he threw me up altogether. I was intensely miserable for some time, and then I recovered and we made it up, and are now firm friends. I still want to kiss and stroke him when I see him naked, but would do nothing more. I went home by way of Japan after several years' absence from home, taking the women of the Eastern ports as I went, until I contracted gonorrhea in the Tokio Yoshiwara. I could not get rid of it, and arrived home in that state, having been deprived of the pleasure of trying several new races on the way in consequence. In England I rushed into a society which I had quit on such different terms, and it received me with open arms. I very soon began a flirtation with a married woman, and she completed my education in kissing which had been begun by the Japanese harlots. I was just coming to the point with this woman when I met No. 1 again, and my love for her was at once renewed. I told her so, but I knew that she did not return it. I then became attracted to No. 2, a girl older than myself, whom I had known all my life. I kissed her and fondled her breasts; but she would not allow anything else, until one night, when in the train with her, I got my hand down farther than she intended. It ended in my performing _cunnilingus_ on her first, and then obtaining satisfaction between her thighs--a large step to take after the former limitations. Previous to this I had on several occasions obtained an emission, without meaning to, by lying on her fully dressed. She was aware of my disease, which by that time had become a gleet and did not inconvenience me in any way. From that time until I went back to India we went through the same performance whenever possible, I masturbating her sometimes with the finger, sometimes with the tongue, and having connection with various parts of her body, including the breasts, but always with a condom on account of my disease. She used to strip for my edification, and we frequently spent the night in the same bed. I was attracted to her mentally, but not very much physically; that is to say, that if circumstances had not thrown us together I should never have picked her out from other girls as being sexually attractive to me. I returned to India, and to No. 1, though I kept faithful to No. 2 in word and deed for five months, but gradually the overmastering influence of No. 1 reasserted itself over me. And then I met No. 3. We were attracted to each other at first acquaintance, and the attraction was mental and sexual. She was married and in love with another man, but that did not prevent her from kissing me. I felt her breasts, masturbated her, and had emissions by lying on her, but she drew the line at one thing, viz., kissing on the lips; and I drew it at coitus. We arranged a trip together during which I went to bed with her, but never had coitus, though we both had frequent orgasms in other ways. Before starting on this trip I had thought that I should not see No. 1 again, and she let me kiss her, to my unspeakable joy. Circumstances, however, intervened, and I went straight to No. 1 after parting with No. 3, told her all I had done, and then kissed her again, leaving her just before her real lover, with whom she was then living, arrived. Later I returned again to No. 1, now in child to her lover. We lived together for three nights in spite of this. She then went home, and I had no connection with any woman for two years, except one black woman, being consumed with love and worship for No. 1. I was much in society, but never had any luck. At the end of this time I was traveling one night with a young officer ('X'), slight and effeminate and preferring men to women, with whom I had been until then on friendly but not intimate terms. I watched him undress and go to bed, and then, having myself undressed, went over to his bunk and put my hand under his clothes. He at once responded, and I got into his bed, both of us being in a frenzy of passion and surprise. But I was fairly sure of my ground or I would not have dared to take the risk. I used often to go to his bed after this, and on one occasion had coitus with a girl on a chair at a ball and the next night with my young officer. I scarcely knew the girl, and don't know her name now, but I took her measure, made her excited by manipulation and kissing, and then got her consent. I did not harm her, even if I had been the first, for orgasm occurred before I had penetrated beyond the lips. X surprised me by telling me that he had had connection with three other officers in my regiment, as well as with several others in the same station. He would not tell me their names, but I guessed easily enough. He used to drink heavily, and once I got into his bed when he was in a drunken stupor and he was quite unaware that I was there for some time. I myself was drinking too much at this time, and was frequently drunk before dinner. In the hot weather that followed I had one orgy in Bombay which lasted three nights. I started on a Greek and a Pole and finished up with a Japanese, two brother-officers accompanying me. Afterward I was much alone during the day in my bungalow, and used to become possessed by intense desire. I masturbated occasionally, but by this time took but little pleasure in it, always craving for the moist human vagina. I had often heard, and myself quoted, the Pathan proverb 'Women for breeding; boys for pleasure; melons for delight,' and one day when seeking for some novelty with which to masturbate, and my eye being caught by a melon put ready for me to eat, it flashed across me to try whether the proverb was in any way true. I found it most satisfactory, and practised it several times after that, the pepita (papaye or pawpaw) being the nearest approach to the human vagina. The opportune arrival of a fairly good-looking punkah woman, however, put an end to this form of enjoyment by providing me with what I wanted. Soon afterward I went home again, taking the Japanese at Bombay on my way. "I had kept up a correspondence with No. 1 all this time, but we had made a compact that whatever each did until we met again was not to count, and I knew that she had had at least one liaison since our parting, and was in entire ignorance of the state of her feelings toward me. Therefore, while trying to arrange a meeting with her, I took the first thing that chance threw in my way, thinking a bird in the hand better than the off chance of a better one in the bush. This was No. 4, with whom I spent three days at the seaside after having first had coitus with her in my own home while she was in the monthly state. Immediately on parting from her I came home to receive No. 1. The first time we were alone she kissed me, and this was followed by mutual confessions and coitus, though at first she said my affair was too recent. I agreed not to have connection again with No. 4, and kept to this until when staying in the same house again with her I was tempted beyond my powers; and I may add that she gave me no assistance in keeping this promise, of which she was fully cognizant. I at once wrote and confessed to No. 1, and she very naturally would have nothing more to do with me. But I managed to reconcile her, and we afterward lived together for three days in the country, as well as in London and in her own house. Meanwhile No. 5 had been making advances to me which I could not well refuse, being a very old friend. Nos. 4 and 5 were on one occasion staying together at my house, just after I had been faithless to No. 1 with No. 4. I could not very well sleep with them both, so at the earnest entreaty of No. 4 I went to her room first, told her my reasons for not having connection with her, left her in tears, and then went and slept with No. 5. This is the only transaction I have ever concealed from No. 1; but No. 5 knows my whole story and accepts the situation of being only second so long as I give her satisfaction whenever possible. About this time I again met No. 3 and kissed and masturbated her in a cab, but she would not allow me to go home with her. At the bidding of No. 1 I now broke entirely with No. 4, to the great grief and astonishment of my sister, whose friend she was. Shortly after this I again returned to India, where I quarreled hopelessly with No. 1, and I don't know to this day what my fault was, except that she had got tired of me. Her influence over me is, however, too great to be so easily broken, and I would return to her tomorrow if she moved a finger in reconciliation. During the following hot weather I slowly but surely, albeit quite unconsciously, obtained an influence over No. 6, and it ended by her falling desperately in love with me and allowing me to do what I liked. I did not love her, and told her about No. 1, whose image always remained in the back of my vision, whatever I was doing. She also accepted the situation, and I don't think has any grievance against me. For my part I have nothing but thanks and gratitude and as much love as I am capable of to give her, and all the other women with whom I have had any sexual relations. The following is a short account of the above women:-- "No. 1. Had coitus before marriage, for love and with full knowledge of the nature of the act. Agreement with her husband not to have coitus rigidly adhered to by both. Has had connection with five other men since marriage. Very passionate, but faddy and particular. Slow at producing orgasm. Likes being in bed naked, and liked me once for having kissed her mons veneris. Thin, with undeveloped breasts. Brilliant, good-looking. Artistic and highly intellectual. Never masturbated, and did not know of homosexuality among women; very sensitive to touch on the pudenda. "No. 2. Has had sexual relations, but never coitus, with many men. Mutually masturbated with one man. Masturbated herself frequently, and took a long time to produce orgasm, even with _cunnilingus_, which delighted her immensely. After having it performed, she would stoop down and passionately kiss my lips. Fond of prolonged kisses, during which the tongue played a prominent part. Tall and fully developed, but no looks. Clever, masculine brain, and strong physically. Skillfully concealed her passionate nature, which, however, was long in developing and was long kept in check by maidenly modesty. "No. 3. Innocent before marriage, and hated her _fiancé_ even to touch her, which feeling still persists. Has had liaisons with many men, and several miscarriages, one legitimate, others illegitimate, and one illegitimate child. Does not masturbate herself, but readily yields to its seduction when performed by others. The most passionate woman I have ever met. Good, typical, womanly figure, but thin and weak. Not much looks, but very fascinating to men. Clever and intellectual. "No. 4. Coitus only with her husband before myself. Not very passionate. I know nothing about masturbation or homosexuality in her case. Very broad hips, large breasts, and well-developed nates. Deserted by her husband. No children. Rather foolish and weak-minded. Penetration difficult owing to long labia majora. "No. 5. Knows all about homosexuality of both sexes and wants to know more about everything. Probably masturbates. Several children. In love with her husband at first, but now tired of him and took to other men for variety and because her husband had ceased to give her sexual pleasure. Very passionate; has slow orgasm; likes nakedness and contact of body. Very large vagina. Broad hips and full breasts. Intellectual, but not so by nature. Artistic and very musical. "No. 6. Absolutely innocent before marriage. Was practically raped by her husband on her marriage night. This disgusted her with the whole performance, and she could not bear her husband's caresses. During pregnancy she was frightened because she did not know what was going to happen, i.e., how the child was going to be born; and no one enlightened her,--doctor, nurse, or mother. Did not know the meaning of the words sexual feeling, and never thought about sexual matters at all until marriage. I roused her passion, put things in their true light, made her have an orgasm, and told her what it meant. The orgasms at first made her cry and nearly faint, and she thereafter became intensely passionate. Very excited at cunnilingus, which I practised on her more than once. She confessed that the orgasm was stronger and more complete during coitus than during masturbation, which relieved my mind. She volunteered to strip naked and has but little shyness with me. Cannot bear her husband yet. She admits that she was only half a woman before she knew me, but now regrets her marriage. Short, thin, and slight, with narrow hips and no breasts. Quick woman's wit, but not intellectual. "Of the prostitutes I have known, perhaps 60 in number, the Japanese easily take the palm. They are scrupulously clean, have charming manners and beautiful bodies, and take an intelligent interest in the proceedings. Also they are not always thinking about the money. Perhaps the Kashmiris come next, though the Chinese run them very close. Some of the more expensive London women are bearable, but they are such harlots! The white women in the East are insupportable, and small wonder, for they consist of the dregs of the European and American markets. My list comprises English, French, German, Italian, Spanish-American, American, Bengali, Punjabi, Kashmiri, Kaffir, Singhalese, Tamil, Burmese, Malay, Japanese, Chinese, Greek, and Pole. "I naturally prefer to satisfy myself with a woman, a friend and a lady of my own class; but in the absence of the best I gladly take the next best available, down the scale from a lady for whom I do not care to prostitutes of all classes and colors, men, boys, animals, melons, and masturbation. I would as cheerfully have connection with my sister, or any other female relative. I have frequent erotic dreams about the most extraordinary subjects--male and female relations, casual acquaintances of both sexes, and animals. When I have got an intrigue in hand with a woman, I have no wish to masturbate, and often restrain myself when I know that I am going to have access before long to prostitutes. After coitus it takes a long time before I am ready for the next, sometimes two hours; and the first is always very quick, nearly always too quick for the woman. With a strange woman I have difficulty in maintaining erection at the instant of penetration, and this has often given me trouble. "I know that most women like, and few dislike, being touched by me. My favorite colors are green and red, and I can whistle quite well. "I would be very glad to know whether I may be considered sexually normal or not, but I do not desire any opinion on the morality of my acts, for the simple reason that without knowing all the circumstances it would be impossible to judge. But I cannot help saying that I do not consider anything I have done is wrong in itself, and I am quite certain that I have never harmed in any way any of the ladies with whom I have had relations. I am certain, if I had made promises which I knew I could not keep, I might have married one of them. But the result would have been great unhappiness to both, quarrels, and ultimate separation or divorce--and she realized that as well as I did. I may seem egotistical in my attitude and assurance toward ladies, but I only speak the honest truth; and I know that No. 6, for instance, has only gratitude and worship to give me for having opened her eyes. I have made her promise to have intercourse with her husband as soon as she can bear it, and I have satisfied myself that I have not started her on the road to sexual perversion. So much in self-explanation. I may add that I do not deliberately seek 'affaires de coeur,' and that, when they come my way, I do my utmost to use all consideration for the lady, thinking, as I do, that I owe them a far bigger debt than I shall ever be able to pay." HISTORY XIV.--J.E., professional man, aged 32. Public school and university education, in which he did well. From age of 6 or 7 had strong sexual emotions, and from 9 sexually pleasurable dreams, though no emission till 12 or 13. He remembers the association of sexual excitement with whipping, either at sight or imagination of it, and this feeling was certainly shared by boys aged 9 to 12 at his private boarding-school and others at the public school later on. His nurse-maid used to invent excuses for beating his nates with a long lead-pencil when he was aged about 7, and he saw occasional whippings with clothes removed in the family nursery. When nearly 16 he was initiated into masturbation, which at once coincided with rapid mental development and success at school. He has practised it ever since under same conditions and restrictions as marital intercourse. Religion has never acted as any restraint, and the best restraint to all young people, in his opinion, is to warn them on hygienic grounds. (He became a freethinker at 17, partly on observing the inconsistency of religious persons in this connection. He was twice set upon by Catholics when 16, who attempted mutual masturbation.) He can vaguely remember some such warning when very young from his mother. No intercourse with women till age of 19, though strong homosexual feelings from 10 upward, associated with feminine youths. These feelings were quite distinct from feelings of affection and friendship for more virile youths. An attack of gonorrhea at 21 was followed by an operation for circumcision, which had beneficial effects, but did not prevent an attack of syphilis at age of 23, caught at a guaranteed state establishment in France. Intercourse almost always with prostitutes, on prudential and worldly grounds, though what he approves would be greater laxity between boys and girls, with proper safeguards against undesired offspring. He is now happily married. He only indulges in masturbation at times when intercourse is impossible (e.g., childbirth). It is then practised once or twice a week in the early morning; overnight it causes troubled sleep, brain activity, and constipation. This seems ethically more desirable unless the wife were to condone physical infidelity, which she would not, and even then there might be risks of venereal disease. His general health and working power are in all respects excellent, as the venereal diseases were speedily and thoroughly cured. Homosexual feeling has entirely disappeared since marriage. HISTORY XV.--G.D., English; aged 60. "My earliest essays in juvenile vice were due not so much to unguarded as to unguided ignorance. I slipped where my natural protectors suspected no danger, and I fell because I had never been warned of the treacherous nature of the ground. Before or soon after I was 7 years old, the example of an elder brother, who had lately begun to go to school as a day-boy, initiated me into the mysteries of masturbation, which seemed to me then as harmless as it was fascinating; and the novel pleasure was almost daily indulged in, after I had acquired sufficient dexterity to accomplish the act within a reasonable time, without a twinge of conscience, either in that brother's company or when alone. Decency demanded secrecy in the gratification of what soon became an imperious desire, and the preliminary operations included, almost from the first, mutual _fellatio_ and approximation of the excited organs; but similar privacy was very properly sought during the performance of other bodily acts associated with those 'less honorable members,' and it appeared to me quite as natural and right for us to amuse ourselves together in that way as for a married couple to hide their most intimate embraces from the observation of others. Indeed, I went farther than that, and even came to regard the absence of all shame between us as akin to the primeval innocence which Adam and Eve exhibited before the Fall. I believed for long that we two were specially privileged and possessed a peculiar sense denied to other boys, for I had never heard of masturbation till I learnt, not the word indeed, but the thing itself. "My curiosity about the real nature of sexual union in the case of human beings set my intelligence to work at the interesting problem, and by carefully studying certain parts of the Bible, Lemprière's classical and other dictionaries, as well as by persistently watching when I could the amorous proceedings of domestic animals, I learnt enough to make its most prominent features pretty clear before I was 11 years of age. I was then all eagerness to have the opportunity of inspecting at close quarters the genitals of women or young girls, and a stay at the seaside when I was 12 made the latter at least feasible. When the shore was nearly deserted, between 1 and 2 P.M., the daughters of the fisherfolk used to besiege the bathing machines and disport themselves in the water, bathing and paddling in various stages of nudity. I would pretend that my whole attention was being given to the making of miniature tunnels in the sand, while all the time I slyly peeped at what I most desired to see, whether in front or from behind, as the dancing damsels stood upright or stooped till their haunches were higher than their heads. I had already read something somewhere about the _clitoris_, and wanted especially to see it, but indistinct glimpses were all that I could obtain; nor was it until I visited an anatomical museum, which then existed at the top of the Haymarket in London, that I learned, a good many years later, from several life-sized models there displayed, the characteristic features of that part, as well as the abnormal modifications to which it is subject, either congenitally or in consequence of profligate habits. I was 15, I think, when I first came to know that girls can masturbate as well as boys. "Long after I had realized why the terms male and female are so distinguished, my imagination was occupied with the possible postures in which the act of copulation may be accomplished by a man and woman; from Horace, Lucretius, Martial, Aristophanes, and, above all, from Ovid's _Ars Amatoria_ I obtained much, but not always very clear, information while still a schoolboy. This was supplemented later by photographic pictures from Pompeiian brothels and photographs from life, purchased at Florence and gloated over one night, with twice-repeated masturbation, and afterward destroyed in a revulsion of shame. "But while continuing to practise self-abuse (with a certain degree of restraint indeed, but seldom less often than once or even twice a week), after I had been made fully aware of its perils by Dr. Adam Clarke's alarming comments on Genesis xxxviii, 9, when I was about 12 or 13, I never had connection with a woman until I married somewhat late in life. This abstinence was not due to any frigidity of disposition, but from prudential and religious motives, and, to some extent perhaps, from the imperfect but genuine satisfaction afforded by solitary indulgence. My imagination, like that of young J.J. Rousseau, as set forth in his _Confessions_, was allowed free scope for its exercise, but in practice I confined myself to what seemed to me comparatively innocent as compared with fornication. I was never an unreserved 'exhibitionist' like Rousseau, but I have on more than one occasion turned toward a hedge and pretended to make water, when a girl had just passed me on the road, showing a _turgens cauda_ if she should chance out of curiosity to look back, as once, at any rate, happened. "I watched with interest the first indications of puberty in my own person. I had, of course, seen the pubic hair on many of my own sex, but I was 17 when I first saw a naked woman. She was standing at the door of her machine, wringing out her bathing-dress, as I swam past, and her face was hidden by the awning then used, so that she could not see me. A slight effusion of limpid mucus began to characterize the orgasm, at the age of 12 or 13 (before any ejaculation of semen was experienced), such as exuded later from the _urethra_ when salacious excitement reached a certain pitch, even though the final climax might be postponed or prevented altogether. I found it a refinement of luxury to prolong the period of tumescence as far as possible, by frequently checking a too rapid progress toward the goal. By this practice of repeated arrest when the orgasm was imminent, and the mental debauchery which was its habitual accompaniment, I believe I did my nervous system more damage than by anything else--even the early age at which the dangerous indulgence became established. Nocturnal emissions (the sequel of lascivious dreams) commenced when I was about 15, at which age I had my first experience of an involuntary discharge when awake, under the influence of purely mental emotion; but this latter mode of escape did not often happen, and later on ceased altogether. My muscular strength was not impaired by too frequent indulgence, and I acquired some athletic prowess on the football field and on the running path, both as a boy and as a young man. Walking tours were for long my favorite recreation, even after the bicycle became an increasing attraction. My health, however, suffered in other ways from too constant absorption in lustful thoughts, which found vent in erotic verses and tales, generally destroyed soon after they were written. I have been subject since I was a boy to more or less prolonged fits of mental depression. How far I have inherited this tendency (my father and his father both married first cousins, and a neurotic diathesis has been characteristic of our family), or how far it has been aggravated by pernicious habits, I cannot say; cause and effect have no doubt acted and reacted on each other. "As I grew toward adolescence I endeavored to make self-abuse as close an imitation as possible of sexual intercourse by such methods as may be easily imagined. My biological studies (I won a scholarship and took honors at my university) were directed with most intent predilection toward the reproductive system, particularly the modifications of the copulatory organs in different animals and the diverse manner of their employment. The sexual instinct, whether in its normal or abnormal manifestations, is a subject which has always had a strong attraction for me, nor has it lost its fascination with the growth of years (I am now 60) nor the competition of other interests. "My very limited experience of the sexual system in women would lead me to believe that the _clitoris_ is the only peculiarly sensitive part of the female _genitalia_, coition giving no pleasure unless 'the trigger of love' is simultaneously manipulated, as can be done when intromission is effected _a tergo_; that the mind of a normally healthy maiden is altogether free from sexual excitement of a physical kind, and that little curiosity is felt about the precise _modus operandi_ of conjugal intercourse; but, nevertheless, I have good reason to believe that this, if not an unusual type, is by no means the only one that exists. "As to sexual inversion my personal experience has been confined to two or three _grandes passions_ for boys, the first of which possessed me when between the ages of 16 and 18, and involved, when I was 17, the most intense mental emotion, of a romantic kind, tinged with poignant jealousy and vexation at comparative coldness toward myself. These love passages never led me into indelicate behavior (I was once threatened with such treatment myself by a stranger whose acquaintance I made one day at the British Museum, when a lad of 15. He took me to his bedroom at an inn, locked the door, and showed me a collection of coins, giving me some, and, while doing so, attempted to take indecent liberties; but I pretended that I must catch a certain train, unlocked the door, and made a hasty escape), nor was any gratification sought beyond occasional kisses and other innocent endearments, though such caresses would sometimes excite an erection, which I carefully concealed. These amours were, however, no outcome of perverted instinct, nor were they any bar to fancies for the opposite sex which affected my imagination rather than my heart." HISTORY XVI.--This history is given in the subject's own words: A.N., 34 years of age, a university graduate, devoted to learning and interested in philosophy and theology. He is happily married and the father of an only daughter. Since puberty he has enjoyed excellent health. "Looking back he finds the beginnings of sexual feeling obscure. This feeling is by no means identical in its progress with the knowledge of the phenomena of sex generally. The latter he acquired thus: His mother told him at a very early age the outlines of the phenomena of birth and explained to him (perhaps at that time unnecessarily) that the genital organs of little girls were different from his own. This piece of knowledge led to his asking, when 9 years old, a little girl cousin who came to live with the family (he was an only child) and who shared his bed to let him see her genitalia. This she readily did and also invited him to coitus, which she described as a 'nice game.' He complied, but without, of course, any feeling of pleasure or any understanding of the nature of what he was doing. Shortly after this he went to a day school, where, amid the extraordinarily coarse conversation of the boys, he was initiated into all the more obvious phenomena of sex. But still it was only a matter of intellectual curiosity. As such it had a strange fascination for him, and to this day he remembers many of the obscene words and phrases, as, for example, a set of indecent verses beginning 'William, the milkman, sat under a tree,' describing coitus, though some of the details were yet misunderstood by him. That up to his tenth or eleventh year no real sexual desire was awakened is plain from the fact that there was no desire for any repetition of attempts at coitus with his cousin, though he did indeed, again out of curiosity, finger her genitals sometimes, a thing which she, grown evidently more fastidious, reported to his mother, who gravely reprimanded him, telling him that it was the 'beginning of all evil.' "Desire was awakened gradually and, as I have said, obscurely. Not only at school, but among his own cousins, especially two girls (other than the one above mentioned) and a boy, the conversation was lascivious in the extreme, though words never proceeded to deeds as between the boys and the girls. He was soon, however, about his fifteenth year, so far as he can remember, initiated into the practice of masturbation, first, sleeping with his boy cousin, the two used to play at 'husband and wife,' and then, more directly, a neighbor, a heavy, sensual type of boy, took him aside one day and drawing out his own penis asked him 'if he knew how to make some buttermilk.' Out of curiosity at first, and to obtain the new and voluptuous sensation afterward, he began assiduously to practise this vice, which, as he afterward found out, was very common, if not universal about him. That it was morally reprehensible he had not at that time the ghost of a notion; he considered that it belonged to the category of the 'dirty' only. His father quite neglected this development, believing, I suppose, in the superstition of the 'innocence of childhood.' "This practice of masturbation went on assiduously to his sixteenth year, when its true nature and danger were revealed to him by a good clergyman who prepared him for confirmation. He had at this time gone far, in both solitary vice and vice 'à deux,' with his male cousin, with whom he practised even 'fellatio' and 'intromissio in anum.' But now he began to struggle against it and made some headway, but never entirely shook it off before his marriage at 26, so deeply rooted was the hold it had on him. Especially at the time between sleeping and waking, or while lying sleepless at night--when the monks prayed 'ne polluantur corpora'--did its attacks come insidiously upon him. He would struggle for weeks and then would come a relapse. On one occasion he slept with a young uncle who amused himself, thinking he was asleep, by playing with his penis until he had an emission. A.N. hailed the occasion with keen joy--he caustically argued that he experienced the pleasure without being culpable in its production! Then on 'coming to himself' he would agonize over his vice, remembering, for example, that, while _he_ had rejoiced in what had been done, the very cousin who some time before used to share his sin was genuinely annoyed at the same uncle's attentions when it was he who suffered them. "Looking back over the whole period of his youth and adolescence, he can trace the psychological effect of what was going on secretly, in his relations to girls and women. In a word, these relations were sentimental only. He often imagined himself in love; but it was imagination only. He was in love with a wraith, not a girl of flesh and blood. He hesitated to regard in any sexual way any girl of whom he had a high opinion; sexual desire and 'love' seemed for him to inhabit different worlds and that it would be a pollution to bring them together. In hours of relaxation from the very hard intellectual work which he was at this time engaged on at school and at the university, he was quite content with the society of quite young girls or even children when most of his friends would have sought out females of their own age. Nothing could have been farther from his desires or intention than any lascivious or, indeed, unseemly act toward any female in whose company he might be: no mother need have hesitated to trust her daughter in his company. I firmly believe that the discipline of the same bed which Gibbon (_Decline and Fall_, ed. Bury, vol. ii, p. 37) makes so merry over could have been endured by him without difficulty. His outward conduct was in all these respects most seemly and decorous, yet night after night he could masturbate, his imagination glowing with visions of female nakedness. "Curiously the one and only actual female for whom he felt any desire at the earlier period (aged 14 to 16) began to be the cousin who lived in the house. On one occasion he touched her breasts, on another her naked thighs--and that was all! As she grew to puberty, she would have allowed far more liberties, but he contented himself with a sly glance now and again, when he could procure it, at her swelling bosom. The fear of putting her with child was ample to keep him away from her bed. Later on even so much as the foregoing occurred no more, and, as I have said, his outward life became absolutely decorous. "Consequently he was in no danger of having dealings with prostitutes. The preliminaries, the conversation of such women, especially their drinking habits, would have been disgusting and repugnant to him in the extreme. He would have shunned the possibility of acquiring venereal disease like the plague. But he was never free from solitary vice; he secretly envied those who had occasions for coitus in what I may call a seemly and cleanly manner, friends in the country with farm girls, etc., of whom he had heard. He indulged also in lascivious reading, the obscene when he could procure it, rather than the merely suggestive, which has never been to his taste. He was familiar with quite a large number of Latin and Greek indecent passages, knew the broader farces of the _Canterbury Tales_ and of the _Decameron_, and, later, the 'contes' of La Fontaine and the _Facetiæ_ of Poggio. As Ste.-Beuve says of Gibbon, I think, he acquired an 'erudite and cold' sort of obscenity in this way. "All this, of course, is only one half, and by no means always the dominant half, of his nature. He was often repentant for these delinquencies, and he was sincerely religious. He was also fond of serious learning and contrived to take a first-class university degree. Yet, ever and anon, the deeply sensual side of his nature made itself felt. Scotched for a time it could be, but killed never. "Yet, I do not think it could be said that he had the sexual instinct in any really high degree. It was more like a small fly that makes a large buzz than any considerable factor in his constitution. He had a companion about this time of whom such a remark is even more true. This man's mind was replete with all manner of risky stories, all sorts of sexual details. He would take long walks with girls of loose character, talk with prostitutes at home and abroad, and yet, I believe, he never proceeded to coitus. "Such then, was the subject of this notice up to the time of his marriage. Two men, one might say, in one skin. One learned, one merely obscene; one a pattern of decorousness, the other a self-polluter. "On the sexual side he was as one knowing everything there is to know--yet knowing nothing. Like the boy-hero in Wedekind's _Frühling's Erwachen_, he had been long in Egypt, yet he had never seen the pyramids. He began to distress himself with questions as to whether he was yet capable; whether his recurring vice had not permanently injured him; whether he had made himself unfit for marriage. So shy and reserved was he about his secret that he could never have brought himself to mention it to a medical man. 'What! he! the good, the religious! the wholly moral and decorous!' (such was, indeed, the reputation he had among his friends); 'he, the victim of a vice so black!' No, no! '_Secretum meum mihi_,' he cried. "Fortune, however, was kind to him. He was at an early age free from financial worries, which had almost crushed him earlier in his career, and he met in course of time the family from which he selected his excellent wife. "The society in which he lived was of all English classes, I should suppose, the most reticent in matters of sex--the respectable, lower middle class; shopkeepers and the like, with a tradition of homely religion and virtue. The classes a little higher in the scale (to which, by the way, his mother had belonged) could far better sympathize with one in his position. Well, the family of his future wife was of a higher class and, what is far more, of foreign origin, for whom a large number of our English 'convenances' do not exist. To them sex was frankly recognized as a factor in life, and the mother of this household, as he grew more intimate, broached subjects which he had never, in such a manner, discussed before. It is unnecessary to give here any general history of his relationships with this household, as they have nothing to do with the matter in hand. After some time he became engaged to the youngest daughter, two years his senior, a woman of remarkable beauty and splendid development, one who attracted him as none other had done, both on account of her intellectual and social qualities and her physical beauty (he had hitherto despaired of finding the two combined in one person), for she is certainly the most beautiful woman with whom he has ever been acquainted. "He now began to make the practical acquaintance of a woman--and one who, in impulses, temper, manner, and habit of thought, differed _toto cælo_ from the girls he had known in his old home. Her sexual nature was ripe and developed, and it is lucky that the engagement was of short duration, or the strain and anticipation of that time might have been injurious to the health of both. As usual, in his outward relations toward women, so toward his _fiancée_, he was prepared for chaste caresses only. This, however, did not suffice for her hot and passionate nature. They went as far as possible short of actual coitus. "After a few months, however, the marriage took place, and, at first, this brought him bitter disappointment and seemed to confirm his worst fears. He found himself quite unable to have pleasure or satisfactory coitus; quite incapable, with any erection that he could command, of introducing his well-developed penis into his wife's extremely narrow and contracted vagina. About a fortnight after the marriage, however, on his return from their short wedding tour, he felt much stronger and copulated with her, especially in the early mornings, so satisfactorily that she soon found herself with child. Coitus now began to be much more pleasurable for him, but to his wife still attended with pain. "After nine months of married life, the child, the only offspring of the marriage, a healthy girl, was born. The stress of this time, the upsetting of his wife's health, her nervous breakdown and consequently uncertain temper, seemed for a period of nearly two years effectually to repress any sexual desire in the husband, and this period is perhaps the chastest of his life. Desire seemed to be the one thing absent. The revulsion of feeling in his wife was remarkable. The erstwhile amorous _fiancée_, who could hardly wait until marriage to test her lover, became now the wife and mother who hardly wished to be touched by her husband. "Her health, however, gradually improved and a more normal state of affairs was brought about, which has continued to the present day, broken only by periods of abstention, chiefly caused by the attacks of anemia and menstrual irregularities from which his wife suffers from time to time. Ordinarily, he enjoys coitus once or twice in the month, hardly oftener, taking one month with another. At one time he exemplified in his own person the saying _omne animal post coitum triste_, but now happily this depression of spirits is rarely felt. Sometimes he has felt a depression of spirits, a general discontentedness, before experiencing a strong erection; in these cases coitus has cleared his spirits. He would naturally look upon coitus as an evacuation, although he recognizes the imperfectness of that view. For one thing he is constantly sorry, viz., that the act gives no pleasure to his wife, and that he has never been able to induce a crisis with her by normal means. In this state of affairs, knowing that 'après coup' she was still unsatisfied, he slipped into the practice of rubbing the clitoris with his fingers until the emission takes place. To do this, they assume the position 'ille sub, illa super.' From his own limited marital experience, he has never been able to understand the stories of women who masturbate several times a day, as his wife would be physically incapable (so he believes) of anything of the kind, and only easily reaches the crisis in any circumstances during the first few days after the menstrual flow has ceased. In fine, while agreeing theoretically with Sir Richard Burton and others that the eastern style of coitus (directed with a view to the pleasure of your partner) is the right one, it is one of his standing regrets that he is unable to practise it. In the place of the twenty minutes required by the women of India (according to Burton) he is happy if he can give two or three at the most, much as he would wish to prolong a pleasure as keen to himself as he could desire it to be to his dear and excellent spouse." HISTORY XVII.--R.L., American; aged 43; height, 5 ft. 7 in.; weight, about 145 lbs.; occupation, teacher; somewhat neurotic; a slight myopia associated with acute astigmatism and muscular weakness of the eyes, producing a tendency to migraine. Uric acid diathesis, producing occasionally severe neuralgia, particularly in the intestines. These symptoms have been more or less constant since very early childhood. General health very good. Not inclined to indulge in athletic sports, but prefers sedentary occupations and recreations. "My early ideas of sexual things are not very clear in recollection. I think that when 7 or 8 years of age I had a knowledge of the common or vulgar terms for intercourse and for the genital organs. Boys of my own age and slightly older would discuss sex relations, and I had a general knowledge that, in some way connected with the sexual act, 'babies were made.' We would tell, occasionally, lewd stories, and a few times attempted sexual practices with one another. Not till after puberty did I ever attempt masturbation. I must have been 9 or 10 years old before I learned that there was a difference in the sex organs of boys and girls. Up to this time I had supposed that intercourse was _per anum._ I attended a public school with both sexes. Talk among my boy associates was often nasty and concerned the sexual act with girls. At about 12 years I began to have erotic day dreams. I always had a sentimental attachment for some girl acquaintance whom I would idealize and with whom I would imagine myself having sex relations. As a matter of fact, there was no real sexual feeling about this. As I was very shy and timid naturally, I never made any kind of advances toward any of them, and they were entirely ignorant of any sentiments of affection in me. "Pubertal changes commenced, I presume, about the age of 13½ years. I place it at this period from the following circumstances, which are fixed very strongly in my memory: I had, as a child, a soprano voice that was praised considerably by older friends, and about which I was inordinately conceited, I enjoyed greatly taking part in operettas, cantatas, etc. The dramatic instinct, if so it may be called, has always been marked with me, and amateur dramatics are still my chief diversion. When I was about the age mentioned above my voice changed quite rapidly, greatly to my distress of mind, as I was obliged to give up taking a part for which I had been cast in a school entertainment. The memory of that disappointment is still poignant. Other changes, such as the appearance of the pubertal hair, must have made no impression on my mind, as I cannot recollect anything in connection therewith. No involuntary emissions occurred. Indeed, during periods of continence in later life, when the sexual tension has been very strong, I have had very few such emissions. "As a lad of 11 or 12, I had heard frequent allusions to masturbation by other boys who were older, but always in a way that indicated contempt. Yet there is no doubt now in my mind that the practice was very general. I think that I was probably about 15 when I decided to try the act. I think that there was little sex impulse in this decision. The animating purpose was rather curiosity. I succeeded in producing the complete orgasm and found it pleasurable, though there was a considerable shock of surprise at the ejaculation of semen. As nearly as I can estimate in my memory of an event as far back as this was, this was the beginning of definite sexual sensibility in me. I cannot but believe, however, that it would have been aroused sooner or later in some other way. Thereafter I would imagine myself embracing some of the girl friends to whom I have referred above, and, when excited, would masturbate. The act was in every instance a psychic intercourse. For some time I did not know that the practice was considered harmful. I indulged whenever I felt the inclination. This at times was rather frequent; again only at considerable intervals. I did know that it was looked upon as being unmanly, and never admitted, except to perhaps two or three boy friends, that I ever indulged. With these boys I practised mutual masturbation a few times. There was no homosexual feeling connected with these acts in any of us. It was only that the normal method of gratifying our desires was not available. I know the subsequent history of each of these boys, and there has been nothing to indicate any perverted instinct in any of them. About the age of 16 I heard a talk on sexual matters by a traveling evangelist, who portrayed the effects of masturbation in fearful colors. I now realize that he was an ignorant though well-intentioned man; but the general effect of his talk upon me was a bad one. One of the results of the habit, according to his statements, was insanity. Therefore I expected at any moment to lose my mind. I felt that I must stop the practice at once, but the matter became so great an obsession that again and again I broke my resolutions for reform. I undertook exercise, dieting, the reading of serious literature: all of which I had seen referred to in books as methods of lessening sexual desire. The object of these disciplinary practices was always the thing most prominently in mind, and so they were of no avail. Fortunately I entered college a little later, and the affairs of school life gradually took a commanding place in my thoughts, and the practice was not so much in mind. I did not, however, completely break away from it until almost the time of my marriage. If the present attitude of the scientific medical world toward the subject had been known to me, I do not believe that any evil would have come to me from the practice. At a later period of my life, say between 21 and 24, I would not indulge the habit for a considerable interval. At times I did not notice the presence or lack of desire. But then there would come periods when I would be under a severe sexual tension. This would be marked by intense nervousness, an inability to fix my attention upon any one thing, and a great desire to have intercourse. An act of masturbation at such a time would generally give relief. However, when I yielded to this form of relief, there would always follow feelings of profound self-reproach and of self-repugnance. Had I had nocturnal emissions they might have relieved me; but, as I have said before, they very rarely occurred. When, rarely, one did occur I would be greatly frightened, for I had the old, erroneous idea that they meant serious weakness and always ascribed them to my bad habit. That my habit of masturbation had any relation to the rarity of the involuntary emissions would, of course, be a matter of pure conjecture. In passing from the discussion of personal masturbation, I wish to say that my associations with boys as a pupil and as a teacher lead me to believe that the practice is practically universal. When discussing the hygienic evils of prostitution with boy pupils I have noted that, whereas not infrequently a boy will voluntarily protest that he has never had intercourse, there has always been a significant silence when masturbation is mentioned. I have never heard a boy make a denial, direct or indirect, that he had indulged in the practice. But it has seldom been a perversion. It has rather been, as in my own case, an available means of relieving a sexual impulse. "During my college life I associated with many boys who had more or less regular sexual relations with prostitutes or with girls who were not virtuous. Their attitude toward the practice was an immoral one. The ethical aspect of irregular sexual relations never concerned them. It certainly did not concern me. What I have learned through my conversations on the subject with my pupils makes it evident to me that this is the common feeling of most boys of the adolescent period. I think of two things which operated strongly to prevent my entering into sexual relations with girls during this period of my life. One was an esthetic repugnance to the average prostitute. These are the women most easily available to the youth whose sexual desires are developed. I do not remember ever having seen an avowed prostitute who did not seem repulsive to me. I confess to an inclination to priggishness. I preferred to associate with people whom I called 'nice people.' It was fortunate for me that I was thrown into the society of a rather rough crowd of youths, who knocked a great deal of this snobbishness out of me. But it did act to prevent my having recourse to prostitution. A second preventive was my natural timidity in making advances to people. This has been a trait that I have never completely overcome. In my professional life this has been some detriment to my advancement. In the matter of sex relationship it tended to prevent my taking advantage of association with and even of advances from girls who, not prostitutes, were nevertheless not virtuous. There were a number of such in the town and neighborhood in which I lived, and I undoubtedly could have had sexual relations with them if I had only been able to overcome my shyness. The desire was not wanting. I really craved intercourse with them. It was simply a matter of cowardice. There was one girl whom I knew very well, with whom I was on friendly terms, who I knew had had sexual relations with other boys. She showed, at times, a marked preference for me, and I am sure would have welcomed any advances that I should have made. A number of times I sought her company with the intention of suggesting intercourse, but my resolution always failed. "All through my college course I was much in the society of girls. We were in class together, associated very freely in society, frequently studied together. This is the most usual state of things in the western part of our country. But they were simply comrades: sex thoughts never arose in connection with such association. And I am quite certain that this was the general attitude of the other boys. Although the talk among the boy students was at times, very frankly and crudely, about sexual relations, no breath of scandal ever touched one of the college girls. Again my experience as teacher and student brings a conclusion that coeducation of the sexes does not affect, in one way or the other, the strictly sexual life of the male student. A very intimate friend who has had a varied experience in school work has told me recently that his conclusions are the same. "When I was about 20 years old I became acquainted with a very beautiful girl, four years my junior. Our acquaintance very rapidly developed into deeper affection, and about five years later we were married. During all this time very little of the physical aspects of love entered into our attachment. My sweetheart had much of the same shyness as was so pronounced in my own character. For several years I think that the thought of marriage was never distinctly present in our minds. A formal betrothal between us did not take place until within a year and a half of our marriage. Yet each of us had a very distinct understanding of the feelings of the other. But until our betrothal there were none of even those very innocent expressions of endearment common, I imagine, to all lovers. I am sure that during this period of our attachment no thought of any physical relations between us was ever in my mind; or, at any rate, was promptly banished if it occurred. Yet all this time my sex desires were very strong and at times became an obsession. Never, though, were they directed toward my sweetheart. The first time that we engaged in the endearments and caresses allowed to lovers I became conscious, after a time, of a state of sexual excitement. I experienced an erection. It was absolutely reflex; no thought had entered into it. I was at once overwhelmed with a feeling of shame. I felt that I had been guilty of unthinkable indecency toward my betrothed. Then there arose a fear that it might be noticed. (Men at that time wore abominably tight clothing.) As a matter of fact, I now know that there was no real danger of this, for she was absolutely ignorant of the nature of the male sexual organs. But I made a pretext for withdrawing from the room and tried to adjust my clothing so that no exposure could occur. I was fearful of coming into close proximity to her again, lest there should be a recurrence of the feeling. As a matter of fact it did occur a number of times, but my good sense finally suggested the explanation and after a time it ceased to trouble me. The thought was latent in my mind that sexual excitement was necessarily more or less indecent at all times, and I could not reconcile its manifestation with a pure love. "I have said that my sexual desire was strong. Up to the time of marriage it was never gratified in the normal manner. My esthetic abhorrence of prostitutes continued to prevent its gratification in that manner. No other opportunity offered. I am positive that moral considerations did not enter into the matter at all. I think now that it was strange that the thought that it would be disloyal to my promised wife to have connection with other women did not affect me. But I am sure that it did not. I am inclined to think that conscientious scruples very rarely enter into the average young man's considerations of contemplated sexual relations. "As the time of my marriage drew near, thoughts of the physical relationship of husband and wife became, of course, more insistent. The idea of establishing sexual relations was not at all a pleasant one. I dreaded it as an ordeal. I wondered if it would be possible for us to retain the same love and affection for one another after such intimate relations were established. This was a recurrence of the fallacious notion that there was something inherently indecent in sexual things. I am in hopes that other ideas are replacing this wrong one, in the minds of the younger generation, as the result of the saner and franker discussion of sex. By a great effort, I had practically stopped masturbating. At times I felt almost maddened by desire. But never did the prospect of marriage seem desirable from this point of view. Up to the very day of our wedding my affection for my betrothed seemed free from sexual desire. But my physical being was craving sexual companionship. "Theoretically I knew a great deal of the nature of intercourse. Practically I was absolutely ignorant. In some ways I was better informed, on matters that a new husband should know, than the average man entering the married life. A physician's library had been at my disposal, and I had read somewhat extensively on physiology and hygiene. My chosen lines of study had given me a theoretical knowledge of the anatomy of the female genital organs that was fairly thorough. I knew a little about the physiology of reproduction and rather less of intercourse. Fortunately, I learned in the course of my reading that the first sexual approaches were likely to be quite painful to a woman, and that great care should be exercised at this time. I tried to put into practice what little I had learned in theory and I imagine that we got through the introductory attempts with less than the average difficulties. Our first efforts were not satisfactory to either of us. My wife was absolutely unprepared so far as any definite knowledge of the act was concerned. I sincerely hope that the prudish notions of the past generations will give way to more sensible views in the future, and that the girl becoming a wife will be just as chaste, but wiser in matters of such importance to her happiness. I presume that my timidity was a valuable asset at this time; for I was afraid to force matters in any way, and time and repeated attempts finally overcame our difficulties. And when our sexual relations were once established, the whole tenor of my life was changed. All the former sexual unrest disappeared. My former feeling toward sexual relations was altered. They no longer seemed that which, though very desirable, was yet necessarily indecent. Fortunately, after the first few weeks, they have been quite pleasurable to my wife. I am sure that our sexual life since marriage has been a large factor in deepening the love that has made our married life an ideal one. As I look back at the first year of marriage, I wonder that we got through it so well. My knowledge of sexual hygiene was a strange mixture of fact and nonsense. If the frequency of acts of intercourse advocated by some of the authorities I have lately read is correct, then we must have passed the bounds of moderation. But it is certain that our general health has been very good: better in both cases than before marriage. "In reviewing these phases of the development of my sexual life, one or two conclusions seem to me to be strongly emphasized. It was unfortunate that the real sexual desire was aroused as early and in the manner that it was. Whether this would have been prevented by more definite education in the hygiene and the purpose of the function, I can only conjecture. I believe that mine was and is the common experience of boys. I am decidedly of the opinion that there should be instruction given of the anatomy of the genital organs and of the hygiene of intercourse, and this shortly after the youth has reached puberty. How this is to be done is a grave question. It will require tact and knowledge not possessed by the average teacher and parent. However it is done, it should be honest, frank, and free from piosity. "I am certain that, in my own case, rather frequent intercourse is decidedly beneficial. Any prolonged abstinence always brings about the same nervous disturbances that I have referred to above. It is fortunate for me that this repetition of the act is satisfactory to both concerned." HISTORY XVIII.--E.W., dentist, aged 32, of New England Puritan stock. Height, 5 ft. 10½ in.; weight, 144 lbs. Spare and active, of nervobilious temperament. "My earliest recollection is being punished for 'playing with myself' when I could not have been more than 3 or 4 years of age. I distinctly remember my exultation on discovering that I could excite myself (while my hands were tied behind my back for punishment) by rubbing my small but erect penis against the carpet while lying on my stomach. At this time, of course, I knew nothing of sex or of what I was doing. I did what my desires and instincts at that time prompted me to do. However, punishments and lectures failed utterly to break up this habit, and, though I always wished and tried faithfully to obey my parents, I soon grew to indulge quietly in bed when I was thought to be asleep. The matter apparently passed out of the minds of my parents as soon as they ceased to detect me further in the act, and they regarded it as abandoned. I now feel reasonably certain that this precocity was due to an adherent foreskin which covered the glans tightly almost to the meatus, and so kept up a continual irritation. "I have no recollection that anyone ever taught me the habit, and I know beyond a doubt that no one ever learned of the habit or even a word as to the possibility of autoexcitement through word or deed of mine. My recollection of the sensations is that there was a short period of excitation, usually by rubbing, which was not particularly, often not at all, pleasurable, and this was followed by a single thrill of pleasure that extended all over my little body. The curious thing was, however, that there seemed to be no limit to the number of times I could consecutively produce this sensation. My recollection is perfectly clear of how I would lie in bed of a morning and thus excite myself time after time. As I grew older this condition, of course, changed. Masturbation was not a consuming passion with me at this or any other time. I enjoyed it and felt that in it I had a means of entertainment when other sources of enjoyment were not at hand. "By the time I was 6 or 7 I had figured out the difference in sex in animals and suspected that 'all was not as it should be' in some portions of a girl's anatomy. This suspicion was suddenly confirmed one never-to-be-forgotten morning, when I induced my dearest playmate, a little girl, to urinate in my presence. I was more thunderstruck than excited over this discovery, and it led to no results in any other way, nor did we ever again unveil ourselves to each other. At this time I began to learn from the older boys the pitiful, childish vulgarities and common terms of sex, and to invent and exchange rhymes and stories that were pathetic in their attempts at vulgarity. "At the age of 11 a buxom servant-girl threw out some vague hints to me,--I was very tall for my age,--and tried to induce me to take liberties with her, at least to the extent of telling her vulgar stories, but I would not rise to the lure. I believe that the thing which held me in check was fear of discovery by my parents and the consequent humiliation. A short time previous to this my father had enlightened me as to the means and manner of reproduction and had encouraged me to talk to him and to my mother on such subjects rather than with anyone else. I think this had a great influence for good, as it made me feel that I had some authoritative knowledge and that I was trusted by my parents. My determination not to prove entirely unworthy of their trust has been the anchor that has held through all the storms and temptations of youth and young manhood. "About the age of puberty I began to long for more realistic experiences and tried through a period of a year or so the disgusting experiments of intercourse with animals, using hens and a cow for this purpose. Details are of no importance, and I spare myself their repetition. My better nature or general mental development soon overcame my desires in this direction, and the practice was abandoned. "With the dawning of the power of emission I noticed that the adherent foreskin before alluded to, which had never been examined during all these years (as I had discovered that I was different from other boys and so was shy about exposing myself), began to trouble me by being painful during erections. Accordingly I took a buttonhook and tore all the adhesions loose. A very painful though ultimately entirely satisfactory operation! "(I may mention in this connection that my two sons were afflicted with adherent foreskins to such an extent as to render circumcision necessary a few days after birth, in order that the function of urination might become fully established.) "As my powers developed I had my first wet dream at about the age of 15, and was much surprised thereat. My father, however, told me not to be alarmed and soothed my anxious fears, which were easily aroused by my guilty feelings on account of my habit of masturbation, in which I still indulged from one to three times a week. "Between the ages of 12 and 17 my father had the good judgment to require a large amount of active outdoor labor from me, as well as sending me to excellent schools. Certain kinds of study had a distinct effect upon the sexual organs, namely, difficult Latin and German translations and problems in fractions. I considered at the time that it was because my mind wandered from the subject I was studying. Now I am perfectly sure it was because my mind focused on the subject I was studying. At any rate the fact existed, and when alone in my room, wrestling with a knotty problem, I used almost as a rule to keep myself in the most violent state of erection for long periods--an hour or so--sometimes ending with an emission, but more often I forced myself to forego this climax through fear of overindulgence. During these years my curiosity as to the exact nature of the female organs was something terrible, and I wasted many hours and much ingenuity in the attempt to surreptitiously gratify it. My perseverance in the face of failure along this line was surely worthy of a nobler cause. "I was much in the society of girls of my own age or older during these years and until I was 19. I found with them a keen and entirely pure and wholesome enjoyment utterly separate and apart from the desires and indulgences which I have been describing. I never cared for any girl who was 'forward' or in any way unladylike, and the idea of taking any undue liberties with any of my youthful sweethearts was as remote from my thoughts as a trip to the moon. Perhaps I can say this better and more distinctly by stating that I would be perfectly willing to have my wife know of, or my boys repeat, any action that I ever took with any woman. "I spent my spare time in their society and lavished upon my girl companions every cent I could spare, but had no thought of immediate sex desire or gratification. At the age of 17 I went as an apprentice in my present profession of dentistry. Whenever it became necessary for me, in assisting at the operating chair, to touch a lady's hair or face, I would be seized with the utmost confusion and could with difficulty control my hands so that they did not tremble. This soon wore off as I came to a realization of the true professional spirit and attitude toward all patients, and, needless to say, has now become a matter of the utmost indifference to me. "From 19 to 22 I attended a professional school in a large city, remote from my home, where I was an utter stranger. During these years I devoted myself to my professional studies and to music with much diligence. I took an active part in all student life and problems save only that of the 'eternal feminine.' "Frequently I have been out with a crowd of 'the boys' when they headed for a brothel, and have been the only one to turn back or to remain on the sidewalk as the door closed behind my last companion. I say this not in self-praise, but in the same spirit of accuracy which has prompted me to put down everything concerning this greatest mystery of our natures as I have experienced it and worked it out. "It was during these three years at school that I placed upon myself the most stringent and effective curbs to my sex nature. I somehow never could 'get my own consent' to go to a brothel or stay with a 'soiled dove,' for I had by this time firmly resolved that I would bring to my wife, whoever she might turn out to be, a clean body at least. I limited myself in my autoexcitement to one emission a week and on one or two occasions went two weeks without inducing an emission. Spontaneous nocturnal emissions were quite common during these years. I cannot state just how frequent they were, but perhaps one a week would be a fair average. "Shortly after graduation at the age of 22 I became engaged to the woman who is now my wife. (She was 17 at the time of our engagement, brunette, well developed, and with a wisdom and charm that have held me a willing captive for ten years and no prospect of escape!) "With our engagement began for each of us that divine and mysterious unfolding of the nature of one to the nature of the other. Our engagement lasted two years and a half and, ignorant as we both were, I am sure that it was none too long. Never shall I forget the surprise I felt--to say nothing of the delight--when I discovered that my sweetheart was as anxious to find out the uttermost facts about me as I was to explore the divine mystery of her sweet body. "We lived in different towns and I used to spend Sundays at her home. I slept in a room adjoining that occupied by my betrothed and a friend. There was a transom with clear glass over the door which connected these two rooms, and to have stood upon the foot of the bed and looked through this transom would have been the easiest thing in the world, and was such an opportunity as I would have given years of my life to have obtained in my adolescence; but now that the chance was afforded me to freely spy upon the chamber of my future bride my soul revolted, for the feeling was upon me that not until it was revealed to me because she could no longer bear to keep it concealed from me would I look upon the blessed vision of her maiden loveliness. Nor was I disappointed, for gradually we became acquainted with each other's bodies, and this gradual unveiling of each to the other led, during the last months of our engagement, to mutual manual manipulations, excitement and gratification. Intercourse did not take place until the second night after our marriage, and our first baby was born nine months and three days after our marriage, though my wife was ten days past the cessation of her period at the time of my first entering. "Since marriage I have made it my first duty to study my wife's inclinations and desires with regard to our sexual relations, and can say that now, after seven years of married life, and after she has borne me two sons, we are enjoying a fullness of happiness that neither of us would have believed possible during the first year of our married life. "I have found that the woman must have the entire charge of the time and number of approaches in a week or month, and that when she is for any reason disinclined to the sexual act the husband must keep away, no matter how he feels about the matter. Also the man must be sure that his wife reaches the orgasm or is at the point of it before he allows himself to 'let go.' "Our meetings have averaged eight or nine a month. During the latter months of pregnancy they were _nil_, and in the month following an enforced separation of several weeks they were fourteen. We have never tried nor had the slightest curiosity to know how far we could indulge ourselves. "For myself I seem to demand a gratification of the sexual desire rather oftener than my wife, and when I feel I cannot get a good night's rest without first being relieved of my seminal burden, while at the same time my wife is disinclined to the sexual act, I have her perform manual manipulation until relief is effected. Mind, I say _relief_, for the emission gives me very little pleasure under these circumstances, but it does give _relief_. In my present health I find I cannot sleep well if I go over more than two nights without an emission. My wife understands my condition, and is entirely willing to assist me in this way when she feels she cannot give me the gratification which I crave. We have come to see sex matters as they are, and respect and reverence have taken the place of ignorance and fear. "To sum up, owing to lack of circumcision the sex instinct developed too soon and out of all proportion during my early youth. I cannot see that masturbation has ever had the slightest bad effect upon my health or mental state (except as I was constantly loathing myself more or less for being unable to stop it). "The husband must subordinate himself to the wife in order to obtain the highest good and pleasure of both. "I have always been successful in my undertakings. Stood at the head of my class at school, and in my professional work graduated with highest honors. I have a memory for prose or verse that is the cause of envy to many of my friends. The facts here set down are recorded in the interest of advancing study along this most important but neglected and ignored line. That they have been truthfully recorded without favor to the black or light on the white is my sincere belief." HISTORY XIX.--E.B. Parents sound; strong constitution in mother, moderately so in father; vigorous and healthy, but of refined nature. Breast-milk for six months. "_Age 4-5_. Took great delight in the little waterworks. Severely punished for this. Interest in the parts morbidly increased thereby. "_Age 5_. Earliest recollection of 'counter-erection'--the penis shrinking tensely into itself, producing local and general discomfort. This resulted from certain kinds of _mauvaise-honte_,--having to kiss aged persons, having officious help at micturition, bathing, dressing, etc., which caused a sort of physical disgust. Toward puberty the experience grew rare. One such occasion was at about eighteen, when solicited on the street by a prostitute. The very _idea_ of homosexual relations produces it. It would appear to be a powerful safeguard against promiscuous sex relations. I have met two men subject to the same thing, and have heard of one woman subject to something analogous. It might be called a nausea of the 'nether heart' in Georg Hirth's phrase. "_Age 6-7_. Earliest recollection of erection. Unprovoked at first. A disposition to _punish_ the organ and satisfaction in doing so. From this time erection took place whenever it was thought about. "_Age 10_. Present at a discussion in the playground about the best way of intercourse, which I heard of for the first time. This was followed by enlightenment on the source of children. Concluded it must be very painful to both parties. 'Just the other way,' I was told. But the idea of pain to the genitals was 'interesting' to me. Pain felt by the other sex was 'interesting.' Pained looks captivated me--I liked to imagine some mysterious trouble; and, as I learned more, 'female complaints' interested me greatly in their subjects. I got a 'grateful pang' at the pit of the stomach at the thought, but neither erection nor the opposite. This hypogastric feeling has continued to associate itself with certain sexual impressions. The thought of a _woman mortifying herself_ later on excited me sexually. Once, pulling a stay-string for fun (my wife never laced) gave me a powerful and quite unexpected erection. "_Age 12_. A girl visitor of the same age got me talking about the genitals, and at bedtime came and proposed coitus. We failed to manage it. The vulva stripped back the foreskin, which was a voluptuous feeling; then we were alarmed by something and separated. I never saw her again. She too liked to 'punish' her vulva. She put whole pepper in it, and advised me to use the same. I continued greatly excited when she had gone; the hand flew to the phallus and worried it, and orgasm came on at once--the childish orgasm consisting of well-spaced spasms of the ejaculators, without the poignant preliminary nisus of the adult orgasm. There was no reaction or depression, except that the phallus--which did not subside at once--was painful to touch. A week or so later I tried again, but failed. A month later, being more excited, I succeeded. I found that I could only compass it about once in three weeks. There were no emissions. I used to have a spontaneous mental image of a small Grecian temple in a sunny park, which charmed me, and I had no scruples. "_Age 12-13_. Masturbated once or twice a month. "_Age 13-14_. Was sent to a small public school, where it happened that a very good tone prevailed. I learned that masturbation was bad form and unmanly. The proper thing was to save one's self up for women--at about 18. I dropped the practice easily, in spite of indulging my imagination about coitus. I thought of the initiation with prostitutes at 18, with the mixed feelings that even the most combative soldier must regard the fray. The hypogastric feeling above referred to would come on--which I liked and disliked at the same time. The first occasion on which I remember this feeling was when I got my first braces. Anything that harped on my sex produced it. Every time I received the sacrament, which I was forced to do very young, I repented of my intention of whoring at 18--as a man 'must' do--and afterward I relapsed to the expectation. Religion was a great reality to me, but it did not produce the radical effect that the development of the romantic sentiment did later on. (Both my wife and I became free-thinkers at about 30.) "_Age 15-17_. Read poetry and romance. Conceived a high ideal of faithfulness and constancy. What a mockery all this loyalty is, I said to myself, if a man has stultified it beforehand. That was no mere castle-building. I had not understood what I was about in expecting to whore. The critical feelings were now awakening, and what they produced was revulsion against the abuse of sex, which got stronger every year. It became plain that there would be no whoring or the like for me; I was far too proud and fastidious. I neglected my tasks, which were uncongenial, and read a great deal of anatomy and physiology, which stood me in good stead later. As I rose in the school I was surprised to find the tone worse, but quite at the top it was better again, and with my latest companions sex was never even mentioned. At 14 I had a friend who importuned me to come into his bed, but I never would get under his bedclothes, for the male sex repels me powerfully in personal contact; he began to talk of masturbation, and now I can understand what he was aiming at. But my day-dreams of nymphs and dryads kept me in a state of perpetual tension, and erection was very frequent. The early morbid admiration of delicate women became replaced by admiration of health and strength combined with grace. "_Age 17-18_. I was given a cubicle in which my neighbor on the right masturbated noisily two or three times a week, and the one on the left every night, using intermittent friction to drag it out longer. One night, kneeling at my bedside, saying prayers, my attention was divided between these and the occupation of my neighbor, when, after not having masturbated for four years,--the critical years of development,--the hand flew to the phallus and "'pulses pounding through palms and trembling encircling fingers' "procured, in Walt Whitman's language, "'the wholesome relief,--repose, content.' "I slept well and had a sense of elation at the proof of manhood, for we boys were anxious about whether we secreted semen or not. The sexual obsession was tempered, and about three weeks later I had my first 'pollution'--the 'angel of the night,' as Mantegazza with better sense calls it. From that time on I had pollutions every two or three weeks, with dreams sometimes of masturbation or of nymphs, or quite irrelevant matters. For a time these gave me perfect relief; then my 'dilectatio morosa' began to grow again, and the phallus would become so sensitive that working about on the belly would liberate the orgasm. "_Age 18-19_. I had kept on persuading myself I was not masturbating--avoiding the use of the hand--but now I dropped this pretense, and frankly conceded the need to myself. I got done with it in a peremptory way and thought no more of it. I had no evil effects, moral or physical, and my mother would often compliment me on my bright appearance the morning after. At that time the appetite matured every seven to ten days, and, though I dreaded the idea of slavery to it, it would have been very hard to forego it. Headaches, which had begun to plague me from puberty on, grew rarer. Pollutions occurred in between, but were less effectual. I had up to this point accepted the incidental pleasure under a sort of protest; but now I got over that too and I allowed what I would prefer to call an idio-erotism (rather than an auto-erotism) its way, always picturing beautiful nymphs to myself. Surroundings of natural beauty moved me to this kind of reverie, partly perhaps because I had once secretly observed a lad basking naked on the sandy beach and toying with himself. The recollection is wholly unsullied to me. Happening on one occasion to check the stimulation about two-thirds way to orgasm, I experienced a miniature orgasm like the childish one, but with no declension of the tumescence, and I was able to repeat this maneuver several times before the full orgasm. This I later practised in _Coitus prolongatus_--giving the partner time to come up. I had already got into the way of poising the feeling on its climax. The ejaculator reflex, being habituated to this, seems to set in with its throbs when the maneuver is simulated, though no semen has yet been poured into the bulbous portion for the ejaculators to act upon. If this play be broken off before the critical spasm--as in the American 'Karezza,' etc.--there is no perceptible reaction, though an unsatisfied feeling remains. But when the act proceeds to emission and the poignant _undercurrent_ of feeling sets in that ushers the ejaculation and may only last two to five seconds, it makes all the difference, and constitutional signs appear--perspiration, etc. This leads to the question whether the critical sensation specially involves the sympathetic nervous system? Up to that point the process is under control, but then automatic. "An observation of practical importance to me at that time was this: I awoke in the morning after a pollution at night, with an acute headache of a specific kind, and erection. This had happened before, after pollution, and the erection suggested to me whether 'a hair of the dog that bit me' might not prove beneficial. As the excitation proceeded, the pain in the head was directly drained away, as if I were drawing it out. Other pain is also relieved for the moment, such as neuralgia, but to return soon with interest. This, however, was specific and pure benefit. The next time I got a bad headache of this character, without preceding pollution, I tried the remedy, at about 10 A.M. The semen was copious and watery, and the relief was marked, but in an hour's time the headache returned. I had never repeated the act at short interval, i.e., while the organs were under the influence of a previous act, and now I tried the effect of that. The second emission was also profuse, but much thicker, and the relief much greater. In about three hours the headache was, however, again intolerable, and, the connection being now clear, I ventured on a third act, which proved to be the most voluptuous I had so far experienced, the nisus being far more intense. The semen was copious, but thick and ropy, with lumps as large as small peas that could scarcely be crushed with the finger, and yellow in color and rank in odor. After that I was perfectly well and kept so. (The urethra was blocked so that I could with difficulty stroke the masses out.) Later I have examined such semen microscopically and found the spermatozoa dead and disintegrating. My period in my best years--21 to 48--was twice a week, the odd number being an inconvenience, and I have since endeavored to avoid accumulations, emptying the receptacles on the fourth day, when I remembered the interval, even if the organs did not remind me. On the fifth day headache would otherwise appear and perhaps two acts be needful, or, if I forgot about it for a week, three acts running. That I did not abuse the function the fact proves that every year I would forget about it two to three times and have to resort to this drastic mode.[230] But there is quite a different headache that follows on indulgence during convalescence or when the system is otherwise much lowered. Railway traveling greatly accentuates the need with me; also riding. Girls aroused no physical desire, though I chiefly sought their society, and even after the genital tension was so pronounced, up to 20, I was troubled by the fact that women did not affect me sexually. About this time a buxom girl I liked and who liked me vehemently laid her hand on my arm, in trying to persuade me to give up shooting. The phallus leaped simultaneously. That was my first _sexual_ experience--the proof that the _nexus_ was established between the genital mechanism and the complex of feeling we call sexual. "_Age 24_. At this age I went to stay at a house where there were two very pretty girls. I at once lost my heart to the elder, L.B., as she did to me (strong constitution, but refined nature; parents sound; brought up in the country; eleven months' breast-milk). 'What a mother she will make,' I said to myself. Now began a time of the spiritual and physical communion that I had pictured to myself.... "I am 60 now; she is 57. We are still like lovers. No; not _like_ lovers; we _are_ lovers. Of course, I do not mean to imply that sexual impressions have preponderated in our life, as they do in this account. Quite the contrary. We are both strong and, according to all accounts, unusually well preserved. We are very temperate. Since 48 I notice a gradual decline of the erotic propensity. It is now once in five or seven days. Since the menopause her propensity has declined markedly, but it is not extinct, and she delights as much as ever in my delight. She began to menstruate at 12, was regular till 17; then got chlorotic for a few months, soon recovered, though menstruation was often irregular, but never painful. Sexual experience began at 25. I have often wondered if a moderate self-gymnastic of the faculty, in Venturi's sense, would not have educated her genital sphere, and made her a still better comrade--excluded the periods of irregularity and frigidity. The stage of latency was too protracted. We often noticed that, when menstruation was due or nearly so, prolonged love-sports at bedtime would be followed by menstruation in the morning. We never were separated for longer than three months, and on that occasion, menstruation being delayed, she tried what masturbation would do to determine it, and with a positive result. My need, though less, is as imperative as ever. Seminal headaches--as I would call them--have ceased since 50; the accumulation only produces muddleheadedness. But I have not suffered accumulation over ten to at most twelve days. The quantity of semen is also less. The sensibility of the corpora has declined much; that of the glans is unimpaired. Erection is good. Orgasm takes two to four minutes to provoke, against forty to fifty seconds when young; it is in some respects even more enjoyable--perhaps less intense, but much more prolonged. I have no reaction from indulgence. But I never press it; it always presses me. For overaccumulation, with headache or muddleheadedness, the wifely hand is more efficacious than the vulva. Even the most vivid dream of coitus fails to compass the orgasm now. The peripheral stimulus is essential. "In our case physical and psychical intensity of emotion have gone hand in hand. I have become specialized to one woman, despite an erotic endowment certainly not meager. The pervasive fragrance makes one adore the whole sex, but my wife does not interpret this homage in a sexually promiscuous sense. We both agree in the principle that if one cannot hold the affection of the other there is no title to it. Tarde says that constancy in love is rarely anything but a voyage of discovery round the beloved object. I am perpetually making fresh discoveries. But her constancy, I mean the high level of her passion, is independent of discoveries." FOOTNOTES: [230] "A practical question arising out of the foregoing is whether such semen should be committed to the vagina? Its presence is known to me by constitutional symptoms (toxic). It is the last to be expelled, and its degenerate germ-cells have no chance against those of the normal fluid deposited in preceding acts, supposing that to be retained. But it may well happen that the prior emissions only reach the pouch, whereas the last is injected into the womb itself. I have frequently had the sense of the orifices of meatus and cervix matching directly, especially when she had powerful orgasm (including two conceptions), and of the semen being sucked from me rather than occluded in its exit, as also happens, requiring me to relax the urge a little. At 18 to 19 the semen of a 'pollution' has left tender red patches where it dried on the neighboring skin, and deep straw-colored stains in the linen." INDEX OF AUTHORS. Abu-l-Faraj Acton, W. Adler, O. Adlerz Aguilaniedo Aldrich Allen, G.W. Alonzi Aly-Belfàdel Amand, St. Andrews, W. Angell Arndt, R. Avebury, Lord Bach, G. Baker, Smith Ballet Balls-Headley Bancroft, H.H. Bantock Baretti Barrus, Clara Bartels, Max Beaunis Bechterew Bell, Sanford Benecke, E.F.M. Bernard, P. Bernelle Blackwell, E. Bladon, J. Blagden Bloch Bloch, Iwan Bloom Blumröder Boerhaave Bohn, G. Bonstetten Booth, D.S. Bos, C. Bossard Bouchereau Bourneville Brantôme Bray Brehm Breitenstein Bridgman, W.G. Brierre de Boismont Browne, W.A.F. Brunfels Bryan, D. Büchner Burckhardt, J.L. Burdach Burk, F.L. Burton, Robert Burton, Si: R. Buscalioni Busch, D.W.H. Butler, A.G. Cabanès Cabanis Calmann Campbell, Harry Cannon, W. Capgras Casanova Catullus Cellini Ceni Cervantes Chapman, G. Christian Clark, Campbell Clarke, E.D. Cleland Clement of Alexandria Clérambault Clevenger Clouston Coelius Aurelianus Coleridge Colin Collas Colman, W.A. Coltman Congreve Cook, F. Cook, J. Cooke, Kev. L.H. Cornevin Cotterill, J.M. Coutagne Crawley, E. Crofton Crooke, W. Cullerre Daniell, W.F. Darwin, C. Darwin, E. D'Aulnoy, Countess Daumas Davenport, Isabel Debreyne Dillmann Diodorus Disselhorst D'Orbigny Duchenne Dühren, E. _See_ Bloch, Iwan. Dulaure Dumas, G. Duncan, Matthews Dunlop, W. Dupré Durkheim Earle, A. Effertz Eklund Ellis, Havelock Ellis, Sir A.B. Engelmann Epaulow Erb Espinas Eulenburg Eysséric Eyre, E.J. Fabre, J.H. Fehling Féré Ferenczi Ferrand Ferrero Ferriani Finck Fliess Foley Forbes, H.O. Forel Forman, S. Franklin, Miles Frazer, J.G. French-Sheldon, Mrs. Freud Friedenthal Fürbringer Fustel de Coulanges Galen Gall Gardiner, J.S. Garnier, P. Gason, S. Gattel Gaupp Gennep, A. Van Gibb Gillen Ginisty Gläveke Glynn Godard Goltz Goncourt, J. de Gosse, P.H. Gourmont, Remy de Gowers, Sir W. Grisebach, E. Groos, K. Grosse, E. Gualino Guinard Guise Guyon Gurlitt Guttceit Häcker Haddon, A.C. Haeckel Hagen Halban Hall, G. Stanley Haller Hamerling Hammer Hammond Hamon Hartmann, E. von Hawkesworth Hayes, J.J. Heape, W. Heard Hegar Heine Henz Herodotus Hicks, Braxton Hippocrates Hirn Hirschfeld Hoche Holden, W.C. Holder, A.B. Holt, R.B. Horace Hornius Horsley Howard Howard, H.E. Howarth, O.H. Hubert Hudson, W.H. Hutchinson, Sir J. Huysmans Hyades Jäger Janet Janin Jayle Jerome, St. Joest, W. Johnston, Sir H. Jones, Brynmor Jones, Ernest Kafemann Keppler Key, Ellen Kiefer Kiernan, J.G. Kisch, E.H. Kleinpaul Kline Kolischer Kossmann Kowalevsky Krabbes Krafft-Ebing Krauss Kubary Kulischer Külpe Lacassagne Lacroix, P. Lagrange Lancaster Landor, A.H., Savage Lanphear Laserre Laurentius Lawson Lea Lécaillon Lehmann-Nitsche Leppmann Lipa Bey Loeb Lombroso Long, S.H. Lop Low, Brooke Loti, P. Löwenfeld Lubbock (Lord Avebury) Lucian Lucretius Lunier Luther Macdonald, Rev. J. Macé MacGillicuddy MacLennan Macnaughton-Jones Maeder Maeterlinck Manacéine, Marie de Mandeville Mantegazza Marandon de Montyel Marchesini Marcuse, Max Mardrus Marie, A. Marie, P. Marie de France Mariner Marlowe Marot, Clement Marro Marsden, W. Marshall, F.H.A. Marshall, H.R. Martial Martins Matignon Maudsley Mauriac Maus Maxwell Mayer, A. McIlroy, A.L. Meibomius Melville, Herman Meung, Jean de Meyer, A.B. Middleton, T. Miklucho-Macleay Millais, J.G. Millant Minovici Mirandola, Pico della Möbius Modigliani, E. Moll Montaigne Montet Montgomery, T.H. Moraglia More, Sir Thomas Morgan, C. Lloyd Mortimer, G. Moule Moyer Mugnier Müller, R. Mundé, P. Munzer Näcke Napier, Leith Nardelli Nenter Nesterus Nicefero Nietzsche Nussbaum Nyström Obici Ordericus, Vitalis Otway Ovid Owen, Sir R. Pactet Papillon Parent-Duchâtelet Partridge Paullinus Peckham, G.W. Pelikan Penta Petronius Pfister Pflüger Piéron Pilet, R. Pitre Pitres Pittard Platen Plautus Plazzonus Ploss Plutarch Poore, G.V. Porosz Portman Potter, M.A. Poulton, E.B. Power, H. Prinzing Propertius Purnell, C.W. Quirós, B. de Rabelais Raciborski Racovitza, E.G. Raymond Rees Régis Regoyos Restif de la Bretonne Reverdin Rhodiginus Rhys Ribot Riedel Ritter Robin Rohleder Roubaud Rousseau, J.J. Rousset Roux, J. Russo Ryan, M. Sacher-Masoch Sacher-Masoch, Wanda von Sade, De Sadger Sajous Salillas Sand, George Sanitchenko Savage, Sir G. Schäfer Schaller Schellong Schlichtegroll, C.F. von Schmidt-Heuert Schopenhauer Schreiner, S.C. Cronwright Schrenck-Notzing Schröter Schultz Schultze-Malkowsky Schurig Scott, Colin Seligmann Selous, Edmund Sénancour Sérieux Sergi Shakespeare Shattock Shaw, Claye Shufeldt Sinibaldus Skeat Smith, Lapthorn Smith, W. Robertson Smyth, Brough Sollier Spallanzani Spencer, Baldwin Spencer, Herbert Spitzka Spix Starbuck Stcherbak Stearns Stefanowsky Steinach, E. Stendhal, De Stevens Stevens, H.V. Strümpell Stubbs Sully Sutherland, A. Swieten, Van Tait, Lawson Tambroni Tarchanoff Tarde Tate, H.R. Tautain Taylor, Jeremy Tchlenoff Tertullian Thoinot Thomas, N. Thomas, P. Thompson Tillier Tilt Tolstoy Townsend, J. Treves, Marco Trousseau Tschisch Turley Turnbull, J. Tylor Vahness Vambery Vatsyayana Vedeler Velten Venette Vespucci, Amerigo Vincent, Swale Voisin Wallace, A.R. Wallaschek Waller, E. Walsingham Weismann Weissenberg Wesché, W. Wessmann, Rev. R. Westermarck Wiedemann Weysse Williams, Montagu Williams, W. Roger Winckel Windscheid Wittenberg Wolbarst Wollstonecraft, Mary Yellowlees Zacchia Zambaco Ziegler, H.E. Ziehen Zmigrodski INDEX OF SUBJECTS. Abduction of women in Great Britain Abstinence in women, effects of sexual Adolescence, criminality and Adolescent girls, sexual manifestations in Adrenal glands Africa, marriage by capture in sexual instinct in _Agelena labyrinthica_ Ainu, love-bite among Algolagnia ideal Algophily Amblyopia, post-marital American Indians, courtship among sexual instinct in Ampallang Anæsthesia in women, sexual a cause of sterility causes of Anger and sexual emotion Anhedonia Anxiety as a sexual stimulant Ardisson Argus pheasant, courtship of Aristotle as a masochist Arrest of movement producing sexual excitement Ascetic attitude toward women, the Assaults on children by women, sexual Australians, courtship among sexual instinct in Auto-intoxication by muscular movement Auto-sadism Bambula dance Bathory, Countess Bedouins, marriage by capture among Bertrand, Sergeant Birds, sexual impulse in Bismarck, traces of masochism in Biting in relationship to sexual instinct Bladder and sexual organs, relationship between Blood, the fascination of Borneo, use of ampallang in Brazil, courtship in Bullying Capture, marriage by Castration Cerebellum as a sexual center Cerebral sexual centers, alleged Chained, the idea of being Chastity among savages China, marriage ceremony in Chinese eunuchs Chinese hedgehog Christianity and women Church and flagellation, the Coitus, mechanism of compared to epilepsy often sacred among savages Combat and courtship Contrectation Courtship Cow-birds, courtship of Crime as a manifestation of adolescence Criminality in relation to marriage Cruelty among animals in human beings Cymri, marriage customs of Dancing in relation to sexual impulse Dancing among Australians the most usual method of attaining tumescence why it acts so powerfully on the organism Day-dreams, erotic Degenerative conditions on sexual desire, influence of _Dendryphantes elegans_ Detumescence, impulse of Diffusion of sexual impulse in women Discipline, the Disgust as a sexual stimulant Divorce in relation to sexual difference in the suicide-rate Doraphobia Dreams of struggling horses erotic Drunkenness in relation to marriage Ducks, courtship among Ductless glands Eider-ducks, courtship of Ejaculation, premature Emotion aroused by pain Ephesian matron, the Epilepsy and micturition analogy between coitus Erotic symbolism Erotisation Eskimos, marriage by capture among sexual instinct in Esthetic sense of animals, alleged Estrus Eunuchs, sexual impulse in Evacuation theory of sexual impulse Excess in intercourse not injurious to women Exercise, the intoxication of muscular Exhibitionism, a cause of Faroe Islanders, courtship among. Fatigue Fear as a sexual stimulant Fetichism Fetters, the fascination of Flagellation Frigidity, in women, sexual a cause of sterility Frog, sexual instinct of Fuegians, sexual instinct in Funerals as a sexual stimulant Fur, fascination of Gelding, sexual impulse in Genital sphere larger in women Geskel _Glandulæ vesiculares_ Goethe's masochism Gonorrhoea in young boys Greek antiquity, love in Grief as a sexual stimulant Griselda Gurus, courtship among Hanging and sexual excitement Head hunting _Helix aspersa_ Hemothymia Hormones _Horror feminæ_ normal in absence of sexual impulse Horses, sexual perversion in sexual excitement produced by spectacle of Hungary, masochism in Hunger, analogy between sexual impulse and Hyperhedonia Hyphedonia Hypnotic suggestions and frigidity Impregnation in relation to tumescence Impulse, definition of sexual India, courtship in sexual instinct in Indians, courtship among American sexual instinct among American Indonesian peoples, use of ampallang, etc., among Insanity, in relation to marriage in relation to sexual instinct Instinct, definition of Internal secretions Intoxication, the fascination of of muscular movement Inversion, associated with masochism Jealousy among savages Jew, sexual impulse in Kaffirs, courtship among Kambion Kirghiz, marriage by capture among Kiss, origin of Lactation, no intercourse among some savages during Laughter and the sexual sphere _Leistes superciliaris_ Love-bite, the Love-songs rare among savages Lycanthropy Malays, coitus among courtship among sexual instinct in _Mantis religiosa_ Maoris, marriage by capture among sexual instinct in Marquesans, courtship among sexual instinct in Marriage by capture in relation to suicide in relation to insanity and criminality Marsh-bird, courtship of Masochism among Slav women definition of its psychological mechanism Masturbation in women Menopause, sexual impulse after Menstruation and sexual impulse Micturition and sexual impulse Mixoscopia, hysterical Modesty among savages object of obsessions of _Molothrus bonariensis_ Moluccas, courtship in Monogamy, its advantages for men Mortality connected with the development of the sexual instinct Moslems, coitus among Moths, courtship of Motion, the pleasure of arrest of Muscular movement, auto-intoxication by Music, sexual influence of Necrophilism Necrosadism Negresses not jealous Negro eunuchs Negroes, sexual instinct in Neurasthenia, sexual New Caledonia, courtship in New Guinea, courtship in New Hebrides, courtship in New Mexico, courtship in New Zealand, marriage by capture in Nubia, eunuchs in Obsessions, sexual Octopus, courtship of Odour, excitation by Oneida community Oöphorectomy and sexual impulse Orgasm lasts longer in women Ostrich, courtship of Ovariotomy and sexual impulse Ovary, secretions of Ox, sexual impulse in Pain the essential element in algolagnia Palang Papuans, courtship among sexual instinct in Parturition sometimes painless Passivism Passivity of women only apparent Penis in lower animals, peculiarities of Periodicity of sexual impulse among savages greater in women _Pitangus Bolivianus_ Pleasure, in what sense pain may be felt as its manifestations resemble those of pain Plover, dances of great Power in sexual sphere, love of Precocity of women, sexual Pregnancy, savages often avoid intercourse during _Probenächte_ Procreation among savages, sacredness of Pro-estrum Prostitutes' love of _souteneur_ Prostitution not found under primitive conditions Puberty in girls, sexual manifestations at Rais, Gilles de _Rana temporaria_ Rape and sadism Rat, sexual instinct of white Reeves and ruffs Reflex action, instinct and Reidal Religious flagellation Religious storm and stress in women Reproductive impulse, alleged Respiration in connection with sexual emotion Responsibility of Sadists Rome, eunuchs in ancient Rosseau's masochism Russia, masochism in Sacher-Masoch Sacredness of procreation among savages Sade, De Sadism definition of its psychological mechanism responsibility in often combined with masochism ideal _Saitis pulex_ Savages, sexual erethism in dancing among sexual impulse weak in Sea-gulls, courtship among Secondary sexual characters Seminal receptacles of frogs Seminal vesicles functions of Senegal, courtship in Sensibility of genital sphere in women Sensory acuteness in women Sexual cerebral centers, hypothetical Sexual impulse, definition of Sexual incompetence, prevalence of Sexual selection, psychological aspects of Sexual season Shaftesbury's supposed masochism Shoe-fetichism Sicily, courtship in love-bite in Slavery, erotic Slavs, courtship customs of masochism among Slug, courtship of Smell, stimulation of Snails, sexual process in Social class and sexual feeling Soleilland Song of birds, sexual significance of _Spadones_ Spain, flagellation in Spiders, courtship of Sprit-sail yard Stabbers Sterility, absence of sexual desire in women as a cause of Stone-curlew, dances of Storm and stress in women, religious Strangle, the impulse to Subjection in women, sexual Suckling, compared to sexual act no intercourse among some savages during Suicide, divorce and Sumatra, courtship in Suspension and sexual excitement Swinging and sexual excitement Symbolism, erotic Taboo, sexual Tahitians, courtship among Teasing _Telum veneris_ _Thlasiæ_ _Thlibiæ_ Torture, the attraction of Tumescence Turcomans, marriage by capture among Tyrant-bird, courtship of Urination in relation to sexual excitement Vacher Vampirism Variation in sexual impulse greater in women Venereal disease in the young Vesicles, function of seminal Waltz, origin of the Warens, Mme. de Werwolf Whipping in relation to the sexual emotions Women-stabbers Wrestling combats Zoösadism Zulus, courtship among 
13611	----	STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX, VOLUME II Sexual Inversion by HAVELOCK ELLIS 1927 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. It has been remarked by Professor Wilhelm Ostwald that the problem of homosexuality is a problem left over to us by the Middle Ages, which for five hundred years dealt with inverts as it dealt with heretics and witches. To regard the matter thus is to emphasize its social and humanitarian interest rather than its biological and psychological significance. It is no doubt this human interest of the question of inversion, rather than its scientific importance, great as the latter is, which is mainly responsible for the remarkable activity with which the study of homosexuality has been carried on during recent years. The result has been that, during the fourteen years that have passed since the last edition of this _Study_ was issued, so vast an amount of work has been carried on in this field that the preparation of a new edition of the book has been a long and serious task. Nearly every page has been rewritten or enlarged and the Index of Authors consulted has more than doubled in length. The original portions of the book have been still more changed; sixteen new Histories have been added, selected from others in my possession as being varied, typical, and full. These extensive additions to the volume have rendered necessary various omissions. Many of the shorter and less instructive Histories contained in earlier editions have been omitted, as well as three Appendices which no longer seem of sufficient interest to retain. In order to avoid undue increase in the size of this volume, already much larger than in the previous editions, a new Study of Eonism, or sexo-esthetic inversion, will be inserted in vol. v, where it will perhaps be at least as much in place as here. HAVELOCK ELLIS. PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. It was not my intention to publish a study of an abnormal manifestation of the sexual instinct before discussing its normal manifestations. It has happened, however, that this part of my work is ready first, and, since I thus gain a longer period to develop the central part of my subject, I do not regret the change of plan. I had not at first proposed to devote a whole volume to sexual inversion. It may even be that I was inclined to slur it over as an unpleasant subject, and one that it was not wise to enlarge on. But I found in time that several persons for whom I felt respect and admiration were the congenital subjects of this abnormality. At the same time I realized that in England, more than in any other country, the law and public opinion combine to place a heavy penal burden and a severe social stigma on the manifestations of an instinct which to those persons who possess it frequently appears natural and normal. It was clear, therefore, that the matter was in special need of elucidation and discussion. There can be no doubt that a peculiar amount of ignorance exists regarding the subject of sexual inversion. I know medical men of many years' general experience who have never, to their knowledge, come across a single case. We may remember, indeed, that some fifteen years ago the total number of cases recorded in scientific literature scarcely equaled those of British race which I have obtained, and that before my first cases were published not a single British case, unconnected with the asylum or the prison, had ever been recorded. Probably not a very large number of people are even aware that the turning in of the sexual instinct toward persons of the same sex can ever be regarded as inborn, so far as any sexual instinct is inborn. And very few, indeed, would not be surprised if it were possible to publish a list of the names of sexually inverted men and women who at the present time are honorably known in church, state, society, art, or letters. It could not be positively affirmed of all such persons that they were born inverted, but in most the inverted tendency seems to be instinctive, and appears at a somewhat early age. In any case, however, it must be realized that in this volume we are not dealing with subjects belonging to the lunatic asylum, or the prison. We are concerned with individuals who live in freedom, some of them suffering intensely from their abnormal organization, but otherwise ordinary members of society. In a few cases we are concerned with individuals whose moral or artistic ideals have widely influenced their fellows, who know nothing of the peculiar organization which has largely molded those ideals. I am indebted to several friends for notes, observations, and correspondence on this subject, more especially to one, referred to as "Z.," and to another as "Q.," who have obtained a considerable number of reliable histories for me, and have also supplied many valuable notes; to "Josiah Flynt" (whose articles on tramps in _Atlantic Monthly_ and _Harper's Magazine_ have attracted wide attention) for an appendix on homosexuality among tramps; to Drs. Kiernan, Lydston, and Talbot for assistance at various points noted in the text; and to Dr. K., an American woman physician, who kindly assisted me in obtaining cases, and has also supplied an appendix. Other obligations are mentioned in the text. All those portions of the book which are of medical or medico-legal interest, including most of the cases, have appeared during the last three years in the _Alienist and Neurologist_, the _Journal of Mental Science_, the _Centralblatt für Nervenheilkunde_, the _Medico-legal Journal_, and the _Archivo delle Psicopatie Sessuale_. The cases, as they appear in the present volume, have been slightly condensed, but nothing of genuine psychological interest has been omitted. Owing to some delay in the publication of the English edition of the work, a German translation by my friend, Dr. Hans Kurella, editor of the _Centralblatt für Nervenheilkunde_, has already appeared (1896) in the _Bibliothek für Sozialwissenschaft_. The German edition contains some matter which has finally been rejected from the English edition as of minor importance; on the other hand, much has been added to the English edition, and the whole carefully revised. I have only to add that if it may seem that I have unduly ignored the cases and arguments brought forward by other writers, it is by no means because I wish to depreciate the valuable work done by my predecessors in this field. It is solely because I have not desired to popularize the results previously reached, but simply to bring forward my own results. If I had not been able to present new facts in what is perhaps a new light, I should not feel justified in approaching the subject of sexual inversion at all. HAVELOCK ELLIS. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. Homosexuality Among Animals--Among the Lower Human Races--The Albanians--The Greeks--The Eskimos--The Tribes of the Northwest United States--Homosexuality Among Soldiers in Europe--Indifference Frequently Manifested by European Lower Classes--Sexual Inversion at Rome--Homosexuality in Prisons--Among Men of Exceptional Intellect and Moral Leaders--Muret--Michelangelo--Winkelmann--Homosexuality in English History--Walt Whitman--Verlaine--Burton's Climatic Theory of Homosexuality--The Racial Factor--The Prevalence of Homosexuality Today. CHAPTER II. THE STUDY OF SEXUAL INVERSION. Westphal--Hössli--Casper--Ulrichs--Krafft-Ebing--Moll--Féré--Kiernan-- Lydston--Raffalovich--Edward Carpenter--Hirschfeld. CHAPTER III. SEXUAL INVERSION IN MEN. Relatively Undifferentiated State of the Sexual Impulse in Early Life--The Freudian View--Homosexuality in Schools--The Question of Acquired Homosexuality--Latent Inversion--Retarded Inversion--Bisexuality--The Question of the Invert's Truthfulness--Histories. CHAPTER IV. SEXUAL INVERSION IN WOMEN. Prevalence of Sexual Inversion Among Women--Among Women of Ability--Among the Lower Races--Temporary Homosexuality in Schools, etc.--Histories--Physical and Psychic Characteristics of Inverted Women--The Modern Development of Homosexuality Among Women. CHAPTER V. THE NATURE OF SEXUAL INVERSION. Analysis of Histories--Race--Heredity--General Health--First Appearance of Homosexual Impulse--Sexual Precocity and Hyperesthesia--Suggestion and Other Exciting Causes of Inversion--Masturbation--Attitude Toward Women--Erotic Dreams--Methods of Sexual Relationship--Pseudo-sexual Attraction--Physical Sexual Abnormalities--Artistic and Other Aptitudes--Moral Attitude of the Invert. CHAPTER VI. THE THEORY OF SEXUAL INVERSION. What is Sexual Inversion?--Causes of Diverging Views--The Theory of Suggestion Unworkable--Importance of the Congenital Element in Inversion--The Freudian Theory--Embryonic Hermaphroditism as a Key to Inversion--Inversion as a Variation or "Sport"--Comparison with Color-blindness, Color-hearing, and Similar Abnormalities--What is an Abnormality?--Not Necessarily a Disease--Relation of Inversion to Degeneration--Exciting Causes of Inversion--Not Operative in the Absence of Predisposition. CHAPTER VII. CONCLUSIONS. The Prevention of Homosexuality--The Influence of the School--Coeducation--The Treatment of Sexual Inversion--Castration--Hypnotism--Associational Therapy--Psycho-analysis--Mental and Physical Hygiene--Marriage--The Children of Inverts--The Attitude of Society--The Horror Aroused by Homosexuality--Justinian--The _Code Napoléon_--The State of the Law in Europe Today--Germany--England--What Should be our Attitude Toward Homosexuality? APPENDIX A. Homosexuality Among Tramps. APPENDIX B. The School-friendships of Girls. INDEX OF AUTHORS. INDEX OF SUBJECTS. SEXUAL INVERSION. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. Homosexuality Among Animals--Among the Lower Human Races--The Albanians--The Greeks--The Eskimos--The Tribes of the Northwest United States--Homosexuality Among Soldiers in Europe--Indifference Frequently Manifested by European Lower Classes--Sexual Inversion at Rome--Homosexuality in Prisons--Among Men of Exceptional Intellect and Moral Leaders--Muret--Michelangelo--Winkelmann--Homosexuality in English History--Walt Whitman--Verlaine--Burton's Climatic Theory of Homosexuality--The Racial Factor--The Prevalence of Homosexuality Today. Sexual inversion, as here understood, means sexual instinct turned by inborn constitutional abnormality toward persons of the same sex. It is thus a narrower term than homosexuality, which includes all sexual attractions between persons of the same sex, even when seemingly due to the accidental absence of the natural objects of sexual attraction, a phenomenon of wide occurrence among all human races and among most of the higher animals. It is only during recent years that sexual inversion has been recognized; previously it was not distinguished from homosexuality in general, and homosexuality was regarded as a national custom, as an individual vice, or as an unimportant episode in grave forms of insanity.[1] We have further to distinguish sexual inversion and all other forms of homosexuality from another kind of inversion which usually remains, so far as the sexual impulse itself is concerned, heterosexual, that is to say, normal. Inversion of this kind leads a person to feel like a person of the opposite sex, and to adopt, so far as possible, the tastes, habits, and dress of the opposite sex, while the direction of the sexual impulse remains normal. This condition I term sexo-esthetic inversion, or Eonism. The nomenclature of the highly important form of sexual perversion with which we are here concerned is extremely varied, and most investigators have been much puzzled in coming to a conclusion as to the best, most exact, and at the same time most colorless names to apply to it. The first in the field in modern times was Ulrichs who, as early as 1862, used the appellation "Uranian" (Uranier), based on the well-known myth in Plato's _Banquet_. Later he Germanized this term into "Urning" for the male, and "Urningin" for the female, and referred to the condition itself as "Urningtum." He also invented a number of other related terms on the same basis; some of these terms have had a considerable vogue, but they are too fanciful and high-strung to secure general acceptance. If used in other languages than German they certainly should not be used in their Germanized shape, and it is scarcely legitimate to use the term "Urning" in English. "Uranian" is more correct. In Germany the first term accepted by recognized scientific authorities was "contrary sexual feeling" (Konträre Sexualempfindung). It was devised by Westphal in 1869, and used by Krafft-Ebing and Moll. Though thus accepted by the earliest authorities in this field, and to be regarded as a fairly harmless and vaguely descriptive term, it is somewhat awkward, and is now little used in Germany; it was never currently used outside Germany. It has been largely superseded by the term "homosexuality." This also was devised (by a little-known Hungarian doctor, Benkert, who used the pseudonym Kertbeny) in the same year (1869), but at first attracted no attention. It has, philologically, the awkward disadvantage of being a bastard term compounded of Greek and Latin elements, but its significance--sexual attraction to the same sex--is fairly clear and definite, while it is free from any question-begging association of either favorable or unfavorable character. (Edward Carpenter has proposed to remedy its bastardly linguistic character by transforming it into "homogenic;" this, however, might mean not only "toward the same sex," but "of the same kind," and in German already possesses actually that meaning.) The term "homosexual" has the further advantage that on account of its classical origin it is easily translatable into many languages. It is now the most widespread general term for the phenomena we are dealing with, and it has been used by Hirschfeld, now the chief authority in this field, as the title of his encyclopedic work, _Die Homosexualität_. "Sexual Inversion" (in French "inversion sexuelle," and in Italian "inversione sessuale") is the term which has from the first been chiefly used in France and Italy, ever since Charcot and Magnan, in 1882, published their cases of this anomaly in the _Archives de Neurologie_. It had already been employed in Italy by Tamassia in the _Revista Sperimentale di Freniatria_, in 1878. I have not discovered when and where the term "sexual inversion" was first used. Possibly it first appeared in English, for long before the paper of Charcot and Magnan I have noticed, in an anonymous review of Westphal's first paper in the _Journal of Mental Science_ (then edited by Dr. Maudsley) for October, 1871, that "Conträre Sexualempfindung" is translated as "inverted sexual proclivity." So far as I am aware, "sexual inversion" was first used in English, as the best term, by J.A. Symonds in 1883, in his privately printed essay, _A Problem in Greek Ethics_. Later, in 1897, the same term was adopted, I believe for the first time publicly in English, in the present work. It is unnecessary to refer to the numerous other names which have been proposed. (A discussion of the nomenclature will be found in the first chapter of Hirschfeld's work, _Die Homosexualität_, and of some special terms in an article by Schouten, _Sexual-Probleme_, December, 1912.) It may suffice to mention the ancient theological and legal term "sodomy" (sodomia) because it is still the most popular term for this perversion, though, it must be remembered, it has become attached to the physical act of intercourse _per anum_, even when carried out heterosexually, and has little reference to psychic sexual proclivity. This term has its origin in the story (narrated in Genesis, ch. xix) of Lot's visitors whom the men of Sodom desired to have intercourse with, and of the subsequent destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. This story furnishes a sufficiently good ground for the use of the term, though the Jews do not regard sodomy as the sin of Sodom, but rather inhospitality and hardness of heart to the poor (J. Preuss, _Biblisch-Talmudische Medizin_, pp. 579-81), and Christian theologians also, both Catholic and Protestant (see, e.g., _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. iv, p. 199, and Hirschfeld, _Homosexualität_, p. 742), have argued that it was not homosexuality, but their other offenses, which provoked the destruction of the Cities of the Plain. In Germany "sodomy" has long been used to denote bestiality, or sexual intercourse with animals, but this use of the term is quite unjustified. In English there is another term, "buggery," identical in meaning with sodomy, and equally familiar. "Bugger" (in French, _bougre_) is a corruption of "Bulgar," the ancient Bulgarian heretics having been popularly supposed to practise this perversion. The people of every country have always been eager to associate sexual perversions with some other country than their own. The terms usually adopted in the present volume are "sexual inversion" and "homosexuality." The first is used more especially to indicate that the sexual impulse is organically and innately turned toward individuals of the same sex. The second is used more comprehensively of the general phenomena of sexual attraction between persons of the same sex, even if only of a slight and temporary character. It may be admitted that there is no precise warrant for any distinction of this kind between the two terms. The distinction in the phenomena is, however, still generally recognized; thus Iwan Bloch applies the term "homosexuality" to the congenital form, and "pseudo-homosexuality" to its spurious or simulated forms. Those persons who are attracted to both sexes are now usually termed "bisexual," a more convenient term than "psycho-sexual hermaphrodite," which was formerly used. There remains the normal person, who is "heterosexual." Before approaching the study of sexual inversion in cases which we may investigate with some degree of scientific accuracy, there is interest in glancing briefly at the phenomena as they appear before us, as yet scarcely or at all differentiated, among animals, among various human races, and at various periods. Among animals in a domesticated or confined state it is easy to find evidence of homosexual attraction, due merely to the absence of the other sex.[2] This was known to the ancients; the Egyptians regarded two male partridges as the symbol of homosexuality, and Aristotle noted that two female pigeons would cover each other if no male was at hand. Buffon observed many examples, especially among birds. He found that, if male or female birds of various species--such as partridges, fowls, and doves--were shut up together, they would soon begin to have sexual relations among themselves, the males sooner and more frequently than the females. More recently Sainte-Claire Deville observed that dogs, rams, and bulls, when isolated, first became restless and dangerous, and then acquired a permanent state of sexual excitement, not obeying the laws of heat, and leading them to attempts to couple together; the presence of the opposite sex at once restored them to normal conditions.[3] Bombarda of Lisbon states that in Portugal it is well known that in every herd of bulls there is nearly always one bull who is ready to lend himself to the perverted whims of his companions.[4] It may easily be observed how a cow in heat exerts an exciting influence on other cows, impelling them to attempt to play the bull's part. Lacassagne has also noted among young fowls and puppies, etc., that, before ever having had relations with the opposite sex, and while in complete liberty, they make hesitating attempts at intercourse with their own sex.[5] This, indeed, together with similar perversions, may often be observed, especially in puppies, who afterward become perfectly normal. Among white rats, which are very sexual animals, Steinach found that, when deprived of females, the males practise homosexuality, though only with males with whom they have long associated; the weaker rats play the passive part. But when a female is introduced they immediately turn to her; although they are occasionally altogether indifferent to sex, they never actually prefer their own sex.[6] With regard to the playing of the female part by the weaker rats it is interesting to observe that Féré found among insects that the passive part in homosexual relations is favored by fatigue; among cockchafers it was the male just separated from the female who would take the passive part (on the rare occasions when homosexual relations occurred) with a fresh male.[7] Homosexuality appears to be specially common among birds. It was among birds that it attracted the attention of the ancients, and numerous interesting observations have been made in more recent times. Thus Selous, a careful bird-watcher, finds that the ruff, the male of the _Machetes pugnax_, suffers from sexual repression owing to the coyness of the female (the reeve), and consequently the males often resort to homosexual intercourse. It is still more remarkable that the reeves also, even in the presence of the males, will court each other and have intercourse.[8] We may associate this with the high erotic development of birds, the difficulty with which tumescence seems to occur in them, and their long courtships. Among the higher animals, again, female monkeys, even when grown up (as Moll was informed), behave in a sexual way to each other, though it is difficult to say how far this is merely in play. Dr. Seitz, Director of the Frankfurt Zoölogical Garden, gave Moll a record of his own careful observations of homosexual phenomena among the males and females of various animals confined in the Garden (_Antelope cervicapra, Bos Indicus, Capra hircus, Ovis steatopyga_).[9] In all such cases we are not concerned with sexual inversion, but merely with the accidental turning of the sexual instinct into an abnormal channel, the instinct being called out by an approximate substitute, or even by diffused emotional excitement, in the absence of the normal object. It is probable, however, that cases of true sexual inversion--in which gratification is preferably sought in the same sex--may be found among animals, although observations have rarely been made or recorded. It has been found by Muccioli, an Italian authority on pigeons, that among Belgian carrier-pigeons inverted practices may occur, even in the presence of many of the other sex.[10] This seems to be true inversion, though we are not told whether these birds were also attracted toward the opposite sex. The birds of this family appear to be specially liable to sexual perversion. Thus M.J. Bailly-Maitre, a breeder of great knowledge and a keen observer, wrote to Girard that "they are strange creatures in their manners and customs and are apt to elude the most persistent observer. No animal is more depraved. Mating between males, and still more frequently between females, often occurs at an early age: up to the second year. I have had several pairs of pigeons formed by subjects of the same sex who for many months behaved as if the mating were natural. In some cases this had taken place among young birds of the same nest, who acted like real mates, though both subjects were males. In order to mate them productively we have had to separate them and shut each of them up for some days with a female."[11] In the Berlin Zoölogical Gardens also, it has been noticed that two birds of the same sex will occasionally become attached to each other and remain so in spite of repeated advances from individuals of opposite sex. This occurred, for instance, in the case of two males of the Egyptian goose who were thus to all appearance paired, and always kept together, vigorously driving away any female that approached. Similarly a male Australian sheldrake was paired to a male of another species.[12] Among birds generally, inverted sexuality seems to accompany the development of the secondary sexual characters of the opposite sex which is sometimes found. Thus, a poultry-breeder describes a hen (colored Dorking) crowing like a cock, only somewhat more harshly, as a cockerel crows, and with an enormous comb, larger than is ever seen in the male. This bird used to try to tread her fellow-hens. At the same time she laid early and regularly, and produced "grand chickens."[13] Among ducks, also, it has occasionally been observed that the female assumes at the same time both male livery and male sexual tendencies. It is probable that such observations will be multiplied in the future, and that sexual inversion in the true sense will be found commoner among animals than at present it appears to be. Traces of homosexual practices, sometimes on a large scale, have been found among all the great divisions of the human race. It would be possible to collect a considerable body of evidence under this head.[14] Unfortunately, however, the travellers and others on whose records we are dependent have been so shy of touching these subjects, and so ignorant of the main points for investigation, that it is very difficult to discover sexual inversion in the proper sense in any lower race. Travellers have spoken vaguely of crimes against nature without defining the precise relationship involved nor inquiring how far any congenital impulse could be distinguished. Looking at the phenomena generally, so far as they have been recorded among various lower races, we seem bound to recognize that there is a widespread natural instinct impelling men toward homosexual relationships, and that this has been sometimes, though very exceptionally, seized upon and developed for advantageous social purposes. On the whole, however, unnatural intercourse (sodomy) has been regarded as an antisocial offense, and punishable sometimes by the most serious penalties that could be invented. This was, for instance, the case in ancient Mexico, in Peru, among the Persians, in China, and among the Hebrews and Mohammedans. Even in very early history it is possible to find traces of homosexuality, with or without an implied disapproval. Its existence in Assyria and Babylonia is indicated by the Codex Hamurabi and by inscriptions which do not on the whole refer to it favorably.[15] As regards Egypt we learn from a Fayum papyrus, found by Flinders Petrie, translated by Griffiths, and discussed by Oefele,[16] that more than four thousand years ago homosexual practices were so ancient that they were attributed to the gods Horus and Set. The Egyptians showed great admiration of masculine beauty, and it would seem that they never regarded homosexuality as punishable or even reprehensible. It is notable, also, that Egyptian women were sometimes of very virile type, and Hirschfeld considers that intermediate sexual types were specially widespread among the Egyptians.[17] One might be tempted to expect that homosexual practices would be encouraged whenever it was necessary to keep down the population. Aristotle says that it was allowed by law in Crete for this end. And Professor Haddon tells me that at Torres Straits a native advocated sodomy on this ground.[18] There seems, however, on the whole, to be little evidence pointing to this utilization of the practice. The homosexual tendency appears to have flourished chiefly among warriors and warlike peoples. During war and the separation from women that war involves, the homosexual instinct tends to develop; it flourished, for instance, among the Carthaginians and among the Normans, as well as among the warlike Dorians, Scythians, Tartars, and Celts,[19] and, when there has been an absence of any strong moral feeling against it, the instinct has been cultivated and, idealized as a military virtue, partly because it counteracts the longing for the softening feminine influences of the home and partly because it seems to have an inspiring influence in promoting heroism and heightening _esprit de corps_. In the lament of David over Jonathan we have a picture of intimate friendship--"passing the love of women"--between comrades in arms among a barbarous, warlike race. There is nothing to show that such a relationship was sexual, but among warriors in New Caledonia friendships that were undoubtedly homosexual were recognized and regulated; the fraternity of arms, according to Foley,[20] complicated with pederasty, was more sacred than uterine fraternity. We have, moreover, a recent example of the same relationships recognized in a modern European race--the Albanians. Hahn, in the course of his _Albanische Studien_ (1854, p. 166), says that the young men between 16 and 24 lore boys from about 12 to 17. A Gege marries at the age of 24 or 25, and then he usually, but not always, gives up boy-love. The following passage is reported by Hahn as the actual language used to him by an Albanian Gege: "The lover's feeling for the boy is pure as sunshine. It places the beloved on the same pedestal as a saint. It is the highest and most exalted passion of which the human breast is capable. The sight of a beautiful youth awakens astonishment in the lover, and opens the door of his heart to the delight which the contemplation of this loveliness affords. Love takes possession of him so completely that all his thought and feeling goes out in it. If he finds himself in the presence of the beloved, he rests absorbed in gazing on him. Absent, he thinks of nought but him. If the beloved unexpectedly appears, he falls into confusion, changes color, turns alternately pale and red. His heart beats faster and impedes his breathing. He has ears and eyes only for the beloved. He shuns touching him with the hand, kisses him only on the forehead, sings his praise in verse, a woman's never." One of these love-poems of an Albanian Gege runs as follows: "The sun, when it rises in the morning, is like you, boy, when you are near me. When your dark eye turns upon me, it drives my reason from my head." It should be added that Prof. Weigand, who knew the Albanians well, assured Bethe (_Rheinisches Museum für Philologie_, 1907, p. 475) that the relations described by Hahn are really sexual, although tempered by idealism. A German scholar who travelled in Albania some years ago, also, assured Näcke (_Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. ix, 1908, p. 327) that he could fully confirm Hahn's statements, and that, though it was difficult to speak positively, he doubted whether these relationships were purely ideal. While most prevalent among the Moslems, they are also found among the Christians, and receive the blessing of the priest in church. Jealousy is frequently aroused, the same writer remarks, and even murder may be committed on account of a boy. It may be mentioned here that among the Tschuktsches, Kamschatdals, and allied peoples (according to a Russian anthropological journal quoted in _Sexual-Probleme_, January, 1913, p. 41) there are homosexual marriages among the men, and occasionally among the women, ritually consecrated and openly recognized. The Albanians, it is possible, belonged to the same stock which produced the Dorian Greeks, and the most important and the most thoroughly known case of socially recognized homosexuality is that of Greece during its period of highest military as well as ethical and intellectual vigor. In this case, as in those already mentioned, the homosexual tendency was frequently regarded as having beneficial results, which caused it to be condoned, if not, indeed, fostered as a virtue. Plutarch repeated the old Greek statement that the Beotians, the Lacedemonians, and the Cretans were the most warlike stocks because they were the strongest in love; an army composed of loving homosexual couples, it was held, would be invincible. It appears that the Dorians introduced _paiderastia_, as the Greek form of homosexuality is termed, into Greece; they were the latest invaders, a vigorous mountain race from the northwest (the region including what is now Albania) who spread over the whole land, the islands, and Asia Minor, becoming the ruling race. Homosexuality was, of course, known before they came, but they made it honorable. Homer never mentions it, and it was not known as legitimate to the Æolians or the Ionians. Bethe, who has written a valuable study of Dorian _paiderastia_, states that the Dorians admitted a kind of homosexual marriage, and even had a kind of boy-marriage by capture, the scattered vestiges of this practice indicating, Bethe believes, that it was a general custom among the Dorians before the invasion of Greece. Such unions even received a kind of religions consecration. It was, moreover, shameful for a noble youth in Crete to have no lover; it spoke ill for his character. By _paiderastia_ a man propagated his virtues, as it were, in the youth he loved, implanting them by the act of intercourse. In its later Greek phases _paiderastia_ was associated less with war than with athletics; it was refined and intellectualized by poetry and philosophy. It cannot be doubted that both Æschylus and Sophocles cultivated boy-love, while its idealized presentation in the dialogues of Plato has caused it to be almost identified with his name; thus in the early _Charmides_ we have an attractive account of the youth who gives his name to the dialogue and the emotions he excites are described. But even in the early dialogues Plato only conditionally approved of the sexual side of _paiderastia_ and he condemned it altogether in the final _Laws_.[21] The early stages of Greek _paiderastia_ are very interestingly studied by Bethe, "Die Dorische Knabenliebe," _Rheinisches Museum für Philologie_, 1907. J.A. Symonds's essay on the later aspects of _paiderastia_, especially as reflected in Greek literature, _A Problem in Greek Ethics_, is contained in the early German edition of the present study, but (though privately printed in 1883 by the author in an edition of twelve copies and since pirated in another private edition) it has not yet been published in English. _Paiderastia_ in Greek poetry has also been studied by Paul Brandt, _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vols. viii and ix (1906 and 1907), and by Otto Knapp (_Anthropophyteia_, vol. iii, pp. 254-260) who seeks to demonstrate the sensual side of _paiderastia_. On the other hand, Licht, working on somewhat the same lines as Bethe (_Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, August, 1908), deals with the ethical element in _paiderastia_, points out its beneficial moral influence, and argues that it was largely on this ground that it was counted sacred. Licht has also published a learned study of _paiderastia_ in Attic comedy (_Anthropophyteia_, vol. vii, 1910), and remarks that "without _paiderastia_ Greek comedy is unthinkable." _Paiderastia_ in the Greek anthology has been fully explored by P. Stephanus (_Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. ix, 1908, p. 213). Kiefer, who has studied Socrates in relation to homosexuality (O. Kiefer, "Socrates und die Homosexualität," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. ix, 1908), concludes that he was bisexual but that his sexual impulses had been sublimated. It may be added that many results of recent investigation concerning _paiderastia_ are summarized by Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, pp. 747-788, and by Edward Carpenter, _Intermediate Types Among Primitive Folk_, 1914, part ii; see also Bloch, _Die Prostitution_, vol. i, p. 232 et seq., and _Der Ursprung der Syphilis_, vol. ii, p. 564. It would appear that almost the only indications outside Greece of _paiderastic_ homosexuality showing a high degree of tenderness and esthetic feeling are to be found in Persian and Arabian literature, after the time of the Abbasids, although this practice was forbidden by the Koran.[22] In Constantinople, as Näcke was informed by German inverts living in that city, homosexuality is widespread, most cultivated Turks being capable of relations with boys as well as with women, though very few are exclusively homosexual, so that their attitude would seem to be largely due to custom and tradition. Adult males rarely have homosexual relations together; one of the couple is usually a boy of 12 to 18 years, and this condition of things among the refined classes is said to resemble ancient Greek _paiderastia_. But ordinary homosexual prostitution is prevalent; it is especially recognized in the baths which abound in Constantinople and are often open all night. The attendants at these baths are youths who scarcely need an invitation to induce them to gratify the client in this respect, the gratification usually consisting in masturbation, mutual or one-sided, as desired. The practice, though little spoken of, is carried on almost openly, and blackmailing is said to be unknown.[23] In the New Turkey, however, it is stated by Adler Bey that homosexual prostitution has almost disappeared.[24] There is abundant evidence to show that homosexual practices exist and have long existed in most parts of the world outside Europe, when subserving no obvious social or moral end. How far they are associated with congenital inversion is usually very doubtful. In China, for instance, it seems that there are special houses devoted to male prostitution, though less numerous than the houses devoted to females, for homosexuality cannot be considered common in China (its prevalence among Chinese abroad being due to the absence of women) and it is chiefly found in the north.[25] When a rich man gives a feast he sends for women to cheer the repast by music and song, and for boys to serve at table and to entertain the guests by their lively conversation. The boys have been carefully brought up for this occupation, receiving an excellent education, and their mental qualities are even more highly valued than their physical attractiveness. The women are less carefully brought up and less esteemed. After the meal the lads usually return home with a considerable fee. What further occurs the Chinese say little about. It seems that real and deep affection is often born of these relations, at first platonic, but in the end becoming physical, not a matter for great concern in the eyes of the Chinese. In the Chinese novels, often of a very literary character, devoted to masculine love, it seems that all the preliminaries and transports of normal love are to be found, while physical union may terminate the scene. In China, however, the law may be brought into action for attempts against nature even with mutual consent; the penalty is one hundred strokes with the bamboo and a month's imprisonment; if there is violence, the penalty is decapitation; I am not able to say how far the law is a dead letter. According to Matignon, so far as homosexuality exists in China, it is carried on with much more decorum and restraint than it is in Europe, and he thinks it may be put down to the credit of the Chinese that, unlike Europeans, they never practice unnatural connection with women. His account of the customs of the Chinese confirms Morache's earlier account, and he remarks that, though not much spoken of, homosexuality is not looked down upon. He gives some interesting details concerning the boy prostitutes. These are sold by their parents (sometimes stolen from them), about the age of 4, and educated, while they are also subjected to a special physical training, which includes massage of the gluteal regions to favor development, dilatation of the anus, and epilation (which is not, however, practised by Chinese women). At the same time, they are taught music, singing, drawing, and the art of poetry. The waiters at the restaurants always know where these young gentlemen are to be found when they are required to grace a rich man's feast. They are generally accompanied by a guardian, and usually nothing very serious takes place, for they know their value, and money will not always buy their expensive favors. They are very effeminate, luxuriously dressed and perfumed, and they seldom go on foot. There are, however, lower orders of such prostitutes.[26] Homosexuality is easily traceable in India. Dubois referred to houses devoted to male prostitution, with men dressed as women, and imitating the ways of women.[27] Burton in the "Terminal Essay" to his translation of the _Arabian Nights_, states that when in 1845 Sir Charles Napier conquered and annexed Sind three brothels of eunuchs and boys were found in the small town of Karachi, and Burton was instructed to visit and report on them. Hindus, in general, however, it appears, hold homosexuality in abhorrence. In Afghanistan homosexuality is more generally accepted, and Burton stated that "each caravan is accompanied by a number of boys and lads almost in woman's attire, with kohled eyes and rouged cheeks, long tresses and hennaed fingers and toes, riding luxuriously in camel paniers." If we turn to the New World, we find that among the American Indians, from the Eskimo of Alaska downward to Brazil and still farther south, homosexual customs have been very frequently observed. Sometimes they are regarded by the tribe with honor, sometimes with indifference, sometimes with contempt; but they appear to be always tolerated. Although there are local differences, these customs, on the whole, seem to have much in common. The best early description which I have been able to find is by Langsdorff[28] and concerns the Aleuts of Oonalashka in Alaska: "Boys, if they happen to be very handsome," he says, "are often brought up entirely in the manner of girls, and instructed in the arts women use to please men; their beards are carefully plucked out as soon as they begin to appear, and their chins tattooed like those of women; they wear ornaments of glass beads upon their legs and arms, bind and cut their hair in the same manner as the women, and supply their place with the men as concubines. This shocking, unnatural, and immoral practice has obtained here even from the remotest times; nor have any measures hitherto been taken to repress and restrain it; such men are known under the name of _schopans_." Among the Konyagas Langsdorff found the custom much more common than among the Aleuts; he remarks that, although the mothers brought up some of their children in this way, they seemed very fond of their offspring. Lisiansky, at about the same period, tells us that: "Of all the customs of these islanders, the most disgusting is that of men, called _schoopans_, living with men, and supplying the place of women. These are brought up from their infancy with females, and taught all the feminine arts. They even assume the manner and dress of the women so nearly that a stranger would naturally take them for what they are not. This odious practice was formerly so prevalent that the residence of one of these monsters in a house was considered as fortunate; it is, however, daily losing ground."[29] He mentions a case in which a priest had nearly married two males, when an interpreter chanced to come in and was able to inform him what he was doing. The practice has, however, apparently continued to be fairly common among the Alaska Eskimos down to recent times. Thus Dr. Engelmann mentioned to me that he was informed by those who had lived in Alaska, especially near Point Barrow, that as many as 5 such individuals (regarded by uninstructed strangers as "hermaphrodites") might be found in a single comparatively small community. It is stated by Davydoff, as quoted by Holmberg,[30] that the boy is selected to be a _schopan_ because he is girl-like. This is a point of some interest as it indicates that the schopan is not effeminated solely by suggestion and association, but is probably feminine by inborn constitution. In Louisiana, Florida, Yucatan, etc., somewhat similar customs exist or have existed. In Brazil men are to be found dressed as women and solely occupying themselves with feminine occupations; they are not very highly regarded.[31] They are called _cudinas_: i.e., circumcized. Among the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico these individuals are called _mujerados_ (supposed to be a corruption of _mujeriego_) and are the chief passive agents in the homosexual ceremonies of these people. They are said to be intentionally effeminated in early life by much masturbation and by constant horse-riding.[32] Among all the tribes of the northwest United States sexual inverts may be found. The invert is called a _boté_ ("not man, not woman") by the Montana, and a _burdash_ ("half-man, half-woman") by the Washington Indians. The _boté_ has been carefully studied by Dr. A.B. Holder.[33] Holder finds that the _boté_ wears woman's dress, and that his speech and manners are feminine. The dress and manners are assumed in childhood, but no sexual practices take place until puberty. These consist in the practice of _fellatio_ by the _boté_, who probably himself experiences the orgasm at the same time. The _boté_ is not a pederast, although pederasty occurs among these Indians. Holder examined _boté_ who was splendidly made, prepossessing, and in perfect health. With much reluctance he agreed to a careful examination. The sexual organs were quite normal, though perhaps not quite so large as his _physique_ would suggest, but he had never had intercourse with a woman. On removing his clothes he pressed his thighs together, as a timid woman would, so as to conceal completely the sexual organs; Holder says that the thighs "really, or to my fancy," had the feminine rotundity. He has heard a _boté_ "_beg_ a male Indian to submit to his caress," and he tells that "one little fellow, while in the agency boarding-school, was found frequently surreptitiously wearing female attire. He was punished, but finally escaped from school and became a _boté_, which vocation he has since followed." At Tahiti at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Turnbull[34] found that "there are a set of men in this country whose open profession is of such abomination that the laudable delicacy of our language will not admit it to be mentioned. These are called by the natives _Mahoos_; they assume the dress, attitude, and manners of women, and affect all the fantastic oddities and coquetries of the vainest of females. They mostly associate with the women, who court their acquaintance. With the manners of the women they adopt their peculiar employments, making cloth, bonnets, and mats; and so completely are they unsexed that had they not been pointed out to me I should not have known them but as women. I add, with some satisfaction, that the encouragement of this abomination is almost solely confined to the chiefs." Among the Sakalaves of Madagascar there are certain boys called _sekatra_, as described by Lasnet, who are apparently chosen from childhood on account of weak or delicate appearance and brought up as girls. They live like women and have intercourse with men, with or without sodomy, paying the men who please them.[35] Among the negro population of Zanzibar forms of homosexuality which are believed to be congenital (as well as acquired forms) are said to be fairly common. Their frequency is thought to be due to Arab influence. The male congenital inverts show from their earliest years no aptitude for men's occupations, but are attracted toward female occupations. As they grow older they wear women's clothes, dress their hair in women's fashion, and behave altogether like women. They associate only with women and with male prostitutes, and they obtain sexual satisfaction by passive pederasty or in ways simulating coitus. In appearance they resemble ordinary male prostitutes, who are common in Zanzibar, but it is noteworthy that the natives make a clear distinction between them and men prostitutes. The latter are looked down on with contempt, while the former, as being what they are "by the will of God," are tolerated.[36] Homosexuality; occurs in various parts of Africa. Cases of _effeminatio_ and passive sodomy have been reported from Unyamwezi and Uganda. Among the Bangala of the Upper Congo sodomy between men is very common, especially when they are away from home, in strange towns, or in fishing camps. If, however, a man had intercourse with a woman _per anum_ he was at one time liable to be put to death.[37] Among the Papuans in some parts of New Guinea, as already mentioned, homosexuality is said to be well recognized, and is resorted to for convenience as well, perhaps, as for Malthusian reasons.[38] But in the Rigo district of British New Guinea, where habitual sodomy is not practised, Dr. Seligmann, of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, made some highly important observations on several men and women who clearly appeared to be cases of congenital sexual inversion with some degree of esthetic inversion and even some anatomical modification.[39] These people, it may be noted, belong to a primitive race, uncontaminated by contact with white races, and practically still in the Stone Age. Finally, among another allied primitive people, the Australians, it would appear that homosexuality has long been well established in tribal customs. Among the natives of Kimberley, Western Australia (who are by no means of low type, quick and intelligent, with special aptitudes for learning languages and music), if a wife is not obtainable for a young man he is presented with a boy-wife between the ages of 5 and 10 (the age when a boy receives his masculine initiation). The exact nature of the relations between the boy-wife and his protector are doubtful; they certainly have connection, but the natives repudiate with horror and disgust the idea of sodomy.[40] Further light is thrown on homosexuality in Australia by the supposition of Spencer and Gillen that the _mika_ operation (urethral subincision), an artificial hypospadias, is for the purpose of homosexual intercourse. Klaatsch has discussed the homosexual origin of the _mika_ operation on the basis of information he received from missionaries at Niol-Niol, on the northwest coast. The subincised man acts as a female to the as yet unoperated boys, who perform coitus in the incised opening. Both informed Klaatsch in 1906 that at Boulia in Queensland the operated men are said to "possess a vulva."[41] These various accounts are of considerable interest, though for the most part their precise significance remains doubtful. Some of them, however,--such as Holder's description of the _boté_, Baumann's account of homosexual phenomena in Zanzibar, and especially Seligmann's observations in British New Guinea,--indicate not only the presence of esthetic inversion but of true congenital sexual inversion. The extent of the evidence will doubtless be greatly enlarged as the number of competent observers increases, and crucial points are no longer so frequently overlooked. On the whole, the evidence shows that among lower races homosexual practices are regarded with considerable indifference, and the real invert, if he exists among them, as doubtless he does exist, generally passes unperceived or joins some sacred caste which sanctifies his exclusively homosexual inclinations. Even in Europe today a considerable lack of repugnance to homosexual practices may be found among the lower classes. In this matter, as folklore shows in so many other matters, the uncultured man of civilization is linked to the savage. In England, I am told, the soldier often has little or no objection to prostitute himself to the "swell" who pays him, although for pleasure he prefers to go to women; and Hyde Park is spoken of as a center of male prostitution. "Among the working masses of England and Scotland," Q. writes, "'comradeship' is well marked, though not (as in Italy) very conscious of itself. Friends often kiss each other, though this habit seems to vary a good deal in different sections and coteries. Men commonly sleep together, whether comrades or not, and so easily get familiar. Occasionally, but not so very often, this relation delays for a time, or even indefinitely, actual marriage, and in some instances is highly passionate and romantic. There is a good deal of grossness, no doubt, here and there in this direction among the masses; but there are no male prostitutes (that I am aware of) whose regular clients are manual workers. This kind of prostitution in London is common enough, but I have only a slight personal knowledge of it. Many youths are 'kept' handsomely in apartments by wealthy men, and they are, of course, not always inaccessible to others. Many keep themselves in lodgings by this means, and others eke out scanty wages by the same device: just like women, in fact. Choirboys reinforce the ranks to a considerable extent, and private soldiers to a large extent. Some of the barracks (notably Knightsbridge) are great centres. On summer evenings Hyde Park and the neighborhood of Albert Gate is full of guardsmen and others plying a lively trade, and with little disguise, in uniform or out. In these cases it sometimes only amounts to a chat on a retired seat or a drink at a bar; sometimes recourse is had to a room in some known lodging-house, or to one or two hotels which lend themselves to this kind of business. In any case it means a covetable addition to Tommy Atkins's pocket-money." And Mr. Raffalovich, speaking of London, remarks: "The number of soldiers who prostitute themselves is greater than we are willing to believe. It is no exaggeration to say that in certain regiments the presumption is in favor of the venality of the majority of the men." It is worth noting that there is a perfect understanding in this matter between soldiers and the police, who may always be relied upon by the former for assistance and advice. I am indebted to my correspondent "Z" for the following notes: "Soldiers are no less sought after in France than in England or in Germany, and special houses exist for military prostitution both in Paris and the garrison-towns. Many facts known about the French army go to prove that these habits have been contracted in Algeria, and have spread to a formidable extent through whole regiments. The facts related by Ulrichs about the French foreign legion, on the testimony of a credible witness who had been a pathic in his regiment, deserve attention (_Ara Spei_, p. 20; _Memnon_, p. 27). This man, who was a German, told Ulrichs that the Spanish, French, and Italian soldiers were the lovers, the Swiss and German their beloved (see also General Brossier's Report, quoted by Burton, _Arabian Nights_, vol. x, p. 251). In Lucien Descaves's military novel, _Sous Offs_ (Paris, Tresse et Stock, 1890), some details are given regarding establishments for male prostitution. See pages 322, 412, and 417 for description of the drinking-shop called 'Aux Amis de l'Armée,' where a few maids were kept for show, and also of its frequenters, including, in particular, the Adjutant Laprévotte. Ulrichs reports that in the Austrian army lectures on homosexual vices are regularly given to cadets and conscripts (_Memnon_, p. 26). A soldier who had left the army told a friend of mine that he and many of his comrades had taken to homosexual indulgences when abroad on foreign service in a lonely station. He kept the practice up in England 'because the women of his class were so unattractive.' The captain of an English man-of-war said that he was always glad to send his men on shore after a long cruise at sea, never feeling sure how far they might not all go if left without women for a certain space of time." I may add that A. Hamon (_La France Sociale et Politique_, 1891, pp. 653-55; also in his _Psychologie du Militaire Professional_, chapter x) gives details as to the prevalence of homosexuality in the French army, especially in Algeria; he regards it as extremely common, although the majority are free. A fragment of a letter by General Lamoricière (speaking of Marshal Changarnier) is quoted: _En Afrique nous en étions tous, mais lui en est resté ici_. This primitive indifference is doubtless also a factor in the prevalence of homosexuality among criminals, although, here, it must be remembered, two other factors (congenital abnormality and the isolation of imprisonment) have to be considered. In Russia, Tarnowsky observes that all pederasts are agreed that the common people are tolerably indifferent to their sexual advances, which they call "gentlemen's games." A correspondent remarks on "the fact, patent to all observers, that simple folk not infrequently display no greater disgust for the abnormalities of sexual appetite than they do for its normal manifestations."[42] He knows of many cases in which men of lower class were flattered and pleased by the attentions of men of higher class, although not themselves inverted. And from this point of view the following case, which he mentions, is very instructive:-- A pervert whom I can trust told me that he had made advances to upward of one hundred men in the course of the last fourteen years, and that he had only once met with a refusal (in which case the man later on offered himself spontaneously) and only once with an attempt to extort money. Permanent relations of friendship sprang up in most instances. He admitted that he looked after these persons and helped them with his social influence and a certain amount of pecuniary support--setting one up in business, giving another something to marry on, and finding places for others. Among the peasantry in Switzerland, I am informed, homosexual relationships are not uncommon before marriage, and such relationships are lightly spoken of as "Dummheiten". No doubt, similar traits might be found in the peasantry of other parts of Europe. What may be regarded as true sexual inversion can be traced in Europe from the beginning of the Christian era (though we can scarcely demonstrate the congenital element) especially among two classes--men of exceptional ability and criminals; and also, it may be added, among those neurotic and degenerate individuals who may be said to lie between these two classes, and on or over the borders of both. Homosexuality, mingled with various other sexual abnormalities and excesses, seems to have flourished in Rome during the empire, and is well exemplified in the persons of many of the emperors.[43] Julius Cæsar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Titus, Domitian, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Commodus, and Heliogabalus--many of them men of great ability and, from a Roman standpoint, great moral worth--are all charged, on more or less solid evidence, with homosexual practices. In Julius Cæsar--"the husband of all women and the wife of all men" as he was satirically termed--excess of sexual activity seems to have accompanied, as is sometimes seen, an excess of intellectual activity. He was first accused of homosexual practices after a long stay in Bithynia with King Nikomedes, and the charge was very often renewed. Cæsar was proud of his physical beauty, and, like some modern inverts, he was accustomed carefully to shave and epilate his body to preserve the smoothness of the skin. Hadrian's love for his beautiful slave Antinoüs is well known; the love seems to have been deep and mutual, and Antinoüs has become immortalized, partly by the romance of his obscure death and partly by the new and strangely beautiful type which he has given to sculpture.[44] Heliogabalus, "the most homosexual of all the company," as he has been termed, seems to have been a true sexual invert, of feminine type; he dressed as a woman and was devoted to the men he loved.[45] Homosexual practices everywhere flourish and abound in prisons. There is abundant evidence on this point. I will only bring forward the evidence of Dr. Wey, formerly physician to the Elmira Reformatory, New York. "Sexuality" (he wrote in a private letter) "is one of the most troublesome elements with which we have to contend. I have no data as to the number of prisoners here who are sexually perverse. In my pessimistic moments I should feel like saying that all were; but probably 80 per cent, would be a fair estimate." And, referring to the sexual influence which some men have over others, he remarks that "there are many men with features suggestive of femininity that attract others to them in a way that reminds me of a bitch in heat followed by a pack of dogs."[46] In Sing Sing prison of New York, 20 per cent, of the prisoners are said to be actively homosexual and a large number of the rest passively homosexual. These prison relationships are not always of a brutal character, McMurtrie states, the attraction sometimes being more spiritual than physical.[47] Prison life develops and fosters the homosexual tendency of criminals; but there can be little doubt that that tendency, or else a tendency to sexual indifference or bisexuality, is a radical character of a very large number of criminals. We may also find it to a considerable extent among tramps, an allied class of undoubted degenerates, who, save for brief seasons, are less familiar with prison life. I am able to bring forward interesting evidence on this point by an acute observer who lived much among tramps in various countries, and largely devoted himself to the study of them.[48] The fact that homosexuality is especially common among men of exceptional intellect was long since noted by Dante:-- "In somma sappi, che tutti fur cherci E litterati grandi, et di gran fama D'un medismo peccato al mondo lerci."[49] It has often been noted since and remains a remarkable fact. There cannot be the slightest doubt that intellectual and artistic abilities of the highest order have frequently been associated with a congenitally inverted sexual temperament. There has been a tendency among inverts themselves to discover their own temperament in many distinguished persons on evidence of the most slender character. But it remains a demonstrable fact that numerous highly distinguished persons, of the past and the present, in various countries, have been inverts. I may here refer to my own observations on this point in the preface. Mantegazza (_Gli Amori degli Uomini_) remarks that in his own restricted circle he is acquainted with "a French publicist, a German poet, an Italian statesman, and a Spanish jurist, all men of exquisite taste and highly cultivated mind," who are sexually inverted. Krafft-Ebing, in the preface to his _Psychopathia Sexualis_, referring to the "numberless" communications he has received from these "step-children of nature," remarks that "the majority of the writers are men of high intellectual and social position, and often possess very keen emotions." Raffalovich (_Uranisme_, p. 197) names among distinguished inverts, Alexander the Great, Epaminondas, Virgil, the great Condé, Prince Eugène, etc. (The question of Virgil's inversion is discussed in the _Revista di Filologia_, 1890, fas. 7-9, but I have not been able to see this review.) Moll, in his _Berühmte Homosexuelle_ (1910, in the series of _Grenzfragen des Nerven- und Seelenlebens_) discusses the homosexuality of a number of eminent persons, for the most part with his usual caution and sagacity; speaking of the alleged homosexuality of Wagner he remarks, with entire truth, that "the method of arguing the existence of homosexuality from the presence of feminine traits must be decisively rejected." Hirschfeld has more recently included in his great work _Die Homosexualität_ (1913, pp. 650-674) two lists, ancient and modern, of alleged inverts among the distinguished persons of history, briefly stating the nature of the evidence in each case. They amount to nearly 300. Not all of them, however, can be properly described as distinguished. Thus we end in the list 43 English names; of these at least half a dozen were noblemen who were concerned in homosexual prosecutions, but were of no intellectual distinction. Others, again, are of undoubted eminence, but there is no good reason to regard them as homosexual; this is the case, for instance, as regards Swift, who may have been mentally abnormal, but appears to have been heterosexual rather than homosexual; Fletcher, of whom we know nothing definite in this respect, is also included, as well as Tennyson, whose youthful sentimental friendship for Arthur Hallam is exactly comparable to that of Montaigne for Etienne de la Boëtie, yet Montaigne is not included in the list. It may be added, however, that while some of the English names in the list are thus extremely doubtful, it would have been possible to add some others who were without doubt inverts. It has not, I think, been noted--largely because the evidence was insufficiently clear--that among moral leaders, and persons with strong ethical instincts, there is a tendency toward the more elevated forms of homosexual feeling. This may be traced, not only in some of the great moral teachers of old, but also in men and women of our own day. It is fairly evident why this should be so. Just as the repressed love of a woman or a man has, in normally constituted persons, frequently furnished the motive power for an enlarged philanthropic activity, so the person who sees his own sex also bathed in sexual glamour, brings to his work of human service an ardor wholly unknown to the normally constituted individual; morality to him has become one with love.[50] I am not prepared here to insist on this point, but no one, I think, who studies sympathetically the histories and experiences of great moral leaders can fail in many cases to note the presence of this feeling, more or less finely sublimated from any gross physical manifestation. If it is probable that in moral movements persons of homosexual temperament have sometimes become prominent, it is undoubtedly true, beyond possibility of doubt, that they have been prominent in religion. Many years ago (in 1885) the ethnologist, Elie Reclus, in his charming book, _Les Primitifs_,[51] setting forth the phenomena of homosexuality among the Eskimo Innuit tribe, clearly insisted that from time immemorial there has been a connection between the invert and the priest, and showed how well this connection is illustrated by the Eskimo _schupans_. Much more recently, in his elaborate study of the priest, Horneffer discusses the feminine traits of priests and shows that, among the most various peoples, persons of sexually abnormal and especially homosexual temperament have assumed the functions of priesthood. To the popular eye the unnatural is the supernatural, and the abnormal has appeared to be specially close to the secret Power of the World. Abnormal persons are themselves of the same opinion and regard themselves as divine. As Horneffer points out, they often really possess special aptitude.[52] Karsch in his _Gleichgeschlechtliche Leben der Naturvölker_ (1911) has brought out the high religious as well as social significance of castes of cross-dressed and often homosexual persons among primitive peoples. At the same time Edward Carpenter in his remarkable book, _Intermediate Types among Primitive Folk_ (1914), has shown with much insight how it comes about that there is an organic connection between the homosexual temperament and unusual psychic or divinatory powers. Homosexual men were non-warlike and homosexual women non-domestic, so that their energies sought different outlets from those of ordinary men and women; they became the initiators of new activities. Thus it is that from among them would in some degree issue not only inventors and craftsmen and teachers, but sorcerers and diviners, medicine-men and wizards, prophets and priests. Such persons would be especially impelled to thought, because they would realize that they were different from other people; treated with reverence by some and with contempt by others, they would be compelled to face the problems of their own nature and, indirectly, the problems of the world generally. Moreover, Carpenter points out, persons in whom the masculine and feminine temperaments were combined would in many cases be persons of intuition and complex mind beyond their fellows, and so able to exercise divination and prophecy in a very real and natural sense.[53] This aptitude of the invert for primitive religion, for sorcery and divination, would have its reaction on popular feeling, more especially when magic and the primitive forms of religion began to fall into disrepute. The invert would be regarded as the sorcerer of a false and evil religion and be submerged in the same ignominy. This point has been emphasized by Westermarck in the instructive chapter on homosexuality in his great work on Moral Ideas.[54] He points out the significance of the fact, at the first glance apparently inexplicable, that homosexuality in the general opinion of medieval Christianity was constantly associated, even confounded, with heresy, as we see significantly illustrated by the fact that in France and England the popular designation for homosexuality is derived from the Bulgarian heretics. It was, Westermarck believes, chiefly as a heresy and out of religious zeal that homosexuality was so violently reprobated and so ferociously punished. In modern Europe we find the strongest evidence of the presence of what may fairly be called true sexual inversion when we investigate the men of the Renaissance. The intellectual independence of those days and the influence of antiquity seem to have liberated and fully developed the impulses of those abnormal individuals who would otherwise have found no clear expression, and passed unnoticed.[55] Muret, the Humanist, may perhaps be regarded as a typical example of the nature and fate of the superior invert of the Renaissance. Born in 1526 at Muret (Limousin), of poor but noble family, he was of independent, somewhat capricious character, unable to endure professors, and consequently he was mainly his own teacher, though he often sought advice from Jules-César Scaliger. Muret was universally admired in his day for his learning and his eloquence, and is still regarded not only as a great Latinist and a fine writer, but as a notable man, of high intelligence, and remarkable, moreover, for courtesy in polemics in an age when that quality was not too common. His portrait shows a somewhat coarse and rustic but intelligent face. He conquered honor and respect before he died in 1585, at the age of 59. In early life Muret wrote wanton erotic poems to women which seem based on personal experience. But in 1553 we find him imprisoned in the Châtelet for sodomy and in danger of his life, so that he thought of starving himself to death. Friends, however, obtained his release and he settled in Toulouse. But the very next year he was burnt in effigy in Toulouse, as a Huguenot and sodomist, this being the result of a judicial sentence which had caused him to flee from the city and from France. Four years later he had to flee from Padua owing to a similar accusation. He had many friends but none of them protested against the charge, though they aided him to escape from the penalty. It is very doubtful whether he was a Huguenot, and whenever in his works he refers to pederasty it is with strong disapproval. But his writings reveal passionate friendship for men, and he seems to have expended little energy in combating a charge which, if false, was a shameful injustice to him. It was after fleeing into Italy and falling ill of a fever from fatigue and exposure that Muret is said to have made the famous retort (to the physician by his bedside who had said: "Faciamus experimentum in anima vili"): "Vilem animam appellas pro qua Christus non dedignatus est mori."[56] A greater Humanist than Muret, Erasmus himself, seems as a young man, when in the Augustinian monastery of Stein, to have had a homosexual attraction to another Brother (afterward Prior) to whom he addressed many passionately affectionate letters; his affection seems, however, to have been unrequited.[57] As the Renaissance developed, homosexuality seems to become more prominent among distinguished persons. Poliziano was accused of pederasty. Aretino was a pederast, as Pope Julius II seems also to have been. Ariosto wrote in his satires, no doubt too extremely:-- "Senza quel vizio son pochi umanisti."[58] Tasso had a homosexual strain in his nature, but he was of weak and feminine constitution, sensitively emotional and physically frail.[59] It is, however, among artists, at that time and later, that homosexuality may most notably be traced. Leonardo da Vinci, whose ideals as revealed in his work are so strangely bisexual, lay under homosexual suspicion in his youth. In 1476, when he was 24 years of age, charges were made against him before the Florentine officials for the control of public morality, and were repeated, though they do not appear to have been substantiated. There is, however, some ground for supposing that Leonardo was imprisoned in his youth.[60] Throughout life he loved to surround himself with beautiful youths and his pupils were more remarkable for their attractive appearance than for their skill; to one at least of them he was strongly attached, while there is no record of any attachment to a woman. Freud, who has studied Leonardo with his usual subtlety, considers that his temperament was marked by "ideal homosexuality."[61] Michelangelo, one of the very chief artists of the Renaissance period, we cannot now doubt, was sexually inverted. The evidence furnished by his own letters and poems, as well as the researches of numerous recent workers,--Parlagreco, Scheffler, J.A. Symonds, etc.,--may be said to have placed this beyond question.[62] He belonged to a family of 5 brothers, 4 of whom never married, and so far as is known left no offspring; the fifth only left 1 male heir. His biographer describes Michelangelo as "a man of peculiar, not altogether healthy, nervous temperament." He was indifferent to women; only in one case, indeed, during his long life is there evidence even of friendship with a woman, while he was very sensitive to the beauty of men, and his friendships were very tender and enthusiastic. At the same time there is no reason to suppose that he formed any physically passionate relationships with men, and even his enemies seldom or never made this accusation against him. We may probably accept the estimate of his character given by Symonds:-- Michelangelo Buonarotti was one of those exceptional, but not uncommon men who are born with sensibilities abnormally deflected from the ordinary channel. He showed no partiality for women, and a notable enthusiasm for the beauty of young men.... He was a man of physically frigid temperament, extremely sensitive to beauty of the male type, who habitually philosophized his emotions, and contemplated the living objects of his admiration as amiable, not only for their personal qualities, but also for their esthetical attractiveness.[63] A temperament of this kind seems to have had no significance for the men of those days; they were blind to all homosexual emotion which had no result in sodomy. Plato found such attraction a subject for sentimental metaphysics, but it was not until nearly our own time that it again became a subject of interest and study. Yet it undoubtedly had profound influence on Michelangelo's art, impelling him to find every kind of human beauty in the male form, and only a grave dignity or tenderness, divorced from every quality that is sexually desirable, in the female form. This deeply rooted abnormality is at once the key to the melancholy of Michelangelo and to the mystery of his art. Michelangelo's contemporary, the painter Bazzi (1477-1549), seems also to have been radically inverted, and to this fact he owed his nickname Sodoma. As, however, he was married and had children, it may be that he was, as we should now say, of bisexual temperament. He was a great artist who has been dealt with unjustly, partly, perhaps, because of the prejudice of Vasari,--whose admiration for Michelangelo amounted to worship, but who is contemptuous toward Sodoma and grudging of praise,--partly because his work is little known out of Italy and not very easy of access there. Reckless, unbalanced, and eccentric in his life, Sodoma revealed in his painting a peculiar feminine softness and warmth--which indeed we seem to see also in his portrait of himself at Monte Oliveto Maggiore--and a very marked and tender feeling for masculine, but scarcely virile, beauty.[64] Cellini was probably homosexual. He was imprisoned on a charge of unnatural vice and is himself suspiciously silent in his autobiography concerning this imprisonment.[65] In the seventeenth century another notable sculptor who has been termed the Flemish Cellini, Jérôme Duquesnoy (whose still more distinguished brother François executed the Manneken Pis in Brussels), was an invert; having finally been accused of sexual relations with a youth in a chapel of the Ghent Cathedral, where he was executing a monument for the bishop, he was strangled and burned, notwithstanding that much influence, including that of the bishop, was brought to bear in his behalf.[66] In more recent times Winkelmann, who was the initiator of a new Greek Renaissance and of the modern appreciation of ancient art, lies under what seems to be a well-grounded suspicion of sexual inversion. His letters to male friends are full of the most passionate expressions of love. His violent death also appears to have been due to a love-adventure with a man. The murderer was a cook, a wholly uncultivated man, a criminal who had already been condemned to death, and shortly before murdering Winkelmann for the sake of plunder he was found to be on very intimate terms with him.[67] It is noteworthy that sexual inversion should so often be found associated with the study of antiquity. It must not, however, be too hastily concluded that this is due to suggestion and that to abolish the study of Greek literature and art would be largely to abolish sexual inversion. What has really occurred in those recent cases that may be studied, and therefore without doubt in the older cases, is that the subject of congenital sexual inversion is attracted to the study of Greek antiquity because he finds there the explanation and the apotheosis of his own obscure impulses. Undoubtedly that study tends to develop these impulses. While it is peculiarly easy to name men of distinguished ability who, either certainly or in all probability, have been affected by homosexual tendencies, they are not isolated manifestations. They spring out of an element of diffused homosexuality which is at least as marked in civilization as it is in savagery. It is easy to find illustrations in every country. Here it may suffice to refer to France, Germany, and England. In France in the thirteenth century the Church was so impressed by the prevalence of homosexuality that it reasserted the death penalty for sodomy at the Councils of Paris (1212) and Rouen (1214), while we are told that even by rejecting a woman's advances (as illustrated in Marie de France's _Lai de Lanval_) a man fell under suspicion as a sodomist, which was also held to involve heresy.[68] At the end of this century (about 1294) Alain de Lille was impelled to write a book, _De Planctu Naturæ_, in order to call attention to the prevalence of homosexual feeling; he also associated the neglect of women with sodomy. "Man is made woman," he writes; "he blackens the honor of his sex, the craft of magic Venus makes him of double gender"; nobly beautiful youths have "turned their hammers of love to the office of anvils," and "many kisses lie untouched on maiden lips." The result is that "the natural anvils," that is to say the neglected maidens, "bewail the absence of their hammers and are seen sadly to demand them." Alain de Lille makes himself the voice of this demand.[69] A few years later, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, sodomy was still regarded as very prevalent. At that time it was especially associated with the Templars who, it has been supposed, brought it from the East. Such a supposition, however, is not required to account for the existence of homosexuality in France. Nor is it necessary, at a somewhat later period, to invoke, as is frequently done, the Italian origin of Catherine de Medici, in order to explain the prevalence of homosexual practices at her court. Notwithstanding its prevalence, sodomy was still severely punished from time to time. Thus in 1586, Dadon, who had formerly been Rector of the University of Paris, was hanged and then burned for injuring a child through sodomy.[70] In the seventeenth century, homosexuality continued, however, to flourish, and it is said that nearly all the numerous omissions made in the published editions of Tallement des Reaux's _Historiettes_ refer to sodomy.[71] How prominent homosexuality was, in the early eighteenth century in France, we learn from the frequent references to it in the letters of Madame, the mother of the Regent, whose husband was himself effeminate and probably inverted.[72] For the later years of the century the evidence abounds on every hand. At this time the Bastille was performing a useful function, until recently overlooked by historians, as an _asile de sureté_ for abnormal persons whom it was considered unsafe to leave at large. Inverts whose conduct became too offensive to be tolerated were frequently placed in the Bastille which, indeed "abounded in homosexual subjects," to a greater extent than any other class of sexual perverts. Some of the affairs which led to the Bastille have a modern air. One such case on a large scale occurred in 1702, and reveals an organized system of homosexual prostitution; one of the persons involved in this affair was a handsome, well-made youth named Lebel, formerly a lackey, but passing himself off as a man of quality. Seduced at the age of 10 by a famous sodomist named Duplessis, he had since been at the disposition of a number of homosexual persons, including officers, priests, and marquises. Some of the persons involved in these affairs were burned alive; some cut their own throats; others again were set at liberty or transferred to the Bicêtre.[73] During the latter part of the eighteenth century, also, we find another modern homosexual practice recognized in France; the rendezvous or center where homosexual persons could quietly meet each other.[74] Inversion has always been easy to trace in Germany. Ammianus Marcellinus bears witness to its prevalence among some German tribes in later Roman days.[75] In mediæval times, as Schultz points out, references to sodomy in Germany were far from uncommon. Various princes of the German Imperial house, and of other princely families in the Middle Ages, were noted for their intimate friendships. At a later date, attention has frequently been called to the extreme emotional warmth which has often marked German friendship, even when there has been no suspicion of any true homosexual relationship.[76] The eighteenth century, in the full enjoyment of that abandonment to sentiment initiated by Rousseau, proved peculiarly favorable to the expansion of the tendency to sentimental friendship. On this basis a really inverted tendency, when it existed, could easily come to the surface and find expression. We find this well illustrated in the poet Heinrich von Kleist who seems to have been of bisexual temperament, and his feelings for the girl he wished to marry were, indeed, much cooler than those for his friend. To this friend, Ernst von Pfuël (afterward Prussian war minister), Kleist wrote in 1805 at the age of 28: "You bring the days of the Greeks back to me; I could sleep with you, dear youth, my whole soul so embraces you. When you used to bathe in the Lake of Thun I would gaze with the real feelings of a girl at your beautiful body. It would serve an artist to study from." There follows an enthusiastic account of his friend's beauty and of the Greek "idea of the love of youths," and Kleist concludes: "Go with me to Anspach, and let us enjoy the sweets of friendship.... I shall never marry; you must be wife and children to me."[77] In all social classes and in all fields of activity, Germany during the nineteenth century produced a long series of famous or notorious homosexual persons. At the one end we find people of the highest intellectual distinction, such as Alexander von Humboldt, whom Näcke, a cautious investigator, stated that he had good ground for regarding as an invert.[78] At the other end we find prosperous commercial and manufacturing people who leave Germany to find solace in the free and congenial homosexual atmosphere of Capri; of these F.A. Krupp, the head of the famous Essen factory, may be regarded as the type.[79] In England (and the same is true today of the United States), although homosexuality has been less openly manifest and less thoroughly explored, it is doubtful whether it has been less prevalent than in Germany. At an early period, indeed, the evidence may even seem to show that it was more prevalent. In the Penitentials of the ninth and tenth centuries "natural fornication and sodomy" were frequently put together and the same penance assigned to both; it was recognized that priests and bishops, as well as laymen, might fall into this sin, though to the bishop nearly three times as much penance was assigned as to the layman. Among the Normans, everywhere, homosexuality was markedly prevalent; the spread of sodomy in France about the eleventh century is attributed to the Normans, and their coming seems to have rendered it at times almost fashionable, at all events at court. In England William Rufus was undoubtedly inverted, as later on were Edward II, James I, and, perhaps, though not in so conspicuous a degree, William III.[80] Ordericus Vitalis, who was himself half Norman and half English, says that the Normans had become very effeminate in his time, and that after the death of William the Conqueror sodomy was common both in England and Normandy. Guillaume de Nangis, in his chronicle for about 1120, speaking of the two sons of Henry and the company of young nobles who went down with them, in the _White Ship_, states that nearly all were considered to be sodomists, and Henry of Huntingdon, in his _History_, looked upon the loss of the _White Ship_ as a judgment of heaven upon sodomy. Anselm, in writing to Archdeacon William to inform him concerning the recent Council at London (1102), gives advice as to how to deal with people who have committed the sin of sodomy, and instructs him not to be too harsh with those who have not realized its gravity, for hitherto "this sin has been so public that hardly anyone has blushed for it, and many, therefore, have plunged into it without realizing its gravity."[81] So temperate a remark by a man of such unquestionably high character is more significant of the prevalence of homosexuality than much denunciation. In religious circles far from courts and cities, as we might expect, homosexuality was regarded with great horror, though even here we may discover evidence of its wide prevalence. Thus in the remarkable _Revelation_ of the Monk of Evesham, written in English in 1196, we find that in the very worst part of Purgatory are confined an innumerable company of sodomists (including a wealthy, witty, and learned divine, a doctor of laws, personally known to the Monk), and whether these people would ever be delivered from Purgatory was a matter of doubt; of the salvation of no other sinners does the Monk of Evesham seem so dubious. Sodomy had always been an ecclesiastical offense. The Statute of 1533 (25 Henry VIII, c. 6) made it a felony; and Pollock and Maitland consider that this "affords an almost sufficient proof that the temporal courts had not punished it, and that no one had been put to death for it, for a very long time past."[82] The temporal law has never, however, proved very successful in repressing homosexuality. At this period the Renaissance movement was reaching England, and here as elsewhere it brought with it, if not an increase, at all events a rehabilitation and often an idealization of homosexuality.[83] An eminent humanist and notable pioneer in dramatic literature, Nicholas Udall, to whom is attributed _Ralph Roister Doister_, the first English comedy, stands out as unquestionably addicted to homosexual tastes, although he has left no literary evidence of this tendency. He was an early adherent of the Protestant movement, and when head-master of Eton he was noted for his love of inflicting corporal punishment on the boys. Tusser says he once received from Udall 53 stripes for "fault but small or none at all." Here there was evidently a sexual sadistic impulse, for in 1541 (the year of _Ralph Roister Doister_) Udall was charged with unnatural crime and confessed his guilt before the Privy Council. He was dismissed from the head-mastership and imprisoned, but only for a short time, "and his reputation," his modern biographer states, "was not permanently injured." He retained the vicarage of Braintree, and was much favored by Edward VI, who nominated him to a prebend of Windsor. Queen Mary was also favorable and he became head-master of Westminster School.[84] An Elizabethan lyrical poet of high quality, whose work has had the honor of being confused with Shakespeare's, Richard Barnfield, appears to have possessed the temperament, at least, of the invert. His poems to male friends are of so impassioned a character that they aroused the protests of a very tolerant age. Very little is known of Barnfield's life. Born in 1574 he published his first poem, _The Affectionate Shepherd_, at the age of 20, while still at the University. It was issued anonymously, revealed much fresh poetic feeling and literary skill, and is addressed to a youth of whom the poet declares:-- "If it be sin to love a lovely lad, Oh then sin I." In his subsequent volume, _Cynthia_ (1595), Barnfield disclaims any intention in the earlier poem beyond that of imitating Virgil's second eclogue. But the sonnets in this second volume are even more definitely homosexual than the earlier poem, though he goes on to tell how at last he found a lass whose beauty surpassed that "of the swain Whom I never could obtain." After the age of 31 Barnfield wrote no more, but, being in easy circumstances, retired to his beautiful manor house and country estate in Shropshire, lived there for twenty years and died leaving a wife and son.[85] It seems probable that he was of bisexual temperament, and that, as not infrequently happens in such cases, the homosexual element developed early under the influence of a classical education and university associations, while the normal heterosexual element developed later and, as may happen in bisexual persons, was associated with the more commonplace and prosaic side of life. Barnfield was only a genuine poet on the homosexual side of his nature. Greater men of that age than Barnfield may be suspected of homosexual tendencies. Marlowe, whose most powerful drama, _Edward II_, is devoted to a picture of the relations between that king and his minions, is himself suspected of homosexuality. An ignorant informer brought certain charges of freethought and criminality against him, and further accused him of asserting that they are fools who love not boys. These charges have doubtless been colored by the vulgar channel through which they passed, but it seems absolutely impossible to regard them as the inventions of a mere gallows-bird such as this informer was.[86] Moreover, Marlowe's poetic work, while it shows him by no means insensitive to the beauty of women, also reveals a special and peculiar sensitiveness to masculine beauty. Marlowe clearly had a reckless delight in all things unlawful, and it seems probable that he possessed the bisexual temperament. Shakespeare has also been discussed from this point of view. All that can be said, however, is that he addressed a long series of sonnets to a youthful male friend. These sonnets are written in lover's language of a very tender and noble order. They do not appear to imply any relationship that the writer regarded as shameful or that would be so regarded by the world. Moreover, they seem to represent but a single episode in the life of a very sensitive, many-sided nature.[87] There is no other evidence in Shakespeare's work of homosexual instinct such as we may trace throughout Marlowe's, while there is abundant evidence of a constant preoccupation with women. While Shakespeare thus narrowly escapes inclusion in the list of distinguished inverts, there is much better ground for the inclusion of his great contemporary, Francis Bacon. Aubrey in his laboriously compiled _Short Lives_, in which he shows a friendly and admiring attitude toward Bacon, definitely states that he was a pederast. Aubrey was only a careful gleaner of frequently authentic gossip, but a similar statement is made by Sir Simonds D'Ewes in his _Autobiography_. D'Ewes, whose family belonged to the same part of Suffolk as Bacon's sprang from, was not friendly to Bacon, but that fact will not suffice to account for his statement. He was an upright and honorable man of scholarly habits, and, moreover, a trained lawyer, who had many opportunities of obtaining first-hand information, for he had lived in the Chancery office from childhood. He is very precise as to Bacon's homosexual practices with his own servants, both before and after his fall, and even gives the name of a "very effeminate-faced youth" who was his "catamite and bedfellow"; he states, further, that there had been some question of bringing Bacon to trial for sodomy. These allegations may be supported by a letter of Bacon's own mother (printed in Spedding's _Life of Bacon_), reproving him on account of what she had heard concerning his behavior with the young Welshmen in his service whom he made his bedfellows. It is notable that Bacon seems to have been specially attracted to Welshmen (one might even find evidence of this in the life of the Welshman, Henry VII), a people of vivacious temperament unlike his own; this is illustrated by his long and intimate friendship with the mercurial Sir Toby Mathew, his "alter ego," a man of dissipated habits in early life, though we are not told that he was homosexual. Bacon had many friendships with men, but there is no evidence that he was ever in love or cherished any affectionate intimacy with a woman. Women play no part at all in his life. His marriage, which was childless, took place at the mature age of 46; it was effected in a business-like manner, and though he always treated his wife with formal consideration it is probable that he neglected her, and certain that he failed to secure her devotion; it is clear that toward the end of Bacon's life she formed a relationship with her gentleman usher, whom subsequently she married. Bacon's writings, it may be added, equally with his letters, show no evidence of love or attraction to women; in his _Essays_ he is brief and judicial on the subject of Marriage, copious and eloquent on the subject of Friendship, while the essay on Beauty deals exclusively with masculine beauty. During the first half of the eighteenth century we have clear evidence that homosexuality flourished in London with the features which it presents today in all large cities everywhere. There was a generally known name, "Mollies," applied to homosexual persons, evidently having reference to their frequently feminine characteristics; there were houses of private resort for them ("Molly houses"), there were special public places of rendezvous whither they went in search of adventure, exactly as there are today. A walk in Upper Moorfields was especially frequented by the homosexual about 1725. A detective employed by the police about that date gave evidence as follows at the Old Bailey; "I takes a turn that way and leans over the wall. In a little time the prisoner passes by, and looks hard at me, and at a small distance from me stands up against the wall as if he was going to make water. Then by degrees he siddles nearer and nearer to where I stood, till at last he was close to me. 'Tis a very fine night,' says he. 'Aye,' say I, 'and so it is.' Then he takes me by the hand, and after squeezing and playing with it a little, he conveys it to his breeches," whereupon the detective seizes the man by his sexual organs and holds him until the constable comes up and effects an arrest. At the same period Margaret Clap, commonly called Mother Clap, kept a house in Field Lane, Holborn, which was a noted resort of the homosexual. To Mother Clap's Molly-house 30 or 40 clients would resort every night; on Sunday there might be as many as 50, for, as in Berlin and other cities today, that was the great homosexual gala night; there were beds in every room in this house. We are told that the "men would sit in one another's laps, kissing in a lewd manner and using their hands indecently. Then they would get up, dance and make curtsies, and mimic the voices of women, 'Oh, fie, sir,'--'Pray, sir,'--'Dear sir,'--'Lord, how can you serve me so?'--'I swear I'll cry out,'--'You're a wicked devil,'--'And you're a bold face,'--'Eh, ye dear little toad,'--'Come, bus.' They'd hug and play and toy and go out by couples into another room, on the same floor, to be 'married,' as they called it." On the whole one gains the impression that homosexual practices were more prevalent in London in the eighteenth century, bearing in mind its population at that time, than they are today.[88] It must not, however, be supposed that the law was indulgent and its administration lax. The very reverse was the case. The punishment for sodomy, when completely effected, was death, and it was frequently inflicted. Homosexual intercourse, without evidence of penetration, was regarded as "attempt" and was usually punished by the pillory and a heavy fine, followed by two years' imprisonment. Moreover, it would appear that more activity was shown by the police in prosecution than is nowadays the case; this is, for instance, suggested by the evidence of the detective already quoted. To keep a homosexual resort was also a severely punishable offense. Mother Clap was charged at the Old Bailey in 1726 with "keeping a sodomitical house"; she protested that she could not herself have taken part in these practices, but that availed her nothing; she could bring forward no witnesses on her behalf and was condemned to pay a fine, to stand in the pillory, and to undergo imprisonment for two years. The cases were dealt with in a matter-of-fact way which seems to bear further witness to the frequency of the offense, and with no effort to expend any specially vindictive harshness on this class of offenders. If there was the slightest doubt as to the facts, even though the balance of evidence was against the accused, he was usually acquitted, and the man who could bring witnesses to his general good character might often thereby escape. In 1721 a religious young man, married, was convicted of attempting sodomy with two young men he slept with; he was fined, placed in the pillory and imprisoned for two months. Next year a man was acquitted on a similar charge, and another man, of decent aspect, although the evidence indicated that he might have been guilty of sodomy, was only convicted of attempt, and sentenced to fine, pillory, and two years' imprisonment. In 1723, again, a schoolmaster was acquitted, on account of his good reputation, of the charge of attempt on a boy of 15, his pupil, though the evidence seemed decidedly against him. In 1730 a man was sentenced to death for sodomy effected on his young apprentice; this was a bad case and the surgeon's evidence indicated laceration of the perineum. Homosexuality of all kinds flourished, it will be seen, notwithstanding the fearless yet fair application of a very severe law.[89] In more recent times Byron has frequently been referred to as experiencing homosexual affections, and I have been informed that some of his poems nominally addressed to women were really inspired by men. It is certain that he experienced very strong emotions toward his male friends. "My school-friendships," he wrote, "were with me passions." When he afterward met one of these friends, Lord Clare, in Italy, he was painfully agitated; and could never hear the name without a beating of the heart. At the age of 22 he formed one of his strong attachments for a youth to whom he left £7000 in his will.[90] It is probable, however, that here, as well as in the case of Shakespeare, and in that of Tennyson's love for his youthful friend, Arthur Hallam, as well as of Montaigne for Etienne de la Boëtie, although such strong friendships may involve an element of sexual emotion, we have no true and definite homosexual impulse; homosexuality is merely simulated by the ardent and hyperesthetic emotions of the poet.[91] The same quality of the poet's emotional temperament may doubtless, also, be invoked in the case of Goethe, who is said to have written elegies which, on account of their homosexual character, still remain unpublished. The most famous homosexual trial of recent times in England was that of Oscar Wilde, a writer whose literary reputation may be said to be still growing, not only in England but throughout the world. Wilde was the son of parents who were both of unusual ability and somewhat eccentric. Both these tendencies became in him more concentrated. He was born with, as it were, a congenital antipathy to the commonplace, a natural love of paradox, and he possessed the skill to embody the characteristic in finished literary form. At the same time, it must not be forgotten, beneath this natural attitude of paradox, his essential judgments on life and literature were usually sound and reasonable. His essay on "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" witnessed to his large and enlightened conception of life, and his profound admiration for Flaubert to the sanity and solidity of his literary taste. In early life he revealed no homosexual tendencies; he married and had children. After he had begun to outgrow his youthful esthetic extravagances, however, and to acquire success and fame, he developed what was at first a simply inquisitive interest in inversion. Such inquisitive interest is sometimes the sign of an emerging homosexual impulse. It proved to be so in Wilde's case and ultimately he was found to be cultivating the acquaintance of youths of low class and doubtful character. Although this development occurred comparatively late in life, we must hesitate to describe Wilde's homosexuality as acquired. If we consider his constitution and his history, it is not difficult to suppose that homosexual germs were present in a latent form from the first, and it may quite well be that Wilde's inversion was of that kind which is now described as retarded, though still congenital. As is usual in England, no active efforts were made to implicate Wilde in any criminal charge. It was his own action, as even he himself seems to have vaguely realized beforehand, which brought the storm about his head. He was arrested, tried, condemned, and at once there arose a general howl of execration, joined in even by the judge, whose attitude compared unfavorably with the more impartial attitude of the eighteenth century judges in similar cases. Wilde came out of prison ambitious to retrieve his reputation by the quality of his literary work. But he left Reading gaol merely to enter a larger and colder prison. He soon realized that his spirit was broken even more than his health. He drifted at last to Paris, where he shortly after died, shunned by all but a few of his friends.[92] In a writer of the first order, Edward Fitzgerald, to whom we owe the immortal and highly individualized version of _Omar Khayyam_, it is easy to trace an element of homosexuality, though it appears never to have reached full and conscious development. Fitzgerald was an eccentric person who, though rich and on friendly terms with some of the most distinguished men of his time, was always out of harmony with his environment. He felt himself called on to marry, very unhappily, a woman whom he had never been in love with and with whom he had nothing in common. All his affections were for his male friends. In early life he was devoted to his friend W.K. Browne, whom he glorified in _Euphranor_. "To him Browne was at once Jonathan, Gamaliel, Apollo,--the friend, the master, the God,--there was scarcely a limit to his devotion and admiration."[93] On Browne's premature death Fitzgerald's heart was empty. In 1859 at Lowestoft, Fitzgerald, as he wrote to Mrs. Browne, "used to wander about the shore at night longing for some fellow to accost me who might give some promise of filling up a very vacant place in my heart." It was then that he met "Posh" (Joseph Fletcher), a fisherman, 6 feet tall, said to be of the best Suffolk type, both in body and character. Posh reminded Fitzgerald of his dead friend Browne; he made him captain of his lugger, and was thereafter devoted to him. Posh was, said Fitzgerald, "a man of the finest Saxon type, with a complexion _vif, mâle et flamboyant_, blue eyes, a nose less than Roman, more than Greek, and strictly auburn hair that any woman might envy. Further he was a man of simplicity; of soul, justice of thought, tenderness of nature, a gentleman of Nature's grandest type," in fact the "greatest man" Fitzgerald had ever met. Posh was not, however, quite so absolutely perfect as this description suggests, and various misunderstandings arose in consequence between the two friends so unequal in culture and social traditions. These difficulties are reflected in some of the yet extant letters from the enormous mass which Fitzgerald addressed to "my dear Poshy."[94] A great personality of recent times, widely regarded with reverence as the prophet-poet of Democracy[95]--Walt Whitman--has aroused discussion by his sympathetic attitude toward passionate friendship, or "manly love" as he calls it, in _Leaves of Grass_. In this book--in "Calamus," "Drumtaps," and elsewhere--Whitman celebrates a friendship in which physical contact and a kind of silent voluptuous emotion are essential elements. In order to settle the question as to the precise significance of "Calamus," J.A. Symonds wrote to Whitman, frankly posing the question. The answer (written from Camden, N.J., on August 19, 1890) is the only statement of Whitman's attitude toward homosexuality, and it is therefore desirable that it should be set on record:-- "About the questions on 'Calamus,' etc., they quite daze me. _Leaves of Grass_ is only to be rightly construed by and within its own atmosphere and essential character--all its pages and pieces so coming strictly under. That the 'Calamus' part has ever allowed the possibility of such construction as mentioned is terrible. I am fain to hope that the pages themselves are not to be even mentioned for such gratuitous and quite at the time undreamed and unwished possibility of morbid inferences--which are disavowed by me and seem damnable." It would seem from this letter[96] that Whitman had never realized that there is any relationship whatever between the passionate emotion of physical contact from man to man, as he had experienced it and sung it, and the act which with other people he would regard as a crime against nature. This may be singular, for there are many inverted persons who have found satisfaction in friendships less physical and passionate than those described in _Leaves of Grass_, but Whitman was a man of concrete, emotional, instinctive temperament, lacking in analytical power, receptive to all influences, and careless of harmonizing them. He would most certainly have refused to admit that he was the subject of inverted sexuality. It remains true, however, that "manly love" occupies in his work a predominance which it would scarcely hold in the feelings of the "average man," whom Whitman wishes to honor. A normally constituted person, having assumed the very frank attitude taken up by Whitman, would be impelled to devote far more space and far more ardor to the subject of sexual relationships with women and all that is involved in maternity than is accorded to them in _Leaves of Grass_. Some of Whitman's extant letters to young men, though they do not throw definite light on this question, are of a very affectionate character,[97] and, although a man of remarkable physical vigor, he never felt inclined to marry.[98] It remains somewhat difficult to classify him from the sexual point of view, but we can scarcely fail to recognize the presence of a homosexual tendency. I should add that some friends and admirers of Whitman are not prepared to accept the evidence of the letter to Symonds. I am indebted to "Q." for the following statement of the objections:-- "I think myself that it is a mistake to give much weight to this letter--perhaps a mistake to introduce it at all, since if introduced it will, of course, carry weight. And this for three or four reasons:-- "1. That it is difficult to reconcile the letter itself (with its strong tone of disapprobation) with the general 'atmosphere' of _Leaves of Grass_, the tenor of which is to leave everything open and free. "2. That the letter is in hopeless conflict with the 'Calamus' section of poems. For, whatever moral lines Whitman may have drawn at the time of writing these poems, it seems to me quite incredible that the possibility of certain inferences, morbid or other, was undreamed of. "3. That the letter was written only a few months before his last illness and death, and is the only expression of the kind that he appears to have given utterance to. "4. That Symonds's letter, to which this was a reply, is not forth coming; and we consequently do not know what rash expressions it may have contained--leading Whitman (with his extreme caution) to hedge his name from possible use to justify dubious practices." I may add that I endeavored to obtain Symonds's letter, but he was unable to produce it, nor has any copy of it been found among his papers. It should be said that Whitman's attitude toward Symonds was marked by high regard and admiration. "A wonderful man is Addington Symonds," he remarked shortly before his own death; "some ways the most indicative and penetrating and significant man of our time. Symonds is a curious fellow; I love him dearly. He is of college breed and education, horribly literary and suspicious, and enjoys things. A great fellow for delving into persons and into the concrete, and even into the physiological and the gastric, and wonderfully cute." But on this occasion he delved in vain. The foregoing remarks (substantially contained in the previous editions of this book) were based mainly on the information received from J.A. Symonds's side. But of more recent years interesting light has been thrown on this remarkable letter from Walt Whitman's side. The Boswellian patience, enthusiasm, and skill which Horace Traubel has brought to his full and elaborate work, now in course of publication, _With Walt Whitman in Camden_, clearly reveal, in the course of various conversations, Whitman's attitude to Symonds's question and the state of mind which led up to this letter. Whitman talked to Traubel much about Symonds from the twenty-seventh of April, 1888 (very soon after the date when Traubel's work begins), onward. Symonds had written to him repeatedly, it seems, concerning the "passional relations of men with men," as Whitman expressed it. "He is always driving at me about that: is that what Calamus means?--because of me or in spite of me, is that what it means? I have said no, but no does not satisfy him. [There is, however, no record from Symonds's side of any letter by Whitman to Symonds in this sense up to this date.] But read this letter--read the whole of it: it is very shrewd, very cute, in deadliest earnest: it drives me hard, almost compels me--it is urgent, persistent: he sort of stands in the road and says 'I won't move till you answer my question.' You see, this is an old letter--sixteen years old--and he is still asking the question: he refers to it in one of his latest notes. He is surely a wonderful man--a rare, cleaned-up man--a white-souled, heroic character.... You will be writing something about Calamus some day," said W. [to Traubel], "and this letter, and what I say, may help to clear your ideas. Calamus needs clear ideas; it may be easily, innocently distorted from its natural, its motive, body of doctrine." The letter, dated Feb. 7, 1872, of some length, is then reproduced. It tells how much _Leaves of Grass_, and especially the Calamus section, had helped the writer. "What the love of man for man has been in the past," Symonds wrote, "I think I know. What it is here now, I know also--alas! What you say it can and should be I dimly discern in your Poems. But this hardly satisfies me--so desirous am I of learning what you teach. Some day, perhaps,--in some form, I know not what, but in your own chosen form,--you will tell me more about the Love of Friends. Till then I wait." "Said W: 'Well, what do you think of that? Do you think that could be answered?' 'I don't see why you call that letter driving you hard. It's quiet enough--it only asks questions, and asks the questions mildly enough,' 'I suppose you are right--"drive" is not exactly the word: yet you know how I hate to be catechised. Symonds is right, no doubt, to ask the questions: I am just as much right if I do not answer them: just as much right if I do answer them. I often say to myself about Calamus--perhaps it means more or less than what I thought myself--means different: perhaps I don't know what it all means--perhaps never did know. My first instinct about all that Symonds writes is violently reactionary--is strong and brutal for no, no, no. Then the thought intervenes that I maybe do not know all my own meanings: I say to myself: "You, too, go away, come back, study your own book--as alien or stranger, study your own book, see what it amounts to." Some time or other I will have to write to him definitely about Calamus--give him my word for it what I meant or mean it to mean.'" Again, a month later (May 24, 1888), Whitman speaks to Traubel of a "beautiful letter" from Symonds. "You will see that he harps on the Calamus poems again. I don't see why it should, but his recurrence to that subject irritates me a little. I suppose you might say--why don't you shut him up by answering him? There is no logical answer to that I suppose: but I may ask in my turn: 'What right has he to ask questions anyway?'" W. laughed a bit. "Anyway the question comes back to me almost every time he writes. He is courteous enough about it--that is the reason I do not resent him. I suppose the whole thing will end in an answer some day." The letter follows. The chief point in it is that the writer hopes he has not been importunate in the question he had asked about Calamus three years before. "I [Traubel] said to W.: 'That's a humble letter enough: I don't see anything in that to get excited about. He doesn't ask you to answer the old question. In fact he rather apologizes for having asked it.' W. fired up 'Who is excited? As to that question, he does ask it again and again: asks it, asks it, asks it.' I laughed at his vehemence. 'Well, suppose he does? It does not harm. Besides, you've got nothing to hide. I think your silence might lead him to suppose there was a nigger in your wood pile.' 'Oh, nonsense! But for thirty years my enemies and friends have been asking me questions about the _Leaves_: I'm tired of not answering questions.' It was very funny to see his face when he gave a humorous twist to the fling in his last phrase. Then he relaxed and added: 'Anyway I love Symonds. Who could fail to love a man who could write such a letter? I suppose he will yet have to be answered, damn 'im!'" It is clear that these conversations considerably diminish the force of the declaration in Whitman's letter. We see that the letter which, on the face of it, might have represented the swift and indignant reaction of a man who, suddenly faced by the possibility that his work may be interpreted in a perverse sense, emphatically repudiates that interpretation, was really nothing of the kind. Symonds for at least eighteen years had been gently, considerately, even humbly, yet persistently, asking the same perfectly legitimate question. If the answer was really an emphatic no, it would more naturally have been made in 1872 than 1890. Moreover, in the face of this ever-recurring question, Whitman constantly speaks to his friends of his great affection for Symonds and his admiration for his intellectual cuteness, feelings that would both be singularly out of place if applied to a man who was all the time suggesting the possibility that his writings contained inferences that were "terrible," "morbid," and "damnable." Evidently, during all those years, Whitman could not decide what to reply. On the one hand he was moved by his horror of being questioned, by his caution, by his natural aversion to express approval of anything that could be called unnatural or abnormal. On the other hand, he was moved by the desire to let his work speak for itself, by his declared determination to leave everything open, and possibly by a more or less conscious sympathy with the inferences presented to him. It was not until the last years of his life, when his sexual life belonged to the past, when weakness was gaining on him, when he wished to put aside every drain on his energies, that--being constitutionally incapable of a balanced scientific statement--he chose the simplest and easiest solution of the difficulty.[99] Concerning another great modern writer--Paul Verlaine, the first of modern French poets--it seems possible to speak with less hesitation. A man who possessed in fullest measure the irresponsible impressionability of genius, Verlaine--as his work shows and as he himself admitted--all his life oscillated between normal and homosexual love, at one period attracted to women, at another to men. He was without doubt, it seems to me, bisexual. An early connection with another young poet, Arthur Rimbaud, terminated in a violent quarrel with his friend, and led to Verlaine's imprisonment at Mons. In after-years he gave expression to the exalted passion of this relationship--_mon grand péché radieux_--in _Læti et Errabundi_, published in the volume entitled _Parallèlement_; and in later poems he has told of less passionate and less sensual relationships which yet were more than friendship, for instance, in the poem, "_Mon ami, ma plus belle amitié, ma Meilleure_" in _Bonheur_.[100] In this brief glance at some of the ethnographical, historical, religious, and literary aspects of homosexual passion there is one other phenomenon which may be mentioned. This is the alleged fact that, while the phenomena exist to some extent everywhere, we seem to find a special proclivity to homosexuality (whether or not involving a greater frequency of congenital inversion is not usually clear) among certain races and in certain regions.[101] In Europe this would be best illustrated by the case of southern Italy, which in this respect is held to be distinct from northern Italy, although Italians generally are franker than men of northern race in admitting their sexual practices.[102] How far the supposed greater homosexuality of southern Italy may be due to Greek influence and Greek blood it is not very easy to say. It must be remembered that, in dealing with a northern country like England, homosexual phenomena do not present themselves in the same way as they do in southern Italy today, or in ancient Greece. In Greece the homosexual impulse was recognized and idealized; a man could be an open homosexual lover, and yet, like Epaminondas, be a great and honored citizen of his country. There was no reason whatever why a man, who in mental and physical constitution was perfectly normal, should not adopt a custom that was regarded as respectable, and sometimes as even specially honorable. But it is quite otherwise today in a country like England or the United States.[103] In these countries all our traditions and all our moral ideals, as well as the law, are energetically opposed to every manifestation of homosexual passion. It requires a very strong impetus to go against this compact social force which, on every side, constrains the individual into the paths of heterosexual love. That impetus, in a well-bred individual who leads the normal life of his fellow-men and who feels the ordinary degree of respect for the social feeling surrounding him, can only be supplied by a fundamental--usually, it is probable, inborn--perversion of the sexual instinct, rendering the individual organically abnormal. It is with this fundamental abnormality, usually called sexual inversion, that we shall here be concerned. There is no evidence to show that homosexuality in Greece was a congenital perversion, although it appears that Coelius Aurelianus affirms that in the opinion of Parmenides it was hereditary. Aristotle also, in his fragment on physical love, though treating the whole matter with indulgence, seems to have distinguished abnormal congenital homosexuality from acquired homosexual vice. Doubtless in a certain proportion of cases the impulse was organic, and it may well be that there was an organic and racial predisposition to homosexuality among the Greeks, or, at all events, the Dorians. But the state of social feeling, however it originated, induced a large proportion of the ordinary population to adopt homosexuality as a fashion, or, it may be said, the environment was peculiarly favorable to the development of latent homosexual tendencies. So that any given number of homosexual persons among the Greeks would have presented a far smaller proportion of constitutionally abnormal individuals than a like number in England. In a similar manner--though I do not regard the analogy as complete--infanticide or the exposition of children was practised in some of the early Greek States by parents who were completely healthy and normal; in England a married woman who destroys her child is in nearly every case demonstrably diseased or abnormal. For this reason I am unable to see that homosexuality in ancient Greece--while of great interest as a social and psychological problem--throws light on sexual inversion as we know it in England or the United States. Concerning the wide prevalence of sexual inversion and of homosexual phenomena generally, there can be no manner of doubt. This question has been most fully investigated in Germany. In Berlin, Moll states that he has himself seen between 600 and 700 homosexual persons and heard of some 250 to 350 others. Hirschfeld states that he has known over 10,000 homosexual persons. There are, I am informed, several large cafés in Berlin which are almost exclusively patronized by inverts who come here to flirt and make acquaintances; as these cafés are frequented by male street prostitutes (Pupenjunge) the invert risks being blackmailed or robbed if he goes home or to a hotel with a café acquaintance. There are also a considerable number of homosexual _Kneipen_, small and unpretentious bar-rooms, which are really male brothels, the inmates being sexually normal working men and boys, out of employment or in quest of a few marks as pocket money; these places are regarded by inverts as very safe, as the proprietors insist on good order and allow no extortion, while the police, though of course aware of their existence, never interfere. Homosexual cafés for women are also found in Berlin. There is some reason for believing that homosexuality is especially prominent in Germany and among Germans. I have elsewhere referred to the highly emotional and sentimental traits which have frequently marked German friendships. Germany is the only country in which there is a definite and well-supported movement for the defense and social rehabilitation of inverts. The study of sexual inversion began in Germany, and the scientific and literary publications dealing with homosexuality issued from the German press probably surpass in quantity and importance those issued from all other countries put together. The homosexual tendencies of Germans outside Germany have been noted in various countries. Among my English cases I have found that a strain of German blood occurs much more frequently than we are entitled to expect; Parisian prostitutes are said to be aware of the homosexual tastes of Germans; it is significant that (as a German invert familiar with Turkey informed Näcke), at Constantinople, the procurers, who naturally supply girls as well as youths, regard Germans and Austrians as more tending to homosexuality than the foreigners from any other land. Germans usually deny, however, that there is any special German proclivity to inversion, and it would not appear that such statistics as are available (though all such statistics cannot be regarded as more than approximations) show any pronounced predominance of inversion among Germans. It is to Hirschfeld that we owe the chief attempt to gain some notion of the percentage of homosexual persons among the general population.[104] It may be said to vary in different regions and more especially in different occupations, from 1 to 10 per cent. But the average when the individuals belonging to a large number of groups are combined is generally found to be rather over 2 per cent. So that there are about a million and a half inverted persons in Germany.[105] This would be a minimum which can scarcely fail to be below the actual proportion, as no one can be certain that he is acquainted with the real proclivities of all the persons comprising a larger group of acquaintances.[106] It is not found in the estimates which have reached Hirschfeld that the French groups show a smaller proportion of homosexual persons than the German groups, and a Japanese group comes out near to the general average for the whole. Various authorities, especially Germans, believe that homosexuality is just as common in France as in Germany.[107] Saint-Paul ("Dr. Laupts"), on the other hand, is unable to accept this view. As an army surgeon who has long served in Africa he can (as also Rebierre in his _Joyeux et demifous_) bear witness to the frequency of homosexuality among the African battalions of the French army, especially in the cavalry, less so in the infantry; in the French army generally he finds it rare, as also in the general population.[108] Näcke is also inclined to believe that homosexuality is rarer in Celtic lands, and in the Latin countries generally, than in Teutonic and Slavonic lands, and believes that it may be a question of race.[109] The question is still undecided. It is possible that the undoubted fact that homosexuality is less conspicuous in France and the other Latin countries than in Teutonic lands, may be due not to the occurrence of a smaller proportion of congenital inverts in the former lands, but mainly to general difference in temperament and in the social reaction.[110] The French idealize and emphasize the place of women to a much greater degree than the Germans, while at the same time inverts in France have much less occasion than in Germany to proclaim their legal grievances. Apart from such considerations as these it seems very doubtful whether inborn inversion is in any considerable degree rarer in France than in Germany. As to the frequency of homosexuality in England[111] and the United States there is much evidence. In England its manifestations are well marked for those whose eyes have once been opened. The manifestations are of the same character as those in Germany, modified by social and national differences, and especially by the greater reserve, Puritanism, and prudery of England.[112] In the United States these same influences exert a still greater effect in restraining the outward manifestations of homosexuality. Hirschfeld, though so acute and experienced in the investigation of homosexuality, states that when visiting Philadelphia and Boston he could scarcely detect any evidence of homosexuality, though he was afterward assured by those acquainted with local conditions that its extension in both cities is "colossal." There have been numerous criminal cases and scandals in the United States in which homosexuality has come to the surface, and the very frequently occurring cases of transvestism or cross-dressing in the States seem to be in a large proportion associated with homosexuality. In the opinion of some, English homosexuality has become much more conspicuous during recent years, and this is sometimes attributed to the Oscar Wilde case. No doubt, the celebrity of Oscar Wilde and the universal publicity given to the facts of the case by the newspapers may have brought conviction of their perversion to many inverts who were before only vaguely conscious of their abnormality, and, paradoxical though it may seem, have imparted greater courage to others; but it can scarcely have sufficed to increase the number of inverts. Rather, one may say, the development of urban life renders easier the exhibition and satisfaction of this as of all other forms of perversion. Regarding the proportion of inverts among the general population, it is very difficult to speak positively. The invert himself is a misleading guide because he has formed round himself a special coterie of homosexual persons, and, moreover, he is sometimes apt to overestimate the number of inverts through the misinterpretation of small indications that are not always conclusive. The estimate of the ordinary normal person, feeling the ordinary disgust toward abnormal phenomena, is also misleading, because his homosexual acquaintances are careful not to inform him concerning their proclivities. A writer who has studied the phenomena of homosexuality is apt to be misguided in the same way as the invert himself, and to overestimate the prevalence of the perversion. Striving to put aside this source of fallacy, and only considering those individuals with whom I have been brought in contact by the ordinary circumstances of life, and with whose modes of feeling I am acquainted, I am still led to the conclusion that the proportion is considerable. Among the professional and most cultured element of the middle class in England, there must be a distinct percentage of inverts which may sometimes be as much as 5 per cent., though such estimates must always be hazardous. Among women of the same class the percentage seems to be at least double, though here the phenomena are less definite and deep-seated. This seems to be a moderate estimate for this class, which includes, however, it must be remembered, a considerable proportion of individuals who are somewhat abnormal in other respects. As we descend the scale the phenomena are doubtless less common, though when we reach the working class we come to that comparative indifference to which allusion has already been made. Taken altogether we may probably conclude that the proportion of inverts is the same as in other related and neighboring lands, that is to say, slightly over 2 per cent. That would give the homosexual population of Great Britain as somewhere about a million. FOOTNOTES: [1] Taking all its forms _en bloc_, as they are known to the police, homosexuality is seen to possess formidable proportions. Thus in France, from official papers which passed through M. Carlier's bureau during ten years (1860-70), he compiled a list of 6342 pederasts who came within the cognizance of the police; 2049 Parisians, 3709 provincials, and 584 foreigners. Of these, 3432, or more than the half, could not be convicted of illegal acts. [2] The chief general collection of data (not here drawn upon) concerning homosexuality among animals is by the zoölogist Prof. Karsch, "Päderastie und Tribadie bei den Tieren," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. ii. Brehm's _Tierleben_ also contains many examples. See also a short chapter (ch. xxix) in Hirschfeld's _Homosexualität_. [3] H. Sainte-Claire Deville, "De l'Internat et son influence sur l'education de la jeunesse," a paper read to the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, July 27, 1871, and quoted by Chevalier, _L'Inversion Sexuelle_, pp. 204-5. [4] M. Bombarda, _Comptes rendus Congrès Internationale de l'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Amsterdam, p. 212. [5] Lacassagne, "De la Criminalité chez les Animaux," _Revue Scientifique_, 1882. [6] Steinach, "Utersuchungen zu vergleichende Physiologie," _Archiv für die Gesammte Physiologie_, Bd. lvi, 1894, p. 320. [7] Féré, _Comptes-rendus Société de Biologie_, July 30, 1898. We may perhaps connect this with an observation of E. Selous (_Zoölogist_, May and Sept., 1901) on a bird, the Great Crested Grebe; after pairing, the male would crouch to the female, who played his part to him; the same thing is found among pigeons. Selous suggests that this is a relic of primitive hermaphroditism. But it may be remembered that in the male generally sexual intercourse tends to be more exhausting than in the female; this fact would favor a reversion of their respective parts. [8] E. Selous, "Sexual Selection in Birds," _Zoölogist_, Feb., 1907, p. 65; ib., May, p. 169. Sexual aberrations generally are not uncommon among birds; see, e.g., A. Heim, "Sexuelle Verirrungen bei Vögeln in den Tropen," _Sexual-Probleme_, April, 1913. [9] See Moll, _Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, 1898, Bd. i, pp. 369, 374-5. For a summary of facts concerning homosexuality in animals see F. Karsch, "Päderastie und Tribadie bei den Tieren auf Grund der Literatur," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. ii, 1899, pp. 126-154 [10] Muccioli, "Degenerazione e Criminalità nei Colombi," _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1893, p. 40. [11] _L'Intermédiare des Biologistes_, November 20, 1897. [12] R.I. Pocock, _Field_, 25 Oct., 1913. [13] R.S. Rutherford, "Crowing Hens," _Poultry_, January 26, 1896. [14] This has now been very thoroughly done by Prof. F. Karsch-Haack in a large book, _Das Gleichgeschlechtliche Leben der Naturvölker_, 1911. An earlier and shorter study by the same author was published in the _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. iii, 1901. [15] See a brief and rather inconclusive treatment of the question by Bruns Meissner, "Assyriologische Studien," iv, _Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft_, 1907. [16] _Monatshefte für praktische Dermatologie_, Bd. xxix, 1899, p. 409. [17] Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, p. 739. [18] Beardmore also notes that sodomy is "regularly indulged in" in New Guinea on this account. (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, May, 1890, p. 464.) [19] I have been told by medical men in India that it is specially common among the Sikhs, the finest soldier-race in India. [20] Foley, _Bulletin Société d'Anthropologie de Paris_, October 9, 1879. [21] See, e.g., O. Kiefer, "Plato's Stellung zu Homosexualität," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. vii. [22] Bethe, op. cit., p. 440. In old Japan (before the revolution of 1868) also, however, according to F.S. Krauss (_Das Geschlechtsleben der Japaner_, ch. xiii, 1911), the homosexual relations between knights and their pages resembled those of ancient Greece. [23] _Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie_, 1906, p. 106. [24] _Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, 1914, Heft 2, p. 73. [25] Among the Sarts of Turkestan a class of well-trained and educated homosexual prostitutes, resembling those found in China and many regions of northern Asia, bearing also the same name of _batsha_, are said to be especially common because fostered by the scarcity of women through polygamy and by the women's ignorance and coarseness. The institution of the _batsha_ is supposed to have come to Turkestan from Persia. (Herman, "Die Päderastie bei den Sarten," _Sexual-Probleme_, June, 1911.) This would seem to suggest that Persia may have been a general center of diffusions of this kind of refined homosexuality in northern Asia. [26] Morache, art. "Chine," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_; Matignon, "La Péderastie en Chine," _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Jan., 1899; Von der Choven, summarized in _Archives de Neurologie_, March, 1907; Scié-Ton-Fa, "L'Homosexualité en Chine," _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, April, 1909. [27] _Moeurs des Peuples de l'Inde_, 1825, vol. i, part ii, ch. xii. In Lahore and Lucknow, as quoted by Burton, Daville describes "men dressed as women, with flowing locks under crowns of flowers, imitating the feminine walk and gestures, voice and fashion of speech, ogling their admirer with all the coquetry of bayaderes." [28] _Voyages and Travels_, 1814, part ii, p. 47. [29] A. Lisiansky, _Voyage, etc._, London, 1814, p. 1899. [30] _Ethnographische Skizzen_, 1855, p. 121. [31] C.F.P. von Martius, _Zur Ethnographie Amerika's_, Leipzig, 1867, Bd. i, p. 74. In Ancient Mexico Bernal Diaz wrote: _Erant quasi omnes sodomia commaculati, et adolescentes multi, muliebriter vestiti, ibant publice, cibum quarentes ab isto diabolico et abominabili labore_. [32] Hammond, _Sexual Impotence_, pp. 163-174. [33] _New York Medical Journal_, Dec. 7, 1889. [34] J. Turnbull, "_A Voyage Round the World in the Year 1800_," etc., 1813, p. 382. [35] _Annales d'Hygiène et de Médecine Coloniale_, 1899, p. 494. [36] Oskar Baumann, "Conträre Sexual-Erscheinungen bei die Neger-Bevölkerung Zanzibars," _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1899, Heft 6, p. 668. [37] Rev. J.H. Weeks, _Journal Anthropological Institute_, 1909, p. 449. I am informed by a medical correspondent in the United States that inversion is extremely prevalent among American negroes. "I have good reason to believe," he writes, "that it is far more prevalent among them than among the white people of any nation. If inversion is to be regarded as a penalty of 'civilization' this is remarkable. Perhaps, however, the Negro, _relatively to his capacity_, is more highly civilized than we are; at any rate his civilization has been thrust upon him, and not acquired through the long throes of evolution. Colored inverts desire white men as a rule, but are not averse to men of their own race. I believe that 10 per cent, of Negroes in the United States are sexually inverted." [38] Among the Papuans of German New Guinea, where the women have great power, marriage is late, and the young men are compelled to live separated from the women in communal houses. Here, says Moskowski (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1911, Heft 2, p. 339), homosexual orgies are openly carried on. [39] C.G. Seligmann, "Sexual Inversion Among Primitive Races," _Alienist and Neurologist_, Jan., 1902. In a tale of the Western Solomon Islands, reported by J.C. Wheeler (_Anthropophyteia_, vol. ix, p. 376) we find a story of a man who would be a woman, and married another man and did woman's work. [40] Hardman, "Habits and Customs of Natives of Kimberley, Western Australia," _Proceedings Royal Irish Academy_, 3d series, vol. i, 1889, p. 73. [41] Klaatsch, "Some Notes on Scientific Travel Amongst the Black Populations of Tropic Australia," Adelaide meeting of _Australian Association for the Advancement of Science_, January, 1907, p. 5. [42] In further illustration of this I have been told that among the common people there is often no feeling against connection with a woman _per anum_. [43] Chevalier (_L'Inversion Sexuelle_, pp. 85-106) brings forward a considerable amount of evidence regarding homosexuality at Rome under the emperors. See also Moll, _Konträre Sexualempfindung_, 1899, pp. 56-66, and Hirschfeld, _Homosexualität_, 1913, pp. 789-806. On the literary side, Petronius best reveals the homosexual aspect of Roman life about the time of Tiberius. [44] J.A. Symonds wrote an interesting essay on this subject; see also Kiefer, _Jahrbuch f. sex. Zwischenstufen_, vol. viii, 1906. [45] See L. von Scheffler, "Elagabal," _Jahrbuch f. sex. Zwischenstufen_, vol. iii, 1901; also Duviquet, _Héliogabale (Mercure de France_). [46] The following note has been furnished to me: "Balzac, in _Une Dernière Incarnation de Vautrin_, describes the morals of the French _bagnes_. Dostoieffsky, in _Prison-Life in Siberia_, touches on the same subject. See his portrait of Sirotkin, p. 52 et seq., p. 120 (edition J. and R. Maxwell, London). We may compare Carlier, _Les Deux Prostitutions_, pp. 300-1, for an account of the violence of homosexual passions in French prisons. The initiated are familiar with the fact in English prisons. Bouchard, in his _Confessions_, Paris, Liseux, 1881, describes the convict station at Marseilles in 1630." Homosexuality among French recidivists at Saint-Jean-du-Maroni in French Guiana has been described by Dr. Cazanova, _Arch. d'Anth. Crim._, January, 1906, p. 44. See also Davitt's _Leaves from a Prison Diary_, and Berkman's _Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist_; also Rebierre, _Joyeux et Demifous_, 1909. [47] D. McMurtrie, _Chicago Medical Recorder_, January, 1914. [48] See Appendix A: "Homosexuality among Tramps," by "Josiah Flynt." [49] _Inferno_, xv. The place of homosexuality in the _Divine Comedy_ itself has been briefly studied by Undine Freün von Verschuer, _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. viii, 1906. [50] Hirschfeld and others have pointed out, very truly, that inverts are less prone than normal persons to regard caste and social position. This innately democratic attitude renders it easier for them than for ordinary people to rise to what Cyples has called the "ecstasy of humanity," the emotional attitude, that is to say, of those rare souls of whom it may be said, in the same writer's words, that "beggars' rags to their unhesitating lips grew fit for kissing because humanity had touched the garb." Edward Carpenter (_Intermediate Types among Primitive Folk_, p. 83) remarks that great ethical leaders have often exhibited feminine traits, and adds: "It becomes easy to suppose of those early figures--who once probably were men--those Apollos, Buddhas, Dionysus, Osiris, and so forth--to suppose that they too were somewhat bisexual in temperament, and that it was really largely owing to that fact that they were endowed with far-reaching powers and became leaders of mankind." [51] English translation, _Primitive Folk_, in Contemporary Science series. [52] R. Horneffer, _Der Priester_, 2 vols., 1912. J.G. Frazer, in the volume entitled "Adonis, Attis, Osiris" (pp. 428-435) of the third edition of his _Golden Bough_, discusses priests dressed as women, and finds various reasons for the custom. [53] Edward Carpenter, _Intermediate Types among Primitive Folk_, 1914. [54] Westermarck, _Origin and Development of Moral Ideas_, vol. ii, ch. xliii. [55] "Italian literature," remarks Symonds, "can show the _Rime Burlesche_, Becadelli's _Hermaphroditus_, the _Canti Carnascialeschi_, the Macaronic poems of Fidentius, and the remarkably outspoken romance entitled _Alcibiade Fanciullo a Scola_." [56] The life of Muret has been well written by C. Dejob, _Marc-Antoine Muret_, 1881. [57] F.M. Nichols, _Epistles of Erasmus_, vol. i, pp. 44-55. [58] Burckhardt, _Die Kultur der Renaissance_, vol. ii, _Excursus_ ci. [59] F. de Gaudenzi in ch. v of his _Studio Psico-patologico sopra T. Tasso_ (1899) deals fully with the poet's homosexual tendencies. [60] Herbert P. Horne, _Leonardo da Vinci_, 1903, p. 12. [61] S. Freud, _Eine Kindheitserinnerung des Leonardo da Vinci_, 1910. [62] See Parlagreco, _Michelangelo Buonarotti_, Naples, 1888; Ludwig von Scheffler, _Michelangelo: Ein Renaissance Studie_, 1892; _Archivo di Psichiatria_, vol. xv, fasc. i, ii, p. 129; J.A. Symonds, _Life of Michelangelo_, 1893; Dr. Jur. Numa Praetorius, "Michel Angelo's Urningtum," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. ii, 1899, pp, 254-267. [63] J.A. Symonds, _Life of Michelangelo_, vol. ii, p. 384. [64] Sodoma's life and temperament have been studied and his pictures copiously reproduced by Elisár von Kupffer, _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. ix, 1908, p. 71 et seq., and by R.H. Hobart Cust, _Giovanni Antonio Bazzi_. [65] Cellini, _Life_, translated by J.A. Symonds, introduction, p. xxxv, and p. 448. Queringhi (_La Psiche di B. Cellini_, 1913) argues that Cellini was not homosexual. [66] See the interesting account of Duquesnoy by Eekhoud (_Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. ii, 1899), an eminent Belgian novelist who has himself been subjected to prosecution on account of the pictures of homosexuality in his novels and stories, _Escal-Vigor_ and _Le Cycle Patibulaire_ (see _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. iii, 1901). [67] See Justi's _Life of Winkelmann_, and also Moll's _Die Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, 1899, pp. 122-126. In this work, as well as in Raffalovich's _Uranisme et Unisexualité_, as also in Moll's _Berühmte Homosexuelle_ (1910) and Hirschfeld's _Die Homosexualität_, p. 650 et seq., there will be found some account of many eminent men who are, on more or less reliable grounds, suspected of homosexuality. Other German writers brought forward as inverted are Platen, K.P. Moritz, and Iffland. Platen was clearly a congenital invert, who sought, however, the satisfaction of his impulses in Platonic friendship; his homosexual poems and the recently published unabridged edition of his diary render him an interesting object of study; see for a sympathetic account of him, Ludwig Frey, "Aus dem Seelenleben des Grafen Platen," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vols. i and vi. Various kings and potentates have been mentioned in this connection, including the Sultan Baber; Henri III of France; Edward II, William II, James I, and William III of England, and perhaps Queen Anne and George III, Frederick the Great and his brother, Heinrich, Popes Paul II, Sixtus IV, and Julius II, Ludwig II of Bavaria, and others. Kings, indeed, seem peculiarly inclined to homosexuality. [68] Schultz, _Das Höfische Leben_, Bd. i, ch. xiii. [69] _De Planctu Naturæ_ has been translated by Douglas Moffat, _Yale Studies in English_, No. xxxvi, 1908. [70] P. de l'Estoile, _Mémoires-Journaux_, vol. ii, p. 326. [71] Laborde, _Le Palais Mazarin_, p. 128. [72] Thus she writes in 1701 (_Correspondence_, edited by Brunet, vol. i, p. 58): "Our heroes take as their models Hercules, Theseus, Alexander, and Cæsar, who all had their male favorites. Those who give themselves up to this vice, while believing in Holy Scripture, imagine that it was only a sin when there were few people in the world, and that now the earth is populated it may be regarded as a _divertissement_. Among the common people, indeed, accusations of this kind are, so far as possible, avoided; but among persons of quality it is publicly spoken of; it is considered a fine saying that since Sodom and Gomorrah, the Lord has punished no one for such offences." [73] Sérieux and Libert, "La Bastille et ses Prisonniers," _L'Encéphale_, September, 1911. [74] Witry, "Notes Historiques sur l'Homosexualité en France," _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, January, 1909. [75] In early Teutonic days there was little or no trace of any punishment for homosexual practices in Germany. This, according to Hermann Michaëlis, only appeared after the Church had gained power among the West Goths; in the Breviarium of Alaric II (506), the sodomist was condemned to the stake, and later, in the seventh century, by an edict of King Chindasvinds, to castration. The Frankish capitularies of Charlemange's time adopted ecclesiastical penances. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries death by fire was ordained, and the punishments enacted by the German codes tended to become much more ferocious than that edicted by the Justinian code on which they were modelled. [76] Raffalovich discusses German friendship, _Uranisme et Unisexualité_, pp. 157-9. See also Birnbaum, _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. viii, p. 611; he especially illustrates this kind of friendship by the correspondence of the poets Gleim and Jacobi, who used to each other the language of lovers, which, indeed, they constantly called themselves. [77] This letter may be found in Ernst Schur's _Heinrich von Kleist in seinen Briefen_, p. 295. Dr. J. Sadger has written a pathographic and psychological study of Kleist, emphasizing the homosexual strain, in the _Grenzfragen des Nerven- und Seelenlebens_ series. [78] Alexander's not less distinguished brother, Wilhelm von Humboldt, though not homosexual, possessed, a woman wrote to him, "the soul of a woman and the most tender feeling for womanliness I have ever found in your sex;" he himself admitted the feminine traits in his nature. Spranger (_Wilhelm von Humboldt_, p. 288) says of him that "he had that dual sexuality without which the moral summits of humanity cannot be reached." [79] Krupp caused much scandal by his life at Capri, where he was constantly surrounded by the handsome youths of the place, mandolinists and street arabs, with whom he was on familiar terms, and on whom he lavished money. H.D. Davray, a reliable eyewitness, has written "Souvenirs sur M. Krupp à Capri," _L'Européen_, 29 November, 1902. It is not, however, definitely agreed that Krupp was of fully developed homosexual temperament (see, e.g., _Jahrbuch f. sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. v, p. 1303 et seq.) An account of his life at Capri was published in the _Vorwärts_, against which Krupp finally brought a libel action; but he died immediately afterward, it is widely believed, by his own hand, and the libel action was withdrawn. [80] Madame, the mother of the Regent, in her letters of 12th October, 4th November, and 13th December, 1701, repeatedly makes this assertion, and implies that it was supported by the English who at that time came over to Paris with the English Ambassador, Lord Portland. The King was very indifferent to women. [81] Anselm, Epistola lxii, in Migne's _Patrologia_, vol. clix, col. 95. John of Salisbury, in his _Polycrates_, describes the homosexual and effeminate habits of his time. [82] Pollock and Maitland, _History of English Law_, vol. ii, p. 556. [83] Coleridge in his _Table Talk_ (14 May, 1833) remarked: "A man may, under certain states of the moral feeling, entertain something deserving the name of love towards a male object--an affection beyond friendship, and wholly aloof from appetite. In Elizabeth's and James's time it seems to have been almost fashionable to cherish such a feeling. Certainly the language of the two friends Musidorus and Pyrocles in the _Arcadia_ is such as we could not use except to women." This passage of Coleridge's is interesting as an early English recognition by a distinguished man of genius of what may be termed ideal homosexuality. [84] See account of Udall in the _National Dictionary of Biography_. [85] _Complete Poems of Richard Barnfield_, edited with an introduction by A.B. Grosart, 1876. The poems of Barnfield were also edited by Arber, in the English Scholar's Library, 1883. Arber, who always felt much horror for the abnormal, argues that Barnfield's occupation with homosexual topics was merely due to a search for novelty, that it was "for the most part but an amusement and had little serious or personal in it." Those readers of Barnfield, however, who are acquainted with homosexual literature will scarcely fail to recognize a personal preoccupation in his poems. This is also the opinion of Moll in his _Berühmte Homosexuelle_. [86] See appendix to my edition of Marlowe in the _Mermaid Series_, first edition. For a study of Marlowe's "Gaveston," regarded as "the hermaphrodite in soul," see J.A. Nicklin, _Free Review_, December, 1895. [87] As Raffalovich acutely points out, the twentieth sonnet, with its reference to the "one thing to my purpose nothing," is alone enough to show that Shakespeare was not a genuine invert, as then he would have found the virility of the loved object beautiful. His sonnets may fairly be compared to the _In Memoriam_ of Tennyson, whom it is impossible to describe as inverted, though in his youth he cherished an ardent friendship for another youth, such as was also felt in youth by Montaigne. [88] A scene in Vanbrugh's _Relapse_, and the chapter (ch. li) in Smollett's _Roderick Random_ describing Lord Strutwell, may also be mentioned as evidencing familiarity with inversion. "In our country," said Lord Strutwell to Rawdon, putting forward arguments familiar to modern champions of homosexuality, "it gains ground apace, and in all probability will become in a short time a more fashionable vice than simple fornication." [89] These observations on eighteenth century homosexuality in London are chiefly based on the volumes of _Select Trials_ at the Old Bailey, published in 1734. [90] Numa Praetorius (_Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. iv, p. 885), who has studied Byron from this point of view, considers that, though his biography has not yet been fully written on the sexual side, he was probably of bisexual temperament; Raffalovich (_Uranisme et Unisexualité_, p. 309) is of the same opinion. [91] A youthful attraction of this kind in a poet is well illustrated by Dolben, who died at the age of nineteen. In addition to a passion for Greek poetry he cherished a romantic friendship of extraordinary ardor, revealed in his poems, for a slightly older schoolfellow, who was never even aware of the idolatry he aroused. Dolben's life has been written, and his poems edited, by his friend the eminent poet, Robert Bridges (_The Poems of D.M. Dolben_, edited with a Memoir by R. Bridges, 1911). [92] A well-informed narrative of the Oscar Wilde trial is given by Raffalovich in his _Uranisme et Unisexualité_, pp. 241-281; the full report of the trial has been published by Mason. The best life of Wilde is probably that of Arthur Ransome. André Gide's little volume of reminiscences, _Oscar Wilde_ (also translated into English), is well worth reading. Wilde has been discussed in relation to homosexuality by Numa Praetorius (_Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. iii, 1901). An instructive document, an unpublished portion of _De Profundis_, in which Wilde sought to lay the blame for his misfortune on a friend,--his "ancient affection" for whom has, he declares, been turned to "loathing, bitterness, and contempt,"--was published in the _Times_, 18th April, 1913; it clearly reveals an element of weakness of character. [93] T. Wright, _Life of Edward Fitzgerald_, vol. i, p. 158. [94] Most of these were carelessly lost or destroyed by Posh. A few have been published by James Blyth, _Edward Fitzgerald and_ '_Posh_,' 1908. [95] It is as such that Whitman should be approached, and I would desire to protest against the tendency, now marked in many quarters, to treat him merely as an invert, and to vilify him or glorify him accordingly. However important inversion may be as a psychological key to Whitman's personality, it plays but a small part in Whitman's work, and for many who care for that work a negligible part. (I may be allowed to refer to my own essay on Whitman, in _The New Spirit_, written nearly thirty years ago.) [96] I may add that Symonds (in his book on Whitman) accepted this letter as a candid and final statement showing that Whitman was absolutely hostile to sexual inversion, that he had not even taken its phenomena into account, and that he had "omitted to perceive that there are inevitable points of contact between sexual inversion and his doctrine of friendship." He recalls, however, Whitman's own lines at the end of "Calamus" in the Camden edition of 1876:-- "Here my last words, and the most baffling, Here the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest-lasting, Here I shade down and hide my thoughts--I do not expose them, And yet they expose me more than all my other poems." [97] Whitman's letters to Peter Doyle, an uncultured young tram-conductor deeply loved by the poet, have been edited by Dr. Bucke, and published at Boston: _Calamus: A Series of Letters_, 1897. [98] Whitman acknowledged, however (as in the letter to Symonds already referred to), that he had had six children; they appear to have been born in the earlier part of his life when he lived in the South. (See a chapter on Walt Whitman's children in Edward Carpenter's interesting book, _Days with Walt Whitman_, 1906.) Yet his brother George Whitman said: "I never knew Walt to fall in love with young girls, or even to show them marked attention." And Doyle, who knew him intimately during ten years of late life, said: "Women in that sense never came into his head." The early heterosexual relationship seems to have been an exception in his life. With regard to the number of children I am informed that, in the opinion of a lady who knew Whitman in the South, there can be no reasonable doubt as to the existence of one child, but that when enumerating six he possibly included grandchildren. [99] While the homosexual strain in Walt Whitman has been more or less definitely admitted by various writers, the most vigorous attempts to present the homosexual character of his personality and work are due to Eduard Bertz in Germany, and to Dr. W.C. Rivers in England. Bertz has issued three publications on Whitman: see especially his _Der Yankee-Heiland_, 1906, and _Whitman-Mysterien_, 1907. The arguments of Rivers are concisely stated in a pamphlet entitled _Walt Whitman's Anomaly_ (London: George Allen, 1913). Both Bertz and Rivers emphasize the feminine traits in Whitman. An interesting independent picture of Whitman, at about the date of the letter to Symonds, accompanied by the author's excellent original photographs, is furnished by Dr. John Johnston, _A Visit to Walt Whitman_, 1898. It may be added that, probably, both the extent and the significance of the feminine traits in Whitman have been overestimated by some writers. Most artists and men of genius have some feminine traits; they do not prove the existence of inversion, nor does their absence disprove it. Dr. Clark Bell writes to me in reference to the little book by Dr. Rivers: "I knew Walt Whitman personally. To me Mr. Whitman was one of the most robust and virile of men, extraordinarily so. He was from my standpoint not feminine at all, but physically masculine and robust. The difficulty is that a virile and strong man who is poetic in temperament, ardent and tender, may have phases and moods of passion and emotion which are apt to be misinterpreted." A somewhat similar view, in opposition to Bertz and Rivers, has been vigorously set forth by Bazalgette (who has written a very thorough study of Whitman in French), especially in the _Mercure de France_ for 1st July, 1st Oct., and 15th Nov., 1913. [100] Lepelletier, in what may be regarded as the official biography of Verlaine (_Paul Verlaine_, 1907) seeks to minimize or explain away the homosexual aspect of the poet's life. So also Berrichon, Rimbaud's brother-in-law, _Mercure de France_, 16 July, 1911 and 1 Feb., 1912. P. Escoube, in a judicious essay (included in _Préférences_, 1913), presents a more reasonable view of this aspect of Verlaine's temperament. Even apart altogether from the evidence as to the poet's tendency to passionate friendship, there can be no appeal from the poems themselves, which clearly possess an absolute and unquestionable sincerity. [101] Sir Richard Burton, who helped to popularize this view, regarded the phenomenon as "geographical and climatic, not racial," and held that within what he called the Sotadic Zone "the vice is popular and endemic, held at the worst to be a mere peccadillo, while the races to the north and south of the limits here defined practice it only sporadically, amid the opprobrium of their fellows, who, as a rule, are physically incapable of performing the operation, and look upon it with the liveliest disgust." He adds: "The only physical cause for the practice which suggests itself to me, and that must be owned to be purely conjectural, is that within the Sotadic Zone there is a blending of the masculine and feminine temperaments, a crasis which elsewhere only occurs sporadically" (_Arabian Nights_, 1885, vol. x, pp. 205-254). The theory of the Sotadic Zone fails to account for the custom among the Normans, Celts, Scythians, Bulgars, and Tartars, and, moreover, in various of these regions different views have prevailed at different periods. Burton was wholly unacquainted with the psychological investigations into sexual inversion which had, indeed, scarcely begun in his day. [102] Spectator (_Anthropophyteia_, vol. vii, 1910), referring especially to the neighborhood of Sorrento, states that the southern Italians regard passive _pedicatio_ as disgraceful, but attach little or no shame to active _pedicatio_. This indifference enables them to exploit the homosexual foreigners who are specially attracted to southern Italy in the development of a flourishing homosexual industry. [103] It is true that in the solitude of great modern cities it is possible for small homosexual coteries to form, in a certain sense, an environment of their own, favorable to their abnormality; yet this fact hardly modifies the general statement made in the text. [104] See especially Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, chs. xxiv and xxv. [105] Ulrichs, in his _Argonauticus_, in 1869, estimated the number as only 25,000, but admitted that this was probably a decided underestimate. Bloch (_Die Prostitution_, Bd. i, p. 792) has found reason to believe that in Cologne in the fifteenth century the percentage was nearly as high as Hirschfeld finds it today. A few years earlier Bloch had believed (_Beiträge_, part i, p. 215, 1902) that Hirschfeld's estimate of 2 per cent, was "sheer nonsense." [106] Hirschfeld mentions the case of two men, artists, one of them married, who were intimate friends for a great many years before each discovered that the other was an invert. [107] See articles by Numa Praetorius and Fernan, maintaining that homosexuality is at least as frequent in France (_Sexual-Probleme_, March and December, 1909). [108] Dr. Laupts, _L'Homosexualité_, 1910, pp. 413, 420. [109] Näcke, _Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, 1908, Heft 6. [110] It is a fact significant of the French attitude toward homosexuality that the psychologist, Dr. Saint-Paul, when writing a book on this subject, though in a completely normal and correct manner, thought it desirable to adopt a pseudonym. [111] A well-informed series of papers dealing with English homosexuality generally, and especially with London (L. Pavia, "Die männliche Homosexualität in England," _Vierteljahrsberichte des wissenschaftlich-humanitären Komitees_, 1909-1911) will be found instructive even by those who are familiar with London. And see also Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, ch. xxvi. Much information of historical nature concerning homosexuality in England will be found in Eugen Dühren (Iwan Bloch), _Das Geschlechtsleben in England_. [112] This: is doubtless the reason why so many English inverts establish themselves outside England. Paris, Florence, Nice, Naples, Cairo, and other places, are said to swarm with homosexual Englishmen. CHAPTER II. THE STUDY OF SEXUAL INVERSION. Westphal--Hössli--Casper--Ulrichs--Krafft-Ebing--Moll--Féré--Kiernan-- Lydston--Raffalovich--Edward Carpenter--Hirschfeld. Westphal, an eminent professor of psychiatry at Berlin, may be said to be the first to put the study of sexual inversion on an assured scientific basis. In 1870 he published, in the _Archiv für Psychiatrie_, of which he was for many years editor, the detailed history of a young woman who, from her earliest years, differed from other girls: she liked to dress as a boy, only cared for boys' games, and as she grew up was sexually attracted only to women, with whom she formed a series of tender relationships, in which the friends obtained sexual gratification by mutual caresses; while she blushed and was shy in the presence of women, more especially the girl with whom she chanced to be in love, she was always absolutely indifferent in the presence of men. Westphal--a pupil, it may be noted, of Griesinger, who had already called attention to the high character sometimes shown by subjects of this perversion--combined keen scientific insight with a rare degree of personal sympathy for those who came under his care, and it was this combination of qualities which enabled him to grasp the true nature of a case such as this, which by most medical men at that time would have been hastily dismissed as a vulgar instance of vice or insanity. Westphal perceived that this abnormality was congenital, not acquired, so that it could not be termed vice; and, while he insisted on the presence of neurotic elements, his observations showed the absence of anything that could legitimately be termed insanity. He gave to this condition the name of "contrary sexual feeling" (_Konträre Sexualempfindung_), by which it was long usually known in Germany. The way was thus made clear for the rapid progress of our knowledge of this abnormality. New cases were published in quick succession, at first exclusively in Germany, and more especially in Westphal's _Archiv_, but soon in other countries also, chiefly Italy and France.[113] While Westphal was the first to place the study of sexual inversion on a progressive footing, many persons had previously obtained glimpses into the subject. Thus, in 1791, two cases were published[114] of men who showed a typical emotional attraction to their own sex, though it was not quite clearly made out that the inversion was congenital. In 1836, again, a Swiss writer, Heinrich Hössli, published a rather diffuse but remarkable work, entitled _Eros_, which contained much material of a literary character bearing on this matter. He seems to have been moved to write this book by a trial which had excited considerable attention at that time. A man of good position had suddenly murdered a youth, and was executed for the crime, which, according to Hössli, was due to homosexual love and jealousy. Hössli was not a trained scholar; he was in business at Glarus as a skillful milliner, the most successful in the town. His own temperament is supposed to have been bisexual. His book was prohibited by the local authorities and at a later period the entire remaining stock was destroyed in a fire, so that its circulation was very small. It is now, however, regarded by some as the first serious attempt to deal with the problem of homosexuality since Plato's _Banquet_.[115] Some years later, in 1852, Casper, the chief medico-legal authority of his time in Germany,--for it is in Germany that the foundations of the study of sexual inversion have been laid,--pointed out in Casper's _Vierteljahrsschrift_ that pederasty, in a broad sense of the word, was sometimes a kind of "moral hermaphroditism," due to a congenital psychic condition, and also that it by no means necessarily involved sodomy (_immissio penis in anum_). Casper brought forward a considerable amount of valuable evidence concerning these cardinal points, which he was the first to note,[116] but he failed to realize the full significance of his observations, and they had no immediate influence, though Tardieu, in 1858, admitted a congenital element in some pederasts. The man, however, who more than anyone else brought to light the phenomena of sexual inversion had not been concerned either with the medical or the criminal aspects of the matter. Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (born in 1825 near Aurich), who for many years expounded and defended homosexual love, and whose views are said to have had some influence in drawing Westphal's attention to the matter, was a Hanoverian legal official (_Amtsassessor_), himself sexually inverted. From 1864 onward, at first under the name of "Numa Numantius" and subsequently under his own name, Ulrichs published, in various parts of Germany, a long series of works dealing with this question, and made various attempts to obtain a revision of the legal position of the sexual invert in Germany. Although not a writer whose psychological views can carry much scientific weight, Ulrichs appears to have been a man of most brilliant ability, and his knowledge is said to have been of almost universal extent; he was not only well versed in his own special subjects of jurisprudence and theology, but in many branches of natural science, as well as in archeology; he was also regarded by many as the best Latinist of his time. In 1880 he left Germany and settled in Naples, and afterward at Aquila in the Abruzzi, whence he issued a Latin periodical. He died in 1895.[117] John Addington Symonds, who went to Aquila in 1891, wrote: "Ulrichs is _chrysostomos_ to the last degree, sweet, noble, a true gentleman and man of genius. He must have been at one time a man of singular personal distinction, so finely cut are his features, and so grand the lines of his skull."[118] For many years Ulrichs was alone in his efforts to gain scientific recognition for congenital homosexuality. He devised (with allusion to Uranos in Plato's _Symposium_) the word uranian or urning, ever since frequently used for the homosexual lover, while he called the normal heterosexual lover a dioning (from Dione). He regarded uranism, or homosexual love, as a congenital abnormality by which a female soul had become united with a male body--_anima muliebris in corpore virili inclusa_--and his theoretical speculations have formed the starting point for many similar speculations. His writings are remarkable in various respects, although, on account of the polemical warmth with which, as one pleading _pro domo_, he argued his cause, they had no marked influence on scientific thought.[119] This privilege was reserved for Westphal. After he had shown the way and thrown open his journal for their publication, new cases appeared in rapid succession. In Italy, also, Ritti, Tamassia, Lombroso, and others began to study these phenomena. In 1882 Charcot and Magnan published in the _Archives de Neurologie_ the first important study which appeared in France concerning sexual inversion and allied sexual perversions. They regarded sexual inversion as an episode (_syndrome_) in a more fundamental process of hereditary degeneration, and compared it with such morbid obsessions as dipsomania and kleptomania. From a somewhat more medico-legal standpoint, the study of sexual inversion in France was furthered by Brouardel, and still more by Lacassagne, whose stimulating influence at Lyons has produced fruitful results in the work of many pupils.[120] Of much more importance in the history of the theory of sexual inversion was the work of Richard von Krafft-Ebing (born at Mannheim in 1840 and died at Graz in 1902), for many years professor of psychiatry at Vienna University and one of the most distinguished alienists of his time. While active in all departments of psychiatry and author of a famous textbook, from 1877 onward he took special interest in the pathology of the sexual impulse. His _Psychopathia Sexualis_ contained over two hundred histories, not only of sexual inversion but of all other forms of sexual perversion. For many years it was the only book on the subject and it long remained the chief storehouse of facts. It passed through many editions and was translated into many languages (there are two translations in English), enjoying an immense and not altogether enviable vogue. Krafft-Ebing's methods were open to some objection. His mind was not of a severely critical order. He poured out the new and ever-enlarged editions of his book with extraordinary rapidity, sometimes remodelling them. He introduced new subdivisions from time to time into his classification of sexual perversions, and, although this rather fine-spun classification has doubtless contributed to give precision to the subject and to advance its scientific study, it was at no time generally accepted. Krafft-Ebing's great service lay in the clinical enthusiasm with which he approached the study of sexual perversions. With the firm conviction that he was conquering a great neglected field of morbid psychology which rightly belongs to the physician, he accumulated without any false shame a vast mass of detailed histories, and his reputation induced sexually abnormal individuals in all directions to send him their autobiographies, in the desire to benefit their fellow-sufferers. It is as a clinician, rather than as a psychologist, that we must regard Krafft-Ebing. At the outset he considered inversion to be a functional sign of degeneration, a partial manifestation of a neuropathic and psychopathic state which is in most cases hereditary. This perverse sexuality appears spontaneously with the developing sexual life, without external causes, as the individual manifestation of an abnormal modification of the _vita sexualis_, and must then be regarded as congenital; or it develops as a result of special injurious influences working on a sexuality which had at first been normal, and must then be regarded as acquired. Careful investigation of these so-called acquired cases, however, Krafft-Ebing in the end finally believed, would indicate that the predisposition consists in a latent homosexuality, or at least bisexuality, which requires for its manifestation the operation of accidental causes. In the last edition of his work Krafft-Ebing was inclined to regard inversion as being not so much a degeneration as a variation, a simple anomaly, and acknowledged that his opinion thus approximated to that which had long been held by inverts themselves.[121] At the time of his death, Krafft-Ebing, who had begun by accepting the view, at that time prevalent among alienists, that homosexuality is a sign of degeneration, thus fully adopted and set the seal of his authority on the view, already expressed alike by some scientific investigators as well as by inverts themselves, that sexual inversion is to be regarded simply as an anomaly, whatever difference of opinion there might be as to the value of the anomaly. The way was even opened for such a view as that of Freud and most of the psychoanalysts today who regard a strain of homosexuality as normal and almost constant, with a profound significance for the psychonervous life. In 1891 Dr. Albert Moll, of Berlin, published his work, _Die Konträre Sexualempfindung_, which subsequently appeared in much enlarged and revised editions. It speedily superseded all previous books as a complete statement and judicious discussion of sexual inversion. Moll was not content merely to present fresh clinical material. He attacked the problem which had now become of primary importance: the nature and causes of sexual inversion. He discussed the phenomena as a psychologist even more than as a physician, bearing in mind the broader aspects of the problem, keenly critical of accepted opinions, but judiciously cautious in the statement of conclusions. He cleared away various ancient prejudices and superstitions which even Krafft-Ebing sometimes incautiously repeated. He accepted the generally received doctrine that the sexually inverted usually belong to families in which various nervous and mental disorders prevail, but he pointed out at the same time that it is not in all cases possible to prove that we are concerned with individuals possessing a hereditary neurotic taint. He also rejected any minute classification of sexual inverts, only recognizing psycho-sexual hermaphroditism and homosexuality. At the same time he cast doubt on the existence of acquired homosexuality, in a strict sense, except in occasional cases, and he pointed out that even when a normal heterosexual impulse appears at puberty, and a homosexual impulse later, it may still be the former that was acquired and the latter that was inborn. In America attention had been given to the phenomena at a fairly early period. Mention may be specially made of J.G. Kiernan and G. Frank Lydston, both of whom put forward convenient classifications of homosexual manifestations some thirty years ago.[122] More recently (1911) an American writer, under the pseudonym of Xavier Mayne, privately printed an extensive work entitled _The Intersexes: A History of Similisexualism as a Problem in Social Life_, popularly written and compiled from many sources. This book, from a subjective and scarcely scientific standpoint, claims that homosexual relationships are natural, necessary, and legitimate.[123] In England the first attempts to deal seriously, from the modern point of view, with the problem of homosexuality came late, and were either published privately or abroad. In 1883 John Addington Symonds privately printed his discussion of _paiderastia_ in ancient Greece, under the title of _A Problem in Greek Ethics_, and in 1889-1890 he further wrote, and in 1891 privately printed, _A Problem of Modern Ethics: Being an Enquiry into the Phenomena of Sexual Inversion_. In 1886 Sir Richard Burton added to his translation of the _Arabian Nights_ a Terminal Essay on the same subject. In 1894 Edward Carpenter privately printed in Manchester a pamphlet entitled _Homogenic Love_, in which he criticised various psychiatric views of inversion at that time current, and claimed that the laws of homosexual love are the same as those of heterosexual love, urging, however, that the former possesses a special aptitude to be exalted to a higher and more spiritual level of comradeship, so fulfilling a beneficent social function. More recently (1907) Edward Carpenter published a volume of papers on homosexuality and its problems, under the title of _The Intermediate Sex_, and later (1914) a more special study of the invert in early religion and in warfare, _Intermediate Types among Primitive Folk_. In 1896 the most comprehensive book so far written on the subject in England was published in French by Mr. André Raffalovich (in Lacassagne's _Bibliothèque de Criminologie_), _Uranisme et Unisexualité_. This book dealt chiefly with congenital inversion, publishing no new cases, but revealing a wide knowledge of the matter. Raffalovich put forward many just and sagacious reflections on the nature and treatment of inversion, and the attitude of society toward perverted sexuality. The historical portions of the book, which are of special interest, deal largely with the remarkable prevalence of inversion in England, neglected by previous investigators. Raffalovich, whose attitude is, on the whole, philosophical rather than scientific, regards congenital inversion as a large and inevitable factor in human life, but, taking the Catholic standpoint, he condemns all sexuality, either heterosexual or homosexual, and urges the invert to restrain the physical manifestations of his instinct and to aim at an ideal of chastity. On the whole, it may be said that the book is the work of a thinker who has reached his own results in his own way, and those results bear an imprint of originality and freedom from tradition. In recent years no one has so largely contributed to place our knowledge of sexual inversion on a broad and accurate basis as Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld of Berlin, who possesses an unequalled acquaintance with the phenomena of homosexuality in all their aspects. He has studied the matter exhaustively in Germany and to some extent in other countries also; he has received the histories of a thousand inverts; he is said to have met over ten thousand homosexual persons. As editor of the _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, which he established in 1899, and author of various important monographs--more especially on transitional psychic and physical stages between masculinity and femininity--Hirschfeld had already contributed greatly to the progress of investigation in this field before the appearance in 1914 of his great work, _Die Homosexualität des Mannes und des Weibes_. This is not only the largest but the most precise, detailed, and comprehensive--even the most condensed--work which has yet appeared on the subject. It is, indeed, an encyclopedia of homosexuality. For such a task Hirschfeld had been prepared by many years of strenuous activity as a physician, an investigator, a medico-legal expert before the courts, and his position as president of the _Wissenschaftlich-humanitären Komitee_ which is concerned with the defense of the interests of the homosexual in Germany. In Hirschfeld's book the pathological conception of inversion has entirely disappeared; homosexuality is regarded as primarily a biological phenomenon of universal extension, and secondarily as a social phenomenon of serious importance. There is no attempt to invent new theories; the main value of Hirschfeld's work lies, indeed, in the constant endeavor to keep close to definite facts. It is this quality which renders the book an indispensable source for all who seek enlightened and precise information on this question. Even the existence of such a treatise as this of Hirschfeld's is enough to show how rapidly the study of this subject has grown. A few years ago--for instance, when Dr. Paul Moreau wrote his _Aberrations du Sens Génésique_--sexual inversion was scarcely even a name. It was a loathsome and nameless vice, only to be touched with a pair of tongs, rapidly and with precautions. As it now presents itself, it is a psychological and medico-legal problem so full of interest that we need not fear to face it, and so full of grave social actuality that we are bound to face it. FOOTNOTES: [113] In England aberration of the sexual instinct, or the tendency of men to feminine occupations and of women to masculine occupations, had been referred to in the _Medical Times and Gazette_, February 9, 1867; Sir G. Savage first described a case of "Sexual Perversion" in the _Journal of Mental Science_, vol. xxx, October, 1884. [114] Moritz, _Magazin für Erfahrungsseelenkunde_, Berlin, Bd. viii. [115] A full and interesting account of Hössli and his book is given by Karsch in the _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. v, 1903, pp. 449-556. [116] "Eugen Dühren" (Iwan Bloch) remarks, however (_Neue Forschungen über den Marquis de Sade und seine Zeit_, p. 436), that de Sade in his _Aline et Valcour_ seems to recognize that inversion is sometimes inborn, or at least natural, and apt to develop at a very early age, in spite of all provocations to the normal attitude. "And if this inclination were not natural," he makes Sarmiento say, "would the impression of it be received in childhood?... Let us study better this indulgent Nature before daring to fix her limits." Still earlier, in 1676 (as Schouten has pointed out, _Sexual-Probleme_, January, 1910, p. 66), an Italian priest called Carretto recognized that homosexual tendencies are innate. [117] For some account of Ulrichs see _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. i, 1899, p. 36. [118] Horatio Brown, _John Addington Symonds, a Biography_, vol. ii, p. 344. [119] Ulrichs scarcely went so far as to assert that both homosexual and heterosexual love are equally normal and healthy; this has, however, been argued more recently. [120] Special mention may be made of _L'Inversion Sexuelle_, a copious and comprehensive, though sometimes uncritical book by Dr. J. Chevalier, published in 1893, and the _Perversion et Perversité Sexuelles_ of Dr. Saint-Paul, writing under the pseudonym of "Dr. Laupts," published in 1896 and republished in an enlarged form, under the title of _L'Homosexualité et les Types Homosexuels_, in 1910. [121] Krafft-Ebing set forth his latest views in a paper read before the International Medical Congress, at Paris, in 1900 (_Comptes-rendus_, "Section de Psychiatrie," pp. 421, 462; also in contributions to the _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. iii, 1901). [122] Kiernan, _Detroit Lancet_, 1884, _Alienist and Neurologist_, April, 1891; Lydston, _Philadelphia Medical and Surgical Reporter_, September 7, 1889, and _Addresses and Essays_, 1892. [123] A summary of the conclusion of this book, of which but few copies were printed, will be found in Hirschfeld's _Vierteljahrsberichte_, October, 1911, pp. 78-91. CHAPTER III. SEXUAL INVERSION IN MEN. Relatively Undifferentiated State of the Sexual Impulse in Early Life--The Freudian View--Homosexuality in Schools--The Question of Acquired Homosexuality--Latent Inversion--Retarded Inversion--Bisexuality--The Question of the Invert's Truthfulness--Histories. When the sexual instinct first appears in early youth, it is much less specialized than normally it becomes later. Not only is it, at the outset, less definitely directed to a specific sexual end, but even the sex of its object is sometimes uncertain.[124] This has always been so well recognized that those in authority over young men have sometimes forced women upon them to avoid the risk of possible unnatural offenses.[125] The institution which presents these phenomena to us in the most marked and the most important manner is, naturally, the school, in England especially the Public School. In France, where the same phenomena are noted, Tarde called attention to these relationships, "most usually Platonic in the primitive meaning of the word, which indicate a simple indecision of frontier between friendship and love, still undifferentiated in the dawn of the awakening heart," and he regretted that no one had studied them. In England we are very familiar with vague allusions to the vices of public schools. From time to time we read letters in the newspapers denouncing public schools as "hot-beds of vice" and one anonymous writer remarks that "some of our public schools almost provoke the punishment of the cities of the Plain."[126] But these allegations are rarely or never submitted to accurate investigation. The physicians and masters of public schools who are in a position to study the matter usually possess no psychological training, and appear to view homosexuality with too much disgust to care to pay any careful attention to it. What knowledge they possess they keep to themselves, for it is considered to be in the interests of public schools that these things should be hushed up. When anything very scandalous occurs one or two lads are expelled, to their own grave and, perhaps, lifelong injury, and without benefit to those who remain, whose awakening sexual life rarely receives intelligent sympathy. In several of the Histories which follow in this chapter, as well as in Histories contained in other volumes of these _Studies_, details will be found concerning homosexuality as it occurs in English schools, public or private. (See also the study "Auto-erotism" in vol. i.) The prevalence of homosexual and erotic phenomena in schools varies greatly at different schools and at different times in the same school, while in small private schools such phenomena may be entirely unknown. As an English schoolboy I never myself saw or heard anything of such practices, and in Germany, Professor Gurlitt (_Die Neue Generation_, January, 1909), among others, testifies to similar absence of experience during his whole school life, although there was much talk and joking among the boys over sexual things. I have added some observations by a correspondent whose experiences of English public school life are still recent:-- "In the years I was a member of a public school, I saw and heard a good deal of homosexuality, though till my last two years I did not understand its meaning. As a prefect, I discussed with other prefects the methods of checking it, and of punishing it when detected. My own observations, supported by those of others, led me to think that the fault of the usual method of dealing with homosexuality in schools is that it regards all school homosexualists as being in one class together, and has only one way of dealing with them--the birch for a first offense, expulsion for a second. Now, I think we may distinguish _three_ classes of school homosexualists:-- "(a) A very small number who are probably radically inverted, and who do not scruple to sacrifice young and innocent boys to their passions. These, and these only, are a real moral danger to others, and I believe them to be rare. "(b) Boys of various ages who, having been initiated into the passive part in their young days, continue practices of an active or passive kind; but only with boys already known to be homosexualists; they draw the line at corrupting fresh victims. This class realize more or less what they are about, but cannot be called a danger to the morals of pure boys. "(c) Young boys who, whether in the development of their own physical nature, or by the instruction of older boys of the class (a), find out the pleasures of masturbation or intercrural connection. (I never heard of a case of _pedicatio_ at my school, and only once of _fellatio_, which was attempted on a quite young boy, who complained to his house master, and the offender was expelled). Boys in this class have probably little or no idea of what sexual morality means, and can hardly be accused of a _moral_ offense at all. "I submit that these three classes should receive quite different treatment. Expulsion may occasionally be necessary for class (a), but the few who belong to this class are usually too cunning to get caught. It used to be notorious at school that it was almost always the wrong people who got dropped on. I do not think a boy in the other two classes should ever be expelled, and even when expulsion is unavoidable, it should, if possible, be deferred till the end of the term, so as to make it indistinguishable from an ordinary departure. After all, there is no reason to ruin a boy's prospects because he is a little beast at sixteen; there are very few hopeless incorrigibles at that age. "As regards the other two classes, I should begin by giving boys very much fuller enlightenment on sexual subjects than is usually done, before they go to a public school at all. Either a boy is pitchforked into the place in utter innocence and ignorance, and yields to temptations to do things which he vaguely, if at all, realizes are wrong, and that only because a puzzling sort of instinct tells him so; or else he is given just enough information to whet his curiosity, usually in the shape of warnings against certain apparently harmless bodily acts, which he not unnaturally tries out of curiosity, and finds them very pleasant. It may be undesirable that a boy should have full knowledge, at the time he goes to school, but it is more undesirable that he should go with a burning curiosity, or a total ignorance on the subject. I am convinced that much might be done in the way of prevention if boys were told more, and allowed to be _open_. Much of the pleasure of sexual talk among boys I believe to be due to the spurious interest aroused by the fact that it is forbidden fruit, and involves risk if caught. It seems to me that frankness is far more moral than suggestion. I would not 'expurgate' school editions of great authors; the frank obscenity of parts of Shakespeare is far less immoral than the prurient prudishness which declines to print it, but numbers the lines in such a way that the boy can go home and look up the omitted passage in a complete edition, with a distinct sense of guilt, which is where the harm comes in." It is probable that only a small proportion of homosexual boys in schools can properly be described as "vicious." A. Hoche, describing homosexuality in German schools ("Zür Frage der forensischen Beurteilung sexuellen Vergehen," _Neurologisches Centralblatt_, 1896, No. 2), and putting together communications received from various medical men regarding their own youthful experiences at school, finds relationships of the kind very common, usually between boys of different ages and school-classes. According to one observer, the feminine, or passive, part was always played by a boy of girlish form and complexion, and the relationships were somewhat like those of normal lovers, with kissing, poems, love-letters, scenes of jealousy, sometimes visits to each other in bed, but without masturbation, pederasty, or other grossly physical manifestations. From his own youthful experience Hoche records precisely similar observations, and remarks that the lovers were by no means recruited from the vicious elements in the school. (The elder scholars, of 21 or 22 years of age, formed regular sexual relationships with the servant-girls in the house.) It is probable that the homosexual relationships in English schools are, as a rule, not more vicious than those described by Hoche, but that the concealment in which they are wrapped leads to exaggeration. In the course of a discussion on this matter over thirty years ago, "Olim Etoniensis" wrote (_Journal of Education_, 1882, p. 85) that, on making a list of the vicious boys he had known at Eton, he found that "these very boys had become cabinet ministers, statesmen, officers, clergymen, country-gentlemen, etc., and that they are nearly all of them fathers of thriving families, respected and prosperous." But, as Marro has remarked, the question is not thus settled. Public distinction by no means necessarily implies any fine degree of private morality. Sometimes the manifestations thus appearing in schools or wherever youths are congregated together are not truly homosexual, but exhibit a more or less brutal or even sadistic perversion of the immature sexual instinct. This may be illustrated by the following narrative concerning a large London city warehouse: "A youth left my class at the age of 16½," writes a correspondent, "to take up an apprenticeship in a large wholesale firm in G---- Street. Fortunately he went on probation of three weeks before articling. He came to me at the end of the first week asking me to intercede with his mother (he had no father) not to let him return. He told me that almost nightly, and especially when new fellows came, the youths in his dormitory (eleven in number) would waylay him, hold him down, and rub his parts to the tune of some comic song or dance-music. The boy who could choose the fastest time had the privilege of performing the operation, and most had to be the victim in turn unless new boys entered, when they would sometimes be subjected to this for a week. This boy, having been brought up strictly, was shocked, dazed, and alarmed; but they stopped him from calling out, and he dared not report it. Most boys entered direct on their apprenticeship without probation, and had no chance to get out. I procured the boy's release from the place and gave the manager to understand what went on." In such a case as this it has usually happened that a strong boy of brutal and perverse instincts and some force of character initiates proceedings which the others either fall into with complacency or are too weak to resist. Max Dessoir[127] came to the conclusion that "an undifferentiated sexual feeling is normal, on the average, during the first years of puberty,--i.e., from 13 to 15 in boys and from 12 to 14 in girls,--while in later years it must be regarded as pathological." He added very truly that in this early period the sexual emotion has not become centered in the sexual organs. This latter fact is certainly far too often forgotten by grown-up persons who suspect the idealized passion of boys and girls of a physical side which children have often no suspicion of, and would view with repulsion and horror. How far the sexual instinct may be said to be undifferentiated in early puberty as regards sex is a little doubtful. It is comparatively undifferentiated, but except in rare cases it is not absolutely undifferentiated. We have to admit, however, that, in the opinion of the latest physiologists of sex, such as Castle, Heape, and Marshall, each sex contains the latent characters of the other or recessive sex. Each sex is latent in the other, and each, as it contains the characters of both sexes (and can transmit those of the recessive sex) is latently hermaphrodite. A homosexual tendency may thus be regarded as simply the psychical manifestation of special characters of the recessive sex, susceptible of being evolved under changed circumstances, such as may occur near puberty, and associated with changed metabolism.[128] William James (_Principles of Psychology_, vol. ii, p. 439) considered inversion "a kind of sexual appetite of which very likely most men possess the germinal possibility." Conolly Norman (Article "Sexual Perversion," Tuke's _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_) also stated that "the sexual passion, at its first appearance, is always indefinite, and is very easily turned in a wrong direction," and he apparently accounted for inversion by this fact, and by the precocity of neurotics. Obici and Marchesini (_Le 'Amicizie' di collegio_, p. 126) refer to the indeterminate character of the sexual feelings when they first begin to develop. A correspondent believes that sexual feelings are undifferentiated in the early years about puberty, but at the same time considers that school life is to some extent responsible; "the holidays," he adds, "are sufficiently long to counteract it, however, provided the boy has sisters and they have friends; the change from school fare and work to home naturally results in a greater surplus of nerve-force, and I think most boys 'fool about' with servants or their sisters' friends." Moll (_Konträre Sexualempfindung_, 1889, pp. 6 and 356) does not think it proved that a stage of undifferentiated sexual feeling always occurs, although we have to recognize that it is of frequent occurrence. In his later work (1909, _Das Sexualleben des Kindes_, English translation, _The Sexual Life of the Child_, ch. iv), Moll remains of the same opinion that a homosexual tendency is very frequent in normal children, whose later development is quite normal; it begins between the ages of 7 and 10 (or even at 5) and may last to 20. In recent years Freud has accepted and developed the conception of the homosexual strain; as normal in early life. Thus, in 1905, in his "Bruchstück einer Hysterie-Analyse" (reprinted in the second series of _Sammlung Kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre_, 1909), Freud regards it as a well-known fact that boys and girls at puberty normally show plain signs of the existence of a homosexual tendency. Under favorable circumstances this tendency is overcome, but when a happy heterosexual love is not established it remains liable to reappear under the influence of an appropriate stimulus. In the neurotic these homosexual germs are more highly developed. "I have never carried through any psychoanalysis of a man or a woman," Freud states, "without discovering a very significant homosexual tendency." Ferenczi, again (_Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische Forschungen_, Bd. iii, 1911, p. 119), without reference to any physical basis of the impulse, accepts "the psychic capacity of the child to direct his originally objectless eroticism to one or both sexes," and terms this disposition _ambisexuality_. The normality of a homosexual element in early life may be said to be accepted by most psychoanalysts, even of the schools that are separated from Freud. Stekel would go farther, and regards various psychic sexual anomalies as signs of a concealed bisexual tendency; psychic impotence, the admiration of men for masculine women and of women for feminine men, various forms of fetichism,--they are all masks of homosexuality (Stekel, _Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse_, vol. ii, April, 1912). These schoolboy affections and passions arise, to a large extent, spontaneously, with the evolution of the sexual emotions, though the method of manifestation may be a matter of example or suggestion. As the sexual emotions become stronger, and as the lad leaves school or college to mix with men and women in the world, the instinct usually turns into the normal channel, in which channel the instincts of the majority of boys have been directed from the earliest appearance of puberty, if not earlier. But a certain proportion remain insensitive to the influence of women, and these may be regarded as true sexual inverts. Some of them are probably individuals of somewhat undeveloped sexual instincts. The members of this group are of some interest psychologically, although from the comparative quiescence of their sexual emotions they have received little attention. The following communication which I have received from a well-accredited source is noteworthy from this point of view:-- "The following facts may possibly be of interest to you, though my statement of them is necessarily general and vague. I happen to know intimately three cases of men whose affections have chiefly been directed exclusively to persons of their own sex. The first, having practised masturbation as a boy, and then for some ten years ceased to practise it (to such an extent that he even inhibited his erotic dreams), has since recurred to it deliberately (at about fortnightly intervals) as a substitute for copulation, for which he has never felt the least desire. But occasionally, when sleeping with a male friend, he has emissions in the act of embracing. The second is constantly and to an abnormal extent (I should say) troubled with erotic dreams and emissions, and takes drugs, by doctor's advice, to reduce this activity. He has recently developed a sexual interest in women, but for ethical and other reasons does not copulate with them. Of the third I can say little, as he has not talked to me on the subject; but I know that he has never had intercourse with women, and has always had a natural and instinctive repulsion to the idea. In all these, I imagine, the physical impulse of sex is less imperative than in the average man. The emotional impulse, on the other hand, is very strong. It has given birth to friendships of which I find no adequate description anywhere but in the dialogues of Plato; and, beyond a certain feeling of strangeness at the gradual discovery of a temperament apparently different to that of most men, it has provoked no kind of self-reproach or shame. On the contrary, the feeling has been rather one of elation in the consciousness of a capacity of affection which appears to be finer and more spiritual than that which commonly subsists between persons of different sexes. These men are all of intellectual capacity above the average; and one is actively engaged in the world, where he is both respected for his capacity and admired for his character. I mention this particularly, because it appears to be the habit, in books upon this subject, to regard the relation in question as pathological, and to select cases where those who are concerned in it are tormented with shame and remorse. In the cases to which I am referring nothing of the kind subsists. "In all these cases a physical sexual attraction is recognized as the basis of the relation, but as a matter of feeling, and partly also of theory, the ascetic ideal is adopted. "These are the only cases with which I am personally and intimately acquainted. But no one can have passed through a public-school and college life without constantly observing indications of the phenomenon in question. It is clear to me that in a large number of instances there is no fixed line between what is called distinctively 'friendship' and love; and it is probably the influence of custom and public opinion that in most cases finally specializes the physical passion in the direction of the opposite sex." The classification of the varieties of homosexuality is a matter of difficulty, and no classification is very fundamental. The early attempts of Krafft-Ebing and others at elaborate classification are no longer acceptable. Even the most elementary groupings become doubtful when we have definitely to fit our cases into them. The old distinction between congenital and acquired homosexuality has ceased to possess significance. When we have recognized that there is a tendency for homosexuality to arise in persons of usually normal tendency who are placed under conditions (as on board ship or in prison) where the exercise of normal sexuality is impossible, there is little further classification to be achieved along this line.[129] We have gone as far as is necessary by admitting a general undefined homosexuality,--a relationship of unspecified nature to persons of the same sex,--in addition to the more specific sexual inversion.[130] It may now be said to be recognized by all authorities, even by Freud who emphasizes a special psychological mechanism by which homosexuality may become established, that a congenital predisposition as well as an acquired tendency is necessary to constitute true inversion, apparent exceptions being too few to carry much weight. Krafft-Ebing, Näcke, Iwan Bloch, who at one time believed in the possibility of acquired inversion, all finally abandoned that view, and even Schrenck-Notzing, a vigorous champion of the doctrine of acquired inversion twenty years ago, admits the necessity of a favoring predisposition, an admission which renders the distinction between innate and acquired an unimportant, if not a merely verbal, distinction.[131] Supposing, indeed, that we are prepared to admit that true inversion may be purely acquired the decision in any particular case must be extremely difficult, and I have found very few cases which, even with imperfect knowledge, could fairly so be termed. Even the cases (to which Schopenhauer long since referred) in which inversion is only established late in life, are no longer regarded as constituting a difficulty in accepting the doctrine of the congenital nature of inversion; in such cases the inversion is merely retarded. The conception of retarded inversion,--that is to say a latent congenital inversion becoming manifest at a late period in life,--was first brought forward by Thoinot in 1898 in his _Attentats aux Moeurs_, in order to supersede the unsatisfactory conception, as he considered it to be, of acquired inversion. Thoinot regarded retarded inversion as relatively rare and of no great importance but more accessible to therapeutic measures. Three years later, Krafft-Ebing, toward the close of his life, adopted the same conception; the cases to which he applied it were all, he considered, of bisexual disposition and usually, also, marked by sexual hyperesthesia. This way of looking at the matter was speedily championed by Näcke and may now be said to be widely accepted.[132] Moll, earlier than Thoinot, had pointed out that it is difficult to believe that homosexuality in late life can ever be produced without at least some inborn weakness of the heterosexual impulse, and that we must not deny the possibility of heredity even when homosexuality appears at the age of 50 or 60.[133] Moll believes it is very doubtful whether heterosexual satiety alone can ever suffice to produce homosexuality. Näcke was careful to set aside the cases, to which much significance was once attached, in which old men with failing sexual powers, or younger men exhausted by heterosexual debauchery, are attracted to boys. In such cases, which include the majority of those appearing late, Näcke regarded the inversion as merely spurious, the _faute de mieux_ of persons no longer apt for normal sexual activity. Such cases no doubt need more careful psychological study than they usually receive. Féré once investigated a case of this kind in which a healthy young man (though with slightly neurotic heredity on one side) practised sexual intercourse excessively between the ages of 20 and 23--often impelled more by _amour propre_ (or what Adler would term the "masculine protest" of the organically inferior) than sexual desire--and then suddenly became impotent, at the same time losing all desire, but without any other loss of health. Six months later potency slowly returned, though never to the same extent, and he married. At the age of 35 symptoms of locomotor ataxia began to appear, and some years later he again became impotent, but without losing sexual desire. Suddenly one day, on sitting in close contact with a young man at a _table d'hôte_, he experienced a violent erection; he afterward found that the same thing occurred with other young men, and, though he had no psychic desire for men, he was constrained to seek such contact, and a repugnance for women and their sexuality arose. Five months later a complete paraplegic impotence set in; and then both the homosexual tendency and the aversion to women disappeared. (Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, p. 184.) In such a case, under the influence of disease, excessive stimulation seems to result in more or less complete sexual anesthesia, just as temporarily we may be more or less blinded by excess of light; and functional power reasserts itself under the influence of a different and normally much weaker stimulus. Leppmann, who has studied the homosexual manifestations of previously normal old men toward boys ("Greisenalter und Kriminalität," _Zeitschrift für Psychotherapie_, Bd. i, Heft 4, 1909), considers the chief factor to be a flaring up of the sexual impulse in a perverted direction in an early stage of morbid cerebral disturbance, not amounting to insanity and not involving complete irresponsibility. In such cases, Leppmann believes, the subject may, through his lack of power, be brought back to the beginning of his sexual life and to the perhaps unconsciously homosexual attractions of that age. With the recognition that homosexuality in youth may be due to an as yet undifferentiated sexual impulse, homosexuality in mature age to a retarded development on a congenital basis, and homosexuality in sold age to a return to the attitude of youth, the area of spurious or "pseudo" homosexuality seems to me to be very much restricted. Most, perhaps all, authorities still accept the reality of this spurious homosexuality in heterosexual persons. But they enter into no details concerning it, and they bring forward no minutely observed cases in which it occurred. Hirschfeld, in discussing the diagnosis of homosexuality and seeking to distinguish genuine from spurious inverts,[134] enumerates three classes of the latter: (1) those who practise homosexuality for purposes of gain, more especially male prostitutes and blackmailers; (2) persons who, from motives of pity, good nature, friendship, etc., allow themselves to be the objects of homosexual desire; (3) normal persons who, when excluded from the society of the opposite sex, as in schools, barracks, on board ship, or in prison, have sexual relations with persons of their own sex. Now Hirschfeld clearly realizes that the mere sexual act is no proof of the direction of the sexual impulse; it may be rendered possible by mechanical irritation (as by the stimulation of a full bladder) and in women without any stimulation at all; such cases can have little psychological significance. Moreover, he seems to admit that some subdivisions of his first class are true inverts. He further mentions that some 75 per cent. of the individuals included in these classes are between 15 and 25 years of age, that is to say, that they have scarcely emerged from the period when we have reason to believe that, in a large number of individuals at all events, the sexual impulse is not yet definitely differentiated; so that neither its homosexual nor its heterosexual tendencies can properly be regarded as spurious. If, indeed, we really accept the very reasonable view, that the basis of the sexual life is bisexual, although its direction may be definitely fixed in a heterosexual or homosexual direction at a very early period in life, it becomes difficult to see how we can any longer speak with certainty of a definitely spurious class of homosexual persons. Everyone of Hirschfeld's three classes may well contain a majority of genuinely homosexual or bisexual persons. The prostitutes and even the blackmailers are certainly genuine inverts in very many cases. Those persons, again, who allow themselves to be the recipients of homosexual attentions may well possess traces of homosexual feeling, and are undoubtedly in very many cases lacking in vigorous heterosexual impulse. Finally, the persons who turn to their own sex when forcibly excluded from the society of the opposite sex, can by no means be assumed, without question, to be normal heterosexual persons. It is only a small proportion of heterosexual persons who experience these impulses under such conditions. There are always others who under the same conditions remain emotionally attracted to the opposite sex and sexually indifferent to their own sex. There is evidently a difference, and that difference may most reasonably be supposed to be in the existence of a trace of homosexual feeling which is called into activity under the abnormal conditions, and subsides when the stronger heterosexual impulse can again be gratified. The real distinction would seem, therefore, to be between a homosexual impulse so strong that it subsists even in the presence of the heterosexual object, and a homosexual impulse so weak that it is eclipsed by the presence of the heterosexual object. We could not, however, properly speak of the latter as any more "spurious" or "pseudo" than the former. A heterosexual person who experiences a homosexual impulse in the absence of any homosexual disposition is not today easy to accept. We can certainly accept the possibility of a mechanical or other non-sexual stimulus leading to a sexual act contrary to the individual's disposition. But usually it is somewhat difficult to prove, and when proved it has little psychological significance or importance. We may expect, therefore, to find "pseudo-homosexuality," or spurious homosexuality, playing a dwindling part in classification. The simplest of all possible classifications, and that which I adopted in the earlier editions of the present _Study_, merely seeks to distinguish between those who, not being exclusively attracted to the opposite sex, are exclusively attracted to the same sex, and those who are attracted to both sexes. The first are the homosexual, whether or not the attraction springs from genuine inversion. The second are the bisexual, or, as they were formerly more often termed, following Krafft-Ebing, psycho-sexual hermaphrodites.[135] There would thus seem to be a broad and simple grouping of all sexually functioning persons into three comprehensive divisions: the heterosexual, the bisexual, and the homosexual. Even this elementary classification seems however of no great practical use. The bisexual group is found to introduce uncertainty and doubt. Not only a large proportion of persons who may fairly be considered normally heterosexual have at some time in their lives experienced a feeling which may be termed sexual toward individuals of their own sex, but a very large proportion of persons who are definitely and markedly homosexual are found to have experienced sexual attraction toward, and have had relationships with, persons of the opposite sex. The social pressure, urging all persons into the normal sexual channel, suffices to develop such slight germs of heterosexuality as homosexual persons may possess, and so to render them bisexual. In the majority of adult bisexual persons it would seem that the homosexual tendency is stronger and more organic than the heterosexual tendency. Bisexuality would thus in a large number of cases be comparable to ambidexterity, which Biervliet has found to occur most usually in people who are organically left-handed.[136] While therefore the division into heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual is a useful superficial division, it is scarcely a scientific classification. In the face of these various considerations, and in view of the fact that, while I feel justified in regarding the histories of my cases as reliable so far as they go, I have not been always able to explore them extensively, it has seemed best to me to attempt no classification at all. The order in which the following histories appear is not, therefore, to be regarded as possessing any significance. It may be proper, at this point, to say a few words as to the reliability of the statements furnished by homosexual persons. This has sometimes been called in question. Many years ago we used to be told that inverts are such lying and deceitful degenerates that it was impossible to place reliance on anything they said. It was also usual to say that when they wrote autobiographical accounts of themselves they merely sought to mold them in the fashion of those published by Krafft-Ebing. More recently the psychoanalysts have made a more radical attack on all histories not obtained by their own methods as being quite unreliable, even when put forth in good faith, in part because the subject withholds much that he either regards as too trivial or too unpleasant to bring forward, and in part because he cannot draw on that unconscious field within himself wherein, it is held, the most significant facts in his own sexual history are concealed. Thus Sadger ("Ueber den Wert der Autobiographien Sexuell Perverser," _Fortschritte der Medizin_, nos. 26-28, 1913) vigorously puts forward this view and asserts that the autobiographies of inverts are worthless, although his assertions are somewhat discounted by the fact that they accompany an autobiography, written in the usual manner, to which he attributes much value. The objection to homosexual autobiographic statements dates from a period when the homosexual were very little known, and it was supposed that their moral character generally was fairly represented by a small section among them which attracted more attention than the rest by reason of discreditable conduct. But, in reality, as we now know, there are all sorts of people, with all varieties of moral character, to be found among inverts, just as among normal people. Sadger (_Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie_, 1913, p. 199) complains of the "great insincerity of inverts in not acknowledging their inversion;" but, as Sadger himself admits, we cannot be surprised at this so long as inversion is counted a crime. The most normal persons, under similar conditions, would be similarly insincere. If the homosexual differ in any respect, under this aspect, from the heterosexual, it is by exhibiting a more frequent tendency to be slightly neuropathic, nervously sensitive, and femininely emotional. These tendencies, while on the one hand they are liable to induce a very easily detectable vanity, may also lead to an unusual self-subordination to veracity. On the whole, it may be said, in my own experience, that the best histories written by the homosexual compare favorably for frankness, intelligence, and power of self-analysis with those written by the heterosexual. The ancient allegation that inverts have written their own histories on the model, or under the suggestion, of those published in Krafft-Ebing's _Psychopathia Sexualis_ can scarcely have much force now that the published histories are so extremely varied and numerous that they cannot possibly produce any uniform impression on the most sensitively receptive mind. As a matter of fact, there is no doubt that inverts have frequently been stimulated to set down the narrative of their own experiences through reading those written by others. But the stimulation has, as often as not, lain in the fact that their own experiences have seemed different, not that they have seemed identical. The histories that they read only serve as models in the sense that they indicate the points on which information is desired. I have often been able to verify this influence, which would in any case seem to be fairly obvious. Psycho-analysis is, in theory, an ideal method of exploring many psychic conditions, such as hysteria and obsessions, which are obscure and largely concealed beneath the psychic surface. In most homosexual cases the main facts are, with the patient's good-will and the investigator's tact, not difficult to ascertain. Any difficulties which psychoanalysis may help to elucidate mainly concern the early history of the case in childhood, and, regarding these, psychoanalysis may sometimes raise questions which it cannot definitely settle. Psycho-analysis reveals an immense mass of small details, any of which may or may not possess significance, and in determining which are significant the individuality of the psychoanalyst cannot fail to come into play. He will necessarily tend to arrange them according to a system. If, for instance, he regards infantile incestuous emotions or early Narcissism as an essential feature of the mechanism of homosexuality, a conscientious investigator will not rest until he has discovered traces of them, as he very probably will. (See, e.g., Sadger, "Fragment der Psychoanalyse eines Homosexuellen," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. ix, 1908; and cf. Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, p. 164). But the exact weight and significance of these traces may still be doubtful, and, even if considerable in one case, may be inconsiderable in another. Freud, who sets forth one type of homosexual mechanism, admits that there may be others. Moreover, it must be added that the psychoanalytic method by no means excludes unconscious deception by the subject, as Freud found, and so was compelled to admit the patient's tendency to "fantasy," as Adler has to "fictions," as a fundamental psychic tendency of the "unconscious." The force of these considerations is now beginning to be generally recognized. Thus Moll (art. "Homosexualität," in 4th ed. of Eulenburg's _Realencyclopädie der gesamten Heilkunde_, 1909, p. 611) rightly says that while the invert may occasionally embroider his story, "the expert can usually distinguish between the truth and the poetry, though it is unnecessary to add that complete confidence on the patient's part is necessary," Näcke, again (_Sexual-Probleme_, September, 1911, p. 619), after quoting with approval the remark of one of the chief German authorities, Dr. Numa Praetorius, that "a great number of inverts' histories are at the least as trustworthy as the attempts of psychoanalysts, especially when they come from persons skillful in self-analysis," adds that "even Freudian analysis gives no absolute guarantee for truth. A healthy skepticism is justifiable--but not an unhealthy skepticism!" Hirschfeld, also (_Die Homosexualität_, p. 164), whose knowledge of such histories is unrivalled, remarks that while we may now and then meet with a case of _pseudo-logia fantastica_ in connection with psychic debility on the basis of a psychopathic constitution, "taken all in all any generalized assertion of the falsehood of inverts is an empty fiction, and is merely a sign that the physicians who make it have not been able to win the trust of the men and women who consult them." My own experience has fully convinced me of the truth of this, statement. I am assured that many of the inverts I have met not only possess a rare power of intellectual self-analysis (stimulated by the constant and inevitable contrast between their own feelings and those of the world around them), but an unsparing sincerity in that self-analysis not so very often attained by normal people. The histories which follow have been obtained in various ways, and are of varying degrees of value. Some are of persons whom I have known very well for very long periods, and concerning whom I can speak very positively. A few are from complete strangers whose good faith, however, I judge from internal evidence that I am able to accept. Two or three were written by persons who--though educated, in one case a journalist--had never heard of inversion, and imagined that their own homosexual feelings were absolutely unique in the world. A fair number were written by persons whom I do not myself know, but who are well known to others in whose judgment I feel confidence. Perhaps the largest number are concerned with individuals who wrote to me spontaneously in the first place, and whom I have at intervals seen or heard from since, in some cases during a very long period, so that I have slowly been able to fill in their histories, although the narratives, as finally completed, may have the air of being written down at a single sitting. I have not admitted any narrative which I do not feel that I am entitled to regard as a substantially accurate statement of the facts, although allowance must occasionally be made for the emotional coloring of these facts, the invert sometimes cherishing too high an opinion, and sometimes too low an opinion, of his own personality. HISTORY I.--Both parents healthy; father of unusually fine _physique_. He is himself a manual worker and also of exceptionally fine _physique_. He is, however, of nervous temperament. He is mentally bright, though not highly educated, a keen sportsman, and in general a good example of an all-around healthy Englishman. While very affectionate, his sexual desires are not strongly developed on the physical side, and seem never to have been so. He sometimes masturbated about the age of puberty, but never afterward. He does not appear to have well-marked erotic dreams. There used to be some attraction toward women, though it was never strong. At the age of 26 he was seduced by a woman and had connection with her once. Afterward he had reason to think she had played him false in various ways. This induced the strongest antipathy, not only to this woman, but to all marriageable women. A year after this episode homosexual feeling first became clear and defined. He is now 33, and feels the same antipathy to women; he hates even to speak of marriage. There has only been one really strong attraction, toward a man of about the same age, but of different social class, and somewhat a contrast to him, both physically and mentally. So far as the physical act is concerned this relationship is not definitely sexual, but it is of the most intimate possible kind, and the absence of the physical act is probably largely due to circumstances. At the same time there is no conscious desire for the act for its own sake, and the existing harmony and satisfaction are described as very complete. There is no repulsion to the physical side, and he regards the whole relationship as quite natural. HISTORY II.--B.O., English, aged 35, missionary abroad. A brother is more definitely inverted. B.O. has never had any definitely homosexual relationships, although he has always been devoted to boys; nor has he had any relationships with women. "As regards women," he says, "I feel I have not the patience to try and understand them; they are petulant and changeable," etc. He objects to being called "abnormal," and thinks that people like himself are "_extremely_ common." "I have never wanted to kiss boys," he writes, "nor to handle them in any way except to put my arm around them at their studies and at other similar times. Of course, with really little boys, it is different, but boys and girls under 14 seem to me much alike, and I can love either equally well. As to any sort of sexual connection between myself and one of my own sex, I cannot think of it otherwise than with disgust. I can imagine great pleasure in having connection with a woman, but their natures do not attract me. Indeed, my liking for my own sex seems to consist almost entirely in a preference for the masculine character, and the feeling that as an object to _look at_ the male body is really more beautiful than the female. When any strong temptations to sexual passion come over me in my waking moments, it is of women I think. On the other hand, I have to confess that after being with some lad I love for an hour or two, I have sometimes felt my sexual organs roused. But only once in my life have I experienced a strong desire to sleep in the same bed with a particular lad, and even then no idea of doing anything entered my mind. Needless to say, I did not sleep with him. "I never feel tempted by any girls here, although I see so many with their bodies freely exposed, and plenty of them have really pretty faces. Neither do I feel tempted to do anything improper with any of the boys, although I frequently sit talking with one who has very little on. But I find the constant sight of well-shaped bare limbs has a curious effect on the mind and comes before one's imagination as a picture at unlooked-for times. But the most curious thing of all is this: There are several lads here of whom I am very fond. Now when they are near me I think of them with only the purest and most tender feelings, but sometimes at night when I am half asleep, or when I am taking my midday siesta, my imagination pictures one of these lads approaching a girl, or actually lying with her, and the strange thing is that I do not feel any desire myself to approach the girl, but I feel I wish I were in _her_ place and the lad was coming to _me_. In my calm, waking moments it disgusts and rather horrifies me to find myself apparently so unsexed--yet such is the fact, and the experience, with only slight changes, repeats itself over and over again. It is not that I, as a man, wish even in imagination to act improperly with a boy, but I feel I would like to be in the girl's place, and the strange thing is that in all these dreams and imaginings I can always apparently enter into the feelings of the woman better than into those of the man. Sometimes I fancy for a moment that perhaps reincarnation is true and I was a woman in my last life. Sometimes I fancy that when I was in the womb I was formed as a girl and the sexual organs changed just at the last moment. It is a curious problem. Don't think I worry about it. Only at long intervals do I think of it.... The thing has its bright side. Boys and men seem to have tender feelings toward me, such as one expects them to have for members of the opposite sex, and I get into all the closer contact with them in consequence." HISTORY III.--F.R., English, aged 50, Belongs on both sides to healthy, normal families, of more than average ability. Father was 35 at birth, and mother 27. He is the second of four children. There was a considerable interval between the births of the children, which were spread over twenty-one years. All are normal, except F.R., two of them married and with families. Owing to the difference of age between the children, F.R. (who was three years younger than his elder brother, and more than four years older than his sister, the third child) had no male companionship and was constantly alone with his mother. "Being naturally imitative," he remarks, "I think I acquired her tastes and interests and habits of thought. However that may be, I feel sure that my interests and amusements were more girlish than boyish. By way of illustration, I may mention that I have often been told by a friend of my mother's that, on one occasion, I was wanting a new hat, and none being found of a size to fit me, I congratulated myself that I should therefore be obliged to have a _bonnet!_ As regards my feminine tastes and instincts, I have always been conscious of taking interest in questions of family relationships, etiquette, dress (women's as much as, or more than, men's) and other things of that kind, which, as a rule, were treated with indifference or contempt. In the house I take more notice than my sister does of the servants' deficiencies and neglects, and am much more orderly in my arrangements than she is." There is nothing markedly feminine in the general appearance. Pubertal development took place at an early age, long before fourteen, with nocturnal emissions, but without erotic dreams. The testicles are well developed, the penis perhaps rather below the average in size, and the prepuce long and narrow. Erection occurs with much facility, especially at night. When young he knew nothing of masturbation, but he began the habit about ten years ago, and has practised it occasionally ever since. Although he likes the society of women to a certain extent, he soon grows tired of it, and has never had any desire to marry. His sexual dreams never have any relation to women. "I am generally doing or saying something," he remarks, "to some man whom I know when awake, something which I admit I might wish to do or say if it were not quite out of the question on grounds of propriety and self-respect." He has, however, never had any intimate relationships with men, and much that he has heard of such relationships fills him with horror. "What I feel about myself is," he writes, "that I have to a certain extent, or in some respects, a feminine mind in a male body; or, I might put it that I am a combination of an immoral (in tendency, rather than in act) woman and a religious man. From time to time I have felt strong affection for young men, but I cannot flatter myself that my affection has been reciprocated. At the present time there is a young fellow (23 years old) who acts as my clerk and sits in my room. He is extremely good-looking, and of a type which is generally considered 'aristocratic,' but so far as I (or he) know, he is quite of the lower middle class. He has little to recommend him but a fine face and figure, and there is nothing approaching to mental or social equality between us. But I constantly feel the strongest desire to treat him as a man might a young girl he warmly loved. Various obvious considerations keep me from more than quasi-paternal caresses, and I feel sure he would resent very strongly anything more. This constant repression is trying beyond measure to the nerves, and I often feel quite ill from that cause. Having had no experiences of my own, I am always anxious to learn anything I can of the sexual relations of other men, and their organs, but I have no curiosity whatever concerning the other sex. My chief pleasure and source of gratification is found in the opportunities afforded by Turkish and other baths; wherever, in fact, there is the nude male to be found. But I seldom find in these places anyone who seems to have the same tendency as myself, and certainly I have not met with more than two cases among the attendants, who responded to my hinted desire to see everything. Under a shampooer, particularly an unfamiliar one, I occasionally experience an orgasm, but less often now than when I was younger." F.R. is very short-sighted. His favorite color is blue. He is able to whistle. His tastes are chiefly of a literary character, and he has never had any liking for sports. "I have been generally considered ineffective in the use of my hands," he writes, "and I am certainly not skillful. All I have ever been able to do in that way is to net and do the simpler forms of needlework; but it seems more natural to me to do, or try to do, everything of that sort, and to play on the piano, rather than to shoot or play games. I may add that I am fonder of babies than many women, and am generally considered to be surprisingly capable of holding them! Certainly I enjoy doing so. As a youth, I used to act in charades; but I was too shy to do so unless I was dressed as a woman and veiled; and when I took a woman's part I _felt_ less like _acting_ than I have done in _propria persona_. A remark made by an uncle once rather annoyed me: that it seemed more like nature than art. But he was quite right." HISTORY IV.--Of Lowland Scotch parentage. Both sides of house healthy and without cerebral or nervous disease. Homosexual desires began at puberty. He practised onanism to a limited extent at school and up to the age of about 22. His erotic dreams are exclusively about males. While very friendly and intimate with women of all ages, he is instantly repelled by any display of sexual affection on their side. This has happened in varying degree in three or four cases. With regard to marriage, he remarks: "As there seems no immediate danger of the race dying out, I leave marriage to those who like it." His male ideal has varied to some extent. It has for some years tended toward a healthy, well-developed, athletic or out-of-door working type, intelligent and sympathetic, but not specially intellectual. At school his sexual relations were of the simplest type. Since then there have been none. "This," he says, "is not due either to absence of desire or presence of 'morals.' To put it shortly, 'there were never the time and the place and the loved one together.' In another view, physical desire and the general affection have not always coexisted toward the same person; and the former without the latter is comparatively transient; while the latter stops the gratification of the former, if it is felt that that gratification could in any way make the object of affection unhappy, mentally or emotionally." He is healthy and fairly well developed; of sensitive, emotional nature, but self-controlled; mentally he is receptive and aggressive by turns, sometimes uncritical, sometimes analytical. His temper is equable, and he is strongly affectionate. Very fond of music and other arts, but not highly imaginative. Of sexual inversion in the abstract he says he has no views, but he thus sums up his moral attitude: "I presume that, if it is there, it is there for use or abuse, as men please. I condemn gratification of bodily desire at the expense of others, in whatever form it may take. I condemn it no more in its inverted form than in the ordinary. I believe that affection between persons of the same sex, even when it includes the sexual passion and its indulgences, may lead to results as splendid as human nature can ever attain to. In short, I place it on an absolute equality with love as ordinarily understood." HISTORY V.--S.W., aged 64, English, musical journalist. The communication which follows (somewhat abbreviated) was written before S.W. had heard or read anything about sexual inversion, and when he still believed that his own case was absolutely unique. "I am the son of a clergyman, and lived for the first thirteen years of my life in the country town where I was born. Then my father became the vicar of a country village, where I lived until I went out into the world at the age of 18. As during the whole of this time my father had a few pupils, I was educated with them, and never went to school. I was born, I fancy, with sexual passions about as strong as can well be imagined, and at the same time was very precocious in my entry into the stage of puberty. Semen began to form a little before my twelfth birthday; hair soon followed, and in a year I was in that respect the equal of an average boy of 15 or 16. I conversed freely with my companions on the relations of the sexes, but, unlike them, had no personal feeling toward girls. In time I became conscious that I was different, as I then believed, and believe now, from all other men. My sexual organs were quite perfect. But in the frame of a man I had the sexual mind of a female. I distinctly disclaim the faintest inclination to perform unnatural acts; the idea of committing sodomy would be _most disgusting_. "To come to my actual condition of mind: While totally indifferent to the person of woman (I always enjoyed their friendship and companionship, and many of my best friends have been ladies), I had a burning desire to have carnal intercourse with a male, and had the capacity for falling in love, as it is called, to the utmost extent. In imagination, I possessed the female organ, and felt toward man exactly as an amorous female would. At the time when I became fully conscious of my condition, I attached little importance to it; I had not a notion of its terrible import, nor of the future misery it would entail. All that I had to learn by bitter experience. "I did once think of forcing myself to have connection with a prostitute in order to see whether the actual sensual enjoyment might bring a change, and so have the power to marry. But when it came to thinking over ways and means, my repugnance to the act became so strong that it was quite out of the question. In the case of any male to whom I became attached, I wanted to feel ourselves together, skin to skin, and to be privileged to take such liberties as an amorous female would take if that were all permitted. I sought no purely sensual gratification of any kind; my love was far too genuine for that. "During the rather more than half a century which has elapsed since my twelfth birthday, I have been genuinely in love about thirteen times. I despair attempting to give an idea of the depth and reality of my feelings. I have alluded to my precocity. I was in love when 12 years old, the object being a man of 24, a well-known analytical chemist. He came to my father's house very frequently; and my heart beat almost at the mention of his name. "The next serious time I was about 15. It was a farmer's son, about two years older. I don't think that I was ever alone with him, and really only knew him as a member of his family, yet for a time he was my chief interest in life. "When 21 I had a 'chum,' a youth of 17, who entertained for me, at any rate, a brotherly affection. We were under the same roof, and early one summer morning he got out of bed and came direct to my room to talk about some matter or other. In order to talk more comfortably he got into bed with me and we lay there just as two school-girls might have done. This proximity was more than I could stand, and my heart began to beat so that it was impossible that he should not notice it. As, of course, he could not have the slightest notion of the reason, he said in all innocence, 'Why, how your heart beats. I can hear it quite plainly.' "So far my details are purely innocent. Up to 18, familiarities passed at intervals between me and the son of the village doctor, a youth about two years older than myself, and precociously immoral. I did not really care for him much, but he was my chief companion. Then I became a school-assistant, and for about six years managed to control myself, only, alas, to fall again. Another resolution I kept for eight years, one long fight with my nature. Again I sinned in three instances, extending over three or four years. I now come to a very painful and eventful episode in my unhappy life which I would gladly pass over were it possible. It was a case, in middle life, of sin, discovery, and great folly in addition. "Before going into details, so far as may be necessary, I cannot help asking you to consider calmly and dispassionately my exact condition compared with that of my fellow-creatures as a whole. In my struggles to resist in the past, I have at times felt as if wrestling in the folds of a python. I again sinned, then, with a youth and his friend. Oddly enough, discovery followed through a man who was actuated by a feeling of revenge for a strictly right act on my part. The lads refused to state more than the truth, and this did not satisfy the man, and a _third_ lad was introduced, who was prepared to say anything. This was not all; some twelve or fifteen more boys made similar accusations! The general belief, in consequence, was that I had committed 'nameless' crimes in all directions, _ad lib_. If you were to ask me for an explanation of the action of all these boys beyond the _third_, who, of course, had some special inducements, I can offer none. They may have thought that the original trio were regarded rather in the light of _heroes_; why should _they_ not be heroes, too? "I might well feel crushed under such a load of accusations, but that does not excuse the incredible folly of my conduct. I denied alike the modicum of truth and the mass of lying, and went off to America. However, as time passed on and my mind got into a proper state, I felt that the truth must be told some time or other. I accordingly wrote from America to the proper quarter a full confession of my sin with regard to the two youths who had told merely the truth, at the same time pointing out the falsehood of all the rest of the accusations. "I remained in America six years, and actually made money, so that I could return to England with a small capital. I was also under a promise to my three sisters (all older than myself) that I would return in their lifetime. My programme was to purchase a small, light business in London, and quietly earn my living; at the same time making my presence known to no one. I _did_ buy such a business, got swindled in the most clever way, and lost every farthing I possessed in the world! I had to make my plight known to old friends who all either gave or lent me money. Still my position was a very precarious one. I tried an insurance agency, one of the last resources of the educated destitute, but soon found out that I was unfitted for work in which _impudence_ is a prime factor. Then an extraordinary stroke of good fortune took place; almost simultaneously I began to get a few music pupils, and literary work in connection with a good musical journal. "Making my presence known to old friends involved the same information to those who were _not_ friends. My identity as a journalist became known, and as time passed by it seemed to me as if half the world had heard of my alleged iniquities. People who have never set eyes on me seem to regard me in the light of a monster of iniquity who ought not to be suffered to exist. All these outsiders believe that I have committed 'nameless' offenses times innumerable and lift up their hands in speechless horror at the audacity of a man who, so situated, dares to appear openly in public, under his own name, and look people in the face. They have not even the brains to see that this very fearlessness proves the fictitious character of their beliefs. Next, they believe that if only they could get my dismissal from my journalistic post I should be brought to starvation point. This up to a year ago was true. Then an old relative died and left me some property which I sold to invest in an annuity, and thus have just enough to live on quietly, apart from what I may earn. Under such strange conditions it might be asked whether life was not unendurable. Frankly speaking, I cannot say that I find it so. I have in London a few bachelor friends who go with me to theaters, etc. In the suburbs I have about half a dozen family friends. Here I meet with pleasant society and a hearty welcome. I am passionately fond of music, have an excellent piano, and can hear the best concerts in Europe. I go to all good plays. I am a good chess player. Lastly, I am an omnivorous reader. You will allow that my resources for passing the time are not limited. "Of course, I am sorry that I sinned, and wish that I had not done so. But I disclaim any feeling of shame." S.W. was the youngest of four children and the only boy. His father was 40 at his birth, his mother 33. The father was an intellectual man of weak character, the mother a woman of violent and eccentric temper, with, he believes, strong sexual passions. S.W. knows of nothing in the family to account for his own abnormal condition. He is short (five feet five inches), but well built, with strong chest and a powerful voice. His arms are weak and flabby (feminine, he thinks), but the legs muscular. As a boy of 14 he could walk forty miles with ease, and he played football till near the age of 45. He is considered manly in character and tastes, but is easily moved to tears under strong excitement. There is no information as to the type of man to whom he is attracted. I may observe, however, that the analytical chemist who first evoked S.W.'s admiration was well known to me some thirty years later, as he was my own teacher in chemistry. At that time he was an elderly man of attractive appearance and character, sympathetic and winning in manner to an almost feminine extent. S.W. has never felt the slightest sexual attraction toward the opposite sex. The first indications of inverted feeling were at the age of 6 or 7. Watching his father's pupils, boys of 13 or 14, from the windows, he speculated on what their organs of generation were like. "In connection with a girl," he writes, "I should no more have thought of such a thing than in the case of a block of marble." About this time, indeed, he at times slept with a sister of 10, who induced him to go through the form of sexual connection, saying that it felt "so funny;" but he merely did this to please her, and without the slightest interest or feeling on his own part. This attitude became more marked with increased knowledge, until he fell ardently in love at the age of 12. Throughout life he has practised masturbation to a certain extent, and is prepared to defend the practice in his own case. His erotic dreams have been of only the vaguest and most shadowy character. He is able to whistle. He takes a warm interest in politics and in philanthropic work. But his chief love is for music and he has published many musical compositions. On the whole, and notwithstanding the persecution he has endured, he does not regard his life as unhappy. At the same time he is keenly conscious of the atmosphere of "Pariahdom" which surrounds inverts, and in his own case this has never been alleviated by any sense of companionship in misery. The facility with which some inverts are said to recognize others of their own kind is quite incomprehensible to him; he has never to his knowledge met one. HISTORY VI.--E.S., physician, aged 50. "I have some reason," he writes, "for believing that some of my relatives (on the paternal side) were not normal in their sexual life. But I am sure that no such suspicion was entertained by their friends or associates; they were very reticent people. A great proportion of my near relatives have remained unmarried or deferred marriage until late in life. None of them have been good business men; all seem to have been more deeply concerned in other things than in making--or in keeping--money. They have mostly taken little or no share in public life, and not cared much for society. Yet they have been folk of more than average ability, with intellectual and æsthetic interests. We are prone to enthusiasms, but lack perseverance. We are discursive and superficial, perhaps, but none would call us stupid. We are perhaps abnormally self-centered and self-conscious--never cruel or vicious. Our powers of self-control are considerable; we are conventional people only because we are lazy and intensely dislike any open self-assertion. Yet we are nervous rather than phlegmatic. All that is on the father's side. My maternal ancestors have been concerned with farming and the sea and have also had a similar lack of business capacity, but with less mental adaptiveness and alertness, with more steadiness of purpose, however, always doers rather than dreamers. Among them I remember one cousin who was probably abnormal, although he died when I was too young to notice much. Again, they were all rather reserved people, but more genial with strangers, more socially inclined, and with less self-control. "I was an only child and a spoilt one. I was always quick at school, fond of learning, and finding my lessons no trouble. Serious study I disliked. But for school purposes I did not find it necessary, and had no difficulty in carrying all before me. I was never fond of games, although very fond of being out of doors and of walking. Few of my relatives have been at all keen on sport. I made no close friendships at school and was never very popular with my schoolfellows, who, however, tolerated my odd ways better than might have been expected. I was easily brought to appreciate good literature, but I never had much power of expression or of strenuous thought. I was extremely susceptible and impressible, moved by beauty of any kind, but never at all ambitious or in any way creative. I was easily stimulated to work, and then loved to work; but, unless the stimulus were maintained the natural indolence of my disposition asserted itself, and I wasted my powers in dreams and trifles. My memory was very quick and retentive, in the main, but curiously capricious. I always lacked initiative and decision. At college my successes were continued. I gained medals and prizes, passed my examinations easily, and graduated 'with first-class honors.' In my professional lifework I have been successful rather beyond the average. I love it with all my heart. "I cannot speak with any confidence about the first stirrings of my sexual instincts, but I think I can assert that they have at no time led me to any desire for the opposite sex. It is true that my earliest recollection of the kind is concerned with intimacies with a girl play-fellow, but as we had at the time reached only the mature age of 7 (at the most) I fancy that our mutual exhibitions--for there was nothing more--simply satisfied our natural curiosity. Certainly these memories are, in my mind, in no way set apart from the recollections of other kinds of play. Next to that I remember the usual schoolboy talk about things hidden and forbidden, but up till I was 12 or so this was simply dirty talk, concerned more with renal and intestinal functions than with any sexual feelings or understanding. One boy was known to us all (and of my not inconsiderable circle of early friends, all grew up to be normal people, who married and had children in due course) for the unusual size of his parts and for the freedom with which he invited and satisfied the curiosity of his friends. He must have been precocious, for he could not have been more than 12, and I remember to have heard that he had a thick growth of pubic hair. Even then, although I know that my curiosity--to put it at that only--was active, I never allowed myself to have any dealings with him; and I think I should have discouraged them had they been suggested to me. That is the odd thing about my life: the things I longed intensely to do I would not let myself do, not from any religious or moral scruple, but from some inexplicable fastidiousness or scrupulosity which is yet as active as ever, although I am sure that it would not be able to hold its own could these favorable conditions be repeated, but would be overcome by the imperious and fully grown desires which, by long repression, or by unsatisfactory diversion, have grown to be so strong. Indeed, given the opportunity, and the assurance that no first seduction or corruption of anyone was in question, they would prove quite irrepressible. "Certainly, long before puberty--which was early with me--I remember being greatly attracted to certain boys, and wishing to have an opportunity of sleeping with them. Had I been able to do so, I am sure I should have been impelled to get into as close contact with their naked body as possible, and I do not think I should then have craved for anything more. I knew some boys--perhaps a little older--who even then had relations, which were certainly not innocent, with a girl who was a year or two older than any of us. She once kissed me, to my intense shame. But I felt that these relations would have been unspeakably disgusting and I took no particular interest in hearing about them. I remember being fondled and caressed by a very good-looking boy of 16 when I was three or four years younger and had sustained some hurt at play; and I am still able to recall the thrill of delight that I experienced at his touch. Nothing took place that all the world might not have seen, but I remember being taken between his knees as he sat, and his arms being put around my neck, and the warm, soft pressure of his thighs had an unspeakable effect on me. "About this time, too, an older boy, perhaps about 18, used to get hold of smaller boys when on country walks, to throw them down and then look at and toy with their genitals. He was himself a handsome boy, and I was greatly excited when told about this by boys who had experienced it, and wished greatly to have it done to me. It never was; and if it had been attempted I know I should have resisted with all my strength, although my desires would have set me aflame. This boy died before he was 20, with a psoas abscess, and I remember crying myself to sleep the night I learned of his death. Another boy, about three years older than myself, who had very silky hair, I used to be attracted by and I was always trying to stroke his hair, but he always objected. "I must have been about 12 when I first was taught to masturbate by a cousin who was slightly older. At first I thought it silly, but I used to watch him at it, and practised it myself from time to time until I became old enough to experience the proper sensation. Then I have reason to think I gave myself up to it rather freely, but it was generally done in solitude, although it was long before I realized that there was anything wrong about it or that it might prove hurtful. Looking back now, I feel perfectly certain that my instincts were wholly homosexual from the very first. This cousin, who possessed notable intellectual and artistic gifts, married, but I feel sure his liking for his own sex was not normal. "With another cousin, almost years my junior, I was always on terms of the most affectionate intimacy. My holidays at his parents' house were my greatest delight. We were always together by night or day; we slept in the same bed, literally in each other's arms. To me it afforded the keenest sexual pleasure to press close to his naked body. We used mutually to handle and caress our parts, but without any attempt at mutual masturbation, although at that period I regularly practised it on myself. I asked him once about it, but he had not been taught it by others; and to my great pride and satisfaction I can say that I never either did it to him or asked him to do it to me. This I mention as an instance of my restraint in act, although my thoughts and desires knew no such curb. I remember also an elder brother of his, perhaps three or four years my senior, once showing me (then about 12, I suppose) his semierect penis. He would not allow me to touch it, but showed me how to draw back the foreskin so as to uncover the glans. His penis was large, and the incident was not forgotten. We had no other relation and I know that both he and my own friend grew up to be quite normal men. "I think I must have been about 17 when I got frightened about the occurrence of nocturnal emissions, which I believed were the evil result of masturbation, and for two or three years I continued in considerable mental distress until, when in my second or third year at college, I summoned up courage enough to consult our good old family doctor, who reassured me, but made, I now think, too light of my confidences, so that I relapsed the more readily, although much later on, into old habits. "From our windows at home we looked over a bit of common or down to the beach, and I used to keep watch on warm summer afternoons; over boys who might be bathing, to observe them through our telescope. All this I kept strictly secret and I was never surprised. I might just as well, and without arousing the slightest suspicion of my motive, have walked down to the beach and seen them and chatted with them; but this I could not have brought myself to do. It gave me considerable sexual satisfaction when I was able to see them bathing without pants. I also used to watch them at play on the common, and felt rewarded when I saw, as I not infrequently did, sexual familiarities taking place. These violently excited me and sometimes brought on orgasm, always erection with pleasure. Indeed, it was an experience of this kind that made me return to masturbation after I had given it up for a while. I remember one day seeing two lads of about 16 lying on the grass in the sunshine; all at once the bigger lad put out his hand and tried to open his companion's trousers. He resisted with all his might, and a long struggle ensued, ending in the smaller lad having his penis exposed and manipulated by the other. Even at this day the recollection of this excites me. Both lads grew up to be normal men. "Twice only have I been approached by grown-up people. When I was about 13 I used to meet often, when going to school by train, an old gentleman who courted me, as it were, used often to talk to me and asked me to come to see his well-known scientific collections, but I always had a vague distrust of him and never went. One day in the summer during a spare hour I met him in an empty room in the museum, where there were usually very few visitors at that time of day, and where large show-cases gave concealment. He came up to me and told me he had been away in the country, and that, when making his way home through hedges and thorny bushes, some of the thorns got stuck amongst his clothes and were still giving him uneasiness. 'I would be very grateful,' he said, 'if you would put your hand down and try if you can feel any thorns sticking in my underflannels and pull them out.' He then unbuttoned his braces on one side, undid his trousers and made me thrust my hand over his groin and lower abdomen. I avoided touching his genitals, but he pushed my hand down in that direction until, burning with shame, I made my escape and ran off, not stopping until I was safe in school. I scarcely understood it, but never spoke of it, and avoided him ever afterward. I learned later on that he was a well-off bachelor who took a great interest in working lads and young men and did much to help them on in life and keep them, so it was said, from falling into bad company. He died at a great age and left most of his fortune to an institution for lads, as well as large legacies to youths in whom he had been interested. "The other time was on top of a tramcar when a grown-up man who was near pressed as close to me as he could, began to talk, praised my dark eyes, then put his hand on my thigh under my loose cloak and felt up toward my parts. At the same time he took hold of my hand, caressed it and put it over his parts (it was in the dusk). This excited me and, if we had not been at our destination, I think I would gladly have permitted further familiarities. He tried to ask me where I lived, but there was no time to answer, and the female relative who was with me (on another seat) would no doubt have prevented this from having any further sequel. "On more than one occasion I have experienced the sexual orgasm as the result of mental anxiety. The first time this occurred was when I was hurrying to avoid being late for school. Another time was when I was about 24, and was extremely anxious to fill an appointment for which I was late. So copious was the emission that I had to go home and change. "As a medical student, the first reference bearing definitely on the subject of sexual inversion was made in the class of Medical Jurisprudence, where certain sexual crimes were alluded to--very summarily and inadequately--but nothing was said of the existence of sexual inversion as the 'normal' condition of certain unhappy people, nor was any distinction drawn between the various non-normal acts, which were all classed together as manifestations of the criminal depravity of ordinary or insane people. To a student beginning to be acutely conscious that his sexual nature differed profoundly from that of his fellows, nothing could be more perplexing and disturbing, and it shut me up more completely in my reserve than ever. I felt that this teaching must be based on some radical error or prejudice or misapprehension, for I knew from my own very clear remembrance of my own development that my peculiarity was not acquired, but inborn; my great misfortune undoubtedly, but not my fault. "It was still more unfortunate that in the course of the lectures on Clinical Medicine there was not the slightest allusion to the subject. All sorts of rare diseases--some of which I have not yet met with in the course of twenty-one years of a busy practice--were fully discussed, but we were left entirely ignorant of a subject so vitally important to me personally, and, as it seems to me, to the profession to which I aspired. There might have been an incidental reference to masturbation--although I do not remember it--but its real significance received no attention; and what we students knew of it was the result of our reading or of our personal experiences. "In the class of Mental Disease there was, naturally, more detailed and systematic reference to facts in the sexual life and to sexual inversion as a rare pathological condition. But still there was not a comforting word to reassure me, growing ever more hopelessly ashamed of what it seemed was a criminal or a gravely morbid nature. "Among all my fellow-students I knew of no one constituted like myself; but my natural reserve--increased, of course, by my consciousness of what I saw would be thought to be a criminal tendency--did not urge me to exchange of confidences or to the formation of; close friendships. "After graduation I became a resident medical officer in the hospital and private assistant to one of the professors--a physician and teacher of worldwide reputation. With him I associated on the most cordial and affectionate terms; and often in the course of conversation I tried to bring him to discuss the subject, but without success. It was obviously unpleasant and uninteresting to him. Enough was said, however, to enable me to realize that he held the current ideas on the subject; and I would not for worlds have allowed him, to guess that I myself came under the despised and tainted category. "I have seldom heard sexual inversion discussed among my professional friends. They speak of it with disgust or amusement. I have never met a professional man who would consider it dispassionately and scientifically. For them it was a subject entirely belonging to psychological medicine. "I have had no admitted case of it among my patients; but I have often instinctively felt that some who consulted me about other matters would have taken me into their confidence about that, but for their fear of being cruelly misunderstood. "As to my moral attitude I fear to speak. Grossness disgusts me; but I am not sure that I should be able to resist temptation placed in my way. But I am absolutely sure that I should never, under any circumstances, tempt others to any disgraceful act. If I ever committed any sexual act with one of my own sex whom I loved, I could not look at it or approach it in any other than a sacramental way. This sounds blasphemous and shocking, but I cannot otherwise express my meaning. "As regards the marriage of inverts, my own feeling is that for a congenital invert--no matter how fully the situation be explained beforehand--it is a step fraught with too great possibilities of tragedy and of the deepest unhappiness, to be advised at all. My view is that for the invert, far more than for the ordinary person, there is no escape from the supreme necessity of self-control in any relationship he may form. If that be attained then the ideal is a relationship with another man of similar temperament--not a platonic one, necessarily--by means of which the highest happiness of both may be reached. But this can occur _very_ seldom. "To poetry and the fine arts I am very susceptible, and I have given a great deal of time to this study. I am devoted heart and soul to music, which is more and more to me every year I live. Trivial or light music I cannot endure, but of Beethoven, Bach, Händel, Schumann, Schubert, Brahms, Tschaikowsky, and Wagner I should never hear enough. Here, too, my sympathies, are very catholic, and I delight in McDowell, Debussy, Richard Strauss, and Hugo Wolf." HISTORY VII.--"My parentage is very sound and healthy. Both my parents (who belong to the professional middle class) have good general health; nor can I trace any marked abnormal or diseased tendency, of mind or body, in any records of the family. "Though of a strongly nervous temperament myself, and sensitive, my health is good. I am not aware of any tendency to physical disease. In early manhood, however, owing, I believe, to the great emotional tension under which I lived, my nervous system was a good deal shattered and exhausted. Mentally and morally my nature is pretty well balanced, and I have never had any serious perturbations in these departments. "At the age of 8 or 9, and long before distinct sexual feelings declared themselves, I felt a friendly attraction toward my own sex, and this developed after the age of puberty into a passionate sense of love, which, however, never found any expression for itself till I was fully 20 years of age. I was a day-boarder at school and heard little of school-talk on sex subjects, was very reserved and modest besides; no elder person or parent ever spoke to me on such matters; and the passion for my own sex developed gradually, utterly uninfluenced from the outside. I never even, during all this period, and till a good deal later, learned the practice of masturbation. My own sexual nature was a mystery to me. I found myself cut off from the understanding of others, felt myself an outcast, and, with a highly loving and clinging temperament, was intensely miserable. I thought about my male friends--sometimes boys of my own age, sometimes elder boys, and once even a master--during the day and dreamed about them at night, but was too convinced that I was a hopeless monstrosity ever to make any effectual advances. Later on it was much the same, but gradually, though slowly, I came to find that there were others like myself. I made a few special friends, and at last it came to me occasionally to sleep with them and to satisfy my imperious need by mutual embraces and emissions. Before this happened, however, I was once or twice on the brink of despair and madness with repressed passion and torment. "Meanwhile, from the first, my feeling, physically, toward the female sex was one of indifference, and later on, with the more special development of sex desires, one of positive repulsion. Though having several female friends, whose society I like and to whom I am sincerely attached, the thought of marriage or cohabitation with any such has always been odious to me. "As a boy I was attracted in general by boys rather older than myself; after leaving school I still fell in love, in a romantic vein, with comrades of my own standing. Now,--at the age of 37,--my ideal of love is a powerful, strongly built man, of my own age or rather younger--preferably of the working class. Though having solid sense and character, he need not be specially intellectual. If endowed in the latter way, he must not be too glib or refined. Anything effeminate in a man, or anything of the cheap intellectual style, repels me very decisively. "I have never had to do with actual pederasty, so called. My chief desire in love is bodily nearness or contact, as to sleep naked with a naked friend; the specially sexual, though urgent enough, seems a secondary matter. Pederasty, either active or passive, might seem in place to me with one I loved very devotedly and who also loved me to that degree; but I think not otherwise. I am an artist by temperament and choice, fond of all beautiful things, especially the male human form; of active, slight, muscular build; and sympathetic, but somewhat indecisive character, though possessing self-control. "I cannot regard my sexual feelings as unnatural or abnormal, since they have disclosed themselves so perfectly naturally and spontaneously within me. All that I have read in books or heard spoken about the ordinary sexual love, its intensity and passion, lifelong devotion, love at first sight, etc., seems to me to be easily matched by my own experiences in the homosexual form; and, with regard to the morality of this complex subject, my feeling is that it is the same as should prevail in love between man and woman, namely: that no bodily satisfaction should be sought at the cost of another person's distress or degradation. I am sure that this kind of love is, notwithstanding the physical difficulties that attend it, as deeply stirring and ennobling as the other kind, if not more so; and I think that for a perfect relationship the actual sex gratifications (whatever they may be) probably hold a less important place in this love than in the other." HISTORY VIII.--M.N., aged 30. "My grandfather might be said to be of abnormal temperament, for, though of very humble origin, he organized and carried out an extremely arduous mission work and became an accomplished linguist, translating the Bible into an Eastern tongue and compiling the first dictionary of that language. He died, practically of overwork, at the age of 45. He was twice married, my father being his third son by the second wife. I believe that two, if not more, of the family (numbering seven in all) were inverted, and the only one of them to marry was my father. My grandmother was the last representative of an old and very 'wild' Irish family. She died at an advanced age, of paralysis. My father was 36 and my mother 21 at the time of their marriage. I was born three years after and was their only child. The marriage proved a most unhappy one, they being utterly unsuited to each other in every way. "My father's health during the first years of his marriage was very delicate, and I have reason to believe that it had been undermined in certain ways by his life abroad. I understand I was born with slight gonorrheal affection, and as a child my health was very indifferent. This latter may have been brought about by the peculiarly unhappy and unnatural life I led. I had no companions of my own age, and did not even attend any school until after my mother's death. My father superintended my education up to that time, and I had free access to a large and very varied library, and a great deal of solitary leisure to enjoy it in. There were a number of medical and scientific books in it, which were my principal favorites, and I remember deciding at a very early age to be a doctor. When about 5 years old I recollect having a sexual dream connected with a railway porter. It afforded me great pleasure to recall this dream, and about that time I discovered a method of self-gratification (there is not much 'teaching' required in these matters!). "I cannot say that the dream I have mentioned constituted absolutely the first intimation of inverted feeling, but rather that it crystallized vague ideas which I might have already had on the subject. I can recollect that when about between 3 and 4 years of age a young fellow of about 20 came to our house several times as a visitor. He was fond of children, I suppose, and I generally sat on his knee and was kissed by him. This was a source of great pleasure to me, but I cannot remember if it was accompanied by erection. I can only recall that his attention and caresses made a greater impression upon me than those of women. When about that age too I was often aroused when sleeping with my mother, and told not to lie on my face. I remember that erection was always present on these occasions. The dream was the first of many of its kind, and in my case they have never been accompanied by emission. They have always been of an 'inverted' character, though I have occasionally had dreams about women. These latter, however, have usually partaken somewhat of the nature of a nightmare! "Up to the age of 14 I felt much perplexed and depressed by my views on sexual desire, and was convinced that they were peculiar to myself. This, combined with the solitary condition of my life, and about four years' continued ill-treatment prior to my mother's death (she had given way to drink for that period), had a very injurious effect on my health, mental and bodily. Looking back from my present point of view, I can understand and forgive many things which appeared monstrous and unjust to me as a child. My mother's life must have been a very unhappy one, and she was bitterly disappointed in many ways, very likely in me as well. My unfortunate, misunderstood temperament led me to be shy and secretive, and I was often ailing, and my training was not calculated to improve matters. At last, however, change and freedom came, and I was sent to a boarding-school. Here, of course, I soon met with attachments and gratifications with other boys. I arrived at puberty, and my health improved under happier surroundings. I was not long in discovering that my companions viewed the pleasures that meant so much to me from an entirely different standpoint. Their gratifications were usually accompanied by conversation about, and a general direction of thought toward, females. When I had turned 15, owing to monetary difficulties I was obliged to leave school, and was soon not only thrown on my own resources, but accountable to no one but myself for my conduct. Of course, my next discovery was that my case, so far from being peculiar, was a most common one, and I was quickly initiated into all the mysteries of inversion, with its freemasonry and 'argot.' Altogether my experience of inverts has been a pretty wide and varied one, and I have always endeavored to classify and compare cases which have come under my notice with a view to arriving at some sort of conclusion or explanation. "I suppose it is due to female versatility or impressibility that it is possible for me to experience mentally the emotions attributable to either sex, according to the age and temperament of my companion; for instance, with one older than myself, possessing well-marked male characteristics, I am able to feel all that surrender and dependence which is so essentially feminine. On the other hand, if with a youth of feminine type and behavior I can realize, with an equal amount of pleasure, the tender, yet dominant, attitude of the male. "I experience no particular 'horror' of women sexually. I should imagine that my feeling toward them resembles very much what normal people feel with regard to others of their own sex." M.N. remarks that he cannot whistle, and that his favorite color is green. In this case the subject easily found a moral _modus vivendi_ with his inverted instinct, and he takes its gratification for granted. In the following case, which, I believe, is typical of a large group, the subject has never yielded to his inverted impulses, and, except so far as masturbation is concerned, has preserved strict chastity. HISTORY IX.--R.S., aged 31, American of French descent. "Upon the question of heredity I may say that I belong to a reasonably healthy, prolific, and long-lived family. On my father's side, however, there is a tendency toward pulmonary troubles. He himself died of pneumonia, and two of his brothers and a nephew of consumption. Neither of my parents were morbid or eccentric. Excepting for a certain shyness with strangers, my father was a very masculine man. My mother is somewhat nervous, but is not imaginative, nor at all demonstrative in her affections. I think that my own imaginative and artistic temperament must come from my father's side. Perhaps my French ancestry has something to do with it. With the exception of my maternal grandfather, all my progenitors have been of French descent. My mother's father was English. "I possess a mercurial temperament and a strong sense of the ludicrous. Though my _physique_ is slight, my health has always been excellent. Of late years especially I have been greatly given to introspection and self-scrutiny, but have never had any hallucinations, mental delusions, nor hysterics, and am not at all superstitious. Spiritualistic manifestations, hypnotic dabblings, and the other psychical fads of the day have little or no attraction for me. In fact, I have always been skeptical of them, and they rather bore me. "At school I was an indolent, dreamy boy, shirking study, but otherwise fairly docile to my teachers. From earliest childhood I have indulged in omnivorous taste for reading, my particular likings being for travels, esthetics, metaphysical and theological subjects, and more recently for poetry and certain forms of mysticism. I never cared much for history or for scientific subjects. From the beginning, too, I showed a strong artistic bent, and possessed an overpowering love for all things beautiful. As a child I was passionately fond of flowers, loved to be in the woods and alone, and wanted to become an artist. My parents opposed the latter wish and I gave way before their opposition. "In me the homosexual nature is singularly complete, and is undoubtedly congenital. The most intense delight of my childhood (even when a tiny boy in a nurse's charge) was to watch acrobats and riders at the circus. This was not so much for the skillful feats as on account of the beauty of their persons. Even then I cared chiefly for the more lithe and graceful fellows. People told me that circus actors were wicked, and would steal little boys, and so I came to look upon my favorites as half-devil and half-angel. When I was older and could go about alone, I would often hang around the tents of travelling shows in hope of catching a glimpse of the actors. I longed to see them naked, without their tights, and used to lie awake at night thinking of them and longing to be loved and embraced by them. A certain bareback rider, a sort of jockey, used especially to please me on account of his handsome legs, which were clothed in fleshlings up to his waist, leaving his beautiful loins uncovered by a breech-clout. There was nothing consciously sensual about these reveries, because at the time I had no sensual feelings or knowledge. Curiously enough, the women-actors repelled me then (as they do to this day) quite as strongly as I was attracted by the men. "I used, also, to take great pleasure in watching men and boys in swimming, but my opportunities for seeing them thus were extremely rare. I never dared let my comrades know how I felt about these matters, but the sight of a well-formed, naked youth or man would fill me (and does now) with mingled feelings of bashfulness, anguish, and delight. I used to tell myself endless stories of a visionary castle inhabited by beautiful boys, one of whom was especially my dear chum. "It was always the _prince_, in fairy tales, who held my interest or affection. I was constantly falling in love with handsome boys whom I never knew; nor did I ever try to mix in their company, for I was abashed before them, and had no liking nor aptitude for boyish games. Sometimes I played with girls because they were more quiet and gentler, but I cared for them little or not at all. "As is usually the case, my parents neglected to impart to me any sexual knowledge, and such as I possessed was gathered furtively from tainted sources, bad boys' talk at school and elsewhere. My elders let me know, in a vague way, that talk of the kind was wicked, and natural timidity and a wish to be 'good' kept me from learning much about sexual matters. As I never went to boarding-school, I was spared, perhaps, many of the degrading initiations administered by knowing boys at such institutions. "In spite of what has been said above, I do not believe that I was sexually very precocious, and even now I feel that more pleasure would ensue from merely contemplating than from personal contact with the object of my amorous attentions. "As I grew older there came, of course, an undefined physical longing, but it was the _beauty_ of those I admired which mainly appealed to me. At the time of puberty I spontaneously acquired the habit of masturbation. Once while bathing I found that a pleasant feeling came with touching the sexual organs. It was not long before I was confirmed in the habit. At first I practised it but seldom, but afterward much more frequently (say, once a week), though at times months have elapsed without any indulgences on my part. I have only had erotic dreams three or four times in my life. The masturbation habit I regard as morally reprehensible and have made many resolutions to break it, but without avail. It affords me only the most momentary satisfaction, and is always followed by remorseful scruples. "I have never in my life had any sexual feeling for a woman, nor any sexual connection with any woman whatsoever. The very thought of such a thing is excessively repugnant and disgusting to me. This is true, apart from any moral considerations, and I do not think I could bring myself to it. I am not attracted by young women in any way. Even their physical beauty has little or no charm for me, and I often wonder how men can be so affected by it. On the other hand, I am not a woman-hater, and have several strong friends of the opposite sex. They are, however, women older than myself, and our friendship is based solely on certain intellectual or esthetic tastes we have in common. "I have had practically no physical relations with men; at any rate, none specifically sexual. Once, when about 19 or 21, I started to embrace a beautifully formed youth with whom I was sleeping, but timidity and scruples got the better of my feelings, and, as my bedfellow was not amorously inclined toward me, nothing came of it. A few years after this I became strongly attached to a friend whom I had already known for several years. Circumstances threw us very much together during one summer. It was now that I felt for the first time the full shock of love. He returned my affection, but both of us were shy of showing our feelings or speaking of them. Often when walking together after night-fall we would put our arms about each other. Sometimes, too, when sleeping together we would lie in close contact, and my friend once suggested that I put my legs against his. He frequently begged me to spend the night with him; but I began to fear my feelings, and slept with him but seldom. We neither of us had any definite ideas about homosexual relations, and, apart from what I have related above, we had no further contact with each other. A few months after our amorous feelings had developed my friend died. His death caused me great distress, and my naturally religious temperament began to manifest itself quite strongly. At this time, too, I first read some writings of Mr. Addington Symonds, and certain allusions in his work, coupled with my recent experience, soon stirred me to a full consciousness of my inverted nature. "About eight months after my friend's death I happened to meet in a strange town a youth of about my own age who exerted upon me a strong and instant attraction. He possessed a refined, handsome face, was gracefully built, and, though he was rather undemonstrative, we soon became fast friends. "We were together only for a few days, when I was obliged to leave for my home, and the parting caused me great unhappiness and depression. A few months after we spent a vacation together. One day during our trip we went swimming, and undressed in the same bathhouse. When I saw my friend naked for the first time he seemed to me so beautiful that I longed to throw my arms about him and cover him with kisses. I kept my feelings hidden, however, hardly daring to look at him for fear of being unable to restrain my desires. Several times afterward, in his room, I saw him stripped, with the same effect upon my emotions. Until I had seen him naked my feelings for him were not of a physical character, but afterward I longed for actual contact, but only by embraces and kisses. Though he was fond of me, he had absolutely no amorous longings for me, and being a simple, pure-minded fellow, would have loathed me for mine and my inverted nature. I was careful never to let him discover it, and I was made very unhappy when he confided that he was in love with a young girl whom he wished to marry. This episode took place several years ago, and though we are still friends my emotional feelings for him have cooled considerably. "I have always been very shy of showing any affectionate tendencies. Most of my acquaintances (and close friends even) think me curiously cold, and often wonder why I have never fallen in love or married. For obvious reasons I have never been able to tell them. "Three or four years ago a little book by Coventry Patmore fell into my hands, and from its perusal resulted a strange blending of my religious and erotic notions. The desire to love and be loved is hard to drown, and, when I realized that homosexually it was neither lawful nor possible for me to love in this world, I began to project my longings into the next. By birth I am a Roman Catholic, and in spite of a somewhat skeptical temper, manage to remain one by conviction. "From the doctrines of the Trinity, Incarnation, and Eucharist, I have drawn conclusions which would fill the minds of the average pietist with holy horror; nevertheless I believe that (granting the premises) these conclusions are both logically and theologically defensible. The Divinity of my fancied paradise resembles in no way the vapid conceptions of Fra Angelico, or the Quartier St. Sulpice. His physical aspect, at least, would be better represented by some Praxitilean demigod or Flandrin's naked, brooding boy. "While these imaginings have caused me considerable moral disquietude, they do not seem wholly reprehensible, because I feel that the chief happiness I would derive by their realization would be mainly from the contemplation of the loved one, rather than from closer joys. "I possess only a slight knowledge of the history and particulars of erotic mysticism, but it is likely that my notions are neither new nor peculiar, and many utterances of the few mystical writers with whose works I am acquainted seem substantially in accord with my own longings and conclusions. In endeavoring to find for them some sanction of valid authority, I have always sought corroboration from members of my own sex; hence am less likely to have fashioned my views after those of hypersensitive or hysterical women. "You will rightly infer that it is difficult for me to say exactly how I regard (morally) the homosexual tendency. Of this much, however, I am certain, that, even, if it were possible, I would not exchange my inverted nature for a normal one. I suspect that the sexual emotions and even inverted ones have a more subtle significance than is generally attributed to them; but modern moralists either fight shy of transcendental interpretations or see none, and I am ignorant and unable to solve the mystery these feelings seem to imply. "Patmore speaks boldly enough, in his way, and Lacordaire has hinted at things, but in a very guarded manner. I have neither the ability nor opportunity to study what the mystics of the Middle Ages have to say along these lines, and, besides, the medieval way of looking at things is not congenial to me. The chief characteristic of my tendency is an overpowering admiration for male beauty, and in this I am more akin to the Greeks. "I have absolutely no words to tell you how powerfully such beauty affects me. Moral and intellectual worth is, I know, of greater value, but physical beauty I _see_ more clearly, and it appears to me the most _vivid_ (if not the most perfect) manifestation of the divine. A little incident may, perhaps, reveal to you my feelings more completely. Not long ago I happened to see an unusually well-formed young fellow enter a house of assignation with a common woman of the streets. The sight filled me with the keenest anguish, and the thought that his beauty would soon be at the disposal of a prostitute made me feel as if I were a powerless and unhappy witness to a sacrilege. It may be that my rage for male loveliness is only another outbreaking of the old Platonic mania, for as time goes on I find that I long less for the actual youth before me, and more and more for some ideal, perfect being whose bodily splendor and loving heart are the realities whose reflections only we see in this cave of shadows. Since the birth and development within me of what, for lack of a better name, I term my homosexualized Patmorean ideal, life has become, in the main, a weary business. I am not despondent, however, because many things still hold for me a certain interest. When that interest dies down, as it is wont from time to time, I endeavor to be patient. God grant that, after the end _here_, I may be drawn from the shadow, and seemingly vain imaginings into the possession of their never-ending reality _hereafter_." HISTORY X.--A.H., aged 62. Belongs to a family which cannot be regarded as healthy, but there is no insanity among near relations. Father a very virile man of high character and good intelligence, but not sound physical health. Mother was high-strung and nervous, but possessed of indomitable courage and very affectionate; she lived very happily with her husband. She became a chronic invalid and died of consumption. A.H. was a seven months' child, the third in the family, who were born very rapidly, so that there is only three years difference in the ages of the first and third children. A.H. believes that one of his brothers, who has never married and prefers men to women, is also inverted, though not to the same degree as himself, and he also suspects that a relation of his mother's may have been an invert. Sister, who resembles the father in character, is married, but is spoken of as a woman's woman rather than a man's woman. The family generally are considered proud and reserved, but of superior mental endowment. In early life A.H. was delicate and his studies were often interrupted by illness. Though living under happy conditions he was shy and nervous, often depressed. In later life his health has been up to the average, and he has usually been able to conceal his mental doubts and diffidence. As a child he played with dolls and made girls his companions until an age when he grew conscious that his conduct was unusual and became ashamed, while his father seemed troubled about him. He regards himself as having been a very childish child. His conscious sexual life began between the ages of 8 and 10. He was playing in the garden when he saw a manservant who had long been with the family, standing at the door of a shed with his penis exposed and erect. The boy had never seen anything of the kind before, but felt great delight in the exhibition and moved shyly toward the man, who retreated into the shed. The boy followed and was allowed to caress and play with the penis until ejaculation took place, the man replying, in reply to the child's innocent inquiries, that it "felt good." This experience was frequently repeated with the same man, and the boy confided in a boy friend, with whom he tried to ascertain by personal experience what the "good feeling" was like, but they were too young to derive any pleasure from the attempt beyond the joy of what was instinctively felt to be "eating forbidden fruit." From this period his sexual tendencies began to become fixed and self-conscious. He has never at any period of life had a moment's conscious sexual attraction toward a person of the opposite sex. His warmest friendships have, indeed, been with women and much, perhaps most, of the happiness he has enjoyed has been furnished by those friendships. But passion has only been aroused by persons of his own sex, generally by men much younger than himself. He feels shy and uncomfortable in the presence of men of his own age. But even at his present age, a touch of a man or boy may cause the liveliest gratification. Shortly after the incident in boyhood, already narrated, A.H. induced a little boy companion to go to a quiet spot, where, at A.H.'s suggestion, each placed the other's penis in his mouth by turns. A.H. had never heard of such a proceeding. It was a natural instinct. He began to masturbate at an early age. But he soon found a companion to share his passion. An older man, especially, married and with a family, became his accomplice on every possible opportunity, and they would manipulate each other. At the age of 21, _fellatio_ began to be practised with this man. It became a lifelong practice, and the preferred method of sexual gratification. He likes best to have it performed on himself, but he has never asked anyone to do for him what he would not himself do for the other if desired. There has never been _pedicatio_. The penis, it may be added, is of good size, and the testicles rather large. No one has ever suspected A.H.'s sexual perversion, not even his physician, with whom he has long had a close friendship, until at a time of great mental distress A.H. voluntarily revealed his state. He is accustomed to refined society, has always read much, abhorred athletic pursuits, and loved poetry, children, and flowers. His love of nature amounts, indeed, to a passion. Wherever he has been he has made friends among the best people. He confesses to occasional periods of addiction to intoxicants, induced by sociable companionship, and only controlled by force of will. For business he has not the slightest aptitude, and cannot look after his own affairs. He is always dreading poverty and destitution. He believes, however, that he passes among his friends as fairly capable. He considers that inversion is natural in his case and that he has a perfect right to gratify his own natural instincts, though he also admits they may be vices. He has never sought to influence an innocent person toward his own tendencies. HISTORY XI.--T.D., knows of nothing abnormal in his ancestry. His brother has homosexual tendencies, but is also attracted to women. A sister, who is very religious, states that she has little or no sexual inclinations. They were all of a dreamy disposition when young, to the disgust of their teachers. He sent the following account of himself from the University at the age of 20:-- "When I was a child (before I went to school at 9)," he writes, "I was already of an affectionate disposition, an affection turned readily to either sex. No boy was the cause of my inclinations, which were quite spontaneous. (No doubt, part of the cause may be found in our social system, by which ladies are rather drawing-room creatures to be treated with distant respect.) When I was 10, at a preparatory school, I first began to form attachments with other boys of my own age, in which I always had regard to physical beauty. It is this stage, in which the sexual element is latent, that Shelley speaks of as preceding love in ardent natures. "At 12 I learned masturbation, apparently by instinct, and, I regret to say, practised it to excess for the next seven years, always secretly and with shame, and often with the accompaniment of prurient imaginings which did not prevent my relations with those I loved being of a very spiritual nature. Masturbation was often practised daily, with bursts of repentance and abstinence, latterly more rarely. But until I was 15 I really knew nothing of sexual matters, and it was not till I was at least 17 that I was conscious of sexual desire, which I repressed with shame. "Owing to excessive self-abuse, I am unable to emit except manually, but desire is strong. I think naked contact would suffice, and in any case intercrural connection. _Pedicatio_ and _fellatio_ I abhor. I love boys between the ages of 12 and 15; they must be of my own class, refined, and lovable. I only desire the active masculine part. I now regard my inclinations as natural and normal to me. The difficulty is that of leading the other party to regard it as such, besides the young age required and clandestine nature of proceedings necessary. The moral difficulties of circumstances are so strong that I have little hope of ever gratifying my passion fully. I have found myself deceived in the character of the boy twice. The last friendship lasted three years, during which time I only saw him naked two or three times (this caused erection), never touched him pruriently, and only kissed him once. "I have never found a satisfactory object of my affections, and my happiness, perhaps my health, have been seriously injured. At my public school a master helped me to a truer understanding of these things. The merely animal sodomy which exists in many public schools was unknown. What I learned of sex I learned for myself. I am recommended to turn my aspirations to the abstract universal maid; but so far at least I cannot do it. "Male Greek statuary and the _Phoedrus_ of Plato have had a great, though only confirmatory, influence on my feelings. My ideal is that of Theocritus XIII, wherein Hercules was bringing Hylas to the perfect measure of a man. My first thought is the good of my friend, but, except for the good subjective influence of passion, I have failed utterly. "I am very tall, dark, rather strong, fond of games, though I do not excel, owing to short sight. I am English, though I have French blood, which may account for an unreservedly passionate disposition. Though unlike other people, I am not in the least feminine, nor has anyone thought so to my knowledge. I can whistle easily and well. I am so masculine that I cannot even conceive of passive sexual pleasure in women, much less in men. (That is one of the difficulties in boy-love.) My affections are inextricably bound up in the ideals of protection of one weaker than myself. In the earlier days, when sexuality was less conscious, this was a great source of romantic feeling, the glamour of which is rather departing. I cannot understand love of adult males, much less if they are of lower class, and the idea of prostitution is nauseous to me. "I think I may say that I have the esthetic and moral sense very strongly ingrained. Indeed, they are largely synonymous with me. I have no dramatic aptitude, and, though I flatter myself that my taste is good in music, I have no knowledge of music. If I have a favorite color, it is a dark crimson or blue, of the nature of old stained glass. I derive great pleasure from all literary and pictorial art and architecture; indeed, art of all kinds. I have facility in writing personal lyrical verse; it affords me relief. "I think my inversion must be congenital, as the desire of contact with those boys I loved began before masturbation and has lasted through private and public resorts and into university life. The other sex does not attract me, but I am very fond of children, girls as well as boys. (If there is sexuality in this, which I trust there is not, it is latent)." This statement is of interest because it may well lead us to suppose that the writer, who is of balanced mind and sound judgment, possesses a confirmed homosexual outlook on life. While, however, it is the rule for the permanent direction of the sexual impulse to be decided by the age of 20, that age is too early to permit us to speak positively, especially in a youth whose adolescent undifferentiated or homosexual impulses are fostered by university life. This proved to be! the case with T.D., who, though doubtless possessing a psychically anomalous strain, is yet predominantly masculine. On leaving the university his heterosexuality asserted itself normally. About six years after the earlier statement, he wrote that he had fallen in love. "I am on the eve of marrying a girl of nearly my own age. She has sympathy as well as knowledge in my fields of study; it was thus easier for me to explain my past, and I found that she could not understand the moral objections to homosexual practices. My own opinion always was that the moral objections were very considerable, but might in some cases be overcome. In any case I have entirely lost my sexual attraction toward boys; though I am glad to say that the appreciation of their charm and grace remains. My instincts, therefore, have undergone a considerable change, but the change is not entirely in the direction of normality. The instinct for sodomy in the proper sense of the word used to be unintelligible to me; since the object of attraction has become a woman this instinct is mixed with the normal in my desire. Further, an element which much troubled me, as being most foreign to my ideal feelings, has not quite left me--the indecent and often scatologic curiosity about immature girls. I can only hope that the realization of the normal in marriage may finally kill these painful aberrations. I should add that the practice of masturbation has been abandoned." HISTORY XII.--Aged 24. Father and mother both living; the latter is of a better social standing than the father. He is much attached to his mother, and she gives him some sympathy. He has a brother who is normally attracted to women. He himself has never been attracted to women, and takes no interest in them nor in their society. At the age of 4 he first became conscious of an attraction for older males. From the ages of 11 and 19, at a large grammar-school, he had relationships with about one hundred boys. Needless to add, he considers homosexuality extremely common in schools. It was, however, the Oscar Wilde case which first opened his eyes to the wide prevalence of homosexuality, and he considers that the publicity of that case has done much, if not to increase homosexuality, at all events to make it more conspicuous and outspoken. He is now attracted to youths about 5 or 6 years younger than himself; they must be good-looking. He has never perverted a boy not already inclined to homosexuality. In his relationship he does not feel exclusively like a male or a female: sometimes one, sometimes the other. He is often liked, he says, because of his masculine character. He is fully developed and healthy, well over middle height, inclined to be plump, with full face and small moustache. He smokes many cigarettes and cannot get on without them. Though his manners are very slightly if at all feminine, he acknowledges many feminine ways. He is fond of jewelry, until lately always wore a bangle, and likes women's rings; he is very particular about fine ties, and uses very delicate women's handkerchiefs. He has always had a taste for music, and sings. He has a special predilection for green; it is the predominant color in the decoration of his room, and everything green appeals to him. He finds that the love of green (and also of violet and purple) is very widespread among his inverted friends. HISTORY XIII.--Artist, aged 34. "The earliest sex impression that I am conscious of," he writes, "is at the age of 9 or 10 falling in love with a handsome boy who must have been about two years my senior. I do not recollect ever having spoken to him, but my desire, so far as I can recall, was that he should seize hold of and handle me. I have a distinct impression yet of how pleasurable even physical pain or cruelty would have been at his hands. (I have noticed that in young children it is often difficult to differentiate the sexual emotions from what in the grown up would be definite cruelty.) "It must have been at about this time that I discovered--entirely by myself--the act of masturbation. The process grew up quite naturally, though I cannot but think that the cooped-up life in a London street and a London school, with want of physical exercise, as well as want of landscape, color, and beautiful form, had much to do with it. The tone of the school I was at was singularly clean, but I question whether the vaunted cleanliness of tone of day-schools can compensate for the open life and large discipline of an English public school. "How far the rather frequent masturbation between the ages of 10 and 13 may have had to do with weakly health I do not know, but when I was 12 I was taken by my mother to a famous doctor. He made no inquiries of a sexual nature, but he advised that I should be sent away from London. He had a sentimental horror of violent games, etc., for boys, and put aside various suggested public schools. Finally I was sent to a private school at the seaside. "The private school was clean and wholesome. The plunge into the sexual cocytus of the great public school that followed was effectually sudden. In my day ---- was a perfect stew of uncleanness. There was plenty of incontinence, not much cruelty, no end of dirty conversation, and a great deal of genuine affection, even to heroism, shown among the boys in their relations to one another. All these things were treated by masters and boys alike as more or less unholy, with the result that they were either sought after or flung aside, according to the sexual or emotional instinct of each. No attempt was made at discrimination. A kiss was as unclean as the act of _fellatio_, and no one had any gauge or principle whatever on which to guide the cravings of boyhood. "My first initiation into the mysteries of sex was at the hands of the dormitory servant, who showed me his penis when he woke me in the mornings, and masturbated me when he gave me my hot bath on a Saturday night. This old reprobate of 45 committed the act of _fellatio_ with most of the boys in turn as he went the dormitory rounds. For the older lads I cannot speak, but over us younger ones of 14 and 15 he exercised a sort of unholy terror and fascination. He was very popular; we came to him like doves to a snake. When I revisited my old school many years later he was occupying a very responsible position in the college chapel, and I noticed that he wore that expression of sly reverence which I think I can now instantly detect when I see it in a man. "For the rest the dormitory was boisterous and lewd, and there was a good deal of bullying, which probably did little harm. My principal recollection now is of the filthy mystery of foul talk, that I neither cared for nor understood. What I really needed, like all the other boys, was a little timely help over the sexual problems, but this we none of us got, and each had to work out his own principle of conduct for himself. It was a long, difficult, and wasteful process, and I cannot but believe that many of us failed in the endeavor. We had come unprepared with any advice. The principle upon which we were apparently trained was the repression of every instinct. My mother was ignorant from innocence, my father from indifference, and so between them I was sent out helpless. A mother incurs great responsibility in sending her child away unprepared. A parent should not seek to shift his responsibility upon the schoolmaster. Love alone should be the fount from which revelations should flow; the master, from the very nature of his position, cannot reveal. "An imminent breakdown in health--due, it would now appear, to quite obvious causes--relieved me from the purgatory of the college dormitory, and I was removed to one of the private houses. These establishments were considered more select and less 'rough.' The social atmosphere was, however, perhaps more unwholesome, because more effeminate, and was full of noble young sucklings. The nominal head of the house under normal conditions might have been a real leader; as it was, the real head of the house was a gilded young pariah, fairly low down in the school and full of hypocrisy and unnatural lusts. The boy who occupied the cubicle next to mine was also a bad case of sexual misdirection, though he had not the social distinction to make him quite so refined a terror. I had every opportunity of watching him until, two years later, he was fortunately asked to leave. He talked bawd from morning till night, got drunk on one or two occasions, masturbated constantly without concealment, had several of the younger boys _inter femora_, though without evincing any care or affection for them, and gave one the impression of having been born for a brothel. His one redeeming quality was an element of good nature: a characteristic one often finds among such as are selfish and irresponsible. I have since been told that he has gone completely to the dogs. Whether this young cub's sexual instincts could have been turned or guided I do not know; but in a rougher and simpler life than that of a public school, in a more open and less hypocritical atmosphere, he might, perhaps, have been licked into better shape. Hypocrisy is a vice, however, that schoolboys themselves are fortunately free from. It comes later. The tone among the boys was frankly and violently unclean, though unclean not from instinct, but from want of direction and from repression. "I have not a single happy recollection of this period of my school life. Yet out of this morass of misbegotten virtues I plucked my first blossom of genuine affection. I call it a blossom because it never ripened even to flower. I had been given the extreme of filth to feed upon at the outset, and now I found for myself the extreme of chastity. It will be a matter of lifelong regret to me that the love which was the lodestar of my school years was never fulfilled or set upon a sound basis of comradeship. "When I was about 16½ years old there came into the house a boy about two years younger than myself, and who became the absorbing thought of my school days. I do not remember a moment, from the time I first saw him to the time I left school, that I was not in love with him, and the affection was reciprocated, if somewhat reservedly. He was always a little ahead of me in books and scholarship, but as our affection ripened we spent most of our spare time together, and he received my advances much as a girl who is being wooed, a little mockingly, perhaps, but with real pleasure. He allowed me to fondle and caress him, but our intimacy never went further than a kiss, and about that even was the slur of shame; there was always a barrier between us, and we never so much as whispered to one another concerning those things of which all the school obscenely talked. Any connection between our own emotions and the sexual morals of the school never occurred to us. In fact, we lived a dream-life of chastity that could not relate itself to any human conditions. This was suddenly broken in upon. My friend was very beautiful and an object of attraction to others. That some of the elder boys had made offers of sexual intercourse to him I knew, but to him, as to me, that was unspeakable wickedness. One day I heard that four or five of these suitors of his had mishandled him; they had, I believe, taken off his trousers and attempted to masturbate him. The offense was probably horse play of an animal nature; to me it seemed an unpardonable offense. The matter had been reported to the master by a servant, but confirmatory evidence was needed before punishment could follow. I was torn asunder by passions I could not then analyze and in the end committed the greatest of schoolboy crimes,--I sneaked. The action under the circumstances was courageous, but I was indifferent so long as the boy I loved judged me rightly. The result was that at the close of the term four or five of the senior boys were 'asked to leave.' The remaining brief period of my school life, which had previously been a living hell, became really happy. That this should have been brought about to the harm of four or five boys whose sin, after all, was but a misdirected impulse for which the system was responsible, seems to me now all very wrong. Of the boys sent away, however, certainly three have made honorable careers. For my friend and I, we became more afraid of each other than before; as our affections increased, so our fear of them increased also. The friendship was too ethereal to live; but even yet we still have a deep respect for one another. "When at the age of 19 I left school I was allowed to knock about for a year before entering college. During this time I picked up a sexual experience that may or may not have been a valuable one, I certainly look back upon it now, with regret, if not with horror. My father had discovered, some months before this date, that I was in the habit of masturbating, and he gave me what he conceived to be the right counsel under the circumstances: 'If you do this,' he said, 'you will never be able to use your penis with a woman. Therefore your best plan will be to go with a prostitute. Should you do this, however, you will probably pick up a beastly disease. Therefore the safest way would be to do it abroad if you get the chance, for there the houses are licensed.' Having delivered himself of this advice he troubled himself no further in the matter, but left me to work out my own destiny. The great physician, to whom I was taken about this time, also gave me his advice on this point. 'Masturbation,' he said, 'is death. A number of young men come to me with the same story. I tell them they are killing themselves, and you will kill yourself, too.' The doctor's hope was apparently to frighten his young patients into what he conceived to be natural conditions of life, and one went away from him with the impression that every sexual manifestation in one's self was a physical infirmity, due to one's own moral weakness. It took me some time before I could make up my mind to follow my father's advice, but after a period of real moral agony I deliberately and entirely in cold blood acted upon it. I sought out a scarlet woman in the streets of ---- and went home with her. From something she said to me I know that I gave her pleasure, and she asked me to come to her again. This I did twice, but without any real pleasure. The whole thing was too sordid and soulless, and the man who decides to take an evil medicine regularly has first to make up his mind that he really needs it. "At about the same time I chanced to be, for a few months, in a German university town, and I determined, as I had the opportunity, to carry the parental advice to the logical conclusion. I tried a licensed house. The place was clean and decent, and the conditions, I take it, such as one would normally find in any properly regulated continental city; but to me the whole thing appeared unspeakably horrible. It was a purely commercial transaction, and it had not even the redeeming element of risk to one's self, or of offense against a social or disciplinary code. I came away feeling that I had touched bottom in my sexual experiences, and I understood what it was that Faust saw when the red mouse sprang from the mouth of the witch in the Walpurgis dance. "These were the only occasions upon which I have had sexual intercourse with women. Looking back to them now, they appear to me to have been almost inevitable; but if I had my life over again I would shun them as I would a lethal draught. I believe I came out of the fire unscathed; probably, indeed, it did me good, in the sense that it made it possible for me to look deeper into life; though to what extent seeing the torments of the damned makes us do this, perhaps only a Dante could tell. To gain knowledge at the expense of the shame and misery of others I hold to be fundamentally wrong and immoral. What is to me, however, the chief and bitterest thought is that I flung away the first spring of manhood where I got no love in return. His virginity is, or should be, as glorious and sacred a possession to a youth as to a maiden; to be guarded jealously; to be given only at the call of love, to one who loves him--be it comrade, mistress, or wife--and whom he can love in return. "The full university life into which I now entered at the age of 20 brought with it a flood of new ideas, feelings and sensations. The friendships I made there will always remain the central ones in my life. Up to my last term at college at the age of 24 I still wore my chain-mail of artificial chastity; but then a change gradually set in, and I began to understand the relationship of the physical phenomena of sex to its intellectual and imaginative manifestations. (I was not destined to fully realize this for some years and then exclusively through and out of my own personal experience.) It was the study of Walt Whitman's _Leaves of Grass_ that first brought me light upon this question. Hitherto I had kept the two things locked up, as it were, in two separate air-tight compartments,--my friendships in one, my sex instincts in another,--to be kept under and repressed by the public-school code as I conceived it. "It is needless to say that I was continually troubled by the customary sex phenomena: erotic dreams, loss of semen, troublesome erections at night, etc. These I repressed as best I could, by habitual masturbation and by the regular diet and exercise which academic life made possible. At one time, for the period of a year I should say, I tried to overcome the desire for masturbation by gradual stages, on the principle of the drunkard's cure by which he took every day less tipple by the insertion of one pebble more in his bottle. I marked on my calendar the erotic dreams and the nights on which I masturbated, and sought gradually to extend the intervening periods. Six weeks, however, was the longest time for which I was able to abstain." A few years later the writer of this communication formed an intimate relationship (in which he did not make the first advances) with a youth, some years younger than himself and of lower social class, whose development he was able to assist. "But for my part," he remarks, "I owe him as much as I gave him, for his love lighted up the gold of affection that was in me and consumed the dross. It was from him that I first learned that there was no such thing as a hard-and-fast line between the physical and the spiritual in friendship." This relationship lasted for some years, when the young man married; its effects are described as very beneficial to both parties; all the sexual troubles vanished, together with the desire to masturbate. "Everything in life began to sing with joy, and what little of real creative work I may have done I attribute largely to the power of work that was born in me during those years." HISTORY XIV.--Scotchman, aged 38. His paternal ancestors were normal, so far as he knows. His mother belonged to a very eccentric old Celtic family. Soon after 5 he became so enamored of a young shepherd that the boy had to be sent away. He practised masturbation many years before the age of puberty, and attaches importance to this as a factor in the evolution of his homosexual life. He has had erotic dreams rarely about men, about women more frequently. While indifferent to women, he has no repulsion toward them. He has had connection with women two or three times, but without experiencing the same passionate emotions as with men. He would like a son, but he has never been able to get up the necessary amount of passion to lead to marriage. He has always had a sentimental and Platonic affection for men. Of late years he has formed two friendships with adults of an affectionate and also erotic character. He cares little for anything beyond mutual masturbation and kissing; what he desires is the love of the male. In appearance there is nothing abnormal about him except an air of youth. He is vigorous both in body and mind, and has enormous power of resisting fatigue. He is an excellent man of business. Is a patient student. He sees no harm in his homosexual passions. He is averse to promiscuity. His ideal is a permanent union which includes sexual relations. HISTORY XV.--T.S., artist, aged 32. "I was born in England. My father was a Jew, the first to marry out of his family and to marry a Christian. My great-grandparents were cousins; he was a German and she was a Dane. My grandparents were also cousins; he was a Swede and she was a Dane. "My maternal grandfather was an English Protestant, and my maternal grandmother was Irish, fanatically Roman Catholic, and a very eccentric woman. "In my father's family there have been many members of note. In my mother's family there were many renowned lawyers. "My father had an elder brother who was homosexual. He was already, at 31 years of age, a prominent author, when he died of consumption. I have also a second cousin on my father's side who is a very good tenor; he is also homosexual. In my mother's family I know of nothing abnormal. "In neither family is there or has there been any insanity, but rather an overwealth of brain. "My parents were an ideally happy couple. They were engaged after knowing each other six days, and after being separated three months they married. They were married thirty-five years without a quarrel. I have a brother three years older, born a year after their marriage, and a sister seven years younger. "My brother takes after his father in appearance. He is a great lover of women and much spoiled by them. He is quite normal and abstemious. "My sister is a very womanly woman. As a girl she disapproved very much of girl friendships and always confided in her mother. At 13 years of age she met the man she is now married to. They waited ten years before marrying and are now an ideally happy couple. My sister is perfectly normal and very abstemious. "I lived my first ten years in England, eighteen years in Sweden, two years in Denmark, two years in Bavaria, Austria, and Italy, and am now living in Berlin. I consider myself English. I am mentally a man, but all my physical feelings and desires are those of a woman. "I am middle height and very slight. Weigh 106 English pounds, without clothes. My hands and feet are small and well-shaped. Head of normal size. Features small. Eyes green. Have worn glasses since I was 7 years old. Complexion fair. Appearance not Jewish. The skin of my body is very white, without blemish. Very little hair on my face. Hair on head and abdomen luxuriant. No hair whatever on stomach and chest. Color of hair auburn everywhere except below navel, that black. (My father's, mother's, and brother's hair was brown. My sister has auburn hair, and so had the aforementioned uncle.) My breasts are slightly round; my hips are normal. I do not gesticulate much. From my material self it would be difficult to draw the conclusion that I was homosexual. My sexual organs are normal. "My disposition is apparently bright, but in reality melancholy. Have very little love for human nature, but have a partiality for the British and Jewish races. Hate business, politics, sports, and society. Love music, art, literature, and nature. Deep interest in mysticism. Am clairvoyant. Have been used many times as a medium. Lead two separate lives, an outer and inner psychic life. Am a fatalist and a theosophist. Profound belief in reincarnation, always have had, because when I was a little child I could 'remember' so much. Have an excellent memory, dating back to my third year. Have always been too self-analytical. Have from my earliest childhood felt myself an alien. Am very sensitive, physically and psychically. Have no wish to wear woman's clothing or do woman's work. As to clothes for myself, I prefer black and not much jewelry. "I could only love a perfectly manly man from 21 to 40 years of age. He must be physically beautiful and well made. Size of sexual organs plays no part. The muscles must be developed and the hands must be especially well shaped. Hands are my fetish. (I could never love anyone with ugly hands.) He must have no odor issuing from his body (though I do not dislike faint perfume when clothed), and, above all, never have a bad breath. He must be intelligent, love music, art, literature, and nature. He must be refined and cultured and have been about the world. He must have simplicity in behavior, dress, and manner, and, above all, be clean-bodied as clean-minded. Cynicism I cannot stand. (Here I may state I once owned a St. Bernard dog which reminded me much of my ideal. He was always sedate, always loving, and faithful; generally quiet. He only got excited when out in the elements.) I have not been able to get on with people who have no sense of humor. From my birth I was physically weak. First I suffered from eczema. Being born with a double squint, I was operated on at 2½ and again at 3½ years of age, with excellent result. From 4 to 12 years of age I had convulsions (often), and all the illnesses of childhood. At the age of 12½ years I took scarlet fever, followed by a weak heart, which grew stronger after a year, and Bright's disease, which lasted fifteen years with hardly a break. This illness had its wonted effect of producing melancholia and upsetting the whole nervous system. Bright's disease stopped suddenly but was followed by a succession of illnesses. Then I had neuritis very badly. I then removed to Bavaria, and to regain nervous strength I was treated by Freud's psychoanalytical method, with great success. I had a very bad relapse, as my brother, who had just heard I was homosexual, came to visit me and threatened to have me put under guardians, if my father should die. It took me weeks to recover from the shock. We broke off all intercourse and though my brother has been several times in the same town where I have been, we remain strangers. At this time my father died suddenly. Last spring four suicides of friends in so many weeks had a very bad effect on my nerves. I am now in Berlin in better spirits, but the cramp continues badly at times. "To this I must add that since my fourteenth year, independent of any illness, I have suffered mentally and physically from menstrual pains recurring every twenty-eight days and lasting from six to eight days. That these were the equivalent pains to a woman's menstruation periods I could get no doctor to admit till I was treated for a length of time by a German nerve specialist. "The physical pains begin abruptly. Sudden congestions of blood in the brain and in the abdomen. Sudden perspirations, heat and cold. Great nervous pains in the small of the back, also in the nerve-centers of abdomen and stomach. Sharp, shooting pains in the breasts and especially the nipples. Sudden toothache which stops as suddenly. The skin becomes darker, sometimes mottled. I have the whole time a taste of blood in my mouth and often everything I eat tastes of blood. I have great difficulty at that time in eating meat. Physical longings for erotic adventure, counterbalanced by mental nausea at the bare idea. "The mental symptoms are: sudden feeling of deep depression, suicidal tendencies, alternating with sudden inexplicable lightheartedness. Capriciousness and great dissatisfaction with myself and life generally. Horror at my own incompleteness of sex and sudden fits of hatred toward women and a great longing to be loved by men. This condition changes slowly back to the normal one. It takes several days for me to lose my physical weakness owing to it. "Physically I was developed at 16 years of age. Mentally I was developed at a very early age, but I kept my inner life quite dark, always playing the innocent. Nobody at home believed me to know anything about life. They were at times very surprised when I fell out of the rôle I had planned for myself. Up till I was 17 years of age nothing to do with other people's morals was ever discussed before me. I looked so pure, and do now, that people are always careful in front of me. My father never discussed such things with me. From my earliest childhood I loved men dearly, though I was always at daggers drawn with my father and brother. I worshipped my mother then, as I do now. My sister and I did not at all get on as children, though we are the best of friends now. She and her husband as well as my mother have been kindness itself ever since they knew of my condition. Not till I was over 30 years did I meet a man I loved as well as my mother, and he is heterosexual. I must have loved my father and brother at first, but continual conflicts, incompatible temperaments and mutual misunderstandings and want of sympathy made life at home horrible. I must admit from my earliest childhood I had a certain contempt for my father and brother because I found them so materialistic. I had all my childhood rows with my brother. My father took his part, my mother mine. After I had recovered from my father's sudden death (my first words were after reading the letter: 'Thank God it isn't mother!') I felt a great relief, but it took a long time for me to grasp that I was really free. "I have always liked women's society and, as a youth, I was very fond of gossip, which I by no means am now. I have many women friends, more than men friends. These women friends are all heterosexual except one. I very often like elderly women; I suppose I see mother in such women. A woman never could make me blush, but a man I admired could easily. "I was 23 years of age when a married woman of good family asked me to come and spend the night with her. I went, and though she was beautifully built, cleanly, and though her garments and apartments were of the utmost good taste, I did not have any erection. On the other hand, I felt myself to be most unclean and bathed three times each of the following three days. Since then I have never tried to have sexual intercourse with women. "In Copenhagen I tried to excite my feelings with every class of woman, in vain. I suppose it is that my nature is so like woman's that there can be no reaction. With men I am often very shy and nervous, tongue-tied, and my hands perspire. Never so with women. "As a child I loved men and used to fall desperately in love with some who came to the house. I would, when no one was there, kiss their hats, or gloves, or even their sticks. "I can remember, when I was about 6 years, how I fell in love with a very good-looking 26-year-old German. He had very curly hair and his hands were very beautiful. He was very fond of me and I used to call him 'my Boy.' When visiting us he often used to 'tuck me in' after the nurse had gone down. He always had sweets or something for me. I can remember how I used to fling my arms round his neck and cover his face with kisses. I would then draw his head down on my pillow and he would tell me fairy-tales and I would go off to sleep quite happy. "At 7 years of age, while staying in the country, a very good-looking groom, about 25 years of age, misbehaved himself with me. I often used to visit him in the stables, as this man had a strange attraction for me. One day he tickled me. While doing so he produced my penis and also his own, which was in full erection. He tried in every way to excite my feelings, in vain. For him the occasion terminated in an ejaculation. He forbade me to tell anyone, and I did not do so, but tried to find out all I could on the subject, with little or no result. From that day I hated the groom and I felt a sort of guilt, as if I had 'lost something.' Not till I was 12 years did I understand. "From my earliest childhood I had one ideal of a man. From that ideal I have never swerved. At the age of 30 I found a friend who, though quite heterosexual, has, without giving me any sexual intercourse, given me the love I have always needed. He has been for the last couple of years a second mother, father, sister, brother, and lover. Through him I have regained my health, my love of nature, and he has helped to deaden my hatred toward human nature and my bitterness. A better friend I never wish to find. It has made up for all the years of mental and physical suffering. One strange thing is that the feeling is mutual. He has had a tragic life, for his wife, whom he loved beyond everything, died under very sad circumstances. He says I am the best male friend he has ever had. While with him, much of the lower nature in me was stamped out. I shall always look upon him as the turning point in my life. I think he wrought some of his finest influence through his music. He played Beethoven and Wagner for me for a couple of hours every day for months, and thus opened up a new world to me.... He is six years older than I am. "At 10 years of age we moved to Sweden, a country I hated from first to last. About this time I began to notice that there was something strange about myself. I felt myself an alien, and have done so ever since. An event of importance in my life was, I feel sure, when my father's sister tried to take away my mother's character. It was done in jealousy and spite, and my aunt had to beg my parents' pardon. Outwardly the affair was patched up; but I feel sure my father never really forgave his sister. Jews never forgive. "This event awoke in me a great hatred toward women, and it was many years before I could at all control it. "At the age of 14 I was much with a good-looking, musical American, a year older than myself. One day, while romping, very much the same thing occurred as with the groom. I still had no sexual feelings. We remained good friends. I often wished to kiss him. After the first time he would not allow it. He was very much liked among the officers and so-called high society men, and had always much money. About ten years later I heard he used to accept money after intimate intercourse with those society men. "During my fifteenth year I had great longing for sexual intercourse with men. At this time the first signs of hair were to be seen on my abdomen. "At the age of 16 a gardener, a married man with family, initiated me into mutual self-abuse. He lived in the back house of the apartment house we then inhabited. He was about 40 years of age, an ugly but muscularly developed man. These practices took place in the cellar, to which there were three entrances. I never allowed him to kiss me and the sight of his children always awoke in me a great feeling of nausea. That was the natural reaction of a bad conscience. For the man himself I had the utmost contempt. This man told me of several parks and _pissoirs_ where men met, and I went to these places now and again for erotic adventure. "I must here relate that at the age of 16 my mother warned me against self-abuse. It had the opposite effect, made me curious, so I began at once. I have continued ever since, at least once a day. (I have never had an involuntary emission in my whole life.) Between 17 and 22 it became necessary for me to do so several times a day. Working at art, painting, and above all music and beauty have a strong influence over me and set my erotic longings in violent motion. I have never found this do me any harm. Abstinence, on the other hand, has a very harmful effect on me, upsetting the whole nervous and physical system. I often find that there is a something very much wanting in self-abuse: the commingling of two human bodies who are _mentally_ as well as physically in sympathy gives an electrical satisfaction which quiets the whole nervous system. That at least has been my experience. "The gardener left and moved to the country. I then sometimes visited _pissoirs_ or, as they are often called, 'panoramas' (because they are round and one sees much there). What I saw in the parks during the long summer nights was quite a revelation. During the summer, when the husbands had sent their families in the country, many of them led a very indiscreet life. What I saw the first summer killed all the respect I had for elderly people. I had always connected marriage and gray hairs with virtue and morals; then I learnt otherwise. I must say I became about this time a _sensual pig_. I knew how dangerous these places were on account of the police and blackmailers, but that gave the hunt a double zest. At this time I led a double life and was always watching and analyzing myself. I had to do with heaps of men of all classes. I was often offered money, but that I would on no condition accept. To pay or to be paid kills every sort of erotic feeling in me and always has done so. I once wished to experiment with myself. I was offered a small sum of money by a former schoolmaster. I accepted this just to see how it would affect me. The next moment I threw the money as far away as possible. Then I saw I had none of the prostitute nature in me. I was simply overwhelmed with sensuality. I considered I was a criminal and wished to see in how many ways my nature had the criminal instinct. I wanted to see if I could become a thief. I stole a silver button in a shop where antiquities were sold, but I went to the shop the same day again and returned the button, without the people knowing. I found I could not become a thief. Then the question came. Why had I felt a criminal since my seventh year? Was it my fault? If not, whose fault was it? Not till I studied Freud's psychoanalytical system did I get a clear insight into my own character. "When I was 20 years of age I met a gentleman one night in a heavy snow-storm. We walked and talked and understood each other. He belonged to one of Sweden's first aristocratic families. He was extremely refined. He asked me to his rooms. We undressed and lay down. He had a very beautiful head and a still more beautiful body. I think that all my erotic feelings were numbed by looking at his beautiful body. To me anything sensual would have been sacrilege, I thought, and I can remember the feeling of awe which came over me. He was them 20 years of age, but his hair was quite white. First he did not understand, and then he was very gentle to me. I kept perfectly chaste for three whole months after the sight of his body. We saw each other often. Eight years later we met for the last time. He suffered much from melancholia. At that time I prevented him from committing suicide. This winter, however, he shot himself. "At the age of 22 my sister introduced me to a charming, intelligent and refined, half-English, half-Swedish painter. We 'recognized' each other at once, though we had never seen each other before, and even knew each other's characters to the smallest traits. My parents liked him better than any friend I had ever had. My sister and he were from the first like sister and brother. The first evening in my home he and I kissed each other. The women were mad about him. Later I found many men were too. I was three weeks his senior. He had his own rooms. I have never felt any such wonderful harmony as when our naked bodies mingled. It was like floating in ether. With him it was the only time I had been active in _fellatio_. We were much together, though not much physically, for he had many love affairs with women. What I loved was the way he would cut off all advances of men, I was his 'little brother' and so he calls me to this day. He is now married in America, and the father of a pretty little daughter. We are the best of friends to this day. "The two years in Copenhagen were some of the happiest I have spent, though nearly the whole time I was in physical pain. In Austria I found, among the Tyrolese peasants, that the Englishmen, who come there in winter for sports and in the summer for mountain climbing, have demoralized the young male peasants with money. Homosexual intercourse is easy to get if you are willing to pay the price,--larger in season, less out of season. "In Italy it is merely a question of money or passion, but everything in love there is quite transient. "In Bavaria I found the love and peace 'which passeth all understanding.' This love and friendship without anything of a physically intimate nature brought me back from the 'deep black gulf' to which I was swiftly floating. When I met my friend I was nearly at the end of my tether. What his love and friendship has done for me, together with Freud's psychoanalytical system, nobody will ever know. "Since being in Berlin, a town I like very much, a new life has opened for me, a life where one lives as one likes if one does not have to do with young boys. Here are homosexual baths, pensions, restaurants, and hotels, where you can go with one of your own sex at a certain fee per hour. Berlin is a revelation. But since being here I find the physical erotic side of my nature is little excited. I suppose it is the old story of 'forbidden fruit.' "My parents kept a very hospitable home. The last two years in Sweden I was never at home. I hated society and knew much too much about the private histories of those who came to my home. They all belonged to the highest society. The highest society and the lowest are very much alike. Of course my parents knew nothing about these people. When I told my mother a great deal of private history of people who came to our house, she was thunderstruck and could at last understand my contempt for so-called good society. I have visited in later years only in artistic and theatrical circles; I consider that class of people more natural than the other class and much more kind-hearted. "My life has quite another side, the mystic side. But that would be a much longer story than this. Suffice it to say, I am of a highly sensitive nature, gifted with second sight." [A detailed record of the subject's visions, premonitions of death of acquaintances, etc., has been furnished by him.] "I tried on four occasions to commit suicide, but I now see there is nothing to be gained by doing so. "Two years ago I told my parents about my sexual condition. It was a frightful blow to them. My father had the circumstances explained to him; he never understood the matter and never discussed it with me. Had I told him earlier I feel quite certain that, with his despotic nature, he would have put me in a madhouse. My mother and sister have treated me very kindly always. My brother has disowned me." HISTORY XVI.--Irish, aged 36; knows of nothing unusual in his ancestry. His tastes are masculine in every respect. He is strong, healthy, and fond of exercises and sports. The sexual instincts are abnormally developed; he confesses to an, enormous appetite for almost everything,--food, drink, smoking, and all the good things of life. At about the age of 14 he practised masturbation with other boys of the same age, and also had much pleasure in being in bed with an uncle with whom the same thing was practised. Later on he practised masturbation with every boy or man with whom he was on terms of intimacy; to have been in bed with anyone without anything of the sort taking place would have made sleep impossible, and rendered him utterly wretched. His erotic dreams at first were concerned with women, but more recently they are usually of young men, and very rarely of women. He is mostly indifferent to women, as also they have always been to him. Although good-looking, strong, and masculine, he has never known a woman to be in love with him. When about the age of 18 he imagined he was in love with a girl; and he had often, between the ages of 20 to 30, cohabited with prostitutes. He remembers on one occasion, many years ago, having connection with a woman seven or eight times in one night, and then having to masturbate at noon the next day. He is unmarried, and thinks it is unlikely that he ever will marry, but he adds that if a healthy, handsome, and intelligent woman fell in love with him he might change his mind, as it would be lonely to be old and alone, and he would like to have children. He is never attracted to men older than himself, and prefers youths between the ages of 18 and 25. They may be of any class, but he does not like common people, and is not attached to uniforms or liveries. The requisite attractions are an intelligent eye, a voluptuous mouth, and "intelligent teeth." "If Alcibiades himself tried to woo me," he says, "and had bad teeth, his labor would be in vain." He has sometimes been the active participant in _pedicatio_, and has tried the passive rôle out of curiosity, but prefers _fellatio_. He does not consider that he is doing anything wrong, and regards his acts as quite natural. His only regret is the absorbing nature of his passions, which obtrude themselves in season and out of season, seldom or never leaving him quiet, and sometimes making his life a hell. Yet he doubts whether he would change himself, even if he had the power. HISTORY XVII.--Age 25; is employed in an ordinary workshop, and lives in the back alley of a large town in which he was born and bred. Fair, slight, and refined in appearance. The sexual organs are normal and well developed, and the sexual passions strong. His mother is a big masculine woman, and he is much attached to her. Father is slight and weakly. He has seven brothers and one sister. Homosexual desires began at an early age, though he does not seem to have come under any perverse influences. He is not inclined to masturbation. Erotic dreams are always of males. He declares he never cared for any woman except his mother, and that he could not endure to sleep with a woman. He says he generally falls in love with a man at first sight--as a rule, some one older than himself and of higher class--and longs to sleep and be with him. In one case he fell in love with a man twice his own age, and would not rest until he had won his affection. He does not much care what form the sexual relation takes. He is sensitive and feminine by nature, gentle, and affectionate. He is neat and orderly in his habits, and fond of housework; helps his mother in washing, etc. He appears to think that male attachments are perfectly natural. HISTORY XVIII.--Englishman, born in Paris; aged 26; an actor. He belongs to an old English family; his father, so far as he is aware, had no homosexual inclinations, nor had any of his ancestors on the paternal side; but he believes that his mother's family, and especially a maternal uncle who had a strong feeling for beauty of form, were more akin to him in this respect. His earliest recollections show an attraction for males. At children's parties he incurred his father's anger by kissing other small boys, and his feelings grew in intensity with years. He has never practised self-abuse, and seldom had erotic dreams; when they do occur they are about males. His physical feeling for women is one of absolute indifference. He admires beautiful women in the same way as one admires beautiful scenery. At the same time he likes to talk with clever women, and has formed many friendships with frank, pure, and cultivated English girls, for whom he has the utmost admiration and respect. Marriage is impossible, because physical pleasure with women is impossible; he has tried, but cannot obtain, the slightest sexual feeling or excitement. He especially admires youths (though they must not be immature) from 16 or 17 to about 25. The type which physically appeals to him most, and to which he appeals, is fair, smooth-skinned, gentle, rather girlish and effeminate, with the effeminacy of the _ingénue_, not the _cocotte_. His favorite to attract him must be submissive and womanly; he likes to be the man and the master. On this point he adds: "The great passion of my life is an exception, and stands on an utterly different level. It realizes an ideal of marriage in which neither is master, but both share a joint empire, and in which tyranny would be equally painful to both. But this friendship and love is for an equal, a year younger than myself, and does not preclude other and less creditable _liaisons, physical_ constancy being impossible to men of our caliber." _Pedicatio_ is the satisfaction he prefers, provided he takes the active, never the passive, rôle. He is handsome, with broad shoulders, good figure, and somewhat classic type of face, with fine blue eyes. He likes boating and skating, though not cricket or football, and is usually ready for fun, but has, at the same time, a taste for reading. He has no moral feelings on these matters; he regards them as outside ethics, mere matters of temperament and social feeling. If England were underpopulated he thinks he might possibly feel some slight pangs of remorse; but, as things are, he feels that in prostituting males rather than females he is doing a meritorious action. HISTORY XIX.--T.N. His history is given in his own words. "From the time of my earliest imaginings I have always been attached by strength in men and often thought about being carried off by big warriors and living with them in caves and elsewhere. When about 7 a young man used to show me his penis and handle mine occasionally. At private boarding school masturbation was fairly frequent and I suppose I was initiated about 12 or 13. After leaving I occasionally indulged, but nothing happened until I was about 20, except that I was often attracted by strong, well-built young men of good character; a man who was not honest and good-hearted had no attraction. At 20 I was much attached to a young man of my own age. He was engaged. This did not prevent him on one occasion endeavoring playfully and with his brother to obtain access to my person. I successfully resisted, although if _he_ only had been present I should not have done so, but welcomed the attempt, and I have often regretted I did not let him know this. But I had a dim idea that my penis was somewhat undeveloped and this made me shy. Circumstances separated us. About two years later I was crossing the Channel when I engaged in conversation with a man about eight years older, who was one of our travelling party. I think the attraction was a case of love at sight, certainly on my side. A few nights later he had so arranged that we shared a bedroom, and he very soon came over to me and tenderly handled my person. I reciprocated and I look back all these years to that night with pleasure and no feeling of shame. On one occasion, about this time, I happened to be sleeping with another young fellow (an office mate) on a holiday, when I awoke and found him handling my penis caressingly. I gently removed his hand and turned over. I thought none the less of him, but my body seemed to belong only to myself and the friend I loved. He was not an urning, I am sure, but we Were often together and I much entered into his interests and felt infinite satisfaction with life, made good progress and many friends. Our physical intimacy was repeated, he taking the active part in intercrural contact. Then he married very happily. Our friendship remains, but circumstances prevent our often meeting, and there is no longer desire on either part. "For some years I was rather lonely in spite of friends. I was somewhat attracted to another man, but his superior social position was a defect to me. Then when about 28 I came in contact with a young man of 24, of the artisan class, but superior in ideals and intelligence to most men. I loved him at first glance and to this day. At first it was just friendship, but soon his form, voice, and thoughts entered into my very soul by day and night. I longed always to be near him, to see him progress and help him if I could. I would joyfully have given up home, friends, and income, and followed him to the end of the world, preferably an island where we two might at least be the only white men. He seemed to embody all I longed for in the way of knowledge of nature, of strength, of practical ability, and the desire to imitate him in these things widened and strengthened my character. The first time I slept with him I could only summon courage to put my arm over his chest, but I could not sleep for unsatisfied desire, and the unrelieved erection caused a dull pain on the morrow. I had always disliked conversation that might be regarded as bordering on the obscene, and consequently was very ignorant on most matters; it pained me even to hear him laugh at such remarks. I think if he had been intimate with me I should have not conversed much on such topics, but now I felt pleasure in such things with him as they expressed intimacy. I dreamed about him and was never really happy in his absence; the greatest joy would have been to have slept in his arms; the hairiness of his legs and arms were also most fascinating. Perhaps a year later, we were again at night together, and this time I by degrees felt his private organs, but he was cold and I felt a little unsatisfied. I wanted to be hugged. This happened once more, and then on a later occasion,--not that it afforded me much gratification, but because I wanted to stimulate him to ardor,--I attempted masturbation. This aroused his disgust and I was consequently dismayed. He told me I ought to marry and, although I knew his love was all I wanted, I did not feel but what I could make a woman happy. The constant unrelieved erections which took place when I saw my friend adopt a graceful attitude caused pain at the bottom of my back, and I consulted two specialists, who also advised marriage. I did not tell them I was an 'invert,' for I hardly knew it was a recognized thing, but I did tell them something of what had taken place, and they made next to no comment, but implied it was frequent. My friend now felt repulsion toward me, but did not express himself, and as other circumstances then caused a barrier between us to a certain extent, I did not realize the true reason of his coldness. But I felt utterly miserable. When I met a noble woman whom I had long known I asked her to be my wife and she consented. Although I told her very soon, and long before our marriage, of my limitations as a husband and of my continued longing for my friend, I feel now I did a great wrong, and I cannot understand why I was not more conscious of this at the time; that I was to a certain extent deceiving her relations was inevitable. I had expected to devote my life in making her happy, but I soon found that the true reason of my friend's apparent unfaithfulness was my own action, combined with a feeling on his part that it was as well that our affection should cease even at the cost of misunderstanding. Since then, three years ago, I have not had a happy day or night, and am therefore quite unable to promote happiness in others. Without my friend, I can find no satisfaction with wife, child, or home. Life has become almost unbearable. Often I have seriously thought of committing suicide, only to postpone it to a time which would be less cruelly inopportune to others. I see my friend (now married) almost daily, and suffer tortures at seeing others nearer to him than myself. No explanation seems possible, as the whole idea of inversion is so repugnant to him, and being an honorable man he would feel marital ties preclude _any_ warmth of affection. But all the longing of my life seems to be culminating in a driving force which will carry me to the male prostitute or to death. I can concentrate my mind on nothing else, and consequently have become inefficient in work and have no heart for play. I know if my longings could be occasionally satisfied I should immediately recover, but my fear is that if I killed myself those who knew me in happier days would only be confirmed in the impression of my degeneracy and would feel my instincts had caused it, whereas it is the denial and starvation of them which would have brought about the result. I know now by experience of self and others that my disposition is congenital and that I have been rendered unhappy myself and a cause of unhappiness to others by the too late knowledge of myself. The example of my former friend who married misled me to think I too _could_ marry and make a happy home; so that when the man I loved advised me I resolved to do so, as I would have done almost anything else _he_ suggested. If I could have withdrawn from the engagement without embarrassment to the devoted woman who became my wife I would have done so, if she gave me the opportunity. Nothing in my married state has brought me pleasure and I often wish my wife would cease to love me so that we might separate. But she would be heart-broken at the suggestion and I feel driven to attempt to relieve my feelings even in a way that has previously seemed repulsive to me,--I mean by use of money. "About my feelings toward my child there is not much to say, as they are not very strong. I believe I carry him and help bathe and attend to him as much as most fathers, and when he is a few years older I hope I may find him very companionable. But he has brought me no real joy, though I see other men look at him almost with affection. But he has brought added happiness to his mother." The next case is interesting as showing the mental and emotional development in a very radical case of sexual inversion. HISTORY XX.--Englishman, of independent means, aged 49. His father and his father's family were robust, healthy, and prolific. On his mother's side, phthisis, insanity, and eccentricity are traceable. He belongs to a large family, some of whom died in early childhood and at birth, while others are normal. He himself was a weakly and highly nervous child, subject to night-terrors and somnambulism, excessive shyness and religious disquietude. Sexual consciousness awoke before the age of 8, when his attention was directed to his own penis. His nurse, while out walking with him one day, told him that when little boys grow' up their penes fall off. The nursery-maid sniggered, and he felt that there must be something peculiar about the penis. He suffered from; irritability of the prepuce, and the nurse powdered it before he went to sleep. There was no transition from this to self-abuse. About the same time he became subject to curious half-waking dreams. In these he imagined himself the servant of several adult naked sailors; he crouched between their thighs and called himself their dirty pig, and by their orders he performed services for their genitals and buttocks, which he contemplated and handled with relish. At about the same period, when these visions began to come to him, he casually heard that a man used to come and expose his person before the window of a room where the maids sat; this troubled him vaguely. Between the age of 8 and 11 he twice took the penis of a cousin into his mouth, after they had slept together; the feeling of the penis pleased him. When sleeping with another cousin, they used to lie with hands outstretched to cover each other's penis or nates. He preferred the nates, but his cousin the penis. Neither of these cousins was homosexual, and there was no attempt at mutual masturbation. He was in the habit of playing with five male cousins. One of these boys was unpopular with the others, and they invented a method of punishing him for supposed offenses. They sat around the room on chairs, each with his penis exposed, and the boy to be punished went around the room on his knees and took each penis into his mouth in turn. This was supposed to humiliate him. It did not lead to masturbation. On one occasion the child accidentally observed a boy who sat next to him in school playing with his penis and caressing it. This gave him a powerful, uneasy sensation. With regard to all these points the subject observes that none of the boys with whom he was connected at this period, and who were exposed to precisely the same influences, became homosexual. He was himself, from the first, indifferent to the opposite sex. In early childhood, and up to the age of 13, he had frequent opportunities of closely inspecting the sexual organs of girls, his playfellows. These roused no sexual excitement. On the contrary, the smell of the female parts affected him disagreeably. When he once saw a schoolfellow copulating with a little girl, it gave him a sense of mystical horror. Nor did the sight of the male organs arouse any particular sensations. He is, however, of opinion that, living with his sisters in childhood, he felt more curious about his own sex as being more remote from him. He showed no effeminacy in his preferences for games or work. He went to a public school. Here he was provoked by boy friends to masturbate, but, though he often saw the act in process, it only inspired him with a sense of indecency. In his fifteenth year puberty commenced with nocturnal emissions, and, at the same time, he began to masturbate, and continued to do so about once a week, or once a fortnight, during a period of eight months; always with a feeling that that was a poor satisfaction and repulsive. His thoughts were not directed either to males or females while masturbating. He spoke to his father about these signs of puberty, and by his father's advice he entirely abandoned onanism; he only resumed the practice, to some extent, after the age of 30, when he was without male comradeship. The nocturnal emissions, after he had abandoned self-abuse, became very frequent and exhausting. They were medically treated by tonics such as quinine and strychnine. He thinks this treatment exaggerated his neurosis. All this time, no kind of sexual feeling for girls made itself felt. He could not understand what his schoolfellows found in women, or the stories they told about wantonness and delight of coitus. His old dreams about the sailors had disappeared. But now he enjoyed visions of beautiful young men and exquisite statues; he often shed tears when he thought of them. These dreams persisted for years. But another kind gradually usurped their place to some extent. These second visions took the form of the large, erect organs of naked young grooms or peasants. These gross visions offended his taste and hurt him, though, at the same time, they evoked a strong, active desire for possession; he took a strange, poetic pleasure in the ideal form. But the seminal losses which accompanied both kinds of dreams were a perpetual source of misery to him. There is no doubt that at this time--that is, between the fifteenth and seventeenth years--a homosexual diathesis had become established. He never frequented loose women, though he sometimes thought that would be the best way of combating his growing inclination for males. And he thinks that he might have brought himself to indulge freely in purely sexual pleasure with women if he made their first acquaintance in a male costume, as _débardeuses, Cherubino_, court-pages, young halberdiers, as it is only when so clothed that women on the stage or in the ball-room have excited him. His ideal of morality and fear of venereal infection, more than physical incapacity, kept him what is called chaste. He never dreamed of women, never sought their society, never felt the slightest sexual excitement in their presence, never idealized them. Esthetically, he thought them far less beautiful than men. Statues and pictures of naked women had no attraction for him, while all objects of art which represented handsome males deeply stirred him. It was in his eighteenth year that an event occurred which he regards as decisive in his development. He read Plato. A new world opened, and he felt that his own nature had been revealed. Next year he formed a passionate, but pure, friendship with a boy of 15. Personal contact with the boy caused erection, extreme agitation, and aching pleasure, but not ejaculation. Through four years he never saw the boy naked or touched him pruriently. Only twice he kissed him. He says that these two kisses were the most perfect joys he ever felt. His father now became seriously anxious both about his health and his reputation. He warned him of the social and legal dangers attending his temperament. But he did not encourage him to try coitus with women. He himself thinks that his own sense of danger might have made this method successful, or that, at all events, the habit of intercourse with women might have lessened neurosis and diverted his mind to some extent from homosexual thoughts. A period of great pain and anxiety now opened for him. But his neurasthenia increased; he suffered from insomnia, obscure cerebral discomfort, stammering, chronic conjunctivitis, inability to concentrate his attention, and dejection. Meanwhile his homosexual emotions strengthened, and assumed a more sensual character. He abstained from indulging them, as also from onanism, but he was often forced, with shame and reluctance, to frequent places--baths, urinaries, and so forth--where there were opportunities of seeing naked men. Having no passion for women, it was easy to avoid them. Yet they inspired him with no exact horror. He used to dream of finding an exit from his painful situation by cohabitation with some coarse, boyish girl of the people; but his dread of syphilis stood in the way. He felt, however, that he must conquer himself by efforts of will, and by a persistent direction of his thoughts to heterosexual images. He sought the society of distinguished women. Once he coaxed up a romantic affection for a young girl of 15, which came to nothing, probably because the girl felt the want of absolute passion in his wooing. She excited his imagination, and he really loved her; but she did not, even in the closest contact, stimulate his sexual appetite. Once, when he kissed her just after she had risen from bed in the morning, a curious physical repugnance came over him, attended with a sad feeling of disappointment. He was strongly advised to marry by physicians. At last he did so. He found that he was potent, and begot several children, but he also found, to his disappointment, that the tyranny of the male genital organs on his fancy increased. Owing to this cause his physical, mental, and moral discomfort became acute. His health gave way. At about the age of 30, unable to endure his position any longer, he at last yielded to his sexual inclinations. As he began to do this, he also began to regain calm and comparative health. He formed a close alliance with a youth of 19. This _liaison_ was largely sentimental, and marked by a kind of etherealized sensuality. It involved no sexual acts beyond kissing, naked contact, and rare involuntary emissions. About the age of 36 he began freely to follow homosexual inclinations. After this he rapidly recovered his health. The neurotic disturbances subsided. He has always loved men younger than himself. At about the age of 27 he had begun to admire young soldiers. Since he yielded freely to his inclinations the men he has sought are invariably persons of a lower social rank than his own. He carried on one _liaison_ continuously for twelve years; it began without passion on the friend's side, but gradually grew to nearly equal strength on both sides. He is not attracted by uniforms, but seeks some uncontaminated child of nature. The methods of satisfaction have varied with the phases of his passion. At first they were romantic and Platonic, when a hand-touch, a rare kiss, or mere presence sufficed. In the second period sleeping side by side, inspection of the naked body of the loved man, embracements, and occasional emissions after prolonged contact. In the third period the gratification became more frankly sensual. It took every shape: mutual masturbation, intercrural coitus, _fellatio, irrumatio_, and occasionally active _pedicatio_; always according to the inclination or concession of the beloved male. He himself always plays the active, masculine part. He never yields himself to the other, and he asserts that he never has the joy of finding himself desired with ardor equal to his own. He does not shrink from passive _pedicatio_; but it is never demanded of him. Coitus with males, as above described, always seems to him healthy and natural; it leaves a deep sense of well-being, and has cemented durable friendships. He has always sought to form permanent ties with the men whom he has adored so excessively. He is of medium height, not robust, but with great nervous energy, with strong power of will and self-control, able to resist fatigue and changes of external circumstances. In boyhood he had no liking for female occupations, or for the society of girls, preferring study and solitude. He avoided games and the noisy occupations of boys, but was only non-masculine in his indifference to sport, was never feminine in dress or habit. He never succeeded in his attempts to whistle. He is a great smoker, and has at times drunk much. He likes riding, skating, and climbing, but is a poor horseman, and is clumsy with his hands. He has no capacity for the fine arts and music, though much interested in them, and is a prolific author. He has suffered extremely throughout life, owing to his sense of the difference between himself and normal human beings. No pleasure he has enjoyed, he declares, can equal a thousandth part of the pain caused by the internal consciousness of pariahdom. The utmost he can plead in his own defense, he admits, is irresponsibility, for he acknowledges that his impulse may be morbid. But he feels absolutely certain that in early life his health was ruined and his moral repose destroyed owing to the perpetual conflict with his own inborn nature, and that relief and strength came with indulgence. Although he always has before him the terror of discovery, he is convinced that his sexual dealings with men have been thoroughly wholesome to himself, largely increasing his physical, moral, and intellectual energy, and not injurious to others. He has no sense whatever of moral wrong in his actions, and he regards the attitude of society toward those in his position as utterly unjust and founded on false principles. The next case is, like the foregoing, that of a successful man of letters who also passed through a long period of mental conflict before he became reconciled to his homosexual instincts. He belongs to a family who are all healthy and have shown marked ability in different intellectual departments. He feels certain that one of his brothers is as absolute an invert as himself and that another is attracted to both sexes. I am indebted to him for the following detailed narrative, describing his emotions and experiences in childhood, which I regard as of very great interest, not only as a contribution to the psychology of inversion, but to the embryology of the sexual emotions generally. We here see described, in an unduly precocious and hyperesthetic form, ideas and feelings which, in a slighter and more fragmentary shape, may be paralleled in the early experiences of many normal men and women. But it must be rare to find so many points in sexual psychology so definitely illustrated in a single child. It may be added that the narrative is also not without interest as a study in the evolution of a man of letters; a child whose imagination was thus early exercised and developed was predestined for a literary career. HISTORY XXI.--"Almost the earliest recollection I have is of a dream, which, from my vivid recollection of its details, must have repeated itself, I think, more than once, unless my waking thoughts unconsciously added definition. From this dream dated my consciousness of the attraction to me of my own sex, which has ever since dominated my life. The dream, suggested in part, I think, by a picture in an illustrated newspaper of a mob murdering a church dignitary, took this form: I dreamed that I saw my own father murdered by a gang of ruffians, but I do not remember that I felt any grief, though I was actually an exceedingly affectionate child. The body was then stripped of its clothing and eviscerated. I had at the time no notion of anatomical details; but the particulars remain distinct to my mind's eye, of entrails uniformly brown, the color of dung, and there was no accompaniment of blood. When the abdomen had been emptied, the incident in which I became an active participant occurred. I was seized (and the fact that I was overpowered contributed to the agony of delight it afforded me) and was laid between the thighs of my murdered parent; and from there I had presently crawled my way into the evacuated, abdomen. The act, so far as I can decide of a dream at an age when emission was out of the question, caused in me extreme organic excitement. At all events, I used afterward definitely to recur to it in the waking moments before sleep for the purpose of gaining a state of erection. The dream had no outcome; it seemed to reach its goal in the excitement it caused. I was at that time between 3 and 4 years old. (I have been told that erections occurred when I was only 2 years old. It was between 3 and 4 that I used to induce, at all events, the _sensation_ of an erection. But I was nearer 5 when, sitting on my bed and waiting to be dressed, I got an involuntary erection and called my nurse's attention to it, asking what it meant. The _appearance_ must, therefore, have been usual to me at that date, but certainly the sensation was not.) "At that time I was totally ignorant of the conditions, of puberty, which afterward, when I discovered them, so powerfully affected me. I could not even visualize the private organs of a man; I made no deductions from myself. The only naked bodies I had seen then--I judge from circumstances, not from any actual memory of the facts--were those of my own sisters. In the waking dreams which I began to construct, though I recurred often to the one already narrated, the goal of my desire was generally to nestle between the thighs or to have my face pressed against the hinder parts of the object of my worship. But for a time my first dream so engrossed me that I did not indulge in any promiscuity. Gradually, however, my horizon enlarged, and took in, besides the first mentioned, three others: a cousin very much my elder, an uncle, and the curate of the parish. "At this stage I began to invent circumstances for the indulgence of my passion. One of the earliest was to imagine myself in a tank with my three lovers floating in the water above me. From this position I visited their limbs in turn; the attraction rested in the thighs and buttocks only. I fancy this limitation of the charm to the lower parts only lasted until actual experience of a more complete embrace made me as much a lover of the arms and breast; indeed, later I became more emotionally enamored of these parts than of all the rest. At the beginning of things I simply loved best what my mind could first get hold of. "Quite early in my experience, when I was not more than 5, I awoke earlier than usual, and saw my nurse standing in complete nudity, commencing her toilet. She seemed to me a gross, coarse, and meaningless object; the hair under her armpits displeased me, and still more that on the lower part of her body. In the case of men, directly I came to have cognizance of the same thing on their bodies, the effect was exactly the opposite. It so happened that about this time the gardener had received some injury to his leg, and in showing the bruise to another exhibited before my eyes a skin completely shagged over with dark hair. Though the sight of the bruise repulsed me, my pleasure was intense, and the vision of the gardener's legs was in my bed every night for a week afterward. My point is that the sight of my nurse was liable to rouse interest just as much as the far more prosaic display of the gardener's wounded leg, but my nature made it impossible. "It was about this time, if not before, that an enormous sense of shyness with regard to all my private duties began to afflict me. So great was it that I could endure from no hand except my mother's or my nurse's the necessary assistance in the buttoning and unbuttoning of my garments, always excepting those who were about my own age, toward whom I felt no privacy whatever. "When I was a little more than 5 I formed a friendship with a young clerk, a youth of about 15, though he seemed to me a grown-up person. One day, as he sat at his desk writing, I sat down and began playing with his feet, investigating the height to which his socks went under his trousers; in this way I obtained six inches of bare leg. Conscious of my courage I fell to kissing it. My friend laughed, but left me to my devotions in peace. This was the first time in which a feeling of romance mixed itself in my dreams; the physical excitement was less, but the pleasure was greater. I cannot understand why I never repeated the experience. He remained to me an object of very special and tender consideration. "In the next episode I have to relate the ideal was totally absent, and the part I played was passive rather than active. I was put to sleep with a boy considerably my senior. His initiation led to a physical familiarity between us which was not warm or kind, and I was allowed no scope for my own instinctive desires for a warmer kind of contact; if I sought it under cover of my companion's slumbers I found myself kicked away. Only on one occasion did I find a few moments of supreme charm, while his sleep remained sound, by discovering in the recesses of the sheet an exposed surface of flesh against which I pressed my face in an abandonment of joy. For the rest I was a passive participant, his pleasure seeming to end in the mere handling of the fleshy portions of my body. For this purpose I usually lay face downward across his knees. So far as I can remember, this intimacy led to a decrease in my pursuit of imaginative pleasures; for about a year no further development took place. "At about this date I was circumcised on account of the prepuce being too long. "Between the 6th and 7th years a change of environment brought me into contact with a new set of faces. I had then a bed to myself, and once more my imagination awoke to life. It was at this time that I found myself constructing from men's faces suppositions as to the rest of their bodies: a brown face led me to suppose a uniformly brown body, a pale face a pale body. This idea of variety began to charm me. I now made definite choice in my reveries whether I would go to sleep between white thighs, or red thighs, or brown thighs. Going to sleep definitely describes the goal of the method to which I had addicted myself. As soon as I entered my bed I abandoned myself to the construction of an amour and retained it as long as I had consciousness. I may say that I was not conscious of any emissions under these circumstances (until some years later, when I brought it about by my own act), but the pleasure was fairly acute. "All this time there were secret meetings, with my bedfellow of the year before. But they now took place by day, in various hiding-places, with little unclothing or exposure, and my companion was cold and fastidious and repelled any warmth on my part; it became to me a dry sort of ritual. I had an idea at that time that the whole thing was so much an original invention of his and mine that there was no likelihood of it being practised by anyone else in the world. But this consideration did not restrain me in constructing love scenes with all those whose appearance attracted me. At this period nearly every man with whom I came in contact won at least my transient desire; only the quite old and deformed lay outside the scope of my wishes. Many of my amours developed in church; the men who sat near me were the objects of my attention, and the clergyman, whose sermon I did not listen to, supplied me with an occasion for reverie on the charms his person would have for me under other circumstances. It must have been at this time that I began to elaborate ideas of a serried rank of congregated thighs across which I lay and was dragged. I would arrange them in definite order and then imagine myself drawn across from one to the other somewhat forcibly. Admiration of strength was beginning at this time to have a definite part in my conceptions, but anything of the nature of cruelty had not then appealed to me. (I except the original dream of my childhood, which seems to me still to stand fantastically apart.) In the inventions to which I now gave myself the sense of being passed across limbs of different texture and color was subtle and pleasurable. I think the note of constructive cruelty which now followed arose from an imagined rivalry among my lovers for possession of me; the idea that I was desired made me soon take a delight in imagining myself torn and snatched about by the contending parties. Presently out of this I began constructing definite scenes of violence. I was able in imagination to lie in the thick and stress of conglomerated deliciousness of thighs struggling to hold me; I was able to imagine at least six bodies encircling me with passionate contact. At the same time I had an ingrained feeling of my own physical smallness in relation to the limbs whose contact threw me into such paroxysms of delight. A new and sufficiently ludicrous invention took possession of me; I imagined myself strapped to the thigh (always, I think, the right one) of the man on whom I chose, for the time, to concentrate my desires, and so to be worn by him during his day's work, hidden beneath his garments. I was not conscious of any difficulty due to my size. The charm of bondage and compulsion was here, again, in the ascendant. I fancy that it was in this connection that I first anticipated whipping as the delightful climax to my emotions, administered when my possessor, at the end of his day's work, unclothed himself for rest. "Up to this stage my attraction to the male organ of generation had been slight and vague. Two things now contributed to bring thought of it into prominence. On two or three occasions when I accompanied farm laborers to their occupations I saw them pause by the way to relieve nature. My extreme shyness as regards such matters in my own person made this performance in my presence like an outrage on my modesty; it had about it the suggestion of an indecent solicitation to one whose inclination was to headlong and delirious surrender. I stood rooted and flushing with downcast eyes till the act was over and was conscious for a considerable time of stammering speech and bewildered faculties. When I afterward reviewed the circumstances they had the same attraction for me that amorous cruelty was just then beginning to exercise on my imagination. My mind secretly embraced the fearful sweetness of the newly discovered sensation, surrounding the performance of the function with all sorts of atrocious and bizarre inventions. For a time my intellect hung back from accepting this as the central and most fiery secret of the male attraction; but shortly afterward, when out walking with my father, I saw him perform the same act; I was overwhelmed with emotion and could barely drag my feet from the spot or my eyes from the damp herbage where he had deposited the waters of secrecy. Even today, when my mind has been long accustomed to the knowledge of generative facts, I cannot dissociate myself from the shuddering charm that moment had for me. The attraction my father's person had always had for me was now increased tenfold by the performance I had witnessed (though I had not seen the penis in any of these cases). "For a considerable time only those lovers were dominant in my imagination whom I had witnessed in the act that had so poignantly affected me. My delight now took the form of imagining myself strapped to the thighs of the person while this function was in progress. "By this time I must have been 8 years old. The cold and secret relationship of which I have given an account had continued without instructing me in any of the ardent possibilities it might have suggested; no force or cruelty was used upon me, no warmth was lavished. It made little difference that my companion had now discovered the act of masturbation; it had no meaning to me, since it led to no warmth of embrace. His method was to avert himself from me; I had to fawn upon him from the rear and also to invent indecent stories to stimulate his imagination. I felt myself a despised instrument, the mere spectator of an act which, if directed toward me with any warmth, would have aroused the liveliest appetite. At this time, as I have since seen, my companion was gaining knowledge from the ancient classics. For a time some charm was imparted by his instructing me to adopt a superincumbent face-to-face embrace. The beginning of his puberty was enormously attractive to me; had he been less cold-blooded I could have responded passionately to his endearments; but he always insisted on rigorous passivity on my part, and he explained nothing. One day, by a small gratuity, he induced me to offer him my mouth, though I still had no comprehension of the result I was helping to attain. Once the orgasm occurred, and the effect was extremely nauseous; after that he was more careful. My companion was approaching manhood, and his demands became more frequent, his exactions more humiliating. "At the same time my passion for male love was growing stronger. I was able to construct from the unsatisfactory bondage in which I was held images of bodily embrace which I had not before had sufficient sense of human contact to form, though I seldom imagined any of the acts that in actual experience repulsed me. One day, however, I shirked a particularly repulsive humiliation which my companion had forced upon me. He discovered the deception, rose from the prone position in which he lay, and throwing me across his knees thrashed me violently. I submitted without a struggle, experiencing a curious sensation of pleasure in the midst of my pain. When he repeated his order I found its accomplishment no longer repulsive. One of the few pleasurable memories this intimacy, extending over years, has left for me is that moment of abject abasement to one who, with no warmth of feeling, had yet once had sufficient energy to be brutal to me. "It must have been from this incident that the calculated effect of flagellation began to have weight with me when I indulged my imagination. A wish to be repulsed, trampled, violated by the object of my passion took hold of my instincts. Even then--and, indeed, up to my 13th year--I had no idea of normal sexual connection. I knew vaguely that children were born from women's bodies; I did not know--and when told I did not believe--the true facts of the marital relationship. All that I had experienced--both in fact and imagination--was to me so highly individual that I had no notion anything kindred to it could exist outside of my own experience. I had no notion of sex as the basis of life. Even when I came gradually to realize that men and women were formed in a way that argued connection with each other, I still believed it to be a dissolute sort of conduct, not to be indulged in by those who had claims to respectability. "I had, however, by this time arrived at a strong attraction toward the organs of generation and all aspects of puberty, and my imagination spent Itself in a fantastic worship of every sign of masculinity. My enjoyment now was to imagine myself forced to undergo physical humiliation and submission to the caprice of my male captors, and the central fact became the discharge of urine from my lover over my body and limbs, or, if I were very fond of him, I let it be in my face. This was followed usually by a half-caressing castigation, in which the hand only was instrumental. "The period of which I am now writing was that of my entry into school life. My imaginary lovers immediately became numerous; all the masters and all the boys above a certain age attracted me; for two I had in addition a feeling of romantic as well as physical attachment. Indeed, from this time onward I was never without some heroes toward whom I indulged a perfectly separate and tenderly ideal passion. The announcement that one was about to leave surprised me into a passionate fit of weeping; yet my reserve was so great and my sense of isolation so crushing that I made no effort at intimacy, and to one for whom I felt inexhaustible devotion I barely spoke for the first three years, though meeting him daily. At this time the subjects of my contemplation had distinctly individualized methods of approach. Thus in one case I imagined we stood face to face in our night-gear; suddenly mine was stripped from me; I was seized and forcibly thrust under his and made to hang with my feet off the ground by my full weight on the erect organ which inserted itself between my thighs; so suspended--my body enveloped in the folds of his linen and my face pressed upon his heart--I underwent a castigation which continued until I was thrown down to receive a discharge of urine over my prostrate body. Such images seemed to come independently of my will. "It was at this time that I found a large pleasure in imagining contact with people whom I disliked; the prevailing note of these intimacies was always cruelty, to which I submitted with acute relish. I discovered, however, from the ordinary school experiences of corporal punishment, that it had no charm to me when administered for school offenses, even from the hands under which at other times I imagined myself as delighting to receive pain. The necessary link was lacking; had I perceived on the part of my judge any liking for the operation, there would probably have been a response on my side. On one occasion I was flogged unjustly; conscious as I was of its cruel instead of judiciary character, this was the only castigation I received which had in it an element of gratification for my instincts. At the same time I never forgave the hand that administered it; it is the only instance I remember in myself of a grudge nourished for years. "Meanwhile, amid this chaos of confused love and hatred, of relish for cruelty and loathing for injustice, my first thoroughly romantic and ideal attachment was developing itself. I may say, of those to whom romance as well as physical attachment bound me, that they have remained unchangeable parts of my nature. Today, as it was twenty years ago, when I think of them the blood gushes to my brain, my hands tingle and moisten with an emotion I cannot subdue: I am at their feet worshipping them. Of them my dreams were entirely tender; the idea of cruelty never touched the conception I had of them. But I return to that one who was the chief influence of my youth: older than myself by only three years, he was of fine build and athletic, with adolescence showing in his face; my tremulous beginnings of worship were confirmed by a word of encouragement thrown to me one day as I went to receive my first flogging; no doubt my small, scared face excited his kind pity. I made it my concern afterward to let him know that I had not cried under the ordeal, and I believe he passed the word around that I had taken my punishment pluckily. So little contact had I with him that beyond constant worship on my part I remember nothing till, about three years later, I received from him a kind, half-joking solicitation, spoken in clean and simple language. So terrific was my shyness and secrecy that I had even then no idea that familiarity of the sort was common enough in schools. I was absolutely unable to connect my own sensations with those of the world at large or to believe that others felt as I did. On this occasion I simply felt that some shrewd thrust had been made at me for the detection of my secret. He had drawn me upon his knee; I sat there silent, flushing and dumbfounded. He made no attempt to press me; he had, as he thought, said enough if I chose to be reciprocal; beyond that he would not tempt me. A few years ago I heard of him married and prosperous. "In following up my emotions in this direction I have far outstripped the period up to which I have given a complete exposition of my development. I must have been more than 12 years old before school life persuaded me to face (as taught by sniggering novices) the actual facts of sexual intercourse. At the same time I learned that I had means of extracting enjoyment from my own body in a definite direction which I had not till then suspected. A growing resistance on my part to his cold desires had led to a break with my former intimate; to the last he had taught me nothing, except distaste for himself. I now found ready teachers right and left of me. One of my schoolfellows invited me to watch; him in the process of masturbation; the spectacle left me quite unmoved; the result appeared to me far less exciting than the discharge of urine which, until then, I had associated with male virility. I was so accustomed to my own lone amorous broodings that the effort and action required for this process, when I attempted to imitate it, disconcerted my thoughts and interfered with concentration on my own inventions. I had never experienced the pleasure accompanying the spasm of emission, and there seemed to be nothing worth trying for along that road. I desisted and returned to my reveries. I was now in a perfect maze of promiscuity; there must have been at least fifty people who attracted me at that time. I developed a liking for imagining myself between two lovers, generally men who were physical contrasts. It was my habit to analyze as minutely as possible those who attracted me. To gain intimacy with what was below the surface I studied with attention their hands, the wrists where they disappeared (showing the hair of the forearm), and the neck; I estimated the comparative size of the generative organs, the formation of the thighs and buttocks, and thus constructed a presentment of the whole man. The more vividly I could do this, the keener was the pleasure I was able to obtain from their contemplated embraces. "Till now I had been absolutely untouched by any moral scruples. I had the usual acquiescence in the religious beliefs in which I had been trained; it did not enter my head that there was any divine law, one way or the other, concerning the allurements of the imagination. From my thirteenth year slight hints of uneasiness began to creep into my conscience. I began perhaps to understand that the formulas of religion, to which I had listened all my life with as little attention as possible, had some meaning which now and then touched the circumstances of my own life. I had not yet realized that my past foretold my future, and that women would be to me a repulsion instead of an attraction where things sexual were concerned. I had the full conviction that one day I should be married; I had also some fear that as I grew to manhood I might succumb to the temptations of loose women. I had an incipient revulsion from such a fate, and this seemed to me to indicate that moral stirrings were at work within me. One night I was amorously attacked in my bedroom by two of the domestics. I experienced an acute horror which I hid under laughter; my resistance was so desperate that I escaped with a tickling. I had been accustomed to sit on the servants' knees, a habit I had innocently retained from childhood; I can now recall in detail the approaches these women had been used to make me. At the time I was utterly oblivious that anything was intended. "I was equally oblivious to things that had a nearer relation to my own feelings. In passing along a side-street one night I was overtaken by a man who began conversation on the weather. He asked me if I were not cold, began passing his hand up and down my back; then came a question about caning at school, whether certain parts of me were not sore, leading to an investigating touch. I put his hand aside shyly, but did not resent the action. Presently he was for exploring my trousers pockets and I began to think him a pickpocket; repulsed in that direction, he returned, to rubbing my back. The sensation was pleasant. I now took him for a pimp who wished to take me to a prostitute, and as at that time I had begun to realize that such pleasures were not to my taste I was glad to find myself at my destination, and said good-bye sharply, leaving him standing full of astonishment at his failure with one who had taken his advances so pleasantly. I could not bring myself to believe that others had the same feelings as myself. Later I realized my escape, not without a certain amount of regret, and constructed for my own pleasure a different termination to the incident. "I was now so possessed by masculine attraction that I became a lover of all the heroes I read of in books. Some became as vivid to me as those with whom I was living in daily contact. For a time I became an ardent lover of Napoléon (the incident of his anticipation of the nuptials with his second wife attracting me by its impetuous brutality), of Edward I, and of Julius Cæsar. Charles II I remember by a caressing cruelty with which my imagination gifted him. Jugurtha was a great acquisition. Bothwell, Judge Jefferies, and many villains of history and fiction appealed to me by their cruelty. "I had become an adept in the mental construction necessary for the satisfaction of my desires. And yet up to that date I had never seen the nude body of a full-grown adult. I had no knowledge of the extent to which hair in certain instances develops on the torso; indeed, my efforts at characterization centered, for the most part, around the thighs and generative organs. At this time one of my schoolfellows saw a common workman, known to me by name, bathing in a stream with some companions; all his body was, my informant told me, covered with hair from throat to belly. In face the man was coarse and repulsive, but I now began to regard him as a lovely monstrosity, and for many nights embraced the vision of him passionately, with face buried in the jungle growth of hair that covered his chest. I was, for the first time, conscious of deliberately (and successfully) willing not to see his face, which was distasteful to me. At the same time another schoolfellow told me, concerning a master who bathed with the boys, that hair showed above his bathing-drawers as high as the navel. I now began definitely to construct bodies in detail; the suggestion of extensive hairiness maddened me with delight, but remained in my mind strongly associated with cruelty; my hairy lovers never behaved to me with tenderness; everything at this period, I think, tended to draw me toward force and violence as an expression of amativeness. A schoolfellow, a few years my senior, of a cruel, bullying disposition, took a particular delight in inflicting pain on me: he had particularly pointed shoes, and it was his custom to make me stand with my back to him while he addressed me in petting and caressing tones; just when his words were at their kindliest he would inflict a sharp stroke with the toe of his boot so as to reach the most tender part of my fundament; the pain was exquisite; I was conscious that he experienced sexual pleasure (I had seen definite signs of it beneath his clothing), and, though loathing him, I would, after I had suffered from his kicks, throw myself into his imaginary embraces and indulge in a perfect rage of abject submission. Yet all the time I would gladly have killed him. "At the age of 14 I went, for a time, to a farm-house, where I was allowed to mingle familiarly with the farm-laborers, a fine set of muscular young men. I became a great favorite, and, having childish, caressing manners a good deal behind my real age, I was allowed to take many liberties with them. They all lived under the farmer's roof in the old-fashioned way, and in the evening I used to sit on their knees and caress and hug them to my heart's content. They took it phlegmatically; it apparently gave them no surprise. One of the men used to return my squeezes and caresses and once allowed me to put my hand under his shirt, but there were no further liberties. "It was not until I was nearly 15 that the event happened which made me, for the first time, restless in my enforced solitude. I was verging on puberty, and perhaps in the hope that I should find my own development met by a corresponding warmth I again came into intimate relations with the companion whose frigid performances had caused me weariness and disgust. He was now a man, having reached majority. He put me into his bed while he undressed himself and came toward me in perfect nudity. In a moment we were in each other's arms and the deliciousness of that moment intoxicated me. Suddenly, lying on the bed, I felt attacked, as I thought, by an imperative need to make water. I leaped up with a hurried excuse, but already the paroxysm had subsided. No discharge came to my relief, yet the need seemed to have passed. I returned to my companion, but the glamour of the meeting was already over. My companion evidently found more pleasure in my person than when I was a mere child; I felt moved and flattered by the pleasure he took in pressing his face against certain parts of my body. On a second occasion, one day, I seemed involuntarily about to transgress decency, but again, as before, separated myself, and remained ignorant of what it was on which I had verged in my excitement. At another meeting, however, I had been allowed to prolong my embrace and to act, indeed, upon my full instincts. Once more I felt suddenly the coming of something acutely impending; I took my courage in my hands and went boldly forward. In another moment I had hold of the mysterious secret of masculine energy, to which all my years of dilirious imaginings had been but as a waiting at the threshold, the knocking on a closed door. "It was inevitable that from that day our intimacy should dwindle into dissolution (though other causes anticipated this natural decay), but I no longer found masturbation a dry and wearisome formula. In my novitiate I was disheartened to find how long it took me to dissociate myself from the contemplative and attach myself to the active form of self-gratification. But I presently found myself committed to the repetition of the act three times a day. On almost the last occasion I met my intimate he showed an exceptional ardor. At that meeting he proposed to attempt an act I had not previously considered possible, far less had I heard that it was considered the worst criminal connection that could take place. I had a slight fear of pain, but was willing to gratify him, and for the first time found in my submission a union of the two amative instincts which had before disputed sway in me: the instinct for tenderness and the instinct for cruelty. _Pedicatio_ failed to take place, but I received an embrace which for the first time gave me full satisfaction. My delight was enormous; I was filled with emotions. I have no words to describe the extraordinary charm of the warm, smooth flesh upon mine, and the rougher contact of the hairy parts. Yet I was conscious, even at the time, that this was but the physical side of pleasure, and that he was not and never could be one whom I might truly be said to love. "I was now in my sixteenth year, and under the influence of these and many other emotions then, for the first time, beginning to seize me, a sense of literary power and a desire to express myself through imaginative channels began to take hold of me. I feared that my indulgence was having an enfeebling power on my faculties (I had begun to experience physical languor and depression), and certain religious scruples, the result of my early training, took hold of me. For the first time I became conscious that the ardors I felt toward my own sex were a diversion of the sex-instinct itself, and to my astonishment and consternation I found by chance the practices I had already indulged in definitely denounced in the Bible as an abomination. From that moment began a struggle which lasted for years. I made a final breach with my former intimate, and thereupon a long dispute took place between the conflicting influences that strove for possession of my body. For a time I broke off the habit of masturbation, but I could not so easily rid myself of the mental indulgence, which was now almost an essential sedative for inducing sleep. At this time a visit to the seaside, where, for the first time, I was able to see men bathing in complete nudity, frankly, in the full light of day, plunged me again for a time headforemost into imaginative amours, and my scruples and resolutions were flung to the winds. But, on the whole, I had now entered a stage which, for want of a better term, I must describe as the emotionally moral. To whatever depth of indulgence I descended I carried a sense of obliquity with me; I believed that I was a rebel from a law, natural and divine, of which yet no instinct had been implanted in me. I still held unquestioned the truth of the religion I had been brought up in, and my whole life, every thought of my brain, every impulse of my body, were in direct antagonism to the will of God. At times physical desire broke down these barriers, but I practised considerable restraint physically, though not mentally, and made great efforts to conquer my aversion from women and extreme devotion for men, without the slightest success. I was 30, however, before I found a companion to love me in the way my nature required. I am quite a healthy person, and capable of working at very high pressure. Under sexual freedom I have become stronger." HISTORY XXII.--T.J., aged 50; man of letters. Height 5 feet 7 inches; weight 10 stone, but formerly much less. Belongs to an entirely normal family, all married and with children. "Owing to the fact that my mother suffered from some malady the whole period of gestation prior to my birth, I came into the world so puny a child, so ill-nourished, that for some time the doctors despaired of my life. Till the age of puberty, though never ill, I suffered greatly from delicate health. I was abnormally sensitive and all my affections and passions extraordinarily developed. Owing to my brothers being much older than myself I was thrown into the society of my sister. Till 8 years old she was my chief playmate. With her I played with dolls and abandoned myself wholly to the delights of an imaginary land which was much more real to me than the world around me. I never remember learning to read, but at 5 the _Arabian Nights_ and Kingsley's _Hereward the Wake_ were my favorite books. Living in the country the society of other children was difficult to obtain. My whole affections centered in my father, my mother having died when I was a child. This affection for my father was rather a morbid passion which absorbed my life. I dared not leave his side for fear of a final separation from him. I would wake him when asleep to see if he still lived. To this day, though he died twenty-six years ago, his memory haunts me. "My first abnormal desires were connected with him. I had seen him occasionally micturating in the garden alleys or out in the country. These occasions excited me terribly, and I would, if possible, wait till he had gone, and touch the humid leaves, drawing a terrible pleasure from the contact. Afterward, though he never suspected it, desire for him became a consuming passion, and I remember on one occasion, when on a holiday, I occupied the same bed with him, the excitement of his propinquity brought on such a formidable attack of heart palpitation that my father called in the family physician on our return home. Needless to say my heart was found quite sound. The desire still remains after all these years, and nothing excites me more even now than the memory of my father in his morning bath. "The whole world for me in my early childhood was peopled with imaginary beings. While still a young child I would invent stories and relate them to any listener I could find, one such story lasting three years. I was an omnivorous reader, but my favorite reading was poetry. At 7 I could repeat the greater part of Longfellow's poems; Scott followed; then Milton captivated me when I was 14; then came Tennyson, Arnold, Swinburne, and Morris. Later came the Greek and Latin poets. From 7 years on I wrote verses to my father. Till 8 years I was excessively timid of the dark and, indeed, of all loneliness. This passed, however, and developed into an extreme sensitiveness of seeing or meeting people. Even on a country road I would walk miles out of my way to avoid meeting the ordinary yokel. At this period my day-dreams were my favorite occupation. Even to the present day my visions take up the greater part of my life. Though timid I was not wanting in courage. At an early age I would fight boys even older than myself. Later I have risked my life many times in various parts of Europe. As regards sports, I can do a little of everything: swimming, riding, fencing, shooting,--a little of each. Cricket and football I also played passably, but sports never interested me much. Literature became and is the passion of my life and for some years has remained my sole occupation. "At 8 years the sexual inversion began to manifest itself, though till I had attained 10 years of age I was practically quite innocent. At 8 years of age, my family removed to another country and I made the acquaintance of a little boy who attracted me sexually. We masturbated in company, without any reason except the pleasure of seeing each other exposed. Then I had connection with him _in anum_. This really at that time was an exception to my ordinary tastes which speedily developed into an intense desire of _fellatio_ and later on of intercrural pleasures. This latter perhaps may be accounted for by the visit to our house of a small boy with whom I slept for about a year. Every night during this period, I had intercrural connection with him twice and sometimes three times. Then came a consuming passion for all young boys and very old men. Boys after 14 or 15 ceased to attract me, more particularly when the hair of the pubes began to develop. From 8 to 14, when first I had sexual emissions, I masturbated at every opportunity. From 14 to 27, always once a day, generally twice and sometimes three times a day. At 27 I took rooms and formed acquaintance with the family occupying the house. The boys, one by one, were allowed to sleep with me and I conceived an extraordinary passion for one of them, an attachment which lasted till I finally left England. The attachment was much more that of a man for his wife and had nothing degrading in it. I was wretched when away from him, and as he was very attached to sport of all kinds I suffered 'divers kinds of death' each time that I imagined his life to be endangered. I can honestly say that in each of my attachments, and I have had many, the prevailing sentiment was the delight of protecting a weaker being than myself. Each person whom I have loved has been perfectly normal and all are now fathers of families. Each still regards me with affection and respect in spite of what has passed between us. All my life I have been possessed with the passion for paternity, I could almost say maternity. Willingly would I have suffered the pains of hell could I have borne a son to the person I loved. That I can honestly say has been the dominant instinct of my life. In my passion I have never been brutal, nor save under the influence of wine have I had connection with men over the age of puberty. In Southern Europe my experiences have been the same, a predominant passion for a boy exhibiting itself in every species of protecting care, and though terminating so far as sexual passion was concerned when the boy reached 15 or 16 years, yet still lasting and enduring in an honest and unselfish affection. At the age of 51, I still masturbate once or twice a week, though I long for some person whom I love to share the pleasure with me. I tried vainly at the age of 27 to bring myself into line with others. Prostitutes caused me horror, whether male or female. I attempted the act of coitus four or five times, twice with women of loose lives and at other times with married women. Save in one case the attempts were either abortive or caused me extreme disgust. "Practically from the time of puberty I have attracted sexually not only women but men. Women, oddly enough, though I care nothing for them sexually, either hate me or adore me, and I have had five offers of marriage. At the same time up till five years ago, I was pursued by men and have had the oddest experiences both in England and abroad. In the early period of this history I suffered tremendously from the feeling that I was isolated and unique in the world. I strove against the habit of masturbation and my perverted tastes with all my might. Scourges, vigils, burnings, all were of no avail. Deeper reading in the Classics showed me how common was the taste of sex for the same sex. At 27 I began to have a settled philosophy. Then as now, I made endless resolutions to avoid masturbation, though I can see nothing wrong in the mutual act of two persons drawn together by love. I am and always have been an extremely religious man, and if I am not altogether an orthodox Catholic, do my duties and have a high sense of the supernatural. I suffered much from melancholy from my earliest years. At 18, though nothing definitely was wrong, a vague but profound _malaise_ induced me to open the veins of my arm. I fainted, however, and was promptly succored. At the age of 35, after a return from abroad, I took an enormous dose of poison. This time again a singular coincidence saved me, and I once more came back to life. After this I purposely went abroad to obtain death and sought it in every possible way. Quite in vain, as you see. One thing I have never had a fear of, but have always longed for--Death. I am sure that if we only knew what joys lay on the other side of death, the whole world would rush madly to suicide. I have, apart from any perversion of taste, an honest and genuine passion for children and animals, and I am never happier than when in their society. Both adore me. "My life has not dimmed nor deadened my faculties, for I am occupied at the present time with very important work and I write steadily. But my real life is passed in my visions, which take me into another world quite as real as this sensuous one, and where I always retreat on all occasions possible. And yet, a strange paradox--I am a convinced Stoic and almost confine my reading to Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and the 'Imitation.' I am extremely emotional, fond of the society of women, though I loathe the sexual side of them, and when I love, though passion is certainly inextricably mixed, the prevailing sentiment is spiritual. I shall probably end by being a Carthusian or a fakir." HISTORY XXIII.--Englishman, aged 70, of German descent on father's side. Was first child of his mother, who was 36 at his birth; a younger brother normal; has no other relatives. He was brought up in England, and went to school at the age of 13. At a very early age, between 6 and 8, was deeply impressed by the handsome face of a young man, a royal trumpeter on horseback, seen in a procession. This, and the sight of the naked body of young men in a rowing-match on the river, caused great commotion, but not of a definitely sexual character. This was increased by the sight of a beautiful male model of a young Turk smoking, with his dress open in front, showing much of the breast and below the waist. He became familiar with pictures, admired the male figures of Italian martyrs, and the full, rich forms of the Antinous, and he read with avidity the _Arabian Nights_ and other Oriental tales, translations from the classics, Suetonius, Petronius, etc. He drew naked models in life schools, and delighted in male ballet-dancers. As a child, he used to perform in private theatricals; he excelled in female parts, and sang the songs of Madame Vestris, encouraged in this by his father. The sexual organs have never been fully developed, and the testicles, though large, are of a flabby consistence. He cannot whistle. He thinks he ought to have been a woman. At school he was shy and reserved, and had no particular intimacy with anyone, although he once desired it. He learned self-abuse from his younger brother, who had learned it from an older boy. He has never had erotic dreams. He never touched anyone but his brother until later when travelling in Italy, and then only his fellow-traveller. When travelling in Asia Minor he had many opportunities, but always put them aside from fear, afterward regretting his fearfulness. He yearned for intimacy with particular friends, but never dared to express it. He went much to theaters, and what he saw there incited him to masturbation. When he was about 30 years of age his reserve, and his fear of treachery and extortion, were at last overcome by an incident which occurred late at night at the Royal Exchange, and again in a dark recess in the gallery of the Olympic Theater when Gustavus Brooke was performing. From that time the Adelphi Theater, the Italian Opera, and the open parks at night became his fields of adventure. He remarks that among people crowding to witness a fire he found many opportunities. His especial intimates were a railway clerk and an Italian model. In more recent years he has chiefly found gratification among footmen and policemen. He is exclusively passive; also likes mutual _fellatio_. He used greatly to admire finely developed forms (conscious of his own shortcomings), shapely limbs, and delicate brown hair, and always admired strength and manly vigor. He never took any interest in boys, and has always been indifferent to women. HISTORY XXIV.--A medical man, English, aged 30. He believes that his father, who was a magistrate, was very sympathetic toward men; on several occasions he has sat with him on the bench when cases of indecent assault were brought up; he discharged three cases, although there could be little doubt as to their guilt, and was very lenient to the others. From the age of 9 he loved to sleep with his brother, ten years older, who was in the navy; they slept in different beds, and the child went to bed early, but he always kept awake to see his brother undress, as he adored his naked body; and would then get into his bed. He learned the habit of masturbation from his brother at the age of 9; at that time there was no sexual orgasm, but watching it in his brother was a perpetual source of wonder and pleasure. During his brother's absence at sea the boy longed for his return and would practice self-abuse with the thought of his brother's naked body before him. This brother's death was a source of great grief. At the age of 12 he went to boarding-school and was constantly falling in love with good-looking boys. He was always taken into one of the bigger boys' beds. At this age he was thoroughly able to enjoy the sexual orgasm with boys. His erotic dreams have always been of men and especially of boys; he has never dreamed sexually of women. From the age of 9 to the age of 21, when he left school, he never gave women a thought sexually, though he always liked their society. For two years after leaving school he had connection with women, not because he thought there was sin in loving his own sex, but because he regarded it as a thing that no one did after leaving school. During these two years he still really preferred men and used to admire the figures of soldiers and sailors. He then paid a visit to London, which may be described in his own words: "I went to see an old schoolfellow who was living there. In his room was a young fellow, fair, extremely good looking, with a good figure and charming manners. From that moment all my past recollections came back. I could not get him out of my mind; in fact, I was in love with him. I pictured him naked before me as a lovely statue; my dreams were frequent at night, always of him. For a fortnight afterward I practised masturbation with the picture of his lovely face and form always before me. We became fast friends, and from that day women have never entered my thoughts." Although up to the present he has no wish or intention to marry, he believes that he will eventually do so, because it is thought desirable in his profession; but he is quite sure that his love and affection for men and boys will never lessen. In earlier life he preferred men from 20 to 35; now he likes boys from 16 upward; grooms, for instance, who must be good looking, well developed, cleanly, and of a lovable, unchanging nature; but he would prefer gentlemen. He does not care for mere mutual embracing and reciprocal masturbation; when he really loves a man he desires _pedicatio_ in which he is himself the passive subject. He has curly hair and moustache, and well-developed sexual organs. His habits are masculine; he has always enjoyed field sports, and can swim, ride, drive, and skate. At the same time, he is devoted to music, can draw and paint, and is an ardent admirer of male statuary. While fond of practical occupations of every sort, he dislikes anything that is theoretical. He adds: "As a medical man, I fail to see morally any unhealthiness, or anything that nature should be ashamed of, in connection with, and sympathy for, men." HISTORY XXV.--A.S. Schoolmaster, aged 46. "My father was, I should say, below the average in capacity for friendship. He liked young girls, and was never interested in boys. He was a man of strongly Puritanical morality, capable of condemning with gloomy bitterness. He was also a man capable of great sacrifice for principle, and mentally very well endowed. My mother was a clever, practical woman, with wide sympathies. She was capable of warm friendship, especially toward those younger than herself. Her father (whom I never saw) was a teacher. He was devoted to his wife, but also delighted in the company of young men. He had always some young man on his arm, my mother would tell me. My mother's family is of Welsh descent. I learned to read at 5, and I can scarcely have been more than 6 when I used to read again and again David's lament for Absalom. Even now I can dimly recall the siren charm for me of that melancholy refrain, 'O my son Absalom.... O Absalom, my son, my son!' Of late, when I have thought of the amount of devotion I have shown to lads, and the amount I have sometimes suffered for them, I have felt as if there were something almost weirdly prophetic in that early incident. "I was always an impressionable creature. My mother was very musical, and her singing 'got hold' of me wonderfully. The dramatic and the poetic always strongly appealed to me. "I felt I should like to act; but I never dared. In the same way I felt that one day I should like to be a schoolmaster, but I dared not say so. A shy, retiring creature was obviously unfitted for such occupations. Well, the teaching came about, and the strange part was that the boys were somehow or other attracted by me, and the 'worst' customers were attracted most. And there came a chance of acting too. Owing to some difficulties about the cast in a play at school, I took a part. After that I _knew_ that (within a certain range) I could act. I spent two holidays with a dramatic company. I should undoubtedly have remained on the stage, but for one thing. I don't wish to be sanctimonious, but dirty and ugly jokes are odious to me. It was this sort of thing that drove me away. I threw myself into the school work instead. "It was partly the dramatic interest, partly a quite genuine interest in human nature, that led me to do some preaching too. When I had been badly hurt by one or two youngsters whom I loved, I thought of going in for pastoral work, but this too was given up--and very wisely. I should never be able to work comfortably with any organization. For one thing I have a way of taking on new ideas, and organizations do not like that. For another, all social functions are anathema to me. "Interest in 'art' as usually understood began to be marked only after I was 30. It started with architecture and passed on to painting and sculpture. The tendency to do rather a variety (too great a variety) of things characterizes many uranians. We are rather like the labile chemical compounds: our molecules readily rearrange themselves. "As a boy of 10 I had the ordinary sweethearting with a girl of the same age. The incident is worth perhaps a little further comment for the following reason: When I was 16 years old the girl lived with us for a year. She was a nice, pleasant, bright girl, and she thought a great deal of me. I was strongly attracted by her. I remember especially one little incident. I had been showing her how to do some algebra and she was kneeling at the table by the side of my chair. Her hair was flowing over her shoulders and she looked rather charming. She expressed warm admiration of the way I had worked the problem out. I remember that I deliberately squashed out the feeling of attraction that came over me. I scarcely know why I did this; but I fancy there was a vague sense that I did not want my work disturbed. There was no sexual attraction or, at least, none that was manifest. The girl, there is no doubt, grew to love me. I am sorry to say that in two other cases, later, women loved me, and have both permanently remained unmarried on my account. I sometimes feel that in a wisely free society I should be able to give both of these women children. That I believe I could do, and I think it would be an immense satisfaction to them. A permanent union with a woman would, however, be impossible to me. A permanent union with a man would, I believe, be possible. At least I know that attractions which have been at all homosexual in character have in my case been very lasting. "I was strongly attracted when not more than 13 to a lad slightly older. It was a love story, there is no doubt, but I do not recollect any outer sexual signs. There were other passing cases, but in no case was there any warm response till I was 15. I then made friends with a lad of entirely different type from myself. I was a reader. I liked long walks and fresh air, but I was too shy to go in for sports. Indeed I was frightfully shy. He was a great sportsman and always at home in society. But he asked me to help him with some work, and we took to working together. I grew passionately fond of him. His caresses always caused some erection. Personally, I believe it would have been wiser to have obtained complete sexual expression. The absence of knowledge led to two distinctly undesirable results. The first was marked congestion and pain at times; the second was a tendency to a sort of modified masochism. There is always, I suppose, some erotic attraction about the buttocks, and of course also, to boys, they afford an irresistibly attractive mark for a good smack. I found that when this lad spanked me it produced some amount of sexual excitement, and the desire for this form of stimulus grew upon me. The result, in my case, was bad. It was sensualism, not love. I can say this with confidence, because in a much later case of deeply passionate love, I shrank from any such method, but the mutual, naked embrace I found was for me an absolutely natural and _pure_ expression of love. I never felt any touch of grossness in it, and it destroyed the earlier and (for me at least) less wholesome desire. "The school friendship disappeared with the marriage of my friend. I was furiously jealous, and the young man's mother was opposed to me, but I still think of that early friendship with tenderness. I know that my boy friend was the first who made me capable of self-expression, the first who taught me how to make friends at all. And if he still cared for me, I know that his love would be dear to me still. "My chief regret, as I look back, is that I did not know about these things early. I cannot but think that all youngsters should be spoken to about the love of comrades and encouraged to seek help in any sort of trouble that this may bring. We homogenic folk may be but a small percentage of mankind, but our numbers are still great, and surely the making or marring of our lives should count for something. At college I fell violently in love with a friend with whom I did work in science. He loved me too, though not with such heat. He also was largely uranian, but this I only realized a year or two back. He remains unmarried, and is still my friend. We did some research work together which is pretty well known. I am quite sure that the love we had for each other gave tremendous zest to our work and greatly increased our powers. "While I was working at college I was interested in a lad who was working as errand boy for a city firm. I helped him to get better training, and spent money on him. My father was making me some allowance at the time and demurred. I said I would in future support myself, and in this way came to take up schoolmastering. I at once became quite absorbed in my work with the boys. Of course I loved them. And here I feel I must touch upon what seems to me a characteristic of most of us uranians. Our genital organs are with us ordinarily and usually organs of _expression_. The clean-minded heterogenic man is apt to look upon such a view of the genital organs as monstrous; we, on the other hand, are compelled (at least for ourselves) to regard it as the natural and pure one. For my own part I had many Puritan prejudices--prejudices that I retained for many a long and weary day--but my affection for those of my own sex so often expressed itself by some sexual stirring, and more or less erection, that I was _obliged_ to look upon this as inevitable, and in general I paid no attention to it whatever. It was the older boys' who sometimes attracted me strongly. My love for them was I know a genuinely spiritual thing, though inevitably having some physical expression. I was capable of great devotion to them and sacrifice for them, and I would certainly rather have died than have injured them. The boys got on well with me. I was never weak with them, and I was able to allow all kinds of familiarities without any loss of respect. The older boys usually, out of class, called me by my Christian name, and I remember one writing to ask me whether he might do so, as it made him feel 'nearer' to me. A few of the lads I of course loved with special devotion. They kissed me and loved to have me embrace them. One of these was, I now know, pure uranian, and there was in his case certainly some sexual response, but though I often slept with him, when he was a lad of 17 and 18, there was never any idea in our minds of any sexual act. We are still warm friends, and always kiss when we meet. Looking back upon those days, I feel that I was a little inclined to pass on from one love to another, but each was a genuine devotion, and involved real hard work on the lad's behalf. And I know that where the lad stuck to me into manhood a real tenderness and love remain still. "While teaching I made the acquaintance of a non-conformist minister, who, though happily married, had certainly some homogenic tendencies. He was most devoted to boys and helped me with regard to some difficult cases. It was the difficult cases that always attracted me. I had to punish these lads and my friend recommended spanking with the hand on the bare buttocks. I mention that I adopted this method, because it might have been thought specially dangerous to me. It certainly never produced in me the remotest suggestion of any sexual act, though it did sometimes produce a slight amount of sexual excitement. I disregarded this, or put it out of my mind, as I found the method most efficacious. It was capable of great variation of intensity, and the boys were always ready to joke about it. I never came across a case where any sexual excitement was produced by it. The boys whom I had to be most 'down' on almost always, however, grew fonder of me. There may be a slight and normal masochistic tendency in most boys, and _perhaps_ the erogenic character of the buttocks has something to do with the development of affection. If so, I am inclined to regard it as normal and useful rather than otherwise, for in my experience no undesirable result was ever produced. But then, of course, there was no playing with the business; that might, I am sure, in some cases be decidedly injurious. "One experience of my schoolmastering days is, I think, important in its bearing upon general sexual psychology. I always noticed that during the term I was specially free from 'wet dreams.' What is noteworthy is this: During term there was never anything more than a very partial sexual expression of any feeling of mine, such expression indeed as was wholly inevitable. There was therefore no actual loss of semen, and it seems clear that the 'wet dreams' were not due to mere physical pressure. The psychic satisfaction of love in this case made the complete physical expression less urgent. But it was a love of a distinctly tender kind that was needed to keep the physical from obtruding. Of that further experience has made me sure. I am, moreover, now convinced that a _mutual_ uranian love will reach its best results, both spiritual and physical, where there is complete sexual expression. "Of the character of the sexual dreams I have had, there is not much to be said. During the period of masochistic tendency, they were masochistic in character; otherwise they have been dreams simply of the naked embrace. Usually there has been a considerable element of ideal love in the dream. I have not more than three times at most dreamed of intercourse with one of the opposite sex. There was only in one case anything that I could call actual emotion in such a dream. The other dreams have often (not always) been dreams of real yearning, and not at all what I should call merely sensual. "In the course of time I wanted more freedom to do things in my own way than could be obtained in a public school. I started a school of my own. The work was for a good many years very happy. I loved the boys, and they loved me. I was active, ardent, and they made a chum of me. But people got into the way of sending me awkward customers. I poured out my love on these, I used myself up for them. Unfortunately (though I was never 'orthodox') my Puritanical morality was still strong within me, my views of human psychology were too limited, and I imposed them on the boys. Some were very devoted; but, as years went by and the proportion of _mauvais sujets_ increased, there tended to be a split in the small camp and one or two boys whom I loved deceived me terribly. To a man of my temperament this was heart-rending and from then the work was doomed. Troubles at school went along with troubles at home, and these things contributed to center my affection upon a lad who was with me, and who had given me much trouble. For some reason or other I went on believing that he would get right. Deceit was his great difficulty. He was certainly partly homosexual himself. Looking back I can see that with a wider and more charitable knowledge I could have dealt more wisely and helpfully with certain homosexual episodes of his. I am convinced now that mere sweeping condemnation of the physical is not the wholesome way of help. However, to cut the story short, all seemed at last to go well, and the lad was growing into a young man. Our love deepened, and we always slept together, but quite ascetically. Later, when quite in his young manhood he had left school, there was, unfortunately, misunderstandings with his parents, who forbad him to sleep with me. What followed is of some importance. Up till then, though certainly his affection seemed ardent, I had observed no sexual signs on his part. I had been quite frank with him as to mine. He was then 19, and I thought old enough to have things explained to him. Sleeping with him I had found peaceful and helpful, and more than once he told me that it greatly helped him. But _after we were forbidden to sleep together_, I found the passion in me more difficult to control, and it suddenly leaped out in him. We were still, however, rather ascetic, though we used to kiss each other, and we used to embrace naked. This produced emission not infrequently with me, but only once with him, though always powerful erection. I would not allow any friction. Perhaps this was a mistake. A more complete expression might have helped him. "All my life I had been hungry for a complete response, and at one time the lad thought he could give it. He was then nearing 20. 'I have never been so happy in my life,' he said. It was a blow to me when I found he had mistaken his own feelings, but I was quite ready to accept what love he could give. I also never dreamed of any sort of insistence on sexual expression. With such love as he could give I was quite ready to make myself content. 'The true measure of love,' wrote a uranian schoolmaster to me once, 'is self-sacrifice'; not 'What will you give?' but 'What will you give up?' Not 'What will you do for him?' but 'What will you forego for his sake?' I quote this gladly, for the conventional English moralists regard an invert as a kind of deformed beast. I can only say that I tried to realize the ideal which these words express. No 'moralist' would have helped me one whit. The parents, also, separated us. They have done much harm by their mistake. How difficult it is for parents to allow freedom to their children! Their ideal is successful constraint, not free self-discovery. But in spite of them, and in spite of the separation, I know that my friend and I have helped each other. "There is one fear parents have which I believe is unwarranted. As far as I have seen, I do not conclude that the early expression of homosexual love prevents heterosexual love from developing later. Where this love is a part of the individual's inborn nature, it will show itself. I do, however, believe that a noble homogenic love in early life will sometimes help a lad to avoid a low standard of heterogenic attachment. The Greeks did well, at their best time, in cultivating and ennobling the homogenic love. Amongst us, as can be understood by all who know the working of society taboos, it is the baser forms that are unhindered, the noblest forms that are debased. "We urnings are, I think, dependent upon individual love. Many of us, I know, need to work for an individual to do our best. Is this the outcome of the woman in the uranian temperament? And the tragedy of our fate is that we whose souls vibrate only to the touch of the hand of Eros are faced with the fiercest taboo of all that can give our lives meaning. The other taboos have been given up one by one. Will not this, the last of the taboos, soon vanish? I have known lives darkened by it, weakened by it, crushed out by it. How long are the western moralists to maim and brand and persecute where they do not understand?" The next case belongs to a totally different class from all the preceding histories. These--all British or American--were obtained privately; they are not the inmates of prisons or of asylums, and in most cases they have never consulted a physician concerning their abnormal instincts. They pass through life as ordinary, sometimes as honored, members of society. The following case, which happens to be that of an American, is acquainted with both the prison and the lunatic asylum. There are several points of interest in his history, and he illustrates the way in which sexual inversion can become a matter of medico-legal importance. I think, however, that I am justified in believing that the proportion of sexually inverted persons who reach the police-court or the lunatic asylum is not much larger in proportion to the number of sexually inverted persons among us than it is among my cases. For the documents on which I have founded the history of Guy Olmstead I am indebted to the kindness of Dr. Talbot, of Chicago, well known from his studies of abnormalities of the jaws and face, so often associated with nervous and mental abnormality. He knew the man who addressed to him the letters from which I here quote:-- HISTORY XXVI.--On the twenty-eighth of March, 1894, at noon, in the open street in Chicago, Guy T. Olmstead fired a revolver at a letter-carrier named William L. Clifford. He came up from behind, and deliberately fired four shots, the first entering Clifford's loins, the other three penetrating the back of his head, so that the man fell and was supposed to be fatally wounded. Olmstead made little attempt to escape, as a crowd rushed up with the usual cry of "Lynch him!" but waved his revolver, exclaiming: "I'll never be taken alive!" and when a police-officer disarmed him: "Don't take my gun; let me finish what I have to do." This was evidently an allusion, as will be seen later on, to an intention to destroy himself. He eagerly entered the prison-van, however, to escape the threatening mob. Olmstead, who was 30 years of age, was born near Danville, Ill., in which city he lived for many years. Both parents were born in Illinois. His father, some twenty years ago, shot and nearly killed a wealthy coal operator, induced to commit the crime, it is said, by a secret organization of a hundred prominent citizens to whom the victim had made himself obnoxious by bringing suits against them for trivial causes. The victim became insane, but the criminal was never punished, and died a few years later at the age of 44. This man had another son who was considered peculiar. Guy Olmstead began to show signs of sexual perversity at the age of 12. He was seduced (we are led to believe) by a man who occupied the same bedroom. Olmstead's early history is not clear from the data to hand. It appears that he began his career as a schoolteacher in Connecticut, and that he there married the daughter of a prosperous farmer; but shortly after he "fell in love" with her male cousin, whom he describes as a very handsome young man. This led to a separation from his wife, and he went West. He was never considered perfectly sane, and from October, 1886, to May, 1889 he was in the Kankakee Insane Asylum. His illness was reported as of three years' duration, and caused by general ill-health; heredity doubtful, habits good, occupation that of a schoolteacher. His condition was diagnosed as paranoia. On admission he was irritable, alternately excited and depressed. He returned home in good condition. At this period, and again when examined later, Olmstead's physical condition is described as, on the whole, normal and fairly good. Height, 5 feet 8 inches; weight, 159 pounds. Special senses normal; genitals abnormally small, with rudimentary penis. His head is asymmetrical, and is full at the occiput, slightly sunken at the bregma, and the forehead is low. His cephalic index is 78. The hair is sandy, and normal in amount over head, face, and body. His eyes are gray, small, and deeply set; the zygomæ are normal. The nose is large and very thin. There is arrested development of upper jaw. The ears are excessively developed and malformed. The face is very much lined, the nasolabial fissure is deeply cut, and there are well-marked horizontal wrinkles on the forehead, so that he looks at least ten years older than his actual age. The upper jaw is of partial V-shape, the lower well developed. The teeth and their tubercles and the alveolar process are normal. The breasts are full. The body is generally well developed; the hands and feet are large. Olmstead's history is defective for some years after he left Kankakee. In October, 1892, we hear of him as a letter-carrier in Chicago. During the following summer he developed a passion for William Clifford, a fellow letter-carrier about his own age, also previously a schoolteacher, and regarded as one of the most reliable and efficient men in the service. For a time Clifford seems to have shared this passion, or to have submitted to it, but he quickly ended the relationship and urged his friend to undergo medical treatment, offering to pay the expenses himself. Olmstead continued to write letters of the most passionate description to Clifford, and followed him about constantly until the latter's life was made miserable. In December, 1893, Clifford placed the letters in the postmaster's hands, and Olmstead was requested to resign at once. Olmstead complained to the Civil Service Commission at Washington that he had been dismissed without cause, and also applied for reinstatement, but without success. In the meanwhile, apparently on the advice of friends, he went into hospital, and in the middle of February, 1894, his testicles were removed. No report from the hospital is to hand. The effect of removing the testicles was far from beneficial, and he began to suffer from hysterical melancholia. A little later he went into hospital again. On March 19th he wrote to Dr. Talbot from the Mercy Hospital, Chicago: "I returned to Chicago last Wednesday night, but felt so miserable I concluded to enter a hospital again, and so came to Mercy, which is very good as hospitals go. But I might as well go to Hades as far as any hope of my getting well is concerned. I am utterly incorrigible, utterly incurable, and utterly impossible. At home I thought for a time that I was cured, but I was mistaken, and after seeing Clifford last Thursday I have grown worse than ever so far as my passion for him is concerned. Heaven, only knows how hard I have tried to make a decent creature out of myself, but my vileness is uncontrollable, and I might as well give up and die. I wonder if the doctors knew that after emasculation it was possible for a man to have erections, commit masturbation, and have the same passion as before. I am ashamed of myself; I hate myself; but I can't help it. I have friends among nice people, play the piano, love music, books, and everything that is beautiful and elevating; yet they can't elevate me, because this load of inborn vileness drags me down and prevents my perfect enjoyment of anything. Doctors are the only ones who understand and know my helplessness before this monster. I think and work till my brain whirls, and I can scarce refrain from crying out my troubles." This letter was written a few days before the crime was committed. When conveyed to the police station Olmstead completely broke down and wept bitterly, crying: "Oh! Will, Will, come to me! Why don't you kill me and let me go to him!" (At this time he supposed he had killed Clifford.) A letter was found on him, as follows: "Mercy, March 27th. To Him Who Cares to Read: Fearing that my motives in killing Clifford and myself may be misunderstood, I write this to explain the cause of this homicide and suicide. Last summer Clifford and I began a friendship which developed into love." He then recited the details of the friendship, and continued: "After playing a Liszt rhapsody for Clifford over and over, he said that when our time to die came he hoped we would die together, listening to such glorious music as that. Our time has now come to die, but death will not be accompanied by music. Clifford's love has, alas! turned to deadly hatred. For some reason Clifford suddenly ended our relations and friendship." In his cell he behaved in a wildly excited manner, and made several attempts at suicide; so that he had to be closely watched. A few weeks later he wrote to Dr. Talbot: "Cook County Gaol, April 23. I feel as though I had neglected you in not writing you in all this time, though you may not care to hear from me, as I have never done anything but trespass on your kindness. But please do me the justice of thinking that I never expected all this trouble, as I thought Will and I would be in our graves and at peace long before this. But my plans failed miserably. Poor Will was not dead, and I was grabbed before I could shoot myself. I think Will really shot himself, and I feel certain others will think so, too, when the whole story comes out in court. I can't understand the surprise and indignation my act seemed to engender, as it was perfectly right and natural that Will and I should die together, and nobody else's business. Do you know I believe that poor boy will yet kill himself, for last November when I in my grief and anger told his relations about our marriage he was so frightened, hurt, and angry that he wanted us both; to kill ourselves. I acquiesced gladly in this proposal to commit suicide, but he backed out in a day or two. I am glad now that Will is alive, and am glad that I am alive, even with the prospect of years of imprisonment before me, but which I will cheerfully endure for his sake. And yet for the last ten months his influence has so completely controlled me, both body and soul, that if I have done right he should have the credit for my good deeds, and if I have done wrong he should be blamed for the mischief, as I have not been myself at all, but a part of him, and happy to merge my individuality into his." Olmstead was tried privately in July. No new points were brought out. He was sentenced to the Criminal Insane Asylum. Shortly afterward, while still in the prison at Chicago, he wrote to Dr. Talbot: "As you have been interested in my case from a scientific point of view, there is a little something more I might tell you about myself, but which I have withheld, because I was ashamed to admit certain facts and features of my deplorable weakness. Among the few sexual perverts I have known I have noticed that all are in the habit of often closing the mouth with the lower lip protruding beyond the upper. [Usually due to arrested development of upper jaw.] I noticed the peculiarity in Mr. Clifford before we became intimate, and I have often caught myself at the trick. Before that operation my testicles would swell and become sore and hurt me, and have seemed to do so since, just as a man will sometimes complain that his amputated leg hurts him. Then, too, my breasts would swell, and about the nipples would become hard and sore and red. Since the operation there has never been a day that I have been free from sharp, shooting pains down the abdomen to the scrotum, being worse at the base of the penis. Now that my fate is decided, I will say that really my passion for Mr. Clifford is on the wane, but I don't know whether the improvement is permanent or not. I have absolutely no passion for other men, and have begun to hope now that I can yet outlive my desire for Clifford, or at least control it. I have not yet told of this improvement in my condition, because I wished people to still think I was insane, so that I would be sure to escape being sent to the penitentiary. I know I was insane at the time I tried to kill both Clifford and myself, and feel that I don't deserve such a dreadful punishment as being sent to a State prison. However, I think it was that operation and my subsequent illness that caused my insanity rather than passion for Clifford. I should very much like to know if you really consider sexual perversion an insanity." When discharged from the Criminal Insane Asylum, Olmstead returned to Chicago and demanded his testicles from the City Postmaster, whom he accused of being in a systematized conspiracy against him. He asserted that the postmaster was one of the chief agents in a plot against him, dating from before the castration. He was then sent to the Cook Insane Hospital. It seems probable that a condition of paranoia is now firmly established. The following cases are all bisexual, attraction being felt toward both sexes, usually in predominant degree toward the male:-- HISTORY XXVII.--H.C., American, aged 28, of independent means, unmarried, the elder of two children. His history may best be given in his own words:-- "I am on both sides distantly of English ancestry, the first colonists of my name having come to New England in 1630. Both my mother's and my father's families have been prolific in soldiers and statesmen; my mother's contributed one president to the United States. So far as I am aware, none of my antecedents have betrayed mental vagaries, except a maternal uncle, who, from overstudy, became for a year insane. "I am a graduate of two universities with degrees in arts and medicine. After a year as physician in a hospital, I relinquished medicine altogether, to follow literature, a predilection since early boyhood. "I awoke to sexual feeling at the age of 7, when, at a small private school, glimpsing bare thighs above the stockings of girl schoolmates, I dimly exulted. This fetishism, as it grew more definite, centered at last upon the thighs and then the whole person of one girl in particular. My first sexually tinged dream was of her--that while she stood near I impinged my penis upon a red-hot anvil and then, in beatific self-immolation, exhibited the charred stump to her wondering, round eyes. This love, however, abated at the coming of a new girl to the school, who, not more beautiful, but more buxom, made stronger appeal to my nascent sexuality. One afternoon, in the loft of her father's stable, she induced me to disrobe, herself setting the example. The erection our mutual handlings produced on me was without conscious impulse; I felt only a childish curiosity on beholding our genital difference. But the episode started extravagant whimsies, one of which persistently obsessed me: with these obviously compensatory differences, why might not the girl and I effect some sort of copulation? This fantasy, drawn exclusively from that unique experience, charmed with its grotesqueness only, for at that time my sense of sex was but inchoate and my knowledge of it was nothing. The bizarre conceit, submitted to the equally ignorant girl and approved, was borne to the paternal hay-loft and there, with much bungling, brought to surprising and pleasurable consummation. "In the four ensuing years I repeated the act not seldom with this girl and with others. "When I was 11 my sister and I were taken by our parents to Europe, where we remained six years, attending school each winter in a different city and, during the summer, travelling in various countries. "Abroad my lust was glutted to the full: the amenable girl-playmate was ubiquitous, whom I plied with ardor at Swiss hotels, German watering-places, French pensions,--where not? Toward puberty I first repaired at times to prostitutes. "Masturbation, excepting a few experiments, I never resorted to. Few of my schoolmates avowedly practised it. "Of homosexuality my sole hearing was through the classics, where, with no long pondering, I opined it merely our modern comradery, poetically aggrandized, masquerading in antique habiliments and phraseology. It never came home to me; it attuned to no tone in the scale of my sympathies; I possessed no touchstone for transmitting the recitals of those ambiguous amours into fiery messages. The relation to my own sex was, intellectually, an occasional friendship devoid of strong affection; physically, a mild antagonism, the naked body of a man was slightly repellant. Statues of women evoked both carnal and esthetic response; of men, no emotions whatever, save a deepening of that native antipathy. Similarly in paintings, in literature, the drama, the men served but as foils for the delicious maidens, who visited my aërial seraglios and lapped me in roseate dreamings. "In my eighteenth year we returned to America, where I entered the university. "The course of my love of women was now a little erratic; normal connection began to lose fascination. As long ago I had formulated untutored the _rationale_ of coitus, so now imagination, groping in the dark, conceived a fresh fillip for the appetite--_cunnilinctus_. But this, though for a while quite adequate, soon ceased to gratify. At this juncture, Christmas of my first college year, I was appointed editor of a small magazine, an early stricture of whose new conduct was paucity of love stories. Such improvident neglect was in keeping with my altering view of women, a view accorded to me by self-dissipation of the glamour through which they had been wont to appear. I had wandered somehow behind the scenes, and beheld, no footlights of sex intervening, the once so radiant fairies resolved into a raddled humanity, as likable as ever, but desirable no longer. "Soon after this the Oscar Wilde case was bruiting about. The newspaper accounts of it, while illuminating, flashed upon me no light of self-revelation; they only amended some idle conjectures as to certain mystic vices I had heard whispered of. Here and there a newspaper allusion still too recondite was painstakingly clarified by an effeminate fellow-student, who, I fancy now, would have shown no reluctance had I begged him to adduce practical illustration. I purchased, too, photographs of Oscar Wilde, scrutinizing them under the unctuous auspices of this same emasculate and blandiloquent mentor. If my interest in Oscar Wilde arose from any other emotion than the rather morbid curiosity then almost universal, I was not conscious of it. "Erotic dreams, precluded hitherto by coition, came now to beset me. The persons of these dreams were (and still are) invariably women, with this one remembered exception: I dreamed that Oscar Wilde, one of my photographs of him incarnate, approached me with a buffoon languishment and perpetrated _fellatio_, an act verbally expounded shortly before by my oracle. For a month or more, recalling this dream disgusted me. "The few subsequent endeavors, tentative and half-hearted, to repristinate my venery were foredoomed, partly because I had feared they were, to failure: erection was incomplete, ejaculation without pleasure. "There seemed a fallacy in this behavior. Why coitus without sensual desire for it? No sense of duty impelled me, nor dread of sexual aberration. The explanation is this: attraction to females was not expunged, simply sublimed; my imagination, no longer importing women from observation, created its own delectable sirens, grown exacting and transcendental, petitioned reality in vain. Substance had receded for good now, and soon even these tormenting shadows of it became ever dimmer and dimmer, until they too at length faded into nothingness. "The antipodes of the sexual sphere turned more and more toward the light of my tolerance. Inversion, till now stained with a slight repugnance, became esthetically colorless at last, and then delicately retinted, at first solely with pity for its victims, but finally, the color deepening, with half-conscious inclination to attach it to myself as a remote contingency. This revolution, however, was not without external impetus. The prejudiced tone of a book I was reading, Krafft-Ebing's _Psychopathia Sexualis_, by prompting resentment, led me on to sympathy. My championing, purely abstract though it was to begin with, none the less involved my looking at things with eyes hypothetically inverted,--an orientation for the sake of argument. After a while, insensibly and at no one moment, hypothesis merged into reality: I myself was inverted. That occasional and fictitious inversion had never, I believe, superposed this true inversion; rather a true inversion, those many years dormant, had simply responded finally to a stimulus strong and prolonged enough, as a man awakens when he is loudly called. "In presenting myself thus sexually transformed, I do not aver having had at the outset any definitive inclination. The instinct so freshly evolved remained for a while obscure. Its primary expression was a feebly sensuous interest in the physical character of boys--in their feminine resemblances especially. To this interest I opposed no discountenance; for wantonness with women under many and diverse conditions having long ago medicined my sexual conscience to lethargy, no access of reasons came to me now for its refreshment. On the other hand, intellectual delight in the promises of the new world, as well as sensuality, conduced to its deliberate exploration. Still, for a year, the yearning settled with true lust upon no object more concrete than youths whose only habitation was my fancy. "A young surgeon, having read my copy of _Psychopathia Sexualis_, fell one evening to discussing inverts with such relish that I inquired ingenuously if he himself was one. He colored, whether confirmatively or otherwise I could not guess, in spite of his vehement no. Presently he very subtly recanted his denial. But to his counter-question I maintained my own no, lest he propose some sexual act, a point the esthetics of my developing inversion would not yet concede, the boys of my imagination being still predominant. "One evening, soon after this, he convoyed me to several of the café's where inverts are accustomed to foregather. These trysting places were much alike: a long hall, with sparse orchestra at one end, marble-topped tables lining the walls, leaving the floor free for dancing. Round the tables sat boys and youths, Adonises both by art and nature, ready for a drink or a chat with the chance Samaritan, and shyly importunate for the pleasures for which, upstairs, were small rooms to let. One of the boys, supported by the orchestra, sang the 'Jewel Song' out of '_Faust_.' His voice had the limpid, treble purity of a clarinet, and his face the beauty of an angel. The song concluded, we invited him to our table, where he sat sipping neat brandy, as he mockingly encountered my book-begotten queries. The boy-prostitutes gracing these halls, he apprised us, bore fanciful names, some of well-known actresses, others of heroes in fiction, his own being Dorian Gray. Rivals, he complained, had assumed the same appellation, but he was the original Dorian; the others were jealous impostors. His curly hair was golden; his cheeks were pink; his lips, coral red, parted incessantly to reveal the glistening pearliness of his teeth. Yet, though deeming him the beautifulest youth in the world, I experienced no sexual interest either in him or in the other boys, who indeed were all beautiful--beauty was their chief asset. Dorian, further, dilated on the splendor of his female attire, satin corsets, low-cut evening gowns, etc., donned on gala nights to display his gleaming shoulders and dimpled, plump, white arms. Thus arrayed, he bantered, he would bewitch even me, now so impassive, until I should throw myself, in tears of happiness, into his loving embrace. "My first venture upon _fellatio_ was a month later, with the young surgeon. I confessed the whim to try it, and he acceded. Though this nauseous and fatiguing act, very imperfectly performed, was prompted mostly by curiosity, there arose soon a passional hankering for repetition. In short, appetence for _fellatio_ grew slowly from the night of that mawkish fiasco and waxed eventually into a sovereign want. "Perhaps miscarriage of that initiatory experiment was due to precipitance, incubation of my perverse instinct being not yet complete. A hiatus of a month now supervened, in which, while further _fellatio_ was not attempted, my mind came always nearer to a reconcilement with the grossness of the act, and began to discover for its creatures some correlation in pretty boys beheld in the flesh. One evening, in Broadway, I conceived suddenly a full-fledged desire for a youth issuing from an hotel as I passed. Our glances met and dwelled together. At a shop-window he first accosted me. He was an invert. With him, in his room at the hotel whence I had seen him emerge, I passed an apocalyptic night. Thereafter commerce with boys only in the spirit ceased to be an end; the images were carnalized, stepped from their framework into the streets. That boy, that god out of the machine, I see him clearly: his brown, curling hair; his eyes blue as the sea; his chest both arched and so plump, his rounded arms, his taper waist, the graceful swell of his hips and full, snowy thighs; I recall as of yesterday the dimples in his knees, the slenderness of his ankles, the softness of his little feet, with insteps pink like the inside of a shell. How I gloated over his ample roundness, his rich undulations! "In the last eight years I have performed _fellatio_ (never _pedicatio_) with more than three hundred men and boys. My preference is for boys between 15 and 20, refined, pretty, girlish, and themselves homosexual. "Personally, barring this love for males, I am in all ways masculine, given to outdoor sports, and to smoking and drinking moderately. In appearance I am but a boy of 18. My face and figure are generally considered beautiful: I am clean-shaved, with black, curling hair, red cheeks and brown eyes; features delicate and regular; body, of medium height, everywhere practically hairless. By years of training I have attained alike great strength and classic proportions, the muscular contours smoothly rounded with adipose tissue. My hands and feet are small. My penis, though perfectly shaped, is rather enormous--erect, ten and a half inches in length, seven and a quarter inches in circumference. "Some abetment of my apostasy from orthodox methods was, no doubt, this hypertrophy of the penis, which already in my twentieth year had acquired its present redundance, rendering coitus impracticable with most women I essayed and painful where insertion was effected. Since falling heir to inversion, a unique recurrence of normal desire, six years ago, persuaded me to attempt coitus with eleven or twelve prostitutes, and, strangely enough, with much of the old-time salacity and full erection, but, as it chanced, always with too great disparity of parts for success." A certain preciosity in the manner of this communication may be put down partly to the nature of the literary avocations with which the writer is by preference occupied, and partly, no doubt more fundamentally, to the special character of his predominantly esthetic temperament and attraction to the exotic. An attraction for exotic experiences will not, however, suffice to account for the rather late development of homosexual tendencies, a late development which may be held to place this case in the retarded group of inverts. H.C. has himself pointed out to me that his aversion to women, beginning to appear in the eighteenth year, was already well pronounced before he had ever heard definitely of specific homosexual acts, and fully a year before he experienced the slightest sexual interest in men or boys. Moreover, while it is true that the actual tendency to homosexual attraction only appeared after he had read Krafft-Ebing and come in contact with inverts, such influences would not suffice to change the sexual nature of a normally constituted man. It may be added that H.C. is not attracted to normal males. As regards his moral attitude he remarks: "I have no scruples in the indulgence of my passion. I perceive the moral objections advanced, but how speculative they are, and constructive; while, immediately, inversion is the source of so much good." He looks upon the whole sexual question as largely a matter of taste. I regard the foregoing case as of considerable interest. It presents what is commonly supposed to be a very common type of inversion, Oscar Wilde being the supreme exemplar, in which a heterosexual person apparently becomes homosexual by the exercise of intellectual curiosity and esthetic interest. In reality the type is far from common; indeed, an intellectual curiosity and an esthetic interest, strong enough even apparently to direct the sexual impulse in any new channel, are themselves far from common. Moreover, a critical reading of this history suggests that the apparent control over the sexual impulse by reason is merely a superficial phenomenon. Here, as ever, reason is but a tool in the hands of the passions. The apparent causes are really the results; we are witnessing the gradual emergence of a retarded homosexual impulse. HISTORY XXVIII.--English, aged 40, surgeon. Sexual experiences began early, about the age of 10, when a companion induced him to play at intercourse with their sisters. He experienced no pleasure. A little later a servant-girl began to treat him affectionately and at last called him into her bedroom when she was partially undressed, fondled and kissed his member, and taught him to masturbate her. On subsequent occasions she attempted a simulation of intercourse, which gave her satisfaction, but failed to induce emission in him. On returning to school mutual masturbation was practised with schoolfellows, and the first emission took place at the age of 14. On leaving school he became a slave to the charms of women, and had frequent coitus about the age of 17, but he preferred masturbating girls and especially in persuading girls of good position, to whom the experience was entirely novel, to allow him to take liberties with them. At 25 he became engaged, and mutual masturbation was practised to excess during the engagement; after marriage connection generally took place twice every twenty-four hours until pregnancy. "At this time," he writes, "I stayed at the house of an old school-fellow, due of my lovers of old days. There were so many guests that I shared my friend's bedroom. The sight of his body gave rise to lustful feelings, and when the light was out I stole across to his bed. He made no objection, and we passed the night in mutual masturbation. We passed the next fortnight together, and I never took the same pleasure in coitus with my wife, though I did my duty. She died five years later, and I devoted myself heart and soul to my friend until his death by accident last year. Since then I have lost all interest in life." I am indebted for this case to a well-known English alienist, who remarks that the patient is fairly healthy to look at, but with neurasthenia and tendency to melancholia, and neurotic temperament. The body is masculine and pubic hair abundant. One testicle shows wasting. HISTORIES XXIX AND XXX.--I give the following narrative in the words of an intimate friend of one of the cases in question: "My attention was first drawn to the study of inversion--though I then regarded all forms of it as depraving and abominable--at a public school, where in our dormitory a boy of 15 initiated his select friends into the secrets of mutual masturbation, which he had learned from his brother, a midshipman. I gave no heed to this at the time, though I remembered it in after-years when immersed in Plato, Lucretius, and the Epicurean writers. But my attention was riveted to it at the age of 20, when I spent a holiday with A., a companion with whom I was, and still am, on terms of great friendship. We enjoyed many things in common, studied together and discussed most unconventional matters, but not this. Previously we had always occupied separate sleeping apartments; on this occasion we were abroad in a country place, and were compelled to put up with what we could get. We not only had to share a room, but a bed. I was not surprised at his throwing his arm over me, as I knew he was extraordinarily attached to me, and I had always felt a brute for not returning his affection so warmly. But I was surprised when later I awoke to find him occupied in _fellatio_ and endeavoring to obtain my response. Had it been anyone else I should have resented strongly such a liberty, and our acquaintance would have ended, but I cared for him too well, though never very demonstrative. This episode led to discussion of the topic. He told me that his sexual strength was great, that he had tested it in many ways, and that it was essential to his well-being that he should have satisfaction in some way. He loathed prostitution and considered it degrading; he felt physically attracted to some women and intellectually to others, but the two elements were never combined, and though he had been intimate with a few he felt that it was not right to them, as he could not marry them because he held too high an ideal of marriage. He had always felt attracted to his own sex, and had kept up a Platonic friendship with a college chum, X (to whom I knew he was passionately attached), for some years. Both considered it perfectly moral, and both, felt better for it. Both abhor _pedicatio_. X., however, would never discuss the subject, and seemed half-ashamed of it. A., on the other hand, though showing a great self-respect in all things else, feels no shame, though he says he would never discuss it except with close friends or if asked for private advice. "A. is the elder child of a military officer. His parents were 21 and 19, respectively, at the time of his birth. Both parents are healthy, and the two children (both boys) have good constitutions, though the elder has the better. He is of medium height and slender limbs, proud carriage, handsome and intellectual face (classic Greek type), excellent complexion, charming manners, and good temper. The penis is large, the foreskin very short. He is fond of philosophy, natural science, history, and literature. He is reflective and patient rather than smart, but strong-willed and very active when roused, never resting till he has accomplished what he wants, even if this takes years. He sings excellently, and is fond of cycling, boating, swimming, and mountain-climbing. He enjoys excellent health, and has never had a day's illness since he was 12 years of age. He says the only time he cannot sleep has been when in bed with some one who could not or would not satisfy him. He requires satisfaction at least once a week, twice or thrice in the hot season. He never smokes, nor drinks beer or spirits. He is still single, but believes that marriage would meet all his needs. "X. is also an oldest child, of young and healthy parents (between 21 and 24 at his birth) of different class; father a builder. He is of pleasing, but not handsome, appearance; very sensitive, very neat, and methodical in all things; not very strong-willed, and very reserved to women. He is of very studious disposition, especially fond of philosophy, politics, and natural science; a good musician. Takes moderate exercise, but rather easily fatigued. Is generally healthy, but not overstrong. He is a vegetarian, and was brought up as a free-thinker. Until two years ago he was never attracted toward a girl; indeed, he disliked girls; but he is now engaged. For about eighteen months, he has relinquished homosexuality, but has suffered from dreams, bad digestion, and peevishness since. He thinks the only remedy is marriage, which he is pushing on. He regards homosexuality as quite natural and normal, though his desires are not strong, and once a fortnight has always satisfied him. He was led to the practice by the reasoning of A., and because he felt a certain vague need, and this comforted him. He thinks it a matter of temperament and not to be discussed, except by scientists. He says he could never perform it except with his dearest friend, whose request he could not resist. He has a long foreskin, flesh like a woman's, and is well proportioned. "Both men are ardent for social reform, the one actively, the other passively engaged in it. Both also regard the law as to homosexuality as absurd and demoralizing. They also think that the law prohibiting polygamy is largely the cause of prostitution, as many women are prevented from living honest lives and being cared for by someone, and many men could marry one woman for physical satisfaction and another for intellectual. "They were devoted to each other when I first knew them; they are still friends, but separated by distance. Both are exceedingly honorable, and the latter is truthful to a fault." According to later information X. had married and his homosexual tendencies were almost completely in abeyance, partly, perhaps, owing to the fact that he now lives quietly in the country. A. has surprised his friends by his ardent attachment to a lady of about his own age to whom he has become engaged. He declares that he loves this woman better than any man, but nevertheless he still feels strong passion for his men friends. It is evident that the homosexual tendency in A. is distinctly more pronounced than in his friend X. As is found more often in bisexual than in homosexual persons, he is of predominantly masculine type, possesses great vitality, and desires to exert all his faculties. He has a sound nervous system and is very free from all "nervousness." He has written a scientific treatise and can study undisturbed amid violent noises. His voice is manly (in singing deep base). He can whistle. He is not vain, though well formed, and his hands are delicate. His favorite color is green. The demonstrative warmth of his affection for his friends is the chief feminine trait noted in him. He rarely dreams and has never had an erotic dream; this he explains by saying (earlier than Freud) that all dreams not caused by physical conditions are wish-dreams, and as he always satisfies his sexual needs at once, with a friend or by masturbation, his sexual needs have no opportunity of affecting his subconscious life. There may be some doubt as to the classification of the two foregoing cases: they are not personally known to me. The following case, with which I have been acquainted for many years, I regard as clearly a genuine example of bisexuality:-- HISTORY XXXI.--Englishman, independent means, aged 52, married. His ancestry is of a complicated character. Some of his mother's forefathers in the last and earlier centuries are supposed to have been inverted. He remembers liking the caresses of his father's footmen when he was quite a little boy. He dreams indifferently about men and women, and has strong sexual feeling for women. Can copulate, but does not insist on this act; there is a tendency to refined, voluptuous pleasure. He has been married for many years, and there are several children by the marriage. He is not particular about the class or age of the men he loves. He feels with regard to older men as a women does, and likes to be caressed by them. He is immensely vain of his physical beauty; he shuns _pedicatio_ and does not much care for the sexual act, but likes long hours of voluptuous communion during which his lover admires him. He feels the beauty of boyhood. At the same time he is much attracted by young girls. He is decidedly feminine in his dress, manner of walking, love of scents, ornaments, and fine things. His body is excessively smooth and white, the hips and buttocks rounded. Genital organs normal. His temperament is feminine, especially in vanity, irritability, and petty preoccupations. He is much preoccupied with his personal appearance and fond of admiration; on one occasion he was photographed naked as Bacchus. He is physically and morally courageous. He has a genius for poetry and speculation, with a tendency to mysticism. He feels the discord between his love for men and society, also between it and his love for his wife. He regards it as, in part, at least, hereditary and inborn in him. HISTORY XXXII.--C.R., physician; age 38. Nationality, Irish, with a Portuguese strain. "My mother came of an old Quaker family. I was quite unaware of sexual differences until I was about 14, as I was carefully kept separate from my sisters and, although from time to time strange longings which I did not understand possessed me, I was a virgin in thought and deed until that period of life. "When I was 14 a cousin some years older than myself came to stay with us and shared my bed. To my surprise he took hold of my penis and rubbed it for a time, when a most pleasant feeling seized me and increased until a discharge came out of my organ; he then asked me to do the same to him. We frequently repeated the process during the following month; I was quite unaware of any harm resulting. "The same year I went to school, but none of my schoolmates for some time even suggested such actions until a friend staying with us for the holidays one day in the bathroom repeated the process and pressed his penis between my thighs, when a similar discharge took place. I shortly found out that several of my school friends and male cousins had the same desires, and an elder brother of my first introducer into sexuality repeatedly spent the night with me, when we would amuse ourselves in a similar way. "A little later, my mother being away from home, I shared my father's bed and he took my penis in his hand and pulled my foreskin back. I in return took hold of his and found that he had an erection. I proceeded to rub him when he stopped me and told me that I should not do so, that when I was a little older I should love a woman to do it and that if I did not rub myself and allow other boys to do so, I would enjoy myself much more. I am quite certain that my father was inverted, as he frequently, if sleeping with me, used to press my naked body against his and he always had a strong erection. On one occasion he rubbed me until I had a discharge and then, turning over on his back, made me take his penis in my hand and rub him for a few minutes. I used to jest frequently with my father, as from my seventeenth year my penis was larger than his. I will return to my father a little later. When I was 17 a college friend shared my bed, and when undressing he said that he envied me my penis being so much larger than his; after getting into bed, he asked me to turn on my side and I found that he was attempting _pedicatio_. I was astonished at his doing so when he informed me that next to a woman this process gave most pleasure. However, nothing resulted and this is the only experience of _pedicatio_ that I have ever had. "When I was 18 one evening a college chum introduced me to a woman and she was the first I ever had connection with. We went behind some rocks and she took hold of my penis and pressed it into her body, lying against me. "My father evidently suspected me when I came home, and a few days afterward told me that it was very dangerous to have anything to do with women, that I should wait until I was older, that when a boy became a man he ought to have a woman occasionally, and that if I ever had a nasty disease I should promptly tell him so that I could be properly cured. "At college I found several chums who were fond of sharing my bed and indulging in mutual masturbation, pressing our bodies together face to face until there was mutual discharge, but never again anyone who tried anal connection. "A short time afterward I was in Brussels and I paid my first visit to a brothel, a place close to the Cathedral. I picked a girl of about 18 from eight naked beauties paraded for my choice. She was avaricious and demanded 10 francs, I had paid 20 for my room and had only 2 left. I wanted her to play with me, but she only seized the penis and pulled me to her with such vigorous action that I discharged very rapidly. I was so disgusted with the result that I masturbated when I returned to my boarding house. "A year later I paid Portugal a visit and my friends there frequently brought me to brothels and also introduced me to ladies of easy virtue. I had connection with them; the Portuguese prostitutes never suggested anything unnatural and in no instance did a male approach me for sexual purposes. "When I became a medical student, I used to visit a Turkish bath frequently; on one occasion I playfully slapped a friend on the buttocks, when my father, who was present, told me not to do so as it was not proper conduct in public, that if I liked to do so to him or one or two others it was no harm in private. Until I was 21, in the bath my father always covered his penis from my view, but after I attained my majority he always exposed himself and repeatedly showed me pictures of naked women; he also taught me the use of the condom. "In my twenty-fourth year, a tall, handsome man who used to frequent the baths one day sat down beside me and playfully knocked my toes with his; he then pressed his naked thigh against mine and a little later in the cooling room slipped his hand under my sheet and grasped my penis; he then asked me to meet him a few days later in the baths, saying I would be pleased with what he would do. "I kept the appointment and he took me into the hottest room, where we lay on the floor; in a few minutes he turned on his side and threw one of his legs across me; I got frightened and jumped up; he had a powerful erection, but I refused to lie down again, although he pulled his foreskin back to excite my desires; I was afraid of being surprised by another bather. Twice on future occasions I met this man and he made advances. I believe that I would have yielded then if we had met at a private house. "Shortly afterward I met an elderly gentleman at the baths who also made advances to me, but from fear I resisted him. I also disliked him as he had a foul breath and bad teeth; besides I was now able to go to the Continent and enjoy female charms to my heart's desire. "After qualification I joined the army in South Africa and to my astonishment found many of my comrades fond of male society; one officer who had been wounded shared my bedroom at a military hospital and when undressing frequently admired my penis; we used to play with each other until we had powerful erections, but we never masturbated or tried any unnatural vice. "I used to have connection with women as frequently as I could, and I frequently visited the Turkish baths and found that several clients were abnormal, including one of the masseurs; the latter enjoyed playing with my penis, kissing and tickling me. "I married at 28. My married life has been normal and my wife and I are still in love with one another; we have had several children. "My last sexual experiences have been in Australia; once in Sydney at the baths a fellow-bather playfully began tickling me, when I had an erection; he grasped my penis, I jumped up, and he asked me to do anything that I liked with him. I refused. Once on board a coasting steamer a fellow-passenger used to expose himself, posing as a statue; we became very familiar and he wanted me to spend a night with him. I also refused his offers. "I am very healthy and strong, fond of riding, fishing, and shooting. I lead a very active life. I am neither musician nor artist, but fond of hearing music and I admire works of art. "In person I am 6 feet high, inclined to fat; my body is very strong; my penis is six inches long in repose and eight in erection; I can without fatigue discharge twice in the night and have connection at least twice a week. My scrotum is tense and both testicles large. I am rather slow at discharging. I have never had any desire to have connection with any other woman since marriage, but several times I have met men who attracted me. I have a friend (another doctor) who is very familiar with me and if we spend a night together we will play with each other. I have a great desire for him to circumcize me. We have never indulged in anything beyond feeling or pressing our bodies together like schoolboys. "My favorite color is green. "My erotic dreams, when I have any, are of my wife or of a male lover. "Sexual inversion is more widespread than is popularly supposed and I have never had any twinge of conscience after any of my affairs. I regard the homosexual instinct as quite natural, and, except in regard to my wife, it is stronger in my case than the heterosexual instinct. I have never initiated a youth into the sexual life or had any desire to seduce a girl. Boys under 17, or persons of lower social class, have no attraction for me." HISTORY XXXIII.--M.O., 30 years of age, born in the United States, of English father and of mother whose father was Scotch,--the rest of his ancestry being English of long standing in America, with a very little admixture of Dutch blood. He is 5 feet 8 inches in height, and has brown hair and eyes. No hereditary troubles so far as known. In childhood, for some time "threatened with chorea." Is subject to tonsillitis and a stubborn though not severe form of indigestion, induced by sedentary habits. He is of quick, nervous temperament. Has an aversion from most outdoor sports, but a great esthetic attraction to nature. Highly educated. As far back as he can remember, he lived in a house from which his parents removed when he was 4 years old. Before this removal, he remembers two distinctly sexual experiences. A cousin five years older was in the bathroom, seated, and M.O. was feeling his sexual organs; his mother called him out. On another occasion he was in a wagonhouse with a girl of his own age. They were lying on a carriage-seat attempting intercourse. The girl's older sister came in and found them. She said: "I am going to tell mamma; you know she said for you not to do that any more." With each of these clear memories comes the strong impression that it was but one among many. Five years ago M.O. met a man of his own age who had lived in that neighborhood at the same time. Comparing notes, they found that nearly all the small children in it had been given to such practices. The neighborhood was a thoroughly "respectable" middle-class one. From it, M.O. removed to another of just about the same character, and lived there until he was 11 years old. Of this period his memories are very fresh and abundant. With a single exception, all the children between 5 and 14 years of age appear to have indulged freely in promiscuous sexual play. In little companies of from four to twelve they went where trees or long grass hid them from observation, and exhibited their persons to one another; sometimes, also, they handled one another, but not in the way of masturbation. Of this last, M.O. was wholly ignorant. Sometimes when but two or three were together, intercourse was attempted. In M.O.'s case there was eager sexual curiosity, and a more or less keen desire, but actual contact brought no great satisfaction. On two or three occasions girls practised _fellatio_, and he then reciprocated with _cunnilinctus_, but without pleasure. In all these plays he is sure that girls took the initiative as often as boys did. During all this period, M.O. had now one girl sweetheart and now another. This was conventional among the children, and was fostered by the banter of older persons. M.O.'s sexual curiosity was certainly greater in regard to the opposite sex. At this time, however, his homosexual interests appeared. With a boy two or more years older he frequently went to some hiding-place where they looked at each other's organs and handled them. He and another boy were once in an abandoned garden, and they took off all their clothes, the better to examine each other. The other boy then offered to kiss M.O.'s fundament, and did so. It caused a surprisingly keen and distinctly sexual sensation, the first sexual shock that he can remember experiencing. He refused to reciprocate, however, when asked. Toward the end of this period there was a new and increasing development of another sort, not recognized then as at all sexual in character. He began to feel toward certain boys in a way very different and much keener than he had done thus far toward girls, although at the time he made no comparisons. For instance there was a boy whom he considered very pretty. They visited each other often and spent long times playing together. In school they looked and looked at each other until delicious, uncontrollable giggling spells came on. Sexual matters were never discussed or thought of. These experiences were, in their way, very sentimental and ideal. M.O. is sure that with himself the main consideration was always the other boy's beauty. He began to recall with great fondness a certain much older and very handsome youth who had lived near him in the first neighborhood, and had at the time shown him, various little friendly attentions. He seldom saw him now, and hardly sought to do so, yet was immensely pleased by a casual word or look from him in the schoolyard, and much interested when other people spoke of him. A cousin about two years younger than M.O. often visited him and slept with him. They were very fond of each other, and handled each other's organs. When M.O. was about 11 years of age the family removed to a distant neighborhood, where there were almost no children of his own age, and where any association with those in the one just left was practically impossible. From this time until the changes of puberty were well under way his sexual life contrasted strongly, in its solitude, with the former promiscuity. He remembers liking to wrestle with two or three schoolboys and to get their heads between his legs. He thinks they were not aware of his sexual impulses. He flirted, consciously flirted, with certain school-girls, but never even suggested anything sexual to them. He read a few family medical books. One day, lying on an old uneven couch, innocently enough at first, he induced a new and delicious sensation, altogether different from any he had ever dreamed of--something far beyond the satisfaction of mere curiosity. He repeated the thing and before long produced emissions. Masturbation soon followed. Certain days he would perform the act two or three times, but again he would avoid it for days. He began at once to fight the tendency, and felt very guilty and very ashamed for indulging it. He prayed for help and at times wept over his failures to break the habit so quickly formed. For a certain period, after two or three years, he seemed to have succeeded, but he observed that he had intense erotic dreams with copious emissions regularly every eight days. Just then certain newspaper advertisements fell under his eye, and these persuaded him that he had produced in himself a diseased condition. He never resorted to the remedies advertised, but he was discouraged in his efforts to overcome the bad habit; and since the evil effects appeared to consist only in the seminal losses, he concluded that he might as well have the greater enjoyment of masturbation. For a short time, he remembers that he had an intense but revolting interest in the sexual organs of animals, especially horses. The males were much more interesting. Gradually he began to develop, entirely from within, the ideal of a male comrade,--a beautiful, emotional boy between whom and himself there might exist a powerful romantic passion. He lay for hours dreaming of this, and inventing thrilling situations. Suddenly, at church, he became acquainted with the very youth, Edmund, who seemed to satisfy all his longings. M.O. was then 16½ and Edmund 15. A real wooing ensued, Edmund finally yielding to the physical appeals of M.O. after several fits of misgiving. The yielding was in the end complete, however. The two spent night after night together, enjoying intercrural intercourse and sometimes mutual masturbation. Their parents may have been slightly uneasy at times, but the connection continued uninterruptedly for a year and a half or more. In the meantime M.O. occasionally had relations with other boys, but never wavered in his real preference for Edmund. For girls he had no sexual desire whatever, though he was much associated with them. Then M.O. and Edmund went to college at different places, but they met in vacations and wrote frequent and ardent love-letters. Both had genuine attacks of love-sickness and of jealousy. As M.O. looks back on this first love passion he can by no means regret it. It doubtless had great formative influence. After the first year at college, Edmund transferred to another school farther away from M.O. and the opportunities for meeting became rarer, but their affection was maintained and the intercourse resumed whenever it was possible. Gradually, however, Edmund became interested in women and finally married. M.O. also formed relations repeatedly with college friends and occasionally with others. On the whole M.O. preferred boys a year or two younger than himself, but as he grew older the age difference increased. At 30 he regarded himself as virtually "engaged" to a youth of 17, one unusually mature, however, and much larger than himself. M.O. is always unhappy unless his affections have fairly free course. Life has been very disappointing to him in other respects. His greatest joys have come to him in this way. If he is able to consummate his present plan of union with the youth just referred to, he will feel that his life has been crowned by what is for him the best possible end; otherwise, he declares, he would not care to live at all. He admires male beauty passionately. Feminine beauty he perceives objectively, as he would any design of flowing curves and delicate coloring, but it has no sexual charm for him whatever. Women have put themselves in his way repeatedly, but he finds himself more and more irritated by their specifically feminine foibles. With men generally he is much more patient and sympathetic. The first literature that appealed to him was Plato's dialogues, first read at 20 years of age. Until then he had not known but what he stood alone in his peculiarity. He read what he could of classic literature. He enjoys Pater, appreciating his attitude toward his own sex. Four or five years, later he came across Raffalovich's book, and ever since has felt a real debt of gratitude to its author. M.O. has no wish to injure society at large. As an individual he holds that he has the same right to be himself that anyone else has. He thinks that while boys of from 13 to 15 might possibly be rendered inverts, those who reach 16 without it cannot be bent that way. They may be devoted to an invert enough in other ways to yield him what he wishes sexually, but they will remain essentially normal themselves. His observations are based on about 30 homosexual relationships that have lasted various lengths of time. M.O. feels strongly the poetic and elevated character of his principal homosexual relationships, but he shrinks from appearing too sentimental. With regard to the traces of feminism in inverts he writes:-- "Up to the age of 11 I associated much with a cousin five years older (the one referred to above) and took great delight in a game we often played, in which I was a girl,--a never-ending romance, a non-sexual love story. "Somewhat later and until puberty, I took great delight in acting, but generally took female roles, wearing skirts, shawls, beads, wigs, head-dresses. When I was about 13 my family began to make fun of me for it. I played secretly for a while, and then the desire for it left, never to return. "There still lingers, however, a minor interest, which began before puberty, in valentines. My feeling for them is much like my feeling for flowers. "Before I reached puberty I was sometimes called a 'sissy' by my father. Such taunts humiliated me more than anything else has ever done. After puberty my father no longer applied the term, and gradually other persons ceased to tease me that way. The sting of it lasted, though, and led me more than once to ask intimate friends, both men and women, if they considered me at all feminine. Every one of them has been very emphatically of the opinion that my rational life is distinctively masculine, being logical, impartial, skeptical. One or two have suggested that I have a finer discrimination than most men, and that I take care of my rooms somewhat as a woman might, though this does not extend to the style of decorations. One man said that I lacked sympathy with certain 'grosser manifestations of masculine character, such as smoking.' Some women think me unusually observing of women's dress. My own is by no means effeminate. In a muscular way I have average strength, but am supple far beyond what is usual. If trained for it early, I believe I would have made a good contortionist. "I have never had the least inclination to use tobacco, generally take neither tea nor coffee, and seldom any liquor, never malt liquors. The dessert is always the best part of the meal. These tastes I attribute largely to my sedentary life. When out camping I observed a marked change in the direction of heartier food and mild stimulants. "My physical courage has never been put to the test, but I observe that others appear to count on it. I am very aggressive in matters of religious, political, social opinion. In moral courage I am either reckless or courageous, I do not know which. "I am, perhaps, a better whistler than most men. "When I was quite little my grandmother taught me to do certain kinds of fancy-work, and I continued to do a little from time to time until I was 24. Then I became irritated over a piece that troubled me, put it in the fire, and have not wanted to touch any since. As a pet economy I continue to do nearly all of my own mending. "I have a decided aversion for much jewelry. My estheticism is very pronounced as compared with most of the men with whom I associate, although I have never been able to give it much scope. It makes for cleanliness, order, and general good taste. My dress is economical and by no means fastidious; yet it seems to be generally approved. I have been complimented often on my ability to select appropriate presents, clothing, and to arrange a room." M.O. states that he practises the love-bite at times, though very gently. He often wants to pinch one who interests him sexually. He considers very silly the statement somewhere made, that inverts are always liars. Very few people, he says, are perfectly honest, and the more dangerous society makes it for a man to be so, the less likely he is to be. While he himself has been unable in two or three instances to keep promises made to withhold from sexual intercourse with certain attractive individuals, he has never otherwise been guilty of untruth about his homosexual relations. The foregoing narrative was received eight years ago. During this interval M.O.'s health has very greatly improved. There has been a marked increase in outdoor activities and interests. Two years since M.O. consulted a prominent specialist who performed a thorough psychoanalysis. He informed M.O. that he was less strongly homosexual than he himself supposed, and recommended marriage with some young and pretty woman. He attributed the homosexual bent to M.O.'s having had his "nose broken" at the age of 6, by the birth of a younger brother, who from that time on received all the attention and petting. M.O. had continued up to that age very affectionate toward his mother and dependent on her. He can remember friends and neighbors commenting on it. At first M.O. was inclined to reject this suggestion of the specialist, but on long reflection he inclines to believe that it was indeed a very important factor, though not the sole one. From his later observations of children and comparisons of these with memories of his own childhood, M.O. says he is sure he was affectionate and demonstrative much beyond the average. His greatest craving was for affection, and his greatest grief the fancied belief that no one cared for him. At 10 or 11 he attempted suicide for this reason. Also as a result of the psychoanalysis, but trying to eliminate the influence of suggestion, he recollects and emphasizes more the attraction he felt toward girls before the age of 12. Had his sexual experiences subsequently proved normal, he doubts if those before 12 could be held to give evidence of homosexuality, but only of precocious nervous and sexual irritability, greatly heightened and directed by the secret practices of the children with whom he associated. He does not see why these experiences should have given him a homosexual bent any more than a heterosexual one. The psychoanalysis recalled to M.O. that during the period of early flirtation he had often kissed and embraced various girls, but likewise he recalled having observed at the same time, with some surprise, that no definitely sexual desire arose, though the way was probably open to gratify it. Such interest as did exist ceased wholly or almost so as the relation with Edmund developed. There was no aversion from the company of girls and women, however; the intellectual friendships were mainly with them, while the emotional ones were with boys. Very recently M.O. spent several days with Edmund, who has been married for several years. With absolutely no sexual interest in each other, they nevertheless found a great bond of love still subsisting. Neither regrets anything of the past, but feels that the final outcome of their earlier relation has been good. Edmund's beauty is still pronounced, and is remarked by others. In spite of his precocious sexuality, M.O. had from the very first an extreme disgust for obscene stories, and for any association of sexual things with filthy words and anecdotes. Owing in part to this and in part to his temperamental skepticism, he disbelieved what associates told him regarding sexual emissions, only becoming convinced when he actually experienced them; and the facts of reproduction he denied indignantly until he read them in a medical work. Until he was well over 25 the physical aversion from any thought of reproduction was intense. He knows other, normal, young men who have felt the same way, but he believes it would be prevented or overcome by sex-education such as is now being introduced in American schools. Again, as to traces of feminism: Perhaps two years ago, all impulse to give the love-bite disappeared suddenly. There has been lately a marked increase of dramatic interest, arising in perfectly natural ways, and without any of the peculiarities noted before. The childish pleasure in valentines has all gone; M.O. believes that _circumstances_ have lately been more favorable for the development of a more robust estheticism. For some years he has heard no definite reproach for feminism, though some persons tell his friends that he is "very peculiar." He forms many intimate, enduring, non-sexual friendships with both men and women, and he doubts if the peculiarity noted by others is due so much to his homosexuality as it is to his estheticism, skepticism, and the unconventional opinions which he expresses quite indiscreetly at times. With the improvement in general health, has come the changes that would be expected in food and other matters of daily life. Resuming his narrative at the point where the earlier communication left it, M.O. says that about a year after that time, the youth of 17 to whom he had considered himself virtually engaged withdrew from the agreement so far as it bore on his own future, but not from the sentimental relation as it existed. Although separated most of the time by distance, the physical relation was resumed whenever they met. Subsequently, however, the young man fell in love with a young woman and became engaged to her. His physical relation with M.O. then ceased, but the friendship otherwise continues strong. Shortly after the first break in this relation, M.O. became, through the force of quite unusual circumstances, very friendly and intimate with a young woman of considerable charm. He confided to her his abnormality, and was not repulsed. To others their relation probably appeared that of lovers, and a painful situation was created by the slander of a jealous woman. M.O. felt that in honor he must propose marriage to her. The young woman was non-committal, but invited M.O. to spend several months at her home. Shortly after his arrival a sad occurrence in his own family compelled him to go away, and they did not meet again for four years. They corresponded, but less and less often. His relations with boys continued. Before his final meeting with her he became acquainted with a woman whom he has since married. The acquaintance began in a wholly non-sentimental community of interests in certain practical affairs, and very gradually widened into an intellectual and sympathetic friendship. M.O. had no secrets from this woman. After a full and prolonged consideration of all sides of the matter they married. Since that event he has had no sexual relations except with his wife. With her they are not passionate, but they are animated by the strong desire for children. Of the parental instinct he had become aware several years before this. M.O. believes that no moral stigma should be attached to homosexuality until it can be proved to result from the vicious life of a free moral agent,--and of this he has no expectation. He believes that much of its danger and unhappiness would be prevented by a thorough yet discreet sex-education, such as should be given to all children, whether normal or abnormal. FOOTNOTES: [124] Thus Godard described the little boys in Cairo as amusing themselves indifferently either with boys or girls in sexual play. (_Egypte et Palestine_, 1867, p. 105.) The same thing may be observed in England and elsewhere. [125] Thus, of the Duc d'Orleans, in the seventeenth century, as described in Bouchard's _Confessions_, one of my correspondents writes: "This prince was of the same mind as Campanella, who, in the _Città del Sole_, laid it down that young men ought to be freely admitted to women for the avoidance of sexual aberrations. Aretino and Berni enable us to comprehend the sexual immorality of males congregated together in the courts of Roman prelates." The homosexuality of youth was also well recognized among the Romans, but they adopted the contrary course and provided means to gratify it, as the existence of the _concubinus_, referred to by Catullus, clearly shows. [126] "Our Public Schools: their Methods and Morals." _New Review_, July, 1893. [127] Max Dessoir, "Zür Psychologie der Vita Sexualis," _Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, 1894, H. 5. [128] F.H.A. Marshall, _The Physiology of Reproduction_, 1910, pp. 650-8. [129] Iwan Bloch, in _The Sexual Life of Our Time_, makes this distinction as between "homosexuality" (corresponding to inversion) and "pseudo-homosexuality." According to the terminology I have accepted, the term "pseudo-homosexuality" would be unnecessary and incorrect. More recently (_Die Prostitution_, Bd. i, 1912, p. 103) Bloch has preferred, in place of pseudo-homosexuality, the more satisfactory term, "secondary homosexuality." [130] See, for instance, Hirschfeld's reasonable discussion of the matter, _Die Homosexualität_, ch. xvii. [131] Alfred Fuchs, who edited Krafft-Ebing's _Psychopathia Sexualis_ after the latter's death, distinguishes between congenital homosexuality, manifesting itself from the first without external stimulation, and homosexuality on a basis of inborn disposition needing special external influences to arouse it (_Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. iv, 1902, p. 181). [132] Krafft-Ebing, "Ueber tardive Homosexualität," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. iii, 1901, p. 7; Näcke, "Probleme auf den Gebiete der Homosexualität," _Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, 1902, p. 805; ib., "Ueber tardive Homosexualität," _Sexual-Probleme_, September, 1911. Numa Praetorius (_Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, January, 1913, p. 228) considers that retarded cases should not be regarded as bisexual, but as genuine inverts who had acquired a pseudoheterosexuality which at last falls away; at the most, he believes such cases merely represent a prolongation of the youthful undifferentiated period. [133] Moll, _Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, 1897, pp, 458-8. [134] Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, ch. viii. [135] This was the term used in the earlier editions of the present _Study_. I willingly reject it in favor of the simpler and fairly clear term now more generally employed. It is true that by bisexuality it is possible to understand not only the double direction of the sexual instinct, but also the presence of both sexes in the same individual, which in French is more accurately distinguished as "bisexuation." [136] J. Van Biervliet, "L'Homme Droit et l'Homme Gauche," _Revue Philosophique_, October, 1901. It is here shown that in the constitution of their nervous system the ambidextrous are demonstrably left-sided persons; their optic, acoustic, olfactory, and muscular sensitivity is preponderant on the left side. CHAPTER IV. SEXUAL INVERSION IN WOMEN. Prevalence of Sexual Inversion Among Women--Among Women of Ability--Among the Lower Races--Temporary Homosexuality in Schools, etc.--Histories--Physical and Psychic Characteristics of Inverted Women--The Modern Development of Homosexuality Among Women. Homosexuality is not less common in women than in men. In the seriocomic theory of sex set forth by Aristophanes in Plato's _Symposium_, males and females are placed on a footing of complete equality, and, however fantastic, the theory suffices to indicate that to the Greek mind, so familiar with homosexuality, its manifestations seemed just as likely to occur in women as in men. That is undoubtedly the case. Like other anomalies, indeed, in its more pronounced forms it may be less frequently met with in women; in its less pronounced forms, almost certainly, it is more frequently found. A Catholic confessor, a friend tells me, informed him that for one man who acknowledges homosexual practices there are three women. For the most part feminine homosexuality runs everywhere a parallel course to masculine homosexuality and is found under the same conditions. It is as common in girls as in boys; it has been found, under certain conditions, to abound among women in colleges and convents and prisons, as well as under the ordinary conditions of society. Perhaps the earliest case of homosexuality recorded in detail occurred in a woman,[137] and it was with the investigation of such a case in a woman that Westphal may be said to have inaugurated the scientific study of inversion. Moreover, inversion is as likely to be accompanied by high intellectual ability in a woman as in a man. The importance of a clear conception of inversion is indeed in some respects, under present social conditions, really even greater in the case of women than of men. For if, as has sometimes been said of our civilization, "this is a man's world," the large proportion of able women inverts, whose masculine qualities render it comparatively easy for them to adopt masculine avocations, becomes a highly significant fact.[138] It has been noted of distinguished women in all ages and in all fields of activity that they have frequently displayed some masculine traits.[139] Even "the first great woman in history," as she has been called by a historian of Egypt, Queen Hatschepsu, was clearly of markedly virile temperament, and always had herself represented on her monuments in masculine costume, and even with a false beard.[140] Other famous queens have on more or less satisfactory grounds been suspected of a homosexual temperament, such as Catherine II of Russia, who appears to have been bisexual, and Queen Christina of Sweden, whose very marked masculine traits and high intelligence seem to have been combined with a definitely homosexual or bisexual temperament.[141] Great religious and moral leaders, like Madame Blavatsky and Louise Michel, have been either homosexual or bisexual or, at least, of pronounced masculine temperament.[142] Great actresses from the eighteenth century onward have frequently been more or less correctly identified with homosexuality, as also many women distinguished in other arts.[143] Above all, Sappho, the greatest of women poets, the peer of the greatest poets of the other sex in the supreme power of uniting art and passion, has left a name which is permanently associated with homosexuality. It can scarcely be said that opinion is unanimous in regard to Sappho, and the reliable information about her, outside the evidence of the fragments of her poems which have reached us, is scanty. Her fame has always been great; in classic times her name was coupled with Homer's. But even to antiquity she was somewhat of an enigma, and many legends grew up around her name, such as the familiar story that she threw herself into the sea for the love of Phaon. What remains clear is that she was regarded with great respect and admiration by her contemporaries, that she was of aristocratic family, that she was probably married and had a daughter, that at one time she had to take her part in political exile, and that she addressed her girl friends in precisely similar terms to those addressed by Alcaeus to youths. We know that in antiquity feminine homosexuality was regarded as especially common in Sparta, Lesbos, and Miletus. Horace, who was able to read Sappho's complete poems, states that the objects of her love-plaints were the young girls of Lesbos, while Ovid, who played so considerable a part in weaving fantastic stories round Sappho's name, never claimed that they had any basis of truth. It was inevitable that the early Christians should eagerly attack so ambiguous a figure, and Tatian (_Oratio ad Graecos_, cap. 52) reproached the Greeks that they honored statues of the tribade Sappho, a prostitute who had celebrated her own wantonness and infatuation. The result is that in modern times there have been some who placed Sappho's character in a very bad light and others who have gone to the opposite extreme in an attempt at "rehabilitation." Thus, W. Mure, in his _History of the Language and Literature of Ancient Greece_ (1854, vol. iii, pp. 272-326, 496-8), dealing very fully with Sappho, is disposed to accept many of the worst stories about her, though he has no pronounced animus, and, as regards female homosexuality, which he considers to be "far more venial" than male homosexuality, he remarks that "in modern times it has numbered among its votaries females distinguished for refinement of manners and elegant accomplishments." Bascoul, on the other hand, will accept no statements about Sappho which conflict with modern ideals of complete respectability, and even seeks to rewrite her most famous ode in accordance with the colorless literary sense which he supposes that it originally bore (J.M.F. Bascoul, _La Chaste Sappho et le Mouvement Feministe à Athènes_, 1911). Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (_Sappho und Simonides_, 1913) also represents the antiquated view, formerly championed by Welcker, according to which the attribution of homosexuality is a charge of "vice," to be repudiated with indignation. Most competent and reliable authorities today, however, while rejecting the accretions of legend around Sappho's name and not disputing her claim to respect, are not disposed to question the personal and homosexual character of her poems. "All ancient tradition and the character of her extant fragments," says Prof. J.A. Platt (_Encyclopedia Britannica_, 11th. ed., art. "Sappho"), "show that her morality was what has ever since been known as 'Lesbian.'" What exactly that "Lesbian morality" involved, we cannot indeed exactly ascertain. "It is altogether idle," as A. Croiset remarks of Sappho (_Histoire de la Littérature Grecque_, vol. ii, ch. v), "to discuss the exact quality of this friendship or this love, or to seek to determine with precision the frontiers, which language itself often seems to seek to confuse, of a friendship more or less esthetic and sensual, of a love more or less Platonic." (See also J.M. Edmonds, _Sappho in the Added Light of the New Fragments_, 1912). Iwan Bloch similarly concludes (_Ursprung der Syphilis_, vol. ii, 1911, p. 507) that Sappho probably combined, as modern investigation shows to be easily possible, lofty ideal feelings with passionate sensuality, exactly as happens in normal love. It must also be said that in literature homosexuality in women has furnished a much more frequent motive to the artist than homosexuality in men. Among the Greeks, indeed, homosexuality in women seldom receives literary consecration, and in the revival of the classical spirit at the Renaissance it was still chiefly in male adolescents, as we see, for instance, in Marino's _Adone_, that the homosexual ideal found expression. After that date male inversion was for a long period rarely touched in literature, save briefly and satirically, while inversion in women becomes a subject which might be treated in detail and even with complacence. Many poets and novelists, especially in France, might be cited in evidence. Ariosto, it has been pointed out, has described the homosexual attractions of women. Diderot's famous novel, _La Religieuse_, which, when first published, was thought to have been actually written by a nun, deals with the torture to which a nun was put by the perverse lubricity of her abbess, for whom, it is said, Diderot found a model in the Abbess of Chelles, a daughter of the Regent and thus a member of a family which for several generations showed a marked tendency to inversion. Diderot's narrative has been described as a faithful description of the homosexual phenomena liable to occur in convents. Feminine homosexuality, especially in convents, was often touched on less seriously in the eighteenth century. Thus we find a homosexual scene in _Les Plaisirs du Cloître_, a play written in 1773 (_Le Théâtre d'Amour an XVIIIe Siècle_, 1910.) Balzac, who treated so many psychological aspects of love in a more or less veiled manner, has touched on this in _La Fille aux Yeux d'Or_, in a vague and extravagantly romantic fashion. Gautier made the adventures of a woman who was predisposed to homosexuality, and slowly realizes the fact, the central motive of his wonderful romance, _Mademoiselle de Maupin_ (1835). He approached the subject purely as an artist and poet, but his handling of it shows remarkable insight. Gautier based his romance to some extent on the life of Madame Maupin or, as she preferred to call herself, Mademoiselle Maupin, who was born in 1673 (her father's name being d'Aubigny), dressed as a man, and became famous as a teacher of fencing, afterward as an opera singer. She was apparently of bisexual temperament, and her devotion to women led her into various adventures. She ultimately entered a convent, and died, at the age of 34, with a reputation for sanctity. (E.C. Clayton, _Queens of Song_, vol. i, pp, 52-61; F. Karsch, "Mademoiselle Maupin," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. v, 1903, pp. 694-706.) A still greater writer, Flaubert, in _Salammbô_ (1862) made his heroine homosexual. Zola has described sexual inversion in _Nona_ and elsewhere. Some thirty years ago a popular novelist, A. Belot, published a novel called _Mademoiselle Giraud, ma Femme_, which was much read; the novelist took the attitude of a moralist who is bound to treat frankly, but with all decorous propriety, a subject of increasing social gravity. The story is that of a man whose bride will not allow his approach on account of her own _liaison_ with a female friend continued after marriage. This book appears to have given origin to a large number of novels, some of which touched the question with considerable less affectation of propriety. Among other novelists who have dealt with the matter may be mentioned Guy de Maupassant (_La Femme de Paul_), Bourget (_Crime d'Amour_), Catulle Mendès (_Méphistophéla_), and Willy in the _Claudine_ series. Among poets who have used the motive of homosexuality in women with more or less boldness may be found Lamartine (_Regina_), Swinburne (first series of _Poems and Ballads_), Verlaine (_Parallèlement_), and Pierre Louys (_Chansons de Bilitis_). The last-named book, a collection of homosexual prose-poems, attracted considerable attention on publication, as it was an attempt at mystification, being put forward as a translation of the poems of a newly discovered Oriental Greek poetess; Bilitis (more usually Beltis) is the Syrian name for Aphrodite. _Les Chansons de Bilitis_ are not without charm, but have been severely dealt with by Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (_Sappho und Simonides_, 1913, p. 63 et seq.) as "a travesty of Hellenism," betraying inadequate knowledge of Greek antiquity. More interesting, as the work of a woman who was not only highly gifted, but herself of homosexual temperament, are the various volumes of poems published by "Renée Vivien." This lady, whose real name was Pauline Tarn, was born in 1877; her father was of Scotch descent, and her mother an American lady from Honolulu. As a child she was taken to Paris, and was brought up as a French girl. She travelled much and at one time took a house at Mitylene, the chief city of ancient Lesbos. She had a love of solitude, hated publicity, and was devoted to her women friends, especially to one whose early death about 1900 was the great sorrow of Pauline Tarn's life. She is described as very beautiful, very simple and sweet-natured, and highly accomplished in many directions. She suffered, however, from nervous overtension and incurable melancholy. Toward the close of her life she was converted to Catholicism and died in 1909, at the age of 32. She is buried in the cemetery at Passy. Her best verse is by some considered among the finest in the French language. (Charles Brun, "Pauline Tarn," _Notes and Queries_, 22 Aug., 1914; the same writer, who knew her well, has also written a pamphlet, _Renée Vivien_, Sansot, Paris, 1911.) Her chief volumes of poems are _Etudes et Preludes_ (1901), _Cendres et Poussières_ (1902), _Evocations_ (1903). A novel, _Une Femme M'Apparut_ (1904), is said to be to some extent autobiographical. "Renée Vivien" also wrote a volume on Sappho with translations, and a further volume of poems, _Les Kitharèdes_, suggested by the fragments which remain of the minor women poets of Greece, followers of Sappho. It is, moreover, noteworthy that a remarkably large proportion of the cases in which homosexuality has led to crimes of violence, or otherwise come under medico-legal observation, has been among women. It is well know that the part taken by women generally in open criminality, and especially in crimes of violence, is small as compared with men.[144] In the homosexual field, as we might have anticipated, the conditions are to some extent reversed. Inverted men, in whom a more or less feminine temperament is so often found, are rarely impelled to acts of aggressive violence, though they frequently commit suicide. Inverted women, who may retain their feminine emotionality combined with some degree of infantile impulsiveness and masculine energy, present a favorable soil for the seeds of passional crime, under those conditions of jealousy and allied emotions which must so often enter into the invert's life. The first conspicuous example of this tendency in recent times is the Memphis case (1892) in the United States. (Arthur Macdonald, "Observation de Sexualité Pathologique Feminine," _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, May, 1895; see also Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia Sexualis_, Eng. trans, of 10th ed., p. 550.) In this case a congenital sexual invert, Alice Mitchell, planned a marriage with Freda Ward, taking a male-name and costume. This scheme was frustrated by Freda's sister, and Alice Mitchell then cut Freda's throat. There is no reason to suppose that she was insane at the time of the murder. She was a typical invert of a very pronounced kind. Her mother had been insane and had homicidal impulses. She herself was considered unbalanced, and was masculine in her habits from her earliest years. Her face was obviously unsymmetrical and she had an appearance of youthfulness below her age. She was not vicious, and had little knowledge of sexual matters, but when she kissed Freda she was ashamed of being seen, while Freda could see no reason for being ashamed. She was adjudged insane. There have been numerous cases in America more recently. One case (for some details concerning which I am indebted to Dr. J.G. Kiernan, of Chicago) is that of the "Tiller Sisters," two quintroons, who for many years had acted together under that name in cheap theaters. One, who was an invert, with a horror of men dating from early girlhood, was sexually attached to the other, who was without inborn inversion, and was eventually induced by a man to leave the invert. The latter, overcome by jealousy, broke into the apartment of the couple and shot the man dead. She was tried, and sent to prison for life. A defense of insanity was made, but for this there was no evidence. In another case, also occurring in Chicago (reported in _Medicine_, June, 1899, and _Alienist and Neurologist_, October, 1899), a trained nurse lived for fourteen years with a young woman who left her on four different occasions, but was each time induced to return; finally, however, she left and married, whereupon the nurse shot the husband, who was not, however, fatally wounded. The culprit in this case had been twice married, but had not lived with either of her husbands; it was stated that her mother had died in an asylum, and that her brother had committed suicide. She was charged with disorderly conduct, and subjected to a fine. In another later case in Chicago a Russian girl of 22, named Anna Rubinowitch, shot from motives of jealousy another Russian girl to whom she had been devoted from childhood, and then fatally shot herself. The relations between the two girls had been very intimate. "Our love affair is one purely of the soul," Anna Rubinowitch was accustomed to say; "we love each other on a higher plane than that of earth." (I am informed that there were in fact physical relationships; the sexual organs were normal.) This continued, with great devotion on each side, until Anna's "sweetheart" began to show herself susceptible to the advances of a male wooer. This aroused uncontrollable jealousy in Anna, whose father, it may be noted, had committed suicide by shooting some years previously. Homosexual relationships are also a cause of suicide among women. Such a case was reported in Massachusetts early in 1901. A girl of 21 had been tended during a period of nervous prostration, apparently of hysterical nature, by a friend and neighbor, fourteen years her senior, married and having children. An intimate friendship grew up, equally ardent on both sides. The mother of the younger woman and the husband of the other took measures to put a stop to the intimacy, and the girl was sent away to a distant city; stolen interviews, however, still occurred. Finally, when the obstacles became insurmountable, the younger woman bought a revolver and deliberately shot herself in the temple, in presence of her mother, dying immediately. Though sometimes thought to act rather strangely, she was a great favorite with all, handsome, very athletic, fond of all outdoor sports, an energetic religious worker, possessing a fine voice, and was an active member of many clubs and societies. The older woman belonged to an aristocratic family and was loved and respected by all. In another case in New York in 1905 a retired sailor, "Captain John Weed," who had commanded transatlantic vessels for many years, was admitted to a Home for old sailors and shortly after became ill and despondent, and cut his throat. It was then found that "Captain Weed" was really a woman. I am informed that the old sailor's despondency and suicide were due to enforced separation from a female companion. The infatuation of young girls for actresses and other prominent women may occasionally lead to suicide. Thus in Philadelphia, a few years ago, a girl of 19, belonging to a very wealthy family, beautiful and highly educated, acquired an absorbing infatuation for Miss Mary Garden, the _prima donna_, with whom she had no personal acquaintance. The young girl would kneel in worship before the singer's portrait, and studied hairdressing and manicuring in the hope of becoming Miss Garden's maid. When she realized that her dream was hopeless she shot herself with a revolver. (Cases more or less resembling those here brought forward occur from time to time in all parts of the civilized world. Reports, mostly from current newspapers, of such cases, as well as of simple transvestism, or Eonism, in both women and men, will be found in the publications of the Berlin Wissenschaftlich-humanitären Komitee: the _Monatsberichte_ up to 1909, then in the _Vierteljahrsberichte_, and from 1913 onward in the _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_.) Yet, until recently, comparatively little has been known of sexual inversion in women. Even so lately as 1901 (after the publication of the first edition of the present Study), Krafft-Ebing wrote that scarcely fifty cases had been recorded. The chief monographs devoted but little space to women. Krafft-Ebing himself, in the earlier editions of _Psychopathia Sexualis_, gave little special attention to inversion in women, although he published a few cases. Moll, however, included a valuable chapter on the subject in his _Konträre Sexualempfindung_, narrating numerous cases, and inversion in women also received special attention in the present Study. Hirschfeld, however, in his _Homosexualität_ (1914) is the first authority who has been able to deal with feminine homosexuality as completely co-ordinate with masculine homosexuality. The two manifestations, masculine and feminine, are placed on the same basis and treated together throughout the work. It is, no doubt, not difficult to account for this retardation in the investigation of sexual inversion in women. Notwithstanding the severity with which homosexuality in women has been visited in a few cases, for the most part men seem to have been indifferent toward it; when it has been made a crime or a cause for divorce in men, it has usually been considered as no offense at all in women.[145] Another reason is that it is less easy to detect in women; we are accustomed to a much greater familiarity and intimacy between women than between men, and we are less apt to suspect the existence of any abnormal passion. And, allied with this cause, we have also to bear in mind the extreme ignorance and the extreme reticence of women regarding any abnormal or even normal manifestation of their sexual life. A woman may feel a high degree of sexual attraction for another woman without realizing that her affection is sexual, and when she does realize this, she is nearly always very unwilling to reveal the nature of her intimate experience, even with the adoption of precautions, and although the fact may be present to her that, by helping to reveal the nature of her abnormality, she may be helping to lighten the burden of it on other women. Among the numerous confessions voluntarily sent to Krafft-Ebing there is not one by a woman. There is, again, the further reason that well-marked and fully developed cases of inversion are probably rarer in women, though a slighter degree may be more common; in harmony with the greater affectability of the feminine organism to slight stimuli, and its lesser liability to serious variation.[146] The same aberrations that are found among men are, however, everywhere found among women. Feminine inversion has sometimes been regarded as a vice of modern refined civilization. Yet it was familiar to the Anglo-Saxons, and Theodore's Penitential in the seventh century assigned a penance of three years (considerably less than that assigned to men, or for bestiality) to "a woman fornicating with a woman." Among the women of savages in all parts of the world homosexuality is found, though it is less frequently recorded than among men.[147] In New Zealand it is stated on the authority of Moerenhout (though I have not been able to find the reference) that the women practised Lesbianism. In South America, where inversion is common among men, we find similar phenomena in women. Among Brazilian tribes Gandavo[148] wrote:-- "There are certain women among these Indians who determine to be chaste and know no man. These leave every womanly occupation and imitate the men. They wear their hair the same way as the men; they go to war with them or hunting, bearing their bows; they continue always in the company of men, and each has a woman who serves her and with whom she lives." This has some analogy with the phenomena seen among North American men. Dr. Holder, who has carefully studied the _boté_, tells me that he has met no corresponding phenomena in women. There is no doubt, however, that homosexuality among women is well known to the American Indians in various regions. Thus the Salish Indians of British Columbia have a myth of an old woman who had intercourse with a young woman by means of a horn used as a penis.[149] In the mythology of the Assiniboine Indians (of Canada and Montana) and the Fox Indians (of Iowa) there are also legends of feminine homosexuality, supposed to have been derived from the Algonkin Cree Indians, who were closely connected with both.[150] According to the Assiniboine legend, a man's wife fell in love with his sister and eloped with her, a boneless child being the result of the union; the husband pursued the couple, and killed his wife as well as the child; no one cared to avenge her death. The Fox legend, entitled "Two Maidens who Played the Harlot with Each Other," runs as follows: "It is said that once on a time long ago there were two young women who were friends together. It is told that there were also two youths who tried to woo the two maidens, but they were not able even so much as to talk with them. After awhile the youths began to suspect something wrong. So once during the summer, when the two maidens started away to peel off bark, the youths followed, staying just far enough behind to keep them in sight. While the girls were peeling the bark, the youths kept themselves hidden. After awhile they no longer heard the sound of the maidens at work. Whereupon they began to creep up to where they were. When they drew nigh, behold, the maidens were in the act of taking off their clothes. The first to disrobe flung herself down on the ground and lay there. 'Pray, what are these girls going to do?' was the feeling in the hearts of the youths. And to their amazement the girls began to lie with each other. Thereupon the youths ran to where the girls were. She who was lying on top instantly fell over backward. Her clitoris was standing out and had a queer shape; it was like a turtle's penis. Thereupon the maidens began to plead with the youths: 'Oh, don't tell on us!' they said. 'Truly it is not of our own free desire that we have done this thing We have done it under the influence of some unknown being.' It is said that afterward one of the maidens became big with child. In the course of time, she gave birth, and the child was like a soft-shell turtle." In Bali, according to Jacobs (as quoted by Ploss and Bartels), homosexuality is almost as common among women as among men, though it is more secretly exercised; the methods of gratification adopted are either digital or lingual, or else by bringing the parts together (tribadism). Baumann, who noted inversion among the male negro population of Zanzibar, finds that it is also not rare among women. Although Oriental manners render it impossible for such women to wear men's clothes openly, they do so in private, and are recognized by other women by their man-like bearing, as also by the fact that women's garments do not suit them. They show a preference for masculine occupations, and seek sexual satisfaction among women who have the same inclinations, or else among normal women, who are won over by presents or other means. In addition to tribadism or cunnilinctus, they sometimes use an ebony or ivory phallus, with a kind of glans at one end, or sometimes at both ends; in the latter case it can be used by two women at once, and sometimes it has a hole bored through it by which warm water can be injected; it is regarded as an Arab invention, and is sometimes used by normal women shut up in harems, and practically deprived of sexual satisfaction.[151] Among the Arab women, according to Kocher, homosexual practices are rare, though very common among Arab men. In Egypt, however, according to Godard, Kocher, and others, it is almost fashionable, and every woman in the harem has a "friend." In Turkey homosexuality is sometimes said to be rare among women. But it would appear to be found in the harems and women's baths of Turkey, as well as of Islam generally. Brantôme in the sixteenth century referred to the Lesbianism of Turkish women at the baths, and Leo Africanus in the same century mentioned the tribadism of Moorish women and the formal organization of tribadic prostitution in Fez. There was an Osmanli Sapphic poetess, Mihiri, whose grave is at Amasia, and Vambery and Achestorides agree as to the prevalence of feminine homosexuality in Turkey.[152] Among the negroes and mulattoes of French creole countries, according to Corre, homosexuality is very common. "I know a lady of great beauty," he remarks, "a stranger in Guadalupe and the mother of a family, who is obliged to stay away from the markets and certain shops because of the excessive admiration of mulatto women and negresses, and the impudent invitations which they dare to address to her."[153] He refers to several cases of more or less violent sexual attempts by women on young colored girls of 12 or 14, and observes that such attempts by men on children of their own sex are much rarer. In China (according to Matignon) and in Cochin China (according to Lorion) homosexuality does not appear to be common among women. In India, however, it is probably as prevalent among women as it certainly is among men. In the first edition of this Study I quoted the opinion of Dr. Buchanan, then Superintendant of the Central Gaol of Bengal at Bhagalpur, who informed me that he had never come across a case and that his head-gaoler had never heard of such a thing in twenty-five years' experience. Another officer in the Indian Medical Service assures me, however, that there cannot be the least doubt as to the frequency of homosexuality among women in India, either inside or outside gaols. I am indebted to him for the following notes on this point:-- "That homosexual relationships are common enough among Indian women is evidenced by the fact that the Hindustani language has five words to denote the tribade: (1) _dúgáná_, (2) _zanàkhé_, (3) _sa'tar_, (4) _chapathái_, and (5) _chapatbáz_. The _modus operandi_ is generally what Martial calls _geminos committere cunnos_, but sometimes a phallus, called _saburah_, is employed. The act itself is called _chapat_ or _chapti_, and the Hindustani poets, Nazir, Rangin, Ján S'áheb, treat of Lesbian love very extensively and sometimes very crudely. Ján S'áheb, a woman poet, sings to the effect that intercourse with a woman by means of a phallus is to be preferred to the satisfaction offered by a male lover. The common euphemism employed when speaking of two tribades who live together is that they 'live apart.' So much for the literary evidence as to the prevalence of what, _mirable dictu_, Dr. Buchanan's gaoler was ignorant of. "Now for facts. In the gaol of R. the superintendent discovered a number of phalli in the females' inclosure; they were made of clay and sun-dried and bore marks of use. In the gaol of S. was a woman who (as is usual with tribades in India) wore male attire, and was well known for her sexual proclivities. An examination revealed the following: Face much lined, mammæ of masculine type, but nipples elongated and readily erectile; gluteal and iliac regions quite of masculine type, as also the thighs; clitoris, with enlarged glands, readily erectile; nymphæ thickened and enlarged; vulvar orifice patent, for she had in early youth been a prostitute; the voice was almost contralto. Her partner was of low type, but eminently feminine in configuration and manner. In this case I heard that 'the man' went to a local ascetic and begged his intercession with the deity, so that she might impregnate her partner. ('The Hindoo medical works mention the possibility of a woman uniting with another woman in sexual embraces and begetting a boneless fetus.' _Short History of Aryan Medical Science_, p. 44.) "In the town of D. there 'lived apart' two women, one a Brahmin, the other a grazier; their _modus operandi_ was tribadism, as an eyewitness informed me. In S. I was called in to treat the widow of a wealthy Mohammedan; I had occasion to examine the pudenda, and found what Martineau would have called the indelible stigmata of early masturbation and later sapphism. She admitted the impeachment and confessed that she was on the best of terms with her three remarkably well-formed and good-looking handmaidens. This lady said that she began masturbation at an early age, 'just like all other women,' and that sapphism came after the age of puberty. Another Mohammedan woman whom I knew, and who had a very large clitoris, told me that she had been initiated into Lesbian love at 12 by a neighbor and had intermittently practised it ever since. I might also instance two sisters of the gardener caste, both widows, who 'lived apart' and indulged in simultaneous sapphism. "That sometimes the actors in tribadism are most vigorous is shown by the fact that, in the central gaol of ----, swelling of the vulva was admitted to have been caused by the embraces of two female convicts. The subordinate who told me this mentioned it quite incidentally while relating his experiences as hospital assistant at this gaol. When I questioned him he stated that the woman, whom he was called to treat, told him that she could never 'satisfy herself' with men, but only with women. He added that tribadism was 'quite common in the gaol.'" The foregoing sketch may serve to show that homosexual practices certainly, and probably definite sexual inversion, are very widespread among women in very many and various parts of the world, though it is likely that, as among men, there are variations--geographical, racial, national, or social--in the frequency or intensity of its obvious manifestations. Thus, in the eighteenth century, Casanova remarked that the women of Provence are specially inclined to Lesbianism. In European prisons homosexual practices flourish among the women fully as much, it may probably be said, as among the men. There is, indeed, some reason for supposing that these phenomena are here sometimes even more decisively marked than among men.[154] This prevalence of homosexuality among women in prison is connected with the close relationship between feminine criminality and prostitution. The frequency of homosexual practices among prostitutes is a fact of some interest, and calls for special explanation, for, at the first glance, it seems in opposition to all that we know concerning the exciting causes of homosexuality. Regarding the fact there can be no question.[155] It has been noted by all who are acquainted with the lives of prostitutes, though opinion may differ as to its frequency. In Berlin, Moll was told in well-informed quarters, the proportion of prostitutes with Lesbian tendencies is about 25 per cent. This was almost the proportion at Paris many years ago, according to Parent-Duchâtelet; today, according to Chevalier, it is larger; and Bourneville believes that 75 per cent, of the inmates of the Parisian venereal hospitals have practised homosexuality. Hammer in Germany has found among 66 prostitutes that 41 were homosexual.[156] Hirschfeld thinks that inverted women are specially prone to become prostitutes.[157] Eulenburg believes, on the other hand, that the conditions of their life favor homosexuality among prostitutes; "a homosexual union seems to them higher, purer, more innocent, and more ideal."[158] There is, however, no fundamental contradiction between these two views; they are probably both right. In London, so far as my inquiries extend, homosexuality among prostitutes is very much less prevalent, and in a well-marked form is confined to a comparatively small section. I am indebted to a friend for the following note: "From my experience of the Parisian prostitute, I gather that Lesbianism in Paris is extremely prevalent; indeed, one might almost say normal. In particular, most of the chahut-dancers of the Moulin-Rouge, Casino de Paris, and the other public balls are notorious for going in couples, and, for the most part, they prefer not to be separated, even in their most professional moments with the other sex. In London the thing is, naturally, much less obvious, and, I think, much less prevalent; but it is certainly not infrequent. A certain number of well-known prostitutes are known for their tendencies in this direction, which do not, however, interfere in any marked way with the ordinary details of their profession. I do not personally know of a single prostitute who is exclusively Lesbian; I have heard vaguely that there are one or two such anomalies. But I have heard a swell _cocotte_ at the Corinthian announce to the whole room that she was going home with a girl; and no one doubted the statement. Her name, indeed, was generally coupled with that of a fifth-rate actress. Another woman of the same kind has a little clientele of women who buy her photographs in Burlington Arcade. In the lower ranks of the profession all this is much less common. One often finds women who have simply never heard of such a thing; they know of it in regard to men, but not in regard to women. And they are, for the most part, quite horrified at the notion, which they consider part and parcel of 'French beastliness.' Of course, almost every girl has her friend, and, when not separately occupied, they often sleep together; but, while in separate, rare cases, this undoubtedly means all that it can mean, for the most part, so far as one can judge, it means no more than it would mean among ordinary girls." It is evident that there must be some radical causes for the frequency of homosexuality among prostitutes. One such cause doubtless lies in the character of the prostitute's relations with men; these relations are of a professional character, and, as the business element becomes emphasized, the possibility of sexual satisfaction diminishes; at the best, also; there lacks the sense of social equality, the feeling of possession, and scope for the exercise of feminine affection and devotion. These the prostitute must usually be forced to find either in a "bully" or in another woman.[159] Apart from this fact it must be borne in mind that, in a very large number of cases, prostitutes show in slight or more marked degree many of the signs of neurotic heredity,[160] and it would not be surprising if they present the germs of homosexuality in an unusually high degree. The life of the prostitute may well develop such latent germs; and so we have an undue tendency to homosexuality, just as we have it among criminals, and, to a much less extent, among persons of genius and intellect. Homosexuality is specially fostered by those employments which keep women in constant association, not only by day, but often at night also, without the company of men. This is, for instance, the case in convents, and formerly, at all events,--however, it may be today,--homosexuality was held to be very prevalent in convents. This was especially so in the eighteenth century when very many young girls, without any religious vocation, were put into convents.[161] The same again is today the case with the female servants in large hotels, among whom homosexual practices nave been found very common.[162] Laycock, many years ago, noted the prevalence of manifestations of this kind, which he regarded as hysterical, among seamstresses, lace-makers, etc., confined for hours in close contact with one another in heated rooms. The circumstances under which numbers of young women are employed during the day in large shops and factories, and sleep in the establishment, two in a room or even two in a bed, are favorable to the development of homosexual practices. In England it is seldom that anyone cares to investigate these phenomena, though, they certainly exist. They have been more thoroughly studied elsewhere. Thus, in Rome, Niceforo, who studied various aspects of the lives of the working classes, succeeded in obtaining much precise information concerning the manners and customs of the young girls in dressmaking and tailoring work-rooms. He remarks that few of those who see the "virtuous daughters of the people," often not more than 12 years old, walking along the streets with the dressmaker's box under their arm, modestly bent head and virginal air, realize the intense sexual preoccupations often underlying these appearances. In the work-rooms the conversation perpetually revolves around sexual subjects in the absence of the mistress or forewoman, and even in her presence the slang that prevails in the work-rooms leads to dialogues with a double meaning. A state of sexual excitement is thus aroused which sometimes relieves itself mentally by psychic onanism, sometimes by some form of masturbation; one girl admitted to Niceforo that by allowing her thoughts to dwell on the subject while at work she sometimes produced physical sexual excitement as often as four times a day. (See also vol. i of these _Studies_, "Auto-erotism.") Sometimes, however, a vague kind of homosexuality is produced, the girls, excited by their own thoughts and their conversation, being still further excited by contact with each other. "In summer, in one work-room, some of the girls wear no drawers, and they unbutton their bodices, and work with crossed legs, more or less uncovered. In this position, the girls draw near and inspect one another; some boast of their white legs, and, then the petticoats are raised altogether for more careful comparison. Many enjoy this inspection of nudity, and experience real sexual pleasure. From midday till 2 P.M., during the hours of greatest heat, when all are in this condition, and the mistress, in her chemise (and sometimes, with no shame at the workers' presence, even without it), falls asleep on the sofa, all the girls, _without one exception_, masturbate themselves. The heat seems to sharpen their desires and morbidly arouse all their senses. The voluptuous emotions, restrained during the rest of the day, break out with irresistible force; stimulated by the spectacle of each other's nakedness, some place their legs together and thus heighten the spasm by the illusion of contact with a man." In this way they reach mutual masturbation. "It is noteworthy, however," Niceforo points out, "that these couples for mutual masturbation are never Lesbian couples. Tribadism is altogether absent from the factories and work-rooms." He even believes that it does not exist among girls of the working class. He further describes how, in another work-room, during the hot hours of the day in summer, when no work is done, some of the girls retire into the fitting-room, and, having fastened their chemises round their legs and thighs with pins, so as to imitate trousers, play at being men and pretend to have intercourse with the others. (Niceforo, _Il Gergo_, cap. vi, 1897, Turin.) I have reproduced these details from Niceforo's careful study because, although they may seem to be trivial at some points, they clearly bring out the very important distinction between a merely temporary homosexuality and true inversion. The amusements of these young girls may not be considered eminently innocent or wholesome, but, on the other hand, they are not radically morbid or vicious. They are strictly, and even consciously, _play_; they are dominated by the thought that the true sexual ideal is normal relationship with a man, and they would certainly disappear in the presence of a man. It must be remembered that Niceforo's observations were made among girls who were mostly young. In the large factories, where many adult women are employed, the phenomena tend to be rarer, but of much less trivial and playful character. At Wolverhampton, some forty years ago, the case was reported of a woman in a galvanizing "store" who, after dinner, indecently assaulted a girl who was a new hand. Two young women held the victim down, and this seems to show that homosexual vice was here common and recognized. No doubt, this case is exceptional in its brutality. It throws, however, a significant light on the conditions prevailing in factories. In Spain, in the large factories where many adult women are employed, especially in the great tobacco factory at Seville, Lesbian relationships seem to be not uncommon. Here the women work in an atmosphere which in summer is so hot that they throw off the greater part of their clothing, to such an extent that a bell is rung whenever a visitor is introduced into a work-room, in order to warn the workers. Such an environment predisposes to the formation of homosexual relationships. When I was in Spain some years ago an incident occurred at the Seville Fábrica de Tabacos which attracted much attention in the newspapers, and, though it was regarded as unusual, it throws light on the life of the workers. One morning as the women were entering the work-room and amid the usual scene of animation changing their Manila shawls for the light costume worn during work, one drew out a small clasp-knife and, attacking another, rapidly inflicted six or seven wounds on her face and neck, threatening to kill anyone who approached. Both these _cigarreras_ were superior workers, engaged in the most skilled kind of work, and had been at the factory for many years. In appearance they were described as presenting a striking contrast: the aggressor, who was 48 years of age, was of masculine air, tall and thin, with an expression of firm determination on her wrinkled face; the victim, on the other hand, whose age was 30, was plump and good-looking and of pleasing disposition. The reason at first assigned for the attack on the younger woman was that her mother had insulted the elder woman's son. It appeared, however, that a close friendship had existed between the two women, that latterly the younger woman had formed a friendship with the forewoman of her work-room, and that the elder woman, animated by jealousy, then resolved to murder both; this design was frustrated by the accidental absence of the forewoman that day. In theaters the abnormal sexuality stimulated by such association in work is complicated by the general tendency for homosexuality to be connected with dramatic aptitude, a point to which I shall have to refer later on. I am indebted to a friend for the following note: "Passionate friendships among girls, from the most innocent to the most elaborate excursions in the direction of Lesbos, are extremely common in theaters, both among actresses and, even more, among chorus-and ballet-girls. Here the pell-mell of the dressing-rooms, the wait of perhaps two hours between the performances, during which all the girls are cooped up, in a state of inaction and of excitement, in a few crowded dressing-rooms, afford every opportunity for the growth of this particular kind of sentiment. In most of the theaters there is a little circle of girls, somewhat avoided by the others, or themselves careless of further acquaintanceship, who profess the most unbounded devotion to one another. Most of these girls are equally ready to flirt with the opposite sex, but I know certain ones among them who will scarcely speak to a man, and who are never seen without their particular 'pal' or 'chum,' who, if she gets moved to another theater, will come around and wait for her friend at the stage-door. But here, again, it is but seldom that the experience is carried very far. The fact is that the English girl, especially of the lower and middle classes, whether she has lost her virtue or not, is extremely fettered by conventional notions. Ignorance and habit are two restraining influences from the carrying out of this particular kind of perversion to its logical conclusions. It is, therefore, among the upper ranks, alike of society and of prostitution, that Lesbianism is most definitely to be met with, for here we have much greater liberty of action, and much greater freedom from prejudices." With girls, as with boys, it is in the school, at the evolution of puberty, that homosexuality usually first shows itself. It may originate in a way mainly peripheral or mainly central. In the first case, two children, perhaps when close to each other in bed, more or less unintentionally generate in each other a certain amount of sexual irritation, which they foster by mutual touching and kissing. This is a spurious kind of homosexuality, the often precocious play of the normal instinct. In the girl who is congenitally predisposed to homosexuality it will continue and develop; in the majority it will be forgotten as quickly as possible, not without shame, in the presence of the normal object of sexual love. I may quote as fairly typical the following observation supplied by a lady who cannot be called inverted: "Like so many other children and girls, I was first taught self-indulgence by a girl at school, and I passed on my knowledge to one or two others, with one of whom I remember once, when we were just 16, spending the night sensually. We were horribly ashamed after, and that was the only time. When I was only 8 there was a girl of 13 who liked to play with my body, and taught me to play with hers, though I rather disliked doing so. We slept together, and this went on at intervals for six months. These things, for the sake of getting enjoyment, and not with any passion, are not uncommon with children, but less common, I think, than people sometimes imagine. I believe I could recall without much difficulty, the number of times such things happened with me. In the case I mentioned when I did for one night feel--or try to excite in myself and my girl-companion of 16--sensual passion, we had as little children slept together a few times and done these things, and meeting after an absence, just at that age, recalled our childish memories, and were carried away by sexual impulse. But I never felt any peculiar affection or passion for her even at the time, nor she for me. We only felt that our sensual nature was strong at the time, and had betrayed us into something we were ashamed of, and, therefore, we avoided letting ourselves sleep too close after that day. I think we disliked each other, and were revolted whenever we thought of that night, feeling that each had degraded the other and herself." The cases in which the source is mainly central, rather than peripheral, nevertheless merge into the foregoing, with no clear line of demarcation. In such cases a girl forms an ardent attachment for another girl, probably somewhat older than herself, often a schoolfellow, sometimes her schoolmistress, upon whom she will lavish an astonishing amount of affection and devotion. There may or not be any return; usually the return consists of a gracious acceptance of the affectionate services. The girl who expends this wealth of devotion is surcharged with emotion, but she is often unconscious or ignorant of the sexual impulse, and she seeks for no form of sexual satisfaction. Kissing and the privilege of sleeping with the friend are, however, sought, and at such times it often happens that even the comparatively unresponsive friend feels more or less definite sexual emotion (pudendal turgescence, with secretion of mucus and involuntary twitching of the neighboring muscles), though little or no attention may be paid to this phenomenon, and in the common ignorance of girls concerning sex matters it may not be understood. In some cases there is an attempt, either instinctive or intentional, to develop the sexual feeling by close embraces and kissing. This rudimentary kind of homosexual relationship is, I believe, more common among girls than among boys, and for this there are several reasons: (1) a boy more often has some acquaintance with sexual phenomena, and would frequently regard such a relationship as unmanly; (2) the girl has a stronger need of affection and self-devotion to another person than a boy has; (3) she has not, under our existing social conditions which compel young women to hold the opposite sex at arm's length, the same opportunities of finding an outlet for her sexual emotions; while (4) conventional propriety recognizes a considerable degree of physical intimacy between girls, thus at once encouraging and cloaking the manifestations of homosexuality. The ardent attachments which girls in schools and colleges form to each other and to their teachers constitute a subject which is of considerable psychological interest and of no little practical importance.[163] These girlish devotions, on the borderland between friendship and sexual passion, are found in all countries where girls are segregated for educational purposes, and their symptoms are, on the whole, singularly uniform, though they vary in intensity and character to some extent, from time to time and from place to place, sometimes assuming an epidemic form. They have been most carefully studied in Italy, where Obici and Marchesini--an alienist and a psychologist working in conjunction--have analyzed the phenomena with remarkable insight and delicacy and much wealth of illustrative material.[164] But exactly the same phenomena are everywhere found in English girls' schools, even of the most modern type, and in some of the large American women's colleges they have sometimes become so acute as to cause much anxiety.[165] On the whole, however, it is probable that such manifestations are regarded more indulgently in girls' than in boys' schools, and in view of the fact that the manifestations of affection are normally more pronounced between girls than between boys, this seems reasonable. The head mistress of an English training college writes:-- "My own assumption on such, matters has been that affection does naturally belong to the body as well as the mind, and between two women is naturally and innocently expressed by, caresses. I have never therefore felt that I ought to warn any girl against the physical element in friendship, as such. The test I should probably suggest to them would be the same as one would use for any other relation--was the friendship helping life as a whole, making them keener, kinder, more industrious, etc., or was it hindering it?" Passionate friendships, of a more or less unconsciously sexual character, are common even outside and beyond school-life. It frequently happens that a period during which a young woman falls in love at a distance with some young man of her acquaintance alternates with periods of intimate attachment to a friend of her own sex. No congenital inversion is usually involved. It generally happens, in the end, either that relationship with a man brings the normal impulse into permanent play, or the steadying of the emotions in the stress of practical life leads to a knowledge of the real nature of such feelings and a consequent distaste for them. In some cases, on the other hand, such relationships, especially when formed after school-life, are fairly permanent. An energetic emotional woman, not usually beautiful, will perhaps be devoted to another who may have found some rather specialized lifework, but who may be very unpractical, and who has probably a very feeble sexual instinct; she is grateful for her friends's devotion, but may not actively reciprocate it. The actual specific sexual phenomena generated in such cases vary very greatly. The emotion may be latent or unconscious; it may be all on one side; it is often more or less recognized and shared. Such cases are on the borderland of true sexual inversion, but they cannot be included within its region. Sex in these relationships is scarcely the essential and fundamental element; it is more or less subordinate and parasitic. There is often a semblance of a sex-relationship from the marked divergence of the friends in physical and psychic qualities, and the nervous development of one or both the friends is sometimes slightly abnormal. We have to regard such relationships as hypertrophied friendships, the hypertrophy being due to unemployed sexual instinct. The following narrative is written by a lady who holds a responsible educational position: "A friend of mine, two or three years older than myself (I am 31), and living in the same house with me, has been passing through a very unhappy time. Long nervous strain connected with this has made her sleep badly, and apt to wake in terrible depression about 3 o'clock in the morning. In the early days of our friendship, about eight months ago, she occasionally at these times took refuge with me. After a while I insisted on her consulting a doctor, who advised her, amongst other things, not to sleep alone. Thenceforth for two or three months I induced her to share my room. After a week or two she generally shared my bed for a time at the beginning of the night, as it seemed to help her to sleep. "Before this, about the second or third time that she came to me in the early morning, I had been surprised and a little frightened to find how pleasant it was to me to have her, and how reluctant I was that she should go away. When we began regularly to sleep in the same room, the physical part of our affection grew rapidly very strong. It is natural for me generally to caress my friends, but I soon could not be alone in a room with this one without wanting to have my arms round her. It would have been intolerable to me to live with her without being able to touch her. We did not discuss it, but it was evident that the desire was even stronger in her than in me. "For some time it satisfied us fully to be in bed together. One night, however, when she had had a cruelly trying day and I wanted to find all ways of comforting her, I bared by breast for her to lie on. Afterward it was clear that neither of us could be satisfied without this. She groped for it like a child, and it excited me much more to feel that than to uncover my breast and arms altogether at once. "Much of this excitement was sexually localized, and I was haunted in the daytime by images of holding this woman in my arms. I noticed also that my inclination to caress my other women friends was not diminished, but increased. All this disturbed me a good deal. The homosexual practices of which I had read lately struck me as merely nasty; I could not imagines myself tempted to them;--at the same time the whole matter was new to me, for I had never wanted anyone even to share my bed before; I had read that sex instinct was mysterious and unexpected, and I felt that I did not know what might come next. "I knew only one elder person whom (for wide-mindedness, gentleness, and saintliness) I could bear to consult; and to this person, a middle-aged man, I wrote for advice. He replied by a long letter of the most tender warning. I had better not weaken my influence with my friend, he wrote, by going back suddenly or without her consent, but I was to be very wary of going further; there was fire about. I tried to put this into practice by restraining myself constantly in our intercourse, by refraining from caressing her, for instance, when I wanted to caress her and knew that she wanted it. The only result seemed to be that the desire was more tormenting and constant than ever. "If at this point my friend had happened to die or go away, and the incident had come to an end, I should probably have been left nervous in these matters for years to come. I should have faltered in the opinion I had always held, that bodily expressions of love between women were as innocent as they were natural; and I might have come nearer than I ever expected to the doctrine of those convent teachers who forbid their girls to embrace one another for fear an incalculable instinct should carry them to the edge of an abyss. "As it was, after a while I said a little on the subject to my friend herself. I had been inclined to think that she might share my anxiety, but she did not share it at all. She said to me that she did not like these thoughts, that she cared for me more than She had ever done for any person except one (now causing most of her unhappiness), and wanted me in all possible ways, and that it would make her sad to feel that I was trying not to want her in one way because I thought it was wrong. "On my part, I knew very well how much she did need and want me. I knew that in relations with others she was spending the greatest effort in following a course that I urged on her, and was doing what I thought right in spite of the most painful pressure on her to do wrong; and that she needed all the support and comfort I could give her. It seemed to me, after our conversation, that the right path for me lay not in giving way to fears and scruples, but in giving my friend straightforwardly all the love I could and all the kinds of love I could. I decided to keep my eyes open for danger, but meanwhile to go on. "We were living alone together at the time, and thenceforward we did as we liked doing. As soon as we could, we moved to a bed where we could sleep together all night. In the day when no one was there we sat as close together as we wished, which was very close. We kissed each other as often as we wanted to kiss each other, which was very many times a day. "The results of this, so far as I can see, have been wholly good. We love each other warmly, but no temptation to nastiness has ever come, and I cannot see now that it is at all likely to come. With custom, the localized physical excitement has practically disappeared, and I am no longer obsessed by imagined embraces. The spiritual side of our affection seems to have grown steadily stronger and more profitable since the physical side has, been allowed to take its natural place." A class in which homosexuality, while fairly distinct, is only slightly marked, is formed by the women to whom the actively inverted woman is most attracted. These women differ, in the first place, from the normal, or average, woman in that they are not repelled or disgusted by lover-like advances from persons of their own sex. They are not usually attractive to the average man, though to this rule there are many exceptions. Their faces may be plain or ill-made, but not seldom they possess good figures: a point which is apt to carry more weight with the inverted woman than beauty of face. Their sexual impulses are seldom well marked, but they are of strongly affectionate nature. On the whole, they are women who are not very robust and well developed, physically or nervously, and who are not well adapted for child-bearing, but who still possess many excellent qualities, and they are always womanly. One may, perhaps, say that they are the pick of the women whom the average man would pass by. No doubt, this is often the reason why they are open to homosexual advances, but I do not think it is the sole reason. So far as they may be said to constitute a class, they seem to possess a genuine, though not precisely sexual, preference for women over men, and it is this coldness, rather than lack of charm, which often renders men rather indifferent to them. The actively inverted woman usually differs from the woman of the class just mentioned in one fairly essential character: a more or less distinct trace of masculinity. She may not be, and frequently is not, what would be called a "mannish" woman, for the latter may imitate men on grounds of taste and habit unconnected with sexual perversion, while in the inverted woman the masculine traits are part of an organic instinct which she by no means always wishes to accentuate. The inverted woman's masculine element may, in the least degree, consist only in the fact that she makes advances to the woman to whom she is attracted and treats all men in a cool, direct manner, which may not exclude comradeship, but which excludes every sexual relationship, whether of passion or merely of coquetry. Usually the inverted woman feels absolute indifference toward men, and not seldom repulsion. And this feeling, as a rule, is instinctively reciprocated by men. At the same time bisexual women are at least as common as bisexual men. HISTORY XXXIV.--Miss S., aged 38, living in a city of the United States, a business woman of fine intelligence, prominent in professional and literary circles. Her general health is good, but she belongs to a family in which there is a marked neuropathic element. She is of rather phlegmatic temperament, well poised, always perfectly calm and self-possessed, rather retiring in disposition, with gentle, dignified bearing. She says she cannot care for men, but that all her life has been "glorified and made beautiful by friendship with women," whom she loves as a man loves women. Her character is, however, well disciplined, and her friends are not aware of the nature of her affections. She tries not to give all her love to one person, and endeavors (as she herself expresses it) to use this "gift of loving" as a stepping-stone to high mental and spiritual attainments. She is described by one who has known her for several years as "having a high nature, and instincts unerringly toward high things." HISTORY XXXV.--Miss B., artist, of German ancestry on the paternal side. Among her brothers and sisters, one is of neurotic temperament and another is inverted. She is herself healthy. She has no repugnance to men, and would even like to try marriage, if the union were not permanent, but she has seldom felt any sexual attraction to a man. In one exceptional instance, early in life, realizing that she was not adapted for heterosexual relationships, she broke off the engagement she had formed. Much later in life, she formed a more permanent relationship with a man of congenial tastes. She is attracted to women of various kinds, though she recognizes that there are some women to whom only men are attracted. Many years since she had a friend to whom she was very strongly attached, but the physical manifestations do not appear to have become pronounced. After that her thoughts were much occupied by several women to whom she made advances, which were not encouraged to pass beyond ordinary friendship. In one case, however, she formed an intimate relationship with a girl somewhat younger than herself, and a very feminine personality, who accepted Miss B.'s ardent love with pleasure, but in a passive manner, and did not consider that the relationship would stand in the way of her marrying, though she would on no account tell her husband. The relationship for the first time aroused Miss B.'s latent sexual emotions. She found sexual satisfaction in kissing and embracing her friend's body, but there appeared to be no orgasm. The relationship made a considerable change in her, and rendered her radiant and happy. In her behavior toward men Miss B. reveals no sexual shyness. Men are not usually attracted to her. There is nothing striking in her appearance; her person and manners, though careless, are not conspicuously man-like. She is fond of exercise and smokes a good deal. HISTORY XXXVI.--Miss H., aged 30. Among her paternal relatives there is a tendency to eccentricity and to nervous disease. Her grandfather drank; her father was eccentric and hypochondriacal, and suffered from obsessions. Her mother and mother's relatives are entirely healthy, and normal in disposition. At the age of 4 she liked to see the nates of a little girl who lived near. When she was about 6, the nurse-maid, sitting in the fields, used to play with her own parts, and told her to do likewise, saying it would make a baby come; she occasionally touched herself in consequence, but without producing any effect of any kind. When she was about 8 she used to see various nurse-maids uncover their children's sexual parts and show them to each other. She used to think about this when alone, and also about whipping. She never cared to play with dolls, and in her games always took the part of a man. Her first rudimentary sex-feelings appeared at the age of 8 or 9, and were associated with dreams of whipping and being whipped, which were most vivid between the ages of 11 and 14, when they died away on the appearance of affection for girls. She menstruated at 12. Her earliest affection, at the age of 13, was for a schoolfellow, a graceful, coquettish girl with long golden hair and blue eyes. Her affection displayed itself in performing all sorts of small services for this girl, in constantly thinking about her, and in feeling deliciously grateful for the smallest return. At the age of 14 she had a similar passion for a girl cousin; she used to look forward with ecstasy to her visits, and especially to the rare occasions when the cousin slept with her; her excitement was then so great that she could not sleep, but there was no conscious sexual excitement. At the age of 15 or 16 she fell in love with another cousin; her experiences with this girl were full of delicious sensations; if the cousin only touched her neck, a thrill went through her body which she now regards as sexual. Again, at 17, she had an overwhelming, passionate fascination for a schoolfellow, a pretty, commonplace girl, whom she idealized and etherealized to an extravagant extent. This passion was so violent that her health was, to some extent, impaired; but it was purely unselfish, and there was nothing sexual in it. On leaving school at the age of 19 she met a girl of about the same age as herself, very womanly, but not much attracted to men. This girl became very much attached to her, and sought to gain her love. After some time Miss H. was attracted by this love, partly from the sense of power it gave her, and an intimate relation grew up. This relation became vaguely physical, Miss H. taking the initiative, but her friend desiring such relations and taking extreme pleasure in them; they used to touch and kiss each other tenderly (especially on the _mons veneris_), with equal ardor. They each experienced a strong pleasurable feeling in doing this, and sexual erethism, but no orgasm, and it does not appear that this ever occurred. Their general behavior to each other was that of lovers, but they endeavored, as far as possible, to hide this fact from the world. This relation lasted for several years, and would have continued, had not Miss H.'s friend, from religious and moral scruples, put an end to the physical relationship. Miss H. had been very well and happy during this relationship; the interference with it seems to have exerted a disturbing influence, and also to have aroused her sexual desires, though she was still scarcely conscious of their real nature. Soon afterward another girl of exceedingly voluptuous type made love to Miss H., to which the latter yielded, giving way to her feelings as well as to her love of domination. She was afterward ashamed of this episode, though the physical element in it had remained vague and indefinite. Her remorse was so great that when her friend, repenting her scruples, implored her to let their relationship be on the same footing as of old, Miss H., in her return, resisted every effort to restore the physical relation. She kept to this resolution for some years, and sought to divert her thoughts into intellectual channels. When she again formed an intimate relationship it was with a congenial friend, and lasted for several years. She has never masturbated. Occasionally, but very rarely, she has had dreams of riding accompanied by pleasurable sexual emotions (she cannot recall any actual experience to suggest this, though fond of riding). She has never had any kind of sexual dreams about a man; of late years she has occasionally had erotic dreams about women. Her feeling toward men is friendly, but she has never had sexual attraction toward a man. She likes them as good comrades, as men like each other. She enjoys the society of men on account of their intellectual attraction. She is herself very active in social and intellectual work. Her feeling toward marriage has always been one of repugnance. She can, however, imagine a man whom she could love or marry. She is attracted to womanly women, sincere, reserved, pure, but courageous in character. She is not attracted to intellectual women, but at the same time cannot endure silly women. The physical qualities that attract her most are not so much beauty of face as a graceful, but not too slender, body with beautiful curves. The women she is drawn to are usually somewhat younger than herself. Women are much attracted to her, and without any effort on her part. She likes to take the active part and protecting rôle with them. She is herself energetic in character, and with a somewhat neurotic temperament. She finds sexual satisfaction in tenderly touching, caressing, and kissing the loved one's body. (There is no _cunnilinctus_, which she regards with abhorrence.) She feels more tenderness than passion. There is a high degree of sexual erethism when kissing, but orgasm is rare and is produced by lying on the friend or by the friend lying on her, without any special contact. She likes being herself kissed, but not so much as taking the active part. She believes that homosexual love is morally right when it is really part of a person's nature, and provided that the nature of homosexual love is always made plain to the object of such affection. She does not approve of it as a mere makeshift, or expression of sensuality, in normal women. She has sometimes resisted the sexual expression of her feelings, once for years at a time, but always in vain. The effect on her of loving women is distinctly good, she asserts, both spiritually and physically, while repression leads to morbidity and hysteria. She has suffered much from neurasthenia at various periods, but under appropriate treatment it has slowly diminished. The inverted instinct is too deeply rooted to eradicate, but it is well under control. HISTORY XXXVII.--Miss M., the daughter of English parents (both musicians), who were both of what is described as "intense" temperament, and there is a neurotic element in the family, though no history of insanity or alcoholism, and she is herself free from nervous disease. At birth she was very small. In a portrait taken at the age of 4 the nose, mouth, and ears are abnormally large, and she wears a little boy's hat. As a child she did not care for dolls or for pretty clothes, and often wondered why other children found so much pleasure in them. "As far back as my memory goes," she writes, "I cannot recall a time when I was not different from other children. I felt bored when other little girls came to play with me, though I was never rough or boisterous in my sports." Sewing was distasteful to her. Still she cared little more for the pastimes of boys, and found her favorite amusement in reading, especially adventures and fairy-tales. She was always quiet, timid, and self-conscious. The instinct first made its appearance in the latter part of her eighth or the first part of her ninth year. She was strongly attracted by the face of a teacher who used to appear at a side-window on the second floor of the school-building and ring a bell to summon the children to their classes. The teacher's face seemed very beautiful, but sad, and she thought about her continually, though not coming in personal contact with, her. A year later this teacher was married and left the school, and the impression gradually faded away. "There was no consciousness of sex at this time," she wrote; "no knowledge of sexual matters or practices, and the feelings evoked were feelings of pity and compassion and tenderness for a person who seemed to be very sad and very much depressed. It is this quality or combination of qualities which has always made the appeal in my own case. I may go on for years in comparative peace, when something may happen, in spite of my busy practical life, to call it all out." The next feelings were experienced when, she was about 11 years of age. A young lady came to visit a next-door neighbor, and made so profound an impression on the child that she was ridiculed by her playmates for preferring to sit in a dark corner on the lawn--where she might watch this young lady--rather than to play games. Being a sensitive child, after this experience she was careful not to reveal her feelings to anyone. She felt instinctively that in this she was different from others. Her sense of beauty developed early, but there was always an indefinable feeling of melancholy associated with it. The twilight, a dark night when the stars shone brightly; these had a very depressing effect upon her, but possessed a strong attraction nevertheless, and pictures appealed to her. At the age of 12 she fell in love with a schoolmate, two years older than herself, who was absorbed in the boys and never suspected this affection; she wept bitterly because they could not be confirmed at the same time, but feared to appear undignified and sentimental by revealing her feelings. The face of this friend reminded her of one of Dolce's Madonnas which she loved. Later on, at the age of 16, she loved another friend very dearly and devoted herself to her care. There was a tinge of masculinity among the women of this friend's family, but it is not clear if she can be termed inverted. This was the happiest period of Miss M.'s life. Upon the death of this friend, who had long been in ill health, eight years afterward, she resolved never to let her heart go out to anyone again. Specific physical gratification plays no part in these relationships. The physical sexual feelings began to assert themselves at puberty, but not in association with her ideal emotions. "In that connection," she writes, "I would have considered such things a sacrilege. I fought them and in a measure successfully. The practice of self-indulgence which might have become a daily habit was only occasional. Her image evoked at such times drove away such feelings, for which I felt a repugnance, much preferring the romantic ideal feelings. In this way, quite unconscious of the fact that I was at all different from, any other person, I contrived to train myself to suppress or at least to dominate my physical sensations when they arose. That is the reason why friendship and love have always seemed such holy and beautiful things to me. I have never connected the two sets of feelings. I think I am as strongly sexed as anyone, but I am able to hold a friend in my arms and experience deep comfort and peace without having even a hint of physical sexual feeling. Sexual expression may be quite necessary at certain times and right under certain conditions, but I am convinced that free expression of affection along sentimental channels will do much to minimize the necessity for it along specifically sexual channels. I have gone three months without the physical outlet. The only time I was ever on the verge of nervous prostration was after having suppressed the instinct for ten months. The other feelings, which I do not consider as sexual feelings at all, so fill my life in every department--love, literature, poetry, music, professional and philanthropic activities--that I am able to let the physical take care of itself. When the physical sensations come, it is usually when I am not thinking of a loved one at all. I could dissipate them by raising my thought to that spiritual friendship. I do not know if this was right and wise. I know it is what occurred. It seems a good thing to practise some sort of inhibition of the centers and acquire this kind of domination. One bad result, however, was that I suffered much at times from the physical sensations, and felt horribly depressed and wretched whenever they seemed to get the better of me." "I have been able," she writes, "successfully to master the desire for a more perfect and complete expression of my feelings, and I have done so without serious detriment to my health." "I love few people," she writes again, "but in these instances when I have permitted my heart to go out to a friend I have always experienced most exalted feelings, and have been made better by them morally, mentally, and spiritually. Love is with me a religion." With regard to her attitude toward the other sex, she writes: "I have never felt a dislike for men, but have good comrades among them. During my childhood I associated with both girls and boys, enjoying them all, but wondering why the girls cared to flirt with boys. Later in life I have had other friendships with men, some of whom cared for me, much to my regret, for, naturally, I do not care to marry." She is a musician, and herself attributes her nature in part to artistic temperament. She is of good intelligence, and shows remarkable talent for various branches of physical science. She is about 5 feet 4 inches in height, and her features are rather large. The pelvic measurements are normal, and the external sexual organs are fairly normal in most respects, though somewhat small. At a period ten years subsequent to the date of this history, further examination, under anesthetics, by a gynecologist, showed no traces of ovary on one side. The general conformation of the body is feminine. But with arms, palms up, extended in front of her with inner sides of hands touching, she cannot bring the inner sides of forearms together, as nearly every woman can, showing that the feminine angle of arm is lost. She is left-handed and shows a better development throughout on the left side. She is quiet and dignified, but has many boyish tricks of manner and speech which seem to be instinctive; she tries to watch herself continually, however, in order to avoid them, affecting feminine ways and feminine interests, but always being conscious of an effort in so doing. Miss M. can see nothing wrong in her feelings; and, until, at the age of 28, she came across the translation of Krafft-Ebing's book, she had no idea "that feelings like mine were 'under the ban of society' as he puts it, or were considered unnatural and depraved." She would like to help to bring light on the subject and to lift the shadow from other lives. "I emphatically protest," she says, "against the uselessness and the inhumanity of attempts to 'cure' inverts. I am quite sure they have perfect right to live in freedom and happiness as long as they live unselfish lives. One must bear in mind that it is the soul that needs to be satisfied, and not merely the senses." HISTORY XXXVIII.--Miss V., aged 35. Throughout early life up to adult age she was a mystery to herself, and morbidly conscious of some fundamental difference between herself and other people. There was no one she could speak to about this peculiarity. In the effort to conquer it, or to ignore it, she became a hard student and has attained success in the profession she adopted. A few years ago she came across a book on sexual inversion which proved to be a complete revelation to her of her own nature, and, by showing her that she was not an anomaly to be regarded with repulsion, brought her comfort and peace. She is willing that her experiences should be published for the sake of other women who may be suffering as in the past she has suffered. "I am a teacher in a college for women. I am 34 years old and of medium size. Up to the age of 30 I looked much younger, and since older, than my age. Until 21 I had a strikingly child-like appearance. My physique has nothing masculine in it that I am aware of; but I am conscious that my walk is mannish, and I have very frequently been told that I do things--such as sewing,--'just like a man.' My voice is quite low but not coarse. I dislike household work, but am fond of sports, gardening, etc. When so young that I cannot remember it, I learned to whistle, a practice at which I am still expert. When a young girl, I learned to smoke, and should still enjoy it. "Several men have been good friends of mine, but very few suitors. I scarcely ever feel at ease with a man; but women I understand and can nearly always make my friends. "I am of Scotch-Irish descent. My father's family were respectable, prosperous, religious people; my mother's family only semi-respectable, hard livers, shrewd, but not intelligent, industrious and money-getting, but fond of drinking and carousing. There were many illegitimates among them. Both grandmothers, though of little education, were unusual women. Of my four maternal uncles, three drank heavily. "When 43, my mother gave birth to me, the youngest of 8 children. Of those who grew to adult years, 2 seem quite normal sexually; 1 is exceedingly erratic, entirely unprincipled, has been a thief and a forger, is a probable bigamist, and has betrayed several respectable women. Aside from his having inordinate desire, I know of no sexual abnormality. Another brother, married and a father, as a boy was much given to infatuations for men. I fancy this never went beyond infatuation and of late years has not been noticeable. A third brother, single, though much courted by women on account of his good looks and personal charm, is wholly unresponsive, has no gallantry, nor was ever, to my knowledge, a suitor. He is, however, fond of the society of women, especially those older than he. He has a somewhat effeminate voice and walk. Though he has begun of late years to smoke and drink a little, these habits sit rather oddly upon him. When a child, one of his favorite make-believe games was to pretend that he was a famous woman singer. At school he was always found hanging around the older girls. "As a child I loved to stay in the fields, refused to wear a sunbonnet, used to pretend I was a boy, climbed trees, and played ball. I liked to play with dolls, but I did not fondle them, or even make them dresses. When my hair was clipped, I was delighted and made everyone call me 'John.' I used to like to wear a man's broad-brimmed hat and make corn-cob pipes. I was very fond of my father and tried to imitate him as much as possible. Where animals were concerned, I was entirely fearless. "I think I was not a sexually precocious child, though I seem to have always known in a dim way that there were two sexes. Very early I had a sense of shame at having my body exposed; I remember on one occasion I could not be persuaded to undress before a young girl visitor. At that time I must have been about 3. When I was 4 a neighbor who had often petted me took me on his lap and clasped my hand around his penis. Though he was interrupted in a moment, this made a lasting impression on me. I had no physical sensation nor did I have any conception of the significance of the act. Yet I had a slight feeling of repulsion, and I must have dimly felt that it was wrong, for I did not tell my mother. I was not accustomed to confide in her, for, though truthful, I was secretive. "At the age of 5 I commenced to attend a district school. I remember that on my first day I was Greatly attracted by a little girl who wore a bright-red dress. "My first definite knowledge of sex came in this way: I was attending Sabbath school and had become ambitious to read the Bible through. I had gotten as far as the account of the birth of Esau and Jacob, which aroused my curiosity. So I asked my mother the meaning of some word in the passage. She seemed embarrassed and evaded my question. This attitude stimulated my curiosity further, and I re-read the chapter until I understood it pretty well. Later I was further enlightened by girl playmates. I fancy I enjoyed listening to their talk and repeating what I knew on account of the mystery and secrecy with which sex subjects are surrounded rather than any sensual delight. "I cannot recall any act of mine growing directly from sexual feeling until I was 10 years old. Several other little girls and myself two or three times exposed private parts of our bodies to each other. In one instance, at least, I was the instigator. This act gave me some pleasure, though no distinct physical sensation. One incident I recall that happened when I was about 10. A girl cousin and myself had been playing 'house' together. I do not recall what immediately led to it, but we began to address each other as boys and tried to urinate through long tubes of some sort. I also recall feeling a vague interest in this process in animals, and observing them closely in the act. "From this time until I was about 14 I grew ruder, more boisterous and uncontrollable. Prior to this I had been a quite tractable child. When 12 I became interested in a boy in my grade at school, and tried to attract him, but failed. Once at a children's party where we were playing kissing games I tried to get him to kiss me, but he was unresponsive. I do not recall bothering myself about him after that. A year later I had a boy chum about whom my schoolmaster teased me. I thought this ridiculous. At the age of 13 I menstruated, a fact that caused me shame and anger. Gradually I grew to feel myself peculiar, why, I cannot explain. I did not seem to myself to be like other girls of my acquaintance. I adopted, as a defense, a brusque and defiant air. I spent a good deal of time playing alone in our backyard, where I made a pair of stilts, practised rope-walking, and such things. At school I felt I was not liked by the nicer girls and began to associate with girls whom I now believe were immoral, but whom I then supposed did nothing worse than talk in an obscene manner. I copied their conversation and grew more reckless and uncontrollable. The principal of the high school I was attending, I learned afterward, said I was the hardest pupil to control she had ever had. About this time I read a book where a girl was represented as saying she had a 'boy's soul in a girl's body.' The applicability of this to myself struck me at once, and I read the sentence to my mother who disgusted me by appearing shocked. "During this period I began to fall in love,--a practice which clung to me until I was nearly 30 years old. I recall various older women with whom I became much enamored, and one man. Of these there was only one with whom I became acquainted well enough to show any affection; another was a teacher, and another was a young married woman at whom I used to gaze ardently during an entire church service. Toward all my women teachers I had a somewhat sentimental attitude. They stimulated me, while the men gave me a wholly impersonal feeling. This abnormal sentimentality may have been caused, or at least was increased, by the reading of novels, some of a highly voluptuous nature. I began to read novels at 7, and from 11 to 14 I absorbed a great many undesirable ones. This lead to my picturing my future with a lover, fancying myself in romantic scenes and being caressed and embraced. I had always supposed I should marry. When about 5 I decided that when I grew up I would marry a certain young man who used to come to our house. Several years later he married, to my real disappointment. I had no affection for him, but merely thought he would make a desirable husband. "During my unhappy adolescence I heard that a former playmate was going to visit at my home. I began to look forward to the visit with much eagerness and at her arrival was much excited. I wished to stay alone with her and to caress her, and when we slept together I pressed my body against her in a sensual manner, which act she permitted, but without passion. I was greatly excited and could scarcely sleep. This was the first time I had acted in such a way, and after she left I felt shame and dislike for her. At future meetings there was never the least sensuality; we never referred to the first visit and are still friends, though not intimate. "A diary which I kept during my fourteenth and fifteenth years is filled with romantic sentiments and endearing terms applied successively to three girls of my own age. I had but a speaking acquaintance with them, but I was strongly infatuated with all. One boy was also the object of adoration. "During my thirteenth year I became for a time very religious and devoted to religious exercises. This passed and by my fourteenth year I had become heretical, but was still keenly sensitive to religious influences. "When barely 16 I slept one night with a woman of low morals. She acted toward me in a sensual manner and aroused my sexual feelings. I felt at the time that this was a sin, but I was carried away by passion. Afterward I hated this woman and despised myself. "I then went away to a co-educational boarding school. Here for the first time I became happy. A girl of my own age, of fine character and noticeable refinement, fell in love with me and caused me to reciprocate. On retrospection I believe this to have been a genuine and beautiful love on both sides. After a few months, however, our relation, at my initiative and against my friend's will, became a physical one. We expressed our affection by mutual caresses, close embraces and lying on each other's bodies. I sometimes touched her sexual organs sensually. All this contact gave me exquisite thrills. After three years we had a misunderstanding and separated. I was greatly grieved and troubled for many years, and came to regret greatly the physical relationship that had existed between us. My friend at length fell in love and married. I had several other slighter infatuations for women, was courted by several men to whom I remained cold and bored except in one instance, where I was somewhat touched, and finally found a lasting friendship with a woman who had fallen deeply in love with me in her school days and had never been able to care for any one else. She is a woman of considerable literary talent and of good general ability and high ideals. She is usually much liked by men. Her love for me is the most real thing in the world for me, and seems the most permanent. At first my feeling for her was almost purely physical, although there were no sexual relations. I hated this feeling and have succeeded in overcoming it pretty largely. At times after long separations we have embraced with great passion, at least on my part. This has always had a bad physical effect on me. At present, however, it very rarely occurs. We both consider sexual feelings degrading and deleterious to real love. Whether at any time we have had complete physical satisfaction or gratification, I hardly know. I have experienced very keen physical pleasure, mingled with what I took to be great mental exaltation and quickening of the emotions. This condition was brought about by close contact with the body of my friend, usually by lying upon it. But if by 'gratification' it is meant that desire, having been completely satisfied, ceases temporarily, I think I have never had that experience. If I did, it was when I was about 18 when I lived with a girl friend in intimate relations. Of late years, at any rate, it has never happened to me, and an embrace, however close, always leaves me with a desire for a closer union, both physical and spiritual. So a few years since, I came to the conclusion that it was impossible to obtain physical satisfaction through the woman I loved. I came to this conclusion because of the bad physical effects of contact. My sexual organs became highly sensitive and inflamed and I suffered pain from the inflammation and resulting leucorrhea. Should I allow myself to indulge in caresses this condition would return. My friend, fortunately, though very affectionate and demonstrative toward me, has very little sexual passion. The idea that our relationship is based upon it is very repugnant to her. I was at one time, a few years since, much discouraged and almost hopeless of being able to overcome my appetite, and I decided that we could not associate unless I succeeded. At present, with help, I have very largely succeeded in living with my friend on a basis of normal, though affectionate and tender, companionship. I have been helped more, and have learned more, through this companionship, than through anything else. The keen pleasure that I have felt when in responsive contact I never experienced in masturbation. So far as I remember it never took place till I was well along in my 'teens and was never an habitual practice, except the first summer I was separated from a school friend whom I loved. Thoughts of her aroused feelings which I attempted to satisfy in this way, but the entire sensuality of the act soon led me to refrain and to see that that was not what I wanted. "A peculiar incident that might have some significance occurred to me about five years ago. I was sitting in a small room where a seminar was being conducted. The leader of the discussion was a man about 50, whom I looked up to on account of his attainments and respected as a man, though I knew him socially very slightly. I had lost a night's sleep from toothache and was feeling nervous. I was giving my entire attention to the subject in hand, when suddenly I felt a very strong physical compulsion toward that man. I did not know what I was going to do, but I felt on the point of losing all control of myself. I was afraid to leave, for fear the slightest movement would throw me into a panic. The attraction was entirely physical and like nothing I had felt before. And I had a strange feeling that its cause was in the man himself; that he was willing it; I was like a spectator. It was some moments before the assemblage broke up, when my 'possession' completely disappeared and never recurred. "Regarding dreams, I will say that not until the past year or two have I been conscious of having clear-cut dreams with definite happenings. They seemed usually to leave only vague impressions, such as a feeling that I had been riding horseback, or trying to perform some hard task. Sexual dreams I do not recall having had for several years, except that occasionally I am awakened by a feeling of uncomfortable sexual desire, which seems usually caused by a need to urinate. Between the ages of 17 and 22, approximately, I frequently, perhaps several times a month, would have vague sexual dreams. These always, I think, occurred when I happened to be sleeping with someone whom, in my dream, I would mistake for my intimate friend, and would awaken myself by embracing my bedfellow with sometimes a slight, sometimes considerable degree of passion. I have finally arrived at some understanding of my own temperament, and am no longer miserable and melancholy. I regret that I am not a man, because I could then have a home and children." HISTORY XXXIX.--Miss D., actively engaged in the practice of her profession, aged 40. Heredity good, nervous system sound, general health on the whole satisfactory. Development feminine but manner and movements somewhat boyish. Menstruation scanty and painless. Hips normal, nates small, sexual organs showing some approximation toward infantile type with large labia minora and probably small vagina. Tendency to development of hair on body and especially lower limbs. The narrative is given in her own words:-- "Ever since I can remember anything at all I could never think of myself as a girl and I was in perpetual trouble, with this as the real reason. When I was 5 or 6 years old I began to say to myself that, whatever anyone said, if I was not a boy at any rate I was not a girl. This has been my unchanged conviction all through my life. "When I was little, nothing ever made me doubt it, in spite of external appearance. I regarded the conformation of my body as a mysterious accident. I could not see why it should have anything to do with the matter. The things that really affected the question were my own likes and dislikes, and the fact that I was not allowed to follow them. I was to like the things which belonged to me as a girl,--frocks and toys and games which I did not like at all. I fancy I was more strongly 'boyish' than the ordinary little boy. When I could only crawl my absorbing interest was hammers and carpet-nails. Before I could walk I begged to be put on horses' backs, so that I seem to have been born with the love of tools and animals which has never left me. "I did not play with dolls, though my little sister did. I was often reproached for not playing her games. I always chose boys' toys,--tops and guns and horses; I hated being kept indoors and was always longing to go out. By the time I was 7 it seemed to me that everything I liked was called wrong for a girl. I left off telling my elders what I did like. They confused and wearied me by their talk of boys and girls. I did not believe them and could hardly imagine that they believed themselves. By the time I was 8 or 9 I used to wonder whether they were dupes, or liars, or hypocrites, or all three. I never believed or trusted a grown person in consequence. I led my younger brothers in everything. I was not at all a happy little child and often cried and was made irritable; I was so confused by the talk, about boys and girls. I was held up as an evil example to other little girls who virtuously despised me. "When I was about 9 years old I went to a day school and began to have a better time. From 9 to 13 I practically shaped my own life. I learned very little at school, and openly hated it, but I read a great deal at home and got plenty of ideas. I lived, however, mainly out of doors whenever I could get out. I spent all my pocket money on tools, rabbits, pigeons and many other animals. I became an ardent pigeon-catcher, not to say thief, though I did not knowingly steal. "My brothers were as devoted to the animals as I was. The men were supposed to look after them, but we alone did so. We observed, mated, separated, and bred them with considerable skill. We had no language to express ourselves, but one of our own. We were absolutely innocent, and sweetly sympathetic with every beast. I don't think we ever connected their affairs with those of human beings, but as I do not remember the time when I did not know all about the actual facts of sex and reproduction, I presume I learned it all in that way, and life never had any surprises for me in that direction. Though I saw many sights that a child should not have seen, while running about wild, I never gave them a thought; all animals great and small from rabbits to men had the same customs, all natural and right. My initiation here was, in my eyes, as nearly perfect as a child's should be. I never asked grown people questions. I thought all those in charge of me coarse and untruthful and I disliked all ugly things and suggestions. "Every half-holiday I went out with the boys from my brothers' school. They always liked me to play with them, and, though not pleasant-tongued boys, were always civil and polite to me. I organized games and fortifications that they would never have imagined for themselves, led storming parties, and instituted some rather dangerous games of a fighting kind. I taught my brothers; to throw stones. Sometimes I led adventures such as breaking into empty houses. I liked being out after dark. "In the winter I made and rigged boats and went sailing them, and I went rafting and pole-leaping. I became a very good jumper and climber, could go up a rope, bowl overhand, throw like a boy, and whistle three different ways. I collected beetles and butterflies and went shrimping and learned to fish. I had very little money to spend, but I picked things up and I made all traps, nets, cages, etc., myself. I learned from every working-man, I could get hold of the use of all ordinary carpenters' tools, and how to weld hot iron, pave, lay bricks and turf, and so on. "When I was about 11 my parents got more mortified at my behavior and perpetually threatened me with a boarding-school. I was told for months how it would take the nonsense out of me--'shape me,' 'turn me into a young lady.' My going was finally announced to me as a punishment to me for being what I was. "Certainly, the horror of going to this school and the cruel and unsympathetic way that I was sent there gave me a shock that I never got over. The only thing that reconciled me to going was my intense indignation with those who sent me. I appealed to be allowed to learn Latin and boys' subjects, but was laughed at. "I was so helpless that I knew I could not run away without being caught, or I would have run away anywhere from home and school. I never cried or fretted, but burnt with anger and went like a trapped rabbit. "In no words can I describe the severity of the nervous shock, or the suffering of my first year at school. The school was noted for its severity and I heard that at one period the elder girls ran away so often that they wore a uniform dress. I knew two who had run away. The teachers in my time were ignorant, self-indulgent women who cared nothing for the girls or their education and made much money out of them. There was a suspicious reformatory atmosphere, and my money was taken from me and my letters read. "I was intensely shy. I hated the other girls. There were no refinements anywhere; I had no privacy in my room, which was always overcrowded; we had no hot water, no baths, improper food, and no education. We were not allowed to wear enough clean linen, and for five years I never felt clean. "I never had one moment to myself, was not allowed to read anything, had even not enough lesson books, was taught nothing to speak of except a little inferior music and drawing. I never got enough exercise, and was always tired and dull, and could not keep my digestion in order. My pride and self-respect were degraded in innumerable ways, I suffered agonies of disgust, and the whole thing was a dreary penal servitude. "I did not complain. I made friends with a few of the girls. Some of the older girls were attracted to me. Some talked of men and love affairs to me, but I was not greatly interested. No one ever spoke of any other matters of sex to me or in my hearing, but most of the girls were shy with me and I with them. "In about two years' time the teachers got to like me and thought me one of their nicest girls. I certainly influenced them and got them to allow the girls more privileges. "I lay great stress upon the physical privations and disgust that I felt during these years. The mental starvation was not quite so great because it was impossible for them to crush my mind as they did my body. That it all materially aided to arrest the development of my body I am certain. "It is difficult to estimate sexual influences of which as a child I was practically unaware. I certainly admired the liveliest and cleverest girls and made friends with them and disliked the common, lumpy, uneducated type that made two-thirds of my companions. The lively girls liked me, and I made several nice friends whom I have kept ever since. One girl of about 15 took a violent liking for me and figuratively speaking licked the dust from my shoes. I would never take any notice of her. When I was nearly 16 one of my teachers began to notice me and be very kind to me. She was twenty years older than I was. She seemed to pity my loneliness and took me out for walks and sketching, and encouraged me to talk and think. It was the first time in my life that anyone had ever sympathized with me or tried to understand me and it was a most beautiful thing to me. I felt like an orphan child who had suddenly acquired a mother, and through her I began to feel less antagonistic to grown people and to feel the first respect I had ever felt for what they said. She petted me into a state of comparative docility and made the other teachers like and trust me. My love for her was perfectly pure, and I thought of her's as simply maternal. She never roused the least feeling in me that I can think of as sexual. I liked her to touch me and she sometimes held me in her arms or let me sit on her lap. At bedtime she used to come and say good-night and kiss me upon the mouth. I think now that what she did was injudicious to a degree, and I wish I could believe it was as purely unselfish and kind as it seemed to me then. After I had left school I wrote to her and visited her during a few years. Once she wrote to me that if I could give her employment she would come and live with me. Once when she was ill with neurasthenia her friends asked me to go to the seaside with her, which I did. Here she behaved in an extraordinary way, becoming violently jealous over me with another elderly friend of mine who was there. I could hardly believe my senses and was so astonished and disgusted that I never went near her again. She also accused me of not being 'loyal' to her; to this day I have no idea what she meant. She then wrote and asked me what was wrong between us, and I replied that after the words she had had with me my confidence in her was at an end. It gave me no particular pang as I had by this time outgrown the simple gratitude of my childish days and not replaced it by any stronger feeling. All my life I have had the profoundest repugnance to having any 'words' with other women. "I was much less interested in sex matters than other children of my age. I was altogether less precocious, though I knew more, I imagine, than other girls. Nevertheless, by the time I was 15 social matters had begun to interest me greatly. It is difficult to say how this happened, as I was forbidden all books and newspapers (except in my holidays when I had generally a reading orgy, though not the books I needed or wanted). I had abundant opportunities for speculation, but no materials for any profitable thinking. "Dreaming was forced upon me. I dreamed fairy-tales by night and social dreams by day. In the nightdreams, sometimes in the day-dreams, I was always the prince or the pirate, rescuing beauty in distress, or killing the unworthy. I had one dream which I dreamed over and over again and enjoyed and still sometimes dream. In this I was always hunting and fighting, often in the dark; there was usually a woman or a princess, whom I admired, somewhere in the background, but I have never really seen her. Sometimes I was a stowaway on board ship or an Indian hunter or a backwoodsman making a log-cabin for my wife or rather some companion. My daythoughts were not about the women round about me, or even about the one who was so kind to me; they were almost impersonal. I went on, at any rate, from myself to what I thought the really ideal and built up a very beautiful vision of solid human friendship in which there was everything that was strong and wholesome on either side, but very little of sex. To imagine this in its fullness I had to imagine all social, family, and educational conditions vastly different from anything I had come across. From this my thoughts ran largely on social matters. In whatever direction my thoughts ran I always surveyed them from the point of view of a boy. I was trying to wait patiently till I could escape from slavery and starvation, and trying to keep the open mind I have spoken of, though I never opened a book of poetry, or a novel, or a history, but I slipped naturally back into my non-girl's attitude and read it through my own eyes. All my surface-life was a sham, and only through books, which were few, did I ever see the world naturally. A consideration of social matters led me to feel very sorry for women, whom I regarded as made by a deliberate process of manufacture into the fools I thought they were, and by the same process that I myself was being made one. I felt more and more that men were to be envied and women pitied. I lay stress on this for it started in me a deliberate interest in women as women. I began to feel protective and kindly toward women and children and to excuse women from their responsibility for calamities such as my school-career. I never imagined that men required, or would have thanked me for, any sort of sympathy. But it came about in these ways, and without the least help that I can trace, that by the time I was 19 years of age I was keenly interested in all kinds of questions: pity for downtrodden women, suffrage questions, marriage laws, questions of liberty, freedom of thought, care of the poor, views of Nature and Man and God. All these things filled my mind to the exclusion of individual men and women. As soon as I left school I made a headlong plunge into books where these things were treated; I had the answers to everything to find after a long period of enforced starvation. I had to work for my knowledge. No books or ideas came near me but what I went in search of. Another thing that helped me to take an expansive view of life at this time was my intense love of Nature. All birds and animals affected me by their beauty and grace, and I have always kept a profound sympathy with them as well as some subtle understanding which enables me to tame them, at times remarkably. I not only loved all other creatures, but I believed that men and women were the most beautiful things in the universe and I would rather look at them (unclothed) than on any other thing, as my greatest pleasure. I was prepared to like them because they were beautiful. When the time came for me to leave school I rather dreaded it, chiefly because I dreaded my life at home. I had a great longing at this time to run away and try my fortune anywhere; possibly if I had been stronger I might have done so. But I was in very poor health through the physical crushing I had had, and in very poor spirits through this and my mental repression. I still knew myself a prisoner and I was bitterly disappointed and ashamed at having no education. I afterward had myself taught arithmetic and other things. "The next period of my life which covered about six years was not less important to my development, and was a time of extreme misery to me. It found me, on leaving school, almost a child. This time between 18 and 24 should, I think, count as my proper period of puberty, which probably in most children occupies the end years of their school-life. "It was at this time that I began to make a good many friends of my own and to become aware of psychical and sexual attractions. I had never come across any theories on the subject, but I decided that I must belong to a third sex of some kind. I used to wonder if I was like the neuter bees! I knew physical and psychical sex feeling and yet I seemed to know it quite otherwise from other men and women. I asked myself if I could endure living a woman's life, bearing children and doing my duty by them. I asked myself what hiatus there could be between my bodily structure and my feelings, and also what was the meaning of the strong physical feelings which had me in their grip without choice of my own. [Experience of physical sex sensations first began about 16 in sleep; masturbation was accidentally discovered at the age of 19, abandoned at 28, and then at 34 deliberately resumed as a method of purely physical relief.] These three things simply would not be reconciled and I said to myself that I must find a way of living in which there was as little sex of any kind as possible. There was something that I simply lacked; that I never doubted. Curiously enough, I thought that the ultimate explanation might be that there were men's minds in women's bodies, but I was more concerned in finding a way of life than in asking riddles without answers. "I thought that one day when I had money and opportunity I would dress in men's clothes and go to another country, in order that I might be unhampered by sex considerations and conventions. I determined to live an honorable, upright, but simple life. "I had no idea at first that homosexual attractions in women existed; afterward observations on the lower animals put the idea into my head. I made no preparation in my mind for any sexual life, though I thought it would be a dreary business repressing my body all my days. "My relations with other women were entirely pure. My attitude toward my sexual physical feelings was one of reserve and repression, and I think the growing conviction of my radical deficiency somewhere, would have made intimate affection for anyone, with any demonstration in it, a kind of impropriety for which I had no taste. "However, between 21 and 24 other things happened to me. "During these few years I saw plenty of men and plenty of women. As regards the men I liked them very well, but I never thought the man would turn up with whom I should care to live. Several men were very friendly with me and three in particular used to write me letters and give me much of their confidence. I invited two of them to visit at my house. All these men talked to me with freedom and even told me about their sexual ideas and doings. One asked me to believe that he was leading a good life; the other two owned that they were not. One discussed the question of homosexuality with me; he has never married. I liked one of them a good deal, being attracted by his softness and gentleness and almost feminine voice. It was hoped that I would take to him and he very cautiously made love to me. I allowed him to kiss me a few times and wrote him a few responsive letters, wondering what I liked in him. Someone then commented on the acquaintance and said 'marriage,' and I woke up to the fact that I did not really want him at all. I think he found the friendship too insipid and was glad to be out of it. All these men were a trifle feminine in characteristics, and two played no games. I thought it odd that they should all express admiration for the very boyish qualities in me that other people disliked. A fourth man, something of the same type, told another friend that he always felt surprised at how freely he was able to talk to me, but that he never could feel that I was a woman. Two of these were brilliantly clever men; two were artists. "At the same period, or earlier, I made a number of women friends, and of course saw more of them. I chose out some and some chose me; I think I attracted them as much as, or even more than, they attracted me. I do not quite remember if this was so, though I can say for certain that it was so at school. There were three or four bright, clever, young women whom I got to know then with whom I was great friends. We were interested in books, social theories, politics, art. Sometimes I visited them or we went on exploring expeditions to many country places or towns. They all in the end either had love affairs or married. I know that in spite of all our free conversations they never talked to me as they did to each other; we were always a little shy with each other. But I got very fond of at least four of them. I admired them and when I was tired and worried I often thought how easily, if I had been a man, I could have married and settled down with one or the other. I used to think it would be delightful to have a woman to work for and take care of. My attraction to these women was very strong, but I don't think they knew it. I seldom even kissed them, but I should often have cheerfully given them a good hugging and kissing if I had thought it a right or proper thing to do. I never wanted them to kiss me half so much as I wanted to kiss them. In these years I felt this with every woman I admired. "Occasionally, I experienced slight erections when close to other women. I am sure that no deliberate thought of mine caused them, and as I had them at other times too, when I was not expecting them, I think it may have been accidental. What I felt with my mind and what I felt with my body always at this time seemed apart. I cannot accurately describe the interest and attraction that women then were to me. I only know I never felt anything like it for men. All my feelings of desire to do kindnesses, to give presents, to be liked and respected and all such natural small matters, referred to women, not to men, and at this time, both openly and to myself, I said unhesitatingly that I liked women best. It must be remembered that at this time a dislike for men was being fostered in me by those who wanted me to marry, and this must have counted for more than I now remember. "As regards my physical sexual feelings, which were well established during these few years, I don't think I often indulged in any erotic imaginations worth estimating, but so far as I did at all, I always imagined myself as a man loving a woman. I cannot recall ever imagining the opposite, but I seldom imagined anything at all, and I suppose ultimate sex sensations know no sex. "But as time went on and my physical and psychical feelings met, at any rate in my own mind, I became fully aware of the meaning of love and even, of homosexual possibilities. "I should probably have thought more of this side of things except that during this time I was so worried by the difficulty of living in my home under the perpetual friction of comparison with other people. My life was a sham; I was an actor never off the boards. I had to play at being a something I was not front morning till night, and I had no cessation of the long fatigue I had had at school; in addition I had sex to deal with actively and consciously. "Looking back on these twenty-four years of my life I only look back on a round of misery. The nervous strain was enormous and so was the moral strain. Instead of a child I felt myself, whenever I desired to please anyone else, a performing monkey. My pleasures were stolen or I was snubbed for taking them. I was not taught and was called a fool. My hand was against everybody's. How it was that with my high spirits and vivid imagination I did not grow up a moral imbecile full of perverted instincts I do not know. I describe myself as a docile child, but I was full of temptations to be otherwise. There were times when I was silent before people, but if I had had a knife in my hand I could have stuck it into them. If it had been desired to make me a thoroughly perverted being I can imagine no better way than the attempt to mould me by force into a particular pattern of girl. "Looking at my instincts in my first childhood and my mental confusion over myself, I do not believe the most sympathetic and scientific treatment would have turned me into an average girl, but I see no reason why proper physical conditions should not have induced a better physical development and that in its turn have led to tastes more approximate to those of the normal woman. That I do not even now desire to be a normal woman is not to the point. "Instead of any such help, I suffered during the time that should have been puberty from a profound mental and physical shock which was extended over several years, and in addition I suffered from the outrage of every fine and wholesome feeling I had. These things by checking my physical development gave, I am perfectly convinced, a traumatic impetus to my general abnormality, and this was further kept up by demanding of me (at the dawn of my real sexual activity, and when still practically a child) an interest in men and marriage which I was no more capable of feeling than any ordinary boy or girl of 15. If you had taken a boy of 13 and given him all my conditions, bound him hand and foot, when you became afraid of him petted him into docility, and then placed him in the world and, while urging normal sexuality upon him on the one hand, made him disgusted with it on the other, what would have been the probable result? "Looking back, I can only say I think, the results in my own case were marvellously good, and that I was saved from worse by my own innocence and by the physical backwardness which nature, probably in mercy, bestowed upon me. "I find it difficult to sum up the way in which I affect other women and they me. I can only record my conviction that I do affect a large number, whether abnormally or not I don't know, but I attract them and it would be easy for some of them to become very fond of me if I gave them a chance. They are also, I am certain, more shy with me than they are with other women. "I find it difficult also to sum up their effect on me. I only know that some women attract me and some tempt me physically, and have done ever since I was about 22 or 23. I know that psychically I have always been more interested in women than in men, but have not considered them the best companions or confidants. I feel protective towards them, never feel jealous of them, and hate having differences with them. And I feel always that I am not one of them. If there had been any period in my life when health, and temptation and money and opportunity had made homosexual relations easy I cannot say how I should have resisted. I think that I have never had any such relations simply because I have in a way been safeguarded from them. For a long time I thought I must do without all actual sexual relations and acted up to that. If I had thought any relations right and possible I think I should have striven for heterosexual experiences because of the respect that I had cultivated, indeed I think always had, for the normal and natural. If I had thought it right to indulge any sort of gratification which was within my reach I think I might probably have chosen the homosexual as being perhaps more satisfying and more convenient. I always wanted love and friendship first; later I should have been glad of something to satisfy my sex hunger too, but by that time I could have done without it, or I thought so." At a period rather later than that dealt with in this narrative, the subject of it became strongly attracted to a man who was of somewhat feminine and abnormal disposition. But on consideration she decided that it would not be wise to marry him. The commonest characteristic of the sexually inverted woman is a certain degree of masculinity or boyishness. As I have already pointed out, transvestism in either women or men by no means necessarily involves inversion. In the volume of _Women Adventurers_, edited by Mrs. Norman for the Adventure Series, there is no trace of inversion; in most of these cases, indeed, love for a man was precisely the motive for adopting male garments and manners. Again, Colley Cibber's daughter, Charlotte Charke, a boyish and vivacious woman, who spent much of her life in men's clothes, and ultimately wrote a lively volume of memoirs, appears never to have been attracted to women, though women were often attracted to her, believing her to be a man; it is, indeed, noteworthy that women seem, with special frequency, to fall in love with disguised persons of their own sex.[166] There is, however, a very pronounced tendency among sexually inverted women to adopt male attire when practicable. In such cases male garments are not usually regarded as desirable chiefly on account of practical convenience, nor even in order to make an impression on other women, but because the wearer feels more at home in them. Thus, Moll mentions the case of a young governess of 16 who, while still unconscious of her sexual perversion, used to find pleasure, when everyone was out of the house, in putting on the clothes of a youth belonging to the family. Cases have been recorded of inverted women who spent the greater part of their lives in men's clothing and been generally regarded as men. I may cite the case of Lucy Ann Slater, _alias_ the Rev. Joseph Lobdell, recorded by Wise (_Alienist and Neurologist_, 1883). She was masculine in character, features, and attire. In early life she married and had a child, but had no affection for her husband, who eventually left her. As usual in such cases, her masculine habits appeared in early childhood. She was expert with the rifle, lived the life of a trapper and hunter among the Indians, and was known as the "Female Hunter of Long Eddy." She published a book regarding those experiences. I have not been able to see it, but it is said to be quaint and well written. She regarded herself as practically a man, and became attached to a young woman of good education, who had also been deserted by her husband. The affection was strong and emotional, and, of course, without deception. It was interrupted by her recognition and imprisonment as a vagabond, but on the petition of her "wife" she was released. "I may be a woman in one sense," she said, "but I have peculiar organs which make me more a man than a woman." She alluded to an enlarged clitoris which she could erect, she said, as a turtle protrudes its head, but there was no question of its use in coitus. She was ultimately brought to the asylum with paroxysmal attacks of exaltation and erotomania (without self-abuse apparently) and corresponding periods of depression, and she died with progressive dementia. I may also mention the case (briefly recorded in the _Lancet_, February 22, 1884) of a person called John Coulter, who was employed for twelve years as a laborer by the Belfast Harbor Commissioners. When death resulted from injuries caused in falling down stairs, it was found that this person was a woman. She was fifty years of age, and had apparently spent the greater part of her life as a man. When employed in early life as a manservant on a farm, she had married her mistress's daughter. The pair were married for twenty-nine years, but during the last six years lived apart, owing to the "husband's" dissipated habits. No one ever suspected her sex. She was of masculine appearance and good muscular development. The "wife" took charge of the body and buried it. A more recent case of the same kind is that of "Murray Hall," who died in New York in 1901. Her real name was Mary Anderson, and she was born at Govan, in Scotland. Early left an orphan, on the death of her only brother she put on his clothes and went to Edinburgh, working as a man. Her secret was discovered during an illness, and she finally went to America, where she lived as a man for thirty years, making money, and becoming somewhat notorious as a Tammany politician, a rather riotous "man about town." The secret was not discovered till her death, when it was a complete revelation, even to her adopted daughter. She married twice; the first marriage ended in separation, but the second marriage seemed to have been happy, for it lasted twenty years, when the "wife" died. She associated much with pretty girls, and was very jealous of them. She seems to have been slight and not very masculine in general build, with a squeaky voice, but her ways, attitude, and habits were all essentially masculine. She associated with politicians, drank somewhat to excess, though not heavily, swore a great deal, smoked and chewed tobacco, sang ribald songs; could run, dance, and fight like a man, and had divested herself of every trace of feminine daintiness. She wore clothes that were always rather too large in order to hide her form, baggy trousers, and an overcoat even in summer. She is said to have died of cancer of the breast. (I quote from an account, which appears to be reliable, contained in the _Weekly Scotsman_, February 9, 1901.) Another case, described in the London papers, is that of Catharine Coome, who for forty years successfully personated a man and adopted masculine habits generally. She married a lady's maid, with whom she lived for fourteen years. Having latterly adopted a life of fraud, her case gained publicity as that of the "man-woman." In 1901 the death on board ship was recorded of Miss Caroline Hall, of Boston, a water-color painter who had long resided in Milan. Three years previously she discarded female dress and lived as "husband" to a young Italian lady, also an artist, whom she had already known for seven years. She called herself "Mr. Hall" and appeared to be a thoroughly normal young man, able to shoot with a rifle and fond of manly sports. The officers of the ship stated that she smoked and drank heartily, joked with the other male passengers, and was hail-fellow-well-met with everyone. Death was due to advanced tuberculosis of the lungs, hastened by excessive drinking and smoking. Ellen Glenn, _alias_ Ellis Glenn, a notorious swindler, who came prominently before the public in Chicago during 1905, was another "man-woman," of large and masculine type. She preferred to dress as a man and had many love escapades with women. "She can fiddle as well as anyone in the State," said a man who knew her, "can box like a pugilist, and can dance and play cards." In Seville, a few years ago, an elderly policeman, who had been in attendance on successive governors of that city for thirty years, was badly injured in a street accident. He was taken to the hospital and the doctor there discovered that the "policeman" was a woman. She went by the name of Fernando Mackenzie and during the whole of her long service no suspicion whatever was aroused as to her sex. She was French by birth, born in Paris in 1836, but her father was English and her mother Spanish. She assumed her male disguise when she was a girl and served her time in the French army, then emigrated to Spain, at the age of 35, and contrived to enter the Madrid police force disguised as a man. She married there and pretended that her wife's child was her own son. She removed to Seville, still serving as a policeman, and was engaged there as cook and orderly at the governor's palace. She served seven successive governors. In consequence of the discovery of her sex she has been discharged from the police without the pension due to her; her wife had died two years previously, and "Fernando" spent all she possessed on the woman's funeral. Mackenzie had a soft voice, a refined face with delicate features, and was neatly dressed in male attire. When asked how she escaped detection so long, she replied that she always lived quietly in her own house with her wife and did her duty by her employers so that no one meddled with her. In Chicago in 1906 much attention was attracted to the case of "Nicholai de Raylan," confidential secretary to the Russian Consul, who at death (of tuberculosis) at the age of 33 was found to be a woman. She was born in Russia and was in many respects very feminine, small and slight in build, but was regarded as a man, and even as very "manly," by both men and women who knew her intimately. She was always very neat in dress, fastidious in regard to shirts and ties, and wore a long-waisted coat to disguise the lines of her figure. She was married twice in America, being divorced by the first wife, after a union lasting ten years, on the ground of cruelty and misconduct with chorus girls. The second wife, a chorus girl who had been previously married and had a child, was devoted to her "husband." Both wives were firmly convinced that their husband was a man and ridiculed the idea that "he" could be a woman. I am informed that De Raylan wore a very elaborately constructed artificial penis. In her will she made careful arrangements to prevent detection of sex after death, but these were frustrated, as she died in a hospital. In St. Louis, in 1909, the case was brought forward of a young woman of 22, who had posed as a man for nine years. Her masculine career began at the age of 13 after the Galveston flood which swept away all her family. She was saved and left Texas dressed as a boy. She worked in livery stables, in a plough factory, and as a bill-poster. At one time she was the adopted son of the family in which she lived and had no difficulty in deceiving her sisters by adoption as to her sex. On coming to St. Louis in 1902 she made chairs and baskets at the American Rattan Works, associating with fellow-workmen on a footing of masculine equality. One day a workman noticed the extreme smallness and dexterity of her hands. "Gee, Bill, you should have been a girl." "How do you know I'm not?" she retorted. In such ways her ready wit and good humor always, disarmed suspicion as to her sex. She shunned no difficulties in her work or in her sports, we are told, and never avoided the severest tests. "She drank, she swore, she courted girls, she worked as hard as her fellows, she fished and camped; she told stories with the best of them, and she did not flinch when the talk grew strong. She even chewed tobacco." Girls began to fall in love with the good-looking boy at an early period, and she frequently boasted of her feminine conquests; with one girl who worshipped her there was a question of marriage. On account of lack of education she was restricted to manual labor, and she often chose hard work. At one time she became a boiler-maker's apprentice, wielding a hammer and driving in hot rivets. Here she was very popular and became local secretary of the International Brotherhood of Boiler-makers. In physical development she was now somewhat of an athlete. "She could outrun any of her friends on a sprint; she could kick higher, play baseball, and throw the ball overhand like a man, and she was fond of football. As a wrestler she could throw most of the club members." The physician who examined her for an insurance policy remarked: "You are a fine specimen of physical manhood, young fellow. Take good care of yourself." Finally, in a moment of weakness, she admitted her sex and returned to the garments of womanhood. In London, in 1912, a servant-girl of 23 was charged in the Acton Police Court with being "disorderly and masquerading," having assumed man's clothes and living with another girl, taller and more handsome than herself, as husband and wife. She had had slight brain trouble as a child, and was very intelligent, with a too active brain; in her spare time she had written stories for magazines. The two girls became attached through doing Christian social work together in their spare time, and resolved to live as husband and wife to prevent any young man from coming forward. The "husband" became a plumber's mate, and displayed some skill at fisticuffs when at length discovered by the "wife's" brother. Hence her appearance in the Police Court. Both girls were sent back to their friends, and situations found for them as day-servants. But as they remained devoted to each other arrangements were made for them to live together. Another case that may be mentioned is that of Cora Anderson, "the man-woman of Milwaukee," who posed for thirteen years as a man, and during that period lived with two women as her wives without her disguise being penetrated. (Her "Confessions" were published in the _Day Book_ of Chicago during May, 1914.) It would be easy to bring forward other cases. A few instances of marriage between women will be found in the _Alienist and Neurologist_, Nov., 1902, p. 497. In all such cases more or less fraud has been exercised. I know of one case, probably unique, in which the ceremony was gone through without any deception on any side: a congenitally inverted Englishwoman of distinguished intellectual ability, now dead, was attached to the wife of a clergyman, who, in full cognizance of all the facts of the case, privately married the two ladies in his own church. When they still retain female garments, these usually show some traits of masculine simplicity, and there is nearly always a disdain for the petty feminine artifices of the toilet. Even when this is not obvious, there are all sorts of instinctive gestures and habits which may suggest to female acquaintances the remark that such a person "ought to have been a man." The brusque, energetic movements, the attitude of the arms, the direct speech, the inflexions of the voice, the masculine straightforwardness and sense of honor, and especially the attitude toward men, free from any suggestion either of shyness or audacity, will often suggest the underlying psychic abnormality to a keen observer. In the habits not only is there frequently a pronounced taste for smoking cigarettes, often found in quite feminine women, but also a decided taste and toleration for cigars. There is also a dislike and sometimes incapacity for needlework and other domestic occupations, while there is often some capacity for athletics. As regards the general bearing of the inverted woman, in its most marked and undisguised form, I may quote an admirable description by Prof. Zuccarelli, of Naples, of an unmarried middle-class woman of 35: "While retaining feminine garments, her bearing is as nearly as possible a man's. She wears her thin hair thrown carelessly back _alla Umberto_, and fastened in a simple knot at the back of her head. The breasts are little developed, and compressed beneath a high corset; her gown is narrow without the expansion demanded by fashion. Her straw hat with broad plaits is perhaps adorned by a feather, or she wears a small hat like a boy's. She does not carry an umbrella or sunshade, and walks out alone, refusing the company of men; or she is accompanied by a woman, as she prefers, offering her arm and carrying the other hand at her waist, with the air of a fine gentleman. In a carriage her bearing is peculiar and unlike that habitual with women. Seated in the middle of the double seat, her knees being crossed or else the legs well separated, with a virile air and careless easy movements she turns her head in every direction, finding an acquaintance here and there with her eye, saluting men and women with a large gesture of the hand as a business man would. In conversation her pose is similar; she gesticulates much, is vivacious in speech, with much power of mimicry, and while talking she arches the inner angles of her eyebrow, making vertical wrinkles at the center of her forehead. Her laugh is open and explosive and uncovers her white rows of teeth. With men she is on terms of careless equality." ("Inversione congenita dell'istinto sessuale in una donna," _L'Anomalo_, February, 1889.) "The inverted woman," Hirschfeld truly remarks (_Die Homosexualität_, p. 158), "is more full of life, of enterprise, of practical energy, more aggressive, more heroic, more apt for adventure, than either the heterosexual woman or the homosexual man." Sometimes, he adds, her mannishness may approach reckless brutality, and her courage becomes rashness. This author observes, however, in another place (p. 272) that, in addition to this group of inverted women with masculine traits there is another group, "not less large," of equally inverted women who are outwardly as thoroughly feminine as are normal women. This is not an observation which I am able to confirm. It appears to me that the great majority of inverted women possess some masculine or boyish traits, even though only as slight as those which may occasionally be revealed by normal women. Extreme femininity, in my observation, is much more likely to be found in bisexual than in homosexual women, just as extreme masculinity is much more likely to be found in bisexual than in homosexual men. While inverted women frequently, though not always, convey an impression of mannishness or boyishness, there are no invariable anatomical characteristics associated with this impression. There is, for instance, no uniform tendency to a masculine distribution of hair. Nor must it be supposed that the presence of a beard in a woman indicates a homosexual tendency. "Bearded women," as Hirschfeld remarks, are scarcely ever inverted, and it would seem that the strongest reversals of secondary sexual characters less often accompany homosexuality than slighter modifications of these characters.[167] A faint moustache and other slight manifestations of hypertrichosis also by no means necessarily indicate homosexuality. To some extent it is a matter of race; thus in the Pera district of Constantinople, Weissenberg, among nearly seven hundred women between about 18 and 50 years of age, noted that 10 per cent, showed hair on the upper lip; they were most often Armenians, the Greeks coming next.[168] There has been some dispute as to whether, apart from homosexuality, hypertrichosis in a woman can be regarded as an indication of a general masculinity. This is denied by Max Bartels (in his elaborate study, "Ueber abnorme Behaarung beim Menschen," _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1876, p. 127; 1881, p. 219) and, as regards insanity, by L. Harris-Liston ("Cases of Bearded Women," _British Medical Journal_, June 2, 1894). On the other hand, J.H. Claiborne ("Hypertrichosis in Women," _New York Medical Journal_, June 13, 1914) believes that hair on the face and body in a woman is a sign of masculinity; "women with hypertrichosis possess masculine traits." There seems to be very little doubt that fully developed "bearded women" are in most, possibly not all, cases decidedly feminine in all other respects. A typical instance is furnished by Annie Jones, the "Esau Lady" of Virginia. She belonged to a large and entirely normal family, but herself possessed a full beard with thick whiskers and moustache of an entirely masculine type; she also showed short, dark hair on arms and hands resembling a man. Apart from this heterogeny, she was entirely normal and feminine. At the age of 26, when examined in Berlin, the hair of the head was very long, the expression of the face entirely feminine, the voice also feminine, the figure elegant, the hands and feet entirely of feminine type, the external and internal genitalia altogether feminine. Annie Jones was married. Max Bartels, who studied Annie Jones and published her portrait (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1891, Heft 3, p. 243), remarks that in these respects Annie Jones resembles other "bearded women"; they marry, have children, and are able to suckle them. A beard in women seems, as Dupré and Duflos believe (_Revue Neurologique_, Aug. 30, 1901), to be more closely correlated with neuropathy than with masculinity; comparing a thousand sane women with a thousand insane women in Paris, they found unusual degree of hair or down on the face in 23 per cent. of the former and 50 per cent. of the latter; but even the sane bearded women frequently belonged to neuropathic families. A tendency to slight widely diffused hypertrichosis of the body generally, not localized or highly developed on the face, seems much more likely than a beard to be associated with masculinity, even when it occurs in little girls. Thus Virchow once presented to the Berlin Anthropological Society a little girl of 5 of this type who also possessed a deep and rough voice (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1891, Heft 4, p. 469). A typical example of slight hypertrichosis in a woman associated with general masculine traits is furnished by a description and figure of the body of a woman of 56 in an anatomical institute, furnished by C. Strauch (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1901, Heft 6, p. 534). In this case there was a growth of hair around both nipples and a line of hair extended from the pubes to the navel; both these two dispositions of hair are very rare in women. (In Vienna among nearly 700 women Coe only found a tendency to hair distribution toward the navel in about 1 per cent.). While the hair in this subject was otherwise fairly normal, there were many approximations to the masculine type in other respects: the muscles were strongly developed, the bones massive, the limbs long, the joints powerful, the hands and feet large, the thorax well developed, the lower jaw massive; there was an absence of feminine curves on the body and the breasts were scarcely perceptible. At the same time the genital organs were normal and there had been childbirth. It was further notable that this woman had committed suicide by self-strangulation, a rare method which requires great resolution and strength of will, as at any moment of the process the pressure can be removed. There seems little doubt that inverted women frequently tend to show minor anomalies of the piliferous system, and especially slight hypertrichosis and a masculine distribution of hair. Thus in a very typical case of inversion in an Italian girl of 19 who dressed as a man and ran away from home, the down on the arms and legs was marked to an unusual extent, and there was very abundant hair in the armpits and on the pubes, with a tendency to the masculine distribution.[169] Of the three cases described in this chapter which I am best acquainted with, one possesses an unusually small amount of hair on the pubes and in the axillæ (oligotrichosis terminalis), approximating to the infantile type, while another presents a complex and very rare piliferous heterogeny. There is marked dark down on the upper lip; the pubic hair is thick, and there is hair on toes and feet and legs to umbilicus; there are also a few hairs around the nipples. A woman physician in the United States who knows many female inverts similarly tells me that she has observed the tendency to growth of hair on the legs. If, as is not improbable, inversion is associated with some abnormal balance in the internal secretions, it is not difficult to understand this tendency to piliferous anomalies; and we know that the thyroid secretion, for instance, and much more the testicular and ovarian secretions, have a powerful influence on the hair. Ballantyne, some years ago, in discussing congenital hypertrichosis (_Manual of Antenatal Pathology_, 1902, pp. 321-6) concluded that the theory of arrested development is best supported by the facts; persistence of lanugo is such an arrest, and hypertrichosis may largely be considered a persistence of lanugo. Such a conclusion is still tenable,--though it encounters some difficulties and inconsistencies,--and it largely agrees with what we know of the condition as associated with inversion in women. But we are now beginning to see that this arrested development may be definitely associated with anomalies in the internal secretions, and even with special chemical defects in these secretions. Virile strength has always been associated with hair, as the story of Samson bears witness. Ammon found among Baden conscripts (_L'Anthropologie_, 1896, p. 285) that when the men were divided into classes according to the amount of hair on body, the first class, with least hair, have the smallest circumference of testicle, the fewest number of men with glans penis uncovered, the largest number of infantile voices, the largest proportion of blue eyes and fair hair, the smallest average height, weight, and chest circumference, while in all these respects the men with hairy bodies were at the other extreme. It has been known from antiquity that in men early castration affects the growth of hair. It is now known that in women the presence or absence of the ovary and, other glands affects the hair, as well as sexual development. Thus Hegar (_Beiträge zur Geburtshülfe und Gynäkologie_, vol. i, p. 111, 1898) described a girl with pelvis of infantile type and uterine malformation who had been unusually hairy on face and body from infancy, with masculine arrangement of hair on pubes and abdomen; menstruation was scanty, breasts atrophic; the hair was of lanugo type; we see here how in women infantile and masculine characteristics are associated with, and both probably dependent on, defects in the sexual glands. Plant (_Centralblatt für Gynäkologie_, No. 9, 1896) described another girl with very small ovaries, rudimentary uterus, small vagina, and prominent nymphæ, in whom menstruation was absent, hair on head long and strong, but hair absent in armpits and scanty on mons veneris. These two cases seem inconsistent as regards hair, and we should now wish to know the condition of the other internal glands. The thyroid, for instance, it is now known, controls the hair, as well as do the sexual glands; and the thyroid, as Gautier has shown (Académie de Médecine, July 24, 1900) elaborates arsenic and iodine, which nourish the skin and hair; he found that the administration of sodium cacodylate to young women produced abundant growth of hair on head. Again, the kidneys, and especially the adrenal glands, influence the hair. It has long been known that in girls with congenital renal tumors there is an abnormally early growth of axillary and pubic hair; Goldschwend (_Präger medizinische Wochenschrift_, Nos. 37 and 38, 1910) has described the case of a woman of 39, with small ovaries and adrenal tumor, in whom hair began to grow on chin and cheeks. (See also C.T. Ewart, _Lancet_, May 19, 1915.) Once more, the glans hypophysis also affects hair growth and it has been found by Lévi (quoted in _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, August-September, 1912, p. 711) that the administration of hypophysis extract to an infantile, hairless woman of 27, without sexual feeling, produced a general tendency to growth of hair. Such facts not only help to explain the anomalies of hair development, but also indicate the direction in which we may find an explanation of the anomalies of the sexual impulse. Apart from the complicated problem presented by the hair, there are genuine approximations to the masculine type. The muscles tend to be everywhere firm, with a comparative absence of soft connective tissue; so that an inverted woman may give an unfeminine impression to the sense of touch. A certain tonicity of the muscles has indeed often been observed in homosexual women. Hirschfeld found that two-thirds of inverted women are more muscular than normal women, while, on the other hand, he found that among inverted men the musculature was often weak. Not only is the tone of the voice often different, but there is reason to suppose that this rests on a basis, of anatomical modification. At Moll's suggestion, Flatau examined the larynx in a large number of inverted women, and found in several a very decidedly masculine type of larynx, or an approach to it, especially in cases of distinctly congenital origin. Hirschfeld has confirmed Flatau's observations on this point. It may be added that inverted women are very often good whistlers; Hirschfeld even knows two who are public performers in whistling. It is scarcely necessary to remark that while the old proverb associates whistling in a woman with crowing in a hen, whistling in a woman is no evidence of any general physical or psychic inversion. As regards the sexual organs it seems possible, so far as my observations go, to speak more definitely of inverted women than of inverted men. In all three of the cases concerning whom I have precise information, among those whose histories are recorded in the present chapter, there is more or less arrested development and infantilism. In one a somewhat small vagina and prominent nymphæ, with local sensitiveness, are associated with oligotrichosis. In another the sexual parts are in some respects rather small, while there is no trace of ovary on one side. In the third case, together with hypertrichosis, the nates are small, the nymphæ large, the clitoris deeply hooded, the hymen thick, and the vagina probably small. These observations, though few, are significant, and they accord with those of other observers.[170] Krafft-Ebing well described a case which I should be inclined to regard as typical of many: sexual organs feminine in character, but remaining at the infantile stage of a girl of 10; small clitoris, prominent cockscomb-like nymphæ, small vagina scarcely permitting normal intercourse and very sensitive. Hirschfeld agrees in finding common an approach to the type described by Krafft-Ebing; atrophic anomalies he regards as more common than hypertrophic, and he refers to thickness of hymen and a tendency to notably small uterus and ovaries. The clitoris is more usually small than large; women with a large clitoris (as Parent-Duchâtelet long since remarked) seem rarely to be of masculine type. Notwithstanding these tendencies, however, sexual inversion in a woman is, as a rule, not more obvious than in a man. At the same time, the inverted woman is not usually attractive to men. She herself generally feels the greatest indifference to men, and often, cannot understand why a woman should love a man, though she easily understands why a man should love a woman. She shows, therefore, nothing of that sexual shyness and engaging air of weakness and dependence which are an invitation to men. The man who is passionately attracted to an inverted woman is usually of rather a feminine type. For instance, in one case present to my mind he was of somewhat neurotic heredity, of slight physical development, not sexually attractive to women, and very domesticated in his manner of living; in short, a man who might easily have been passionately attracted to his own sex. While the inverted woman is cold, or, at most, comradely in her bearing toward men, she may become shy and confused in the presence of attractive persons of her own sex, even unable to undress in their presence, and full of tender ardor for the woman whom she loves.[171] Homosexual passion in women finds more or less complete expression in kissing, sleeping together, and close embraces, as in what is sometimes called "lying spoons," when one woman lies on her side with her back turned to her friend and embraces her from behind, fitting her thighs into the bend of her companion's legs, so that her mons veneris is in dose contact with the other's buttocks, and slight movement then produces mild erethism. One may also lie on the other's body, or there may be mutual masturbation. Mutual contact and friction of the sexual parts seem to be comparatively rare, but it seems to have been common in antiquity, for we owe to it the term "tribadism" which is sometimes used as a synonym of feminine homosexuality, and this method is said to be practised today by the southern Slav women of the Balkans.[172] The extreme gratification is _cunnilinctus_, or oral stimulation of the feminine sexual organs, not usually mutual, but practised by the more active and masculine partner; this act is sometimes termed, by no means satisfactorily, "Sapphism," and "Lesbianism."[173] An enlarged clitoris is but rarely found in inversion and plays a very small part in the gratification of feminine homosexuality. Kiernan refers; to a case, occurring in America, in which an inverted woman, married and a mother, possessed a clitoris which measured 2½ inches when erect. Casanova described an inverted Swiss, woman, otherwise feminine in development, whose clitoris in excitement was longer than his little finger, and capable of penetration.[174] The older literature contains many similar cases. In most such cases, however, we are probably concerned with some form of pseudohermaphroditism, and the "clitoris" may more properly be regarded as a penis; there is thus no inversion involved.[175] While the use of the clitoris is rare in homosexuality, the use of an artificial penis is by no means uncommon and very widespread. In several of the modern cases in which inverted women have married women (such as those of Sarolta Vay and De Raylan) the belief of the wife in the masculinity of the "husband" has been due to an appliance of this kind used in intercourse. The artificial penis (the olisbos, or baubon) was well known to the Greeks and is described by Herondas. Its invention was ascribed by Suidas to the Milesian women, and Miletus, according to Aristophanes in the _Lysistrata_, was the chief place of its manufacture.[176] It was still known in medieval times, and in the twelfth century Bishop Burchard, of Worms, speaks of its use as a thing "which some women are accustomed to do." In the early eighteenth century, Margaretha Lincken, again in Germany, married another woman with the aid of an artificial male organ.[177] The artificial penis is also used by homosexual women in various parts of the world. Thus we find it mentioned in legends of the North American Indians and it is employed in Zanzibar and Madagascar.[178] The various phenomena of sadism, masochism, and fetichism which are liable to arise, spontaneously or by suggestion, in the relationships of normal lovers, as well as of male inverts, may also arise in the same way among inverted women, though, probably, not often in a very pronounced form. Moll, however, narrates a case (_Konträre Sexualempfindung_, 1899, pp. 565-70) in which various minor but very definite perversions were combined with inversion. A young lady of 26, of good heredity, from the age of 6 had only been attracted to her own sex, and even in childhood had practised mutual _cunnilinctus_. She was extremely intelligent, and of generous and good-natured disposition, with various masculine tastes, but, on the whole, of feminine build and with completely feminine larynx. During seven years she lived exclusively with one woman. She found complete satisfaction in active _cunnilinctus_. During the course of this relationship various other methods of excitement and gratification arose--it seems, for the most part, spontaneously. She found much pleasure in urolagnic and coprolagnic practices. In addition to these and similar perversions, the subject liked being bitten, especially in the lobule of the ear, and she was highly excited when whipped by her friend, who should, if possible, be naked at the time; only the nates must be whipped and only a birch rod be used, or the effect would not be obtained. These practices would not be possible to her in the absence of extreme intimacy and mutual understanding, and they only took place with the one friend. In this case the perverse phenomena were masochistic rather than sadistic. Many homosexual women, however, display sadistic tendencies in a more or less degree. Thus Dr. Kiernan tells me of an American case, with which he was professionally concerned with Dr. Moyer (see also paper by Kiernan and Moyer in _Alienist and Neurologist_, May, 1907), of a sadistic inverted woman in a small Illinois city, married and with two young children. She was of undoubted neuropathic stock and there was a history of pre-marital masturbation and bestiality with a dog. She was a prominent club woman in her city and a leader in religious and social matters; as is often the case with sadists she was pruriently prudish, and there was strong testimony to her chaste and modest character by clergymen, club women, and local magnates. The victim of her sadistic passion was a girl she had adopted from a Home, but whom she half starved. On this girl she inflicted over three hundred wounds. Many of these wounds were stabs with forks and scissors which merely penetrated the skin. This was especially the case with those inflicted on the breasts, labia, and clitoris. During the infliction of these she experienced intense excitement, but this excitement was under control, and when she heard anyone approaching she instantly desisted. She was found sane and responsible at the time of these actions, but the jury also found that she had since become insane and she was sent to an Insane Hospital, after recovery to serve a sentence of two years in prison. The alleged insanity, Dr. Kiernan adds, was of the dubious manic and depressive variety, and perhaps chiefly due to wounded pride. The inverted woman is an enthusiastic admirer of feminine beauty, especially of the statuesque beauty of the body, unlike, in this, the normal woman, whose sexual emotion is but faintly tinged by esthetic feeling. In her sexual habits we perhaps less often find the degree of promiscuity which is not uncommon among inverted men, and we may perhaps agree with Moll that homosexual women are more often apt to love faithfully and lastingly than homosexual men. Hirschfeld remarks that inverted women are not usually attracted in girlhood by the autoerotic and homosexual vices of school-life,[179] and nearly all the women whose histories I have recorded in this chapter felt a pronounced repugnance to such manifestations and cherished lofty ideals of love. Inverted women are not rarely married. Moll, from various confidences which he has received, believes that inverted women have not the same horror of normal coitus as inverted, men; this is probably due to the fact that the woman under such circumstances can retain a certain passivity. In other cases there is some degree of bisexuality, although, as among inverted men, the homosexual instinct seems usually to give the greater relief and gratification. It has been stated by many observers--in America, in France, in Germany, and in England--that homosexuality is increasing among women.[180] There are many influences in our civilization today which encourage such manifestations.[181] The modern movement of emancipation--the movement to obtain the same rights and duties as men, the same freedom and responsibility, the same education and the same work--must be regarded as, on the whole, a wholesome and inevitable movement. But it carries with it certain disadvantages.[182] Women are, very justly, coming to look upon knowledge and experience generally as their right as much as their brothers' right. But when this doctrine is applied to the sexual sphere it finds certain limitations. Intimacies of any kind between young men and young women are as much discouraged socially now as ever they were; as regards higher education, the mere association of the sexes in the lecture-room or the laboratory or the hospital is discouraged in England and in America. While men are allowed freedom, the sexual field of women is becoming restricted to trivial flirtation with the opposite sex, and to intimacy with their own sex; having been taught independence of men and disdain for the old theory which placed women in the moated grange of the home to sigh for a man who never comes, a tendency develops for women to carry this independence still farther and to find love where they find work. These unquestionable influences of modern movements cannot directly cause sexual inversion, but they develop the germs of it, and they probably cause a spurious imitation. This spurious imitation is due to the fact that the congenital anomaly occurs with special frequency in women of high intelligence who, voluntarily or involuntarily, influence others. Kurella, Bloch, and others believe that the woman movement has helped to develop homosexuality (see, e.g., I. Bloch, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, 1902, vol. i, p. 248). Various "feminine Strindbergs of the woman movement," as they have been termed, displayed marked hostility to men. Anna Rüling claims that many leaders of the movement, from the outset until today, have been inverted. Hirschfeld, however (_Die Homosexualität_, p. 500), after giving special attention to the matter, concludes that, alike among English suffragettes and in the German Verein für Frauenstimmrecht, the percentage of inverts is less than 10 per cent. FOOTNOTES: [137] Catharina Margaretha Lincken, who married another woman, somewhat after the manner of the Hungarian Countess Sarolta Vay (i.e., with the aid of an artificial male organ), was condemned to death for sodomy, and executed in 1721 at the age of 27 (F.C. Müller, "Ein weiterer Fall von conträrer Sexualempfindung," _Friedrich's Blätter für Gerichtliche Medizin_, Heft 4, 1891). The most fully investigated case of sexual inversion in a woman in modern times is that of Countess Sarolta Vay (_Friedrich's Blätter_, Heft, 1, 1891; also Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia Sexualis_, Eng. trans. of 10th. ed., 416-427; also summarized in Appendix E of earlier editions of the present Study). Sarolta always dressed as a man, and went through a pseudo-marriage with a girl who was ignorant of the real sex of her "husband." She was acquitted and allowed to return home and continue dressing as a man. [138] Anna Rüling has some remarks on this point, _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. vii, 1905, p. 141 et seq. [139] This, of course, by no means necessarily indicates the existence of sexual inversion, any more than the presence of feminine traits in distinguished men. I have elsewhere pointed out (e.g., _Man and Woman_, 5th ed., 1915, p. 488) that genius in either sex frequently involves the coexistence of masculine, feminine, and infantile traits. [140] Various references to Queen Hatschepsu are given by Hirschfeld (_Die Homosexualität_, p. 739). Hirschfeld's not severely critical list of distinguished homosexual persons includes 18 women. It would not be difficult to add others. [141] Sophie Hochstetter, in a study of Queen Christina in the _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_ (vol. ix, 1908, p. 168 et seq.), regards her as bisexual, while H.J. Schouten (_Monatsschrift für Kriminalanthropologie_, 1912, Heft 6) concludes that she was homosexual, and believes that it was Monaldeschi's knowledge on this point which led her to instigate his murder. [142] Cf. Hans Freimark, _Helena Petrovna Blavatsky_; Levetzow, "Louise Michel," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. vii, 1905, p. 307 et seq. [143] Rosa Bonheur, the painter, is a specially conspicuous example of pronounced masculinity in, a woman of genius. She frequently dressed as a man, and when dressed as a woman her masculine air occasionally attracted the attention of the police. See Theodore Stanton's biography. [144] There is some difference of opinion as to whether there is less real delinquency among women (see Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, 6th ed., 1915, p. 469), but we are here concerned with judicial criminality. [145] This apparently widespread opinion is represented by the remark of a young man in the eighteenth century (concerning the Lesbian friend of the woman he wishes to marry), quoted in the Comte de Tilly's _Souvenirs_: "I confess that that is a kind of rivalry which causes me no annoyance; on the contrary it amuses me, and I am immoral enough to laugh at it." That attitude of the educated and refined was not probably shared by the populace. Madame de Lamballe, who was guillotined at the Revolution, was popularly regarded as a tribade, and it was said that on this account her charming head received the special insults of the mob. [146] Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, 5th ed., 1915, especially chapters xiii and xv. [147] Karsch (_Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. iii, 1901, pp. 85-9) brings together some passages concerning homosexuality in women among various peoples. [148] Gandavo, quoted by Lomaeco, _Archivio per l'Antropologia_, 1889, fasc. 1. [149] _Journal Anthropological Institute_, July-Dec., 1904, p. 342. [150] G.H. Lowie, "The Assiniboine," Am. Museum of Nat. Hist., _Anthropological Papers_, New York, 1909, vol. xiv, p. 223; W. Jones, "Fox Texts," _Publications of Am. Ethnological Soc._, Leyden, 1907, vol. i, p. 151; quoted by D.C. McMurtrie, "A Legend of Lesbian Love Among the North American Indians," _Urologic Review_, April, 1914. [151] _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, Heft 6, 1899, p. 669. [152] I. Bloch, _Die Prostitution_, vol. i, pp. 180, 181. [153] Corre, _Crime en Pays Creoles_, 1889. [154] In a Spanish prison, some years ago, when a new governor endeavored to reform the homosexual manners of the women, the latter made his post so uncomfortable that he was compelled to resign. Salillas (_Vida Penal en España_) asserts that all the evidence shows the extraordinary expansion of Lesbian love in prisons. The _mujeres hombrunas_ receive masculine names--Pepe, Chulo, Bernardo, Valiente; new-comers are surrounded in the court-yard by a crowd of lascivious women, who overwhelm them with honeyed compliments and gallantries and promises of protection, the most robust virago having most successes; a single day and night complete the initiation. [155] Even among Arab prostitutes it is found, according to Kocher, though among Arab women generally it is rare. [156] _Monatsschrift für Harnkrankheiten_, Nov., 1905; in his _Tribadie Berlins_, he states that among 3000 prostitutes at least ten per cent. were homosexual. See also Parent-Duchâtelet, _De la Prostitution_, 3d ed., vol. i, pp. 159, 169; Martineau, _Les Déformations vulvaires et anales_; and Iwan Bloch, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, 1902, vol. i, p. 244. [157] Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, p. 330. [158] Eulenburg, _Sexuelle Neuropathie_, p. 144. [159] See vol. vi of these _Studies_, "Sex in Relation to Society," ch. vii. [160] The prostitute has sometimes been regarded as a special type, analogous to the instinctive criminal. This point of view has been specially emphasized by Lombroso and Ferrero, _La Donna Delinquente_. Apart from this, these authors regard homosexuality among prostitutes as due to the following causes (p. 410 et seq.): (_a_) excessive and often unnatural venery; (_b_) confinement in a prison, with separation from men; (_c_) close association with the same sex, such as is common in brothels; (_d_) maturity and old age, inverting the secondary sexual characters and predisposing to sexual inversion; (_e_) disgust of men produced by a prostitute's profession, combined with the longing for love. For cases of homosexuality in American prostitutes, see D. McMurtrie, _Lancet-Clinic_, Nov. 2, 1912. [161] Thus Casanova, who knew several nuns intimately, refers to homosexuality as a childish sin so common in convents that confessors imposed no penance for it (_Mémoires_, ed. Garnier, vol. iv, p. 517). Homosexuality in convent schools has been studied by Mercante, _Archivos di Psiquiatria_, 1905, pp. 22-30. [162] I quote the following from a private letter written in Switzerland: "An English resident has told me that his wife has lately had to send away her parlor-maid (a pretty girl) because she was always taking in strange women to sleep with her. I asked if she had been taken from hotel service, and found, as I expected, that she had. But neither my friend nor his wife suspected the real cause of these nocturnal visits." [163] For a series of cases of affection of girls for girls, in apparently normal subjects in the United States, see, e.g., Lancaster, "The Psychology and Pedagogy of Adolescence," _Pedagogical Seminary_, July, 1897, p. 88; also, for school friendships between girls, exactly resembling those between boys and girls, Theodate L. Smith, "Types of Adolescent Affection," ib., June, 1904, pp. 193, 195. [164] Obici and Marchesini, _Le "Amicizie" di Collegio_, Rome, 1898. [165] See Appendix B, in which I have briefly summarized the result of the investigation by Obici and Marchesini, and also brought forward observations concerning English colleges. [166] An interesting ancient example of a woman with an irresistible impulse to adopt men's clothing and lead a man's life, but who did not, so far as is known, possess any sexual impulses, is that of Mary Frith, commonly called Moll Cutpurse, who lived in London at the beginning of the seventeenth century. _The Life and Death of Mrs. Mary Frith_ appeared in 1662; Middleton and Rowley also made her the heroine of their delightful comedy, _The Roaring Girl (Mermaid Series, Middleton's Plays_, volume ii), somewhat idealizing her, however. She seems to have belonged to a neurotic and eccentric stock; "each of the family," her biographer says, "had his peculiar freak." As a child she only cared for boys' games, and could never adapt herself to any woman's avocations. "She had a natural abhorrence to the tending of children." Her disposition was altogether masculine; "she was not for mincing obscenity, but would talk freely, whatever came uppermost." She never had any children, and was not taxed with debauchery: "No man can say or affirm that ever she had a sweetheart or any such fond thing to dally with her;" a mastiff was the only living thing she cared for. Her life was not altogether honest, but not so much from any organic tendency to crime, it seems, as because her abnormal nature and restlessness made her an outcast. She was too fond of drink, and is said to have been the first woman who smoked tobacco. Nothing is said or suggested of any homosexual practices, but we see clearly here what may be termed the homosexual diathesis. [167] Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, p. 137. [168] S. Weissenberg, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1892, Heft 4, p. 280. [169] This case was described by Gasparini, _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1908, fasc. 1-2. [170] Bringing together ten cases of inverted women from various sources (including the three original cases mentioned above), in only four were the sexual organs normal; in the others they were more or less undeveloped. [171] Homosexual persons generally, male and female, unlike the heterosexual, are apt to feel more modesty with persons of the same sex than with those of the opposite sex. See, e.g., Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, p. 76. [172] Kryptadia, vol. vi, p. 197. [173] The term "cunnilinctus" was suggested to me by the late Dr. J. Bonus, and I have ever since used it; the Latin authors commonly used "cunnilingus" for the actor, but had no corresponding term for the action. Hirschfeld has lately used the term "cunnilinctio" in the same sense, but such a formation is quite inadmissible. For information on the classic terms for this perversion, see, e.g., Iwan Bloch, _Ursprung der Syphilis_, vol. ii, p. 612 et seq. [174] Casanova, _Mémoires_, ed. Gamier, vol. iv, p. 597. [175] Hirschfeld deals in a full and authoritative manner with the differential diagnosis of inversion and the other groups of transitional sexuality in _Die Homosexualität_, ch. ii; also in his fully illustrated book _Geschlechtsübergänge_, 1905. [176] Havelock Ellis, "Auto-erotism," in vol. i of these _Studies_; Iwan Bloch, _Ursprung der Syphilis_, vol. ii, p. 589; ib., _Die Prostitution_, vol, i, pp. 385-6; for early references, Crusius, _Untersuchungen zu den Mimiamben der Herondas_, pp. 129-30. [177] I have found a notice of a similar case in France, during the sixteenth century, in Montaigne's _Journal du Voyage en Italie en_ 1850 (written by his secretary); it took place near Vitry le François. Seven or eight girls belonging to Chaumont, we are told, resolved to dress and to work as men; one of these came to Vitry to work as a weaver, and was looked upon as a well-conditioned young man, and liked by everyone. At Vitry she became betrothed to a woman, but, a quarrel arising, no marriage took place. Afterward "she fell in love with a woman whom she married, and with whom she lived for four or five months, to the wife's great contentment, it is said; but, having been recognized by some one from Chaumont, and brought to justice, she was condemned to be hanged. She said she would even prefer this to living again as a girl, and was hanged for using illicit inventions to supply the defects of her sex" (_Journal_, ed. by d'Ancona, 1889, p. 11). [178] Roux, _Bulletin Société d'Anthropologie_, 1905, No. 3. Roux knew a Comarian woman who, at the age of 50, after her husband's death, became homosexual and made herself an artificial penis which she used with younger women. [179] Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, p. 47. [180] There are few traces of feminine homosexuality in English social history of the past. In Charles the Second's Court, the _Mémoires de Ghrammont_ tell us, Miss Hobart was credited with Lesbian tendencies. "Soon the rumor, true or false, of this singularity spread through the court. They were gross enough there never to have heard of that refinement of ancient Greece in the tastes of tenderness, and the idea came into their heads that the illustrious Hobart, who seemed so affectionate to pretty women, must be different from what she appeared." This passage is interesting because it shows us how rare was the exception. A century later, however, homosexuality among English women seems to have been regarded by the French as common, and Bacchaumont, on January 1, 1773, when recording that Mlle. Heinel of the Opera was settling in England, added: "Her taste for women will there find attractive satisfaction, for though Paris furnishes many tribades it is said that London is herein superior." [181] "I believe," writes a well-informed American correspondent, "that sexual inversion is increasing among Americans--both men and women--and the obvious reasons are: first, the growing independence of the women, their lessening need for marriage; secondly, the nervous strain that business competition has brought upon the whole nation. In a word, the rapidly increasing masculinity in women and the unhealthy nervous systems of the men offer the ideal factors for the production of sexual inversion in their children." [182] Homosexual women, like homosexual men, now insert advertisements in the newspapers, seeking a "friend." Näcke ("Zeitungsannoncen von weiblichen Homosexuellen," _Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie_, 1902, p. 225) brought together from Munich newspapers a collection of such advertisements, most of which were fairly unambiguous: "Actress with modern ideas desires to know rich lady with similar views, for the sake of friendly relations, etc.;" "Young lady of 19, a pretty blonde, seeks another like herself for walks, theatre, etc.," and so on. CHAPTER V. THE NATURE OF SEXUAL INVERSION. Analysis of Histories--Race--Heredity--General Health--First Appearance of Homosexual Impulse--Sexual Precocity and Hyperesthesia--Suggestion and Other Exciting Causes of Inversion--Masturbation--Attitude Toward Women--Erotic Dreams--Methods of Sexual Relationship--Pseudo-sexual Attraction--Physical Sexual Abnormalities--Artistic and Other Aptitudes--Moral Attitude of the Invert. Before stating briefly my own conclusions as to the nature of sexual inversion, I propose to analyze the facts brought out in the histories which I have been able to study.[183] RACE.--All my cases, 80 in number, are British and American, 20 living in the United States and the rest being British. Ancestry, from the point of view of race, was not made a matter of special investigation. It appears, however, that at least 44 are English or mainly English; at least 10 are Scotch or of Scotch extraction; 2 are Irish and 4 others largely Irish; 4 have German fathers or mothers; another is of German descent on both sides, while 2 others are of remote German extraction; 2 are partly, and 1 entirely, French; 2 have a Portuguese strain, and at least 2 are more or less Jewish. Except the apparently frequent presence of the German element, there is nothing remarkable in this ancestry. HEREDITY.--It is always difficult to deal securely with the significance of heredity, or even to establish a definite basis of facts. I have by no means escaped this difficulty, for in some cases I have not even had an opportunity of cross-examining the subjects whose histories I have obtained. Still, the facts, so far as they emerge, have some interest. I possess some record of heredity in 62 of my cases. Of these, not less than 24, or in the proportion of nearly 39 per cent., assert that they have reason to believe that other cases of inversion have occurred in their families, and, while in some it is only a strong suspicion, in others there is no doubt whatever. In one case there is reason to suspect inversion on both sides. Usually the inverted relatives have been brothers, sisters, cousins, or uncles. In one case a bisexual son seems to have had a bisexual father. This hereditary character of inversion (which was denied by Näcke) is a fact of great significance, and, as it occurs in cases with which I am well acquainted, I can have no doubt concerning the existence of the tendency. The influence of suggestion may often be entirely excluded, especially when the persons are of different sex. Both Krafft-Ebing and Moll noted a similar tendency. Von Römer states that in one-third of his cases there was inversion in other members of the family. Hirschfeld also found that there is a relatively high proportion of cases of family inversion. Twenty-six, so far as can be ascertained, belong to reasonably healthy families; minute investigation would probably reduce the number of these, and it is noteworthy that even in some of the healthy families there was only one child born of the parents' marriage. In 28 cases there is more or less frequency of morbidity or abnormality--eccentricity, alcoholism, neurasthenia, insanity, or nervous disease--on one or both sides, in addition to inversion or apart from it. In some of these cases the inverted offspring is the outcome of the union, of a very healthy with a thoroughly morbid stock; in some others there is a minor degree of abnormality on both sides. GENERAL HEALTH.--It is possible to speak with more certainty of the health of the individual than of that of his family. Of the 80 cases, 53--or about two-thirds--may be said to enjoy good, and sometimes even very good, health, though occasionally there is some slight qualification to be made. In 22 cases the health is delicate, or at best only fair; in these cases there is sometimes a tendency to consumption, and often marked neurasthenia and a more or less unbalanced temperament. Four cases are morbid to a considerable degree; the remaining case has had insane delusions which required treatment in an asylum. A considerable proportion, included among those as having either good or fair health, may be described as of extremely nervous temperament, and in most cases they so describe themselves; a certain proportion of these combine great physical and, especially, mental energy with this nervousness; all these are doubtless of neurotic temperament.[184] Very few can be said to be conspicuously lacking in energy. On the whole, therefore, a large proportion of these inverted individuals are passing through life in an unimpaired state of health, which enables them to do at least their fair share of work in the world; in a considerable proportion of my cases that work is of high intellectual value. Only in 5 cases, it will be seen, or at most 6, can the general health be said to be distinctly bad. This result may, perhaps, seem surprising. It must, however, be remembered that my cases do not, on the whole, represent the class which alone the physician is usually able to bring forward: i.e., the sexual inverts who are suffering from a more or less severe degree of complete nervous breakdown. There is no frequent relationship between homosexuality and insanity, and such homosexuality as is found in asylums is mostly of a spurious character. This point was specially emphasized by Näcke (e.g., "Homosexualität und Psychose," _Zeitschrift für Psichiatrie_, vol. lxviii, No. 3, 1911). He quoted the opinions of various distinguished alienists as to the rarity with which they had met genuine inverts, and recorded his own experiences. He had never met a genuine invert in the asylum throughout his extensive experience, although he was quite willing to admit that there may be unrecognized inverts in asylums, and one patient informed him, after leaving, that he was inverted, and had attracted the attention of the police both before and afterward, though nothing happened in the asylum. Among 1500 patients in the asylum during one year, active _pedicatio_ occurred in about 1 per cent. of cases, these patients being frequently idiots or imbeciles and at the same time masturbators, solitary or mutual. Hirschfeld informed Näcke that, among homosexual persons, hysterical conditions (not usually on hereditary basis) are fairly common, and neurasthenia of high degree decidedly frequent, but though stages of depression are common he had never seen pure melancholia and very seldom mania, but paranoiac delusional ideas frequently, and he agreed with Bryan of Broadmoor that religious delusions are not uncommon. General paralysis occurs, but is comparatively rare, and the same may be said of dementia præcox. On the whole, although Hirschfeld was unable to give precise figures, there was no reason whatever to suppose an abnormal prevalence of insanity. This was Näcke's own view. It is quite true, Näcke concluded, that homosexual actions occur in every form of psychosis, especially in congenital and secondary dements, and at periods of excitement, but we are here more concerned with "pseudo-homosexuality" than with true inversion. Hirschfeld finds that 75 per cent. inverts are of sound heredity; this seems too large a proportion; in any case allowance must be made for differences in method and minuteness of investigation. I am fairly certain that thorough investigation would very considerably enlarge the proportion of cases with morbid heredity. At the same time this enlargement would be chiefly obtained by bringing minor abnormalities to the front, and it would then have to be shown how far the families of average or normal persons are free from such abnormalities. The question is sometimes asked: What family is free from neuropathic taint? At present it is difficult to answer this question precisely. There is good ground to believe that a fairly large proportion of families are free from such taint. In any case it seems probable that the families to which the inverted belong do not usually present such profound signs of nervous degeneration as we were formerly led to suppose. What we vaguely call "eccentricity" is common among them; insanity is much rarer. FIRST APPEARANCE OF HOMOSEXUAL INSTINCT.--Out of 72 cases, in 8 the instinct veered round to the same sex in adult age or at all events after puberty; in 3 of these there had been a love-disappointment with a woman; no other cause than this can be assigned for the transition; but it is noteworthy that in at least 2 of these cases the sexual instinct is undeveloped or morbidly weak, while a third individual is of somewhat weak _physique_, and another has long been in delicate health. In a further case, also somewhat morbid, the development was rather more complicated. In 64 cases, or in a proportion of 88 per cent., the abnormal instinct began in early life, without previous attraction to the opposite sex.[185] In 27 of these it dates from about puberty, usually beginning at school. In 39 cases the tendency began before puberty, between the ages of 5 and 11, usually between 7 and 9, sometimes as early as the subject can remember. It must not be supposed that, in these numerous cases of the early appearance of homosexuality, the manifestations were of a specifically physical character, although erections are noted in a few cases. For the most part sexual manifestations at this early age, whether homosexual or heterosexual, are purely psychic.[186] SEXUAL PRECOCITY AND HYPERESTHESIA.--It is a fact of considerable interest and significance that in so large a number of my cases there was distinct precocity of the sexual emotions, both on the physical and psychic sides. There can be little doubt that, as many previous observers have found, inversion tends strongly to be associated with sexual precocity. I think it may further be said that sexual precocity tends to encourage the inverted habit where it exists. Why this should be so is obvious, if we believe--as there is some reason for believing--that at an early age the sexual instinct is comparatively undifferentiated in its manifestations. The precocious accentuation of the sexual impulse leads to definite crystallization of the emotions at a premature stage. It must be added that precocious sexual energy is likely to remain feeble, and that a feeble sexual energy adapts itself more easily to homosexual relationships, in which there is no definite act to be accomplished, than to normal relationships. It is difficult to say how many of my cases exhibit sexual weakness. In 6 or 7 it is evident, and it may be suspected in many others, especially in those who are, and often describe themselves as, "sensitive" or "nervous," as well as in those whose sexual development was very late. In many cases there is marked hyperesthesia, or irritable weakness. Hyperesthesia simulates strength, and, while there can be little doubt that some sexual inverts (and more especially bisexuals) do possess unusual sexual energy, in others it is but apparent; the frequent repetition of seminal emissions, for example, may be the result of weakness as well as of strength. It must be added that this irritability of the sexual centers is, in a considerable proportion of inverts, associated with marked emotional tendencies to affection and self-sacrifice. In the extravagance of his affection and devotion, it has been frequently observed, the male invert resembles many normal women. SUGGESTION AND OTHER EXCITING CAUSES OF INVERSION.--In 18 of my cases it is possible that some event, or special environment, in early life had more or less influence in turning the sexual instinct into homosexual channels, or in calling out a latent inversion. In 3 cases a disappointment in normal love seems to have produced a profound nervous and emotional shock, acting, as we seem bound to admit, on a predisposed organism, and developing a fairly permanent tendency to inversion. In 8 cases there was seduction by an older person, but in at least 4 or 5 of these there was already a well-marked predisposition. In at least 8 other cases, example, usually at school, may probably be regarded as having exerted some influence. It is noteworthy that in very few of my cases can we trace the influence of any definite "suggestion," as asserted by Schrenck-Notzing, who believes that, in the causation of sexual inversion (as undoubtedly in the causation of erotic fetichism), we must give the first place to "accidental factors of education and external influence." He records the case of a little boy who innocently gazed in curiosity at the penis of his father who was urinating, and had his ears boxed, whence arose a train of thought and feeling which resulted in complete sexual inversion. In two of the cases I have reported we have parallel incidents, and here we see clearly that the homosexual tendency already existed. I do not question the occurrence of such incidents, but I refuse to accept them as supplying the causation of inversion, and in so doing I am supported by all the evidence I am able to obtain. I am in agreement with a correspondent who wrote:-- "Considering that all boys are exposed to the same order of suggestions (sight of a man's naked organs, sleeping with a man, being handled by a man), and that only a few of them become sexually perverted, I think it reasonable to conclude that those few were previously constituted to receive the suggestion. In fact, suggestion seems to play exactly the same part in the normal and abnormal awakening of sex." I would go so far as to assert that for normal boys and girls the developed sexual organs of the adult man or woman--from their size, hairiness, and the mystery which envelops them--nearly always exert a certain fascination, whether of attraction or horror.[187] But this has no connection with homosexuality, and scarcely with sexuality at all. Thus, in one case known to me, a boy of 6 or 7 took pleasure in caressing the organs of another boy, twice his own age, who remained passive and indifferent; yet this child grew up without ever manifesting any homosexual instinct. The seed of suggestion can only develop when it falls on a suitable soil. If it is to act on a fairly normal nature the perverted suggestion must be very powerful or iterated, and even then its influence will probably only be temporary, disappearing in the presence of the normal stimulus.[188] Not only is "suggestion" unnecessary to develop a sexual impulse already rooted in the organism, but when exerted in an opposite direction it is powerless to divert that impulse. We see this illustrated in several of the cases whose histories I have presented. Thus in one case a boy was seduced by the housemaid at the age of 14 and even derived pleasure from the girl, yet none the less the native homosexual instinct asserted itself a year later. In another case heterosexual suggestions were offered and accepted in early life, yet, notwithstanding, the homosexual attraction was slowly evolved from within. I have, therefore, but little to say of the influence of suggestion, which was formerly exalted to a position of the first importance in books on sexual inversion. This is not because I underestimate the great part played by suggestion in many fields of normal and abnormal life. It is because I have been able to find but few decided traces of it in sexual inversion. In many cases, doubtless, there may be some slight elements of suggestion in developing the inversion, though they cannot be traced.[189] Their importance seems usually questionable even when they are discovered. Take Schrenck-Notzing's case of the little boy whose ears were boxed for what his father considered improper curiosity. I find it difficult to realize that a mighty suggestion can thereby be generated unless a strong emotion exists for it to unite with; in that case the seed falls on prepared soil. Is the wide prevalence of normal sexuality due to the fact that so many little boys have had their ears boxed for taking naughty liberties with women? If so, I am quite prepared to accept Schrenck-Notzing's explanation as a complete account of the matter. I know of one case, indeed, in which an element of what may fairly be called suggestion can be detected. It is that of a physician who had always been on very friendly terms with men, but had sexual relations exclusively with women, finding fair satisfaction, until the confessions of an inverted patient one day came to him as a revelation; thereafter he adopted inverted practices and ceased to find any attraction in women. But even in this case, as I understand the matter, suggestion merely served to reveal his own nature to the man. For a physician to adopt the perverted habits which the visit of a chance patient suggests to him can scarcely be a phenomenon of pure suggestion. We have no reason to suppose that this physician practised every perversion he heard of from patients; he adopted that which fitted his own nature.[190] In another case homosexual advances were made to a youth and accepted, but he had already been attracted to men in childhood. Again, in another case, there were homosexual influences in the boyhood of a subject who became bisexual, but as the subject's father was of similar bisexual temperament we can attach no potency to the mere suggestions. In another case we find homosexual influence in childhood, but the child was already delicate, shy, nervous, and feminine, clearly possessing a temperament predestined to develop in a homosexual direction. The irresistible potency of the inner impulse is well illustrated in a case presented by Hirschfeld and Burchard: "My daughter Erna," said the subject's mother, "showed boyish inclinations at the age of 3, and they increased from year to year. She never played with dolls, only with tin soldiers, guns, and castles. She would climb trees and jump ditches; she made friends with the drivers of all the carts that came to our house and they would place her on the horse's back. The annual circus was a joy to her for all the year. Even as a child of 4 she was so fearless on horseback that lookers-on shouted Bravo! and all declared she was a born horsewoman. It was her greatest wish to be a boy. She would wear her elder brother's clothes all day, notwithstanding her grandmother's indignation. Cycling, gymnastics, boating, swimming, were her passion, and she showed skill in them. As she grew older she hated prettily adorned hats and clothes. I had much trouble with her for she would not wear pretty things. The older she grew the more her masculine and decided ways developed. This excited much outcry and offence. People found my daughter unfeminine and disagreeable, but all my trouble and exhortations availed nothing to change her." Now this young woman whom all the influences of a normal feminine environment failed to render feminine was not physiologically a woman at all; the case proved to be the unique instance of an individual possessing all the external characteristics of a woman combined with internal testicular tissue capable of emitting true masculine semen through the feminine urethra. No suggestions of the environment could suffice to overcome this fundamental fact of internal constitution. (Hirschfeld and Burchard, "Spermasekretion aus einer weiblichen Harnröhre," _Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift_, No. 52, 1911.) I may here quote three American cases (not previously published), for which I am indebted to Prof. G. Frank Lydston, of Chicago. They seem to me to illustrate the only kind of suggestions which play much part in the evolution of inversion. I give them in Dr. Lydston's words:-- CASE I.--A man, 45 years of age, attracted by the allusion to my essay on "Social Perversion" contained in the English translation of Krafft-Ebing's _Psychopathia Sexualis_, consulted me regarding the possible cure of his condition. This individual was a finely educated, very intelligent man, who was an excellent linguist, had considerable musical ability, and was in the employ of a firm whose business was such as to demand on the part of its employés considerable legal acumen, clerical ability, and knowledge of real-estate transactions. This man stated that at the age of puberty, without any knowledge of perversity of sexual feeling, he was thrown intimately in contact with males of more advanced years, who took various means to excite his sexual passions, the result being that perverted sexual practices were developed, which were continued for a number of years. He thereafter noticed an aversion to women. At the solicitations of his family he finally married, without any very intelligent idea as to what, if anything, might be expected of him in the marital relation. Absolute impotence--indeed, repugnance for association with his wife--was the lamentable sequence. A divorce was in contemplation when, fortunately for all parties concerned, the wife suddenly died. Being a man of more than ordinary intelligence, this individual, prior to seeking my aid, had sought vainly for some remedy for his unfortunate condition. He stated that he believed there was an element of heredity in his case, his father having been a dipsomaniac and one brother having died insane. He nevertheless stated it to be his opinion that, notwithstanding the hereditary taint, he would have been perfectly normal from a sexual standpoint had it not been for acquired impressions at or about the period of puberty. This man presented a typically neurotic type of _physique_, complained of being intensely nervous, was prematurely gray, of only fair stature, and had an uncontrollable nystagmus, which, he said, had existed for some fifteen years. As might be expected, treatment in this case was of no avail. I began the use of hypnotic suggestion at the hands of an expert professional hypnotist. The patient, being called out of the State, finally gave up treatment, and I have no means of knowing what his present condition is. CASE II.--A lady patient of mine who happened to be an actress, and consequently a woman of the world, brought to me for an opinion some correspondence which had passed between her younger brother and a man living in another State, with whom he was on quite intimate terms. In one of these letters various flying trips to Chicago for the purpose of meeting the lad, who, by the way, was only 17 years of age, were alluded to. It transpired also, as evidenced by the letters, that on several occasions the young lad had been taken on trips in Pullman cars by his friend, who was a prominent railroad official. The character of the correspondence was such as the average healthy man would address to a woman with whom he was enamored. It seemed that the author of the correspondence had applied to his boy affinity the name Cinderella, and the protestations of passionate affection that were made toward Cinderella certainly would have satisfied the most exacting woman. The young lad subsequently made a confession to me, and I put myself in correspondence with his male friend, with the result that he called upon me and I obtained a full history of the case. The method of indulgence in this case was the usual one of oral masturbation, in which the lad was the passive party. I was unable to obtain any definite data regarding the family history of the elder individual in this case, but understand that there was a taint of insanity in his family. He himself was a robust, fine-looking man, above middle age, who was well educated and very intelligent, as he necessarily must have been, because of the prominent position he held with an important railway company. I will state, as a matter of interest, that the lad in this case, who is now 23 years of age, has recently consulted me for _impotentia coëundi_, manifesting a frigidity for women, and, from the young man's statements, I am convinced that he is well on the road to confirmed sexual perversion. An interesting point in this connection is that the young man's sister, the actress already alluded to, has recently had an attack of acute mania. I have had other unpublished cases that might be of interest, but these two are somewhat classical, and typify to a greater or less degree the majority of other cases. I will, however, mention one other case, occurring in a woman. CASE III.--A married woman 40 years of age. Has been deserted by her husband because of her perverted sexuality. Neurotic history on both sides of the family, and several cases of insanity on mother's side. In this case affinity for the same sex and perverted desire for the opposite sex existed, a combination by no means infrequent. Hypnotic suggestion tried, but without success. Cause was evidently suggestion and example on the part of another female pervert with whom she associated before her marriage. Marriage was late, at age of 35. In all these cases there was an element of what may be called suggestion, but it was really much more than this; it was probably in each case active seduction by an elder person of a predisposed younger person. It will be observed that in each case there was, at the least, an organic neurotic basis for suggestion and seduction to work on. I cannot regard these cases as entitled to modify our attitude toward suggestion. MASTURBATION.--Moreau believed that masturbation was a cause of sexual inversion, and Krafft-Ebing looked upon it as leading to all sorts of sexual perversions; the same opinion was currently repeated by many writers. It is not now accepted. Moll emphatically rejected the idea that masturbation can be the cause of inversion; Näcke repeatedly denies that masturbation, any more than seduction, can ever produce true inversion; Hirschfeld attaches to it no etiological significance. Many years ago I gave special attention to this point and reached a similar conclusion. That masturbation, especially at an early age, may sometimes enfeeble the sexual activities, and aid the manifestations of inversion, I certainly believe. But beyond this there is little in the history of my male cases to indicate masturbation as a cause of inversion. It is true that 44 out of 51 admit that they have practised masturbation,--at all events, occasionally, or at some period in their lives,--and it is possible that this proportion is larger than that found among normal people. Even if so, however, it is not difficult to account for, bearing in mind the fact that the homosexual person has not the same opportunities as has the heterosexual person to gratify his instincts, and that masturbation may sometimes legitimately appear to him as the lesser of two evils.[191] Not only has masturbation been practised at no period in at least 7 of the cases (for concerning several I have no information), but in several others it was never practised until long after the homosexual instinct had appeared, in 1 case not till the age of 40, and then only occasionally. In at least 8 it was only practised at puberty; in at least 8, however, it began before the age of puberty; at least 9 left off before about the age of 20. Unfortunately, as yet, we have little definite evidence as to the prevalence and extent of masturbation among normal individuals. Among the women masturbation is found in at least 5 cases out of 7. In 1 case there was no masturbation until comparatively late in life, and then only at rare intervals and under exceptional circumstances. In another case, some years after the homosexual attraction had been experienced, it was practised, though not in excess, from the age of puberty for about four years, and then abandoned; during these years the physical sexual feelings were more imperative than they were afterward felt to be. In 2 cases masturbation was learned spontaneously soon after puberty, and in 1 of these practised in excess before the manifestations of inversion became definite. In all cases the subjects are emphatic in asserting that this practice neither led to, nor was caused by, the homosexual attraction, which they regard as a much higher feeling, and it must be added that the occasional practice of masturbation is very far from rare among fairly normal women.[192] While this is so, I am certainly inclined to believe that an early and excessive indulgence in masturbation, though not an adequate cause, is a favoring condition for the development of inversion, and that this is especially so in women. The sexual precocity indicated by early and excessive masturbation doubtless sometimes reveals an organism already predisposed to homosexuality. But, apart from this, when masturbation arises spontaneously at an early age on a purely physical basis it seems to tend to produce a divorce between the physical and the psychic aspects of sexual love. The sexual manifestations are all diverted into this physical direction, and the child is ignorant that such phenomena are normally allied to love; then, when a more spiritual attraction appears with adolescent development, this divorce is perpetuated. Instead of the physical and psychic feelings appearing together when the age for sexual attraction comes, the physical feelings are prematurely twisted from their natural end, and it becomes abnormally easy for a person of the same sex to step in and take the place rightfully belonging to a person of the opposite sex. This has certainly seemed to me the course of events in some cases I have observed. ATTITUDE TOWARD THE OPPOSITE SEX.--In 17 cases (of whom 5 are married and others purposing to marry) there is sexual attraction to both sexes, a condition formerly called psycho-sexual hermaphroditism, but now more usually bisexuality. In such cases, although there is pleasure and satisfaction in relationships with both sexes, there is usually a greater degree of satisfaction in connection with one sex. Most of the bisexual prefer their own sex. It is curiously rare to find a person, whether man or woman, who by choice exercises relationships with both sexes and prefers the opposite sex. This would seem to indicate that the bisexual may really be inverts. In any case bisexuality merges imperceptibly into simple inversion. In at least 16 of 52 cases of simple inversion in men there has been connection with women, in some instances only once or twice, in others during several years, but it was always with an effort, or from a sense of duty and anxiety to be normal; they never experienced any real pleasure in the act, or sense of satisfaction after it. Four of these cases are married, but martial relationships usually ceased after a few years. At least four others were attracted to women when younger, but are not now; another once felt sexually attracted to a boyish woman, but never made any attempt to obtain any relationships with her; 3 or 4 others, again, have tried to have connection with women, but failed. The largest proportion of my cases have never had any sexual intimacy with the opposite sex,[193] and some of these experience what, in the case of the male invert, is sometimes called _horror feminæ_. But, while woman as an object of sexual desire is in such cases disgusting to them, and it is usually difficult for a genuine invert to have connection with a woman except by setting up images of his own sex, for the most part inverts are capable of genuine friendships, irrespective of sex. It is, perhaps, not difficult to account for the horror--much stronger than that normally felt toward a person of the same sex--with which the invert often regards the sexual organs of persons of the opposite sex. It cannot be said that the sexual organs of either sex under the influence of sexual excitement are esthetically pleasing; they only become emotionally desirable through the parallel excitement of the beholder. When the absence of parallel excitement is accompanied in the beholder by the sense of unfamiliarity as in childhood, or by a neurotic hypersensitiveness, the conditions are present for the production of intense _horror feminæ_ or _horror masculis_, as the case may be. It is possible that, as Otto Rank argues in his interesting study, "Die Naktheit im Sage und Dichtung," this horror of the sexual organs of the opposite sex, to some extent felt even by normal people, is embodied in the Melusine type of legend.[194] EROTIC DREAMS.--Our dreams follow, as a general rule, the impulses that stir our waking psychic life. The normal man or woman in sexual vigor dreams of loving a person of the opposite sex; the inverted man dreams of loving a man, the inverted woman of loving a woman.[195] Dreams thus have a certain value in diagnosis, more especially since there is less unwillingness to confess to a perverted dream than to a perverted action. Ulrichs first referred to the significance of the dreams of inverts. At a later period Moll pointed out that they have some value in diagnosis when we are not sure how far the inverted tendency is radical. Then Näcke repeatedly emphasized the importance of dreams as constituting, he believed, the most delicate test we possess in the diagnosis of homosexuality;[196] this was an exaggerated view which failed to take into account the various influences which may deflect dreams. Hirschfeld has made the most extensive investigation on this point, and found that among 100 inverts 87 had exclusively homosexual dreams, while most of the rest had no dreams at all.[197] Among my cases, only 4 definitely state that there are no erotic dreams, while 31 acknowledge that the dreams are concerned more or less with persons of the same sex. Of these, at least 16 assert or imply that their dreams are exclusively of the same sex. Two, though apparently inverted congenitally, have had erotic dreams of women, in one case more frequently than of men; these two exceptions have no apparent explanation. Another appears to have sexual dreams of a nightmare character in which women appear. In another case there were always at first dreams of women, but this subject had sometimes had connection with prostitutes, and is not absolutely indifferent to women, while another, whose dreams remain heterosexual, had in early life some attraction to girls. In the cases of distinct bisexuality there is no unanimity; 2 dream of their own sex, 2 dream of both sexes, 1 usually dreams of the opposite sex, and 1 man, while dreaming of both, dislikes those dreams in which women figure. In at least 3 cases dreams of a sexual character began at the age of 8 or earlier. The phenomena presented by erotic dreams, alike in normal and abnormal persons, are somewhat complex, and dreams are by no means a sure guide to the dreamer's real sexual attitude. The fluctuations of dream imagery may be illustrated by the experiences of one of my subjects who thus indirectly summarises his own experiences: "When he was quite a child, he used to be haunted by gross and grotesque dreams of naked adult men, which must have been erotic. At the age of puberty he dreamed in two ways, but always about males. One species of vision was highly idealistic; a radiant and lovely young man's face with floating hair appeared to him on a background of dim shadows. The other was obscene, being generally the sight of a groom's or carter's genitals in a state of violent erection. He never dreamed erotically or sentimentally about women; but when the dream was frightful, the terror-making personage was invariably female. In ordinary dreams, women of his family or acquaintance played a trivial part. At the age of 24, having determined to conquer his homosexual passions, he married, found no difficulty in cohabiting with his wife, and begat several children, although he took but little passionate delight in the sexual act. He still continued to dream exclusively of men, for several years; and the obscene visions became more frequent than the idealistic. Gradually, coarse and uninteresting erotic dreams of women began to haunt his mind in sleep. A curious particular regarding the new type of vision was that he never dreamed of whole females, only of their sexual parts, seen in a blur; and the seminal emissions which attended the mental pictures left a feeling of fatigue and disgust. In course of time, his wife and he agreed to live separately so far as sexual relations are concerned. He then indulged his passion for males, and wholly lost those rudimentary female dreams which had been developed during the period of nuptial cohabitation." Not only is it possible for the genuine invert to be trained into heterosexual erotic dreams, but homosexual dreams may occasionally be experienced by persons who are, and always have been, exclusively heterosexual. I could bring forward much evidence on this point. (Cf. "Auto-erotism" in vol. i of these _Studies_.) Both men and women who have always been of pronounced heterosexual tendency, without a trace of inversion, are liable to rare homosexual dreams, not necessarily involving orgasm or even definite sexual excitement, and sometimes accompanied by a feeling of repugnance. As an example I may present a dream (which had no known origin) of an exclusively heterosexual lady aged 42; she dreamed she was in bed with another woman, unknown to her, and lying on her own stomach, while with her right hand stretched out she was feeling the other's sexual parts. She could distinctly perceive the clitoris, vagina, etc.; she felt a sort of disgust with herself for what she was doing, but continued until she awoke; she then found herself lying on her stomach as in the dream and at first thought she must have been touching herself, but realized that this could not have been the case. (Niceforo, who believes that inversion may develop out of masturbation, considers that dreams of masturbation by association of ideas may take on an inverted character [_Le Psicopatie Sessuale_, 1897, pp. 35, 69]; this, however, must be rare, and will not account for most of the dreams in question.) Näcke and Colin Scott, some years ago, independently referred to cases in which normal persons were liable to homosexual dreams, and Féré (_Revue de Médecine_, Dec., 1898) referred to a man who had a horror of women, but appeared only to manifest homosexuality in his dreams. Näcke (_Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie_, 1907, Heft I, 2) calls dreams which represent a reaction of opposition to the dreamer's ordinary life "contrast dreams." Hirschfeld, who accepts Näcke's "contrast dreams" in relation to homosexuality, considers that they indicate a latent bisexuality. We may admit this is so, in the same sense in which a complementary color image called up by another color indicates the possibility of perceiving that color. In most cases, however, it seems to me that homosexual dreams in normal persons may be simply explained as due to the ordinary confusion and transition of dream imagery. (See Ellis, _The World of Dreams_, especially ch. ii.) _Methods of Sexual Relationship_.--The exact mode in which an inverted instinct finds satisfaction is frequently of importance from the medico-legal standpoint;[198] from a psychological standpoint it is of minor significance, being chiefly of interest as showing the degree to which the individual has departed from the instinctive feelings of his normal fellow-beings. Taking 57 inverted men of whom I have definite knowledge, I find that 12, restrained by moral or other considerations, have never had any physical relationship with their own sex. In some 22 cases the sexual relationship rarely goes beyond close physical contact and fondling, or at most mutual masturbation and intercrural intercourse. In 10 or 11 cases _fellatio_ (oral excitation)--frequently in addition to some form of mutual masturbation, and usually, though not always, as the active agency--is the form preferred. In 14 cases, actual _pedicatio_[199]--usually active, not passive--has been exercised. In these cases, however, _pedicatio_ is by no means always the habitual or even the preferred method of gratification. It seems to be the preferred method in about 7 cases. Several who have never experienced it, including some who have never practised any form of physical relationship, state that they feel no objection to _pedicatio_; some have this feeling in regard to active, others in regard to passive, _pedicatio_. The proportion of inverts who practise or have at some time experienced _pedicatio_ thus revealed (nearly 25 per cent.) is large; in Germany Hirschfeld finds it to be only 8 per cent., and Merzbach only 6. I believe, however, that a wider induction from a larger number of English and American cases would yield a proportion much nearer to that found in Germany.[200] PSEUDOSEXUAL ATTRACTION.--It is sometimes supposed that in homosexual relationships one person is always active, physically and emotionally, the other passive. Between men, at all events, this is very frequently not the case, and the invert cannot tell if he feels like a man or like a woman. Thus, one writes:-- "In bed with my friend I feel as he feels, and he feels as I feel. The result is masturbation, and nothing more or desire for more on my part. I get it over, too, as soon as possible, in order to come to the best--sleeping arms round each other, or talking so." It remains true, however, that there may usually be traced what it is possible to call pseudosexual attraction, by which I mean a tendency for the invert to be attracted toward persons unlike himself, so that in his sexual relationships there is a certain semblance of sexual opposition. Numa Praetorius considers that in homosexuality the attraction of opposites--the attraction for soldiers and other primitive vigorous types--plays a greater part than among normal lovers.[201] This pseudosexual attraction is, however, as Hirschfeld points out,[202] and as we see by the Histories here presented, by no means invariable. M.N. writes: "To me it appears that the female element must, of necessity, exist in the body that desires the male, and that nature keeps her law in the spirit, though she breaks it in the form. The rest is all a matter of individual temperament and environment. The female nature of the invert, hampered though it is by its disguise of flesh, is still able to exert an extraordinary influence, and calls insistently upon the male. This influence seems called into action most violently in the presence of males possessed of strong sexual magnetism of their own. Such men are generally more or less conscious of the influence, and the result is either a vague appreciation, which will make the male wonder why he gets on so well with the invert, or else the influence will be realized to be something incongruous and unnatural, and will be resented accordingly. Sometimes, indeed, the reciprocated feeling (circumstance and opportunity permitting) will prove strong enough to induce sexual relations. Reason will then generally overpower instinct, and the feeling, aroused unaware, will probably be changed into repulsion. Further, the influence reacts in the same way on women, who, particularly if they are strongly sexual, experience involuntary sensations of dislike or antagonism on association with inverts. There is, however, one terrible reality for the invert to face, no matter how much he may wish to avoid it and seek to deceive himself. There exists for him an almost absolute lack of any genuine satisfaction either in the way of the affections or desires. His whole life is passed in vainly seeking and desiring the male, the antithesis of his nature, and in consorting with inverts he must perforce be content with the male in form only, the shadow without the substance. Indeed, one invert necessarily regards another as being of the same undesired female sex as himself, and for this reason it will be found that, while friendships between inverts frequently exist (and these are characteristically feminine, unstable, and liable to betrayal), love-attachments are less common, and when they occur must naturally be based upon considerable self-deception. Venal gratifications are always, of course, as possible as they are unsatisfactory, and here perhaps some of the peculiarities of taste accompanying inversion may admit of elucidation. In considering the peculiar predilection shown by inverts for youths of inferior social position, for the wearers of uniforms, and for extreme physical development and virility not necessarily accompanied by intellectuality, regard must be had to the probable conduct of women placed in a position of complete irresponsibility combined with absolute freedom of action and every opportunity for promiscuity. It seems to me that the importance of recognizing the underlying female element in inversion cannot be too strongly insisted upon." "The majority" [of inverts], writes "Z," "differ in no detail of their outward appearance, their _physique_, or their dress from normal men. They are athletic, masculine in habit, frank in manner, passing through society year after year without arousing a suspicion of their inner temperament; were it not so, society would long ago have had its eyes opened to the amount of perverted sexuality it harbors." These lines were written, not in opposition to the more subtle distinctions pointed out above, but in refutation of the vulgar error which confuses the typical invert with the painted and petticoated creatures who appear in police-courts from time to time, and whose portraits are presented by Lombroso, Legludic, etc. On another occasion the same writer remarked, while expressing general agreement with the idea of a pseudosexual attraction: "The _liaison_ is by no means always sought and begun by the person who is abnormally constituted. I mean that I can cite cases of decided males who have made up to inverts, and have found their happiness in the reciprocated passion. One pronounced male of this sort, again, once said to me, 'men are so much more affectionate than women.' [Precisely the same words were used by one of my subjects.] Also, the _liaison_ springs up now and then quite accidentally through juxtaposition, when it is difficult to say whether either at the outset had an inverted tendency of any marked quality. In these cases the sexual relation seems to come on as a heightening of comradely affection, and is found to be pleasurable--sometimes, I think, discovered to be safe as well as satisfying. On the other hand, so far as I know, it is extremely rare to observe a permanent _liaison_ between two pronounced inverts." The tendency to pseudosexual attraction in the homosexual would thus seem to involve a preference for normal persons. How far this is the case it seems difficult to state positively. Usually, one may say, an invert falls in love (exactly as in the case of a normal person) without any intellectual calculation as to the temperamental ability to return the affection which the object of his love may possess. Naturally, however, there cannot be any adequate return of the affection in the absence of an actual or latent homosexual disposition. On this point an American correspondent (H.C.), with a wide knowledge of inversion in many lands, writes: "One of your correspondents declares that inverts long for sexual relations with normal men rather than with one another. If this be true, I have never once found it exemplified in all my wide experience of inverts; and I have submitted his assertion to more than 50. These have replied invariably that unless a man is himself homosexual, nearly all the pleasure of _fellatio_ is absent. The fact is, the majority of inverts flock together not from exigency, but from choice. The mere sexual act is, if anything, far less the sole object between inverts than it is between normal men and women. Why should the invert sigh for intercourse with normal men, where mutual confidences and sympathies and love would be out of the question? Personally, I decline to commit _fellatio_ with a man who is given to women; the thought of it is repugnant to me. And this is the attitude with every invert I have questioned. The nearest approach to confirmation of your correspondent's theory has been when an extremely feminine invert here and there has admitted the wish that a certain normal man _were_ inverted. Indeed, the temperamental gamut of inversion is itself broad enough to embrace the most widely divergent ideals. As my furthest-reaching demands attain fruition in the gentle and pretty boy, so his own robuster affinity resides in me. If inverts were actually women, then indeed the normal male would be their ideal. But inverts are not women. Inverts are males capable of passionate friendship, and their ideal is the male who will give them passionate friendship in return." In at least 24, probably many more, of my male cases there is a marked contrast, and in a still larger number a less-marked contrast, between the subject and the individuals he is attracted to; either he is of somewhat feminine and sensitive nature, and admires more simple and virile natures, or he is fairly vigorous and admires boys who are often of lower social class. Inverted women also are attracted to more clinging feminine persons.[203] A sexual attraction for boys is, no doubt, as Moll points out, that form of inversion which comes nearest to normal sexuality, for the subject of it usually approaches nearer to the average man in physical and mental disposition. The reason of this is obvious: boys resemble women, and therefore it requires a less profound organic twist to become sexually attracted to them. Anyone who has watched private theatricals in boys' schools will have observed how easy it is for boys to personate women successfully, and it is well known that until the middle of the seventeenth century women's parts on the stage were always taken by boys, whether or not with injury to their own or other people's morals.[204] It is also worthy of note that in Greece, where homosexuality flourished so extensively, and apparently with so little accompaniment of neurotic degeneration, it was often held that only boys under 18 should be loved; so that the love of boys merged into love of women. About 18 of my cases are most strongly attracted to youths,--preferably of about the age of 18 to 20,--and they are, for the most part, among the more normal and healthy of the cases. A preference for older men, or else a considerable degree of indifference to age alone, is more common, and perhaps indicates a deeper degree of perversion. Putting aside the age of the object desired, it must be said that there is a distinctly general, though not universal, tendency for sexual inverts to approach the feminine type, either in psychic disposition or physical constitution, or both.[205] I cannot say how far this is explained by the irritable nervous system and delicate health which are so often associated with inversion, though this is certainly an important factor. Although the invert himself may stoutly affirm his masculinity, and although this femininity may not be very obvious, its wide prevalence may be asserted with considerable assurance, and by no means only among the small minority of inverts who take an exclusively passive rôle, though in these it is usually most marked. In this I am confirmed by Q., who writes: "In all, or certainly almost all, the cases of congenital male inverts (excluding psycho-sexual hermaphrodites) that I know there has been a remarkable sensitiveness and delicacy of sentiment, sympathy, and an intuitive habit of mind, such as we generally associate with the feminine sex, even though the body might be quite masculine in its form and habit."[206] When, however, a distinguished invert said to Moll: "We are all women; that we do not deny," he put the matter in too extreme a form. The feminine traits of the homosexual are not usually of a conspicuous character. "I believe that inverts of plainly feminine nature are rare exceptions," wrote Näcke:[207] and that statement may be accepted even by those who emphasize the prevalence of feminine traits among inverts. In inverted women some degree of masculinity or boyishness is equally prevalent, and it is not usually found in the women to whom they are attracted. Even in inversion the need for a certain sexual opposition--the longing for something which the lover himself does not possess--still prevails. It expresses itself sometimes in an attraction between persons of different race and color. I am told that in American prisons for women Lesbian relationships are specially frequent between white and black women.[208] A similar affinity is found among the Arabs, says Kocher; and if an Arab woman has a Lesbian friend the latter is usually European. In Cochin China, too, according to Lorion, while the Chinese are chiefly active pederasts, the Annamites are chiefly passive. It must, however, be remembered that, in normal love, homogamy, the attraction of the like, prevails over heterogamy, the attraction of the unlike, which is chiefly confined to those features which belong to the sphere of the secondary sexual characters;[209] the same appears to be true in inversion, and the homosexual are probably, on the whole, more attracted by the traits which they seem to themselves to possess than by those which are foreign to themselves.[210] PHYSICAL ABNORMALITIES.--The circumstances under which many of my cases were investigated often made information under this head difficult to obtain, or to verify. In at least 4 cases the penis is very large, while in at least 3 it is small and undeveloped, with small and flabby testes. It seems probable that variations in these two directions are both common, but it is doubtful whether they possess as much significance as the tendency to infantilism of the sexual organs in inverted women seems to possess. Hirschfeld considers that the genital organs of inverts resemble those of normal people. He finds, however, that phimosis is rather common.[211] More significant, perhaps, than specifically genital peculiarities are the deviations found in the general conformation of the body.[212] In at least 2 cases there are well-developed breasts, in 1 the breasts swelling and becoming red.[213] In 1 case there are "menstrual" phenomena, physical and psychic, recurring every four weeks. In several cases the hips are broad and the arms rounded, while some are skillful in throwing a ball. One was born with a double squint. At least 2 were 7 months' children. In the previous chapter I have referred to the tendency to hypertrichosis and occasionally oligotrichosis among inverted women; among the men it is the latter condition which seems more common, and in several cases the bodies are hairless, or with but scanty hair. A few are left-handed, though not perhaps an abnormal proportion.[214] The sexual characters of the handwriting are in some cases clearly inverted, the men writing a feminine hand and the women a masculine hand.[215] A high feminine voice is sometimes found.[216] A marked characteristic of many inverts, though one not easy of precise definition, is their youthfulness of appearance, and frequently child-like faces, equally in both sexes. This has often been remarked,[217] and is pronounced among many of my subjects. The frequent inability of male inverts to whistle was first pointed out by Ulrichs, and Hirschfeld has found it in 23 per cent. Many of my cases confess to this inability, while some of the women inverts can whistle admirably. Although this inability of male inverts is only found among a minority, I am quite satisfied that it is well marked among a considerable minority. One of my correspondents, M.N., writes to me: "With regard to the general inability of inverts to whistle (I am not able to do so myself), their fondness for green (my favorite color), their feminine caligraphy, skill at female occupations, etc., these all seem to me but indications of the one principle. To go still farther and include trivial things, few inverts even smoke in the same manner and with the same enjoyment as a man; they have seldom the male facility at games, cannot throw at a mark with precision, or even spit!" Nearly all these peculiarities indicate a minor degree of nervous disturbance and lead to modification, as my correspondent points out, in a feminine direction. It is scarcely necessary to add that they by no means necessarily imply inversion. Shelley, for instance, was unable to whistle, though he never gave an indication of inversion; but he was a person of somewhat abnormal and feminine organization, and he illustrates the tendency of these apparently very insignificant functional anomalies to be correlated with other and more important psychic anomalies. The greater part of these various anatomical peculiarities and functional anomalies point, more or less clearly, to the prevalence among inverts of a tendency to infantilism, combined with feminism in men and masculinism in women.[218] This tendency is denied by Hirschfeld, but it is often well indicated among the subjects whose histories I have been able to present, and is indeed suggested by Hirschfeld's own elaborate results; so that it can scarcely be passed over. I regard it as highly significant, and it is in harmony with all that we are learning to know regarding the important part played by the internal secretions, alike in inversion and the general bodily modifications in an infantile, feminine, and masculine direction. If we are justified in believing that there is a tendency for inverted persons to be somewhat arrested in development, approaching the child type, we may connect this fact with the sexual precocity sometimes marked in inverts, for precocity is commonly accompanied by rapid arrest of development. A correspondent, who is himself inverted, furnishes the following notes of cases he is well acquainted with; I quote them here, as they illustrate the anomalies commonly found:-- 1. A., male, eldest child of typically neurotic family. Three children in all: 2 male and 1 female. The other 2 are somewhat eccentric, unsocial, and sexually frigid, 1 in a marked degree. The curious point about this case is that A., the only one of the family possessed of mental ability and social qualifications, should be inverted. Parents' marriage was very ill-assorted and inharmonious, the father being of great stature and the mother abnormally small and of highly nervous temperament, both of feeble health. Ancestry unfortunate, especially on mother's side. 2. B., male, invert, younger of 2 sons, no other children, has extremely feminine disposition and appearance, of considerable personal attraction, and has great musical talent. Penis very small and marked breast-development. 3. C., male, invert, younger of 2 sons, no other children. Interval of six years between first and second son. Parents' marriage one of great affection, but degenerate ancestry on mother's side. Cancer and scrofula in family. 4. D., male, invert, second child of 6; remainder girls. Of humble social position. Considerable depravity evinced by all the members of this family, with the exception of D., who alone proved steady, honest, and industrious. 5. E., male, invert, second son of family of 3, the youngest child being a girl, stillborn. Of extreme neurotic temperament fostered by upbringing. Effeminate in build and disposition; musically gifted. 6. F., male, invert, second child of family of 5. Eldest child a girl, died in youth. After F. a boy G., a girl H., and another girl stillborn. Parents badly matched; mother of considerable mental and physical strength; father last representative of moribund stock, the result of intermarriage. Children all resembling father in appearance and mother in disposition. Drink-tendency in both boys, to which F.'s death at the age of 30 was mainly due. G. committed suicide some years later. The girl H. married into a family with worse ancestry than her own. Has two children:-- 7. I. and J., boy and girl, both inverted as far as I am able to judge. The boy was born with some deformity of the feet and ankles; is of effeminate tastes and appearance. Boy resembles mother, and girl, who is of great physical development, resembles father. The same correspondent adds:-- "I have noticed little abnormal with regard to the genital formation of inverts. There are, however, frequent abnormalities of proportion in their figures, the hands and feet being noticeably smaller and more shapely, the waist more marked, the body softer and less muscular. Almost invariably there is either cranial malformation or the head approaches the feminine in type and shape." ARTISTIC AND OTHER APTITUDES.--All avocations are represented among inverts. Among the subjects here dealt with are found, at one end of the scale, numerous manual workers, and at the other end an equal number, sometimes of aristocratic family, who exercise no profession at all. There are 12 physicians, 9 men of letters, at least 7 are engaged in commercial life, 6 are artists, architects, or composers, 4 are or have been actors. These figures cannot give any clue to the relative extent of inversion in various occupations, but they indicate that no class of occupation furnishes a safeguard against inversion. There are, however, certain avocations to which inverts seem especially called.[219] One of the chief of these is literature. The apparent predominance of physicians is easily explicable. The frequency with which literature is represented is probably more genuine. Here, indeed, inverts seem to find the highest degree of success and reputation. At least half a dozen of my subjects are successful men of letters, and I could easily add others by going outside the group of Histories included in this study. They especially cultivate those regions of _belles-lettres_ which lie on the borderland between prose and verse. Though they do not usually attain much eminence in poetry, they are often very accomplished writers of verse. They may be attracted to history, but rarely attempt tasks of great magnitude, involving much patient labor, though to this rule there are exceptions. Pure science seems to have relatively little attraction for the homosexual.[220] An examination of my Histories reveals the interesting fact that 45 of the subjects, or in the proportion of 56 per cent., possess artistic aptitudes of varying degree. Galton found, from the investigation of nearly 1000 persons, that the average showing artistic tastes in England was only about 30 per cent. It must also be said that my figures are probably below the truth, as no special point was made of investigating the matter, and also that in some cases the artistic ability is of high order. It is suggested that Adler's theory of _Minderwertigkeit_--according to which we react strenuously against our congenital organic defects and fortify them into virtues--may be applied to the invert's acquirement of artistic abilities (G. Rosenstein, "Die Theorien der Organminderwertigkeit und die Bisexualität," _Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische Forschungen_, vol. ii, 1910, p. 398). This theory is in some cases of valuable application, but it seems doubtful to me whether it is very profitable in the present connection. The artistic aptitudes of inverts may better be regarded as part of their organic tendencies than as a reaction against those tendencies. In this connection I may quote the remarks of an American correspondent, himself homosexual: "Regarding the connection between inversion and artistic capacity, so far as I can see, the temperament of every invert seems to strive to find artistic expression--crudely or otherwise. Inverts, as a rule, seek the paths of life that lie in pleasant places; their resistance to opposing obstacles is elastic, their work is never strenuous (if they can help it), and their accomplishments hardly ever of practical use. This is all true of the born artist, as well. Both inverts and artists are inordinately fond of praise; both yearn for a life where admiration is the reward for little energy. In a word, they seem to be 'born tired,' begotten by parents who were tired, too." Hirschfeld (_Die Homosexualität_, p. 66) gives a list of pictures and sculptures which specially appeal to the homosexual. Prominent among them are representations of St. Sebastian, Gainsborough's Blue Boy, Vandyck's youthful men, the Hermes of Praxiteles, Michelangelo's Slave, Rodin's and Meunier's working-men types. As regards music, my cases reveal the aptitude which has been remarked by others as peculiarly common among inverts. It has been extravagantly said that all musicians are inverts; it is certain that various famous musicians, among the dead and the living, have been homosexual. Ingegnieros speaks of a "genito-musical synæsthesia," analogous to color-hearing, in this connection. Calesia states (_Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1900, p. 209) that 60 per cent, inverts are musicians. Hirschfeld (_Die Homosexualität_, p. 500) regards this estimate as excessive, but he himself elsewhere states (p. 175) that 98 per cent, of male inverts are greatly attracted to music, the women being decidedly less attracted. Oppenheim (in a paper summarized in the _Neurologische Centralblatt_ for June 1, 1910, and the _Alienist and Neurologist_ for Nov., 1910) well remarks that the musical disposition is marked by a great emotional instability, and this instability is a disposition to nervousness. It is thus that neurasthenia is so common among musicians. The musician has not been rendered nervous by the music, but he owes his nervousness (as also, it may be added, his disposition to homosexuality) to the same disposition to which he owes his musical aptitude. Moreover, the musician is frequently one-sided in his gifts, and the possession of a single hypertrophied aptitude is itself closely related to the neuropathic and psychopathic diathesis. The tendency to dramatic aptitude--found among a large proportion of my subjects who have never been professional actors--has attracted the attention of previous investigators in this field.[221] Thus, Moll refers to the frequency of artistic, and especially dramatic, talent among inverts, and remarks that the cause is doubtful. After pointing out that the lie which they have to be perpetually living renders inverts always actors, he goes on to say:-- Apart from this, it seems to me that the capacity and the inclination to conceive situations and to represent them in a masterly manner corresponds to an abnormal predisposition of the nervous system, just as does sexual inversion; so that both phenomena are due to the same source. I am in agreement with this statement; the congenitally inverted may, I believe, be looked upon as a class of individuals exhibiting nervous characters which, to some extent, approximate them to persons of artistic genius. The dramatic and artistic aptitudes of inverts are, therefore, partly due to the circumstances of the invert's life, which render him necessarily an actor,--and in some few cases lead him into a love of deception comparable with that of a hysterical woman,--and partly, it is probable, to a congenital nervous predisposition allied to the predisposition to dramatic aptitude. One of my correspondents has long been interested in the frequency of inversion among actors and actresses. He knew an inverted actor who told him he adopted the profession because it would enable him to indulge his proclivity; but, on the whole, he regards this tendency as due to "hitherto unconsidered imaginative flexibilities and curiosities in the individual. The actor, _ex hypothesi_, is one who works himself by sympathy (intellectual and emotional) into states of psychological being that are not his own. He learns to comprehend--nay, to live himself into--relations which were originally alien to his nature. The capacity for doing this--what makes a born actor--implies a faculty for extending his artistically acquired experience into life. In the process of his trade, therefore, he becomes at all points sensitive to human emotions, and, sexuality being the most intellectually undetermined of the appetites after hunger, the actor might discover in himself a sort of sexual indifference, out of which a sexual aberration could easily arise. A man devoid of this imaginative flexibility could not be a successful actor. The man who possesses it would be exposed to divagations of the sexual instinct under esthetical or merely wanton influences. Something of the same kind is applicable to musicians and artists, in whom sexual inversion prevails beyond the average. They are conditioned by their esthetical faculty, and encouraged by the circumstances of their life to feel and express the whole gamut of emotional experience. Thus they get an environment which (unless they are sharply otherwise differentiated) leads easily to experiments in passion. All this joins on to what you call the 'variational diathesis' of men of genius. But I should seek the explanation of the phenomenon less in the original sexual constitution than in the exercise of sympathetic, assimilative emotional qualities, powerfully stimulated and acted on by the conditions of the individual's life. The artist, the singer, the actor, the painter, are more exposed to the influences out of which sexual differentiation in an abnormal direction may arise. Some persons are certainly made abnormal by nature, others, of this sympathetic artistic temperament, may become so through their sympathies plus their conditions of life." It is possible there may be some element of truth in this view, which my correspondent regarded as purely hypothetical. In this connection I may, perhaps, mention a moral quality which is very often associated with dramatic aptitude, and also with minor degrees of nervous degeneration, and that is vanity and the love of applause. While among a considerable section of inverts it is not more marked than among the non-inverted, if not, indeed, less marked, among another section it is found in an exaggerated degree. In at least one of my cases vanity and delight in admiration, both as regards personal qualities and artistic productions, reach an almost morbid extent. And the quotations from letters written by various others of my subjects show a curious complacency in the description of their personal physical characters, markedly absent in other cases. It is suggested by Alexander Schmid, on the basis of Adler's views, that this vanity, which sometimes in the inverted artist becomes an exalted pride, as of a guardian of sacred mysteries, may be regarded as an effort to secure a compensation for the consciousness of feminine defect.[222] The extreme type of this preoccupation with personal beauty is represented by the history of himself sent by a young Italian of good family to Zola in the hope--itself a sign of vanity--that the distinguished novelist would make it the subject of one of his works. The history is reproduced in the _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_ (1894) and in _L'Homosexualité et les Types Homosexuels_ (1910) by "Dr. Laupts" (G. Saint-Paul). I quote the following passage: "At the age of 18 I was, with few differences, what I am now (at 23). I am rather below the medium height (1.65 metres), well proportioned, slender, but not lean. My torso is superb; a sculptor could find nothing against it, and would not find it very different from that of Antinotis. My back is very arched, perhaps too much so; and my hips are very developed; my pelvis is broad, like a woman's; my knees slightly approximate; my feet are small; my hands superb; the fingers curved back and with glistening nails, rosy and polished, cut squarely like those of ancient statues. My neck is long and round, the nape charmingly adorned with downy hairs. My head is charming, and at 18 was more so. The oval of it is perfect and strikes all by its infantine form. At 23 I am to be taken for 17 at most. My complexion is white and rosy, deepening at the faintest emotion. The forehead is not beautiful; it recedes slightly and is hollow at the temples, but, fortunately, it is half-covered by long hair, of a dark blonde, which curls naturally. The head is perfect in form, because of the curly hair, but on examination there is an enormous protuberance at the occiput. My eyes are oval, of a gray blue, with dark chestnut eyelashes and thick, arched eyebrows. My eyes are very liquid, but with dark circles, and bistered; and they are subject to slight temporary inflammation. My mouth is fairly large, with thick red lips, the lower pendent; they tell me I have the Austrian mouth. My teeth are dazzling, though three are decayed and stopped; fortunately, they cannot be seen. My ears are small and with very colored lobes. My chin is very fat, and at 18 it was smooth and velvety as a woman's; at present there is a slight beard, always shaved. Two beauty spots, black and velvety, on my left cheek, contrast with my blue eyes. My nose is thin and straight, with delicate nostrils and a slight, almost insensible curve. My voice is gentle, and people always regret that I have not learned to sing." This description is noteworthy as a detailed portrait of a sexual invert of a certain type; the whole history is interesting and instructive. Certain peculiarities in taste as regards costume have rightly or wrongly been attributed to inverts,--apart from the tendency of a certain group to adopt feminine habits,--and may here be mentioned. Tardieu many years ago referred to the taste for keeping the neck uncovered. This peculiarity may occasionally be observed among inverts, especially the more artistic among them. The cause does not appear to be precisely vanity so much as that physical consciousness which is so curiously marked in inverts, and induces the more feminine among them to cultivate feminine grace of form, and the more masculine to emphasize the masculine athletic habit. It has also been remarked that inverts exhibit a preference for green garments. In Rome _cinædi_ were for this reason called _galbanati_. Chevalier remarks that some years ago a band of pederasts at Paris wore green cravats as a badge. This decided preference for green is well marked in several of my cases of both sexes, and in some at least the preference certainly arose spontaneously. Green (as Jastrow and others have shown) is very rarely the favorite color of adults of the Anglo-Saxon race, though some inquirers have found it to be more commonly a preferred color among children, especially girls, and it is more often preferred by women than by men.[223] The favorite color among normal women, and indeed very often among normal men, though here not so often as blue, is red, and it is notable that of recent years there has been a fashion for a red tie to be adopted by inverts as their badge. This is especially marked among the "fairies" (as a _fellator_ is there termed) in New York. "It is red," writes an American correspondent, himself inverted, "that has become almost a synonym for sexual inversion, not only in the minds of inverts themselves, but in the popular mind. To wear a red necktie on the street is to invite remarks from newsboys and others--remarks that have the practices of inverts for their theme. A friend told me once that when a group of street-boys caught sight of the red necktie he was wearing they sucked their fingers in imitation of _fellatio_. Male prostitutes who walk the streets of Philadelphia and New York almost invariably wear red neckties. It is the badge of all their tribe. The rooms of many of my inverted friends have red as the prevailing color in decorations. Among my classmates, at the medical school, few ever had the courage to wear a red tie; those who did never repeated the experiment." MORAL ATTITUDE OF THE INVERT.--There is some interest in tracing the invert's own attitude toward his anomaly, and his estimate of its morality. As my cases are not patients seeking to be cured of their perversion, this attitude cannot be taken for granted. I have noted the moral attitude in 57 cases. In 8 the subjects loathe themselves, and have fought in vain against their perversion, which they often regard as a sin. Nine or ten are doubtful, and have little to say in justification of their condition, which they regard as perhaps morbid, a "moral disease." One, while thinking it right to gratify his natural instincts, admits that they may be vices. The remainder, a large majority (including all the women) are, on the other hand, emphatic in their assertion that their moral position is precisely the same as that of the normally constituted individual, on the lowest ground a matter of taste, and at least two state that a homosexual relationship should be regarded as sacramental, a holy matrimony; two or three even regard inverted love as nobler than ordinary sexual love; several add the proviso that there should be consent and understanding on both sides, and no attempt at seduction. The chief regret of 2 or 3 is the double life they are obliged to lead. When inverts have clearly faced and realized their own nature it is not so much, it seems, their conscience that worries them, or even the fear of the police, as the attitude of the world. An American correspondent writes: "It is the fear of public opinion that hangs above them like the sword of Damocles. This fear is the heritage of all of us. It is not the fear of conscience and is not engendered by a feeling of wrongdoing. Rather, it is a silent submission to prejudices that meet us on every side. The true normal attitude of the sexual invert (and I have known hundreds) with regard to his particular passion is not essentially different from that of the normal man with regard to his." It is noteworthy that even when the condition is regarded as morbid, and even when a life of chastity has, on this account, been deliberately chosen, it is very rare to find an invert expressing any wish to change his sexual ideals. The male invert cannot find, and has no desire to find, any sexual charm in a woman, for he finds all possible charms united in a man. And a woman invert writes: "I cannot conceive a sadder fate than to be a woman--an average woman reduced to the necessity of loving a man!" It will be seen that my conclusions under this head are in striking contrast to those of Westphal, who believed that every invert regarded himself as morbid, and probably show a much higher proportion of self-approving inverts than any previous series.[224] This is largely due to the fact that the cases were not obtained from the consulting-room, and that they represent in some degree the intellectual aristocracy of inversion, including individuals who, often not without severe struggles, have found consolation in the example of the Greeks, or elsewhere, and have succeeded in attaining a _modus vivendi_ with the moral world, as they have come to conceive it. FOOTNOTES: [183] The following analysis is based on somewhat fuller versions of my Histories than it was necessary to publish in the preceding chapters, as well as on various other Histories which are not here published at all. Numerous apparent discrepancies may thus be explained. [184] This frequency of nervous symptoms is in accordance with the most reliable observation everywhere. Thus, Hirschfeld (_Die Homosexualität_, p. 177) states that of 500 inverts, 62 per cent. showed nervous symptoms of one kind or another: sleeplessness, sleepiness, tremors, stammering, etc. [185] Hirschfeld finds that 54 per cent, of inverts become conscious of their anomaly under the age of 14. The anomaly may, however, be present at this early age, but not consciously until later. Hence the larger percentage recorded above. [186] In this connection I may quote an observation by Raffalovich: "It is natural that the invert should very clearly recall the precocity of his inclinations. In the existence of every invert a moment arrives when he discovers the enigma of his homosexual tastes. He then classes all his recollections, and to justify himself in his own eyes he remembers that he has been what he is from his earliest childhood. Homosexuality has colored all his young life; he has thought over it, dreamed over it, reflected over it--very often in perfect innocence. When he was quite small he imagined that he had been carried off by brigands, by savages; at 5 or 6 he dreamed of the warmth of their chests and of their naked arms. He dreamed that he was their slave and he loved his slavery and his masters. He has had not the least thought that is crudely sexual, but he has discovered his sentimental vocation." [187] Leppmann mentions a case (certainly extreme and abnormal) of a little girl of 8 who spent the night hidden on the roof, merely in order to be able to observe in the morning the sexual organs of an adult male cousin (_Bulletin de l'Union Internationale de Droit Pénal_, 1896, p. 118). [188] I fully admit, as all investigators must, the difficulty of tracing the influence of early suggestions, especially in dealing with persons who are unaccustomed to self-analysis. Sometimes it happens, especially in regard to erotic fetichism, that, while direct questioning fails to reach any early formative suggestion, such influence is casually elicited on a subsequent occasion. [189] I may add that I see no fundamental irreconcilability between the point of view here adopted and the facts brought forward (and wrongly interpreted) by Schrenck-Notzing. In his _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Conträrer Sexualempfindung_ (Vienna, 1895), this writer states: "The neuropathic disposition is congenital, as is the tendency to precocious appearance of the appetites, the lack of psychic resistance, and the tendency to imperative associations; but that heredity can extend to the object of the appetite, and influence the contents of these characters, is not shown. Psychological experiences are against it, and the possibility, which I have shown, of changing these impulses by experiment and so removing their danger to the character of the individual." It need not be asserted that "heredity extends to the object of the appetite," but simply that heredity culminates in an organism which is sexually best satisfied by that object. It is also a mistake to suppose that congenital characters cannot be, in some cases, largely modified by such patient and laborious processes as those carried on by Schrenck-Notzing. In the same pamphlet this writer refers to moral insanity and idiocy as supporting his point of view. It is curious that both these congenital manifestations had independently occurred to me as arguments against his position. The experiences of Elmira Reformatory and Bicêtre--not to mention institutions of more recent establishment--long since showed that both the morally insane and the idiotic can be greatly improved by appropriate treatment. Schrenck-Notzing seems to be unduly biased by his interest in hypnotism and suggestion. [190] "If an invert acquires, under the influence of external conditions," Féré wrote with truth (_L'Instinct Sexuel_, p. 238), "it is because he was born with an aptitude for such acquisition: an aptitude lacking in those who have been subjected to the same conditions without making the same acquisitions." [191] One of my subjects writes: "Inverts are, I think, naturally more liable to indulge in self-gratification than normal people, partly because of the perpetual suppression and disappointment of their desires, and also because of the fact that they actually possess in themselves the desired form of the male. This idea is a little difficult of explanation, but you can readily imagine to what frenzies of self-abuse a normal man would be impelled supposing that he included in his own the form of the female." [192] I do not here enter upon the consideration of the normal prevalence and significance of masturbation and allied phenomena, as I have dealt with this subject in the study of "Auto-erotism," in volume i of these _Studies_. [193] Hirschfeld also finds, among German inverts (_Die Homosexualität_, ch. iii), that the majority (though a smaller majority than I find in England and the United States) have not had intercourse with women; 53 per cent., he states, including a few married men, have never even attempted coitus, and over 50 per cent, are presumably impotent. The number of inverted women who have never had intercourse with men is still larger. [194] Otto Rank, _Imago_, Heft 3, 1913. [195] Erotic dreams have been discussed in "Auto-erotism," vol. i of these _Studies_, and the wider bearings of the subject in another work, _The Study of Dreams_. Many references to the extensive literature will be found in both these places. [196] E.g., _Archiv für Psychiatrie_, 1899; _Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie_, 1900. [197] Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, p. 71 et seq. Hirschfeld considers that the dreams of the inverted fall into two groups: one in which the dreamer imagines he is embracing a person of the same sex, and another in which he imagines that he is himself of the opposite sex. The latter class of dreams, constituting a pseudo-heterosexual group, seems to me to be rare, and they may, moreover, occur in heterosexual persons. [198] See Thoinot and Weysse, _Medico-legal Aspects of Moral Offenses_, pp. 165, 291, etc. [199] _Pedicatio_ (or _pædicatio_) is the most generally accepted technical term for the sodomitical intromission of the penis into the anus. It is usually derived from the Greek _pais_ (boy), but some authorities have derived it from _pedex_ or _podex_ (anus). The terms "paiderastia" and "pederast" are sometimes used to indicate the same act and agent. This use, however, is undesirable. It is best to confine the word "paiderastia" to its proper use as the name of the special institution of Greek boy love. It may be added that the Greeks themselves had many names (as many as 74) for paiderastia. See, on this subject of nomenclature, Iwan Bloch, _Der Ursprung der Syphilis_, vol. ii, pp. 527, 563. [200] It is the grosser forms of perversion which are first revealed in every field. In the first edition of this Study the predominance of _pedicatio_ was still greater; it is not practised by any of the subjects of the Histories added to the present edition, though several see no objection to it. [201] _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. viii, 1906, p. 712. [202] Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, p. 276 et seq. [203] "Men," remarks Q., "tend to fall in love with boys or youths, boys or youths with grown men, feminine natures with virile natures and _vice versâ_, and different races with each other." [204] Stubbes, in his _Anatomy of Abuses_, affirmed that "players and play-haunters in their secret conclaves play the Sodomites," and refers to some recent examples of men who had been desperately enamoured of player-boys thus clad in women's apparel, so far as to solicit them by words, by letters, even actually to abuse them. Later on, in 1633, Prynne, in his _Histrio-Mastix_ (part 1, p. 208 et seq.), strongly condemned "this putting on of woman's array" by actors on the same ground, and adds that he has heard credibly reported of a scholar of Balliol College that he was violently enamoured of a boy-player. In Japan, again where, as in China, woman's parts on the stage are taken by men (not always youths), the homosexuality of these players became, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, so notorious that they constituted a class requiring special regulation as Joro, or prostitutes. [205] This was remarked by even the earliest modern writers on homosexuality, like Hössli. See Hirschfeld, "Vom Wesen der Liebe," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. viii, 1906, p. 124 et seq. [206] Similarly Numa Praetorius asserts (_Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. viii, p. 732) that even the most virile homosexual men exhibit feminine traits, and adds that we could scarcely expect it to be otherwise when we find how constantly homosexual women show masculine traits. [207] Näcke, "Die Diagnose der Homosexualität," _Neurologisches Centralblatt_, April 16, 1908. [208] So also among American boarding-school girls. Thus Margaret Otis (_Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, June, 1913) has described the attraction which negro girls exert on white girls at school. The correspondence of these lovers, and sometimes their method of sex gratification, may occasionally be of an even coarsely passionate nature. [209] See "Sexual Selection in Man," vol. iv of these _Studies_. [210] Hirschfeld (_Die Homosexualität_, p. 283) found that 55 per cent. of inverts are attracted to qualities unlike their own, and 45 per cent. to qualities resembling their own, without regard to whether these qualities belonged to the secondary sexual sphere. It may be added that as regards the age of the persons they are attracted to, Hirschfeld (p. 281) admits two main groups, each including about 45 per cent. of the homosexual; _ephebophils_, attracted to youths between 14 and 21, and _androphils_, attracted to adults in the prime of life. This division, as may be seen from the histories included in the present volume, seems to hold good of British and American inverts. [211] Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, ch. v. [212] Krafft-Ebing tells of an inverted physician (a man of masculine development and tastes) who had had sexual relations with 600 more or less inverted men. He observed no tendency to sexual malformation among them, but very frequently an approximation to a feminine form of body, as well as insufficient hair, delicate complexion, and high voice. Well-developed breasts were not rare, and some 10 per cent, showed a taste for feminine occupations. [213] A similar condition of gynecomasty has been observed in connection with inversion by Moll, Laurent, Wey, etc. Olano ("La Secrecion Mamaria en los Invertidos Sexuales," _Archivos de Criminologia_, May, 1902, p. 305) further observed a certain amount of mammary secretion in an inverted man, 20 years of age, in Lima. [214] Hirschfeld finds. 7 per cent, inverts left-handed, and 6 per cent, partly so. Fliess attaches special importance to left-handedness in inversion, believing that in left-handed men feminine secondary sexual characters are marked, and in left-handed women masculine sexual character (_Der Ablauf des Lebens_, 1906). I am not prepared to deny this statement, but, more evidence is needed. [215] This point has been discussed by Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, pp. 156-8. [216] Bloch (_The Sexual Life of Our Time_, p. 500) attaches importance to this peculiarity, but it must be remembered that a high-pitched voice occurs frequently in undoubtedly heterosexual men in whom it seems often associated with high intellectual ability (Havelock Ellis, _A Study of British Genius_, p. 200). [217] See, e.g., Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, p. 151. [218] On the general signs of these conditions, see, e.g., H. Meige, "L'Infantilisme, Le Féminisme et les Hermaphrodites Antiques," _L'Anthropologie_. 1895; also Hastings Gilford, "Infantilism," _Lancet_, February 28 and March 7, 1914. [219] Merzbach has dealt with the tendency of inverts to adopt special professions: "Homosexualität und Beruf," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. iv, 1902. [220] Moll's experience in Germany also reveals the prevalence of inversion among literary men, though, of all occupations, he found the highest proportion among actors. Jäger has referred to the frequency of homosexuality among barbers. I have been told that among London hairdressers homosexuality is so prevalent that there is even a special attitude which the client may adopt in the chair to make known that he is an invert. Dr. Kiernan informs me that in Chicago, also, inversion is specially prevalent among barbers, and he adds that he is acquainted with two cases among women-barbers, a relatively large proportion. It is not difficult to understand this, bearing in mind the close physical association between the barber and his client. "W.G. was a barber's assistant," writes one of my subjects, "and I took an immense fancy to him at first-sight. He used to lather me, and the touch of his fingers was a delight. Later on he shaved me and I always looked forward to going to the barber's. If he were not able to attend to me I felt an incredible sinking of heart. The whole day seemed dull and useless. I used to make a mark in my pocket-diary every time he shaved me." [221] See, e.g., "Vom Weibmann auf der Bühne," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. iii, 1901, p. 313. It is curious to find a medico-legal record of this connection long before inversion was recognized. In June, 1833 (see _Annual Register_ under this date), a man died who had lived as a kept woman under the name of Eliza Edwards. He was very effeminate in appearance, with beautiful hair, in ringlets two feet long, and a cracked voice; he played female parts in the theater, "in the first line of tragedy," and "appeared as a most lady-like woman." The coroner's jury "strongly recommended to the proper authorities that some means may be adopted in the disposal of the body which will mark the ignominy of the crime." [222] A. Schmid, "Zur Homosexualität," _Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse_, vol. i, 1913, p. 237. [223] See for a summary of various statistics in several countries, Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, 5th ed., 1914, p. 174; also ib., "The Psychology of Red," _Popular Science Monthly_, August and September, 1900. [224] The proportion is not so large, however, as Hirschfeld (_Die Homosexualität_, p. 314) now finds in Germany, where inverts are better informed on the subject of this anomaly, for here 95 per cent. regard their feelings as natural. CHAPTER VI. THE THEORY OF SEXUAL INVERSION. What is Sexual Inversion?--Causes of Diverging Views--The Theory of Suggestion Unworkable--Importance of the Congenital Element in Inversion--The Freudian Theory--Embryonic Hermaphroditism as a Key to Inversion--Inversion as a Variation or "Sport"--Comparison with Color-blindness, Color-hearing, and Similar Abnormalities--What is an Abnormality?--Not Necessarily a Disease--Relation of Inversion to Degeneration--Exciting Causes of Inversion--Not Operative in the Absence of Predisposition. The analysis of these cases leads directly up to a question of the first importance: What is sexual inversion? Is it, as many would have us believe, an abominably acquired vice, to be stamped out by the prison? or is it, as a few assert, a beneficial variety of human emotion which should be tolerated or even fostered? Is it a diseased condition which qualifies its subject for the lunatic asylum? or is it a natural monstrosity, a human "sport," the manifestations of which must be regulated when they become antisocial? There is probably an element of truth in more than one of these views. Very widely divergent views of sexual inversion are largely justified by the position and attitude of the investigator. It is natural that the police-official should find that his cases are largely mere examples of disgusting vice and crime. It is natural that the asylum superintendent should find that we are chiefly dealing with a form of insanity. It is equally natural that the sexual invert himself should find that he and his inverted friends are not so very unlike ordinary persons. We have to recognize the influence of professional and personal bias and the influence of environment. There have been two main streams of tendency in the views regarding sexual inversion: one seeking to enlarge the sphere of the acquired (represented by Binet,--who, however, recognized predisposition,--Schrenck-Notzing, and recently the Freudians), the other seeking to enlarge the sphere of the congenital (represented by Krafft-Ebing, Moll, Féré, and today by the majority of authorities). There is, as usually happens, truth in both these views. But, inasmuch as those who represent the acquired view often deny any congenital element, we are called upon to discuss the question. The view that sexual inversion is entirely explained by the influence of early association, or of "suggestion," is an attractive one and at first sight it seems to be supported by what we know of erotic fetichism, by which a woman's hair, or foot, or even clothing, becomes the focus of a man's sexual aspirations. But it must be remembered that what we see in erotic fetichism is merely the exaggeration of a normal impulse; every lover is to some extent excited by his mistress's hair, or foot, or clothing. Even here, therefore, there is really what may fairly be regarded as a congenital element; and, moreover, there is reason to believe that the erotic fetichist usually displays the further congenital element of hereditary neurosis. Therefore, the analogy with erotic fetichism does not bring much help to those who argue that inversion is purely acquired. It must also be pointed out that the argument for acquired or suggested inversion logically involves the assertion that normal sexuality is also acquired or suggested. If a man becomes attracted to his own sex simply because the fact or the image of such attraction is brought before him, then we are bound to believe that a man becomes attracted to the opposite sex only because the fact or the image of such attraction is brought before him. Such a theory is unworkable. In nearly every country of the world men associate with men, and women with women; if association and suggestion were the only influential causes, then inversion, instead of being the exception, ought to be the rule throughout the human species, if not, indeed, throughout the whole zoölogical series. We should, moreover, have to admit that the most fundamental human instinct is so constituted as to be equally well adapted for sterility as for that propagation of the race which, as a matter of fact, we find dominant throughout the whole of life. We must, therefore, put aside entirely the notion that the direction of the sexual impulse is merely a suggested phenomenon; such a notion is entirely opposed to observation and experience, and will with difficulty fit into a rational biological scheme. The Freudians--alike of the orthodox and the heterodox schools--have sometimes contributed, unintentionally or not, to revive the now antiquated conception of homosexuality as an acquired phenomenon, and that by insisting that its mechanism is a purely psychic though unconscious process which may be readjusted to the normal order by psychoanalytic methods. Freud first put forth a comprehensive statement of his view of homosexuality in the original and pregnant little book, _Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie_ (1905), and has elsewhere frequently touched on the subject, as have many other psychoanalysts, including Alfred Adler and Stekel, who no longer belong to the orthodox Freudian school. When inverts are psycho-analytically studied, Freud believes, it is found that in early childhood they go through a phase of intense but brief fixation on a woman, usually the mother, or perhaps sister. Then, an internal censure inhibiting this incestuous impulse, they overcome it by identifying themselves with women and taking refuge in Narcissism, the self becoming the sexual object. Finally they look for youthful males resembling themselves, whom they love as their mothers loved them. Their pursuit of men is thus determined by their flight from women. This view has been set forth not only by Freud but by Sadger, Stekel, and many others.[225] Freud himself, however, is careful to state that this process only represents one type of stunted sexual activity, and that the problem of inversion is complex and diversified. This view may be said to assume a bisexual constitution as normal, and homosexuality arises by the suppression, owing to some accident, of the heterosexual component, and the path through an autoerotic process of Narcissism to homosexuality. On this general Freudian conception of homosexuality numerous variations have been based, and separate features specially emphasized, by individual psychoanalysts. Thus Sadger considers that, beneath the male individual loved by the invert, a female is concealed, and that this fact may be revealed by psychoanalysis which removes the upper layer of the psychic palimpsest; he believes that this disposition of the invert is favored by a frequent mixture of male and female traits in his near relatives; originally, "it is not man whom the homosexual man loves and desires but man and woman together in one form"; the heterosexual element is later suppressed, and then pure inversion is left. Further, developing Freud's view of the importance of anal eroticism (Freud, _Sammlung Kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre_, vol. ii), Sadger thinks that it is even the rule for a passive invert to have experienced anal eroticism in childhood and been frequently subjected to enemas, which have led to the desire for the anal intromission of the penis. (_Medizinische Klinik_, 1909, No. 2.) Jekels pushes this doctrine further and declares that all inverts are really passive; the invert is, in his love, he states, both subject and object; he identifies himself with his mother and sees in the object of his love his own youthful person. And what, Jekels asks, is the aim of this mental arrangement? It can scarcely by other, he replies, than in the part of the mother to stimulate the anal region of the object which has now become himself, and to procure the same pleasure which in childhood he experienced when his mother satisfied his anal eroticism. Jekels regards this view as the continuation and concretization of Freud's interpretation; and the main point in homosexuality, even when apparently passive, becomes the craving for anal-erotic satisfaction (L. Jekels, "Einige Bemerkungen zur Trieblehre," _Internationale Zeitschrift für Aerztliche Psychoanalyse_, Sept., 1913). Most psychoanalysts are cautious in denying a constitutional or congenital basis to inversion, though they leave it in the background. Ferenczi, in an interesting attempt to classify the homosexual (_Internationale Zeitschrift für Aerztliche Psychoanalyse_, March, 1914), remarks: "Psychoanalytic investigation shows that under the name of homosexuality the most various psychic states are thrown together, on the one hand true constitutional anomalies (inversion, or subject homoeroticism), on the other hand psychoneurotic obsessional conditions (object homoeroticism, or obsessional homoeroticism). The individual of the first kind essentially feels himself a woman who wishes to be loved by a man, while the other represents a neurotic flight from women rather than sympathy to men." The constitutional basis is very definitely accepted by Rudolf Ortvay who points out (_Internationale Zeitschrift für Aerztliche Psychoanalyse_, Jan., 1914) that the biological doctrine of recessives and dominants in heredity helps to make clear the emergence or suppression of homosexuality on a bisexual disposition. "Infantile events," he adds, "which, according to Freud, decide the sexual relations of adults, can only exert their operation on the foundation of an organic predisposition, infantile impressions being determined by hereditary predisposition." Isador Coriat, on the other hand, while recognizing two forms of inversion, incomplete and complete, boldly asserts that it is never congenital and never transmitted through heredity; it is always "originated through a definite unconscious mechanism" (Coriat, "Homosexuality," _New York Medical Journal_, March 22, 1913). Adler's view of homosexuality, as of other allied conditions, differs from that of most psychoanalysts by insisting on the presence of an original organic defect which the subject seeks to fortify into a point of strength; he accepts two chief components of inversion: a vagueness as to sexual differences and a process of self-assurance in the form of rebellion and defiance, and even the feminism of the invert may become a method of gaining power (A. Adler, _Ueber den Neurösen Charakter_, 1912, p. 21). The mechanism of the genesis of homosexuality put forward by Freud need not be dismissed offhand. Freud has often manifested the insight of genius, and he refrains from molding his conceptions in those inflexible shapes which have sometimes been adopted by the more dogmatic psychoanalysts who have followed him. Nor need we be unduly shocked by the "incestuous" air of the "Oedipus Complex,"[226] as it is commonly called, which figures as a component of the process. The word "incest," though it has been used by Freud himself, seems scarcely a proper word to apply to the vague and elementary feelings of children, especially when those feelings scarcely pass beyond a stage of non-localized and therefore really presexual feelings (in the ordinary use of the term "sexual") which may be regarded as natural and normal. The Freudian conception is misrepresented and prejudiced by the statement that it involves "incest."[227] When a child loves its mother with an entire love, that love necessarily involves the germs which in later life become separated and developed into sexual love, but it is inaccurate to term this love of the child "incestuous." It is quite easily conceivable that the psychic mechanism of the establishment of homosexuality has in some cases corresponded to the course described by Freud. It may also be admitted that, as psychoanalysts claim, the pronounced _horror feminæ_ occasionally found in male inverts may plausibly be regarded as the reversal of an early and disappointed feminine attraction. But it is impossible to regard this mechanism as invariable or even frequent. It is quite true, and I have found ample evidence of the fact, that inverts are often very closely attached to their mothers, even to a greater degree, indeed, than is the rule among normal children, and often like to be in constant association with their mothers. But this attraction is quite misunderstood if it is regarded as a peculiarly sexual attraction. Indeed, the whole point of the attraction is that the inverted boy vaguely feels his own feminine disposition and so shuns the uncongenial amusements and society of his own sex for the sympathy and community of tastes which he finds concentrated in his mother. So far from such association being evidence of sexual attraction it might more reasonably be regarded as evidence of its absence; just as the association of boys among themselves, and of girls among themselves, even in co-educational schools, is proof of the prevalence of heterosexual rather than of homosexual feeling. Confirmation of this point of view may be found in the fact--overlooked and sometimes even denied by psychoanalysts--that frequently, even in early childhood and simultaneously with this community of feeling with his mother, the homosexual boy is already experiencing the predominant fascination of the male. He feels it long before the age at which Narcissism is apt to occur, or at which self-consciousness has become sufficiently developed to allow the internal censure on unpermitted emotions to operate, or any flight from them to take place. Moreover, while most authorities have rarely been able to find any clear evidence of the sexual attraction of male inverts in childhood to mother or sister,[228] an attraction of this kind to father or brother seems less difficult to find, and if found it is incompatible with the typical Freudian process. In my own observation, among the Histories here recorded, there are at least two clear examples of such an attraction in childhood. It must further be said that any theory of the etiology of homosexuality which leaves out of account the hereditary factor in inversion cannot be admitted. The evidence for the frequency of homosexuality among the near relatives of the inverted is now indisputable. I have traced it in a considerable proportion of cases, and in many of these the evidence is unquestionable and altogether independent of the statement of the subject himself, whose opinion may be held to be possibly biased or unreliable.[229] This hereditary factor seems indeed to be called for by the Freudian theory itself. On that theory we need to know how it is that the subject passes through psychic phases, and reaches an emotional disposition, so unlike that of normal persona. The existence of a definite hereditary tendency in a homosexual direction removes that difficulty. Freud himself recognizes this and clearly asserts congenital psycho-sexual constitution, which must involve predisposition. On a general survey, therefore, it would appear that, on the psychic side, we may accept the reality of unconscious dynamic processes which in particular cases may be of the Freudian or similar type. But while the study of such mechanisms may illuminate the psychology of homosexuality, they leave untouched the fundamental organic factors now accepted by most authorities.[230] The rational way of regarding the normal sexual instinct is as an inborn organic impulse, reaching full development about the time of puberty.[231] During the period of development suggestion and association may come in to play a part in defining the object of the emotion; the soil is now ready, but the variety of seeds likely to thrive in it is limited. That there is a greater indefiniteness in the aim of the sexual impulse at this period we may well believe. This is shown not only by occasional tentative signs of sexual emotion directed toward the same sex in childhood, but by the frequently ideal and unlocalized character of the normal passion even at puberty. But the channel of sexual emotion is not thereby turned into an abnormal path. Whenever this happens we are bound to believe--and we have many grounds for believing--that we are dealing with an organism which from the beginning is abnormal. The same seed of suggestion is sown in various soils; in the many it dies out; in the few it flourishes. The cause can only be a difference in the soil. If, then, we must postulate a congenital abnormality in order to account satisfactorily for at least a large proportion of sexual inverts, wherein does that abnormality consist? Ulrichs explained the matter by saying that in sexual inverts a male body coexists with a female soul: _anima muliebris in corpore virile inclusa_. Even writers of scientific eminence, like Magnan and Gley, have adopted this phrase in a modified form, considering that in inversion a female brain is combined with a male body or male glands. This is, however, not an explanation. It merely crystallizes into an epigram the superficial impression of the matter.[232] We can probably grasp the nature of the abnormality better if we reflect on the development of the sexes and on the latent organic bisexuality in each sex. At an early stage of development the sexes are indistinguishable, and throughout life the traces of this early community of sex remain. The hen fowl retains in a rudimentary form the spurs which are so large and formidable in her lord, and sometimes she develops a capacity to crow, or puts on male plumage. Among mammals the male possesses useless nipples, which occasionally even develop into breasts, and the female possesses a clitoris, which is merely a rudimentary penis, and may also develop. The sexually inverted person does not usually possess any gross exaggeration of these signs of community with the opposite sex. But, as we have seen, there are a considerable number of more subtle approximations to the opposite sex in inverted persons, both on the physical and the psychic side. Putting the matter in a purely speculative shape, it may be said that at conception the organism is provided with about 50 per cent. of male germs and about 50 per cent. of female germs, and that, as development proceeds, either the male or the female germs assume the upper hand, until in the maturely developed individual only a few aborted germs of the opposite sex are left. In the homosexual, however, and in the bisexual, we may imagine that the process has not proceeded normally, on account of some peculiarity in the number or character of either the original male germs or female germs, or both, the result being that we have a person who is organically twisted into a shape that is more fitted for the exercise of the inverted than of the normal sexual impulse, or else equally fitted for both.[233] The conception of the latent bisexuality of all males and females cannot fail to be fairly obvious to intelligent observers of the human body. It emerges at an early period in the history of philosophic thought, and from the first was occasionally used for the explanation of homosexuality. Plato's myth in the _Banquet_ and the hermaphroditic statues of antiquity show how acute minds, working ahead of science, exercised themselves with these problems. (For a fully illustrated study of the ancient conception of hermaphroditism in sculpture see L.S.A.M. von Römer, "Ueber die Androgynische Idee des Lebens," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. v, 1903, pp. 711-939.) Parmenides, following Alcmaeon, the philosophic physician who discovered that the brain is the central organ of intellect, remarks Gomperz (_Greek Thinkers_, Eng. tr., vol. i, p. 183), used the idea of variation in the proportion of male and female generative elements to account for idiosyncrasies of sexual character. After an immense interval Hössli, the inverted Swiss man-milliner, in his _Eros_ (1838) put forth the Greek view anew. Schopenhauer, again from the philosophical side, recognized the bisexuality of the human individual (see Juliusburger, _Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, 1912, p. 630), and Ulrichs, from 1862 onward, adopted a similar doctrine, on a Platonic basis, to explain the "Uranian" constitution. After this the idea began to be more precisely developed from the scientific side, though not at first with reference to homosexuality, and more especially by the great pioneers of the doctrine of Evolution. Darwin emphasized the significance of the facts on this point, as later Weismann, while Haeckel, who was one of the earliest Darwinians, has in recent years clearly recognized the bearing on the interpretation of homosexuality of the fact that the ancestors of the vertebrates were hermaphrodites, as vertebrates themselves still are in their embryonic disposition (Haeckel, in _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, April, 1913, pp. 262-3, 287). This view had, however, been set forth at an earlier date by individual physicians, notably in America by Kiernan (_American Lancet_, 1884, and _Medical Standard_, November and December, 1888), and Lydston (_Philadelphia Medical and Surgical Reporter_, September, 1889, and _Addresses and Essays_, 1892). In 1893, in his _L'Inversion Sexuelle_, Chevalier, a pupil of Lacassagne--who had already applied the term "hermaphrodisme moral" to this anomaly--explained congenital homosexuality by the idea of latent bisexuality. Dr. G. de Letamendi, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of Madrid, in a paper read before the International Medical Congress at Rome in 1894, set forth a principle of panhermaphroditism--a hermaphroditic bipolarity--which involved the existence of latent female germs in the male, latent male germs in the female, which latent germs may strive for, and sometimes obtain, the mastery. In February, 1896, the first version of the present chapter, setting forth the conception of inversion as a psychic and somatic development on the basis of a latent bisexuality, was published in the _Centralblatt für Nervenheilkunde und Psychiatrie_. Kurella (ib., May, 1890) adopted a somewhat similar view, even arguing that the invert is a transitional form between the complete man or woman and the hermaphrodite. In Germany a patient of Krafft-Ebing had worked out the same idea, connecting inversion with fetal bisexuality (eighth edition _Psychopathia Sexualis_, p. 227). Krafft-Ebing himself at first simply asserted that, whether congenital or acquired, there must be _Belastung_; inversion is a "degenerate phenomenon," a functional sign of degeneration (Krafft-Ebing, "Zur Erklärung der conträren Sexualempfindung," _Jahrbuch für Psychiatrie_, 1894). In the later editions of _Psychopathia Sexualis_, however (1896 and onward and notably in _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. iii, 1901), he went farther, adopting the explanation on the lines of original bisexuality (English translation of tenth edition, pp. 336-7). In much the same language as I have used he argued that there has been a struggle in the centers, homosexuality resulting when the center antagonistic to that represented by the sexual gland conquers, and psycho-sexual hermaphroditism resulting when both centers are too weak to obtain victory, in either case such disturbance not being a psychic degeneration or disease, but simply an anomaly comparable to a malformation and quite consonant with psychic health. This is the view now widely accepted by investigators of sexual inversion. (Much material bearing on the history of this conception has been brought together by Hirschfeld, in _Die Homosexualität_, ch. xix, and previously in "Vom Wesen der Liebe," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. viii, 1906, pp. 111-133.) A similar or allied view is now constantly met with in writers of scientific authority who are only incidentally concerned with the study of sexual inversion. Thus Halban ("Die Entstehung des Geschlechtscharaktere," _Archiv für Gynäkologie_, 1903) regards hermaphroditism, which he would extend to the psychic sphere, as a state in which a double sexual impulse determines the course of fetal and later development. Shattock and Seligmann ("True Hermaphroditism in the Domestic Fowl, with Remarks on Allopterotism," _Transactions of Pathological Society of London_, vol. lvii, part i, 1906), pointing out that mere atrophy of the ovary cannot account for the appearance in the hen bird of male characters which are not retrogressive but progressive, argues that such birds are really bisexual or hermaphrodite, either by the single "ovary" being really bisexual, as was the case with a fowl they examined, or that the sexual glands are paired, one being male and the other female, or else that there is misplaced male tissue in a neighboring viscus like the adrenal or kidney, the male elements asserting themselves when the female elements degenerate. "Hermaphroditism," they conclude, "far from being a phenomenon altogether abnormal amongst the higher vertebrates, should be viewed rather as a reversion to the primitive ancestral phase in which bisexualism was the normal disposition.... True hermaphroditism in man being established, the question arises whether lesser grades do not occur.... Remote evidence of bisexuality in the human subject may, perhaps, be afforded by the psychical phenomenon of sexual perversion and inversion." Similarly in a case of unilateral secondary male character in an otherwise female pheasant, C.J. Bond has more recently shown (Section of Zoölogy, Birmingham Meeting of British Medical Association, _British Medical Journal_, Sept. 20, 1913) that an ovi-testis was present, with degenerating ovarian tissue and developing testicular tissue, and such islands of actively growing male tissue can frequently be found, he states, in the degenerating ovaries of female birds which have put forth male plumage. Sir John Bland-Sutton, referring to the fact that the external conformation of the body affords no positive certainty as to the nature of the internal sexual glands, adds (_British Medical Journal_, Oct. 30, 1909): "It is a fair presumption that some examples of sexual frigidity and sex perversion may be explained by the possibility that the individuals concerned may possess sexual glands opposite in character to those indicated by the external configuration of their bodies." Looking at the matter more broadly and fundamentally in its normal aspects, Heape declares (_Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society_, vol. xiv, part ii, 1907) that "there is no such thing as a pure male or female animal, but that all contain a dominant and recessive sex, except those hermaphrodites in which both sexes are equally represented.... There seems to me ample evidence for the conclusion that there is no such thing as a pure male or female." F.H.A. Marshall, again, in his standard manual, _The Physiology of Reproduction_ (1910, p. 655 et seq.), is inclined to accept the same view. "If it be true," he remarks, "that all individuals are potentially bisexual and that changed circumstances, leading to a changed metabolism, may, in exceptional circumstances, even in adult life, cause the development of the recessive characters, it would seem extremely probable that the dominance of one set of sexual characters over the other may be determined in some cases at an early stage of development in response to a stimulus which may be either internal or external." So also Berry Hart ("Atypical Male and Female Sex-Ensemble," a paper read before Edinburgh Obstetrical Society, _British Medical Journal_, June 20, 1914, p. 1355) regards the normal male or female as embodying a maximum of the potent organs of his or her own sex with a minimum of non-potent organs of the other sex, with secondary sex traits congruent. Any increase in the minimum gives a diminished maximum and non-congruence of the secondary characters. We thus see that the ancient medico-philosophic conception of organic bisexuality put forth by the Greeks as the key to the explanation of sexual inversion, after sinking out of sight for two thousand years, was revived early in the nineteenth century by two amateur philosophers who were themselves inverted (Hössli, Ulrichs), as well as by a genuine philosopher who was not inverted (Schopenhauer). Then the conception of latent bisexuality, independently of homosexuality, was developed from the purely scientific side (by Darwin and evolutionists generally). In the next stage this conception was adopted by the psychiatric and other scientific authorities on homosexuality (Krafft-Ebing and the majority of other students). Finally, embryologists, physiologists of sex and biologists generally, not only accept the conception of bisexuality, but admit that it probably helps to account for homosexuality. In this way the idea may be said to have passed into current thought. We cannot assert that it constitutes an adequate explanation of homosexuality, but it enables us in some degree to understand what for many is a mysterious riddle, and it furnishes a useful basis for the classification not only of homosexuality, but of the other mixed or intermediate sexual anomalies in the same group. The chief of these intermediate sexual anomalies are: (1) physical hermaphroditism in its various stages; (2) gynandromorphism, or eunuchoidism, in which men possess characters resembling those of males who have been early castrated and women possess similarly masculine characters; (3) sexo-esthetic inversion, or Eonism (Hirschfeld's transvestism or cross-dressing), in which, outside the specifically sexual emotions, men possess the tastes of women and women those of men. Hirschfeld has discussed these intermediate sexual stages in various works, especially in _Geschlechtsübergänge_ (1905), _Die Transvestiten_ (1910), and ch. xi of _Die Homosexualität_. Hermaphroditism (the reality of which has only of late been recognized and is still disputed) and pseudohermaphroditism; in their physical variations are fully dealt with in the great work, richly illustrated, _Hermaphroditismus beim Menschen_, by F.L. von Neugebauer, of Warsaw. Neugebauer published an earlier and briefer study of the subject in the _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_ vol. iv, 1902, pp. 1-176, with a bibliography in vol. viii (1906) of the same _Jahrbuch_, pp. 685-700. Hirschfeld emphasizes the fact that neither hermaphroditism nor eunuchoidism is commonly associated with homosexuality, and that a large proportion of the cases of transvestism, as defined by him, are heterosexual. True inversion seems, however, to be not infrequently found among pseudohermaphrodites; Neugebauer records numerous cases; Magnan has published a case in a girl brought up as a youth (_Gazette médical de Paris_, March 31, 1911) and Lapointe a case in a man brought up as a girl (_Revue de psychiatrie_, 1911, p. 219). Such cases may be accounted for by the training and associations involved by the early error in recognition of sex, and perhaps still more by a really organic predisposition to homosexuality, although the sexual psychic characters are not necessarily bound up with the coexistence of corresponding sexual glands. Halban (_Archiv für Gynäkologie_ 1903) goes so far as to class the homosexual as "real pseudohermaphrodites," exactly comparable to a man with a female breast or a woman with a beard, and proposes to term homosexuality "pseudohermaphroditus masculinus psychicus." This, however, is an unnecessary and scarcely satisfactory confusion. To place the group of homosexual phenomena among other intermediate groups on the organic bisexual basis is a convenient classification. It can scarcely be regarded as a complete explanation. It is probable that we may ultimately find a more fundamental source of these various phenomena in the stimulating and inhibiting play of the internal secretions.[234] Our knowledge of the intimate association between the hormones and sexual phenomena is already sufficient to make such an explanation intelligible; the complex interaction of the glandular internal secretions and their liability to varying disturbance in balance may well suffice to account for the complexity of the phenomena. It would harmonize with what we know of the occasional delayed manifestations of homosexuality, and would not clash with their congenital nature, for we know that a disordered state of the thymus, for instance, may be hereditary, and it is held that status lymphaticus may be either inborn or acquired.[235] Normal sexual characters seem to depend largely upon the due co-ordination of the internal secretions, and it is reasonable to suppose that sexual deviations depend upon their inco-ordination. If a man is a man, and a woman a woman, because (in Blair Bell's phrase) of the totality of their internal secretions, the intermediate stages between the man and the woman must be due to redistribution of those internal secretions.[236] We know that various internal secretions possess an influential sexual effect. Thus the atrophy of the thymus seems to be connected with sexual development at puberty; the thyroid reinforces the genital glands; adrenal overdevelopment can produce in a female the secondary characteristics of the male, as well as cause precocious development of maleness; etc. "An alteration in the metabolism," as F.H.A. Marshall suggests, "even in comparatively late life, may initiate changes in the direction of the opposite sex." Metabolic chemical processes may thus be found to furnish a key to complex and subtle sexual variations, alike somatic and psychic, although we must still regard such processes as arising on an inborn predisposition. Whatever its ultimate explanation, sexual inversion may thus fairly be considered a "sport," or variation, one of those organic aberrations which we see throughout living nature, in plants and in animals. It is not here asserted, as I would carefully point out, that an inverted sexual instinct, or organ for such instinct, is developed in early embryonic life; such a notion is rightly rejected as absurd. What we may reasonably regard as formed at an early stage of development is strictly a predisposition; that is to say, such a modification of the organism that it becomes more adapted than the normal or average organism to experience sexual attraction to the same sex. The sexual invert may thus be roughly compared to the congenital idiot, to the instinctive criminal, to the man of genius, who are all not strictly concordant with the usual biological variation (because this is of a less subtle character), but who become somewhat more intelligible to us if we bear in mind their affinity to variations. Symonds compared inversion to color-blindness; and such a comparison is reasonable. Just as the ordinary color-blind person is congenitally insensitive to those red-green rays which are precisely the most impressive to the normal eye, and gives an extended value to the other colors,--finding that blood is the same color as grass, and a florid complexion blue as the sky,--so the invert fails to see emotional values patent to normal persons, transferring those values to emotional associations which, for the rest of the world, are utterly distinct. Or we may compare inversion to such a phenomenon as color-hearing, in which there is not so much defect as an abnormality of nervous tracks producing new and involuntary combinations. Just as the color-hearer instinctively associates colors with sounds, like the young Japanese lady who remarked when listening to singing, "That boy's voice is red!" so the invert has his sexual sensations brought into relationship with objects that are normally without sexual appeal.[237] And inversion, like color-hearing is found more commonly in young subjects, tending to become less marked, or to die out, after puberty. Color-hearing, while an abnormal phenomenon, it must be added, cannot be called a diseased condition, and it is probably much less frequently associated with other abnormal or degenerative stigmata than is inversion; there is often a congenital element, shown by the tendency to hereditary transmission, while the associations are developed in very early life, and are too regular to be the simple result of suggestion.[238] All such organic variations are abnormalities. It is important that we should have a clear idea as to what an abnormality is. Many people imagine that what is abnormal is necessarily diseased. That is not the case, unless we give the word disease an inconveniently and illegitimately wide extension. It is both inconvenient and inexact to speak of color-blindness, criminality, and genius as diseases in the same sense as we speak of scarlet fever or tuberculosis or general paralysis as diseases. Every congenital abnormality is doubtless due to a peculiarity in the sperm or oval elements or in their mingling, or to some disturbance in their early development. But the same may doubtless be said of the normal dissimilarities between brothers and sisters. It is quite true that any of these aberrations may be due to antenatal disease, but to call them abnormal does not beg that question. If it is thought that any authority is needed to support this view, we can scarcely find a weightier than that of Virchow, who repeatedly insisted on the right use of the word "anomaly," and who taught that, though an anomaly may constitute a predisposition to disease, the study of anomalies--pathology, as he called it, teratology as we may perhaps prefer to call it--is not the study of disease, which he termed nosology; the study of the abnormal is perfectly distinct from the study of the morbid. Virchow considers that the region of the abnormal is the region of pathology, and that the study of disease must be regarded distinctly as nosology. Whether we adopt this terminology, or whether we consider the study of the abnormal as part of teratology, is a secondary matter, not affecting the right understanding of the term "anomaly" and its due differentiation from the term "disease." At the Innsbruck meeting of the German Anthropological Society, in 1894, Virchow thus expressed himself: "In old days an anomaly was called pathos, and in this sense every departure from the norm is for me a pathological event. If we have ascertained such a pathological event, we are further led to investigate what _pathos_ was the special cause of it.... This cause may be, for example, an external force, or a chemical substance, or a physical agent, producing in the normal condition of the body a change, an anomaly pathos. This can become hereditary under some circumstances, and then become the foundation for certain small hereditary characters which are propagated in a family; in themselves they belong to pathology, even although they produce no injury. For I must remark that pathological does not mean harmful; it does not indicate disease; disease in Greek is nosos, and it is nosology that is concerned with disease. The pathological under some circumstances can be advantageous" (_Correspondenz-blatt Deutsch Gesellschaft für Anthropologie_, 1894). These remarks are of interest when we are attempting to find the wider bearings of such an anomaly as sexual inversion. This same distinction has more recently been emphasized by Professor Aschoff (_Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift_, February 3, 1910; of. _British Medical Journal_, April 9, 1910, p. 892), as against Ribbert and others who would unduly narrow the conception of pathos. Aschoff points out that, not merely for the sake of precision and uniformity of terminology but of clear thinking, it is desirable that we should retain a distinction in regard to which Galen and the ancient physicians were very definite. They used pathos as the wider term involving affection (_affectio_) in general, not necessarily impairment of vital tissue; when that was involved there was nosos, disease. We have to recognize the distinction even if we reject the terminology. A word may be said as to the connection between sexual inversion and degeneration. In France especially, since the days of Morel, the stigmata of degeneration are much spoken of. Sexual inversion is frequently regarded as one of them: i.e., as an episodic syndrome of a hereditary disease, taking its place beside other psychic stigmata, such as kleptomania and pyromania. Krafft-Ebing long so regarded inversion; it is the view of Magnan, one of the earliest investigators of homosexuality;[239] and it was adopted by Möbius. Strictly speaking, the invert is degenerate; he has fallen away from the genus. So is a color-blind person. But Morel's conception of degenerescence has unfortunately been coarsened and vulgarized.[240] As it now stands, we gain little or no information by being told that a person is a "degenerate." It is only, as Näcke constantly argued, when we find a complexus of well-marked abnormalities that we are fairly justified in asserting that we have to deal with a condition of degeneration. Inversion is sometimes found in such a condition. I have, indeed, already tried to suggest that a condition of diffused minor abnormality may be regarded as a basis of congenital inversion. In other words, inversion is bound up with a modification of the secondary sexual characters. But these anomalies and modifications are not invariable,[241] and are not usually of a serious character; inversion is rare in the profoundly degenerate. It is undesirable to call these modifications "stigmata of degeneration," a term which threatens to disappear from scientific terminology, to become a mere term of literary and journalistic abuse. So much may be said concerning a conception or a phrase of which far too much has been made in popular literature. At the best it remains vague and unfitted for scientific use. It is now widely recognized that we gain little by describing inversion as a degeneration. Näcke, who attached significance to the stigmata of degeneration when numerous, was especially active in pointing out that inverts are not degenerate, and frequently returned to this point. Löwenfeld, Freud, Hirschfeld, Bloch, Rohleder all reject the conception of sexual inversion as a degeneracy. Moll is still unable to abandon altogether the position that since inversion involves a disharmony between psychic disposition and physical conformation we must regard it as morbid, but he recognizes (like Krafft-Ebing) that it is properly viewed as being on the level of a deformity, that is, an abnormality, comparable to physical hermaphroditism. (A. Moll, "Sexuelle Zwischenstufen," _Zeitschrift für aerztliche Fortbildung_, No. 24, 1904.) Näcke repeatedly emphasized the view that inversion is a congenital non-morbid abnormality; thus in the last year of his life he wrote (_Zeitschrift für die Gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie_, vol. xv, Heft 5, 1913): "We must not conceive of homosexuality as a degeneration or a disease, but at most as an abnormality, due to a disturbance of development." Löwenfeld, always a cautious and sagacious clinical observer, agreeing with Näcke and Hirschfeld, regards inversion as certainly an abnormality, but not therefore morbid; it may be associated with disease and degeneration, but is usually simply a variation from the norm, not to be regarded as morbid or degenerate, and not diminishing the value of the individual as a member of society (Löwenfeld, _Ueber die sexuelle Konstitution_, 1911, p. 166; also _Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, Feb., 1908, and _Sexual-Probleme_, April, 1908). Aletrino of Amsterdam pushes the view that inversion is a non-morbid abnormality to an undue extreme by asserting that "the uranist is a normal variety of the species _Homo sapiens_" ("Uranisme et Dégénérescence," _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Aug.-Sept., 1908); inversion may be regarded as (in the correct sense of the word here adopted) a pathological abnormality, but not as an anthropological human variety comparable to the Negro or the Mongolian man. (For further opinions in favor of inversion as an anomaly, see Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, p. 388 et seq.) Sexual inversion, therefore, remains a congenital anomaly, to be classed with other congenital abnormalities which have psychic concomitants. At the very least such congenital abnormality usually exists as a predisposition to inversion. It is probable that many persons go through the world with a congenital predisposition to inversion which always remains latent and unroused; in others the instinct is so strong that it forces its own way in spite of all obstacles; in others, again, the predisposition is weaker, and a powerful exciting cause plays the predominant part. We are thus led to the consideration of the causes that excite the latent predisposition. A great variety of causes has been held to excite to sexual inversion. It is only necessary to mention those which I have found influential. The first to come before us is our school-system, with its segregation of boys and girls apart from each other during the periods of puberty and adolescence. Many inverts have not been to school at all, and many who have been pass through school-life without forming any passionate or sexual relationship; but there remain a large number who date the development of homosexuality from the influences and examples of school-life. The impressions received at the time are not less potent because they are often purely sentimental and without any obvious sensual admixture. Whether they are sufficiently potent to generate permanent inversion alone may be doubtful, but, if it is true that in early life the sexual instincts are less definitely determined than when adolescence is complete, it is conceivable, though unproved, that a very strong impression, acting even on a normal organism, may cause arrest of sexual development on the psychic side. Another exciting cause of inversion is seduction. By this I mean the initiation of the young boy or girl by some older and more experienced person in whom inversion is already developed, and who is seeking the gratification of the abnormal instinct. This appears to be a not uncommon incident in the early history of sexual inverts. That such seduction--sometimes an abrupt and inconsiderate act of mere sexual gratification--could by itself produce a taste for homosexuality is highly improbable; in individuals not already predisposed it is far more likely to produce disgust, as it did in the case of the youthful Rousseau. "He only can be seduced," as Moll puts it, "who is capable of being seduced." No doubt it frequently happens in these, as so often in more normal "seductions," that the victim has offered a voluntary or involuntary invitation. Another exciting cause of inversion, to which little importance is usually attached, but which I find to have some weight, is disappointment in normal love. It happens that a man in whom the homosexual instinct is yet only latent, or at all events held in a state of repression, tries to form a relationship with a woman. This relationship may be ardent on one or both sides, but--often, doubtless, from the latent homosexuality of the lover--it comes to nothing. Such love-disappointments, in a more or less acute form, occur at some time or another to nearly everyone. But in these persons the disappointment with one woman constitutes motive strong enough to disgust the lover with the whole sex and to turn his attention toward his own sex. It is evident that the instinct which can thus be turned round can scarcely be strong, and it seems probable that in some of these cases the episode of normal love simply serves to bring home to the invert the fact that he is not made for normal love. In other cases, it seems,--especially those that are somewhat feeble-minded and unbalanced,--a love-disappointment really does poison the normal instinct, and a more or less impotent love for women becomes an equally impotent love for men. The prevalence of homosexuality among prostitutes may be, to a large extent, explained by a similar and better-founded disgust with normal sexuality.[242] These three influences, therefore,--example at school, seduction, disappointment in normal love,--all of them drawing the subject away from the opposite sex and concentrating him on his own sex, are exciting causes of inversion; but they require a favorable organic predisposition to act on, while there are a large number of cases in which no exciting cause at all can be found, but in which, from earliest childhood, the subject's interest seems to be turned on his own sex, and continues to be so turned throughout life. At this point I conclude the analysis of the psychology of sexual inversion as it presents itself to me. I have sought only to bring out the more salient points, neglecting minor points, neglecting also those groups of inverts who may be regarded as of secondary importance. The average invert, moving in ordinary society, is a person of average general health, though very frequently with hereditary relationships that are markedly neurotic. He is usually the subject of a congenital predisposing abnormality, or complexus of minor abnormalities, making it difficult or impossible for him to feel sexual attraction to the opposite sex, and easy to feel sexual attraction to his own sex. This abnormality either appears spontaneously from the first, by development or arrest of development, or it is called into activity by some accidental circumstance. FOOTNOTES: [225] See _passim, Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische Forschungen, Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse_, and _Internationale Zeitschrift für Aerztliche Psychoanalyse_; also Sadger, "Zur Aetiologie der Konträren Sexualempfindung," _Medizinische Klinik_, 1909, No. 2. [226] For an exposition of this by an able English representative of Freudian doctrines, see Ernest Jones, "The Oedipus Complex As An Explanation of Hamlet's Mystery," _American Journal of Psychology_, January, 1910. [227] The love of relations may be tinctured by all degrees of sexual love, some of which are so faint and vague that they cannot be considered unnatural or abnormal; it is misleading to term them incestuous. The Russian novelist, Artzibascheff, in his _Sanine_ described a brother's affection for his sister as thus touched with a perception of her sexual charm (I refer to the French translation), and the book has consequently been much abused as "incestuous," though the attitude described is very pale and conventional compared to the romantic passion sung in Shelley's _Laon and Cythna_, or the tragic exaltation of the same passion in Ford's great play, "_'Tis Pity She's a Whore_." [228] Thus Numa Praetorius, a sagacious observer with, a very wide and thorough knowledge of homosexuality, finds himself quite unable to accept the "Oedipus Complex" explanation of inversion (_Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, July, 1914, p. 362). [229] It cannot be maintained that the frequency of inversion among the near relatives of inverts is a chance coincidence, for it must be remembered that few estimates of the prevalence of inversion yield a higher proportion than 3 per cent. [230] See also a discussion of the Freudian view by Hirschfeld, who concludes (_Die Homosexualität_, p. 344) that we can only accept the Freudian mechanism as rare, and in all cases subordinate to organic predisposition. [231] It has been denied by some (Meynert, Näcke, etc.) that there is any sexual _instinct_ at all. I may as well, therefore, explain in what sense I use the word. (See also "Analysis of the Sexual Impulse" in vol. iii of these _Studies_.) I mean an inherited aptitude the performance of which normally demands for its full satisfaction the presence of a person of the opposite sex. It might be asserted that there is no such thing as an instinct for food, that it is all imitation, etc. In a sense this is true, but the automatic basis remains. A chicken from an incubator needs no hen to teach it to eat. It seems to discover eating and drinking, as it were, by chance, at first eating awkwardly and eating everything, until it learns what will best satisfy its organic mechanism. There is no instinct for food, it may be, but there is an instinct which is only satisfied by food. It is the same with the "sexual instinct." The tentative and omnivorous habits of the newly hatched chicken may be compared to the uncertainty of the sexual instinct at puberty, while the sexual pervert is like a chicken that should carry on into adult age an appetite for worsted and paper. It may be added here that the question of the hereditary nature of the sexual instinct has been exhaustively discussed and decisively affirmed by Moll in his _Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, 1898. Moll attaches importance to the inheritance of the normal aptitudes for sexual reaction in an abnormally weak degree as a factor in the development of sexual perversions. [232] This view was revived in a modified form by Näcke (_Zeitschrift für die gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie_, vol. xv, Heft 5, 1913), who supposed that there may be an anatomical "homosexual center" in the brain; i.e., a feminine libido-center in the inverted man, and a masculine libido-center in the inverted woman. He expressed a hope that in the future the brains of inverted persons would be more carefully investigated. [233] I do not present this view as more than a picture which helps us to realize the actual phenomena which we witness in homosexuality, although I may add that so able a teratologist as Dr. J.W. Ballantyne considers that "it seems a very possible theory." [234] This explanation of homosexuality has already been tentatively put forth. Thus, Iwan Bloch (_Sexual Life of Our Time_, ch. xix, Appendix) vaguely suggests a new theory of homosexuality as dependent on chemical influences. Hirschfeld also believes (_Die Homosexualität_, ch. xx) that the study of the internal secretions is the path to the deepest foundations of inversion. [235] A.E. Garrod, "The Thymus Gland in its Clinical Aspects," _British Medical Journal_, Oct. 3, 1914 [236] "The pure female and the pure male are produced by all the internal secretions," Blair Bell, "The Internal Secretions," _British Medical Journal_, Nov. 15, 1913. [237] After this chapter was first published (in the _Centralblatt für Nervenheilkunde_, February, 1896), Féré also compared congenital inversion to color-blindness and similar anomalies (Féré, "La Descendance d'un Inverti," _Revue Générale de Clinique et Thérapeutique_, 1896), while Ribot referred to the analogy with color-hearing (_Psychology of the Emotions_, part ii, ch. vii). [238] See, e.g., Flournoy, _Des Phenomènes de Synopsie_, Geneva, 1893; and for a brief discussion of the general phenomena of synesthesia, E. Parish, _Hallucinations and Illusions (Contemporary Science Series_), chapter vii; Bleuler, article "Secondary Sensations," in Tuke's _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_; and Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, 5th ed., 1915, pp. 181-4. [239] Magnan has in recent years reaffirmed this view ("Inversion Sexuelle et Pathologic Mentale," _Revue de Psychothérapie_, March, 1914): "The invert is a diseased person, a degenerate." [240] It is this fact which has caused the Italians to be shy of using the word "degeneration;" thus, Marro, in his great work, _I Caratteri del Delinquenti_, made a notable attempt to analyze the phenomena lumped together as degenerate into three groups: atypical, atavistic, and morbid. [241] Hirschfeld and Burchard among 200 inverts found pronounced stigmata of degeneration in only 16 per cent. (Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, ch. xx.) [242] Alcohol has sometimes been considered an important exciting cause of homosexuality, and alcoholism is certainly not uncommon in the heredity of inverts; according to Hirschfeld (_Die Homosexualität_, p. 386) it is well marked in one of the parents in over 21 per cent, of cases. But it probably has no more influence as an exciting cause in the individual homosexual person than in the individual heterosexual person. From the Freudian standpoint, indeed, Abraham believes (_Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, Heft 8, 1908) that even in normal persons alcohol removes the inhibition from a latent homosexuality, and Juliusburger from the same standpoint (_Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse_, Heft 10 and 11, 1912) thinks that the alcoholic tendency is unconsciously aroused by the homosexual impulse in order to reach its own gratification. But we may accept Näcke's conclusions (_Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, vol. lxviii, 1911, p. 852), that (1) alcohol cannot produce homosexuality in persons not predisposed, that (2) it may arouse it in those who are predisposed, that (3) the action of alcohol is the same on the homosexual as the heterosexual, and that (4) alcoholism is not common among inverts. CHAPTER VII. CONCLUSIONS. The Prevention of Homosexuality--The Influence of the School--Coeducation--The Treatment of Sexual Inversion--Castration--Hypnotism--Associational Therapy--Psycho-analysis--Mental and Physical Hygiene--Marriage--The Children of Inverts--The Attitude of Society--The Horror Aroused by Homosexuality--Justinian--The _Code Napoléon_--The State of the Law in Europe Today--Germany--England--What Should be our Attitude toward Homosexuality? Having now completed the psychological analysis of the sexual invert, so far as I have been able to study him, it only remains to speak briefly of the attitude of society and the law. First, however, a few words as to the medical and hygienic aspects of inversion. The preliminary question of the prevention of homosexuality is in too vague a position at present to be profitably discussed. So far as the really congenital invert is concerned, prevention can have but small influence; but sound social hygiene should render difficult the acquisition of homosexual perversity, or what has been termed pseudo-homosexuality. It is the school which is naturally the chief theater of immature and temporary homosexual manifestations, partly because school life largely coincides with the period during which the sexual impulse frequently tends to be undifferentiated, and partly because in the traditions of large and old schools an artificial homosexuality is often deeply rooted. Homosexuality in English schools has already been briefly referred to in chapter iii. As a precise and interesting picture of the phenomena in French schools, I may mention a story by Albert Nortal, _Les Adolescents Passionnés_ (1913), written immediately after the author left college, though not published until more than twenty-five years later, and clearly based on personal observation and experience. As regards German schools, see, e.g., Moll, _Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, p. 449 et seq., and for sexual manifestations in early life generally, the same author's _Sexual Life of the Child_; also Hirschfeld, _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. v, 1903, p. 47 et seq., and, for references, Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, p. 46 et seq. While much may be done by physical hygiene and other means to prevent the extension of homosexuality in schools,[243] it is impossible, and even undesirable, to repress absolutely the emotional manifestations of sex in either boys or girls who have reached the age of puberty.[244] It must always be remembered that profoundly rooted organic impulses cannot be effectually combated by direct methods. Writing of a period two centuries ago, Casanova, in relating his early life as a seminarist trained to the priesthood, describes the precautions taken to prevent the youths entering each other's beds, and points out the folly of such precautions.[245] As that master of the human heart remarks, such prohibitions intensify the very evil they are intended to prevent by invoking in its aid the impulse to disobedience natural to every child of Adam and Eve, and the observation has often been repeated by teachers since. We probably have to recognize that a way to render such manifestations wholesome, as well as to prepare for the relationships of later life, is the adoption, so far as possible, of the method of coeducation of the sexes,[246]--not, of course, necessarily involving identity of education for both sexes,--since a certain amount of association between the sexes helps to preserve the healthiness of the sexual emotional attitude. Association between the sexes will not, of course, prevent the development of congenital inversion. In this connection it is pointed out by Bethe that it was precisely in Sparta and Lesbos, where homosexuality was most ideally cultivated, that the sexes, so far as we know, associated more freely than in any other Greek State.[247] The question of the treatment of homosexuality must be approached with discrimination, caution, and skepticism. Nowadays we can have but little sympathy with those who, at all costs, are prepared to "cure" the invert. There is no sound method of cure in radical cases. At one time the seemingly very radical method of castration was advocated and occasionally carried out, as in a case I have recorded in a previous chapter (History XXVI). Like all methods of treatment, it is sometimes believed to have been successful by those who carried it out. Usually, after a short period, it is found to be unsuccessful, and in some cases the condition, especially the mental condition, is rendered worse. It is not difficult to understand why this should be. Sexual inversion, is not a localized genital condition. It is a diffused condition, and firmly imprinted on the whole psychic state. There may be reasons for castration, or the slighter operation of vasectomy, but, although sexual tension may be thereby diminished, no authority now believes that any such operation will affect the actual inversion. Castration of the body in adult age cannot be expected to produce castration of the mind. Moll, Féré, Näcke, Bloch, Rohleder, Hirschfeld, are all either opposed to castration for inversion, or very doubtful as to any beneficial results. In a case communicated to me by Dr. Shufeldt, an invert had himself castrated at the age of 26 to diminish sexual desire, make himself more like a woman, and to stop growth of beard. "But the only apparent physical effect," he wrote, "was to increase my weight 10 per cent., and render me a semi-invalid for the rest of my life. After two years my sexuality decreased, but that may have been due to satiety or to advancing years. I was also rendered more easily irritated over trifles and more revengeful. Terrible criminal auto-suggestions came into my head, never experienced before." Féré (_Revue de Chirurgie_, March 10, 1905) published the case of an invert of English origin who had been castrated. The inverted impulse remained unchanged, as well as sexual desire and the aptitude for erection; but neurasthenic symptoms, which had existed before, were aggravated; he felt less capable to resist his impulses, became migratory in his habits of life, and addicted to the use of laudanum. In a case recorded by C.H. Hughes (_Alienist and Neurologist_, Aug., 1914) the results were less unsatisfactory; in this case the dorsal nerve of the penis was first excised, without any result (see also _Alienist and Neurologist_, Feb., 1904, p. 70, as regards worse than useless results of cutting the pudic nerve), and a year or so later the testes were removed and the patient gained tranquillity and satisfaction; his homosexual inclinations appeared to go, and he began to show inclination for asexualized women, being specially anxious to meet with a woman whose ovaries had been removed on account of inversion. (Reference may also be made to Näcke, "Die Ersten Kastrationen aus sozialen Grunden auf europäischen Boden," _Neurologisches Centralblatt_, 1909, No. 5, and E. Wilhelm in _Juristisch-psychiatrische Grenzfragen_, vol. viii, Heft 6 and 7, 1911.) More trust has usually been placed in the psychotherapeutical than the surgical treatment of homosexuality. At one time hypnotic suggestion was carried out very energetically on homosexual subjects. Krafft-Ebing seems to have been the first distinguished advocate of hypnotism for application to the homosexual. Dr. von Schrenck-Notzing displayed special zeal and persistency in this treatment. He undertook to treat even the most pronounced cases of inversion by courses lasting more than a year, and involving, in at least one case, nearly one hundred and fifty hypnotic sittings; he prescribed frequent visits to the brothel, previous to which the patient took large doses of alcohol; by prolonged manipulations a prostitute endeavored to excite erection, a process attended with varying results. It appears that in some cases this course of treatment was attended by a certain sort of success, to which an unlimited good will on the part of the patient, it is needless to say, largely contributed. The treatment was, however, usually interrupted by continual backsliding to homosexual practices, and sometimes, naturally, the cure involved a venereal disorder. The patient was enabled to marry and to beget children.[248] It is a method of treatment which seems to have found few imitators. This we need not regret. The histories I have recorded in previous chapters show that it is not uncommon for even a pronounced invert to be able sometimes to effect coitus. It often becomes easy if at the time he fixes his thoughts on images connected with his own sex. But the perversion remains unaffected; the subject is merely (as one of Moll's inverts expressed it) practising masturbation _per vaginam_. Such treatment is a training in vice, and, as Raffalovich points out, the invert is simply perverted and brought down to the vicious level which necessarily accompanies perversity.[249] There can be no doubt that in slight and superficial cases of homosexuality, suggestion may really exert an influence. We can scarcely expect it to exert such influence when the homosexual tendency is deeply rooted in an organic inborn temperament. In such cases indeed the subject may resist suggestion even when in the hypnotic state. This is pointed out by Moll, a great authority on hypnotism, and with much experience of its application to homosexuality, but never inclined to encourage an exaggerated notion of its efficacy in this field. Forel, who was also an authority on hypnotism, was equally doubtful as to its value in relation to inversion, especially in clearly inborn cases. Krafft-Ebing at the end said little about it, and Näcke (who was himself without faith in this method of treating inversion) stated that he had been informed by the last homosexual case treated by Krafft-Ebing by hypnotism that, in spite of all good-will on the patient's side, the treatment had been quite useless. Féré, also, had no belief in the efficacy of suggestive treatment, nor has Merzbach, nor Rohleder. Numa Praetorius states that the homosexual subjects he is acquainted with, who had been so treated, were not cured, and Hirschfeld remarks that the inverts "cured" by hypnotism were either not cured or not inverted.[250] Moll has shown his doubt as to the wide applicability of suggestive therapeutics in homosexuality by developing in recent years what he terms association-therapy. In nearly all perverse individuals, he points out, there is a bridge,--more or less weak, no doubt,--which leads to the normal sexual life. By developing such links of association with normality, Moll believes, it may be possible to exert a healing influence on the homosexual. Thus a man who is attracted to boys may be brought to love a boyish woman.[251] Indications of this kind have long been observed and utilized, though not developed into a systematic method of treatment. In the case of bisexual individuals, or of youthful subjects whose homosexuality is not fully developed, it is probable that this method is beneficial. It is difficult to believe, however, that it possesses any marked influence on pronounced and developed cases of inversion.[252] Somewhat the same aim as Moll's association-therapy, though on the basis of a more elaborate theory, is sought by Freud's psychoanalytic method of treating homosexuality. For the psychoanalytic theory (to which reference was made in the previous chapter) the congenital element of inversion is a rare and usually unimportant factor; the chief part is played by perverse psychic mechanisms. It is the business of psychoanalysis to straighten these out, and from the bisexual constitution, which is regarded as common to every one, to bring into the foreground the heterosexual elements, and so to reconstruct a normal personality, developing new sexual ideals from the patient's own latent and subconscious nature. Sadger has especially occupied himself with the psychoanalytic treatment of homosexuality and claims many successes.[253] Sadger admits that there are many limits to the success of this treatment, and that it cannot affect the inborn factors of homosexuality when present. Other psychoanalysts are less sanguine as to the cure of inversion. Stekel appears to have stated that he has never seen a complete cure by psychoanalysis, and Ferenezi is not able to give a good account of the results; especially as regards what he terms obsessional homosexuality, he states that he has never succeeded in effecting a complete cure, although obsessions in general are especially amenable to psychoanalysis.[254] I have met with at least two homosexual persons who had undergone psychoanalytic treatment and found it beneficial. One, however, was bisexual, so that the difficulties in the way of the success--granting it to be real--were not serious. In the other case, the inversion persisted after treatment, exactly the same as before. The benefit he received was due to the fact that he was enabled to understand himself better and to overcome some of his mental difficulties. The treatment, therefore, in his case, was not a method of cure, but of psychic hygiene, of what Hirschfeld would call "adaptation-therapy." There can be no doubt that--even if we put aside all effort at cure and regard an invert's condition as inborn and permanent--a large and important field of treatment here still remains. As we have seen in the two previous chapters, sexual inversion cannot be regarded as essentially an insane or psychopathic state.[255] But it is frequently associated with nervous conditions which may be greatly benefited by hygiene and treatment, without any attempt at all to overcome a homosexual attitude which may be too deeply rooted to be changed. The invert is specially liable to suffer from a high degree of neurasthenia, often involving much nervous weakness and irritability, loss of self-control, and genital hyperesthesia.[256] Hirschfeld finds that over 67 per cent. inverts suffer from nervous troubles, and among the cases dealt with in the present _Study_ (as shown in chapter v) slight nervous functional disturbances are very common. These are conditions which may be ameliorated, and they may be treated in much the same way as if no inversion existed, by physical and mental tonics; or, if necessary, sedatives; by regulated gymnastics and out-of-door exercises; and by occupations which employ, without overexerting, the mind. Very great and permanent benefit may be obtained by a prolonged course of such mental and physical hygiene; the associated neurasthenic conditions may be largely removed, with the morbid fears, suspicions, and irritabilities that are usually part of neurasthenia, and the invert may be brought into a fairly wholesome and tonic condition of self-control. The inversion is not thus removed. But if the patient is still young, and if the perversion does not appear to be deeply rooted in the organism, it is probable that--provided his own good-will is aiding--general hygienic measures, together with removal to a favorable environment, may gradually lead to the development of the normal sexual impulse. If it fails to do so, it becomes necessary to exercise great caution in recommending stronger methods. Purely "Platonic association with the other sex," Moll points out, "leads to better results than any prescribed attempt at coitus." For even when such attempt is successful, it is not usually possible to regard the results with much satisfaction. Not only is the acquisition of the normal instinct by an invert very much on a level with the acquisition of a vice, but probably it seldom succeeds in eradicating the original inverted instinct.[257] What usually happens is that the person becomes capable of experiencing both impulses,--not a specially satisfactory state of things. It may be disastrous, especially if it leads to marriage, as it may do in an inverted man or still more easily in an inverted woman. The apparent change does not turn out to be deep, and the invert's position is more unfortunate than his original position, both for himself and for his wife.[258] It may be observed in the Histories brought forward in chapter iii that the position of married inverts (we must, of course, put aside the bisexual) is usually more distressing than that of the unmarried. Among my cases 14 per cent. are married. Hirschfeld finds that 16 per cent. of inverts are married and 50 per cent. are impotent; he is unable to find a single cure of homosexuality, and seldom any improvement, due to marriage; nearly always the impulse remains unaffected. The invert's happiness is, however, often affected for the worse, and not least by the feeling that he is depriving his wife of happiness. An invert, who had left his country through fear of arrest and married a rich woman who was in love with him, said to Hirschfeld: "Five years' imprisonment would not have been worse than one year of marriage."[259] In a marriage of this kind the homosexual partner and the normal partner--however ignorant of sexual matters--are both conscious, often with equal pain, that, even in the presence of affection and esteem and the best will in the world, there is something lacking. The instinctive and emotional element, which is the essence of sexual love and springs from the central core of organic personality, cannot voluntarily be created or even assumed.[260] For the sake of the possible offspring, also, marriage is to be avoided. It is sometimes entirely for the sake of children that the invert desires to marry. But it must be pointed out that homosexuality is undoubtedly in many cases inherited. Often, it is true, the children turn out fairly well, but, in many cases, they bear witness that they belong to a neurotic and failing stock;[261] Hirschfeld goes so far as to say that it is always so, and concludes that from the eugenic standpoint the marriage of a homosexual person is always very risky. In a large number of cases such marriages prove sterile. The tendency to sexual inversion in eccentric and neurotic families seems merely to be nature's merciful method of winding up a concern which, from her point of view, has ceased to be profitable. As a rule, inverts have no desire to be different from what they are, and, if they have any desire for marriage, it is usually only momentary. Very pathetic appeals for help are, however, sometimes made. I may quote from a letter addressed to me by a gentleman who desired advice on this matter: "In part, I write to you as a moralist and, in part, as to a physician. Dr. Q. has published a book in which, without discussion, hypnotic treatment of such cases was reported as successful. I am eager to know if your opinion remains what it was. This new assurance comes from a man whose moral firmness and delicacy are unquestionable, but you will easily imagine how one might shrink from the implantation of new impulses in the unconscious self, since newly created inclinations might disturb the conditions of life. At any rate, in my ignorance of hypnotism I fear that the effort to give the normal instinct might lead to marriage without the assurance that the normal instinct would be stable. I write, therefore, to explain my present condition and crave your counsel. It is with the greatest reluctance that I reveal the closely guarded secret of my life. I have no other abnormality, and have not hitherto betrayed my abnormal instinct. I have never made any person the victim of passion: moral and religious feelings were too powerful. I have found my reverence for other souls a perfect safeguard against any approach to impurity. I have never had sexual interest in women. Once I had a great friendship with a beautiful and noble woman, without any mixture of sexual feeling on my part. I was ignorant of my condition, and I have the bitter regret of having caused in her a hopeless love--proudly and tragically concealed to her death. My friendships with men, younger men, have been colored by passion, against which I have fought continually. The shame of this has made life a hell, and the horror of this abnormality, since I came to know it as such, has been an enemy to my religious faith. Here there could be no case of a divinely given instinct which I was to learn to use in a rational and chaste fashion, under the control of spiritual loyalty. The power which gave me life seemed to insist on my doing that for which the same power would sting me with remorse. If there is no remedy I must either cry out against the injustice of this life of torment between nature and conscience, or submit to the blind trust of baffled ignorance. If there is a remedy life will not seem to be such an intolerable ordeal. I am not pleading that I must succumb to impulse. I do not doubt that a pure celibate life is possible so far as action is concerned. But I cannot discover that friendship with younger men can go on uncolored by a sensuous admixture which fills me with shame and loathing. The gratification of passion--normal or abnormal--is repulsive to esthetic feeling. I am nearly 42 and I have always diverted myself from personal interests that threatened to become dangerous to me. More than a year ago, however, a new fate seemed to open to my unhappy and lonely life. I became intimate with a young man of 20, of the rarest beauty of form and character. I am confident that he is and always has been pure. He lives an exalted moral and religious life dominated by the idea that he and all men are partners of the divine nature, and able in the strength of that nature to be free from evil. I believe him to be normal. He shows pleasure in the society of attractive young women and in an innocent, light-hearted way refers to the time when he may be able to marry. He is a general favorite, but turned to me as to a friend and teacher. He is poor, and it was possible for me to guarantee him a good education. I began to help him from the longings of a lonely life. I wanted a son and a friend in my inward desolation. I craved the companionship of this pure and happy nature. I felt such a reverence for him that I hoped to find the sensuous element in me purged away by his purity. I am, indeed, utterly incapable of doing him harm; I am not morally weak; nevertheless the sensuous element is there, and it poisons my happiness. He is ardently affectionate and demonstrative. He spends the summers with me in Europe, and the tenderness he feels for me has prompted him at times to embrace and kiss me as he always has done to his father. Of late I have begun to fear that without will or desire I may injure the springs of feeling in him, especially if it is true that the homosexual tendency is latent in most men. The love he shows me is my joy, but a poisoned joy. It is the bread and wine of life to me; but I dare not think what his ardent affection might ripen into. I can go on fighting the battle of good and evil in my attachment to him, but I cannot define my duty to him. To shun him would be cruelty and would belie his trust in human fidelity. Without my friendship he will not take my money--the condition of a large career. I might, indeed, explain to him what I explain to you, but the ordeal and shame are too great, and I cannot see what good it would do. If he has the capacity of homosexual feeling he might be violently stimulated; if he is incapable of it, he would feel repulsion. "Suppose, then, that I should seek hypnotic treatment, I still do not know what tricks an abnormal nature might play me when diverted by suggestion. I might lose the joy of this friendship without any compensation. I am afraid; I am afraid! Might I not be influenced to shun the only persons who inspire unselfish feeling? "Bear with this account of my story. Many virtues are easy for me, and my life is spent in pursuits of culture. Alas, that all the culture with which I am credited, all the prayers and aspirations, all the strong will and heroic resolves have not rid my nature of this evil bent! What I long for is the right to love, not for the mere physical gratification, for the right to take another into the arms of my heart and profess all the tenderness I feel, to find my joy in planning his career with him, as one who is rightfully and naturally entitled to do so. I crave this since I cannot have a son. I leave the matter here. "When I read what I have written I see how pointless it is. It is possible, indeed, that brooding over my personal calamity magnifies in my mind the sense of danger to this friend through me, and that I only need to find the right relation of friendliness coupled with aloofness which will secure him against any too ardent attachment. Certainly I have no fear that I shall forget myself. Yet two things array themselves on the other side: I rebel inwardly against the necessity of isolating myself as if I were a pestilence, and I rebel against the taint of sensuous feeling. The normal man can feel that his instinct is no shame when the spirit is in control. I know that to the consciousness of others my instinct itself would be a shame and a baseness, and I have no tendency to construct a moral system for myself. I have, to be sure, moments when I declare to myself that I will have my sensuous gratification as well as other men, but, the moment I think of the wickedness of it, the rebellion is soon over. The disesteem of self, the sense of taint, the necessity of withdrawing from happiness lest I communicate my taint, that is a spiritual malady which makes the ground-tone of my existence one of pain and melancholy. Should you have only some moral consolation without the promise of medical assistance I should feel grateful." In such a case as this, one can do little more than advise the sufferer that, however painful his lot may be, it is not without its consolations, and that he would be best advised to pursue, as cheerfully as may be, the path that he has already long since marked out for himself. The invert sometimes fails to realize that for no man with high moral ideals, however normal he may be, is the conduct of life easy, and that if the invert has to be satisfied with affection without passion, and to live a life of chastity, he is doing no more than thousands of normal men have done, voluntarily and contentedly. As to hypnotism in such a case as this, it is altogether unreasonable to expect that suggestion will supplant the deeply rooted organic impulses that have grown up during a lifetime. We may thus conclude that in the treatment of inversion the most satisfactory result is usually obtained when it is possible by direct and indirect methods to reduce the sexual hyperesthesia which frequently exists, and by psychic methods to refine and spiritualize the inverted impulse, so that the invert's natural perversion may not become a cause of acquired perversity in others. The invert is not only the victim of his own abnormal obsession, he is the victim of social hostility. We must seek to distinguish the part in his sufferings due to these two causes. When I review the cases I have brought forward and the mental history of inverts I have known, I am inclined to say that if we can enable an invert to be healthy, selfrestrained and selfrespecting, we have often done better than to convert him into the mere feeble simulacrum of a normal man. An appeal to the _paiderastia_ of the best Greek days, and the dignity, temperance, even chastity, which it involved, will sometimes find a ready response in the emotional, enthusiastic nature of the congenital invert. Plato's Dialogues have frequently been found a source of great help and consolation by inverts. The "manly love" celebrated by Walt Whitman in _Leaves of Grass_, although it may be of more doubtful value for general use, furnishes a wholesome and robust ideal to the invert who is insensitive to normal ideals.[262] Among recent books, _Ioläus: An Anthology of Friendship_, edited by Edward Carpenter, may be recommended. A similar book in German, of a more extended character, is _Lieblingminne und Freudesliebe in der Weltliteratur_, edited by Elisár von Kupffer. Mention may also be made of the _Freundschaft_ (1912) of Baron von Gleichen-Russwurm, a sort of literary history of friendship, without specific reference to homosexuality, although many writers of inverted tendency are introduced. Platen's _Tagebücher_ are notable as the diary of an invert of high character and ideals. The volumes of the _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_ contain many studies bearing on the ideal and esthetic aspects of homosexuality. Various modern poets of high ability have given expression to emotions of exalted or passionate friendship toward individuals of the same sex, whether or not such friendship can properly be termed homosexual. It is scarcely necessary to refer to _In Memoriam_, in which Tennyson enshrined his affection for his early friend, Arthur Hallam, and developed a picture of the universe on the basis of that affection. The poems of Edward Cracroft Lefroy are notable, and Mr. John Gambril Nicholson has privately issued several volumes of verse (_A Chaplet of Southernwood, A Garland of Ladslove_, etc.) showing delicate charm combined with high technical skill. Some books mainly or entirely written in prose may fairly be included in the same group. Such are _In the Key of Blue_, by John Addington Symonds, and the _Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton_ (published anonymously by a well-known author, A.C. Benson), in which on somewhat Platonic lines the idea is worked out that the individual sufferer must pass "from the love of one fair form to the love of abstract beauty" and "from the contemplation of his own suffering to the consideration of the root of all human suffering." As regards the modern poetic literature of feminine homosexuality there is probably nothing to put beside the various volumes--pathetic in their brave simplicity and sincerity--of "Renée Vivien" (see _ante_, p. 200). Most other feminine singers of homosexuality have cautiously thrown a veil of heterosexuality over their songs. Novels of a more or less definitely homosexual tone are now very numerous in English, French, German, and other languages. In English the homosexuality is for the most part veiled and the narrative deals largely with school-life and boys in order that the emotional and romantic character of the relations described may appear more natural. Thus _Tim_, an anonymously published book by H.O. Sturgis (1891), described the devotion of a boy to an older boy at Eton and his death at an early age. _Jaspar Tristram_, by A.W. Clarke (1899), again, is a well-written story of a schoolboy friendship of homosexual tone; a boy is represented as feeling attraction to boys who are like girls, and a girl became attractive to the hero because she is like a boy and recalls her brother whom he had formerly loved. _The Garden God: A Tale of Two Boys_, by Forrest Reid (1905), is another rather similar book, in its way a charming and delicately written idyll. _Imre: A Memorandum_, (1906), by "Xavier Mayne" (the pseudonym of an American author, who has also written _The Intersexes_), privately issued at Naples, is a book of a different class; representing the frankly homosexual passion of two mutually attracted men, an Englishman who is supposed to write the story and a Hungarian officer; it embodies a notable narrative of homosexual development which is probably more or less real. In French there are a number of novels dealing with homosexuality, sometimes sympathetically, sometimes with artistic indifference, sometimes satirically. André Gide (in _L'Immoraliste_ and other books), Rachilde (Madame Vallette), Willy (in the well-known _Claudine_ series) may be mentioned, among other writers of more or less distinction, who have once or oftener dealt with homosexuality. Special reference should be made to the Belgian author George Eekhoud, whose _Escal-Vigor_ (prosecuted at Bruges on its publication) is a book of special power. The homosexual stories of Essebac, of which _L'Elu_ (1902) is considered the best, are of a romantic and sentimental character. _Lucien_ (1910), by Binet-Valmer, is a penetrating and scarcely sympathetic study of inversion. Nortal's _Les Adolescents Passionnés_ (already mentioned, p. 325) is a notably intimate and precise study of homosexuality in French schools. It would be easy to mention many others. In Germany during recent years many novels of homosexual character have been published. They are not usually, it would seem, of high literary character, but are sometimes notable as being more or less disguised narratives of real fact. Body's _Aus Eines Mannes Mädchenjahren_ is said to be a faithful autobiography. _Der Neue Werther: eine Hellenische Passions-geschichte_ by Narkissos (1902) is also said to be authentic. Another book that may be mentioned is Konradin's _Ein Junger Platos: Aus dem Leben eines Entgbeistes_ (1914). The German belletristic literature of homosexuality, as well as that of other countries, will be found adequately summarized and criticised by Numa Praetorius in the volumes of the _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_. See also Hirschfeld's _Die Homosexualität_, pp. 47 and 1018 et seq. It is by some such method of self-treatment as this that most of the more highly intelligent men and women whose histories I have already briefly recorded have at last slowly and instinctively reached a condition of relative health and peace, both physical and moral. The method of self-restraint and self-culture, without self-repression, seems to be the most rational method of dealing with sexual inversion when that condition is really organic and deeply rooted. It is better that a man should be enabled to make the best of his own strong natural instincts, with all their disadvantages, than that he should be unsexed and perverted, crushed into a position which he has no natural aptitude to occupy. As both Raffalovich and Féré have insisted, it is the ideal of chastity, rather than of normal sexuality, which the congenital invert should hold before his eyes. He may not have in him the making of _l'homme moyen sensuel_; he may have in him the making of a saint.[263] What good work in the world the inverted may do is shown by the historical examples of distinguished inverts; and, while it is certainly true that these considerations apply chiefly to the finer-grained natures, the histories I have brought together suffice to show that such natures constitute a considerable proportion of inverts. The helplessly gross sexual appetite cannot thus be influenced; but that remains true whether the appetite is homosexual or heterosexual, and nothing is gained by enabling it to feed on women as well as on men. A strictly ascetic life, it needs scarcely be said, is with difficulty possible for all persons, either homosexual or heterosexual. It is, however, outside the province of the physician to recommend his inverted patients to live according to their homosexual impulses, even when those impulses seem to be natural to the person displaying them. The most that the physician is entitled to do, it seems to me, is to present the situation clearly, and leave to the patient a decision for which he must himself accept the responsibility. Forel goes so far as to say that he sees no reason why inverts should not build cities of their own and marry each other if they so please, since they can do no harm to normal adults, while children can be protected from them.[264] Such notions are, however, too far removed from our existing social conventions to be worth serious consideration. The standpoint here taken up, it may be remarked, by no means denies to the invert a right to the fulfillment of his impulses. Numa Praetorius remarks, it would seem justly, that while the invert must properly be warned against unnatural sexual license, and while those who are capable of continence do well to preserve it, to deny all right to sexual activity to the invert merely causes those inverts who are incapable of self-control to throw recklessly aside all restraints (_Zeitschrift für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. viii, 1906, p. 726). The invert has the right to sexual indulgence, it may be, but he has also the duty to accept the full responsibility for his own actions, and the necessity to recognize the present attitude of the society he lives in. He cannot be advised to set himself in violent opposition to that society. The world will not be a tolerable place for pronounced inverts until they are better understood, and that will involve a radical change in general and even medical opinion. An inverted physician, of high character and successful in his profession, writes to me on this point: "The first, and easiest, thing to do, it seems to me, is to convince the medical profession that we unfortunate people are not only as sane, but as moral, as our normal brothers; and that we are even more alive to the supreme necessity of self-control (necessary from every point of view) than they. It is not license we want, but justice; it is the cruelty and prejudice of convention which we wish to abolish--not the proper and just indignation of society with crimes against the social order. We want to make it possible for us to satisfy our inborn instincts (which are not concerned essentially with sexual acts, so called, alone) without thereby becoming criminals. One of us who would, under any circumstances, seduce a person of his own sex of immature age, and particularly one whose sexual complexion was unknown, deserves the severe punishment which would be meted out to a normal person who did the same to a young girl--_but no more_; while, so long as no public offense is given, there should be _no penalty or obloquy whatever_ attached to sexual acts committed with full consent between mature persons. These acts may or may not be wrong and immoral, just as sexual acts between mature persons of different sexes may or may not be wrong or immoral. But in neither case has the law any concern; and public opinion should make no distinction between the two. It is in the highest degree important that it should be clearly understood that we want no relaxation of moral obligations. At present we suffer an inconceivably cruel wrong." We have always to remember, and there is, indeed, no possibility of forgetting, that the question of homosexuality is a social question. Within certain limits, the gratification of the normal sexual impulse, even outside marriage, arouses no general or profound indignation; and is regarded as a private matter; rightly or wrongly, the gratification of the homosexual impulse is regarded as a public matter. This attitude is more or less exactly reflected in the law. Thus it happens that whenever a man is openly detected in a homosexual act, however exemplary his life may previously have been, however admirable it may still be in all other relations, every ordinary normal citizen, however licentious and pleasure-loving his own life may be, feels it a moral duty to regard the offender as hopelessly damned and to help in hounding him out of society. At very brief intervals cases occur, and without reaching the newspapers are more or less widely known, in which distinguished men in various fields, not seldom clergymen, suddenly disappear from the country or commit suicide in consequence of some such exposure or the threat of it. It is probable that many obscure tragedies could find their explanation in a homosexual cause. Some of the various tragic ways in which homosexual passions are revealed to society may be illustrated by the following communication from a correspondent, not himself inverted, who here narrates cases that came under his observation in various parts of the United States. The cases referred to will be known to many, but I have disguised the names of persons and places:-- "At the age of 14 I was a chorister at ---- church, whose choirmaster, an Englishman named M.W.M., was an accomplished man, seemingly a perfect gentleman, and a devout churchman. He never seemed to care for the society of ladies, never mingled much with the men, but sought companionship with the choristers of my age. He frequently visited at the homes of his favorites, to tea, and when he asked the parents' consent for George's or Frank's company on an excursion or to the theater, and then to spend the night with him, such request was invariably granted. I shall ever remember my first night with him; he began by fondling and caressing me, quieting my alarm by assurances of not hurting me, and after invoking me to secrecy and with promises of many future pleasures, I consented to his desire or passion, which he seemed to satisfy by an attempt at _fellatio_. Was this depravity? I would say 'No!' after reading his subsequent confession, found in his room after his death by suicide. This was brought about by his too intimate relations with the rector's son who contracted St. Vitus's dance and in the delirium of a fever that followed from nervous exhaustion told of him and his doings. A thorough investigation took place and M. fled, a broken-hearted and disgraced man, who, as the result of remorse, relentless persecution, and exposure through several years, ended his life by drowning himself. In his confession he spoke of having been raised under a very strong moral restraint and having lived an exemplary life, with the exception of this strange desire that his will-power could not control. "The next case is that of C.H. He came of an old family of brainy men who have, and do yet, occupy prominent places in the pulpit and the bar, and was himself a gifted young attorney. I knew him intimately, as for six years he was a close neighbor and we were associated in lodge-work. He was an effeminate little fellow: height, 5 feet 2 inches; weight, 105 pounds; very near-sighted; and he had a light voice, not a treble or falsetto, but still a voice that detracted materially from the beautiful rhetoric that flowed from his lips. He had served his country as its representative in the Legislature and had received the nomination for senator, over a hard-fought political battle. The last canvass and speeches were made at a town which was, in consequence, crowded. That night H. had to occupy a room with a stranger, named E., a travelling salesman. There were two beds in this room. Mr. E., on the following day told several people that during the night he was awakened by H., who had come over to his bed and had his mouth on his 'person,' and that he had threatened to kick him out of the room, but that H. pleaded with him and fell on his knees and swore that he had been overcome by a passion that he had heretofore controlled, and begged of him not to expose him. These facts coming to the notice of his opponents, within twenty-four hours, they hastened to take advantage of it by placarding H. as a second Oscar Wilde, and stating the facts as far as decency and the law allowed. H.'s friends came to him and gave him one of two alternatives: if guilty, either to kill himself or leave that section forever; if not guilty, to slay his traducer, E.H. affirmed his innocence, and in company with two friends, C. and J., took the train for ----. Learning there that E. was at a town twelve miles east, they hired a fast livery and drove overland. They found E. at the station, awaiting the arrival of a train. H., with a pistol, strode forward and in his excitement said: 'You exposed me, did you?' Being near-sighted, his aim proved wide of the mark. E. sprang forward and grappled with H. for possession of the pistol, and was fired upon by C. and J., who shot him in the back. He expired in a few minutes, his last statement being to the effect that H. was guilty as accused. H., C., and J. were sentenced to the penitentiary for life. During my six years' acquaintance with H. I knew of nothing derogatory to his character, nor has anyone ever come forward to say that on any other occasion he ever displayed this weakness. I know his early life had a pure atmosphere, as he was an only child and the idol of both his parents, who builded high their hopes of his future success, and who survive this disgrace, but are broken-hearted. "The next case is that of the Rev. T.W., professor at the University of ----. Mr. W. is a scholarly gentleman, affable in his address, eloquent in his oratory, and a fine classical scholar. He was exposed by some of his students, who, to use a slang phrase, accused him of being a 'head-worker.' At his examination by the faculty he confessed his weakness, and said he could not control his unholy passion. His resignation was accepted both by the church and the college, and he left. "I know of a few other cases that have their peculiar traits, and am confident that these persons did not become possessed of this habit through the so-called 'indiscretions of youth,' as in every case their early life was freer from contamination than that of 90 per cent. of the boys who, on reaching man's estate, have, like myself, no desire to deviate from the old-fashioned way formulated by our ancient sire, Adam." It can scarcely be said that the consciousness of this attitude of society is favorable to the invert's attainment of a fairly sane and well-balanced state of mind. This is, indeed, one of the great difficulties in his way, and often causes him to waver between extremes of melancholia and egotistic exaltation. We regard all homosexuality with absolute and unmitigated disgust. We have been taught to venerate Alexander the Great, Epaminondas, Socrates, and other antique heroes; but they are safely buried in the remote past, and do not affect our scorn of homosexuality in the present. It was in the fourth century, at Rome, that the strong modern opposition to homosexuality was first clearly formulated in law.[265] The Roman race had long been decaying; sexual perversions of all kinds flourished; the population was dwindling. At the same time, Christianity, with its Judaic-Pauline antagonism to homosexuality, was rapidly spreading. The statesmen of the day, anxious to quicken the failing pulses of national life, utilized this powerful Christian feeling. Constantine, Theodosius, and Valentinian all passed laws against homosexuality, the last, at all events, ordaining as penalty the _vindices flammæ_; but their enactments do not seem to have been strictly carried out. In the year 538, Justinian, professing terror of certain famines, earthquakes, and pestilences in which he saw the mysterious "recompense which was meet" prophesied by St. Paul,[266] issued his edict condemning unnatural offenders to the sword, "lest as the result of these impious acts" (as the preamble to his Novella 77 has it) "whole cities should perish, together with their inhabitants; for we are taught by Holy Scripture that through these acts cities have perished with the men in them."[267] This edict (which Justinian followed up by a fresh ordinance to the same effect) constituted the foundation of legal enactment and social opinion concerning the matter in Europe for thirteen hundred years.[268] In France the _vindices flammæ_ survived to the last; St. Louis had handed over these sacrilegious offenders to the Church to be burned; in 1750 two pederasts were burned in the Place de Grève, and only a few years before the Revolution a Capuchin monk named Pascal was also burned. After the Revolution, however, began a new movement, which has continued slowly and steadily ever since, though it still divides European nations into two groups. Justinian, Charlemagne, and St. Louis had insisted on the sin and sacrilege of sodomy as the ground for its punishment.[269] It was doubtless largely as a religious offense that the _Code Napoléon_ omitted to punish it. The French law makes a clear and logical distinction between crime on the one hand, vice and irreligion on the other, only concerning itself with the former. Homosexual practices in private, between two consenting adult parties, whether men or women, are absolutely unpunished by the _Code Napoléon_ and by French law of today. Only under three conditions does the homosexual act come under the cognizance of the law as a crime: (1) when there is _outrage public à la pudeur_,--i.e., when the act is performed in public or with a possibility of witnesses; (2) when there is violence or absence of consent, in whatever degree the act may have been consummated; (3) when one of the parties is under age, or unable to give valid consent; in some cases it appears possible to apply Article 334 of the penal code, directed against habitual excitation to debauch of young persons of either sex under the age of 21. This method of dealing with unnatural offenses has spread widely, at first because of the political influence of France, and more recently because such an attitude has commended itself on its merits. In Belgium the law is similar to that of the _Code Napoléon_, as it is also in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Roumania, Japan, and numerous South American lands. In Switzerland the law is a little vague and varies slightly in the different cantons, but it is not severe; in Geneva and some other cantons there is no penalty; the general tendency is to inflict brief imprisonment when serious complaints have been lodged, and cases can sometimes be settled privately by the magistrate. The only large European countries in which homosexuality _per se_ remains a penal offense appear to be Germany, Austria, Russia, and England. In several of the German States, such as Bavaria and Hanover, simple homosexuality formerly went unpunished, but when the laws of Prussia were in 1871 applied to the new German Empire this ceased to be the case, and unnatural carnality between males became an offense against the law. This article of the German Code (Section 175) has caused great discussion and much practical difficulty, because, although the terms of the law make it necessary to understand by _widernatürliche Unzucht_ other practices besides _pædicatio_, not every homosexual practice is included; it must be some practice resembling normal coitus. There is a widespread opinion that this article of the code should be abolished; it appears that at one time an authoritative committee pronounced in favor of this step, and their proposition came near adoption. The Austrian law is somewhat similar to the German, but it applies to women as well as to men; this is logical, for there is no reason why homosexuality should be punished in men and left unpunished in women. In Russia the law against homosexual practices appears to be very severe, involving, in some cases, banishment to Siberia and deprivation of civil rights; but it can scarcely be rigorously executed. The existing law in England is severe, but simple. Carnal knowledge _per anum_ of either a man or a woman or an animal is punishable by a sentence of penal servitude with not less than three years, or of imprisonment with not more than two years. Even "gross indecency" between males, however privately committed, has been since 1885 a penal offense.[270] The clause is open to criticism. With the omission of the words "or private," it would be sound and in harmony with the most enlightened European legislation; but it must be pointed out that an act only becomes indecent when those who perform it or witness it regard it as indecent. The act which brought each of us into the world is not indecent; it would become so if carried on in public. If two male persons, who have reached years of discretion, consent together to perform some act of sexual intimacy in private, no indecency has been committed. If one of the consenting parties subsequently proclaims the act, indecency may doubtless be created, as may happen also in the case of normal sexual intercourse, but it seems contrary to good policy that such proclamation should convert the act itself into a penal offense. Moreover, "gross indecency" between males usually means some form of mutual masturbation; no penal code regards masturbation as an offense, and there seems to be no sufficient reason why mutual masturbation should be so regarded.[271] The main point to be insured is that no boy or girl who has not reached years of discretion should be seduced or abused by an older person, and this point is equally well guaranteed on the basis introduced by the _Code Napoléon_. However shameful, disgusting, personally immoral, and indirectly antisocial it may be for two adult persons of the same sex, men or women, to consent together to perform an act of sexual intimacy in private, there is no sound or adequate ground for constituting such act a penal offense by law. One of the most serious objections to the legal recognition of private "gross indecency" is the obvious fact that only in the rarest cases can such indecency become known to the police, and we thus perpetrate what is very much like a legal farce. "The breaking of few laws," as Moll truly observes, regarding the German law, "so often goes unpunished as of this." It is the same in England, as is amply evidenced by the fact that, of the English sexual inverts, whose histories I have obtained, not one, so far as I am aware, has ever appeared in a police-court on this charge. It may further be pointed out that legislation against homosexuality has no clear effect either in diminishing or increasing its prevalence. This must necessarily be so as regards the kernel of the homosexual group, if we are to regard a considerable proportion of cases as congenital. In France homosexuality _per se_ has been untouched by the law for a century; yet it abounds, chiefly, it seems, among the lowest in the community; although the law is silent, social feeling is strong, and when--as has been the case in one instance--a man of undoubted genius has his name associated with this perversion it becomes difficult or impossible for the admirers of his work to associate with him personally; very few cases of homosexuality have been recorded in France among the more intelligent classes; the literature of homosexuality is there little more than the literature of male prostitution, as described by police-officials, and as carried on largely for the benefit of foreigners. In Germany and Austria, where the law against homosexuality is severe, it abounds also, perhaps to a much greater extent than in France;[272] it certainly asserts itself more vigorously; a far greater number of cases have been recorded than in any other country, and the German literature of homosexuality is very extensive, often issued in popular form, and sometimes enthusiastically eulogistic. In England the law is exceptionally severe; yet, according to the evidence of those who have an international acquaintance with these matters, homosexuality is fully as prevalent as on the Continent; some would say that it is more so. Much the same is true of the United States, though there is less to be seen on the surface. It cannot, therefore, be said that legislative enactments have very much influence on the prevalence of homosexuality. The chief effect seems to be that the attempt at suppression arouses the finer minds among sexual inverts to undertake the enthusiastic defense of homosexuality, while coarser minds are stimulated to cynical bravado.[273] As regards the prevalence of homosexuality in the United States, I may quote from a well-informed American correspondent:-- "The great prevalence of sexual inversion in American cities is shown by the wide knowledge of its existence. Ninety-nine normal men out of a hundred have been accosted on the streets by inverts, or have among their acquaintances men whom they know to be sexually inverted. Everyone has seen inverts and knows what they are. The public attitude toward them is generally a negative one--indifference, amusement, contempt. "The world of sexual inverts is, indeed, a large one in any American city, and it is a community distinctly organized--words, customs, traditions of its own; and every city has its numerous meeting-places: certain churches where inverts congregate; certain cafés well known for the inverted character of their patrons; certain streets where, at night, every fifth man is an invert. The inverts have their own 'clubs,' with nightly meetings. These 'clubs' are, really, dance-halls, attached to _saloons_, and presided over by the proprietor of the saloon, himself almost invariably an invert, as are all the waiters and musicians. The frequenters of these places are male sexual inverts (usually ranging from 17 to 30 years of age); sightseers find no difficulty in gaining entrance; truly, they are welcomed for the drinks they buy for the company--and other reasons. Singing and dancing turns by certain favorite performers are the features of these gatherings, with much gossip and drinking at the small tables ranged along the four walls of the room. The habitués of these places are, generally, inverts of the most pronounced type, i.e., the completely feminine in voice and manners, with the characteristic hip motion in their walk; though I have never seen any approach to feminine dress there, doubtless the desire for it is not wanting and only police regulations relegate it to other occasions and places. You will rightly infer that the police know of these places and endure their existence for a consideration; it is not unusual for the inquiring stranger to be directed there by a policeman." The Oscar Wilde trial (see _ante_, p. 48), with its wide publicity, and the fundamental nature of the questions it suggested, appears to have generally contributed to give definiteness and self-consciousness to the manifestations of homosexuality, and to have aroused inverts to take up a definite attitude. I have been assured in several quarters that this is so and that since that case the manifestations of homosexuality have become more pronounced. One correspondent writes:-- "Up to the time of the Oscar Wilde trial I had not known what the condition of the law was. The moral question in itself--its relation to my own life and that of my friends--I reckoned I had solved; but I now had to ask myself how far I was justified in not only breaking the law, but in being the cause of a like breach in others, and others younger than myself. I have never allowed the _dictum_ of the law to interfere with what I deemed to be a moral development in any youth for whom I am responsible. I cannot say that the trial made me alter my course of life, of the rightness of which I was too convincingly persuaded, but it made me much more careful, and it probably sharpened my sense of responsibility for the young. Reviewing the results of the trial as a whole, it doubtless did incalculable harm, and it intensified our national vice of hypocrisy. But I think it also may have done some good in that it made those who, like myself, have thought and experienced deeply in the matter--and these must be no small few--ready to strike a blow, when the time comes, for what we deem to be right, honorable, and clean." From America a lady writes with reference to the moral position of inverts, though without allusion to the Wilde trial:-- "Inverts should have the courage and independence to be themselves, and to demand an investigation. If one strives to live honorably, and considers the greatest good to the greatest number, it is not a crime nor a disgrace to be an invert. I do not need the law to defend me, neither do I desire to have any concessions made for me, nor do I ask my friends to sacrifice their ideals for me. I too have ideals which I shall always hold. All that I desire--and I claim it as my right--is the freedom to exercise this divine gift of loving, which is not a menace to society nor a disgrace to me. Let it once be understood that the average invert is not a moral degenerate nor a mental degenerate, but simply a man or a woman who is less highly specialized, less completely differentiated, than other men and women, and I believe the prejudice against them will disappear, and if they live uprightly they will surely win the esteem and consideration of all thoughtful people. I know what it means to an invert--who feels himself set apart from the rest of mankind--to find one human heart who trusts him and understands him, and I know how almost impossible this is, and will be, until the world is made aware of these facts." But, while the law has had no more influence in repressing abnormal sexuality than, wherever it has tried to do so, it has had in repressing the normal sexual instinct, it has served to foster another offense. What is called blackmailing in England, _chantage_ in France, and _Erpressung_ in Germany--in other words, the extortion of money by threats of exposing some real or fictitious offense--finds its chief field of activity in connection with homosexuality.[274] No doubt the removal of the penalty against simple homosexuality does not abolish blackmailing, as the existence of this kind of _chantage_ in France shows, but it renders its success less probable. On all these grounds, and taking into consideration the fact that the tendency of modern legislation generally, and the consensus of authoritative opinion in all countries, are in this direction, it seems reasonable to conclude that neither "sodomy" (i.e., _immissio membri in anum hominis vel mulieris_) nor "gross indecency" ought to be penal offenses, except under certain special circumstances. That is to say, that if two persons of either or both sexes, having reached years of discretion,[275] privately consent to practise some perverted mode of sexual relationship, the law cannot be called upon to interfere. It should be the function of the law in this matter to prevent violence, to protect the young, and to preserve public order and decency. Whatever laws are laid down beyond this must be left to the individuals themselves, to the moralists, and to social opinion. At the same time, and while such a modification in the law seems to be reasonable, the change effected would be less considerable than may appear at first sight. In a very large proportion, indeed, of cases boys are involved. It is instructive to observe that in Legludic's 246 cases (including victims and aggressors together) in France, 127, or more than half, were between the ages of 10 and 20, and 82, or exactly one-third, were between the ages of 10 and 14. A very considerable field of operation is thus still left for the law, whatever proportion of cases may meet with no other penalty than social opinion. That, however, social opinion--law or no law--will speak with no uncertain voice is very evident. Once homosexuality was primarily a question of population or of religion. Now we hear little either of its economic aspects or of its sacrilegiousness; it is for us primarily a disgusting abomination, i.e., a matter of taste, of esthetics; and, while unspeakably ugly to the majority, it is proclaimed as beautiful by a small minority. I do not know that we need find fault with this esthetic method of judging homosexuality. But it scarcely lends itself to legal purposes. To indulge in violent denunciation of the disgusting nature of homosexuality, and to measure the sentence by the disgust aroused, or to regret, as one English judge is reported to have regretted when giving sentence, that "gross indecency" is not punishable by death, is to import utterly foreign considerations into the matter. The judges who yield to this temptation would certainly never allow themselves to be consciously influenced on the bench by their political opinions. Yet esthetic opinions are quite as foreign to law as political opinions. An act does not become criminal because it is disgusting. To eat excrement, as Moll remarks, is extremely disgusting, but it is not criminal. The confusion which thus exists, even in the legal mind, between the disgusting and the criminal is additional evidence of the undesirability of the legal penalty for simple homosexuality. At the same time it shows that social opinion is amply adequate to deal with the manifestations of inverted sexuality. So much for the legal aspects of sexual inversion. But while there can be no doubt about the amply adequate character of the existing social reaction to all manifestations of perverted sexuality, the question still remains how far not merely the law, but also the state of public opinion, should be modified in the light of such a psychological study as we have here undertaken. It is clear that this public opinion, molded chiefly or entirely with reference to gross vice, tends to be unduly violent in its reaction. What, then, is the reasonable attitude of society toward the congenital sexual invert? It seems to lie in the avoidance of two extremes. On the one hand, it cannot be expected to tolerate the invert who flouts his perversion in its face, and assumes that, because he would rather take his pleasure with a soldier or a policeman than with their sisters, he is of finer clay than the vulgar herd. On the other, it might well refrain from crushing with undiscerning ignorance beneath a burden of shame the subject of an abnormality which, as we have seen, has not been found incapable of fine uses. Inversion is an aberration from the usual course of nature. But the clash of contending elements which must often mark the history of such a deviation results now and again--by no means infrequently--in nobler activities than those yielded by the vast majority who are born to consume the fruits of the earth. It bears, for the most part, its penalty in the structure of its own organism. We are bound to protect the helpless members of society against the invert. If we go farther, and seek to destroy the invert himself before he has sinned against society, we exceed the warrant of reason, and in so doing we may, perhaps, destroy also those children of the spirit which possess sometimes a greater worth than the children of the flesh. Here we may leave this question of sexual inversion. In dealing with it I have sought to avoid that attitude of moral superiority which is so common in the literature of this subject, and have refrained from pointing out how loathsome this phenomenon is, or how hideous that. Such an attitude is as much out of place in scientific investigation as it is in judicial investigation, and may well be left to the amateur. The physician who feels nothing but disgust at the sight of disease is unlikely to bring either succor to his patients or instruction to his pupils. That the investigation we have here pursued is not only profitable to us in succoring the social organism and its members, but also in bringing light into the region of sexual psychology, is now, I hope, clear to every reader who has followed me to this point. There are a multitude of social questions which we cannot face squarely and honestly unless we possess such precise knowledge as has been here brought together concerning the part played by the homosexual tendency in human life. Moreover, the study of this perverted tendency stretches beyond itself; "O'er that art Which you say adds to Nature, is an art That Nature makes." Pathology is but physiology working under new conditions. The stream of nature still flows into the bent channel of sexual inversion, and still runs according to law. We have not wasted our time in this toilsome excursion. With the knowledge here gained we are the better equipped to enter upon the study of the wider questions of sex. FOOTNOTES: [243] In this connection I may refer to Moll's _Sexual Life of the Child_, to the writings of Dr. Clement Dukes, physician to Rugby School, who fully recognizes the risks of school-life, and to the discussion on sexual vice in schools, started by an address by the Rev. J.M. Wilson, head-master of Clifton College, in the English _Journal of Education_, 1881-82. [244] With regard to the importance of the sexual emotions generally and their training, see the well-known book by Edward Carpenter, _Love's Coming of Age_; Professor Gurlitt ("Knabenfreundschaften," _Sexual-Probleme_, Oct., 1909) also upholds the intimate friendships of youth, which in his own experience have not had even a suspicion of homosexuality. [245] Casanova, _Mémoires_, vol. i (edition Garnier), p. 160. See also remarks by an experienced master in one of the largest English public schools, which I have brought forward in vol. i of these _Studies_, "Auto-erotism," 3d ed., 1910. [246] See, e.g., Professor J.R. Angell, "Some Reflections upon the Reaction from Coeducation," _Popular Science Monthly_, Nov., 1902; also Moll's _Sexual Life of the Child_, ch. ix, and for a general discussion of coeducation, S. Poirson, _La Coéducation_, 1911. [247] Bethe, "Die Dorische Knabenliebe," _Rheinisches Museum für Philologie_; vol. lxii, Heft 3, p. 440; cf. Edward Carpenter, _Intermediate Types among Primitive Folk_, ch. vi. [248] Schrenck-Notzing, _Die Suggestionstherapie bei krankhaften Erscheinungen des Geschlechtsinnes_, 1892. (Eng. trans. _Therapeutic Suggestion_, 1895.) [249] Raffalovich, _Uranisme et Unisexualité_, 1896, p. 16. He remarks that the congenital invert who has never had relations with women, and whose abnormality, to use Krafft-Ebing's distinction, is a perversion and not a perversity, is much less dangerous and apt to seduce others than the more versatile and corrupt person who has known all methods of gratification. [250] See, e.g., Moll, _Die Konträre Sexualempfindung_, ch. xi; Forel, _Die Sexuelle Frage_, ch. xiv; Näcke, "Die Behandlung der Homosexualität," _Sexual-Probleme_, Aug., 1910; Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, ch. xxii. [251] Moll, _Zeitschrift für Psychotherapie_, 1911, Heft 1; id., _Handbuch der Sexualwissenschaften_, 1912, p. 662 et seq. [252] This is also the opinion of Numa Praetorius, _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Jan., 1913, p. 222. [253] See, especially, Sadger, _Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, Heft 12, 1908; also _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. ix, 1908; Sadger's methods are criticised by Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, ch. xxii, and defended by Sadger, _Internationale Zeitschrift für Aerztliche Psychoanalyse_, July, 1914, p. 392. For a discussion of the psychoanalytic treatment of homosexuality by a leading American Freudian, see Brill, _Journal American Medical Association_, Aug. 2, 1913. [254] _Internationale Zeitschrift für Aerztliche Psychoanalyse_, March, 1914. [255] This is now generally recognized. See, e.g., Roubinovitch and Borel, "Un Cas d'Uranisme," _L'Encéphale_, Aug., 1913. These authors conclude that it is today impossible to look upon inversion as the equivalent or the symptom of a psychopathic state, though we have to recognize that it frequently coexists with morbid emotional states. Näcke, also, in his extensive experience, found that homosexuality is rare in asylums and slight in character; he dealt with this question on various occasions; see, e.g., _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. viii, 1906. [256] Krafft-Ebing considered that the temporary or lasting association of homosexuality with neurasthenia having its root in congenital conditions is "almost invariable," and some authorities (like Meynert) have regarded inversion as an accidental growth on the foundation of neurasthenia. [257] Féré expressed himself concerning the general treatment of homosexuality in the same sense, and even more emphatically (Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, 1899, pp. 272, 286). He considers that all forms of congenital inversion resist treatment, and that, since a change in the invert's instincts must be regarded rather as a perversion of the invert than a cure of the inversion, one may be permitted to doubt not only the utility of the treatment, but even the legitimacy of attempting it. The treatment of sexual inversion, he declared, is as much outside the province of medicine as the restoration of color-vision in the color-blind. The ideal which the physician and the teacher must place before the invert is that of chastity; he must seek to harness his wagon to a star. [258] I have been told by a distinguished physician, who was consulted in the case, of a congenital invert highly placed in the English government service, who married in the hope of escaping his perversion, and was not even able to consummate the marriage. It is needless to insist on the misery which is created in such cases. It is not, of course, denied that such marriages may not sometimes become eventually happy. Thus Kiernan ("Psychical Treatment of Congenital Sexual Inversion," _Review of Insanity and Nervous Diseases_, June, 1894) reports the case of a thoroughly inverted girl who married the brother of the friend to whom she was previously attached merely in order to secure his sister's companionship. She was able to endure and even enjoy intercourse by imagining that her husband, who resembled his sister, was another sister. Liking and esteem for the husband gradually increased and after the sister died a child was born who much resembled her; "the wife's esteem passed through love of the sister to intense natural love of the daughter, as resembling the sister; through this to normal love of the husband as the father and brother." The final result may have been satisfactory, but this train of circumstances could not have been calculated beforehand. Moll is also opposed, on the whole (e.g., _Deutsche medicinische Presse_, No. 6, 1902), to marriage and procreation by inverts. [259] Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, ch. xxi. It might seem on theoretical grounds that the marriage of a homosexual man with a homosexual woman might turn out well. Hirschfeld, however, states that he knows of 14 such marriages, and the theoretical expectation has not been justified; 3 of the cases speedily terminated in divorce, 4 of the couples lived separately, and all but 2 of the remaining couples regretted the step they had taken. I may add that in such a case even the expectation of happiness scarcely seems reasonable, since neither of the parties can feel a true mating impulse toward the other. [260] Hirschfeld also notes (_Die Homosexualität_, p. 95) that women often instinctively feel that there is something wrong in the love of their inverted husbands who may perhaps succeed in copulating, but betray their deepest feelings by a repugnance to touch the sexual parts with the hand. The homosexual woman, also, as Hirschfeld elsewhere points out with cases in illustration (p. 84), may suffer seriously through being subjected to normal sexual relationships. [261] Féré reports the case of an invert of great intellectual ability who had never had any sexual relationships, and was not averse from a chaste life; he was urged by his doctor to acquire the power of normal intercourse and to marry, on the ground that his perversion was merely a perversion of the imagination. He did so, and, though he married a perfectly strong and healthy woman, and was himself healthy, except in so far as his perversion was concerned, the offspring turned out disastrously. The eldest child was an epileptic, almost an imbecile, and with strongly marked homosexual impulses; the second and third children were absolute idiots; the youngest died of convulsions in infancy (Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, p. 269 et seq.) No doubt this is not an average case, but the numerous examples of the offspring of similar marriages brought forward by Hirschfeld (op. cit., p. 391) scarcely present a much better result. [262] It is scarcely necessary to add that the same principle is adaptable to the case of homosexual women. "In all such cases," writes an American woman physician, "I would recommend that the moral sense be trained and fostered, and the persons allowed to keep their individuality, being taught to remember always that they are different from others, rather sacrificing their own feelings or happiness when necessary. It is good discipline for them, and will serve in the long run to bring them more favor and affection than any other course. This quality or idiosyncrasy is not essentially evil, but, if rightly used, may prove a blessing to others and a power for good in the life of the individual; nor does it reflect any discredit upon its possessor." [263] The existence of an affinity between homosexuality and the religious temperament has been referred to in ch. i as recognized in many parts of the world. See, for a more extended discussion, Horneffer, _Der Priester_, and Bloch, _Die Prostitution_, vol. i, pp. 101-110. The psychoanalysts have also touched on this point; thus Pfister, _Die Frommingkeit des Grafen von Zinzendorf_ (1910), argues that the founder of the pietistic sect of the Herrenhuter was of sublimated homosexual (or bisexual) temperament. [264] Forel, _Die Sexuelle Frage_, p. 528. Such ideas are, of course, often put forward by inverts themselves. [265] Roman law previously seems to have been confined in this matter to the protection of boys. The Scantinian and other Roman laws against paiderasty seem to have been usually a dead letter. See, for various notes and references, W.G. Holmes, _The Age of Justinian and Theodora_, vol. i, p. 121. [266] Epistle to the Romans, chapter i, verses 26-7. [267] In practice this penalty of death appears to have been sometimes commuted to ablation of the sexual organs. [268] For a full sketch of the legal enactments against homosexual intercourse in ancient and modern times, see Numa Praetorius, "Die straflichen Bestimmungen gegen den gleichgeschlechtlichen Verkehr," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. i, pp. 97-158. This writer points out that Justinian, and still more clearly, Pius V, in the sixteenth century, distinguished between occasional homosexuality and deep-rooted inversion, habitual offenders alone, not those who had only been guilty once or twice, being punished. [269] The influence of the supposed connection of sodomy with unbelief, idolatry, and heresy in arousing the horror of it among earlier religions has been emphasized by Westermarck, _The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, vol. i, p. 486 et seq. [270] "Any male person who in public or private commits, or is a party to the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, being convicted thereof, shall be liable at the discretion of the court to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years, with or without hard labor." [271] This point is brought forward by Dr. Léon de Rode in his report on "L'Inversion Génitale et la Législation," prepared for the Third (Brussels) Congress of Criminal Anthropology in 1892. The same point is insisted on by some of my correspondents. [272] It is a remarkable and perhaps significant fact that, while homosexuality is today in absolute disrepute in France, it was not so under the less tolerant law of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Duc de Gesvres, as described by Besenval (_Mémoires_, i, p. 178), was a well-marked invert of feminine type, impotent, and publicly affecting all the manners of women; yet he was treated with consideration. In 1687 Madame, the mother of the Regent, writes implying that "all the young men and many of the old" practised pederasty: _il n'y a que les gens du commun qui aiment les femmes_. The marked tendency to inversion in the French royal family at this time is well known. [273] A man with homosexual habits, I have been told, declared he would be sorry to see the English law changed, as then he would find no pleasure in his practices. [274] Blackmailing appears to be the most serious risk which the invert runs. Hirschfeld states in an interesting study of blackmailing (_Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, April, 1913) that his experience shows that among 10,000 homosexual persons hardly one falls a victim to the law, but over 3000 are victimized by blackmailers. [275] Krafft-Ebing would place this age not under 16, the age at which in England girls may legally consent to normal sexual intercourse (_Psychopathia Sexualis_, 1893, p. 419). It certainly should not be lower. APPENDICES. APPENDIX A. HOMOSEXUALITY AMONG TRAMPS. BY "JOSIAH FLYNT." I have made a rather minute study of the tramp class in the United States, England, and Germany, but I know it best in the States. I have lived with the tramps there for eight consecutive months, besides passing numerous shorter periods in their company, and my acquaintance with them is nearly of ten years' standing. My purpose in going among them has been to learn about their life in particular and outcast life in general. This can only be done by becoming part and parcel of its manifestations. There are two kinds of tramps in the United States: out-of-works and "hoboes." The out-of-works are not genuine vagabonds; they really want work and have no sympathy with the hoboes. The latter are the real tramps. They make a business of begging--a very good business too--and keep at it, as a rule, to the end of their days. Whisky and _Wanderlust_, or the love of wandering, are probably the main causes of their existence; but many of them are discouraged criminals, men who have tried their hand at crime and find that they lack criminal wit. They become tramps because they find that life "on the road" comes the nearest to the life they hoped to lead. They have enough talent to do very well as beggars, better, generally speaking, then the men who have reached the road simply as drunkards; they know more about the tricks of the trade and are cleverer in thinking out schemes and stories. All genuine tramps in America are, however, pretty much the same, as far as manners and philosophy are concerned, and all are equally welcome at the "hang-out."[276] The class of society from which they are drawn is generally the very lowest of all, but there are some hoboes who have come from the very highest, and these latter are frequently as vicious and depraved as their less well-born brethren. Concerning sexual inversion among tramps, there is a great deal to be said, and I cannot attempt to tell all I have heard about it, but merely to give a general account of the matter. Every hobo in the United States knows what "unnatural intercourse" means, talking about it freely, and, according to my finding, every tenth man practises it, and defends his conduct. Boys are the victims of this passion. The tramps gain possession of these boys in various ways. A common method is to stop for awhile in some town, and gain acquaintance with the slum children. They tell these children all sorts of stories about life "on the road," how they can ride on the railways for nothing, shoot Indians, and be "perfeshunnels" (professionals), and they choose some boy who specially pleases them. By smiles and flattering caresses they let him know that the stories are meant for him alone, and before long, if the boy is a suitable subject, he smiles back just as slyly. In time he learns to think that he is the favorite of the tramp, who will take him on his travels, and he begins to plan secret meetings with the man. The tramp, of course, continues to excite his imagination with stories and caresses, and some fine night there is one boy less in the town. On the road the lad is called a "prushun," and his protector a "jocker." The majority of prushuns are between 10 and 15 years of age, but I have known some under 10 and a few over 15. Each is compelled by hobo law to let his jocker do with him as he will, and many, I fear, learn to enjoy his treatment of them. They are also expected to beg in every town they come to, any laziness on their part receiving very severe punishment. How the act of unnatural intercourse takes place is not entirely clear; the hoboes are not agreed. From what I have personally observed I should say that it is usually what they call "leg-work" (intercrural), but sometimes _immissio penis in anum_, the boy, in either case, lying on his stomach. I have heard terrible stories of the physical results to the boy of anal intercourse. One evening, near Cumberland, Pennsylvania, I was an unwilling witness of one of the worst scenes that can be imagined. In company with eight hoboes, I was in a freight-car attached to a slowly moving train. A colored boy succeeded in scrambling into the car, and when the train was well under way again he was tripped up and "seduced" (to use the hobo euphemism) by each of the tramps. He made almost no resistance, and joked and laughed about the business as if he had expected it. This, indeed, I find to be the general feeling among the boys when they have been thoroughly initiated. At first they do not submit, and are inclined to run away or fight, but the men fondle and pet them, and after awhile they do not seem to care. Some of them have told me that they get as much pleasure out of the affair as the jocker does. Even little fellows under 10 have told me this, and I have known them to willfully tempt their jockers to intercourse. What the pleasure consists in I cannot say. The youngsters themselves describe it as a delightful tickling sensation in the parts involved, and this is possibly all that it amounts to among the smallest lads. Those who have passed the age of puberty seem to be satisfied in pretty much the same way that the men are. Among the men the practice is decidedly one of passion. The majority of them prefer a prushun to a woman, and nothing is more severely judged than rape. One often reads in the newspapers that a woman has been assaulted by a tramp, but the perverted tramp is never the guilty party. I believe, however, that there are a few hoboes who have taken to boys because women are so scarce "on the road." For every woman in hoboland there are a hundred men. That this disproportion has something to do with the popularity of boys is made clear by the following case: In a gaol, where I was confined for a month during my life in vagabondage, I got acquainted with a tramp who had the reputation of being a "sod" (sodomist). One day a woman came to the gaol to see her husband, who was awaiting trial. One of the prisoners said he had known her before she was married and had lived with her. The tramp was soon to be discharged, and he inquired where the woman lived. On learning that she was still approachable, he looked her up immediately after his release, and succeeded in staying with her for nearly a month. He told me later that he enjoyed his life with her much more than his intercourse with boys. I asked him why he went with boys at all, and he replied: "'Cause there ain't women enough. If I can't get them I've got to have the other." It is in gaols that one sees the worst side of this perversion. In the daytime the prisoners are let out into a long hall, and can do much as they please; at night they are shut up, two and even four in a cell. If there are any boys in the crowd, they are made use of by all who care to have them. If they refuse to submit, they are gagged and held down. The sheriff seldom knows what goes on, and for the boys to say anything to him would be suicidal. There is a criminal ignorance all over the States concerning the life of these gaols, and things go on that would be impossible in any well-regulated prison. In one of these places I once witnessed the fiercest fight I have ever seen among hoboes; a boy was the cause of it. Two men said they loved him, and he seemed to return the affection of both with equal desire. A fight with razors was suggested to settle who should have him.[277] The men prepared for action, while the crowd gathered round to watch. They slashed away for over half an hour, cutting each other terribly, and then their backers stopped them for fear of fatal results. The boy was given to the one who was hurt the least. Jealousy is one of the first things one notices in connection with this passion. I have known them to withdraw entirely from the "hang-out" life simply to be sure that their prushuns were not touched by other tramps. Such attachments frequently last for years, and some boys remain with their first jockers until they are "emancipated." Emancipation means freedom to "snare" some other boy, and make him submit as the other had been obliged to submit when younger. As a rule, the prushun is freed when he is able to protect himself. If he can defend his "honor" from all who come, he is accepted into the class of "old stagers," and may do as he likes. This is the one reward held out to prushuns during their apprenticeship. They are told that some day they can have a boy and use him as they have been used. Thus hoboland is always sure of recruits. It is difficult to say how many tramps are sexually inverted. It is not even certainly known how many vagabonds there are in the country. I have stated in one of my papers on tramps that, counting the boys, there are between fifty and sixty thousand genuine hoboes in the United States. A vagabond in Texas who saw this statement wrote me that he considered my estimate too low. The newspapers have criticised it as too high, but they are unable to judge. If my figures are, as I believe, at least approximately correct, the sexually perverted tramps may be estimated at between five and six thousand; this includes men and boys. I have been told lately by tramps that the boys are less numerous than they were a few years ago. They say that it is now a risky business to be seen with a boy, and that it is more profitable, as far as begging is concerned, to go without them. Whether this means that the passion is less fierce than it used to be, or that the men find sexual satisfaction among themselves, I cannot say definitely. But from what I know of their disinclination to adopt the latter alternative, I am inclined to think that the passion may be dying out somewhat. I am sure that women are not more numerous "on the road" than formerly, and that the change, if real, has not been caused by them. So much for my finding in the United States. In England, where I have also lived with tramps for some time, I have found very little contrary sexual feeling. In Germany, also, excepting in prisons and work-houses, it seems very little known among vagabonds. There are a few Jewish wanderers (sometimes peddlers) who are said to have boys in their company, and I am told that they use them as the hoboes in the United States use their boys, but I cannot prove this from personal observation. In England I have met a number of male tramps who had no hesitation in declaring their preference for their own sex, and particularly for boys, but I am bound to say that I have seldom seen them with boys; as a rule, they were quite alone, and they seem to live chiefly by themselves. It is a noteworthy fact that both in England and Germany there are a great many women "on the road," or, at all events, so near it that intercourse with them is easy and cheap. In Germany almost every town has its quarter of "Stadt-Schieze"[278]: women who sell their bodies for a very small sum. They seldom ask over thirty or forty pfennigs for a night, which is usually spent in the open air. In England it is practically the same thing. In all the large cities there are women who are glad to do business for three or four pence, and those "on the road" for even less. The general impression made on me by the sexually perverted men I have met in vagabondage is that they are abnormally masculine. In their intercourse with boys they always take the active part. The boys have, in some cases, seemed to me uncommonly feminine, but not as a rule. In the main, they are very much like other lads, and I am unable to say whether their liking for the inverted relationship is inborn or acquired. That it is, however, a genuine liking, in altogether too many instances, I do not, in the least, doubt. As such, and all the more because it is such, it deserves to be more thoroughly investigated and more reasonably treated. "Josiah Flynt" who wrote the foregoing account of tramp-life for the second edition of this volume, was well known as author, sociologist, and tramp. He was especially, and it would seem by innate temperament, the tramp, which part he looked to perfection (he himself referred to his "weasoned face and diminutive form") and felt completely at home in. He was thus able to throw much light on the psychology of the tramp, and his books (such as _Tramping with Tramps_) are valuable from this point of view. His real name was F. Willard and he was a nephew of Miss Frances Willard. He died in Chicago, in 1907, at the age of 38, shortly after writing a frank and remarkable _Autobiography_. I am able to supplement his observations on tramps, so far as England is concerned, by the following passages from a detailed record sent to me by an English correspondent:-- "I am a male invert with complete feminine, sexual inclinations. Different meetings with 'tramps' led me to seek intimacy with them and for about twenty years I have gone on the 'tramp' myself so that I might come in the closest contact with them, in England, Scotland, and Wales. "As in the United States, there are two classes of tramps those who would work, such as harvesters, road-makers, etc., and those who will not work, but make tramping a profession. Among both these classes my experience is that 90 per cent, or I even would be bold enough to say 100 per cent, indulge in homosexuality when the opportunity occurs, and I do not make any distinction between the two classes. "There are numerous reasons for this and I will state a few. A certain number may prefer normal connection with a female, but except for those who tramp in vans and a limited number who have 'donnas' with them, women are not available, as prostitutes very seldom allow intimacy for 'love' except when drunk. Tramps are also afraid of any venereal disease as it means the misery of the Lock Hospital. Most of them are sociable and prefer to tramp with a 'make.' With this mate, with whom he sleeps and rests and 'boozes' when they are in funds, sexual intimacy naturally takes place, as my experience has been that one of the two is male and the other female in their sexual desires, but I have known instances where they have acted both roles. Then male prostitution is to be had for nothing, and even occasionally when a tramp meets a 'toff' it is a means of earning money, either fairly or otherwise. I have never known a male tramp to refuse satisfaction if I offered a drink or two, or a small sum of money. One told me that he envied 'no lords or toffs' as long as he got plenty of 'booze and buggery.' "Another one, who told me that he had been twenty-five years on the road, said that he could not endure to sleep alone. (He was a pedlar, openly of cheap religious books and secretly of the vilest pamphlets and photographs). He had 'done time' and he said the greatest punishment to him was not being able to have a 'make' who would submit to penetration, though he was not particular what form the sexual act took. Another fine young man, whom I chanced to meet the very day he had been released from a long sentence in prison for burglary and with whom I passed a night of incessant and almost brutal intimacy, said his punishment was seeing men always about him and being unable to have connection with them. Another and very powerful influence in 'tramps' toward homosexuality is that, in the low lodging houses they are obliged to frequent, a single bed is perhaps double to one with a bedmate whom perhaps he has never seen before, and especially in hot weather, when the rule is nakedness. "My sexual desires being for the male invert I have come most in contact with them and have found that they form much the larger class. Among harvesters and seafaring tramps it is seldom you find a 'dandy' such as I was considered, and as such I was eagerly courted, and any suggestion of intimacy on my part quickly responded to. As regards the use of young boys for homosexual indulgence, it is not common as it is too dangerous, though I have known boys, especially those belonging to vans or gypsies, to prostitute themselves, always for money. "On one occasion I saw a boy who created quite an outburst of lust of homosexual nature. The incident took place in a small seafaring town in Scotland one evening before a Fair was to be held. It occurred in a low public house where a number of very rough and mostly drunken men were assembled. A blind man came in led by an extremely pretty but effeminate-looking youth of about 17, wearing a ragged kilt and with bare legs and feet. He had long, curling, fair hair which reached to his shoulders and on it an old bonnet was perched. He also wore an old velveteen shooting jacket. All eyes were turned on the pair and they were quickly offered drinks. A remark was made by one man that he believed the youth was a lassie. The boy said, 'I will show you I am a laddie,' and pulled up his kilt, exposing his genitals and then his posterior. Boisterous laughter greeted this indecent exposure and suggestion, and more drinks were provided. The blind man then played his fiddle and the boy danced with frequent recurrences of the same indecencies. He was seized, kissed, and caressed by quite a number of men, some of whom endeavored to masturbate him, which he resisted, but performed it for them. After the closing time came, I and about ten or twelve men all occupied the same room; the old man continued to play, and the youth, stark naked, continued to dance and suggested we others should do so, and an erotic scene took place which was only closed to view by the 'boss' who was present putting out the lamp. "Two classes of tramps I have met openly declare their preference for homosexuality. They are men who have been in the army and sailors and seafaring men in general. It is said that 'Jack has a wife in every port,' but I believe from my experience that the wife in many cases is of the male sex, and this among those of all nationalities, as is the case with soldiers. Among these also jealousy is more common than amongst ordinary tramps, and if you are 'dandy' to a soldier, if you make advances or receive them from a senior, trouble is likely to occur between them. "I could give many instances of my own personal experiences to show that 'tramps' are looked upon by men in the country districts as legitimate, complacent, and purchaseable objects for homosexual lust." FOOTNOTES: [276] This is the home of the fraternity. Practically it is any corner where they can lay their heads; but, as a rule, it is either a lodging-house, a freight-car, or a nest in the grass near the railway watering-tank. [277] All hoboes carry razors, both for shaving and for defense. Strange to say, they succeed in smuggling them into gaols, as they are never searched thoroughly. [278] This word is of Hebrew origin, and means girl (_Mädchen_). APPENDIX B. THE SCHOOL-FRIENDSHIPS OF GIRLS. I. A school-friendship is termed by Italian girls a "flame" (_flamma_). This term, as explained by Obici and Marchesini, indicates, in school-slang, both the beloved person and the friendship in the abstract; but it is a friendship which has the note of passion as felt and understood in this environment. In every college the "flame" is regarded as a necessary institution. The relationship is usually of a markedly Platonic character, and generally exists between a boarder on one side and a day-pupil on the other. Notwithstanding, however, its apparently non-sexual nature, all the sexual manifestations of college youth circle around it, and in its varying aspects of differing intensity all the gradations of sexual sentiment may be expressed. Obici and Marchesini carried on their investigation chiefly among the pupils of Normal schools, the age of the girls being between 12 and 19 or 20. There are both boarders and day-pupils at these colleges; the boarders are most inflammable, but it is the day-pupils who furnish the sparks. Obici and Marchesini received much assistance in their studies from former pupils who are now themselves teachers. One of these, a day-pupil who had never herself been either the object or the agent in one of these passions, but had had ample opportunity of making personal observations, writes as follows: "The 'flame' proceeds exactly like a love-relationship; it often happens that one of the girls shows man-like characteristics, either in physical type or in energy and decision of character; the other lets herself be loved, acting with all the obstinacy--and one might almost say the shyness--of a girl with her lover. The beginning of these relationships is quite different from the usual beginnings of friendship. It is not by being always together, talking and studying together, that two become 'flames'; no, generally they do not even know each other; one sees the other on the stairs, in the garden, in the corridors, and the emotion that arises is nearly always called forth by beauty and physical grace. Then the one who is first struck begins a regular courtship: frequent walks in the garden when the other is likely to be at the window of her class-room, pauses on the stairs to see her pass; in short, a mute adoration made up of glances and sighs. Later come presents of beautiful flowers, and little messages conveyed by complacent companions. Finally, if the 'flame' shows signs of appreciating all these proofs of affection, comes the letter of declaration. Letters of declaration are long and ardent, to such a degree that they equal or surpass real love-declarations. The courted one nearly always accepts, sometimes with enthusiasm, oftenest with many objections and doubts as to the affection declared. It is only after many entreaties that she yields and the relationship begins." Another collaborator who has herself always aroused very numerous "flames" gives a very similar description, together with other particulars. Thus she states: "It may be said that 60 per cent. of the girls in a college have 'flame' relationships, and that of the remaining 40 only half refuse from deliberate repulsion to such affections; the other 20 are excluded either because they are not sufficiently pleasing in appearance or because their characters do not inspire sympathy." And, regarding the method of beginning the relationship, she writes: "Sometimes 'flames' arise before the two future friends have even seen each other, merely because one of them is considered as beautiful, sympathetic, nice, or elegant. Elegance exerts an immense fascination, especially on the boarders, who are bound down by monotonous and simple habits. As soon as a boarder hears of a day-pupil that she is charming and elegant she begins to feel a lively sympathy toward her, rapidly reaching anxiety to see her. The longed-for morning at length arrives. The beloved, unconscious of the tumult of passions she has aroused, goes into school, not knowing that her walk, her movements, her garments are being observed from stairs or dormitory corridor.... For the boarders these events constitute an important part of college-life, and often assume, for some, the aspect of a tragedy, which, fortunately, may be gradually resolved into a comedy or a farce." Many letters are written in the course of these relationships; Obici and Marchesini have been able to read over 300 such letters which had been carefully preserved by the receivers and which, indeed, formed the chief material for their study. These letters clearly show that the "flame" most usually arises from a physical sympathy, an admiration of beauty and elegance. The letters written in this "flame" relationship are full of passion; they appear to be often written during periods of physical excitement and psychic erethism, and may be considered, Obici and Marchesini remark, a form of intellectual onanism, of which the writers afterward feel remorse and shame as of a physically dishonorable act. In reference to the underlying connection of these feelings with the sexual impulse, one of the lady collaborators writes: "I can say that a girl who is in love with a man never experiences 'flame' emotions for a companion." Obici and Marchesini thus summarize the differential character of "flames" as distinguished from ordinary friendships: "(1) the extraordinary frequency with which, even by means of subterfuges, the lovers exchange letters; (2) the anxiety to see and talk to each other, to press each other's hands, to embrace and kiss; (3) the long conversations and the very long reveries; (4) persistent jealousy, with its manifold arts and usual results; (5) exaltation of the beloved's qualities; (6) the habit of writing the beloved's name everywhere; (7) absence of envy for the loved one's qualities; (8) the lover's abnegation in conquering all obstacles to the manifestations of her love; (9) the vanity with which some respond to 'flame' declarations; (10) the consciousness of doing a prohibited thing; (11) the pleasure of conquest, of which the trophies (letters, etc.) are preserved." The difference between a "flame" and a friendship is very well marked in the absolute exclusiveness of the former, whence arises the possibility of jealousy. At the same time friendship and love are here woven together. The letters are chaste (a few exceptions among so many letters not affecting this general rule), and the purity of the flame relationship is also shown by the fact that it is usually between boarders and day-pupils, girls in different classes and different rooms, and seldom between those who are living in close proximity to each other. "Certainly," writes one of the lady collaborators, "the first sensual manifestations develop in girls with physical excitement pure and simple, but (at all events, I would wish to believe it) the majority of college-girls find sufficient satisfaction in being as near as possible to the beloved person (of whichever sex), in mutual admiration and in kissing, or, very frequently, in conversation that is by no means moral, though usually very metaphorical. The object of such conversation is to discover the most important mysteries of human nature, the why and the wherefore; it deals with natural necessities, which the girl feels and has an intuition of, but as yet knows nothing definite about. Such conversations are the order of the day in schools and in colleges and specially revolve around procreation, the most difficult mystery of all. They are a heap of stupidities." This lady had only known of one definitely homosexual relationship during the whole of her college-life; the couple in question were little liked and had no other "flames." The chief general sexual manifestations, this lady concludes, which she had noted among her companions was a constant preoccupation with sexual mysteries and the necessity of talking about them perpetually. Another lady collaborator who had lived in a Normal school had had somewhat wider experiences. She entered at the age of 14 and experienced the usual loneliness and unhappiness of a new pupil. One day as she was standing pensive and alone in a corner of the room, a companion--one who on her arrival had been charged to show her over the college--ran up to her, "embracing me, closing by mouth with a kiss, and softly caressing my hair. I gazed at her in astonishment, but experienced a delicious sensation of supreme comfort. Here began the idyll! I was subjected to a furious tempest of kisses and caresses which quite stunned me and made me ask myself the reason of such a new and unforeseen affection. I ingenuously inquired the reason, and the reply was: 'I love you; you struck me immediately I saw you, because you are so beautiful and so white, and because it makes me happy and _soothes_ me when I can pass my hands through your hair and kiss your plump, white face. I need a soul and a body.' This seemed to me the language of a superior person, for I could not grasp all its importance. As on the occasion when she first embraced me, I looked at her in astonishment and could not for the moment respond to a new fury of caresses and kisses. I felt that they were not like the kisses of my mamma, my papa, my brother, and other companions; they gave me unknown sensations; the contact of those moist and fleshy lips disturbed me. Then came the exchange of letters and the usual rights and duties of 'flames.' When we met in the presence of others we were only to greet each other simply, for 'flames' were strictly prohibited. I obeyed because I liked her, but also because I was afraid of her Othello-like jealousy. She would suffocate me, even bite me, when I played, joyously and thoughtlessly, with others, and woe to me if I failed to call her when I was combing my hair. She liked to see me with my hair down and would rest her head on my shoulder, especially if I were partially undressed. I let her do as she liked, and she would scold me severely because I was never first in longing for her, running to meet her, and kissing her. But at the same time the thought of losing her, the thought that perhaps one day she would shower her caresses on others, secretly wounded my heart. But I never told her this! One day, however, when with the head-mistress gazing at a beautiful landscape, I was suddenly overwhelmed with sadness and burst out crying. The head-mistress inquired what was the matter, and throwing myself in her arms I sobbed: 'I love her, and I shall die if she leaves off loving me!' She smiled, and the smile went through my heart. I saw at once how silly I was, and what a wrong road my companion was on. From that day I could no longer endure my 'flame.' The separation was absolute; I courageously bore bites and insults, even scratches on my face, followed by long complaints and complete prostration. I thought it would be mean to accuse her, but I invented a pretext for having the number of my bed changed. This was because she would dress quietly and come to pass hours by my bed, resting her head on the pillow. She said she wished to smell the perfume of my health and freshness. This continual turbulent desire had now nauseated me, and I wished to avoid it altogether. Later I heard that she had formed a relationship which was not blessed by any sacred rite." Notwithstanding the Platonic character of the correspondences, Obici and Marchesini remark, there is really a substratum of emotional sexuality beneath it, and it is this which finds its expression in the indecorous conversations already referred to. The "flame" is a _love-fiction, a play of sexual love_. This characteristic comes out in the frequently romantic names, of men and women, invented to sign the letters. Even in the letters themselves, however, the element of sexual impressionability may be traced. "On Friday we went to a service at San B.," writes one who was in an institution directed by nuns, "but unfortunately I saw M.L. at a window when I thought she was at A. and I was in a nervous state the whole time. Imagine that that dear woman was at the window with bare arms, and, as it seemed to me, in her chemise." No doubt a similar impression might have been made on a girl living in her own family. But it is certain that the imaginative coloring tends to be more lively in those living in colleges and shut off from that varied and innocent observation which renders those outside colleges freer and more unprejudiced. On a boy who is free to see as many women as he chooses a woman's face cannot make such an impression as on a boy who lives in a college and who is liable to be, as it were, electrified if he sees any object belonging to a woman, especially if he sees it by stealth or during a mood of erotism. Such an object calls out a whole series of wanton imaginations, which it could not do in one who, by his environment, was already armed against any tendencies to erotic fetichism. The attraction exerted by that which we see but seldom, and around which fancy assiduously plays, the attraction of forbidden fruit, produces tendencies and habits which could scarcely develop in freedom. Curiosity is acute, and is augmented by the obstacles which stand in the way of its satisfaction. "Flame" attraction is the beginning of such a morbid fetichism. A sentiment which under other conditions would never have gone beyond ordinary friendship may thus become a "flame," and even a "flame" of markedly sexual character. Under these influences boys and girls feel the purest and simplest sentiments in a hyperesthetic manner. The girls here studied have lost an exact conception of the simple manifestations of friendship, and think they are giving evidence of exquisite sensibility and true friendship by loving a companion to madness; friendship in them has become a passion. That this intense desire to love a companion passionately is the result of the college environments may be seen by the following extract from a letter: "You know, dear, much better than I do how acutely girls living away from their own homes, and far from all those who are dearest to them on earth, feel the need of loving and being loved. You can understand how hard it is to be obliged to live without anyone to surround you with affection;" and the writer goes on to say how all her love turns to her correspondent. While there is an unquestionable sexual element in the "flame" relationship, this cannot be regarded as an absolute expression of real congenital perversion of the sex-instinct. The frequency of the phenomena, as well as the fact that, on leaving college to enter social life, the girl usually ceases to feel these emotions, are sufficient to show the absence of congenital abnormality. The estimate of the frequency of "flames" in Normal schools, given to Obici and Marchesini by several lady collaborators, was about 60 per cent., but there is no reason to suppose that women teachers furnish a larger contingent of perverted individuals than other women. The root is organic, but the manifestations are ideal and Platonic, in contrast with some other manifestations found in college-life. No inquiry was made as to the details of solitary sexual manifestations in the colleges, the fact that they exist to more or less extent being sufficiently recognized. The conversations already referred to are a measure of the excitations of sexuality existing in these college inmates and multiplied in energy by communication. Such discourse was, wrote one collaborator, the order of the day, and it took place chiefly at the time when letter-writing also was easiest. It may well be that sensual excitations, transformed into ethereal sentiments, serve to increase the intensity of the "flames." Taken altogether, Obici and Marchesini conclude, the flame may be regarded as a _provisional synthesis_. We find here, in solution together, the physiological element of incipient sexuality, the psychical element of the tenderness natural to this age and sex, the element of occasion offered by the environment, and the social element with its nascent altruism. II. That the phenomena described in minute detail by Obici and Marchesini closely resemble the phenomena as they exist in English girls' schools is indicated by the following communication, for which I am indebted to a lady who is familiar with an English girls' college of very modern type:-- "From inquiries made in various quarters and through personal observation and experience I have come to the conclusion that the romantic and emotional attachments formed by girls for their female friends and companions, attachments which take a great hold of their minds for the time being, are far commoner than is generally supposed among English girls, more especially at school or college, or wherever a number of girls or young women live together in one institution, and are much secluded. "As far as I have been able to find out, these attachments--which have their own local names, e.g., 'raves,' 'spoons,' etc.--are comparatively rare in the smaller private schools, and totally absent among girls of the poorer class attending Board and National schools, perhaps because they mix more freely with the opposite sex. "I can say from personal experience that in one of the largest and best English colleges, where I spent some years, 'raving' is especially common in spite of arrangements which one would have thought would have abolished most unhealthy feelings. The arrangements there are very similar to a large boys' college. There are numerous boarding-houses, which have, on an average, forty to fifty students. Each house is under the management of a well-educated house-mistress assisted by house-governesses (quite separate from college-teachers). Each house has a large garden with tennis-courts, etc.; and cricket, hockey, and other games are carried on to a large extent, games being not only much encouraged, but much enjoyed. Each girl has a separate cubicle, or bedroom, and no junior (under 17 years of age) is allowed to enter the cubicle, or bedroom, of another without asking permission, or to go to the bedrooms during the day. In fact, everything is done to discourage any morbid feelings. But all the same, as far as my experience goes, the friendships there seem more violent and more emotional than in most places, and sex subjects form one of the chief topics of conversation. "In such large schools and colleges these 'raves' are not only numerous, but seem to be perennial among the girls of all ages, from 13 years upward. Girls under that age may be fond of some other student or teacher, but in quite a different way. These 'raves' are not mere friendships in the ordinary sense of the word, nor are they incompatible with ordinary friendships. A girl with a 'rave' often has several intimate friends for whom affection is felt without the emotional feelings and pleasurable excitement which characterize a 'rave.' "From what I have been told by those who have experienced these 'raves' and have since been in love with men, the emotions called forth in both cases were similar, although in the case of the 'rave' this fact was not recognized at the time. This appears to point to a sexual basis, but, on the other hand, there are many cases where the feeling seems to be more spiritual, a sort of uplifting of the whole soul with an intense desire to lead a very good life--the feeling being one of reverence more than anything else for the loved one, with no desire to become too intimate and no desire for physical contact. "'Raves,' as a rule, begin quite suddenly. They may be mutual or all on one side. In the case of school-girls the mutual 'rave' is generally found between two companions, or the girls may have a 'rave' for one of their teachers or some grown-up acquaintance, who does not necessarily enter into the school-life. In this case there may or may not be a feeling of affection for the girl by her 'rave,' though minus all the emotional feelings. "Occasionally a senior student will have a 'rave' on a little girl, but these cases are rare and not very active in their symptoms, girls over 18 having fewer 'raves' and generally condemning them. "In the large school already referred to, of which I have personal knowledge, 'raving' was very general, hardly anyone being free from it. Any fresh student would soon fall a victim to the fashion, which rather points to the fact that it is infectious. Sometimes there might be a lull in the general raving, only to reappear after an interval in more or less of an epidemic form. Sometimes nearly all the 'raves' were felt by students for their teachers; at other times it was more apparent between the girls themselves. "Sometimes one teacher was raved on by several girls. In many cases, the girls raving on a teacher would have a very great friendship with one of their companions--talking with each other constantly of their respective 'raves,' describing their feelings and generally letting off steam to one another, indulging sometimes in the active demonstrations of affection which they were debarred from showing the teacher herself, and in some cases having no desire to do so even if they could. "As far as I have been able to judge, there is not necessarily any attraction for physical characteristics, as beauty, elegance, etc.; the two participants are probably both of strong character or a weak character raves on a stronger, but rarely _vice versâ_. "I have often noticed that the same person may be raved on at different times by several people of different characters and of all ages: say, up to 30 years of age. It is hard to say why some persons more than others should inspire this feeling. Often they are reserved, without any particular physical attraction, and often despising raving and emotional friendships, and give no encouragement to them. That the majority of 'raves' have a sexual basis may be true, but I am sure that in the majority of cases where young girls are concerned this is not in the least recognized, and no impurity is indulged in or wished for. The majority of the girls are entirely ignorant of all sexual matters, and understand nothing whatever about them. But they do wonder about them and talk about them constantly, more especially when they have a 'rave,' which seems to point to some subtle connection between the two. That this ignorance exists is largely to be deplored. The subject, if once thought of, is always thought of and talked of, and information is at length generally gained in a regrettable manner. From personal experience I know the evil results that this ignorance and constant endeavoring to find out everything has on the mind and bodies of school-girls. If children had the natural and simple laws of creation carefully explained to them by their parents, much harm would be prevented, and the conversation would not always turn on sexual matters. The Bible is often consulted for the discovery of hidden mysteries. "'Raves' on teachers are far commoner than between two girls. In this case the girl makes no secret of her attachment, constantly talking of it and describing her feelings to any who care to listen and writing long letters to her friends about the same. In the case of two girls there is more likely to be a sexual element, great pleasure being taken in close contact with one another and frequent kissing and hugging. When parted, long letters are written, often daily; they are full of affectionate expressions of love, etc., but there is also a frequent reference to the happiness and desire to do well that their love has inspired them with, while often very deeply religious feelings appear to be generated and many good resolutions are made. Their various emotional feelings are described in every minute detail to each other. "The duration of 'raves' varies. I have known them to last three or four years, more often only a few months. Occasionally what began as a 'rave' will turn, into a sensible firm friendship. I imagine that there is seldom any actual inversion, and on growing up the 'raves' generally cease. That the 'ravers' feel and act like a pair of lovers there is no doubt, and the majority put down these romantic friendships for their own sex as due, in a great extent, in the case of girls at schools, to being without the society of the opposite sex. This may be true in some cases, but personally I think the question open to discussion. These friendships are often found among girls who have left school and have every liberty, even among girls who have had numerous flirtations with the opposite sex, who cannot be accused of inversion, and who have all the feminine and domestic characteristics. "In illustration of these points I may bring forward the following case: A. and B. were two girls at the same college. They belonged to different cliques, or sets; occupied different bedrooms; never met in their school-work, and were practically only known to one another by name. One day they chanced to sit next to one another at some meal. They both already had 'raves,' A. on an actor she had lately seen, B. on a married woman at her home. The conversation happened to turn on 'raves,' and mutual attraction was _suddenly_ felt. From that moment a new interest came into their lives. They lived for one another. At the time A. was 14, B. a year older. Both were somewhat precocious for their age, were practical, with plenty of common sense, very keen on games, interested in their lessons, and very independent, but at the same time with marked feminine characteristics and popular with the opposite sex. After the first feeling of interest there was a subtle excitement and desire to meet again. All their thoughts were occupied with the subject. Each day they managed as many private meetings as possible. They met in the passages in order to say good-night with many embraces. As far as possible they hid their feelings from the rest of their world. They became inseparable, and a very lasting and real, but somewhat emotional, affection, in which the sexual element was certainly marked, sprang up between them. Although at the time they were both quite ignorant of sexual matters, yet they indulged their sexual instincts to some extent. They felt surcharged with hitherto unexperienced feelings and emotions, instinct urged them to let these have play, but instinctively they also had a feeling that to do so would be wrong. This feeling they endeavored to argue out and find reasons for. When parted for any length of time they felt very miserable and wrote pages to one another every day, pouring forth in writing their feelings for one another. In this time of active attraction they both became deeply religious for a time. The active part of the affection continued for three or four years, and now, after an interval of ten years, they are both exceedingly fond of one another, although their paths in life are divided and each has since experienced love for a man. Both look back upon the sexual element in their friendship with some interest. It may be remarked in passing that A. and B. are both attractive girls to men and women, and B. especially appears always to have roused 'rave' feelings in her own sex, without the slightest encouragement on her part. The duration of this 'rave' was exceptionally long, the majority only lasting a few months, while some girls have one 'rave' after another or two or three together. "I may mention one other case, where I believe that if it a sexual basis this was not recognized by the parties concerned or their friends. Two girls, over 20 years of age, passed in a corridor. A few words were exchanged: the beginning of a very warm and fast friendship. They said it was _not_ a 'rave.' They were absolutely devoted to one another, but from what I know of them and what they have since told me, their feelings were quite free from any sexual desires, though their love for one another was great. When parted they exchanged letters daily, but were always endeavoring to urge one another on in all the virtues, and as far as I can gather they never gave way to any feeling they thought was not for the good of their souls. "Letters and presents are exchanged, vows of eternal love are made, quarrels are engaged in for the mere pleasure of reconciliation, and jealousy is easily manifested. Although 'raves' are chiefly found among school-girls, they are by no means confined to them, but are common among any community of women of any age, say, under 30, and are not unknown among married women when there is no inversion. In these oases there is usually, of course, no ignorance of sexual matters. "Whether there is any direct harm in these friendships I have not been able to make up my mind. In the case of school-girls, if there is not too much emotion generated and if the sexual feelings are not indulged in, I think they may do more good than harm. Later on in life, when all one's desires and feelings are at their strongest, it is more doubtful." III. That the phenomena as found in the girls' colleges of America are exactly similar to those in Italy and England is shown, among other evidence, by some communications sent to Mr. E.G. Lancaster, of Clark University, Worcester, Mass., a few years ago. Mr. E.G. Lancaster sent out a _questionnaire_ to over 800 teachers and older pupils dealing with various points connected with adolescence, and received answers from 91 persons containing information which bore on the present question.[279] Of this number, 28 male and 41 female had been in love before the age of 25, while 11 of each sex had had no love experiences, this indicating, since the women were in a majority, that the absence of love experience is more common in men than in women. These answers were from young people between 16 and 25 years of age. Two males and 7 females have loved imaginary characters, while 3 males and not less than 46 females speak of passionate love for the same sex. Love of the same sex, Lancaster remarks, though not generally known, is very common; it is not mere friendship; the love is strong, real, and passionate. It may be remarked that these 49 cases were reported without solicitation, since there was no reference to homosexual love in the _questionnaire_. Many of the answers to the syllabus are so beautiful, Lancaster observes, that if they could be printed in full no comment would be necessary. He quotes a few of the answers. Thus a woman of 33 writes: "At 14 I had my first case of love, but it was with a girl. It was insane, intense love, but had the same quality and sensations as my first love with a man at 18. In neither case was the object idealized. I was perfectly aware of their faults; nevertheless my whole being was lost, immersed in their existence. The first lasted two years, the second seven years. No love has since been so intense, but now these persons, though living, are no more to me than the veriest stranger." Another woman of 35 writes: "Girls between the ages of 14 and 18 at college or girls' schools often fall in love with the same sex. This is not friendship. The loved one is older, more advanced, more charming or beautiful. When I was a freshman in college I knew at least thirty girls who were in love with a senior. Some sought her because it was the fashion, but I knew that my own homage and that of many others was sincere and passionate. I loved her because she was brilliant and utterly indifferent to the love shown her. She was not pretty, though at the time we thought her beautiful. One of her adorers, on being slighted, was ill for two weeks. On her return she was speaking to me when the object of our admiration came into the room. The shock was too great and she fainted. When I reached the senior year I was the recipient of languishing glances, original verses, roses, and passionate letters written at midnight and three in the morning." No similar confessions are recorded from men. IV. In South America corresponding phenomena have been found in schools and colleges of the same class. There they have been especially studied by Mercante in the convent High Schools of Buenos Aires where the students are girls between the ages of 10 and 22.[280] Mercante found that homosexuality here is not clearly defined or explicit and usually it is combined with a predisposition to romanticism and mysticism. It is usually of a passive kind, but in this form so widespread as to constitute a kind of epidemic. It was most manifest in institutions where the greatest stress was placed on religious instruction. The recreations of the school in question were quiet and enervating; active or boisterous sports were prohibited to the end that good manners might be cultivated. In the play-rooms, the girls observed the strictest etiquette, and discipline was maintained independent of oversight by teachers. Mercante could hardly believe, however, that the decorum was more than external. Later, when the girls broke up, they were found in pairs or small groups, in corners, on benches, beside the pillars, arm in arm or holding hands. What they were speaking of could be surmised. "Their conversation and confidences came to me indirectly. They were sweethearts talking about their affairs. In spite of the spiritual and feminine character of these unions, one element was active, the other passive, thus confirming the authorities on this matter, Gamier, Régis, Lombroso, Bonfigli." Mercante found the points of view of the two members of each pair to be quite different in moral aspect. "One takes the initiative, she commands, she cares for, she offers, she gives, she makes decisions, she considers the present, she imagines the future, she smoothes over difficulties, gives encouragement and initiative, she commands, she cares for, she offers, she gives, she docile, gives way in matters of dispute, and expresses her affection with sweet words and promises of love and submission. The atmosphere, silent and quiet, was, however, charged with jealousy, squabble, desires, illusions, dreams, and lamentations." Mercante's informant assured him that practically every girl had her affinity, and that there were at least twenty well-defined love affairs. The active party starts the conquest by making eyes, next she becomes more intimate, and finally proposes. Women being highly adaptable, the neophyte, unless she is rebellious, gets into the spirit of it all. If she is not complaisant, she must prepare for conflict, because the prey becomes more desirable the more the resistance encountered. Opportunity was offered to Mercante to observe some of the correspondence between the girls. Though of indifferent training and ability in other respects, the girls speak and write regarding their affairs with most admirable diction and style. No data are given regarding the actual intimate relations between the girls. FOOTNOTES: [279] E.G. Lancaster, "The Psychology and Pedagogy of Adolescence," _Pedagogical Seminary_, July, 1897, p. 88. [280] Victor Mercante, "Fetiquismo y Uranismo feminino en los internados educativos," _Archivos de Psiquiatria y Criminologia_, 1905, pp. 22-30; abstracted by D.C. McMurtrie, _Urologic Review_, August, 1914. INDEX OF AUTHORS. Abraham Adler, A. Adler Bey Alain de Lille Aletrino Ammon Angell, J.R. Anselm Arber Ariosto Aristophanes Aristotle Aschoff Aubrey Bacchaumont Bailly-Maitre Ballantyne Balzac Bartels, Max Bascoul Baumann Bazalgette Beardmore Bell, Clark Bell, Blair Benkert Benson, A. C Berkman Berrichon Bertz Besenval Bethe Biervliet Binet Binet-Valmer Birnbaum Bleuler Bloch, Iwan Blyth, J. Body Bombarda Bond, C.J. Borel Bouchard Brandt, P. Brehm Brill Brown, H. Brouardel Brun, C. Buchanan Bucke Buffon Burchard Burckhardt Burton, Sir R. Calesia Campanella Carlier Carpenter, Edward Carretto Casanova Casper Castle Cazanova Charcot Chevalier Claiborne Clarke, A.W. Clayton Coelius Aurelianus Coleridge Coriat Corre Croiset, A. Crusius Cust, R.H.H. Dante Darwin Daville Davitt, M. Davray Dejob Descaves Dessoir D'Ewes Diaz, B. Diderot Dostoieffsky Dubois Duflos Dukes, O. Dupré Duviquet Edmonds, J.M. Eekhoud Ellis, Havelock Engelmann Escoube Essebac Eulenburg Ewart, C.T. Féré Ferenczi Fernan Ferrero Flatau Fliess Flournoy Flynt, Josiah Foley Forel Frazer, Sir J.G. Freimark Freud Frey, L. Fuchs, A. Galton Gandavo Garrod, A.B. Gasparini Gaudenzi Gautier, A. Gautier, T. Gide Gilford, H. Gillen Gleichen-Russwurm Gley Godard Goldschwend Gomperz Gurlitt Haddon, A.C. Haeckel Hahn Halban Hammer Hamon Hardman Harris-Liston Hart, Berry Heape Hegar Heim Herman Herondas Hirschfeld Hoche Hochstetter, S. Holder Holmberg Holmes, W.G. Homer Home, H. Horneffer Hössli Hughes, C.H. Ingegnieros Jacobs James, W. Jastrow Jekels John of Salisbury Johnston, J. Jones, Ernest Jones, W. Juliusburger Justi Karsch Kiefer Kiernan Klaatsch Knapp Kocher Konradin Krafft-Ebing Krauss, F.S. Kupffer, E. von Kurella Laborde Lacassagne Lancaster, E.G. Langsdorff Lapointe Lasnet Laupts, _see_ Saint-Paul, G. Laurent Laycock Lefroy, E.C. Legludic Lepelletier Leppmann L'Estoile, P. de Letamendi Levetzow Lévi Libert Licht Lisiansky Lombroso Lorion Löwenfeld Lowie Lydston Macdonald, A. Magnan Maitland Mantegazza Marchesini Marie de France Marro Marshall, F.H.R. Martineau Martius Mason Matignon Mayne, Xavier McMurtrie Meige Meissner, B. Mercante Merzbach Meynert Middleton Möbius Moerenhout Moffat, D. Moll Monk of Evesham Montaigne Morache Moreau Morel Moskowski Moyer Muccioli Müller, F.C. Mure, W. Näcke Neugebauer Niceforo Nicholson, J.G. Nicklin Norman, Conolly Nortal Obici Oefele Olano Oppenheim Ordericus Vitalis Ortvay Otis, M. Parent-Duchâtelet Parish Parlagreco Pavia Petronius Pfister Plant Platen Plato Platt, J.A. Ploss Plutarch Pocock, R. Poisson Pollock Praetorius, Numa Preuss, J. Prynne Queringhi Rachilde Raffalovich Rank, O. Ransome Reclus, Elie Reid, Forrest Ribot Ritti Rivers, W.C. Rode, Léon de Rohleder Römer Rosenstein, G. Roth Roubinovitch Roux Rowley Rüling, A. Rutherford Sadger Saint-Paul, G. Sainte-Claire, Deville Salillas Savage, Sir G. Scheffler Schmid, A. Schopenhauer Schouten Schrenck-Notzing Schultz Schur Scott, Colin Seitz Seligmann Selous, E. Sérieux Shattock Shufeldt Smith, Theodate Smollett Spranger Steinach Stekel Stephanus Strauch Stubbes Sturgis, H.O. Sutton, Sir J. Bland Symonds, J.A. Talbot Tamassia Tarde Tardieu Tarnowsky Tennyson Thoinot Tilly Traubel Turnbull Ulrichs Vanbrugh Virchow Vivien, Renée Weeks Weigand Weismann Weissenberg Westermarck Wey, H.D. Weysse Wheeler Whitman, Walt. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff Wilhelm, E. Willy Wilson, J.M. Wise Witry Wright, T. Zola Zuccarelli INDEX OF SUBJECTS. Abnormalities, physical Abnormality and disease, difference between Acquired inversion Actors and homosexuality Actresses, homosexuality among Adaptation therapy Advertisements, homosexual Africa, homosexuality in Albanians, homosexuality among Aleuts, homosexuality among Ambisexuality Anal eroticism Anglo-Saxons Animals, homosexuality in Arabs, homosexuality among Artistic aptitudes of inverts Association therapy Australia Austrian law Autobiographies, homosexual Auto-erotism Bacon, Lord Bali, homosexuality among women in Barnfield Bastille, inverts in the Bazzi Bearded women Berlin Birds, homosexuality among Bisexual, the term Bisexuality Blackmailing Blavatsky, Madame Bonheur, Rosa _Boté_ Brazil, homosexuality in Buggery, the term _Burdash_ Byron Castration Cellini Charke, Charlotte Chastity, the ideal of Christina of Sweden Classification of the homosexual Clitoris in inverted women Clothes, inverted women in men's _Code Napoléon_ Coeducation Color-blindness compared to inversion Congenital inversion Contrary sexual feeling, the term Convents, homosexuality in Costume Creoles, homosexuality among Criminals, homosexuality among Cross-dressing _Cudinas_ _Cunnilinctus_ Dadon Degeneration and inversion Disease and abnormality, difference between Dolben Dorians Dramatic aptitude and inversion Dreams, erotic Duquesnoy Egypt, homosexuality in ancient modern England, homosexuality in English law and homosexuality Eonism Erasmus Erotic dreams Eskimo Eunuchoidism Factories, homosexuality among women in _Fellatio_ Feminine characteristics of inverts Fetichism, erotic Fitzgerald, Edward France, homosexuality in Freudianism Friendship Frith, Mary Genital organs and inversion Genius, homosexuality among men of Germany, homosexuality in law in relation to homosexuality in Gleim Goethe Greece, homosexuality in ancient Green, inverts, preference for Gynandromorphism Gynecomasty Hair on body Hall, Murray Handwriting Harems, homosexuality in Hatschepsu, Queen Health of inverts, general Heliogabalus Heredity in inversion Heresy and homosexuality Hermaphroditism Hobart, Miss Homogenic, the term Homosexuality, the term Hormones _Horror feminæ_ Hössli Humboldt, A. and W., von Hygiene of homosexuality Hyperesthesia of inverts, sexual Hypertrichosis Hypnotism in treatment of homosexuality India, homosexuality in Indians, homosexuality among American Infantilism in inverts Insanity and inversion Insects, homosexuality among Internal secretions Inversion, the term Italy, homosexuality in law in James I Julius Cæsar Justinian's enactments Kleist Krupp, F.A. Larynx in inverted women Law in relation to homosexuality Lefthandedness Lesbianism Lincken, Catharina London, homosexuality in Madagascar, homosexuality in _Mahoos_ Marlowe Marriage of inverts Masculine protest Masochism in inverted women Masturbation Maupin, Madame Medico-legal aspects of homosexuality Michel, Louise Michelangelo Mihiri _Mika_ operation Mitchell, Alice Molly houses Monkeys, homosexuality among Moral attitude of inverts Moral leaders, inversion in _Mujerados_ Muret Musculature Music Narcissism Neurasthenia and inversion New Caledonia, homosexuality in New Guinea, homosexuality in New Zealand, homosexuality among women in Normans Nosology and pathology Novels, homosexual Oedipus complex Oligotrichosis Ovaries _Paiderastia_ Partridges, homosexuality in Pathology and nosology _Pedicatio_ Persia Phallus, use of artificial Physical abnormalities Pigeons, inversion in Platen Precocity of inverts Prevalence of homosexuality Prevention of homosexuality Priests and inversion Prisons, homosexuality in Prostitutes, homosexuality among Prostitution, male Pseudo-homosexuality Pseudo-sexual attraction Psycho-analysis Psycho-sexual hermaphroditism _and see_ Bisexuality. Psycho-therapeutics Race and inversion Rats, homosexuality among Raylan, N. de Red, invert's preference for Renaissance and inversion, the Retarded inversion Rome, homosexuality in ancient Russian law Sadism in inverted women Sakaltaves, homosexuality among Sappho Sapphism Savages, homosexuality among Schools and homosexuality _Schopans_ _Seoatra_ Secondary sexual-characters and inversion Seduction and inversion Senile homosexuality Sex, the theory of Sexo-esthetic inversion Sexual organs Sexual precocity of inverts Shakespeare Society and inversion Sodoma Sodomy, the term Soldiers, homosexuality among Sotadic zone, Burton's Spain, homosexuality among women in Spurious homosexuality Suicide and inversion Suggestion as an exciting cause of inversion Switzerland, law in Tahiti Tarn, Pauline Tasso Templars Theaters and homosexuality Tramps, homosexuality among Transvestism Treatment of inversion Tribadism Turkey, homosexuality in Udall Ulrichs Undifferentiated sex stage in youth United States, homosexuality in Uranism, the term Urning, the term Vanity of inverts Vasectomy Vay, Sarolta Verlaine Vinci, L. da Virgil Vivien, Renée Voice in inversion War and homosexuality Whisky and inversion Whitman, Walt Wilde, Oscar William III William Rufus Winkelmann Women movement and homosexuality Working classes, homosexuality in Zanzibar, homosexuality in 
13614	----	STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX, VOLUME V Erotic Symbolism The Mechanism of Detumescence The Psychic State in Pregnancy by HAVELOCK ELLIS 1927 PREFACE. In this volume the terminal phenomena of the sexual process are discussed, before an attempt is finally made, in the concluding volume, to consider the bearings of the psychology of sex on that part of morals which may be called "social hygiene." Under "Erotic Symbolism" I include practically all the aberrations of the sexual instinct, although some of these have seemed of sufficient importance for separate discussion in previous volumes. It is highly probable that many readers will consider that the name scarcely suffices to cover manifestations so numerous and so varied. The term "sexual equivalents" will seem preferable to some. While, however, it may be fully admitted that these perversions are "sexual equivalents"--or at all events equivalents of the normal sexual impulse--that term is merely a descriptive label which tells us nothing of the phenomena. "Sexual Symbolism" gives us the key to the process, the key that makes all these perversions intelligible. In all of them--very clearly in some, as in shoe-fetichism; more obscurely in others, as in exhibitionism--it has come about by causes congenital, acquired, or both, that some object or class of objects, some act or group of acts, has acquired a dynamic power over the psycho-physical mechanism of the sexual process, deflecting it from its normal adjustment to the whole of a beloved person of the opposite sex. There has been a transmutation of values, and certain objects, certain acts, have acquired an emotional value which for the normal person they do not possess. Such objects and acts are properly, it seems to me, termed symbols, and that term embodies the only justification that in most cases these manifestations can legitimately claim. "The Mechanism of Detumescence" brings us at last to the final climax for which the earlier and more prolonged stage of tumescence, which has occupied us so often in these _Studies_, is the elaborate preliminary. "The art of love," a clever woman novelist has written, "is the art of preparation." That "preparation" is, on the physiological side, the production of tumescence, and all courtship is concerned in building up tumescence. But the final conjugation of two individuals in an explosion of detumescence, thus slowly brought about, though it is largely an involuntary act, is still not without its psychological implications and consequences; and it is therefore a matter for regret that so little is yet known about it. The one physiological act in which two individuals are lifted out of all ends that center in self and become the instrument of those higher forces which fashion the species, can never be an act to be slurred over as trivial or unworthy of study. In the brief study of "The Psychic State in Pregnancy" we at last touch the point at which the whole complex process of sex reaches its goal. A woman with a child in her womb is the everlasting miracle which all the romance of love, all the cunning devices of tumescence and detumescence, have been invented to make manifest. The psychic state of the woman who thus occupies the supreme position which life has to offer cannot fail to be of exceeding interest from many points of view, and not least because the maternal instinct is one of the elements even of love between the sexes. But the psychology of pregnancy is full of involved problems, and here again, as so often in the wide field we have traversed, we stand at the threshold of a door it is not yet given us to pass. HAVELOCK ELLIS. Carbis Water, Lelant, Cornwall. CONTENTS. EROTIC SYMBOLISM. I. The Definition of Erotic Symbolism. Symbolism of Act and Symbolism of Object. Erotic Fetichism. Wide Extension of the Symbols of Sex. The Immense Variety of Possible Erotic Fetiches. The Normal Foundations of Erotic Symbolism. Classification of the Phenomena. The Tendency to Idealize the Defects of a Beloved Person. Stendhal's "Crystallization". II. Foot-fetichism and Shoe-fetichism. Wide Prevalence and Normal Basis. Restif de la Bretonne. The Foot a Normal Focus of Sexual Attraction Among Some Peoples. The Chinese, Greeks, Romans, Spaniards, etc. The Congenital Predisposition in Erotic Symbolism. The Influence of Early Association and Emotional Shock. Shoe-fetichism in Relation to Masochism. The Two Phenomena Independent Though Allied. The Desire to be Trodden On. The Fascination of Physical Constraint. The Symbolism of Self-inflicted Pain. The Dynamic Element in Erotic Symbolism. The Symbolism of Garments. III. Scatalogic Symbolism. Urolagnia. Coprolagnia. The Ascetic Attitude Towards the Flesh. Normal Basis of Scatalogic Symbolism. Scatalogic Conceptions Among Primitive Peoples. Urine as a Primitive Holy Water. Sacredness of Animal Excreta. Scatalogy in Folk-lore. The Obscene as Derived from the Mythological. The Immature Sexual Impulse Tends to Manifest Itself in Scatalogic Forms. The Basis of Physiological Connection Between the Urinary and Genital Spheres. Urinary Fetichism Sometimes Normal in Animals. The Urolagnia of Masochists. The Scatalogy of Saints. Urolagnia More Often a Symbolism of Act Than a Symbolism of Object. Only Occasionally an Olfactory Fetichism. Comparative Rarity of Coprolagnia. Influence of Nates Fetichism as a Transition to Coprolagnia, Ideal Coprolagnia. Olfactory Coprolagnia. Urolagnia and Coprolagnia as Symbols of Coitus. IV. Animals as Sources of Erotic Symbolism. Mixoscopic Zoophilia. The Stuff-fetichisms. Hair-fetichism. The Stuff-fetichisms Mainly on a Tactile Base. Erotic Zoophilia. Zooerastia. Bestiality. The Conditions that Favor Bestiality. Its Wide Prevalence Among Primitive Peoples and Among Peasants. The Primitive Conception of Animals. The Goat. The Influence of Familiarity With Animals. Congress Between Women and Animals. The Social Reaction Against Bestiality. V. Exhibitionism. Illustrative Cases. A Symbolic Perversion of Courtship. The Impulse to Defile. The Exhibitionist's Psychic Attitude. The Sexual Organs as Fetiches. Phallus Worship. Adolescent Pride in Sexual Development. Exhibitionism of the Nates. The Classification of the Forms of Exhibitionism. Nature of the Relationship of Exhibitionism to Epilepsy. VI. The Forms of Erotic Symbolism are Simulacra of Coitus. Wide Extension of Erotic Symbolism. Fetichism Not Covering the Whole Ground of Sexual Selection. It is Based on the Individual Factor in Selection. Crystallization. The Lover and the Artist. The Key to Erotic Symbolism is to be Found in the Emotional Sphere. The Passage to Pathological Extremes. THE MECHANISM OF DETUMESCENCE. I. The Psychological Significance of Detumescence. The Testis and the Ovary. Sperm Cell and Germ Cell. Development of the Embryo. The External Sexual Organs. Their Wide Range of Variation. Their Nervous Supply. The Penis. Its Racial Variations. The Influence of Exercise. The Scrotum and Testicles. The Mons Veneris. The Vulva. The Labia Majora and their Varieties. The Public Hair and Its Characters. The Clitoris and Its Functions. The Anus as an Erogenous Zone. The Nymphæ and their Function. The Vagina. The Hymen. Virginity. The Biological Significance of the Hymen. II. The Object of Detumescence. Erogenous Zones. The Lips. The Vascular Characters of Detumescence. Erectile Tissue. Erection in Woman. Mucous Emission in Women. Sexual Connection. The Human Mode of Intercourse. Normal Variations. The Motor Characters of Detumescence. Ejaculation. The Virile Reflex. The General Phenomena of Detumescence. The Circulatory and Respiratory Phenomena. Blood Pressure. Cardiac Disturbance. Glandular Activity. Distillatio. The Essentially Motor Character of Detumescence. Involuntary Muscular Irradiation to Bladder, etc. Erotic Intoxication. Analogy of Sexual Detumescence and Vesical Tension. The Specifically Sexual Movements of Detumescence in Man. In Woman. The Spontaneous Movements of the Genital Canal in Woman. Their Function in Conception. Part Played by Active Movement of the Spermatozoa. The Artificial Injection of Semen. The Facial Expression During Detumescence. The Expression of Joy. The Occasional Serious Effects of Coitus. III. The Constituents of Semen. Function of the Prostate. The Properties of Semen. Aphrodisiacs. Alcohol, Opium, etc. Anaphrodisiacs. The Stimulant Influence of Semen in Coitus. The Internal Effects of Testicular Secretions. The Influence of Ovarian Secretion. IV. The Aptitude for Detumescence. Is There an Erotic Temperament? The Available Standards of Comparison. Characteristics of the Castrated. Characteristics of Puberty. Characteristics of the State of Detumescence. Shortness of Stature. Development of the Secondary Sexual Characters. Deep Voice. Bright Eyes. Glandular Activity. Everted Lips. Pigmentation. Profuse Hair. Dubious Significance of Many of These Characters. THE PSYCHIC STATE IN PREGNANCY. The Relationship of Maternal and Sexual Emotion. Conception and Loss of Virginity. The Anciently Accepted Signs of This Condition. The Pervading Effects of Pregnancy on the Organism. Pigmentation. The Blood and Circulation. The Thyroid. Changes in the Nervous System. The Vomiting of Pregnancy. The Longings of Pregnant Women. Mental Impressions. Evidence for and Against Their Validity. The Question Still Open. Imperfection of Our Knowledge. The Significance of Pregnancy. APPENDIX. Histories of Sexual Development. INDEX OF AUTHORS. INDEX OF SUBJECTS. EROTIC SYMBOLISM. I. The Definition of Erotic Symbolism--Symbolism of Act and Symbolism of Object--Erotic Fetichism--Wide extension of the symbols of Sex--The Immense Variety of Possible Erotic Fetiches--The Normal Foundations of Erotic Symbolism--Classification of the Phenomena--The Tendency to Idealize the Defects of a Beloved Person--Stendhal's "Crystallization." By "erotic symbolism" I mean that tendency whereby the lover's attention is diverted from the central focus of sexual attraction to some object or process which is on the periphery of that focus, or is even outside of it altogether, though recalling it by association of contiguity or of similarity. It thus happens that tumescence, or even in extreme cases detumescence, may be provoked by the contemplation of acts or objects which are away from the end of sexual conjugation.[1] In considering the phenomena of sexual selection in a previous volume,[2] it was found that there are four or five main factors in the constitution of beauty in so far as beauty determines sexual selection. Erotic symbolism is founded on the factor of individual taste in beauty; it arises as a specialized development of that factor, but it is, nevertheless, incorrect to merge it in sexual selection. The attractive characteristics of a beloved woman or man, from the point of view of sexual selection, are a complex but harmonious whole leading up to a desire for the complete possession of the person who displays them. There is no tendency to isolate and dissociate any single character from the individual and to concentrate attention upon that character at the expense of the attention bestowed upon the individual generally. As soon as such a tendency begins to show itself, even though only in a slight or temporary form, we may say that there is erotic symbolism. Erotic symbolism is, however, by no means confined to the individualizing tendency to concentrate amorous attention upon some single characteristic of the adult woman or man who is normally the object of sexual love. The adult human being may not be concerned at all, the attractive object or act may not even be human, not even animal, and we may still be concerned with a symbol which has parasitically rooted itself on the fruitful site of sexual emotion and absorbed to itself the energy which normally goes into the channels of healthy human love having for its final end the procreation of the species. Thus understood in its widest sense, it may be said that every sexual perversion, even homosexuality, is a form of erotic symbolism, for we shall find that in every case some object or act that for the normal human being has little or no erotic value, has assumed such value in a supreme degree; that is to say, it has become a symbol of the normal object of love. Certain perversions are, however, of such great importance on account of their wide relationships, that they cannot be adequately discussed merely as forms of erotic symbolism. This is notably the case as regards homosexuality, auto-erotism, and algolagnia, all of which phenomena have therefore been separately discussed in previous studies. We are now mainly concerned with manifestations which are more narrowly and exclusively symbolical. A portion of the field of erotic symbolism is covered by what Binet (followed by Lombroso, Krafft-Ebing, and others) has termed "erotic fetichism," or the tendency whereby sexual attraction is unduly exerted by some special part or peculiarity of the body, or by some inanimate object which has become associated with it. Such erotic symbolism of object cannot, however, be dissociated from the even more important erotic symbolism of process, and the two are so closely bound together that we cannot attain a truly scientific view of them until we regard them broadly as related parts of a common psychic tendency. If, as Groos asserts,[3] a symbol has two chief meanings, one in which it indicates a physical process which stands for a psychic process, and another in which it indicates a part which represents the whole, erotic symbolism of act corresponds to the first of these chief meanings, and erotic symbolism of object to the other. Although it is not impossible to find some germs of erotic symbolism in animals, in its more pronounced manifestations it is only found in the human species. It could not be otherwise, for such symbolism involves not only the play of fancy and imagination, the idealizing aptitude, but also a certain amount of power of concentrating the attention on a point outside the natural path of instinct and the ability to form new mental constructions around that point. There are, indeed, as we shall see, elementary forms of erotic symbolism which are not uncommonly associated with feeble-mindedness, but even these are still peculiarly human, and in its less crude manifestations erotic symbolism easily lends itself to every degree of human refinement and intelligence. "It depends primarily upon an increase of the psychological process of representation," Colin Scott remarks of sexual symbolism generally, "involving greater powers of comparison and analysis as compared with the lower animals. The outer impressions come to be clearly distinguished as such, but at the same time are often treated as symbols of inner experiences, and a meaning read into them which they would not otherwise possess. Symbolism or fetichism is, indeed, just the capacity to see meaning, to emphasize something for the sake of other things which do not appear. In brain terms it indicates an activity of the higher centers, a sort of side-tracking or long-circuiting of the primitive energy; ... Rosetti's poem, 'The Woodspurge,' gives a concrete example of the formation of such a symbol. Here the otherwise insignificant presentation of the three-cupped woodspurge, representing originally a mere side-current of the stream of consciousness, becomes the intellectual symbol or fetich of the whole psychosis forever after. It seems, indeed, as if the stronger the emotion the more likely will become the formation of an overlying symbolism, which serves to focus and stand in the place of something greater than itself; nowhere at least is symbolism a more characteristic feature than as an expression of the sexual instinct. The passion of sex, with its immense hereditary background, in early man became centered often upon the most trivial and unimportant features.... This symbolism, now become fetichistic, or symbolic in a bad sense, is at least an exercise of the increasing representative power of man, upon which so much of his advancement has depended, while it also served to express and help to purify his most perennial emotion." (Colin Scott, "Sex and Art," _American Journal of Psychology_, vol. vii, No. 2, p. 189.) In the study of "Love and Pain" in a previous volume, the analysis of the large and complex mass of sexual phenomena which are associated with pain, gradually resolved them to a considerable extent into a special case of erotic symbolism; pain or restraint, whether inflicted on or by the loved person, becomes, by a psychic process that is usually unconscious, the symbol of the sexual mechanism, and hence arouses the same emotions as that mechanism normally arouses. We may now attempt to deal more broadly and comprehensively with the normal and abnormal aspects of erotic symbolism in some of their most typical and least mixed forms. "When our human imagination seeks to animate artificial things," Huysmans writes in _Là-bas_, "it is compelled to reproduce the movements of animals in the act of propagation. Look at machines, at the play of pistons in the cylinders; they are Romeos of steel in Juliets of cast-iron." And not only in the work of man's hands but throughout Nature we find sexual symbols which are the less deniable since, for the most part, they make not the slightest appeal to even the most morbid human imagination. Language is full of metaphorical symbols of sex which constantly tend to lose their poetic symbolism and to become commonplace. Semen is but seed, and for the Latins especially the whole process of human sex, as well as the male and female organs, constantly presented itself in symbols derived from agricultural and horticultural life. The testicles were beans (_fabæ_) and fruit or apples (_poma_ and _mala_); the penis was a tree (_arbor_), or a stalk (_thyrsus_), or a root (_radix_), or a sickle (_falx_), or a ploughshare (_vomer_). The semen, again, was dew (_ros_). The labia majora or minora were wings (_alæ_); the vulva and vagina were a field (_ager_ and _campus_), or a ploughed furrow (_sulcus_), or a vineyard (_vinea_), or a fountain (_fons_), while the pudendal hair was herbage (_plantaria_).[4] In other languages it is not difficult to trace similar and even identical imagery applied to sexual organs and sexual acts. Thus it is noteworthy that Shakespeare more than once applies the term "ploughed" to a woman who has had sexual intercourse. The Talmud calls the labia minora the doors, the labia majora hinges, and the clitoris the key. The Greeks appear not only to have found in the myrtle-berry, the fruit of a plant sacred to Venus, the image of the clitoris, but also in the rose an image of the feminine labia; in the poetic literature of many countries, indeed, this imagery of the rose may be traced in a more or less veiled manner.[5] The widespread symbolism of sex arose in the theories and conceptions of primitive peoples concerning the function of generation and its nearest analogies in Nature; it was continued for the sake of the vigorous and expressive terminology which it furnished both for daily life and for literature; its final survivals were cultivated because they furnished a delicately æsthetic method of approaching matters which a growing refinement of sentiment made it difficult for lovers and poets to approach in a more crude and direct manner. Its existence is of interest to us now because it shows the objective validity of the basis on which erotic symbolism, as we have here to understand it, develops. But from first to last it is a distinct phenomenon, having a more or less reasoned and intellectual basis, and it scarcely serves in any degree to feed the sexual impulse. Erotic symbolism is not intellectual but emotional in its origin; it starts into being, obscurely, with but a dim consciousness or for the most part none at all, either suddenly from the shock of some usually youthful experience, or more gradually through an instinctive brooding on those things which are most intimately associated with a sexually desirable person. The kind of soil on which the germs of erotic symbolism may develop is well seen in cases of sexual hyperæsthesia. In such cases all the emotionally sexual analogies and resemblances, which in erotic symbolism are fixed and organized, may be traced in vague and passing forms, a single hyperæsthetic individual perhaps presenting a great variety of germinal symbolisms. Thus it has been recorded of an Italian nun (whose sister became a prostitute) that from the age of 8 she had desire for coitus, from the age of 10 masturbated, and later had homosexual feelings, that the same feelings and practices continued after she had taken the veil, though from time to time they assumed religious equivalents. The mere contact, indeed, of a priest's hand, the news of the presentation of an ecclesiastic she had known to a bishopric, the sight of an ape, the contemplation of the crucified Christ, the figure of a toy, the picture of a demon, the act of defecation in the children entrusted to her care (whom, on this account, and against the regulations, she would accompany to the closets), especially the sight and the mere recollection of flies in sexual connection--all these things sufficed to produce in her a powerful orgasm. (_Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1902, fasc. II-III, p. 338.) A boy of 15 (given to masturbation), studied by Macdonald in America, was similarly hyperæsthetic to the symbols of sexual emotion. "I like amusing myself with my comrades," he told Macdonald, "rolling ourselves into a ball, which gives one a funny kind of warmth. I have a special pleasure in talking about some things. It is the same when the governess kisses me on saying good night or when I lean against her breast. I have that sensation, too, when I see some of the pictures in the comic papers, but only in those representing a woman, as when a young man skating trips up a girl so that her clothes are raised a little. When I read how a man saved a young girl from drowning, so that they swam together, I had the same sensation. Looking at the statues of women in the museum produces the same effect, or when I see naked babies, or when a mother suckles a child. I have often had that sensation when reading novels I ought not to read, or when looking at a new-born calf, or seeing dogs and cows and horses mounting on each other. When I see a girl flirting with a boy, or leaning on his shoulder or with his arm round her waist, I have an erection. It is the same when I see women and little girls in bathing costume, or when boys talk of what their fathers and mothers do together. In the Natural History Museum I often see things which give me that sensation. One day when I read how a man killed a young girl and carried her into a wood and undressed her I had a feeling of enjoyment. When I read of men who were bastards the idea of a woman having a child in that way gives me this sensation. Some dances, and seeing young girls astride a horse, excited me, too, and so in a circus when a woman was shot out of a cannon and her skirts flew in the air. It has no effect on me when I see men naked. Sometimes I enjoy seeing women's underclothes in a shop, or when I see a lady or a girl buying them, especially if they are drawers. When I saw a lady in a dress which buttoned from top to bottom it had more effect on me than seeing underclothes. Seeing dogs coupling gives me more pleasure than looking at pretty women, but less than looking at pretty little girls." In order of increasing intensity he placed the phenomena that affected him thus: The coupling of flies, then of horses, then the sight of women's undergarments, then a boy and a girl flirting, then cows mounting on each other, the statues of women with naked breasts, then contact with the governess's body and breasts, finally coitus. (Arthur Macdonald, _Le Criminel-Type_, pp. 126 et seq.) It is worthy of remark that the instinct of nutrition, when restrained, may exhibit something of an analogous symbolism, though in a minor degree, to that of sex. The ways in which a hyperæsthetic hunger may seek its symbols are illustrated in the case of a young woman called Nadia, who during several years was carefully studied by Janet. It is a case of obsession ("maladie du scrupule"), simulating hysterical anorexia, in which the patient, for fear of getting fat, reduced her nourishment to the smallest possible amount. "Nadia is generally hungry, even very hungry. One can tell this by her actions; from time to time she forgets herself to such an extent as to devour greedily anything she can put her hands on. At other times, when she cannot resist the desire to eat, she secretly takes a biscuit. She feels horrible remorse for the action, but, all the same, she does it again. Her confidences are very curious. She recognizes that a great effort is needed to avoid eating, and considers she is a heroine to resist so long. 'Sometimes I spent whole hours in thinking about food, I was so hungry; I swallowed my saliva, I bit my handkerchief, I rolled on the floor, I wanted to eat so badly. I would look in books for descriptions of meals and feasts, and tried to deceive my hunger by imagining that I was sharing all these good things,'" (P. Janet, "La Maladie du Scrupule," _Revue Philosophique_, May, 1901, p. 502.) The deviations of the instinct of nutrition are, however, confined within narrow limits, and, in the nature of things, hunger, unlike sexual desire, cannot easily accept a fetich. "There is almost no feature, article of dress, attitude, act," Stanley Hall declares, "or even animal or perhaps object in nature, that may not have to some morbid soul specialized erogenic and erethic power."[6] Even a mere shadow may become a fetich. Goron tells of a merchant in Paris--a man with a reputation for ability, happily married and the father of a family, altogether irreproachable in his private life--who was returning home one evening after a game of billiards with a friend, when, on chancing to raise his eyes, he saw against a lighted window the shadow of a woman changing her chemise. He fell in love with that shadow and returned to the spot every evening for many months to gaze at the window. Yet--and herein lies the fetichism--he made no attempt to see the woman or to find out who she was; the shadow sufficed; he had no need of the realty.[7] It is even possible to have a negative fetich, the absence of some character being alone demanded, and the case has been recorded in Chicago of an American gentleman of average intelligence, education, and good habits who, having as a boy cherished a pure affection for a girl whose leg had been amputated, throughout life was relatively impotent with normal women, but experienced passion and affection for women who had lost a leg; he was found by his wife to be in extensive correspondence with one-legged women all over the country, expending no little money on the purchase of artificial legs for his various protegées.[8] It is important to remember, however, that while erotic symbolism becomes fantastic and abnormal in its extreme manifestations, it is in its essence absolutely normal. It is only in the very grossest forms of sexual desire that it is altogether absent. Stendhal described the mental side of the process of tumescence as a crystallization, a process whereby certain features of the beloved person present points around which the emotions held in solution in the lover's mind may concentrate and deposit themselves in dazzling brilliance. This process inevitably tends to take place around all those features and objects associated with the beloved person which have most deeply impressed the lover's mind, and the more sensitive and imaginative and emotional he is the more certainly will such features and objects crystallize into erotic symbols. "Devotion and love," wrote Mary Wollstonecraft, "may be allowed to hallow the garments as well as the person, for the lover must want fancy who has not a sort of sacred respect for the glove or slipper of his mistress. He would not confound them with vulgar things of the same kind." And nearly two centuries earlier Burton, who had gathered together so much of the ancient lore of love, clearly asserted the entirely normal character of erotic symbolism. "Not one of a thousand falls in love," he declares, "but there is some peculiar part or other which pleaseth most, and inflames him above the rest.... If he gets any remnant of hers, a busk-point, a feather of her fan, a shoe-tie, a lace, a ring, a bracelet of hair, he wears it for a favor on his arm, in his hat, finger, or next his heart; as Laodamia did by Protesilaus, when he went to war, sit at home with his picture before her: a garter or a bracelet of hers is more precious than any Saint's Relique, he lays it up in his casket (O blessed Relique) and every day will kiss it: if in her presence his eye is never off her, and drink he will where she drank, if it be possible, in that very place," etc.[9] Burton's accuracy in describing the ways of lovers in his century is shown by a passage in Hamilton's _Mémoires de Gramont_. Miss Price, one of the beauties of Charles II's court, and Dongan were tenderly attached to each other; when the latter died he left behind a casket full of all possible sorts of love-tokens pertaining to his mistress, including, among other things, "all kinds of hair." And as regards France, Burton's contemporary, Howell, wrote in 1627 in his _Familiar Letters_ concerning the repulse of the English at Rhé: "A captain told me that when they were rifling the dead bodies of the French gentlemen after the first invasion they found that many of them had their mistresses' favors tied about their genitories." Schurig (_Spermatologia_, p. 357) at the beginning of the eighteenth century knew a Belgian lady who, when her dearly loved husband died, secretly cut off his penis and treasured it as a sacred relic in a silver casket. She eventually powdered it, he adds, and found it an efficacious medicine for herself and others. An earlier example, of a lady at the French court who embalmed and perfumed the genital organs of her dead husband, always preserving them in a gold casket, is mentioned by Brantôme. Mantegazza knew a man who kept for many years on his desk the skull of his dead mistress, making it his dearest companion. "Some," he remarks, "have slept for months and years with a book, a garment, a trifle. I once had a friend who would spend long hours of joy and emotion kissing a thread of silk which _she_ had held between her fingers, now the only relic of love." (Mantegazza, _Fisiologia dell' Amore_, cap. X.) In the same way I knew a lady who in old age still treasured in her desk, as the one relic of the only man she had ever been attracted to, a fragment of paper he had casually twisted up in a conversation with her half a century before. The tendency to treasure the relics of a beloved person, more especially the garments, is the simplest and commonest foundation of erotic symbolism. It is without doubt absolutely normal. It is inevitable that those objects which have been in close contact with the beloved person's body, and are intimately associated with that person in the lover's mind, should possess a little of the same virtue, the same emotional potency. It is a phenomenon closely analogous to that by which the relics of saints are held to possess a singular virtue. But it becomes somewhat less normal when the garment is regarded as essential even in the presence of the beloved person.[10] While an extremely large number of objects and acts may be found to possess occasionally the value of erotic symbols, such symbols most frequently fall into certain well-defined groups. A vast number of isolated objects or acts may be exceptionally the focus of erotic contemplation, but the objects and acts which frequently become thus symbolic are comparatively few. It seems to me that the phenomena of erotic symbolism may be most conveniently grouped in three great classes, on the basis of the objects or acts which arouse them. I. PARTS OF THE BODY.--_A. Normal:_ Hand, foot, breasts, nates, hair, secretions and excretions, etc. _B. Abnormal:_ Lameness, squinting, pitting of smallpox, etc. Paidophilia or the love of children, presbyophilia or the love of the aged, and necrophilia or the attraction for corpses, may be included under this head, as well as the excitement caused by various animals. II. INANIMATE OBJECTS.[11]--_A. Garments:_ Gloves, shoes and stockings and garters, caps, aprons, handkerchiefs, underlinen. _B. Impersonal Objects:_ Here may be included all the various objects that may accidentally acquire the power of exciting sexual feeling in auto-erotism. Pygmalionism may also be included. III. ACTS AND ATTITUDES.--_A. Active:_ Whipping, cruelty, exhibitionism. _B. Passive:_ Being whipped, experiencing cruelty. Personal odors and the sound of the voice may be included under this head. _C. Mixoscopic:_ The vision of climbing, swinging, etc. The acts of urination and defecation. The coitus of animals. Although the three main groups into which the phenomena of erotic symbolism are here divided may seem fairly distinct, they are yet very closely allied, and indeed overlap, so that it is possible, as we shall see, for a single complex symbol to fall into all three groups. A very complete kind of erotic symbolism is furnished by Pygmalionism or the love of statues.[12] It is exactly analogous to the child's love of a doll, which is also a form of sexual (though not erotic) symbolism. In a somewhat less abnormal form, erotic symbolism probably shows itself in its simplest shape in the tendency to idealize unbeautiful peculiarities in a beloved person, so that such peculiarities are ever afterward almost or quite essential in order to arouse sexual attraction. In this way men have become attracted to limping women. Even the most normal man may idealize a trifling defect in a beloved woman. The attention is inevitably concentrated on any such slight deviation from regular beauty, and the natural result of such concentration is that a complexus of associated thoughts and emotions becomes attached to something that in itself is unbeautiful. A defect becomes an admired focus of attention, the embodied symbol of the lover's emotion. Thus a mole is not in itself beautiful, but by the tendency to erotic symbolism it becomes so. Persian poets especially have lavished the richest imagery on moles (_Anis El-Ochchâq_ in _Bibliothèque des Hautes Etudes_, fasc, 25, 1875); the Arabs, as Lane remarks (_Arabian Society in the Middle Ages_, p. 214), are equally extravagant in their admiration of a mole. Stendhal long since well described the process by which a defect becomes a sexual symbol. "Even little defects in a woman's face," he remarked, "such as a smallpox pit, may arouse the tenderness of a man who loves her, and throw him into deep reverie when he sees them in another woman. It is because he has experienced a thousand feelings in the presence of that smallpox mark, that these feelings have been for the most part delicious, all of the highest interest, and that, whatever they may have been, they are renewed with incredible vivacity on the sight of this sign, even when perceived on the face of another woman. If in such a case we come to prefer and love _ugliness_, it is only because in such a case ugliness is beauty. A man loved a woman who was very thin and marked by smallpox; he lost her by death. Three years later, in Rome, he became acquainted with two women, one very beautiful, the other thin and marked by smallpox, on that account, if you will, rather ugly. I saw him in love with this plain one at the end of a week, which he had employed in effacing her plainness by his memories." (_De l'Amour_, Chapter XVII.) In the tendency to idealize the unbeautiful features of a beloved person erotic symbolism shows itself in a simple and normal form. In a less simple and more morbid form it appears in persons in whom the normal paths of sexual gratification are for some reasons inhibited, and who are thus led to find the symbols of natural love in unnatural perversions. It is for this reason that so many erotic symbolisms take root in childhood and puberty, before the sexual instincts have reached full development. It is for the same reason also, that, at the other end of life, when the sexual energies are failing, erotic symbols sometimes tend to be substituted for the normal pleasures of sex. It is for this reason, again, that both men and women whose normal energies are inhibited sometimes find the symbols of sexual gratification in the caresses of children. The case of a schoolmistress recorded by Penta instructively shows how an erotic symbolism of this last kind may develop by no means as a refinement of vice, but as the one form in which sexual gratification becomes possible when normal gratification has been pathologically inhibited. F.R., aged 48, schoolmistress; she was some years ago in an asylum with religious mania, but came out well in a few months. At the age of 12 she had first experienced sexual excitement in a railway train from the jolting of the carriage. Soon after she fell in love with a youth who represented her ideal and who returned her affection. When, however, she gave herself to him, great was her disillusion and surprise to find that the sexual act which she had looked forward to could not be accomplished, for at the first contact there was great pain and spasmodic resistance of the vagina. There was a condition of vaginismus. After repeated attempts on subsequent occasions her lover desisted. Her desire for intercourse increased, however, rather than diminished, and at last she was able to tolerate coitus, but the pain was so great that she acquired a horror of the sexual embrace and no longer sought it. Having much will power, she restrained all erotic impulses during many years. It was not until the period of the menopause that the long repressed desires broke out, and at last found a symbolical outlet that was no longer normal, but was felt to supply a complete gratification. She sought the close physical contact of the young children in her care. She would lie on her bed naked, with two or three naked children, make them suck her breasts and press them to every part of her body. Her conduct was discovered by means of other children who peeped through the keyhole, and she was placed under Penta for treatment. In this case the loss of moral and mental inhibition, due probably to troubles of the climacteric, led to indulgence, under abnormal conditions, in those primitive contacts which are normally the beginning of love, and these, supported by the ideal image of the early lover, constituted a complete and adequate symbol of natural love in a morbidly perverted individual. (P. Penta, _Archivio delle Psicopatie Sessuali_, January, 1896.) FOOTNOTES: [1] The term "erotic symbolism" has already been employed by Eulenburg (_Sexuale Neuropathie_, 1895, p. 101). It must be borne in mind that this term, implying the specific emotion, is much narrower than the term "sexual symbolism," which may be used to designate a great variety of ritual and social practices which have played a part in the evolution of civilization. [2] _Sexual Selection in Man_, iv, "Vision." [3] K. Groos, _Der Æsthetische Genuss_, p. 122. The psychology of the associations of contiguity and resemblance through which erotic symbolism operates its transference is briefly discussed by Ribot in the _Psychology of the Emotions_, Part 1, Chapter XII; the early chapters of the same author's _Logique des Sentiments_ may also be said to deal with the emotional basis on which erotic symbolism arises. [4] A number of synonyms for the female pudenda are brought together by Schurig--cunnus, hortus, concha, navis, fovea, larva, canis, annulus, focus, cymba, antrum, delta, myrtus, etc.--and he discusses many of them. (_Muliebria_, Section I, cap. I.) [5] Kleinpaul, _Sprache Ohne Worte_, pp. 24-29; cf. K. Pearson, on the general and special words for sex, _Chances of Death_, vol. ii, pp. 112-245; a selection of the literature of the rose will be found in a volume of translations entitled _Ros Rosarum_. [6] G.S. Hall, _Adolescence_, vol. i, p. 470. [7] Goron, _Les Parias de l'Amour_, p. 45. [8] A.R. Reynolds, _Medical Standard_, vol. x, cited by Kiernan, "Responsibility in Sexual Perversion," _American Journal of Neurology and Psychiatry_, 1882. [9] R. Burton, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part III, Section II, Mem. II, Subs. II, and Mem. III, Subs. I. [10] Numerous examples are given by Moll, _Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, pp. 265-268. [11] Chevalier (_De l'Inversion_, 1885; id., _L'Inversion Sexuelle_, 1892, p. 52), followed by E. Laurent (_L'Amour Morbide_, 1891, Chapter X), separates this group from other fetichistic perversions, under the head of "azoöphilie." I see no adequate ground for this step. The various forms of fetichism are too intimately associated to permit of any group of them being violently separated from the others. [12] This has already been considered as a perversion founded on vision, in discussing _Sexual Selection in Man_. IV. II. Foot-fetichism and Shoe-fetichism--Wide Prevalence and Normal Basis--Restif de la Bretonne--The Foot a Normal Focus of Sexual Attraction Among Some Peoples--The Chinese, Greeks, Romans, Spaniards, etc.--The Congenital Predisposition in Erotic Symbolism--The Influence of Early Association and Emotional Shock--Shoe-fetichism in Relation to Masochism--The Two Phenomena Independent Though Allied--The Desire to be Trodden On--The Fascination of Physical Constraint--The Symbolism of Self-inflicted Pain--The Dynamic Element in Erotic Symbolism--The Symbolism of Garments. Of all forms of erotic symbolism the most frequent is that which idealizes the foot and the shoe. The phenomena we here encounter are sometimes so complex and raise so many interesting questions that it is necessary to discuss them somewhat fully. It would seem that even for the normal lover the foot is one of the most attractive parts of the body. Stanley Hall found that among the parts specified as most admired in the other sex by young men and women who answered a _questionnaire_ the feet came fourth (after the eyes, hair, stature and size).[13] Casanova, an acute student and lover of women who was in no degree a foot fetichist, remarks that all men who share his interest in women are attracted by their feet; they offer the same interest, he considers, as the question of the particular edition offers to the book-lover.[14] In a report of the results of a _questionnaire_ concerning children's sense of self, to which over 500 replies were received, Stanley Hall thus summarizes the main facts ascertained with reference to the feet: "A special period of noticing the feet comes somewhat later than that in which the hands are discovered to consciousness. Our records afford nearly twice as many cases for feet as for hands. The former are more remote from the primary psychic focus or position, and are also more often covered, so that the sight of them is a more marked and exceptional event. Some children become greatly excited whenever their feet are exposed. Some infants show signs of fear at the movement of their own knees and feet covered, and still more often fright is the first sensation which signalizes the child's discovery of its feet.... Many are described as playing with them as if fascinated by strange, newly-discovered toys. They pick them up and try to throw them away, or out of the cradle, or bring them to the mouth, where all things tend to go.... Children often handle their feet, pat and stroke them, offer them toys and the bottle, as if they, too, had an independent hunger to gratify, an _ego_ of their own.... Children often develop [later] a special interest in the feet of others, and examine, feel them, etc., sometimes expressing surprise that the pinch of the mother's toe hurts her and not the child, or comparing their own and the feet of others point by point. Curious, too, are the intensifications of foot-consciousness throughout the early years of childhood, whenever children have the exceptional privilege of going barefoot, or have new shoes. The feet are often apostrophized, punished, beaten sometimes to the point of pain for breaking things, throwing the child down, etc. Several children have habits, which reach great intensity, and then vanish, of touching or tickling the feet, with gales of laughter, and a few are described as showing an almost morbid reluctance to wear anything upon the feet, or even to having them touched by others.... Several almost fall in love with the great toe or the little one, especially admiring some crease or dimple in it, dressing it in some rag of silk or bit of ribbon, or cut-off glove fingers, winding it with string, prolonging it by tying on bits of wood. Stroking the feet of others, especially if they are shapely, often becomes almost a passion with young children, and several adults confess a survival of the same impulse which it is an exquisite pleasure to gratify. The interest of some mothers in babies' toes, the expressions of which are ecstatic and almost incredible, is a factor of great importance." (G. Stanley Hall, "Some Aspects of the Early Sense of Self," _American Journal of Psychology_, April, 1898.) In childhood, Stanley Hall remarks elsewhere (_Adolescence_, vol. ii, p. 104), "a form of courtship may consist solely in touching feet under the desk." It would seem that even animals have a certain amount of sexual consciousness in the feet; I have noticed a male donkey, just before coitus, bite the feet of his partner. At the same time it is scarcely usual for the normal lover, in most civilized countries to-day, to attach primary importance to the foot, such as he very frequently attaches to the eyes, though the feet play a very conspicuous part in the work of certain novelists.[15] In a small but not inconsiderable minority of persons, however, the foot or the boot becomes the most attractive part of a woman, and in some morbid cases the woman herself is regarded as a comparatively unimportant appendage to her feet or her boots. The boots under civilized conditions much more frequently constitute the sexual symbol than do the feet themselves; this is not surprising since in ordinary life the feet are not often seen. It is usually only under exceptionally favoring conditions that foot-fetichism occurs, as in the case recorded by Marandon de Montyel of a doctor who had been brought up in the West Indies. His mother had been insane and he himself was subject to obsessions, especially of being incapable of urinating; he had had nocturnal incontinence of urine in childhood. All the women of the people in the West Indies go about with naked feet, which are often beautiful. His puberty evolved under this influence, and foot-fetichism developed. He especially admired large, fat, arched feet, with delicate skin and large, regular toes. He masturbated with images of feet. At 15 he had relations with a colored chambermaid, but feared to mention his fetichism, though it was the touch of her feet that chiefly excited him. He now gave up masturbation, and had a succession of mistresses, but was always ashamed to confess his fancies until, at the age of 33, in Paris, a very intelligent woman who had become his mistress discovered his mania and skillfully enabled him to yield to it without shock to his modesty. He was devoted to this mistress, who had very beautiful feet (he had been horrified by the feet of Europeans generally), until she finally left him. (_Archives de Neurologie_, October, 1904.) Probably the first case of shoe-fetichism ever recorded in any detail is that of Restif de la Bretonne (1734-1806), publicist and novelist, one of the most remarkable literary figures of the later eighteenth century in France. Restif was a neurotic subject, though not to an extreme degree, and his shoe-fetichism, though distinctly pronounced, was not pathological; that is to say, that the shoe was not itself an adequate gratification of the sexual impulse, but simply a highly important aid to tumescence, a prelude to the natural climax of detumescence; only occasionally, and _faute de mieux_, in the absence of the beloved person, was the shoe used as an adjunct to masturbation. In Restif's stories and elsewhere the attraction of the shoe is frequently discussed or used as a motive. His first decided literary success, _Le Pied de Fanchette_, was suggested by a vision of a girl with a charming foot, casually seen in the street. While all such passages in his books are really founded on his own personal feelings and experiences, in his elaborate autobiography, _Monsieur Nicolas_, he has frankly set forth the gradual evolution and cause of his idiosyncrasy. The first remembered trace dated from the age of 4, when he was able to recall having remarked the feet of a young girl in his native place. Restif was a sexually precocious youth, and at the age of 9, though both delicate in health and shy in manners, his thoughts were already absorbed in the girls around him. "While little Monsieur Nicolas," he tells us, "passed for a Narcissus, his thoughts, as soon as he was alone, by night or by day, had no other object than that sex he seemed to flee from. The girls most careful of their persons were naturally those who pleased him most, and as the part least easy to keep clean is that which touches the earth it was to the foot-gear that he mechanically gave his chief attention. Agathe, Reine, and especially Madeleine, were the most elegant of the girls at that time; their carefully selected and kept shoes, instead of laces or buckles, which were not yet worn at Sacy, had blue or rose ribbon, according to the color of the skirt. I thought of these girls with emotion; I desired--I knew not what; but I desired something, if it were only to subdue them." The origin Restif here assigns to his shoe-fetichism may seem paradoxical; he admired the girls who were most clean and neat in their dress, he tells us, and, therefore, paid most attention to that part of their clothing which was least clean and neat. But, however paradoxical the remark may seem, it is psychologically sound. All fetichism is a kind of not necessarily morbid obsession, and as the careful work of Janet and others in that field has shown, an obsession is a fascinated attraction to some object or idea which gives the subject a kind of emotional shock by its contrast to his habitual moods or ideas. The ordinary morbid obsession cannot usually be harmoniously co-ordinated with the other experiences of the subject's daily life, and shows, therefore, no tendency to become pleasurable. Sexual fetichisms, on the other hand, have a reservoir of agreeable emotion to draw on, and are thus able to acquire both stability and harmony. It will also be seen that no element of masochism is involved in Restif's fetichism, though the mistake has been frequently made of supposing that these two manifestations are usually or even necessarily allied. Restif wishes to subject the girl who attracts him, he has no wish to be subjected by her. He was especially dazzled by a young girl from another town, whose shoes were of a fashionable cut, with buckles, "and who was a charming person besides." She was delicate as a fairy, and rendered his thoughts unfaithful to the robust beauties of his native Sacy. "No doubt," he remarks, "because, being frail and weak myself, it seemed to me that it would be easier to subdue her." "This taste for the beauty of the feet," he continues, "was so powerful in me that it unfailingly aroused desire and would have made me overlook ugliness. It is excessive in all those who have it." He admired the foot as well as the shoe: "The factitious taste for the shoe is only a reflection of that for pretty feet. When I entered a house and saw the boots arranged in a row, as is the custom, I would tremble with pleasure; I blushed and lowered my eyes as if in the presence of the girls themselves. With this vivacity of feeling and a voluptuousness of ideas inconceivable at the age of 10 I still fled, with an involuntary impulse of modesty, from the girls I adored." We may clearly see how this combination of sensitive and precocious sexual ardor with extreme shyness, furnished the soil on which the germ of shoe-fetichism was able to gain a firm root and persist in some degree throughout a long life very largely given up to a pursuit of women, abnormal rather by its excessiveness than its perversity. A few years later, he tells us, he happened to see a pretty pair of shoes in a bootmaker's shop, and on hearing that they belonged to a girl whom at that time he reverently adored at a distance he blushed and nearly fainted. In 1749 he was for a time attracted to a young woman very much older than himself; he secretly carried away one of her slippers and kept it for a day; a little later he again took away a shoe of the same woman which had fascinated him when on her foot, and, he seems to imply, he used it to masturbate with. Perhaps the chief passion of Restif's life was his love for Colette Parangon. He was still a boy (1752), she was the young and virtuous wife of the printer whose apprentice Restif was and in whose house he lived. Madame Parangon, a charming woman, as she is described, was not happily married, and she evidently felt a tender affection for the boy whose excessive love and reverence for her were not always successfully concealed. "Madonna Parangon," he tells us, "possessed a charm which I could never resist, a pretty little foot; it is a charm which arouses more than tenderness. Her shoes, made in Paris, had that voluptuous elegance which seems to communicate soul and life. Sometimes Colette wore shoes of simple white drugget or with silver flowers; sometimes rose-colored slippers with green heels, or green with rose heels; her supple feet, far from deforming her shoes, increased their grace and rendered the form more exciting." One day, on entering the house, he saw Madame Parangon elegantly dressed and wearing rose-colored shoes with tongues, and with green heels and a pretty rosette. They were new and she took them off to put on green slippers with rose heels and borders which he thought equally exciting. As soon as she had left the room, he continues, "carried away by the most impetuous passion and idolizing Colette, I seemed to see her and touch her in handling what she had just worn; my lips pressed one of these jewels, while the other, deceiving the sacred end of nature, from excess of exaltation replaced the object of sex (I cannot express myself more clearly). The warmth which she had communicated to the insensible object which had touched her still remained and gave a soul to it; a voluptuous cloud covered my eyes." He adds that he would kiss with rage and transport whatever had come in close contact with the woman he adored, and on one occasion eagerly pressed his lips to her cast-off underlinen, _vela secretiora penetralium_. At this period Restif's foot-fetichism reached its highest point of development. It was the aberration of a highly sensitive and very precocious boy. While the preoccupation with feet and shoes persisted throughout life, it never became a complete perversion and never replaced the normal end of sexual desire. His love for Madam Parangon, one of the deepest emotions in his whole life, was also the climax of his shoe-fetichism. She represented his ideal woman, an ethereal sylph with wasp-waist and a child's feet; it was always his highest praise for a woman that she resembled Madame Parangon, and he desired that her slipper should be buried with him. (Restif de la Bretonne, _Monsieur Nicolas_, vols. i-iv, vol. xiii, p. 5; id., _Mes Inscriptions_, pp. ci-cv.) Shoe-fetichism, more especially if we include under this term all the cases of real or pseudo-masochism in which an attraction to the boots or slippers is the chief feature, is a not infrequent phenomenon, and is certainly the most frequently occurring form of fetichism. Many cases are brought together by Krafft-Ebing in his _Psychopathia Sexualis_. Every prostitute of any experience has known men who merely desire to gaze at her shoes, or possibly to lick them, and who are quite willing to pay for this privilege. In London such a person is known as a "bootman," in Germany as a "Stiefelfrier." The predominance of the foot as a focus of sexual attraction, while among us to-day it is a not uncommon phenomenon, is still not sufficiently common to be called normal; the majority of even ardent lovers do not experience this attraction in any marked degree. But these manifestations of foot-fetichism which with us to-day are abnormal, even when they are not so extreme as to be morbid, may perhaps become more intelligible to us when we realize that in earlier periods of civilization, and even to-day in some parts of the world, the foot is generally recognized as a focus of sexual attraction, so that some degree of foot-fetichism becomes a normal phenomenon. The most pronounced and the best known example of such normal foot-fetichism at the present day is certainly to be found among the Southern Chinese. For a Chinese husband his wife's foot is more interesting than her face. A Chinese woman is as shy of showing her feet to a man as a European woman her breasts; they are reserved for her husband's eyes alone, and to look at a woman's feet in the street is highly improper and indelicate. Chinese foot-fetichism is connected with the custom of compressing the feet. This custom appears to rest on the fact that Chinese women naturally possess a very small foot and is thus an example of the universal tendency in the search for beauty to accentuate, even by deformation, the racial characteristics. But there is more than this. Beauty is largely a name for sexual attractiveness, and the energy expended in the effort to make the Chinese woman's small foot still smaller is a measure of the sexual fascination which it exerts. The practice arose on the basis of the sexual attractiveness of the foot, though it has doubtless served to heighten that attractiveness, just as the small waist, which (if we may follow Stratz) is a characteristic beauty of the European woman, becomes to the average European man still more attractive when accentuated, even to the extent of deformity, by the compression of the corset. Referring to the sexual fascination exerted by the foot in China, Matignon writes: "My attention has been drawn to this point by a large number of pornographic engravings, of which the Chinese are very fond. In all these lascivious scenes we see the male voluptuously fondling the woman's foot. When a Celestial takes into his hand a woman's foot, especially if it is very small, the effect upon him is precisely the same as is provoked in a European by the palpation of a young and firm bosom. All the Celestials whom I have interrogated on this point have replied unanimously: 'Oh, a little foot! You Europeans cannot understand how exquisite, how sweet, how exciting it is!' The contact of the genital organ with the little foot produces in the male an indescribable degree of voluptuous feeling, and women skilled in love know that to arouse the ardor of their lovers a better method than all Chinese aphrodisiacs--including 'giusen' and swallows' nests--is to take the penis between their feet. It is not rare to find Chinese Christians accusing themselves at confession of having had 'evil thoughts on looking at a woman's foot.'" (Dr. J. Matignon, "A propos d'un Pied de Chinoise," _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, 1898.) It is said that a Chinese Empress, noted for her vice and having a congenital club foot, about the year 1100 B.C., desired all women to resemble her, and that the practice of compressing the foot thus arose. But this is only tradition, since, in 300 B.C., Chinese books were destroyed (Morache, Art. "Chine," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_, p. 191). It is also said that the practice owes its origin to the wish to keep women indoors. But women are not secluded in China, nor does foot compression usually render a woman unable to walk. Many intelligent Chinese are of opinion that its object is to promote the development of the sexual parts and of the thighs, and so to aid both intercourse and parturition. There is no ground for believing that it has any such influence, though Morache found that the mons veneris and labia are largely developed in Chinese women, and not in Tartar women living in Pekin (who do not compress the foot). If there is any correlation between the feet and the pelvic regions, it is more probably congenital than due to the artificial compression of the feet. The ancients seem to have believed that a small foot indicated a small vagina. Restif de la Bretonne, who had ample opportunities for forming an opinion on a matter in which he took so great an interest, believed that a small foot, round and short, indicated a large vagina (_Monsieur Nicolas_, vol. i, reprint of 1883, p. 92). Even, however, if we admit that there is a real correlation between the foot and the vagina, that would by no means suffice to render the foot a focus of sexual attraction. It remains the most reasonable view that the foot bandage must be regarded as strictly analogous to the waist bandage or corset which also tends to produce deformity of the constricted region. Stratz has ingeniously remarked (_Frauenkleidung_, third edition, p. 101) that the success of the Chinese in dwarfing trees may have suggested a similar attempt in regard to women's feet, and adds that in any case both dwarfed trees and bound feet bear witness in the Mongolian to the same love for small and elegant, not to say deformed, things. For a Chinaman the deformed foot is a "golden water-lily." Many facts (together with illustrations) bearing on Chinese deformation of the foot will be found in Ploss, _Das Weib_, vol. i, Section IV. The significance of the sexual emotion aroused by the female foot in China and the origin of its compression begin to become clear when we realize that this foot-fetichism is merely an extreme development of a tendency which is fairly well marked among nearly all the peoples of yellow race. Jacoby, who has brought together a number of interesting facts bearing on the sexual significance of the foot, states that a similar tendency is to be found among the Mongol and Turk peoples of Siberia, and in the east and central parts of European Russia, among the Permiaks, the Wotiaks, etc. Here the woman, at all events when young, has always her feet, as well as head, covered, however little clothing she may otherwise wear. "On hot nights or on baking days," Jacoby states, "you may see these women with uncovered breasts, or even entirely naked without embarrassment, but you will never see them with bare feet, and no male relations, except the husband, will ever see the feet and lower part of the legs of the women in the house. These women have their modesty in their feet, and also their coquetry; to unbind the feet of a woman is for a man a voluptuous act, and the touch of the bands produces the same effect as a corset still warm from a woman's body on a European man. A woman's beauty, that which attracts and excites a man, lies in her foot; in Mordvin love poems celebrating the beauty of women there is much about her attire, especially her embroidered chemise, but as regards the charms of her person the poet is content to state that 'her feet are beautiful;' with that everything is said. The young peasant woman of the central provinces as part of her holiday raiment puts on great woolen stockings which come up to the groin and are then folded over to below the knee. To uncover the feet of a person of the opposite sex is a sexual act, and has thus become the symbol of sexual possession, so that the stocking or foot-gear became the emblem of marriage, as later the ring. (It was so among the Jews, as we see in the book of _Ruth_, Chapter III, v. 4, and Chapter IV, vv. 7 and 8). St. Vladimir the Great asked in marriage the daughter of Prince Rogvold; as Vladimir's mother had been a serf, the princess proudly replied that she 'would not uncover the feet of a slave.' At the present time in the east of Russia when a young girl tries to find out by divination whom she will have as a husband the traditional formula is 'Come and take my stockings off.' Among the populations of the north and east, it is sometimes the bride who must do this for her husband on the wedding night, and sometimes the bridegroom for his wife, not as a token of love, but as a nuptial ceremony. Among the professional classes and small nobility in Russia parents place money in the stocking of their child at marriage as a present for the other partner, it being supposed that the couple mutually remove each other's foot raiment, as an act of sexual possession, the emblem of coitus." (Paul Jacoby, _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, December, 1903, p. 793.) The practice among ourselves of children hanging up their stockings at night for presents would seem to be a relic of the last-mentioned custom. While we may witness the sexual symbolism of the foot, with or without an associated foot-fetichism, most highly developed in Asia and Eastern Europe, it has by no means been altogether unknown in some stages of western civilization, and traces of it may be found here and there even yet. Schinz refers to the connection between the feet and sexual pleasure as existing not only among the Egyptians and the Arabs, but among the ancient Germans and the modern Spaniards,[16] while Jacoby points out that among the Greeks, the Romans, and especially the Etruscans, it was usual to represent chaste and virgin goddesses with their feet covered, even though they might be otherwise nude. Ovid, again, is never weary of dwelling on the sexual charm of the feminine foot. He represents the chaste matron as wearing a weighted _stola_ which always fell so as to cover her feet; it was only the courtesan, or the nymph who is taking part in an erotic festival, who appears with raised robes, revealing her feet.[17] So grave a historian as Strabo, as well as Ælian, refers to the story of the courtesan Rhodope whose sandal was carried off by an eagle and dropped in the King of Egypt's lap as he was administering justice, so that he could not rest until he had discovered to whom this delicately small sandal belonged, and finally made her his queen. Kleinpaul, who repeats this story, has collected many European sayings and customs (including Turkish), indicating that the slipper is a very ancient symbol of a woman's sexual parts.[18] In Rome, Dufour remarks, "Matrons having appropriated the use of the shoe (_soccus_) prostitutes were not allowed to use it, and were obliged to have their feet always naked in sandals or slippers (_crepida_ and _solea_), which they fastened over the instep with gilt bands. Tibullus delights to describe his mistress's little foot, compressed by the band that imprisoned it: _Ansaque compressos colligat arcta pedes_. Nudity of the foot in woman was a sign of prostitution, and their brilliant whiteness acted afar as a pimp to attract looks and desires." (Dufour, _Histoire de la Prostitution_, vol. II., ch. xviii.) This feeling seems to have survived in a more or less vague and unconscious form in mediæval Europe. "In the tenth century," according to Dufour (_Histoire de la Prostitution_, vol. VI., p. 11), "shoes _a la poulaine_, with a claw or beak, pursued for more than four centuries by the anathemas of popes and the invectives of preachers, were always regarded by mediæval casuists as the most abominable emblems of immodesty. At a first glance it is not easy to see why these shoes--terminating in a lion's claw, an eagle's beak, the prow of a ship, or other metal appendage--should be so scandalous. The excommunication inflicted on this kind of foot-gear preceded the impudent invention of some libertine, who wore _poulaines_ in the shape of the phallus, a custom adopted also by women. This kind of _poulaine_ was denounced as _mandite de Dicu_ (Ducange's Glossary, at the word Poulainia) and prohibited by royal ordinances (see letter of Charles V., 17 October, 1367, regarding the garments of the women of Montpellier). Great lords and ladies continued, however, to wear _poulaines_." In Louis XL's court they were still worn of a quarter of an ell in length. Spain, ever tenacious of ancient ideas, appears to have preserved longer than other countries the ancient classic traditions in regard to the foot as a focus of modesty and an object of sexual attraction. In Spanish religious pictures it was always necessary that the Virgin's feet should be concealed, the clergy ordaining that her robe should be long and flowing, so that the feet might be covered with decent folds. Pacheco, the master and father-in-law of Velasquez, writes in 1649 in his _Arte de la Pintura_: "What can be more foreign from the respect which we owe to the purity of Our Lady the Virgin than to paint her sitting down with one of her knees placed over the other, and often with her sacred feet uncovered and naked. Let thanks be given to the Holy Inquisition which commands that this liberty should be corrected!" It was Pacheco's duty in Seville to see that these commands were obeyed. At the court of Philip IV. at this time the princesses never showed their feet, as we may see in the pictures of Velasquez. When a local manufacturer desired to present that monarch's second bride, Mariana of Austria, with some silk stockings the offer was indignantly rejected by the Court Chamberlain: "The Queen of Spain has no legs!" Philip V.'s, queen was thrown from her horse and dragged by the feet; no one ventured to interfere until two gentlemen bravely rescued her and then fled, dreading punishment by the king: they were, however, graciously pardoned. Reinach ("Pieds Pudiques," _Cultes, Mythes et Religions_, pp. 105-110) brings together several passages from the Countess D'Aulnoy's account of the Madrid Court in the seventeenth century and from other sources, showing how careful Spanish ladies were as regards their feet, and how jealous Spanish husbands were in this matter. At this time, when Spanish influence was considerable, the fashion of Spain seems to have spread to other countries. One may note that in Vandyck's pictures of English beauties the feet are not visible, though in the more characteristically English painters of a somewhat later age it became usual to display them conspicuously, while the French custom in this matter is the farthest removed from the Spanish. At the present day a well-bred Spanish woman shows as little as possible of her feet in walking, and even in some of the most characteristic Spanish dances there is little or no kicking, and the feet may even be invisible throughout. It is noteworthy that in numerous figures of Spanish women (probably artists' models) reproduced in Ploss's _Das Weib_ the stockings are worn, although the women are otherwise, in most cases, quite naked. Max Dessoir mentions ("Psychologie der Vita Sexualis," _Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, 1894, p. 954) that in Spanish pornographic photographs women always have their shoes on, and he considers this an indication of perversity. I have seen the statement (attributed to Gautier's _Voyage en Espagne_, where, however, it does not occur) that Spanish prostitutes uncover their feet in sign of assent, and Madame d'Aulnoy stated that in her time to show her lover her feet was a Spanish woman's final favor. The tendency, which we thus find to be normal at some earlier periods of civilization, to insist on the sexual symbolism of the feminine foot or its coverings, and to regard them as a special sexual fascination, is not without significance for the interpretation of the sporadic manifestations of foot-fetichism among ourselves. Eccentric as foot-fetichism may appear to us, it is simply the re-emergence, by a pseudo-atavism or arrest of development, of a mental or emotional impulse which was probably experienced by our forefathers, and is often traceable among young children to-day.[19] The occasional reappearance of this bygone impulse and the stability which it may acquire are thus conditioned by the sensitive reaction of an abnormally nervous and usually precocious organism to influences which, among the average and ordinary population of Europe to-day, are either never felt, or quickly outgrown, or very strictly subordinated in the highly complex crystallizations which the course of love and the process of tumescence create within us. It may be added that this is by no means true of foot-fetichism only. In some other fetichisms a seemingly congenital predisposition is even more marked. This is not only the case as regards hair-fetichism and fur-fetichism (see, e.g., Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia Sexualis_, English translation of tenth edition, pp. 233, 255, 262). In many cases of fetichisms of all kinds not only is there no record of any commencement in a definite episode (an absence which may be accounted for by the supposition that the original incident has been forgotten), but it would seem in some cases that the fetichism developed very slowly. In this sense, it will be seen, although it is hazardous to speak of foot-fetichism as strictly an atavism, it may certainly be said to arise on a congenital basis. It represents the rare development of an inborn germ, usually latent among ourselves, which in earlier stages of civilization frequently reached a normal and general fruition. It is of interest to emphasize this congenital element of foot symbolism, because more than any other forms of sexual perversion the fetichisms are those which are most vaguely conditioned by inborn states of the organism and most definitely aroused by seemingly accidental associations or shocks in early life. Inversion is sometimes so fundamentally ingrained in the individual's constitution that it arises and develops in spite of the very strongest influence in a contrary direction. But a fetichism, while it tends to occur in sensitive, nervous, timid, precocious individuals--that is to say, individuals of more or less neuropathic heredity--can usually, though not always, be traced to a definite starting point in the shock of some sexually emotional episode in early life. A few examples of the influences of such association may here be given, referring miscellaneously to various forms of erotic symbolism. Magnan has recorded the case of a hair-fetichist, living in a district where the women wore their hair done up, who at the age of 15 experienced pleasurable feelings with erection at the sight of a village beauty combing her hair; from that time flowing hair became his fetich, and he could not resist the temptation to touch it and if possible sever it, thus becoming a hair-despoiler, for which he was arrested but not sentenced. (_Archives de l'Anthropologie Criminelle_, vol. v, No. 28.) I have elsewhere recorded the history of a boy of 14, having already had imperfect connection with a grown-up woman, who associated much with a young married lady; he had no sexual relations with her, but one day she urinated in his presence, and he saw that her mons veneris was covered by very thick hair; from that time he worshiped this woman in secret and acquired a life-long fetichistic attraction to women whose pubic hair was similarly abundant (_Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, vol. iii, Appendix B, History V). Roubaud reported the case of a general's son, sexually initiated at the age of 14 by a blonde young lady of 21 who, in order to avoid detection, always retained her clothing: gaiters, a corset and a silk dress; when the boy's studies were completed and he was sent to a garrison where he could enjoy freedom he found that his sexual desires could only be aroused by blonde women dressed like the lady who had first aroused his sexual desires; consequently he gave up all thoughts of matrimony, as a woman in nightclothes produced impotence (_Traité de l'Impuissance_, p. 439). Krafft-Ebing records the somewhat similar case of a nervous Polish boy of old family seduced at the age of 17 by a French governess, who during several months practiced mutual masturbation with him; in this way his attention became attracted by her very elegant boots, and in the end he became a confirmed boot-fetichist (_Psychopathia Sexualis_, English translation, p. 249). A boy of 7, of bad heredity, was taught to masturbate by a servant girl; on one occasion she practiced this on him with her foot without taking off her shoe; it was the first time the manoeuvre gave him any pleasure, and an association was thus established which led to shoe-fetichism (Hammond, _Sexual Impotence_, p. 44). A government official whose first coitus in youth took place on a staircase; the sound of his partner's creaking shoes against the stairs, produced by her efforts to accelerate orgasm, formed an association which developed into an auditory shoe-fetichism; in the streets he was compelled to follow ladies whose shoes creaked, ejaculation being thus produced, while to obtain complete satisfaction he would make a prostitute, otherwise naked, sit in front of him in her shoes, moving her feet so that the shoes creaked. (Moraglia, _Archivio di Psichiatria_, vol. xiii, p. 568.) Bechterew, in St. Petersburg, has recorded the case of a man who when a child used to fall asleep at the knees of his nurse with his head buried in the folds of her apron; in this position he first experienced erection and voluptuous sensations; when a youth he had no attraction to naked women, and in real life and in dreams was only excited sexually under conditions recalling his early experience; in his relations with women he preferred them dressed, and was excited by the rustling sound of their skirts; in this case there was no traceable neuropathic taint nor any other personal peculiarity. (Summarized in _Journal de Psychologie Normale et Pathologique_, January-February, 1904, p. 72.) In a curious case recorded in detail by Moll, a philologist of sensitive temperament but sound heredity, who had always been fond of flowers, at the age of 21 became engaged to a young lady who wore large roses fastened in her jacket; from this time roses became to him a sexual fetich, to kiss them caused erection, and his erotic dreams were accompanied by visions of roses and the hallucination of their odor; the engagement was finally broken off and the rose-fetichism disappeared (_Untersuchungen über Libido Sexualis_, bd. i, p. 540). Such associations may naturally occur in the early experiences of even the most normal persons. The degree to which they will influence the subsequent life and thought and feeling depends on the degree of the individual's morbid emotional receptivity, on the extent to which he is hereditarily susceptible of abnormal deviation. Precocity is undoubtedly a condition which favors such deviation; a child who is precociously and abnormally sensitive to persons of the opposite sex before puberty has established the normal channels of sexual desire, is peculiarly liable to become the prey of a chance symbolism. All degrees of such symbolism are possible. While the average insensitive person may fail to perceive them at all, for the more alert and imaginative lover they are a fascinating part of the highly charged crystallization of passion. A more nervously exceptional person, when once such a symbolism has become firmly implanted, may find it an absolutely essential element in the charm of a beloved and charming person. Finally, for the individual who is thoroughly unsound the symbol becomes generalized; a person is no longer desired at all, being merely regarded as an appendage of the symbol, or being dispensed with altogether; the symbol is alone desired, and is fully adequate to impart by itself complete sexual gratification. While it must be considered a morbid state to demand a symbol as an almost essential part of the charm of a desired person, it is only in the final condition, in which the symbol becomes all-sufficing, that we have a true and complete perversion. In the less complete forms of symbolism it is still the woman who is desired, and the ends of procreation may be served; when the woman is ignored and the mere symbol is an adequate and even preferred stimulus to detumescence the pathological condition becomes complete. Krafft-Ebing regarded shoe-fetichism as, in large measure, a more or less latent form of masochism, the foot or the shoe being the symbol of the subjection and humiliation which the masochist feels in the presence of the beloved object. Moll is also inclined to accept such a connection. "The very numerous class of boot-and-shoe-fetichists," Krafft-Ebing wrote, "forms the transition to the manifestations of another independent perversion, i.e., fetichism itself; but it stands in closer relationship to the former.... It is highly probable, and shown by a correct classification of the observed cases, that the majority, and perhaps all of the cases of shoe-fetichism, rest upon a basis of more or less conscious masochistic desire for self-humiliation.... The majority or all may be looked upon as instances of latent masochism (the motive remaining unconscious) in which the _female foot or shoe, as the masochist's fetich_, has acquired an independent significance." (_Psychopathia Sexualis_, English translation of tenth edition, pp. 159, et seq.) "Though Krafft-Ebing may not have cleared up the whole matter," Moll remarks, "I regard his deductions concerning the connection of foot-and-shoe fetichism to masochism as the most important progress that has been made in the theoretic study of sexual perversions.... In any case, the connection is very frequent." (_Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, p. 306.) It is quite easy to see that this supposed identity of masochism and foot-fetichism forms a seductive theory. It is also undoubtedly true that a masochist may very easily be inclined to find in his mistress's foot an aid to the ecstatic self-abnegation which he desires to attain.[20] But only confusion is attained by any general attempt to amalgamate masochism and foot-fetichism. In the broad sense in which erotic symbolism is here understood, both masochism and foot-fetichism may be coördinated as symbolisms; for the masochist his self-humiliating impulses are the symbol of ecstatic adoration; for the foot-fetichist his mistress's foot or shoe is the concentrated symbol of all that is most beautiful and elegant and feminine in her personality. But if in this sense they are coördinated, they remain entirely distinct and have not even any necessary tendency to become merged. Masochism merely simulates foot-fetichism; for the masochist the boot is not strictly a symbol, it is only an instrument which enables him to carry out his impulse; the true sexual symbol for him is not the boot, but the emotion of self-subjection. For the foot-fetichist, on the other hand, the foot or the shoe is not a mere instrument, but a true symbol; the focus of his worship, an idealized object which he is content to contemplate or reverently touch. He has no necessary impulse to any self-degrading action, nor any constant emotion of subjection. It may be noted that in the very typical case of foot-fetichism which is presented to us in the person of Restif de la Bretonne (_ante_, p. 18), he repeatedly speaks of "subjecting" the woman for whom he feels this fetichistic adoration, and mentions that even when still a child he especially admired a delicate and fairy-like girl in this respect because she seemed to him easier to subjugate. Throughout life Restif's attitude toward women was active and masculine, without the slightest trace of masochism.[21] To suppose that a fetichistic admiration of his mistress's foot is due to a lover's latent desire to be kicked, is as unreasonable as it would be to suppose that a fetichistic admiration for her hand indicated a latent desire to have his ears boxed. In determining whether we are concerned with a case of foot-fetichism or of masochism we must take into consideration the whole of the subject's mental and emotional attitude. An act, however definite, will not suffice as a criterion, for the same act in different persons may have altogether different implications. To amalgamate the two is the result of inadequate psychological analysis and only leads to confusion. It is, however, often very difficult to decide whether we are dealing with a case which is predominantly one of masochism or of foot-fetichism. The nature of the action desired, as we have seen, will not suffice to determine the psychological character of the perversion. Krafft-Ebing believed that the desire to be trodden on, very frequently experienced by masochists, is absolutely symptomatic of masochism.[22] This is scarcely the case. The desire to be trodden on may be fundamentally an erotic symbolism, closely approaching foot-fetichism, and such slight indications of masochism as appear may be merely a parasitic growth on the symbolism, a growth perhaps more suggested by the circumstances involved in the gratification of the abnormal desire than inherent in the innate impulse of the subject. This may be illustrated by the interesting case of a very intelligent man with whom I am well acquainted. C.P., aged 38. Heredity good. Parents both healthy and normal. Several children of the marriage, all sexually normal so far as is known. C.P. is the youngest of the family and separated from the others by an interval of many years. He was a seven-months' child. He has always enjoyed good health and is active and vigorous, both mentally and physically. From the age of 9 or 10 to 14 he masturbated occasionally for the sake of physical relief, having discovered the act for himself. He was, however, quite innocent and knew nothing of sexual matters, never having been initiated either by servants or by other boys. "When I encounter a woman who very strongly attracts me and whom I very greatly admire," he writes, "my desire is never that I may have sexual connection with her in the ordinary sense, but that I may lie down upon the floor on my back and be trampled upon by her. This curious desire is seldom present unless the object of my admiration is really a lady, and of fine proportions. She must be richly dressed--preferably in an evening gown, and wear dainty high-heeled slippers, either quite open so as to show the curve of the instep, or with only one strap or 'bar' across. The skirts should be raised sufficiently to afford me the pleasure of seeing her feet and a liberal amount of ankle, but in no case above the knee, or the effect is greatly reduced. Although I often greatly admire a woman's intellect and even person, sexually no other part of her has any serious attraction for me except the leg, from the knee downwards, and the foot, and these must be exquisitely clothed. Given this condition, my desire amounts to a wish to gratify my sexual sense by contact with the (to me) attractive part of the woman. Comparatively few women have a leg or foot sufficiently beautiful to my mind to excite any serious or compelling desire, but when this is so, or I suspect it, I am willing to spend any time or trouble to get her to tread upon me and am anxious to be trampled on with the greatest severity. "The treading should be inflicted for a few minutes all over the chest, abdomen and groin, and lastly on the penis, which is, of course, lying along the belly in a violent state of erection, and consequently too hard for the treading to damage it. I also enjoy being nearly strangled by a woman's foot. "If the lady finally stands facing my head and places her slipper upon my penis so that the high heel falls about where the penis leaves the scrotum, the sole covering most of the rest of it and with the other foot upon the abdomen, into which I can _see_ as well as feel it sink as she shifts her weight from one foot to the other, orgasm takes place almost at once. Emission under these conditions is to me an agony of delight, during which practically the lady's whole weight should rest upon the penis. "One reason for my special pleasure in this method seems to be that first the heel and afterwards the sole of the slipper as it treads upon the penis greatly check the passage of the semen and consequently the pleasure is considerably prolonged. There is also a curious mental side to the affair. I love to imagine that the lady who is treading upon me is my mistress and I her slave, and that she is doing it to punish me for some fault, or to give _herself_ (not me) pleasure. "It follows that the greater the contempt and severity with which I am 'punished,' the greater becomes my pleasure. The idea of 'punishment' or 'slavery' is seldom aroused except when I have great difficulty in accomplishing my desire and the treader is more than usually handsome and heavy and the trampling mercilessly inflicted. I have been trampled so long and so mercilessly several times, that I have flinched each time the slipper pressed its way into my aching body and have been black and blue for days afterwards. I take the greatest interest in leading ladies on to do this for me where I think I will not offend, and have been surprisingly successful. I must have lain beneath the feet of quite a hundred women, many of them of good social position, who would never dream of permitting any ordinary sexual intercourse, but who have been so interested or amused by the idea as to do it for me--many of them over and over again. It is perhaps needless to say that none of my own or the ladies' clothing is ever removed, or disarranged, for the accomplishment of orgasm in this manner. After a long and varied experience, I may say that my favorite weight is 10 to 11 stone, and that black, very high-heeled slippers, in combination with tan silk stockings, seem to give me the greatest pleasure and create in me the strongest desires. "Boots, or outdoor shoes, do not attract me to anything like the same degree, although I have, upon several occasions, enjoyed myself fairly well by their use. Nude women repel me, and I find no pleasure in seeing a woman in tights. I am not averse to normal sexual connection and occasionally employ it. To me, however, the pleasure is far inferior to that of being trampled upon. I also derive keen pleasure--and usually have a strong erection--from seeing a woman, dressed as I have described, tread upon anything which yields under her foot--such as the seat of a carriage, the cushions of a punt, a footstool, etc., and I enjoy seeing her crush flowers by treading upon them. I have often strolled along in the wake of some handsome lady at a picnic or garden party, for the pleasure of seeing the grass upon which she has trodden rise slowly again after her foot has pressed it. I delight also to see a carriage sway as a woman leaves or enters it--anything which needs the pressure of the foot. "To pass now to the origin of this direction of my feelings. "Even in early childhood I admired pretty feminine foot-gear, and in the contemplation of it experienced vague sensations which I now recognize as sexual. When a lad of 14 or so, I stayed a good deal at the house of some intimate friends of my parents, the daughter of the house--an only child--a beautiful and powerful girl, about six years my senior, being my special chum. This girl was always daintily dressed, and having most lovely feet and ankles not unnaturally knew it. Whenever possible she dressed so as to show off their beauty to the best advantage--rather short skirts and usually little high-heeled slippers--and was not averse to showing them in a most distractingly coquettish manner. She seemed to have a passion for treading upon things which would scrunch or yield under her foot, such as flowers, little windfallen apples and pears, acorns, etc., or heaps of hay, straw or cut grass. As we wandered about the gardens--for we were left to do exactly as we liked--I got quite accustomed to seeing her hunt out and tread upon such things, and used to chaff her about it. At that time I was--as I am still--fond of lying at full length on a thick hearthrug before a good fire. One evening as I was lying in this way and we were alone, A. crossed the room to reach a bangle from the mantelpiece. Instead of reaching over me, she playfully stepped upon my body, saying that she would show me how the hay and straw felt. Naturally I fell in with the joke and laughed. After standing upon me a few moments she raised her skirt slightly and, holding on to the mantelpiece for support, stretched out one dainty foot in its brown silk stocking and high-heeled slipper to the blaze to warm, while looking down and laughing at my scarlet, excited face. She was a perfectly frank and charming girl, and I feel pretty certain that, although she evidently enjoyed my excitement and the feeling of my body yielding under her feet, she did not on this first occasion clearly understand my condition; nor can I remember that, though the desire for sexual gratification drove me nearly mad, it appeared to awaken in her any reciprocal feeling. I took hold of her raised foot and, after kissing it, guided it by an absolutely irresistible impulse on to my penis, which was as hard as wood and seemed almost bursting. Almost at the moment that her weight was thrown upon it, orgasm took place for the first time in my life thoroughly and effectively. No description can give any idea of what I felt--I only know that from that moment my distorted sexual focus was fixed forever. Numberless times, after that evening, I felt the weight of her dainty slippers, and nothing will ever cause the memory of the pleasure she thus gave me to fade. I know that A. came to enjoy treading upon me, as much as I enjoyed having her do it. She had a liberal dress allowance and, seeing the pleasure they gave me, she was always buying pretty stockings and ravishing slippers with the highest and most slender Louis heels she could find and would show them to me with the greatest glee, urging me to lie down that she might try them on me. She confessed that she loved to see and feel them sink into my body as she trod upon me and enjoyed the crunch of the muscles under her heel as she moved about. After some minutes of this, I always guided her slipper on to my penis, and she would tread carefully, but with her whole weight--probably about 9 stone--and watch me with flashing eyes, flushed cheeks, and quivering lips, as she felt--as she must have done plainly--the throbbing and swelling of my penis under her foot as emission took place. I have not the smallest doubt that orgasm took place simultaneously with her, though we never at any time spoke openly of it. This went on for several years on almost every favorable opportunity we had, and after a month or two of separation sometimes four or five times during a single day. Several times during A.'s absence I masturbated by getting her slipper and pressing it with all my strength against the penis while imagining that she was treading upon me. The pleasure was, of course, very inferior to her attentions. There was never at any time between us any question of normal sexual intercourse, and we were both well content to let things drift as they were. "A little after 20 I went abroad, and on my return about three years later I found her married. Although we met often, the subject was never alluded to, though we remained firm friends. I confess I often, when I could do so without being seen, looked longingly at her feet and would have gladly accepted the pleasure she could have given me by an occasional resumption of our strange practice--but it never came. "I went abroad again, and now neither she nor her husband are alive and leave no issue. From time to time I have had occasional relations with prostitutes, but always in this manner, though I much prefer to find some lady of or above my own social position who will do the treading for me. This is, however, interestingly difficult. "Out of say a hundred women (which at home and abroad is what I should estimate must have stood upon my body) I should say quite 80 or 85 were _not_ prostitutes. Certainly not more than 10 to 12 shared any _sexual_ excitement, but while they were evidently excited they were not gratified. A. alone, so far as I know, had complete sexual satisfaction of it. I have never asked a woman in so many words to tread upon me for the purpose of gratifying my sexual desires (prostitutes excepted), but have always tempted them to do it in a jocular or teasing manner, and it is very doubtful if more than a few (married) women really understood, even after they had given me the extreme pleasure, that they had done so, because any flushing and movement on my part under their feet was not unnaturally put down to the trampling to which they were subjecting me, and it was easy for me to guide the foot as often as was necessary on to the penis till orgasm took place, and even to keep it there by laying hold of the other one to kiss it or on some other pretext during emission. Of course many understood after once doing it (most have done it only once) what I was at, and, although they did not ever discuss it nor did I, they were not unwilling to give me as many treadings as I cared to playfully suggest. I don't think they got any pleasure sexually out of it themselves, though they could see plainly that I did, and they did not object to give it me. I have spent as long as twelve months with some women working gradually nearer and nearer to my desire--often getting what I want in the end, but more often failing. I _never_ risk it till I am certain it would be safe to ask it, and have never had a serious rebuff. In very many cases I should say the doing of what I want has simply been regarded by the woman as gratifying a silly and perhaps amusing whim, in which, beyond the novelty of treading on a man's body, she has taken but little interest. "As in normal seduction, the endeavor to win the woman over to do what I want without arousing her antagonism is a great part of the charm to me, and naturally the better her social position the more difficult this becomes--and the more attractive. I have found that in three instances prostitutes have performed the same office for other men and knew all about it. It is not uninteresting to note that these three women were all of fine, massive build--one standing about 5 feet 10 inches and weighing nearly 14 stone--but with comparatively uninteresting faces. The weight, build and clothing count for a good deal in exciting me. I find that a sudden check to a man at the supreme moment of sexual pleasure tends to heighten and prolong the pleasure. My physical satisfaction is due to the fact that by getting the lady to stand with all her weight upon my penis (as it lies between her foot and the soft bed of my own body into which it is deeply pressed) the act of emission is enormously prolonged, with corresponding enjoyment. For this reason also I prefer a very high-heeled slipper. The seminal fluid has to be forced past two separate obstacles--the pressure of the heel close at the root of the penis and afterwards the ball of the foot which compresses the outer half, leaving a free portion between them under the arched sole of the slipper. I may add that the pleasure is greatly increased by the retention of the urine, and I always try to retain as much water as I dare. I have an unconquerable aversion to red in slippers or stockings; it will even cause impotence. Why, I know not. Strange as it may seem, although pain and bruising are often inflicted by a severe treading, I have never been in any way injured by the practice, and my pleasure in it seems not to diminish by constant repetition. The comparative difficulty of obtaining the pleasure from just the woman I want has a never-ending, if inexplicable, charm for me." It will be observed that in this case special importance is attached to shoes with high heels, and the subject considers that the pressure of such shoes is for mechanical reasons most favorable for procuring ejaculation. Nearly all heterosexual shoe-fetichists seem, however, to be equally attracted by high heels. Restif de la Bretonne frequently referred to this point, and he gave a number of reasons for the attractiveness of high heels: (1) They are unlike men's boots and, therefore, have a sexual fascination; (2) they make the leg and foot look more charming; (3) they give a less bold and more sylph-like character to the walk; (4) they keep the feet clean. (Restif de la Bretonne, _Nuits de Paris_, vol. v, quoted in Preface to his _Mes Inscriptions_, p. ciii.) It is doubtless the first reason--the fact that high heels are a kind of secondary sexual character--which is most generally potent in this attraction. The foregoing history, while it very distinctly brings before us a case of erotic symbolism, is not strictly an example of shoe-fetichism. The symbolism is more complex. The focus of beauty in a desirable woman is transferred and concentrated in the region below the knee; in that sense we have foot-fetichism. But the act of coitus itself is also symbolically transferred. Not only has the foot become the symbol of the vulva, but trampling has become the symbol of coitus; intercourse takes place symbolically _per pedem_. It is a result of this symbolization of the foot and of trampling that all acts of treading take on a new and symbolical sexual charm. The element of masochism--of pleasure in being a woman's slave--is a parasitic growth; that is to say, it is not founded in the subject's constitution, but chances to have found a favorable soil in the special circumstances under which his sexual life developed. It is not primary, but secondary, and remains an unimportant and merely occasional element. It may be instructive to bring forward for comparison a case in which also we have a symbolism involving boot-fetichism, but extending beyond it. In this case there is a basis of inversion (as is not infrequent in erotic symbolisms), but from the present point of view the psychological significance of the case remains the same. A.N., aged 29, unmarried, healthy, though not robust, and without any known hereditary taint. Has followed various avocations without taking great interest in them, but has shown some literary ability. "I am an Englishman," his own narrative runs, "the third of three children. At my birth my father was 41 and my mother 34. My mother died of cancer when I was 15. My father is still alive, a reserved man, who still nurses his sorrow for his wife's death. I have no reason to believe my parents anything but normal and useful members of society. My sister is normal and happily married. My brother I have reason to believe to be an invert. "A horoscope cast for me describes me in a way I think correct, and so do my friends: 'A mild, obliging, gentle, amiable person, with many fine traits of character; timid in nature, fond of society, loving peace and quietude, delighting in warm and close friendships. There is much that is firm, steadfast and industrious, some self-love, a good deal of diplomacy, a little that is subtle, or what is called finesse. You are reserved with those you dislike. There is a serious and sad side to your character; you are very thoughtful and contemplative when in these moods. But you are not pessimistic. You have superior abilities, for they are intuitively intellectual. There is a cold reticence which restrains generous impulses and which inclines to acquisitiveness; it will make you deliberate, inventive, adding self-esteem, some vanity.' "At an early age I was left much alone in the nursery and there contracted the habit of masturbation long before the age of puberty. I use the word 'masturbation' for want of a better, though it may not quite describe my case. I have never used my hand to the penis. As far back as I can remember I have had what a Frenchman has described as 'le fetichisme de la chaussure,' and in those early days, before I was 6 years old, I would put on my father's boots, taken from a cupboard at hand, and then tying or strapping my legs together would produce an erection, and all the pleasurable feelings experienced, I suppose, by means of masturbation. I always did this secretly, but couldn't tell why. I continued this practice on and off all my boyhood and youth. When I discovered the first emission I was much surprised. I always did this thing without loosening my trousers. As to how these feelings arose I am totally unable to say. I can't remember being without such feelings, and they seem to me perfectly normal. The sight, or even thought, of high boots, or leggings, especially if well polished or in patent leather, would set all my sexual passions aflame, and does yet. As a boy my great desire was to wear these things. A soldier in boots and spurs, a groom in tops, or even an errand-boy in patent leather leggings, fascinated me, and to this day, despite reason and everything else. The sight of such things produced an erection. An emission I could always produce by tightly tying my legs together, but only when wearing boots, and preferably leggings, which when I had pocket money I bought for this purpose. (At the present moment I have five pairs in the house and two pairs of high boots, quite unjustified by ordinary use.) This habit I lapse into yet at times. The smell of leather affects me, but I never know how far this may be due to association with boots; the smell suggests the image. Restraint by a leather strap is more exciting than by cords. Erotic dreams always take the form of restraint on the limbs when booted. "Uniforms and liveries have a great temptation for me, but only when of a tight-fitting nature and smart, as soldiers', grooms', etc., but not sailors'; most powerfully when the person is in boots or leggings and breeches. "I was a quiet, sensitive boy, taking no part in games or sports. Have always been indifferent to them. I made few friends, but didn't want them. The craving for friendship came much later, after I was 21. I was a day boy at a private school, and never had any conversation with any boy on sexual matters, though I was dimly aware of much 'nastiness' about the school. I knew nothing of sodomy. But all these things were repulsive to me, notwithstanding my secret practices. I was a 'good boy.' "Up to the age of 21 I was perfectly satisfied with my own society, something of a prig, fond of books and reading, etc. I was and ever have been absolutely insensible to the influence of the other sex. I am not a woman hater, and take intellectual pleasure in the society of certain ladies, but they are nearly all much older than myself. I have a strong repulsion from sexual relations with women. I should not mind being married for the sake of companionship and for the sake of having boys of my own. But the sexual act would frighten me. I could not in my present frame of mind go to bed with a woman. Yet I feel an immense envy of my married friends in that they are able to give out, and find satisfaction for, their affection in a way that is quite impossible for me. I picture certain boys in the place of the wife. "I am now only happy in the society of men younger than myself, age 17 to (say) 23 or 24, youths with smooth faces, or first sign of hair on lip, well groomed, slightly effeminate in feature, of sympathetic, perhaps weak nature. I feel I want to help them, do something for them, devote myself entirely to their welfare. "With such there is no fixed line between friendship and love. I yearn for intimacy with particular friends, but never dare express it. I find so many people object to any strong expression of feeling that I dare not run the risk of appearing ridiculous in the eyes of these desired intimates. "I have no desire for _pædicatio_, but the idea itself does not repulse me or seem unnatural, though personally it repels me a little. But I think this to be mere prejudice on my part, which might be broken down if the loved person showed a willingness to act a passive part. I should never dare to make an advance, however. "I am restrained by moral and religious considerations from making my real feelings known, and I feel I should sink in my own estimation if I gave way, though my natural desire is to do so. In the face of opportunities (not I mean of _pædicatio_, but of expression of excessive affection, etc.), or what might be such, I always fail to speak lest I should forfeit the esteem of the other person. I have a feeling of surprise when any one I like evinces a liking for me. I feel that those I love are immeasurably my superiors, though my reason may tell me it is not so. I would grovel at their feet, do anything to win a smile from them, or to make them give me their company. "Ordinary bodily contact with the boy I love gives me most exquisite pleasure, and I never lose an opportunity of bringing such contact about when it can be done naturally. I feel an immense desire to embrace, kiss, squeeze, etc., the person, to generally maul him, and say nice things--the kind of things a man usually says to a woman. A handshake, the mere presence of the person, makes me happy and content. "I can say with the Albanian: 'If I find myself in the presence of the beloved, I rest absorbed in gazing on him. Absent, I think of nought but him. If the beloved unexpectedly appears I fall into confusion. My heart beats faster. I have eyes and ears only for the beloved.' "I feel that my capacity of affection is finer and more spiritual than that which commonly subsists between persons of different sexes. And so, while trying to fight my instincts by religion, I find my natural feeling to be part of my religion, and its highest expression. In this sense I can speak from experience in my own case, and more especially in that of my brother, that what you have said about philanthropic activity resulting from repressed homosexuality is very true indeed. I can say with one of your female cases: 'Love is to me a religion. The very nature of my affection for my friends precludes the possibility of any element entering into it which is not absolutely pure and sacred.' I am, however, madly jealous. I want entire possession, and I can't bear for a moment that any one I do not care for should know the person I love. "I am never attracted by men older than myself. The youths who attract me may be of any class, though preferably, I think, of a class a little lower than myself. I am not quite sure of this, however, as circumstances may have contributed more than deliberate choice to bring certain youths under my notice. Those who have exercised the most powerful influence on me have been an Oxford undergraduate, a barber's assistant, and a plumber's apprentice. Though naturally fond of intellectual society, I do not ask for intellect in those I love. It goes for nothing. I always prefer their company to that of the most educated persons. This preference has alienated me to some extent from more refined and educated circles that formerly I was intimate with. "I have been led entirely out of my old habits by association with younger friends, and now do things which before I should never have dreamed of doing. My thoughts now are always with certain youths, and if they speak of leaving the town, or in any way talk of a future that I cannot share, I suffer horrid sinkings of the heart and depression of spirits." This case, while it concerns a person of quite different temperament, with a more innate predisposition to specific perversions, is yet in many respects analogous to the previous case. There is boot-fetichism; nothing is felt to be so attractive as the foot-gear, and there is also at the same time more than this; there is the attraction of repression and constraint developed into a sexual symbol. In C.P.'s case that symbolism arises from the experience of an abnormal heterosexual relationship; in A.N.'s case it is founded on auto-erotic experiences associated with inversion; in both alike the entire symbolism has become diffused and generalized. In the two cases just brought forward we have an erotic symbolism of act founded on, and closely associated with, an erotic symbolism of object. It may be instructive to bring forward another case in which no fetichistic feeling toward an object can be traced, but an erotic symbolism still clearly exists. In this case pain, even when self-inflicted, has acquired a symbolic value as a stimulus to tumescence, without any element of masochism. Such a case serves to indicate how the sexual attraction of pain is really a special case of the erotic symbolism with which we are here concerned. A.W., aged 50, a writer and lecturer, physically and mentally energetic and enjoying good health. He is, however, very emotional and of nervous temperament, but self-controlled. Though physically well developed, the sexual organs are small. He is married to an attractive woman, to whom he is much attached, and has two healthy children. At 10 or 12 years of age he had a frequent desire to be whipped, his parents never having struck him, and on one occasion he asked a brother to go with him to the closet to get him to whip him on the posterior; but on arrival he was too shy to make the request. He did not recognize the cause of these desires, knowing nothing of such things except from the misinformation of his school-fellows' talk. As far as he can remember, he was an entirely normal, healthy boy up to the age of about 15, when his attention was arrested by an advertisement of a quack medicine for the results of "youthful excesses." Being a city boy, he was unfamiliar with the coupling even of animals, had never had a conscious erection and did not know of frictional excitement. Experiment, however, resulted in an orgasm, and, though believing that it was wicked or at least weak and degrading, he indulged in masturbation at intervals, usually about six times a month, and has continued even up to the present. He had an abnormally small opening in the prepuce, making the uncovering of the glans almost impossible. (At the age of about 37, he himself slit the prepuce by three or four cuts of a scissors at intervals of about ten days. This was followed by a marked decrease in desire, especially as he shortly afterwards learned the importance of local cleanliness.) While in college at about the age of 19 he began to have nocturnal emissions occasionally and once or twice a week when at stool. Alarmed by these, he consulted a physician, who warned him of the danger, gave him bromide and prescribed cold bathing of the parts, with a hard, cool bed. These stopped the emissions. He never had connection with women until the age of about 25, and then only three times until his marriage at 30 years of age, being deterred partly by conscientious scruples, but more by shyness and convention, and deriving very little pleasure from these instances. Even since marriage he has derived more pleasure from sexual excitement than from coitus, and can maintain erection for as long as two hours. He has always been accustomed to torture himself in various ingenious ways, nearly always connected with sex. He would burn his skin deeply with red hot wire in inconspicuous places. These and similar acts were generally followed by manual excitation nearly always brought to a climax. He considers that he is attracted to refined and intellectual women. But he is without very ardent desires, having several times gone to bed with attractive women who stripped themselves naked, but without attempting any sexual intercourse with them. He became interested in the "Karezza" theory and has tried to practice it with his wife, but could never entirely control the emission. He has hired a masseur to whip him, as children are whipped, with a heavy dog whip, which caused pleasurable excitement. During this time he had relations with his wife generally about once a week without any great ecstasy. She was cold and sexually slow, owing to conventional sex repression and to an idea that the whole thing was "like animals" and to fear of child-bearing, usually necessitating the use of a cover or withdrawal. It was only eight years after their marriage that she desired and obtained a child. During these years he would often stick pins through his mammæ and tie them together by a string round the pins drawn so short as to cause great pain and then indulge himself in the sexual act. He used strong wooden clips with a tack fixed in them, so as to pierce and pinch the mammæ, and once he drove a pin entirely through the penis itself, then obtaining orgasm by friction. He was never able to get an automatic emission in this way, though he often tried, not even by walking briskly during an erection. In another class of cases a purely ideal symbolism may be present by means of a fetich which acts as a powerful stimulus without itself being felt to possess any attraction. A good illustration of this condition is furnished by a case which has been communicated to me by a medical correspondent in New Zealand. "The patient went out to South Africa as a trooper with the contingent from New Zealand, throwing up a good position in an office to do so. He had never had any trouble as regards connection with women before going out to South Africa. While in active service at the front he sustained a nasty fall from his horse, breaking his leg. He was unconscious for four days, and was then invalided down to Cape Town. Here he rapidly got well, and his accustomed health returning to him he started having what he terms 'a good time.' He repeatedly went to brothels, but was unable to have more than a temporary erection, and no ejaculation would take place. In one of these places he was in company with a drunken trooper, who suggested that they should perform the sexual act with their boots and spurs (only) on. My patient, who was also drunk, readily assented, and to his surprise was enabled to perform the act of copulation without any difficulty at all. He has repeatedly tried since to perform the act without any spurs, but is quite unable to do so; with the spurs he has no difficulty at all in obtaining all the gratification he desires. His general health is good. His mother was an extremely nervous woman, and so is his sister. His father died when he was quite young. His only other relation in the colony is a married sister, who seems to enjoy vigorous health." The consideration of the cases here brought forward may suffice to show that beyond those fetichisms which find their satisfaction in the contemplation of a part of the body or a garment, there is a more subtle symbolism. The foot is a center of force, an agent for exerting pressure, and thus it furnishes a point of departure not alone for the merely static sexual fetich, but for a dynamic erotic symbolization. The energy of its movements becomes a substitute for the energy of the sexual organs themselves in coitus, and exerts the same kind of fascination. The young girl (page 35) "who seemed to have a passion for treading upon things which would scrunch or yield under her foot," already possessed the germs of an erotic symbolism which, under the influence of circumstances in which she herself took an active part, developed into an adequate method of sexual gratification.[23] The youth who was her partner learned, in the same way, to find an erotic symbolism in all the pressure reactions of attractive feminine feet, the swaying of a carriage beneath their weight, the crushing of the flowers on which they tread, the slow rising of the grass which they have pressed. Here we have a symbolism which is altogether different from that fetichism which adores a definite object; it is a dynamic symbolism finding its gratification in the spectacle of movements which ideally recall the fundamental rhythm and pressure reactions of the sexual process. We may trace a very similar erotic symbolism in an absolutely normal form. The fascination of clothes in the lover's eyes is no doubt a complex phenomenon, but in part it rests on the aptitudes of a woman's garments to express vaguely a dynamic symbolism which must always remain indefinite and elusive, and on that account always possess fascination. No one has so acutely described this symbolism as Herrick, often an admirable psychologist in matters of sexual attractiveness. Especially instructive in this respect are his poems, "Delight in Disorder," "Upon Julia's Clothes," and notably "Julia's Petticoat." "A sweet disorder in the dress," he tells us, "kindles in clothes a wantonness;" it is not on the garment itself, but on the character of its movement that he insists; on the "erring lace," the "winning wave" of the "tempestuous petticoat;" he speaks of the "liquefaction" of clothes, their "brave vibration each way free," and of Julia's petticoat he remarks with a more specific symbolism still, "Sometimes 'twould pant and sigh and heave, As if to stir it scarce had leave; But having got it, thereupon, 'Twould make a brave expansion." In the play of the beloved woman's garment, he sees the whole process of the central act of sex, with its repressions and expansions, and at the sight is himself ready to "fall into a swoon." FOOTNOTES: [13] G. Stanley Hall, _Adolescence_, vol. ii, p. 113. It will be noted that the hand does not appear among the parts of the body which are normally of supreme interest. An interest in the hand is by no means uncommon (it may be noted, for instance, in the course of History XII in Appendix B to vol. iii of these _Studies_), but the hand does not possess the mystery which envelops the foot, and hand-fetichism is very much less frequent than foot-fetichism, while glove-fetichism is remarkably rare. An interesting case of hand-fetichism, scarcely reaching morbid intensity, is recorded by Binet, _Etudes de Psychologie Expérimentale_, pp. 13-19; and see Krafft-Ebing, _Op. cit._, pp. 214 et seq. [14] _Mémoires_, vol. i, Chapter VII. [15] Among leading English novelists Hardy shows an unusual but by no means predominant interest in the feet and shoes of his heroines; see, e.g., the observations of the cobbler in _Under the Greenwood Tree_, Chapter III. A chapter in Goethe's _Wahlverwandtschaften_ (Part I, Chapter II) contains an episode involving the charm of the foot and the kissing of the beloved's shoe. [16] Schinz, "Philosophie des Conventions Sociales," _Revue Philosophique_, June, 1903, p. 626. Mirabeau mentions in his _Erotika Biblion_ that modern Greek women sometimes use their feet to provoke orgasm in their lovers. I may add that simultaneous mutual masturbation by means of the feet is not unknown to-day, and I have been told by an English shoe-fetichist that he at one time was accustomed to practice this with a married lady (Brazilian)--she with slippers on and he without--who derived gratification equal to his own. [17] Jacoby (loc. cit. pp. 796-7) gives a large number of references to Ovid's works bearing on this point. "In reading him," he remarks, "one is inclined to say that the psychology of the Romans was closely allied to that of the Chinese." [18] R. Kleinpaul, _Sprache ohne Worte_, p. 308. See also Moll, _Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, pp. 306-308. Bloch brings together many interesting references bearing on the ancient sexual and religious symbolism of the shoe, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil II, p. 324. [19] Jacoby (loc. cit. p. 797) appears to regard shoe-fetichism as a true atavism: "The sexual adoration of feminine foot-gear," he concludes, "perhaps the most enigmatic and certainly the most singular of degenerative insanities, is thus merely a form of atavism, the return of the degenerate to the very ancient and primitive psychology which we no longer understand and are no longer capable of feeling." [20] Moll has reported in detail (_Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, bd. i, Teil II, pp. 320-324) a case which both he and Krafft-Ebing regard as illustrative of the connection between boot-fetichism and masochism. It is essentially a case of masochism, though manifesting itself almost exclusively in the desire to perform humiliating acts in connection with the attractive person's boots. [21] Krafft-Ebing goes so far as to assert (_Psychopathia Sexualis_, English translation of tenth edition, p. 174) that "when in cases of shoe-fetichism the female shoe appears alone as the excitant of sexual desire one is justified in presuming that masochistic motives have remained latent.... Latent masochism may always be assumed as the unconscious motive." In this way he hopelessly misinterprets some of his own cases. [22] Krafft-Ebing goes so far as to assert (_Psychopathia Sexualis_, English translation, pp. 159 and 174). Yet some of the cases he brings forward (e.g., Coxe's as quoted by Hammond) show no sign of masochism, since, according to Krafft-Ebing's own definition (p. 116), the idea of subjugation by the opposite sex is of the essence of masochism. [23] Her actions suggest that there is often a latent sexual consciousness in regard to the feet in women, atavistic or pseudo-atavistic, and corresponding to the sexual attraction which the feet formerly aroused, almost normally, in men. This is also suggested by the case, referred to by Shufeldt, of an unmarried woman, belonging to a family exhibiting in a high degree both erotic and neurotic traits, who had "a certain uncontrollable fascination for shoes. She delights in new shoes, and changes her shoes all day long at regular intervals of three hours each. She keeps this row of shoes out in plain sight in her apartment." (R.W. Shufeldt, "On a Case of Female Impotency," 1896, p. 10.) III. Scatalogic Symbolism--Urolagnia--Coprolagnia--The Ascetic Attitude Towards the Flesh--Normal basis of Scatalogic Symbolism--Scatalogic Conceptions Among Primitive Peoples--Urine as a Primitive Holy Water--Sacredness of Animal Excreta--Scatalogy in Folk-lore--The Obscene as Derived from the Mythological--The Immature Sexual Impulse Tends to Manifest Itself in Scatalogic Forms--The basis of Physiological Connection Between the Urinary and Genital Spheres--Urinary Fetichism Sometimes Normal in Animals--The Urolagnia of Masochists--The Scatalogy of Saints--Urolagnia More Often a Symbolism of Act Than a Symbolism of Object--Only Occasionally an Olfactory Fetichism--Comparative Rarity of Coprolagnia--Influence of Nates Fetichism as a Transition to Coprolagnia--Ideal Coprolagnia--Olfactory Coprolagnia--Urolagnia and Coprolagnia as Symbols of Coitus. We meet with another group of erotic symbolisms--alike symbolisms of object and of act--in connection with the two functions adjoining the anatomical sexual focus: the urinary and alvine excretory functions. These are sometimes termed the scatalogical group, with the two subdivisions of urolagnia and Coprolagnia.[24] _Inter fæces et urinam nascimur_ is an ancient text which has served the ascetic preachers of old for many discourses on the littleness of man and the meanness of that reproductive power which plays so large a part in man's life. "The stupid bungle of Nature," a correspondent writes, "whereby the generative organs serve as a means of relieving the bladder, is doubtless responsible for much of the disgust which those organs excite in some minds." At the same time, it is necessary to point out, such reflex influence may act not in one direction only, but also in the reverse direction. From the standpoint of ascetic contemplation eager to belittle humanity, the excretory centers may cast dishonor upon the genital center which they adjoin. From the more ecstatic standpoint of the impassioned lover, eager to magnify the charm of the woman he worships, it is not impossible for the excretory centers to take on some charm from the irradiating center of sex which they enclose. Even normally such a process is traceable. The normal lover may not idealize the excretory functions of his mistress, but the fact that he finds no repulsion in the most intimate contacts and feels no disgust at the proximity of the excretory orifices or the existence of their functions, indicates that the idealization of love has exerted at all events a neutralizing influence; indeed, the presence of an acute sensibility to the disturbing influence of this proximity of the excretory orifices and their functions must be considered abnormal; Swift's "Strephon and Chloe"--with the conviction underlying it that it is an easy matter for the excretory functions to drown the possibilities of love--could only have proceeded from a morbidly sensitive brain.[25] A more than mere neutralizing influence, a positively idealizing influence of the sexual focus on the excretory processes adjoining it, may take place in the lover's mind without the normal variations of sexual attraction being over-passed, and even without the creation of an excretory fetichism. Reflections of this attitude may be found in the poets. In the _Song of Songs_ the lover says of his mistress, "Thy navel is like a round goblet, wherein no mingled wine is wanting;" in his lyric "To Dianeme," Herrick says with clear reference to the mons veneris:-- "Show me that hill where smiling love doth sit, Having a living fountain under it;" and in the very numerous poems in various languages which have more or less obscurely dealt with the rose as the emblem of the feminine pudenda there are occasional references to the stream which guards or presides over the rose. It may, indeed, be recalled that even in the name _nymphæ_ anatomists commonly apply to the _labia minora_ there is generally believed to be a poetic allusion to the Nymphs who presided over streams, since the _labia minora_ exert an influence on the direction of the urinary stream. In _Wilhelm Meister_ (Part I, Chapter XV), Goethe, on the basis of his own personal experiences, describes his hero's emotions in the humble surroundings of Marianne's little room as compared with the stateliness and order of his own home. "It seemed to him when he had here to remove her stays in order to reach the harpsichord, there to lay her skirt on the bed before he could seat himself, when she herself with unembarrassed frankness would make no attempt to conceal from him many natural acts which people are accustomed to hide from others out of decency--it seemed to him, I say, that he became bound to her by invisible bands." We are told of Wordsworth (Findlay's _Recollections of De Quincey_, p. 36) that he read _Wilhelm Meister_ till "he came to the scene where the hero, in his mistress's bedroom, becomes sentimental over her dirty towels, etc., which struck him with such disgust that he flung the book out of his hand, would never look at it again, and declared that surely no English lady would ever read such a work." I have, however, heard a woman of high intellectual distinction refer to the peculiar truth and beauty of this very passage. In one of his latest novels, _Les Rencontres de M. de Bréot_, Henri de Régnier, one of the most notable of recent French novelists, narrates an episode bearing on the matter before us. A personage of the story is sitting for a moment in a dark grotto during a night fête in a nobleman's park, when two ladies enter and laughingly proceed to raise their garments and accomplish a natural necessity. The man in the background, suddenly overcome by a sexual impulse, starts forward; one lady runs away, the other, whom he detains, offers little resistance to his advances. To M. de Bréot, whom he shortly after encounters, he exclaims, abashed at his own actions: "Why did I not flee? But could I imagine that the spectacle of so disgusting a function would have any other effect than to give me a humble opinion of human nature?" M. de Bréot, however, in proceeding to reproach his interlocutor for his inconsiderate temerity, observes: "What you tell me, sir, does not entirely surprise me. Nature has placed very various instincts within us, and the impulse that led you to what you have just now done is not so peculiar as you think. One may be a very estimable man and yet love women even in what is lowliest in their bodies." In harmony with this passage from Régnier's novel are the remarks of a correspondent who writes to me of the function of urination that it "appeals sexually to most normal individuals. My own observations and inquiries prove this. Women themselves instinctively feel it. The secrecy surrounding the matter lends, too, I think, a sexual interest." The fact that scatalogic processes may in some degree exert an attraction even in normal love has been especially emphasized by Bloch (_Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil II, pp. 222, et seq.): "The man whose intellect and æsthetic sense has been 'clouded by the sexual impulse' sees these things in an entirely different light from him who has not been overcome by the intoxication of love. For him they are idealized (sit venia verbo) since they are a part of the beloved person, and in consequence associated with love." Bloch quotes the _Memoiren einer Sängerin_ (a book which is said to be, though this seems doubtful, genuinely autobiographical) in the same sense: "A man who falls in love with a girl is not dragged out of his poetic sphere by the thought that his beloved must relieve certain natural necessities every day. It seems, indeed, to him to be just the opposite. If one loves a person one finds nothing obscene or disgusting in the object that pleases me." The opposite attitude is probably in extreme cases due to the influence of a neurotic or morbidly sensitive temperament. Swift possessed such a temperament. The possession of a similar temperament is doubtless responsible for the little prose poem, "L'Extase," in which Huysmans in his first book, _Le Drageloir á Epices_, has written an attenuated version of "Strephon and Chloe" to express the disillusionment of love; the lover lies in a wood clasping the hand of the beloved with rapturous emotion; "suddenly she rose, disengaged her hand, disappeared in the bushes, and I heard as it were the rustling of rain on the leaves." His dream has fled. In estimating the significance of the lover's attitude in this matter, it is important to realize the position which scatologic conceptions took in primitive belief. At certain stages of early culture, when all the emanations of the body are liable to possess mysterious magic properties and become apt for sacred uses, the excretions, and especially the urine, are found to form part of religious ritual and ceremonial function. Even among savages the excreta are frequently regarded as disgusting, but under the influence of these conceptions such disgust is inhibited, and those emanations of the body which are usually least honored become religious symbols. Urine has been regarded as the original holy water, and many customs which still survive in Italy and various parts of Europe, involving the use of a fluid which must often be yellow and sometimes salt, possibly indicate the earlier use of urine. (The Greek water of aspersion, according to Theocritus, was mixed with salt, as is sometimes the modern Italian holy water. J.J. Blunt, _Vestiges of Ancient Manners and Customs_, p. 173.) Among the Hottentots, as Kolbein and others have recorded, the medicine man urinated alternately on bride and bridegroom, and a successful young warrior was sprinkled in the same way. Mungo Park mentions that in Africa on one occasion a bride sent a bowl of her urine which was thrown over him as a special mark of honor to a distinguished guest. Pennant remarked that the Highlanders sprinkled their cattle with urine, as a kind of holy water, on the first Monday in every quarter. (Bourke, _Scatalogic Rites_, pp. 228, 239; Brand, _Popular Antiquities_, "Bride-Ales.") Even the excreta of animals have sometimes been counted sacred. This is notably so in the case of the cow, of all animals the most venerated by primitive peoples, and especially in India. Jules Bois (_Visions de l'Inde_, p. 86) describes the spectacle presented in the temple of the cows at Benares: "I put my head into the opening of the holy stables. It was the largest of temples, a splendor of precious stones and marble, where the venerated heifers passed backwards and forwards. A whole people adored them. They take no notice, plunged in their divine and obscure unconsciousness. And they fulfil with serenity their animal functions; they chew the offerings, drink water from copper vessels, and when they are filled they relieve themselves. Then a stercoraceous and religious insanity overcomes these starry-faced women and venerable men; they fall on their knees, prostrate themselves, eat the droppings, greedily drink the liquid, which for them is miraculous and sacred." (Cf. Bourke, _Scatalogic Rites_, Chapter XVII.) Among the Chevsurs of the Caucasus, perhaps an Iranian people, a woman after her confinement, for which she lives apart, purifies herself by washing in the urine of a cow and then returns home. This mode of purification is recommended in the Avesta, and is said to be used by the few remaining followers of this creed. We have not only to take into account the frequency with which among primitive peoples the excretions possess a religious significance. It is further to be noted that in the folk-lore of modern Europe we everywhere find plentiful evidence of the earlier prevalence of legends and practices of a scatalogical character. It is significant that in the majority of cases it is easy to see a sexual reference in these stories and customs. The legends have lost their earlier and often mythical significance, and frequently take on a suggestion of obscenity, while the scatalogical practices have become the magical devices of lovelorn maidens or forsaken wives practiced in secrecy. It has happened to scatalogical rites to be regarded as we may gather from the _Clouds_ of Aristophanes, that the sacred leathern phallus borne by the women in the Bacchanalia was becoming in his time, an object to arouse the amusement of little boys. Among many primitive peoples throughout the world, and among the lower social classes of civilized peoples, urine possesses magic properties, more especially, it would seem, the urine of women and that of people who stand, or wish to stand, in sexual relationship to each other. In a legend of the Indians of the northwest coast of America, recorded by Boas, a woman gives her lover some of her urine and says: "You can wake the dead if you drop some of my urine in their ears and nose." (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1894, Heft IV, p. 293.) Among the same Indians there is a legend of a woman with a beautiful white skin who found on bathing every morning in the river that the fish were attracted to her skin and could not be driven off even by magical solutions. At last she said to herself: "I will make water on them and then they will leave me alone." She did so, and henceforth the fish left her. But shortly after fire came from Heaven and killed her. (Ib., 1891, Heft V, p. 640.) Among both Christians and Mohammedans a wife can attach an unfaithful husband by privately putting some of her urine in his drink. (B. Stern, _Medizin in der Türkei_, vol. ii, p. 11.) This practice is world-wide; thus among the aborigines of Brazil, according to Martius, the urine and other excretions and secretions are potent for aphrodisiacal objects. (Bourke's _Scatalogic Rites of All Nations_ contains many references to the folk-lore practices in this matter; a study of popular beliefs in the magic power of urine, published in Bombay by Professor Eugen Wilhelm in 1889, I have not seen.) The legends which narrate scatalogic exploits are numerous in the literature of all countries. Among primitive peoples they often have a purely theological character, for in the popular mythologies of all countries (even, as we learn from Aristophanes, among the Greeks) natural phenomena such as the rain, are apt to be regarded as divine excretions, but in course of time the legends take on a more erotic or a more obscene character. In the Irish _Book of Leinster_ (written down somewhere about the twelfth century, but containing material of very much older date) we are told how a number of princesses in Emain Macha, the seat of the Ulster Kings, resolved to find out which of them could by urinating on it melt a snow pillar which the men had made, the woman who succeeded to be regarded as the best among them. None of them succeeded, and they sent for Derbforgaill, who was in love with Cuchullain, and she was able to melt the pillar; whereupon the other women, jealous of the superiority she had thus shown, tore out her eyes. (Zimmer, "Keltische Beiträge," _Zeitschrift für Deutsche Alterthum_, vol. xxxii, Heft II, pp. 216-219.) Rhys considers that Derbforgaill was really a goddess of dawn and dusk, "the drop glistening in the sun's rays," as indicated by her name, which means a drop or tear. (J. Rhys, _Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by Celtic Heathendom_, p. 466.) It is interesting to compare the legend of Derbforgaill with a somewhat more modern Picardy folk-lore _conte_ which is clearly analogous but no longer seems to show any mythologic element, "La Princesse qui pisse par dessus les Meules." This princess had a habit of urinating over hay-cocks; the king, her father, in order to break her of the habit, offered her in marriage to anyone who could make a hay-cock so high that she could not urinate over it. The young men came, but the princess would merely laugh and at once achieve the task. At last there came a young man who argued with himself that she would not be able to perform this feat after she had lost her virginity. He therefore seduced her first and she then failed ignobly, merely wetting her stockings. Accordingly, she became his bride. (Kryptadia, vol. i. p. 333.) Such legends, which have lost any mythologic elements they may originally have possessed and have become merely _contes_, are not uncommon in the folk-lore of many countries. But in their earlier more religious forms and in their later more obscene forms, they alike bear witness to the large place which scatalogic conceptions play in the primitive mind. It is a notable fact in evidence of the close and seemingly normal association with the sexual impulse of the scatalogic processes, that an interest in them, arising naturally and spontaneously, is one of the most frequent channels by which the sexual impulse first manifests itself in young boys and girls. Stanley Hall, who has made special inquiries into the matter, remarks that in childhood the products of excretion by bladder and bowels are often objects of interest hardly less intense for a time than eating and drinking. ("Early Sense of Self," _American Journal of Psychology_, April, 1898, p. 361.) "Micturitional obscenities," the same writer observes again, "which our returns show to be so common before adolescence, culminate at 10 or 12, and seem to retreat into the background as sex phenomena appear." They are, he remarks, of two classes: "Fouling persons or things, secretly from adults, but openly with each other," and less often "ceremonial acts connected with the act or the product that almost suggest the scatalogical rites of savages, unfit for description here, but of great interest and importance." (G. Stanley Hall, _Adolescence_, vol. i, p. 116.) The nature of such scatalogical phenomena in childhood--which are often clearly the instinctive manifestations of an erotic symbolism--and their wide prevalence among both boys and girls, are very well illustrated in a narrative which I include in Appendix B, History II. In boys as they approach the age of puberty, this attraction to the scatalogic, when it exists, tends to die out, giving place to more normal sexual conceptions, or at all events it takes a subordinate and less serious place in the mind. In girls, on the other hand, it often tends to persist. Edmond de Goncourt, a minute observer of the feminine mind, refers in _Chérie_ to "those innocent and triumphant gaieties which scatalogic stories have the privilege of arousing in women who have remained still children, even the most distinguished women." The extent to which innocent young women, who would frequently be uninterested or repelled in presence of the sexually obscene are sometimes attracted by the scatalogically obscene, becomes intelligible, however, if we realize that a symbolism comes here into play. In women the more specifically sexual knowledge and experience of life frequently develop much later than in men or even remains in abeyance, and the specifically sexual phenomena cannot therefore easily lend themselves to wit, or humor, or imagination. But the scatalogic sphere, by the very fact that in women it is a specially intimate and secret region which is yet always liable to be unexpectedly protruded into consciousness, furnishes an inexhaustible field for situations which have the same character as those furnished by the sexually obscene. It thus happens that the sexually obscene which in men tends to overshadow the scatalogically obscene, in women--partly from inexperience and partly, it is probable, from their almost physiological modesty--plays a part subordinate to the scatalogical. In a somewhat analogous way scatalogical wit and humor play a considerable part in the work of various eminent authors who were clergymen or priests. In addition to the anatomical and psychological associations which contribute to furnish a basis on which erotic symbolisms may spring up, there are also physiological connections between the genital and urinary spheres which directly favor such symbolisms. In discussing the analysis of the sexual impulse in a previous volume of these _Studies_, I have pointed out the remarkable relationship--sometimes of transference, sometimes of compensation--which exists between genital tension and vesical tension, both in men and women. In the histories of normal sexual development brought together at the end of that and subsequent volumes the relationship may frequently be traced, as also in the case of C.P. in the present study (p. 37). Vesical power is also commonly believed to be in relation with sexual potency, and the inability to project the urinary stream in a normal manner is one of the accepted signs of sexual impotency.[26] Féré, again, has recorded the history of a man with periodic crises of sexual desire, and subsequently sexual obsession without desire, which were always accompanied by the impulse to urinate and by increased urination.[27] In the case, recorded by Pitres and Régis, of a young girl who, having once at the sight of a young man she liked in a theater been overcome by sexual feeling accompanied by a strong desire to urinate, was afterward tormented by a groundless fear of experiencing an irresistible desire to urinate at inconvenient times,[28] we have an example of what may be called a physiological scatalogic symbolism of sex, an emotion which was primarily erotic becoming transferred to the bladder and then remaining persistent. From such a physiological symbolism it is but a step to the psychological symbolisms of scatalogic fetichism. It is worthy of note, as an indication that such phenomena are scarcely abnormal, that a urinary symbolism, and even a strictly sexual fetichism, are normal among many animals. The most familiar example of this kind is furnished by the dog, who is sexually excited in this manner by traces of the bitch and himself takes every opportunity of making his own path recognizable. "This custom," Espinas remarks (_Des Sociétés Animales_, p. 228), "has no other aim than to spread along the road recognizable traces of their presence for the benefit of individuals of the other sex, the odor of these traces doubtless causing excitement." It is noteworthy, also, that in animals as well as in man, sexual excitement may manifest itself in the bladder. Thus Daumas states (_Chevaux de Sahara_, p. 49) that if the mare urinates when she hears the stallion neigh it is a sign that she is ready for connection. It is in masochism, or passive algolagnia, that we may most frequently find scatalogic symbolism in its fully developed form. The man whose predominant impulse is to subjugate himself to his mistress and to receive at her hands the utmost humiliation, frequently finds the climax of his gratification in being urinated on by her, whether in actual fact or only in imagination. In many such cases, however, it is evident that we have a mixed phenomenon; the symbolism is double. The act becomes desirable because it is the outward and visible sign of an inwardly experienced abject slavery to an adored person. But it is also desirable because of intimately sexual associations in the act itself, as a symbolical detumescence, a simulacrum of the sexual act, and one which proceeds from the sexual focus itself. Krafft-Ebing records various cases of masochism in which the emission of urine on to the body or into the mouth formed the climax of sexual gratification, as, for instance (_Psychopathia Sexualis_, English translation, p. 183) in the case of a Russian official who as a boy had fancies of being bound between the thighs of a woman, compelled to sleep beneath her nates and to drink her urine, and in later life experienced the greatest excitement when practicing the last part of this early imagination. In another case, recorded by Krafft-Ebing and by him termed "ideal masochism" (_Op. cit._, pp. 127-130), the subject from childhood indulged in voluptuous day-dreams in which he was the slave of a beautiful mistress who would compel him to obey all her caprices, stand over him with one foot on his breast, sit on his face and body, make him wait on her in her bath, or when she urinated, and sometimes insist on doing this on his face; though a highly intellectual man, he was always too timid to attempt to carry any of his ideas into execution; he had been troubled by nocturnal enuresis up to the age of 20. Neri, again (_Archivio delle Psicopatie Sessuali_, vol. i, fasc. 7 and 8, 1896), records the case of an Italian masochist who experienced the greatest pleasure when both urination and defecation were practiced in this manner by the woman he was attached to. In a previous volume of these _Studies_ ("Sexual Inversion," History XXVI) I have recorded the masochistic day-dreams of a boy whose impulses were at the same time inverted; in his reveries "the central fact," he states, "became the discharge of urine from my lover over my body and limbs, or, if I were very fond of him, I let it be in my face." In actual life the act of urination casually witnessed in childhood became the symbol, even the reality, of the central secret of sex: "I stood rooted and flushing with downcast eyes till the act was over, and was conscious for a considerable time of stammering speech and bewildered faculties.... I was overwhelmed with emotion and could barely drag my feet from the spot or my eyes from the damp herbage where he had deposited the waters of secrecy. Even to-day I cannot dissociate myself from the shuddering charm that moment had for me." It is not only the urine and the fæces which may thus acquire a symbolic fascination and attractiveness under the influence of masochistic deviations of sexual idealization. In some cases extreme rapture has been experienced in licking sweating feet. There is, indeed, no excretion or product of the body which has not been a source of ecstasy: the sweat from every part of the body, the saliva and menstrual fluid, even the wax from the ears. Krafft-Ebing very truly points out (_Psychopathia Sexualis_, English translation, p. 178) that this sexual scatalogic symbolism is precisely paralleled by a religious scatalogic symbolism. In the excesses of devout enthusiasm the ascetic performs exactly the same acts as are performed in these excesses of erotic enthusiasm. To mix excreta with the food, to lick up excrement, to suck festering sores--all these and the like are acts which holy and venerated women have performed. Not only the saint, but also the prophet and medicine-man have been frequently eaters of human excrement; it is only necessary to refer to the instance of the prophet Ezekiel, who declared that he was commanded to bake his bread with human dung, and to the practices of medicine-men at Torres Straits, in whose training the eating of human excrement takes a recognized part. (Deities, notably Baal-Phegor, were sometimes supposed to eat excrement, so that it was natural that their messengers and representatives among men should do so. As regards Baal-Phegor, see Dulaure, _Des Divinités Génératrices_, Chapter IV, and J.G. Bourke, _Scatalogic Rites of All Nations_, p. 241. See also Ezekiel, Chapter IV, v. 12, and _Reports Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. v, p. 321.) It must be added, however, that while the masochist is overcome by sexual rapture, so that he sees nothing disgusting in his act, the medicine-man and the ascetic are not so invariably overcome by religious rapture, and several ascetic writers have referred to the horror and disgust they experienced, at all events at first, in accomplishing such acts, while the medicine-men when novices sometimes find the ordeal too severe and have to abandon their career. Brénier de Montmorand, while remarking, not without some exaggeration, that "the Christian ascetics are almost all eaters of excrement" ("Ascétisme et Mysticisme," _Revue Philosophique_, March, 1904, p. 245), quotes the testimonies of Marguerite-Marie and Madame Guyon as to the extreme repugnance which they had to overcome. They were impelled by a merely intellectual symbolism of self-mortification rather than by the profoundly felt emotional symbolism which moves the masochist. Coprophagic acts, whether under the influences of religious exaltation or of sexual rapture, inevitably excite our disgust. We regard them as almost insane, fortified in that belief by the undoubted fact that coprophagia is not uncommon among the insane. It may, therefore, be proper to point out that it is not so very long since the ingestion of human excrement was carried out by our own forefathers in the most sane and deliberate manner. It was administered by medical practitioners for a great number of ailments, apparently with entirely satisfactory results. Less than two centuries ago, Schurig, who so admirably gathered together and arranged the medical lore of his own and the immediately preceding ages, wrote a very long and detailed chapter, "De Stercoris Humani Usu Medico" (_Chylologia_, 1725, cap. XIII; in the Paris _Journal de Médecine_ for February 19, 1905, there appeared an article, which I have not seen, entitled "Médicaments oubliées: l'urine et la fiente humaine.") The classes of cases in which the drug was found beneficial would seem to have been extremely various. It must not be supposed that it was usually ingested in the crude form. A common method was to take the fæces of boys, dry them, mix them with the best honey, and administer an electuary. (At an earlier period such drugs appear to have met with some opposition from the Church, which seems to have seen in them only an application of magic; thus I note that in Burchard's remarkable Penitential of the fourteenth century, as reproduced by Wasserschleben, 40 days' penance is prescribed for the use of human urine or excrement as a medicine. Wasserschleben _Die Bussordnungen der Abendländlichen Kirche_, p. 651.) The urolagnia of masochism is not a simple phenomenon; it embodies a double symbolism: on the one hand a symbolism of self-abnegation, such as the ascetic feels, on the other hand a symbolism of transferred sexual emotion. Krafft-Ebing was disposed to regard all cases in which a scatalogical sexual attraction existed as due to "latent masochism." Such a point of view is quite untenable. Certainly the connection is common, but in the majority of cases of slightly marked scatalogical fetichism no masochism is evident. And when we bear in mind the various considerations, already brought forward, which show how widespread and clearly realized is the natural and normal basis furnished for such symbolism, it becomes quite unnecessary to invoke any aid from masochism. There is ample evidence to show that, either as a habitual or more usually an occasional act, the impulse to bestow a symbolic value on the act of urination in a beloved person, is not extremely uncommon; it has been noted of men of high intellectual distinction; it occurs in women as well as men; when existing in only a slight degree, it must be regarded as within the normal limits of variation of sexual emotion. The occasional cases in which the urine is drunk may possibly suggest that the motive lies in the properties of the fluid acting on the system. Support for this supposition might be found in the fact that urine actually does possess, apart altogether from its magic virtues embodied in folk-lore, the properties of a general stimulant. In composition (as Masterman first pointed out) "beef-tea differs little from healthy urine," containing exactly the same constituents, except that in beef-tea there is less urea and uric acid. Fresh urine--more especially that of children and young women--is taken as a medicine in nearly all parts of the world for various disorders, such as epistaxis, malaria and hysteria, with benefit, this benefit being almost certainly due to its qualities as a general stimulant and restorative. William Salmon's _Dispensatory_, 1678 (quoted in _British Medical Journal_, April 21, 1900, p. 974), shows that in the seventeenth century urine still occupied an important place as a medicine, and it frequently entered largely into the composition of Aqua Divina. Its use has been known even in England in the nineteenth century. (Masterman, _Lancet_, October 2, 1880; R. Neale, "Urine as a Medicine," _Practitioner_, November, 1881; Bourke brings together a great deal of evidence as to the therapeutic uses of urine in his _Scatalogic Rites_, especially pp. 331-335; Lusini has shown that normal urine invariably increases the frequency of the heart beats, _Archivio di Farmacologia_, fascs. 19-21, 1893.) But it is an error to suppose that these facts account for the urolagnic drinking of urine. As in the gratification of a normal sexual impulse, the intense excitement of gratifying a scatalogic sexual impulse itself produces a degree of emotional stimulation far greater than the ingestion of a small amount of animal extractives would be adequate to effect. In such cases, as much as in normal sexuality, the stimulation is clearly psychic. When, as is most commonly the case, it is the process of urination and not the urine itself which is attractive, we are clearly concerned with a symbolism of act and not with the fetichistic attraction of an excretion. When the excretion, apart from the act, provides the attraction, we seem usually to be in the presence of an olfactory fetichism. These fetichisms connected with the excreta appear to be experienced chiefly by individuals who are somewhat weak-minded, which is not necessarily the case in regard to those persons for whom the act, rather than its product apart from the beloved person, is the attractive symbol. The sexually symbolic nature of the act of urination for many people is indicated by the existence, according to Bloch, who enumerates various kinds of indecent photographs, of a group which he terms "the notorious _pisseuses_." It is further indicated by several of the reproductions in Fuch's _Erotsiche Element in der Karikatur_, such as Delorme's "La Necessitê n'a point de Loi." (It should be added that such a scene by no means necessarily possesses any erotic symbolism, as we may see in Rembrandt's etching commonly called "Le Femme qui Pisse," in which the reflected lights on the partly shadowed stream furnish an artistic motive which is obviously free from any trace of obscenity.) In the case which Krafft-Ebing quotes from Maschka of a young man who would induce young girls to dance naked in his room, to leap, and to urinate in his presence, whereupon seminal ejaculation would take place, we have a typical example of urolagnic symbolism in a form adequate to produce complete gratification. A case in which the urolagnic form of scatalogic symbolism reached its fullest development as a sexual perversion has been described in Russia by Sukhanoff (summarized in _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, November, 1900, and _Annales Medico-psychologiques_, February, 1901), that of a young man of 27, of neuropathic temperament, who when he once chanced to witness a woman urinating experienced voluptuous sensations. From that moment he sought close contact with women urinating, the maximum of gratification being reached when he could place himself in such a position that a woman, in all innocence, would urinate into his mouth. All his amorous adventures were concerned with the search for opportunities for procuring this difficult gratification. Closets in which he was able to hide, winter weather and dull days he found most favorable to success. (A somewhat similar case is recorded in the _Archives de Neurologie_, 1902, p. 462.) In the case of a robust man of neuropathic heredity recorded by Pelanda some light is shed on the psychic attitude in these manifestations; there was masturbation up to the age of 16, when he abandoned the practice, and up to the age of 30 found complete satisfaction in drinking the still hot urine of women. When a lady or girl in the house went to her room to satisfy a need of this kind, she had hardly left it but he hastened in, overcome by extreme excitement, culminating in spontaneous ejaculation. The younger the woman the greater the transport he experienced. It is noteworthy that in this, as possibly in all similar cases, there was no sensory perversion and no morbid attraction of taste or smell; he stated that the action of his senses was suspended by his excitement, and that he was quite unable to perceive the odor or taste of the fluid. (Pelanda, "Pornopatice," _Archivio di Psichiatria_, facs. iii-iv, 1889, p. 356.) It is in the emotional symbolism that the fascination lies and not in any sensory perversion. Magnan records the spontaneous development of this sexual symbolism in a girl of 11, of good intellectual development but alcoholic heredity, who seduced a boy younger than herself to mutual masturbation, and on one occasion, lying on the ground and raising her clothes, asked him to urinate on her. (_International Congress of Criminal Anthropology_, 1889.) This case (except for the early age of the subject) illustrates sporadically occurring urolagnic symbolism in a woman, to whom such symbolism is fairly obvious on account of the close resemblance between the emission of urine and the ejaculation of semen in the man, and the fact that the same conduit serves for both fluids. (A urolagnic day-dream of this kind is recorded in the history of a lady contained in the third volume of these _Studies_, Appendix B, History VIII.) The natural and inevitable character of this symbolism is shown by the fact that among primitive peoples urine is sometimes supposed to possess the fertilizing virtues of semen. J.G. Frazer in his edition of Pausanias (vol. iv, p. 139) brings together various stories of women impregnated by urine. Hartland also (_Legend of Perseus_, vol. i, pp. 76, 92) records legends of women who were impregnated by accidentally or intentionally drinking urine. The symbolic sexual significance of urolagnia has hitherto usually been confused with the fetichistic and mainly olfactory perversion by which the excretion itself becomes a source of sexual excitement. Long since Tardieu referred, under the name of "renifleurs," to persons who were said to haunt the neighborhood of quiet passages, more especially in the neighborhood of theatres, and who when they perceived a woman emerge after urination, would hasten to excite themselves by the odor of the excretion. Possibly a fetichism of this kind existed in a case recorded by Belletrud and Mercier (_Annales d'Hygiène Publique_, June, 1904, p. 48). A weak-minded, timid youth, who was very sexual but not attractive to women, would watch for women who were about to urinate and immediately they had passed on would go and lick the spot they had moistened, at the same time masturbating. Such a fetichistic perversion is strictly analogous to the fetichism by which women's handkerchiefs, aprons or underlinen become capable of affording sexual gratification. A very complete case of such urolagnic fetichism--complete because separated from association with the person accomplishing the act of urination--has been recorded by Moraglia in a woman. It is the case of a beautiful and attractive young woman of 18, with thick black hair, and expressive vivacious eyes, but sallow complexion. Married a year previously, but childless, she experienced a certain amount of pleasure in coitus, but she preferred masturbation, and frankly acknowledged that she was highly excited by the odor of fermented urine. So strong was this fetichism that when, for instance, she passed a street urinal she was often obliged to go aside and masturbate; once she went for this purpose into the urinal itself and was almost discovered in the act, and on another occasion into a church. Her perversion caused her much worry because of the fear of detection. She preferred, when she could, to obtain a bottle of urine--which must be stale and a man's (this, she said, she could detect by the smell)--and to shut herself up in her own room, holding the bottle in one hand and repeatedly masturbating with the other. (Moraglia, "Psicopatie Sessuali," _Archivio di Psichiatria_, vol. xiii, fasc. 6, p. 267, 1892.) This case is of especial interest because of the great rarity of fully developed fetichism in women. In a slight and germinal degree I believe that cases of fetichism are not uncommon in women, but they are certainly rare in a well-marked form, and Krafft-Ebing declared, even in the late editions of his _Psychopathia Sexualis_, that he knew of no cases in women. So far we have been concerned with the urolagnic rather than the coprolagnic variety of scatalogical symbolism. Although the two are sometimes associated there is no necessary connection, and most usually there is no tendency for the one to involve the other. Urolagnia is certainly much the more frequently found; the act of urination is far more apt to suggest erotically symbolical ideas than the idea of defecation. It is not difficult to understand why this should be so. The act of urination lends itself more easily to sexual symbolism; it is more intimately associated with the genital function; its repetition is necessary at more frequent intervals so that it is more in evidence; moreover, its product, unlike that of the act of defecation, is not offensive to the senses. Still coprolagnia occurs and not so very infrequently. Burton remarked that even the normal lover is affected by this feeling: "immo nec ipsum amicæ stercus foctet."[29] Of Caligula who, however, was scarcely sane, it was said "et quidem stercus uxoris degustavit."[30] In Parisian brothels (according to Taxil and others) provision is made for those who are sexually excited by the spectacle of the act of defecation (without reference to contact or odor) by means of a "tabouret de verre," from under the glass floor of which the spectacle of the defecating women may be closely observed. It may be added that the erotic nature of such a spectacle is referred to in the Marquis de Sade's novels. There is one motive for the existence of coprolagnia which must not be passed over, because it has doubtless frequently served as a mode of transition to what, taken by itself, may well seem the least æsthetically attractive of erotic symbols. I refer to the tendency of the nates to become a sexual fetich. The nates have in all ages and in all parts of the world been frequently regarded as one of the most æsthetically beautiful parts of the feminine body.[31] It is probable that on the basis of this entirely normal attraction more than one form of erotic symbolism is at all events in part supported. Dühren and others have considered that the æsthetic charm of the nates is one of the motives which prompt the desire to inflict flagellation on women. In the same way--certainly in some and probably in many cases--the sexual charm of the nates progressively extends to the anal region, to the act of defecation, and finally to the feces. In a case of Krafft-Ebing's (_Op. cit._, p. 183) the subject, when a child of 6, accidentally placed his hand in contact with the nates of the little girl who sat next to him in school, and experienced so great a pleasure in this contact that he frequently repeated it; when he was 10 a nursery governess, to gratify her own desires, placed his finger in her vagina; in adult life he developed urolagnic tendencies. In a case of Moll's the development of a youthful admiration for the nates in a coprolagnic direction may be clearly traced. In this case a young man, a merchant, in a good position, sought to come in contact with women defecating; and with this object would seek to conceal himself in closets; the excretal odor was pleasurable to him, but was not essential to gratification, and the sight of the nates was also exciting and at the same time not essential to gratification; the act of defecation appears, however, to have been regarded as essential. He never sought to witness prostitutes in this situation; he was only attracted to young, pretty and innocent women. The coprolagnia here, however, had its source in a childish impression of admiration for the nates. When 5 or 6 years old he crawled under the clothes of a servant girl, his face coming in contact with her nates, an impression that remained associated in his mind with pleasure. Three or four years later he used to experience much pleasure when a young girl cousin sat on his face; thus was strengthened an association which developed naturally into coprolagnia. (Moll, _Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, bd. i, p. 837.) It is scarcely necessary to remark that an admiration for the nates, even when reaching a fetichistic degree, by no means necessarily involves, even after many years, any attraction to the excreta. A correspondent for whom the nates have constituted a fetich for many years writes: "I find my craving for women with profuse pelvic or posterior development is growing and I wish to copulate from behind; but I would feel a sickening feeling if any part of my person came in contact with the female anus. It is more pleasing to me to see the nates than the mons, yet I loathe everything associated with the anal region." Moll has recorded in detail a case of what may be described as "ideal coprolagnia"--that is to say, where the symbolism, though fully developed in imagination, was not carried into real life--which is of great interest because it shows how, in a very intelligent subject, the deviated symbolism may become highly developed and irradiate all the views of life in the same way as the normal impulse. (The subject's desires were also inverted, but from the present point of view the psychological interest of the case is not thereby impaired.) Moll's case was one of symbolism of act, the excreta offering no attraction apart from the process of defecation. In a case which has been communicated to me there was, on the other hand, an olfactory fetichistic attraction to the excreta even in the absence of the person. In Moll's case, the patient, X., 23 years of age, belongs to a family which he himself describes as nervous. His mother, who is anæmic, has long suffered from almost periodical attacks of excitement, weakness, syncope and palpitation. A brother of the mother died in a lunatic asylum, and several other brothers complain much of their nerves. The mother's sisters are very good-natured, but liable to break out in furious passions; this they inherit from their father. There appears to be no nervous disease on the patient's father's side. X.'s sisters are also healthy. X. himself is of powerful undersized build and enjoys good health, injured by no excesses. He considers himself nervous. He worked hard at school and was always the first in his class; he adds, however, that this is due less to his own abilities than the laziness of his school-fellows. He is, as he remarks, very religious and prays frequently, but seldom goes to church. In regard to his psychic characters he says that he has no specially prominent talent, but is much interested in languages, mathematics, physics and philosophy, in fact, in abstract subjects generally. "While I take a lively interest in every kind of intellectual work," he says, "it is only recently that I have been attracted to real life and its requirements. I have never had much skill in physical exercises. For external things until recently I have only had contempt. I have a delicately constituted nature, loving solitude, and only associating with a few select persons. I have a decided taste for fiction, poetry and music; my temperament is idealistic and religious, with strict conceptions of duty and morality, and aspirations towards the good and beautiful. I detest all that is common and coarse, and yet I can think and act in the way you will learn from the following pages." Regarding his sexual life, X. made the following communication: "During the last two years I have become convinced of the perversion of my sexual instinct. I had often previously thought that in me the impulse was not quite normal, but it is only lately that I have become convinced of my complete perversion. I have never read or heard of any case in which the sexual feelings were of the same kind. Although I can feel a lively inclination towards superior representatives of the female sex, and have twice felt something like love, the sight or the recollection even of a beautiful woman have never caused sexual excitement." In the two exceptional instances mentioned it appears that X. had an inclination to kiss the women in question, but that the thought of coitus had no attraction. "In my voluptuous dreams, connected with the emission of semen, women in seductive situations have never appeared. I have never had any desire to visit a _puella publica_. The love-stories of my fellow-students seemed very silly, dances and balls were a horror to me, and only on very rare occasions could I be persuaded to go into society. It will be easy to guess the diagnosis in my case: I suffer from the sexual attraction of my own sex, I am a lover of boys. "You cannot imagine what a world of thoughts, wishes, feelings and impulses the words 'knabe,' 'pais,' 'garcon,' 'boy,' 'ragazzo' have for me; one of these words, even in an unmeaning clause of a translation-book, calls before me the whole sum of associations which in course of time have become bound up with this idea, and it is only with an effort that I can scare away the wild band. This group of thoughts shows a wonderful mixture of warm sensuality and ideal love, it unites my lowest and highest impulses, the strength and the weakness of my nature, my curse and my blessing. My inclination is especially towards boys of the age of 12 to 15; though they may be rather younger or older. That I should prefer beautiful and intelligent boys is comprehensible. I do not want a prostitute, but a friend or a son, whose soul I love, whom I can help to become a more perfect man, such as I myself would willingly be. "When I myself belonged to that happy age (i.e., below 15) I had no dearer wish than to possess a friend of similar tastes. I have sought, hoped, waited, grieved, and been at last disillusioned, overcome by desire and despair, and have not found that friend. Even later the hope often reappeared, but always in vain, and I cannot boast of that sure recognition which one reads of in the autobiographies of Urnings. I do not know personally a single fellow-sufferer. It is also doubtful whether such an acquaintanceship would greatly help me, for I have a very peculiar conception of homosexuality. As you will see, I have little more in common with what are called pæderasts than sexual indifference to the female sex, and I often ask myself: 'Does any other man in the whole world feel like you? Are you alone in the earth with your morbid desires? Are you a pariah of pariahs, or is there, perhaps, another soul with similar longings living near you? How often in summer have I gone to the lakes and streams outside cities to seek boys bathing; but I always came back unsatisfied, whether I found any or not. And in winter I have been irresistibly impelled to return to the same spots, as if it were sanctified by the boys, but my darlings had vanished and cold winds blew over the icy floods, so that I would return feeling as though I had buried all my happiness. "It must be borne in mind, therefore, that what I have to say regarding my sexual impulses only refers to fancies and never to their practical realization. My sensual impulses are not connected with the sexual organs; all my voluptuous ideas are not in the least connected with these parts. For this reason I have never practiced onanism and _immissio membri in anum_ is as repulsive to me as to a normal man. Even every imitation of coitus is, for me, without attraction. In a boy's body two things specially excite me: _his belly and his nates_, the first as containing the digestive tract, the second as holding the opening of the bowels. Of the vegetable processes of life in the boy none interest me nearly so much as the progress of his digestion and the process of defecation. It is incredible to what an extent this part of physiology has occupied me from youth. If as a boy I wanted to read something of a piquantly exciting character I sought in my father's encyclopædia for articles like: Obstruction, Constipation, Hæmorrhoids, Fæces, etc. No function of the body seemed to be so significant as this, and I regarded its disturbances as the most important in the whole mechanism of life. The description of other disorders I could read in cold blood, but intussusception of the bowels makes me ill even to-day. I am always extremely pleased to hear that the digestion of the people around me is in good condition. A man who did not sufficiently watch over his digestion aroused distrust in me, and I imagined that wicked men must be horribly indifferent regarding this weighty matter. Even more than in ordinary persons was I interested in the digestion of more mysterious beings, like magicians in legends, or men of other nations. I would willingly have made an anthropological study of my favorite subject, only to my annoyance books nearly always pass over the matter in silence. In history and fiction I regretted the absence of information concerning the state of my heroes' digestion when they languished in prison or in some unaccustomed or unhealthy spot. For this reason I held no book more precious than one which describes how a young man after being shipwrecked lived for a long time in a narrow snow-hut, and it was conscientiously stated that he became aware of digestive disturbances. No immorality angers me more than the foolish practice of ladies who in society neglect the satisfaction of their natural needs from misplaced motives of modesty. On a railway journey I suffer horribly from the thought that one of my fellow-travelers may be prevented from fulfilling some imperative natural necessity. "I naturally devote the greatest attention to my own digestion. With painful conscientiousness I go to stool every day at the same hour; if the operation does not come off to my satisfaction I feel not so much physical as mental discomfort. To this quite useful hygienic interest became associated at puberty a sensual interest. Since my fourteenth year I have had no greater enjoyment than to defecate undressed (I do not do so now) after having first carefully examined the distension of my abdomen. In summer I would go into the woods, undress myself in a secluded spot and indulge in the voluptuous pleasures of defecation. I would sometimes combine with this a bath in a stream. I would exhaust my imagination in the effort to invent specially enjoyable variations, longed for a desert island where I could go about naked, fill my body with much nourishing food, hold in the excrement as long as possible and then discharge it in some subtly-thought-out spot. These practices and ideas often caused erections and later on emissions, but the genitals played no part in my conceptions; their movements were uncomfortable and gave no pleasure. "I soon longed to be associated in these orgies with some boy of the same age, but I wanted not only a companion in my passion, but also a real friend. Since there could be no question of masturbation or pæderasty, our love would have been limited to kisses, embraces, and--as a compensation for coitus--defecation together. That would have been perfect bliss to me. I will spare you the unæsthetic contents of my voluptuous dreams. But I remained without a companion, and, therefore, without real enjoyment. [He has, however, on various occasions experienced erections, and even emissions, on seeing, by chance, men or boys defecate.] Hinc illæ lacrimæ; the excitement over my own defecation only took place _faute de mieux_. "I knew very well that my thoughts and practices were impure and contemptible. Ah! how often, when the intoxication was over, have I thrown myself remorsefully on my knees, praying to God for pardon! For some weeks I repressed my longing; but at last it was too strong for me, I tried to justify myself and fell into my vice anew. That I was guilty of licentiousness and loved boys sexually first became clear to me later on, when I knew the significance of erection as a sign of sexual excitement. "No one can imagine with what demoniacal joy I am possessed at the thought of a beautiful naked boy whose abdomen is filled as the result of long abstinence from stool. The thought powerfully excites me, a flood of passion goes through my blood and my limbs tremble. I would never grow tired of feeling that belly and looking at it. My passion would express itself in tempestuous caresses, and the boy would have to assume various positions in order to show off the beauty of his form, i.e., to bring the parts in question into better view. To observe defecation would still further increase this peculiar enjoyment. If the boy's bowels were not sufficiently filled I would feed him with all sorts of food which produces much excrement, such as potatoes, coarse bread, etc. If possible I would seek to delay defecation for two or three days, so that it might be as copious as possible. When at last it occurred it would be an unspeakable joy for me to watch the fæces--which would have to be fairly firm--emerging from the anus." X. would like to be a teacher and thinks he could exert a beneficial influence on boys. In spite of the pain he has suffered he does not think he would like to be cured of his perverse inclinations, for they have given him joy as well as pain, and the pain has chiefly been owing to the fact that he could not gratify his inclinations. X. smokes and drinks in moderation, and has no feminine habits. (The foregoing is a condensed summary of the case which is fully reported by Moll, _Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, pp. 295-305.) The case of coprolagnia communicated to me is that of a married man, normal in all other respects, intellectually brilliant and filling successfully a very responsible position. When a child the women of his household were always indifferent as to his presence in their bedrooms, and would satisfy all natural calls without reserve before him. He would dream of this with erections. His sexual interests became slowly centered in the act of defecation, and this fetich throughout life never appealed to him so powerfully as when associated with the particular type of household furniture which was used for this purpose in his own house. The act of defecation in the opposite sex or anything pertaining to or suggesting the same caused uncontrollable sexual excitement; the nates also exerted a great attraction. The alvine excreta exerted this influence even in the absence of the woman; it was, however, necessary that she should be a sexually desirable person. The perversion in this case was not complete; that is to say, that the excitement produced by the act of defecation or the excretion itself was not actually preferred to coitus; the sexual idea was normal coitus in the normal manner, but preceded by the visual and olfactory enjoyment of the exciting fetich. When coitus was not possible the enjoyment of the fetich was accompanied by masturbation (as in the analogous case of urolagnia in a woman summarized on p. 62.) On one occasion he was discovered by a friend in a bedroom belonging to a woman, engaged in the act of masturbation over a vessel containing the desired fetich. In an agony of shame he begged the mercy of silence concerning this episode, at the same time revealing his life-history. He has constantly been haunted by the dread of detection, as well as by remorse and the consciousness of degradation, also by the fear that his unconquerable obsession may lead him to the asylum. The scatalogic groups of sexual perversions, urolagnia and coprolagnia, as may be sufficiently seen in this brief summary, are not merely olfactory fetiches. They are, in a larger proportion of cases, dynamic symbols, a preoccupation with physiological acts which, by associations of contiguity and still more of resemblance, have gained the virtue of stimulating in slight cases, and replacing in more extreme cases, the normal preoccupation with the central physiological act itself. We have seen that there are various considerations which amply suffice to furnish a basis for such associations. And when we reflect that in the popular mind, and to some extent in actual fact, the sexual act itself is, like urination and defecation, an excretory act, we can understand that the true excretory acts may easily become symbols of the pseudo-excretory act. It is, indeed, in the muscular release of accumulated pressures and tensions, involved by the act of liberating the stored-up excretion, that we have the closest simulacrum of the tumescence and detumescence of the sexual process.[32] In this way the erotic symbolism of urolagnia and coprolagnia is completely analogous with that dynamic symbolism of the clinging and swinging garments which Herrick has so accurately described, with the complex symbolism of flagellation and its play of the rod against the blushing and trembling nates, with the symbols of sexual strain and stress which are embodied in the foot and the act of treading. FOOTNOTES: [24] Fuchs (_Das Erotische Element In der Karikatur_, p. 26), distinguishing sharply between the "erotic" and the "obscene," reserves the latter term exclusively for the representation of excretory organs and acts. He considers that this is etymologically the most exact usage. However that may be, it seems to me that, in any case, "obscene" has become so vague a term that it is now impracticable to give it a restricted and precise sense. [25] In this connection we may profitably contemplate the hand and recall the vast gamut of functions, sacred and profane, which that organ exercises. Many savages strictly reserve the left hand to the lowlier purposes of life; but in civilization that is not considered necessary, and it may be wholesome for some of us to meditate on the more humble uses of the same hand which is raised in the supreme gesture of benediction and which men have often counted it a privilege to kiss. [26] See, e.g., Morselli, _Una Causa di Nullità del Matrimonio_, 1902, p. 39. [27] Féré, _Comptes-Rendus Société de Biologie_, July 23, 1904. [28] Transactions of the International Medical Congress, Moscow, vol. iv, p. 19. A similar symbolism may be traced in many of the cases in which the focus of modesty becomes in modest women centered in the excretory sphere and sometimes exaggerated to the extent of obsession. It must not be supposed, however, that every obsession in this sphere has a symbolical value of an erotic kind. In the case, for instance, which has been recorded by Raymond and Janet (_Les Obsessions_, vol. ii, p. 306) of a woman who spent much of her time in the endeavor to urinate perfectly, always feeling that she failed in some respect, the obsession seems to have risen fortuitously on a somewhat neurotic basis without reference to the sexual life. [29] _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part III, Section II, Mem. III, Subs. I. [30] It may be remarked here that while the eating of excrement (apart from its former use as a magic charm and as a therapeutic agent) is in civilization now confined to sexual perverts and the insane, among some animals it is normal as a measure of hygiene in relation to their young. Thus, as, e.g., the Rev. Arthur East writes, the mistle thrush swallows the droppings of its young. (_Knowledge_, June 1, 1899, p. 133.) In the dog I have observed that the bitch licks her puppies shortly after birth as they urinate, absorbing the fluid. [31] See, e.g., the previous volume of these _Studies_, "Sexual Selection in Man," pp. 165 et seq., and Dühren, _Geschlechtsleben in England_, bd. ii, pp. 258, et seq. [32] In the study of _Love and Pain_ in a previous volume (p. 130) I have quoted the remarks of a lady who refers to the analogy between sexual tension and vesical tension--"Cette volupté que ressentent les bords de la mer, d'être toujours pleins sans jamais déborder"--and its erotic significance. IV. Animals as Sources of Erotic Symbolism--Mixoscopic Zoophilia--The Stuff-fetichisms--Hair-fetichism--The Stuff-fetichisms Mainly on a Tactile Base--Erotic Zoophilia--Zooerastia--Bestiality--The Conditions that Favor Bestiality--Its Wide Prevalence Among Primitive Peoples and Among Peasants--The Primitive Conception of Animals--The Goat--The Influence of Familiarity with Animals--Congress Between Women and Animals--The Social Reaction Against Bestiality. The erotic symbols with which we have so far been concerned have in every case been portions of the body, or its physiological processes, or at least the garments which it has endowed with life. The association on which the symbol has arisen has in every case been in large measure, although not entirely, an association of contiguity. It is now necessary to touch on a group of sexual symbols in which the association of contiguity with the human body is absent: the various methods by which animals or animal products or the sight of animal copulation may arouse sexual desire in human persons. Here we encounter a symbolism mainly founded on association by resemblance; the animal sexual act recalls the human sexual act; the animal becomes the symbol of the human being. The group of phenomena we are here concerned with includes several subdivisions. There is first the more or less sexual pleasure sometimes experienced, especially by young persons, in the sight of copulating animals. This I would propose to call Mixoscopic Zoophilia; it falls within the range of normal variation. Then we have the cases in which the contact of animals, stroking, etc., produces sexual excitement or gratification; this is a sexual fetichism in the narrow sense, and is by Krafft-Ebing termed _Zoophilia Erotica_. We have, further, the class of cases in which a real or simulated sexual intercourse with animals is desired. Such cases are not regarded as fetichism by Krafft-Ebing,[33] but they come within the phenomena of erotic symbolism as here understood. This class falls into two divisions: one in which the individual is fairly normal, but belongs to a low grade of culture; the other in which he may belong to a more refined social class, but is affected by a deep degree of degeneration. In the first case we may properly apply the term bestiality; in the second case it may perhaps be better to use the term _zooerastia_, proposed by Krafft-Ebing.[34] Among children, both boys and girls, it is common to find that the copulation of animals is a mysteriously fascinating spectacle. It is inevitable that this should be so, for the spectacle is more or less clearly felt to be the revelation of a secret which has been concealed from them. It is, moreover, a secret of which they feel intimate reverberations within themselves, and even in perfectly innocent and ignorant children the sight may produce an obscure sexual excitement.[35] It would seem that this occurs more frequently in girls than in boys. Even in adult age, it may be added, women are liable to experience the same kind of emotion in the presence of such spectacles. One lady recalls, as a girl, that on several occasions an element of physical excitement entered into the feelings with which she watched the coquetry of cats. Another lady mentions that at the age of about 25, and when still quite ignorant of sexual matters, she saw from a window some boys tickling a dog and inducing sexual excitement in the animal; she vaguely divined what they were doing, and though feeling disgust at their conduct she at the same time experienced in a strong degree what she now knows was sexual excitement. The coupling of the larger animals is often an impressive and splendid spectacle which is far, indeed, from being obscene, and has commended itself to persons of intellectual distinction;[36] but in young or ill-balanced minds such sights tend to become both prurient and morbid. I have already referred to the curious case of a sexually hyperæsthetic nun who was always powerfully excited by the sight or even the recollection of flies in sexual connection, so that she was compelled to masturbate; this dated from childhood. After becoming a nun she recorded having had this experience, followed by masturbation, more than four hundred times.[37] Animal spectacles sometimes produce a sexual effect on children even when not specifically sexual; thus a correspondent, a clergyman, informs me that when a young and impressionable boy, he was much affected by seeing a veterinary surgeon insert his hand and arm into a horse's rectum, and dreamed of this several times afterward with emissions. While the contemplation of animal coitus is an easily intelligible and in early life, perhaps, an almost normal symbol of sexual emotion, there is another subdivision of this group of animal fetichisms which forms a more natural transition from the fetichisms which have their center in the human body: the stuff-fetichisms, or the sexual attraction exerted by various tissues, perhaps always of animal origin. Here we are in the presence of a somewhat complicated phenomenon. In part we have, in a considerable number of such cases, the sexual attraction of feminine garments, for all such tissues are liable to enter into the dress. In part, also, we have a sexual perversion of tactile sensibility, for in a considerable proportion of these cases it is the touch sensations which are potent in arousing the erotic sensations. But in part, also, it would seem, we have here the conscious or subconscious presence of an animal fetich, and it is notable that perhaps all these stuffs, and especially fur, which is by far the commonest of the groups, are distinctively animal products. We may perhaps regard the fetich of feminine hair--a much more important and common fetich, indeed, than any of the stuff fetichisms--as a link of transition. Hair is at once an animal and a human product, while it may be separated from the body and possesses the qualities of a stuff. Krafft-Ebing remarks that the senses of touch, smell, and hearing, as well as sight, seem to enter into the attraction exerted by hair. The natural fascination of hair, on which hair-fetichism is founded, begins at a very early age. "The hair is a special object of interest with infants," Stanley Hall concludes, "which begins often in the latter part of the first year.... The hair, no doubt, gives quite unique tactile sensations, both in its own roots and to hands, and is plastic and yielding to the motor sense, so that the earliest interest may be akin to that in fur, which is a marked object in infant experience. Some children develop an almost fetichistic propensity to pull or later to stroke the hair or beard of every one with whom they come in contact." (G. Stanley Hall, "The Early Sense of Self," _American Journal of Psychology_, April, 1898, p. 359.) It should be added that the fascination of hair for the infantile and childish mind is not necessarily one of attraction, but may be of repulsion. It happens here, as in the case of so many characteristics which are of sexual significance, that we are in the presence of an object which may exert a dynamic emotional force, a force which is capable of repelling with the same energy that it attracts. Féré records the instructive case of a child of 3, of psychopathic heredity, who when he could not sleep was sometimes taken by his mother into her bed. One night his hand came in contact with a hairy portion of his mother's body, and this, arousing the idea of an animal, caused him to leap out of the bed in terror. He became curious as to the cause of his terror and in time was able to observe "the animal," but the train of feelings which had been set up led to a life-long indifference to women and a tendency to homosexuality. It is noteworthy that he was attracted to men in whom the hair and other secondary sexual characters were well developed. (Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, second edition, pp. 262-267.) As a sexual fetich hair strictly belongs to the group of parts of the body; but since it can be removed from the body and is sexually effective as a fetich in the absence of the person to whom it belongs, it is on a level with the garments which may serve in a similar way, with shoes or handkerchiefs or gloves. Psychologically, hair-fetichism presents no special problem, but the wide attraction of hair--it is sexually the most generally noted part of the feminine body after the eyes--and the peculiar facility with which when plaited it may be removed, render hair-fetichism a sexual perversion of specially great medico-legal interest. The frequency of hair-fetichism, as well as of the natural admiration on which it rests, is indicated by a case recorded by Laurent. "A few years ago," he states, "one constantly saw at the Bal Bullier, in Paris, a tall girl whose face was lean and bony, but whose black hair was of truly remarkable length. She wore it flowing down her shoulders and loins. Men often followed her in the street to touch or kiss the hair. Others would accompany her home and pay her for the mere pleasure of touching and kissing the long black tresses. One, in consideration of a relatively considerable sum, desired to pollute the silky hair. She was obliged to be always on her guard, and to take all sorts of precautions to prevent any one cutting off this ornament, which constituted her only beauty as well as her livelihood." (E. Laurent, _L'Amour Morbide_, 1891, p. 164; also the same author's _Fétichistes et Erotomanes_, p. 23.) The hair despoiler (_Coupeur des Nattes_ or _Zopfabschneider_) may be found in any civilized country, though the most carefully studied cases have occurred in Paris. (Several medico-legal histories of hair-despoilers are summarized by Krafft-Ebing, _Op. cit._, pp. 329-334). Such persons are usually of nervous temperament and bad heredity; the attraction to hair occasionally develops in early life; sometimes the morbid impulse only appears in later life after fever. The fetich may be either flowing hair or braided hair, but is usually one or the other, and not both. Sexual excitement and ejaculation may be produced in the act of touching or cutting off the hair, which is subsequently, in many cases, used for masturbation. As a rule the hair-despoiler is a pure fetichist, no element of sadistic pleasure entering into his feelings. In the case of a "capillary kleptomaniac" in Chicago--a highly intelligent and athletic married young man of good family--the impulse to cut off girls' braids appeared after recovery from a severe fever. He would gaze admiringly at the long tresses and then clip them off with great rapidity; he did this in some fifty cases before he was caught and imprisoned. He usually threw the braids away before he reached home. (_Alienist and Neurologist_, April, 1889, p. 325.) In this case there is no history of sexual excitement, probably because no proper medico-legal examination was made. (It may be added that hair-despoilers have been specially studied by Motet, "Les Coupeurs de Nattes," _Annales d'Hygiène_, 1890.) The stuff-fetiches are most usually fur and velvet; feathers, silk, and leathers also sometimes exert this influence; they are all, it will be noted, animal substances.[38] The most interesting is probably fur, the attraction of which is not uncommon in association with passive algolagnia. As Stanley Hall has shown, the fear of fur, as well as the love of it, is by no means uncommon in childhood; it may appear even in infancy and in children who have never come in contact with animals.[39] It is noteworthy that in most cases of uncomplicated stuff-fetichism the attraction apparently arises on a congenital basis, as it appears in persons of nervous or sensitive temperament at an early age and without being attached to any definite causative incident. The sexual excitation is nearly always produced by the touch rather than by the sight. As we found, when dealing with the sense of touch in the previous volume, the specific sexual sensations may be regarded as a special modification of ticklishness. The erotic symbolism in the case of these stuff-fetichisms would seem to be a more or less congenital perversion of ticklishness in relation to specific animal contacts. A further degree of perversion in this direction is reached in a case of erotic _zoophilia_, recorded by Krafft-Ebing.[40] In this case a congenital neuropath, of good intelligence but delicate and anæmic, with feeble sexual powers, had a great love of domestic animals, especially dogs and cats, from an early age; when petting them he experienced sexual emotions, although he was innocent in sexual matters. At puberty he realized the nature of his feelings and tried to break himself of his habits. He succeeded, but then began erotic dreams accompanied by images of animals, and these led to masturbation associated with ideas of a similar kind. At the same time he had no wish for any sort of sexual intercourse with animals, and was indifferent as to the sex of the animals which attracted him; his sexual ideals were normal. Such a case seems to be fundamentally one of fetichism on a tactile basis, and thus forms a transition between the stuff-fetichisms and the complete perversions of sexual attraction toward animals. In some cases sexually hyperæsthetic women have informed me that sexual feeling has been produced by casual contact with pet dogs and cats. In such cases there is usually no real perversion, but it seems probable that we may here have an occasional foundation for the somewhat morbid but scarcely vicious excesses of affection which women are apt to display towards their pet dogs or cats. In most cases of this affection there is certainly no sexual element; in the case of childless women, it may rather be regarded as a maternal than as an erotic symbolism. (The excesses of this non-erotic zoophilia have been discussed by Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, second edition, pp. 166-171.) Krafft-Ebing considers that complete perversion of sexual attraction toward animals is radically distinct from erotic _zoophilia_. This view cannot be accepted. Bestiality and _zooerastia_ merely present in a more marked and profoundly perverted form a further degree of the same phenomenon which we meet with in erotic _zoophilia_; the difference is that they occur either in more insensitive or in more markedly degenerate persons. A fairly typical case of _zooerastia_ has been recorded in America by Howard, of Baltimore. This was the case of a boy of 16, precociously mature and fairly bright. He was, however, indifferent to the opposite sex, though he had ample opportunity for gratifying normal passions. His parents lived in the city, but the youth had an inordinate desire for the country and was therefore sent to school in a village. On the second day after his arrival at school a farmer missed a sow which was found secreted in an outhouse on the school grounds. This was the first of many similar incidents in which a sow always took part. So strong was his passion that on one occasion force had to be used to take him away from the sow he was caressing. He did not masturbate, and even when restrained from approaching sows he had no sexual inclination for other animals. His nocturnal pollutions, which were frequent, were always accompanied by images of wallowing swine. Notwithstanding careful treatment no cure was effected; mental and physical vigor failed, and he died at the age of 23.[41] It is, however, somewhat doubtful whether we can always or even usually distinguish between zooerastia and bestiality. Dr. G.F. Lydston, of Chicago, has communicated to me a case (in which he was consulted) which seems fairly typical and is instructive in this respect. The subject was a young man of 21, a farmer's son, not very bright intellectually, but very healthy and strong, of great assistance on the farm, very capable and industrious, such a good farm hand that his father was unwilling to send him away and to lose his services. There was no history of insanity or neurosis in the family, and no injury or illness in his own history. He had spells of moroseness and irritability, however, and had also been a masturbator. Women had no attraction for him, but he would copulate with the mares upon his father's farm, and this without regard to time, place, or spectators. Such a case would seem to stand midway between ordinary bestiality and pathological zooerastia as defined by Krafft-Ebing, yet it seems probable that in most cases of ordinary bestiality some slight traces of mental anomaly might be found, if such cases always were, as they should be, properly investigated.[42] We have here reached the grossest and most frequent perversion in this group; bestiality, or the impulse to attain sexual gratification by intercourse, or other close contact, with animals. In seeking to comprehend this perversion it is necessary to divest ourselves of the attitude toward animals which is the inevitable outcome of refined civilization and urban life. Most sexual perversions, if not in large measure the actual outcome of civilized life, easily adjust themselves to it. Bestiality (except in one form to be noted later) is, on the other hand, the sexual perversion of dull, insensitive and unfastidious persons. It flourishes among primitive peoples and among peasants. It is the vice of the clodhopper, unattractive to women or inapt to court them. Three conditions have favored the extreme prevalence of bestiality: (1) primitive conceptions of life which built up no great barrier between man and the other animals; (2) the extreme familiarity which necessarily exists between the peasant and his beasts, often combined with separation from women; (3) various folk-lore beliefs such as the efficacy of intercourse with animals as a cure for venereal disease, etc.[43] The beliefs and customs of primitive peoples, as well as their mythology and legends, bring before us a community of man and animals altogether unlike anything we know in civilization. Men may become animals and animals may become men; animals and men may communicate with each other and live on terms of equality; animals may be the ancestors of human tribes; the sacred totems of savages are most usually animals. There is no shame or degradation in the notion of a sexual relationship between men and animals, because in primitive conceptions animals are not inferior beings separated from man by a great gulf. They are much more like men in disguise, and in some respects possess powers which make them superior to men. This is recognized in those plays, festivals, and religious dances, so common among primitive peoples, in which animal disguises are worn.[44] When men admire and emulate the qualities of animals and are proud to believe that they descend from them, it is not surprising that they should sometimes see nothing derogatory in sexual intercourse with them.[45] A significant relic of primitive conceptions in this matter may perhaps be found in the religious rites connected with the sacred goat of Mendes described by Herodotus. After telling how the Mendesians reverence the goat, especially the he-goat, out of their veneration for Pan, whom they represent as a goat ("the real motive which they assign for this custom I do not choose to relate"), he adds: "It happened in this country, and within my remembrance, and was indeed universally notorious, that a goat had indecent and public communication with a woman."[46] The meaning of the passage evidently is that in the ordinary intercourse of women with the sacred goat, connection was only simulated or incomplete on account of the natural indifference of the goat to the human female, but that in rare cases the goat proved sexually excitable with the woman and capable of connection.[47] The goat has always been a kind of sacred emblem of lust. In the middle ages it became associated with the Devil as one of the favorite forms he assumed. It is significant of a primitively religious sexual association between men and animals, that witches constantly confessed, or were made to confess, that they had had intercourse with the Devil in the shape of an animal, very frequently a dog. The figures of human beings and animals in conjunction carved on temples in India, also seem to indicate the religious significance which this phenomenon sometimes presents. There is, indeed, no need to go beyond Europe even in her moments of highest culture to find a religious sanction for sexual union between human beings, or gods in human shape, and animals. The legends of Io and the bull, of Leda and the swan, are among the most familiar in Greek mythology, and in a later pictorial form they constitute some of the most cherished works of the painters of the Renaissance. As regards the prevalence of occasional sexual intercourse between men or women and animals among primitive peoples at the present time, it is possible to find many scattered references by travelers in all parts of the world. Such references by no means indicate that such practices are, as a rule, common, but they usually show that they are accepted with a good-humored indifference.[48] Bestiality is very rarely found in towns. In the country this vice of the clodhopper is far from infrequent. For the peasant, whose sensibilities are uncultivated and who makes but the most elementary demands from a woman, the difference between an animal and a human being in this respect scarcely seems to be very great. "My wife was away too long," a German peasant explained to the magistrate, "and so I went with my sow." It is certainly an explanation that to the uncultivated peasant, ignorant of theological and juridical conceptions, must often seem natural and sufficient. Bestiality thus resembles masturbation and other abnormal manifestations of the sexual impulse which may be practiced merely _faute de mieux_ and not as, in the strict sense, perversions of the impulse. Even necrophily may be thus practiced. A young man who when assisting the grave-digger conceived and carried out the idea of digging up the bodies of young girls to satisfy his passions with, and whose case has been recorded by Belletrud and Mercier, said: "I could find no young girl who would agree to yield to my desires; that is why I have done this. I should have preferred to have relations with living persons. I found it quite natural to do what I did: I saw no harm in it, and I did not think that any one else could. As living women felt nothing but repulsion for me, it was quite natural I should turn to the dead, who have never repulsed me. I used to say tender things to them like 'my beautiful, my love, I love you.'" (Belletrud and Mercier "Perversion de l'Instinct Genésique," _Annales d'Hygiène Publique_, June, 1903.) But when so highly abnormal an act is felt as natural we are dealing with a person who is congenitally defective so far as the finer developments of intelligence are concerned. It was so in this case of necrophily; he was the son of a weak-minded woman of unrestrainable sexual inclinations, and was himself somewhat feeble-minded; he was also, it is instructive to observe, anosmic. But it is by no means only their dulled sensibility or the absence of women, which accounts for the frequency of bestiality among peasants. A highly important factor is their constant familiarity with animals. The peasant lives with animals, tends them, learns to know all their individual characters; he understands them far better than he understands men and women; they are his constant companions, his friends. He knows, moreover, the details of their sexual lives, he witnesses the often highly impressive spectacle of their coupling. It is scarcely surprising that peasants should sometimes regard animals as being not only as near to them as their fellow human beings, but even nearer. The significance of the factor of familiarity is indicated by the great frequency of bestiality among shepherds, goatherds, and others whose occupation is exclusively the care of animals. Mirabeau, in the eighteenth century, stated, on the evidence of Basque priests, that all the shepherds in the Pyrenees practice bestiality. It is apparently much the same in Italy.[49] In South Italy and Sicily, especially, bestiality among goatherds and peasants is said to be almost a national custom.[50] In the extreme north of Europe, it is reported, the reindeer, in this respect, takes the place of the goat. The importance of the same factor is also shown by the fact that when among women in civilization animal perversions appear, the animal is nearly always a pet dog. Usually in these cases the animal is taught to give gratification by _cunnilinctus_. In some cases, however, there is really sexual intercourse between the animal and the woman. Moll mentions that in a case of _cunnilinctus_ by a dog in Germany there was a difficulty as to whether the matter should be considered an unnatural offence or simply an offence against decency; the lower court considered it in the former light, while the higher court took the more merciful view. (Moll, _Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, bd. i, p. 697.) In a case reported by Pfaff and mentioned by Moll, a country girl was accused of having sexual intercourse with a large dog. On examination Pfaff found in the girl's thick pubic hair a loose hair which under the microscope proved to belong to the dog. (_Loc. cit._, p. 698.) In such a case it must be noted that while this evidence may be held to show sexual contact with the dog, it scarcely suffices to show sexual intercourse. This has, however, undoubtedly occurred from time to time, even more or less openly. Bloch (_Op. cit._, pp. 277 and 282) remarks that this is not an infrequent exhibition given by prostitutes in certain brothels. Maschka has referred to such an exhibition between a woman and a bull-dog, which was given to select circles in Paris. Rosse refers to a case in which a young unmarried woman in Washington was surprised during intercourse with a large English mastiff, who in his efforts to get loose caused such severe injuries that the woman died from hæmorrhage in about an hour. Rosse also mentions that some years ago a performance of this kind between a prostitute and a Newfoundland dog could be witnessed in San Francisco by paying a small sum; the woman declared that a woman who had once copulated with a dog would ever afterwards prefer this animal to a man. Rosse adds that he was acquainted with a similar performance between a woman and a donkey, which used to take place in Europe (Irving Rosse, "Sexual Hypochondriasis and Perversion of the Genesic Instinct," _Virginia Medical Monthly_, October, 1892, p. 379). Juvenal mentions such relations between the donkey and woman (vi, 332). Krauss (quoted by Bloch, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil II, p. 276) states that in Bosnia women sometimes carry on these practices with dogs and also--as he would not have believed had he not on one occasion observed it--with cats. "It seems to me," writes Dr. Kiernan, of Chicago, (private letter) "that what Rosse says of the animal exhibitions in San Francisco is true of all great cities. The animal employed in such exhibitions here has usually been a donkey, and in one instance death occurred from the animal trampling the girl partner. The practice described occurs in country regions quite frequently. Thus in a case reported in the suburbs of Omaha, Nebraska, a sixteen-year-old boy engaged in rectal coitus with a large dog. In attempting to extricate his swollen penis from the boy's rectum the dog tore through the _sphincter ani_ an inch into the gluteus muscles. (_Omaha Clinic_, March, 1893.) In a Missouri case, which I verified, a smart, pretty, well-educated country girl was found with a profuse offensive vaginal discharge which had been present for about a week, coming on suddenly. After washing the external genitals and opening the labia three rents were discovered, one through the fourchette and two through the left nymphæ. The vagina was excessively congested and covered with points bleeding on the slightest irritation. The patient confessed that one day while playing with the genitals of a large dog she became excited and thought she would have slight coitus. After the dog had made an entrance she was unable to free herself from him, as he clasped her so firmly with his fore legs. The penis became so swollen that the dog could not free himself, although for more than an hour she made persistent efforts to do so. (_Medical Standard_, June, 1903, p. 184). In an Indiana case, concerning which I was consulted, the girl was a hebephreniac who had resorted to this procedure with a Newfoundland dog at the instance of another girl, seemingly normal as regards mentality, and had been badly injured; a discharge resulted which resembled gonorrhoea, but contained no gonococci. These cases are probably more frequent than is usually assumed." Women are known to have had intercourse with various other animals, occasionally or habitually, in various parts of the world. Monkeys have been mentioned in this connection. Moll remarks that it seems to be an indication of an abnormal interest in monkeys that some women are observed by the attendants in the monkey-house of zoölogical gardens to be very frequent visitors. Near the Amazon the traveler Castelnau saw an enormous Coati monkey belonging to an Indian woman and tried to purchase it; though he offered a large sum, the woman only laughed. "Your efforts are useless," remarked an Indian in the same cabin, "he is her husband." (So far as the early literature of this subject is concerned, a number of facts and fables regarding the congress of women with dogs, goats and other animals was brought together at the beginning of the eighteenth century by Schurig in his _Gynæcologia_, Section II, cap. VII; I have not drawn on this collection.) In some cases women, and also men, find gratification in the sexual manipulation of animals without any kind of congress. This may be illustrated by an observation communicated to me by a correspondent, a clergyman. "In Ireland, my father's house adjoined the residence of an archdeacon of the established church. I was then about 20 and was still kept in religious awe of evil ways. The archdeacon had two daughters, both of whom he brought up in great strictness, resolved that they should grow up examples of virtue and piety. Our stables adjoined, and were separated only by a thin wall in which was a doorway closed up by some boards, as the two stables had formerly been one. One night I had occasion to go to our stable to search for a garden tool I had missed, and I heard a door open on the other side, and saw a light glimmer through the cracks of the boards. I looked through to ascertain who could be there at that late hour, and soon recognized the stately figure of one of the daughters, F.F. was tall, dark and handsome, but had never made any advances to me, nor had I to her. She was making love to her father's mare after a singular fashion. Stripping her right arm, she formed her fingers into a cone, and pressed on the mare's vulva. I was astonished to see the beast stretching her hind legs as if to accommodate the hand of her mistress, which she pushed in gradually and with seeming ease to the elbow. At the same time she seemed to experience the most voluptuous sensation, crisis after crisis arriving." My correspondent adds that, being exceedingly curious in the matter, he tried a somewhat similar experiment himself with one of his father's mares and experienced what he describes as "a most powerful sexual battery" which produced very exciting and exhausting effects. Näcke (_Psychiatrische en Neurologische Bladen_, 1899, No. 2) refers to an idiot who thus manipulated the vulva of mares in his charge. The case has been recorded by Guillereau (_Journal de Médicine Véterinaire et de Zootechnie_, January, 1899) of a youth who was accustomed to introduce his hand into the vulva of cows in order to obtain sexual excitement. The possibility of sexual excitement between women and animals involves a certain degree of sexual excitability in animals from contact with women. Darwin stated that there could be no doubt that various quadrumanous animals could distinguish women from men--in the first place probably by smell and secondarily by sight--and be thus liable to sexual excitement. He quotes the opinions on this point of Youatt, Brehm, Sir Andrew Smith and Cuvier (_Descent of Man_, second edition, p. 8). Moll quotes the opinion of an experienced observer to the same effect (_Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, Bd. i, p. 429). Hufeland reported the case of a little girl of three who was playing, seated on a stool, with a dog placed between her thighs and locked against her. Seemingly excited by this contact the animal attempted a sort of copulation, causing the genital parts of the child to become inflamed. Bloch (_Op. cit._, p. 280, _et seq._) discusses the same point; he does not consider that animals will of their own motion sexually cohabit with women, but that they may be easily trained to it. There can be no doubt that dogs at all events are sometimes sexually excited by the presence of women, perhaps especially during menstruation, and many women are able to bear testimony to the embarrassing attentions they have sometimes received from strange dogs. There can be no difficulty in believing that, so far as _cunnilinctus_ is concerned dogs would require no training. In a case recorded by Moll (_Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, p. 560) a lady states that this was done to her when a child, as also to other children, by dogs who, she said, showed signs of sexual excitement. In this case there was also sexual excitement thus produced in the child, and after puberty mutual _cunnilinctus_ was practiced with girl friends. Guttceit (_Dreissig Jahre Praxis_, Theil I, p. 310) remarks that some Russian officers who were in the Turkish campaign of 1828 told him that from fear of veneral infection in Wallachia they refrained from women and often used female asses which appeared to show signs of sexual pleasure. A very large number of animals have been recorded as having been employed in the gratification of sexual desire at some period or in some country, by men and sometimes by women. Domestic animals are naturally those which most frequently come into question, and there are few if any of these which can altogether be excepted. The sow is one of the animals most frequently abused in this manner.[51] Cases in which mares, cows, and donkeys figure constantly occur, as well as goats and sheep. Dogs, cats, and rabbits are heard of from time to time. Hens, ducks, and, especially in China, geese, are not uncommonly employed. The Roman ladies were said to have had an abnormal affection for snakes. The bear and even the crocodile are also mentioned.[52] The social and legal attitude toward bestiality has reflected in part the frequency with which it has been practiced, and in part the disgust mixed with mystical and sacrilegious horror which it has aroused. It has sometimes been met merely by a fine, and sometimes the offender and his innocent partner have been burnt together. In the middle ages and later its frequency is attested by the fact that it formed a favorite topic with preachers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is significant that in the Penitentials,--which were criminal codes, half secular and half spiritual, in use before the thirteenth century, when penance was relegated to the judgment of the confessor,--it was thought necessary to fix the periods of penance which should be undergone respectively by bishops, priests and deacons who should be guilty of bestiality. In Egbert's Penitential, a document of the ninth and tenth centuries, we read (V. 22): "Item Episcopus cum quadrupede fornicans VII annos, consuetudinem X, presbyter V, diaconus III, clerus II." There was a great range in the penances for bestiality, from ten years to (in the case of boys) one hundred days. The mare is specially mentioned (Haddon and Stubbs, _Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents_, vol. iii, p. 422). In Theodore's Penitential, another Anglo-Saxon document of about the same age, those who habitually fornicate with animals are adjudged ten years of penance. It would appear from the _Penitentiale Pseudo-Romanum_ (which is earlier than the eleventh century) that one year's penance was adequate for fornication with a mare when committed by a layman (exactly the same as for simple fornication with a widow or virgin), and this was mercifully reduced to half a year if he had no wife. (Wasserschleben, _Die Bussordnungen der Abendländlichen Kirche_, p. 366). The _Penitentiale Hubertense_ (emanating from the monastery of St. Hubert in the Ardennes) fixes ten years' penance for sodomy, while Fulbert's Penitential (about the eleventh century) fixes seven years for either sodomy or bestiality. Burchard's Penitential, which is always detailed and precise, specially mentions the mare, the cow and the ass, and assigns forty days bread and water and seven years penance, raised to ten years in the case of married men. A woman having intercourse with a horse is assigned seven years penance in Burchard's Penitential. (Wasserschleben, ib. pp. 651, 659.) The extreme severity which was frequently exercised toward those guilty of this offense, was doubtless in large measure due to the fact that bestiality was regarded as a kind of sodomy, an offense which was frequently viewed with a mystical horror apart altogether from any actual social or personal injury it caused. The Jews seem to have felt this horror; it was ordered that the sinner and his victim should both be put to death (Exodus, Ch. 22, v. 19; Leviticus, Ch. 20, v. 15). In the middle ages, especially in France, the same rule often prevailed. Men and sows, men and cows, men and donkeys were burnt together. At Toulouse a woman was burnt for having intercourse with a dog. Even in the seventeenth century a learned French lawyer, Claude Lebrun de la Rochette, justified such sentences.[53] It seems probable that even to-day, in the social and legal attitude toward bestiality, sufficient regard is not paid to the fact that this offense is usually committed either by persons who are morbidly abnormal or who are of so low a degree of intelligence that they border on feeble-mindedness. To what extent, and on what grounds, it ought to be punished is a question calling for serious reconsideration. FOOTNOTES: [33] For Krafft-Ebing's discussion of the subject see _Op. cit._, pp. 530-539. [34] In England it is not uncommon to use the term "unnatural offence;" this is an awkward and possibly misleading practice which should not be followed. In Germany a similar confusion is caused by applying the term "sodomy" to these cases as well as to pederasty. Krafft-Ebing considers that this error is due to the jurists, while the theologians have always distinguished correctly. In this matter, he adds, science must be _ancilla theologiæ_ and return to the correct usage of words. [35] This childish interest, with later abnormal developments, may be seen in History I of the Appendix to this volume. [36] The Countess of Pembroke, Sir Philip Sidney's sister, appears to have found sexual enjoyment in the contemplation of the sexual prowess of stallions. Aubrey writes that she "was very salacious and she had a contrivance that in the spring of the year ... the stallions ... were to be brought before such a part of the house where she had a vidette to look on them." (_Short Lives_, 1898, vol. i, p. 311.) Although the modern editor's modesty has caused the disappearance of several lines from this passage, the general sense is clear. In the same century Burchard, the faithful secretary of Pope Alexander VI, describes in his invaluable diary how four race horses were brought to two mares in a court of the Vatican, the horses clamorously fighting for the possession of the mares and eventually mounting them, while the Pope and his daughter Lucrezia looked on from a window "cum magno risu et delectatione." (_Diarium_, ed Thuasne, vol. III, p. 169.) [37] _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1902, fasc. ii-iii, p. 338. In the case of pathological sexuality in a boy of 15, reported by A. MacDonald, and already summarized, the sight of copulating flies is also mentioned among many other causes of sexual excitation. [38] Krafft-Ebing presents or quotes typical cases of all these fetiches, _Op. cit._, pp. 255-266. [39] G. Stanley Hall, "A study of Fears," _American Journal of Psychology_, 1897, pp. 213-215. [40] _Op. cit._, p. 268. [41] W. Howard, "Sexual Perversion," _Alienist and Neurologist_, January, 1896. Krafft-Ebing (op. cit., p. 532) quotes from Boeteau the somewhat similar case of a gardener's boy of 16--an illegitimate child of neuropathic heredity and markedly degenerate--who had a passion, of irresistible and impulsive character, for rabbits. He was declared irresponsible. Moll (_Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, bd. i, pp. 431-433) presents the case of a neurotic man who from the age of 15 had been sexually excited by the sight of animals or by contact with them. He had repeatedly had connection with cows and mares; he was also sexually excited by sheep, donkeys, and dogs, whether female or male; the normal sexual instinct was weak and he experienced very slight attraction to women. [42] Moll also remarks ("Perverse Sexualempfindung," in Senator's and Kaminer's _Krankheiten und Ehe_) that in this matter it is often hardly possible to draw a sharp line between vice and disease. [43] Instances of this widespread belief--found among the Tamils of Ceylon as well as in Europe--are quoted from various authors by Bloch, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil II, p. 278, and Moll, _Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, bd. i, p. 700. On the frequency of bestiality, from one cause or another, in the East, see, e.g., Stern, _Medizin und Geschlechtsleben in der Türkei_, bd. ii, p. 219. [44] Sometimes (as among the Aleuts) the animal pantomime dances of savages may represent the transformation of a captive bird into a lovely woman who falls exhausted into the arms of the hunter. (H.H. Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific_, vol. i, p. 93.) A system of beliefs which accepts the possibility that a human being may be latent in an animal obviously favors the practice of bestiality. [45] For an example of the primitive confusion between the intercourse of women with animals and with men see, e.g., Boas, "Sagen aus British-Columbia," _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, heft V, p. 558. [46] Herodotus, Book II, Chapter 46. [47] Dulare (_Des Divinités Génératrices_, Chapter II) brings together the evidence showing that in Egypt women had connection with the sacred goat, apparently in order to secure fertility. [48] Various facts and references bearing on this subject are brought together by Blumenbach, _Anthropological Memoirs_, translated by Bendyshe, p. 80; Block, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil II, pp. 276-283; also Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, seventh edition, p. 520. [49] Mantegazza mentions (_Gli Amori degli Uomini_, cap V) that at Rimini a young goatherd of the Apennines, troubled with dyspepsia and nervous symptoms, told him this was due to excesses with the goats in his care. A finely executed marble group of a satyr having connection with a goat, found at Herculaneum and now in the Naples Museum (reproduced in Fuchs's _Erotische Element in der Karikatur_), perhaps symbolizes a traditional and primitive practice of the goatherd. [50] Bayle (_Dictionary_, Art, Bathyllus) quotes various authorities concerning the Italian auxiliaries in the south of France in the sixteenth century and their custom of bringing and using goats for this purpose. Warton in the eighteenth century was informed that in Sicily priests in confession habitually inquired of herdsmen if they had anything to do with their sows. In Normandy priests are advised to ask similar questions. [51] It is worth noting that in Greek the work choiros means both a sow and a woman's pudenda; in the _Acharnians_ Aristophanes plays on this association at some length. The Romans also (as may be gathered from Varro's _De Re Rustica_) called the feminine pudenda _porcus_. [52] Schurig, _Gynæcologia_, pp. 280-387; Bloch, op. cit., 270-277. The Arabs, according to Kocher, chiefly practice bestiality with goats, sheep and mares. The Annamites, according to Mondière, commonly employ sows and (more especially the young women) dogs. Among the Tamils of Ceylon bestiality with goats and cows is said to be very prevalent. [53] Mantegazza (_Gli Amori degli Uomini_, cap. V) brings together some facts bearing on this matter. V. Exhibitionism--Illustrative Cases--A Symbolic Perversion of Courtship--The Impulse to Defile--The Exhibitionist's Psychic Attitude--The Sexual Organs as Fetichs--Phallus Worship--Adolescent Pride in Sexual Development--Exhibitionism of the Nates--The Classification of the Forms of Exhibitionism--Nature of the Relationship of Exhibitionism to Epilepsy. There is a remarkable form of erotic symbolism--very definite and standing clearly apart from all other forms--in which sexual gratification is experienced in the simple act of exhibiting the sexual organ to persons of the opposite sex, usually by preference to young and presumably innocent persons, very often children. This is termed exhibitionism.[54] It would appear to be a not very infrequent phenomenon, and most women, once or more in their lives, especially when young, have encountered a man who has thus deliberately exposed himself before them. The exhibitionist, though often a young and apparently vigorous man, is always satisfied with the mere act of self-exhibition and the emotional reaction which that act produces; he makes no demands on the woman to whom he exposes himself; he seldom speaks, he makes no effort to approach her; as a rule, he fails even to display the signs of sexual excitation. His desires are completely gratified by the act of exhibition and by the emotional reaction it arouses in the woman. He departs satisfied and relieved. A case recorded by Schrenck-Notzing very well represents both the nature of the impulse felt by the exhibitionist and the way in which it may originate. It is the case of a business man of 49, of neurotic heredity, an affectionate husband and father of a family, who, to his own grief and shame, is compelled from time to time to exhibit his sexual organs to women in the street. As a boy of 10 a girl of 12 tried to induce him to coitus; both had their sexual parts exposed. From that time sexual contacts, as of his own naked nates against those of a girl, became attractive, as well as games in which the boys and girls in turn marched before each other with their sexual parts exposed, and also imitation of the copulation of animals. Coitus was first practiced about the age of 20, but sight and touch of the woman's sexual parts were always necessary to produce sexual excitement. It was also necessary--and this consideration is highly important as regards the development of the tendency to exhibition--that the woman should be excited by the sight of his organs. Even when he saw or touched a woman's parts orgasm often occurred. It was the naked sexual organs in an otherwise clothed body which chiefly excited him. He was not possessed of a high degree of potency. Girls between the ages of 10 and 17 chiefly excited him, and especially if he felt that they were quite ignorant of sexual matters. His self-exhibition was a sort of psychic defloration, and it was accompanied by the idea that other people felt as he did about the sexual effects of the naked organs, that he was shocking but at the same time sexually exciting a young girl. He was thus gratifying himself through the belief that he was causing sexual gratification to an innocent girl. This man was convicted several times, and was finally declared to be suffering from impulsive insanity. (Schrenck-Notzing, _Kriminal-psychologische und Psycho-pathologische Studien_, 1902, pp. 50-57.) In another case of Schrenck-Notzing's, an actor and portrait painter, aged 31, in youth masturbated and was fond of contemplating the images of the sexual organs of both sexes, finding little pleasure in coitus. At the age of 24, at a bathing establishment, he happened to occupy a compartment next to that occupied by a lady, and when naked he became aware that his neighbor was watching him through a chink in the partition. This caused him powerful excitement and he was obliged to masturbate. Ever since he has had an impulse to exhibit his organs and to masturbate in the presence of women. He believes that the sight of his organs excites the woman (Ib., pp. 57-68). The presence of masturbation in this case renders it untypical as a case of exhibitionism. Moll at one time went so far as to assert that when masturbation takes place we are not entitled to admit exhibitionism, (_Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, bd. i, p. 661), but now accepts exhibitionism with masturbation ("Perverse Sexualempfindung," _Krankheiten und Ehe_). The act of exhibition itself gratifies the sexual impulse, and usually it suffices to replace both tumescence and detumescence. A fairly typical case, recorded by Krafft-Ebing, is that of a German factory worker of 37, a good, sober and intelligent workman. His parents were healthy, but one of his mother's and also one of his father's sisters were insane; some of his relatives are eccentric in religion. He has a languishing expression and a smile of self-complacency. He never had any severe illness, but has always been eccentric and imaginative, much absorbed in romances (such as Dumas's novels) and fond of identifying himself with their heroes. No signs of epilepsy. In youth moderate masturbation, later moderate coitus. He lives a retired life, but is fond of elegant dress and of ornament. Though not a drinker, he sometimes makes himself a kind of punch which has a sexually exciting effect on him. The impulse to exhibitionism has only developed in recent years. When the impulse is upon him he becomes hot, his heart beats violently, the blood rushes to his head, and he is oblivious of everything around him that is not connected with his own act. Afterwards he regards himself as a fool and makes vain resolutions never to repeat the act. In exhibition the penis is only half erect and ejaculation never occurs. (He is only capable of coitus with a woman who shows great attraction to him.) He is satisfied with self-exhibition, and believes that he thus gives pleasure to the woman, since he himself receives pleasure in contemplating a woman's sexual parts. His erotic dreams are of self-exhibition to young and voluptuous women. He had been previously punished for an offense of this kind; medico-legal opinion now recognized the incriminated man's psychopathic condition. (Krafft-Ebing, _Op. cit._, pp. 492-494.) Trochon has reported the case of a married man of 33, a worker in a factory, who for several years had exhibited himself at intervals to shop-girls, etc., in a state of erection, but without speaking or making other advances. He was a hard-working, honest, sober man of quiet habits, a good father to his family and happy at home. He showed not the slightest sign of insanity. But he was taciturn, melancholic and nervous; a sister was an idiot. He was arrested, but on the report of the experts that he committed these acts from a morbid impulse he could not control he was released. (Trochon, _Archives de l'Anthropologie Criminelle_, 1888, p. 256.) In a case of Freyer's (_Zeitschrift für Medizinalbeamte_, third year, No. 8) the occasional connection of exhibitionism with epilepsy is well illustrated by a barber's assistant, aged 35, whose father suffered from chronic alcoholism and was also said to have committed the same kind of offense as his son. The mother and a sister suffered nervously. From ages of 7 to 18 the subject had epileptic convulsions. From 16 to 21 he indulged in normal sexual intercourse. At about that time he had often to pass a playground and at times would urinate there; it happened that the children watched him with curiosity. He noticed that when thus watched sexual excitement was caused, inducing erection and even ejaculation. He gradually found pleasure in this kind of sexual gratification; finally he became indifferent to coitus. His erotic dreams, though still usually about normal coitus, were now sometimes concerned with exhibition before little girls. When overcome by the impulse he could see and hear nothing around him, though he did not lose consciousness. After the act was over he was troubled by his deed. In all other respects he was entirely reasonable. He was imprisoned many times for exhibiting himself to young schoolgirls, sometimes vaunting the beauty of his organs and inviting inspection. On one occasion he underwent mental examination, but was considered to be mentally sound. He was finally held to be a hereditarily tainted individual with neuropathic constitution. The head was abnormally broad, penis small, patellar reflex absent, and there were many signs of neurasthenia. (Krafft-Ebing, _Op. cit._, pp. 490-492.) The prevalence of epilepsy among exhibitionists is shown by the observations of Pelanda in Verona. He has recorded six cases of this perversion, all of which eventually reached the asylum and were either epileptics or with epileptic relations. One had a brother who was also an exhibitionist. In some cases the penis was abnormally large, in others abnormally small. Several had very weak sexual impulse; one, at the age of 62, had never effected coitus, and was proud of the fact that he was still a virgin, considering, he would say, the epoch of demoralization in which we live. (Pelanda, "Pornopatici," _Archivio di Psichiatria_, fasc. ii-iv, 1889.) In a very typical case of exhibitionism which Garnier has recorded, a certain X., a gentleman engaged in business in Paris, had a predilection for exhibiting himself in churches, more especially in Saint-Roch. He was arrested several times for exposing his sexual organs here before ladies in prayer. In this way he finally ruined his commercial position in Paris and was obliged to establish himself in a small provincial town. Here again he soon exposed himself in a church and was again sent to prison, but on his liberation immediately performed the same act in the same church in what was described as a most imperturbable manner. Compelled to leave the town, he returned to Paris, and in a few weeks' time was again arrested for repeating his old offense in Saint Roch. When examined by Garnier, the information he supplied was vague and incomplete, and he was very embarrassed in the attempt to explain himself. He was unable to say why he chose a church, but he felt that it was to a church that he must go. He had, however, no thought of profanation and no wish to give offense. "Quite the contrary!" he declared. He had the sad and tired air of a man who is dominated by a force stronger than his will. "I know," he added, "what repulsion my conduct must inspire. Why am I made thus? Who will cure me?" (P. Garnier, "Perversions Sexuelles," _Comptes Rendus_, International Congress of Medicine at Paris in 1900, _Section de Psychiatrie_, pp. 433-435.) In some cases, it would appear, the impulse to exhibitionism may be overcome or may pass away. This result is the more likely to come about in those cases in which exhibitionism has been largely conditioned by chronic alcoholism or other influences tending to destroy the inhibiting and restraining action of the higher centers, which may be overcome by hygiene and treatment. In this connection I may bring forward a case which has been communicated to me by a medical correspondent in London. It is that of an actor, of high standing in his profession and extremely intelligent, 49 years of age, married and father of a large family. He is sexually vigorous and of erotic temperament. His general health has always been good, but he is a high-strung, neurotic man, with quick mental reactions. His habits had for a long time been decidedly alcoholic, but two years ago, a small quantity of albumen being found in the urine, he was persuaded to leave off alcohol, and has since been a teetotaller. Though ordinarily very reticent about sexual matters, he began four or five years ago to commit acts of exhibitionism, exposing himself to servants in the house and occasionally to women in the country. This continued after the alcohol had been abandoned and lasted for several years, though the attention of the police was never attracted to the matter, and so far as possible he was quietly supervised by his friends. Nine months after, the acts of exhibitionism ceased, apparently in a spontaneous manner, and there has so far been no relapse. Exhibitionism is an act which, on the face of it, seems nonsensical and meaningless, and as such, as an inexplicable act of madness, it has frequently been treated both by writers on insanity and on sexual perversion. "These acts are so lacking in common sense and intelligent reflection that no other reason than insanity can be offered for the patient," Ball concluded.[55] Moll, also, who defines exhibitionism somewhat too narrowly as a condition in which "the charm of the exhibition lies for the subject in the display itself," not sufficiently taking into consideration the imagined effect on the spectator, concludes that "the psychological basis of exhibitionism is at present by no means cleared up."[56] We may probably best approach exhibitionism by regarding it as fundamentally a symbolic act based on a perversion of courtship. The exhibitionist displays the organ of sex to a feminine witness, and in the shock of modest sexual shame by which she reacts to that spectacle, he finds a gratifying similitude of the normal emotions of coitus.[57] He feels that he has effected a psychic defloration. Exhibitionism is thus analogous, and, indeed, related, to the impulse felt by many persons to perform indecorous acts or tell indecent stories before young and innocent persons of the opposite sex. This is a kind of psychic exhibitionism, the gratification it causes lying exactly, as in physical exhibitionism, in the emotional confusion which it is felt to arouse. The two kinds of exhibitionism may be combined in the same person: Thus, in a case reported by Hoche (p. 97), the exhibitionist an intellectual and highly educated man, with a doctor's degree, also found pleasure in sending indecent poems and pictures to women, whom, however, he made no attempt to seduce; he was content with the thought of the emotions he aroused or believed that he aroused. It is possible that within this group should come the agent in the following incident which was lately observed by a lady, a friend of my own. An elderly man in an overcoat was seen standing outside a large and well-known draper's shop in the outskirts of London; when able to attract the attention of any of the shop-girls or of any girl in the street he would fling back his coat and reveal that he was wearing over his own clothes a woman's chemise (or possibly bodice) and a woman's drawers; there was no exposure. The only intelligible explanation of this action would seem to be that pleasure was experienced in the mild shock of interested surprise and injured modesty which this vision was imagined to cause to a young girl. It would thus be a comparatively innocent form of psychic defloration. It is of interest to point out that the sexual symbolism of active flagellation is very closely analogous to this symbolism of exhibitionism. The flagellant approaches a woman with the rod (itself a symbol of the penis and in some countries bearing names which are also applied to that organ) and inflicts on an intimate part of her body the signs of blushing and the spasmodic movements which are associated with sexual excitement, while at the same time she feels, or the flagellant imagines that she feels, the corresponding emotions of delicious shame.[58] This is an even closer mimicry of the sexual act than the exhibitionist attains, for the latter fails to secure the consent of the woman nor does he enjoy any intimate contact with her naked body. The difference is connected with the fact that the active flagellant is usually a more virile and normal person than the exhibitionist. In the majority of cases the exhibitionist's sexual impulse is very feeble, and as a rule he is either to some degree a degenerate, or else a person who is suffering from an early stage of general paralysis, dementia, or some other highly enfeebling cause of mental disorganization, such as chronic alcoholism. Sexual feebleness is further indicated by the fact that the individuals selected as witnesses are frequently mere children. It seems probable that a form of erotic symbolism somewhat similar to exhibitionism is to be found in the rare cases in which sexual gratification is derived from throwing ink, acid or other defiling liquids on women's dresses. Thoinot has recorded a case of this kind (_Attentats aux Moeurs_, 1898, pp. 484, _et seq._). An instructive case has been presented by Moll. In this case a young man of somewhat neuropathic heredity had as a youth of 16 or 17, when romping with his young sister's playfellows, experienced sexual sensations on chancing to see their white underlinen. From that time white underlinen and white dresses became to him a fetich and he was only attracted to women so attired. One day, at the age of 25, when crossing the street in wet weather with a young lady in a white dress, a passing vehicle splashed the dress with mud. This incident caused him strong sexual excitement, and from that time he had the impulse to throw ink, perchloride of iron, etc., on to ladies' white dresses, and sometimes to cut and tear them, sexual excitement and ejaculation taking place every time he effected this. (Moll, "Gutachten über einem Sexual Perversen [Besudelungstrieb]," _Zeitschrift für Medizinalbeamte_, Heft XIII, 1900). Such a case is of considerable psychological interest. Thoinot considers that in these cases the fleck is a fetich. That is an incorrect account of the matter. In this case the white garments constituted the primary fetich, but that fetich becomes more acutely realized, and at the same time both parties are thrown into an emotional state which to the fetichist becomes a mimicry of coitus, by the act of defilement. We may perhaps connect with this phenomenon the attraction which muddy shoes often exert over the shoe-fetichist, and the curious way in which, as we have seen (p. 18), Restif de la Bretonne associates his love of neatness in women with his attraction to the feet, the part, he remarks, least easy to keep clean. Garnier applied the term _sadi-fetichism_ to active flagellation and many similar manifestations such as we are here concerned with, on the grounds that they are hybrids which combine the morbid adoration for a definite object with the impulse to exercise a more or less degree of violence. From the standpoint of the conception of erotic symbolism I have adopted there is no need for this term. There is here no hybrid combination of two unlike mental states. We are simply concerned with states of erotic symbolism, more or less complete, more or less complex. The conception of exhibitionism as a process of erotic symbolism, involves a conscious or unconscious attitude of attention in the exhibitionist's mind to the psychic reaction of the woman toward whom his display is directed. He seeks to cause an emotion which, probably in most cases, he desires should be pleasurable. But from one cause or another his finer sensibilities are always inhibited or in abeyance, and he is unable to estimate accurately either the impression he is likely to produce or the general results of his action, or else he is moved by a strong impulsive obsession which overpowers his judgment. In many cases he has good reason for believing that his act will be pleasurable, and frequently he finds complacent witnesses among the low-class servant girls, etc. It may be pointed out here that we are quite justified in speaking of a penis-fetichism and also of a vulva-fetichism. This might be questioned. We are obviously justified in recognizing a fetichism which attaches itself to the pubic hair, or, as in a case with which I am acquainted, to the clitoris, but it may seem that we cannot regard the central sexual organs as symbols of sex, symbols, as it were, of themselves. Properly regarded, however, it is the sexual act rather than the sexual organ which is craved in normal sexual desire; the organ is regarded merely as the means and not as the end. Regarded as a means the organ is indeed an object of desire, but it only becomes a fetich when it arrests and fixes the attention. An attention thus pleasurably fixed, a vulva-fetichism or a penis-fetichism, is within the normal range of sexual emotion (this point has been mentioned in the previous volume when discussing the part played by the primary sexual organs in sexual selection), and in coarse-grained natures of either sex it is a normal allurement in its generalized shape, apart from any attraction to the person to whom the organs belong. In some morbid cases, however, this penis-fetichism may become a fully developed sexual perversion. A typical case of this kind has been recorded by Howard in the United States. Mrs. W., aged 39, was married at 20 to a strong, healthy man, but derived no pleasure from coitus, though she received great pleasure from masturbation practiced immediately after coitus, and nine years after marriage she ceased actual coitus, compelling her husband to adopt mutual masturbation. She would introduce men into the house at all times of the day or night, and after persuading them to expose their persons would retire to her room to masturbate. The same man never aroused desire more than once. This desire became so violent and persistent that she would seek out men in all sorts of public places and, having induced them to expose themselves, rapidly retreat to the nearest convenient spot for self-gratification. She once abstracted a pair of trousers she had seen a man wear and after fondling them experienced the orgasm. Her husband finally left her, after vainly attempting to have her confined in an asylum. She was often arrested for her actions, but through the intervention of friends set free again. She was a highly intelligent woman, and apart from this perversion entirely normal. (W.L. Howard, "Sexual Perversion," _Alienist and Neurologist_, January, 1896.) It is on the existence of a more or less developed penis-fetichism of this kind that the exhibitionist, mostly by an ignorant instinct, relies for the effects he desires to produce. The exhibitionist is not usually content to produce a mere titillated amusement; he seeks to produce a more powerful effect which must be emotional whether or not it is pleasurable. A professional man in Strassburg (in a case reported by Hoche[59]) would walk about in the evening in a long cloak, and when he met ladies would suddenly throw his cloak back under a street lamp, or igniting a red-fire match, and thus exhibit his organs. There was an evident effort--on the part of a weak, vain, and effeminate man--to produce a maximum of emotional effect. The attempt to heighten the emotional shock is also seen in the fact that the exhibitionist frequently chooses a church as the scene of his exploits, not during service, for he always avoids a concourse of people, but perhaps toward evening when there are only a few kneeling women scattered through the edifice. The church is chosen, often instinctively rather than deliberately, from no impulse to commit a sacrilegious outrage--which, as a rule, the exhibitionist does not feel his act to be--but because it really presents the conditions most favorable to the act and the effects desired. The exhibitionist's attitude of mind is well illustrated by one of Garnier's patients who declared that he never wished to be seen by more than two women at once, "just what is necessary," he added, "for an exchange of impressions." After each exhibition he would ask himself anxiously: "Did they see me? What are they thinking? What do they say to each other about me? Oh! how I should like to know!" Another patient of Garnier's, who haunted churches for this purpose, made this very significant statement: "Why do I like going to churches? I can scarcely say. _But I know that it is only there that my act has its full importance_. The woman is in a devout frame of mind, and she must see that such an act in such a place is not a joke in bad taste or a disgusting obscenity; _that if I go there it is not to amuse myself; it is more serious than that!_ I watch the effect produced on the faces of the ladies to whom I show my organs. I wish to see them express a profound joy. I wish, in fact, that they may be forced to say to themselves: _How impressive Nature is when thus seen!_" Here we trace the presence of a feeling which recalls the phenomena of the ancient and world-wide phallic worship, still liable to reappear sporadically. Women sometimes took part in these rites, and the osculation of the male sexual organ or its emblematic representation by women is easily traceable in the phallic rites of India and many other lands, not excluding Europe even in comparatively recent times. (Dulaure in his _Divinités Génératices_ brings together much bearing on these points; cf.: Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, vol. i, Chapter XVII, and Bloch, _Beiträge zur Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil I, pp. 115-117. Colin Scott has some interesting remarks on phallic worship and the part it has played in aiding human evolution, "Sex and Art," _American Journal of Psychology_, vol. vii, No. 2, pp. 191-197. Irving Rosse describes some modern phallic rites in which both men and women took part, similar to those practiced in vaudouism, "Sexual Hypochondriasis," _Virginia Medical Monthly_, October, 1892.) Putting aside any question of phallic worship, a certain pride and more or less private feeling of ostentation in the new expansion and development of the organs of virility seems to be almost normal at adolescence. "We have much reason to assume," Stanley Hall remarks, "that in a state of nature there is a certain instinctive pride and ostentation that accompanies the new local development. I think it will be found that exhibitionists are usually those who have excessive growth here, and that much that modern society stigmatizes as obscene is at bottom more or less spontaneous and perhaps in some cases not abnormal. Dr. Seerley tells me he has never examined a young man largely developed who had the usual strong instinctive tendency of modesty to cover himself with his hands, but he finds this instinct general with those whose development is less than the average." (G. Stanley Hall, _Adolescence_, vol. ii, p. 97.) This instinct of ostentation, however, so far as it is normal, is held in check by other considerations, and is not, in the strict sense, exhibitionism. I have observed a full-grown telegraph boy walking across Hampstead Heath with his sexual organs exposed, but immediately he realized that he was seen he concealed them. The solemnity of exhibitionism at this age finds expression in the climax of the sonnet, "Oraison du Soir," written at 16 by Rimbaud, whose verse generally is a splendid and insolent manifestation of rank adolescence:-- "Doux comme le Seigneur du cèdre et des hysopes, Je pisse vers les cieux bruns très haut et très loin, Avec l'assentiment des grands héliotropes." (J.A. Rimbaud, _Oeuvres_, p. 68.) In women, also, there would appear to be traceable a somewhat similar ostentation, though in them it is complicated and largely inhibited by modesty, and at the same time diffused over the body owing to the absence of external sexual organs. "Primitive woman," remarks Madame Renooz, "proud of her womanhood, for a long time defended her nakedness which ancient art has always represented. And in the actual life of the young girl to-day there is a moment when by a secret atavism she feels the pride of her sex, the intuition of her moral superiority, and cannot understand why she must hide its cause. At this moment, wavering between the laws of Nature and social conventions, she scarcely knows if nakedness should or should not affright her. A sort of confused atavistic memory recalls to her a period before clothing was known, and reveals to her as a paradisaical ideal the customs of that human epoch." (Céline Renooz, _Psychologie Comparée de l'Homme et de la Femme_, p. 85.) It may be added that among primitive peoples, and even among some remote European populations to-day, the exhibition of feminine nudity has sometimes been regarded as a spectacle with religious or magic operation. (Ploss, _Das Weib_, seventh edition, vol. ii, pp. 663-680; Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition, p. 304.) It is stated by Gopcevic that in the long struggle between the Albanians and the Montenegrians the women of the former people would stand in the front rank and expose themselves by raising their skirts, believing that they would thus insure victory. As, however, they were shot down, and as, moreover, victory usually fell to the Montenegrians, this custom became discredited. (Quoted by Bloch, _Op. cit._, Teil II, p. 307.) With regard to the association, suggested by Stanley Hall, between exhibitionism and an unusual degree of development of the sexual organs, it must be remarked that both extremes--a very large and a very small penis--are specially common in exhibitionists. The prevalence of the small organ is due to an association of exhibitionism with sexual feebleness. The prevalence of the large organ may be due to the cause suggested by Hall. Among Mahommedans the sexual organs are sometimes habitually exposed by religious penitents, and I note that Bernhard Stern, in his book on the medical and sexual aspects of life in Turkey, referring to a penitent of this sort whom he saw on the Stamboul bridge at Constantinople, remarks that the organ was very largely developed. It may well be in such a case that the penitent's religious attitude is reinforced by some lingering relic of a more fleshly ostentation. It is by a pseudo-atavism that this phallicism is evoked in the exhibitionist. There is no true emergence of an ancestrally inherited instinct, but by the paralysis or inhibition of the finer and higher feelings current in civilization, the exhibitionist is placed on the same mental level as the man of a more primitive age, and he thus presents the basis on which the impulses belonging to a higher culture may naturally take root and develop. Reference may here be made to a form of primitive exhibitionism, almost confined to women, which, although certainly symbolic, is absolutely non-sexual, and must not, therefore, be confused with the phenomena we are here occupied with. I refer to the exhibition of the buttocks as a mark of contempt. In its most primitive form, no doubt, this exhibitionism is a kind of exorcism, a method of putting evil spirits, primarily, and secondarily evil-disposed persons, to flight. It is the most effective way for a woman to display sexual centers, and it shares in the magical virtues which all unveiling of the sexual centers is believed by primitive peoples to possess. It is recorded that the women of some peoples in the Balkan peninsula formerly used this gesture against enemies in battle. In the sixteenth century so distinguished a theologian as Luther when assailed by the Evil One at night was able to put the adversary to flight by protruding his uncovered buttocks from the bed. But the spiritual significance of this attitude is lost with the decay of primitive beliefs. It survives, but merely as a gesture of insult. The symbolism comes to have reference to the nates as the excretory focus, the seat of the anus. In any case it ignores any sexual attractiveness in this part of the body. Exhibitionism of this kind, therefore, can scarcely arise in persons of any sensitiveness or æsthetic perception, even putting aside the question of modesty, and there seems to be little trace of it in classic antiquity when the nates were regarded as objects of beauty. Among the Egyptians, however, we gather from Herodotus (Bk. II, Chapter LX) that at a certain popular religious festival men and women would go in boats on the Nile, singing and playing, and when they approached a town the women on the boats would insult the women of the town by injurious language and by exposing themselves. Among the Arabs, however, the specific gesture we are concerned with is noted, and a man to whom vengeance is forbidden would express his feelings by exposing his posterior and strewing earth on his head (Wellhausen, _Rests Arabischen Heidentums_, 1897, p. 195). It is in Europe and in mediæval and later times that this emphatic gesture seems to have flourished as a violent method of expressing contempt. It was by no means confined to the lower classes, and Kleinpaul, in discussing this form of "speech without words," quotes examples of various noble persons, even princesses, who are recorded thus to have expressed their feelings. (Kleinpaul, _Sprache ohne Worte_, pp. 271-273.) In more recent times the gesture has become merely a rare and extreme expression of unrestrained feeling in coarse-grained peasants. Zola, in the figure of Mouquette in _Germinal_, may be said to have given a kind of classic expression to the gesture. In the more remote parts of Europe it appears to be still not altogether uncommon. This seems to be notably the case among the South Slavs, and Krauss states that "when a South Slav woman wishes to express her deepest contempt for anyone she bends forward, with left hand raising her skirts, and with the right slapping her posterior, at the same time exclaiming: 'This for you!'" (Kryptadia, vol. vi, p. 200.) A verbal survival of this gesture, consisting in the contemptuous invitation to kiss this region, still exists among us in remote parts of the country, especially as an insult offered by an angry woman who forgets herself. It is said to be commonly used in Wales. ("Welsh Ædoelogy," Kryptadia, vol. ii, pp. 358, et seq.) In Cornwall, when addressed by a woman to a man it is sometimes regarded as a deadly insult, even if the woman is young and attractive, and may cause a life-long enmity between related families. From this point of view the nates are a symbol of contempt, and any sexual significance is excluded. (The distinction is brought out by Diderot in _Le Neveu de Rameau:_ "_Lui:_--Il y a d'autres jours ou il ne m'en coûterait rien pour être vil tant qu'on voudrait; ces jours-là, pour un liard, je baiserais le cul à la petite Hus. _Moi:_--Eh! mais, l'ami, elle est blanche, jolie, douce, potelée, et c'est un acte d'humilité auquel un plus delicat que vous pourrait quelquefois s'abaisser. _Lui:_--Entendons-nous; c'est qu'il y a baiser le cul au simple, et baiser le cul au figuré.") It must be added that a sexual form of exhibitionism of the nates must still be recognized. It occurs in masochism and expresses the desire for passive flagellation. Rousseau, whose emotional life was profoundly affected by the castigations which as a child he received from Mlle Lambercier, has in his _Confessions_ told us how, when a youth, he would sometimes expose himself in this way in the presence of young women. Such masochistic exhibitionism seems, however, to be rare. While the manifestations of exhibitionism are substantially the same in all cases, there are many degrees and varieties of the condition. We may find among exhibitionists, as Garnier remarks, dementia, states of unconsciousness, epilepsy, general paralysis, alcoholism, but the most typical cases, he adds, if not indeed the cases to which the term properly belongs, are those in which it is an impulsive obsession. Krafft-Ebing[60] divides exhibitionists into four clinical groups: (1) acquired states of mental weakness, with cerebral or spinal disease clouding consciousness and at the same time causing impotence; (2) epileptics, in whom the act is an abnormal organic impulse performed in a state of imperfect consciousness; (3) a somewhat allied group of neurasthenic cases; (4) periodical impulsive cases with deep hereditary taint. This classification is not altogether satisfactory. Garnier's classification, placing the group of obsessional cases in the foreground and leaving the other more vaguely defined groups in the background, is probably better. I am inclined to consider that most of the cases fall into one or other of two mixed groups. The first class includes cases in which there is more or less congenital abnormality, but otherwise a fair or even complete degree of mental integrity; they are usually young adults, they are more or less precisely conscious of the end they wish to attain, and it is often only with a severe struggle that they yield to their impulses. In the second class the beginnings of mental or nervous disease have diminished the sensibility of the higher centers; the subjects are usually old men whose lives have been absolutely correct; they are often only vaguely aware of the nature of the satisfaction they are seeking, and frequently no struggle precedes the manifestation; such was the case of the overworked clergyman described by Hughes,[61] who, after much study, became morose and absent-minded, and committed acts of exhibitionism which he could not explain but made no attempt to deny; with rest and restorative treatment his health improved and the acts ceased. It is in the first class of cases alone that there is a developed sexual perversion. In the cases of the second class there is a more or less definite sexual intention, but it is only just conscious, and the emergence of the impulse is due not to its strength but to the weakness, temporary or permanent, of the higher inhibiting centers. Epileptic cases, with loss of consciousness during the act, can only be regarded as presenting a pseudo-exhibitionism. They should be excluded altogether. It is undoubtedly true that many cases of real or apparent exhibitionism occur in epileptics.[62] We must not, however, too hastily conclude that because these acts occur in epileptics they are necessarily unconscious acts. Epilepsy frequently occurs on a basis of hereditary degeneration, and the exhibitionism may be, and not infrequently is, a stigma of the degeneracy and not an indication of the occurrence of a minor epileptic fit. When the act of pseudo-exhibitionism is truly epileptic, it will usually have no psychic sexual content, and it will certainly be liable to occur under all sorts of circumstances, when the patient is alone or in a miscellaneous concourse of people. It will be on a level with the acts of the highly respectable young woman who, at the conclusion of an attack of _petit mal_, consisting chiefly of a sudden desire to pass urine, on one occasion lifted up her clothes and urinated at a public entertainment, so that it was with difficulty her friends prevented her from being handed over to the police.[63] Such an act is automatic, unconscious, and involuntary; the spectators are not even perceived; it cannot be an act of exhibitionism. Whenever, on the other hand, the place and the time are evidently chosen deliberately,--a quiet spot, the presence of only one or two young women or children,--it is difficult to admit that we are in the presence of a fit of epileptic unconsciousness, even when the subject is known to be epileptic. Even, however, when we exclude those epileptic pseudo-exhibitionists who, from the legal point of view, are clearly irresponsible, it must still be remembered that in every case of exhibitionism there is a high degree of either mental abnormality on a neuropathic basis, or else of actual disease. This is true to a greater extent in exhibitionism than in almost any other form of sexual perversion. No subject of exhibitionism should be sent to prison without expert medical examination. FOOTNOTES: [54] Lasège first drew attention to this sexual perversion and gave it its generally accepted name, "Les Exhibitionistes," _L'Union Médicale_, May, 1877. Magnan, on various occasions (for example, "Les Exhibitionistes," _Archives de l'Anthropologie Criminelle_, vol. v, 1890, p. 456), has given further development and precision to the clinical picture of the exhibitionist. [55] B. Ball. _La Folie Erotique_, p. 86. [56] Moll, _Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, bd. i, p. 661. [57] "Exhibitionism in its most typical form is," Garnier truly says, "a _systematic act_, manifesting itself as the _strange equivalent of a sexual connection_, or its _substitution_." The brief account of exhibitionism (pp. 433-437) in Garnier's discussion of "Perversions Sexuelles" at the International Medical Congress at Paris in 1900 (_Section de Psychiatrie: Comptes-Rendus_) is the most satisfactory statement of the psychological aspects of this perversion with which I am acquainted. Garnier's unrivalled clinical knowledge of these manifestations, due to his position during many years as physician at the Depôt of the Prefecture of Police in Paris, adds great weight to his conclusions. [58] The symbolism of coitus involved in flagellation has been touched on by Eulenburg (_Sexuale Neuropathie_, p. 121), and is more fully developed by Dühren (_Geschlechtsleben in England_, bd. ii, pp. 366, _et seq._). [59] A. Hoche, _Neurologische Centralblatt_, 1896, No. 2. [60] _Op. cit._, pp. 478, et seq. [61] C.H. Hughes, "Morbid Exhibitionism," _Alienist and Neurologist_, August, 1904. Another somewhat similar American case, also preceded by overwork, and eventually adjudged insane by the courts, is recorded by D.S. Booth, _Alienist and Neurologist_, February, 1905. [62] Exhibitionism in epilepsy is briefly discussed by Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, second edition, pp. 194-195. [63] W.S. Colman, "Post-Epileptic Unconscious Automatic Actions," _Lancet_, July 5, 1890. VI. The Forms of Erotic Symbolism are Simulacra of Coitus--Wide Extension of Erotic Symbolism--Fetichism Not Covering the Whole Ground of Sexual Selection--It is Based on the Individual Factor in Selection--Crystallization--The Lover and the Artist--The Key to Erotic Symbolism to be Found in the Emotional Sphere--The Passage to Pathological Extremes. We have now examined several very various and yet very typical manifestations in all of which it is not difficult to see how, in some strange and eccentric form--on a basis of association through resemblance or contiguity or both combined--there arises a definite mimicry of the normal sexual act together with the normal emotions which accompany that act. It has become clear in what sense we are justified in recognizing erotic symbolism. The symbolic and, as it were, abstracted nature of these manifestations is shown by the remarkable way in which they are sometimes capable of transference from the object to the subject. That is to say that the fetichist may show a tendency to cultivate his fetich in his own person. A foot-fetichist may like to go barefoot himself; a man who admired lame women liked to halt himself; a man who was attracted by small waists in women found sexual gratification in tight-lacing himself; a man who was fascinated by fine white skin and wished to cut it found satisfaction in cutting his own skin; Moll's coprolagnic fetichist found a voluptuous pleasure in his own acts of defecation. (See, e.g., Krafft-Ebing, _Op. cit._, p. 221, 224, 226; Hammond, _Sexual Impotence_, p. 74; cf. _ante_, p. 68.) Such symbolic transference seems to have a profoundly natural basis, for we may see a somewhat similar phenomenon in the well-known tendency of cows to mount a cow in heat. This would appear to be, not so much a homosexual impulse, as the dynamic psychic action of an olfactory sexual symbol in a transformed form. We seem to have here a psychic process which is a curious reversal of that process of _Einfühlung_--the projection of one's own activities into the object contemplated--which Lipps has so fruitfully developed as the essence of every æsthetic condition. (T. Lipps, _Æsthetik_, Teil I, 1903.) By _Einfühlung_ our own interior activity becomes the activity of the object perceived, a thing being beautiful in proportion as it lends itself to our _Einfühlung_. But by this action of erotic symbolism, on the other hand, we transfer the activity of the object into ourselves. When the idea of erotic symbolism as manifested in such definite and typical forms becomes realized, it further becomes clear that the vaguer manifestations of such symbolism are exceedingly widespread. When in a previous volume we were discussing and drawing together the various threads which unite "Love and Pain," it will now be understood that we were standing throughout on the threshold of erotic symbolism. Pain itself, in the sense in which we slowly learned to define it in this relationship--as a state of intense emotional excitement--may, under a great variety of special circumstances, become an erotic symbol and afford the same relief as the emotions normally accompanying the sexual act. Active algolagnia or sadism is thus a form of erotic symbolism; passive algolagnia or masochism is (in a man) an inverted form of erotic symbolism. Active flagellation or passive flagellation are, in exactly the same way, manifestations of erotic symbolism, the imaginative mimicry of coitus. Binet and also Krafft-Ebing[64] have argued in effect that the whole of sexual selection is a matter of fetichism, that is to say, of erotic symbolism of object. "Normal love," Binet states, "appears as the result of a complicated fetichism." Tarde also seems to have regarded love as normally a kind of fetichism. "We are a long time before we fall in love with a woman," he remarks; "we must wait to see the detail which strikes and delights us, and causes us to overlook what displeases us. Only in normal love the details are many and always changing. Constancy in love is rarely anything else but a voyage around the beloved person, a voyage of exploration and ever new discoveries. The most faithful lover does not love the same woman in the same way for two days in succession."[65] From that point of view normal sexual love is the sway of a fetich--more or less arbitrary, more or less (as Binet terms it) polytheistic--and it can have little objective basis. But, as we saw when considering "Sexual Selection in Man" in the previous volume, more especially when analyzing the notion of beauty, we are justified in believing that beauty has to a large extent an objective basis, and that love by no means depends simply on the capricious selection of some individual fetich. The individual factor, as we saw, is but one of many factors which constitute beauty. In the study of sexual selection that individual factor was passed over very lightly. We now see that it is often a factor of great importance, for in it are rooted all these outgrowths--normal in their germs, highly abnormal in their more extreme developments--which make up erotic symbolism. Erotic symbolism is therefore concerned with all that is least generic, least specific, all that is most intimately personal and individual, in sexual selection. It is the final point in which the decreasing circle of sexual attractiveness is fixed. In the widest and most abstract form sexual selection in man is merely human, and we are attracted to that which bears most fully the marks of humanity; in a less abstract form it is sexual, and we are attracted to that which most vigorously presents the secondary sexual characteristics; still narrowing, it is the type of our own nation and people that appeals most strongly to us in matters of love; and still further concentrating we are affected by the ideal--in civilization most often the somewhat exotic ideal--of our own day, the fashion of our own city. But the individual factor still remains, and amid the infinite possibilities of erotic symbolism the individual may evolve an ideal which is often, as far as he knows and perhaps in actuality, an absolutely unique event in the history of the human soul. Erotic symbolism works in its finer manifestations by means of the idealizing aptitudes; it is the field of sexual psychology in which that faculty of crystallization, on which Stendhal loved to dwell, achieves its most brilliant results. In the solitary passage in which we seem to see a smile on the face of the austere poet of the _De Rerum Naturâ_, Lucretius tells us how every lover, however he may be amused by the amorous extravagances of other men, is himself blinded by passion: if his mistress is black she is a fascinating brunette, if she squints she is the rival of Pallas, if too tall she is majestic, if too short she is one of the Graces, _tota merum sal_; if too lean it is her delicate refinement, if too fat then a Ceres, dirty and she disdains adornment, a chatterer and brilliantly vivacious, silent and it is her exquisite modesty.[66] Sixteen hundred years later Robert Burton, when describing the symptoms of love, made out a long and appalling list of the physical defects which the lover is prepared to admire.[67] Yet we must not be too certain that the lover is wrong in this matter. We too hastily assume that the casual and hasty judgment of the world is necessarily more reliable, more conformed to what we call "truth," than the judgment of the lover which is founded on absorbed and patient study. In some cases where there is lack of intelligence in the lover and dissimulation in the object of his love, it may be so. But even a poem or a picture will often not reveal its beauty except by the expenditure of time and study. It is foolish to expect that the secret beauty of a human person will reveal itself more easily. The lover is an artist, an artist who constructs an image, it is true, but only by patient and concentrated attention to nature; he knows the defects of his image, probably better than anyone, but he knows also that art lies, not in the avoidance of defects, but in the realization of those traits which swallow up defects and so render them non-existent. A great artist, Rodin, after a life spent in the study of Nature, has declared that for art there is no ugliness in Nature. "I have arrived at this belief by the study of Nature," he said; "I can only grasp the beauty of the soul by the beauty of the body, but some day one will come who will explain what I only catch a glimpse of and will declare how the whole earth is beautiful, and all human beings beautiful. I have never been able to say this in sculpture so well as I wish and as I feel it affirmed within me. For poets Beauty has always been some particular landscape, some particular woman; but it should be all women, all landscapes. A negro or a Mongol has his beauty, however remote from ours, and it must be the same with their characters. There is no ugliness. When I was young I made that mistake, as others do; I could not undertake a woman's bust unless I thought her pretty, according to my particular idea of beauty; to-day I should do the bust of any woman, and it would be just as beautiful. And however ugly a woman may look, when she is with her lover she becomes beautiful; there is beauty in her character, in her passions, and beauty exists as soon as character or passion becomes visible, for the body is a casting on which passions are imprinted. And even without that, there is always the blood that flows in the veins and the air that fills the lungs."[68] The saint, also, is here at one with the lover and the artist. The man who has so profoundly realized the worth of his fellow men that he is ready even to die in order to save them, feels that he has discovered a great secret. Cyples traces the "secret delights" that have thus risen in the hearts of holy men to the same source as the feelings generated between lovers, friends, parents, and children. "A few have at intervals walked in the world," he remarks, "who have, each in his own original way, found out this marvel.... Straightway man in general has become to them so sweet a thing that the infatuation has seemed to the rest of their fellows to be a celestial madness. Beggars' rags to their unhesitating lips grew fit for kissing, because humanity had touched the garb; there were no longer any menial acts, but only welcome services.... Remember by how much man is the subtlest circumstance in the world; at how many points he can attach relationships; how manifold and perennial he is in his results. All other things are dull, meager, tame beside him."[69] It may be added that even if we still believe that lover and artist and saint are drawing the main elements of their conceptions from the depths of their own consciousness, there is a sense in which they are coming nearer to the truth of things than those for whom their conceptions are mere illusions. The aptitude for realizing beauty has involved an adjustment of the nerves and the associated brain centers through countless ages that began before man was. When the vision of supreme beauty is slowly or suddenly realized by anyone, with a reverberation that extends throughout his organism, he has attained to something which for his species, and for far more than his species, is truth, and can only be illusion to one who has artificially placed himself outside the stream of life. In an essay on "The Gods as Apparitions of the Race-Life," Edward Carpenter, though in somewhat Platonic phraseology, thus well states the matter: "The youth sees the girl; it may be a chance face, a chance outline, amid the most banal surroundings. But it gives the cue. There is a memory, a confused reminiscence. The mortal figure without penetrates to the immortal figure within, and there rises into consciousness a shining form, glorious, not belonging to this world, but vibrating with the agelong life of humanity, and the memory of a thousand love-dreams. The waking of this vision intoxicates the man; it glows and burns within him; a goddess (it may be Venus herself) stands in the sacred place of his temple; a sense of awe-struck splendor fills him, and the world is changed." "He sees something" (the same writer continues in a subsequent essay, "Beauty and Duty") "which, in a sense, is more real than the figures in the street, for he sees something that has lived and moved for hundreds of years in the heart of the race; something which has been one of the great formative influences of his own life, and which has done as much to create those very figures in the street as qualities in the circulation of the blood may do to form a finger or other limb. He comes into touch with a very real Presence or Power--one of those organic centers of growth in the life of humanity--and feels this larger life within himself, subjective, if you like, and yet intensely objective. And more. For is it not also evident that the woman, the mortal woman who excites his Vision, _has_ some closest relation to it, and is, indeed, far more than a mere mask or empty formula which reminds him of it? For she indeed has within her, just as much as the man has, deep subconscious Powers working; and the ideal which has dawned so entrancingly on the man is in all probability closely related to that which has been working most powerfully in the heredity of the woman, and which has most contributed to mold _her_ form and outline. No wonder, then, that her form should remind him of it. Indeed, when he looks into her eyes he sees _through_ to a far deeper life even than she herself may be aware of, and yet which is truly hers--a life perennial and wonderful. The more than mortal in him beholds the more than mortal in her; and the gods descend to meet." (Edward Carpenter, _The Art of Creation_, pp. 137, 186.) It is this mighty force which lies behind and beneath the aberrations we have been concerned with, a great reservoir from which they draw the life-blood that vivifies even their most fantastic shapes. Fetichism and the other forms of erotic symbolism are but the development and the isolation of the crystallizations which normally arise on the basis of sexual selection. Normal in their basis, in their extreme forms they present the utmost pathological aberrations of the sexual instinct which can be attained or conceived. In the intermediate space all degrees are possible. In the slightest degree the symbol is merely a specially fascinating and beloved feature in a person who is, in all other respects, felt to be lovable; as such its recognition is a legitimate part of courtship, an effective aid to tumescence. In a further degree the symbol is the one arresting and attracting character of a person who must, however, still be felt as a sexually attractive individual. In a still further degree of perversion the symbol is effective, even though the person with whom it is associated is altogether unattractive. In the final stage the person and even all association with a person disappear altogether from the field of sexual consciousness; the abstract symbol rules supreme. Long, however, before the symbol has reached that final climax of morbid intensity we may be said to have passed beyond the sphere of sexual love. A person, not an abstracted quality, must be the goal of love. So long as the fetich is subordinated to the person it serves to heighten love. But love must be based on a complexus of attractive qualities, or it has no stability.[70] As soon as the fetich becomes isolated and omnipotent, so that the person sinks into the background as an unimportant appendage of the fetich, all stability is lost. The fetichist now follows an impersonal and abstract symbol withersoever it may lead him. It has been seen that there are an extraordinary number of forms in which erotic symbolism may be felt. It must be remembered, and it cannot be too distinctly emphasized, that the links that bind together the forms of erotic symbolism are not to be found in objects or even in acts, but in the underlying emotion. A feeling is the first condition of the symbol, a feeling which recalls, by a subtle and unconscious automatic association of resemblance or of contiguity, some former feeling. It is the similarity of emotion, instinctively apprehended, which links on a symbol only partially sexual, or even apparently not sexual at all, to the great central focus of sexual emotion, the great dominating force which brings the symbol its life-blood.[71] The cases of sexual hyperæsthesia, quoted at the beginning of this study, do but present in a morbidly comprehensive and sensitive form those possibilities of erotic symbolism which, in some degree, or at some period, are latent in most persons. They are genuinely instinctive and automatic, and have nothing in common with that fanciful and deliberate play of the intelligence around sexual imagery--not infrequently seen in abnormal and insane persons--which has no significance for sexual psychology. It is to the extreme individualization involved by the developments of erotic symbolism that the fetichist owes his morbid and perilous isolation. The lover who is influenced by all the elements of sexual selection is always supported by the fellow-feeling of a larger body of other human beings; he has behind him his species, his sex, his nation, or at the very least a fashion. Even the inverted lover in most cases is soon able to create around him an atmosphere constituted by persons whose ideals resemble his own. But it is not so with the erotic symbolist. He is nearly always alone. He is predisposed to isolation from the outset, for it would seem to be on a basis of excessive shyness and timidity that the manifestations of erotic symbolism are most likely to develop. When at length the symbolist realizes his own aspirations--which seem to him for the most part an altogether new phenomenon in the world--and at the same time realizes the wide degree in which they deviate from those of the rest of mankind, his natural secretiveness is still further reinforced. He stands alone. His most sacred ideals are for all those around him a childish absurdity, or a disgusting obscenity, possibly a matter calling for the intervention of the policeman. We have forgotten that all these impulses which to us seem so unnatural--this adoration of the foot and other despised parts of the body, this reverence for the excretory acts and products, the acceptance of congress with animals, the solemnity of self-exhibition--were all beliefs and practices which, to our remote forefathers, were bound up with the highest conceptions of life and the deepest ardors of religion. A man cannot, however, deviate at once so widely and so spontaneously in his impulses from the rest of the world in which he himself lives without possessing an aboriginally abnormal temperament. At the very least he exhibits a neuropathic sensitiveness to abnormal impressions. Not infrequently there is more than this, the distinct stigmata of degeneration, sometimes a certain degree of congenital feeble-mindedness or a tendency to insanity. Yet, regarded as a whole, and notwithstanding the frequency with which they witness to congenital morbidity, the phenomena of erotic symbolism can scarcely fail to be profoundly impressive to the patient and impartial student of the human soul. They often seem absurd, sometimes disgusting, occasionally criminal; they are always, when carried to an extreme degree, abnormal. But of all the manifestations of sexual psychology, normal and abnormal, they are the most specifically human. More than any others they involve the potently plastic force of the imagination. They bring before us the individual man, not only apart from his fellows, but in opposition, himself creating his own paradise. They constitute the supreme triumph of human idealism. FOOTNOTES: [64] Binet, _Etudes de Psychologie Expérimentale_, esp., p. 84; Krafft-Ebing, _Op. cit._, p. 18. [65] G. Tarde, "L'Amour Morbide," _Archives de l'Anthropologie Criminelle_, 1890, p. 585. [66] Lucretius, Lib. IV, vv. 1150-1163. [67] Burton, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part III, Section II, Mem. III, Subs. I. [68] Judith Cladel, _Auguste Rodin Pris sur la Vie_, 1903, pp. 103-104. Some slight modifications have been made in the translation of this passage on account of the conversational form of the original. [69] W. Cyples, _The Process of Human Experience_, p. 462. Even if (as we have already seen, _ante_, p. 58) the saint cannot always feel actual physical pleasure in the intimate contact of humanity, the ardor of devoted service which his vision of humanity arouses remains unaffected. [70] "To love," as Stendhal defined it (_De l'Amour_, Chapter II), "is to have pleasure in seeing, touching, and feeling by all the senses, and as near as possible, a beloved object by whom one is oneself loved." [71] Pillon's study of "La Mémoire Affective" (_Revue Philosophique_, February, 1901) helps to explain the psychic mechanism of the process. THE MECHANISM OF DETUMESCENCE. I. The Psychological Significance of Detumescence--The Testis and the Ovary--Sperm Cell and Germ Cell--Development of the Embryo--The External Sexual Organs--Their Wide Range of Variation--Their Nervous Supply--The Penis--Its Racial Variations--The Influence of Exercise--The Scrotum and Testicles--The Mons Veneris--The Vulva--The Labia Majora and their Varieties--The Pubic Hair and Its Characters--The Clitoris and Its Functions--The Anus as an Erogenous Zone--The Nymphæ and their Function--The Vagina--The Hymen--Virginity--The Biological Significance of the Hymen. In analyzing the sexual impulse we have seen that the process whereby the conjunction of the sexes is achieved falls naturally into two phases: the first phase, of tumescence, during which force is generated in the organism, and the second phase, of detumescence, in which that force is discharged during conjugation.[72] Hitherto we have been occupied mainly with the first phase, that of tumescence, and with its associated psychic phenomena. It was inevitable that this should be so, for it is during the slow process of tumescence that sexual selection is decided, the crystallizations of love elaborated, and, to a large extent, the individual erotic symbols determined. But we can by no means altogether pass over the final phase of detumescence. Its consideration, it is true, brings us directly into the field of anatomy and physiology; while tumescence is largely under control of the will, when the moment of detumescence arrives the reins slip from the control of the will; the more fundamental and uncontrollable impulses of the organism gallop on unchecked; the chariot of Phaëthon dashes blindly down into a sea of emotion. Yet detumescence is the end and climax of the whole drama; it is an anatomico-physiological process, certainly, but one that inevitably touches psychology at every point.[73] It is, indeed, the very key to the process of tumescence, and unless we understand and realize very precisely what it is that happens during detumescence, our psychological analysis of the sexual impulse must remain vague and inadequate. From the point of view we now occupy, a man and a woman are no longer two highly sensitive organisms vibrating, voluptuously it may indeed be, but vaguely and indefinitely, to all kinds of influences and with fluctuating impulses capable of being directed into any channel, even in the highest degree divergent from the proper ends of procreation. They are now two genital organisms who exist to propagate the race, and whatever else they may be, they must be adequately constituted to effect the act by which the future of the race is ensured. We have to consider what are the material conditions which ensure the most satisfactory and complete fulfillment of this act, and how those conditions may be correlated with other circumstances in the organism. In thus approaching the subject we shall find that we have not really abandoned the study of the psychic aspects of sex. The two most primary sexual organs are the testis and the ovary; it is the object of conjugation to bring into contact the sperm from the testis with the germ from the ovary. There is no reason to suppose that the germ-cell and the sperm-cell are essentially different from each other. Sexual conjugation thus remains a process which is radically the same as the non-sexual mode of propagation which preceded it. The fusion of the nuclei of the two cells was regarded by Van Beneden, who in 1875 first accurately described it, as a process of conjugation comparable to that of the protozoa and the protophyta. Boveri, who has further extended our knowledge of the process, considers that the spermatozoon removes an inhibitory influence preventing the commencement of development in the ovum; the spermatozoon replaces a portion of the ovum which has already undergone degeneration, so that the object of conjugation is chiefly to effect the union of the properties of two cells in one, sexual fertilization achieving a division of labor with reciprocal inhibition; the two cells have renounced their original faculty of separate development in order to attain a fusion of qualities and thus render possible that production of new forms and qualities which has involved the progress of the organized world.[74] While in fishes this conjugation of the male and female elements is usually ensured by the female casting her spawn into an artificial nest outside the body, on to which the male sheds his milt, in all animals (and, to some extent, birds, who occupy an intermediate position) there is an organic nest, or incubation chamber as Bland Sutton terms it, the womb, in the female body, wherein the fertilized egg may develop to a high degree of maturity sheltered from those manifold risks of the external world which make it necessary for the spawn of fishes to be so enormous in amount. Since, however, men and women have descended from remote ancestors who, in the manner of aquatic creatures, exercised functions of sperm-extrusion and germ-extrusion that were exactly analogous in the two sexes, without any specialized female uterine organization, the early stages of human male and female foetal development still display the comparatively undifferentiated sexual organization of those remote ancestors, and during the first months of foetal life it is practically impossible to tell by the inspection of the genital regions whether the embryo would have developed into a man or into a woman. If we examine the embryo at an early stage of development we see that the hind end is the body stalk, this stalk in later stages becoming part of the umbilical cord. The urogenital region, formed by the rapid extension of the hind end beyond its original limit, which corresponds to what is later the umbilicus, develops mainly by the gradual differentiation of structures (the Wolffian and Müllerian bodies) which originally exist identically in both sexes. This process of sexual differentiation is highly complex, so that it cannot yet be said that there is complete agreement among investigators as to its details. When some irregularity or arrest of development occurs in the process we have one or other of the numerous malformations which may affect this region. If the arrest occurs at a very early stage we may even find a condition of things which seems to approximate to that which normally exists in the adult reptilia.[75] Owing to the fact that both male and female organs develop from more primitive structures which were sexually undifferentiated, a fundamental analogy in the sexual organs of the sexes always remains; the developed organs of one sex exist as rudiments in the other sex; the testicles correspond to the ovaries; the female clitoris is the homologue of the male penis; the scrotum of one sex is the labia majora in the other sex, and so throughout, although it is not always possible at present to be quite certain in regard to these homologics. Since the object to be attained by the sexual organs in the human species is identical with that which they subserve in their pre-human ancestors, it is not surprising to find that these structures have a clear resemblance to the corresponding structures in the apes, although on the whole there would appear to be in man a higher degree of sexual differentiation. Thus the uterus of various species of _semnopithecus_ seems to show a noteworthy correspondence with the same organ in woman.[76] The somewhat less degree of sexual differentiation is well shown in the gorilla; in the male the external organs are in the passive state covered by the wrinkled skin of the abdomen, while in the female, on the contrary, they are very apparent, and in sexual excitement the large clitoris and nymphæ become markedly prominent. The penis of the gorilla, however, more nearly resembles that of man, according to Hartmann, than does that of the other anthropoid apes, which diverge from the human type in this respect more than do the cynocephalic apes and some species of baboon. From the psychological point of view we are less interested in the internal sexual organs, which are most fundamentally concerned with the production and reception of the sexual elements, than with the more external parts of the genital apparatus which serve as the instruments of sexual excitation, and the channels for the intromission and passage of the seminal fluid. It is these only which can play any part at all in sexual selection; they are the only part of the sexual apparatus which can enter into the formation of either normal or abnormal erotic conceptions; they are the organs most prominently concerned with detumescence; they alone enter normally into the conscious process of sex at any time. It seems desirable, therefore, to discuss them briefly at this point. Our knowledge of the individual and racial variations of the external sexual organs is still extremely imperfect. A few monographs and collections of data on isolated points may be found in more or less inaccessible publications. As regards women, Ploss and Bartels have devoted a chapter to the sexual organs of women which extends to a hundred pages, but remains scanty and fragmentary. (_Das Weib_, vol. i, Chapter VI.) The most systematic series of observations have been made in the case of the various kinds of degenerates--idiots, the insane, criminals, etc.--but it would be obviously unsafe to rely too absolutely on such investigations for our knowledge of the sexual organs of the ordinary population. There can be no doubt, however, that the external sexual organs in normal men and women exhibit a peculiarly wide range of variation. This is indicated not only by the unsystematic results attained by experienced observers, but also by more systematic studies. Thus Herman has shown by detailed measurements that there are great normal variations in the conformation of the parts that form the floor of the female pelvis. He found that the projection of the pelvic floor varied from nothing to as much as two inches, and that in healthy women who had borne no children the distance between the coccyx and anus, the length of the perineum, the distance between the fourchette and the symphysis pubis, and the length of the vagina are subject to wide variations. (_Lancet_, October 12, 1889.) Even the female urethral opening varies very greatly, as has been shown by Bergh, who investigated it in nearly 700 women and reproduces the various shapes found; while most usually (in about a third of the cases observed), a longitudinal slit, it may be cross-shaped, star-shaped, crescentic, etc.; and while sometimes very small, in about 6 per cent. of the cases it admitted the tip of the little finger. (Bergh, _Monatsheft für Praktische Dermatologie_, 15 Sept., 1897.) As regards both sexes, Stanley Hall states that "Dr. F.N. Seerley, who has examined over 2000 normal young men as well as many young women, tells me that in his opinion individual variations in these parts are much greater even than those of face and form, and that the range of adult and apparently normal size and proportion, as well as function, and of both the age and order of development, not only of each of the several parts themselves, but of all their immediate annexes, and in females as well as males, is far greater than has been recognized by any writer. This fact is the basis of the anxieties and fears of morphological abnormality so frequent during adolescence." (G.S. Hall, _Adolescence_, vol. i, p. 414). In accordance with the supreme importance of the part they play, and the intimately psychic nature of that part, the sexual organs, both internal and external, are very richly supplied with nerves. While the internal organs are very abundantly furnished with sympathetic nerves and ganglia, the external organs show the highest possible degree of specialization of the various peripheral nervous devices which the organism has developed for receiving, accumulating, and transmitting stimuli to the brain.[77] "The number of conducting cords which attach the genitals to the nervous centers is simply enormous," writes Bryan Robinson; "the pudic nerve is composed of nearly all the third sacral and branches from the second and fourth sacral. As one examines this nerve he is forced to the conclusion that it is an enormous supply for a small organ. The periphery of the pudic nerve spreads itself like a fan over the genitals." The lesser sciatic nerve supplies only one muscle--the gluteus maximus--and then sends the large pudendal branch to the side of the penis, and hence the friction of coitus induces active contraction of the gluteus maximus, "the main muscle of coition." The large pudic and the pudendal constitute the main supply of the external genitals. In women the pudic nerve is equally large, but the pudendal much smaller, possibly, Bryan Robinson suggests, because women take a less active part in coitus. The nerve supply of the clitoris, however, is three or four times as large as that of the penis in proportion to size. (F.B. Robinson, "The Intimate Nervous Connection of the Genito-Urinary Organs With the Cerebro-Spinal and Sympathetic Systems," _New York Medical Journal_, March 11, 1893; id., _The Abdominal Brain_, 1899.) Of all the sexual organs the penis is without doubt that which has most powerfully impressed the human imagination. It is the very emblem of generation, and everywhere men have contemplated it with a mixture of reverence and shuddering awe that has sometimes, even among civilized peoples, amounted to horror and disgust. Its image is worn as an amulet to ward off evil and invoked as a charm to call forth blessing. The sexual organs were once the most sacred object on which a man could place his hands to swear an inviolate oath, just as now he takes up the Testament. Even in the traditions of the great classic civilization which we inherit the penis is _fascinus_, the symbol of all fascination. In the history of human culture it has had far more than a merely human significance; it has been the symbol of all the generative force of Nature, the embodiment of creative energy in the animal and vegetable worlds alike, an image to be held aloft for worship, the sign of all unconscious ecstasy. As a symbol, the sacred phallus, it has been woven in and out of all the highest and deepest human conceptions, so intimately that it is possible to see it everywhere, that it is possible to fail to see it anywhere. In correspondence with the importance of the penis is the large number of names which men have everywhere bestowed upon it. In French literature many hundred synonyms may be found. They were also numerous in Latin. In English the literary terms for the penis seem to be comparatively few, but a large number of non-literary synonyms exist in colloquial and perhaps merely local usage. The Latin term penis, which has established itself among us as the most correct designation, is generally considered to be associated with _pendere_ and to be connected therefore with the usually pendent position of the organ. In the middle ages the general literary term throughout Europe was _coles_ (or _colis_) from _caulis_, a stalk, and _virga_, a rod. The only serious English literary term, yard (exactly equivalent to _virga_), as used by Chaucer--almost the last great English writer whose vocabulary was adequate to the central facts of life--has now fallen out of literary and even colloquial usage. Pierer and Chaulant, in their anatomical and physiological _Real-Lexicon_ (vol. vi, p. 134), give nearly a hundred synonyms for the penis. Hyrtl (_Topographisches Anatomie_, seventh edition, vol. ii, pp. 67-69), adds others. Schurig, in his _Spermatologia_ (1720, pp. 89-91), also presents a number of names for the penis; in Chapter III (pp. 189-192) of the same book he discusses the penis generally with more fullness than most authors. Louis de Landes, in his _Glossaire Erotique_ of the French language (pp. 239-242), enumerates several hundred literary synonyms for the penis, though many of them probably only occur once. There is no thorough and comprehensive modern study of the penis on an anthropological basis (though I should mention a valuable and fully illustrated study of anthropological and pathological variations of the penis in a series of articles by Marandon de Montyel, "Des Anomalies des Organs Génitaux Externes Chez les Aliénées," etc., _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, 1895), and it would be out of place here to attempt to collect the scattered notices regarding racial and other variations. It may suffice to note some of the evidence showing that such variations seem to be numerous and important. The Arab penis (according to Kocher) is slender and long (a third longer than the average European penis) and with a club-shaped glans. It undergoes little change when it enters the erect state. The clothes leaves it quite free, and the Arab practices manual excitement at an early age to favor its development. Among the Fuegians, also, according to Hyades and Deniker (_Cap Horn_, vol. vii, p. 153), the average length of the penis is 77 millimeters, which is longer than in Europeans. In men of black race, also, the penis is decidedly large. Thus Sir H.H. Johnston (_British Central Africa_, p. 399) states this to be a universal rule. Among the Wankenda of Northern Nyassa, for instance, he remarks that, while the body is of medium size, the penis is generally large. He gives the usual length as about six inches, reaching nine or ten in erection. The prepuce, it is added, is often very long, and circumcision is practiced by many tribes. Among the American negroes Hrdlicka has found, also (_Proceedings American Association for the Advancement of Science_, vol. xlvii, p. 475), that the penis in black boys is larger than in white boys. The passages cited above suggest the question whether the penis becomes larger by exercise of its generative functions. Most old authors assert that frequent erection makes the penis large and long (Schurig, _Spermatologia_, p. 107). Galen noted that in singers and athletes, who were chaste in order to preserve their strength, the sexual parts were small and rugrose, like those of old men, and that exercise of the organs from youth develops them; Roubaud, quoting this observation (_Traité de l'Impuissance_, p. 373), agrees with the statement. It seems probable that there is an element of truth in this ancient belief. At the same time it must be remembered that the penis is only to small extent a muscular organ, and that the increase of size produced by frequent congestion of erectile tissues cannot be either rapid or pronounced. Variations in the size of the sexual organs are probably on the whole mainly inherited, though it is impossible to speak decisively on this point until more systematic observations become customary. The scrotum has usually, in the human imagination, been regarded merely as an appendage of the penis, of secondary importance, although it is the garment of the primary and essential organs of sex, and the fact that it is not the seat of any voluptuous sensation has doubtless helped to confirm this position. Even the name is merely a mediæval perversion of _scortum_, skin or hide. In classic times it was usually called the pouch or purse. The importance of the testicles has not, however, been altogether ignored, as the very word _testis_ itself shows, for the _testis_ is simply the _witness_ of virility.[78] It is easy to understand why the penis should occupy this special place in man's thoughts as the supreme sexual organ. It is the one conspicuous and prominent portion of the sexual apparatus, while its aptitude for swelling and erecting itself involuntarily, under the influence of sexual emotion, gives it a peculiar and almost unique position in the body. At the same time it is the point at which, in the male body, all voluptuous sensation is concentrated, the only normal masculine center of sex.[79] It is not easy to find any correspondingly conspicuous symbol of sex in the sexual region of women. In the normal position nothing is visible but the peculiarly human cushion of fat picturesquely termed the Mons Veneris (because, as Palfyn said, all those who enroll themselves under the banner of Venus must necessarily scale it), and even that is veiled from view in the adult by the more or less bushy plantation of hair which grows upon it. A triangle of varyingly precise definition is thus formed at the lower apex of the trunk, and this would sometimes appear to have been regarded as a feminine symbol.[80] But the more usual and typical symbol of femininity is the idealized ring (by some savages drawn as a lozenge) of the vulvar opening--the _yoni_ corresponding to the masculine _lingam_--which is normally closed from view by the larger lips arising from beneath the shadow of the _mons_. It is a symbol that, like the masculine phallus, has a double meaning among primitive peoples and is sometimes used to call down a blessing and sometimes to invoke a curse.[81] This external opening of the feminine genital passage with its two enclosing lips is now generally called the vulva. It would appear that originally (as by Celsus and Pliny) this term included the womb, also, but when the term "uterus" came into use "vulva" was confined (as its sense of folding doors suggests that it should be) to the external entrance. The classic term _cunnus_ for the external genitals was chiefly used by the poets; it has been the etymological source of various European names for this region, such as the old French _con_, which has now, however, disappeared from literature while even in popular usage it has given place to _lapin_ and similar terms. But there is always a tendency, marked in most parts of the world, for the names of the external female parts to become indecorous. Even in classic antiquity this part was the _pudendum_, the part to be ashamed of, and among ourselves the mass of the population, still preserving the traditions of primitive times, continue to cherish the same notion. The anatomy, anthropology, folk-lore, and terminology of the external and to some extent the internal feminine sexual region may be studied in the following publications, among others: Ploss, _Das Weib_, vol. i, Chapter VI; Hyrtl, _Topographisches Anatomie_, vol. ii, and other publications by the same scholarly anatomist; W.J. Stewart Mackay, _History of Ancient Gynæcology_, especially pp. 244-250; R. Bergh, "Symbolæ ad Cognitionem Genitalium Externorum Foeminearum" (in Danish), _Hospitalstidende_, August, 1894; and also in _Monatshefte für Praktische Dermatologie_, 1897. D.S. Lamb, "The Female External Genital Organs," _New York Journal of Gynæcology_, August, 1894; R.L. Dickinson, "Hypertrophies of the Labia Minora and Their Significance," _American Gynecology_, September, 1902; Kryptadia (in various languages), vol. viii, pp. 3-11, 11-13, and many other passages. Several of Schurig's works (especially _Gynæcologia_, _Muliebria_, and _Parthenologia_) contain full summaries of the statements of the early writers. The external or larger lips, like the mons veneris, are specifically human in their full development, for in the anthropoid apes they are small as is the mons, and in the lower apes absent altogether; they are, moreover, larger in the white than in the other human races. Thus in the negro, and to a less degree in the Japanese (Wernich) and the Javanese (Scherzer) they are less developed than in women of white race. The greater lips develop in the foetus later than the lesser lips, which are thus at first uncovered; this condition thus constitutes an infantile state which occasionally (in less than 2 per cent. of cases, according to Bergh) persists in the adult. Their generally accepted name, labia majora, is comparatively modern.[82] The outer sides of the labia majora are covered with hair, and on the inner sides, which are smooth and moist, but are not true mucous membrane, there are a few sweat glands and numerous large sebaceous glands. Bergh considers that there is little or no hair on the inner sides of the labia majora, but Lamb states that careful examination shows that from one- to two-thirds of the inner surface in adult women show hairs like those of the external surface. In brunettes and women of dark races this surface is pigmented; in dark races it is usually a slate gray. From an examination of 2200 young Danish prostitutes Bergh has found that there are two main varieties in the shape of the labia majora, with transitional forms. In the first and most frequent form the labia tend to be less marked and more effaced and separated at the upper and anterior part, often being lost in the sides of the mons and presenting a fissure which is broader in its upper part and showing the inner lips more or less bare. In the second form the labia are thicker and more outstanding and the inner edges lie in contact throughout their whole length, showing the _rima pudendi_ as a long narrow fissure. Whatever the form, the labia close more tightly together in virgins and in young individuals generally than in the deflowered and the elderly. In children, as Martineau pointed out, the vulva appears to look directly forward and the clitoris and urinary meatus easily appear, while in adult women, and especially after attempts at coitus have been made, the vulva appears directed more below and behind, and the clitoris and meatus more covered by the labia majora; so that the child urinates forward, while the adult woman is usually able to urinate almost directly downwards in the erect position, though in some cases (as may occasionally be observed in the street) she can only do so when bending slightly forwards. This difference in the direction of the stream formerly furnished one of the methods of diagnosing virginity, an uncertain one, since the difference is largely due to age and individual variation. The main factor in the position and aspect of the vulva is pelvic inclination. (See Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition, p. 64; Stratz, _Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers_, Chapter XII.) In the European woman, according to Stratz, a considerable degree of pelvic inclination is essential to beauty, concealing all but the anterior third of the vulva. In negresses and other women of lower race the vulva, however, usually lies further back, being more conspicuous from behind than in European women; in this respect lower races resemble the apes. Those women of dark race, therefore, whose modesty is focused behind rather than in front thus have sound anatomical considerations on their side. As Ploss and Bartels remark, a very common variation among European women consists in an unusually posterior position of the vulva and vaginal entrance, so that unless a cushion is placed under the buttocks it is difficult for the man to effect coitus in the usual position without giving much pain to the woman. They add that another anomaly, less easy to remedy, consists in an abnormally anterior position of the vaginal entrance close beneath the pelvic bone, so that, although intromission is easy, the spasmodic contraction of the vagina at the culmination of orgasm presses the penis against the bone and causes intolerable pain to the man. The mons veneris and the labia majora are, after the age of puberty, always normally covered by a more or less profuse growth of hair. It is notable that the apes, notwithstanding their general tendency to hairiness, show no such special development of hair in this region. We thus see that all the external and more conspicuous portions of the sexual sphere in woman--the mons veneris, the labia majora, and the hair--represent not so much an animal inheritance, such as we commonly misrepresent them to be, but a higher and genuinely human development. As none of these structures subserve any clear practical use, it would appear that they must have developed by sexual selection to satisfy the æsthetic demands of the eye.[83] The character and arrangement of the pubic hair, investigated by Eschricht and Voigt more than half a century ago, have been more recently studied by Bergh. As these observers have pointed out, there are various converging hair streams from above and below, the clitoris seeming to be the center towards which they are directed. The hair-covering thus formed is usually ample and, as a rule, is more so in brunettes than in blondes. It is nearly always bent, curly and more or less spirally twisted.[84] There are frequently one or two curls at the commencement of the fissure, rolled outwards, and occasionally a well marked tuft in the middle line. In abundance the pubic hair corresponds with the axillary hair; when one region is defective in hair the other is usually so also. Strong eyebrows also usually indicate a strong development of pubic hair. But the hair of the head usually varies independently, and Bergh found that of 154 women with spare pubic hair 72 had good and often profuse hair on the head. Complete or almost complete absence of pubic hair is in Bergh's experience only found in about 3 per cent. of women; these were all young and blonde. Rothe, in his investigation of the pubic hair of 1000 Berlin women, found that no two women were really alike in this respect, but there was a tendency to two main types of arrangement, with minor subdivisions, according as the hair tended to grow chiefly in the middle line extending laterally from that line, or to grow equally over the whole extent of the pubic region; these two groups included half the cases investigated. In men the pubic hair normally ascends anteriorly in a faint line up to the navel, with tendency to form a triangle with the apex above, and posteriorly extends backwards to the anus. In women these anterior and posterior extensions are comparatively rare, or at all events are only represented by a few stray hairs. Rothe found this variation in 4 per cent. of North German women, though a triangle of hair was only found in 2 per cent.; Lombroso found it in 5 per cent, of Italian women; Bergh found it in only 1.6 per cent. among 1000 Danish prostitutes, all sixteen of whom with three exceptions were brunettes. In Vienna, among 600 women, Coe found only 1 per cent, with this distribution of hair, and states that they were women of decidedly masculine type, though Ploss and Bartels, as well as Rothe, find, however, that heterogeny, as they term the masculine distribution, is more common in blondes. The anterior extension of hair is usually accompanied by the posterior extension around the anus, usually very slight, but occasionally as pronounce as in men. (According to Rothe, however, anterior heterogeny comparatively rare.) These masculine variations in the extension of the pubic hair appear to be not uncommonly associated with other physical and psychic anomalies; it is on this account that they have sometimes been regarded as indications of a vicious or a criminal temperament; they are, however, found in quite normal women. The pubic hair of women is usually shorter than that of men, but thick, and the individual hairs stronger and larger in diameter than those of men, as Pfaff first showed; dark hair is usually stronger than light. In both length and size the individual variations are considerable. The usual length is about 2 inches, or 3-5 centimeters, occasionally reaching about 4 inches, or 9-10 centimeters, in the larger curls. In a series of 100 women attended during confinement in London and the north of England I have only once (in a rather blonde Lancashire woman) found the hair on labia reaching a conspicuous length of several inches and forming an obstruction to the manipulations involved in delivery. But Jahn delivered a woman whose pubic hair was longer than that of her head, reaching below her knee; Paulini also knew a woman whose pubic hair nearly reached her knees and was sold to make wigs; Bartholin mentions a soldier's wife who plaited her pubic hair behind her back; while Brantôme has several references to abnormally long hair in ladies of the French court during the sixteenth century. In 8 cases out of 2200 Bergh found the pubic hair forming a large curly wig extending to the iliac spines. The individual hairs have occasionally been found so stiff and brush-like as to render coitus difficult. In color the pubic hair, while generally approximating to that of the head, is sometimes (according to Rothe, in Germany, in one-third cases) lighter, and sometimes somewhat darker, as is found to be the case by Coe, especially in brunettes, and also by Bergh, in Denmark. Bergh remarks that it is generally intermediate in color between the eyebrows and the axillary hair, the latter being more or less decolorized by sweat, and that, owing to the influence of the urine and vaginal discharges, the labial hair is paler than that on the mons; blondes with dark eyebrows usually have dark hair on the mons. The hair on this spot, as Aristotle observed, is usually the last to turn gray. The key to the genital apparatus in women from the psychic point of view, and, indeed, to some extent, its anatomical center, is to be found in the clitoris. Anatomically and developmentally the clitoris is the rudimentary analogue of the masculine penis. Functionally, however, its scope is very much smaller. While the penis both receives and imparts specific voluptuous sensations, and is at the same time both the intromittent organ for the semen and the conduit for the urine, the sole function of the clitoris is to enter into erection under the stress of sexual emotion and receive and transmit the stimulatory voluptuous sensations imparted to it by friction with the masculine genital apparatus. It is so insignificant an organ that it is only within recent times that its homology with the penis has been realized. In 1844 Kobelt wrote in his important book, _Die Mannlichen und Weiblichen Wollust-Organe_, that in his attempt to show that the female organs are exactly analogous to the male the reader will probably be unable to follow him, while even Johannes Müller, the father of scientific physiology, declared at about the same period that the clitoris is essentially different from the penis. It is indeed but three centuries since the clitoris was so little known that (in 1593) Realdus Columbus actually claimed the honor of discovering it. Columbus was not its discoverer, for Fallopius speedily showed that Avicenna and Albucasis had referred to it.[85] The Arabs appear to have been very familiar with it, and, from the various names they gave it, clearly understood the important part it plays in generating voluptuous emotion.[86] But it was known in classic antiquity; the Greeks called it myrton, the myrtle-berry; Galen and Soranus called it nymphê because it is covered as a bride is veiled, while the old Latin name was _tentigo_, from its power of entering into erection, and _columella_, the little pillar, from its shape. The modern term, which is Greek and refers to the sensitiveness of the part to voluptuous titillation, is said to have originated with Suidas and Pollux.[87] It was mentioned, though not adopted, by Rufus. "The clitoris," declared Haller, "is a part extremely sensible and wonderfully prurient." It is certainly the chief though by no means the only point through which the immediate call to detumescence is conveyed to the female organism. It is, indeed, as Bryan Robinson remarks, "a veritable electrical bell button which, being pressed or irritated, rings up the whole nervous system." The nervous supply of this little organ is very large, and the dorsal nerve of the clitoris is relatively three or four times larger than that of the penis. Yet the sensitive point of this organ is only 5 to 7 millimeters in extent. The length of the clitoris is usually rather over 2 centimeters (or about an inch) and 3 centimeters when erect; a length of 4 centimeters or more was regarded by Martineau as within the normal range of variation. It is not usual to find the clitoris longer than this in Europe (for among some races like the negro the clitoris is generally large), but all degrees of magnitude may be found as rare exceptions. (See, e.g., Sir J.Y. Simpson, "Hermaphrodites," _Obstetric Memoirs and Contributions_, vol. ii, pp. 217-226; also Dickinson, loc. cit.) It was formerly thought that the clitoris is easily enlarged by masturbation, and Martineau believed that in this way it might be doubled in length. It is probable that slight enlargement of the clitoris may be caused by very frequent masturbation, but only to an insignificant extent, and it is impossible to diagnose masturbation from the size of the clitoris. Among the women of Lake Nyassa, as well as in the Caroline Islands, special methods are practiced for elongating the clitoris, but in Europe, at all events, it is probable that the variations in the size of the organ are mainly congenital. It may well be that a congenitally large clitoris is associated with an abnormally developed excitability of the sexual apparatus. Tilt stated (_On Uterine and Ovarian Inflammation_, p. 37) that in his experience there was a frequent though not invariable connection between a large clitoris and sexual proclivity. (Schurig referred to a case of intense and life-long sexual obsession associated with an extremely large clitoris, _Gynæcologia_, pp. 16-17.) Of recent years considerable importance has been attached by some gynecologists (e.g., R.T. Morris, "Is Evolution Trying to Do Away With the Clitoris?" _Transactions American Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists_, vol. v, 1893) to preputial adhesions around the clitoris as a source of nervous disturbance and invalidism in young women. While the clitoris is anatomically analogous to the penis, its actual mechanism under the stress of sexual excitement is somewhat different. As Liétaud long since pointed out, it cannot rise freely in erection as the penis can; it is apparently bound down by its prepuce and its frenulum. Waldeyer, in his book on the pelvis, states more precisely that, unlike the penis, when erect it retains its angle, only this becomes somewhat rounded so that the organ is to some slight extent lifted and protruded. Waldeyer considered that the clitoris was thus perfectly fitted to fulfill its part as the recipient of erotic stimulation from friction by the penis. Adler, however, has pointed out with considerable justice, that this is not altogether the case. The clitoris was developed in mammals who practiced the posterior mode of coitus; in this position the clitoris was beneath the penis, which was thus easily able in coitus to press it against the pubic bone close beneath which it is situated, and thus impart the compression and friction which the feminine organ craves. But in the human anterior mode of coitus it is not necessarily brought into close contact with the penis during the act of coitus, and thus fails to receive powerful stimulation. Its restricted position, which is an advantage in posterior coitus, is a disadvantage in anterior coitus. Adler observes that it thus comes about that the human method of coitus, while by bringing breast to breast and face to face it has added a new dignity and refinement, a fresh source of enjoyment, to the embrace of the sexes, has not been an unmixed advantage to woman, for while man has lost nothing by the change, woman has now to contend with an increased difficulty in attaining an adequate amount of pressure on that "electric button" which normally sets the whole mechanism in operation.[88] We may well bring into connection with the changed conditions brought about by anterior coitus the interesting fact that while the clitoris remains the most exquisitely sensitive of the sexual centers in woman, voluptuous sensitivity is much more widely diffused in woman than in man. Over the whole body, indeed, it is apt to be more distinctly marked than is usually the case in man. But even if we confine ourselves to the genital region, while in man that portion of the penis which enters the vagina, and especially the glans, is normally the only portion which, even during turgescence, is sensitive to voluptuous contacts, in woman the whole of the region comprised within the larger lips, including even the anus and internally the vagina and the vaginal portion of the womb,[89] become sensitive to voluptuous contacts. Deprived of the penis the ability of a man to experience specifically sexual sensations becomes very limited indeed. But the loss of the clitoris or of any other structure involves no correspondingly serious disability on women. Ablation of the clitoris for sexual hyperæsthesia has for this reason been abandoned, except under special circumstances. The members of the Russian Skoptzy sect habitually amputate the clitoris, nymphæ, and breasts, yet many young Skoptzy women told the Russian physician, Guttceit, that they were perfectly well able to enjoy coitus. Freud believes that in very young girls the clitoris is the exclusive seat of sexual sensation, masturbation at this age being directed to the clitoris alone, and spontaneous sexual excitement being confined to twitchings and erection of this organ, so that young girls are able, from their own experience, to recognize without instruction the signs of sexual excitement in boys. At a later age sexual excitability spreads from the clitoris to other regions--just as the easy inflammability of wood sets light to coal--though in the male the penis remains from first to last normally the almost exclusive seat of specific excitability. (S. Freud, _Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie_, p. 62.) The anus would, however, seem to be sometimes an erogenous zone even at an early age. Titillation of the anus appears to be frequently pleasurable in women; and this is not surprising considering the high degree of erotic sensitivity which is easily developed at the body orifices where skin meets mucous membrane. (Thus the meatus of the urethra is a highly erogenous zone, as is sufficiently shown by the frequency with which hair-pins and other articles used in masturbation find their way into the bladder.) It is in this germinal sensitivity, undoubtedly, that we find a chief key to the practice of _pedicatio_. Freud attaches great importance to the anus as a sexually erogenous zone at a very early age, and considers that it very frequently makes its influence felt in this respect. He believes that intestinal catarrhs in very early life and hæmorrhoids later tend to develop sensibility in the anus. He finds an indication that the anus has become a sexually erogenous zone when children wish to allow the contents of the rectum to accumulate so that defecation may by its increased difficulty involve voluptuous sensations, and adds that masturbatory excitation of the anus with the fingers is by no means rare in older children. (S. Freud, _Op. cit._, pp. 40-42.) A medical correspondent in India tells me of a European lady who derived, she said, "quite as much, indeed more," pleasure from digitally titillating her rectum as from vulvo-vaginal titillation; she had several times submitted to _pedicatio_ and enjoyed it, though it was painful during penetration. The anus may retain this erogenous irritability even in old age, and Routh mentions the case of a lady of over 70, the reverse of lustful, who was so excited by the act of defecation that she was invariably compelled to masturbate, although this state of things was a source of great mental misery to her. (C.H.F. Routh, _British Gynæcological Journal_, February, 1887, p. 48.) Bölsche has sought the explanation of the erogenous nature of the anus, and the key to _pedicatio_, in an atavistic return to the very remote amphibian days when the anus was combined with the sexual parts in a common cloaca. But it is unnecessary to invoke any vestigial inheritance from a vastly remote past when we bear in mind that the innervation of these two adjoining regions is inevitably very closely related. The presence of a body exit with its marked and special sensitivity at a point where it can scarcely fail to receive the nervous overflow from an immensely active center of nervous energy quite adequately accounts for the phenomenon in question. The inner lips, the nymphæ or labia minora, running parallel with the greater lips which enclose them, embrace the clitoris anteriorly and extend backward, enclosing the urethral exit between them as well as the vaginal entrance. They form little wings whence their old Latin name, _alæ_, and from their resemblance to the cock's comb were by Spigelius termed crista galli. The red and (especially in brunettes) dark appearance of the nymphæ suggests that they are mucous membrane and not integumentary; it is, however, now considered that even on the inner surface they are covered by skin and separated from the mucous membrane by a line.[90] In structure, as described by Waldeyer, they consist of fine connective tissue rich in elastic fibers as well as some muscular tissue, and full of large veins, so that they are capable of a considerable degree of turgescence resembling erection during sexual excitement, while Ballantyne finds that the nymphæ are supplied to a notable extent with nervous end-organs. More than any other part of the sexual apparatus in either sex, the lesser lips, on account of their shape, their position, and their structure, are capable of acquired modifications, more especially hypertrophy and elongation. By stretching, it is stated, a labium can be doubled in its dimensions. The "Hottentot apron," or elongated nymphæ, commonly found among some peoples in South Africa, has long been a familiar phenomenon. In such cases a length or transverse diameter of 3 to 5 centimeters is commonly found. But such elongated nymphæ are by no means confined to one part of the world or to one race; they are quite common among women of European race, and reach a size equal to most of the more reliably recorded Hottentot cases. Dickinson, who has very carefully studied this question in New York, finds that in 1000 consecutive gynæcological cases the labia showed some form of hypertrophy in 36 per cent., or more than 1 in 3; while among 150 of these cases who were neurasthenic, the proportion reached 56 per cent., even when minor or doubtful enlargements were disregarded. Bergh, in about 16 per cent. cases, found very enlarged nymphæ, the height reached in about 5 per cent. of the cases of enlargement being nearly six centimeters. Ploss and Bartels, in a full discussion: of the "Hottentot apron," come to the conclusion that this condition is perhaps in most cases artificially produced. It is known that among the Basutos it is the custom for the elder girls to manipulate the nymphæ of younger children, when alone with them, almost from birth, and on account of the elastic nature of these structures such manipulation quite adequately accounts for the elongation. It is not necessary to suppose that the custom is practiced for the sake of producing sexual stimulation--though this may frequently occur--since there are numerous similar primitive customs involving deformation of the sexual organs without the production of sexual excitement. Dickinson has come to a similar conclusion as regards the corresponding elongation of the nymphæ in civilized European women. In 361 out of 1000 women of good social class he found elongation or thickening, often with a notable degree of wrinkling and pigmentation, and believes that this is always the result of frequently repeated masturbation practiced with the separation of the nymphæ; in 30 per cent. of the cases admission of masturbation was made.[91] While this conclusion is probably correct in the main, it requires some qualification. To assert that whenever in women who have not been pregnant the marked protrusion of the inner lips beyond the outer lips means that at some period manipulation has been practiced with or without the production of sexual excitement is to make too absolute a statement. It is highly probable that the nymphæ, like the clitoris, are congenitally more prominent in some of the lower human races, as they are also in the apes; among the Fuegians, for instance, according to Hyades and Deniker, the labia minora descend lower than in Europeans, although there is not the slightest reason to suppose that these women practice any manipulations. Among European women, again, the nymphæ sometimes protrude very prominently beyond the labia majora in women who are organically of somewhat infantile type; this occurs in cases in which we may be convinced that no manipulations have ever been practiced.[92] It is difficult to speak very decisively as to the function of the labia minora. They doubtless exert some amount of protective influence over the entrance to the vagina, and in this way correspond to the lips of the mouth after which they are called. They fulfill, however, one very definite though not obviously important function which is indicated by the mythologic name they have received. There is, indeed, some obscurity in the origin of this term, nymphæ, which has not, I believe, been satisfactorily cleared up. It has been stated that the Greek name nymphê has been transferred from the clitoris to the labia minora. Any such transfer could only have taken place when the meaning of the word had been forgotten, and nymphê had become the totally different word _nymphæ_, the goddesses who presided over streams. The old anatomists were much exercised in their minds as to the meaning of the name, but on the whole were inclined to believe that it referred to the action of the labia minora in directing the urinary stream. The term nymphæ was first applied in the modern sense, according to Bergh, in 1599, by Pinæus, mainly from the influence of these structures on the urinary stream, and he dilated in his _De Virginitate_ on the suitability of the term to designate so poetic a spot.[93] In more modern times Luschka and Sir Charles Bell considered that it is one of the uses of the nymphæ to direct the stream of urine, and Lamb from his own observation thinks the same conclusion probable. In reality there cannot be the slightest doubt about the function of the nymphæ, as, in Hyrtl's phrase, "the naiads of the urinary source," and it can be demonstrated by the simplest experiment.[94] The nymphæ form the intermediate portal of the vagina, as the canal which conducts to the womb was in anatomy first termed (according to Hyrtl) by De Graaf.[95] It is a secreting, erectile, more or less sensitive canal lined by what is usually considered mucous membrane, though some have regarded it as integument of the same character as that of the external genitals; it certainly resembles such integument more than, for instance, the mucous membrane of the rectum. In the woman who has never had sexual intercourse and has been subjected to no manipulations or accidents affecting this region, the vagina is closed by a last and final gate of delicate membrane--scarcely admitting more than a slender finger--called the hymen. The poets called the hymen "fios virginitatis," the flower of virginity, whence the medico-legal term _defloratio_. Notwithstanding the great significance which has long been attached to the phenomena connected with it, the hymen was not accurately known until Vesalius, Fallopius, and Spigelius described and named it. It was, however, recognized by the Arab authors, Avicenna and Averroes. The early literature concerning it is summarized by Schurig, _Muliebria_, 1729, Section II, cap. V. The same author's _Parthenologia_ is devoted to the various ancient problems connected with the question of virginity. To say that this delicate piece of membrane is from the non-physical point of view a more important structure than any other part of the body is to convey but a feeble idea of the immense importance of the hymen in the eyes of the men of many past ages and even of our own times and among our own people.[96] For the uses of the feminine body, or for its beauty, there is no part which is more absolutely insignificant. But in human estimation it has acquired a spiritual value which has made it far more than a part of the body. It has taken the place of the soul, that whose presence gives all her worth and dignity, even her name, to the unmarried woman, her purity, her sexual desirability, her market value. Without it--though in all physical and mental respects she might remain the same person--she has sometimes been a mark for contempt, a worthless outcast.[97] So fragile a membrane scarcely possesses the reliability which should be possessed by a structure whose presence or absence has often meant so much. Its absence by no means necessarily signifies that a woman has had intercourse with a man. Its presence by no means signifies that she has never had such intercourse. There are many ways in which the hymen may be destroyed apart from coitus. Among the Chinese (and also, it would appear, in India and some other parts of the East) the female parts are from infancy kept so scrupulously clean by daily washing, the finger being introduced into the vagina, that the hymen rapidly disappears, and its existence is unknown even to Chinese doctors. Among some Brazilian Indians a similar practice exists among mothers as regards their young children, less, however, for the sake of cleanliness than in order to facilitate sexual intercourse in future years. (Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, vol. i, Chapter VI.) The manipulations of vaginal masturbation will, of course, similarly destroy the hymen. It is also quite possible for the hymen to be ruptured by falls and other accidents. (See, e.g., a lengthy study by Nina-Rodrigues, "Des Ruptures de l'Hymen dans les Chutes," _Annales d'Hygiène Publique_, September, 1903.) On the other hand, integrity of the hymen is no proof of virginity, apart from the obvious fact that there may be intercourse without penetration. (The case has even been recorded of a prostitute with syphilitic condylomata, a somewhat masculine type of pubic arch, and vulva rather posteriorly placed, whose hymen had never been penetrated.) The hymen may be of a yielding or folding type, so that complete penetration may take place and yet the hymen be afterwards found unruptured. It occasionally happens that the hymen is found intact at the end of pregnancy. In some, though not all, of these cases there has been conception without intromission of the penis. This has occurred even when the entrance was very minute. The possibility of such conception has long been recognized, and Schurig (_Syllepsilogia_, 1731, Section I, cap. VIII, p. 2) quotes ancient authors who have recorded cases. For some typical modern cases see Guérard (_Centralblatt für Gynäkologie_, No. 15, 1895), in one of whose cases the hymen of the pregnant woman scarcely admitted a hair; also Braun (ib., No. 23, 1895). The hymen has played a very definite and pronounced part in the social and moral life of humanity. Until recently it has been more difficult to decide what precise biological function it has exercised to ensure its development and preservation. Sexual selection, no doubt, has worked in its favor, but that influence has been very limited and comparatively very recent. Virginity is not usually of any value among peoples who are entirely primitive. Indeed, even in the classic civilization which we inherit, it is easy to show that the virgin and the admiration for virginity are of late growth; the virgin goddesses were not originally virgins in our modern sense. Diana was the many-breasted patroness of childbirth before she became the chaste and solitary huntress, for the earliest distinction would appear to have been simply between the woman who was attached to a man and the woman who followed an earlier rule of freedom and independence; it was a later notion to suppose that the latter woman was debarred from sexual intercourse. We certainly must not seek the origin of the hymen in sexual selection; we must find it in natural selection. And here it might seem at first sight that we come upon a contradiction in Nature, for Nature is always devising contrivances to secure the maximum amount of fertilization. "Increase and multiply" is so obviously the command of Nature that the Hebrews, with their usual insight, unhesitatingly dared to place it in the mouth of Jehovah. But the hymen is a barrier to fertilization. It has, however, always to be remembered that as we rise in the zoölogical scale, and as the period of gestation lengthens and the possible number of offspring is fewer, it becomes constantly more essential that fertilization shall be effective rather than easy; the fewer the progeny the more necessary it is that they shall be vigorous enough to survive. There can be little doubt that, as one or two writers have already suggested, the hymen owes its development to the fact that its influence is on the side of effective fertilization. It is an obstacle to the impregnation of the young female by immature, aged, or feeble males. The hymen is thus an anatomical expression of that admiration of force which marks the female in her choice of a mate. So regarded, it is an interesting example of the intimate manner in which sexual selection is really based on natural selection. Sexual selection is but the translation into psychic terms of a process which has already found expression in the physical texture of the body. It may be added that this interpretation of the biological function of the hymen is supported by the facts of its evolution. It is unknown among the lower mammals, with whom fertilization is easy, gestation short and offspring numerous. It only begins to appear among the higher mammals in whom reproduction is already beginning to take on the characters which become fully developed in man. Various authors have found traces of a rudimentary hymen, not only in apes, but in elephants, horses, donkeys, bitches, bears, pigs, hyenas, and giraffes. (Hyrtl, _Op. cit._, vol. ii, p. 189; G. Gellhoen, "Anatomy and Development of the Hymen," _American Journal Obstetrics_, August, 1904.) It is in the human species that the tendency to limitation of offspring is most marked, combined at the same time with a greater aptitude for impregnation than exists among any lower mammals. It is here, therefore, that a physical check is of most value, and accordingly we find that in woman alone, of all animals, is the hymen fully developed. FOOTNOTES: [72] "Analysis of the Sexual Impulse," in vol. iii of these _Studies_. [73] "The accomplishment of no other function," Hyrtl remarks, "is so intimately connected with the mind and yet so independent of it." [74] The process is still, however, but imperfectly understood; see Art. "Fécondation," by Ed. Retterer, in Richet's _Dictionnaire de Physiologie_, vol. vi, 1905. [75] Thus a male foetus showing reptilian characters in sexual ducts was exhibited by Shattock at the Pathological Society of London, February 19, 1895. [76] J. Kohlbrugge, "Die Umgestaltung des Uterus der Affen nach den Geburt," _Zeitschrift für Morphologie_, bd. iv, p. 1, 1901. [77] There are, however, no special nerve endings (Krause corpuscles), as was formerly supposed. The nerve endings in the genital region are the same as elsewhere. The difference lies in the abundance of superposed arboreal ramifications. See, e.g., Ed. Retterer, Art. "Ejaculation," Richet's _Dictionnaire de Physiologie_, vol. v. [78] Hyrtl, _Op. cit._, vol. ii, p. 39. [79] Sensations of pleasure without those of touch appear to be normal at the tip of the penis, as pointed out by Scripture, quoted in _Alienist and Neurologist_, January, 1898. [80] See the previous volume of these _Studies_, "Sexual Selection in Man," p. 161. [81] See, e.g., Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, vol. i, beginning of chapter VI. [82] Hyrtl states that the name _labia_ was first used by Haller in the middle of the eighteenth century in his _Elements of Physiology_, being adopted by him from the Greek poet Erotion, who gave these structures the very obvious name cheilea, lips. But this seems to be a mistake, for the seventeenth century anatomists certainly used the name "labia" for these parts. [83] Bergh tentatively suggests, as regards the pubic hair, that its appearance may be due to the upright walk in man and the human position during coitus, the hair preventing irritation of the genitals from the sweat pouring down from the body and protecting the skin from direct friction in coitus. (In both these suggestions he was, however, long previously anticipated by Fabricius ab Aquapendente.) The fanciful suggestion of Louis Robinson that the pubic hair has developed in order to enable the human infant to cling securely to his mother is very poorly supported by facts, and has not met with acceptance. It may be mentioned that (as stated by Ploss and Bartels) the women of the Bismarck Archipelago, whose pubic hair is very abundant, use it as a kind of handkerchief on which to clean their hands. [84] Routh and Heywood Smith have noted that the pubic hair tends to lose its curliness and become straight in women who masturbate. (_British Gynæcological Journal_, February, 1887, p. 505.) [85] Schurig, _Muliebria_, p. 75. Plazzon in 1621 said that in Italian it had a popular name, _il besneegio_. [86] Schurig brought together in his _Gynæcologia_ (pp. 2-4) various early opinions concerning the clitoris as the seat of voluptuous feeling. [87] Hyrtl, _Op. cit._, vol. ii, p. 193. [88] Adler, _Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, 1904, pp. 117-119. [89] The voluptuous sensations caused by sexual contacts producing movements of the womb are probably normal and usual. They may even occur under circumstances unconnected with sexual emotion, and Mundé (_International Journal of Surgery_, March, 1893) mentions incidentally that in one case while titillating the cervix with a sound the woman very plainly showed voluptuous manifestations. [90] Henle stated that fine hairs are frequently visible on the nymphæ; Stieda (_Zeitschrift für Morphologie_, 1902, p. 458) remarks that he has never been able to see them with the naked eye. [91] R.L. Dickinson, "Hypertrophies of the Labia Minora and Their Significance," _American Gynæcologist_, September, 1902. It is perhaps noteworthy that Bergh found that in 302 cases in which the nymphæ were of unequal length, in all but 24 the left was longer. [92] It may be remarked that Bergh believes that the nymphæ, and indeed the external genitals generally, are congenitally more strongly developed in libidinous persons, and at the same time in brunettes, while in public prostitutes this is not usually the case, which confirms the belief that exalted sexual sensibility does not usually lead to prostitution. He adds that prostitution, unless carried on for many years, has little effect on the shape of the external genitals. [93] Schurig (_Muliebria_, 1729, Section II, cap. II) gives numerous quotations on this point; thus De Graaf wrote in his book on the sexual organs of women: "Tales protuberantiæ nymphæ appellantur ea propter quod aquis e vesica prosilientibus proxime adstare reperiantur, quandoquidem inter illas, tanquam duos parietes, urina magno impetu cum sibilo sæpe et absque labiorum irrigatione erumpit, vel quod sint castitatis præsides, aut sponsam primo intromittant." [94] Havelock Ellis, "The Bladder as a Dynamometer," _American Journal of Dermatology_, May, 1902. If a woman who has never been pregnant, standing in the erect position before commencing the act of urination presses apart the labia minora with index and middle fingers the stream will be projected forward so as to fall usually at a considerable distance in front of a vertical line from the meatus; if when the act is half completed the fingers are removed, the labia close together and the stream, though maintained at a constant pressure, at once changes its character and direction. [95] In poetry this term was employed by Plautus, _Pseudolus_, Act IV, Sc. 7. The Greek aidoion sometimes meant vagina and sometimes the external sexual parts; kolpos was used for the vagina alone. [96] It is curious, however, that the European physicians of the seventeenth and even eighteenth centuries were doubtful of its value as a sign of virginity and considered it often absent. [97] For a summary of the beliefs and practices of various peoples with regard to the hymen and virginity see Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, vol. i, Chapter XVI. II The Object of Detumescence--Erogenous Zones--The Lips--The Vascular Characters of Detumescence--Erectile Tissue--Erection in Woman--Mucous Emission in Women--Sexual Connection--The Human Mode of Intercourse--Normal Variations--The Motor Characters of Detumescence--Ejaculation--The Virile Reflex--The General Phenomena of Detumescence--The Circulatory and Respiratory Phenomena--Blood Pressure--Cardiac Disturbance--Glandular Activity--Distillatio--The Essentially Motor Character of Detumescence--Involuntary Muscular Irradiation to Bladder, etc.--Erotic Intoxication--Analogy of Sexual Detumescence and Vesical Tension--The Specifically Sexual Movements of Detumescence in Man--In Woman--The Spontaneous Movements of the Genital Canal in Woman--Their Function in Conception--Part Played by Active Movement of the Spermatozoa--The Artificial Injection of Semen--The Facial Expression During Detumescence--The Expression of Joy--The Occasional Serious Effects of Coitus. We have seen what the object of detumescence is, and we have briefly considered the organs and structures which are chiefly concerned in the process. We have now to inquire what are the actual phenomena which take place during the act of detumescence. Detumescence is normally linked closely to tumescence. Tumescence is the piling on of the fuel; detumescence is the leaping out of the devouring flame whence is lighted the torch of life to be handed on from generation to generation. The whole process is double and yet single; it is exactly analogous to that by which a pile is driven into the earth by the raising and then the letting go of a heavy weight which falls on to the head of the pile. In tumescence the organism is slowly wound up and force accumulated; in the act of detumescence the accumulated force is let go and by its liberation the sperm-bearing instrument is driven home. Courtship, as we commonly term the process of tumescence which takes place when a woman is first sexually approached by a man, is usually a highly prolonged process. But it is always necessary to remember that every repetition of the act of coitus, to be normally and effectively carried out on both sides, demands a similar double process; detumescence must be preceded by an abbreviated courtship. This abbreviated courtship by which tumescence is secured or heightened in the repetition of acts of coitus which have become familiar, is mainly tactile.[98] Since the part of the man in coitus is more active and that of the woman more passive, the sexual sensitivity of the skin seems to be more pronounced in women. There are, moreover, regions of the surface of a woman's body where contact, when sympathetic, seems specially liable to arouse erotic excitement. Such erogenous zones are often specially marked in the breasts, occasionally in the palm of the hand, the nape of the neck, the lobule of the ear, the little finger; there is, indeed, perhaps no part of the surface of the body which may not, in some individuals at some time, become normally an erogenous zone. In hysteria the erotic excitability of these zones is sometimes very intense. The lips are, however, without doubt, the most persistently and poignantly sensitive region of the whole body outside the sphere of the sexual organs themselves. Hence the significance of the kiss as a preliminary of detumescence.[99] The importance of the lips as a normal erogenous zone is shown by the experiments of Gualino. He applied a thread, folded on itself several times, to the lips, thus stimulating them in a simple mechanical manner. Of 20 women, between the ages of 18 and 35, only 8 felt this as a merely mechanical operation, 4 felt a vaguely erotic element in the proceeding, 3 experienced a desire for coitus and in 5 there was actual sexual excitement with emission of mucus. Of 25 men, between the ages of 20 and 30, in 15 all sexual feeling was absent, in 7 erotic ideas were suggested with congestion of the sexual organs without erection, and in 3 there was the beginning of erection. It should be added that both the women and the men in whom this sexual reflex was more especially marked were of somewhat nervous temperament; in such persons erotic reactions of all kinds generally occur most easily. (Gualino, "Il Rifflesso Sessuale nell' eccitamento alle labbre," _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1904, p. 341.) As tumescence, under the influence of sensory stimulation, proceeds toward the climax when it gives place to detumescence, the physical phenomena become more and more acutely localized in the sexual organs. The process which was at first predominantly nervous and psychic now becomes more prominently vascular. The ancient sexual relationship of the skin asserts itself; there is marked surface congestion showing itself in various ways. The face tends to become red, and exactly the same phenomenon is taking place in the genital organs; "an erection," it has been said, "is a blushing of the penis." The difference is that in the genital organs this heightened vascularity has a definite and specific function to accomplish--the erection of the male organ which fits it to enter the female parts--and that consequently there has been developed in the penis that special kind of vascular mechanism, consisting of veins in connective tissue with unstriped muscular fibers, termed erectile tissue.[100] It is not only the man who is supplied with erectile tissue which in the process of tumescence becomes congested and swollen. The woman also, in the corresponding external genital region, is likewise supplied with erectile tissue now also charged with blood, and exhibits the same changes as have taken place in her partner, though less conspicuously visible. In the anthropoid apes, as the gorilla, the large clitoris and the nymphæ become prominent in sexual excitement, but the less development of the clitoris in women, together with the specifically human evolution of the mons veneris and larger lips, renders this sexual turgescence practically invisible, though it is perceptible to touch in an increased degree of spongy and elastic tension. The whole feminine genital canal, including the uterus, indeed, is richly supplied with blood-vessels, and is capable during sexual excitement of a very high degree of turgescence, a kind of erection. The process of erection in woman is accompanied by the pouring out of fluid which copiously bathes all parts of the vulva around the entrance to the vagina. This is a bland, more or less odorless mucus which, under ordinary circumstances, slowly and imperceptibly suffuses the parts. When, however, the entrance to the vagina is exposed and extended, as during a gynæcological examination which occasionally produces sexual excitement, there may be seen a real ejaculation of the fluid which, as usually described, comes largely from the glands of Bartholin, situated at the mouth of the vagina. Under these circumstances it is sometimes described as being emitted in a jet which is thrown to a distance.[101] This mucous ejaculation was in former days regarded as analogous to the seminal ejaculation in man, and hence essential to conception. Although this belief was erroneous the fluid poured out in this manner whenever a high degree of tumescence is attained, and before the onset of detumescence, certainly performs an important function in lubricating the entrance to the genital canal and so facilitating the intromission of the male organ.[102] Menstruation has a similar influence in facilitating coitus, as Schurig long since pointed out.[103] A like process takes place during parturition when the same parts are being lubricated and stretched in preparation for the protrusion of the foetal head. The occurrence of the mucous flow in tumescence always indicates that that process is actively affecting the central sexual organs, and that voluptuous emotions are present.[104] The secretions of the genital canal and outlet in women are somewhat numerous. We have the odoriferous glands of sebaceous origin, and with them the prepuce of the clitoris which has been described as a kind of gigantic sebaceous follicle with the clitoris occupying its interior. (Hyrtl.) There is the secretion from the glands of Bartholin. There is again the vaginal secretion, opaque and albuminous, which appears to be alkaline when secreted, but becomes acid under the decomposing influence of bacteria, which are, however, harmless and not pathogenic. (Gow, _Obstetrical Society of London_, January 3, 1894.) There is, finally, the mucous uterine secretion, which is alkaline, and, being poured out during orgasm, is believed to protect the spermatozoa from destruction by the acid vaginal secretion. The belief that the mucus poured out in women during sexual excitement is feminine semen and therefore essential to conception had many remarkable consequences and was widespread until the seventeenth century. Thus, in the chapter "De Modo coeundi et de regimine eorum qui coeunt" of _De Secretis Mulierum_, there is insistence on the importance of the proper mixture of the male semen with the female semen and of arranging that it shall not escape from the vagina. The woman must lie quiet for several hours at least, not rising even to urinate, and when she gets up, be very temperate in eating and drinking, and not run or jump, pretending that she has a headache. It was the belief in feminine semen which led some theologians to lay down that a woman might masturbate if she had not experienced orgasm in coitus. Schurig in his _Muliebria_ (1729, pp. 159, et seq.) discusses the opinions of old authors regarding the nature, source, and uses of the female genital secretions, and quotes authorities against the old view that it was female semen. In a subsequent work (_Syllepsilogia_, 1731, pp. 3, et seq.) he returns to the same question, quotes authors who accept a feminine semen, shows that Harvey denied it any significance, and himself decides against it. It has not seriously been brought forward since. When erection is completed in both the man and the woman the conditions necessary for conjugation have at last been fulfilled. In all animals, even those most nearly allied to man, coitus is effected by the male approaching the female posteriorly. In man the normal method of male approach is anteriorly, face to face. Leonardo da Vinci, in a well-known drawing representing a sagittal section of a man and a woman connected in this position of so-called Venus obversa; has shown how well adapted the position is to the normal position of the organs in the human species.[105] Among monkeys, it is stated, congress is sometimes performed when the female is on all fours; at other times the male brings the female between his thighs when he is sitting, holding her with his forepaws. Froriep informed Lawrence that the male sometimes supported his feet on the female's calves. (Sir W. Lawrence, _Lectures on Physiology_, 1823, p. 186.) A summary of the methods of congress practiced by the various animals below mammals will be found in the article "Copulation" by H. de Varigny in Richet's _Dictionnaire de Physiologie_, vol. iv. The anterior position in coitus, with the female partner lying supine, is so widespread throughout the world that it may fairly be termed the most typically human attitude in sexual congress. It is found represented in Egyptian graves at Benihassan, belonging to the Twelfth Dynasty; it is regarded by Mohammedans as the normal position, although other positions are permitted by the Prophet: "Your wives are your tillage: go in unto your tillage in what manner soever you will;" it is that adopted in Malacca; it appears, from Peruvian antiquities, to have been the position generally, though not exclusively, adopted in ancient Peru; it is found in many parts of Africa, and seems also to have been the most usual position among the American aborigines. Various modifications of this position are, however, found. Thus, in some parts of the world, as among the Suahelis in Zanzibar, the male partner adopts the supine position. In Loango, according to Pechuel-Loesche, coitus is performed lying on the side. Sometimes, as on the west coast of Africa, the woman is supine and the man more or less erect; or, as among the Queenslanders (as described by Roth) the woman is supine and the man squats on his heels with her thighs clasping his flanks, while he raises her buttocks with his hands. The position of coitus in which the man is supine is without doubt a natural and frequent variation of the specifically human obverse method of coitus. It was evidently familiar to the Romans. Ovid mentions it (_Ars Amatoria_, III, 777-8), recommending it to little women, and saying that Andromache was too tall to practice it with Hector. Aristophanes refers to it, and there are Greek epigrams in which women boast of their skill in riding their lovers. It has sometimes been viewed with a certain disfavor because it seems to confer a superiority on the woman. "Cursed be he," according to a Mohammedan saying, "who maketh woman heaven and man earth." Of special interest is the wide prevalence of an attitude in coitus recalling that which prevails among quadrupeds. The frequency with which on the walls of Pompeii coitus is represented with the woman bending forward and her partner approaching her posteriorly has led to the belief that this attitude was formerly very common in Southern Italy. However that may be, it is certainly normal at the present day among various more or less primitive peoples in whom the vulva is often placed somewhat posteriorly. It is thus among the Soudanese, as also, in an altogether different part of the world, among the Eskimo Innuit and Koniags. The New Caledonians, according to Foley, cohabit in the quadrupedal manner, and so also the Papuans of New Guinea (Bongu), according to Vahness. The same custom is also found in Australia, where, however other postures are also adopted. In Europe the quadrupedal posture would seem to prevail among some of the South Slavs, notably the Dalmatians. (The different methods of coitus practiced by the South Slavs are described in Kryptadia vol. vi, pp. 220, et seq.) This method of coitus was recommended by Lucretius (lib. iv) and also advised by Paulus Æginetus as favorable to conception. (The opinions of various early physicians are quoted by Schurig, _Spermatologia_, 1720, pp. 232, et seq.). It seems to be a position that is not infrequently agreeable to women, a fact which may be brought into connection with the remarks of Adler already quoted (p. 131) concerning the comparative lack of adjustment of the feminine organs to the obverse position. It is noteworthy that in the days of witchcraft hysterical women constantly believed that they had had intercourse with the Devil in this manner. This circumstance, indeed, probably aided in the very marked disfavor in which coitus _a posteriori_ fell after the decay of classic influences. The mediæval physicians described it as _mos diabolicus_ and mistakenly supposed that it produced abortion (Hyrtl, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 87). The theologians, needless to say, were opposed to the _mos diabolicus_, and already in the Anglo-Saxon Penitential of Theodore, at the end of the seventh century, 40 days' penance is prescribed for this method of coitus. From the frequency with which they have been adopted by various peoples as national customs, most of the postures in coitus here referred to must be said to come within the normal range of variation. It is a mistake to regard them as vicious perversions. Up to the point to which we have so far considered it, the process of detumescence has been mainly nervous and vascular in character; it has, in fact, been but the more acute stage of a process which has been going on throughout tumescence. But now we reach the point at which a new element comes in: muscular action. With the onset of muscular action, which is mainly involuntary, even when it affects the voluntary muscles, detumescence proper begins to take place. Henceforward purposeful psychic action, except by an effort, is virtually abolished. The individual, as a separate person, tends to disappear. He has become one with another person, as nearly one as the conditions of existence ever permit; he and she are now merely an instrument in the hands of a higher power--by whatever name we may choose to call that Power--which is using them for an end not themselves. The decisive moment in the production of the instinctive and involuntary orgasm occurs when, under the influence of the stimulus applied to the penis by friction with the vagina, the tension of the seminal fluid poured into the urethra arouses the ejaculatory center in the spinal cord and the bulbo-cavernosus muscle surrounding the urethra responsively contracts in rhythmic spasms. Then it is that ejaculation occurs.[106] "The circulation quickens, the arteries beat strongly," wrote Roubaud in a description of the physical state during coitus which may almost be termed classic; "the venous blood, arrested by muscular contraction, increases the general heat, and this stagnation, more pronounced in the brain by the contraction of the muscles of the neck and the throwing of the head backward, causes a momentary cerebral congestion, during which intelligence is lost and the faculties abolished. The eyes, violently injected, become haggard, and the look uncertain, or, in the majority of cases, the eyes are closed spasmodically to avoid the contact of the light. The respiration is hurried, sometimes interrupted, and may be suspended by the spasmodic contraction of the larynx, and the air, for a time compressed, is at last emitted in broken and meaningless words. The congested nervous centers only communicate confused sensations and volitions; mobility and sensation show extreme disorder; the limbs are seized by convulsions and sometimes by cramps, or are thrown wildly about or become stiff like iron bars. The jaws, tightly pressed, grind the teeth, and in some persons the delirium is carried so far that they bite to bleeding the shoulders their companions have imprudently abandoned to them. This frantic state of epilepsy lasts but a short time, but it suffices to exhaust the forces of the organism, especially in man. It is, I believe, Galen, who said: 'Omne animal post coitum triste præter mulierem gallumque.'"[107] Most of the elements that make up this typical picture of the state of coitus are not absolutely essential to that state, but they all come within the normal range of variation. There can be no doubt that this range is considerable. There would appear to be not only individual, but also racial, differences; there is a remarkable passage in Vatsyayana's _Kama Sutra_ describing the varying behavior of the women of different races in India under the stress of sexual excitement--Dravidian women with difficulty attaining erethism, women of the Punjaub fond of being caressed with the tongue, women of Oude with impetuous desire and profuse flow of mucus, etc.--and it is highly probable, Ploss and Bartels remark, that these characterizations are founded on exact observations.[108] The various phenomena included in Roubaud's description of the condition during coitus may all be directly or indirectly reduced to two groups: the first circulatory and respiratory, the second motor. It is necessary to consider both these aspects of the process of detumescence in somewhat greater detail, although while it is most convenient to discuss them separately, it must be borne in mind that they are not really separable; the circulatory phenomena are in large measure a by-product of the involuntary motor process. With the approach of detumescence the respiration becomes shallow, rapid, and to some extent arrested. This characteristic of the breathing during sexual excitement is well recognized; so that in, for instance, the _Arabian Nights_, it is commonly noted of women when gazing at beautiful youths whose love they desired, that they ceased breathing.[109] It may be added that exactly the same tendency to superficial and arrested respiration takes place whenever there is any intense mental concentration, as in severe intellectual work.[110] The arrest of respiration tends to render the blood venous, and thus aids in stimulating the vasomotor centers, raising the blood-pressure in the body generally, and especially in the erectile tissues. High blood-pressure is one of the most marked features of the state of detumescence. The heart beats are stronger and quicker, the surface arteries are more visible, the conjunctivæ become red. The precise degree of blood-pressure attained during coitus has been most accurately ascertained in the dog. In Bechterew's laboratory in St. Petersburg a manometer was introduced into the central end of the carotid artery of a bitch; a male dog was then introduced, and during coitus observations were made on the blood-pressure at the peripheral and central ends of the artery. It was found that there was a great general elevation of blood-pressure, intense hyperæmia of the brain, rapid alternations, during the act, of vasoconstriction and vasodilatation of the brain, with increase and diminution of the general arterial tension in relation with the various phases of the act, the greatest cerebral vasodilatation and hyperæmia coinciding with the moment following the intromission of the penis; the end of the act is followed by a considerable fall in the blood-pressure.[111] I am not acquainted with any precise observations on the blood-pressure in human subjects during detumescence, and there are obvious difficulties in the way of such observations. It is probable, however, that the conditions found would be substantially the same. This is indicated, so far as the very marked increase of blood-pressure is concerned, by some observations made by Vaschide and Vurpas with the sphygmanometer on a lady under the influence of sexual excitement. In this case there was a relationship of sympathy and friendly tenderness between the experimenter and the subject, Madame X, aged 25. Experimenter and subject talked sympathetically, and finally, we are told, while the latter still had her hands in the sphygmanometer, the former almost made a declaration of love. Madame X was greatly impressed, and afterward admitted that her emotions had been genuine and strong. The blood-pressure, which was in this subject habitually 65 millimeters, rose to 150 and even 160, indicating a very high pressure, which rarely occurs; at the same time Madame X looked very emotional and troubled.[112] Some authorities are of opinion that irregularities in the accomplishment of the sexual act are specially liable to cause disturbances in the circulation. Thus Kisch, of Prague, refers to the case of a couple practising coitus interruptus--the husband withdrawing before ejaculation--in which the wife, a vigorous woman, became liable after some years to attacks termed by Kisch _neurasthenia cordis vasomotoria_, in which there was at daily or longer intervals palpitation, with feelings of anxiety, headache, dizziness, muscular weakness and tendency to faint. He regards coitus as a cause of various heart troubles in women: (1) Attacks of tachycardia in very excitable and sexually inclined women; (2) attacks of tachycardia with dyspnoea in young women, with vaginismus; (3) cardiac symptoms with lowered vascular tone in women who for a long time have practised coitus interruptus without complete sexual gratification (Kisch, "Herzbeschwerden der Frauen verursacht durch den Cohabitationsact," _Münchener Medizinisches Wochenschrift_, 1897, p. 617). In this connection, also, reference may probably be made to those attacks of anxiety which Freud associates with psychic sexual lesions of an emotional character. Associated with this vascular activity in detumescence we find a general tendency to glandular activity. Various secretions are formed abundantly. Perspiration is copious, and the ancient relationship between the cutaneous and sexual systems seems to evoke a general activity of the skin and its odoriferous secretions. Salivation, which also occurs, is very conspicuous in many lower animals, as for instance in the donkey, notably the female, who just before coitus stands with mouth open, jaws moving, and saliva dribbling. In men, corresponding to the more copious secretion in women, there is, during the latter stages of tumescence, a slight secretion of mucus--Fürbringer's _urethrorrhoea ex libidine_--which appears in drops at the urethral orifice. It comes from the small glands of Littré and Cowper which open into the urethra. This phenomenon was well known to the old theologians, who called it _distillatio_, and realized its significance as at once distinct from semen and an indication that the mind was dwelling on voluptuous images; it was also known in classic times[113]; more recently it has often been confused with semen and has thus sometimes caused needless anxiety to nervous persons. There is also an increased secretion of urine, and it is probable that if the viscera were more accessible to observation we might be able to demonstrate that the glands throughout the body share in this increased activity. The phenomena of detumescence culminate, however, and have their most obvious manifestation in motor activity. The genital act, as Vaschide and Vurpas remark, consists essentially in "a more and more marked tension of the motor state which, reaching its maximum, presents a short tonic phase, followed by a clonic phase, and terminates in a period of adynamia and repose." This motor activity is of the essence of the impulse of detumescence, because without it the sperm cells could not be brought into the neighborhood of the germ cell and be propelled into the organic nest which is assigned for their conjunction and incubation. The motor activity is general as well as specifically sexual. There is a general tendency to more or less involuntary movement, without any increase of voluntary muscular power, which is, indeed, decreased, and Vaschide and Vurpas state that dynamometric results are somewhat lower than normal during sexual excitement, and the variations greater.[114] The tendency to diffused activity of involuntary muscle is well illustrated by the contraction of the bladder associated with detumescence. While this occurs in both sexes, in men erection produces a mechanical impediment to any evacuation of the bladder. In women there is not only a desire to urinate but, occasionally, actual urination. Many quite healthy and normal women have, as a rare accident supervening on the coincidence of an unusually full bladder with an unusual degree of sexual excitement, experienced a powerful and quite involuntary evacuation of the bladder at the moment of orgasm. In women with less normal nervous systems this has, more rarely, been almost habitual. Brantôme has perhaps recorded the earliest case of this kind in referring to a lady he knew who "quand on lui faisait cela elle se compissait à bon escient."[115] The tendency to trembling, constriction of throat, sneezing, emission of internal gas, and the other similar phenomena occasionally associated with detumescence, are likewise due to diffusion of the motor disturbance. Even in infancy the motor signs of sexual excitement are the most obvious indications of orgasm; thus West, describing masturbation in a child of six or nine months who practiced thigh-rubbing, states that when sitting in her high chair she would grasp the handles, stiffen herself, and stare, rubbing her thighs quickly together several times, and then come to herself with a sigh, tired, relaxed, and sweating, these seizures, which lasted one or two minutes, being mistaken by the relations for epileptic fits.[116] The essentially motor character of detumescence is well shown by the extreme forms of erotic intoxication which sometimes appear as the result of sexual excitement. Féré, who has especially called attention to the various manifestations of this condition, presents an instructive case of a man of neurotic heredity and antecedents, in whom it occasionally happened that sexual excitement, instead of culminating in the normal orgasm, attained its climax in a fit of uncontrollable muscular excitement. He would then sing, dance, gesticulate, roughly treat his partner, break the objects around him, and finally sink down exhausted and stupefied. (Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, Chapter X.) In such a case a diffused and general detumescence has taken the place of the normal detumescence which has its main focus in the sexual sphere. The same relationship is shown in a case of impotence accompanied by cramps in the calves and elsewhere, which has been recorded by Brügelmann ("Zur Lehre vom Perversen Sexualismus," _Zeitschrift für Hypnotismus_, 1900, Heft I). These muscular conditions ceased for several days whenever coitus was effected. An instructive analogy to the motor irradiations preceding the moment of sexual detumescence may be found in the somewhat similar motor irradiations which follow the delayed expulsion of a highly distended bladder. These sometimes become very marked in a child or young woman unable to control the motor system absolutely. The legs are crossed, the foot swung, the thighs tightly pressed together, the toes curled. The fingers are flexed in rhythmic succession. The whole body slowly twists as though the seat had become uncomfortable. It is difficult to concentrate the mind; the same remark may be automatically repeated; the eyes search restlessly, and there is a tendency to count surrounding objects or patterns. When the extreme degree of tension is reached it is only by executing a kind of dance that the explosive contraction of the bladder is restrained. The picture of muscular irradiation presented under these circumstances differs but slightly from that of the onset of detumescence. In one case the explosion is sought, in the other case it is dreaded; but in both cases there is a retarded muscular tension,--in the one case involuntary, in the other case voluntary--maintained at a point of acute intensity, and in both cases the muscular irradiations of this tension spread over the whole body. The increased motor irritability of the state of detumescence somewhat resembles the conditions produced by a weak anæsthetic and there is some interest in noting the sexual excitement liable to occur in anæsthesia. I am indebted to Dr. J.F.W. Silk for some remarks on this point:-- "I. Sexual emotions may apparently be aroused during the stage of excitement preceding or following the administration of any anæsthetic; these emotions may take the form of mere delirious utterances, or may be associated with what is apparently a sexual orgasm. Or reflex phenomena connected with the sexual organs may occasionally be observed under special circumstances; or, to put it in another way, such reflex possibilities are not always abolished by the condition of narcosis or anæsthesia. "II. Of the particular anæsthetics employed I am inclined to think that the possibility of such conditions arising is inversely proportionate to their strength, e.g., they are more frequently observed with a weak anæsthetic like nitrous oxide than with chloroform. "III. Sexual emotions I believe to be rarely observable in men, and this is remarkable, or, I should say, particularly noticeable, for the presence of nurses, female students, etc., might almost have led one to expect that the contrary would have been the case. On the other hand, it is among men that I have frequently observed a reflex phenomenon which has usually taken the shape of an erection of the penis when the structures in the neighborhood of the spermatic cord have been handled. "IV. Among females the emotional sexual phenomena most frequently obtrude themselves, and I believe that if it were possible to induce people to relate their dreams they would very often be found to be of a sexual character." Much more important than the general motor phenomena, more purposive though involuntary, are the specifically sexual muscular movements. From the very beginning of detumescence, indeed, muscular activity makes itself felt, and the peripheral muscles of sex act, according to Kobelt's expression, as a peripheral sexual heart. In the male these movements are fairly obvious and fairly simple. It is required that the semen should be expressed from the vesiculæ seminales, propelled along the urethra, in combination with the prostatic fluid which is equally essential, and finally ejected with a certain amount of force from the urethral orifice. Under the influence of the stimulation furnished by the contact and friction of the vagina, this process is effectively carried out, mainly by the rhythmic contractions of the bulbo-cavernosus muscle, and the semen is emitted in a jet which may be ejaculated to a distance varying from a few centimeters to a meter or more. With regard to the details of the psychic sides of this process a correspondent, a psychologist, writes as follows:-- "I have never noticed in my reading any attempt to analyze the sensations which accompany the orgasm, and, as I have made a good many attempts to make such an analysis myself, I will append the results on the chance that they may be of some value. I have checked my results so far as possible by comparing them with the experience of such of my friends as had coitus frequently and were willing to tell me as much as they could of the psychology of the process. "The first fact that I hit upon was the importance of pressure. As one of my informants picturesquely phrases it--'the tighter the fit the greater the pleasure.' This agrees, too, with their unanimous testimony that the pleasurable sensations were much greater when the orgasm occurred simultaneously in the man and woman. Their analysis seldom went further than this, but a few remarked that the distinctive sensations accompanying the orgasm seem to begin near the root of the penis or in the testes, and that they are qualitatively different from the tickling sensations which precede them. "These tickling sensations are caused, I think, by the friction of the glands against the vaginal walls, and are supplemented by other sensations from the urethra, whose nerves are stimulated by pressure of the vaginal walls and sphincter. The specific sensation of the orgasm begins, I believe, with a strong contraction of the muscles of the urethral walls along the entire length of the canal, and is felt as a peculiar ache starting from the base of the penis and quickly becoming diffused through the whole organ. This sensation reaches its climax with the expulsion of the semen into the urethra and the consequent feeling of distention, which is instantly followed by the rhythmic peristaltic contractions of the urethral muscles which mark the climax of the orgasm. "The most careful introspection possible under the circumstances seems to show that these sensations arise almost wholly from the urethra and in a far less degree from the corona. During periods of great sexual excitement the nerves of the urethra and corona seem to possess a peculiar sensitivity and are powerfully stimulated by the violent peristaltic contractions of the muscles in the urethral walls during ejaculation. It seems possible that the intensity and volume of sensation felt at the glans may be due in part to the greater area of sensitive surface presented in the fossa as well as to the sensitivity of the corona, and in part to the fact that during the orgasm the glans is more highly congested than at any other time, and the nerve endings thus subjected to additional pressure. "If the foregoing statements are true, it is easy to see why the pleasure of the man is much increased when the orgasm occurs at the same time in his partner and himself, for the contractions of the vagina upon the penis would increase the stimulation of all the nerve endings in that organ for which a mechanical stimulus is adequate, and the prominence of the corpus spongiosum and corona would ensure them the greatest stimulation. It seems not improbable that the specific sensation of orgasm rises from the stimulation of the peculiar form of nerve end-bulbs which Krause found in the corpus spongiosum and in the glans. "The characteristic massiveness of the experience is probably due largely to the great number of sensations of strain and pressure caused by the powerful reflex contraction of so many of the voluntary muscles. "Of course, the foregoing analysis is purely tentative, and I offer it only on the chance that it may suggest some line of inquiry which may lead to results of value to the student of sexual psychology." In man the whole process of detumescence, when it has once really begun, only occupies a few moments. It is so likewise in many animals; in the genera Bos, Ovis, etc., it is very short, almost instantaneous, and rather short also in the Equidæ (in a vigorous stallion, according to Colin, ten to twelve seconds). As Disselhorst has pointed out, this is dependent on the fact that these animals, like man, possess a vas deferens which broadens into an ampulla serving as a receptacle which holds the semen ready for instant emission when required. On the other hand, in the dog, cat, boar, and the Canidæ, Felidæ, and Suidæ generally, there is no receptacle of this kind, and coitus is slow, since a longer time is required for the peristaltic action of the vas to bring the semen to the urogenital sinus. (R. Disselhorst, _Die Accessorischen Geschlechtsdrusen der Wirbelthiere_, 1897, p. 212.) In man there can be little doubt that detumescence is more rapidly accomplished in the European than in the East, in India, among the yellow races, or in Polynesia. This is probably in part due to a deliberate attempt to prolong the act in the East, and in part to a greater nervous erethism among Westerns. In the woman the specifically sexual muscular process is less visible, more obscure, more complex, and uncertain. Before detumescence actually begins there are at intervals involuntary rhythmic contractions of the walls of the vagina, seeming to have the object of at once stimulating and harmonizing with those that are about to begin in the male organ. It would appear that these rhythmic contractions are the exaggeration of a phenomenon which is normal, just as slight contraction is normal and constant in the bladder. Jastreboff has shown, in the rabbit, that the vagina is in constant spontaneous rhythmic contraction from above downward, not peristaltic, but in segments, the intensity of the contractions increasing with age and especially with sexual development. This vaginal contraction which in women only becomes well marked just before detumescence, and is due mainly to the action of the sphincter cunni (analogous to the bulbo-cavernosus in the male), is only a part of the localized muscular process. At first there would appear to be a reflex peristaltic movement of the Fallopian tubes and uterus. Dembo observed that in animals stimulation of the upper anterior wall of the vagina caused gradual contraction of the uterus, which is erected by powerful contraction of its muscular fiber and round ligaments while at the same time it descends toward the vagina, its cavity becoming more and more diminished and mucus being forced out. In relaxing, Aristotle long ago remarked, it aspirates the seminal fluid. Although the active participation of the sexual organs in woman, to the end of directing the semen into the womb at the moment of detumescence, is thus a very ancient belief, and harmonizes with the Greek view of the womb as an animal in the body endowed with a considerable amount of activity,[117] precise observation in modern times has offered but little confirmation of the reality of this participation. Such observations as have been made have usually been the accidental result of sexual excitement and orgasm occurring during a gynæcological examination. As, however, such a result is liable to occur in erotic subjects, a certain number of precise observations have accumulated during the past century. So far as the evidence goes, it would seem that in women, as in mares, bitches, and other animals, the uterus becomes shorter, broader, and softer during the orgasm, at the same time descending lower into the pelvis, with its mouth open intermittently, so that, as one writer remarks, spontaneously recurring to the simile which commended itself to the Greeks, "the uterus might be likened to an animal gasping for breath."[118] This sensitive, responsive mobility of the uterus is, indeed, not confined to the moment of detumescence, but may occur at other times under the influence of sexual emotion. It would seem probable that in this erection, contraction, and descent of the uterus, and its simultaneous expulsion of mucus, we have the decisive moment in the completion of detumescence in woman, and it is probable that the thick mucus, unlike the earlier more limpid secretion, which women are sometimes aware of after orgasm, is emitted from the womb at this time. This is, however, not absolutely certain. Some authorities regard detumescence in women as accomplished in the pouring out of secretions, others in the rhythmic genital contractions; the sexual parts may, however, be copiously bathed in mucus for an indefinitely long period before the final stage of detumescence is achieved, and the rhythmic contractions are also taking place at a somewhat early period; in neither respect is there any obvious increase at the final moment of orgasm. In women this would seem to be more conspicuously a nervous manifestation than in men. On the subjective side it is very pronounced, with its feeling of relieved tension and agreeable repose--a moment when, as one woman expresses it, together with intense pleasure, there is, as it were, a floating up into a higher sphere, like the beginning of chloroform narcosis--but on the objective side this culminating moment is less easy to define. Various observations and remarks made during the past two or three centuries by Bond, Valisneri, Dionis, Haller, Günther, and Bischoff, tending to show a sucking action of the uterus in both women and other female animals, have been brought together by Litzmann in R. Wagner's _Handwörterbuch der Physiologie_ (1846, vol. iii, p. 53). Litzmann added an experience of his own: "I had an opportunity lately, while examining a young and very erethic woman, to observe how suddenly the uterus assumed a more erect position, and descended deeper in the pelvis; the lips of the womb became equal in length, the cervix rounded, softer, and more easily reached by the finger, and at the same time a high state of sexual excitement was revealed by the respiration and voice." The general belief still remained, however, that the woman's part in conjugation is passive, and that it is entirely by the energy of the male organ and of the male sexual elements, the spermatozoa, that conjunction with the germ cell is attained. According to this theory, it was believed that the spermatozoa were, as Wilkinson expresses it, in a history of opinion on this question, "endowed with some sort of intuition or instinct; that they would turn in the direction of the os uteri, wading through the acid mucus of the vagina; travel patiently upward and around the vaginal portion of the uterus; enter the uterus and proceed onward in search of the waiting ovum." (A.D. Wilkinson, "Sterility in the Female," _Transactions of the Lincoln Medical Society_, Nebraska, 1896.) About the year 1859 Fichstedt seems to have done something to overthrow this theory by declaring his belief that the uterus was not, as commonly supposed, a passive organ in coitus, but was capable of sucking in the semen during the brief period of detumescence. Various authorities then began to bring forward arguments and observations in the same sense. Wernich, especially, directed attention to this point in 1872 in a paper on the erectile properties of the lower segment of the uterus ("Die Erectionsfahigkeit des untern Uterus-Abschnitts," _Beiträge zur Geburtshülfe und Gynäkologie_, vol. i, p. 296). He made precise observations and came to the conclusion that owing to erectile properties in the neck of the uterus, this part of the womb elongates during congress and reaches down into the pelvis with an aspiratory movement, as if to meet the glans of the male. A little later, in a case of partial prolapse, Beck, in ignorance of Wernich's theory, was enabled to make a very precise observation of the action of the uterus during excitement. In this case the woman was sexually very excitable even under ordinary examination, and Beck carefully noted the phenomena that took place during the orgasm. "The os and cervix uteri," he states, "had been about as firm as usual, moderately hard and, generally speaking, in a natural and normal condition, with the external os closed to such an extent as to admit of the uterine probe with difficulty; but the instant that the height of excitement was at hand, the os opened itself to the extent of fully an inch, as nearly as my eye can judge, made five or six successive gasps as if it were drawing the external os into the cervix, each time powerfully, and, it seemed to me, with a regular rhythmical action, at the same time losing its former density and hardness and becoming quite soft to the touch. Upon the cessation of the action, as related, the os suddenly closed, the cervix again hardened itself, and the intense congestion was dissipated." (J.R. Beck, "How do the Spermatozoa Enter the Uterus?" _American Journal of Obstetrics_, 1874.) It would appear that in the early part of this final process of detumescence the action of the uterus is mainly one of contraction and ejaculation of any mucus that may be contained; Dr. Paul Mundé has described "the gushing, almost in jets," of this mucus which he has observed in an erotic woman under a rather long digital and specular examination. (_American Journal of Obstetrics_, 1893.) It is during the latter part of detumescence, it would seem, and perhaps for a short time after the orgasm is over, that the action of the uterus is mainly aspiratory. While the active part played by the womb in detumescence can no longer be questioned, it need not too hastily be assumed that the belief in the active movements of the spermatozoa must therefore be denied. The vigorous motility of the tadpole-like organisms is obvious to anyone who has ever seen fresh semen under the microscope; and if it is correct, as Clifton Edgar states, that the spermatozoa may retain their full activity in the female organs for at least seventeen days, they have ample time to exert their energies. The fact that impregnation sometimes occurs without rupture of the hymen is not decisive evidence that there has been no penetration, as the hymen may dilate without rupturing; but there seems no reason to doubt that conception has sometimes taken place when ejaculation has occurred without penetration; this is indicated in a fairly objective manner when, as has been occasionally observed, conception has occurred in women whose vaginas were so narrow as scarcely to admit the entrance of a goose-quill; such was the condition in the case of a pregnant woman brought forward by Roubaud. The stories, repeated in various books, of women who have conceived after homosexual relations with partners who had just left their husbands' beds are not therefore inherently impossible.[119] Janke quotes numerous cases in which there has been impregnation in virgins who have merely allowed the penis to be placed in contact with the vulva, the hymen remaining unruptured until delivery.[120] It must be added, however, that even if the semen is effused merely at the mouth of the vagina, without actual penetration, the spermatozoa are still not entirely without any resource save their own motility in the task of reaching the ovum. As we have seen, it is not only the uterus which takes an active part in detumescence; the vagina also is in active movement, and it seems highly probable that, at all events in some women and under some circumstances, such movement favoring aspiration toward the womb may be communicated to the external mouth of the vagina. Riolan (_Anthropographia_, 1626, p. 294) referred to the constriction and dilation of the vulva under the influence of sexual excitement. It is said that in Abyssinia women can, when adopting the straddling posture of coitus, by the movements of their own vaginal muscles alone, grasp the male organ and cause ejaculation, although the man remains passive. According to Lorion the Annamites, adopting the normal posture of coitus, introduce the penis when flaccid or only half erect, the contraction of the vaginal walls completing the process; the penis is very small in this people. It is recognized by gynæcologists that the condition of vaginismus, in which there is spasmodic contraction of the vagina, making intercourse painful or impossible, is but a morbid exaggeration of the normal contraction which occurs in sexual excitement. Even in the absence of sexual excitement there is a vague affection, occurring in both married and unmarried women, and not, it would seem, necessarily hysterical, characterized by quivering or twitching of the vulva; I am told that this is popularly termed "flackering of the shape" in Yorkshire and "taittering of the lips" in Ireland. It may be added that quivering of the gluteal muscles also takes place during detumescence, and that in Indian medicine this is likewise regarded as a sign of sexual desire in women, apart from coitus. A non-medical correspondent in Australia, W.J. Chidley, from whom I have received many communications on this subject, is strongly of opinion from his own observations that not only does the uterus take an active part in coitus, but that under natural conditions the vagina also plays an active part in the process. He was led to suspect such an action many years ago, as well by an experience of his own, as also by hearing from a young woman who met her lover after a long absence that by the excitement thus aroused a tape attached to the underclothes had been drawn into the vagina. Since then the confidences of various friends, together with observations of animals, have confirmed him in the view that the general belief that coitus must be effected by forcible entry of the male organ into a passive vagina is incorrect. He considers that under normal circumstances coitus should take place but rarely, and then only under the most favorable circumstances, perhaps exclusively in spring, and, most especially, only when the woman is ready for it. Then, when in the arms of the man she loves, the vagina, in sympathy with the active movements of the womb, becomes distended at the touch of the turgescent, but not fully erect, penis, "flashes open and draws in the male organ." "All animals," he adds, "have sexual intercourse by the male organ being _drawn_, not forced, into the female. I have been borne out in this by friends who have seen horses, camels, mules and other large animals in the coupling season. What is more absurd, for instance, than to say that an entire _penetrates_ the mare? His penis is a sensitive, beautiful piece of mechanism, which brings its light head here and there till it touches the right spot, when the mare, _if ready_, takes it in. An entire's penis could not penetrate anything; it is a curve, a beautiful curve which would easily bend. A bull's, again, is turned down at the end and, more palpably still, would fold on itself if pressed with force. The womb and vagina of a beautiful and healthy woman constitute a living, vital, moving organ, sensitive to a look, a word, a thought, a hand on the waist." A well-known American author thus writes in confirmation of the foregoing view: "In nature the woman wooes. When impassioned her vagina becomes erect and dilated, and so lubricated with abundant mucus to the lips that entrance is easy. This dilatation and erectile expansion of vagina withdraws the hymen so close to the walls that penetration need not tear it or cause pain. The more muscular, primitive and healthy the woman the tougher and less sensitive the hymen, and the less likely to break or bleed. I think one great function of the foreskin also is to moisten the glans, so that it can be lubricated for entrance, and then to retract, moist side out, to make entrance still easier. I think that in nature the glans penetrates within the labia, is withstood a moment, vibrating, and then all resistance is withdrawn by a sudden 'flashing open' of the gates, permitting easy entrance, and that the sudden giving up of resistance, and substitution of welcome, with its instantaneous deep entrance, causes an almost immediate male orgasm (the thrill being irresistibly exciting). Certainly this is the process as observed in horses, cattle, goats, etc., and it seems likely something analogous is natural in man." While it is easily possible to carry to excess a view which would make the woman rather than the man the active agent in coitus (and it may be recalled that in the Cebidæ the penis, as also the clitoris, is furnished with a bone), there is probably an element of truth in the belief that the vagina shares in the active part which, there can now be little doubt, is played by the uterus in detumescence. Such a view certainly enables us to understand how it is that semen effused on the exterior sexual organs can be conveyed to the uterus. It was indeed the failure to understand the vital activity of the semen and the feminine genital canal, co-operating together towards the junction of sperm cell and germ cell, which for so long stood in the way of the proper understanding of conception. Even the genius of Harvey, which had grappled successfully with the problem of the circulation, failed in the attempt to comprehend the problem of generation. Mainly on account of this difficulty, he was unable to see how the male element could possibly enter the uterus, although he devoted much observation and study to the question. Writing of the uterus of the doe after copulation, he says: "I began to doubt, to ask myself whether the semen of the male could by any possibility make its way by attraction or injection to the seat of conception, and repeated examination led me to the conclusion that none of the semen reached this seat." (_De-Generatione Animalium_, Exercise lxvii.) "The woman," he finally concluded, "after contact with the spermatic fluid _in coitu_, seems to receive an influence and become fecundated without the co-operation of any sensible corporeal agent, in the same way as iron touched by the magnet is endowed with its powers." Although the specifically sexual muscular process of detumescence in women--as distinguished from the general muscular phenomena of sexual excitement which may be fairly obvious--is thus seen to be somewhat complex and obscure, in women as well as in men detumescence is a convulsion which discharges a slowly accumulated store of nervous force. In women also, as in men, the motor discharge is directed to a specific end--the intromission of the semen in the one sex, its reception in the other. In both sexes the sexual orgasm and the pleasure and satisfaction associated with it, involve, as their most essential element, the motor activity of the sexual sphere.[121] The active co-operation of the female organs in detumescence is probably indicated by the difficulty which is experienced in achieving conception by the artificial injection of semen. Marion Sims stated in 1866, in _Clinical Notes on Uterine Surgery_, that in 55 injections in six women he had only once been successful; he believed that that was the only case at that time on record. Jacobi had, however, practiced artificial fecundation in animals (in 1700) and John Hunter in man. See Gould and Pyle, _Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine_, p. 43; also Janke (_Die Willkürliche Hervorbringen des Geschlechts_, pp. 230 et seq.) who discusses the question of artificial fecundation and brings together a mass of data. The facial expression when tumescence is completed is marked by a high degree of energy in men and of loveliness in women. At this moment, when the culminating act of life is about to be accomplished, the individual thus reaches his supreme state of radiant beauty. The color is heightened, the eyes are larger and brighter, the facial muscles are more tense, so that in mature individuals any wrinkles disappear and youthfulness returns. At the beginning of detumescence the features are frequently more discomposed. There is a general expression of eager receptivity to sensory impressions. The dilatation of the pupils, the expansion of the nostrils, the tendency to salivation and to movements of the tongue, all go to make up a picture which indicates an approaching gratification of sensory desires; it is significant that in some animals there is at this moment erection of the ears.[122] There is sometimes a tendency to utter broken and meaningless words, and it is noted that sometimes women have called out on their mothers.[123] The dilatation of the pupils produces photophobia, and in the course of detumescence the eyes are frequently closed from this cause. At the beginning of sexual excitement, Vaschide and Vurpas have observed, tonicity of the eye-muscles seems to increase; the elevators of the upper lids contract, so that the eyes look larger and their mobility and brightness are heightened; with the increase of muscular tonicity strabismus occurs, owing to the greater strength of the muscles that carry the eyes inward.[124] The facial expression which marks the culmination of tumescence, and the approach of detumescence is that which is generally expressive of joy. In an interesting psycho-physical study of the emotion of joy, Dearborn thus summarizes its characteristics: "The eyes are brighter and the upper eyelid elevated, as also are the brows, the skin over the glabella, the upper lip and the corners of the mouth, while the skin at the outer canthi of the eye is puckered. The nostrils are moderately dilated, the tongue slightly extended and the cheeks somewhat expanded, while in persons with largely developed pinnal muscles the ears tend somewhat to incline forwards. The whole arterial system is dilated, with consequent blushing from this effect on the dermal capillaries of the face, neck, scalp and hands, and sometimes more extensively even; from the same cause the eyes slightly bulge. The whole glandular system likewise is stimulated, causing the secretions,--gastric, salivary, lachrymal, sudoral, mammary, genital, etc.--to be increased, with the resulting rise of temperature and increase in the katobolism generally. Volubility is almost regularly increased, and is, indeed, one of the most sensitive and constant of the correlations in emotional delight.... Pleasantness is correlated in living organisms by vascular, muscular and glandular extension or expansion, both literal and figurative." (G. Dearborn, "The Emotion of Joy," _Psychological Review Monograph Supplements_, vol. ii, No. 5, p. 62.) All these signs of joy appear to occur at some stage of the process of sexual excitement. In some monkeys it would seem that the muscular movement which in man has become the smile is the characteristic facial expression of sexual tumescence or courtship. Discussing the facial expression of pleasure in children, S.S. Buckman has the following remarks: "There is one point in such expression which has not received due consideration, namely, the raising of lumps of flesh each side of the nose as an indication of pleasure. Accompanying this may be seen small furrows, both in children and adults, running from the eyes somewhat obliquely towards the nose. What these characters indicate may be learned from the male mandril, whose face, particularly in the breeding season, shows colored fleshy prominences each side of the nose, with conspicuous furrows and ridges. In the male mandril these characters have been developed because, being an unmistakable sign of sexual ardor, they gave the female particular evidence of sexual feelings. Thus such characters would come to be recognized as habitually symptomatic of pleasurable feelings. Finding similar features in human beings, and particularly in children, though not developed in the same degree, we may assume that in our monkey-like ancestors facial characters similar to those of the mandril were developed, though to a less extent, and that they were symptomatic of pleasure, because connected with the period of courtship. Then they became conventionalized as pleasurable symptoms." (S.S. Buckmann, "Human Babies: What They Teach," _Nature_, July 5, 1900.) If this view is accepted, it may be said that the smile, having in man become a generalized sign of amiability, has no longer any special sexual significance. It is true that a faint and involuntary smile is often associated with the later stages of tumescence, but this is usually lost during detumescence, and may even give place to an expression of ferocity. When we have realized how profound is the organic convulsion involved by the process of detumescence, and how great the general motor excitement involved, we can understand how it is that very serious effects may follow coitus. Even in animals this is sometimes the case. Young bulls and stallions have fallen in a faint after the first congress; boars may be seriously affected in a similar way; mares have been known even to fall dead.[125] In the human species, and especially in men--probably, as Bryan Robinson remarks, because women are protected by the greater slowness with which detumescence occurs in them--not only death itself, but innumerable disorders and accidents have been known to follow immediately after coitus, these results being mainly due to the vascular and muscular excitement involved by the processes of detumescence. Fainting, vomiting, urination, defæcation have been noted as occurring in young men after a first coitus. Epilepsy has been not infrequently recorded. Lesions of various organs, even rupture of the spleen, have sometimes taken place. In men of mature age the arteries have at times been unable to resist the high blood-pressure, and cerebral hæmorrhage with paralysis has occurred. In elderly men the excitement of intercourse with strange women has sometimes caused death, and various cases are known of eminent persons who have thus died in the arms of young wives or of prostitutes.[126] These morbid results, are, however, very exceptional. They usually occur in persons who are abnormally sensitive, or who have imprudently transgressed the obvious rules of sexual hygiene. Detumescence is so profoundly natural a process; it is so deeply and intimately a function of the organism, that it is frequently harmless even when the bodily condition is far from absolutely sound. Its usual results, under favorable circumstances, are entirely beneficial. In men there normally supervenes, together with the relief from the prolonged tension of tumescence, with the muscular repose and falling blood-pressure,[127] a sense of profound satisfaction, a glow of diffused well-being,[128] perhaps an agreeable lassitude, occasionally also a sense of mental liberation from an overmastering obsession. Under reasonably happy circumstances there is no pain, or exhaustion, or sadness, or emotional revulsion. The happy lover's attitude toward his partner is not expressed by the well-known Sonnet (CXXIX) of Shakespeare:-- "Past reason hunted, and no sooner had Past reason hated." He feels rather with Boccaccio that the kissed mouth loses not its charm, "Bocca baciata non perde ventura." In women the results of detumescence are the same, except that the tendency to lassitude is not marked unless the act has been several times repeated; there is a sensation of repose and self-assurance, and often an accession of free and joyous energy. After completely satisfactory detumescence she may experience a feeling as of intoxication, lasting for several hours, an intoxication that is followed by no evil reaction. Such, so far as our present vague and imperfect knowledge extends, are the main features in the process of detumescence. In the future, without doubt, we shall learn to know more precisely a process which has been so supremely important in the life of man and of his ancestors. FOOTNOTES: [98] The elements furnished by the sense of touch in sexual selection have been discussed in the first section of the previous volume of these _Studies_. [99] See Appendix A. "The Origins of the Kiss," in the previous volume. [100] See, e.g., Art. "Erection," by Retterer, in Richet's _Dictionnaire de Physiologie_, vol. v. [101] Guibaut, _Traité Clinique des Maladies des Femmes_, p. 242. Adler discusses the sexual secretions in women and their significance, _Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, pp. 19-26. [102] In some parts of the world this is further aided by artificial means. Thus it is stated by Riedel (as quoted by Ploss and Bartels) that in the Gorong Archipelago the bridegroom, before the first coitus, anoints the bride's pudenda with an ointment containing opium, musk, etc. I have been told of an English bride who was instructed by her mother to use a candle for the same purpose. [103] _Parthenologia_, pp. 302, et seq. [104] The connection of this mucous flow with sexual emotion was discussed early in the eighteenth century by Schurig in his _Gynæcologia_, pp. 8-11; it is frequently passed over by more modern writers. [105] The drawing is reproduced by Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, vol. i, Chapter XVII; many facts bearing on the ethnography of coitus are brought together in this chapter. [106] Onanoff (Paris Société de Biologie, May 3, 1890) proposed the name of bulbo-cavernous reflex for the smart contraction of the ischio-and bulbo-cavernosus muscles (erector penis and accelerator urinæ) produced by mechanical excitation of the glans. This reflex is clinically elicited by placing the index-finger of the left hand on the region of the bulb while the right hand rapidly rubs the dorsal surface of the glands with the edge of a piece of paper or lightly pinches the mucous membrane; a twitching of the region of the bulb is then perceived. This reflex is always present in healthy adult subjects and indicates the integrity of the physical mechanism of detumescence. It has been described by Hughes. (C.H. Hughes, "The Virile or Bulbo-cavernous Reflex," _Alienist and Neurologist_, January, 1898.) [107] Roubaud, _Traité de l'Impuissance_, 1855, p. 39. [108] _Das Weib_, seventh edition, vol. i, p. 510. [109] The influence of impeded respiration in exciting more or less perverted forms of sexual gratification has been discussed in a section of "Love and Pain" in the third volume of these _Studies_. [110] See, e.g., the experiments of Obici on this point, _Revista Sperimentale di Freniatria_, 1903, pp. 689, et seq. [111] Summarized in _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, March, 1903, p. 188. The tendency to closure of the eyes noted by Roubaud, to avoid contact of the light, indicates dilatation of the pupils, for which we need not seek other explanation than the general tendency of all peripheral stimulation, according to Schiff's law, to produce such dilatation. [112] Vaschide and Vurpas, "Du Coefficient Sexuel de l'Impulsion Musicale," _Archives de Neurologie_, May, 1904. [113] In the _Priapeia_ is an inscription which has thus been translated:-- "You see this organ, after which I'm called And which is my certificate, is humid; This moisture is not dew nor drops of rain, It is the outcome of sweet memory, Recalling thoughts of a complacent maid." The translator supposes that semen is referred to, but without doubt the allusion is to the theologians' _distillatio_. [114] A woman of 30, normal and intelligent, after conversing on love and passion, and then listening to the music of Grieg and Schumann, felt real and strong sexual excitement, increased by memories recalled by the presence of a sympathetic person. When then tested by the dynamometer the average of ten efforts with the right hand was found to be 28.2 (her normal average being 31.1) and with the left hand 28.0 (the normal being 30.0). There was, however, great variability in the individual pressures which sometimes equaled and even exceeded the subject's normal efforts. The voluntary muscles are thus in harmony with the approaching general sexual avalanche. (Vaschide and Vurpas, "Quelques Données Expérimentales sur l'Influence de l'Excitation Sexuelle," _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1903, fasc. v-vi.) [115] Cf. MacGillicuddy, _Functional Disorders of the Nervous System in Women_, p. 110; Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, second edition, p. 238; id., "Note sur une Anomalie de l'instinct Sexuel," _Belgique Médicale_, 1905; also "Analysis of the Sexual Impulse," in an earlier volume of these _Studies_. [116] J.P. West, "Masturbation in Early Childhood," _Medical Standard_, November, 1895. [117] Cf. the discussion of hysteria in "Auto-Erotism," vol. i of these _Studies_. [118] Hirst, _Text-Book of Obstetrics_, 1899, p. 67. [119] The earliest story of the kind with which I am acquainted, that of a widow who was thus impregnated by a married friend, is quoted in Schurig's _Spermatologia_ (p. 224) from Amatus Lusitanus, _Curationum Centuriæ Septum_, 1629. [120] Janke, _Die Willkürliche Hervorbringen des Geschlechts_, p. 238. [121] Cf. Adler, _Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, pp. 29-38. [122] Féré, _Pathologie des Emotions_, p. 51. [123] This is an instinctive impulse under all strong emotion in primitive persons. "The Australian Dieri," says A.W. Howitt (_Journal Anthropological Institute_, August, 1890), "when in pain or grief cry out for their father or mother." [124] Vaschide and Vurpas, _Archives de Neurologie_, May, 1904. [125] F.B. Robinson, _New York Medical Journal_, March 11, 1893. [126] Féré deals fully with the various morbid results which may follow coitus, _L' Instinct Sexuel_, Chapter X; id., _Pathologie des Emotions_, p. 99. [127] With regard to the relationship of detumescence to the blood-pressure Haig remarks: "I think that as the sexual act produces low and falling blood-pressure, it will of necessity relieve conditions which are due to high and rising blood-pressure, such, for instance, as mental depression and bad temper; and, unless my observation deceives me, we have here a connection between conditions of high blood-pressure, with mental and bodily depression, and the act of masturbation, for this act will relieve those conditions, and will tend to be practiced for this purpose." (A. Haig, _Uric Acid_, sixth edition, p. 154.) [128] A medical correspondent speaks of subjective feelings of temperature coming over the body from 20 to 24 hours after congress, and marked by sensations of cooling of body and glow of cheeks. In another case, though lassitude appears on the second day after congress, the first day after is marked by a notable increase in mental and physical activity. III. The Constituents of Semen--Function of the Prostate--The Properties of Semen--Aphrodisiacs--Alcohol, Opium, etc.--Anaphrodisiacs--The Stimulant Influence of Semen in Coitus--The Internal Effects of Testicular Secretions--The Influence of Ovarian Secretion. The germ cell never comes into the sphere of consciousness and cannot therefore concern us in the psychological study of the phenomena of the sexual instinct. But it is otherwise with the sperm cell, and the seminal fluid has a relationship, both direct and indirect, to psychic phenomena which it is now necessary to discuss. While the spermatozoa are formed in the glandular tissue of the testes, the seminal fluid as finally emitted in detumescence is not a purely testicular product, but is formed by mixture with the fluids poured out at or before detumescence by various glands which open into the urethra, and notably the prostate.[129] This is a purely sexual gland, which in animals only becomes large and active during the breeding season, and may even be hardly distinguishable at other times; moreover, if the testes are removed in infancy, the prostate remains rudimentary, so that during recent years removal of the testes has been widely advocated and practiced for that hypertrophy of the prostate which is sometimes a distressing ailment of old age. It is the prostatic fluid, according to Fürbringer, which imparts its characteristic odor to semen. It appears, however, to be the main function of the prostatic fluid to arouse and maintain the motility of the spermatozoa; before meeting the prostatic fluid the spermatozoa are motionless; that fluid seems to furnish a thinner medium in which they for the first time gain their full vitality.[130] When at length the semen is ejaculated, it contains various substances which may be separated from it,[131] and possesses various qualities, some of which have only lately been investigated, while others have evidently been known to mankind from a very early period. "When held for some time in the mouth," remarked John Hunter, "it produces a warmth similar to spices, which lasts some time."[132] Possibly this fact first suggested that semen might, when ingested, possess valuable stimulant qualities, a discovery which has been made by various savages, notably by the Australian aborigines, who, in many parts of Australia, administer a potion of semen to dying or feeble members of the tribe.[133] It is perhaps noteworthy that in Central Africa the testes of the goat are consumed as an aphrodisiac.[134] In eighteenth century Europe, Schurig, in his _Spermatologia_, still found it necessary to discuss at considerable length the possible medical properties of human semen, giving many prescriptions which contained it.[135] The stimulation produced by the ingestion of semen would appear to form in some cases a part of the attraction exerted by _fellatio_; De Sade emphasized this point; and in a case recorded by Howard semen appears to have acted as a stimulant for which the craving was as irresistible as is that for alcohol in dipsomania.[136] It must be remembered that the early history of this subject is more or less inextricably commingled with folk-lore practices of magical origin, not necessarily founded on actual observation of the physiological effects of consuming the semen or testes. Thus, according to W.H. Pearse (_Scalpel_, December, 1897), it is the custom in Cornwall for country maids to eat the testicles of the young male lambs when they are castrated in the spring, the survival, probably, of a very ancient religious cult. (I have not myself been able to hear of this custom in Cornwall.) In Burchard's Penitential (Cap. CLIV, Wasserschleben, op. cit., p. 660) seven years' penance is assigned to the woman who swallows her husband's semen to make him love her more. In the seventeenth century (as shown in William Salmon's _London Dispensatory_, 1678) semen was still considered to be good against witchcraft and also valuable as a love-philter, in which latter capacity its use still survives. (Bourke, _Scatalogic Rites_, pp. 343, 355.) In an earlier age (Picart, quoted by Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_, p. 109) the Manichæans, it is said, sprinkled their eucharistic bread with human semen, a custom followed by the Albigenses. The belief, perhaps founded in experience, that semen possesses medical and stimulant virtues was doubtless fortified by the ancient opinion that the spinal cord is the source of this fluid. This was not only held by the highest medical authorities in Greece, but also in India and Persia. The semen is thus a natural stimulant, a physiological aphrodisiac, the type of a class of drugs which have been known and cultivated in all parts of the world from time immemorial. (Dufour has discussed the aphrodisiacs used in ancient Rome, _Histoire de la Prostitution_, vol. II, ch. 21.) It would be vain to attempt to enumerate all the foods and medicaments to which has been ascribed an influence in heightening the sexual impulse. (Thus, in the sixteenth century, aphrodisiacal virtues were attributed to an immense variety of foods by Liébault in his _Thresor des Remèdes Secrets pour les Maladies des Femmes_, 1585, pp. 104, et seq.) A large number of them certainly have no such effect at all, but have obtained this credit either on some magical ground or from a mistaken association. Thus the potato, when first introduced from America, had the reputation of being a powerful aphrodisiac, and the Elizabethan dramatists contain many references to this supposed virtue. As we know, potatoes, even when taken in the largest doses, have not the slightest aphrodisiac effect, and the Irish peasantry, whose diet consists very largely of potatoes, are even regarded as possessing an unusually small measure of sexual feeling. It is probable that the mistake arose from the fact that potatoes were originally a luxury, and luxuries frequently tend to be regarded as aphrodisiacs, since they are consumed under circumstances which tend to arouse the sexual desires. It is possible also that, as has been plausibly suggested, the misunderstanding may have been due to sailors--the first to be familiar with the potato--who attributed to this particular element of their diet ashore the generally stimulating qualities of their life in port. The eryngo (_Eryngium maritimum_), or sea holly, which also had an erotic reputation in Elizabethan times, may well have acquired it in the same way. Many other vegetables have a similar reputation, which they still retain. Thus onions are regarded as aphrodisiacal, and were so regarded by the Greeks, as we learn from Aristophanes. It is noteworthy that Marro, a reliable observer, has found that in Italy, both in prisons and asylums, lascivious people are fond of onions (_La Pubertà_, p. 297), and it may perhaps be worth while to recall the observation of Sérieux that in a woman in whom the sexual instinct only awoke in middle age there was a horror of leeks. In some countries, and especially in Belgium, celery is popularly looked upon as a sexual stimulant. Various condiments, again, have the same reputation, perhaps because they are hot and because sexual desire is regarded, rightly enough, as a kind of heat. Fish--skate, for instance, and notably oysters and other shellfish--are very widely regarded as aphrodisiacs, and Kisch attributes this property to caviar. It is probable that all these and other foods which have obtained this reputation, in so far as they have any action whatever on the sexual appetite, only possess it by virtue of their generally nutritious and stimulating qualities, and not by the presence of any special principle having a selective action on the sexual sphere. A beefsteak is probably as powerful a sexual stimulant as any food; a nutritious food, however, which is at the same time easily digestible, and thus requiring less expenditure of energy for its absorption, may well exert a specially rapid and conspicuous stimulant effect. But it is not possible to draw a line, and, as Aquinas long since said, if we wish to maintain ourselves in a state of purity we shall fear even an immoderate use of bread and water. More definitely aphrodisiacal effects are produced by drugs, and especially by drugs which in large doses are poisons. The aphrodisiac with the widest popular reputation is cantharides, but its sexually exciting effects are merely an accidental result of its action in causing inflammation of the genito-urinary passage, and it is both an uncertain and a dangerous result, except in skillful hands and when administered in small doses. Nux vomica (with its alkaloid strychnia), by virtue of its special action on the spinal cord, has a notably pronounced effect in heightening the irritability of the spinal ejaculatory center, though it by no means necessarily exerts any strengthening influence. Alcohol exerts a sexually exciting effect, but in a different manner; it produces little stimulation of the cord and, indeed, even paralyzes the lumbar sexual center in large doses, but it has an influence on the peripheral nerve-endings and on the skin, and also on the cerebral centers, tending to arouse desire and to diminish inhibition. In this latter way, as Adler remarks, it may, in small doses, under some circumstances, be beneficial in men with an excessive nervousness or dread of coitus, and women, in whom orgasm has been difficult to reach, have frequently found this facilitated by some previous indulgence in alcohol. The aphrodisiac effect of alcohol seems specially marked on women. But against the use of alcohol as an aphrodisiac it must be remembered that it is far from being a tonic to detumescence, at all events in men, and that there is much evidence tending to show that not only chronic alcoholism, but even procreation during intoxication is perilous to the offspring (see, e.g., Andriezen, _Journal of Mental Science_, January, 1905, and cf. W.C. Sullivan, "Alcoholism and Suicidal Impulses," ib., April, 1898, p. 268); it may be added that Bunge has found a very high proportion of cases of immoderate use of alcohol in the fathers of women unable to suckle their infants (G. von Bunge, _Die Zunehmende Unfähigkeit der Frauen ihre Kinder zu Stillen_, 1903) while even an approximation to the drunken state is far from being a desirable prelude to the creation of a new human being. It is obvious that those who wish, for any reason, to cultivate a strict chastity of thought and feeling would do well to avoid alcohol altogether, or only in its lightest forms and in moderation. The aphrodisiacal effects of wine have long been known; Ovid refers to them (e.g., _Ars Am._, Bk. III, 765). Clement of Alexandria, who was something of a man of science as well as a Christian moralist, points out the influence of wine in producing lasciviousness and sexual precocity. (_Pædagogus_, Bk. II, Chapter II). Chaucer makes the Wife of Bath say in the Wife of Bath's Prologue:-- "And, after wyn, on Venus moste [needs] I thinke: For al so siken as cold engendreth hayl, A likerous mouth moste have a likerous tayl, In womman vinolent is no defense, This knowen lechours by experience." Alcohol, as Chaucer pointed out, comes to the aid of the man, who is unscrupulous in his efforts to overcome a woman, and this not merely by virtue of its aphrodisiacal effects, and the apparently special influence which it seems to exert on women, but also because it lulls the mental and emotional characteristics which are the guardians of personality. A correspondent who has questioned on this point a number of prostitutes he has known, writes: "Their accounts of the first fall were nearly always the same. They got to know a 'gentleman,' and on one occasion they drank too much; before they quite realized what was happening they were no longer virgins." "In the mental areas, under the influence of alcohol," Schmiedeberg remarks (in his _Elements of Pharmacology_), "the finer degrees of observation, judgment, and reflection are the first to disappear, while the remaining mental functions remain in a normal condition. The soldier acts more boldly because he notices dangers less and reflects over them less; the orator does not allow himself to be influenced by any disturbing side-considerations as to his audience, hence he speaks more freely and spiritedly; self-consciousness is lost to a very great extent, and many are astounded at the ease with which they can express their thoughts, and at the acuteness of their judgment in matters which, when they are perfectly sober, with difficulty reach their minds; and then afterwards they are ashamed at their mistakes." The action of opium in small doses is also to some extent aphrodisiacal; it slightly stimulates both the brain and the spinal cord, and has sensory effects on the skin like alcohol; these effects are favored by the state of agreeable dreaminess it produces. In the seventeenth century Venette (_La Génération de l'Homme_, Part II, Chapter V) strongly recommended small doses of opium, then little known, for this purpose; he had himself, he says, in illness experienced its joys, "a shadow of those of heaven." In India opium (as well as cannabis indica) has long been a not uncommon aphrodisiac; it is specially used to diminish local sensibility, delaying the orgasm and thus prolonging the sexual act. (W.D. Sutherland, "De Impotentia," _Indian Medical Gazette_, January, 1900). Its more direct and stimulating influence on the sexual emotions seems indicated by the statement that prostitutes are found standing outside the opium-smoking dens of Bombay, but not outside the neighboring liquor shops. (G.C. Lucas, _Lancet_, February 2, 1884.) Like alcohol, opium seems to have a marked aphrodisiacal effect on women. The case is recorded of a mentally deranged girl, with no nymphomania though she masturbated, who on taking small doses of opium at once showed signs of nymphomania, following men about, etc. (_American Journal Obstetrics_, May, 1901, p. 74.) It may well be believed that opium acts beneficially in men when the ejaculatory centers are weak but irritable; but its actions are too widespread over the organism to make it in any degree a valuable aphrodisiac. Various other drugs have more or less reputation as aphrodisiacs; thus bromide of gold, a nervous and glandular stimulant, is said to have as one of its effects a heightening of sexual feeling. Yohimbin, an alkaloid derived from the West African Yohimbehe tree, has obtained considerable repute during recent years in the treatment of impotence; in some cases (see, e.g., Toff's results, summarized in _British Medical Journal_, February 18, 1905) it has produced good results, apparently by increasing the blood supply to the sexual organs, but has not been successful in all cases or in all hands. It must always be remembered that in cases of psychical impotence suggestion necessarily exerts a beneficial influence, and this may work through any drug or merely with the aid of bread pills. All exercise, often even walking, may be a sexual stimulant, and it is scarcely necessary to add that powerful stimulation of the skin in the sexual sphere, and more especially of the nates, is often a more effective aphrodisiac than any drug, whether the irritation is purely mechanical, as by flogging, or mechanico-chemical, as by urtication or the application of nettles. Among the Malays (with whom both men and women often use a variety of plants as aphrodisiacs, according to Vaughan Stevens) Breitenstein states (_21 Jahre in India_, Theil I, p. 228) that both massage and gymnastics are used to increase sexual powers. The local application of electricity is one of the most powerful of aphrodisiacs, and McMordie found on applying one pole to a uterine sound in the uterus and the other to the abdominal wall that in the majority of healthy women the orgasm occurred. Among anaphrodisiacs, or sexual sedatives, bromide of potassium, by virtue of its antidotal relationship to strychnia, is one of the drugs whose action is most definite, though, while it dulls sexual desire, it also dulls all the nervous and cerebral activities. Camphor has an ancient reputation as an anaphrodisiac, and its use in this respect was known to the Arabs (as may be seen by a reference to it in the _Perfumed Garden_), while, as Hyrtl mentions (loc. cit. ii, p. 94), rue (_Ruta graveolens_) was considered a sexual sedative by the monks of old, who on this account assiduously cultivated it in their cloister gardens to make _vinum rutæ_. Recently heroin in large doses (see, e.g., Becker, _Berliner Klinische Wochenschrift_, November 23, 1903) has been found to have a useful effect in this direction. It may be doubted, however, whether there is any satisfactory and reliable anaphrodisiac. Charcot, indeed, it is said, used to declare that the only anaphrodisiac in which he had any confidence was that used by the uncle of Heloïse in the case of Abelard. "_Cela_ (he would add with a grim smile) _tranche la difficulte_." If semen is a stimulant when ingested, it is easy to suppose that it may exert a similar action on the woman who receives it into the vagina in normal sexual congress. It is by no means improbable that, as Mattei argued in 1878, this is actually the case. It is known that the vagina possesses considerable absorptive power. Thus Coen and Levi, among others, have shown that if a tampon soaked in a solution of iodine is introduced into the vagina, iodine will be found in the urine within an hour. And the same is true of various other substances.[137] If the vagina absorbs drugs it probably absorbs semen. Toff, of Braila (Roumania), who attaches much importance to such absorption, considers that it must be analogous to the ingestion of organic extractives. It is due to this influence, he believes, that weak and anæmic girls so often become full-blooded and robust after marriage, and lose their nervous tendencies and shyness.[138] It is, however, most certainly a mistake to suppose that the beneficial influence of coitus on women is exclusively, or even mainly, dependent upon the absorption of semen. This is conclusively demonstrated by the fact that such beneficial influence is exerted, and in full measure, even when all precautions have been taken to avoid any contact with the semen. In so far as _coitus reservatus_ or _interruptus_ may lead to haste or discomfort which prevents satisfactory orgasm on the part of the woman, it is without doubt a cause of defective detumescence and incomplete satisfaction. But if orgasm is complete the beneficial effects of coitus follow even if there has been no possibility of the absorption of semen. Even after _coitus interruptus_, if it can be prolonged for a period long enough for the woman to attain full and complete satisfaction, she is enabled to experience what she may describe as a feeling of intoxication, lasting for several hours. It is in the action of the orgasm itself, and the vascular, secretory, and metabolic activities set up by the psychic and nervous influence of coitus with a beloved person, that we must seek the chief key to the effects produced by coitus on women, however these effects may possibly be still further heightened by the actual absorption of semen.[139] The positive action of semen, or rather of the testicular products, has been much investigated during recent years, and appears on the whole to be demonstrated. The notable discovery by Brown-Séquard, a quarter of a century ago, that the ingestion of the testicular juices in states of debility and senility acted as a beneficial stimulant and tonic, opened the way to a new field of therapeutics. Many investigators in various countries have found that testicular extracts, and more especially the spermin as studied by Poehl,[140] and by him regarded as a positive katalysator or accelerator of metabolic processes, exert a real influence in giving tone to the heart and other muscles, and in improving the metabolism of the tissues even when all influences of mental suggestion have been excluded.[141] As the ovaries are strictly analogous to the testes, it was surmised that ovarian extract might prove a drug equally valuable with testicular products. As a matter of fact, ovarian extract, in the form of ovarin, etc., would seem to have proved beneficial in various disorders, more especially in anæmia and in troubles due to the artificial menopause. In most conditions, however, in which it has been employed the results are doubtful or uncertain, and some authorities believe that the influence of suggestion plays a considerable part here. There is, however, another use which is subserved by the testicular products, a use which may indeed be said to be implied in those uses to which reference has already been made, but is yet historically the latest to be realized and studied. It was not until 1869 that Brown-Séquard first suggested that an important secretion was elaborated by the ductless glands and received into the circulation, but that suggestion proved to be epoch-making. If these glandular secretions are so valuable when administered as drugs to other persons, must they not be of far greater value when naturally secreted and poured out into the circulation in the living body? It is now generally believed, on the basis of a large and various body of evidence, that this is undoubtedly so. In a very crude form, indeed, this belief is by no means modern. In opposition to the old writers who were inclined to regard the semen as an excretion which it was beneficial to expel, there were other ancient authorities who argued that it was beneficial to retain it as being a vital fluid which, if reabsorbed, served to invigorate the body. The great physiologist, Haller, in the middle of the eighteenth century, came very near to the modern doctrine when he stated in his _Elements of Physiology_ that the sperm accumulated in the seminical vesicles is pumped back into the blood, and thus produces the beard and the hair together with the other surprising changes of puberty which are absent in the eunuch. The reabsorption of semen can scarcely be said to be a part of the modern physiological doctrine, but it is at least now generally held that the testes secrete substances which pass into the circulation and are of immense importance in the development of the organism. The experiments of Shattock and Seligmann indicate that the semen and its reabsorption in the seminal vesicles, or the nervous reactions produced by its presence, can have no part in the formation of secondary sexual characters. These investigators occluded the vas deferens in sheep by ligature, at an early age, rendering them later sterile though not impotent. The secondary sexual characters appeared as in ordinary sheep. Spermatogenesis, these inquirers conclude, may be the initial factor, but the results must be attributed to the elaboration by the testicles of an internal secretion and its absorption into the general circulation.[142] When animals are castrated there is enlargement of the ductless glands in the body, notably the thyroid and the suprarenal capsules.[143] It is evident, therefore, that the secretions of these ductless glands are in some degree compensatory to those of the testes. But this compensatory action is inadequate to produce any sexual development in the absence of the testes. We see, therefore, how extremely important is the function of the testis. Its significance is not alone for the race, it is not simply concerned with the formation of the spermatozoa which share equally with the ova the honor of making the mankind of the future. It also has a separate and distinct function which has reference to the individual. It elaborates those internal secretions which stimulate and maintain the physical and mental characters, constituting all that is most masculine in the male animal, all that makes the man in distinction from the eunuch. Among various primitive peoples, including those of the European race whence we ourselves spring, the most solemn form of oath was sworn by placing the hand on the testes, dimly recognized as the most sacred part of the body. A crude and passing phase of civilization has ignorantly cast ignominy upon the sexual organs; the more primitive belief is now justified by our advancing knowledge. In these as in other respects the ovaries are precisely analogous to the testes. They not only form the ova, but they elaborate for internal use a secretion which develops and maintains the special physical and mental qualities of womanhood, as the testicular secretion those of manhood. Moreover, as Cecca and Zappi found, removal of the ovaries has exactly the same effect on the abnormal development of the other ductless glands as has removal of the testes. It is of interest to point out that the internal secretion of the ovaries and its important functions seem to have been suggested before any other secretion than the sperm was attributed to the testes. Early in the nineteenth century Cabanis argued ("De l'Influence des Sexes sur le Caractère des Idées et des Affections Morales," _Rapport du Physique et du Moral de l'Homme_, 1824, vol. ii, p. 18) that the ovaries are secreting glands, forming a "particular humor" which is reabsorbed into the blood and imparts excitations which are felt by the whole system and all its organs. FOOTNOTES: [129] The composite character of the semen was recognized by various old authors, some of whom said, (e.g., Wharton) that it had three constituents, which they usually considered to be: (1) The noblest and most essential part, from the testicles; (2) a watery element from the vesiculæ; (3) an oily element from the prostate. Schurig, _Spermatologia_, 1720, p. 17. [130] See, e.g., C. Mansell Moulin, "A Contribution to the Morphology of the Prostate," _Journal of Anatomy and Physiology_, January, 1895; G. Walker, "A Contribution to the Anatomy and Physiology of the Prostate Gland, and a Few Observations on Ejaculation," _Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin_, October, 1900. [131] For a study of the semen and its constituents, see Florence, "Du Sperme," _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, 1895. [132] J. Hunter, _Essays and Observations_, vol. i, p. 189. [133] As regards one part of Australia, Walter Roth, _Ethnological Studies Among the Queensland Aborigines_, p. 174. [134] Sir H.H. Johnston, _British Central Africa_, p. 438. [135] Cap. VII, pp. 327-357, "De Spermaticis virilis usu Medico," [136] W.L. Howard, "Sexual Perversion," _Alienist and Neurologist_, January, 1896. [137] _Zentralblatt für Gynäkologie_, 1894, No. 49. [138] E. Toff, "Uber Imprägnierung," _Zentralblatt für Gynäkologie_, April, 1903. In a similar but somewhat more precise manner Dufougère has argued ("La Chlorose, ses rapports avec le marriage, son traitement par le liquide orchitique," Thèse de Bordeaux, 1902) that semen when absorbed by the vagina stimulates the secretion of the ovaries and thus exerts an influence over the blood in anæmia; in this way he seeks to explain why it is that coitus is the best treatment for chlorosis. [139] In this connection I may refer to an interesting and suggestive paper by Harry Campbell on "The Craving for Stimulants" (_Lancet_, October 21, 1899). No reference is made to coitus, but the author discusses stimulants as normal and beneficial products of the organism, and deals with the nature of the "physiological intoxication" they produce. [140] Spermin was first discovered in the sperm by Schreiner in 1878; it has also been found in the thyroid, ovaries and various other glands. "The spermin secreting and elaborating organs," Howard Kelly remarks (_British Medical Journal_, January 29, 1898), "may be called the apothecaries' of the body, secreting many important medicaments, much more active and more accurately representing its true wants than artificially administered drugs." [141] See, e.g., a summary of Buschan's comprehensive discussion of the subject of organotherapy (Eulenburg's _Real-Encyclopædie der Gesammten Heilkunde_) in _Journal of Mental Science_, April, 1899, p. 355. [142] "Observations Upon the Acquirement of Secondary Sexual Characters, Indicating the Formation of an Internal Secretion by the Testicles," _Proceedings Royal Society_, vol. lxxiii, p. 49. [143] See, e.g., the experiments of Cecca and Zappi, summarized in _British Medical Journal_, July 2, 1904. IV. The Aptitude for Detumescence--Is There an Erotic Temperament?--The Available Standards of Comparison--Characteristics of the Castrated--Characteristics of Puberty--Characteristics of the State of Detumescence--Shortness of Stature--Development of the Secondary Sexual Characters--Deep Voice--Bright Eyes--Glandular Activity--Everted Lips--Pigmentation--Profuse Hair--Dubious Significance of Many of These Characters. What, if any, are the indications which the body generally may furnish as to the individual's aptitude and vigor for the orgasm of detumescence? Is there an erotic temperament outwardly and visibly displayed? That is a question which has often occupied those who have sought to penetrate the more intimate mysteries of human nature, and since we are here concerned with human beings in their relationship to the process of detumescence, we cannot altogether pass over this question, difficult as it is to discuss it with precision. The old physiognomists showed much confidence in dealing with the matter. Possibly they had more opportunities for observation than we have, since they often wrote in days when life was lived more nakedly than among ourselves, but their descriptions, while sometimes showing much insight, are inextricably mixed up with false science and superstition. In the _De Secretis Mulierum_, wrongly attributed to Albertus Magnus, we find a chapter entitled "Signa mulieris calidæ naturæ et quæ coit libenter," which may be summarized here. "The signs," we are told, "of a woman of warm temperament, and one who willingly cohabits are these: youth, an age of over 12, or younger, if she has been seduced, small, high breasts, full and hard, hair in the usual positions; she is bold of speech, with a delicate and high voice, haughty and even cruel of disposition, of good complexion, lean rather than stout, inclined to like drinking. Such a woman always desires coitus, and receives satisfaction in the act. The menstrual flow is not abundant nor always regular. If she becomes pregnant the milk is not abundant. Her perspiration is less odorous than that of the woman of opposite temperament; she is fond of singing, and of moving about, and delights in adornments if she has any." Polemon, in his _Sulla Physionomia_, has given among the signs of libidinous impulse: knees turned inwards, abundance of hairs on the legs, squint, bright eyes, a high and strident voice, and in women length of leg below the knee. Aristotle had mentioned among the signs of wantonness: paleness, abundance of hair on the body, thick and black hair, hairs covering the temples, and thick eyelids. In the seventeenth century Bouchet, in his _Serées_ (Troisième Serée), gave as the signs of virility which indicated that a man could have children: a great voice, a thick rough black beard, a large thick nose. G. Tourdes (Art. "Aphrodisie," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_) thus summarized the ancient beliefs on this subject: "The erotic temperament has been described as marked by a lean figure, white and well-ranged teeth, a developed hairy system, a characteristic voice, air, and expression, and even a special odor." In approaching the question of the general physical indications of a special aptitude to the manifestation of vigorous detumescence, the most obvious preliminary would seem to be a study of the castrated. If we know the special peculiarities of those who by removal of the sexual glands at a very early age have been deprived of all ability to present the manifestations of detumescence, we shall probably be in possession of a type which is the reverse of that which we may expect in persons of a vigorously erotic temperament. The most general characteristics of eunuchs would appear to be an unusual tendency to put on fat, a notably greater length of the legs, absence of hair in the sexual and secondary sexual regions, a less degree of pigmentation, as noted both in the castrated negro and the white man, a puerile larynx and puerile voice. In character they are usually described as gentle, conciliatory, and charitable. There can be little doubt that castration in man tends to lead to lengthening of the legs (tibia and fibula) at puberty, from delayed ossification of the epiphyses. The hands and feet are also frequently longer and sometimes the forearms. At the same time the bones are more slender. The pelvis also is narrower. The eunuchs of Cairo are said to be easily seen in a crowd from their tall stature. (Collineau, quoting Lortet, _Revue Mensuelle de l'Ecole d'Anthropologie_, May, 1896.) The castrated Skoptzy show increased stature, and, it seems, large ears, with decreased chest and head (L. Pittard, _Revue Scientifique_, June 20, 1903.) Féré shows that in most of these respects the eunuch resembles beardless and infantile subjects. ("Les Proportions des Membres et les Caractères Sexuels," _Journal de l'Anatomie et de la Physiologie_, November-December, 1897.) Similar phenomena are found in animals generally. Sellheim, carefully investigating castrated horses, swine, oxen and fowls, found retardation of ossification, long and slender extremities, long, broad, but low skull, relatively smaller pelvis and small thorax. ("Zur Lehre von den Sekundären Geschlechtscharakteren," _Beiträge zur Geburtshülfe und Gynäkologie_, 1898, summarized in _Centralblatt für Anthropologie_, 1900, Heft IV.) As regards the mental qualities and moral character of the castrated, Griffiths considers that there is an undue prejudice against eunuchs, and refers to Narses, who was not only one of the first generals of the Roman Empire, but a man of highly estimable character. (_Lancet_, March 30, 1895.) Matignon, who has carefully studied Chinese eunuchs, points out that they occupy positions of much responsibility, and, though regarded in many respects as social outcasts, possess very excellent and amiable moral qualities (_Archives Cliniques de Bordeaux_, May, 1896.) In America Everett Flood finds that epileptics and feeble-minded boys are mentally and morally benefited by castration. ("Notes on the Castration of Idiot Children," _American Journal of Psychology_, January, 1899.) It is often forgotten that the physical and psychic qualities associated with and largely dependent on the ability to experience the impulse of detumescence, while essential to the perfect man, involve many egoistic, aggressive and acquisitive characteristics which are of little intellectual value, and at the same time inimical to many moral virtues. We have a further standard--positive this time rather than negative--to aid us in determining the erotic temperament: the phenomena of puberty. The efflorescence of puberty is essentially the manifestation of the ability to experience detumescence. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that the individuals in whom the special phenomena of puberty develop most markedly are those in whom detumescence is likely to be most vigorous. If such is the case we should expect to find the erotic temperament marked by developed larynx and deep voice, a considerable degree of pigmentary development in hair and skin, and a marked tendency to hairiness; while in women there should be a pronounced growth of the breasts and pelvis.[144] There is yet another standard by which we may measure the individual's aptitude for detumescence: the presence of those activities which are most prominently brought into play during the process of detumescence. The individual, that is to say, who is organically most apt to manifest the physiological activities which mainly make up the process of detumescence, is most likely to be of pronounced erotic temperament. "Erotic persons are of motor type," remark Vaschide and Vurpas, "and we may say generally that nearly all persons of motor type are erotic." The state of detumescence is one of motor and muscular energy and of great vascular activity, so that habitual energy of motor response and an active circulation may reasonably be taken to indicate an aptitude for the manifestation of detumescence. These three types may be said, therefore, to furnish us valuable though somewhat general indications. The individual who is farthest removed from the castrated type, who presents in fullest degree the characters which begin to emerge at the period of puberty, and who reveals a physiological aptitude for the vigorous manifestation of those activities which are called into action during detumescence, is most likely to be of erotic temperament. The most cautious description of the characteristics of this temperament given by modern scientific writers, unlike the more detailed and hazardous descriptions of the early physiognomists, will be found to be fairly true to the standards thus presented to us. The man of sexual type, according to Biérent (_La Puberté_, p. 148), is hairy, dark and deep-voiced. "The men most liable to satyriasis," Bouchereau states (art. "Satyriasis," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_), "are those with vigorous nervous system, developed muscles, abundant hair on body, dark complexion, and white teeth." Mantegazza, in his _Fisiologia del Piacere_, thus describes the sexual temperament: "Individuals of nervous temperament, those with fine and brown skins, rounded forms, large lips and very prominent larynx enjoy in general much more than those with opposite characteristics. A universal tradition," he adds, "describes as lascivious humpbacks, dwarfs, and in general persons of short stature and with long noses." In a case of nymphomania in a young woman, described by Alibert (and quoted by Laycock, _Nervous Diseases of Women_, p. 28) the hips, thighs and legs were remarkably plump, while the chest and arms were completely emaciated. In a somewhat similar case described by Marc in his _De la Folie_ a peasant woman, who from an early age had experienced sexual hyperæsthesia, so that she felt spasmodic voluptuous feelings at the sight of a man, and was thus the victim of solitary excesses and of spasmodic movements which she could not repress, the upper part of the body was very thin, the hips, legs and thighs highly developed. In his work on _Uterine and Ovarian Inflammation_ (1862, p. 37) Tilt observes: "The restless, bashful eye, and changing complexion, in presence of a person of the opposite sex, and a nervous restlessness of body, ever on the move, turning and twisting on sofa or chair, are the best indications of sexual temperament." An extremely sensual little girl of 8, who was constantly masturbating when not watched, although brought up by nuns, was described by Busdraghi (_Archivio di Psichiatria_, fas. i, 1888, p. 53) as having chestnut hair, bright black eyes, an elevated nose, small mouth, pleasant round face, full colored cheeks, and plump and healthy aspect. A highly intelligent young Italian woman with strong and somewhat perverted sexual impulses is described as of attractive appearance, with olive complexion, small black almond-shaped eyes, dilated pupils, oblique thin eyebrows, very thick black hair, rather prominent cheek-bones, largely developed jaw, and with abundant down on lower part of cheeks and on upper lip. (_Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1899, fasc. v-vi.) As the type of the sensual woman in word and act, led by her passions to commit various sexual offenses, Ottolenghi describes (_Archivio di Psichiatria_, vol. xii, fasc. v-vi, p. 496) a woman of 32 who attempted to kill her lover. The daughter of parents who were neurotic and themselves very erotic, she was a highly intelligent and vivacious woman, with a pleasing and open face, very thick dark chestnut hair, large cheek-bones, adipose buttocks almost resembling those of a Hottentot, and very thick pubic hair. She was very fond of salt things. Sexual inclination began at the age of 7. Adler and Moll remark, very truly, that, so far at least as women are concerned, sexual anæsthesia or sexual proclivity cannot be unfailingly read on the features. Every woman desires to please, and coquetry is the sign of a cold, rather than of an erotic temperament.[145] It may be added that a considerable degree of congenital sexual anæsthesia by no means prevents a woman from being beautiful and attractive, though it must probably still always be said that, as Roubaud points out,[146] the woman of cold and intellectual temperament, the "femme de tête," however beautiful and skillful she may be, cannot compete in the struggle for love with the woman whose qualities are of the heart and of the emotions. But it seems sufficiently clear that the practical observations of skilled and experienced observers agree in attributing to persons of erotic type certain general characteristics which accord with those negative and positive standards we may frame on the basis of castration, of puberty, and of detumescence. It may be worth while to note a few of these characteristics briefly. The abnormal lengthening of the long bones at the age of puberty in the castrated is, as we have seen, very pronounced. There is little tendency to associate length of limb with an erotic temperament, and a certain amount of data as well as of more vague opinion points in the opposite direction. The Arabs would appear to believe that it is short rather than tall people in whom the sexual instinct is strongly developed, and we read in the _Perfumed Garden_: "Under all circumstances little women love coitus more and evince a stronger affection for the virile member than women of a large size." In his elaborate investigation of criminals Marro found that prostitutes and women guilty of sexual offenses, as also male sexual offenders, tend to be short and thick set.[147] In European folk-lore the thick, bull neck is regarded as a sign of strong sexuality.[148] Mantegazza refers to a strong sexual temperament as being associated with arrest or disorder of bony development, and Marro suggests that the proverbial salacity of rachitic individuals may be due to an increased activity of the sexual organs.[149] It may be added that acromegaly, with its excessive bony growths, tends to be associated with premature sexual involution. A further point which is frequently mentioned in the case of women is the development of the chief secondary sexual regions: the pelvis and the breasts. It is, indeed, almost inevitable that there should be some degree of correlation between the aptitude for bearing children and the aptitude for experiencing detumescence. The reality of such a connection is not only evidenced by medical observations, but receives further testimony in popular beliefs. In Italy women with large buttocks are considered wanton, and among the South Slavs they are regarded as especially fruitful.[150] Blumenbach asserted that precocious venery will enlarge the breasts, and believed that he had found evidence of this among young London prostitutes.[151] The association of the aptitude for detumescence with a tendency to a deep rather than to a high voice, both in men and women, has frequently been noted and has seldom been denied. The onset of puberty always affects the voice; in general, Biérent states, the more bass the voice is the more marked is the development of the sexual apparatus; "a very robust man, with very developed sexual organs, and very dark and abundant hairy system, a man of strong puberty in a word, is nearly always a bass."[152] The influence of sexual excitement in deepening the voice is shown by the rules of sexual hygiene prescribed to tenors, while a bass has less need to observe similar precautions. In women every phase of sexual life--puberty, menstruation, coitus, pregnancy--tends to affect the voice and always by giving it a deeper character. The deepening of the voice by sexual intercourse was an ancient Greek observation, and Martial refers to a woman's good or bad singing as an index to her recent sexual habits. Prostitutes tend to have a deep voice. Venturi points out that married women preserve a fresh voice to a more advanced age than spinsters, this being due to the precocious senility in the latter of an unused function. Such a phenomenon indicates that the relationship of detumescence to the deepening of the voice is not quite simple. This is further indicated by the fact that in robust men abstinence still further deepens the voice (the monk of melodrama always has a bass voice), while excessive or precocious sexual indulgence tends to be associated with the same kind of puerile voice as is found in those persons in whom pubertal development has not been carried very far, or who are of what Griffiths terms eunuchoid type. Idiot boys, who are often sexually undeveloped, tend to have a high voice, while idiot girls (who often manifest marked sexual proclivities) not infrequently have a deep voice.[153] Bright dilated eyes are among the phenomena of detumescence, and are very frequently noted in persons of a pronounced erotic temperament. This is, indeed, an ancient observation, and Burton says of people with a black, lively, and sparkling eye, "without question they are most amorous," drawing his illustrations mostly from classic literature.[154] Tardieu described the erotic woman as having bright eyes, and Heywood Smith states that the eyes of lascivious women resemble, though in a less degree, those of the insane.[155] Sexual excitement is one among many causes--intellectual excitement, pain, a loud noise, even any sensory irritation--which produce dilatation of the pupils and enlargement of the palpebral fissure, with some protrusion of the eyeball. The influence of the sexual system upon the eye appears to be far less potent in men than in women.[156] Sexual desire is, however, by no means the only irritant within the sexual sphere which may thus influence the eye; morbid irritations may produce the same effect. Milner Fothergill, in his book on _Indigestion_, vividly describes the appearance of the eyes sometimes seen in ovarian disorder: "The glittering flash which glances out from some female irides is the external indication of ovarian irritation, and 'the ovarian gleam' has features quite its own. The most marked instance which ever came under my notice was due to irritation in the ovaries, which had been forced down in front of the uterus and been fixed there by adhesions. Here there was little sexual proclivity, but the eyes were very remarkable. They flashed and glittered unceasingly, and at times perfect lightning bolts shot from them. Usually there is a bright glittering sheen in them which contrasts with the dead look in the irides of sexual excess or profuse uterine discharges." The activity of the glandular secretions, and especially those of the skin, during detumescence, would lead us to expect that such secretory activity is an index to an aptitude for detumescence. As a matter of fact it is occasionally, though not frequently, noted by medical observers. It is stated that the erotic temperament is characterized by a special odor.[157] The activity of the sweat-glands is seldom referred to by medical observers in describing persons of erotic temperament, although the descriptions of novelists not infrequently contain allusions to this point, and the literature of an earlier age shows that the tendency to perspiration, especially the moist hand, was regarded as a sure sign of a sensual temperament. "The moist-handed Madonna Imperia, a most rare and divine creature," remarks Lazarillo in Middleton's comedy _Blurt, Master-Constable_, to quote one of many allusions to this point in the Elizabethan drama. The lips are sometimes noted as red and everted, perhaps thick[158]; Tardieu remarked that the typically erotic woman has thick red lips. This corresponds with the characteristic type of the satyr in classic statues as in later paintings; his lips are always thick and everted. Fullness, redness, and eversion of the lips are correlated with good breathing, the absence of anæmia, laughter, a well-fleshed face. This kind of mouth indicates, perhaps, not so much a congenitally erotic temperament, as an abandonment to impulse. The opposite type of mouth--with inverted, thin, and retracted lips--would appear to be found with especial frequency in persons who habitually repress their impulses on moral grounds. Any kind of effort to restrain involuntary muscular action may lead to retraction of the lips: the effort to overcome anger or fear, or even the resistance to a strong desire to urinate or defecate. In religious young men, however, it becomes habitual and fixed. I recall a small band of medical students, gathered together from a large medical school, who were accustomed to meet together for prayer and Bible-reading; the majority showed this type of mouth to a very marked degree: pale faces, with drawn, retracted lips. It may be termed the Christian or pious _facies_. It is much less frequently seen in religious women (unless of masculine type), doubtless because religion for women is in a much less degree than for men a moral discipline. It may be added that an interesting form of this contraction of the lips, and one that is not purely repressive, is that which indicates the state of muscular tension associated with the impulse to guard and protect. In this form the contracted mouth is the index of tenderness, and is characteristic of the mother who is watching over the infant she is suckling at her breast. I have observed precisely the same expression in the face of a boy of 14 with a large congenital scrotal hernia; when the tumor was being examined his lower lip became retracted, well marked lines appearing from the angles downwards, though the upper lip retained its normal expression It was precisely the tender look we may see in the faces of mothers who are watching anxiously over their offspring, and the emotion is evidently the same in both cases: solicitude for a sensitive and tenderly guarded object. The degree of pigmentation is clearly correlated with sexual vigor. "In general," Heusinger laid down, in 1823, "the quantity of pigment is proportional to the functional effectiveness of the genital organs." This connection is so profound that it may be traced very widely throughout the organic world. The connection between pigmentation and sexual activity is very ancient. Even leaving out of account the wedding apparel of animals, nearly always gorgeous in scales and plumage and hair, the sexual orifice shows a more or less marked tendency to pigmentation during the breeding season from fishes upward, while in mammals the darker pigmentation of this region is a constant phenomenon in sexually mature individuals.[159] In the human species both the negative standard of castration and the positive standard of puberty alike indicate a correlation of this kind. Those individuals in whom puberty never fully develops and who are consequently said to be affected by infantilism, reveal a relative absence of pigment in the sexual centers which are normally pigmented to a high degree.[160] Among those Asiatic races who extirpate the ovaries in young girls the skin remains white in the perineum, round the anus, and in the armpits.[161] Even in mature women who undergo ovariotomy, as Kepler found, the pigmentation of the nipples and areola disappears, as well as of the perineum and anus, the skin taking on a remarkable whiteness. Normally the sexual centers, and in a high degree the genital orifice, represent the maximum of pigmentation, and under some circumstances this is clearly visible even in infancy. Thus babies of mixed black and white blood may show no traces of negro ancestry at birth, but there will always be increased pigmentation about the external genitalia.[162] The linea fusca, which reaches from the pubes to the navel and occasionally to the ensiform cartilage, is a line of sexual pigmentation sometimes regarded as characteristic of pregnancy, but as Andersen, of Copenhagen, has found by the examination of several hundred children of both sexes, it exists in a slight form in about 75 per cent. of young girls, and in almost as large a proportion of boys. But there is no doubt that it tends to increase with age as well as to become marked at pregnancy. At puberty there is a general tendency to changes in pigmentation; thus Godin found that in 28 per cent, adolescent changes occurred in the eyes and hair at this period, the hair becoming darker, though the eyes sometimes become lighter. Ammon, in his investigation of conscripts at the age of 20 (_post_, p. 196), discovered the significant fact that the eyes and hair darken _pari passu_ with sexual development. In women, during menstruation, there is a general tendency to pigmentation; this is especially obvious around the eyes, and in some cases black rings of true pigment form in this position. Even the skin of the negro women of Loango sometimes becomes a few shades darker during menstruation.[163] During pregnancy this tendency to pigmentation reaches its climax. Pregnancy constantly gives rise to pigmentation of the face, the neck, the nipples, the abdomen, and this is especially marked in brunettes. This association of pigmentation and sexual aptitudes has been recognized in the popular lore of some peoples. Thus the Sicilians, who admire brown skin and have no liking either for a fair skin or light hair, believe that a white woman is incapable of responding to love. It is the brown woman who feels love; as it is said in Sicilian dialect: "Fimmina scura, fimmina amurusa."[164] The dependence of pigmentation upon the sexual system is shown by the fact that irritation of the genital organs by disease will frequently suffice to produce a high degree of pigmentation. This may the neck, the trunk, the hands. Simpson long since noted that uterine irritation apart from pregnancy may produce pigmentation of the areolæ of the nipples (_Obstetric Works_, vol. i, p. 345). Engelmann discussed the subject and gave cases, "The Hystero-Neuroses," pp. 124-139, in _Gynæcological Transactions_, vol. xii, 1887; and a summary of a memoir by Fouquet on this subject in _La Gynécologie_, February, 1903, will be found in _British Medical Journal_, March 28, 1903, Of all physical traits vigor of the hairy system has most frequently perhaps been regarded as the index of vigorous sexuality. In this matter modern medical observations are at one with popular belief and ancient physiognomical assertions.[165] The negative test of castration and the positive test of puberty point in the same direction. It is at puberty that all the hair on the body, except that on the head, begins to develop; indeed, the very word "puberty" has reference to this growth as the most obvious sign of the whole process. When castration takes place at an early age all this development of pubescent hair is arrested. When the primary sexual organs are undeveloped the sexual hair is also undeveloped, as in a case, recorded by Plant,[166] of a girl with rudimentary uterus and ovaries who had little or no axillary and pubic hair, although the hair of the head was long and strong.[167] The pseudo-Michael Scot among the _Signa mulieris calidæ naturæ et quæ coit libenter_ stated that her hair, both on the head and body, is thick and coarse and crisp, and Della Porta, the greatest of the physiognomists, said that thickness of hair in women meant wantonness. Venette, in his _Generation de l'Homme_, remarked that men who have much hair on the body are most amorous. At a more recent period Roubaud has said that pubic hair in its quantity, color and curliness is an index of genital energy. A poor pilous system, on the other hand, Roubaud regarded as a probable though not an irrefragable proof of sexual frigidity in women. "In the cold woman the pilous system is remarkable for the languor of its vitality; the hairs are fair, delicate, scarce and smooth, while in ardent natures there are little curly tufts about the temples." (_Traité de l'Impuissance_, pp. 124, 523.) Martineau declared (_Leçons sur les Déformations Vulvaires_, p. 40) that "the more developed the genital organs the more abundant the hair covering them; abundance of hair appears to be in relation to the perfect development of the organs." Tardieu described the typically erotic woman as very hairy. Bergh found that among 2200 young Danish prostitutes those who showed an unusual extension and amount of pubic hair included several women who were believed to be libidinous in a very high degree. (Bergh, "Symbolæ," etc., _Hospitalstidende_, August, 1894.) Moraglia, again, in Italy, in describing various women, mostly prostitutes, of unusually strong sexual proclivities, repeatedly notes very thick hair, with down on the face. (_Archivio di Psichiatria_, vol. xvi, fasc. iv-v.) Marro, also, in Italy found that abundance of hair and down is especially marked in women who are guilty of infanticide (as also Pasini has found), though criminal women generally, in his experience, tend to have abnormally abundant hair. (_Caratteri del Delinquenti_, cap. XXII.) Lombroso finds that prostitutes generally tend to be hairy (_Donna Delinquente_, p. 320.) A lad of 14, guilty of numerous crimes of violence having a sexual source, is described by Arthur Macdonald in America as having hair on the chest as well as all over the pubes. (A. Macdonald, _Archives de L'Anthropologie Criminelle_, January, 1893, p. 55.) The association of hairiness with abnormal sexuality in the weak-minded has been noted at Bicêtre (_Recherches Cliniques sur l'Epilepsie_, vol. xix, pp. 69, 77.) Hypertrichosis universalis, a general hairiness of body, has been described by Cascella in a woman with very strong sexual desires, who eventually became insane. (_Revista Mensile di Psichiatria_, 1903, p. 408.) Bucknill and Tuke give the case of a religiously minded girl, with very strong and repressed sexual desires, who became insane; the only abnormal feature in her physical development was the marked growth of hair over the body. Brantôme refers to a great lady known to him whose body was very hairy, and quotes a saying to the effect that hairy people are either rich or wanton; the lady in question, he adds, was both. (Brantôme, _Vie des Dames Galantes_, Discours II.) De Sade, whose writings are now regarded as a treasure house of true observations in the domain of sexual psychology, makes the Rodin of _Justine_ dark, with much hair and thick eyebrows, while his very sexual sister is described as dark, thin and very hairy. (Dühren, _Der Marquis de Sade_, third edition, p. 440.) A correspondent who has always taken a special interest in the condition as regards hairiness of the women to whom he has been attracted, has sent me notes concerning a series of 12 women. It may be gathered from these notes that 5 women were neither markedly sexual nor markedly hairy (either as regards head or pubes), 6 cases both hairy and sexual, 1 was sexual and not hairy, none were hairy and not sexual. My correspondent remarks: "There may be women with scanty pubic hair possessing very strong sexual emotions. My own experience is quite the opposite." He has also independently reached the conclusion, arrived at by many medical observers and clearly suggested by some of the facts here brought together, that profuse hair frequently denotes a neurotic temperament. It may be added that Mirabeau, as we learn from an anecdote told by an eyewitness and recorded by Legouvé, had a very hairy chest, while the same is recorded of Restif de la Bretonne. It is a very ancient and popular belief that if a hairy man is not sensual he is strong: _vir pilosus aut libidinosus aut fortis_. The Greeks insisted on the hairy nates of Hercules, and Ninon de l'Enclos, when the great Condé shared her bed without touching her, remarked, on seeing his hairy body: "Ah, Monseigneur, que vous devez être fort!" It may be doubted whether there is any exact parallelism between muscular strength and hairiness, for strength is largely a matter of training, but there can be no doubt that hairiness really tends to be associated with a generally vigorous development of the body. Although the observations concerning hairiness of body as an index of vigor, whether sexual or only generally physical, are so ancient, until recent years no attempts have been made to demonstrate on a large scale whether there is actually a correlation between hairiness and sexual or general development of the body. Some importance, therefore, attaches to Ammon's careful observations of many thousand conscripts in Baden. These observations fully justify this ancient belief, since they show that on the one hand the size of the testicles, and on the other hand girth of chest and stature, are correlated with hairiness of body. Ammon's observations were made on nearly 4000 conscripts of the age of 20. From the point of view of the hairy system he divided them, into four classes:-- I. To which 6.1 per cent, of the men belonged, with smooth bodies. II. Including 25.3 per cent., only slight hairiness. III. 53.8 per cent., more developed hairy system, but belly, breast and back smooth. IV. 14.7 per cent., hair all over body. V. 0.1 per cent., extreme cases of hairiness. The beardless were 12.1 per cent., those with no axillary hair 9 per cent., those with no hair on pubis 0.4 per cent. This corresponds with the fact that hair appears first on the pubis and last on the chin. In the first class 69 per cent, were beardless, 54 per cent, without any axillary hair and 6 per cent, without pubic hair. In the second class 24 per cent, were beardless, 17 per cent, without axillary hair. In the third class 3 per cent, were beardless and 3 per cent without axillary hair. Below puberty the diameter of testicles is below 14 millimeters. There were 13 conscripts having a testicular diameter of less than 14 millimeters. These infantile individuals all belonged to the first three classes and mostly to the first. The average testicular diameter in the first class was nearly 24 millimeters, and progressively rose in the succeeding classes to over 26 millimeters in the fourth. While there was not much difference in height, the first class was the shortest, the fourth the tallest. The fourth class also showed the greatest chest perimeter. The cephalic index of all classes was 84. (O. Ammon, "L'Infantilisme et le Feminisme au Conseil de Révision," _L'Anthropologie_, May-June, 1896.) We thus see that it is quite justifiable to admit a type of person who possesses a more than average aptitude for detumescence. Such persons are more likely to be short than tall; they will show a full development of the secondary sexual characters; the voice will tend to be deep and the eyes bright; the glandular activity of the skin will probably be marked, the lips everted; there is a tendency to a more than average degree of pigmentation, and there is frequently an abnormal prevalence of hair on some parts of the body. While none of these signs, taken separately, can be said to have any necessary connection with the sexual impulse, taken altogether they indicate an organism that responds to the instinct of detumescence with special aptitude or with marked energy. In these respects observation, both scientific and popular, concords with the probabilities suggested by the three standards in this matter which have already been set forth. No generalization, however, can here be set down in an absolute and unqualified manner. There are definite reasons why this should be so. There is, for instance, the highly important consideration that the sexual impulse of the individual may be conspicuous in two quite distinct ways. It may assume prominence because the individual possesses a highly vigorous and well-nourished organism, or its prominence may be due to mental irritation in a very morbid individual. In the latter case--although occasionally the two sets of conditions are combined--most of the signs we might expect in the former case may be absent. Indeed, the sexual impulses which proceed from a morbid psychic irritability do not in most cases indicate any special aptitude for detumescence at all; in that largely lies their morbid character. Again, just in the same way that the exaggerated impulse itself may either be healthy or morbid, so the various characters which we have found to possess some value as signs of the impulse may themselves either be healthy or morbid. This is notably the case as regards an abnormal growth of hair on the body, more especially when it appears on regions where normally there is little or no hair. Such hypertrichosis is frequently degenerative in character, though still often associated with the sexual system. When, however, it is thus a degenerative character of sexual nature, having its origin in some abnormal foetal condition or later atrophy of the ovaries, it is no necessary indication of any aptitude for detumescence. Idiots, more especially it would seem idiot girls, tend to show a highly developed hairy system. Thus Voisin, when investigating 150 idiot and imbecile girls, found the hair long and thick and tending to occupy a large surface; one girl had hair on the areolæ of the mamma. (J. Voisin, "Conformation des organes génitaux chez les Idiots," _Annales d'Hygiène Publique_, June, 1894.) It should be said that in idiot boys puberty is late, and the sexual organs as well as the sexual instinct frequently undeveloped, while in idiot girls there is no delay in puberty, and the sexual organs and instinct are frequently fully and even abnormally developed. Hegar has described an interesting case showing an association, of foetal origin, between sexual anomaly and abnormal hairness. In this case a girl of 16 had a uterus duplex, an infantile pelvis, very slight menstruation and undeveloped breasts. She was very hairy on the face, the anterior aspects of the chest and abdomen, the sexual regions, and the thighs, but not specially so on the rest of the body. The hairs were of lanugo-like character, but dark in color. (A. Hegar, _Beiträge zur Geburtshülfe und Gynäkologie_, vol. i, p. III, 1898.) Sometimes hiruties of the face and abdomen begin to appear during pregnancy, apparently from disease or degeneration of the ovaries. (A case is noted in _British Medical Journal_, August 2 and 16, pp. 375 and 436, 1902.) Laycock many years ago referred to the popular belief that women who have hair on the upper lip seldom bear children, and regarded this opinion as "questionless founded on fact." (Laycock, _Nervous Diseases of Women_, p. 22.) When this is so, we may suppose that the abnormal hairy growth is associated with degeneration of the ovaries. There is another factor which enters into this question and renders the definition of a physical sexual type less precise than it would otherwise be. The sexual instinct is common to all persons, and while it seems probable that there is a type of person in whom sexual energies are predominant, it would also appear that the people who otherwise show a very high level of energy in life usually exhibit a more than average degree of energy in matters of love. The predominantly sexual type, as we have seen, tends to be associated with a high degree of pigmentation; the person specially apt for detumescence inclines to belong to the dark rather than to the purely fair group of the population. On the other hand, the active, energetic, practical man, the man who is most apt for the achievement of success in life, tends to belong to the fair rather than to the dark type.[168] Thus we have a certain conflict of tendencies, and it becomes possible to assert that while persons with pronounced aptitude for sexual detumescence tend to be dark, persons whose pronounced energy in sexual matters tends to ensure success are most likely to be fair. The tendency of the fair energetic type, the type of the northern European man, to sexuality may be connected with the fact that the violent and criminal man who commits sexual crimes tends to be fair even amid a dark population. Criminals on the whole would appear to tend to be dark rather than fair; but Marro found in Italy that the group of sexual offenders differed from all other groups of criminals in that their hair was predominantly fair. (_Caratteri del Delinquenti_, p. 374.) Ottolenghi, in the same way, in examining 100 sexual offenders, found that they showed 17 per cent., of fair hair, though criminals generally (on a basis of nearly 2000) showed only 6 per cent., and normal persons (nearly 1000) 9 per cent. Similarly while the normal persons showed only 20 per cent. of blue eyes and criminals generally 36 per cent., the sexual offenders showed 50 per cent. of blue eyes. (Ottolenghi, _Archivio di Psichiatria_, fasc. vi, 1888, p. 573.) Burton remarked (_Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part III, Section II, Mem. II, Subs. II) that in all ages most amorous young men have been yellow-haired, adding, "Synesius holds every effeminate fellow or adulterer is fair-haired." In folk-lore, it has been noted (Kryptadia, vol. ii, p. 258), red or yellow hair is sometimes regarded as a mark of sexuality. In harmony with this fairness, sexual offenders would appear to be more dolichocephalic than other criminals. In Italy Marro found the foreheads of sexual offenders to be narrow, and in California Drähms found that while murderers had an average cephalic index of 83.5, and thieves of 80.5, that of sexual offenders was 79. On the other hand, high cheek-bones and broad faces--a condition most usually found associated with brachycephaly--have sometimes been noted as associated with undue or violent sexuality. Marro noted the excess of prominent cheek-bones in sexual offenders, and in America it has been found that unchaste girls tend to have broad faces. (_Pedagogical Seminary_, December, 1896, pp. 231, 235.) It will be seen that, when we take a comprehensive view of the facts and considerations involved, it is possible to obtain a more definite and coherent picture of the physical signs of a marked aptitude for detumescence than has hitherto been usually supposed possible. But we also see that while the _ensemble_ of these signs is probably fairly reliable as an index of marked sexuality, the separate signs have no such definite significance, and under some circumstances their significance may even be reversed. FOOTNOTES: [144] See Biérent, _La Puberté_; Marro, _La Pubertà_ (and enlarged French translation, _La Puberté_), and portions of G.S. Hall's _Adolescence_; also Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_ (fourth edition, revised and enlarged). [145] Adler, _Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, p. 174; Moll, "Perverse Sexualempfindung, Psychische Impotenz und Ehe" (Section II), in Senator and Kaminer, _Krankheiten und Ehe_. [146] Roubaud, _Traité de l'Impuissance_, p. 524. [147] Marro, _Caratteri del Delinquenti_, p. 374. [148] Kryptadia, vol. ii, p. 258. [149] Marro, _La Pubertà_, p. 196. In Italy, the sensuality of the lame is the subject of proverbs. [150] _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1896, p. 515; Kryptadia, vol. vi, p. 212. [151] Blumenbach, _Anthropological Treatises_, p. 248. [152] Biérent, _La Puberté_, p. 148. [153] Venturi, _Degenerazioni Psico-sessuali_, pp. 408-410. [154] _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part III, Section II, Mem. II, Sub. II. [155] _British Gynæcological Journal_, February, 1887, p. 505. [156] Power, _Lancet_, November 26, 1887. [157] With regard to the sexual relationships of personal odor, see the previous volume of these _Studies_, "Sexual Selection in Man," section on Smell. [158] In European folk-lore thick lips in a woman are sometimes regarded as a sign of sensuality, Kryptadia, vol. ii, p, 258. [159] The direct dependence of sexual pigmentation on the primary sexual glands is well illustrated by a true hermaphroditic adult finch exhibited at the Academy of Sciences of Amsterdam (May 31, 1890); this bird had a testis on the right side and an ovary on the left, and on the right side its plumage was of the male's colors, on the left of the female's color. [160] See. e.g., Papillault, _Bulletin Société d'Anthropologie_, 1899, p. 446. [161] Guinard, Art. "Castration," Richet's _Dictionnaire de Physiologie_. [162] J. Whitridge Williams, _Obstetrics_, 1903, p. 132. [163] _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1878, p. 19. [164] C. Pitre, _Medicina Populare Siciliana_, p. 47. In England, from notes sent to me by one correspondent, it would appear that the proportion of dark and sexually apt women to fair and sexually apt women is as 3 to 1. The experience of others would doubtless give varying results, and in any case the fallacies are numerous. See, in the previous volume of these _Studies_, "Sexual Selection in Man," Section IV. [165] In Japan the same belief would appear to be held. In a nude figure representing the typical voluptuous woman by the Japanese painter Marugama Okio (reproduced in Ploss's _Das Weib_) the pubic and axillary hair is profuse, though usually sparse in Japan. [166] _Centralblatt für Gynäkologie_, No. 9, 1896. [167] It is important to remember that there is little correlation in this matter between the hair of the head and the sexual hair, if not a certain opposition. (See _ante_, p. 127.) According to one of the aphorisms of Hippocrates, repeated by Buffon, eunuchs do not become bald, and Aristotle seems to have believed that sexual intercourse is a cause of baldness in men. (Laycock, _Nervous Diseases of Women_, p. 23.) [168] For some of the evidence on this point, see Havelock Ellis, "The Comparative Abilities of the Fair and the Dark," _Monthly Review_, August, 1901; cf. id., _A Study of British Genius_, Chapter X. THE PSYCHIC STATE IN PREGNANCY. The Relationship of Maternal and Sexual Emotion--Conception and Loss of Virginity--The Anciently Accepted Signs of This Condition--The Pervading Effects of Pregnancy on the Organism--Pigmentation--The Blood and Circulation--The Thyroid--Changes in the Nervous System--The Vomiting of Pregnancy--The Longings of Pregnant Women--Maternal Impressions--Evidence for and Against Their Validity--The Question Still Open--Imperfection of Our Knowledge--The Significance of Pregnancy. In analyzing the sexual impulse I have so far deliberately kept out of view the maternal instinct. This is necessary, for the maternal instinct is specific and distinct; it is directed to an aim which, however intimately associated it may be with that of the sexual impulse proper, can by no means be confounded with it. Yet the emotion of love, as it has finally developed in the world, is not purely of sexual origin; it is partly sexual, but it is also partly parental.[169] In so far as it is parental it is certainly mainly maternal. There is a drawing by Bronzino in the Louvre of a woman's head gazing tenderly down at some invisible object; is it her child or her lover? Doubtless her child, yet the expression is equally adequate to the emotion evoked by a lover. If we were here specifically dealing with the emotion of love as a complex whole, and not with the psychology of the sexual impulse, it would certainly be necessary to discuss the maternal instinct and its associated emotions. In any case it seems desirable to touch on the psychic state of pregnancy, for we are here concerned not only with emotions very closely connected with the sexual emotions in the narrower sense, but we here at last approach that state which it is the object of the whole sexual process to achieve. In civilized life a period of weeks, months, even years, may elapse between the establishment of sexual relations and the occurrence of conception. Under primitive conditions the loss of the virginal condition practically involves the pregnant condition, so that under primitive conditions very little allowance is made for the state, so common among civilized peoples, of the woman who is no longer a virgin, yet not about to become a mother. There is some interest in noting the signs of loss of virginity chiefly relied upon by ancient authors. In doing this it is convenient to follow mainly the full summary of authorities given by Schurig in his _Barthenologia_ early in the eighteenth century. The ancient custom, known in classic times, of measuring the neck the day after marriage was frequently practiced to ascertain if a girl was or was not a virgin. There were various ways of doing this. One was to measure with a thread the circumference of the bride's neck before she went to bed on the bridal night. If in the morning the same thread would not go around her neck it was a sure sign that she had lost her virginity during the night; if not, she was still a virgin or had been deflowered at an earlier period. Catullus alluded to this custom, which still exists, or existed until lately, in the south of France. It is perfectly sound, for it rests on the intimate response by congestion of the thyroid gland to sexual excitement. (_Parthenologia_, p. 283; Biérent, _La Puberté_, p. 150; Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition, p. 267.) Some say, Schurig tells us, that the voice, which in the virgin is shrill, becomes rougher and deeper after the first coitus. He quotes Riolan's statement that it is certain that the voice of those who indulge in venery is changed. On that account the ancients bound down the penis of their singers, and Martial said that those who wish to preserve their voices should avoid coitus. Democritus who one day had greeted a girl as "maiden" on the following day addressed her as "woman," while in the same way it is said that Albertus Magnus, observing from his study a girl going for wine for her master, knew that she had had sexual intercourse by the way because on her return her voice had become deeper. Here, again, the ancient belief has a solid basis, for the voice and the larynx are really affected by sexual conditions. (_Parthenologia_, p. 286; Marro, _La Puberté_, p. 303; Havelock Ellis, op. cit., pp. 271, 289.) Others, again, Schurig proceeds, have judged that the goaty smell given out in the armpits during the venereal act is also no uncertain sign of defloration, such odor being perceptible in those who use much venery, and not seldom in harlots and the newly married, while, as Hippocrates said, it is not perceived in boys and girls. (_Parthenologia_, p. 286; cf. the previous volume of these _Studies_, "Sexual Selection in Man," p. 64.) In virgins, Schurig remarks, the pubic hair is said to be long and not twisted, while in women accustomed to coitus it is crisper. But it is only after long and repeated coitus, some authors add, that the pubic hairs become crisp. Some recent observers, it may be remarked, have noted a connection between sexual excitation and the condition of the pubic hair in women. (Cf. the present volume, _ante_ p. 127.) A sign to which the old authors often attached much importance was furnished by the urinary stream. In the _De Secretis Mulierum_, wrongly attributed to Albertus Magnus, it is laid down that "the virgin urinates higher than the woman." Riolan, in his _Anthropographia_, discussing the ability of virgins to ejaculate urine to a height, states that Scaliger had observed women who were virgins emit urine in a high jet against a wall, but that married women could seldom do this. Bouaciolus also stated that the urine of virgins is emitted in a small stream to a distance with an acute hissing sound. (_Parthenologia_, p. 281.) A folk-lore belief in the reality of this influence is evidenced by the Picardy _conte_ referred to already (_ante_, p. 53), "La Princesse qui pisse au dessus les Meules." There is no doubt a tendency for the various stresses of sexual life to produce an influence in this direction, though they act far too slowly and uncertainly to be a reliable index to the presence or the absence of virginity. Another common ancient test of virginity by urination rests on a psychic basis, and appears in a variety of forms which are really all reducible to the same principle. Thus we are told in _De Secretis Mulierum_ that to ascertain if a girl is seduced she should be given to eat of powdered crocus flowers, and if she has been seduced she immediately urinates. We are here concerned with auto-suggestion, and it may well be believed that with nervous and credulous girls this test often revealed the truth. A further test of virginity discussed by Schurig is the presence of modesty of countenance. If a woman blushes her virtue is safe. In this way girls who have themselves had experience of the marriage bed are said to detect the virgin. The virgin's eyes are cast down and almost motionless, while she who has known a man has eyes that are bright and quick. But this sign is equivocal, says Schurig, for girls are different, and can simulate the modesty they do not feel. Yet this indication also rests on a fundamentally sound psychological basis. (See "The Evolution of Modesty," in the first volume of these _Studies_.) In his _Syllepsilogia_ (Section V, cap. I-II), published in 1731, Schurig discusses further the anciently recognized signs of pregnancy. The real or imaginary signs of pregnancy sought by various primitive peoples of the past and present are brought together by Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, bd. i, Chapter XXVII. Both physically and psychically the occurrence of pregnancy is, however, a distinct event. It marks the beginning of a continuous physical process, which cannot fail to manifest psychic reactions. A great center of vital activity--practically a new center, for only the germinal form of it in menstruation had previously existed--has appeared and affects the whole organism. "From the moment that the embryo takes possession of the woman," Robert Barnes puts it, "every drop of blood, every fiber, every organ, is affected."[170] A woman artist once observed to Dr. Stratz, that as the final aim of a woman is to become a mother and pregnancy is thus her blossoming time, a beautiful woman ought to be most beautiful when she is pregnant. That is so, Stratz replied, if her moment of greatest physical perfection corresponds with the early months of pregnancy, for with the beginning of pregnancy metabolism is increased, the color of the skin becomes more lively and delicate, the breasts firmer.[171] Pregnancy may, indeed, often become visible soon after conception by the brighter eye, the livelier glance, resulting from greater vascular activity, though later, with the increase of strain, the face may tend to become somewhat thin and distorted. The hair, Barnes states, assumes a new vigor, even though it may have been falling out before. The temperature rises; the weight increases, even apart from the growth of the foetus. The efflorescence of pregnancy shows itself, as in the blossoming and fecundated flower, by increased pigmentation.[172] The nipples with their areolæ, and the mid-line of the belly, become darker; brown flecks (lentigo) tend to appear on the forehead, neck, arms, and body; while striæ--at first blue-red, then a brilliant white--appear on the belly and thighs, though these are scarcely normal, for they are not seen in women with very elastic skins and are rare among peasants and savages.[173] The whole carriage of the woman tends to become changed with the development of the mighty seed of man planted within her; it simulates the carriage of pride with the arched back and protruded abdomen.[174] The pregnant woman has been lifted above the level of ordinary humanity to become the casket of an inestimable jewel. It is in the blood and the circulation that the earliest of the most prominent symptoms of pregnancy are to be found. The ever increasing development of this new focus of vascular activity involves an increased vascular activity in the whole organism. This activity is present almost from the first--a few days after the impregnation of the ovum--in the breasts, and quickly becomes obvious to inspection and palpation. Before a quite passive organ, the breast now rapidly increases in activity of circulation and in size, while certain characteristic changes begin to take place around the nipples.[175] As a result of the additional work imposed upon it the heart tends to become slightly hypertrophied in order to meet the additional strain; there may be some dilatation also.[176] The recent investigations of Stengel and Stanton tend to show that the increase of the heart's work during pregnancy is less considerable than has generally been supposed, and that beyond some enlargement and dilatation of the right ventricle there is not usually any hypertrophy of the heart. The total quantity of blood is raised. While increased in quantity, the blood appears on the whole to be somewhat depreciated in quality, though on this point there are considerable differences of opinion. Thus, as regards hæmoglobin, some investigators have found that the old idea as to the poverty of hæmoglobin in pregnancy is quite unfounded; a few have even found that the hæmoglobin is increased. Most authorities have found the red cells diminished, though some only slightly, while the white cells, and also the fibrin, are increased. But toward the end of pregnancy there is a tendency, perhaps due to the establishment of compensation, for the blood to revert to the normal condition.[177] It would appear probable, however, that the vascular phenomena of pregnancy are not altogether so simple as the above statement would imply. The activity of various glands at this time--well illustrated by the marked salivation which sometimes occurs--indicates that other modifying forces are at work, and it has been suggested that the changes in the maternal circulation during pregnancy may best be explained by the theory that there are two opposing kinds of secretion poured into the blood in unusual degree during pregnancy: one contracting the vessels, the other dilating them, one or the other sometimes gaining the upper hand. Suprarenal extract, when administered, has a vaso-constricting influence, and thyroid extract a vasodilating influence; it may be surmised that within the body these glands perform similar functions.[178] The important part played by the thyroid gland is indicated by its marked activity at the very beginning of pregnancy. We may probably associate the general tendency to vasodilatation during early pregnancy with the tendency to goitre; Freund found an increase of the thyroid in 45 per cent. of 50 cases. The thyroid belongs to the same class of ductless glands as the ovary, and, as Bland Sutton and others have insisted, the analogies between the thyroid and the ovary are very numerous and significant. It may be added that in recent years Armand Gautier has noted the importance of the thyroid in elaborating nucleo-proteids containing arsenic and iodine, which are poured into the circulation during menstruation and pregnancy. The whole metabolism of the body is indeed affected, and during the latter part of pregnancy study of the ingesta and egesta has shown that a storage of nitrogen and even of water is taking place.[179] The woman, as Pinard puts it, forms the child out of her own flesh, not merely out of her food; the individual is being sacrificed to the species. The changes in the nervous system of the pregnant woman correspond to those in the vascular system. There is the same increase of activity, a heightening of tension. Bruno Wolff, from experiments on bitches, concluded that the central nervous system in women is probably more easily excited in the pregnant than in the non-pregnant state, though he was not prepared to call this cerebral excitability "specific."[180] Direct observations on pregnant women have shown, without doubt, a heightened nervous irritability. Reflex action generally is increased. Neumann investigated the knee-jerk in 500 women during pregnancy, labor, and the puerperium, and in a large number found that there was a progressive exaggeration with the advance of pregnancy, little or no change being observed in the early months; sometimes when no change was observed during pregnancy the knee-jerk still increased during labor, reaching its maximum at the moment of the expulsion of the foetus; the return to the normal condition took place gradually during the puerperium. Tridandani found in pregnant women that though the superficial reflexes, with the exception of the abdominal, were diminished, the deep and tendon reflexes were markedly increased, especially that of the knee, these changes being more marked in primiparæ than in multiparæ, and more pronounced as pregnancy advanced, the normal condition returning with ten days after labor. Electrical excitability was sensibly diminished.[181] One of the first signs of high nervous tension is vomiting. As is well known, this phenomenon commonly appears early in pregnancy, and it is by many considered entirely physiological. Barnes regards it as a kind of safety valve, a regulating function, letting off excessive tension and maintaining equilibrium.[182] Vomiting is, however, a convulsion, and is thus the simplest form of a kind of manifestation--to which the heightened nervous tension of pregnancy easily lends itself--that finds its extreme pathological form in eclampsia. In this connection it is of interest to point out that the pregnant woman here manifests in the highest degree a tendency which is marked in women generally, for the female sex, apart altogether from pregnancy, is specially liable to convulsive phenomena.[183] There is some slight difference of opinion among authorities as to the precise nature and causation of the sickness of pregnancy. Barnes, Horrocks and others regard it as physiological; but many consider it pathological; this is, for instance, the opinion of Giles. Graily Hewitt attributed it to flexion of the gravid uterus, Kaltenbach to hysteria, and Zaborsky terms it a neurosis. Whitridge Williams considers that it may be (1) reflex, or (2) neurotic (when it is allied to hysteria and amenable to suggestion), or (3) toxæmic. It really appears to lie on the borderland between healthy and diseased manifestations. It is said to be unknown to farmers and veterinary surgeons. It appears to be little known among savages; it is comparatively infrequent among women of the lower social classes, and, as Giles has found, women who habitually menstruate in a painless and normal manner suffer comparatively little from the sickness of pregnancy. We owe a valuable study of the sickness of pregnancy to Giles, who analyzed the records of 300 cases. He concluded that about one-third of the pregnant women were free from sickness throughout pregnancy, 45 per cent. were free during the first three months. When sickness occurred it began in 70 per cent. of cases in the first month, and was most frequent during the second month. The duration varied from a few days to all through. Between the ages of 20 and 25 sickness was least frequent, and there was less sickness in the third than in any other pregnancy. (This corresponds with the conclusion of Matthews Duncan that 25 is the most favorable age for pregnancy.) To some extent in agreement with Guéniot, Giles believes that the vomiting of pregnancy is "one form of manifestation of the high nervous irritability of pregnancy." This high nervous tension may overflow into other channels, into the vascular and excretory system, causing eclampsia; into the muscular system, causing chorea, or, expending itself in the brain, give rise to hysteria when mild or insanity when severe. But the vagi form a very ready channel for such overflow, and hence the frequency of sickness in pregnancy. There are thus three main factors in the causation of this phenomenon: (1) An increased nervous irritability; (2) a local source of irritation; (3) a ready efferent channel for nervous energy. (Arthur Giles, "Observations on the Etiology of the Sickness of Pregnancy," _Transactions Obstetrical Society of London_, vol. xxv, 1894.) Martin, who regards the phenomenon as normal, points out that when nausea and vomiting are absent or suddenly cease there is often reason to suspect something wrong, especially the death of the embryo. He also remarks that women who suffer from large varicose veins are seldom troubled by the nausea of pregnancy. (J.M.H. Martin, "The Vomiting of Pregnancy," _British Medical Journal_, December 10, 1904.) These observations may be connected with those of Evans (_American Gynæcological and Obstetrical Journal_, January, 1900), who attributes primary importance to the undoubtedly active factor of the irritation set up by the uterus, more especially the rhythmic uterine contractions; stimulation of the breasts produces active uterine contractions, and Evans found that examination of the breasts sufficed to bring on a severe attack of vomiting, while on another occasion this was produced by a vaginal examination. Evans believes that the purpose of these contractions is to facilitate the circulation of the blood through the large venous sinuses, the surcharging of the relatively stagnant pools with effete blood producing the irritation which leads to rhythmic contractions. It is on the basis of the increased vascular and glandular activity and the heightened nervous tension that the special psychic phenomena of pregnancy develop. The best known, and perhaps the most characteristic of these manifestations, is that known as "longings." By this term is meant more or less irresistible desires for some special food or drink, which may be digestible or indigestible, sometimes a substance which the woman ordinarily likes, such as fruit, and occasionally one which, under ordinary circumstances, she dislikes, as in one case known to me of a young country woman who, when bearing her child, was always longing for tobacco and never happy except when she could get a pipe to smoke, although under ordinary circumstances, like other young women of her class, she was without any desire to smoke. Occasionally the longings lead to actions which are more unscrupulous than is common in the case of the same person at other times; thus in one case known to me a young woman, pregnant with her first child, insisted to her sister's horror on entering a strawberry field and eating a quantity of fruit. These "longings" in their extreme form may properly be considered as neurasthenic obsessions, but in their simple and less pronounced forms they may well be normal and healthy. The old medical authors abound in narratives describing the longings of pregnant women for natural and unnatural foods. This affection was commonly called _pica_, sometimes _citra_ or _malatia_. Schurig, whose works are a comprehensive treasure house of ancient medical lore, devotes a long chapter (cap. II) of his _Chylologia_, published in 1725, to pica as manifested mainly, though not exclusively, in pregnant women. Some women, he tells us, have been compelled to eat all sorts of earthy substances, of which sand seems the most common, and one Italian woman when pregnant ate several pounds of sand with much satisfaction, following it up with a draught of her own urine. Lime, mud, chalk, charcoal, cinders, pitch are also the desired substances in other cases detailed. One pregnant woman must eat bread fresh from the oven in very large quantities, and a certain noble matron ate 140 sweet cakes in one day and night. Wheat and various kinds of corn as well as of vegetables were the foods desired by many longing women. One woman was responsible for 20 pounds of pepper, another ate ginger in large quantities, a third kept mace under her pillow; cinnamon, salt, emulsion of almonds, treacle, mushrooms were desired by others. Cherries were longed for by one, and another ate 30 or 40 lemons in one night. Various kinds of fish--mullet, oysters, crabs, live eels, etc.--are mentioned, while other women have found delectation in lizards, frogs, spiders and flies, even scorpions, lice and fleas. A pregnant woman, aged 33, of sanguine temperament, ate a live fowl completely with intense satisfaction. Skin, wool, cotton, thread, linen, blotting paper have been desired, as well as more repulsive substances, such as nasal mucus and feces (eaten with bread). Vinegar, ice, and snow occur in other cases. One woman stilled a desire for human flesh by biting the nates of children or the arms of men. Metals are also swallowed, such as iron, silver, etc. One pregnant woman wished to throw eggs in her husband's face, and another to have her husband throw eggs in her face. In the next chapter of the same work Schurig describes cases of acute antipathy which may arise under the same circumstances (cap. III, "De Nausea seu Antipathia certorum ciborum"). The list includes bread, meat, fowls, fish, eels (a very common repulsion), crabs, milk, butter (very often), cheese (often), honey, sugar, salt, eggs, caviar, sulphur, apples (especially their odor), strawberries, mulberries, cinnamon, mace, capers, pepper, onions, mustard, beetroot, rice, mint, absinthe, roses (many pages are devoted to this antipathy), lilies, elder flowers, musk (which sometimes caused vomiting), amber, coffee, opiates, olive oil, vinegar, cats, frogs, spiders, wasps, swords. More recently Gould and Pyle (_Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine_, p. 80) have briefly summarized some of the ancient and modern records concerning the longings of pregnant women. Various theories are put forward concerning the causation of the longings of pregnant women, but none of these seems to furnish by itself a complete and adequate explanation of all cases. Thus it is said that the craving is the expression of a natural instinct, the system of the pregnant woman really requiring the food she longs for. It is quite probable that this is so in many cases, but it is obviously not so in the majority of cases, even when we confine ourselves to the longings for fairly natural foods, while we know so little of the special needs of the organism during pregnancy that the theory in any case is insusceptible of clear demonstration. Allied to this theory is the explanation that the longings are for things that counteract the tendency to nausea and sickness. Giles, however, in his valuable statistical study of the longings of a series of 300 pregnant women, has shown that the percentage of women with longings is exactly the same (33 per cent.) among women who had suffered at some time during pregnancy from sickness as among the women who had not so suffered. Moreover, Giles found that the period of sickness frequently bore no relation to the time when there were cravings, and the patient often had cravings after the sickness had ceased. According to another theory these longings are mainly a matter of auto-suggestion. The pregnant woman has received the tradition of such longings, persuades herself that she has such a longing, and then becomes convinced that, according to a popular belief, it will be bad for the child if the longing is not gratified. Giles considers that this process of auto-suggestion takes place "in a certain number, perhaps even in the majority of cases."[184] The Duchess d'Abrantès, the wife of Marshal Junot, in her _Mémoires_ gives an amusing account of how in her first pregnancy a longing was apparently imposed upon her by the anxious solicitude of her own and her husband's relations. Though suffering from constant nausea and sickness, she had no longings. One day at dinner after the pregnancy had gone on for some months her mother suddenly put down her fork, exclaiming: "I have never asked you what longing you have!" She replied with truth that she had none, her days and her nights being occupied with suffering. "No _envie!_" said the mother, "such a thing was never heard of. I must speak to your mother-in-law." The two old ladies consulted anxiously and explained to the young mother how an unsatisfied longing might produce a monstrous child, and the husband also now began to ask her every day what she longed for. Her sister-in-law, moreover, brought her all sorts of stories of children born with appalling mother's marks due to this cause. She became frightened and began to wonder what she most wanted, but could think of nothing. At last, when eating a pastille flavored with pineapple, it occurred to her that pineapple is an excellent fruit, and one, moreover, which she had never seen, for at that time it was extremely rare. Thereupon she began to long for pineapple, and all the more when she was told that at that season they could not be obtained. She now began to feel that she must have pineapple or die, and her husband ran all over Paris, vainly offering twenty louis for a pineapple. At last he succeeded in obtaining one through the kindness of Mme. Bonaparte, and drove home furiously just as his wife, always talking of pineapples, had gone to bed. He entered the room with the pineapple, to the great satisfaction of the Duchess's mother. (In one of her own pregnancies, it appears, she longed in vain for cherries in January, and the child was born with a mark on her body resembling a cherry--in scientific terminology, a _nævus_.) The Duchess effusively thanked her husband and wished to eat of the fruit immediately, but her husband stopped her and said that Corvisart, the famous physician, had told him that she must on no account touch it at night, as it was extremely indigestible. She promised not to do so, and spent the night in caressing the pineapple. In the morning the husband came and cut up the fruit, presenting it to her in a porcelain bowl. Suddenly, however, there was a revulsion of feeling; she felt that she could not possibly eat pineapple; persuasion was useless; the fruit had to be taken away and the windows opened, for the very smell of it had become odious. The Duchess adds that henceforth, throughout her life, though still liking the flavor, she was only able to eat pineapple by doing a sort of violence to herself. (_Mémories de la Duchesse d'Abrantès_, vol. iii, Chapter VIII.) It should be added that, in old age, the Duchess d'Abrantès appears to have become insane. The influence of suggestion must certainly be accepted as, at all events, increasing and emphasizing the tendency to longings. It can scarcely, however, be regarded as a radical and adequate explanation of the phenomenon generally. If it is a matter of auto-suggestion due to a tradition, then we should expect to find longings most frequent and most pronounced in multiparous women, who are best acquainted with the tradition and best able to experience all that is expected of a pregnant woman. But, as a matter of fact, the women who have borne most children are precisely those who are least likely to be affected by the longings which tradition demands they should manifest. Giles has shown that longings occur much more frequently in the first than in any subsequent pregnancy; there is a regular decrease with the increase in number of pregnancies until in women with ten or more children the longings scarcely occur at all. We must probably regard longings as based on a physiological and psychic tendency which is of universal extension and almost or quite normal. They are known throughout Europe and were known to the medical writers of antiquity. Old Indian as well as old Jewish physicians recognized them. They have been noted among many savage races to-day: among the Indians of North and South America, among the peoples of the Nile and the Soudan, in the Malay archipelago.[185] In Europe they are most common among the women of the people, living simple and natural lives.[186] The true normal relationship of the longings of pregnancy is with the impulsive and often irresistible longings for food delicacies which are apt to overcome children, and in girls often persist or revive through adolescence and even beyond. Such sudden fits of greediness belong to those kind of normal psychic manifestations which are on the verge of the abnormal into which they occasionally pass. They may occur, however, in healthy, well-bred, and well-behaved children who, under the stress of the sudden craving, will, without compunction and apparently without reflection, steal the food they long for or even steal from their parents the money to buy it. The food thus seized by a well-nigh irresistible craving is nearly always a fruit. Fruit is usually doled out to children in small quantities as a luxury, but we are descended from primitive human peoples and still more remote ape-like ancestors, by whom fruit was in its season eaten copiously, and it is not surprising that when that season comes round the child, more sensitive than the adult to primitive influences, should sometimes experience the impulse of its ancestors with overwhelming intensity, all the more so if, as is probable, the craving is to some extent the expression of a physiological need. Sanford Bell, who has investigated the food impulses of children in America, finds that girls have a greater number of likes and dislikes in foods than boys of the same age, though at the same time they have less dislikes to some foods than boys. The proclivity for sweets and fruits shows itself as soon as a child begins to eat solids. The chief fruits liked are oranges, bananas, apples, peaches, and pears. This strong preference for fruits lasts till the age of 13 or 14, though relatively weaker from 10 to 13. In girls, however, Bell notes the significant fact from our present point of view that at mid-adolescence there is a revived taste for sweets and fruits. He believes that the growth of children in taste in foods recapitulates the experience of the race. (S. Bell, "An Introductory Study of the Psychology of Foods." _Pedagogical Seminary_, March, 1904.) The heightened nervous impressionability of pregnancy would appear to arouse into activity those primitive impulses which are liable to occur in childhood and in the unmarried girl continue to the nubile age. It is a significant fact that the longings of pregnant women are mainly for fruit, and notably for so wholesome a fruit as the apple, which may very well have a beneficial effect on the system of the pregnant woman. Giles, in his tabulation of the foods longed for by 300 pregnant women, found that the fruit group was by far the largest, furnishing 79 cases; apples were far away at the head, occurring in 34 cases out of the 99 who had longings, while oranges followed at a distance (with 13 cases), and in the vegetable group tomatoes came first (with 6 cases). Several women declared "I could have lived on apples," "I was eating apples all day," "I used to sit up in bed eating apples."[187] Pregnant women appear seldom to long for the possession of objects outside the edible class, and it seems doubtful whether they have any special tendency to kleptomania. Pinard has pointed out that neither Lasègue nor Lunier, in their studies of kleptomania, have mentioned a single shop robbery committed by a pregnant woman.[188] Brouardel has indeed found such cases, but the object stolen was usually a food. A further significant fact connecting the longings of pregnant women with the longings of children is to be found in the fact that they occur mainly in young women. We have, indeed, no tabulation of the ages of pregnant women who have manifested longings, but Giles has clearly shown that these chiefly occur in primiparæ, and steadily and rapidly decrease in each successive pregnancy. This fact, otherwise somewhat difficult of explanation, is natural if we look upon the longings of pregnancy as a revival of those of childhood. It certainly indicates also that we can by no means regard these longings as exclusively the expression of a physiological craving, for in that case they would be liable to occur in any pregnancy unless, indeed, it is argued that with each successive pregnancy the woman becomes less sensitive to her own physiological state. There has been a frequent tendency, more especially among primitive peoples, to regard a pregnant woman's longings as something sacred and to be indulged, all the more, no doubt, as they are usually of a simple and harmless character. In the Black Forest, according to Ploss and Bartels, a pregnant woman may go freely into other people's gardens and take fruit, provided she eats it on the spot, and very similar privileges are accorded to her elsewhere. Old English opinion, as reflected, for instance, in Ben Jonson's plays (as Dr. Harriet C.B. Alexander has pointed out), regards the pregnant woman as not responsible for her longings, and Kiernan remarks ("Kleptomania and Collectivism," _Alienist and Neurologist_, November, 1902) that this is in "a most natural and just view." In France at the Revolution a law of the 28th Germinal, in the year III, to some extent admitted the irresponsibility of the pregnant woman generally,--following the classic precedent, by which a woman could not be brought before a court of justice so long as she was pregnant,--but the Napoleonic code, never tender to women, abrogated this. Pinard does not consider that the longings of pregnant women are irresistible, and, consequently, regards the pregnant woman as responsible. This is probably the view most widely held. In any case these longings seldom come up for medico-legal consideration. The phenomena of the longings of pregnancy are linked to the much more obscure and dubious phenomena of the influence of maternal impressions on the child within the womb. It is true, indeed, that there is no real connection whatever between these two groups of manifestations, but they have been so widely and for so long closely associated in the popular mind that it is convenient to pass directly from one to the other. The same name is sometimes given to the two manifestations; thus in France a pregnant longing is an _envie_, while a mother's mark on the child is also called an _envie_, because it is supposed to be due to the mother's unsatisfied longing. The conception of a "maternal impression" (the German _Versehen_) rests on the belief that a powerful mental influence working on the mother's mind may produce an impression, either general or definite, on the child she is carrying. It makes a great deal of difference whether the effect of the impression on the child is general, or definite and circumscribed. It is not difficult to believe that a general effect--even, as Sir Arthur Mitchell first gave good reason for believing, idiocy--may be produced on the child by strong and prolonged emotional influence working on the mother, because such general influence may be transmitted through a deteriorated blood-stream. But it is impossible at present to understand how a definite and limited influence working on the mother could produce a definite and limited effect on the child, for there are no channels of nervous communications for the passage of such influences. Our difficulty in conceiving of the process must, however, be put aside if the fact itself can be demonstrated by convincing evidence. In order to illustrate the nature of maternal impressions, I will summarize a few cases which I have collected from the best medical periodical literature during the past fifteen years. I have exercised no selection and in no way guarantee the authenticity of the alleged facts or the alleged explanation. They are merely examples to illustrate a class of cases published from time to time by medical observers in medical journals of high repute. Early in pregnancy a woman found her pet rabbit killed by a cat which had gnawed off the two forepaws, leaving ragged stumps; she was for a long time constantly thinking of this. Her child was born with deformed feet, one foot with only two toes, the other three, the os calcis in both feet being either absent or little developed. (G.B. Beale, Tottenham, _Lancet_, May 4, 1889). Three months and a half before birth of the child the father, a glazier, fell through the roof of a hothouse, severely cutting his right arm, so that he was lying in the infirmary for a long time, and it was doubtful whether the hand could be saved. The child was healthy, but on the flexor surface of the radial side of the right forearm just above the wrist--the same spot as the father's injury--there was a nævus the size of a sixpence. (W. Russell, Paisley, _Lancet_, May 11, 1889.) At the beginning of pregnancy a woman was greatly scared by being kicked over by a frightened cow she was milking; she hung on to the animal's teats, but thought she would be trampled to death, and was ill and nervous for weeks afterwards. The child was a monster, with a fleshy substance--seeming to be prolonged from the spinal cord and to represent the brain--projecting from the floor of the skull. Both doctor and nurse were struck by the resemblance to a cow's teats before they knew the woman's story, and this was told by the woman immediately after delivery and before she knew to what she had given birth. (A. Ross Paterson, Reversby, Lincolnshire, _Lancet_, September 29, 1889.) During the second month of pregnancy the mother was terrified by a bullock as she was returning from market. The child reached full term and was a well-developed male, stillborn. Its head "exactly resembled a miniature cow's head;" the occipital bone was absent, the parietals only slightly developed, the eyes were placed at the top of the frontal bone, which was quite flat, with each of its superior angles twisted into a rudimentary horn. (J.T. Hislop, Tavistock, Devon, _Lancet_, November 1, 1890.) When four months pregnant the mother, a multipara of 30, was startled by a black and white collie dog suddenly pushing against her and rushing out when she opened the door. This preyed on her mind, and she felt sure her child would be marked. The whole of the child's right thigh was encircled by a shining black mole, studded with white hairs; there was another mole on the spine of the left scapula. (C.F. Williamson, Horley, Surrey, _Lancet_, October 11, 1890.) A lady in comfortable circumstances, aged 24, not markedly emotional, with one child, in all respects healthy, early in her pregnancy saw a man begging whose arms and legs were "all doubled up." This gave her a shock, but she hoped no ill effects would follow. The child was an encephalous monster, with the extremities rigidly flexed and the fingers clenched, the feet almost sole to sole. In the next pregnancy she frequently passed a man who was a partial cripple, but she was not unduly depressed; the child was a counterpart of the last, except that the head was normal. The next child was strong and well formed. (C.W. Chapman, London, _Lancet_, October 18, 1890.) When the pregnant mother was working in a hayfield her husband threw at her a young hare he had found in the hay; it struck her on the cheek and neck. Her daughter has on the left cheek an oblong patch of soft dark hair, in color and character clearly resembling the fur of a very young hare. (A. Mackay, Port Appin, N.B., _Lancet_, December 19, 1891. The writer records also four other cases which have happened in his experience.) When the mother was pregnant her husband had to attend to a sow who could not give birth to her pigs; he bled her freely, cutting a notch out of both ears. His wife insisted on seeing the sow. The helix of each ear of her child at birth was gone, for nearly or quite half an inch, as if cut purposely. (R.P. Roons, _Medical World_, 1894.) A lady when pregnant was much interested in a story in which one of the characters had a supernumerary digit, and this often recurred to her mind. Her baby had a supernumerary digit on one hand. (J. Jenkyns, Aberdeen, _British Medical Journal_, March 2, 1895. The writer also records another case.) When pregnant the mother saw in the forest a new-born fawn which was a double monstrosity. Her child was a similar double monstrosity (_cephalothora copagus_). (Hartmann, _Münchener Medicinisches Wochenschrift_, No. 9, 1895.) A well developed woman of 30, who had ten children in twelve years, in the third month of her tenth pregnancy saw a child run over by a street car, which crushed the upper and back part of its head. Her own child was anencephalic and acranial, with entire absence of vault of skull. (F.A. Stahl, _American Journal of Obstetrics_, April, 1896.) A healthy woman with no skin blemish had during her third pregnancy a violent appetite for sunfish. During or after the fourth month her husband, as a surprise, brought her some sunfish alive, placing them in a pail of water in the porch. She stumbled against the pail and the shock caused the fish to flap over the pail and come in violent contact with her leg. The cold wriggling fish produced a nervous shock, but she attached no importance to this. The child (a girl) had at birth a mark of bronze pigment resembling a fish with the head uppermost (photograph given) on the corresponding part of the same leg. Daughter's health good; throughout life she has had a strong craving for sunfish, which she has sometimes eaten till she has vomited from repletion. (C.F. Gardiner, Colorado Springs, _American Journal Obstetrics_, February, 1898.) The next case occurred in a bitch. A thoroughbred fox terrier bitch strayed and was discovered a day or two later with her right foreleg broken. The limb was set under chloroform with the help of Röntgen rays, and the dog made a good recovery. Several weeks later she gave birth to a puppy with a right foreleg that was ill-developed and minus the paw. (J. Booth, Cork, _British Medical Journal_, September 16, 1899.) Four months before the birth of her child a woman with four healthy children and no history of deformity in the family fell and cut her left wrist severely against a broken bowl; she had a great fright and shock. Her child, otherwise perfect, was born without left hand and wrist, the stump of arm terminating at lower end of radius and ulna. (G. Ainslie Johnston, Ambleside, _British Medical Journal_, April 18, 1903.) The belief in the reality of the transference of strong mental or physical impressions on the mother into physical changes in the child she is bearing is very ancient and widespread. Most writers on the subject begin with the book of Genesis and the astute device of Jacob in influencing the color of his lambs by mental impressions on his ewes. But the belief exists among even more primitive people than the early Hebrews, and in all parts of the world.[189] Among the Greeks there is a trace of the belief in Hippocrates, the first of the world's great physicians, while Soranus, the most famous of ancient gynæcologists, states the matter in the most precise manner, with instances in proof. The belief continued to persist unquestioned throughout the Middle Ages. The first author who denied the influence of maternal impressions altogether appears to have been the famous anatomist, Realdus Columbus, who was a professor at Padua, Pisa, and Rome at the beginning of the sixteenth century. In the same century, however, another and not less famous Neapolitan, Della Porta, for the first time formulated a definite theory of maternal impressions. A little later, early in the seventeenth century, a philosophic physician at Padua, Fortunatus Licetus, took up an intermediate position which still finds, perhaps reasonably, a great many adherents. He recognized that a very frequent cause of malformation in the child is to be found in morbid antenatal conditions, but at the same time was not prepared to deny absolutely and in every case the influence of maternal impression on such conditions. Malebranche, the Platonic philosopher, allowed the greatest extension to the power of the maternal imagination. In the eighteenth century, however, the new spirit of free inquiry, of radical criticism, and unfettered logic, led to a sceptical attitude toward this ancient belief then flourishing vigorously.[190] In 1727, a few years after Malebranche's death, James Blondel, a physician of extreme acuteness, who had been born in Paris, was educated at Leyden, and practiced in London, published the first methodical and thorough attack on the doctrine of maternal impressions, _The Strength of Imagination of Pregnant Women Examined_, and exercised his great ability in ridiculing it. Haller, Roederer, and Sömmering followed in the steps of Blondel, and were either sceptical or hostile to the ancient belief. Blumenbach, however, admitted the influence of maternal impressions. Erasmus Darwin, as well as Goethe in his _Wahlverwandtschaften_, even accepted the influence of paternal impressions on the child. By the beginning of the nineteenth century the majority of physicians were inclined to relegate maternal impressions to the region of superstition. Yet the exceptions were of notable importance. Burdach, when all deductions were made, still found it necessary to retain the belief in maternal impressions, and Von Baer, the founder of embryology, also accepted it, supported by a case, occurring in his own sister, which he was able to investigate before the child's birth. L.W.T. Bischoff, also, while submitting the doctrine to acute criticism, found it impossible to reject maternal impressions absolutely, and he remarked that the number of adherents to the doctrine was showing a tendency to increase rather than diminish. Johannes Müller, the founder of modern physiology in Germany, declared himself against it, and his influence long prevailed; Valentin, Rudolf Wagner, and Emil du Bois-Reymond were on the same side. On the other hand various eminent gynæcologists--Litzmann, Roth, Hennig, etc.--have argued in favor of the reality of maternal impressions.[191] The long conflict of opinion which has taken place over this opinion has still left the matter unsettled. The acutest critics of the ancient belief constantly conclude the discussion with an expression of doubt and uncertainty. Even if the majority of authorities are inclined to reject maternal impressions, the scientific eminence of those who accept them makes a decisive opinion difficult. The arguments against such influence are perfectly sound: (1) it is a primitive belief of unscientific origin; (2) it is impossible to conceive how such influence can operate since there is no nervous connection between mother and child; (3) comparatively few cases have been submitted to severe critical investigation; (4) it is absurd to ascribe developmental defects to influences which arise long after the foetus had assumed its definite shape[192]; (5) in any case the phenomenon must be rare, for William Hunter could not find a coincidence between maternal impressions and foetal marks through a period of several years, and Bischoff found no case in 11,000 deliveries. These statements embody the whole of the argument against maternal impressions, yet it is clear that they do not settle the matter. Edgar, in a manual of obstetrics which is widely regarded as a standard work, states that this is "yet a mooted question."[193] Ballantyne, again, in a discussion of this influence at the Edinburgh Obstetrical Society, summarizing the result of a year's inquiry, concluded that it is still "_sub judice_."[194] In a subsequent discussion of the question he has somewhat modified his opinion, and is inclined to deny that definite impressions on the pregnant woman's mind can cause similar defects in the foetus; they are "accidental coincidences," but he adds that a few of the cases are difficult to explain away. At the same time he fully believes that prolonged and strongly marked mental states of the mother may affect the development of the foetus in her uterus, causing vascular and nutritive disturbances, irregularities of development, and idiocy.[195] Whether and in how far mental impressions on the mother can produce definite mental and emotional disposition in the child is a special aspect of the question to which scarcely any inquiry has been devoted. So distinguished a biologist as Mr. A.W. Wallace has, however, called attention to this point, bringing forward evidence on the question and emphasizing the need of further investigation. "Such transmission of mental influence," he remarks, "will hardly be held to be impossible or even very improbable," (A.W. Wallace, "Prenatal Influences on Character," _Nature_, August 24, 1893.) It has already been pointed out that a large number of cases of foetal deformities, supposed to be due to maternal impressions, cannot possibly be so caused because the impression took place at a period when the development of the foetus must already have been decided. In this connection, however, it must be noted that Dabney has observed a relationship between the time of supposed mental impressions and the nature of the actual defect which is of considerable significance as an argument in favor of the influence of mental impressions. He tabulated 90 carefully reported cases from recent medical literature, and found that 21 of them were concerned with defects of structure of the lips and palate. In all but 2 of these 21 the defect was referred to an impression occurring within the first three months of pregnancy. This is an important point as showing that the assigned cause really falls within a period when a defect of development actually could produce the observed result, although the person reporting the cases was in many instances manifestly ignorant of the details of embryology and teratology. There was no such preponderance of early impressions among the defects of skin and hair which might well, so far as development is concerned, have been caused at a later period; here, in 7 out of 15 cases, it was distinctly stated that the impression was made later than the fourth month.[196] It would seem, on the whole, that while the influence of maternal impressions in producing definite effects on the child within the womb has by no means been positively demonstrated, we are not entitled to reject it with any positive assurance. Even if we accept it, however, it must remain, for the present, an inexplicable fact; the _modus operandi_ we can scarcely even guess at. General influences from the mother on the child we can easily conceive of as conveyed by the mother's blood; we can even suppose that the modified blood might act specifically on one particular kind of tissue. We can, again, as suggested by Féré, very well believe that the maternal emotions act upon the womb and produce various kinds and degrees of pressure on the child within, so that the apparently active movements of the foetus may be really consecutive on unconscious maternal excitations.[197] We may also believe that, as suggested by John Thomson, there are slight incoördinations _in utero_, a kind of developmental neurosis, produced by some slight lack of harmony of whatever origin, and leading to the production of malformations.[198] We know, finally, that, as Féré and others have repeatedly demonstrated during recent years by experiments on chickens, etc., very subtle agents, even odors, may profoundly affect embryonic development and produce deformity. But how the mother's psychic disposition can, apart from heredity, affect specifically the physical conformation or even the psychic disposition of the child within her womb must remain for the present an insoluble mystery, even if we feel disposed to conclude that in some cases such action seems to be indicated. In comprehending such a connection, however at present undemonstrated, it may well be borne in mind that the relationship of the mother to the child within her womb is of a uniquely intimate character. It is of interest in this connection to quote some remarks by an able psychologist, Dr. Henry Rutgers Marshall; the remarks are not less interesting for being brought forward without any connection with the question of maternal impressions: "It is true that, so far as we know, the nervous system of the embryo never has a direct connection with the nervous system of the mother: nevertheless, as there is a reciprocity of reaction between the physical body of the mother and its embryonic parasite, the relation of the embryonic nervous system to the nervous system of the mother is not very far removed from the relation of the pre-eminent part of the nervous system of a man to some minor nervous system within his body which is to a marked extent dissociated from the whole neural mass. "Correspondingly, then, and within the consciousness of the mother, there develops a new little minor consciousness which, although but lightly integrated with the mass of her consciousness, nevertheless has its part in her consciousness taken as a whole, much as the psychic correspondents of the action of the nerve which govern the secretions of the glands of the body have their part in her consciousness taken as a whole. "It is very much as if the optic ganglia developed fully in themselves, without any closer connection with the rest of the brain than existed at their first appearance. They would form a little complex nervous system almost but not quite apart from the brain system; and it would be difficult to deny them a consciousness of their own; which would indeed form part of the whole consciousness of the individual, but which would be in a manner self-dependent." It must, if this is so, be said that before birth, on the psychic side, the embryo's activities "form part of a complex consciousness which is that of the mother and embryo together." "Without subscribing to the strange stories of telepathy, of the solemn apparition of a person somewhere at the moment of his death a thousand miles away, of the unquiet ghost haunting the scenes of its bygone hopes and endeavors, one may ask" (with the author of the address in medicine at the Leicester gathering of the British Medical Association, _British Medical Journal_, July 29, 1905) "whether two brains cannot be so tuned in sympathy as to transmit and receive a subtile transfusion of mind without mediation of sense. Considering what is implied by the human brain with its countless millions of cells, its complexities of minute structure, its innumerable chemical compositions, and the condensed forces in its microscopic and ultramicroscopic elements--the whole a sort of microcosm of cosmic forces to which no conceivable compound of electric batteries is comparable; considering, again, that from an electric station waves of energy radiate through the viewless air to be caught up by a fit receiver a thousand miles distant, it is not inconceivable that the human brain may send off still more subtile waves to be accepted and interpreted by the fitly tuned receiving brain. Is it, after all, mere fancy that a mental atmosphere or effluence emanates from one person to affect another, either soothing sympathetically or irritating antipathically?" These remarks (like Dr. Marshall's) were made without reference to maternal impressions, but it may be pointed out that under no conceivable circumstance could we find a brain in so virginal and receptive a state as is the child's in the womb. On the whole we see that pregnancy induces a psychic state which is at once, in healthy persons, one of full development and vigor, and at the same time one which, especially in individuals who are slightly abnormal, is apt to involve a state of strained or overstrained nervous tension and to evoke various manifestations which are in many respects still imperfectly understood. Even the specifically sexual emotions tend to be heightened, more especially during the earlier period of pregnancy. In 24 cases of pregnancy in which the point was investigated by Harry Campbell, sexual feeling was decidedly increased in 8, in one case (of a woman aged 31 who had had four children) being indeed only present during pregnancy, when it was considerable; in only 7 cases was there diminution or disappearance of sexual feeling.[199] Pregnancy may produce mental depression;[200] but on the other hand it frequently leads to a change of the most favorable character in the mental and general well-being. Some women indeed are only well during pregnancy. It is remarkable that some women who habitually suffer from various nervous troubles--neuralgias, gastralgia, headache, insomnia--are only free from them at this moment. This "paradox of gestation," as Vinay has termed it, is specially marked in the hysterical and those suffering from slight nervous disorders, but it is by no means universal, so that although it is possible, Vinay states, to confirm the opinion of the ancients as to the beneficial action of marriage on hysteria, that is only true of slight cases and scarcely enables us to counsel marriage in hysteria.[201] Even a woman's intelligence is sometimes heightened by pregnancy, and Tarnier, as quoted by Vinay, knew many women whose intelligence, habitually somewhat obtuse, has only risen to the normal level during pregnancy.[202] The pregnant woman has reached the climax of womanhood; she has attained to that state toward which the periodically recurring menstrual wave has been drifting her at regular intervals throughout her sexual life[203]; she has achieved that function for which her body has been constructed, and her mental and emotional disposition adapted, through countless ages. And yet, as we have seen, our ignorance of the changes effected by the occurrence of this supremely important event--even on the physical side--still remains profound. Pregnancy, even for us, the critical and unprejudiced children of a civilized age, still remains, as for the children of more primitive ages, a mystery. Conception itself is a mystery for the primitive man, and may be produced by all sorts of subtle ways apart from sexual connection, even by smelling a flower.[204] The pregnant woman was surrounded by ceremonies, by reverence and fear, often shut up in a place apart.[205] Her presence, her exhalations, were of extreme potency; even in some parts of Europe to-day, as in the Walloon districts of Belgium, a pregnant woman must not kiss a child for her breath is dangerous, or urinate on plants for she will kill them.[206] The mystery has somewhat changed its form; it still remains. The future of the race is bound up with our efforts to fathom the mystery of pregnancy. "The early days of human life," it has been truly said, "are entirely one with the mother. On her manner of life--eating, drinking, sleeping, and thinking--what greatness may not hang?"[207] Schopenhauer observed, with misapplied horror, that there is nothing a woman is less modest about than the state of pregnancy, while Weininger exclaims: "Never yet has a pregnant woman given expression in any form--poem, memoirs, or gynæcological monograph--to her sensations or feelings."[208] Yet when we contemplate the mystery of pregnancy and all that it involves, how trivial all such considerations become! We are here lifted into a region where our highest intelligence can only lead us to adoration, for we are gazing at a process in which the operations of Nature become one with the divine task of Creation. FOOTNOTES: [169] See, e.g., Groos, _Æsthetische Genuss_, p. 249. "We have to admit," Groos observes, "the entrance of another instinct, the impulse to tend and foster, so closely connected with the sexual life. It is seemingly due to the co-operation of this impulse that the little female bird during courtship is so often fed by the male like a young fledgling. In man 'love' from the biological standpoint is also an amalgamation of two needs; when the tender need to protect and foster and serve is lacking the emotion is not quite perfect. Heine's expression, 'With my mantle I protect you from the storm,' has always seemed to me very characteristic." Sometimes the sexual impulse may undergo a complete transformation in this direction. "I believe there is really a tendency in women," a lady writes in a letter, "to allow maternal feeling to take the place of sexual feeling. Very often a woman's feeling for her husband becomes this (though he may be twenty years older than herself); sometimes it does not, remaining purely sex feeling. Sometimes it is for some other man she has this curious self-obliterating maternal feeling. It is not necessarily connected with sex intercourse. A prostitute, who has relations with dozens of men, may have it for some feeble drunken fool, who perhaps goes after other women. I once saw the change from sex feeling to mother feeling, as I call it, come almost suddenly over a woman after she had lived about four years with a man who was unfaithful to her. Then, when all real sex feeling, the hatred of the woman he followed, the desire he should give her love and tenderness, had all gone, came the other feeling, and she said to me, 'You don't understand at all; he's only my little baby; nothing he does can make any difference to me now.' As I grow older and understand women's natures better, I can see almost at once which relation it is a woman has to her husband, or any given man. It is this feeling, and not sex passion, that keeps woman from being free." Not only is there a sexual association in the impulse to foster and protect, there would appear to be a similar element also in the response to that impulse. Freud has especially insisted on the partly sexual character of the child's feelings for those who care for it and tend it and satisfy its needs. It is begun in earliest infancy; "whoever has seen the sated infant sink back from the breast, to fall asleep with flushed cheeks and happy smile, must say that the picture is adequate to the expression of the sexual satisfaction of later life." The lips, moreover, are the earliest erogenous zone. "There will, perhaps, be some opposition," Freud remarks (_Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie_, pp. 36, 64), "to the identification of the child's feelings of tenderness and appreciation for those who tend it with sexual love, but I believe that exact psychological analysis will place the identity beyond doubt. The relationship of the child with the person who tends it is for it a continual source of sexual excitement and satisfaction flowing from the erogenous zones, especially since the fostering person--as a rule the mother--regards the child with emotions which proceed from her sexual life; strokes it, kisses it, rocks it, and very plainly treats it as a compensation for a fully valid sexual object." Freud remarks that girls who retain the childish character of their love for their parents to adult age are apt to make cold wives and to be sexually anæsthetic. [170] Esbach (in his _Thèse de Paris_, published in 1876) showed that even the finger nails are affected in pregnancy and become measurably thinner. [171] C.H. Stratz, _Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers_, Chapter VI. [172] Iron appears to be liberated in the maternal organism during pregnancy, and Wychgel has shown (_Zeitschrift für Geburtshülfe und Gynäkologie_, bd. xlvii, Heft II) that the pigment of pregnant women contains iron, and that the amount of iron in the urine is increased. [173] Vinay, _Maladies de la Grossesse_, Chapter VIII; K. Hennig, "Exploratio Externa," _Comptes-rendus du XIIe. Congrès International de Médècine_, vol. vi, Section XIII, pp. 144-166. A bibliography of the literature concerning the physiology of pregnancy, extending to ten pages, is appended by Pinard to his article "Grossesse," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_. [174] Stratz, op. cit., Chapter XII. [175] W.S.A. Griffith, "The Diagnosis of Pregnancy," _British Medical Journal_, April 11, 1903. [176] J. Mackenzie and H.O. Nicholson, "The Heart in Pregnancy," _British Medical Journal_, October 8, 1904; Stengel and Stanton, "The Condition of the Heart in Pregnancy," _Medical Record_, May 10, 1902 and _University Pennsylvania Medical Bulletin_, Sept., 1904 (summarized in _British Medical Journal_, August 16, 1902, and Sept. 23, 1905.) [177] J. Henderson, "Maternal Blood at Term," _Journal of Obstetrics and Gynæcology_, February, 1902; C. Douglas, "The Blood in Pregnant Women," _British Medical Journal_, March 26, 1904; W.L. Thompson, "The Blood in Pregnancy," _Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin_, June, 1904. [178] H.O. Nicholson, "Some Remarks on the Maternal Circulation in Pregnancy," _British Medical Journal_, October 3, 1903. [179] J. Morris Slemans, "Metabolism During Pregnancy," _Johns Hopkins Hospital Reports_, vol. xii, 1904. [180] B. Wolff, _Zentralblatt für Gynäkologie_, 1904, No. 26. [181] Tridandani, _Annali di Ostetrica_, March, 1900. [182] R. Barnes, "The Induction of Labor," _British Medical Journal_, December 22, 1894. [183] See, e.g., Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition, pp. 344, et seq. [184] Arthur Giles, "The Longings of Pregnant Women," _Transactions Obstetrical Society of London_, vol. xxxv, 1893. [185] Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, Chapter XXX. [186] Thus, in Cornwall, "to be in the longing way" is a popular synonym for pregnancy. [187] The apple, wherever it is known, has nearly always been a sacred or magic fruit (as J.F. Campbell shows, _Popular Tales of West Highlands_, vol. I, p. lxxv. et seq.), and the fruit of the forbidden tree which tempted Eve is always popularly imagined to be an apple. One may perhaps refer in this connection to the fact that at Rome and elsewhere the testicles have been called apples. I may add that we find a curious proof of the recognition of the feminine love of apples in an old Portuguese ballad, "Donna Guimar," in which a damsel puts on armour and goes to the wars; her sex is suspected and as a test, she is taken into an orchard, but Donna Guimar is too wary to fall into the trap, and turning away from the apples plucks a citron. [188] A. Pinard, Art. "Grossesse," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_, p. 138. On the subject of violent, criminal and abnormal impulses during pregnancy, see Cumston, "Pregnancy and Crime," _American Journal Obstetrics_, December, 1903. [189] See especially Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, vol. i, Chapter XXXI. Ballantyne in his work on the pathology of the foetus adds Loango negroes, the Eskimo and the ancient Japanese. [190] In 1731 Schurig, in his _Syllepsilogia_, devoted more than a hundred pages (cap. IX) to summarizing a vast number of curious cases of maternal impressions leading to birth-marks of all kinds. [191] J.W. Ballantyne has written an excellent history of the doctrine of maternal impressions, reprinted in his _Manual of Antenatal Pathology: The Embryo_, 1904, Chapter IX; he gives a bibliography of 381 items. In Germany the history of the question has been written by Dr. Iwan Bloch (under the pseudonym of Gerhard von Welsenburg), _Das Versehen der Frauen_, 1899. Cf., in French, G. Variot, "Origine des Préjugés Populaires sur les Envies," _Bulletin Société d'Anthropologie_, Paris, June 18, 1891. Variot rejects the doctrine absolutely, Bloch accepts it, Ballantyne speaks cautiously. [192] J.G. Kiernan has shown how many of the alleged cases are negatived by the failure to take this fact into consideration. (_Journal of American Medical Association_, December 9, 1899.) [193] J. Clifton Edgar, _The Practice of Obstetrics_, second edition, 1904, p. 296. In an important discussion of the question at the American Gynæcological Society in 1886, introduced by Fordyce Barker, various eminent gynæcologists declared in favor of the doctrine, more or less cautiously. (_Transactions of the American Gynæcological Society_, vol. xi, 1886, pp. 152-196.) Gould and Pyle, bringing forward some of the data on the question (_Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine_, pp. 81, _et seq._) state that the reality of the influence of maternal impressions seems fully established. On the other side, see G.W. Cook, _American Journal of Obstetrics_, September, 1889, and H.F. Lewis, ib., July, 1899. [194] _Transactions Edinburgh Obstetrical Society_, vol. xvii, 1892. [195] J.W. Ballantyne, _Manual of Antenatal Pathology: The Embryo_, p. 45. [196] W.C. Dabney, "Maternal Impressions," Keating's _Cyclopædia of Diseases of Children_, vol. i, 1889, pp. 191-216. [197] Féré, _Sensation et Mouvement_, Chapter XIV, "Sur la Psychologie du Foetus." [198] J. Thomson, "Defective Co-ordination in Utero," _British Medical Journal_, September 6, 1902. [199] H. Campbell, _Nervous Organization of Man and Woman_, p. 206; cf. Moll, _Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, bd. i, p. 264. Many authorities, from Soranus of Ephesus onward, consider, however, that sexual relations should cease during pregnancy, and certainly during the later months. Cf. Brénot, _De l'influence de la copulation pendant la grosseisse_, 1903. [200] Bianchi terms this fairly common condition the neurasthenia of pregnancy. [201] Vinay, _Traité des Maladies de la Grossesse_, 1894, pp. 51, 577; Mongeri, "Nervenkrankungen und Schwangerschaft." _Allegemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, bd. LVIII, Heft 5. Haig remarks (_Uric Acid_, sixth edition, p. 151) that during normal pregnancy diseases with excess of uric acid in the blood (headaches, fits, mental depression, dyspepsia, asthma) are absent, and considers that the common idea that women do not easily take colds, fevers, etc., at this time is well founded. [202] Founding his remarks on certain anatomical changes and on a suggestion of Engel's, Donaldson observes: "It is impossible to escape the conclusion that in women natural education is complete only with maternity, which we know to effect some slight changes in the sympathetic system and possibly the spinal cord, and which may be fairly laid under suspicion of causing more structural modifications than are at present recognized." H.H. Donaldson, _The Growth of the Brain_, p. 352. [203] The state of menstruation is in many respects an approximation to that of pregnancy; see, e.g., Edgar's _Practice of Obstetrics_, plates 6 6 and 7, showing the resemblance of the menstrual changes in the breasts and the external sexual parts to the changes of pregnancy; cf. Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition, Chapter XI, "The Functional Periodicity of Woman." [204] Thus the gypsies say of an unmarried woman who becomes pregnant, "She has smelt the moon-flower"--a flower believed to grow on the so-called moon-mountain and to possess the property of impregnating by its smell. Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, bd. I, Chapter XXVII. [205] This was a sound instinct, for it is now recognized as an extremely important part of puericulture that a woman should rest at all events during the latter part of pregnancy; see, e.g., Pinard, _Gazette des Hôpitaux_, November 28, 1895, and _Annales de Gynécologie_, August, 1898. [206] Ploss and Bartels, op. cit., Chapter XXIX; Kryptadia, vol. viii, p. 143. [207] Griffith Wilkin, _British Medical Journal_, April 8, 1905. [208] Weininger, _Geschlecht und Charakter_, p. 107. I may remark that a recent book, Ellis Meredith's _Heart of My Heart_, is devoted to a seemingly autobiographical account of a pregnant woman's emotions and ideas. The relations of maternity to intellectual work have been carefully and impartially investigated by Adele Gerhard and Helena Simon, who seem to conclude that the conflict between the inevitable claims of maternity and the scarcely less inevitable claims of the intellectual life cannot be avoided. APPENDIX. HISTORIES OF SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT. HISTORY I.--The following narrative has been written by a university man trained in psychology:-- So far as I have been able to learn, none of my ancestors for at least three generations have suffered from any nervous or mental disease; and of those more remote I can learn nothing at all. It appears probable, then, that any peculiarities of my own sexual development must be explained by reference to the somewhat peculiar environment. I was the first child and was, naturally, somewhat spoiled--a process which tended to increase my natural tendency to sentimentality. On the other hand, I was shy and undemonstrative with all except my nearest relatives, and with them as well after my seventh or eighth year. And here it may be well to describe my "mental type," as this is probably the most important factor in determining the direction of one's mental development. Of mental types the "visual" is, of course, by far the most common, but in my own case visual imagery was never strong or vivid, and has constantly grown weaker. The dominant part has been played by tactual, muscular and organic sensations, placing me as one of the "tactual motor" type, with strong "verbal motor" and "organic" tendencies. In reading a novel I seldom have a mental picture of the character or situation, but easily imagine the sensations (except the visual) and feel something of the emotions described. When telling of any event I have a strong impulse to make the movements described and to gesticulate. I remember events in terms of movements and the words to be used in giving an account of them; and in thinking of any subject I can feel the movements of the larynx and, in a less degree, of the lips and tongue that would be involved in putting my thoughts into words. I am easily moved to emotion, even to sentimentality, but am seldom if ever deeply affected and am so averse to any display of my feelings that I have the reputation among my acquaintances of being cold, unfeeling and unemotional. I am naturally quiet and bashful to a degree, which has rendered all forms of social intercourse painful through much of my life, and this in spite of a real longing to associate with people on terms of intimacy. As a child I was sensitive and solitary; later I became morbid as well. In a character so constituted the feelings and impulses of the moment are likely to rule, and such has been my constant experience, though a large element of obstinacy in my character has kept me from appearing impulsive, and slight influences will bring about reactions which seem out of all proportion to their cause. For instance, I cannot, even now, read the more erotic of Boccaccio's stories without a good deal of sexual excitement and restlessness, which can be relieved only by vigorous exercise or masturbation. The first ten years of my life were passed on a farm, most of the time without playmates or companions of my own age. As far back as I can remember I indulged in elaborate day-dreams in which I figured as the chief character along with a few others who were chiefly creatures of my imagination, but at times borrowed from reality. These others were always boys until I learned the proper function of the sexual organs, when girls usurped the whole stage in numbers beyond the limits of a Turkish harem. Even at school my day-dreams were scarcely interrupted, for my shyness and timidity made me very unpopular among my schoolmates, who tormented me after the fashion of small boys or neglected me, as the spirit moved them. To make matters worse, I was brought up under the "sheltered life system," kept carefully away from the "bad boys," which category included nearly all the youngsters of the community, and deluged with moral homilies and tirades on things religious until I was thoroughly convinced that goodness and discomfort, the right and the unpleasant, were strictly synonymous; and I was kept through much of the time facing the prospect of an early death, to be followed by the good old orthodox hell or the equal miseries of its gorgeous alternative. I may say in all seriousness that this is a conservative and unexaggerated account of one phase of my early life--the one, I think, that tended most strongly to make me introspective and morbid. Later on, when I was trying to abandon the habit of masturbation, this early training greatly increased the despair I felt at each successive failure. The first traces of sexual excitement that I can now recall occurred when I was about 4 years old. I had erections quite frequently and found a mild pleasure in fondling my genitals when these occurred, especially just after waking in the morning. I had no notion of an orgasm, and never succeeded in producing one until I was 13 years of age. In the summer of my sixth year I experienced pleasurable sensations in daubing my genitals with oil and then fondling or rubbing them, but I abandoned this amusement after getting some irritating substance into the meatus. A year later my mother warned me that playing with my penis would "make me very sick," but since experience had taught me that this was not true, my conviction that what was forbidden must necessarily be pleasant, sent me directly to my favorite retreat in the barn loft to experiment. Since, however, I failed, in spite of persistent effort, to produce any such pleasant results as I had expected, I soon gave up my attempts for other kinds of amusement. A few months after this, in midsummer, a very sensual servant girl began a series of attempts to satisfy herself sexually with my help. She came nearly every day into the loft where I was playing and did her best to initiate me into the mysteries of sexual relationships, but I proved a sorry pupil. She would rub my penis until it became erect and then, placing me upon her, would insert the penis in her vulva and make movements of her thighs and hips calculated to cause friction. At times she varied the program by lying upon me and embracing me passionately. I can remember distinctly her quick, gasping breath and convulsive movements. She generally ended the seance by persuading me to perform cunnilingus upon her. None of these performances were intelligible to me and I invariably protested against being compelled to leave my play to amuse her. Even her fondling of my genitals annoyed me; and, stranger still, I preferred satisfying her by cunnilingus to the attempts at coitus. It was nearly a year later that I experienced the first unmistakable manifestations of the sexual impulse--erections accompanied by lustful feeling and vague desires of whose proper satisfaction I had no notion whatever. It never occurred to me to associate my experiences with the servant girl with these new sensations. The peculiar fact about them was that they were generally occasioned by the infliction of pain upon animals. I do not remember how I first discovered that they could be evoked in this way, but I can clearly recollect many of my efforts to arouse this pleasurable excitement by abusing the dog or the cats, or by prodding the calves with a nail set in the end of a broom handle. I seldom manipulated my genitals at this time, and when I did it was for the purpose of causing sexual excitement rather than allaying it. During this same year I got my first idea of sexual intercourse by watching animals copulate; but my powers of observation must have been limited, for I supposed that the penis of the male entered the anus of the female. In watching the coitus of animals I experienced lively sexual excitement and lustful sensations, located not only in the genitals, but apparently in the anus as well. I often excited, myself by imagining myself playing the part of the female animal--a peculiar combination of passive pederasty and bestiality. A servant girl put me to right on the error of observation just mentioned, but neglected to apply the principle to human animals, and I remained for another year in complete ignorance of the structure of woman's sexual organs and of the intercourse between man and woman. In the meantime I cultivated my fancies of intercourse with animals, often still perversely imagining myself taking the part of the female; and the notion of such relationships gradually became so familiar as to seem possible and desirable. This is especially significant in view of later developments. Up to my eleventh or twelfth year the erotic element in my daydreaming varied with the seasons. In the summer it played a dominant part, while in the winter it was almost entirely absent, owing, it may be, to the fact that most of my time was spent indoors or on long, tiresome tramps to and from school, and the further fact that during the winter I saw but little of the animals which had acted as a stimulus to sexual excitement. So little was I troubled in winter and so ignorant was I of normal intercourse that sleeping with a cousin, a girl of about my own age (7 or 8 years), resulted in no addition to my knowledge of things sexual. It was early in my ninth year that I first learned something of the anatomical difference between man and woman and of the functions of the sexual organs in coitus. These were explained to me by a young male servant, who, however, told me nothing of conception or pregnancy. At first I was very little interested, as it did not immediately occur to me to associate my own erotic experiences with the matter of these revelations; but under the faithful tuition of my new instructor I soon began to desire normal coitus, and my interest in the sexual affairs of animals weakened accordingly. His teachings went still further, for he masturbated before me, then persuaded me to masturbate him, and finally practiced coitus inter femora upon me. He also tried to masturbate me, but was unable to produce an orgasm, though I found the experiment mildly pleasurable. Early in my eleventh year we left the farm and lived in the city for several months. In the meantime there had been no developments in my sexual life beyond what has already been indicated. In the city I found so much to interest and amuse me that I almost entirely forgot my erotic day-dreams and desires. Though my chief playmates were two girls of about my own age I never thought of attempting sexual intercourse with them, as I might easily have done, for they were much wiser and more experienced in these things than myself. Shortly before the end of our stay in town an older schoolmate explained to me as much of the process of reproduction as is usually known by a precocious youngster of 12 years, but I firmly refused to credit his statements. He adduced the fact of lactation in proof of the correctness of his views, but I had been too thoroughly steeped in supernaturalism to be very amenable to naturalistic evidence of this sort and remained obdurate. But the suggestion stayed with me and perplexed me not a little; when we returned to the farm I began to watch the reproductive process in animals. The following two years were decidedly unpleasant. I was growing rapidly and was sluggish, awkward and stupid. At school I was more unpopular than ever and seemed to have a positive genius for doing the wrong thing. On the rare occasions when my companions admitted me to their counsels I was a willing dupe and catspaw, with the result that I was much in trouble with my teachers. Being morbidly sensitive I suffered keenly under these circumstances and, as my health was not at all good, I often made of my frequent headaches excuses to stay at home, where I would lie abed brooding over my small troubles or, more often, dreaming erotic day-dreams and making repeated attempts to produce an orgasm. But though these efforts were accompanied by the most lustful thoughts and my imagination created situations of oriental extravagance, I was 13 years old when they first met with success. I remember the occasion very distinctly, the more so because I thought of it much and bitterly when shortly afterwards I tried to abandon a habit which the family "doctor book" assured me must result in every variety of damnation. At the moment, however, I was greatly surprised and gratified and tried at once to repeat the delightful sensation, but was unable to do so until the following day. From that time to the present I think I have masturbated an average of ten times per week, and this is certainly a very conservative estimate; for though up to my sixteenth year I could seldom produce an orgasm more than once a day I have often, during the last four or five years, produced it from four to seven times per day without difficulty and this for days and even weeks in succession. During these periods of excessive masturbation very little liquid was ejaculated and the pleasurable sensations were slight or entirely lacking. From the time when I began masturbating regularly practically my whole interest centered in things pertaining to sex. I read the chapters of the family "doctor book" which treated of sexual matters; my day-dreams were almost exclusively erotic; I sought opportunities to talk about sex-relationships with my schoolmates, with whom I was now slowly getting on better terms; I collected pictures of nude women, learned a great number of obscene stories, read such obscene books as I could obtain and even searched the dictionary for words having a sexual connotation. Up to my fifteenth year, when ejaculation of semen began, there was a strong sadistic coloring to my day-dreams. Through this period, too, my bashfulness in the presence of the opposite sex increased until it reached the point of absurdity. When fifteen years old I began to practice coitus inter femora on my brother and continued it intermittently for about two years. The experience was disappointing, for I had confidently expected a great increase of pleasure over masturbation in this act; and in casting about for some stronger stimulus I recurred to the forgotten idea of intercourse with animals. I promptly tried to put the idea to a test, but failed several times, and finally succeeded, only to find that the result fell far short of my expectations. Nevertheless I continued the practice irregularly for about three years--or rather through that part of the three years that I spent at home, for while I was at school opportunity for such indulgence was lacking. Long familiarity with the idea of intercourse with animals had made it impossible for me to feel the disgust with the practice which it inspires in most people; and even the perusal of Exodus xxii: 19 failed to make me abandon it. Firmly as I believed in the Mosaic law the supremacy of the sexual impulse was complete. As early as my sixteenth year I tried to abandon "self-abuse" in all its forms and have repeatedly made the same effort since that time but never with more than very partial success. On two or three occasions I have stopped for periods of several weeks, but only to begin again and indulge more recklessly than before. The deep depression which followed each failure, and often each act of masturbation, I attributed solely to the loss of semen, leaving out of account the fact that I expected to feel depressed and the utter discouragement and self-contempt which accompanied the sense of failure and weakness when, in the face of my resolution, I repeatedly gave way and yielded to the temptation to an act whose consequences I firmly believed must be ruinous. I am now convinced that by far the greater part of this depression was due to suggestion and the humiliating sense of defeat. And this feeling of moral impotence, this seeming helplessness against an overpowering impulse which, on the other hand, seemed so trivial when viewed without passion, eventually weakened my self-control to a degree guessed by no one but myself and sapped the foundations of my moral life in a way which I have constant occasion to deplore. The foregoing paragraphs give, I think, a fair idea of my condition when I left home for a boarding school at the beginning of my seventeenth year. From this time my experiences may be said to have run on in two distinct cycles--that of the summer months when I was at home, and that of the remainder of the year when I was at school. This fact will make some confusion and apparent inconsistency in the rest of this "history" unavoidable. When I left home I was shy, retiring, totally ignorant of social usage, without self-confidence, unambitious, dreamy, and subject to fits of melancholy. I masturbated at least once a day, though I was in almost constant rebellion against the habit. In my more idle moments I elaborated erotic day dreams in which there was a peculiar mixture of the purely sensual and the purely ideal element; which never fused in my experience, but held the field alternately or mingled somewhat in the manner of air and water. One person usually served as the object of my ideal attachment, another as the center round which I grouped my sensual dreams and desires. At school I found more congenial companions than I had fallen in with elsewhere, and the necessary contact with people of both sexes gradually wore off some of the rougher corners and brought a measure of self-confidence. I had two or three incipient love affairs which my backwardness kept from growing serious. Out of this change of environment came a sense of expansion, of escape from self, which was distinctly pleasant. I still masturbated regularly, but no longer experienced the former depression except when at home during vacation. Relatively to the past, life was now so varied and interesting that I had less and less time for melancholy; and the discovery that I could lead my classes and hold my own in athletic sports seemed to indicate that my past fears had been exaggerated. Nevertheless I was never reconciled to the habit and often rebelled at the weakness that kept me its slave. When I entered the university the effects of my useless struggle with the practice of masturbation were pretty well developed. I could no longer fix my attention steadily upon my work and found that only by "cribbing" and "bluffing" could I keep my place at the head of my classes. I was troubled not a little by the shoddiness of my work, and tried again and again during the course of the two years spent at this college to shake off the habit. At the university I was introduced gradually to a wider social circle and so far outgrew my bashfulness that I began to seek the society of the opposite sex assiduously. As I gained self-confidence I became reckless, getting at one time into serious trouble with the authorities which came near resulting in my expulsion. I became one of the more popular members of the clique to which I belonged--much to my surprise and even more to that of my acquaintances. The physical culture craze attacked me at this time and my pet ambition was the attainment of strength and agility. My bump of vanity also grew apace, but an unmeasured hatred of all kinds of foppishness kept me on the safe side of moderation in my dress and behavior. During my second year of university life I had two love affairs in the course of which I found that my interest in any particular member of the fair sex disappeared as soon as it was returned. The pursuit was fascinating enough, but I cared nothing at all for the prize when once it was within reach. I may add that the interest I had in the girls was purely ideal. While at this school I do not think I masturbated half as often as while at the preparatory school. When I left this college for ---- University I took with me a formidable catalogue of good resolutions, first among which was the determination to abandon all kinds of "self-abuse." I think I kept this one about a month. As I had gone from a comparatively small school to one of the largest of American universities the change was great and the revelations it brought me frequently humiliating. I was lonesome, home-sick, and my bump of self-esteem was woefully bruised; and not unnaturally I soon began to seek a partial solace in day-dreams and masturbation. After I had become somewhat adapted to my new environment I indulged less frequently in either, and from that time to the present I have masturbated very irregularly, sometimes but little and again to excess. Not long after I came to this place I met a young lady with whom I soon became quite intimate. For over a year our friendship was strictly platonic and then swung suddenly around to a sexual basis. We were ardent lovers for a few weeks, after which I tired of the game as I had before in other cases, and broke off all relations with her as abruptly as was possible. Since then I have almost wholly withdrawn from the society and companionship of women and have almost entirely lost whatever tact and assurance I once possessed in their company. Things pertaining to sexual life have interested me rather more than less, but have occupied my attention much less exclusively than before this episode. Though I have never intended to marry, my breaking off relations with this girl affected me much. At any rate it marked an abrupt change in the character of my sexual experiences. The sexual impulse seems to have lost its power to rouse me to action. Hitherto I had practiced masturbation always under protest, as it were--as the only available form of sexual satisfaction; while now I resigned myself to it as all that there was to hope for in that field. Of course I knew that a little effort or a little money would procure natural satisfaction of my sexual needs, but I also knew that I would never, under any ordinary circumstances, put forth the necessary effort, and fear of venereal disease has been more than enough to keep me away from houses of prostitution. Some months ago I refrained from masturbation for a period of about six weeks and watched carefully for any change in my health or spirits, but noticed none at all. The only impulse to masturbate was occasioned by fits of restlessness accompanied by erections and a mildly pleasurable feeling of fullness in the penis and scrotum. I think that over 75 per cent, of my acts of masturbation are provoked by these fits of restlessness and are unaccompanied by fancy images, erotic thoughts, lustful desires, or marked pleasure. At other times the act is occasioned by erotic thoughts and images, and is accompanied by a considerable degree of lustful pleasure which, however, is never so intense as in my earlier experiences and has steadily decreased from the first. Usually the orgasm is accompanied by a strong contraction of all the voluntary muscles, particularly the extensors, followed by a slight giddiness and slight feeling of exhaustion. If repeated several times in the course of a single day the acts are followed by dullness and lassitude; otherwise the feeling of exhaustion passes away quickly and a sense of relief and quiet takes its place. So natural or rather habitual has this resort to masturbation as a means of relief from nervousness and restlessness become that the act is almost instinctive in its unconsciousness. I am extremely sensitive to all kinds of sexual influences, and have an insatiable curiosity regarding everything that pertains to the sexual life of men or women. I am not, however, excited sexually by conversation about sexual facts and relationships, no matter what its nature, though in reading erotic literature my excitement is often intense. The tendency to day dream has never left me, but there are no longer any elaborate scenes or long-continued "stories," these having been replaced by vaguely imagined incidents which are usually broken off before they reach a satisfactory climax. They are always interrupted by the intrusion of other matters, usually of more practical interest; and the long-continued habit of satisfying myself by masturbation has made erotic dreams rather tantalizing than pleasurable. I dream very seldom at night--at least I can scarcely ever remember any dreams upon waking--and practically never of sexual relations. I have not had a nocturnal emission for over three years, and probably not more than twenty-five in my life. In my "love passages" with girls there has been no serious thought of coitus on my part, and I have never had intercourse with a woman--unless my early experiences with the servant girl be called such. Like all masturbators I always idealized "love" to the utter exclusion of all sensual cravings; and the notion that the physical act of coitus was something degrading and destructive of real love rather than its consummation was, of all prejudices I have ever formed, the most difficult to escape--a circumstance due, I suppose, to the fact that all I had ever been taught on the subject tended to the complete divorce of what was called "love" from what was stigmatized as a "base sensual desire." Judging from my own experience and observation I should say that "ideal love" is a mere surface feeling, bound to disappear as soon as it has gained its object by arousing a reciprocal interest on the part of the one to whom it is directed. So little did I "materialize" the objects of my "love" that I have never cared for kissing or the warm embraces in which lovers usually indulge. I have never kissed but one girl, and her with far too little enthusiasm to satisfy her. My last sweetheart was a very passionate girl, the warmth of whose embraces was somewhat torrid and, to me, both puzzling and annoying. The intensity of feeling which demanded such strenuous expression was beyond my knowledge of human nature. A somewhat peculiar circumstance in connection with these experiences is the fact that I often found myself trying to analyze my emotions with a purely psychological interest while playing the part of the intoxicated lover in his mistress's arms. There is but little left to say on the subject of my sexual development. During the last two or three years my knowledge of the facts of the sexual life has been very greatly increased, and I have become acquainted with phases of human nature which were wholly unknown to me before. The part played by things sexual in my life is still, I suppose, abnormally large; it is undoubtedly the largest single interest, though my outer life is determined almost wholly by other considerations. Of course I know nothing of the effect which long-continued masturbation may have had on my ability to perform normal coitus. I do not think I am subject to any kind of sexual perversion, for all my indulgence has been _faute de mieux_ and, at least since I began masturbation, all my desires and erotic day-dreams have had to do only with normal coitus. The mystery which surrounds the sexual act seems at times to be regaining its former influence and power of fascination. I have no doubt, however, but that I should be greatly disillusioned should I ever perform coitus; and I greatly regret that I have not been able to test this conviction and so round out and complete this "history." It may be worth while to say a word about my religious experiences, as, in many cases, they are closely bound up with the sexual impulse. I was never "converted," but on a dozen or more occasions approached the crisis more or less closely. The dominant emotion in these experiences was always fear, sometimes with anger and despair intermixed in varying proportions. A complete analysis of these experiences is, of course, impossible, but the various pleasurable feelings of which converts spoke in the revivals which I attended were a closed book to me. Following my revival-meeting experiences came a few days spent in a sort of moral exaltation during which I eschewed all my habits of which conventional morality disapproved, save masturbation, and felt no small satisfaction with my moral conditions. I became a first-rate Pharisee. Toward the women who had figured in my day dreams I suddenly conceived the chastest affection, resolutely smothering every sensual thought and fancy when thinking of them, and putting in place of these elements ideal love, self-sacrifice, knightly devotion--Sunday-school Garden-of-Eden pictures with a mediæval, romantic coloring. These day-dreams were always sexual, involving situations of extreme complexity and monumental silliness. Masturbation was always continued and usually with increased frequency. The end of these periods was always abrupt and much like awaking from a dream in which the dreamer has been behaving in a manner to arouse his own disgust. They were followed by feelings of sheepishness and self-contempt mingled with anger and a dislike of all things having to do with religion. My inability to pass the conversion crisis and a growing contempt for empty enthusiasm finally led me to a saner attitude toward religion, from which I passed easily into religious scepticism; and later the study of philosophy and science, and particularly of psychology, banished the last lingering remnant of faith in a supernatural agency and led me to the passion for facts and indifference to values which have caused me to be often called "dead to all morality." HISTORY II.--C.A., aged 25, unmarried; tutor, preparing to take Holy Orders:-- My paternal ancestry (which is largely Huguenot) is noteworthy for its patriotism and its large families. My father, who died when I was a year old, is remembered for the singular uprightness and purity of his life from his earliest childhood. The photograph which I have shows him as possessed of a rare classic beauty of features. He was an ideal husband and father. At the time of his death he was a Master of Arts and a school principal. My mother is an extraordinarily neurotic woman, yet famed among her friends for her great domesticity, attachment to her husbands, and an almost abnormal love of babies. She has nobly borne the ill-treatment of her second husband, who for several years has been in a state of melancholia. My mother has been "highly-wrought" all her life, and has suffered intensely from fears of all kinds. As a young girl she was somnambulistic, and once fell down a stairhead during sleep. In spite of her bodily sufferings with indigestion, eye-strain, and depression she retains her youthfulness. She has slight powers of reasoning. She has had times of unconsciousness and rigidity, I have never heard any mention of epilepsy. She has a horror of showing prudishness in regard to the healthful manifestations of sex life, and is always praising examples of what she terms "a natural woman." I have heard that during my first year my mother detected my nurse in the act of putting a morphine powder on my tongue for the purpose of keeping me quiet. I was subject to convulsions at this period, and narrowly escaped a permanent hernia. My family tell me that from the beginning I was a well-developed and boyish boy, full of mischief, impulsive, good to look upon, unusually affectionate, beloved by all. In my third year I took pleasure in crawling under the bed with my boy-cousin who was nine months my senior, and after we had taken down our drawers, in kissing each other's nates. I do not remember which of us first thought of this pastime. At the age of 4 I gave myself a treat by gazing upward through a cellar window at the nates of a woman who was defecating from several feet above into a cesspool that lay beneath. It was during this summer also that I frightened myself by pulling back my prepuce far enough to disclose the purple glans, which I had never seen before. But this act gave me no desire to masturbate. When 5 years old, and living in a great city, I drew indecent pictures in company with a little girl and her younger brother. These pictures represented men in the act of urinating. The penes were drawn large, and the streams of urine plainly indicated. One afternoon I induced the boy to go to the bath-room, lie on his back, and allow me to perform _fellatio_ on him. I did not ask him to return the favor. I remember the curious tar-like smell of his clothing and the region about his genitals. It is possible that I gained my knowledge of _fellatio_ from an unknown boy of 10, who had induced me, during the preceding summer to enter a sandy lot with him, watch him urinate, and then, kneeling before him, commit _fellatio_. A year later, as I was walking home in the rain to our summer cottage, with an open umbrella over my shoulder, a boy of 15, who was leaning against our fence, exhibited a large, erect penis, and when I had passed him urinated upon me and my umbrella. I never saw the boy again. I felt peculiarly insulted by his act. Back of the house there lived a 12-year-old boy who invited me to watch him defecate in the outdoor privy, and during the act told me a number of indecent stories and words which I cannot remember. About this time I fell in love with a little Jewish boy next door. Often I cried myself to sleep over the thought that perhaps he was lying on a sofa alone and crying with a stomach-ache. I longed to embrace him; and yet I saw little of him, and made little of him when I was with him. Living in a Western city a few months later, some girls of 12 and 14 led me to their barn, where they dressed themselves in boys' clothing and made believe that they were cowboys. One of them told me to "shut my eyes, open my mouth, and get a surprise." When I opened my eyes once more a piece of hen-dung lay in my mouth. I have a vague remembrance of one of the girls asking me to enter a water-closet with her. She uttered some indelicate phrase, but I performed no act with her. In the house where I lived I once entered the bedroom of a half-grown girl while she was dressing. She knelt to kiss me innocently enough, and I, by a sudden impulse, ran my hand between her bare neck and her corset as far as I could reach. Apparently she took no notice of my movement. Although I did not masturbate, yet during this winter I experienced a tickling sensation about my genitals when I placed my hand beneath them as I lay on my stomach in bed. One evening I pulled up my night-dress and, holding my penis in my hand, I danced to and fro on the carpet. I imagined that I was one of a line of naked men and women who were advancing toward another similar line that faced them. I imagined myself as pleasurably coming in contact with my female partner who possessed male genitals. The following summer I lived in the woods. My next-door playmate was a little girl of my own age--6 years. She sat down before me in the barn and exposed her genitals. This was the first time I had seen female organs, or had thought for a moment that they differed from my own. In great perplexity I asked the little girl: "Has it been cut off?" She and I defecated in peach baskets that we found in the upper part of the barn. When I was 7 years old and back in the Eastern city I lived in the house of a physician. Alone with his 3-year-old daughter one day, I showed her my erect organ, and felt a delicious gratification when she stroked it with the words: "Nice! Nice!" I confessed my fault to my guardian that night after I had said my prayers. I had complained to my mother a year before of the inconvenience I found in my penis being "so long sometimes." She said that she would "see about having the end taken off." But I was never circumcised. Her words gave me the doubly unpleasant impression that my _glans_ was to be cut off. There came occasionally to the kitchen of Dr. W.'s house a foul-mouthed Irish laundress who used coarse language to me concerning urination. I loathed the woman, and yet one night I dreamed that I was embracing her naked form and rolling over and over with her on the bed; and in spite of my sight of female genitals a few months before, I thought of her as having organs of my own kind and size. At my first school I watched a red-haired boy of 12 expose the penis of a 7-year-old boy as he lay on his back in the bath-room. I do not remember that the sight gave me sexual pleasure. I spent the summer before I was 8 in a double house. The adopted daughter of our neighbor (a neurotic, retired physician) was a girl of 13 who had been taken from a poor laboring family. She got me to show her my parts, touched them, and asked whether I urinated from my scrotum. She also induced me to play with her genitals as we sat on a sofa in the twilight, and to spank her naked nates with the back of a hair-brush as she lay on a bed; but from none of these performances did I derive physical satisfaction. The girl E. and I took delight in "talking dirty secrets," as she expressed it. Her young cousin H. (nephew of her adopted mother) never heard me use the word "thing" without suggestively smiling. E. recalled the pleasant hours that she had spent with her cousin when they were in their night-gowns. She did not particularize these sexual relations. Under the board-walk the boy H. and I once defecated in bottles. Some little girls who lived opposite us pulled up their dresses one night and "dared" each other to dance out beyond the end of the house, in full view of the road. We boys merely looked on. I now fell passionately in love with a remarkably handsome little boy of my own age. I longed to kiss and hug him, but I did not dare to do so, for he was haughty and intolerant of my attentions. I even allowed him to stand with one foot on me and remark in a loud tone: "I am Conqueror!" I endured no end of petty insults and much ill-treatment from this boy. I reached the height of my passion on the night that he appeared at our cottage in a tight-fitting suit of pepper-and-salt. I gloried in his perfect legs and besought my guardian that she would buy me a similar suit of clothes. For the summer after I was 8 years old I lived in a cottage in a country town. The servant maid M. was a young girl of 16 who listened eagerly to my accounts of the "secrets" and actions in which the girl E. and I had taken delight a year before. I think that M. arranged a meeting between a little black-haired girl and me in order that we might take a walk and play sexually with each other. Just as we were starting on our walk one of my relatives said that I must not leave the yard. The little girl and I had see-sawed together and I had been interested in her legs as she rose in the air. (When I was 13 years old and see-sawing at a picnic with a stout girl, the motion of the board and the sight of her straddled form filled me with longing to embrace her sexually.) One afternoon M. took me to the house of an acquaintance of hers. M's brother was in the room and made a number of unremembered remarks which struck me as being rather "free," and M. told me later that she and the girl once dressed as ballet dancers and danced before M.'s brother. I felt that he was lascivious. I was always remarkably intuitive. I fell in love with a handsome, stout, black-haired boy who lived on a farm; but he was not a "farmer's son" in the common sense of the word. I visited him for two or three days, and we slept with each other, to my boundless joy. For his freckled girl cousin I did not care the turn of my wrist, although she was a nice enough little thing. One night when we three lay on a bed in the dark, and neither of us boys had eyes or words for her, she silently left us. He and I never committed the slightest sexual fault. I left him with tears at the summer-end, and I often kissed his photograph during the following winter. In the flat-house where I began to live when I was 8 years old, I once practiced mutual tickling of a very slight character with a boy of my own age. We sat on chairs placed opposite to each other and we inserted our fingers through the openings in our trousers. Just as we were beginning to enjoy the titillation we were interrupted by the approach of one of my family who, however, was not quick enough to discover us. Down cellar I often saw the genitals of the janitor's little girls--they were fond of lifting their skirts and they did not wear drawers--but I had no desire to attempt conjunction. I once caught an older friend of mine (he was 13) in the act of leaving one of the girls. The pair had been in a coal-compartment. The boy was buttoning his trousers and I guessed what he had been doing. When I began to sleep alone in my tenth year I had no desire to masturbate, and was loath to do so by reason of ample warnings given me by my guardian and by the family physician. One afternoon a stunted friend of mine sat down in the back yard and astonished me by tying a piece of string to his penis. At a large private school which I now attended I made the acquaintance of the principal's son, and wondered why he had such a fancy for dressing his 5-year-old sister in boy's clothes. He closed the door on me while he was thus engaged. At my house we went to the bath-room together, and he showed me his circumcised and much-ridged penis. Neither of us made any mention of masturbating. At this period I fell slightly in love with a 5-year-old boy with intensely black eyes. I would kiss him whenever we were alone, but I had no wish to seduce him. I was always interested in watching the urination of younger children. When I was 5 years old I went on my knees to a strange little boy in order to whisper in his ear an inquiry as to whether he wanted to urinate. I experienced a pleasurable thrill when I was 10 years old in leading a small girl cousin to the outdoor privy, in helping her on and off the open seat, in buttoning and unbuttoning her drawers, and in gazing at her vulva. The summer before I was 10 I lived a wild life in the mountains. My companions were a negro girl, the two daughters of a clergyman, the two sons of a questionable woman hotel-keeper, and the daughter of the Irish scavenger. All of these children were extraordinarily sensual. Their leading pastime, from morning until night, was varying forms of indecency, with the supreme caress--which they termed "raising dickie"--as the most frequent enjoyment. The 5-year-old daughter of the scavenger explained to us how she had seen her father approaching her stout mother with an erect penis, the pair standing up before the lamplight during the act. This curly-headed, rosy-cheeked child handled her genitals so much that they were inflamed. I once saw her sitting in the road and rubbing dust against her vulva. I saw little of the elder daughter of the minister (she was 12 years old). She persuaded me to expose myself before her in the cellar of a partially-built house. In return for my favor she allowed me to look at her genitals. She did not ask for _conjunctio_. The two younger daughters were my intimates. With the middle one I was forever performing a weak conjunction that consisted in the laying of my member against her vulva. Notwithstanding all the entreaties of my little friend, I could not be persuaded to protrude my penis against her vagina; and not on one occasion can I remember obtaining an erection or extreme pleasure. Up in the garret she straddled slanting beams with her genitals exposed, and I followed her example. The negro girl and my little friend both urinated on a tent floor at my request. I did not fancy the odor of a girl's genitals, nor the appearance of the vulva when the labia were held apart. The following summer, when I was almost 11, I took a long walk one day with my old friend, the girl E. We entered a patch of woods and ate our lunch, but no sense of sexual drawing toward the girl came over me and she did not offer to entice me. I slept with her boy-cousin one night, and her neuropathic aunt, a retired lady physician, bothered us by repeatedly creeping into our room. I felt intuitively that she was watching to see whether we would commit mutual masturbation--which we had no thought of doing. Three years before I had opened the door of her bedroom suddenly and saw E.'s naked form. The physician had been examining her, E. told me later. My guardian also annoyed me by repeated warnings not to play with myself. Just before I turned 11 I was sent to a small and so-called "home" boarding-school. Eight of us lived in the smaller dormitory. The matron roomed downstairs. There was no resident master--a serious error. We small boys were told to strip one evening. We were then tied neck-to-neck and made to dance a "slave-dance," which was marked by no sexuality. A boy of 15, R., one afternoon gave me the astonishing information that my father had taken a part in my procreation. Up to this moment I had known only of the maternal offices, information of which had been beautifully supplied to me by my guardian when I was 7 years old. At that time I talked freely about the coming of a baby brother in a distant city; I watched the construction of baby clothes; I named the newcomer, and I was momentarily disappointed when he proved to be a girl. This same R., a strong boy with a large penis, got into the custom of lying in bed with me just before lights were put out. He would read to himself and occasionally pause to pump his penis and make with his lips the sound of a laboring locomotive. I felt impelled to handle his organ, for I was fascinated by its size, and stiffness, and warmth. Rarely he would titillate my then small and unerect penis. R. never ejaculated when he was with me; hence not until my third year was I acquainted with the appearance of a flow of semen. Sometimes R. would stop during his dressing to manipulate his penis, but was such a picture of rosy health that I doubt whether he brought himself often to ejaculation. R. told me that he had been to a brothel where his genitals were examined to determine whether they were large enough and not diseased. He also related how he "played cow" with a girl of his own age, she consenting to perform _fellatio_ upon him. A dark-skinned, unwashed, pimpled but fairly vigorous boy of 16, with an irritable domineering manner, told me the delights of coitus with a girl in a bath-house, and I overheard his conversation with another "old" boy concerning the purchase of a girl in a big city for the sum of five dollars. No details were given. I will now pass to my third year, when I was 13 years old. A large, well-set-up boy of 16, A., became my idol. His toleration of my presence in his room filled me with endless love. When I lied about a matter in which he was concerned, his denunciation of me brought me to a state of shuddering and weeping unspeakable. When our relations were established again A. allowed me to creep into his bed after the lights were out, and there I passionately embraced him, but without performing any definite act. When I turned over on my side with my back to him he drew my prepuce back and forth until I experienced orgasm, but not ejaculation. I would return his favor by pumping his erect penis, but with no ejaculation on his part. He did not propose _fellatio_, and I did not think of it. One night when he was in my bed I began to masturbate very slightly, whereupon he laughed, saying: "So that is the way you amuse yourself!" As a matter of fact the habit was not fastened upon me. He always laughed when the rubbing of his finger on my exposed glans caused me to shrink. Another boy, H., now began to show me his erect penis and we practiced mutual manipulations. A. laughingly told me how me had caught H. in the act of masturbating as he stood in the bath-tub. A. told me a number of sexual stories--how he enjoyed coitus in the bushes with a girl on the way home from entertainments; how half a dozen boys and girls stripped in the basement of a church and performed coitus on the velvet chairs which stood behind the pulpit; and how he and a younger boy, who camped out together, played with each other's genitals. F., a boy of 11, was highly nervous, subject to timidity and tears on the slightest provocation, often morose, and under treatment for kidney trouble. His penis was erect whenever I saw him undress. He told me that a partially idiotic man taught F. and his companion how to masturbate. The man invited the boys to his tent and there pumped his organ until "some white stuff came out of it." F. also told me that an Indian princess in his part of the country would permit coitus for fifty cents. A. sometimes slept with F., and I could imagine their embraces. S., a secretive, handsome boy of 13, wetted his bed with urine every night. The only sign that he gave of an interest in sexuality was his laughing remark concerning the coupling of rose-bugs. Of his chum, my beloved C., I will speak later. My small room-mate handled himself only slightly. I never had a desire to lie with him, since I disliked him, nor with my first room-mate, a "chunky," fiery boy of 10, whose penis interested me merely because it was circumcised and almost always erect. His masturbation was also so slight as not to attract any particular attention. A lusty German boy, B., showed no signs of sexuality until his third year, when he laughed about his newly-appearing pubic hair, and told several of us openly of how he enjoyed to play "a drum-beat" on his penis before going to sleep. "I don't do it too much, though," he explained. He showed a mild curiosity when I gave him the resumé of a book on cohabitation which contained illustrations of the erect penis and the female organs. I had found this book in the woods and I read it eagerly during my third year. I came to the point of agreeing with A., who said: "Everyone is smutty." Indeed I lived in a lustful world, and yet my mind was bent also on books, and writing, and the outdoor world. I was overgrown and splendidly developed, with a medium-sized penis and a scant growth of pubic hair. My face wore a somewhat infantile expression. My mouth was a perfect "Cupid's bow," my hair thin and light. I was troubled about my snub-nose, which gave the boys a great deal of amusement. As a matter of fact I exaggerated its upward tendency out of my morbid self-consciousness and cowardice. My imagination was extraordinarily intense, as it had always been. I was sensitive to smells and sounds and colors and personalities, and to the subtle influence of the night. I was timid and easily moved to tears, but not from any physical weakness until after. At the lower house there was the boy Z., famed for his large penis; and the older G., a boy of 15, who was the leader in sexuality at his dormitory. Z. showed me his penis and exposed his glans often enough, but we did not manipulate each other. G. told us to notice how large a space his penis occupied in his trousers, and laughed over Z.'s custom of masturbating by means of a narrow vase. G.'s special lover was a nervous boy of ten. It is remarkable that none of us mentioned _fellatio_ or _pædicatio_. These acts may have occurred at school, but not to my knowledge. We did not have much to say sexually about the girls. We heard rumors of a 16-year-old, V., who had been sent away from school for coitus; and my first room-mate was said to have obtained _conjunctio_ with a girl under cover of the chapel shed. Once A. and I pointed a telescope at the open windows of the girls' dormitory, but we saw nothing to interest us. A day-scholar, J., a pale, nervous, bright boy of 13, took me into the study of his uncle-physician and together we gloated over pictures of the sexual organs. A. was with us on one occasion. J. told me how he liked to roll over and over in bed with his hand placed under his scrotum. This act, he said, made him imagine that he was obtaining coitus. He advised me to slide my penis back and forth in the vagina whenever I should actually obtain coitus. In my room at school J. once drew an imaginary map of a bagnio, in which the water-closet was carefully displayed _en suite_ with the bedrooms. J. and I never masturbated together. Indeed, I cannot remember seeing his organ. A hulking boy of 16, who lived opposite the school-grounds, became intimate with J., and we three went on a walk up the railroad track. The big boy, W., tried to inflame my passions by telling me how he and J. had had coitus with a handsome black-haired widow in town, but I remained cold. During this year I fell in love with C., a popular, talkative, witty boy of my own age, or perhaps a year younger. He fancied me and we slept together one night under the most innocent circumstances. I never dreamed of having sexual relations with him, and yet I fairly burned with love for him. My stay at his beautiful home over Sunday while his parents were away was one long delight. We slept in each other's arms, but there was no sexuality. En route to C.'s home he pointed with a glove to a little working-girl, saying he would like to have intercourse with her, but this was the only remark of the kind that ever passed his lips in my presence. When undressed save for his undershirt, he laughingly held his unerect organ in his hand and made the motions of obtaining conjunction with an imaginary partner. Once we spoke of masturbation (I could recite the information of my good physician with a marvelous show of virtue), and C. remarked: "Yes, doing that makes boys crazy." C. finally grew tired of my deceptive, babyish nature and ultra-interest in books and puzzles, but I cherished an undiminished affection for him, and when he was detained at home for a fortnight with a broken arm, I wrote him a passionate letter, which I sobbed over and actually wetted with my tears. But the fervor of my passion died at the close of the year. I consider this unsullied friendship to be the only redeeming feature of my sensual days at school. Versed as I was in the warnings against masturbation, I found pleasure one afternoon when I was alone in slipping my penis through the open handle of a pair of scissors and in violently flapping my partially erect organ until a strange, sweet thrill crept over me from top to toe and a drop of clear liquid oozed from my member. But I gave up the manipulation with scissors, finding a greater satisfaction in masturbating while I was defecating or just after it. I either pumped my organ by slipping the prepuce back and forth, or I grasped the organ at its root and violently jerked it back and forth. I soon began to masturbate not only every time that I defecated, but also at night just before I went to sleep, and sometimes early in the morning. On the whole I preferred the jerking just described. I always brought about ejaculation after perhaps five minutes of violent exertion. My penis became chafed at the root, but I did not especially care. I remember the afternoon that I masturbated for the first time while I was defecating in the school water-closet. I cannot recall that at first I thought of coitus while I masturbated. On one occasion I masturbated over the _vase de nuit_ after a delightful afternoon of tobogganing exploration up and down the mountain. During this first year of abuse, I felt no ill effects whatsoever, although I realized, in an unthinking way, that I was doing wrong. But sexuality had assumed the proportion of a regular feature of our school life. It was difficult for me to place a "universal" view in its true perspective. I used to smile at the glazed, dull morning eye of poor H., who was a stunted boy of 15, and thus could not endure his losses so well as I could endure them. The qualms of conscience which I suffered were lost in my delight in my dawning sexual life. Sometimes I lay on my stomach in bed, and by placing my hand under my scrotum, according to the directions of J., brought up a pretty girl to mind. Just before Sunday school G., our chief reprobate, and the rest of us would hunt out what we considered to be nasty texts of Scripture. The chapter concerning the whoredoms of Aholah and Aholibah gave me an especial pleasure. T. mentioned the giggling that occurred at prayers in the lower dormitory when the details of Esau's birth were read out. A few days before G. was expelled--for exactly what cause I do not know--he told me of how greatly he enjoyed coitus on his grandmother's sofa with a girl of fifteen. When I went home on the boat for holidays I noted the large, black-haired penis of the strong boy of our school. He occupied a state-room with me, but made no sexual overtures. Since my twelfth year I had been wrapped up all summer long in a boy who was six months my senior. We slept together constantly, but not once did we think of obtaining mutual gratification. On the contrary, we held up high ideals to each other and frowned on masturbation. I took delight in saying that I never had handled myself, and never would do so. Even at the height of my "auto-erotic" period, I skillfully concealed my habits from all my boy friends. A neurotic solo choir boy friend once spoke of obtaining ejaculation, whereupon I expressed utter ignorance of such an act, little hypocrite that I was. This boy told how the house servants joked with him about coitus and made laughing lunges at his organs. But much as I loved my chum, my most passionate regard went out in my thirteenth year to N., a chubby, blue-eyed, choir-boy of 12. He was a pretty boy to any eye. He was not gifted, except in water-sports, and anything but popular either with girls or with boys; yet I grew warm at the mention of his name. He did not care a fig for me. From first to last I had no consciousness of the sexual nature of my passion, and the thought of doing more than embrace and kiss him in an innocent manner never crossed my mind. For two summers I had nights of tossing on my bed (although I almost never was sleepless for any cause) when I would see his dear face and form, in and out of the swimming pool, or engaged perhaps in singing or in showing his beautiful teeth. I seldom was smitten with little girls, and I found myself embarrassed in their company after my ninth year; yet I thought well enough of their looks and ways to enjoy their company at dances. The girls liked me in a platonic way, for I was accounted a good, big, kind, blundering boy with a helping hand for the smallest fry. During the summer after I was 13, I imagined myself in the early morning, when I was half awake, as persuading my wife to have coitus with me. In the course of my spoken words I kept my hand under my scrotum. A plump girl-cousin of my own age was visiting at my uncle's during the summer after I was 13. With her I greatly desired to satisfy myself, but I could not be sure that my boy cousin (5 years old) might not find us out, even though she should consent. Once when we three were in the hay-loft a wave of lust rolled over me, but I made no proposal. Night and gaslight greatly increased my _libido_. On one occasion my aunt had gone to the village for ice-cream, and L. and I were left alone in the dining-room. I took her on my lap and had a powerful erection. I almost asked her to play sexually with me in the barn, but instead I spoke of an imaginary girl, the first letters of whose successive names spelled an indecent word for coitus--a word known to almost every Anglo-Saxon child, I fear. L. laughed, but gave no sign of assent. For a neighboring girl of 15 I felt such a drawing that early in the morning I would roll on the floor with my erect organ in my hand in riotous imagining of coitus with her. I walked with her in the woods and sat at her feet, but although I felt instinctively that she would satisfy me without much persuasion, yet I _could not_ ask her. One night I started to church in order to walk home with her, and lead her (if possible) to a field where we might gratify ourselves (I picked out the exact grassy spot where we might lie); but when I was almost at the church door my "moral sense" (if that is what it was) rose and dragged me home again. During the swimming hour I watched the genitals of the boys, comparing them carefully in the most minute details. Circumcised organs affected me as being disagreeable, and men's hairy, coarse genitals I abhorred. When 13 I became acquainted with the new mail-boy at the inn. He was a city "street-boy," and got me into smoking cigarettes occasionally. I did not definitely take up smoking until I was 16. He told me that a mason once offered him ten cents if he would masturbate the man in a cellar. The boy said that he refused. I slept a few times with an ill-favored boy of fine parentage. He was of my own age, and I had played with him in a natural way for several years, but my increasing sexual desires led me to mutually masturbate with him, and even unsuccessfully to attempt with him mutual pædicatio. On the morning after our nights of sensuality I felt "gone" and miserable, but not repentant. By afternoon I was myself again. My relations with G. were purely animal, for I disliked his jealous disposition, his horse-laugh, his features, his form, his withdrawn scrotum and his undersized penis. At home in the evening I often found myself inflamed with a mental picture of active _fellatio_ with him, but I never performed this act, so far as I remember. One of my great sexual desires was to walk along a fence on which a girl was seated. In order that I might feast my eyes on her pudenda she must not wear drawers. When I turned 14 I had been, from my unusual size, in long trousers for several months. I entered a private day-school and progressed brilliantly in my studies. I kept up masturbation almost daily, sometimes twice a day, both in the water closet and in bed. I can remember ejaculating before urination in the school _cabinet_. At night I often found myself longing for the return of my sister, seven years my junior, in order that I might embrace her in bed and fondle her genitals. I had done these things during my Christmas vacation of the year before. I mildly reproached myself for such incestuous desires, but they recurred continually. I dreamed little. And I cannot remember the character of my dreams. My waking _libido_ spent itself mostly in longings to embrace (without lustful acts) the forms of little boys of exquisite blonde beauty and thick hair. Narcissism may have been present, for in my twelfth year I had been told that at the age of 5 and 6 I was an extraordinarily beautiful little creature with long, lint-white hair. The preferable age was from 6 to 9. My eye was alert on the streets for boys answering to this description, and a street boy with long, white hair so won my passion that I followed him to his home and asked his mother if he might call on me and "play some games." As I did not even know the boy's name and had never seen him before, I was wonderingly refused. I sought in vain to find the whereabouts of another long-haired street boy whom I burned to embrace and load with benefits. I had a boundless desire for such a boy as this to idolize me--to look into my face out of big eyes and lose himself in love for me--to call me by endearing pet names--of his own accord to throw his arms around my neck. This second actual boy disappeared from my horizon by presumably moving away from the vast city neighborhood. I took a fancy to a small boy at school, who possessed the requisite delicacy, timidity, and sweetness, if not the physical requisites, of my beau ideal. I walked with him in the park and planned to have him at the house; but the matter was not arranged. At boarding-school I had associated much with younger and weaker boys, and had been ridiculed much for my cowardice in sports, but at the city school I moved with my equals and won their recognition. Our gymnasium director was middle-aged and of an indolent disposition. He liked to recall his youthful erections and to answer my sexual queries too fully, and cheerfully volunteered information on brothels. Yet I doubt whether he had an evil purpose in conversing with me. I thought I should never dare or want to enter one. I always conjured up the picture of a row of naked women from whom I could take my pick, and the smell of the women I imagined to be identical with the smell of my big friend A. at boarding-school. When I was traveling down town on an elevated train one afternoon the brakeman asked me whether I had ever been in a brothel, and told me that disorderly houses abounded in my neighborhood. "I have had connection with women," said this red-haired young man, waving his hand in greeting to a woman who nodded at him from a window, "since I was 15 years old. Not long ago a fine-looking, young woman in black offered to pay all my expenses if I would live with her and connect with her." When a girl of perhaps 7, a distant cousin of mine, visited us for a few days, I gratified my lust by placing my hand under her genitals and swinging her to and fro. She giggled with pleasure. That summer I began to experience the evil effects of the masturbation which I had practiced daily for a year and a half. Pimples began to break out on my chin (my complexion up to this time had been white and delicate). The family ascribed my condition to digestive difficulties. In playing with the boys and girls I found myself seized with a terrible shyness and a tendency to look down and weep. I had lost all the courage I had--it had never been great--in the presence of a crowd of children. I was fairly at ease with a single companion. My self-consciousness was something more painful to me than I can convey in words. At home I wept in my room and cursed myself for a baby. I little realized the cause of my nervous collapse. Yet I had too robust a frame not to be able to sleep and to play hard. The sympathetic pleasure which I had found in swinging my girl-cousin to and fro I now doubled by letting a 7-year-old boy ride cock-horse on my feet. I experienced an erection during the process, and I almost induced ejaculation when I tickled the boy with my feet in the region of his genitals. To see his shrinking, giggling joy gave me an exquisite sexual thrill. I longed to sleep with the boy, but I was afraid of causing comment. At the new and large boarding school which I entered in the fall my most lustful dreams and ejaculations were concerned with standing this little boy on the footboard of a bed, taking down his knickerbockers, and performing _fellatio_ on him. But I dreamed also of natural coitus. I fell in love with the handsome, 12-year-old son of the aged headmaster. The boy, O., sat next me at the table, and I never tired of gazing at him. It gave me a special sense of pleasure to look at him when he wore a certain flowing, scarlet, four-in-hand necktie. But O. was not attracted to me--for one thing I was in a disagreeably pimpled condition--and I could not induce him to linger in my room nor to sleep with me. My passion for O. did not diminish, and it rose to its supremacy on the evening when he appeared in our hallway (he roomed on the girls' side of the house and hinted at the sexual sights that he saw) in a costume of white satin, lace, and wings. He was ready for a costume party. I now masturbated less frequently, for I was beginning to appreciate the horrible consequences of my indulgence. I had frequent pollutions, with dreams. My day was one long agony of fear. How I dreaded to go to sleep in the same bed with my older chum, who never made any advances beyond embracing me passively _cum erectione_ while he was asleep. My day was one long agony of fear. At meal time my feet constantly writhed in agony for fear that the headmaster's grown up young ladies should make fun of me, or that my lack of facial composure and my inability to look people in the eye might be commented upon. I tingled with apprehension, especially in the region of my stomach. Every nerve was taut in the effort I made to appear composed. I masturbated with erections over nothing. Greek recitations were for me an _auto da fe_. My heart beat like a trip-hammer at the thought of getting up to recite, and once on my feet my voice shook and my mind wandered. I hated the thought of people behind me looking at me. I rarely summoned the courage to turn my head either one way or the other. I vastly admired the "bravery" of the small, 15-year-old boy who recited so calmly and so well. I was too cowardly to play foot-ball and base-ball, and I dreaded even my favorite tennis because the spectators put me in a state of scared self-consciousness. Knowing my own condition, I was yet so blind to it most of the time, and such a Jekyll-and-Hyde, that I actually pitied a boy of 19 who was an eccentric and a scared victim of masturbation. But in spite of my neuropathic condition I developed intellectually. I do not touch upon this aspect of my life, however, because I am trying to limit myself strictly to sexual manifestations. At the present time I have not the courage to continue the narrative. HISTORY III.--The following narrative is written by a clergyman, age 40, unmarried:-- My childhood and early boyhood were unmarked by sexual phenomena, beyond occasional erections, which commenced when about 5 years of age, without any exciting causes. These were accompanied by some degree of excitement, of the same nature as that which I experienced in later years. I was absolutely ignorant of sexual matters, but always had an idea that the essential difference between man and woman was to be found in the genital organs. This was sometimes a matter for thought and curiosity. Being for many years an only child I saw little of other children, and formed the habit of amusing myself with making things--boats, houses, etc.--and acquired a taste for science. When I could read I preferred biography, history, and poetry to anything else. When I was 13 years old and at a large school I heard for the first time of coitus, but very imperfectly. For a few days it filled my thoughts and mind, but feeling it was too engrossing a subject and one which took me off better things, I put it out of my mind. Later, another boy gave me a fuller description of the matter, and I began to have a great desire to know more and to be old enough to practice it. I also discovered that boys masturbated, and about a year after tried the experiment for myself. This vice was largely indulged in by my school-fellows. It never occurred to me that it was sinful, until I was nearly 16, when I came across a passage in Kenns's _Manual of Schoolboys_, in which it was hinted such things were wrong morally and spiritually. Previously I had felt it was an indelicate and shameful thing, and bad for health. This last idea was held as a solemn fact by all my boy friends. Gradually religion began to exert an influence over my sexual nature, obtaining as years passed a greater and greater restraining power. It is simply impossible for me to write a history of my sexual development without also describing the action which Christianity has had in determining its growth. The two have been so intimately bound together that my life history would not be a faithful record of facts if I left religion out of it. At school I took part, with great keenness, in cricket and foot-ball, and was very ambitious to excel in everything in which I took an interest, but I always had other tastes as well, which were more precious to me, for example, the love for science, history, and poetry. Until I was past 16 years my desire was simply for coitus, girls and women attracted me only as affording the means of gratifying this desire; but when I was nearly 17 I began to regard girls as beautiful objects, apart from this, and to desire their love and companionship. At the same time it dawned upon me that life held much of joy in the love of women and in domestic life--so henceforth I regarded them in a higher and purer light, and apart from sexual gratification. In fact, from this period till I was over 20, this idea so dominated my whole being that the lower side of my nature was entirely held in subjection and abeyance by it. It was rather repulsive to think of girls as objects of lust. This state of mind was not brought about by any romantic attachment or through any acquaintance or through circumstances. I was living in great seclusion and had no girl friends. After this period the lower side of my nature woke up as a giant refreshed with wine, and I underwent for many years a constant struggle with my nature, in which religion always triumphed in the end. I never fell into fornication, though sometimes into the vice of masturbation. These outbursts of desire were periodic, about ten or fourteen days apart, and would last several days. I must record also the fact that from the time this awakening took place my ideal views of woman no longer seemed incompatible with sexual relations. I noticed that at about 27 there was a lessening of the desire, but that may have been due to overwork and consequent nervous exhaustion. I had a good deal of worry and studied daily for about eight hours. In any case the impulse was strongest during the years above mentioned. A little later in life, for a time, I became attached to a girl, and eventually engaged. I then observed, greatly to my sorrow and annoyance, that whenever I met this lady, or even thought of her, erections took place. This was particularly painful to me, as my thoughts were not of a lustful or impure character. Sometimes sitting by her at a religious service this would occur, when certainly my mind was far away from anything of the kind. That was the first woman ever kissed by me, except of course members of my immediate family circle. Later on my thoughts turned to marriage, and there was a great longing at times for this event to take place. However, as this attachment afterward became the great sorrow of my life for years, it needs no more comment. This closes one chapter of my history, and at present I do not propose to add another, as in a great measure it is only partly written. It may be well here to state that there has never been in me the slightest homosexual desire; in fact it has always appeared as a thing utterly inconceivable and disgustingly loathsome. I am fond of the society of both men and women, but on the whole prefer the latter. I have had several warm and intimate though platonic friendships, and get on exceedingly well with the other sex, although not a good-looking man. I have always been attracted to women by their spiritual or mental qualities, rather than by physical beauty, and feel strongly that the latter alone would never cause me to desire coitus. Unless there was an attraction other than that of the flesh, I should feel that I was following simply a brute instinct, and it would jar with my higher nature and cause revulsion. This was not the case in my earlier years to the same extent. I have often wondered whether the sexual impulse was strong in me or not, but if not, there is nothing in my physical state or family history to account for it. I am fairly cognizant with the lives of my ancestors, being descended from two old families. The sexual instinct was certainly not weak or abnormal in them. Personally, I am tall and healthy, well built, but sensitive and highly strung. Smell has never played any part in my life as a stimulant of sexual desire, and the mere thought of body odors would have a very decided effect in the opposite direction. Touch and sight appeal to me strongly, and of the two the former most. I am convinced, after many years careful thought, that sexual vice and perversion could be greatly reduced if the young were instructed in the elements of physiology as they bear on this question. Personally, had I been thus enlightened much sin would have been avoided in my schoolboy days, and a perverted view of sexual matters would never have arisen in my mind. It took years to overcome the feeling that all such things were unclean and defiling. Eventually light came to me through reading a passage in a tractate on the Creed by Rufinus. He was defending the doctrine, of the Incarnation against the pagan objection that it was an unclean and disgusting idea that God should enter the world through the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and he meets it by showing that God created the sexual organs, therefore the objection is invalid--otherwise God would not be clean or pure, having Himself designed them and their functions. This passage is slight in itself, but gave birth to a line of thought which has influenced me profoundly. I no longer regard sexual matters as disgusting and unholy, but as intensely sacred, being the outcome of the Divine Mind. Further, the Incarnation of the Saviour has not only sanctioned motherhood and all that is implied by it, but has eternally sanctified it as the means chosen for the manifestation of God to the world. I should not obtrude my theological conceptions, but for the fact that they have determined my life-history in that aspect. HISTORY IV.--When I was 9 years old a boy at the preparatory school, which I attended, showed me the act of masturbation, which he said he had practiced for a long time, and which he urged me to imitate, if I wished to become a father when I grew up, and married! Boy-like I believed him and tried, but the sensation obtained was not a pleasant one (I suppose that I was too rough with myself) and I desisted. When I was about 12 years old, a schoolfellow told me that he had seen his nurse copulating with the groom, and he and I used to haunt the woods in the hope that we might see an amorous couple so engaged, but without success. We often talked of the act, as to how it was done. Neither he nor I had any clear ideas on the subject, save as to the organs involved. I was about 15 when a maidservant of the house in which I was a boarder, came to my bedroom one night and taught me how to masturbate her. She said that this was a good thing for me to do, and warned me never to "play with myself" as it would kill me, or drive me mad. I told her that I had tried it, but could not bring on a pleasurable feeling, so she did it to me, and although I did not have an emission, I derived great pleasure from the act. She told me that it never did a boy any harm to let a girl play with his parts, and promised that if I would keep the secret, she would often do this for me. Naturally I promised to say nothing, and she often came up to my room. Later on she used to insert my penis into her vulva, while she was rubbing it, at the same time giving me a pigeon kiss. This _modus operandi_ was much appreciated by me. One night, after we had been together thus, I dreamt of her and her maneuvers and had my first emission. I was very proud of this, as I considered that I had at last attained to man's estate, and told her of it. She never allowed me to insert my penis into her vulva after that, alleging that she did not want to have a baby. I was about 16½ years old when I had my first real coitus, my partner in the act being a girl some two years older than I, who lived near us. I enjoyed the act very much, as she permitted, nay insisted on, emission _intra vaginam_, and told her that this was much nicer than my amours with the maidservant which of course I had confided to her. She laughed, and said: "Of course." We often copulated, as long as I was at home, and then I lost sight of her. Of all the women with whom I have had to do, save one, she had the most copious secretion of mucus, which in those days I believed was the woman's semen. Her thighs used to be wet with it. At the University I had regular relations with women of all sorts, rarely missing a week. Two of them were married women, one the wife of a solicitor, the other of a doctor. How proud I felt of my first intrigue with a married woman! I felt that I was really a man of the world now! But though my friends used to tell me all about their love affairs, and I longed to confide in them, I did not do so. This was because when I went up to the University, my uncle said that he would give me a word of advice and hoped that I would follow it--never to give away a woman, and never to refuse to respond to a woman's advances, whoever she were. To neglect this advice would, he said, be foolish, and to break the rules "damned ungentlemanly." I wish I had always followed advice proffered, as closely as I have followed this. One night, when I was somewhat disguised in liquor, as our grandfathers would have put it, I picked up a girl, who was a private prostitute, if the phrase be permissible. She declined copulation, and proposed other means of satisfaction. I insisted, being stubborn in my cups. Had I been sober I should have done as she suggested, for I have always made it a point to allow the woman to choose the method of gratification, and not to demand, or even suggest, anything myself. I like to please women, and I have always been curious as to their wants and desires, as revealed, without outside influence, by themselves. The result of my refusing all methods of gratification save the most ordinary was that the girl, who must have known that she was not all right, but shrank from saying so in so many words, gave me a gonorrhoea, which lasted nine weeks and much interfered with my amours, as I naturally declined to run the risk of infecting my partner, a risk which to my certain knowledge many a young fellow has run, with disastrous consequence to the confiding woman. As it was due to my tipsy obstinacy, I could not blame the girl, but resolved never to drink too much again, a resolve which I have kept, save once, unbroken. In those days we youngsters thought that it was manly to be able to carry one's liquor well, and did all in our power to attain to the seasoned head; but I considered that the risks entailed were too serious to be neglected. I was well on in my 26th year when I met a widow with whom I fell in love, with the result that I married her. She is a most sensible woman, and it was her intellectual gifts which were the attraction to me. In my amours intellect has never played a part. She has all along been cognizant of, and lenient to, my polygamous tendencies; for she recognizes the fact that whatever _fredaine_ I may have on hand makes not the slightest difference in my love and respect for her. Were she a more sensual woman, perhaps things would be different. In all I have had to do with 81 other women, of whose special characteristics I kept a careful note at the time. Twenty-six were normal women with whom my _liasons_ have lasted long, so I know more about them than I do about the other fifty-five, who were prostitutes, and with some of whom my dealings were but for an afternoon. The races represented have been these, for I have seen a bit of the world: English, Scotch, Irish, Welsh, French, German, Italian, Greek, Danish, Hungarian, Roumanian, Indian, and Japanese. Taking them all round, the only difference that I found between old and young women is that the older ones are less selfish, and more complaisant, and less inclined to resent one's being unable to attain to the height of their desire, for from time to time I have been unable to "come up to the scratch" after a heavy night's labor, or when I was afraid of being caught in the act of coition, a fear which, in my experience, acts as a stimulus to desire in women, unlike its action in men. Of all the women with whom I have had to do the nicest in every way have been the French women. The English women of the town drink too much, and are far too keen on getting as much money as they can for as little as they can, to please me. Were the London girls to recognize that men do not like a tipsy woman, and that where there is so much competition the person who is most skillful and most polite gets the most custom, the alien invasion in Regent street would soon come to an end. Of the fifty-five prostitutes: eighteen informed me that they were in the habit of masturbating; eight of their own free will, without asking for reward, did _fellatio_; six asked me to do _cunnilingus_, which I naturally declined to do; three proposed anal coitus. Of those who did _fellatio_, two (one French and one German) told me that they had taken to it because they had heard that human semen was an excellent remedy against consumption, which disease had carried off some of their relatives, and that they had gradually come to like doing it. All who told me that they masturbated, asked me whether I did so too, and two desired me to show them the act, one alleging that she liked to see a man do it; she had been married late in life, after a "stormy youth" and had had, she said, a large experience of the male sex. They all seemed to think that however much the practice of self-excitement might hurt a man, and all thought that it would hurt him, a woman might masturbate as often as she liked, failing better means of satisfaction, as she had no such loss of substance as a man. Of the twenty-six normal women, whom I knew more intimately than I did the fifty-five prostitutes, thirteen, without being questioned by me, blurted out the fact that they were habitual masturbators, apparently all required to think of the loved person to obtain full satisfaction. _Fellatio_ was proposed, and fully performed, by nine, of whom three experienced the orgasm as soon as they perceived that I had attained to it. All were more or less excited while doing it. One proposed anal coitus, "just to see what it was like;" and three proposed _cunnilingus_, one having been initiated by a girl friend, and one by her husband. The third had, I believe, evolved the act out of her own inner consciousness in her desire to experience pleasure with me. My relations with one of the twenty-six were confined to my masturbation of her, the while she did _fellatio_, as she said that she "had no feeling inside down there." With two exceptions my partings from these normal women have not been tragic and all whom I have met in after life (seven) have been very ready to resume relations with me, four of them having made the proposal themselves. One thing has struck me, and that is the, often great, difference that exists between what a woman's looks lead one to think she is, and what she is when one becomes her lover; the most sensual woman that I have met might have sat for her portrait as the Madonna, and she was the only one who took pleasure in hearing and relating "smoking-room stories," a form of amusement which, perhaps from their want of appreciation of humor and wit, women do not indulge in--at least in my experience. HISTORY V.--(A continuation of History III in Appendix B to the previous volume.) As I became better I commenced to dream of true love. I wondered, too, if my horrible past really could be lived down and a young woman come to love _me_. I took pleasure in reading love poems, especially Browning's, and illustrated some with little water-colors.... I was sitting in the stalls one night seeing a performance by a company of English actors when one of them played so badly that I thought to myself: "Why, hang it, I could play it better myself!" The next minute another thought followed: "Why not try?" I came out of the stalls the proverbial stage-struck youth. I was sitting in the same place another night when the young man next to me entered into conversation. By a strange coincidence he knew a few young men, amateurs, who were going to form a company, give up their situations and travel, if they could induce a few more to join them and put a little money in. I made an appointment for the following evening.... There were lots of meetings in bedrooms and rehearsals between the beds, but ultimately I was told a school-room had been engaged and a professional actress, A.F. I went to the school-room and found all the boys there, and a young woman with a pale, rice-powder complexion. On introduction she gazed at me as if struck dumb. If she had been better-looking (I thought her vulgar and puffy) I would have been flattered. I was disappointed, but rather frightened (she had a stage presence) of her professional ability, especially when we commenced to rehearse. I had to make love to her, too, which embarrassed me. She had a good profile, I noticed, and would have been better looking, I thought, if she were in better condition, for she was young, about my own age, twenty-three or four. We were all young--enjoyed our rehearsals, and had lots of fun--but I did not respond to the advances A. was evidently making to me. Finally we started on our tour. As the weeks went on A.F., like the others, improved wonderfully in health and appearance. If we had had anything like houses it would have been a pleasant trip. My strangeness did not escape the notice of the boys altogether, for I was still a bit strange in mind and nerves--and deeply religious, bowing my head before each meal and reading my little Bible and prayer-book at odd times. I drank no alcohol. I spent a good deal of time by myself of with my faithful companion A., who was nearly always at my side, she and her appealing eyes. I was surprised to see how quickly she had improved; she looked quite attractive and ladylike some evenings at meals, but I only tolerated her. I was selfish and conceited. Things had been going on like this for a week--always playing to empty houses and our money lower and lower--when A. said to our other lady, Mrs. T., on a train in my presence: "I shall have to give him up, I suppose; he will have nothing to do with me." Mrs. T. said: "You give him up, do you?" and looked at me as if she were going to try her hand. A. said "Yes," and looked at me, smiling sadly. I don't know what motive prompted me--whether my vanity was alarmed at her threatened desertion or that she had really made some impression on me by her love, probably a little of both--but I said: "No, don't; come and sit down here," making way for her, and she joyfully came and nestled against me. From that time I ceased to treat her with ridicule, and kissed her at other times than when on the stage. I was subject still to black moods, and would not speak to her for hours sometimes, but she seemed content to walk with me and was infinitely patient. I had heard she was living with--if not married to--an actor. I asked her about him once, and she said she did not love him; she loved me and had never loved before. Her face had a touching sadness; her life had been unhappy and stormy, with no love and little rest in it. Her face, when she had lost her dissipated look and unhealthy pallor, was exquisite, delicate as a cameo. Love had improved her manners, too; she was more gentle and refined. I let things drift without thinking of the future, when one night after the performance--I was lying on the sofa and A. was sitting at my side, as usual--I suddenly thought, with the brutality that characterized me in these matters--"I will ask her to let me sleep with her." I still fought against any premonitory thought of self-abuse, but here, I thought to myself, is a chance of something better that will do me no harm and perhaps good. When she understood me she turned very red and walked away, shaking her head. But I let her understand that was the only way of retaining me, and finally, when they had all gone to bed, she gave herself to me, reluctantly and sadly; for she, too, had been drifting on without thinking of anything of this sort (she hated it at this time), but just living for her love of me, her first true love. Before this occurred, I must tell you, I had been so much better that I sometimes felt capable of doing anything, a sense of power and grasp of intellect which was combined with delicacy of feeling and sensitiveness to beauty, to skies and clouds and flowers. I seemed to be awakening to true manhood, to my true self. And at meals, it is worth recording, I commenced to have a distaste for meat. These glimpses of a better state of things left me on cohabiting with A., and for a time my gloom and black religious mania came on me once more. I now thought of my promise at confirmation, and it seemed to me I had offended beyond pardon. When we came to the next town, however, I openly slept with A. all night, leaving my own bed untouched. When we returned to Adelaide one of our party remarked: "The only man who had any success with the women on the tour was a Bible-reading, praying, and good, pious, confirmed Christian." A.'s nascent beauty and delicacy and improvement were gradually impaired, too. My own conduct became so morose at times that, besides increasing her misery, I offended the others, and bickerings ensued. I heard the other actress say "He's mad; that what's the matter." And I was so wrapped up in myself and my religious mania that I did not mind their thinking so. After the tour was over A. asked me to come and see her at her home, and as I missed her very much I went one night to tea. She had a room in her father's house to herself. A. was dressed in her best and we had an affectionate meeting. After tea I asked her if she were married to E. She said "No." Then I said: "Who are you married to?" She commenced to cry then, and told me something of her life, the saddest I ever heard. When only 17 she had been courted by a young man she did not care for, but who prevailed on her parents by pretending he had seduced her, but wished to marry her. Strange as it may seem, A. did not know what marriage meant, her mother being one of those silly women who don't like talking of these things and let their daughters grow up in ignorance, expecting they will learn from some one. In nine cases out of ten this happens, but A. was an exception. It was this, and the fact that she had not a particle of love for her husband, that gave her such a hatred of coition. When her mother saw the sheets the morning after the marriage she burst out crying; she did not like the young man and saw she had been deceived. A.'s husband soon showed his true character; he was in reality a gaol-bird. He beat her, drank, and even wanted her to go on the streets to earn money for him. She left him and went home; it was then she began her theatrical career by entering the ballet. At intervals her husband, drunk and desperate, would waylay and threaten her in the street. One day after a rehearsal he attempted to stab her. She got on in spite of all, being a born actress, and played small parts in traveling companies. Then E., who had also gone on the stage, courted her and she listened to him, not because she cared for him, but he protected her and offered her a home. She joined him; but his drunkenness and sensuality were so gross that he ruined his health and he attempted to maltreat A. in a nameless way. And whenever she was in the family way he would leave her alone and half-conscious in the cellar for days. To add to her misery she had epileptic fits. Then sometimes they would be out of an engagement and starving. They had been so hungry as to steal raw potatoes out of a sack and eat them thus, having no fire. She would often have had engagements, but E. was jealous and would not let her act without him. And he beat her as her husband had done, and her health became undermined. It was just after one of the forced miscarriages that she joined our traveling company, and that accounted for her yellow and puffy appearance. E. was now away up-country with a circus, but was expected down any time. A. told me a good deal of all this, between her tears, while sitting at my feet, and her tone carried conviction. When I ought to have gone home I persuaded her to let me stay all night. We had been in bed some time when her mother knocked at the door and wanted to come in for something in a chest of drawers there. "Why don't you open the door, A.? Who have you got there? Hasn't that fellow gone?" A. was confused and told me to get under the bed, but I refused, and she covered me up with the bed clothes as well as she could and opened the door. She had hid my clothes, but missed one of my shoes, and her mother saw it. "Oh, A.," was all she said; "you've got that fellow in bed," and went out crying. "Well, Fred" (my stage name), "you've got me into a nice row," A. said. She gave me my breakfast in the morning and I walked out of the front door without being molested. Another night I entered her window by a ladder and stayed all night. In the middle of the night E. came home drunk. She would not let him in and told him she would have nothing more to do with him. He attempted to break in the door, when A. called to me, and hearing a man in the room he went away, saying, as he went downstairs: "Oh, A.! Oh, A.!" as if he thought she would not have done such a thing. He never molested us after that night. I think it was my intention, at first, to break off with A. gradually. I found, however, I could not keep away from her, and it commenced to be evident to me that a bachelor's life in lodgings again would be dreary and lonely. And all this time the fear that I had offended God troubled me more than I have said, and it occurred to me (there may have been a touch of sophistry in this, or not) that if I were a true husband to her for the future--stuck to her and worked for her for the rest of my days--perhaps it would find favor in God's sight and be an atonement for my sin. Had she been free I would have married her, I believe. But she began to be harassed by her mother and bothered about my incessantly coming there and staying all night. It ended in my telling her I would be a husband to her, and she came and lived with me at my lodgings. We had one room and our meals cost us sixpence each. Cheap as it was, it was a struggle for me to earn money at all. I remember feeling ill and anxious once, and sustaining myself by the thought of my father wheeling the heavy truck up the street when he married my mother. And I decided to wheel my truck, too. A. seemed happy and her love increased, if possible; at first, though, she must have found me a trying lover, for I made her kneel and pray with me two or three times a day, which she did with such a queer expression of face. Sometimes her feelings got the better of her, and she would say: "Oh, damn it, Fred, you are always praying." And then I would be shocked and she would be sorry.... Coitus was frequent; she commenced to like it now.... A. was not looking well one evening when she came in, and lay down on the bed. Presently she commenced to make a strange noise, and I saw her eyes were closed and her hands clenched. "Ah," said the landlady, who came in to help me; "she has epileptic fits." When her convulsions were over she looked blankly at us, knitting her brows and evidently puzzling her poor brain to remember who we were. For many years it was my fate to see her looking at me thus, at first stony and estranged, like a dweller in another star, then half-recalling with extended hand, then forgetting again with hand to mouth, then the gradual dawn of memory and love, and final full recognition. "It's Fred, my Fred!" I never got used to it; it always moved me to tears.... It was not to be thought that we had no quarrels. I still had fits of bad temper, and sometimes they came into collision with A.'s temper. It hurt my vanity considerably to see how soon she relinquished the respectful, patient, spaniel-bearing she had when we were traveling. I said some cruel things to her and she retorted. One would have thought, to hear us, that all affection was over. But when the mood of rage wore itself out we would both be sorry and make it up with tears, and be very happy in spite of our poverty. I think it was lust that prevented me from striving to fulfill my ambitions. A. let me do anything I liked, at all times of day or night, although she seemed surprised at my proceedings sometimes, for it was becoming a fever of lubricity with me. She still thought only of her love. I remember her coming in one day, tired, pale, perspiring, and worried--we had hardly anything in the house and she had been to the theater ineffectually--and when her eyes lighted on me the whole expression of her face changed, softened and brightened at once, and she came and kissed me and said: "It is so strange, I was thinking all sorts of nasty things coming along, but as soon as I see my pet's face I feel happy--I don't care for anything--I would sooner share a crust with him than have all the money in the world!" I commenced to feel libidinous curiosity to examine her--this was mostly on Sundays--and she let me, blushing at first, but laughing. Then I would try new positions in coitus I had heard of. Still she did not enter into my mood. She was engaged at this time to play in a pantomime and I commenced to lead a miserable, jealous existence. I heard scandal about her, baseless enough, but in the diseased, nervous, anxious state I had brought myself to it nearly drove me mad. I would go with her sometimes to visit her mother, whom I began to like. Her brother I still saluted coldly. It caused me horror and jealousy to see A. kissing him and letting him tickle her. In my rage, when we came home, I even said that perhaps she would let him do something else, naming it brutally and coarsely. I remember her shame, astonishment, indignation and tears. If ever a man tried a woman's love I did. But she forgave me, even that. We went to live in a little cottage. It was in this cottage that A. first showed signs of lust, and in the diseased state of my mind, instead of regretting it, I encouraged her. She told me one day that the orgasm very often did not occur at the same time with her as with me, and that it would not unless I put my little finger into the anus. This her husband taught her, and she would rather have died than confess it to me when we first met. We would often devote our Sundays to having a picnic as we termed our lustful bouts, stimulating ourselves with wine. Her temper was not improved thereby (though her fits entirely stopped for a twelvemonth)--we had wordy warfares, but we made it up again always with tears. Nor did I allow myself to deteriorate without reactions and excursions into better things. I was always reading Emerson; it was he who rescued me from orthodox Christianity and taught me to trust in myself and in Nature. I have never ceased this struggle towards better things to this day. There, in a nutshell, is my life; I have always been defeated when temptation came, but I have never ceased to struggle. I determined to be more abstemious in sexual indulgence and asked her to help me. She agreed willingly, for she was easily led. Whenever we fell back again into excess it was my fault. At a theatrical performance we first met a Miss T., a young German who sang. She was about 25, with modest, quiet and engaging manners. A. and she became very friendly. I liked her; she was tall, dark and lithe, but had bad teeth. I had been ill and at this time A. and I had a quarrel, my temper suddenly breaking out in murderous frenzy. I called her names and finally put her outside the house, telling her to go to her mother. I suffered a very hell of remorse and misery. Everything in the quiet, lonely house reminded me of her, seemed fragrant of her; my anguish became so keen I could not stop in the house, though I was just as wretched walking about. I kept this up for two days, when I met her coming to look for me. One look was enough--"A.!" "Pet!" in broken sobs--and in tears we kissed and made it up. Miss T. was with her, and I greeted her, too, with happy tears in my eyes. Another time, when A. was giving way to _her_ temper, and one would have thought all love was dead, I said "Don't you love me then?" and the word alone was a talisman, her face changed, she held out her arms and began to sob quietly.... She accepted an offer to travel with a small theatrical company who were going up-country. She was not looking well when I left and after a time I received a telegram telling me to come to her at once as she was ill. Dreading all sorts of things I borrowed my fare and went to her. I knew nothing of women, of their point of view and different code of honor, and was very far from the attitude of Guy de Maupassant who said he liked women all the better for their charmingly deceitful ways. A. wanted to see me and had taken the surest means to ensure my coming. I was angry at first, but she looked so well and was so loving that I could not be angry long. One day when I was working the landlady came in and began talking about A. and her conduct before I came. She had gone into the actors' rooms at all hours, the woman said, and drank and been as bad as the rest in her conversation. It was the second time a married woman had run her down to me, and I commenced to think there might be something in it, and suffered all my mad jealousy over again. Not knowing the freedom actors and actresses allow themselves on tour, without there being necessarily anything in it, I worried till I thought I had nothing to do but die. And then one of the great struggles of my life occurred. Walking the country roads, I asked myself: "If it _is_ true, if she has been unfaithful, will you forgive her and help her to arrive at her best?" For a long time the answer was "No!" But perhaps my striving for unity with myself had done some good, and the final resolution was for forgiveness. I felt more peace of mind then, and when I told a dying consumptive lodger in the house what the landlady had said, he replied, "Don't you believe a word of it. I know she loves you!".... After an absence I found myself one evening in a town where A. was performing. I went round to the back and they told me she had gone to a room in the hotel to change for another part. I followed and entered the room, with a glass of spirits I found that an effeminate young actor was bringing to her. She was half undressed, her beautiful arms and shoulders bare. My arrival was unexpected and she looked at me surprised, I thought coldly, as I reproached her for not keeping a promise she had made to me to touch no alcohol during the tour, but soon her arms were round my neck. She cried like a child. She was bigger and handsomer and healthier. There was not only an increased strength and size, but an increased delicacy and sweetness; her eyes and brows were lovely; there was an indescribable bloom and fragrance on her, such as the sun leaves on a peach; the traveling, country air, and freedom from coitus (had I known it) had enabled her to arrive at her true self, not only a beautiful woman, but a woman of fascination, of wit, vivacity and universal _camaraderie_. Her face was like the dawn; all my fears and jealousy left me like a cloud that melts before the sun. I remember the look on her face as she embraced me in bed that night. It had just the very smallest touch of sensuality, but was more like some beautiful child's who is being caressed by one she loves; this divine, drowsy-eyed, adorable look I had never seen on her face before--nor have I since. We fell back into our old lustful ways. Later on A. became ill and the black devil of epilepsy returned. I became gloomy.... A restlessness and selfish brutality came over me; our love and peace were gone. I persuaded A. to go to Melbourne and look out for an engagement. The day before she was to sail we went to Glenelg for a trip. The sea air, as often happened, precipitated A.'s fits. We had gone down to the pier and A. said she felt bad. I just managed to support her to the hotel before she became stiff, and I made some impatient remark (for she nearly dragged me down) which she heard, not being quite unconscious and said half incoherently and very pitiably: "Be kind, oh, be kind!" repeating it after consciousness left her. Her heart had been breaking all day at the prospect of parting, and also, I expect, because I was so ready to part with her. That moment was a crisis in my life. I was in a murderous humor, but she looked so unutterably wretched that it seemed impossible to be anything but kind. I made myself speak lovingly to her, in moments of partial consciousness, hired a room, carried her up, and nursed her and petted her all night. The act of self-control, and forcing myself to be kind whatever I felt, became a habit in time, a sort of second nature. In a few days she sailed. When she had gone I was remorseful and mad with myself. How could I let her go by herself? I resolved to follow her as speedily as possible, and did so. If I remember rightly I came to the conclusion about this time that we ought not to have coition unless we felt great love for each other. It seemed to corroborate this to a certain extent that A. always seemed more electric and pleasant to the touch when we had connection for love and not for lust. Leave it to Nature, I would say to myself. I began to feel how much my struggles, efforts and temperate living had improved me. I had more self-respect, though something of the old self-consciousness was still left. I did not get better continuously, but in an up-and-down zigzag. I still had moods of rage approaching madness and periods of neurotic depression. Long walks decidedly helped to cure me, and the sea, sun, wind, clouds and trees colored my dreams at night very sweetly. I frequently dreamed I was walking in orchards or forests, and a deeper, slightly melancholy but potent savor, as of a diviner destiny, was on my soul. After a long absence, during which she had frequently been ill, A. joined me. I could see she was recovering from fits, which I began to realize that she had more frequently in absence from me, and also from drinking, perhaps. She was small and thin, but fresh and sweet as honey, and all signs of fits and tempers passed away from her face, so wonderful in its changes. I had become so healthy through my abstinence, temperance and long walks that our meeting was a new revelation to me of how delicate, fragrant and divine a convalescent woman may be. She was glad and surprised to see me looking so well, and if she put her hand on my arm I felt a joyous thrill. I was certainly a better man for abstaining and she a better woman and I determined not to have connection unless we were carried away by our love. As a matter of fact we did not give way to excess, though we were very loving. I tried to persuade myself that we had not gone back to our old ways, but I could not do so long. Miss T. put in an appearance every day. She did not look so innocent, but as it was no business of mine I did not trouble. She seemed more attached to A. than ever.... A. was still very loving with me, but it was an effort to me to keep up to her pitch, and when A. proposed to go to Melbourne with Miss T, to sell off the furniture before settling in Adelaide, I was rather glad of the opportunity of abstaining from coitus and of watching myself to see if I again improved. When A. and Miss T. came to see me before going down to the steamer, A. was nearly crying and Miss T., changed from the old welcome friend, was not only pale and anxious, but looked guilty as if she had some treachery in her mind; she could not meet my eye. I thought less of it then than afterwards. And once more I took long walks at night and rose early to catch the freshness of the mornings. Some time before this I had read a book advocating a vegetarian diet, and at this time I chanced to read Pater's beautiful "Denys L'Auxerrois," the imaginary portrait of a young vine-dresser, who was attractive beyond ordinary mortals and lived, until his fall and deterioration, on fruit and water. The words, "a natural simplicity in living" remained in my memory. I resolved to read more carefully the book on scientific diet. Who can say, I thought, what changes for the better may come to me if I live on a strictly scientific and natural diet? I fasted one whole day, and then had a breakfast of cherries, in the middle of the day a meal of fruit, and walking in the afternoon--a gray, rainy day--I felt so light, so different, and the gray sky looked so sweet and familiar, that I was reminded of the luminous visions of my boyhood. It was a distinct revelation. This Pan-like, almost Bacchic feeling, did not last, however, nor was I always able to maintain my new method of diet, though I tried to do so. I made the attempt, however, but I imagine I was more than usually run down. I would walk miles in the hope of feeling less restless. One holiday I walked down to Glenelg, having only had grapes for my dinner, and lying on the beach I looked through a strong binocular glass I had borrowed at the girls bathing. And the beauty of their faces in their frames of hair, of their arms, of their figures, seen through their wet clinging dresses, satisfied me and filled me with joy, gave me for a short time that peace and content--in harmony with the strong sunlight on the waves and the rhythmic surf on the shore--I was seeking. The summer evenings on the pier or along the beach had a peculiar savor; one felt the youth and beauty there even on dark nights, the air was fragrant with them, white dresses and summer hats disappearing down the beach or over the sand hills. It was easy--doubtless justifiable sometimes--to put a lewd construction on these disappearances; but I felt it need not have been so; that it was not necessary that youth and beauty, even the sexual act itself if led up to by love, should be a subject of giggling and sniggering. I always left the beach and its flitting summer dresses with a sigh. A., after writing once, ceased writing at all and once more her mother and I were left in a state of anxiety and suspense. At last I determined to go to Melbourne to look for her, the only clue I had being a remark in her letter that a certain actor was giving her an engagement. In Melbourne I could not find any traces of her for some days and what traces I did find of her were not calculated to allay my anxious fears. One hotel-keeper told me that some one of A's name had stayed there with another hussy (giving Miss T's stage name): "There were nice carryings on with the pair of them." I thought of Miss T's strange looks, but could not imagine what hold she had on A., for A. loved me, I knew. I seemed to be in an inextricable maze. I could settle to nothing and was thinking of applying to the police when I heard that the actor A. had mentioned had taken his company to the Gippsland lakes. I followed to Sale, found the actor and was told that A. was not there. "She slipped me at the last moment," he said, "and remained in Melbourne." I returned to my lodgings, with my anxiety and nervous restlessness increased tenfold. But suddenly my fear and restlessness left me like a cloud. I felt quiet, young, peaceful, able to enjoy the country, A. was doubtless all right and would be able to explain her silence. I undressed leisurely and happily, thinking of the stars. The next day, Sunday, I awoke refreshed and still at peace. After breakfast, hearing children's voices, I went out into the garden and there was a collision of souls who somehow were affinities. A young girl about twelve or younger with a fine presence and handsome face fixed her eyes on me for half a minute and then came and sat on my knee. She was one of those children I am accustomed to call "love-children," because they are so much brighter, healthier, larger and more loving than others. I always imagine more love went to their making. We fell in love and she said, stroking my beard, "Oh, you are pretty!" and I said, "And so are you!" We were so affectionate that the servant called the child away and I went for a walk, finding my little sweetheart waiting for me on my return. The touch of her hand was electric and her voice fresh and musical. I kissed her, but had become more self-conscious since the morning and wondered if her mother or the servant were looking, or even of they would appear. I was not so frank and natural as my little chum. I have often thought of her since. She had the breadth of forehead, the strength and yet lightness of limb, together with the hands and feet, not too small, that I always imagine the dwellers in Paradise will have. I returned to Melbourne and continued trying to find A. At the same time I commenced in earnest to live on fruit and brown bread only, and enjoyed better tone and health every day, so that it was a joy to walk down the street in the sun and exchange glances with passengers à la old Walt. One day in the Botanical Gardens veils seemed to be lifted off my eyes. I could look straight at the sun and taking my note of color from that golden light I turned my eyes on the flowers, the mown grass, the trees, and for the first time perceived what a heavenly color green is, what divine companions flowers are, and what a blue sky really means. For half an hour I was in Paradise, and to complete my joy Nature revealed to me a new and unexpected secret. I was lying on a bench, basking, and my silk shirt coming open the strong sun made its way to my breast and presently I felt a totally new sensation there. I had discovered the last joy of the skin. My skin, fed by healthy fruit-made blood, must have functioned normally under the excitation of the sun just then (for a brief space only, alas!). I cannot describe the joy, any more than I could describe the taste of a peach to one who has only eaten apples: it was satisfying, divine. I opened my shirt wider, but the feeling only spread faintly, and indeed this halcyon sunny hour terminated in a restlessness that sent me walking into town to look for A. At last I heard, not of A., but of Miss T. She was in a ballet. I went round during rehearsal and while waiting entered into conversation with a little chorus girl with a good face, who was sewing. On my telling her whom I was seeking she stopped sewing and looked at me quickly: "Oh, are you her husband? I know her. _I have seen them together_." She looked as if she were going to tell me something, but merely shook her old-fashioned head in a mournful, indescribable way, saying "Why don't you keep your wife with you?" I went to the door and presently saw Miss T. She tried to avoid me, I thought, and looked more vicious than ever, but after a minute's thought reluctantly told me where she and A. were staying. To hide my fears and suspicions I had assumed a careless demeanor, but I think I should have strangled her had she refused to tell me. I hastily went to the place indicated and going up the stairs (to the astonishment of the people) opened the door and found myself face to face with A.--but how changed! She had the hard, harlot, loveless look I detested. I felt for a few minutes that I did not love her, and she regarded me coldly too, but presently old habits reinstated themselves. She put out her hands, very pitiably, and then was sobbing in my arms. I could get nothing out of her but sobs, and to this day do not know where she spent all these weeks nor why she did not write. Miss T. came in after rehearsal, pale and hard-faced. I greeted her politely, but was watching her, trying to puzzle out why A. did not look as she usually did after long absence from coition. Miss T. took another room in the same house and was soon joined by another ballet girl, young and very pretty, who soon began to have fits. A. was always crying until Miss T. went away with her pretty friend. I knew nothing, could hardly be said to suspect anything definite, and yet I pitied that pretty girl whose eyes looked so helpless and appealing. I set to work again. But I continued to live on fruit and bread, and taking off my clothes I would stand up at the window in the sun. A lot of prostitutes, however, who lived at the back saw me and were scandalized or shocked or thought me mad. The landlady heard of it and spoke to A. So I had to desist from my glorious sun-baths. We slept on a single bed, and though I did my best to avoid coitus (I wanted to wait and think out some theory of it), A., who knew nothing of this, wanted to resume our old habits, and finally I surrendered. But my sufferings next day were intense, and I had the sense of having fallen from some high estate. My thoughts were divided between two theories: one that our misery was caused by our diet, more or less; the other that we had fallen into some error as regards coitus, and this was becoming almost a certainty with me. There is one incident I think worthy of note which happened before the "fall" just mentioned and when I was living on fruit and in splendid health. At a performance I saw a girl on the stage with handsome legs in tights, and once as she straightened her leg the knee-cap going into position gave me such a strange and keen joy--of that quality I call divine or musical--that I was like one suddenly awakened to the divinity and beauty of the female form. The joy was so keen and yet peaceful, familiar, and subjective that I could not help comparing it to a happy chemical change in the tissues of my own brain. Like the unexpected functioning of my skin in the sun it was a sign of a partial return to a normal condition, another glimpse of Paradise. I stuck to my new diet and gained a fresh elation and joy in life. Gradually clothes became insupportable, and I went down to the beach as often as possible to take them off, and at nights, beside the patient and astonished A., I would lie naked. One evening, passing some grass, I looked over the fence like a gipsy and felt a longing to take off my clothes and sleep in the grass all night. It was of course impossible. And A. looked unhappily in my face; she began to think her mother, who now thought I was mad, must be right. That night I woke up and found myself having coition. I was angry and felt I had been put back in my progress, but a fever of lust now came over me. I would sit under the tap and let the cold water run over me to conquer the fever, but at the end of a week my hopes were frustrated and I even turned against my natural diet, on which I had made flesh. A., as I expected, went through her usual fits, and slowly recovered. (If we had connection only once she in about three weeks had a mild attack of fits; if we had coition more than once the fits were more severe.) I relapsed more than once and as a means of impressing my resolution for future abstinence I would walk for miles in the middle of pitch-black nights.... Miss T. came over to Adelaide and as I knew nothing definite against her and heard that she was engaged, I thought perhaps my suspicions were unfounded and was friendly. But one day in town I saw her and A. on a tram going out to our cottage. Even then my suspicions might not have been awakened, but I saw Miss T. say something rapidly to A., and A. called out to me, "Will you be coming home soon?" And I answered "No." When the tram had gone on I found myself vaguely wondering what Miss T. wanted to know that for, for my perceptions were becoming acute enough to understand women's ways. In another minute I was walking rapidly home. When I came to the door it was locked. I knocked and knocked and no one came. I called out and threatened to kick in the door. Still no one came. Mad with rage I commenced to put my threat into execution, when the door was opened by Miss T., half-naked, in her petticoats, and pale as death, but no longer defiant. "So I've caught you, have I?" I _looked_, but could not trust myself to speak. Wondering why A. did not appear I went into the bedroom. She was lying on the bed, just as Miss T. had left her, on the verge of a fit, and on seeing me she held out her hands piteously, and when I stooped over her she whispered, "Send her away, send her away." Then she became unconscious and going into the next room I ordered Miss T. (who had managed to scramble on her dress) out of the house. I spoke scornfully as if addressing a dog, and she slinked out with a malignant but cowed look I hope never to see on a woman's face again. What they had been doing with their clothes off I do not know; women will rather die than confess. When A. had recovered from her fit she denied that there had been anything between them, and stuck to it doggedly, but with such a forlorn look I had not the heart to prosecute my inquiries. For my part, all the efforts I had been making for so long seemed for a time to be in vain; for some weeks I sank into a sort of satyriasis, and even my anger against Miss T. turned to a prurient curiosity. At the same time I was not always able to adhere to my diet. But both as regards coition and diet I was still fighting, and on the whole successfully. My fits of temper, however, were excessive and my ennui became gloomy despair. One day I blasphemed on crossing the Park and spoke contemptuously of "God and his twopenny ha'penny revolving balls," referring to the planetary system. But for long walks I should have gone mad. A. was drinking in the intervals of her fits. I found half-empty bottles of wine hidden away. This did not improve my temper, and one day--this was when she was well and up--I struck her a heavy blow on the face, and she aimed a glass decanter at me. She went home to her mother and I lived alone in the cottage. I heard soon afterwards that her husband had come back and that they had made it up. Our parting was not, however, destined to be final. Even out of that month's sufferings I made capital. I was better after my tendency to lubricity, my gloom, rage, restlessness and degradation. They had been but the irritations of convalescence. INDEX OF AUTHORS. Abrantès, duchesse d' Adler Albucasis Alexander, H.C.B. Amatus Lusitanus Ammon Andersen Andriezen Aquinas Aristophanes Aristotle Averroes Avicenna Aubrey Aulnoy, Madame d' Baer Ball Ballantyne, J.W. Bancroft, H.H. Barker, Fordyce Barnes, R. Bartholin Bayle Beale, G.B. Bechterew Beck, J.R. Becker Bell, Sir C. Bell, Sanford Belletrud Beneden Bergh Bianchi Biérent Binet Bischoff, T.L.W. Bloch, J. Blondel Blumenbach Blunt, J.J. Boas Boccaccio Boeteau Bois, J. Bois-Reymond, E. du Bölsche Booth, D.S. Booth, J. Bouchereau Bouchet Bourke, J.G. Boveri Brand Braun Brantôme Brehm Breitenstein Brénier de Montmorand Brénot Brouardel Brown-Séquard Brügelmann Buckman, S.S. Bucknill Bunge Burchard Burdach Burton, Robert Buschan Busdraghi Cabanis Campbell, J.F. Campbell, H. Carpenter, E. Casanova Cascella Castelnau Catullus Cecca Celsus Chapman, C.W. Charcot Chaucer Chaulant Chevalier Chidley, W. Cladel, J. Clement, of Alexandria Coe Coen Collineau Colman, W.S. Columbus, R. Cook, G.W. Crawley Cumston Cuvier Cyples Dabney Darwin, C. Darwin, E. Daumas Dearborn, G. Dembo Deniker Dessoir, Max Dickinson, R.L. Diderot Disselhorst Donaldson, H.H. Douglas, C. Drähms Dühren, E. Dufougère Dufour Dulaure Duncan, Matthews East, A. Edgar, Clifton Ellis, Havelock Engelmann Erotion Esbach Eschricht Espinas Eulenburg Evans Ezekiel Fabricius Fallopius Féré Fichstedt Flood, E. Florence Fothergill, Milner Frazer, J.G. Freud Freyer Froriep Fuchs Fürbringer Galen Gardiner, C.F. Garnier Gautier, A. Gautier, T. Gellhoen Gerhard, A. Giles, A. Godin Goethe Goncourt, E. de Gopcevic Goron Gould Gow Graaf, de Griffiths Groos, K. Gualino Guéniot Guibaut Guillereau Guinard Guttceit Hack Haddon Haig Hall, G. Stanley Haller Hamilton, A. Hammond Hardy, Thomas Hartland, E.S. Harvey Hegar Henderson, J. Henle Hennig Herman Herodotus Herrick Heusinger Hewitt, Graily Hippocrates Hirst Hislop, J.T. Hoche Horrocks Howard, W.L. Howell Howitt, A.W. Hrdlicka Hughes, C.H. Hunter, John Hunter, William Huysmans Hyades Hyrtl Jacobi Jacoby, P. Jahn Janet Janke Jastreboff Jenkyns, J. Johnston, G.A. Johnston, Sir H.H. Jonson, Ben Juvenal Kaltenbach Kelly, H. Kepler Kiernan, J.G. Kisch Kleinpaul Kobelt Kocher Kohlbrugge Kolbein Krafft-Ebing Krauss Lamb, D.S. Landes, L. de Lane Lasègue Laurent, E. Lawrence, Sir W. Laycock Levi Licetus Liébault Liétaud Lipps Litzmann Lombroso Lorion Lortet Lucas, J.C. Lucretius Lunier Luschka Lusini Lydston Macdonald, A. MacGillicuddy McKay, A. Mackay, W.J.S. Mackenzie, J. Magnan Malebranche Mantegazza Marandon de Montyel Marc Marro Marshall, H.R. Martial Martin, J.M.H. Martineau Maschka Masterman Matignon Mattel McMordie Mercier Meredith, Ellis Middleton, T. Mirabeau Mitchell, Sir A. Moll Mongeri Morache Moraglia Morris, R.T. Morselli Motet Moulin, J. Mansell Müller, J. Mundé, P. Näcke Neale, R. Neri Nicholson, H.O. Nina Rodrigues Obici Onanoff Ottolenghi Ovid Pacheco Palfyn Park, Mungo Papillault Pasini Paterson, A.R. Paulini Paulus Æginetus Pearse, W.H. Pearson, Karl Pechuel-Loesche Pelanda Pennant Penta Pfaff Pierer Pillon Pinæus Pinard Pitre, C. Pitres Pittard Plant Plautus Pliny Ploss Poehl Polemon Pollux Porta, Della Power Pyle Raymond Régis Régnier, H. de Reinach, S. Renooz, Céline Restif de la Bretonne Retterer, E. Reynolds, A.R. Rhys, J. Ribot Riedel Rimbaud Riolan Robinson, Bryan Robinson, Louis Rodin Roederer Roons, R.P. Rosse, Irving Roth, W. Rothe Roubaud Rousseau Routh, C.H.F. Rufus Russell, W. Sade, de Salmon, W. Scherzer Schinz Schmiedeberg Schreiner Schrenck-Notzing Schurig Scott, Colin Scripture, E.W. Seerley Seligmann Sellheim Shakespeare Shattock Shufeldt Silk, J.F.W. Simon, H. Simpson, Sir J. Sims, Marion Smith, Sir A. Smith, Haywood Sömmering Soranus Spigelius Stahl, F.A. Stanton Stendhal Stengel Stern, B. Stevens, Vaughan Stieda Stratz Stubbs Suidas Sukhanoff Sullivan, W.C. Sutherland, W.D. Sutton, Bland Swift Tarde Tardieu Tarnier Taxil Theocritus Thoinot Thompson, W.L. Thomson, J. Tilt Toff Tourdes, G. Tridandani Trochon Vahness Valentin Varigny, H de Variot, G. Varro Vaschide Vatsyayana Venette Venturi Vesalius Vinay Vinci, L. da Voigt Voisin, J. Vurpas Wagner, R. Waldeyer Walker, G. Wallace, A.W. Warton Wasserschleben Weininger, O. Wellhausen Werner Wernich West, J.P. Wharton Wilhelm, Eugen Wilkin, G. Wilkinson, A.D. Williams, J.W. Whitridge Williamson, C.F. Wolff, B. Wollstonecraft, Mary Wordsworth Wychgel Youatt Zaborsky Zoppi Zimmer Zola INDEX OF SUBJECTS. Abyssinians, coitus among Acquired element in erotic symbolism Acromegaly and sexual development Alcohol, aphrodisiac effects of Algolagnia, in relation to scatologic symbolism as a form of erotic symbolism Anæsthesia, sexual Anæsthetics in relation to sexual excitement Anaphrodisiacs Animal copulation, attraction of Animals, detumescence in Annamites, coitus among Antipathies of pregnant women Anus in relation to pubic hair as an erogenous zone Apes, sexual organs of sexual congress in Aphrodisiacs Apples, longings of women for Arabs, penis in Artist, compared to lover Associations of contiguity and resemblance in erotic symbolism Australian method of sexual congress Auto-suggestions, longings of pregnancy as Bartholin, glands of Beard in relation to sexual development Beauty, the objective element in Bestiality Bladder in relation to sexual excitement Blood during pregnancy Blood-pressure during detumescence Breasts, and erotic temperament during pregnancy Bromide as an anaphrodisiac Bulbo-cavernous reflex Camphor as an anaphrodisiac Cantharides, effects of Castration, results of Celery as an aphrodisiac Children, attracted to foot to scatology to copulation of animals to hair food impulses of Chinese, foot-fetichism of Circulatory conditions during coitus during pregnancy Clitoris Clothes, erotic fascination of Coitus, the phenomena of the methods of ethnic variations in methods of respiratory and circulatory conditions during interruptus as a cause of vasomotor disturbance glandular activity during motor activity during psychic state during serious effects of Congenital element in erotic symbolism Contiguity in erotic symbolism, associations of Coprolagnia Coprophagia, religious and sexual Courtship Crystallization, Stendhal's Defile, the impulse to Distillatio Dog, human sexual intercourse with Dynamometric experiments during sexual excitement Ejaculation, the mechanism of Embryo Epilepsy and exhibitionism compared to coitus as a result of coitus Erectility during coitus Erogenous zone, anus as lips as Erotic intoxication Erotic temperament Eryngo as an aphrodisiac Ethnic variations in coitus Etruscans, sexual significance of foot among Eunuchs, characteristics of Exercise on sexual organs, influence of Exhibitionism Eyes during detumescence in relation to erotic temperament darker at puberty Face during detumescence, expression of Fæces as a drug Fecundation, the phenomena of artificial Feet as a sexual symbol, uncovering Fellatio Fetichism, erotic Flagellation Foot-fetichism, _see_ Shoe-fetichism. Fuegians, penis in Fur as a fetich Garments as fetiches Genital organs as fetiches Goat as a human sexual fetich Greeks, sexual significance of foot among Hair as a fetich despoilers of pubic darkens at puberty in relation to erotic temperament in pregnancy Hand as fetich Heart during pregnancy Homosexuality as a form of erotic symbolism Hottentot apron Hymen Hyperæsthesia, sexual Hypertrichosis universalis Hysteria Ideal coprolagnia Idiocy as result of maternal impressions Idiots, sexual development of Impregnation without rupture of hymen without conjunctions artificial Impressions, maternal Intellectual work, relation of pregnancy to Intoxication, erotic Japanese, labia majora in Joy, the expression of Kiss, the Kleptomania and pregnancy Knee-jerk in pregnancy Labia majora Labia minora Larynx in relation to sexual state Linea fusca Lips, as an erogenous zone in relation to erotic temperament Longings of pregnancy theories of as auto-suggestions physiological basis of relation to the longings of childhood Masochism, in relation to shoe-fetichism in relation to scatalogic symbolism in relation to exhibitionism of nates as a form of erotic symbolism Masturbation and pubic hair hypertrophy of clitoris ascribed to part played by clitoris in why some theologians permitted phenomena during Maternal element in sexual love Maternal impressions Menstruation in relation to coitus metabolism during in relation to sickness of pregnancy compared to pregnancy Mental state during pregnancy Metabolism during pregnancy Mixoscopic zoophilia Modesty a supposed sign of virginity Mohammedan method of sexual congress Mole as a fetich Mongol peoples, foot fetichism among various Mons veneris Mordvins, foot-fetichism among Motor activity during coitus Mouth in relation to erotic temperament Muscular movements during coitus Nates in relation to coprolagnia in relation to exhibitionism in relation to erotic temperament Necrophilia Negative fetich Negro, penis in labia majora in clitoris in labia minora in method of sexual congress among Nervous system during pregnancy Neurasthenia cordis vasomotoria Nipples, pigmentation of Nudity, religious Nutrition, symbolism of Nymphæ Nymphomania Obsessions of scruple longings of pregnancy as Obsessional exhibitionism Odor an alleged sign of defloration Onion as an aphrodisiac Opium as an aphrodisiac Organs, sexual Ova and spermatozoa, union of Ovarian extract, effects of Ovaries, function of analogy of with thyroid Paidophilia Pain and erotic symbolism Pedicatio Pelvic development and erotic temperament Pelvic floor, variability of Pelvic inclination Penis Penis-fetichism Phallic worship Physiognomists and the erotic temperament Pica Pigmentation in relation to erotic temperament in pregnancy Potatoes, the supposed aphrodisiac effects of Precocity, influence of Pregnancy and pigmentation psychic state in sexual desire during relation of to intellectual work Presbyophilia Prostate Prostitutes, external genitals of stature of Psychic exhibitionism Psychic condition during coitus Puberty, the phenomena of pigmentary changes at Pubic hair Puericulture Pygmalionism Quadrupedal method of coitus in man Rachitic, sexual tendencies of the Reflex, bulbo-cavernous Reflexes during pregnancy Religious scatalogic symbolism Resemblance in erotic symbolism, associations of Respiration during coitus Responsibility of pregnant women Restif de la Bretonne's shoe-fetichism Romans, sexual significance of foot among methods of coitus among Rousseau Rue as an anaphrodisiac Sadism Saint compared to lover Salivation during coitus Satyriasis Scatalogic symbolism Scrotum Scruple, obsessions of Secretions of genital canal Semen, alleged female in coitus in female genital canal vital activity of artificial injection of constituents of as a stimulant Sexual anæsthesia Sexual conjugation Sexual desire during pregnancy Sexual organs Sexual selection in relation to erotic symbolism in relation to external sexual organs the probable cause of the hymen Shadow as a fetich Shoe, sexual significance of Shoe-fetichism frequency of normal basis of illustrated by Restif de la Bretonne prevalence of among Chinese, etc. former prevalence in Europe congenital basis of acquired element in favored by precocity relation to masochism illustrative cases of dynamic element in Sickness of pregnancy Skin, sexual significance of condition of during coitus in relation to erotic temperament sexual pigmentation of Slipper as a sexual symbol Smile, origin of the Sodomy, the term Spain, sexual attractiveness of foot in Spermatozoa reach ova, how the Spermin Sphygmanometer experiments during sexual excitement Stature and erotic temperament Stimulants Stuff-fetichisms Strychnine, aphrodisiac effects of Suggestion in relation to longings of pregnancy Symbols, nature of of sex in language Temperament, alleged erotic Testicular juices, effects of Testes Thyroid, condition during sexual excitement during pregnancy Ticklishness in relation to stuff-fetichisms Tumescence in relation to detumescence Unnatural offence, the term Urethra, variability of female an erogenous zone Urethrorrhoea ex libidine Urinary stream, in relation to nymphæ an alleged index to virginity Urine in religious rites possesses magical virtues in legends in medicine during coitus Urolagnia Uterus Vagina Vaginismus Vasomotor conditions during coitus Vaudonism Virginity, ancient diagnosis of Virile reflex Voice, in relation to erotic temperament in relation to virginity Vomiting of pregnancy Vulva Vulva-fetichism Waist, origin of admiration for small Yohimbin as an aphrodisiac Zooerastia Zoophilia erotica Zoophilia non-erotic 
13615	----	STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX, VOLUME VI Sex in Relation to Society by HAVELOCK ELLIS 1927 PREFACE. In the previous five volumes of these _Studies_, I have dealt mainly with the sexual impulse in relation to its object, leaving out of account the external persons and the environmental influences which yet may powerfully affect that impulse and its gratification. We cannot afford, however, to pass unnoticed this relationship of the sexual impulse to third persons and to the community at large with all its anciently established traditions. We have to consider sex in relation to society. In so doing, it will be possible to discuss more summarily than in preceding volumes the manifold and important problems that are presented to us. In considering the more special questions of sexual psychology we entered a neglected field and it was necessary to expend an analytic care and precision which at many points had never been expended before on these questions. But when we reach the relationships of sex to society we have for the most part no such neglect to encounter. The subject of every chapter in the present volume could easily form, and often has formed, the topic of a volume, and the literature of many of these subjects is already extremely voluminous. It must therefore be our main object here not to accumulate details but to place each subject by turn, as clearly and succinctly as may be, in relation to those fundamental principles of sexual psychology which--so far as the data at present admit--have been set forth in the preceding volumes. It may seem to some, indeed, that in this exposition I should have confined myself to the present, and not included so wide a sweep of the course of human history and the traditions of the race. It may especially seem that I have laid too great a stress on the influence of Christianity in moulding sexual ideals and establishing sexual institutions. That, I am convinced, is an error. It is because it is so frequently made that the movements of progress among us--movements that can never at any period of social history cease--are by many so seriously misunderstood. We cannot escape from our traditions. There never has been, and never can be, any "age of reason." The most ardent co-called "free-thinker," who casts aside as he imagines the authority of the Christian past, is still held by that past. If its traditions are not absolutely in his blood, they are ingrained in the texture of all the social institutions into which he was born and they affect even his modes of thinking. The latest modifications of our institutions are inevitably influenced by the past form of those institutions. We cannot realize where we are, nor whither we are moving, unless we know whence we came. We cannot understand the significance of the changes around us, nor face them with cheerful confidence, unless we are acquainted with the drift of the great movements that stir all civilization in never-ending cycles. In discussing sexual questions which are very largely matters of social hygiene we shall thus still be preserving the psychological point of view. Such a point of view in relation to these matters is not only legitimate but necessary. Discussions of social hygiene that are purely medical or purely juridical or purely moral or purely theological not only lead to conclusions that are often entirely opposed to each other but they obviously fail to possess complete applicability to the complex human personality. The main task before us must be to ascertain what best expresses, and what best satisfies, the totality of the impulses and ideas of civilized men and women. So that while we must constantly bear in mind medical, legal, and moral demands--which all correspond in some respects to some individual or social need--the main thing is to satisfy the demands of the whole human person. It is necessary to emphasize this point of view because it would seem that no error is more common among writers on the hygienic and moral problems of sex than the neglect of the psychological standpoint. They may take, for instance, the side of sexual restraint, or the side of sexual unrestraint, but they fail to realize that so narrow a basis is inadequate for the needs of complex human beings. From the wider psychological standpoint we recognize that we have to conciliate opposing impulses that are both alike founded on the human psychic organism. In the preceding volumes of these _Studies_ I have sought to refrain from the expression of any personal opinion and to maintain, so far as possible, a strictly objective attitude. In this endeavor, I trust, I have been successful if I may judge from the fact that I have received the sympathy and approval of all kinds of people, not less of the rationalistic free-thinker than of the orthodox believer, of those who accept, as well as of those who reject, our most current standards of morality. This is as it should be, for whatever our criteria of the worth of feelings and of conduct, it must always be of use to us to know what exactly are the feelings of people and how those feelings tend to affect their conduct. In the present volume, however, where social traditions necessarily come in for consideration and where we have to discuss the growth of those traditions in the past and their probable evolution in the future, I am not sanguine that the objectivity of my attitude will be equally clear to the reader. I have here to set down not only what people actually feel and do but what I think they are tending to feel and do. That is a matter of estimation only, however widely and however cautiously it is approached; it cannot be a matter of absolute demonstration. I trust that those who have followed me in the past will bear with me still, even if it is impossible for them always to accept the conclusions I have myself reached. HAVELOCK ELLIS. Carbis Bay, Cornwall, England. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE MOTHER AND HER CHILD. The Child's Right to Choose Its Ancestry--How This is Effected--The Mother the Child's Supreme Parent--Motherhood and the Woman Movement--The Immense Importance of Motherhood--Infant Mortality and Its Causes--The Chief Cause in the Mother--The Need of Rest During Pregnancy--Frequency of Premature Birth--The Function of the State--Recent Advance in Puericulture--The Question of Coitus During Pregnancy--The Need of Rest During Lactation--The Mother's Duty to Suckle Her Child--The Economic Question--The Duty of the State--Recent Progress in the Protection of the Mother--The Fallacy of State Nurseries. CHAPTER II. SEXUAL EDUCATION. Nurture Necessary as Well as Breed--Precocious Manifestations of the Sexual Impulse--Are they to be Regarded as Normal?--The Sexual Play of Children--The Emotion of Love in Childhood--Are Town Children More Precocious Sexually Than Country Children?--Children's Ideas Concerning the Origin of Babies--Need for Beginning the Sexual Education of Children in Early Years--The Importance of Early Training in Responsibility--Evil of the Old Doctrine of Silence in Matters of Sex--The Evil Magnified When Applied to Girls--The Mother the Natural and Best Teacher--The Morbid Influence of Artificial Mystery in Sex Matters--Books on Sexual Enlightenment of the Young--Nature of the Mother's Task--Sexual Education in the School--The Value of Botany--Zoölogy--Sexual Education After Puberty--The Necessity of Counteracting Quack Literature--Danger of Neglecting to Prepare for the First Onset of Menstruation--The Right Attitude Towards Woman's Sexual Life--The Vital Necessity of the Hygiene of Menstruation During Adolescence--Such Hygiene Compatible with the Educational and Social Equality of the Sexes--The Invalidism of Women Mainly Due to Hygienic Neglect--Good Influence of Physical Training on Women and Bad Influence of Athletics--The Evils of Emotional Suppression--Need of Teaching the Dignity of Sex--Influence of These Factors on a Woman's Fate in Marriage--Lectures and Addresses on Sexual Hygiene--The Doctor's Part in Sexual Education--Pubertal Initiation Into the Ideal World--The Place of the Religious and Ethical Teacher--The Initiation Rites of Savages Into Manhood and Womanhood--The Sexual Influence of Literature--The Sexual Influence of Art. CHAPTER III. SEXUAL EDUCATION AND NAKEDNESS. The Greek Attitude Towards Nakedness--How the Romans Modified That Attitude--The Influence of Christianity--Nakedness in Mediæval Times--Evolution of the Horror of Nakedness--Concomitant Change in the Conception of Nakedness--Prudery--The Romantic Movement--Rise of a New Feeling in Regard to Nakedness--The Hygienic Aspect of Nakedness--How Children May Be Accustomed to Nakedness--Nakedness Not Inimical to Modesty--The Instinct of Physical Pride--The Value of Nakedness in Education--The Æsthetic Value of Nakedness--The Human Body as One of the Prime Tonics of Life--How Nakedness May Be Cultivated--The Moral Value of Nakedness. CHAPTER IV. THE VALUATION OF SEXUAL LOVE. The Conception of Sexual Love--The Attitude of Mediæval Asceticism--St. Bernard and St. Odo of Cluny--The Ascetic Insistence on the Proximity of the Sexual and Excretory Centres--Love as a Sacrament of Nature--The Idea of the Impurity of Sex in Primitive Religions Generally--Theories of the Origin of This Idea--The Anti-Ascetic Element in the Bible and Early Christianity--Clement of Alexandria--St. Augustine's Attitude--The Recognition of the Sacredness of the Body by Tertullian, Rufinus and Athanasius--The Reformation--The Sexual Instinct Regarded as Beastly--The Human Sexual Instinct Not Animal-like--Lust and Love--The Definition of Love--Love and Names for Love Unknown in Some Parts of the World--Romantic Love of Late Development in the White Race--The Mystery of Sexual Desire--Whether Love is a Delusion--The Spiritual as Well as the Physical Structure of the World in Part Built up on Sexual Love The Testimony of Men of Intellect to the Supremacy of Love. CHAPTER V. THE FUNCTION OF CHASTITY. Chastity Essential to the Dignity of Love--The Eighteenth Century Revolt Against the Ideal of Chastity--Unnatural Forms of Chastity--The Psychological Basis of Asceticism--Asceticism and Chastity as Savage Virtues--The Significance of Tahiti--Chastity Among Barbarous Peoples--Chastity Among the Early Christians--Struggles of the Saints with the Flesh--The Romance of Christian Chastity--Its Decay in Mediæval Times--_Aucassin et Nicolette_ and the New Romance of Chaste Love--The Unchastity of the Northern Barbarians--The Penitentials--Influence of the Renaissance and the Reformation--The Revolt Against Virginity as a Virtue--The Modern Conception of Chastity as a Virtue--The Influences That Favor the Virtue of Chastity--Chastity as a Discipline--The Value of Chastity for the Artist--Potency and Impotence in Popular Estimation--The Correct Definitions of Asceticism and Chastity. CHAPTER VI. THE PROBLEM OF SEXUAL ABSTINENCE. The Influence of Tradition--The Theological Conception of Lust--Tendency of These Influences to Degrade Sexual Morality--Their Result in Creating the Problem of Sexual Abstinence--The Protests Against Sexual Abstinence--Sexual Abstinence and Genius--Sexual Abstinence in Women--The Advocates of Sexual Abstinence--Intermediate Attitude--Unsatisfactory Nature of the Whole Discussion--Criticism of the Conception of Sexual Abstinence--Sexual Abstinence as Compared to Abstinence from Food--No Complete Analogy--The Morality of Sexual Abstinence Entirely Negative--Is It the Physician's Duty to Advise Extra-Conjugal Sexual Intercourse?--Opinions of Those Who Affirm or Deny This Duty--The Conclusion Against Such Advice--The Physician Bound by the Social and Moral Ideas of His Age--The Physician as Reformer--Sexual Abstinence and Sexual Hygiene--Alcohol--The Influence of Physical and Mental Exercise--The Inadequacy of Sexual Hygiene in This Field--The Unreal Nature of the Conception of Sexual Abstinence--The Necessity of Replacing It by a More Positive Ideal. CHAPTER VII. PROSTITUTION. I. _The Orgy:_--The Religious Origin of the Orgy--The Feast of Fools--Recognition of the Orgy by the Greeks and Romans--The Orgy Among Savages--The Drama--The Object Subserved by the Orgy. II. _The Origin and Development of Prostitution:_--The Definition of Prostitution--Prostitution Among Savages--The Conditions Under Which Professional Prostitution Arises--Sacred Prostitution--The Rite of Mylitta--The Practice of Prostitution to Obtain a Marriage Portion--The Rise of Secular Prostitution in Greece--Prostitution in the East--India, China, Japan, etc.--Prostitution in Rome--The Influence of Christianity on Prostitution--The Effort to Combat Prostitution--The Mediæval Brothel--The Appearance of the Courtesan--Tullia D'Aragona--Veronica Franco--Ninon de Lenclos--Later Attempts to Eradicate Prostitution--The Regulation of Prostitution--Its Futility Becoming Recognized. III. _The Causes of Prostitution:_--Prostitution as a Part of the Marriage System--The Complex Causation of Prostitution--The Motives Assigned by Prostitutes--(1) Economic Factor of Prostitution--Poverty Seldom the Chief Motive for Prostitution--But Economic Pressure Exerts a Real Influence--The Large Proportion of Prostitutes Recruited from Domestic Service--Significance of This Fact--(2) The Biological Factor of Prostitution--The So-called Born-Prostitute--Alleged Identity with the Born-Criminal--The Sexual Instinct in Prostitutes--The Physical and Psychic Characters of Prostitutes--(3) Moral Necessity as a Factor in the Existence of Prostitution--The Moral Advocates of Prostitution--The Moral Attitude of Christianity Towards Prostitution--The Attitude of Protestantism--Recent Advocates of the Moral Necessity of Prostitution--(4) Civilizational Value as a Factor of Prostitution--The Influence of Urban Life--The Craving for Excitement--Why Servant-girls so Often Turn to Prostitution--The Small Part Played by Seduction--Prostitutes Come Largely from the Country--The Appeal of Civilization Attracts Women to Prostitution--The Corresponding Attraction Felt by Men--The Prostitute as Artist and Leader of Fashion--The Charm of Vulgarity. IV. _The Present Social Attitude Towards Prostitution:_--The Decay of the Brothel--The Tendency to the Humanization of Prostitution--The Monetary Aspects of Prostitution--The Geisha--The Hetaira--The Moral Revolt Against Prostitution--Squalid Vice Based on Luxurious Virtue--The Ordinary Attitude Towards Prostitutes--Its Cruelty Absurd--The Need of Reforming Prostitution--The Need of Reforming Marriage--These Two Needs Closely Correlated--The Dynamic Relationships Involved. CHAPTER VIII. THE CONQUEST OF THE VENEREAL DISEASES. The Significance of the Venereal Diseases--The History of Syphilis--The Problem of Its Origin--The Social Gravity of Syphilis--The Social Dangers of Gonorrhoea--The Modern Change in the Methods of Combating Venereal Diseases--Causes of the Decay of the System of Police Regulation--Necessity of Facing the Facts--The Innocent Victims of Venereal Diseases--Diseases Not Crimes--The Principle of Notification--The Scandinavian System--Gratuitous Treatment--Punishment For Transmitting Venereal Diseases--Sexual Education in Relation to Venereal Diseases--Lectures, Etc.--Discussion in Novels and on the Stage--The "Disgusting" Not the "Immoral". CHAPTER IX. SEXUAL MORALITY. Prostitution in Relation to Our Marriage System--Marriage and Morality--The Definition of the Term "Morality"--Theoretical Morality--Its Division Into Traditional Morality and Ideal Morality--Practical Morality--Practical Morality Based on Custom--The Only Subject of Scientific Ethics--The Reaction Between Theoretical and Practical Morality--Sexual Morality in the Past an Application of Economic Morality--The Combined Rigidity and Laxity of This Morality--The Growth of a Specific Sexual Morality and the Evolution of Moral Ideals--Manifestations of Sexual Morality--Disregard of the Forms of Marriage--Trial Marriage--Marriage After Conception of Child--Phenomena in Germany, Anglo-Saxon Countries, Russia, etc.--The Status of Woman--The Historical Tendency Favoring Moral Equality of Women with Men--The Theory of the Matriarchate--Mother-Descent--Women in Babylonia--Egypt--Rome--The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries--The Historical Tendency Favoring Moral Inequality of Woman--The Ambiguous Influence of Christianity--Influence of Teutonic Custom and Feudalism--Chivalry--Woman in England--The Sale of Wives--The Vanishing Subjection of Woman--Inaptitude of the Modern Man to Domineer--The Growth of Moral Responsibility in Women--The Concomitant Development of Economic Independence--The Increase of Women Who Work--Invasion of the Modern Industrial Field by Women--In How Far This Is Socially Justifiable--The Sexual Responsibility of Women and Its Consequences--The Alleged Moral Inferiority of Women--The "Self-Sacrifice" of Women--Society Not Concerned with Sexual Relationships--Procreation the Sole Sexual Concern of the State--The Supreme Importance of Maternity. CHAPTER X. MARRIAGE. The Definition of Marriage--Marriage Among Animals--The Predominance of Monogamy--The Question of Group Marriage--Monogamy a Natural Fact, Not Based on Human Law--The Tendency to Place the Form of Marriage Above the Fact of Marriage--The History of Marriage--Marriage in Ancient Rome--Germanic Influence on Marriage--Bride-Sale--The Ring--The Influence of Christianity on Marriage--The Great Extent of this Influence--The Sacrament of Matrimony--Origin and Growth of the Sacramental Conception--The Church Made Marriage a Public Act--Canon Law--Its Sound Core--Its Development--Its Confusions and Absurdities--Peculiarities of English Marriage Law--Influence of the Reformation on Marriage--The Protestant Conception of Marriage as a Secular Contract--The Puritan Reform of Marriage--Milton as the Pioneer of Marriage Reform--His Views on Divorce--The Backward Position of England in Marriage Reform--Criticism of the English Divorce Law--Traditions of the Canon Law Still Persistent--The Question of Damages for Adultery--Collusion as a Bar to Divorce--Divorce in France, Germany, Austria, Russia, etc.--The United States--Impossibility of Deciding by Statute the Causes for Divorce--Divorce by Mutual Consent--Its Origin and Development--Impeded by the Traditions of Canon Law--Wilhelm von Humboldt--Modern Pioneer Advocates of Divorce by Mutual Consent--The Arguments Against Facility of Divorce--The Interests of the Children--The Protection of Women--The Present Tendency of the Divorce Movement--Marriage Not a Contract--The Proposal of Marriage for a Term of Years--Legal Disabilities and Disadvantages in the Position of the Husband and the Wife--Marriage Not a Contract But a Fact--Only the Non-Essentials of Marriage, Not the Essentials, a Proper Matter for Contract--The Legal Recognition of Marriage as a Fact Without Any Ceremony--Contracts of the Person Opposed to Modern Tendencies--The Factor of Moral Responsibility--Marriage as an Ethical Sacrament--Personal Responsibility Involves Freedom--Freedom the Best Guarantee of Stability--False Ideas of Individualism--Modern Tendency of Marriage--With the Birth of a Child Marriage Ceases to be a Private Concern--Every Child Must Have a Legal Father and Mother--How This Can be Effected--The Firm Basis of Monogamy--The Question of Marriage Variations--Such Variations Not Inimical to Monogamy--The Most Common Variations--The Flexibility of Marriage Holds Variations in Check--Marriage Variations _versus_ Prostitution--Marriage on a Reasonable and Humane Basis--Summary and Conclusion. CHAPTER XI. THE ART OF LOVE. Marriage Not Only for Procreation--Theologians on the _Sacramentum Solationis_--Importance of the _Art of Love_--The Basis of Stability in Marriage and the Condition for Right Procreation--The Art of Love the Bulwark Against Divorce--The Unity of Love and Marriage a Principle of Modern Morality--Christianity and the Art of Love--Ovid--The Art of Love Among Primitive Peoples--Sexual Initiation in Africa and Elsewhere--The Tendency to Spontaneous Development of the Art of Love in Early Life--Flirtation--Sexual Ignorance in Women--The Husband's Place in Sexual Initiation--Sexual Ignorance in Men--The Husband's Education for Marriage--The Injury Done by the Ignorance of Husbands--The Physical and Mental Results of Unskilful Coitus--Women Understand the Art of Love Better Than Men--Ancient and Modern Opinions Concerning Frequency of Coitus--Variation in Sexual Capacity--The Sexual Appetite--The Art of Love Based on the Biological Facts of Courtship--The Art of Pleasing Women--The Lover Compared to the Musician--The Proposal as a Part of Courtship--Divination in the Art of Love--The Importance of the Preliminaries in Courtship--The Unskilful Husband Frequently the Cause of the Frigid Wife--The Difficulty of Courtship--Simultaneous Orgasm--The Evils of Incomplete Gratification in Women--Coitus Interruptus--Coitus Reservatus--The Human Method of Coitus--Variations in Coitus--Posture in Coitus--The Best Time for Coitus--The Influence of Coitus in Marriage--The Advantages of Absence in Marriage--The Risks of Absence--Jealousy--The Primitive Function of Jealousy--Its Predominance Among Animals, Savages, etc, and in Pathological States--An Anti-Social Emotion--Jealousy Incompatible With the Progress of Civilization--The Possibility of Loving More Than One Person at a Time--Platonic Friendship--The Conditions Which Make It Possible--The Maternal Element in Woman's Love--The Final Development of Conjugal Love--The Problem of Love One of the Greatest Of Social Questions. CHAPTER XII. THE SCIENCE OF PROCREATION. The Relationship of the Science of Procreation to the Art of Love--Sexual Desire and Sexual Pleasure as the Conditions of Conception--Reproduction Formerly Left to Caprice and Lust--The Question of Procreation as a Religious Question--The Creed of Eugenics--Ellen Key and Sir Francis Galton--Our Debt to Posterity--The Problem of Replacing Natural Selection--The Origin and Development of Eugenics--The General Acceptance of Eugenical Principles To-day--The Two Channels by Which Eugenical Principles are Becoming Embodied in Practice--The Sense of Sexual Responsibility in Women--The Rejection of Compulsory Motherhood--The Privilege of Voluntary Motherhood--Causes of the Degradation of Motherhood--The Control of Conception--Now Practiced by the Majority of the Population in Civilized Countries--The Fallacy of "Racial Suicide"--Are Large Families a Stigma of Degeneration?--Procreative Control the Outcome of Natural and Civilized Progress--The Growth of Neo-Malthusian Beliefs and Practices--Facultative Sterility as Distinct from Neo-Malthusianism--The Medical and Hygienic Necessity of Control of Conception--Preventive Methods--Abortion--The New Doctrine of the Duty to Practice Abortion--How Far is this Justifiable?--Castration as a Method of Controlling Procreation--Negative Eugenics and Positive Eugenics--The Question of Certificates for Marriage--The Inadequacy of Eugenics by Act of Parliament--The Quickening of the Social Conscience in Regard to Heredity--Limitations to the Endowment of Motherhood--The Conditions Favorable to Procreation--Sterility--The Question of Artificial Fecundation--The Best Age of Procreation--The Question of Early Motherhood--The Best Time for Procreation--The Completion of the Divine Cycle of Life. CHAPTER I. THE MOTHER AND HER CHILD. The Child's Right to Choose Its Ancestry--How This is Effected--The Mother the Child's Supreme Parent--Motherhood and the Woman Movement--The Immense Importance of Motherhood--Infant Mortality and Its Causes--The Chief Cause in the Mother--The Need of Rest During Pregnancy--Frequency of Premature Birth--The Function of the State--Recent Advance in Puericulture--The Question of Coitus During Pregnancy--The Need of Rest During Lactation--The Mother's Duty to Suckle Her Child--The Economic Question--The Duty of the State--Recent Progress in the Protection of the Mother--The Fallacy of State Nurseries. A man's sexual nature, like all else that is most essential in him, is rooted in a soil that was formed very long before his birth. In this, as in every other respect, he draws the elements of his life from his ancestors, however new the recombination may be and however greatly it may be modified by subsequent conditions. A man's destiny stands not in the future but in the past. That, rightly considered, is the most vital of all vital facts. Every child thus has a right to choose his own ancestors. Naturally he can only do this vicariously, through his parents. It is the most serious and sacred duty of the future father to choose one half of the ancestral and hereditary character of his future child; it is the most serious and sacred duty of the future mother to make a similar choice.[1] In choosing each other they have between them chosen the whole ancestry of their child. They have determined the stars that will rule his fate. In the past that fateful determination has usually been made helplessly, ignorantly, almost unconsciously. It has either been guided by an instinct which, on the whole, has worked out fairly well, or controlled by economic interests of the results of which so much cannot be said, or left to the risks of lower than bestial chances which can produce nothing but evil. In the future we cannot but have faith--for all the hope of humanity must rest on that faith--that a new guiding impulse, reinforcing natural instinct and becoming in time an inseparable accompaniment of it, will lead civilized man on his racial course. Just as in the past the race has, on the whole, been moulded by a natural, and in part sexual, selection, that was unconscious of itself and ignorant of the ends it made towards, so in the future the race will be moulded by deliberate selection, the creative energy of Nature becoming self-conscious in the civilized brain of man. This is not a faith which has its source in a vague hope. The problems of the individual life are linked on to the fate of the racial life, and again and again we shall find as we ponder the individual questions we are here concerned with, that at all points they ultimately converge towards this same racial end. Since we have here, therefore, to follow out the sexual relationships of the individual as they bear on society, it will be convenient at this point to put aside the questions of ancestry and to accept the individual as, with hereditary constitution already determined, he lies in his mother's womb. It is the mother who is the child's supreme parent. At various points in zoölogical evolution it has seemed possible that the functions that we now know as those of maternity would be largely and even equally shared by the male parent. Nature has tried various experiments in this direction, among the fishes, for instance, and even among birds. But reasonable and excellent as these experiments were, and though they were sufficiently sound to secure their perpetuation unto this day, it remains true that it was not along these lines that Man was destined to emerge. Among all the mammal predecessors of Man, the male is an imposing and important figure in the early days of courtship, but after conception has once been secured the mother plays the chief part in the racial life. The male must be content to forage abroad and stand on guard when at home in the ante-chamber of the family. When she has once been impregnated the female animal angrily rejects the caresses she had welcomed so coquettishly before, and even in Man the place of the father at the birth of his child is not a notably dignified or comfortable one. Nature accords the male but a secondary and comparatively humble place in the home, the breeding-place of the race; he may compensate himself if he will, by seeking adventure and renown in the world outside. The mother is the child's supreme parent, and during the period from conception to birth the hygiene of the future man can only be affected by influences which work through her. Fundamental and elementary as is the fact of the predominant position of the mother in relation to the life of the race, incontestable as it must seem to all those who have traversed the volumes of these _Studies_ up to the present point, it must be admitted that it has sometimes been forgotten or ignored. In the great ages of humanity it has indeed been accepted as a central and sacred fact. In classic Rome at one period the house of the pregnant woman was adorned with garlands, and in Athens it was an inviolable sanctuary where even the criminal might find shelter. Even amid the mixed influences of the exuberantly vital times which preceded the outburst of the Renaissance, the ideally beautiful woman, as pictures still show, was the pregnant woman. But it has not always been so. At the present time, for instance, there can be no doubt that we are but beginning to emerge from a period during which this fact was often disputed and denied, both in theory and in practice, even by women themselves. This was notably the case both in England and America, and it is probably owing in large part to the unfortunate infatuation which led women in these lands to follow after masculine ideals that at the present moment the inspirations of progress in women's movements come mainly to-day from the women of other lands. Motherhood and the future of the race were systematically belittled. Paternity is but a mere incident, it was argued, in man's life: why should maternity be more than a mere incident in woman's life? In England, by a curiously perverted form of sexual attraction, women were so fascinated by the glamour that surrounded men that they desired to suppress or forget all the facts of organic constitution which made them unlike men, counting their glory as their shame, and sought the same education as men, the same occupations as men, even the same sports. As we know, there was at the origin an element of rightness in this impulse.[2] It was absolutely right in so far as it was a claim for freedom from artificial restriction, and a demand for economic independence. But it became mischievous and absurd when it developed into a passion for doing, in all respects, the same things as men do; how mischievous and how absurd we may realize if we imagine men developing a passion to imitate the ways and avocations of women. Freedom is only good when it is a freedom to follow the laws of one's own nature; it ceases to be freedom when it becomes a slavish attempt to imitate others, and would be disastrous if it could be successful.[3] At the present day this movement on the theoretical side has ceased to possess any representatives who exert serious influence. Yet its practical results are still prominently exhibited in England and the other countries in which it has been felt. Infantile mortality is enormous, and in England at all events is only beginning to show a tendency to diminish; motherhood is without dignity, and the vitality of mothers is speedily crushed, so that often they cannot so much as suckle their infants; ignorant girl-mothers give their infants potatoes and gin; on every hand we are told of the evidence of degeneracy in the race, or if not in the race, at all events, in the young individuals of to-day. It would be out of place, and would lead us too far, to discuss here these various practical outcomes of the foolish attempt to belittle the immense racial importance of motherhood. It is enough here to touch on the one point of the excess of infantile mortality. In England--which is not from the social point of view in a very much worse condition than most countries, for in Austria and Russia the infant mortality is higher still, though in Australia and New Zealand much lower, but still excessive--more than one-fourth of the total number of deaths every year is of infants under one year of age. In the opinion of medical officers of health who are in the best position to form an opinion, about one-half of this mortality, roughly speaking, is absolutely preventable. Moreover, it is doubtful whether there is any real movement of decrease in this mortality; during the past half century it has sometimes slightly risen and sometimes slightly fallen, and though during the past few years the general movement of mortality for children under five in England and Wales has shown a tendency to decrease, in London (according to J.F.J. Sykes, although Sir Shirley Murphy has attempted to minimize the significance of these figures) the infantile mortality rate for the first three months of life actually rose from 69 per 1,000 in the period 1888-1892 to 75 per 1,000 in the period 1898-1901. (This refers, it must be remembered, to the period before the introduction of the Notification of Births Act.) In any case, although the general mortality shows a marked tendency to improvement there is certainly no adequately corresponding improvement in the infantile mortality. This is scarcely surprising, when we realize that there has been no change for the better, but rather for the worse, in the conditions under which our infants are born and reared. Thus William Hall, who has had an intimate knowledge extending over fifty-six years of the slums of Leeds, and has weighed and measured many thousands of slum children, besides examining over 120,000 boys and girls as to their fitness for factory labor, states (_British Medical Journal_, October 14, 1905) that "fifty years ago the slum mother was much more sober, cleanly, domestic, and motherly than she is to-day; she was herself better nourished and she almost always suckled her children, and after weaning they received more nutritious bone-making food, and she was able to prepare more wholesome food at home." The system of compulsory education has had an unfortunate influence in exerting a strain on the parents and worsening the conditions of the home. For, excellent as education is in itself, it is not the primary need of life, and has been made compulsory before the more essential things of life have been made equally compulsory. How absolutely unnecessary this great mortality is may be shown, without evoking the good example of Australia and New Zealand, by merely comparing small English towns; thus while in Guildford the infantile death rate is 65 per thousand, in Burslem it is 205 per thousand. It is sometimes said that infantile mortality is an economic question, and that with improvement in wages it would cease. This is only true to a limited extent and under certain conditions. In Australia there is no grinding poverty, but the deaths of infants under one year of age are still between 80 and 90 per thousand, and one-third of this mortality, according to Hooper (_British Medical Journal_, 1908, vol. ii, p. 289), being due to the ignorance of mothers and the dislike to suckling, is easily preventable. The employment of married women greatly diminishes the poverty of a family, but nothing can be worse for the welfare of the woman as mother, or for the welfare of her child. Reid, the medical officer of health for Staffordshire, where there are two large centres of artisan population with identical health conditions, has shown that in the northern centre, where a very large number of women are engaged in factories, still-births are three times as frequent as in the southern centre, where there are practically no trade employments for women; the frequency of abnormalities is also in the same ratio. The superiority of Jewish over Christian children, again, and their lower infantile mortality, seem to be entirely due to the fact that Jewesses are better mothers. "The Jewish children in the slums," says William Hall (_British Medical Journal_, October 14, 1905), speaking from wide and accurate knowledge, "were superior in weight, in teeth, and in general bodily development, and they seemed less susceptible to infectious disease. Yet these Jews were overcrowded, they took little exercise, and their unsanitary environment was obvious. The fact was, their children were much better nourished. The pregnant Jewess was more cared for, and no doubt supplied better nutriment to the foetus. After the children were born 90 per cent. received breast-milk, and during later childhood they were abundantly fed on bone-making material; eggs and oil, fish, fresh vegetables, and fruit entered largely into their diet." G. Newman, in his important and comprehensive book on _Infant Mortality_, emphasizes the conclusion that "first of all we need a higher standard of physical motherhood." The problem of infantile mortality, he declares (page 259), is not one of sanitation alone, or housing, or indeed of poverty as such, "_but is mainly a question of motherhood_." The fundamental need of the pregnant woman is _rest_. Without a large degree of maternal rest there can be no puericulture.[4] The task of creating a man needs the whole of a woman's best energies, more especially during the three months before birth. It cannot be subordinated to the tax on strength involved by manual or mental labor, or even strenuous social duties and amusements. The numerous experiments and observations which have been made during recent years in Maternity Hospitals, more especially in France, have shown conclusively that not only the present and future well-being of the mother and the ease of her confinement, but the fate of the child, are immensely influenced by rest during the last month of pregnancy. "Every working woman is entitled to rest during the last three months of her pregnancy." This formula was adopted by the International Congress of Hygiene in 1900, but it cannot be practically carried out except by the coöperation of the whole community. For it is not enough to say that a woman ought to rest during pregnancy; it is the business of the community to ensure that that rest is duly secured. The woman herself, and her employer, we may be certain, will do their best to cheat the community, but it is the community which suffers, both economically and morally, when a woman casts her inferior children into the world, and in its own interests the community is forced to control both employer and employed. We can no longer allow it to be said, in Bouchacourt's words, that "to-day the dregs of the human species--the blind, the deaf-mute, the degenerate, the nervous, the vicious, the idiotic, the imbecile, the cretins and epileptics--are better protected than pregnant women."[5] Pinard, who must always be honored as one of the founders of eugenics, has, together with his pupils, done much to prepare the way for the acceptance of this simple but important principle by making clear the grounds on which it is based. From prolonged observations on the pregnant women of all classes Pinard has shown conclusively that women who rest during pregnancy have finer children than women who do not rest. Apart from the more general evils of work during pregnancy, Pinard found that during the later months it had a tendency to press the uterus down into the pelvis, and so cause the premature birth of undeveloped children, while labor was rendered more difficult and dangerous (see, e.g., Pinard, _Gazette des Hôpitaux_, Nov. 28, 1895, Id., _Annales de Gynécologie_, Aug., 1898). Letourneux has studied the question whether repose during pregnancy is necessary for women whose professional work is only slightly fatiguing. He investigated 732 successive confinements at the Clinique Baudelocque in Paris. He found that 137 women engaged in fatiguing occupations (servants, cooks, etc.) and not resting during pregnancy, produced children with an average weight of 3,081 grammes; 115 women engaged in only slightly fatiguing occupations (dressmakers, milliners, etc.) and also not resting during pregnancy, had children with an average weight of 3,130 grammes, a slight but significant difference, in view of the fact that the women of the first group were large and robust, while those of the second group were of slight and elegant build. Again, comparing groups of women who rested during pregnancy, it was found that the women accustomed to fatiguing work had children with an average weight of 3,319 grammes, while those accustomed to less fatiguing work had children with an average weight of 3,318 grammes. The difference between repose and non-repose is thus considerable, while it also enables robust women exercising a fatiguing occupation to catch up, though not to surpass, the frailer women exercising a less fatiguing occupation. We see, too, that even in the comparatively unfatiguing occupations of milliners, etc., rest during pregnancy still remains important, and cannot safely be dispensed with. "Society," Letourneux concludes, "must guarantee rest to women not well off during a part of pregnancy. It will be repaid the cost of doing so by the increased vigor of the children thus produced" (Letourneux, _De l'Influence de la Profession de la Mère sur le Poids de l'Enfant_, Thèse de Paris, 1897). Dr. Dweira-Bernson (_Revue Pratique d'Obstétrique et de Pédiatrie_, 1903, p. 370), compared four groups of pregnant women (servants with light work, servants with heavy work, farm girls, dressmakers) who rested for three months before confinement with four groups similarly composed who took no rest before confinement. In every group he found that the difference in the average weight of the child was markedly in favor of the women who rested, and it was notable that the greatest difference was found in the case of the farm girls who were probably the most robust and also the hardest worked. The usual time of gestation ranges between 274 and 280 days (or 280 to 290 days from the last menstrual period), and occasionally a few days longer, though there is dispute as to the length of the extreme limit, which some authorities would extend to 300 days, or even to 320 days (Pinard, in Richet's _Dictionnaire de Physiologie_, vol. vii, pp. 150-162; Taylor, _Medical Jurisprudence_, fifth edition, pp. 44, 98 et seq.; L.M. Allen, "Prolonged Gestation," _American Journal Obstetrics_, April, 1907). It is possible, as Müller suggested in 1898 in a Thèse de Nancy, that civilization tends to shorten the period of gestation, and that in earlier ages it was longer than it is now. Such a tendency to premature birth under the exciting nervous influences of civilization would thus correspond, as Bouchacourt has pointed out (_La Grossesse_, p. 113), to the similar effect of domestication in animals. The robust countrywoman becomes transformed into the more graceful, but also more fragile, town woman who needs a degree of care and hygiene which the countrywoman with her more resistant nervous system can to some extent dispense with, although even she, as we see, suffers in the person of her child, and probably in her own person, from the effects of work during pregnancy. The serious nature of this civilized tendency to premature birth--of which lack of rest in pregnancy is, however, only one of several important causes--is shown by the fact that Séropian (_Fréquence Comparée des Causes de l'Accouchement Prémature_, Thèse de Paris, 1907) found that about one-third of French births (32.28 per cent.) are to a greater or less extent premature. Pregnancy is not a morbid condition; on the contrary, a pregnant woman is at the climax of her most normal physiological life, but owing to the tension thus involved she is specially liable to suffer from any slight shock or strain. It must be remarked that the increased tendency to premature birth, while in part it may be due to general tendencies of civilization, is also in part due to very definite and preventable causes. Syphilis, alcoholism, and attempts to produce abortion are among the not uncommon causes of premature birth (see, e.g., G.F. McCleary, "The Influence of Antenatal Conditions on Infantile Mortality," _British Medical Journal_, Aug. 13, 1904). Premature birth ought to be avoided, because the child born too early is insufficiently equipped for the task before him. Astengo, dealing with nearly 19,000 cases at the Lariboisière Hospital in Paris and the Maternité, found, that reckoning from the date of the last menstruation, there is a direct relation between the weight of the infant at birth and the length of the pregnancy. The longer the pregnancy, the finer the child (Astengo, _Rapport du Poids des Enfants à la Durée de la Grossesse_, Thèse de Paris, 1905). The frequency of premature birth is probably as great in England as in France. Ballantyne states (_Manual of Antenatal Pathology; The Foetus_, p. 456) that for practical purposes the frequency of premature labors in maternity hospitals may be put at 20 per cent., but that if all infants weighing less than 3,000 grammes are to be regarded as premature, it rises to 41.5 per cent. That premature birth is increasing in England seems to be indicated by the fact that during the past twenty-five years there has been a steady rise in the mortality rate from premature birth. McCleary, who discusses this point and considers the increase real, concludes that "it would appear that there has been a diminution in the quality as well as in the quantity of our output of babies" (see also a discussion, introduced by Dawson Williams, on "Physical Deterioration," _British Medical Journal_, Oct. 14, 1905). It need scarcely be pointed out that not only is immaturity a cause of deterioration in the infants that survive, but that it alone serves enormously to decrease the number of infants that are able to survive. Thus G. Newman states (loc. cit.) that in most large English urban districts immaturity is the chief cause of infant mortality, furnishing about 30 per cent. of the infant deaths; even in London (Islington) Alfred Harris (_British Medical Journal_, Dec. 14, 1907) finds that it is responsible for nearly 17 per cent. of the infantile deaths. It is estimated by Newman that about half of the mothers of infants dying of immaturity suffer from marked ill-health and poor physique; they are not, therefore, fitted to be mothers. Rest during pregnancy is a very powerful agent in preventing premature birth. Thus Dr. Sarraute-Lourié has compared 1,550 pregnant women at the Asile Michelet who rested before confinement with 1,550 women confined at the Hôpital Lariboisière who had enjoyed no such period of rest. She found that the average duration of pregnancy was at least twenty days shorter in the latter group (Mme. Sarraute-Lourié, _De l'Influence du Repos sur la Durée de la Gestation_, Thèse de Paris, 1899). Leyboff has insisted on the absolute necessity of rest during pregnancy, as well for the sake of the woman herself as the burden she carries, and shows the evil results which follow when rest is neglected. Railway traveling, horse-riding, bicycling, and sea-voyages are also, Leyboff believes, liable to be injurious to the course of pregnancy. Leyboff recognizes the difficulties which procreating women are placed under by present industrial conditions, and concludes that "it is urgently necessary to prevent women, by law, from working during the last three months of pregnancy; that in every district there should be a maternity fund; that during this enforced rest a woman should receive the same salary as during work." He adds that the children of unmarried mothers should be cared for by the State, that there should be an eight-hours' day for all workers, and that no children under sixteen should be allowed to work (E. Leyboff, _L'Hygiène de la Grossesse_, Thèse de Paris, 1905). Perruc states that at least two months' rest before confinement should be made compulsory, and that during this period the woman should receive an indemnity regulated by the State. He is of opinion that it should take the form of compulsory assurance, to which the worker, the employer, and the State alike contributed (Perruc, _Assistance aux Femmes Enceintes_, Thèse de Paris, 1905). It is probable that during the earlier months of pregnancy, work, if not excessively heavy and exhausting, has little or no bad effect; thus Bacchimont (_Documents pour servir a l'Histoire de la Puériculture Intra-utérine_, Thèse de Paris, 1898) found that, while there was a great gain in the weight of children of mothers who had rested for three months, there was no corresponding gain in the children of those mothers who had rested for longer periods. It is during the last three months that freedom, repose, the cessation of the obligatory routine of employment become necessary. This is the opinion of Pinard, the chief authority on this matter. Many, however, fearing that economic and industrial conditions render so long a period of rest too difficult of practical attainment, are, with Clappier and G. Newman, content to demand two months as a minimum; Salvat only asks for one month's rest before confinement, the woman, whether married or not, receiving a pecuniary indemnity during this period, with medical care and drugs free. Ballantyne (_Manual of Antenatal Pathology: The Foetus_, p. 475), as well as Niven, also asks only for one month's compulsory rest during pregnancy, with indemnity. Arthur Helme, however, taking a more comprehensive view of all the factors involved, concludes in a valuable paper on "The Unborn Child: Its Care and Its Rights" (_British Medical Journal_, Aug. 24, 1907), "The important thing would be to prohibit pregnant women from going to work at all, and it is as important from the standpoint of the child that this prohibition should include the early as the late months of pregnancy." In England little progress has yet been made as regards this question of rest during pregnancy, even as regards the education of public opinion. Sir William Sinclair, Professor of Obstetrics at the Victoria University of Manchester, has published (1907) _A Plea for Establishing Municipal Maternity Homes_. Ballantyne, a great British authority on the embryology of the child, has published a "Plea for a Pre-Maternity Hospital" (_British Medical Journal_, April 6, 1901), has since given an important lecture on the subject (_British Medical Journal_, Jan. 11, 1908), and has further discussed the matter in his _Manual of Ante-Natal Pathology: The Foetus_ (Ch. XXVII); he is, however, more interested in the establishment of hospitals for the diseases of pregnancy than in the wider and more fundamental question of rest for all pregnant women. In England there are, indeed, a few institutions which receive unmarried women, with a record of good conduct, who are pregnant for the first time, for, as Bouchacourt remarks, ancient British prejudices are opposed to any mercy being shown to women who are recidivists in committing the crime of conception. At present, indeed, it is only in France that the urgent need of rest during the latter months of pregnancy has been clearly realized, and any serious and official attempts made to provide for it. In an interesting Paris thesis (_De la Puériculture avant le Naissance_, 1907) Clappier has brought together much information bearing on the efforts now being made to deal practically with this question. There are many _Asiles_ in Paris for pregnant women. One of the best is the Asile Michelet, founded in 1893 by the Assistance Publique de Paris. This is a sanatorium for pregnant women who have reached a period of seven and a half months. It is nominally restricted to the admission of French women who have been domiciled for a year in Paris, but, in practice, it appears that women from all parts of France are received. They are employed in light and occasional work for the institution, being paid for this work, and are also occupied in making clothes for the expected baby. Married and unmarried women are admitted alike, all women being equal from the point of view of motherhood, and indeed the majority of the women who come to the Asile Michelet are unmarried, some being girls who have even trudged on foot from Brittany and other remote parts of France, to seek concealment from their friends in the hospitable seclusion of these refuges in the great city. It is not the least advantage of these institutions that they shield unmarried mothers and their offspring from the manifold evils to which they are exposed, and thus tend to decrease crime and suffering. In addition to the maternity refuges, there are institutions in France for assisting with help and advice those pregnant women who prefer to remain at home, but are thus enabled to avoid the necessity for undue domestic labor. There ought to be no manner of doubt that when, as is the case to-day in our own and some other supposedly civilized countries, motherhood outside marriage is accounted as almost a crime, there is the very greatest need for adequate provision for unmarried women who are about to become mothers, enabling them to receive shelter and care in secrecy, and to preserve their self-respect and social position. This is necessary not only in the interests of humanity and public economy, but also, as is too often forgotten, in the interests of morality, for it is certain that by the neglect to furnish adequate provision of this nature women are driven to infanticide and prostitution. In earlier, more humane days, the general provision for the secret reception and care of illegitimate infants was undoubtedly most beneficial. The suppression of the mediæval method, which in France took place gradually between 1833 and 1862, led to a great increase in infanticide and abortion, and was a direct encouragement to crime and immorality. In 1887 the Conseil Général of the Seine sought to replace the prevailing neglect of this matter by the adoption of more enlightened ideas and founded a _bureau secret d'admission_ for pregnant women. Since then both the abandonment of infants and infanticide have greatly diminished, though they are increasing in those parts of France which possess no facilities of this kind. It is widely held that the State should unify the arrangements for assuring secret maternity, and should, in its own interests, undertake the expense. In 1904 French law ensured the protection of unmarried mothers by guaranteeing their secret, but it failed to organize the general establishment of secret maternities, and has left to doctors the pioneering part in this great and humane public work (A. Maillard-Brune, _Refuges, Maternités, Bureaux d'Admission Secrets, comme Moyens Préservatives des Infanticide_, Thèse de Paris, 1908). It is not among the least benefits of the falling birth rate that it has helped to stimulate this beneficent movement. The development of an industrial system which subordinates the human body and the human soul to the thirst for gold, has, for a time, dismissed from social consideration the interests of the race and even of the individual, but it must be remembered that this has not been always and everywhere so. Although in some parts of the world the women of savage peoples work up to the time of confinement, it must be remarked that the conditions of work in savage life do not resemble the strenuous and continuous labor of modern factories. In many parts of the world, however, women are not allowed to work hard during pregnancy and every consideration is shown to them. This is so, for instance, among the Pueblo Indians, and among the Indians of Mexico. Similar care is taken in the Carolines and the Gilbert Islands and in many other regions all over the world. In some places, women are secluded during pregnancy, and in others are compelled to observe many more or less excellent rules. It is true that the assigned cause for these rules is frequently the fear of evil spirits, but they nevertheless often preserve a hygienic value. In many parts of the world the discovery of pregnancy is the sign for a festival of more or less ritual character, and much good advice is given to the expectant mother. The modern Musselmans are careful to guard the health of their women when pregnant, and so are the Chinese.[6] Even in Europe, in the thirteenth century, as Clappier notes, industrial corporations sometimes had regard to this matter, and would not allow women to work during pregnancy. In Iceland, where much of the primitive life of Scandinavian Europe is still preserved, great precautions are taken with pregnant women. They must lead a quiet life, avoid tight garments, be moderate in eating and drinking, take no alcohol, be safeguarded from all shocks, while their husbands and all others who surround them must treat them with consideration, save them from worry and always bear with them patiently.[7] It is necessary to emphasize this point because we have to realize that the modern movement for surrounding the pregnant woman with tenderness and care, so far from being the mere outcome of civilized softness and degeneracy, is, in all probability, the return on a higher plane to the sane practice of those races which laid the foundations of human greatness. While rest is the cardinal virtue imposed on a woman during the later months of pregnancy, there are other points in her regimen that are far from unimportant in their bearing on the fate of the child. One of these is the question of the mother's use of alcohol. Undoubtedly alcohol has been a cause of much fanaticism. But the declamatory extravagance of anti-alcoholists must not blind us to the fact that the evils of alcohol are real. On the reproductive process especially, on the mammary glands, and on the child, alcohol has an arresting and degenerative influence without any compensatory advantages. It has been proved by experiments on animals and observations on the human subject that alcohol taken by the pregnant woman passes freely from the maternal circulation to the foetal circulation. Féré has further shown that, by injecting alcohol and aldehydes into hen's eggs during incubation, it is possible to cause arrest of development and malformation in the chick.[8] The woman who is bearing her child in her womb or suckling it at her breast would do well to remember that the alcohol which may be harmless to herself is little better than poison to the immature being who derives nourishment from her blood. She should confine herself to the very lightest of alcoholic beverages in very moderate amounts and would do better still to abandon these entirely and drink milk instead. She is now the sole source of the child's life and she cannot be too scrupulous in creating around it an atmosphere of purity and health. No after-influence can ever compensate for mistakes made at this time.[9] What is true of alcohol is equally true of other potent drugs and poisons, which should all be avoided so far as possible during pregnancy because of the harmful influence they may directly exert on the embryo. Hygiene is better than drugs, and care should be exercised in diet, which should by no means be excessive. It is a mistake to suppose that the pregnant woman needs considerably more food than usual, and there is much reason to believe not only that a rich meat diet tends to cause sterility but that it is also unfavorable to the development of the child in the womb.[10] How far, if at all, it is often asked, should sexual intercourse be continued after fecundation has been clearly ascertained? This has not always been found an easy question to answer, for in the human couple many considerations combine to complicate the answer. Even the Catholic theologians have not been entirely in agreement on this point. Clement of Alexandria said that when the seed had been sown the field must be left till harvest. But it may be concluded that, as a rule, the Church was inclined to regard intercourse during pregnancy as at most a venial sin, provided there was no danger of abortion. Augustine, Gregory the Great, Aquinas, Dens, for instance, seem to be of this mind; for a few, indeed, it is no sin at all.[11] Among animals the rule is simple and uniform; as soon as the female is impregnated at the period of oestrus she absolutely rejects all advance of the male until, after birth and lactation are over, another period of oestrus occurs. Among savages the tendency is less uniform, and sexual abstinence, when it occurs during pregnancy, tends to become less a natural instinct than a ritual observance, or a custom now chiefly supported by superstitions. Among many primitive peoples abstinence during the whole of pregnancy is enjoined because it is believed that the semen would kill the foetus.[12] The Talmud is unfavorable to coitus during pregnancy, and the Koran prohibits it during the whole of the period, as well as during suckling. Among the Hindus, on the other hand, intercourse is continued up to the last fortnight of pregnancy, and it is even believed that the injected semen helps to nourish the embryo (W.D. Sutherland, "Ueber das Alltagsleben und die Volksmedizin unter den Bauern Britischostindiens," _Münchener Medizinische Wochenschrift_, Nos. 12 and 13, 1906). The great Indian physician Susruta, however, was opposed to coitus during pregnancy, and the Chinese are emphatically on the same side. As men have emerged from barbarism in the direction of civilization, the animal instinct of refusal after impregnation has been completely lost in women, while at the same time both sexes tend to become indifferent to those ritual restraints which at an earlier period were almost as binding as instinct. Sexual intercourse thus came to be practiced after impregnation, much the same as before, as part of ordinary "marital rights," though sometimes there has remained a faint suspicion, reflected in the hesitating attitude of the Catholic Church already alluded to, that such intercourse may be a sinful indulgence. Morality is, however, called in to fortify this indulgence. If the husband is shut out from marital intercourse at this time, it is argued, he will seek extra-marital intercourse, as indeed in some parts of the world it is recognized that he legitimately may; therefore the interests of the wife, anxious to retain her husband's fidelity, and the interests of Christian morality, anxious to uphold the institution of monogamy, combine to permit the continuation of coitus during pregnancy. The custom has been furthered by the fact that, in civilized women at all events, coitus during pregnancy is usually not less agreeable than at other times and by some women is felt indeed to be even more agreeable.[13] There is also the further consideration, for those couples who have sought to prevent conception, that now intercourse may be enjoyed with impunity. From a higher point of view such intercourse may also be justified, for if, as all the finer moralists of the sexual impulse now believe, love has its value not only in so far as it induces procreation but also in so far as it aids individual development and the mutual good and harmony of the united couple, it becomes morally right during pregnancy. From an early period, however, great authorities have declared themselves in opposition to the custom of practicing coitus during pregnancy. At the end of the first century, Soranus, the first of great gynæcologists, stated, in his treatise on the diseases of women, that sexual intercourse is injurious throughout pregnancy, because of the movement imparted to the uterus, and especially injurious during the latter months. For more than sixteen hundred years the question, having fallen into the hands of the theologians, seems to have been neglected on the medical side until in 1721 a distinguished French obstetrician, Mauriceau, stated that no pregnant woman should have intercourse during the last two months and that no woman subject to miscarriage should have intercourse at all during pregnancy. For more than a century, however, Mauriceau remained a pioneer with few or no followers. It would be inconvenient, the opinion went, even if it were necessary, to forbid intercourse during pregnancy.[14] During recent years, nevertheless, there has been an increasingly strong tendency among obstetricians to speak decisively concerning intercourse during pregnancy, either by condemning it altogether or by enjoining great prudence. It is highly probable that, in accordance with the classical experiments of Dareste on chicken embryos, shocks and disturbances to the human embryo may also produce injurious effects on growth. The disturbance due to coitus in the early stages of pregnancy may thus tend to produce malformation. When such conditions are found in the children of perfectly healthy, vigorous, and generally temperate parents who have indulged recklessly in coitus during the early stages of pregnancy it is possible that such coitus has acted on the embryo in the same way as shocks and intoxications are known to act on the embryo of lower organisms. However this may be, it is quite certain that in predisposed women, coitus during pregnancy causes premature birth; it sometimes happens that labor pains begin a few minutes after the act.[15] The natural instinct of animals refuses to allow intercourse during pregnancy; the ritual observance of primitive peoples very frequently points in the same direction; the voice of medical science, so far as it speaks at all, is beginning to utter the same warning, and before long will probably be in a position to do so on the basis of more solid and coherent evidence. Pinard, the greatest of authorities on puericulture, asserts that there must be complete cessation of sexual intercourse during the whole of pregnancy, and in his consulting room at the Clinique Baudelocque he has placed a large placard with an "Important Notice" to this effect. Féré was strongly of opinion that sexual relations during pregnancy, especially when recklessly carried out, play an important part in the causation of nervous troubles in children who are of sound heredity and otherwise free from all morbid infection during gestation and development; he recorded in detail a case which he considered conclusive ("L'Influence de l'Incontinence Sexuelle pendant la Gestation sur la Descendance," _Archives de Neurologie_, April, 1905). Bouchacourt discusses the subject fully (_La Grossesse_, pp. 177-214), and thinks that sexual intercourse during pregnancy should be avoided as much as possible. Fürbringer (Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage_, vol. i, p. 226) recommends abstinence from the sixth or seventh month, and throughout the whole of pregnancy where there is any tendency to miscarriage, while in all cases much care and gentleness should be exercised. The whole subject has been investigated in a Paris Thesis by H. Brénot (_De L'Influence de la Copulation pendant la Grossesse_, 1903); he concludes that sexual relations are dangerous throughout pregnancy, frequently provoking premature confinement or abortion, and that they are more dangerous in primiparæ than in multiparæ. Nearly everything that has been said of the hygiene of pregnancy, and the need for rest, applies also to the period immediately following the birth of the child. Rest and hygiene on the mother's part continue to be necessary alike in her own interests and in the child's. This need has indeed been more generally and more practically recognized than the need for rest during pregnancy. The laws of several countries make compulsory a period of rest from employment after confinement, and in some countries they seek to provide for the remuneration of the mother during this enforced rest. In no country, indeed, is the principle carried out so thoroughly and for so long a period as is desirable. But it is the right principle, and embodies the germ which, in the future, will be developed. There can be little doubt that whatever are the matters, and they are certainly many, which may be safely left to the discretion of the individual, the care of the mother and her child is not among them. That is a matter which, more than any other, concerns the community as a whole, and the community cannot afford to be slack in asserting its authority over it. The State needs healthy men and women, and by any negligence in attending to this need it inflicts serious charges of all sorts upon itself, and at the same time dangerously impairs its efficiency in the world. Nations have begun to recognize the desirability of education, but they have scarcely yet begun to realize that the nationalization of health is even more important than the nationalization of education. If it were necessary to choose between the task of getting children educated and the task of getting them well-born and healthy it would be better to abandon education. There have been many great peoples who never dreamed of national systems of education; there has been no great people without the art of producing healthy and vigorous children. This matter becomes of peculiar importance in great industrial states like England, the United States, and Germany, because in such states a tacit conspiracy tends to grow up to subordinate national ends to individual ends, and practically to work for the deterioration of the race. In England, for instance, this tendency has become peculiarly well marked with disastrous results. The interest of the employed woman tends to become one with that of her employer; between them they combine to crush the interests of the child who represents the race, and to defeat the laws made in the interests of the race which are those of the community as a whole. The employed woman wishes to earn as much wages as she can and with as little interruption as she can; in gratifying that wish she is, at the same time, acting in the interests of the employer, who carefully avoids thwarting her. This impulse on the employed woman's part is by no means always and entirely the result of poverty, and would not, therefore, be removed by raising her wages. Long before marriage, when little more than a child, she has usually gone out to work, and work has become a second nature. She has mastered her work, she enjoys a certain position and what to her are high wages; she is among her friends and companions; the noise and bustle and excitement of the work-room or the factory have become an agreeable stimulant which she can no longer do without. On the other hand, her home means nothing to her; she only returns there to sleep, leaving it next morning at day-break or earlier; she is ignorant even of the simplest domestic arts; she moves about in her own home like a strange and awkward child. The mere act of marriage cannot change this state of things; however willing she may be at marriage to become a domesticated wife, she is destitute alike of the inclination or the skill for domesticity. Even in spite of herself she is driven back to the work-shop, to the one place where she feels really at home. In Germany women are not allowed to work for four weeks after confinement, nor during the following two weeks except by medical certificate. The obligatory insurance against disease which covers women at confinement assures them an indemnity at this time equivalent to a large part of their wages. Married and unmarried mothers benefit alike. The Austrian law is founded on the same model. This measure has led to a very great decrease in infantile mortality, and, therefore, a great increase in health among those who survive. It is, however, regarded as very inadequate, and there is a movement in Germany for extending the time, for applying the system to a larger number of women, and for making it still more definitely compulsory. In Switzerland it has been illegal since 1877 for any woman to be received into a factory after confinement, unless she has rested in all for eight weeks, six weeks at least of this period being after confinement. Since 1898 Swiss working women have been protected by law from exercising hard work during pregnancy, and from various other influences likely to be injurious. But this law is evaded in practice, because it provides no compensatory indemnity for the woman. An attempt, in 1899, to amend the law by providing for such indemnity was rejected by the people. In Belgium and Holland there are laws against women working immediately after confinement, but no indemnity is provided, so that employers and employed combine to evade the law. In France there is no such law, although its necessity has often been emphatically asserted (see, e.g., Salvat, _La Dépopulation de la France_, Thèse de Lyon, 1903). In England it is illegal to employ a woman "knowingly" in a work-shop within four weeks of the birth of her child, but no provision is made by the law for the compensation of the woman who is thus required to sacrifice herself to the interests of the State. The woman evades the law in tacit collusion with her employers, who can always avoid "knowing" that a birth has taken place, and so escape all responsibility for the mother's employment. Thus the factory inspectors are unable to take action, and the law becomes a dead letter; in 1906 only one prosecution for this offense could be brought into court. By the insertion of this "knowingly" a premium is placed on ignorance. The unwisdom of thus beforehand placing a premium on ignorance has always been more or less clearly recognized by the framers of legal codes even as far back as the days of the Ten Commandments and the laws of Hamurabi. It is the business of the Court, of those who administer the law, to make allowance for ignorance where such allowance is fairly called for; it is not for the law-maker to make smooth the path of the law-breaker. There are evidently law-makers nowadays so scrupulous, or so simple-minded, that they would be prepared to exact that no pickpocket should be prosecuted if he was able to declare on oath that he had no "knowledge" that the purse he had taken belonged to the person he extracted it from. The annual reports of the English factory inspectors serve to bring ridicule on this law, which looks so wisely humane and yet means nothing, but have so far been powerless to effect any change. These reports show, moreover, that the difficulty is increasing in magnitude. Thus Miss Martindale, a factory inspector, states that in all the towns she visits, from a quiet cathedral city to a large manufacturing town, the employment of married women is rapidly increasing; they have worked in mills or factories all their lives and are quite unaccustomed to cooking, housework and the rearing of children, so that after marriage, even when not compelled by poverty, they prefer to go on working as before. Miss Vines, another factory inspector, repeats the remark of a woman worker in a factory. "I do not need to work, but I do not like staying at home," while another woman said, "I would rather be at work a hundred times than at home. I get lost at home" (_Annual Report Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops for 1906_, pp. 325, etc.). It may be added that not only is the English law enjoining four weeks' rest on the mother after childbirth practically inoperative, but the period itself is absurdly inadequate. As a rest for the mother it is indeed sufficient, but the State is still more interested in the child than in its mother, and the child needs the mother's chief care for a much longer period than four weeks. Helme advocates the State prohibition of women's work for at least six months after confinement. Where nurseries are attached to factories, enabling the mother to suckle her infant in intervals of work, the period may doubtless be shortened. It is important to remember that it is by no means only the women in factories who are induced to work as usual during the whole period of pregnancy, and to return to work immediately after the brief rest of confinement. The Research Committee of the Christian Social Union (London Branch) undertook, in 1905, an inquiry into the employment of women after childbirth. Women in factories and workshops were excluded from the inquiry which only had reference to women engaged in household duties, in home industries, and in casual work. It was found that the majority carry on their employment right up to the time of confinement and resume it from ten to fourteen days later. The infantile death rate for the children of women engaged only in household duties was greatly lower than that for the children of the other women, while, as ever, the hand-fed infants had a vastly higher death rate than the breast-fed infants (_British Medical Journal_, Oct. 24, 1908, p. 1297). In the great French gun and armour-plate works at Creuzot (Saône et Loire) the salaries of expectant mothers among the employees are raised; arrangements are made for giving them proper advice and medical attendance; they are not allowed to work after the middle of pregnancy or to return to work after confinement without a medical certificate of fitness. The results are said to be excellent, not only on the health of the mothers, but in the diminution of premature births, the decrease of infantile deaths, and the general prevalence of breast-feeding. It would probably be hopeless to expect many employers in Anglo-Saxon lands to adopt this policy. They are too "practical," they know how small is the money-value of human lives. With us it is necessary for the State to intervene. There can be no doubt that, on the whole, modern civilized communities are beginning to realize that under the social and economic conditions now tending more and more to prevail, they must in their own interests insure that the mother's best energy and vitality are devoted to the child, both before and after its birth. They are also realizing that they cannot carry out their duty in this respect unless they make adequate provision for the mothers who are thus compelled to renounce their employment in order to devote themselves to their children. We here reach a point at which Individualism is at one with Socialism. The individualist cannot fail to see that it is at all cost necessary to remove social conditions which crush out all individuality; the Socialist cannot fail to see that a society which neglects to introduce order at this central and vital point, the production of the individual, must speedily perish. It is involved in the proper fulfilment of a mother's relationship to her infant child that, provided she is healthy, she should suckle it. Of recent years this question has become a matter of serious gravity. In the middle of the eighteenth century, when the upper-class women of France had grown disinclined to suckle their own children, Rousseau raised so loud and eloquent a protest that it became once more the fashion for a woman to fulfil her natural duties. At the present time, when the same evil is found once more, and in a far more serious form, for now it is not the small upper-class but the great lower-class that is concerned, the eloquence of a Rousseau would be powerless, for it is not fashion so much as convenience, and especially an intractable economic factor, that is chiefly concerned. Not the least urgent reason for putting women, and especially mothers, upon a sounder economic basis, is the necessity of enabling them to suckle their children. No woman is sound, healthy, and complete unless she possesses breasts that are beautiful enough to hold the promise of being functional when the time for their exercise arrives, and nipples that can give suck. The gravity of this question to-day is shown by the frequency with which women are lacking in this essential element of womanhood, and the young man of to-day, it has been said, often in taking a wife, "actually marries but part of a woman, the other part being exhibited in the chemist's shop window, in the shape of a glass feeding-bottle." Blacker found among a thousand patients from the maternity department of University College Hospital that thirty-nine had never suckled at all, seven hundred and forty-seven had suckled all their children, and two hundred and fourteen had suckled only some. The chief reason given for not suckling was absence or insufficiency of milk; other reasons being inability or disinclination to suckle, and refusal of the child to take the breast (Blacker, _Medical Chronicle_, Feb., 1900). These results among the London poor are certainly very much better than could be found in many manufacturing towns where women work after marriage. In the other large countries of Europe equally unsatisfactory results are found. In Paris Madame Dluska has shown that of 209 women who came for their confinement to the Clinique Baudelocque, only 74 suckled their children; of the 135 who did not suckle, 35 were prevented by pathological causes or absence of milk, 100 by the necessities of their work. Even those who suckled could seldom continue more than seven months on account of the physiological strain of work (Dluska, _Contribution à l'Etude de l'Allaitement Maternel_, Thèse de Paris, 1894). Many statistics have been gathered in the German countries. Thus Wiedow (_Centralblatt für Gynäkologie_, No. 29, 1895) found that of 525 women at the Freiburg Maternity only half could suckle thoroughly during the first two weeks; imperfect nipples were noted in 49 cases, and it was found that the development of the nipple bore a direct relation to the value of the breast as a secretory organ. At Munich Escherich and Büller found that nearly 60 per cent. of women of the lower class were unable to suckle their children, and at Stuttgart three-quarters of the child-bearing women were in this condition. The reasons why children should be suckled at their mothers' breasts are larger than some may be inclined to believe. In the first place the psychological reason is one of no mean importance. The breast with its exquisitely sensitive nipple, vibrating in harmony with the sexual organs, furnishes the normal mechanism by which maternal love is developed. No doubt the woman who never suckles her child may love it, but such love is liable to remain defective on the fundamental and instinctive side. In some women, indeed, whom we may hesitate to call abnormal, maternal love fails to awaken at all until brought into action through this mechanism by the act of suckling. A more generally recognized and certainly fundamental reason for suckling the child is that the milk of the mother, provided she is reasonably healthy, is the infant's only ideally fit food. There are some people whose confidence in science leads them to believe that it is possible to manufacture foods that are as good or better than mother's milk; they fancy that the milk which is best for the calf is equally best for so different an animal as the baby. These are delusions. The infant's best food is that elaborated in his own mother's body. All other foods are more or less possible substitutes, which require trouble to prepare properly and are, moreover, exposed to various risks from which the mother's milk is free. A further reason, especially among the poor, against the use of any artificial foods is that it accustoms those around the child to try experiments with its feeding and to fancy that any kind of food they eat themselves may be good for the infant. It thus happens that bread and potatoes, brandy and gin, are thrust into infants' mouths. With the infant that is given the breast it is easier to make plain that, except by the doctor's orders, nothing else must be given. An additional reason why the mother should suckle her child is the close and frequent association with the child thus involved. Not only is the child better cared for in all respects, but the mother is not deprived of the discipline of such care, and is also enabled from the outset to learn and to understand the child's nature. The inability to suckle acquires great significance if we realize that it is associated, probably in a large measure as a direct cause, with infantile mortality. The mortality of artificially-fed infants during the first year of life is seldom less than double that of the breast-fed, sometimes it is as much as three times that of the breast-fed, or even more; thus at Derby 51.7 per cent. of hand-fed infants die under the age of twelve months, but only 8.6 per cent. of breast-fed infants. Those who survive are by no means free from suffering. At the end of the first year they are found to weigh about 25 per cent. less than the breast-fed, and to be much shorter; they are more liable to tuberculosis and rickets, with all the evil results that flow from these diseases; and there is some reason to believe that the development of their teeth is injuriously affected. The degenerate character of the artificially-fed is well indicated by the fact that of 40,000 children who were brought for treatment to the Children's Hospital in Munich, 86 per cent. had been brought up by hand, and the few who had been suckled had usually only had the breast for a short time. The evil influence persists even up to adult life. In some parts of France where the wet-nurse industry flourishes so greatly that nearly all the children are brought up by hand, it has been found that the percentage of rejected conscripts is nearly double that for France generally. Corresponding results have been found by Friedjung in a large German athletic association. Among 155 members, 65 per cent. were found on inquiry to have been breast-fed as infants (for an average of six months); but among the best athletes the percentage of breast-fed rose to 72 per cent. (for an average period of nine or ten months), while for the group of 56 who stood lowest in athletic power the percentage of breast-fed fell to 57 (for an average of only three months). The advantages for an infant of being suckled by its mother are greater than can be accounted for by the mere fact of being suckled rather than hand-fed. This has been shown by Vitrey (_De la Mortalité Infantile_, Thèse de Lyon, 1907), who found from the statistics of the Hôtel-Dieu at Lyons, that infants suckled by their mothers have a mortality of only 12 per cent., but if suckled by strangers, the mortality rises to 33 per cent. It may be added that, while suckling is essential to the complete well-being of the child, it is highly desirable for the sake of the mother's health also. (Some important statistics are summarized in a paper on "Infantile Mortality" in _British Medical Journal_, Nov. 2, 1907), while the various aspects of suckling have been thoroughly discussed by Bollinger, "Ueber Säuglings-Sterblichkeit und die Erbliche functionelle Atrophie der menschlichen Milchdrüse" (_Correspondenzblatt Deutschen Gesellschaft Anthropologie_, Oct., 1899). It appears that in Sweden, in the middle of the eighteenth century, it was a punishable offense for a woman to give her baby the bottle when she was able to suckle it. In recent years Prof. Anton von Menger, of Vienna, has argued (in his _Burgerliche Recht und die Besitzlosen Klassen_) that the future generation has the right to make this claim, and he proposes that every mother shall be legally bound to suckle her child unless her inability to do so has been certified by a physician. E.A. Schroeder (_Das Recht in der Geschlechtlichen Ordnung_, 1893, p. 346) also argued that a mother should be legally bound to suckle her infant for at least nine months, unless solid grounds could be shown to the contrary, and this demand, which seems reasonable and natural, since it is a mother's privilege as well as her duty to suckle her infant when able to do so, has been insistently made by others also. It has been supported from the legal side by Weinberg (_Mutterschutz_, Sept., 1907). In France the Loi Roussel forbids a woman to act as a wet-nurse until her child is seven months old, and this has had an excellent effect in lowering infantile mortality (A. Allée, _Puériculture et la Loi Roussel_, Thèse de Paris, 1908). In some parts of Germany manufacturers are compelled to set up a suckling-room in the factory, where mothers can give the breast to the child in the intervals of work. The control and upkeep of these rooms, with provision of doctors and nurses, is undertaken by the municipality (_Sexual-Probleme_, Sept., 1908, p. 573). As things are to-day in modern industrial countries the righting of these wrongs cannot be left to Nature, that is, to the ignorant and untrained impulses of persons who live in a whirl of artificial life where the voice of instinct is drowned. The mother, we are accustomed to think, may be trusted to see to the welfare of her child, and it is unnecessary, or even "immoral," to come to her assistance. Yet there are few things, I think, more pathetic than the sight of a young Lancashire mother who works in the mills, when she has to stay at home to nurse her sick child. She is used to rise before day-break to go to the mill; she has scarcely seen her child by the light of the sun, she knows nothing of its necessities, the hands that are so skilful to catch the loom cannot soothe the child. The mother gazes down at it in vague, awkward, speechless misery. It is not a sight one can ever forget. It is France that is taking the lead in the initiation of the scientific and practical movements for the care of the young child before and after birth, and it is in France that we may find the germs of nearly all the methods now becoming adopted for arresting infantile mortality. The village system of Villiers-le-Duc, near Dijon in the Côte d'Or, has proved a germ of this fruitful kind. Here every pregnant woman not able to secure the right conditions for her own life and that of the child she is bearing, is able to claim the assistance of the village authorities; she is entitled, without payment, to the attendance of a doctor and midwife and to one franc a day during her confinement. The measures adopted in this village have practically abolished both maternal and infantile mortality. A few years ago Dr. Samson Moore, the medical officer of health for Huddersfield, heard of this village, and Mr. Benjamin Broadbent, the Mayor of Huddersfield, visited Villiers-le-Duc. It was resolved to initiate in Huddersfield a movement for combating infant mortality. Henceforth arose what is known as the Huddersfield scheme, a scheme which has been fruitful in splendid results. The points of the Huddersfield scheme are: (1) compulsory notification of births within forty-eight hours; (2) the appointment of lady assistant medical officers of help to visit the home, inquire, advise, and assist; (3) the organized aid of voluntary lady workers in subordination to the municipal part of the scheme; (4) appeal to the medical officer of help when the baby, not being under medical care, fails to thrive. The infantile mortality of Huddersfield has been very greatly reduced by this scheme.[16] The Huddersfield scheme may be said to be the origin of the English Notification of Births Act, which came into operation in 1908. This Act represents, in England, the national inauguration of a scheme for the betterment of the race, the ultimate results of which it is impossible to foresee. When this Act comes into universal action every baby of the land will be entitled--legally and not by individual caprice or philanthropic condescension--to medical attention from the day of birth, and every mother will have at hand the counsel of an educated woman in touch with the municipal authorities. There could be no greater triumph for medical science, for national efficiency, and the cause of humanity generally. Even on the lower financial plane, it is easy to see that an enormous saving of public and private money will thus be effected. The Act is adoptive, and not compulsory. This was a wise precaution, for an Act of this kind cannot be effectual unless it is carried out thoroughly by the community adopting it, and it will not be adopted until a community has clearly realized its advantages and the methods of attaining them. An important adjunct of this organization is the School for Mothers. Such schools, which are now beginning to spring up everywhere, may be said to have their origins in the _Consultations de Nourrissons_ (with their offshoot the _Goutte de Lait_), established by Professor Budin in 1892, which have spread all over France and been widely influential for good. At the _Consultations_ infants are examined and weighed weekly, and the mothers advised and encouraged to suckle their children. The _Gouttes_ are practically milk dispensaries where infants for whom breast-feeding is impossible are fed with milk under medical supervision. Schools for Mothers represent an enlargement of the same scheme, covering a variety of subjects which it is necessary for a mother to know. Some of the first of these schools were established at Bonn, at the Bavarian town of Weissenberg, and in Ghent. At some of the Schools for Mothers, and notably at Ghent (described by Mrs. Bertrand Russell in the _Nineteenth Century_, 1906), the important step has been taken of giving training to young girls from fourteen to eighteen; they receive instruction in infant anatomy and physiology, in the preparation of sterilized milk, in weighing children, in taking temperatures and making charts, in managing crêches, and after two years are able to earn a salary. In various parts of England, schools for young mothers and girls on these lines are now being established, first in London, under the auspices of Dr. F.J. Sykes, Medical Officer of Health for St. Pancreas (see, e.g., _A School For Mothers_, 1908, describing an establishment of this kind at Somers Town, with a preface by Sir Thomas Barlow; an account of recent attempts to improve the care of infants in London will also be found in the _Lancet_, Sept. 26, 1908). It may be added that some English municipalities have established depôts for supplying mothers cheaply with good milk. Such depôts are, however, likely to be more mischievous than beneficial if they promote the substitution of hand-feeding for suckling. They should never be established except in connection with Schools for Mothers, where an educational influence may be exerted, and no mother should be supplied with milk unless she presents a medical certificate showing that she is unable to nourish her child (Byers, "Medical Women and Public Health Questions," _British Medical Journal_, Oct. 6, 1906). It is noteworthy that in England the local authorities will shortly be empowered by law to establish Schools for Mothers. The great benefits produced by these institutions in France, both in diminishing the infant mortality and in promoting the education of mothers and their pride and interest in their children, have been set forth in two Paris theses by G. Chaignon (_Organisation des Consultations de Nourrissons à la Campagne_, 1908), and Alcide Alexandre (_Consultation de Nourrissons et Goutte de Lait d'Arques_, 1908). The movement is now spreading throughout Europe, and an International Union has been formed, including all the institutions specially founded for the protection of child life and the promotion of puericulture. The permanent committee is in Brussels, and a Congress of Infant Protection (_Goutte de Lait_) is held every two years. It will be seen that all the movements now being set in action for the improvement of the race through the child and the child's mother, recognize the intimacy of the relation between the mother and her child and are designed to aid her, even if necessary by the exercise of some pressure, in performing her natural functions in relation to her child. To the theoretical philanthropist, eager to reform the world on paper, nothing seems simpler than to cure the present evils of child-rearing by setting up State nurseries which are at once to relieve mothers of everything connected with the production of the men of the future beyond the pleasure--if such it happens to be--of conceiving them and the trouble of bearing them, and at the same time to rear them up independently of the home, in a wholesome, economical, and scientific manner.[17] Nothing seems simpler, but from the fundamental psychological standpoint nothing is falser. The idea of a State which is outside the community is but a survival in another form of that antiquated notion which compelled Louis XIV to declare "L'Etat c'est moi!" A State which admits that the individuals composing it are incompetent to perform their own most sacred and intimate functions, and takes upon itself to perform them instead, attempts a task which would be undesirable, even if it were possible of achievement. It must always be remembered that a State which proposes to relieve its constituent members of their natural functions and responsibilities attempts something quite different from the State which seeks to aid its members to fulfil their own biological and social functions more adequately. A State which enables its mothers to rest when they are child-bearing is engaged in a reasonable task; a State which takes over its mothers' children is reducing philanthropy to absurdity. It is easy to realize this if we consider the inevitable course of circumstances under a system of "State-nurseries." The child would be removed from its natural mother at the earliest age, but some one has to perform the mother's duties; the substitute must therefore be properly trained for such duties; and in exercising them under favorable circumstances a maternal relationship is developed between the child and the "mother," who doubtless possesses natural maternal instincts but has no natural maternal bond to the child she is mothering. Such a relationship tends to become on both sides practically and emotionally the real relationship. We very often have opportunity of seeing how unsatisfactory such a relationship becomes. The artificial mother is deprived of a child she had begun to feel her own; the child's emotional relationships are upset, split and distorted; the real mother has the bitterness of feeling that for her child she is not the real mother. Would it not have been much better for all if the State had encouraged the vast army of women it had trained for the position of mothering other women's children, to have, instead, children of their own? The women who are incapable of mothering their own children could then be trained to refrain from bearing them. Ellen Key (in her _Century of the Child_, and elsewhere) has advocated for all young women a year of compulsory "service," analogous to the compulsory military service imposed in most countries on young men. During this period the girl would be trained in rational housekeeping, in the principles of hygiene, in the care of the sick, and especially in the care of infants and all that concerns the physical and psychic development of children. The principle of this proposal has since been widely accepted. Marie von Schmid (in her _Mutterdienst_, 1907) goes so far as to advocate a general training of young women in such duties, carried on in a kind of enlarged and improved midwifery school. The service would last a year, and the young woman would then be for three years in the reserves, and liable to be called up for duty. There is certainly much to be said for such a proposal, considerably more than is to be said for compulsory military service. For while it is very doubtful whether a man will ever be called on to fight, most women are liable to be called on to exercise household duties or to look after children, whether for themselves or for other people. FOOTNOTES: [1] It is not, of course, always literally true that each parent supplies exactly half the heredity, for, as we see among animals generally, the offspring may sometimes approach more nearly to one parent, sometimes to the other, while among plants, as De Vries and others have shown, the heredity may be still more unequally divided. [2] It should scarcely be necessary to say that to assert that motherhood is a woman's supreme function is by no means to assert that her activities should be confined to the home. That is an opinion which may now be regarded as almost extinct even among those who most glorify the function of woman as mother. As Friedrich Naumann and others have very truly pointed out, a woman is not adequately equipped to fulfil her functions as mother and trainer of children unless she has lived in the world and exercised a vocation. [3] "Were the capacities of the brain and the heart equal in the sexes," Lily Braun (_Die Frauenfrage_, page 207) well says, "the entry of women into public life would be of no value to humanity, and would even lead to a still wilder competition. Only the recognition that the entire nature of woman is different from that of man, that it signifies a new vivifying principle in human life, makes the women's movement, in spite of the misconception of its enemies and its friends, a social revolution" (see also Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition, 1904, especially Ch. XVIII). [4] The word "puericulture" was invented by Dr. Caron in 1866 to signify the culture of children after birth. It was Pinard, the distinguished French obstetrician, who, in 1895, gave it a larger and truer significance by applying it to include the culture of children before birth. It is now defined as "the science which has for its end the search for the knowledge relative to the reproduction, the preservation, and the amelioration of the human race" (Péchin, _La Puériculture avant la Naissance_, Thèse de Paris, 1908). [5] In _La Grossesse_ (pp. 450 et seq.) Bouchacourt has discussed the problems of puericulture at some length. [6] The importance of antenatal puericulture was fully recognized in China a thousand years ago. Thus Madame Cheng wrote at that time concerning the education of the child: "Even before birth his education may begin; and, therefore, the prospective mother of old, when lying down, lay straight; when sitting down, sat upright; and when standing, stood erect. She would not taste strange flavors, nor have anything to do with spiritualism; if her food were not cut straight she would not eat it, and if her mat were not set straight, she would not sit upon it. She would not look at any objectionable sight, nor listen to any objectionable sound, nor utter any rude word, nor handle any impure thing. At night she studied some canonical work, by day she occupied herself with ceremonies and music. Therefore, her sons were upright and eminent for their talents and virtues; such was the result of antenatal training" (H.A. Giles, "Woman in Chinese Literature," _Nineteenth Century_, Nov., 1904). [7] Max Bartels, "Isländischer Brauch," etc., _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1900, p. 65. A summary of the customs of various peoples in regard to pregnancy is given by Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, Sect. XXIX. [8] On the influence of alcohol during pregnancy on the embryo, see, e.g., G. Newman, _Infant Mortality_, pp. 72-77. W.C. Sullivan (_Alcoholism_, 1906, Ch. XI), summarizes the evidence showing that alcohol is a factor in human degeneration. [9] There is even reason to believe that the alcoholism of the mother's father may impair her ability as a mother. Bunge (_Die Zunehmende Unfähigkeit der Frauen ihre Kinder zu Stillen_, fifth edition, 1907), from an investigation extending over 2,000 families, finds that chronic alcoholic poisoning in the father is the chief cause of the daughter's inability to suckle, this inability not usually being recovered in subsequent generations. Bunge has, however, been opposed by Dr. Agnes Bluhm, "Die Stillungsnot," _Zeitschrift für Soziale Medizin_, 1908 (fully summarized by herself in _Sexual-Probleme_, Jan., 1909). [10] See, e.g., T. Arthur Helme, "The Unborn Child," _British Medical Journal_, Aug. 24, 1907. Nutrition should, of course, be adequate. Noel Paton has shown (_Lancet_, July 4, 1903) that defective nutrition of the pregnant woman diminishes the weight of the offspring. [11] Debreyne, _Moechialogie_, p. 277. And from the Protestant side see Northcote (_Christianity and Sex Problems_, Ch. IX), who permits sexual intercourse during pregnancy. [12] See Appendix A to the third volume of these _Studies_; also Ploss and Bartels, loc. cit. [13] Thus one lady writes: "I have only had one child, but I may say that during pregnancy the desire for union was much stronger, for the whole time, than at any other period." Bouchacourt (_La Grossesse_, pp. 180-183) states that, as a rule, sexual desire is not diminished by pregnancy, and is occasionally increased. [14] This "inconvenience" remains to-day a stumbling-block with many excellent authorities. "Except when there is a tendency to miscarriage," says Kossmann (Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage_, vol. i, p. 257), "we must be very guarded in ordering abstinence from intercourse during pregnancy," and Ballantyne (_The Foetus_, p. 475) cautiously remarks that the question is difficult to decide. Forel also (_Die Sexuelle Frage_, fourth edition, p. 81), who is not prepared to advocate complete sexual abstinence during a normal pregnancy, admits that it is a rather difficult question. [15] This point is discussed, for instance, by Séropian in a Paris Thesis (_Fréquence comparée des Causes de l'Accouchement Prémature_, 1907); he concludes that coitus during pregnancy is a more frequent cause of premature confinement than is commonly supposed, especially in primiparæ, and markedly so by the ninth month. [16] "Infantile Mortality: The Huddersfield Scheme," _British Medical Journal_, Dec., 1907; Samson Moore, "Infant Mortality," ib., August 29, 1908. [17] Ellen Key has admirably dealt with proposals of this kind (as put forth by C.P. Stetson) in her Essays "On Love and Marriage." In opposition to such proposals Ellen Key suggests that such women as have been properly trained for maternal duties and are unable entirely to support themselves while exercising them should be subsidized by the State during the child's first three years of life. It may be added that in Leipzig the plan of subsidizing mothers who (under proper medical and other supervision) suckle their infants has already been introduced. CHAPTER II. SEXUAL EDUCATION. Nurture Necessary as Well as Breed--Precocious Manifestations of the Sexual Impulse--Are They to be Regarded as Normal?--The Sexual Play of Children--The Emotion of Love in Childhood--Are Town Children More Precocious Sexually Than Country Children?--Children's Ideas Concerning the Origin of Babies--Need for Beginning the Sexual Education of Children in Early Years--The Importance of Early Training in Responsibility--Evil of the Old Doctrine of Silence in Matters of Sex--The Evil Magnified When Applied to Girls--The Mother the Natural and Best Teacher--The Morbid Influence of Artificial Mystery in Sex Matters--Books on Sexual Enlightenment of the Young--Nature of the Mother's Task--Sexual Education in the School--The Value of Botany--Zoölogy--Sexual Education After Puberty--The Necessity of Counteracting Quack Literature--Danger of Neglecting to Prepare for the First Onset of Menstruation--The Right Attitude Towards Woman's Sexual Life--The Vital Necessity of the Hygiene of Menstruation During Adolescence--Such Hygiene Compatible with the Educational and Social Equality of the Sexes--The Invalidism of Women Mainly Due to Hygienic Neglect--Good Influence of Physical Training on Women and Bad Influence of Athletics--The Evils of Emotional Suppression--Need of Teaching the Dignity of Sex--Influence of These Factors on a Woman's Fate in Marriage--Lectures and Addresses on Sexual Hygiene--The Doctor's Part in Sexual Education--Pubertal Initiation Into the Ideal World--The Place of the Religious and Ethical Teacher--The Initiation Rites of Savages Into Manhood and Womanhood--The Sexual Influence of Literature--The Sexual Influence of Art. It may seem to some that in attaching weight to the ancestry, the parentage, the conception, the gestation, even the first infancy, of the child we are wandering away from the sphere of the psychology of sex. That is far from being the case. We are, on the contrary, going to the root of sex. All our growing knowledge tends to show that, equally with his physical nature, the child's psychic nature is based on breed and nurture, on the quality of the stocks he belongs to, and on the care taken at the early moments when care counts for most, to preserve the fine quality of those stocks. It must, of course, be remembered that the influences of both breed and nurture are alike influential on the fate of the individual. The influence of nurture is so obvious that few are likely to under-rate it. The influence of breed, however, is less obvious, and we may still meet with persons so ill informed, and perhaps so prejudiced, as to deny it altogether. The growth of our knowledge in this matter, by showing how subtle and penetrative is the influence of heredity, cannot fail to dispel this mischievous notion. No sound civilization is possible except in a community which in the mass is not only well-nurtured but well-bred. And in no part of life so much as in the sexual relationships is the influence of good breeding more decisive. An instructive illustration may be gleaned from the minute and precise history of his early life furnished to me by a highly cultured Russian gentleman. He was brought up in childhood with his own brothers and sisters and a little girl of the same age who had been adopted from infancy, the child of a prostitute who had died soon after the infant's birth. The adopted child was treated as one of the family, and all the children supposed that she was a real sister. Yet from early years she developed instincts unlike those of the children with whom she was nurtured; she lied, she was cruel, she loved to make mischief, and she developed precociously vicious sexual impulses; though carefully educated, she adopted the occupation of her mother, and at the age of twenty-two was exiled to Siberia for robbery and attempt to murder. The child of a chance father and a prostitute mother is not fatally devoted to ruin; but such a child is ill-bred, and that fact, in some cases, may neutralize all the influences of good nurture. When we reach the period of infancy we have already passed beyond the foundations and potentialities of the sexual life; we are in some cases witnessing its actual beginnings. It is a well-established fact that auto-erotic manifestations may sometimes be observed even in infants of less than twelve months. We are not now called upon to discuss the disputable point as to how far such manifestations at this age can be called normal.[18] A slight degree of menstrual and mammary activity sometimes occurs at birth.[19] It seems clear that nervous and psychic sexual activity has its first springs at this early period, and as the years go by an increasing number of individuals join the stream until at puberty practically all are carried along in the great current. While, therefore, it is possibly, even probably, true that the soundest and healthiest individuals show no definite signs of nervous and psychic sexuality in childhood, such manifestations are still sufficiently frequent to make it impossible to say that sexual hygiene may be completely ignored until puberty is approaching. Precocious physical development occurs as a somewhat rare variation. W. Roger Williams ("Precocious Sexual Development with Abstracts of over One Hundred Cases," _British Gynæcological Journal_, May, 1902) has furnished an important contribution to the knowledge of this anomaly which is much commoner in girls than in boys. Roger Williams's cases include only twenty boys to eighty girls, and precocity is not only more frequent but more pronounced in girls, who have been known to conceive at eight, while thirteen is stated to be the earliest age at which boys have proved able to beget children. This, it may be remarked, is also the earliest age at which spermatozoa are found in the seminal fluid of boys; before that age the ejaculations contain no spermatozoa, and, as Fürbringer and Moll have found, they may even be absent at sixteen, or later. In female children precocious sexual development is less commonly associated with general increase of bodily development than in boys. (An individual case of early sexual development in a girl of five has been completely described and figured in the _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1896, Heft 4, p. 262.) Precocious sexual impulses are generally vague, occasional, and more or less innocent. A case of rare and pronounced character, in which a child, a boy, from the age of two had been sexually attracted to girls and women, and directed all his thoughts and actions to sexual attempts on them, has been described by Herbert Rich, of Detroit (_Alienist and Neurologist_, Nov., 1905). General evidence from the literature of the subject as to sexual precocity, its frequency and significance, has been brought together by L.M. Terman ("A Study in Precocity," _American Journal Psychology_, April, 1905). The erections that are liable to occur in male infants have usually no sexual significance, though, as Moll remarks, they may acquire it by attracting the child's attention; they are merely reflex. It is believed by some, however, and notably by Freud, that certain manifestations of infant activity, especially thumb-sucking, are of sexual causation, and that the sexual impulse constantly manifests itself at a very early age. The belief that the sexual instinct is absent in childhood, Freud regards as a serious error, so easy to correct by observation that he wonders how it can have arisen. "In reality," he remarks, "the new-born infant brings sexuality with it into the world, sexual sensations accompany it through the days of lactation and childhood, and very few children can fail to experience sexual activities and feelings before the period of puberty" (Freud, "Zur Sexuellen Aufklärung der Kinder," _Soziale Medizin und Hygiene_, Bd. ii, 1907; cf., for details, the same author's _Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie_, 1905). Moll, on the other hand, considers that Freud's views on sexuality in infancy are exaggerations which must be decisively rejected, though he admits that it is difficult, if not impossible, to differentiate the feelings in childhood (Moll, _Das Sexualleben des Kindes_, p. 154). Moll believes also that psycho-sexual manifestations appearing after the age of eight are not pathological; children who are weakly or of bad heredity are not seldom sexually precocious, but, on the other hand, Moll has known children of eight or nine with strongly developed sexual impulses, who yet become finely developed men. Rudimentary sexual activities in childhood, accompanied by sexual feelings, must indeed--when they are not too pronounced or too premature--be regarded as coming within the normal sphere, though when they occur in children of bad heredity they are not without serious risks. But in healthy children, after the age of seven or eight, they tend to produce no evil results, and are strictly of the nature of play. Play, both in animals and men, as Groos has shown with marvelous wealth of illustration, is a beneficent process of education; the young creature is thereby preparing itself for the exercise of those functions which in later life it must carry out more completely and more seriously. In his _Spiele der Menschen_, Groos applies this idea to the sexual play of children, and brings forward quotations from literature in evidence. Keller, in his "Romeo und Juliet auf dem Dorfe," has given an admirably truthful picture of these childish love-relationships. Emil Schultze-Malkowsky (_Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Bd. ii, p. 370) reproduces some scenes from the life of a little girl of seven clearly illustrating the exact nature of the sexual manifestation at this age. A kind of rudimentary sexual intercourse between children, as Bloch has remarked (_Beiträge_, etc., Bd. ii, p. 254), occurs in many parts of the world, and is recognized by their elders as play. This is, for instance, the case among the Bawenda of the Transvaal (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1896, Heft 4, p. 364), and among the Papuans of Kaiser-Wilhelms-Land, with the approval of the parents, although much reticence is observed (id., 1889, Heft 1, p. 16). Godard (_Egypte et Palestine_, 1867, p. 105) noted the sexual play of the boys and girls in Cairo. In New Mexico W.A. Hammond (_Sexual Impotence_, p. 107) has seen boys and girls attempting a playful sexual conjunction with the encouragement of men and women, and in New York he has seen boys and girls of three and four doing the same in the presence of their parents, with only a laughing rebuke. "Playing at pa and ma" is indeed extremely common among children in genuine innocence, and with a complete absence of viciousness; and is by no means confined to children of low social class. Moll remarks on its frequency (_Libido Sexualis_, Bd. i, p. 277), and the committee of evangelical pastors, in their investigation of German rural morality (_Die Geschlechtliche-sittliche Verhältnisse_, Bd. i, p. 102) found that children who are not yet of school age make attempts at coitus. The sexual play of children is by no means confined to father and mother games; frequently there are games of school with the climax in exposure and smackings, and occasionally there are games of being doctors and making examinations. Thus a young English woman says: "Of course, when we were at school [at the age of twelve and earlier] we used to play with one another, several of us girls; we used to go into a field and pretend we were doctors and had to examine one another, and then we used to pull up one another's clothes and feel each other." These games do not necessarily involve the coöperation of the sexual impulse, and still less have they any element of love. But emotions of love, scarcely if at all distinguishable from adult sexual love, frequently appear at equally early ages. They are of the nature of play, in so far as play is a preparation for the activities of later life, though, unlike the games, they are not felt as play. Ramdohr, more than a century ago (_Venus Urania_, 1798), referred to the frequent love of little boys for women. More usually the love is felt towards individuals of the opposite or the same sex who are not widely different in age, though usually older. The most comprehensive study of the matter has been made by Sanford Bell in America on a basis of as many as 2,300 cases (S. Bell, "A Preliminary Study of the Emotion of Love Between the Sexes," _American Journal Psychology_, July, 1902). Bell finds that the presence of the emotion between three and eight years of age is shown by such actions as hugging, kissing, lifting each other, scuffling, sitting close to each other, confessions to each other and to others, talking about each other when apart, seeking each other and excluding the rest, grief at separation, giving gifts, showing special courtesies to each other, making sacrifices for each other, exhibiting jealousy. The girls are, on the whole, more aggressive than the boys, and less anxious to keep the matter secret. After the age of eight, the girls increase in modesty and the boys become still more secretive. The physical sensations are not usually located in the sexual organs; erection of the penis and hyperæmia of the female sexual parts Bell regards as marking undue precocity. But there is diffused vascular and nervous tumescence and a state of exaltation comparable, though not equal, to that experienced in adolescent and adult age. On the whole, as Bell soundly concludes, "love between children of opposite sex bears much the same relation to that between adults as the flower does to the fruit, and has about as little of physical sexuality in it as an apple-blossom has of the apple that develops from it." Moll also (op. cit. p. 76) considers that kissing and other similar superficial contacts, which he denominates the phenomena of contrectation, constitute most frequently the first and sole manifestation of the sexual impulse in childhood. It is often stated that it is easier for children to preserve their sexual innocence in the country than in the town, and that only in cities is sexuality rampant and conspicuous. This is by no means true, and in some respects it is the reverse of the truth. Certainly, hard work, a natural and simple life, and a lack of alert intelligence often combine to keep the rural lad chaste in thought and act until the period of adolescence is completed. Ammon, for instance, states, though without giving definite evidence, that this is common among the Baden conscripts. Certainly, also, all the multiple sensory excitements of urban life tend to arouse the nervous and cerebral excitability of the young at a comparatively early age in the sexual as in other fields, and promote premature desires and curiosities. But, on the other hand, urban life offers the young no gratification for their desires and curiosities. The publicity of a city, the universal surveillance, the studied decorum of a population conscious that it is continually exposed to the gaze of strangers, combine to spread a veil over the esoteric side of life, which, even when at last it fails to conceal from the young the urban stimuli of that life, effectually conceals, for the most part, the gratifications of those stimuli. In the country, however, these restraints do not exist in any corresponding degree; animals render the elemental facts of sexual life clear to all; there is less need or regard for decorum; speech is plainer; supervision is impossible, and the amplest opportunities for sexual intimacy are at hand. If the city may perhaps be said to favor unchastity of thought in the young, the country may certainly be said to favor unchastity of act. The elaborate investigations of the Committee of Lutheran pastors into sexual morality (_Die Geschlechtich-sittliche Verhältnisse im Deutschen Reiche_), published a few years ago, demonstrate amply the sexual freedom in rural Germany, and Moll, who is decidedly of opinion that the country enjoys no relative freedom from sexuality, states (op. cit., pp. 137-139, 239) that even the circulation of obscene books and pictures among school-children seems to be more frequent in small towns and the country than in large cities. In Russia, where it might be thought that urban and rural conditions offered less contrast than in many countries, the same difference has been observed. "I do not know," a Russian correspondent writes, "whether Zola in _La Terre_ correctly describes the life of French villages. But the ways of a Russian village, where I passed part of my childhood, fairly resemble those described by Zola. In the life of the rural population into which I was plunged everything was impregnated with erotism. One was surrounded by animal lubricity in all its immodesty. Contrary to the generally received opinion, I believe that a child may preserve his sexual innocence more easily in a town than in the country. There are, no doubt, many exceptions to this rule. But the functions of the sexual life are generally more concealed in the towns than in the fields. Modesty (whether or not of the merely superficial and exterior kind) is more developed among urban populations. In speaking of sexual things in the towns people veil their thought more; even the lower class in towns employ more restraint, more euphemisms, than peasants. Thus in the towns a child may easily fail to comprehend when risky subjects are talked of in his presence. It may be said that the corruption of towns, though more concealed, is all the deeper. Maybe, but that concealment preserves children from it. The town child sees prostitutes in the street every day without distinguishing them from other people. In the country he would every day hear it stated in the crudest terms that such and such a girl has been found at night in a barn or a ditch making love with such and such a youth, or that the servant girl slips every night into the coachman's bed, the facts of sexual intercourse, pregnancy, and childbirth being spoken of in the plainest terms. In towns the child's attention is solicited by a thousand different objects; in the country, except fieldwork, which fails to interest him, he hears only of the reproduction of animals and the erotic exploits of girls and youths. When we say that the urban environment is more exciting we are thinking of adults, but the things which excite the adult have usually no erotic effect on the child, who cannot, however, long remain asexual when he sees the great peasant girls, as ardent as mares in heat, abandoning themselves to the arms of robust youths. He cannot fail to remark these frank manifestations of sexuality, though the subtle and perverse refinements of the town would escape his notice. I know that in the countries of exaggerated prudery there is much hidden corruption, more, one is sometimes inclined to think, than in less hypocritical countries. But I believe that that is a false impression, and am persuaded that precisely because of all these little concealments which excite the malicious amusement of foreigners, there are really many more young people in England who remain chaste than in the countries which treat sexual relations more frankly. At all events, if I have known Englishmen who were very debauched and very refined in vice, I have also known young men of the same nation, over twenty, who were as innocent as children, but never a young Frenchman, Italian, or Spaniard of whom this could be said." There is undoubtedly truth in this statement, though it must be remembered that, excellent as chastity is, if it is based on mere ignorance, its possessor is exposed to terrible dangers. The question of sexual hygiene, more especially in its special aspect of sexual enlightenment, is not, however, dependent on the fact that in some children the psychic and nervous manifestation of sex appears at an earlier age than in others. It rests upon the larger general fact that in all children the activity of intelligence begins to work at a very early age, and that this activity tends to manifest itself in an inquisitive desire to know many elementary facts of life which are really dependent on sex. The primary and most universal of these desires is the desire to know where children come from. No question could be more natural; the question of origins is necessarily a fundamental one in childish philosophies as, in more ultimate shapes, it is in adult philosophies. Most children, either guided by the statements, usually the misstatements, of their elders, or by their own intelligence working amid such indications as are open to them, are in possession of a theory of the origin of babies. Stanley Hall ("Contents of Children's Minds on Entering School," _Pedagogical Seminary_, June, 1891) has collected some of the beliefs of young children as to the origin of babies. "God makes babies in heaven, though the Holy Mother and even Santa Claus make some. He lets them down and drops them, and the women or doctors catch them, or He leaves them on the sidewalk, or brings them down a wooden ladder backwards and pulls it up again, or mamma or the doctor or the nurse go up and fetch them, sometimes in a balloon, or they fly down and lose off their wings in some place or other and forget it, and jump down to Jesus, who gives them around. They were also often said to be found in flour-barrels, and the flour sticks ever so long, you know, or they grew in cabbages, or God puts them in water, perhaps in the sewer, and the doctor gets them out and takes them to sick folks that want them, or the milkman brings them early in the morning; they are dug out of the ground, or bought at the baby store." In England and America the inquisitive child is often told that the baby was found in the garden, under a gooseberry bush or elsewhere; or more commonly it is said, with what is doubtless felt to be a nearer approach to the truth, that the doctor brought it. In Germany the common story told to children is that the stork brings the baby. Various theories, mostly based on folk-lore, have been put forward to explain this story, but none of them seem quite convincing (see, e.g., G. Herman, "Sexual-Mythen," _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, vol. i, Heft 5, 1906, p. 176, and P. Näcke, _Neurologische Centralblatt_, No. 17, 1907). Näcke thinks there is some plausibility in Professor Petermann's suggestion that a frog writhing in a stork's bill resembles a tiny human creature. In Iceland, according to Max Bartels ("Isländischer Brauch und Volksglaube," etc., _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1900, Heft 2 and 3) we find a transition between the natural and the fanciful in the stories told to children of the origin of babies (the stork is here precluded, for it only extends to the southern border of Scandinavian lands). In North Iceland it is said that God made the baby and the mother bore it, and on that account is now ill. In the northwest it is said that God made the baby and gave it to the mother. Elsewhere it is said that God sent the baby and the midwife brought it, the mother only being in bed to be near the baby (which is seldom placed in a cradle). It is also sometimes said that a lamb or a bird brought the baby. Again it is said to have entered during the night through the window. Sometimes, however, the child is told that the baby came out of the mother's breasts, or from below her breasts, and that is why she is not well. Even when children learn that babies come out of the mother's body this knowledge often remains very vague and inaccurate. It very commonly happens, for instance, in all civilized countries that the navel is regarded as the baby's point of exit from the body. This is a natural conclusion, since the navel is seemingly a channel into the body, and a channel for which there is no obvious use, while the pudendal cleft would not suggest itself to girls (and still less to boys) as the gate of birth, since it already appears to be monopolized by the urinary excretion. This belief concerning the navel is sometimes preserved through the whole period of adolescence, especially in girls of the so-called educated class, who are too well-bred to discuss the matter with their married friends, and believe indeed that they are already sufficiently well informed. At this age the belief may not be altogether harmless, in so far as it leads to the real gate of sex being left unguarded. In Elsass where girls commonly believe, and are taught, that babies come through the navel, popular folk-tales are current (_Anthropophyteia_, vol. iii, p. 89) which represent the mistakes resulting from this belief as leading to the loss of virginity. Freud, who believes that children give little credit to the stork fable and similar stories invented for their mystification, has made an interesting psychological investigation into the real theories which children themselves, as the result of observation and thought, reach concerning the sexual facts of life (S. Freud, "Ueber Infantile Sexualtheorien," _Sexual-Probleme_, Dec., 1908). Such theories, he remarks, correspond to the brilliant, but defective hypotheses which primitive peoples arrive at concerning the nature and origin of the world. There are three theories, which, as Freud quite truly concludes, are very commonly formed by children. The first, and the most widely disseminated, is that there is no real anatomical difference between boys and girls; if the boy notices that his little sister has no obvious penis he even concludes that it is because she is too young, and the little girl herself takes the same view. The fact that in early life the clitoris is relatively larger and more penis-like helps to confirm this view which Freud connects with the tendency in later life to erotic dream of women furnished with a penis. This theory, as Freud also remarks, favors the growth of homosexuality when its germs are present. The second theory is the fæcal theory of the origin of babies. The child, who perhaps thinks his mother has a penis, and is in any case ignorant of the vagina, concludes that the baby is brought into the world by an action analogous to the action of the bowels. The third theory, which is perhaps less prevalent than the others, Freud terms the sadistic theory of coitus. The child realizes that his father must have taken some sort of part in his production. The theory that sexual intercourse consists in violence has in it a trace of truth, but seems to be arrived at rather obscurely. The child's own sexual feelings are often aroused for the first time when wrestling or struggling with a companion; he may see his mother, also, resisting more or less playfully a sudden caress from his father, and if a real quarrel takes place, the impression may be fortified. As to what the state of marriage consists in, Freud finds that it is usually regarded as a state which abolishes modesty; the most prevalent theory being that marriage means that people can make water before each other, while another common childish theory is that marriage is when people can show each other their private parts. Thus it is that at a very early stage of the child's life we are brought face to face with the question how we may most wisely begin his initiation into the knowledge of the great central facts of sex. It is perhaps a little late in the day to regard it as a question, but so it is among us, although three thousand five hundred years ago, the Egyptian father spoke to his child: "I have given you a mother who has carried you within her, a heavy burden, for your sake, and without resting on me. When at last you were born, she indeed submitted herself to the yoke, for during three years were her nipples in your mouth. Your excrements never turned her stomach, nor made her say, 'What am I doing?' When you were sent to school she went regularly every day to carry the household bread and beer to your master. When in your turn you marry and have a child, bring up your child as your mother brought you up."[20] I take it for granted, however, that--whatever doubt there may be as to the how or the when--no doubt is any longer possible as to the absolute necessity of taking deliberate and active part in this sexual initiation, instead of leaving it to the chance revelation of ignorant and perhaps vicious companions or servants. It is becoming more and more widely felt that the risks of ignorant innocence are too great. "All the love and solicitude parental yearning can bestow," writes Dr. G.F. Butler, of Chicago (_Love and its Affinities_, 1899, p. 83), "all that the most refined religious influence can offer, all that the most cultivated associations can accomplish, in one fatal moment may be obliterated. There is no room for ethical reasoning, indeed oftentimes no consciousness of wrong, but only Margaret's 'Es war so süss'." The same writer adds (as had been previously remarked by Mrs. Craik and others) that among church members it is the finer and more sensitive organizations that are the most susceptible to sexual emotions. So far as boys are concerned, we leave instruction in matters of sex, the most sacred and central fact in the world, as Canon Lyttelton remarks, to "dirty-minded school-boys, grooms, garden-boys, anyone, in short, who at an early age may be sufficiently defiled and sufficiently reckless to talk of them." And, so far as girls are concerned, as Balzac long ago remarked, "a mother may bring up her daughter severely, and cover her beneath her wings for seventeen years; but a servant-girl can destroy that long work by a word, even by a gesture." The great part played by servant-girls of the lower class in the sexual initiation of the children of the middle class has been illustrated in dealing with "The Sexual Impulse in Women" in vol. iii, of these _Studies_, and need not now be further discussed. I would only here say a word, in passing, on the other side. Often as servant-girls take this part, we must not go so far as to say that it is the case with the majority. As regards Germany, Dr. Alfred Kind has lately put on record his experience: "I have _never_, in youth, heard a bad or improper word on sex-relationships from a servant-girl, although servant-girls followed one another in our house like sunshine and showers in April, and there was always a relation of comradeship between us children and the servants." As regards England, I can add that my own youthful experiences correspond to Dr. Kind's. This is not surprising, for one may say that in the ordinary well-conditioned girl, though her virtue may not be developed to heroic proportions, there is yet usually a natural respect for the innocence of children, a natural sexual indifference to them, and a natural expectation that the male should take the active part when a sexual situation arises. It is also beginning to be felt that, especially as regards women, ignorant innocence is not merely too fragile a possession to be worth preservation, but that it is positively mischievous, since it involves the lack of necessary knowledge. "It is little short of criminal," writes Dr. F.M. Goodchild,[21] "to send our young people into the midst of the excitements and temptations of a great city with no more preparation than if they were going to live in Paradise." In the case of women, ignorance has the further disadvantage that it deprives them of the knowledge necessary for intelligent sympathy with other women. The unsympathetic attitude of women towards women is often largely due to sheer ignorance of the facts of life. "Why," writes in a private letter a married lady who keenly realizes this, "are women brought up with such a profound ignorance of their own and especially other women's natures? They do not know half as much about other women as a man of the most average capacity learns in his day's march." We try to make up for our failure to educate women in the essential matters of sex by imposing upon the police and other guardians of public order the duty of protecting women and morals. But, as Moll insists, the real problem of chastity lies, not in the multiplication of laws and policemen, but largely in women's knowledge of the dangers of sex and in the cultivation of their sense of responsibility.[22] We are always making laws for the protection of children and setting the police on guard. But laws and the police, whether their activities are good or bad, are in either case alike ineffectual. They can for the most part only be invoked when the damage is already done. We have to learn to go to the root of the matter. We have to teach children to be a law to themselves. We have to give them that knowledge which will enable them to guard their own personalities.[23] There is an authentic story of a lady who had learned to swim, much to the horror of her clergyman, who thought that swimming was unfeminine. "But," she said, "suppose I was drowning." "In that case," he replied, "you ought to wait until a man comes along and saves you." There we have the two methods of salvation which have been preached to women, the old method and the new. In no sea have women been more often in danger of drowning than that of sex. There ought to be no question as to which is the better method of salvation. It is difficult nowadays to find any serious arguments against the desirability of early sexual enlightenment, and it is almost with amusement that we read how the novelist Alphonse Daudet, when asked his opinion of such enlightenment, protested--in a spirit certainly common among the men of his time--that it was unnecessary, because boys could learn everything from the streets and the newspapers, while "as to young girls--no! I would teach them none of the truths of physiology. I can only see disadvantages in such a proceeding. These truths are ugly, disillusioning, sure to shock, to frighten, to disgust the mind, the nature, of a girl." It is as much as to say that there is no need to supply sources of pure water when there are puddles in the street that anyone can drink of. A contemporary of Daudet's, who possessed a far finer spiritual insight, Coventry Patmore, the poet, in the essay on "Ancient and Modern Ideas of Purity" in his beautiful book, _Religio Poetæ_, had already finely protested against that "disease of impurity" which comes of "our modern undivine silences" for which Daudet pleaded. And Metchnikoff, more recently, from the scientific side, speaking especially as regards women, declares that knowledge is so indispensable for moral conduct that "ignorance must be counted the most immoral of acts" (_Essais Optimistes_, p. 420). The distinguished Belgian novelist, Camille Lemonnier, in his _L'Homme en Amour_, deals with the question of the sexual education of the young by presenting the history of a young man, brought up under the influence of the conventional and hypocritical views which teach that nudity and sex are shameful and disgusting things. In this way he passes by the opportunities of innocent and natural love, to become hopelessly enslaved at last to a sensual woman who treats him merely as the instrument of her pleasure, the last of a long succession of lovers. The book is a powerful plea for a sane, wholesome, and natural education in matters of sex. It was, however, prosecuted at Bruges, in 1901, though the trial finally ended in acquittal. Such a verdict is in harmony with the general tendency of feeling at the present time. The old ideas, expressed by Daudet, that the facts of sex are ugly and disillusioning, and that they shock the mind of the young, are both alike entirely false. As Canon Lyttelton remarks, in urging that the laws of the transmission of life should be taught to children by the mother: "The way they receive it with native reverence, truthfulness of understanding and guileless delicacy, is nothing short of a revelation of the never-ceasing beauty of nature. People sometimes speak of the indescribable beauty of children's innocence. But I venture to say that no one quite knows what it is who has foregone the privilege of being the first to set before them the true meaning of life and birth and the mystery of their own being. Not only do we fail to build up sound knowledge in them, but we put away from ourselves the chance of learning something that must be divine." In the same way, Edward Carpenter, stating that it is easy and natural for the child to learn from the first its physical relation to its mother, remarks (_Love's Coming of Age_, p. 9): "A child at the age of puberty, with the unfolding of its far-down emotional and sexual nature, is eminently capable of the most sensitive, affectional and serene appreciation of what _sex_ means (generally more so as things are to-day, than its worldling parent or guardian); and can absorb the teaching, if sympathetically given, without any shock or disturbance to its sense of shame--that sense which is so natural and valuable a safeguard of early youth." How widespread, even some years ago, had become the conviction that the sexual facts of life should be taught to girls as well as boys, was shown when the opinions of a very miscellaneous assortment of more or less prominent persons were sought on the question ("The Tree of Knowledge," _New Review_, June, 1894). A small minority of two only (Rabbi Adler and Mrs. Lynn Lynton) were against such knowledge, while among the majority in favor of it were Mme. Adam, Thomas Hardy, Sir Walter Besant, Björnson, Hall Caine, Sarah Grand, Nordau, Lady Henry Somerset, Baroness von Suttner, and Miss Willard. The leaders of the woman's movement are, of course, in favor of such knowledge. Thus a meeting of the Bund für Mutterschutz at Berlin, in 1905, almost unanimously passed a resolution declaring that the early sexual enlightenment of children in the facts of the sexual life is urgently necessary (_Mutterschutz_, 1905, Heft 2, p. 91). It may be added that medical opinion has long approved of this enlightenment. Thus in England it was editorially stated in the _British Medical Journal_ some years ago (June 9, 1894): "Most medical men of an age to beget confidence in such affairs will be able to recall instances in which an ignorance, which would have been ludicrous if it had not been so sad, has been displayed on matters regarding which every woman entering on married life ought to have been accurately informed. There can, we think, be little doubt that much unhappiness and a great deal of illness would be prevented if young people of both sexes possessed a little accurate knowledge regarding the sexual relations, and were well impressed with the profound importance of selecting healthy mates. Knowledge need not necessarily be nasty, but even if it were, it certainly is not comparable in that respect with the imaginings of ignorance." In America, also, where at an annual meeting of the American Medical Association, Dr. Denslow Lewis, of Chicago, eloquently urged the need of teaching sexual hygiene to youths and girls, all the subsequent nine speakers, some of them physicians of worldwide fame, expressed their essential agreement (_Medico-Legal Journal_, June-Sept., 1903). Howard, again, at the end of his elaborate _History of Matrimonial Institutions_ (vol. iii, p. 257) asserts the necessity for education in matters of sex, as going to the root of the marriage problem. "In the future educational programme," he remarks, "sex questions must hold an honorable place." While, however, it is now widely recognized that children are entitled to sexual enlightenment, it cannot be said that this belief is widely put into practice. Many persons, who are fully persuaded that children should sooner or later be enlightened concerning the sexual sources of life, are somewhat nervously anxious as to the precise age at which this enlightenment should begin. Their latent feeling seems to be that sex is an evil, and enlightenment concerning sex also an evil, however necessary, and that the chief point is to ascertain the latest moment to which we can safely postpone this necessary evil. Such an attitude is, however, altogether wrong-headed. The child's desire for knowledge concerning the origin of himself is a perfectly natural, honest, and harmless desire, so long as it is not perverted by being thwarted. A child of four may ask questions on this matter, simply and spontaneously. As soon as the questions are put, certainly as soon as they become at all insistent, they should be answered, in the same simple and spontaneous spirit, truthfully, though according to the measure of the child's intelligence and his capacity and desire for knowledge. This period should not, and, if these indications are followed, naturally would not, in any case, be delayed beyond the sixth year. After that age even the most carefully guarded child is liable to contaminating communications from outside. Moll points out that the sexual enlightenment of girls in its various stages ought to be always a little ahead of that of boys, and as the development of girls up to the pubertal age is more precocious than that of boys, this demand is reasonable. If the elements of sexual education are to be imparted in early childhood, it is quite clear who ought to be the teacher. There should be no question that this privilege belongs by every right to the mother. Except where a child is artificially separated from his chief parent it is indeed only the mother who has any natural opportunity of receiving and responding to these questions. It is unnecessary for her to take any initiative in the matter. The inevitable awakening of the child's intelligence and the evolution of his boundless curiosity furnish her love and skill with all opportunities for guiding her child's thoughts and knowledge. Nor is it necessary for her to possess the slightest technical information at this stage. It is only essential that she should have the most absolute faith in the purity and dignity of her physical relationship to her child, and be able to speak of it with frankness and tenderness. When that essential condition is fulfilled every mother has all the knowledge that her young child needs. Among the best authorities, both men and women, in all the countries where this matter is attracting attention, there seems now to be unanimity of opinion in favor of the elementary facts of the baby's relationship to its mother being explained to the child by the mother as soon as the child begins to ask questions. Thus in Germany Moll has repeatedly argued in this sense; he insists that sexual enlightenment should be mainly a private and individual matter; that in schools there should be no general and personal warnings about masturbation, etc. (though at a later age he approves of instruction in regard to venereal diseases), but that the mother is the proper person to impart intimate knowledge to the child, and that any age is suitable for the commencement of such enlightenment, provided it is put into a form fitted for the age (Moll, op. cit., p. 264). At the Mannheim meeting of the Congress of the German Society for Combating Venereal Disease, when the question of sexual enlightenment formed the sole subject of discussion, the opinion in favor of early teaching by the mother prevailed. "It is the mother who must, in the first place, be made responsible for the child's clear understanding of sexual things, so often lacking," said Frau Krukenberg ("Die Aufgabe der Mutter," _Sexualpädagogik_, p. 13), while Max Enderlin, a teacher, said on the same occasion ("Die Sexuelle Frage in die Volksschule," id., p. 35): "It is the mother who has to give the child his first explanations, for it is to his mother that he first naturally comes with his questions." In England, Canon Lyttelton, who is distinguished among the heads of public schools not least by his clear and admirable statements on these questions, states (_Mothers and Sons_, p. 99) that the mother's part in the sexual enlightenment and sexual guardianship of her son is of paramount importance, and should begin at the earliest years. J.H. Badley, another schoolmaster ("The Sex Difficulty," _Broad Views_, June, 1904), also states that the mother's part comes first. Northcote (_Christianity and Sex Problems_, p. 25) believes that the duty of the parents is primary in this matter, the family doctor and the schoolmaster coming in at a later stage. In America, Dr. Mary Wood Allen, who occupies a prominent and influential position in women's social movements, urges (in _Child-Confidence Rewarded_, and other pamphlets) that a mother should begin to tell her child these things as soon as he begins to ask questions, the age of four not being too young, and explains how this may be done, giving examples of its happy results in promoting a sweet confidence between the child and his mother. If, as a few believe should be the case, the first initiation is delayed to the tenth year or even later, there is the difficulty that it is no longer so easy to talk simply and naturally about such things; the mother is beginning to feel too shy to speak for the first time about these difficult subjects to a son or a daughter who is nearly as big as herself. She feels that she can only do it awkwardly and ineffectively, and she probably decides not to do it at all. Thus an atmosphere of mystery is created with all the embarrassing and perverting influences which mystery encourages. There can be no doubt that, more especially in highly intelligent children with vague and unspecialized yet insistent sexual impulses, the artificial mystery with which sex is too often clothed not only accentuates the natural curiosity but also tends to favor the morbid intensity and even prurience of the sexual impulse. This has long been recognized. Dr. Beddoes wrote at the beginning of the nineteenth century: "It is in vain that we dissemble to ourselves the eagerness with which children of either sex seek to satisfy themselves concerning the conformation of the other. No degree of reserve in the heads of families, no contrivances, no care to put books of one description out of sight and to garble others, has perhaps, with any one set of children, succeeded in preventing or stifling this kind of curiosity. No part of the history of human thought would perhaps be more singular than the stratagems devised by young people in different situations to make themselves masters or witnesses of the secret. And every discovery, due to their own inquiries, can but be so much oil poured upon an imagination in flames" (T. Beddoes, _Hygeia_, 1802, vol. iii, p. 59). Kaan, again, in one of the earliest books on morbid sexuality, sets down mystery as one of the causes of _psychopathia sexualis_. Marro (_La Pubertà_, p. 299) points out how the veil of mystery thrown over sexual matters merely serves to concentrate attention on them. The distinguished Dutch writer Multatuli, in one of his letters (quoted with approval by Freud), remarks on the dangers of hiding things from boys and girls in a veil of mystery, pointing out that this must only heighten the curiosity of children, and so far from keeping them pure, which mere ignorance can never do, heats and perverts their imaginations. Mrs. Mary Wood Allen, also, warns the mother (op. cit., p. 5) against the danger of allowing any air of embarrassing mystery to creep over these things. "If the instructor feels any embarrassment in answering the queries of the child, he is not fitted to be the teacher, for the feeling of embarrassment will, in some subtle way, communicate itself to the child, and he will experience an indefinable sense of offended delicacy which is both unnecessary and undesirable. Purification of one's own thought is, then, the first step towards teaching the truth purely. Why," she adds, "is death, the gateway out of life, any more dignified or pathetic than birth, the gateway into life? Or why is the taking of earthly life a more awful fact than the giving of life?" Mrs. Ennis Richmond, in a book of advice to mothers which contains many wise and true things, says: "I want to insist, more strongly than upon anything else, that it is the _secrecy_ that surrounds certain parts of the body and their functions that gives them their danger in the child's thought. Little children, from earliest years, are taught to think of these parts of their body as mysterious, and not only so, but that they are mysterious because they are unclean. Children have not even a name for them. If you have to speak to your child, you allude to them mysteriously and in a half-whisper as 'that little part of you that you don't speak of,' or words to that effect. Before everything it is important that your child should have a good working name for these parts of his body, and for their functions, and that he should be taught to use and to hear the names, and that as naturally and openly as though he or you were speaking of his head or his foot. Convention has, for various reasons, made it impossible to speak in this way in public. But you can, at any rate, break through this in the nursery. There this rule of convention has no advantage, and many a serious disadvantage. It is easy to say to a child, the first time he makes an 'awkward' remark in public: 'Look here, laddie, you may say what you like to me or to daddy, but, for some reason or other, one does not talk about these' (only say _what_ things) 'in public.' Only let your child make the remark in public _before_ you speak (never mind the shock to your caller's feelings), don't warn him against doing so" (Ennis Richmond, _Boyhood_, p. 60). Sex must always be a mystery, but, as Mrs. Richmond rightly says, "the real and true mysteries of generation and birth are very different from the vulgar secretiveness with which custom surrounds them." The question as to the precise names to be given to the more private bodily parts and functions is sometimes a little difficult to solve. Every mother will naturally follow her own instincts, and probably her own traditions, in this matter. I have elsewhere pointed out (in the study of "The Evolution of Modesty") how widespread and instinctive is the tendency to adopt constantly new euphemisms in this field. The ancient and simple words, which in England a great poet like Chaucer could still use rightly and naturally, are so often dropped in the mud by the vulgar that there is an instinctive hesitation nowadays in applying them to beautiful uses. They are, however, unquestionably the best, and, in their origin, the most dignified and expressive words. Many persons are of opinion that on this account they should be rescued from the mud, and their sacredness taught to children. A medical friend writes that he always taught his son that the vulgar sex names are really beautiful words of ancient origin, and that when we understand them aright we cannot possibly see in them any motive for low jesting. They are simple, serious and solemn words, connoting the most central facts of life, and only to ignorant and plebeian vulgarity can they cause obscene mirth. An American man of science, who has privately and anonymously printed some pamphlets on sex questions, also takes this view, and consistently and methodically uses the ancient and simple words. I am of opinion that this is the ideal to be sought, but that there are obvious difficulties at present in the way of attaining it. In any case, however, the mother should be in possession of a very precise vocabulary for all the bodily parts and acts which it concerns her children to know. It is sometimes said that at this early age children should not be told, even in a simple and elementary form, the real facts of their origin but should, instead, hear a fairy-tale having in it perhaps some kind of symbolic truth. This contention may be absolutely rejected, without thereby, in any degree, denying the important place which fairy-tales hold in the imagination of young children. Fairy-tales have a real value to the child; they are a mental food he needs, if he is not to be spiritually starved; to deprive him of fairy-tales at this age is to do him a wrong which can never be made up at any subsequent age. But not only are sex matters too vital even in childhood to be safely made matter for a fairy-tale, but the real facts are themselves as wonderful as any fairy-tale, and appeal to the child's imagination with as much force as a fairy-tale. Even, however, if there were no other reasons against telling children fairy-tales of sex instead of the real facts, there is one reason which ought to be decisive with every mother who values her influence over her child. He will very quickly discover, either by information from others or by his own natural intelligence, that the fairy-tale, that was told him in reply to a question about a simple matter of fact, was a lie. With that discovery his mother's influence over him in all such matters vanishes for ever, for not only has a child a horror of being duped, but he is extremely sensitive about any rebuff of this kind, and never repeats what he has been made to feel was a mistake to be ashamed of. He will not trouble his mother with any more questions on this matter; he will not confide in her; he will himself learn the art of telling "fairy-tales" about sex matters. He had turned to his mother in trust; she had not responded with equal trust, and she must suffer the punishment, as Henriette Fürth puts it, of seeing "the love and trust of her son stolen from her by the first boy he makes friends with in the street." When, as sometimes happens (Moll mentions a case), a mother goes on repeating these silly stories to a girl or boy of seven who is secretly well-informed, she only degrades herself in her child's eyes. It is this fatal mistake, so often made by mothers, which at first leads them to imagine that their children are so innocent, and in later years causes them many hours of bitterness because they realize they do not possess their children's trust. In the matter of trust it is for the mother to take the first step; the children who do not trust their mothers are, for the most part, merely remembering the lesson they learned at their mother's knee. The number of little books and pamphlets dealing with the question of the sexual enlightenment of the young--whether intended to be read by the young or offering guidance to mothers and teachers in the task of imparting knowledge--has become very large indeed during recent years in America, England, and especially Germany, where there has been of late an enormous production of such literature. The late Ben Elmy, writing under the pseudonym of "Ellis Ethelmer," published two booklets, _Baby Buds_, and _The Human Flower_ (issued by Mrs. Wolstenholme Elmy, Buxton House, Congleton), which state the facts in a simple and delicate manner, though the author was not a notably reliable guide on the scientific aspects of these questions. A charming conversation between a mother and child, from a French source, is reprinted by Edward Carpenter at the end of his _Love's Coming of Age. How We Are Born_, by Mrs. N.J. (apparently a Russian lady writing in English), prefaced by J.H. Badley, is satisfactory. Mention may also be made of _The Wonder of Life_, by Mary Tudor Pole. Margaret Morley's _Song of Life_, an American book, which I have not seen, has been highly praised. Most of these books are intended for quite young children, and while they explain more or less clearly the origin of babies, nearly always starting with the facts of plant life, they touch very slightly, if at all, on the relations of the sexes. Mrs. Ennis Richmond's books, largely addressed to mothers, deal with these questions in a very sane, direct, and admirable manner, and Canon Lyttelton's books, discussing such questions generally, are also excellent. Most of the books now to be mentioned are intended to be read by boys and girls who have reached the age of puberty. They refer more or less precisely to sexual relationships, and they usually touch on masturbation. _The Story of Life_, written by a very accomplished woman, the late Ellice Hopkins, is somewhat vague, and introduces too many exalted religious ideas. Arthur Trewby's _Healthy Boyhood_ is a little book of wholesome tendency; it deals specially with masturbation. _A Talk with Boys About Themselves_ and _A Talk with Girls About Themselves_, both by Edward Bruce Kirk (the latter book written in conjunction with a lady) deal with general as well as sexual hygiene. There could be no better book to put into the hands of a boy or girl at puberty than M.A. Warren's _Almost Fourteen_, written by an American school teacher in 1892. It was a most charming and delicately written book, which could not have offended the innocence of the most sensitive maiden. Nothing, however, is sacred to prurience, and it was easy for the prurient to capture the law and obtain (in 1897) legal condemnation of this book as "obscene." Anything which sexually excites a prurient mind is, it is true, "obscene" for that mind, for, as Mr. Theodore Schroeder remarks, obscenity is "the contribution of the reading mind," but we need such books as this in order to diminish the number of prurient minds, and the condemnation of so entirely admirable a book makes, not for morality, but for immorality. I am told that the book was subsequently issued anew with most of its best portions omitted, and it is stated by Schroeder (_Liberty of Speech and Press Essential to Purity Propaganda_, p. 34) that the author was compelled to resign his position as a public school principal. Maria Lischnewska's _Geschlechtliche Belehrung der Kinder_ (reprinted from _Mutterschutz_, 1905, Heft 4 and 5) is a most admirable and thorough discussion of the whole question of sexual education, though the writer is more interested in the teacher's share in this question than in the mother's. Suggestions to mothers are contained in Hugo Salus, _Wo kommen die Kinder her?_, E. Stiehl, _Eine Mutterpflicht_, and many other books. Dr. Alfred Kind strongly recommends Ludwig Gurlitt's _Der Verkehr mit meinem Kindern_, more especially in its combination of sexual education with artistic education. Many similar books are referred to by Bloch, in his _Sexual Life of Our Time_, Ch. xxvi. I have enumerated the names of these little books because they are frequently issued in a semi-private manner, and are seldom easy to procure or to hear of. The propagation of such books seems to be felt to be almost a disgraceful action, only to be performed by stealth. And such a feeling seems not unnatural when we see, as in the case of the author of _Almost Fourteen_, that a nominally civilized country, instead of loading with honors a man who has worked for its moral and physical welfare, seeks so far as it can to ruin him. I may add that while it would usually be very helpful to a mother to be acquainted with a few of the booklets I have named, she would do well, in actually talking to her children, to rely mainly on her own knowledge and inspiration. The sexual education which it is the mother's duty and privilege to initiate during her child's early years cannot and ought not to be technical. It is not of the nature of formal instruction but is a private and intimate initiation. No doubt the mother must herself be taught.[24] But the education she needs is mainly an education in love and insight. The actual facts which she requires to use at this early stage are very simple. Her main task is to make clear the child's own intimate relations to herself and to show that all young things have a similar intimate relation to their mothers; in generalizing on this point the egg is the simplest and most fundamental type to explain the origin of the individual life, for the idea of the egg--in its widest sense as the seed--not only has its truth for the human creature but may be applied throughout the animal and vegetable world. In this explanation the child's physical relationship to his father is not necessarily at first involved; it may be left to a further stage or until the child's questions lead up to it. Apart from his interest in his origin, the child is also interested in his sexual, or as they seem to him exclusively, his excretory organs, and in those of other people, his sisters and parents. On these points, at this age, his mother may simply and naturally satisfy his simple and natural curiosity, calling things by precise names, whether the names used are common or uncommon being a matter in regard to which she may exercise her judgment and taste. In this manner the mother will, indirectly, be able to safeguard her child at the outset against the prudish and prurient notions alike which he will encounter later. She will also without unnatural stress be able to lead the child into a reverential attitude towards his own organs and so exert an influence against any undesirable tampering with them. In talking with him about the origin of life and about his own body and functions, in however elementary a fashion, she will have initiated him both in sexual knowledge and in sexual hygiene. The mother who establishes a relationship of confidence with her child during these first years will probably, if she possesses any measure of wisdom and tact, be able to preserve it even after the epoch of puberty into the difficult years of adolescence. But as an educator in the narrower sense her functions will, in most cases, end at or before puberty. A somewhat more technical and completely impersonal acquaintance with the essential facts of sex then becomes desirable, and this would usually be supplied by the school. The great though capricious educator, Basedow, to some extent a pupil of Rousseau, was an early pioneer in both the theory and the practice of giving school children instruction in the facts of the sexual life, from the age of ten onwards. He insists much on this subject in his great treatise, the _Elementarwerk_ (1770-1774). The questions of children are to be answered truthfully, he states, and they must be taught never to jest at anything so sacred and serious as the sexual relations. They are to be shown pictures of childbirth, and the dangers of sexual irregularities are to be clearly expounded to them at the outset. Boys are to be taken to hospitals to see the results of venereal disease. Basedow is aware that many parents and teachers will be shocked at his insistence on these things in his books and in his practical pedagogic work, but such people, he declares, ought to be shocked at the Bible (see, e.g., Pinloche, _La Rèforme de l'Education en Allemagne au dixhuitième siècle: Basedow et le Philanthropinisme_, pp. 125, 256, 260, 272). Basedow was too far ahead of his own time, and even of ours, to exert much influence in this matter, and he had few immediate imitators. Somewhat later than Basedow, a distinguished English physician, Thomas Beddoes, worked on somewhat the same lines, seeking to promote sexual knowledge by lectures and demonstrations. In his remarkable book, _Hygeia_, published in 1802 (vol. i, Essay IV) he sets forth the absurdity of the conventional requirement that "discretion and ignorance should lodge in the same bosom," and deals at length with the question of masturbation and the need of sexual education. He insists on the great importance of lectures on natural history which, he had found, could be given with perfect propriety to a mixed audience. His experiences had shown that botany, the amphibia, the hen and her eggs, human anatomy, even disease and sometimes the sight of it, are salutary from this point of view. He thinks it is a happy thing for a child to gain his first knowledge of sexual difference from anatomical subjects, the dignity of death being a noble prelude to the knowledge of sex and depriving it forever of morbid prurience. It is scarcely necessary to remark that this method of teaching children the elements of sexual anatomy in the _post-mortem_ room has not found many advocates or followers; it is undesirable, for it fails to take into account the sensitiveness of children to such impressions, and it is unnecessary, for it is just as easy to teach the dignity of life as the dignity of death. The duty of the school to impart education in matters of sex to children has in recent years been vigorously and ably advocated by Maria Lischnewska (op. cit.), who speaks with thirty years' experience as a teacher and an intimate acquaintance with children and their home life. She argues that among the mass of the population to-day, while in the home-life there is every opportunity for coarse familiarity with sexual matters, there is no opportunity for a pure and enlightened introduction to them, parents being for the most part both morally and intellectually incapable of aiding their children here. That the school should assume the leading part in this task is, she believes, in accordance with the whole tendency of modern civilized life. She would have the instruction graduated in such a manner that during the fifth or sixth year of school life the pupil would receive instruction, with the aid of diagrams, concerning the sexual organs and functions of the higher mammals, the bull and cow being selected by preference. The facts of gestation would of course be included. When this stage was reached it would be easy to pass on to the human species with the statement: "Just in the same way as the calf develops in the cow so the child develops in the mother's body." It is difficult not to recognize the force of Maria Lischnewska's argument, and it seems highly probable that, as she asserts, the instruction proposed lies in the course of our present path of progress. Such instruction would be formal, unemotional, and impersonal; it would be given not as specific instruction in matters of sex, but simply as a part of natural history. It would supplement, so far as mere knowledge is concerned, the information the child had already received from its mother. But it would by no means supplant or replace the personal and intimate relationship of confidence between mother and child. That is always to be aimed at, and though it may not be possible among the ill-educated masses of to-day, nothing else will adequately take its place. There can be no doubt, however, that while in the future the school will most probably be regarded as the proper place in which to teach the elements of physiology--and not as at present a merely emasculated and effeminated physiology--the introduction of such reformed teaching is as yet impracticable in many communities. A coarse and ill-bred community moves in a vicious circle. Its members are brought up to believe that sex matters are filthy, and when they become adults they protest violently against their children being taught this filthy knowledge. The teacher's task is thus rendered at the best difficult, and under democratic conditions impossible. We cannot, therefore, hope for any immediate introduction of sexual physiology into schools, even in the unobtrusive form in which alone it could properly be introduced, that is to say as a natural and inevitable part of general physiology. This objection to animal physiology by no means applies, however, to botany. There can be little doubt that botany is of all the natural sciences that which best admits of this incidental instruction in the fundamental facts of sex, when we are concerned with children below the age of puberty. There are at least two reasons why this should be so. In the first place botany really presents the beginnings of sex, in their most naked and essential forms; it makes clear the nature, origin, and significance of sex. In the second place, in dealing with plants the facts of sex can be stated to children of either sex or any age quite plainly and nakedly without any reserve, for no one nowadays regards the botanical facts of sex as in any way offensive. The expounder of sex in plants also has on his side the advantage of being able to assert, without question, the entire beauty of the sexual process. He is not confronted by the ignorance, bad education, and false associations which have made it so difficult either to see or to show the beauty of sex in animals. From the sex-life of plants to the sex-life of the lower animals there is, however, but a step which the teacher, according to his discretion, may take. An early educational authority, Salzmann, in 1785 advocated the sexual enlightenment of children by first teaching them botany, to be followed by zoölogy. In modern times the method of imparting sex knowledge to children by means, in the first place, of botany, has been generally advocated, and from the most various quarters. Thus Marro (_La Pubertà_, p. 300) recommends this plan. J. Hudrey-Menos ("La Question du Sexe dans l'Education," _Revue Socialiste_, June, 1895), gives the same advice. Rudolf Sommer, in a paper entitled "Mädchenerziehung oder Menschenbildung?" (_Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Jahrgang I, Heft 3) recommends that the first introduction of sex knowledge to children should be made by talking to them on simple natural history subjects; "there are endless opportunities," he remarks, "over a fairy-tale, or a walk, or a fruit, or an egg, the sowing of seed or the nest-building of birds." Canon Lyttelton (_Training of the Young in Laws of Sex_, pp. 74 et seq.) advises a somewhat similar method, though laying chief stress on personal confidence between the child and his mother; "reference is made to the animal world just so far as the child's knowledge extends, so as to prevent the new facts from being viewed in isolation, but the main emphasis is laid on his feeling for his mother and the instinct which exists in nearly all children of reverence due to the maternal relation;" he adds that, however difficult the subject may seem, the essential facts of paternity must also be explained to boys and girls alike. Keyes, again (_New York Medical Journal_, Feb. 10, 1906), advocates teaching children from an early age the sexual facts of plant life and also concerning insects and other lower animals, and so gradually leading up to human beings, the matter being thus robbed of its unwholesome mystery. Mrs. Ennis Richmond (_Boyhood_, p. 62) recommends that children should be sent to spend some of their time upon a farm, so that they may not only become acquainted with the general facts of the natural world, but also with the sexual lives of animals, learning things which it is difficult to teach verbally. Karina Karin ("Wie erzieht man ein Kind zür wissenden Keuschheit?" _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Jahrgang I, Heft 4), reproducing some of her talks with her nine-year old son, from the time that he first asked her where children came from, shows how she began with telling him about flowers, to pass on to fish and birds, and finally to the facts of human pregnancy, showing him pictures from an obstetrical manual of the child in its mother's body. It may be added that the advisability of beginning the sex teaching of children with the facts of botany was repeatedly emphasized by various speakers at the special meeting of the German Congress for Combating Venereal Disease devoted to the subject of sexual instruction (_Sexualpädagogik_, especially pp. 36, 47, 76). The transition from botany to the elementary zoölogy of the lower animals, to human anatomy and physiology, and to the science of anthropology based on these, is simple and natural. It is not likely to be taken in detail until the age of puberty. Sex enters into all these subjects and should not be artificially excluded from them in the education of either boys or girls. The text-books from which the sexual system is entirely omitted ought no longer to be tolerated. The nature and secretion of the testicles, the meaning of the ovaries and of menstruation, as well as the significance of metabolism and the urinary excretion, should be clear in their main lines to all boys and girls who have reached the age of puberty. At puberty there arises a new and powerful reason why boys and girls should receive definite instruction in matters of sex. Before that age it is possible for the foolish parent to imagine that a child may be preserved in ignorant innocence.[25] At puberty that belief is obviously no longer possible. The efflorescence of puberty with the development of the sexual organs, the appearance of hair in unfamiliar places, the general related organic changes, the spontaneous and perhaps alarming occurrence in boys of seminal emissions, and in girls of menstruation, the unaccustomed and sometimes acute recognition of sexual desire accompanied by new sensations in the sexual organs and leading perhaps to masturbation; all these arouse, as we cannot fail to realize, a new anxiety in the boy's or girl's mind, and a new curiosity, all the more acute in many cases because it is carefully concealed as too private, and even too shameful, to speak of to anyone. In boys, especially if of sensitive temperament, the suffering thus caused may be keen and prolonged. A doctor of philosophy, prominent in his profession, wrote to Stanley Hall (_Adolescence_, vol. i, p. 452): "My entire youth, from six to eighteen, was made miserable from lack of knowledge that any one who knew anything of the nature of puberty might have given; this long sense of defect, dread of operation, shame and worry, has left an indelible mark." There are certainly many men who could say the same. Lancaster ("Psychology and Pedagogy of Adolescence," _Pedagogical Seminary_, July, 1897, pp. 123-5) speaks strongly regarding the evils of ignorance of sexual hygiene, and the terrible fact that millions of youths are always in the hands of quacks who dupe them into the belief that they are on the road to an awful destiny merely because they have occasional emissions during sleep. "This is not a light matter," Lancaster declares. "It strikes at the very foundation of our inmost life. It deals with the reproductory part of our natures, and must have a deep hereditary influence. It is a natural result of the foolish false modesty shown regarding all sex instruction. Every boy should be taught the simple physiological facts before his life is forever blighted by this cause." Lancaster has had in his hands one thousand letters, mostly written by young people, who were usually normal, and addressed to quacks who were duping them. From time to time the suicides of youths from this cause are reported, and in many mysterious suicides this has undoubtedly been the real cause. "Week after week," writes the _British Medical Journal_ in an editorial ("Dangerous Quack Literature: The Moral of a Recent Suicide," Oct. 1, 1892), "we receive despairing letters from those victims of foul birds of prey who have obtained their first hold on those they rob, torture and often ruin, by advertisements inserted by newspapers of a respectable, nay, even of a valuable and respected, character." It is added that the wealthy proprietors of such newspapers, often enjoying a reputation for benevolence, even when the matter is brought before them, refuse to interfere as they would thereby lose a source of income, and a censorship of advertisements is proposed. This, however, is difficult, and would be quite unnecessary if youths received proper enlightenment from their natural guardians. Masturbation, and the fear that by an occasional and perhaps outgrown practice of masturbation they have sometimes done themselves irreparable injury, is a common source of anxiety to boys. It has long been a question whether a boy should be warned against masturbation. At a meeting of the Section of Psychology of the British Medical Association some years ago, four speakers, including the President (Dr. Blandford), were decidedly in favor of parents warning their children against masturbation, while three speakers were decidedly against that course, mainly on the ground that it was possible to pass through even a public school life without hearing of masturbation, and also that the warning against masturbation might encourage the practice. It is, however, becoming more and more clearly realized that ignorance, even if it can be maintained, is a perilous possession, while the teaching that consists, as it should, in a loving mother's counsel to the child from his earliest years to treat his sexual parts with care and respect, can only lead to masturbation in the child who is already irresistibly impelled to it. Most of the sex manuals for boys touch on masturbation, sometimes exaggerating its dangers; such exaggeration should be avoided, for it leads to far worse evils than those it attempts to prevent. It seems undesirable that any warnings about masturbation should form part of school instruction, unless under very special circumstances. The sexual instruction imparted in the school on sexual as on other subjects should be absolutely impersonal and objective. At this point we approach one of the difficulties in the way of sexual enlightenment: the ignorance or unwisdom of the would-be teachers. This difficulty at present exists both in the home and the school, while it destroys the value of many manuals written for the sexual instruction of the young. The mother, who ought to be the child's confidant and guide in matters of sexual education, and could naturally be so if left to her own healthy instincts, has usually been brought up in false traditions which it requires a high degree of intelligence and character to escape from; the school-teacher, even if only called upon to give instruction in natural history, is oppressed by the same traditions, and by false shame concerning the whole subject of sex; the writer of manuals on sex has often only freed himself from these bonds in order to advocate dogmatic, unscientific, and sometimes mischievous opinions which have been evolved in entire ignorance of the real facts. As Moll says (Das _Sexualleben des Kindes_, p. 276), necessary as sexual enlightenment is, we cannot help feeling a little skeptical as to its results so long as those who ought to enlighten are themselves often in need of enlightenment. He refers also to the fact that even among competent authorities there is difference of opinion concerning important matters, as, for instance, whether masturbation is physiological at the first development of the sexual impulse and how far sexual abstinence is beneficial. But it is evident that the difficulties due to false tradition and ignorance will diminish as sound traditions and better knowledge become more widely diffused. The girl at puberty is usually less keenly and definitely conscious of her sexual nature than the boy. But the risks she runs from sexual ignorance, though for the most part different, are more subtle and less easy to repair. She is often extremely inquisitive concerning these matters; the thoughts of adolescent girls, and often their conversation among themselves, revolve much around sexual and allied mysteries. Even in the matter of conscious sexual impulse the girl is often not so widely different from her brother, nor so much less likely to escape the contamination of evil communications, so that the scruples of foolish and ignorant persons who dread to "sully her purity" by proper instruction are exceedingly misplaced. Conversations dealing with the important mysteries of human nature, Obici and Marchesini were told by ladies who had formerly been pupils in Italian Normal Schools, are the order of the day in schools and colleges, and specially circle around procreation, the most difficult mystery of all. In England, even in the best and most modern colleges, in which games and physical exercise are much cultivated, I am told that "the majority of the girls are entirely ignorant of all sexual matters, and understand nothing whatever about them. But they do wonder about them, and talk about them constantly" (see Appendix D, "The School Friendships of Girls," in the second volume of these _Studies_). "The restricted life and fettered mind of girls," wrote a well-known physician some years ago (J. Milner Fothergill, _Adolescence_, 1880, pp. 20, 22) "leave them with less to actively occupy their thoughts than is the case with boys. They are studiously taught concealment, and a girl may be a perfect model of outward decorum and yet have a very filthy mind. The prudishness with which she is brought up leaves her no alternative but to view her passions from the nasty side of human nature. All healthy thought on the subject is vigorously repressed. Everything is done to darken her mind and foul her imagination by throwing her back on her own thoughts and a literature with which she is ashamed to own acquaintance. It is opposed to a girl's best interests to prevent her from having fair and just conceptions about herself and her nature. Many a fair young girl is irredeemably ruined on the very threshold of life, herself and her family disgraced, from ignorance as much as from vice. When the moment of temptation comes she falls without any palpable resistance; she has no trained educated power of resistance within herself; her whole future hangs, not upon herself, but upon the perfection of the social safeguards by which she is hedged and surrounded." Under the free social order of America to-day much the same results are found. In an instructive article ("Why Girls Go Wrong," _Ladies' Home Journal_, Jan., 1907) B.B. Lindsey, who, as Judge of the Juvenile Court of Denver, is able to speak with authority, brings forward ample evidence on this head. Both girls and boys, he has found, sometimes possess manuscript books in which they had written down the crudest sexual things. These children were often sweet-faced, pleasant, refined and intelligent, and they had respectable parents; but no one had ever spoken to them of sex matters, except the worst of their school-fellows or some coarse-minded and reckless adult. By careful inquiry Lindsey found that only in one in twenty cases had the parents ever spoken to the children of sexual subjects. In nearly every case the children acknowledged that it was not from their parents, but in the street or from older companions, that they learnt the facts of sex. The parents usually imagined that their children were absolutely ignorant of these matters, and were astonished to realize their mistake; "parents do not know their children, nor have they the least idea of what their children know, or what their children talk about and do when away from them." The parents guilty of this neglect to instruct their children, are, Lindsey declares, traitors to their children. From his own experience he judges that nine-tenths of the girls who "go wrong," whether or not they sink in the world, do so owing to the inattention of their parents, and that in the case of most prostitutes the mischief is really done before the age of twelve; "every wayward girl I have talked to has assured me of this truth." He considers that nine-tenths of school-boys and school-girls, in town or country, are very inquisitive regarding matters of sex, and, to his own amazement, he has found that in the girls this is as marked as in the boys. It is the business of the girl's mother, at least as much as of the boy's, to watch over her child from the earliest years and to win her confidence in all the intimate and personal matters of sex. With these aspects the school cannot properly meddle. But in matters of physical sexual hygiene, notably menstruation, in regard to which all girls stand on the same level, it is certainly the duty of the teacher to take an actively watchful part, and, moreover, to direct the general work of education accordingly, and to ensure that the pupil shall rest whenever that may seem to be desirable. This is part of the very elements of the education of girls. To disregard it should disqualify a teacher from taking further share in educational work. Yet it is constantly and persistently neglected. A large number of girls have not even been prepared by their mothers or teachers for the first onset of the menstrual flow, sometimes with disastrous results both to their bodily and mental health.[26] "I know of no large girl's school," wrote a distinguished gynæcologist, Sir W.S. Playfair ("Education and Training of Girls at Puberty," _British Medical Journal_, Dec. 7, 1895), "in which the absolute distinction which exists between boys and girls as regards the dominant menstrual function is systematically cared for and attended to. Indeed, the feeling of all schoolmistresses is distinctly antagonistic to such an admission. The contention is that there is no real difference between an adolescent male and female, that what is good for one is good for the other, and that such as there is is due to the evil customs of the past which have denied to women the ambitions and advantages open to men, and that this will disappear when a happier era is inaugurated. If this be so, how comes it that while every practical physician of experience has seen many cases of anæmia and chlorosis in girls, accompanied by amenorrhæa or menorrhagia, headaches, palpitations, emaciation, and all the familiar accompaniments of breakdown, an analogous condition in a school-boy is so rare that it may well be doubted if it is ever seen at all?" It is, however, only the excuses for this almost criminal negligence, as it ought to be considered, which are new; the negligence itself is ancient. Half a century earlier, before the new era of feminine education, another distinguished gynæcologist, Tilt (_Elements of Health and Principles of Female Hygiene_, 1852, p. 18) stated that from a statistical inquiry regarding the onset of menstruation in nearly one thousand women he found that "25 per cent. were totally unprepared for its appearance; that thirteen out of the twenty-five were much frightened, screamed, or went into hysterical fits; and that six out of the thirteen thought themselves wounded and washed with cold water. Of those frightened ... the general health was seriously impaired." Engelmann, after stating that his experience in America was similar to Tilt's in England, continues ("The Health of the American Girl," _Transactions of the Southern Surgical and Gynæcological Society_, 1890): "To innumerable women has fright, nervous and emotional excitement, exposure to cold, brought injury at puberty. What more natural than that the anxious girl, surprised by the sudden and unexpected loss of the precious life-fluid, should seek to check the bleeding wound--as she supposes? For this purpose the use of cold washes and applications is common, some even seek to stop the flow by a cold bath, as was done by a now careful mother, who long lay at the point of death from the result of such indiscretion, and but slowly, by years of care, regained her health. The terrible warning has not been lost, and mindful of her own experience she has taught her children a lesson which but few are fortunate enough to learn--the individual care during periods of functional activity which is needful for the preservation of woman's health." In a study of one hundred and twenty-five American high school girls Dr. Helen Kennedy refers to the "modesty" which makes it impossible even for mothers and daughters to speak to each other concerning the menstrual functions. "Thirty-six girls in this high school passed into womanhood with no knowledge whatever, from a proper source, of all that makes them women. Thirty-nine were probably not much wiser, for they stated that they had received some instruction, but had not talked freely on the matter. From the fact that the curious girl did not talk freely on what naturally interested her, it is possible she was put off with a few words as to personal care, and a reprimand for her curiosity. Less than half of the girls felt free to talk with their mothers of this most important matter!" (Helen Kennedy, "Effects of High School Work upon Girls During Adolescence," _Pedagogical Seminary_, June, 1896.) The same state of things probably also prevails in other countries. Thus, as regards France, Edmond de Goncourt in _Chérie_ (pp. 137-139) described the terror of his young heroine at the appearance of the first menstrual period for which she had never been prepared. He adds: "It is very seldom, indeed, that women speak of this eventuality. Mothers fear to warn their daughters, elder sisters dislike confidences with their younger sisters, governesses are generally mute with girls who have no mothers or sisters." Sometimes this leads to suicide or to attempts at suicide. Thus a few years ago the case was reported in the French newspapers of a young girl of fifteen, who threw herself into the Seine at Saint-Ouen. She was rescued, and on being brought before the police commissioner said that she had been attacked by an "unknown disease" which had driven her to despair. Discreet inquiry revealed that the mysterious malady was one common to all women, and the girl was restored to her insufficiently punished parents. Half a century ago the sexual life of girls was ignored by their parents and teachers from reasons of prudishness; at the present time, when quite different ideas prevail regarding feminine education, it is ignored on the ground that girls should be as independent of their physiological sexual life as boys are. The fact that this mischievous neglect has prevailed equally under such different conditions indicates clearly that the varying reasons assigned for it are merely the cloaks of ignorance. With the growth of knowledge we may reasonably hope that one of the chief evils which at present undermine in early life not only healthy motherhood but healthy womanhood generally, may be gradually eliminated. The data now being accumulated show not only the extreme prevalence of painful, disordered, and absent menstruation in adolescent girls and young women, but also the great and sometimes permanent evils inflicted upon even healthy girls when at the beginning of sexual life they are subjected to severe strain of any kind. Medical authorities, whichever sex they belong to, may now be said to be almost or quite unanimous on this point. Some years ago, indeed, Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, in a very able book, _The Question of Rest for Women_, concluded that "ordinarily healthy" women may disregard the menstrual period, but she admitted that forty-six per cent, of women are not "ordinarily healthy," and a minority which comes so near to being a majority can by no means be dismissed as a negligible quantity. Girls themselves, indeed, carried away by the ardor of their pursuit of work or amusement, are usually recklessly and ignorantly indifferent to the serious risks they run. But the opinions of teachers are now tending to agree with medical opinion in recognizing the importance of care and rest during the years of adolescence, and teachers are even prepared to admit that a year's rest from hard work during the period that a girl's sexual life is becoming established, while it may ensure her health and vigor, is not even a disadvantage from the educational point of view. With the growth of knowledge and the decay of ancient prejudices, we may reasonably hope that women will be emancipated from the traditions of a false civilization, which have forced her to regard her glory as her shame,--though it has never been so among robust primitive peoples,--and it is encouraging to find that so distinguished an educator as Principal Stanley Hall looks forward with confidence to such a time. In his exhaustive work on _Adolescence_ he writes: "Instead of shame of this function girls should be taught the greatest reverence for it, and should help it to normality by regularly stepping aside at stated times for a few years till it is well established and normal. To higher beings that looked down upon human life as we do upon flowers, these would be the most interesting and beautiful hours of blossoming. With more self-knowledge women will have more self-respect at this time. Savagery reveres this state and it gives to women a mystic awe. The time may come when we must even change the divisions of the year for women, leaving to man his week and giving to her the same number of Sabbaths per year, but in groups of four successive days per month. When woman asserts her true physiological rights she will begin here, and will glory in what, in an age of ignorance, man made her think to be her shame. The pathos about the leaders of woman's so-called emancipation, is that they, even more than those they would persuade, accept man's estimate of this state."[27] These wise words cannot be too deeply pondered. The pathos of the situation has indeed been--at all events in the past for to-day a more enlightened generation is growing up--that the very leaders of the woman's movement have often betrayed the cause of women. They have adopted the ideals of men, they have urged women to become second-rate men, they have declared that the healthy natural woman disregards the presence of her menstrual functions. This is the very reverse of the truth. "They claim," remarks Engelmann, "that woman in her natural state is the physical equal of man, and constantly point to the primitive woman, the female of savage peoples, as an example of this supposed axiom. Do they know how well this same savage is aware of the weakness of woman and her susceptibility at certain periods of her life? And with what care he protects her from harm at these periods? I believe not. The importance of surrounding women with certain precautions during the height of these great functional waves of her existence was appreciated by all peoples living in an approximately natural state, by all races at all times; and among their comparatively few religious customs this one, affording rest to women, was most persistently adhered to." It is among the white races alone that the sexual invalidism of women prevails, and it is the white races alone, which, outgrowing the religious ideas with which the menstrual seclusion of women was associated, have flung away that beneficent seclusion itself, throwing away the baby with the bath in an almost literal sense.[28] In Germany Tobler has investigated the menstrual histories of over one thousand women (_Monatsschrift für Geburtshülfe und Gynäkologie_, July, 1905). He finds that in the great majority of women at the present day menstruation is associated with distinct deterioration of the general health, and diminution of functional energy. In 26 per cent. local pain, general malaise, and mental and nervous anomalies coexisted; in larger proportion come the cases in which local pain, general weak health or psychic abnormality was experienced alone at this period. In 16 per cent. only none of these symptoms were experienced. In a very small separate group the physical and mental functions were stronger during this period, but in half of these cases there was distinct disturbance during the intermenstrual period. Tobler concludes that, while menstruation itself is physiological, all these disturbances are pathological. As far as England is concerned, at a discussion of normal and painful menstruation at a meeting of the British Association of Registered Medical Women on the 7th of July, 1908, it was stated by Miss Bentham that 50 per cent. of girls in good position suffered from painful menstruation. Mrs. Dunnett said it usually occurred between the ages of twenty-four and thirty, being frequently due to neglect to rest during menstruation in the earlier years, and Mrs. Grainger Evans had found that this condition was very common among elementary school teachers who had worked hard for examinations during early girlhood. In America various investigations have been carried out, showing the prevalence of disturbance in the sexual health of school girls and young women. Thus Dr. Helen P. Kennedy obtained elaborate data concerning the menstrual life of one hundred and twenty-five high school girls of the average age of eighteen ("Effect of High School Work upon Girls During Adolescence," _Pedagogical Seminary_, June, 1896). Only twenty-eight felt no pain during the period; half the total number experienced disagreeable symptoms before the period (such as headache, malaise, irritability of temper), while forty-four complained of other symptoms besides pain during the period (especially headache and great weakness). Jane Kelley Sabine (quoted in _Boston Medical and Surgical Journal_, Sept. 15, 1904) found in New England schools among two thousand girls that 75 per cent. had menstrual troubles, 90 per cent. had leucorrhoea and ovarian neuralgia, and 60 per cent. had to give up work for two days during each month. These results seem more than usually unfavorable, but are significant, as they cover a large number of cases. The conditions in the Pacific States are not much better. Dr. Mary Ritter (in a paper read before the California State Medical Society in 1903) stated that of 660 Freshmen girls at the University of California, 67 per cent. were subject to menstrual disorders, 27 per cent. to headaches, 30 per cent. to backaches, 29 per cent. were habitually constipated, 16 per cent. had abnormal heart sounds; only 23 per cent. were free from functional disturbances. Dr. Helen MacMurchey, in an interesting paper on "Physiological Phenomena Preceding or Accompanying Menstruation" (_Lancet_, Oct. 5, 1901), by inquiries among one hundred medical women, nurses, and women teachers in Toronto concerning the presence or absence of twenty-one different abnormal menstrual phenomena, found that between 50 and 60 per cent. admitted that they were liable at this time to disturbed sleep, to headache, to mental depression, to digestive disturbance, or to disturbance of the special senses, while about 25 to 50 per cent. were liable to neuralgia, to vertigo, to excessive nervous energy, to defective nervous and muscular power, to cutaneous hyperæsthesia, to vasomotor disturbances, to constipation, to diarrhoea, to increased urination, to cutaneous eruption, to increased liability to take cold, or to irritating watery discharges before or after the menstrual discharge. This inquiry is of much interest, because it clearly brings out the marked prevalence at menstruation of conditions which, though not necessarily of any gravity, yet definitely indicate decreased power of resistance to morbid influences and diminished efficiency for work. How serious an impediment menstrual troubles are to a woman is indicated by the fact that the women who achieve success and fame seem seldom to be greatly affected by them. To that we may, in part, attribute the frequency with which leaders of the women's movement have treated menstruation as a thing of no importance in a woman's life. Adele Gerhard, and Helene Simon, also, in their valuable and impartial work, _Mutterschaft und Geistige Arbeit_ (p. 312), failed to find, in their inquiries among women of distinguished ability, that menstruation was regarded as seriously disturbing to work. Of late the suggestion that adolescent girls shall not only rest from work during two days of the menstrual period, but have an entire holiday from school during the first year of sexual life, has frequently been put forward, both from the medical and the educational side. At the meeting of the Association of Registered Medical Women, already referred to, Miss Sturge spoke of the good results obtained in a school where, during the first two years after puberty, the girls were kept in bed for the first two days of each menstrual period. Some years ago Dr. G.W. Cook ("Some Disorders of Menstruation," _American Journal of Obstetrics_, April, 1896), after giving cases in point, wrote: "It is my deliberate conviction that no girl should be confined at study during the year of her puberty, but she should live an outdoor life." In an article on "Alumna's Children," by "An Alumna" (_Popular Science Monthly_, May, 1904), dealing with the sexual invalidism of American women and the severe strain of motherhood upon them, the author, though she is by no means hostile to education, which is not, she declares, at fault, pleads for rest for the pubertal girl. "If the brain claims her whole vitality, how can there be any proper development? Just as very young children should give all their strength for some years solely to physical growth before the brain is allowed to make any considerable demands, so at this critical period in the life of the woman nothing should obstruct the right of way of this important system. A year at the least should be made especially easy for her, with neither mental nor nervous strain; and throughout the rest of her school days she should have her periodical day of rest, free from any study or overexertion." In another article on the same subject in the same journal ("The Health of American Girls," Sept., 1907), Nellie Comins Whitaker advocates a similar course. "I am coming to be convinced, somewhat against my wish, that there are many cases when the girl ought to be taken out of school entirely for some months or for a year _at the period of puberty_." She adds that the chief obstacle in the way is the girl's own likes and dislikes, and the ignorance of her mother who has been accustomed to think that pain is a woman's natural lot. Such a period of rest from mental strain, while it would fortify the organism in its resistance to any reasonable strain later, need by no means be lost for education in the wider sense of the word, for the education required in classrooms is but a small part of the education required for life. Nor should it by any means be reserved merely for the sickly and delicate girl. The tragic part of the present neglect to give girls a really sound and fitting education is that the best and finest girls are thereby so often ruined. Even the English policeman, who admittedly belongs in physical vigor and nervous balance to the flower of the population, is unable to bear the strain of his life, and is said to be worn out in twenty-five years. It is equally foolish to submit the finest flowers of girlhood to a strain which is admittedly too severe. It seems to be clear that the main factor in the common sexual and general invalidism of girls and young women is bad hygiene, in the first place consisting in neglect of the menstrual functions and in the second place in faulty habits generally. In all the more essential matters that concern the hygiene of the body the traditions of girls--and this seems to be more especially the case in the Anglo-Saxon countries--are inferior to those of youths. Women are much more inclined than men to subordinate these things to what seems to them some more urgent interest or fancy of the moment; they are trained to wear awkward and constricting garments, they are indifferent to regular and substantial meals, preferring innutritious and indigestible foods and drinks; they are apt to disregard the demands of the bowels and the bladder out of laziness or modesty; they are even indifferent to physical cleanliness.[29] In a great number of minor ways, which separately may seem to be of little importance, they play into the hands of an environment which, not always having been adequately adjusted to their special needs, would exert a considerable stress and strain even if they carefully sought to guard themselves against it. It has been found in an American Women's College in which about half the scholars wore corsets and half not, that nearly all the honors and prizes went to the non-corset-wearers. McBride, in bringing forward this fact, pertinently remarks, "If the wearing of a single style of dress will make this difference in the lives of young women, and that, too, in their most vigorous and resistive period, how much difference will a score of unhealthy habits make, if persisted in for a life-time?"[30] "It seems evident," A.E. Giles concludes ("Some Points of Preventive Treatment in the Diseases of Women," _The Hospital_, April 10, 1897) "that dysmenorrhoea might be to a large extent prevented by attention to general health and education. Short hours of work, especially of standing; plenty of outdoor exercise--tennis, boating, cycling, gymnastics, and walking for those who cannot afford these; regularity of meals and food of the proper quality--not the incessant tea and bread and butter with variation of pastry; the avoidance of overexertion and prolonged fatigue; these are some of the principal things which require attention. Let girls pursue their study, but more leisurely; they will arrive at the same goal, but a little later." The benefit of allowing free movement and exercise to the whole body is undoubtedly very great, both as regards the sexual and general physical health and the mental balance; in order to insure this it is necessary to avoid heavy and constricting garments, more especially around the chest, for it is in respiratory power and chest expansion more than in any other respect that girls fall behind boys (see, e.g., Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, Ch. IX). In old days the great obstacle to the free exercise of girls lay in an ideal of feminine behavior which involved a prim restraint on every natural movement of the body. At the present day that ideal is not so fervently preached as of old, but its traditional influence still to some extent persists, while there is the further difficulty that adequate time and opportunity and encouragement are by no means generally afforded to girls for the cultivation and training of the romping instincts which are really a serious part of education, for it is by such free exercise of the whole body that the neuro-muscular system, the basis of all vital activity, is built up. The neglect of such education is to-day clearly visible in the structure of our women. Dr. F. May Dickinson Berry, Medical Examiner to the Technical Education Board of the London County Council, found (_British Medical Journal_, May 28, 1904) among over 1,500 girls, who represent the flower of the schools, since they had obtained scholarships enabling them to proceed to higher grade schools, that 22 per cent, presented some degree, not always pronounced, of lateral curvature of the spine, though such cases were very rare among the boys. In the same way among a very similar class of select girls at the Chicago Normal School, Miss Lura Sanborn (_Doctors' Magazine_, Dec., 1900) found 17 per cent, with spinal curvature, in some cases of a very pronounced degree. There is no reason why a girl should not have as straight a back as a boy, and the cause can only lie in the defective muscular development which was found in most of the cases, sometimes accompanied by anæmia. Here and there nowadays, among the better social classes, there is ample provision for the development of muscular power in girls, but in any generalized way there is no adequate opportunity for such exercise, and among the working class, above all, in the section of it which touches the lower middle class, although their lives are destined to be filled with a constant strain on the neuro-muscular system from work at home or in shops, etc., there is usually a minimum of healthy exercise and physical development. Dr. W.A.B. Sellman, of Baltimore ("Causes of Painful Menstruation in Unmarried Women," _American Journal Obstetrics_, Nov., 1907), emphasizes the admirable results obtained by moderate physical exercise for young women, and in training them to care for their bodies and to rest their nervous systems, while Dr. Charlotte Brown, of San Francisco, rightly insists on the establishment in all towns and villages alike of outdoor gymnastic fields for women and girls, and of a building, in connection with every large school, for training in physical, manual, and domestic science. The provision of special playgrounds is necessary where the exercising of girls is so unfamiliar as to cause an embarrassing amount of attention from the opposite sex, though when it is an immemorial custom it can be carried out on the village green without attracting the slightest attention, as I have seen in Spain, where one cannot fail to connect it with the physical vigor of the women. In boys' schools games are not only encouraged, but made compulsory; but this is by no means a universal rule in girls' schools. It is not necessary, and is indeed highly undesirable, that the games adopted should be those of boys. In England especially, where the movements of women are so often marked by awkwardness, angularity and lack of grace, it is essential that nothing should be done to emphasize these characteristics, for where vigor involves violence we are in the presence of a lack of due neuro-muscular coördination. Swimming, when possible, and especially some forms of dancing, are admirably adapted to develop the bodily movements of women both vigorously and harmoniously (see, e.g., Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, Ch. VII). At the International Congress of School Hygiene in 1907 (see, e.g., _British Medical Journal_, Aug. 24, 1907) Dr. L.H. Gulick, formerly Director of Physical Training in the Public Schools of New York City, stated that after many experiments it had been found in the New York elementary and high schools that folk-dancing constituted the very best exercise for girls. "The dances selected involved many contractions of the large muscular masses of the body and had therefore a great effect on respiration, circulation and nutrition. Such movements, moreover, when done as dances, could be carried on three or four times as long without producing fatigue as formal gymnastics. Many folk-dances were imitative, sowing and reaping dance, dances expressing trade movements (the shoemaker's dance), others illustrating attack and defense, or the pursuit of game. Such neuro-muscular movements were racially old and fitted in with man's expressive life, and if it were accepted that the folk-dances really expressed an epitome of man's neuro-muscular history, as distinguished from mere permutation of movements, the folk-dance combinations should be preferred on these biological grounds to the unselected, or even the physiologically selected. From the æsthetic point of view the sense of beauty as shown in dancing was far commoner than the power to sing, paint or model." It must always be remembered that in realizing the especial demands of woman's nature, we do not commit ourselves to the belief that higher education is unfitted for a woman. That question may now be regarded as settled. There is therefore no longer any need for the feverish anxiety of the early leaders of feminine education to prove that girls can be educated exactly as if they were boys, and yield at least as good educational results. At the present time, indeed, that anxiety is not only unnecessary but mischievous. It is now more necessary to show that women have special needs just as men have special needs, and that it is as bad for women, and therefore, for the world, to force them to accept the special laws and limitations of men as it would be bad for men, and therefore, for the world, to force men to accept the special laws and limitations of women. Each sex must seek to reach the goal by following the laws of its own nature, even although it remains desirable that, both in the school and in the world, they should work so far as possible side by side. The great fact to be remembered always is that, not only are women, in physical size and physical texture, slighter and finer than men, but that to an extent altogether unknown among men, their centre of gravity is apt to be deflected by the series of rhythmic sexual curves on which they are always living. They are thus more delicately poised and any kind of stress or strain--cerebral, nervous, or muscular--is more likely to produce serious disturbance and requires an accurate adjustment to their special needs. The fact that it is stress and strain in general, and not necessarily educational studies, that are injurious to adolescent women, is sufficiently proved, if proof is necessary, by the fact that sexual arrest, and physical or nervous breakdown, occur with extreme frequency in girls who work in shops or mills, even in girls who have never been to school at all. Even excesses in athletics--which now not infrequently occur as a reaction against woman's indifference to physical exercise--are bad. Cycling is beneficial for women who can ride without pain or discomfort, and, according to Watkins, it is even beneficial in many diseased and disordered pelvic conditions, but excessive cycling is evil in its results on women, more especially by inducing rigidity of the perineum to an extent which may even prevent childbirth and necessitate operation. I may add that the same objection applies to much horse-riding. In the same way everything which causes shocks to the body is apt to be dangerous to women, since in the womb they possess a delicately poised organ which varies in weight at different times, and it would, for instance, be impossible to commend football as a game for girls. "I do not believe," wrote Miss H. Ballantine, Director of Vassar College Gymnasium, to Prof. W. Thomas (_Sex and Society_, p. 22) "women can ever, no matter what the training, approach men in their physical achievements; and," she wisely adds, "I see no reason why they should." There seem, indeed, as has already been indicated, to be reasons why they should not, especially if they look forward to becoming mothers. I have noticed that women who have lived a very robust and athletic outdoor life, so far from always having the easy confinements which we might anticipate, sometimes have very seriously difficult times, imperilling the life of the child. On making this observation to a distinguished obstetrician, the late Dr. Engelmann, who was an ardent advocate of physical exercise for women (in e.g. his presidential address, "The Health of the American Girl," _Transactions Southern Surgical and Gynæcological Association_, 1890), he replied that he had himself made the same observation, and that instructors in physical training, both in America and England, had also told him of such cases among their pupils. "I hold," he wrote, "precisely the opinion you express [as to the unfavorable influence of muscular development in women]. _Athletics_, i.e., overdone physical training, causes the girl's system to approximate to the masculine; this is so whether due to sport or necessity. The woman who indulges in it approximates to the male in her attributes; this is marked in diminished sexual intensity, and in increased difficulty of childbirth, with, in time, lessened fecundity. Healthy habits improve, but masculine muscular development diminishes, womanly qualities, although it is true that the peasant and the laboring woman have easy labor. I have never advocated muscular development for girls, only physical training, but have perhaps said too much for it and praised it too unguardedly. In schools and colleges, so far, however, it is insufficient rather than too much; only the wealthy have too much golf and athletic sports. I am collecting new material, but from what I already have seen I am impressed with the truth of what you say. I am studying the point, and shall elaborate the explanation." Any publication on this subject was, however, prevented by Engelmann's death a few years later. A proper recognition of the special nature of woman, of her peculiar needs and her dignity, has a significance beyond its importance in education and hygiene. The traditions and training to which she is subjected in this matter have a subtle and far-reaching significance, according as they are good or evil. If she is taught, implicitly or explicitly, contempt for the characteristics of her own sex, she naturally develops masculine ideals which may permanently discolor her vision of life and distort her practical activities; it has been found that as many as fifty per cent. of American school girls have masculine ideals, while fifteen per cent. American and no fewer than thirty-four per cent. English school girls wished to be men, though scarcely any boys wished to be women.[31] With the same tendency may be connected that neglect to cultivate the emotions, which, by a mischievously extravagant but inevitable reaction from the opposite extreme, has sometimes marked the modern training of women. In the finely developed woman, intelligence is interpenetrated with emotion. If there is an exaggerated and isolated culture of intelligence a tendency shows itself to disharmony which breaks up the character or impairs its completeness. In this connection Reibmayr has remarked that the American woman may serve as a warning.[32] Within the emotional sphere itself, it may be added, there is a tendency to disharmony in women owing to the contradictory nature of the feelings which are traditionally impressed upon her, a contradiction which dates back indeed to the identification of sacredness and impurity at the dawn of civilization. "Every girl and woman," wrote Hellmann, in a pioneering book which pushed a sound principle to eccentric extremes, "is taught to regard her sexual parts as a precious and sacred spot, only to be approached by a husband or in special circumstances a doctor. She is, at the same time, taught to regard this spot as a kind of water-closet which she ought to be extremely ashamed to possess, and the mere mention of which should cause a painful blush."[33] The average unthinking woman accepts the incongruity of this opposition without question, and grows accustomed to adapt herself to each of the incompatibles according to circumstances. The more thoughtful woman works out a private theory of her own. But in very many cases this mischievous opposition exerts a subtly perverting influence on the whole outlook towards Nature and life. In a few cases, also, in women of sensitive temperament, it even undermines and ruins the psychic personality. Thus Boris Sidis has recorded a case illustrating the disastrous results of inculcating on a morbidly sensitive girl the doctrine of the impurity of women. She was educated in a convent. "While there she was impressed with the belief that woman is a vessel of vice and impurity. This seemed to have been imbued in her by one of the nuns who was very holy and practiced self-mortification. With the onset of her periods, and with the observation of the same in the other girls, this doctrine of female impurity was all the stronger impressed on her sensitive mind." It lapsed, however, from conscious memory and only came to the foreground in subsequent years with the exhaustion and fatigue of prolonged office work. Then she married. Now "she has an extreme abhorrence of women. Woman, to the patient, is impurity, filth, the very incarnation of degradation and vice. The house wash must not be given to a laundry where women work. Nothing must be picked up in the street, not even the most valuable object, perchance it might have been dropped by a woman" (Boris Sidis, "Studies in Psychopathology," _Boston Medical and Surgical Journal_, April 4, 1907). That is the logical outcome of much of the traditional teaching which is given to girls. Fortunately, the healthy mind offers a natural resistance to its complete acceptation, yet it usually, in some degree, persists and exerts a mischievous influence. It is, however, not only in her relations to herself and to her sex that a girl's thoughts and feelings tend to be distorted by the ignorance or the false traditions by which she is so often carefully surrounded. Her happiness in marriage, her whole future career, is put in peril. The innocent young woman must always risk much in entering the door of indissoluble marriage; she knows nothing truly of her husband, she knows nothing of the great laws of love, she knows nothing of her own possibilities, and, worse still, she is even ignorant of her ignorance. She runs the risk of losing the game while she is still only beginning to learn it. To some extent that is quite inevitable if we are to insist that a woman should bind herself to marry a man before she has experienced the nature of the forces that marriage may unloose in her. A young girl believes she possesses a certain character; she arranges her future in accordance with that character; she marries. Then, in a considerable proportion of cases (five out of six, according to the novelist Bourget), within a year or even a week, she finds she was completely mistaken in herself and in the man she has married; she discovers within her another self, and that self detests the man to whom she is bound. That is a possible fate against which only the woman who has already been aroused to love is entitled to regard herself as fairly protected. There is, however, a certain kind of protection which it is possible to afford the bride, even without departing from our most conventional conceptions of marriage. We can at least insist that she shall be accurately informed as to the exact nature of her physical relations to her future husband and be safeguarded from the shocks or the disillusions which marriage might otherwise bring. Notwithstanding the decay of prejudices, it is probable that even to-day the majority of women of the so-called educated class marry with only the vaguest and most inaccurate notions, picked up more or less clandestinely, concerning the nature of the sexual relationships. So highly intelligent a woman as Madame Adam has stated that she believed herself bound to marry a man who had kissed her on the mouth, imagining that to be the supreme act of sexual union,[34] and it has frequently happened that women have married sexually inverted persons of their own sex, not always knowingly, but believing them to be men, and never discovering their mistake; it is not long indeed since in America three women were thus successively married to the same woman, none of them apparently ever finding out the real sex of the "husband." "The civilized girl," as Edward Carpenter remarks, "is led to the 'altar' often in uttermost ignorance and misunderstanding of the sacrificial rites about to be consummated." Certainly more rapes have been effected in marriage than outside it.[35] The girl is full of vague and romantic faith in the promises of love, often heightened by the ecstasies depicted in sentimental novels from which every touch of wholesome reality has been carefully omitted. "All the candor of faith is there," as Sénancour puts it in his book _De l'Amour_, "the desires of inexperience, the needs of a new life, the hopes of an upright heart. She has all the faculties of love, she must love; she has all the means of pleasure, she must be loved. Everything expresses love and demands love: this hand formed for sweet caresses, an eye whose resources are unknown if it must not say that it consents to be loved, a bosom which is motionless and useless without love, and will fade without having been worshipped; these feelings that are so vast, so tender, so voluptuous, the ambition of the heart, the heroism of passion! She needs must follow the delicious rule which the law of the world has dictated. That intoxicating part, which she knows so well, which everything recalls, which the day inspires and the night commands, what young, sensitive, loving woman can imagine that she shall not play it?" But when the actual drama of love begins to unroll before her, and she realizes the true nature of the "intoxicating part" she has to play, then, it has often happened, the case is altered; she finds herself altogether unprepared, and is overcome with terror and alarm. All the felicity of her married life may then hang on a few chances, her husband's skill and consideration, her own presence of mind. Hirschfeld records the case of an innocent young girl of seventeen--in this case, it eventually proved, an invert--who was persuaded to marry but on discovering what marriage meant energetically resisted her husband's sexual approaches. He appealed to her mother to explain to her daughter the nature of "wifely duties." But the young wife replied to her mother's expostulations, "If that is my wifely duty then it was your parental duty to have told me beforehand, for, if I had known, I should never have married." The husband in this case, much in love with his wife, sought for eight years to over-persuade her, but in vain, and a separation finally took place.[36] That, no doubt, is an extreme case, but how many innocent young inverted girls never realize their true nature until after marriage, and how many perfectly normal girls are so shocked by the too sudden initiation of marriage that their beautiful early dreams of love never develop slowly and wholesomely into the acceptance of its still more beautiful realities? Before the age of puberty it would seem that the sexual initiation of the child--apart from such scientific information as would form part of school courses in botany and zoölogy--should be the exclusive privilege of the mother, or whomever it may be to whom the mother's duties are delegated. At puberty more authoritative and precise advice is desirable than the mother may be able or willing to give. It is at this age that she should put into her son's or daughter's hands some one or other of the very numerous manuals to which reference has already been made (page 53), expounding the physical and moral aspects of the sexual life and the principles of sexual hygiene. The boy or girl is already, we may take it, acquainted with the facts of motherhood, and the origin of babies, as well as, more or less precisely, with the father's part in their procreation. Whatever manual is now placed in his or her hands should at least deal summarily, but definitely, with the sexual relationship, and should also comment, warningly but in no alarmist spirit, with the chief auto-erotic phenomena, and by no means exclusively with masturbation. Nothing but good can come of the use of such a manual, if it has been wisely selected; it will supplant what the mother has already done, what the teacher may still be doing, and what later may be done by private interview with a doctor. It has indeed been argued that the boy or girl to whom such literature is presented will merely make it an opportunity for morbid revelry and sensual enjoyment. It can well be believed that this may sometimes happen with boys or girls from whom all sexual facts have always been mysteriously veiled, and that when at last they find the opportunity of gratifying their long-repressed and perfectly natural curiosity they are overcome by the excitement of the event. It could not happen to children who have been naturally and wholesomely brought up. At a later age, during adolescence, there is doubtless great advantage in the plan, now frequently adopted, especially in Germany, of giving lectures, addresses, or quiet talks to young people of each sex separately. The speaker is usually a specially selected teacher, a doctor or other qualified person who may be brought in for this special purpose. Stanley Hall, after remarking that sexual education should be chiefly from fathers to sons and from mothers to daughters, adds: "It may be that in the future this kind of initiation will again become an art, and experts will tell us with more confidence how to do our duty to the manifold exigencies, types and stages of youth, and instead of feeling baffled and defeated, we shall see that this age and theme is the supreme opening for the highest pedagogy to do its best and most transforming work, as well as being the greatest of all opportunities for the teacher of religion" (Stanley Hall, _Adolescence_, vol. i, p. 469). "At Williams College, Harvard, Johns Hopkins and Clark," the same distinguished teacher observes (ib., p. 465), "I have made it a duty in my departmental teaching to speak very briefly, but plainly to young men under my instruction, personally if I deemed it wise, and often, though here only in general terms, before student bodies, and I believe I have nowhere done more good, but it is a painful duty. It requires tact and some degree of hard and strenuous common sense rather than technical knowledge." It is scarcely necessary to say that the ordinary teacher of either sex is quite incompetent to speak of sexual hygiene. It is a task to which all, or some, teachers must be trained. A beginning in this direction has been made in Germany by the delivery to teachers of courses of lectures on sexual hygiene in education. In Prussia the first attempt was made in Breslau when the central school authorities requested Dr. Martin Chotzen to deliver such a course to one hundred and fifty teachers who took the greatest interest in the lectures, which covered the anatomy of the sexual organs, the development of the sexual instinct, its chief perversions, venereal diseases, and the importance of the cultivation of self-control. In _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_ (Bd. i, Heft 7) Dr. Fritz Reuther gives the substance of lectures which he has delivered to a class of young teachers; they cover much the same ground as Chotzen's. There is no evidence that in England the Minister of Education has yet taken any steps to insure the delivery of lectures on sexual hygiene to the pupils who are about to leave school. In Prussia, however, the Ministry of Education has taken an active interest in this matter, and such lectures are beginning to be commonly delivered, though attendance at them is not usually obligatory. Some years ago (in 1900), when it was proposed to deliver a series of lectures on sexual hygiene to the advanced pupils in Berlin schools, under the auspices of a society for the improvement of morals, the municipal authorities withdrew their permission to use the classrooms, on the ground that "such lectures would be extremely dangerous to the moral sense of an audience of the young." The same objection has been made by municipal officials in France. In Germany, at all events, however, opinion is rapidly growing more enlightened. In England little or no progress has yet been made, but in America steps are being taken in this direction, as by the Chicago Society for Social Hygiene. It must, indeed, be said that those who oppose the sexual enlightenment of youth in large cities are directly allying themselves, whether or not they know it, with the influences that make for vice and immorality. Such lectures are also given to girls on leaving school, not only girls of the well-to-do, but also those of the poor class, who need them fully as much, and in some respects more. Thus Dr. A. Heidenhain has published a lecture (_Sexuelle Belehrung der aus den Volksschule entlassenen Mädchen_, 1907), accompanied by anatomical tables, which he has delivered to girls about to leave school, and which is intended to be put into their hands at this time. Salvat, in a Lyons thesis (_La Dépopulation de la France_, 1903), insists that the hygiene of pregnancy and the care of infants should form part of the subject of such lectures. These subjects might well be left, however, to a somewhat later period. Something is clearly needed beyond lectures on these matters. It should be the business of the parents or other guardians of every adolescent youth and girl to arrange that, once at least at this period of life, there should be a private, personal interview with a medical man to afford an opportunity for a friendly and confidential talk concerning the main points of sexual hygiene. The family doctor would be the best for this duty because he would be familiar with the personal temperament of the youth and the family tendencies.[37] In the case of girls a woman doctor would often be preferred. Sex is properly a mystery; and to the unspoilt youth, it is instinctively so; except in an abstract and technical form it cannot properly form the subject of lectures. In a private and individualized conversation between the novice in life and the expert, it is possible to say many necessary things that could not be said in public, and it is possible, moreover, for the youth to ask questions which shyness and reserve make it impossible to put to parents, while the convenient opportunity of putting them naturally to the expert otherwise seldom or never occurs. Most youths have their own special ignorances, their own special difficulties, difficulties and ignorances that could sometimes be resolved by a word. Yet it by no means infrequently happens that they carry them far on into adult life because they have lacked the opportunity, or the skill and assurance to create the opportunity, of obtaining enlightenment. It must be clearly understood that these talks are of medical, hygienic, and physiological character; they are not to be used for retailing moral platitudes. To make them that would be a fatal mistake. The young are often very hostile to merely conventional moral maxims, and suspect their hollowness, not always without reason. The end to be aimed at here is enlightenment. Certainly knowledge can never be immoral, but nothing is gained by jumbling up knowledge and morality together. In emphasizing the nature of the physician's task in this matter as purely and simply that of wise practical enlightenment, nothing is implied against the advantages, and indeed the immense value in sexual hygiene, of the moral, religious, ideal elements of life. It is not the primary business of the physician to inspire these, but they have a very intimate relation with the sexual life, and every boy and girl at puberty, and never before puberty, should be granted the privilege--and not the duty or the task--of initiation into those elements of the world's life which are, at the same time, natural functions of the adolescent soul. Here, however, is the sphere of the religious or ethical teacher. At puberty he has his great opportunity, the greatest he can ever obtain. The flower of sex that blossoms in the body at puberty has its spiritual counterpart which at the same moment blossoms in the soul. The churches from of old have recognized the religious significance of this moment, for it is this period of life that they have appointed as the time of confirmation and similar rites. With the progress of the ages, it is true, such rites become merely formal and apparently meaningless fossils. But they have a meaning nevertheless, and are capable of being again vitalized. Nor in their spirit and essence should they be confined to those who accept supernaturally revealed religion. They concern all ethical teachers, who must realize that it is at puberty that they are called upon to inspire or to fortify the great ideal aspirations which at this period tend spontaneously to arise in the youth's or maiden's soul.[38] The age of puberty, I have said, marks the period at which this new kind of sexual initiation is called for. Before puberty, although the psychic emotion of love frequently develops, as well as sometimes physical sexual emotions that are mostly vague and diffused, definite and localized sexual sensations are rare. For the normal boy or girl love is usually an unspecialized emotion; it is in Guyau's words "a state in which the body has but the smallest place." At the first rising of the sun of sex the boy or girl sees, as Blake said he saw at sunrise, not a round yellow body emerging above the horizon, or any other physical manifestation, but a great company of singing angels. With the definite eruption of physical sexual manifestation and desire, whether at puberty or later in adolescence, a new turbulent disturbing influence appears. Against the force of this influence, mere intellectual enlightenment, or even loving maternal counsel--the agencies we have so far been concerned with--may be powerless. In gaining control of it we must find our auxiliary in the fact that puberty is the efflorescence not only of a new physical but a new psychic force. The ideal world naturally unfolds itself to the boy or girl at puberty. The magic of beauty, the instinct of modesty, the naturalness of self-restraint, the idea of unselfish love, the meaning of duty, the feeling for art and poetry, the craving for religious conceptions and emotions--all these things awake spontaneously in the unspoiled boy or girl at puberty. I say "unspoiled," for if these things have been thrust on the child before puberty when they have yet no meaning for him--as is unfortunately far too often done, more especially as regards religious notions--then it is but too likely that he will fail to react properly at that moment of his development when he would otherwise naturally respond to them. Under natural conditions this is the period for spiritual initiation. Now, and not before, is the time for the religious or ethical teacher as the case may be--for all religions and ethical systems may equally adapt themselves to this task--to take the boy or girl in hand, not with any special and obtrusive reference to the sexual impulses but for the purpose of assisting the development and manifestation of this psychic puberty, of indirectly aiding the young soul to escape from sexual dangers by harnessing his chariot to a star that may help to save it from sticking fast in any miry ruts of the flesh. Such an initiation, it is important to remark, is more than an introduction to the sphere of religious sentiment. It is an initiation into manhood, it must involve a recognition of the masculine even more than of the feminine virtues. This has been well understood by the finest primitive races. They constantly give their boys and girls an initiation at puberty; it is an initiation that involves not merely education in the ordinary sense, but a stern discipline of the character, feats of endurance, the trial of character, the testing of the muscles of the soul as much as of the body. Ceremonies of initiation into manhood at puberty--involving physical and mental discipline, as well as instruction, lasting for weeks or months, and never identical for both sexes--are common among savages in all parts of the world. They nearly always involve the endurance of a certain amount of pain and hardship, a wise measure of training which the softness of civilization has too foolishly allowed to drop, for the ability to endure hardness is an essential condition of all real manhood. It is as a corrective to this tendency to flabbiness in modern education that the teaching of Nietzsche is so invaluable. The initiation of boys among the natives of Torres Straits has been elaborately described by A.C. Haddon (_Reports Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. v, Chs. VII and XII). It lasts a month, involves much severe training and power of endurance, and includes admirable moral instruction. Haddon remarks that it formed "a very good discipline," and adds, "it is not easy to conceive of a more effectual means for a rapid training." Among the aborigines of Victoria, Australia, the initiatory ceremonies, as described by R.H. Mathews ("Some Initiation Ceremonies," _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1905, Heft 6), last for seven months, and constitute an admirable discipline. The boys are taken away by the elders of the tribe, subjected to many trials of patience and endurance of pain and discomfort, sometimes involving even the swallowing of urine and excrement, brought into contact with strange tribes, taught the laws and folk-lore, and at the end meetings are held at which betrothals are arranged. Among the northern tribes of Central Australia the initiation ceremonies involve circumcision and urethral subincision, as well as hard manual labor and hardships. The initiation of girls into womanhood is accompanied by cutting open of the vagina. These ceremonies have been described by Spencer and Gillen (_Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, Ch. XI). Among various peoples in British East Africa (including the Masai) pubertal initiation is a great ceremonial event extending over a period of many months, and it includes circumcision in boys, and in girls clitoridectomy, as well as, among some tribes, removal of the nymphæ. A girl who winces or cries out during the operation is disgraced among the women and expelled from the settlement. When the ceremony has been satisfactorily completed the boy or girl is marriageable (C. Marsh Beadnell, "Circumcision and Clitoridectomy as Practiced by the Natives of British East Africa," _British Medical Journal_, April 29, 1905). Initiation among the African Bawenda, as described by a missionary, is in three stages: (1) A stage of instruction and discipline during which the traditions and sacred things of the tribe are revealed, the art of warfare taught, self-restraint and endurance borne; then the youths are counted as full-grown. (2) In the next stage the art of dancing is practiced, by each sex separately, during the day. (3) In the final stage, which is that of complete sexual initiation, the two sexes dance together by night; the scene, in the opinion of the good missionary, "does not bear description;" the initiated are now complete adults, with all the privileges and responsibilities of adults (Rev. E. Gottschling, "The Bawenda," _Journal Anthropological Institution_, July to Dec., 1905, p. 372. Cf., an interesting account of the Bawenda Tondo schools by another missionary, Wessmann, _The Bawenda_, pp. 60 et seq.). The initiation of girls in Azimba Land, Central Africa, has been fully and interestingly described by H. Crawford Angus ("The Chensamwali' or Initiation Ceremony of Girls," _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1898, Heft 6). At the first sign of menstruation the girl is taken by her mother out of the village to a grass hut prepared for her where only the women are allowed to visit her. At the end of menstruation she is taken to a secluded spot and the women dance round her, no men being present. It was only with much difficulty that Angus was enabled to witness the ceremony. The girl is then informed in regard to the hygiene of menstruation. "Many songs about the relations between men and women are sung, and the girl is instructed as to all her duties when she becomes a wife.... The girl is taught to be faithful to her husband, and to try and bear children. The whole matter is looked upon as a matter of course, and not as a thing to be ashamed of or to hide, and being thus openly treated of and no secrecy made about it, you find in this tribe that the women are very virtuous, because the subject of married life has no glamour for them. When a woman is pregnant she is again danced; this time all the dancers are naked, and she is taught how to behave and what to do when the time of her delivery arrives." Among the Yuman Indians of California, as described by Horatio Rust ("A Puberty Ceremony of the Mission Indians," _American Anthropologist_, Jan. to March, 1906, p. 28) the girls are at puberty prepared for marriage by a ceremony. They are wrapped in blankets and placed in a warm pit, where they lie looking very happy as they peer out through their covers. For four days and nights they lie here (occasionally going away for food), while the old women of the tribe dance and sing round the pit constantly. At times the old women throw silver coins among the crowd to teach the girls to be generous. They also give away cloth and wheat, to teach them to be kind to the old and needy; and they sow wild seeds broadcast over the girls to cause them to be prolific. Finally, all strangers are ordered away, garlands are placed on the girls' heads, and they are led to a hillside and shown the large and sacred stone, symbolical of the female organs of generation and resembling them, which is said to protect women. Then grain is thrown over all present, and the ceremony is over. The Thlinkeet Eskimo women were long noted for their fine qualities. At puberty they were secluded, sometimes for a whole year, being kept in darkness, suffering, and filth. Yet defective and unsatisfactory as this initiation was, "Langsdorf suggests," says Bancroft (_Native Races of Pacific_, vol. i, p. 110), referring to the virtues of the Thlinkeet woman, "that it may be during this period of confinement that the foundation of her influence is laid; that in modest reserve and meditation her character is strengthened, and she comes forth cleansed in mind as well as body." We have lost these ancient and invaluable rites of initiation into manhood and womanhood, with their inestimable moral benefits; at the most we have merely preserved the shells of initiation in which the core has decayed. In time, we cannot doubt, they will be revived in modern forms. At present the spiritual initiation of youths and maidens is left to the chances of some happy accident, and usually it is of a purely cerebral character which cannot be perfectly wholesome, and is at the best absurdly incomplete. This cerebral initiation commonly occurs to the youth through the medium of literature. The influence of literature in sexual education thus extends, in an incalculable degree, beyond the narrow sphere of manuals on sexual hygiene, however admirable and desirable these may be. The greater part of literature is more or less distinctly penetrated by erotic and auto-erotic conceptions and impulses; nearly all imaginative literature proceeds from the root of sex to flower in visions of beauty and ecstasy. The Divine Comedy of Dante is herein the immortal type of the poet's evolution. The youth becomes acquainted with the imaginative representations of love before he becomes acquainted with the reality of love, so that, as Leo Berg puts it, "the way to love among civilized peoples passes through imagination." All literature is thus, to the adolescent soul, a part of sexual education.[39] It depends, to some extent, though fortunately not entirely, on the judgment of those in authority over the young soul whether the literature to which the youth or girl is admitted is or is not of the large and humanizing order. All great literature touches nakedly and sanely on the central facts of sex. It is always consoling to remember this in an age of petty pruderies. And it is a satisfaction to know that it would not be possible to emasculate the literature of the great ages, however desirable it might seem to the men of more degenerate ages, or to close the avenues to that literature against the young. All our religious and literary traditions serve to fortify the position of the Bible and of Shakespeare. "So many men and women," writes a correspondent, a literary man, "gain sexual ideas in childhood from reading the Old Testament, that the Bible may be called an erotic text-book. Most persons of either sex with whom I have conversed on the subject, say that the Books of Moses, and the stories of Amnon and Tamar, Lot and his daughters, Potiphar's wife and Joseph, etc., caused speculation and curiosity, and gave them information of the sexual relationship. A boy and girl of fifteen, both friends of the writer, and now over thirty years of age, used to find out erotic passages in the Bible on Sunday mornings, while in a Dissenting chapel, and pass their Bibles to one another, with their fingers on the portions that interested them." In the same way many a young woman has borrowed Shakespeare in order to read the glowing erotic poetry of _Venus and Adonis_, which her friends have told her about. The Bible, it may be remarked, is not in every respect, a model introduction for the young mind to the questions of sex. But even its frank acceptance, as of divine origin, of sexual rules so unlike those that are nominally our own, such as polygamy and concubinage, helps to enlarge the vision of the youthful mind by showing that the rules surrounding the child are not those everywhere and always valid, while the nakedness and realism of the Bible cannot but be a wholesome and tonic corrective to conventional pruderies. We must, indeed, always protest against the absurd confusion whereby nakedness of speech is regarded as equivalent to immorality, and not the less because it is often adopted even in what are regarded as intellectual quarters. When in the House of Lords, in the last century, the question of the exclusion of Byron's statue from Westminster Abbey was under discussion, Lord Brougham "denied that Shakespeare was more moral than Byron. He could, on the contrary, point out in a single page of Shakespeare more grossness than was to be found in all Lord Byron's works." The conclusion Brougham thus reached, that Byron is an incomparably more moral writer than Shakespeare, ought to have been a sufficient _reductio ad absurdum_ of his argument, but it does not appear that anyone pointed out the vulgar confusion into which he had fallen. It may be said that the special attractiveness which the nakedness of great literature sometimes possesses for young minds is unwholesome. But it must be remembered that the peculiar interest of this element is merely due to the fact that elsewhere there is an inveterate and abnormal concealment. It must also be said that the statements of the great writers about natural things are never degrading, nor even erotically exciting to the young, and what Emilia Pardo Bazan tells of herself and her delight when a child in the historical books of the Old Testament, that the crude passages in them failed to send the faintest cloud of trouble across her young imagination, is equally true of most children. It is necessary, indeed, that these naked and serious things should be left standing, even if only to counterbalance the lewdly comic efforts to besmirch love and sex, which are visible to all in every low-class bookseller's shop window. This point of view was vigorously championed by the speakers on sexual education at the Third Congress of the German Gesellschaft zur Bekämpfung der Geschlechtskrankheiten in 1907. Thus Enderlin, speaking as a headmaster, protested against the custom of bowdlerizing poems and folk-songs for the use of children, and thus robbing them of the finest introduction to purified sexual impulses and the highest sphere of emotion, while at the same time they are recklessly exposed to the "psychic infection" of the vulgar comic papers everywhere exposed for sale. "So long as children are too young to respond to erotic poetry it cannot hurt them; when they are old enough to respond it can only benefit them by opening to them the highest and purest channels of human emotion" (_Sexualpädagogik_, p. 60). Professor Schäfenacker (id., p. 98) expresses himself in the same sense, and remarks that "the method of removing from school-books all those passages which, in the opinion of short-sighted and narrow-hearted schoolmasters, are unsuited for youth, must be decisively condemned." Every healthy boy and girl who has reached the age of puberty may be safely allowed to ramble in any good library, however varied its contents. So far from needing guidance they will usually show a much more refined taste than their elders. At this age, when the emotions are still virginal and sensitive, the things that are realistic, ugly, or morbid, jar on the young spirit and are cast aside, though in adult life, with the coarsening of mental texture which comes of years and experience, this repugnance, doubtless by an equally sound and natural instinct, may become much less acute. Ellen Key in Ch. VI of her _Century of the Child_ well summarizes the reasons against the practice of selecting for children books that are "suitable" for them, a practice which she considers one of the follies of modern education. The child should be free to read all great literature, and will himself instinctively put aside the things he is not yet ripe for. His cooler senses are undisturbed by scenes that his elders find too exciting, while even at a later stage it is not the nakedness of great literature, but much more the method of the modern novel, which is likely to stain the imagination, falsify reality and injure taste. It is concealment which misleads and coarsens, producing a state of mind in which even the Bible becomes a stimulus to the senses. The writings of the great masters yield the imaginative food which the child craves, and the erotic moment in them is too brief to be overheating. It is the more necessary, Ellen Key remarks, for children to be introduced to great literature, since they often have little opportunity to occupy themselves with it in later life. Many years earlier Ruskin, in _Sesame and Lilies_, had eloquently urged that even young girls should be allowed to range freely in libraries. What has been said about literature applies equally to art. Art, as well as literature, and in the same indirect way, can be made a valuable aid in the task of sexual enlightenment and sexual hygiene. Modern art may, indeed, for the most part, be ignored from this point of view, but children cannot be too early familiarized with the representations of the nude in ancient sculpture and in the paintings of the old masters of the Italian school. In this way they may be immunized, as Enderlin expresses it, against those representations of the nude which make an appeal to the baser instincts. Early familiarity with nudity in art is at the same time an aid to the attainment of a proper attitude towards purity in nature. "He who has once learnt," as Höller remarks, "to enjoy peacefully nakedness in art, will be able to look on nakedness in nature as on a work of art." Casts of classic nude statues and reproductions of the pictures of the old Venetian and other Italian masters may fittingly be used to adorn schoolrooms, not so much as objects of instruction as things of beauty with which the child cannot too early become familiarized. In Italy it is said to be usual for school classes to be taken by their teachers to the art museums with good results; such visits form part of the official scheme of education. There can be no doubt that such early familiarity with the beauty of nudity in classic art is widely needed among all social classes and in many countries. It is to this defect of our education that we must attribute the occasional, and indeed in America and England frequent, occurrence of such incidents as petitions and protests against the exhibition of nude statuary in art museums, the display of pictures so inoffensive as Leighton's "Bath of Psyche" in shop windows, and the demand for the draping of the naked personifications of abstract virtues in architectural street decoration. So imperfect is still the education of the multitude that in these matters the ill-bred fanatic of pruriency usually gains his will. Such a state of things cannot but have an unwholesome reaction on the moral atmosphere of the community in which it is possible. Even from the religious point of view, prurient prudery is not justifiable. Northcote has very temperately and sensibly discussed the question of the nude in art from the standpoint of Christian morality. He points out that not only is the nude in art not to be condemned without qualification, and that the nude is by no means necessarily the erotic, but he also adds that even erotic art, in its best and purest manifestations, only arouses emotions that are the legitimate object of man's aspirations. It would be impossible even to represent Biblical stories adequately on canvas or in marble if erotic art were to be tabooed (Rev. H. Northcote, _Christianity and Sex Problems_, Ch. XIV). Early familiarity with the nude in classic and early Italian art should be combined at puberty with an equal familiarity with photographs of beautiful and naturally developed nude models. In former years books containing such pictures in a suitable and attractive manner to place before the young were difficult to procure. Now this difficulty no longer exists. Dr. C.H. Stratz, of The Hague, has been the pioneer in this matter, and in a series of beautiful books (notably in _Der Körper des Kindes, Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers_ and _Die Rassenschönheit des Weibes_, all published by Enke in Stuttgart), he has brought together a large number of admirably selected photographs of nude but entirely chaste figures. More recently Dr. Shufeldt, of Washington (who dedicates his work to Stratz), has published his _Studies of the Human Form_ in which, in the same spirit, he has brought together the results of his own studies of the naked human form during many years. It is necessary to correct the impressions received from classic sources by good photographic illustrations on account of the false conventions prevailing in classic works, though those conventions were not necessarily false for the artists who originated them. The omission of the pudendal hair, in representations of the nude was, for instance, quite natural for the people of countries still under Oriental influence are accustomed to remove the hair from the body. If, however, under quite different conditions, we perpetuate that artistic convention to-day, we put ourselves into a perverse relation to nature. There is ample evidence of this. "There is one convention so ancient, so necessary, so universal," writes Mr. Frederic Harrison (_Nineteenth Century and After_, Aug., 1907), "that its deliberate defiance to-day may arouse the bile of the least squeamish of men and should make women withdraw at once." If boys and girls were brought up at their mother's knees in familiarity with pictures of beautiful and natural nakedness, it would be impossible for anyone to write such silly and shameful words as these. There can be no doubt that among ourselves the simple and direct attitude of the child towards nakedness is so early crushed out of him that intelligent education is necessary in order that he may be enabled to discern what is and what is not obscene. To the plough-boy and the country servant-girl all nakedness, including that of Greek statuary, is alike shameful or lustful. "I have a picture of women like that," said a countryman with a grin, as he pointed to a photograph of one of Tintoret's most beautiful groups, "smoking cigarettes." And the mass of people in most northern countries have still passed little beyond this stage of discernment; in ability to distinguish between the beautiful and the obscene they are still on the level of the plough-boy and the servant-girl. FOOTNOTES: [18] These manifestations have been dealt with in the study of Autoerotism in vol. i of the present _Studies_. It may be added that the sexual life of the child has been exhaustively investigated by Moll, _Das Sexualleben des Kindes_, 1909. [19] This genital efflorescence in the sexual glands and breasts at birth or in early infancy has been discussed in a Paris thesis, by Camille Renouf (_La Crise Génital et les Manifestations Connexes chez le Foetus et le Nouveau-né_, 1905); he is unable to offer a satisfactory explanation of these phenomena. [20] Amélineau, _La Morale des Egyptiens_, p. 64. [21] "The Social Evil in Philadelphia," _Arena_, March, 1896. [22] Moll, _Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, p. 592. [23] This powerlessness of the law and the police is well recognized by lawyers familiar with the matter. Thus F. Werthauer (_Sittlichkeitsdelikte der Grosstadt_, 1907) insists throughout on the importance of parents and teachers imparting to children from their early years a progressively increasing knowledge of sexual matters. [24] "Parents must be taught how to impart information," remarks E.L. Keyes ("Education upon Sexual Matters," _New York Medical Journal_, Feb. 10, 1906), "and this teaching of the parent should begin when he is himself a child." [25] Moll (op. cit., p. 224) argues well how impossible it is to preserve children from sights and influence connected with the sexual life. [26] Girls are not even prepared, in many cases, for the appearance of the pubic hair. This unexpected growth of hair frequently causes young girls much secret worry, and often they carefully cut it off. [27] G.S. Hall, _Adolescence_, vol. i, p. 511. Many years ago, in 1875, the late Dr. Clarke, in his _Sex in Education_, advised menstrual rest for girls, and thereby aroused a violent opposition which would certainly not be found nowadays, when the special risks of womanhood are becoming more clearly understood. [28] For a summary of the physical and mental phenomena of the menstrual period, see Havelock Ellis: _Man and Woman_, Ch. XI. The primitive conception of menstruation is briefly discussed in Appendix A to the first volume of these _Studies_, and more elaborately by J.G. Frazer in _The Golden Bough_. A large collection of facts with regard to the menstrual seclusion of women throughout the world will be found in Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_. The pubertal seclusion of girls at Torres Straits has been especially studied by Seligmann, _Reports Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. v, Ch. VI. [29] Thus Miss Lura Sanborn, Director of Physical Training at the Chicago Normal School, found that a bath once a fortnight was not unusual. At the menstrual period especially there is still a superstitious dread of water. Girls should always be taught that at this period, above all, cleanliness is imperatively necessary. There should be a tepid hip bath night and morning, and a vaginal douche (which should never be cold) is always advantageous, both for comfort as well as cleanliness. There is not the slightest reason to dread water during menstruation. This point was discussed a few years ago in the _British Medical Journal_ with complete unanimity of opinion. A distinguished American obstetrician, also, Dr. J. Clifton Edgar, after a careful study of opinion and practice in this matter ("Bathing During the Menstrual Period," _American Journal Obstetrics_, Sept., 1900), concludes that it is possible and beneficial to take cold baths (though not sea-baths) during the period, provided due precautions are observed, and that there are no sudden changes of habits. Such a course should not be indiscriminately adopted, but there can be no doubt that in sturdy peasant women who are inured to it early in life even prolonged immersion in the sea in fishing has no evil results, and is even beneficial. Houzel (_Annales de Gynécologie_, Dec., 1894) has published statistics of the menstrual life of 123 fisherwomen on the French coast. They were accustomed to shrimp for hours at a time in the sea, often to above the waist, and then walk about in their wet clothes selling the shrimps. They all insisted that their menstruation was easier when they were actively at work. Their periods are notably regular, and their fertility is high. [30] J.H. McBride, "The Life and Health of Our Girls in Relation to Their Future," _Alienist and Neurologist_, Feb., 1904. [31] W.G. Chambers, "The Evolution of Ideals," _Pedagogical Seminary_, March, 1903; Catherine Dodd, "School Children's Ideals," _National Review_, Feb. and Dec., 1900, and June, 1901. No German girls acknowledged a wish to be men; they said it would be wicked. Among Flemish girls, however, Varendonck found at Ghent (_Archives de Psychologie_, July, 1908) that 26 per cent. had men as their ideals. [32] A. Reibmayr, _Die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Talentes und Genies_, 1908, Bd. i, p. 70. [33] R. Hellmann, _Ueber Geschlechtsfreiheit_, p. 14. [34] This belief seems frequent among young girls in Continental Europe. It forms the subject of one of Marcel Prevost's _Lettres de Femmes_. In Austria, according to Freud, it is not uncommon, exclusively among girls. [35] Yet, according to English law, rape is a crime which it is impossible for a husband to commit on his wife (see, e.g., Nevill Geary, _The Law of Marriage_, Ch. XV, Sect. V). The performance of the marriage ceremony, however, even if it necessarily involved a clear explanation of marital privileges, cannot be regarded as adequate justification for an act of sexual intercourse performed with violence or without the wife's consent. [36] Hirschfeld, _Jahrbuch für Sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, 1903, p. 88. It may be added that a horror of coitus is not necessarily due to bad education, and may also occur in hereditarily degenerate women, whose ancestors have shown similar or allied mental peculiarities. A case of such "functional impotence" has been reported in a young Italian wife of twenty-one, who was otherwise healthy, and strongly attached to her husband. The marriage was annulled on the ground that "rudimentary sexual or emotional paranoia, which renders a wife invincibly refractory to sexual union, notwithstanding the integrity of the sexual organs, constitutes psychic functional impotence" (_Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1906, fasc. vi, p. 806). [37] The reasonableness of this step is so obvious that it should scarcely need insistence. "The instruction of school-boys and school-girls is most adequately effected by an elderly doctor," Näcke remarks, "sometimes perhaps the school-doctor." "I strongly advocate," says Clouston (_The Hygiene of Mind_, p. 249), "that the family doctor, guided by the parent and the teacher, is by far the best instructor and monitor." Moll is of the same opinion. [38] I have further developed this argument in "Religion and the Child," _Nineteenth Century and After_, 1907. [39] The intimate relation of art and poetry to the sexual impulse has been realized in a fragmentary way by many who have not attained to any wide vision of auto-erotic activity in life. "Poetry is necessarily related to the sexual function," says Metchnikoff (_Essais Optimistes_, p. 352), who also quotes with approval the statement of Möbius (previously made by Ferrero and many others) that "artistic aptitudes must probably be considered as secondary sexual characters." CHAPTER III. SEXUAL EDUCATION AND NAKEDNESS. The Greek Attitude Towards Nakedness--How the Romans Modified That Attitude--The Influence of Christianity--Nakedness in Mediæval Times--Evolution of the Horror of Nakedness--Concomitant Change in the Conception of Nakedness--Prudery--The Romantic Movement--Rise of a New Feeling in Regard to Nakedness--The Hygienic Aspect of Nakedness--How Children May Be Accustomed to Nakedness--Nakedness Not Inimical to Modesty--The Instinct of Physical Pride--The Value of Nakedness in Education--The Æsthetic Value of Nakedness--The Human Body as One of the Prime Tonics of Life--How Nakedness May Be Cultivated--The Moral Value of Nakedness. The discussion of the value of nakedness in art leads us on to the allied question of nakedness in nature. What is the psychological influence of familiarity with nakedness? How far should children be made familiar with the naked body? This is a question in regard to which different opinions have been held in different ages, and during recent years a remarkable change has begun to come over the minds of practical educationalists in regard to it. In Sparta, in Chios, and elsewhere in Greece, women at one time practiced gymnastic feats and dances in nakedness, together with the men, or in their presence.[40] Plato in his _Republic_ approved of such customs and said that the ridicule of those who laughed at them was but "unripe fruit plucked from the tree of knowledge." On many questions Plato's opinions changed, but not on this. In the _Laws_, which are the last outcome of his philosophic reflection in old age, he still advocates (Bk. viii) a similar co-education of the sexes and their coöperation in all the works of life, in part with a view to blunt the over-keen edge of sexual appetite; with the same object he advocated the association together of youths and girls without constraint in costumes which offered no concealment to the form. It is noteworthy that the Romans, a coarser-grained people than the Greeks and in our narrow modern sense more "moral," showed no perception of the moralizing and refining influence of nakedness. Nudity to them was merely a licentious indulgence, to be treated with contempt even when it was enjoyed. It was confined to the stage, and clamored for by the populace. In the Floralia, especially, the crowd seem to have claimed it as their right that the actors should play naked, probably, it has been thought, as a survival of a folk-ritual. But the Romans, though they were eager to run to the theatre, felt nothing but disdain for the performers. "Flagitii principium est, nudare inter cives corpora." So thought old Ennius, as reported by Cicero, and that remained the genuine Roman feeling to the last. "Quanta perversitas!" as Tertullian exclaimed. "Artem magnificant, artificem notant."[41] In this matter the Romans, although they aroused the horror of the Christians, were yet in reality laying the foundation of Christian morality. Christianity, which found so many of Plato's opinions congenial, would have nothing to do with his view of nakedness and failed to recognize its psychological correctness. The reason was simple, and indeed simple-minded. The Church was passionately eager to fight against what it called "the flesh," and thus fell into the error of confusing the subjective question of sexual desire with the objective spectacle of the naked form. "The flesh" is evil; therefore, "the flesh" must be hidden. And they hid it, without understanding that in so doing they had not suppressed the craving for the human form, but, on the contrary, had heightened it by imparting to it the additional fascination of a forbidden mystery. Burton, in his _Anatomy of Melancholy_ (Part III, Sect II, Mem. II, Subs. IV), referring to the recommendations of Plato, adds: "But _Eusebius_ and _Theodoret_ worthily lash him for it; and well they might: for as one saith, the very sight of naked parts, _causeth enormous, exceeding concupiscences, and stirs up both men and women to burning lust_." Yet, as Burton himself adds further on in the same section of his work (Mem. V, Subs. III), without protest, "some are of opinion, that to see a woman naked, is able of itself to alter his affection; and it is worthy of consideration, saith _Montaigne_, the Frenchman, in his Essays, that the skilfullest masters of amorous dalliance appoint for a remedy of venereous passions, a full survey of the body." There ought to be no question regarding the fact that it is the adorned, the partially concealed body, and not the absolutely naked body, which acts as a sexual excitant. I have brought together some evidence on this point in the study of "The Evolution of Modesty." "In Madagascar, West Africa, and the Cape," says G.F. Scott Elliot (_A Naturalist in Mid-Africa_, p. 36), "I have always found the same rule. Chastity varies inversely as the amount of clothing." It is now indeed generally held that one of the chief primary objects of ornament and clothing was the stimulation of sexual desire, and artists' models are well aware that when they are completely unclothed, they are most safe from undesired masculine advances. "A favorite model of mine told me," remarks Dr. Shufeldt (_Medical Brief_, Oct., 1904), the distinguished author of _Studies of the Human Form_, "that it was her practice to disrobe as soon after entering the artist's studio as possible, for, as men are not always responsible for their emotions, she felt that she was far less likely to arouse or excite them when entirely nude than when only semi-draped." This fact is, indeed, quite familiar to artists' models. If the conquest of sexual desire were the first and last consideration of life it would be more reasonable to prohibit clothing than to prohibit nakedness. When Christianity absorbed the whole of the European world this strict avoidance of even the sight of "the flesh," although nominally accepted by all as the desirable ideal, could only be carried out, thoroughly and completely, in the cloister. In the practice of the world outside, although the original Christian ideals remained influential, various pagan and primitive traditions in favor of nakedness still persisted, and were, to some extent, allowed to manifest themselves, alike in ordinary custom and on special occasions. How widespread is the occasional or habitual practice of nakedness in the world generally, and how entirely concordant it is with even a most sensitive modesty, has been set forth in "The Evolution of Modesty," in vol. i of these _Studies_. Even during the Christian era the impulse to adopt nudity, often with the feeling that it was an especially sacred practice, has persisted. The Adamites of the second century, who read and prayed naked, and celebrated the sacrament naked, according to the statement quoted by St. Augustine, seem to have caused little scandal so long as they only practiced nudity in their sacred ceremonies. The German Brethren of the Free Spirit, in the thirteenth century, combined so much chastity with promiscuous nakedness that orthodox Catholics believed they were assisted by the Devil. The French Picards, at a much later date, insisted on public nakedness, believing that God had sent their leader into the world as a new Adam to reestablish the law of Nature; they were persecuted and were finally exterminated by the Hussites. In daily life, however, a considerable degree of nakedness was tolerated during mediæval times. This was notably so in the public baths, frequented by men and women together. Thus Alwin Schultz remarks (in his _Höfische Leben zur Zeit der Minnesänger_), that the women of the aristocratic classes, though not the men, were often naked in these baths except for a hat and a necklace. It is sometimes stated that in the mediæval religious plays Adam and Eve were absolutely naked. Chambers doubts this, and thinks they wore flesh-colored tights, or were, as in a later play of this kind, "apparelled in white leather" (E.K. Chambers, _The Mediæval Stage_, vol. i, p. 5). It may be so, but the public exposure even of the sexual organs was permitted, and that in aristocratic houses, for John of Salisbury (in a passage quoted by Buckle, _Commonplace Book_, 541) protests against this custom. The women of the feminist sixteenth century in France, as R. de Maulde la Clavière remarks (_Revue de l'Art_, Jan., 1898), had no scruple in recompensing their adorers by admitting them to their toilette, or even their bath. Late in the century they became still less prudish, and many well-known ladies allowed themselves to be painted naked down to the waist, as we see in the portrait of "Gabrielle d'Estrées au Bain" at Chantilly. Many of these pictures, however, are certainly not real portraits. Even in the middle of the seventeenth century in England nakedness was not prohibited in public, for Pepys tells us that on July 29, 1667, a Quaker came into Westminster Hall, crying, "Repent! Repent!" being in a state of nakedness, except that he was "very civilly tied about the privities to avoid scandal." (This was doubtless Solomon Eccles, who was accustomed to go about in this costume, both before and after the Restoration. He had been a distinguished musician, and, though eccentric, was apparently not insane.) In a chapter, "De la Nudité," and in the appendices of his book, _De l'Amour_ (vol. i, p. 221), Sénancour gives instances of the occasional practice of nudity in Europe, and adds some interesting remarks of his own; so, also, Dulaure (_Des Divinités Génératrices_, Ch. XV). It would appear, as a rule, that though complete nudity was allowed in other respects, it was usual to cover the sexual parts. The movement of revolt against nakedness never became completely victorious until the nineteenth century. That century represented the triumph of all the forces that banned public nakedness everywhere and altogether. If, as Pudor insists, nakedness is aristocratic and the slavery of clothes a plebeian characteristic imposed on the lower classes by an upper class who reserved to themselves the privilege of physical culture, we may perhaps connect this with the outburst of democratic plebeianism which, as Nietzsche pointed out, reached its climax in the nineteenth century. It is in any case certainly interesting to observe that by this time the movement had entirely changed its character. It had become general, but at the same time its foundation had been undermined. It had largely lost its religious and moral character, and instead was regarded as a matter of convention. The nineteenth century man who encountered the spectacle of white limbs flashing in the sunlight no longer felt like the mediæval ascetic that he was risking the salvation of his immortal soul or even courting the depravation of his morals; he merely felt that it was "indecent" or, in extreme cases, "disgusting." That is to say he regarded the matter as simply a question of conventional etiquette, at the worst, of taste, of æsthetics. In thus bringing down his repugnance to nakedness to so low a plane he had indeed rendered it generally acceptable, but at the same time he had deprived it of high sanction. His profound horror of nakedness was out of relation to the frivolous grounds on which he based it. We must not, however, under-rate the tenacity with which this horror of nakedness was held. Nothing illustrates more vividly the deeply ingrained hatred which the nineteenth century felt of nakedness than the ferocity--there is no other word for it--with which Christian missionaries to savages all over the world, even in the tropics, insisted on their converts adopting the conventional clothing of Northern Europe. Travellers' narratives abound in references to the emphasis placed by missionaries on this change of custom, which was both injurious to the health of the people and degrading to their dignity. It is sufficient to quote one authoritative witness, Lord Stanmore, formerly Governor of Fiji, who read a long paper to the Anglican Missionary Conference in 1894 on the subject of "Undue Introduction of Western Ways." "In the centre of the village," he remarked in quoting a typical case (and referring not to Fiji but to Tonga), "is the church, a wooden barn-like building. If the day be Sunday, we shall find the native minister arrayed in a greenish-black swallow-tail coat, a neckcloth, once white, and a pair of spectacles, which he probably does not need, preaching to a congregation, the male portion of which is dressed in much the same manner as himself, while the women are dizened out in old battered hats or bonnets, and shapeless gowns like bathing dresses, or it may be in crinolines of an early type. Chiefs of influence and women of high birth, who in their native dress would look, and do look, the ladies and gentlemen they are, are, by their Sunday finery, given the appearance of attendants upon Jack-in-the-Green. If a visit be paid to the houses of the town, after the morning's work of the people is over, the family will be found sitting on chairs, listless and uncomfortable, in a room full of litter. In the houses of the superior native clergy there will be a yet greater aping of the manners of the West. There will be chairs covered with hideous antimacassars, tasteless round worsted-work mats for absent flower jars, and a lot of ugly cheap and vulgar china chimney ornaments, which, there being no fireplace, and consequently no chimney-piece, are set out in order on a rickety deal table. The whole life of these village folk is one piece of unreal acting. They are continually asking themselves whether they are incurring any of the penalties entailed by infraction of the long table of prohibitions, and whether they are living up to the foreign garments they wear. Their faces have, for the most part, an expression of sullen discontent, they move about silently and joylessly, rebels in heart to the restrictive code on them, but which they fear to cast off, partly from a vague apprehension of possible secular results, and partly because they suppose they will cease to be good Christians if they do so. They have good ground for their dissatisfaction. At the time when I visited the villages I have specially in my eye, it was punishable by fine and imprisonment to wear native clothing, punishable by fine and imprisonment to wear long hair or a garland of flowers; punishable by fine or imprisonment to wrestle or to play at ball; punishable by fine and imprisonment to build a native-fashioned house; punishable not to wear shirt and trousers, and in certain localities coat and shoes also; and, in addition to laws enforcing a strictly puritanical observation of the Sabbath, it was punishable by fine and imprisonment to bathe on Sundays. In some other places bathing on Sunday was punishable by flogging; and to my knowledge women have been flogged for no other offense. Men in such circumstances are ripe for revolt, and sometimes the revolt comes." An obvious result of reducing the feeling about nakedness to an unreasoning but imperative convention is the tendency to prudishness. This, as we know, is a form of pseudo-modesty which, being a convention, and not a natural feeling, is capable of unlimited extension. It is by no means confined to modern times or to Christian Europe. The ancient Hebrews were not entirely free from prudishness, and we find in the Old Testament that by a curious euphemism the sexual organs are sometimes referred to as "the feet." The Turks are capable of prudishness. So, indeed, were even the ancient Greeks. "Dion the philosopher tells us," remarks Clement of Alexandria (_Stromates_, Bk. IV, Ch. XIX) "that a certain woman, Lysidica, through excess of modesty, bathed in her clothes, and that Philotera, when she was to enter the bath, gradually drew back her tunic as the water covered her naked parts; and then rising by degrees, put it on." Mincing prudes were found among the early Christians, and their ways are graphically described by St. Jerome in one of his letters to Eustochium: "These women," he says, "speak between their teeth or with the edge of the lips, and with a lisping tongue, only half pronouncing their words, because they regard as gross whatever is natural. Such as these," declares Jerome, the scholar in him overcoming the ascetic, "corrupt even language." Whenever a new and artificial "modesty" is imposed upon savages prudery tends to arise. Haddon describes this among the natives of Torres Straits, where even the children now suffer from exaggerated prudishness, though formerly absolutely naked and unashamed (_Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. v, p. 271). The nineteenth century, which witnessed the triumph of timidity and prudery in this matter, also produced the first fruitful germ of new conceptions of nakedness. To some extent these were embodied in the great Romantic movement. Rousseau, indeed, had placed no special insistence on nakedness as an element of the return to Nature which he preached so influentially. A new feeling in this matter emerged, however, with characteristic extravagance, in some of the episodes of the Revolution, while in Germany in the pioneering _Lucinde_ of Friedrich Schlegel, a characteristic figure in the Romantic movement, a still unfamiliar conception of the body was set forth in a serious and earnest spirit. In England, Blake with his strange and flaming genius, proclaimed a mystical gospel which involved the spiritual glorification of the body and contempt for the civilized worship of clothes ("As to a modern man," he wrote, "stripped from his load of clothing he is like a dead corpse"); while, later, in America, Thoreau and Whitman and Burroughs asserted, still more definitely, a not dissimilar message concerning the need of returning to Nature. We find the importance of the sight of the body--though very narrowly, for the avoidance of fraud in the preliminaries of marriage--set forth as early as the sixteenth century by Sir Thomas More in his _Utopia_, which is so rich in new and fruitful ideas. In Utopia, according to Sir Thomas More, before marriage, a staid and honest matron "showeth the woman, be she maid or widow, naked to the wooer. And likewise a sage and discreet man exhibiteth the wooer naked to the woman. At this custom we laughed and disallowed it as foolish. But they, on their part, do greatly wonder at the folly of all other nations which, in buying a colt where a little money is in hazard, be so chary and circumspect that though he be almost all bare, yet they will not buy him unless the saddle and all the harness be taken off, lest under these coverings be hid some gall or sore. And yet, in choosing a wife, which shall be either pleasure or displeasure to them all their life after, they be so reckless that all the residue of the woman's body being covered with clothes, they estimate her scarcely by one handsbreadth (for they can see no more but her face) and so join her to them, not without great jeopardy of evil agreeing together, if anything in her body afterward should chance to offend or mislike them. Verily, so foul deformity may be hid under these coverings that it may quite alienate and take away the man's mind from his wife, when it shall not be lawful for their bodies to be separate again. If such deformity happen by any chance after the marriage is consummate and finished, well, there is no remedy but patience. But it were well done that a law were made whereby all such deceits were eschewed and avoided beforehand." The clear conception of what may be called the spiritual value of nakedness--by no means from More's point of view, but as a part of natural hygiene in the widest sense, and as a high and special aspect of the purifying and ennobling function of beauty--is of much later date. It is not clearly expressed until the time of the Romantic movement at the beginning of the nineteenth century. We have it admirably set forth in Sénancour's _De l'Amour_ (first edition, 1806; fourth and enlarged edition, 1834), which still remains one of the best books on the morality of love. After remarking that nakedness by no means abolishes modesty, he proceeds to advocate occasional partial or complete nudity. "Let us suppose," he remarks, somewhat in the spirit of Plato, "a country in which at certain general festivals the women should be absolutely free to be nearly or even quite naked. Swimming, waltzing, walking, those who thought good to do so might remain unclothed in the presence of men. No doubt the illusions of love would be little known, and passion would see a diminution of its transports. But is it passion that in general ennobles human affairs? We need honest attachments and delicate delights, and all these we may obtain while still preserving our common-sense.... Such nakedness would demand corresponding institutions, strong and simple, and a great respect for those conventions which belong to all times" (Sénancour, _De l'Amour_, vol. i, p. 314). From that time onwards references to the value and desirability of nakedness become more and more frequent in all civilized countries, sometimes mingled with sarcastic allusions to the false conventions we have inherited in this matter. Thus Thoreau writes in his journal on June 12, 1852, as he looks at boys bathing in the river: "The color of their bodies in the sun at a distance is pleasing. I hear the sound of their sport borne over the water. As yet we have not man in Nature. What a singular fact for an angel visitant to this earth to carry back in his note-book, that men were forbidden to expose their bodies under the severest penalties." Iwan Bloch, in Chapter VII of his _Sexual Life of Our Time_, discusses this question of nakedness from the modern point of view, and concludes: "A natural conception of nakedness: that is the watchword of the future. All the hygienic, æsthetic, and moral efforts of our time are pointing in that direction." Stratz, as befits one who has worked so strenuously in the cause of human health and beauty, admirably sets forth the stage which we have now attained in this matter. After pointing out (_Die Frauenkleidung_, third edition, 1904, p. 30) that, in opposition to the pagan world which worshipped naked gods, Christianity developed the idea that nakedness was merely sexual, and therefore immoral, he proceeds: "But over all glimmered on the heavenly heights of the Cross, the naked body of the Saviour. Under that protection there has gradually disengaged itself from the confusion of ideas a new transfigured form of nakedness made free after long struggle. I would call this _artistic nakedness_, for as it was immortalized by the old Greeks through art, so also among us it has been awakened to new life by art. Artistic nakedness is, in its nature, much higher than either the natural or the sensual conception of nakedness. The simple child of Nature sees in nakedness nothing at all; the clothed man sees in the uncovered body only a sensual irritation. But at the highest standpoint man consciously returns to Nature, and recognizes that under the manifold coverings of human fabrication there is hidden the most splendid creature that God has created. One may stand in silent, worshipping wonder before the sight; another may be impelled to imitate and show to his fellow-man what in that holy moment he has seen. But both enjoy the spectacle of human beauty with full consciousness and enlightened purity of thought." It was not, however, so much on these more spiritual sides, but on the side of hygiene, that the nineteenth century furnished its chief practical contribution to the new attitude towards nakedness. Lord Monboddo, the Scotch judge, who was a pioneer in regard to many modern ideas, had already in the eighteenth century realized the hygienic value of "air-baths," and he invented that now familiar name. "Lord Monboddo," says Boswell, in 1777 (_Life of Johnson_, edited by Hill, vol. iii, p. 168) "told me that he awaked every morning at four, and then for his health got up and walked in his room naked, with the window open, which he called taking _an air-bath_." It is said also, I know not on what authority, that he made his beautiful daughters take an air-bath naked on the terrace every morning. Another distinguished man of the same century, Benjamin Franklin, used sometimes to work naked in his study on hygienic grounds, and, it is recorded, once affrighted a servant-girl by opening the door in an absent-minded moment, thus unattired. Rikli seems to have been the apostle of air-baths and sun-baths regarded as a systematic method. He established light-and air-baths over half a century ago at Trieste and elsewhere in Austria. His motto was: "Light, Truth, and Freedom are the motive forces towards the highest development of physical and moral health." Man is not a fish, he declared; light and air are the first conditions of a highly organized life. Solaria for the treatment of a number of different disordered conditions are now commonly established, and most systems of natural therapeutics attach prime importance to light and air, while in medicine generally it is beginning to be recognized that such influences can by no means be neglected. Dr. Fernand Sandoz, in his _Introduction à la Thérapeutique Naturiste par les agents Physiques et Dietétiques_ (1907) sets forth such methods comprehensively. In Germany sun-baths have become widely common; thus Lenkei (in a paper summarized in _British Medical Journal_, Oct. 31, 1908) prescribes them with much benefit in tuberculosis, rheumatic conditions, obesity, anæmia, neurasthenia, etc. He considers that their peculiar value lies in the action of light. Professor J.N. Hyde, of Chicago, even believes ("Light-Hunger in the Production of Psoriasis," _British Medical Journal_, Oct. 6, 1906), that psoriasis is caused by deficiency of sunlight, and is best cured by the application of light. This belief, which has not, however, been generally accepted in its unqualified form, he ingeniously supports by the fact that psoriasis tends to appear on the most exposed parts of the body, which may be held to naturally receive and require the maximum of light, and by the absence of the disease in hot countries and among negroes. The hygienic value of nakedness is indicated by the robust health of the savages throughout the world who go naked. The vigor of the Irish, also, has been connected with the fact that (as Fynes Moryson's _Itinerary_ shows) both sexes, even among persons of high social class, were accustomed to go naked except for a mantle, especially in more remote parts of the country, as late as the seventeenth century. Where-ever primitive races abandon nakedness for clothing, at once the tendency to disease, mortality, and degeneracy notably increases, though it must be remembered that the use of clothing is commonly accompanied by the introduction of other bad habits. "Nakedness is the only condition universal among vigorous and healthy savages; at every other point perhaps they differ," remarks Frederick Boyle in a paper ("Savages and Clothes," _Monthly Review_, Sept., 1905) in which he brings together much evidence concerning the hygienic advantages of the natural human state in which man is "all face." It is in Germany that a return towards nakedness has been most ably and thoroughly advocated, notably by Dr. H. Pudor in his _Nackt-Cultur_, and by R. Ungewitter in _Die Nacktheit_ (first published in 1905), a book which has had a very large circulation in many editions. These writers enthusiastically advocate nakedness, not only on hygienic, but on moral and artistic grounds. Pudor insists more especially that "nakedness, both in gymnastics and in sport, is a method of cure and a method of regeneration;" he advocates co-education in this culture of nakedness. Although he makes large claims for nakedness--believing that all the nations which have disregarded these claims have rapidly become decadent--Pudor is less hopeful than Ungewitter of any speedy victory over the prejudices opposed to the culture of nakedness. He considers that the immediate task is education, and that a practical commencement may best be made with the foot which is specially in need of hygiene and exercise; a large part of the first volume of his book is devoted to the foot. As the matter is to-day viewed by those educationalists who are equally alive to sanitary and sexual considerations, the claims of nakedness, so far as concerns the young, are regarded as part alike of physical and moral hygiene. The free contact of the naked body with air and water and light makes for the health of the body; familiarity with the sight of the body abolishes petty pruriencies, trains the sense of beauty, and makes for the health of the soul. This double aspect of the matter has undoubtedly weighed greatly with those teachers who now approve of customs which, a few years ago, would have been hastily dismissed as "indecent." There is still a wide difference of opinion as to the limits to which the practice of nakedness may be carried, and also as to the age when it should begin to be restricted. The fact that the adult generation of to-day grew up under the influence of the old horror of nakedness is an inevitable check on any revolutionary changes in these matters. Maria Lischnewska, one of the ablest advocates of the methodical enlightenment of children in matters of sex (op. cit.), clearly realizes that a sane attitude towards the body lies at the root of a sound education for life. She finds that the chief objection encountered in such education, as applied in the higher classes of schools, is "the horror of the civilized man at his own body." She shows that there can be no doubt that those who are engaged in the difficult task of working towards the abolition of that superstitious horror have taken up a moral task of the first importance. Walter Gerhard, in a thoughtful and sensible paper on the educational question ("Ein Kapitel zur Erziehungsfrage," _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, vol. i, Heft 2), points out that it is the adult who needs education in this matter--as in so many other matters of sexual enlightenment--considerably more than the child. Parents educate their children from the earliest years in prudery, and vainly flatter themselves that they have thereby promoted their modesty and morality. He records his own early life in a tropical land and accustomed to nakedness from the first. "It was not till I came to Germany when nearly twenty that I learnt that the human body is indecent, and that it must not be shown because that 'would arouse bad impulses.' It was not till the human body was entirely withdrawn from my sight and after I was constantly told that there was something improper behind clothes, that I was able to understand this.... Until then I had not known that a naked body, by the mere fact of being naked, could arouse erotic feelings. I had known erotic feelings, but they had not arisen from the sight of the naked body, but gradually blossomed from the union of our souls." And he draws the final moral that, if only for the sake of our children, we must learn to educate ourselves. Forel (_Die Sexuelle Frage_, p. 140), speaking in entirely the same sense as Gerhard, remarks that prudery may be either caused or cured in children. It may be caused by undue anxiety in covering their bodies and hiding from them the bodies of others. It may be cured by making them realize that there is nothing in the body that is unnatural and that we need be ashamed of, and by encouraging bathing of the sexes in common. He points out (p. 512) the advantages of allowing children to be acquainted with the adult forms which they will themselves some day assume, and condemns the conduct of those foolish persons who assume that children already possess the adult's erotic feelings about the body. That is so far from being the case that children are frequently unable to distinguish the sex of other children apart from their clothes. At the Mannheim Congress of the German Society for Combating Venereal Diseases, specially devoted to sexual hygiene, the speakers constantly referred to the necessity of promoting familiarity with the naked body. Thus Eulenburg and Julian Marcuse (_Sexualpädagogik_, p. 264) emphasize the importance of air-baths, not only for the sake of the physical health of the young, but in the interests of rational sexual training. Höller, a teacher, speaking at the same congress (op. cit., p. 85), after insisting on familiarity with the nude in art and literature, and protesting against the bowdlerising of poems for the young, continues: "By bathing-drawers ordinances no soul was ever yet saved from moral ruin. One who has learnt to enjoy peacefully the naked in art is only stirred by the naked in nature as by a work of art." Enderlin, another teacher, speaking in the same sense (p. 58), points out that nakedness cannot act sexually or immorally on the child, since the sexual impulse has not yet become pronounced, and the earlier he is introduced to the naked in nature and in art, as a matter of course, the less likely are the sexual feelings to be developed precociously. The child thus, indeed, becomes immune to impure influences, so that later, when representations of the nude are brought before him for the object of provoking his wantonness, they are powerless to injure him. It is important, Enderlin adds, for familiarity with the nude in art to be learnt at school, for most of us, as Siebert remarks, have to learn purity through art. Nakedness in bathing, remarks Bölsche in his _Liebesleben in der Natur_ (vol. iii, pp. 139 et seq.), we already in some measure possess; we need it in physical exercises, at first for the sexes separately; then, when we have grown accustomed to the idea, occasionally for both sexes together. We need to acquire the capacity to see the bodies of individuals of the other sex with such self-control and such natural instinct that they become non-erotic to us and can be gazed at without erotic feeling. Art, he says, shows that this is possible in civilization. Science, he adds, comes to the aid of the same view. Ungewitter (_Die Nacktheit_, p. 57) also advocates boys and girls engaging in play and gymnastics together, entirely naked in air-baths. "In this way," he believes, "the gymnasium would become a school of morality, in which young growing things would be able to retain their purity as long as possible through becoming naturally accustomed to each other. At the same time their bodies would be hardened and developed, and the perception of beautiful and natural forms awakened." To those who have any "moral" doubts on the matter, he mentions the custom in remote country districts of boys and girls bathing together quite naked and without any sexual consciousness. Rudolf Sommer, similarly, in an excellent article entitled "Mädchenerziehung oder Menschenbildung?" (_Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Bd. i, Heft 3) advises that children should be made accustomed to each other's nakedness from an early age in the family life of the house or the garden, in games, and especially in bathing; he remarks that parents having children of only one sex should cultivate for their children's sake intimate relations with a family having children of like age of the opposite sex, so that they may grow up together. It is scarcely necessary to add that the cultivation of nakedness must always be conciliated with respect for the natural instincts of modesty. If the practice of nakedness led the young to experience a diminished reverence for their own or others' personalities the advantages of it would be too dearly bought. This is, in part, a matter of wholesome instinct, in part of wise training. We now know that the absence of clothes has little relation with the absence of modesty, such relation as there is being of the inverse order, for the savage races which go naked are usually more modest than those which wear clothes. The saying quoted by Herodotus in the early Greek world that "A woman takes off her modesty with her shift" was a favorite text of the Christian Fathers. But Plutarch, who was also a moralist, had already protested against it at the close of the Greek world: "By no means," he declared, "she who is modest clothes herself with modesty when she lays aside her tunic." "A woman may be naked," as Mrs. Bishop, the traveller, remarked to Dr. Baelz, in Japan, "and yet behave like a lady."[42] The question is complicated among ourselves because established traditions of rigid concealment have fostered a pruriency which is an offensive insult to naked modesty. In many lands the women who are accustomed to be almost or quite naked in the presence of their own people cover themselves as soon as they become conscious of the lustful inquisitive eyes of Europeans. Stratz refers to the prevalence of this impulse of offended modesty in Japan, and mentions that he himself failed to arouse it simply because he was a physician, and, moreover, had long lived in another land (Java) where also the custom of nakedness prevails.[43] So long as this unnatural prurience exists a free unqualified nakedness is rendered difficult. Modesty is not, however, the only natural impulse which has to be considered in relation to the custom of nakedness. It seems probable that in cultivating the practice of nakedness we are not merely carrying out a moral and hygienic prescription but allowing legitimate scope to an instinct which at some periods of life, especially in adolescence, is spontaneous and natural, even, it may be, wholesomely based in the traditions of the race in sexual selection. Our rigid conventions make it impossible for us to discover the laws of nature in this matter by stifling them at the outset. It may well be that there is a rhythmic harmony and concordance between impulses of modesty and impulses of ostentation, though we have done our best to disguise the natural law by our stupid and perverse by-laws. Stanley Hall, who emphasizes the importance of nakedness, remarks that at puberty we have much reason to assume that in a state of nature there is a certain instinctive pride and ostentation that accompanies the new local development, and quotes the observation of Dr. Seerley that the impulse to conceal the sexual organs is especially marked in young men who are underdeveloped, but not evident in those who are developed beyond the average. Stanley Hall (_Adolescence_, vol. ii, p. 97), also refers to the frequency with which not only "virtuous young men, but even women, rather glory in occasions when they can display the beauty of their forms without reserve, not only to themselves and to loved ones, but even to others with proper pretexts." Many have doubtless noted this tendency, especially in women, and chiefly in those who are conscious of beautiful physical development. Madame Céline Renooz believes that the tendency corresponds to a really deep-rooted instinct in women, little or not at all manifested in men who have consequently sought to impose artificially on women their own masculine conceptions of modesty. "In the actual life of the young girl to-day there is a moment when, by a secret atavism, she feels the pride of her sex, the intuition of her moral superiority and cannot understand why she must hide its cause. At this moment, wavering between the laws of Nature and social conventions, she scarcely knows if nakedness should, or should not, affright her. A sort of confused atavistic memory recalls to her a period before clothing was known, and reveals to her as a paradisaical ideal the customs of that human epoch" (Céline Renooz, _Psychologie Comparée de l'Homme et de la Femme_, pp. 85-87). Perhaps this was obscurely felt by the German girl (mentioned in Kalbeck's _Life of Brahms_), who said: "One enjoys music twice as much _décolletée_." From the point of view with which we are here essentially concerned there are three ways in which the cultivation of nakedness--so far as it is permitted by the slow education of public opinion--tends to exert an influence: (1) It is an important element in the sexual hygiene of the young, introducing a wholesome knowledge and incuriosity into a sphere once given up to prudery and pruriency. (2) The effect of nakedness is beneficial on those of more mature age, also, in so far as it tends to cultivate the sense of beauty and to furnish the tonic and consoling influences of natural vigor and grace. (3) The custom of nakedness, in its inception at all events, has a dynamic psychological influence also on morals, an influence exerted in the substitution of a strenuous and positive morality for the merely negative and timid morality which has ruled in this sphere. Perhaps there are not many adults who realize the intense and secret absorption of thought in the minds of many boys and some girls concerning the problem of the physical conformation of the other sex, and the time, patience, and intellectual energy which they are willing to expend on the solution of this problem. This is mostly effected in secret, but not seldom the secret impulse manifests itself with a sudden violence which in the blind eyes of the law is reckoned as crime. A German lawyer, Dr. Werthauer, has lately stated that if there were a due degree of familiarity with the natural organs and functions of the opposite sex ninety per cent. of the indecent acts of youths with girl children would disappear, for in most cases these are not assaults but merely the innocent, though uncontrollable, outcome of a repressed natural curiosity. It is quite true that not a few children boldly enlist each others' coöperation in the settlement of the question and resolve it to their mutual satisfaction. But even this is not altogether satisfactory, for the end is not attained openly and wholesomely, with a due subordination of the specifically sexual, but with a consciousness of wrong-doing and an exclusive attentiveness to the merely physical fact which tend directly to develop sexual excitement. When familiarity with the naked body of the other sex is gained openly and with no consciousness of indecorum, in the course of work and of play, in exercise or gymnastics, in running or in bathing, from a child's earliest years, no unwholesome results accompany the knowledge of the essential facts of physical conformation thus naturally acquired. The prurience and prudery which have poisoned sexual life in the past are alike rendered impossible. Nakedness has, however, a hygienic value, as well as a spiritual significance, far beyond its influences in allaying the natural inquisitiveness of the young or acting as a preventative of morbid emotion. It is an inspiration to adults who have long outgrown any youthful curiosities. The vision of the essential and eternal human form, the nearest thing to us in all the world, with its vigor and its beauty and its grace, is one of the prime tonics of life. "The power of a woman's body," said James Hinton, "is no more bodily than the power of music is a power of atmospheric vibrations." It is more than all the beautiful and stimulating things of the world, than flowers or stars or the sea. History and legend and myth reveal to us the sacred and awful influence of nakedness, for, as Stanley Hall says, nakedness has always been "a talisman of wondrous power with gods and men." How sorely men crave for the spectacle of the human body--even to-day after generations have inculcated the notion that it is an indecorous and even disgusting spectacle--is witnessed by the eagerness with which they seek after the spectacle of even its imperfect and meretricious forms, although these certainly possess a heady and stimulating quality which can never be found in the pathetic simplicity of naked beauty. It was another spectacle when the queens of ancient Madagascar at the annual Fandroon, or feast of the bath, laid aside their royal robes and while their subjects crowded the palace courtyard, descended the marble steps to the bath in complete nakedness. When we make our conventions of clothing rigid we at once spread a feast for lust and deny ourselves one of the prime tonics of life. "I was feeling in despair and walking despondently along a Melbourne street," writes the Australian author of a yet unpublished autobiography, "when three children came running out of a lane and crossed the road in full daylight. The beauty and texture of their legs in the open air filled me with joy, so that I forgot all my troubles whilst looking at them. It was a bright revelation, an unexpected glimpse of Paradise, and I have never ceased to thank the happy combination of shape, pure blood, and fine skin of these poverty-stricken children, for the wind seemed to quicken their golden beauty, and I retained the rosy vision of their natural young limbs, so much more divine than those always under cover. Another occasion when naked young limbs made me forget all my gloom and despondency was on my first visit to Adelaide. I came on a naked boy leaning on the railing near the Baths, and the beauty of his face, torso, fair young limbs and exquisite feet filled me with joy and renewed hope. The tears came to my eyes, and I said to myself, 'While there is beauty in the world I will continue to struggle,'" We must, as Bölsche declares (loc. cit.), accustom ourselves to gaze on the naked human body exactly as we gaze at a beautiful flower, not merely with the pity with which the doctor looks at the body, but with joy in its strength and health and beauty. For a flower, as Bölsche truly adds, is not merely "naked body," it is the most sacred region of the body, the sexual organs of the plant. "For girls to dance naked," said Hinton, "is the only truly pure form of dancing, and in due time it must therefore come about. This is certain: girls will dance naked and men will be pure enough to gaze on them." It has already been so in Greece, he elsewhere remarks, as it is to-day in Japan (as more recently described by Stratz). It is nearly forty years since these prophetic words were written, but Hinton himself would probably have been surprised at the progress which has already been made slowly (for all true progress must be slow) towards this goal. Even on the stage new and more natural traditions are beginning to prevail in Europe. It is not many years since an English actress regarded as a calumny the statement that she appeared on the stage bare-foot, and brought an action for libel, winning substantial damages. Such a result would scarcely be possible to-day. The movement in which Isadora Duncan was a pioneer has led to a partial disuse among dancers of the offensive device of tights, and it is no longer considered indecorous to show many parts of the body which it was formerly usual to cover. It should, however, be added at the same time that, while dancers, in so far as they are genuine artists, are entitled to determine the conditions most favorable to their art, nothing whatever is gained for the cause of a wholesome culture of nakedness by the "living statues" and "living pictures" which have obtained an international vogue during recent years. These may be legitimate as variety performances, but they have nothing whatever to do with either Nature or art. Dr. Pudor, writing as one of the earliest apostles of the culture of nakedness, has energetically protested against these performances (_Sexual-Probleme_, Dec., 1908, p. 828). He rightly points out that nakedness, to be wholesome, requires the open air, the meadows, the sunlight, and that nakedness at night, in a music hall, by artificial light, in the presence of spectators who are themselves clothed, has no element of morality about it. Attempts have here and there been quietly made to cultivate a certain amount of mutual nakedness as between the sexes on remote country excursions. It is significant to find a record of such an experiment in Ungewitter's _Die Nacktheit_. In this case a party of people, men and women, would regularly every Sunday seek remote spots in woods or meadows where they would settle down, picnic, and enjoy games. "They made themselves as comfortable as possible, the men laying aside their coats, waistcoats, boots and socks; the women their blouses, skirts, shoes and stockings. Gradually, as the moral conception of nakedness developed in their minds, more and more clothing fell away, until the men wore nothing but bathing-drawers and the women only their chemises. In this 'costume' games were carried out in common, and a regular camp-life led. The ladies (some of whom were unmarried) would then lie in hammocks and we men on the grass, and the intercourse was delightful. We felt as members of one family, and behaved accordingly. In an entirely natural and unembarrassed way we gave ourselves up entirely to the liberating feelings aroused by this light- and air-bath, and passed these splendid hours in joyous singing and dancing, in wantonly childish fashion, freed from the burden of a false civilization. It was, of course, necessary to seek spots as remote as possible from high-roads, for fear of being disturbed. At the same time we by no means failed in natural modesty and consideration towards one another. Children, who can be entirely naked, may be allowed to take part in such meetings of adults, and will thus be brought up free from morbid prudery" (R. Ungewitter, _Die Nacktheit_, p. 58). No doubt it may be said that the ideal in this matter is the possibility of permitting complete nakedness. This may be admitted, and it is undoubtedly true that our rigid police regulations do much to artificially foster a concealment in this matter which is not based on any natural instinct. Dr. Shufeldt narrates in his _Studies of the Human Form_ that once in the course of a photographic expedition in the woods he came upon two boys, naked except for bathing-drawers, engaged in getting water lilies from a pond. He found them a good subject for his camera, but they could not be induced to remove their drawers, by no means out of either modesty or mock-modesty, but simply because they feared they might possibly be caught and arrested. We have to recognize that at the present day the general popular sentiment is not yet sufficiently educated to allow of public disregard for the convention of covering the sexual centres, and all attempts to extend the bounds of nakedness must show a due regard for this requirement. As concerns women, Valentin Lehr, of Freiburg, in Breisgau, has invented a costume (figured in Ungewitter's _Die Nacktheit_) which is suitable for either public water-baths or air-baths, because it meets the demand of those whose minimum requirement is that the chief sexual centres of the body should be covered in public, while it is otherwise fairly unobjectionable. It consists of two pieces, made of porous material, one covering the breasts with a band over the shoulders, and the other covering the abdomen below the navel and drawn between the legs. This minimal costume, while neither ideal nor æsthetic, adequately covers the sexual regions of the body, while leaving the arms, waist, hips, and legs entirely free. There finally remains the moral aspect of nakedness. Although this has been emphasized by many during the past half century it is still unfamiliar to the majority. The human body can never be a little thing. The wise educator may see to it that boys and girls are brought up in a natural and wholesome familiarity with each other, but a certain terror and beauty must always attach to the spectacle of the body, a mixed attraction and repulsion. Because it has this force it naturally calls out the virtue of those who take part in the spectacle, and makes impossible any soft compliance to emotion. Even if we admit that the spectacle of nakedness is a challenge to passion it is still a challenge that calls out the ennobling qualities of self-control. It is but a poor sort of virtue that lies in fleeing into the desert from things that we fear may have in them a temptation. We have to learn that it is even worse to attempt to create a desert around us in the midst of civilization. We cannot dispense with passions if we would; reason, as Holbach said, is the art of choosing the right passions, and education the art of sowing and cultivating them in human hearts. The spectacle of nakedness has its moral value in teaching us to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, a lesson which is an essential part of the training for any kind of fine social life. The child has to learn to look at flowers and not pluck them; the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not desire to possess it. The joyous conquest over that "erotic kleptomania," as Ellen Key has well said, reveals the blossoming of a fine civilization. We fancy the conquest is difficult, even impossibly difficult. But it is not so. This impulse, like other human impulses, tends under natural conditions to develop temperately and wholesomely. We artificially press a stupid and brutal hand on it, and it is driven into the two unnatural extremes of repression and license, one extreme as foul as the other. To those who have been bred under bad conditions, it may indeed seem hopeless to attempt to rise to the level of the Greeks and the other finer tempered peoples of antiquity in realizing the moral, as well as the pedagogic, hygienic, and æsthetic advantages[44] of admitting into life the spectacle of the naked human body. But unless we do we hopelessly fetter ourselves in our march along the road of civilization, we deprive ourselves at once of a source of moral strength and of joyous inspiration. Just as Wesley once asked why the devil should have all the best tunes, so to-day men are beginning to ask why the human body, the most divine melody at its finest moments that creation has yielded, should be allowed to become the perquisite of those who lust for the obscene. And some are, further, convinced that by enlisting it on the side of purity and strength they are raising the most powerful of all bulwarks against the invasion of a vicious conception of life and the consequent degradation of sex. These are considerations which we cannot longer afford to neglect, however great the opposition they arouse among the unthinking. "Folk are afraid of such things rousing the passions," Edward Carpenter remarks. "No doubt the things may act that way. But why, we may ask, should people be afraid of rousing passions which, after all, are the great driving forces of human life?" It is true, the same writer continues, our conventional moral formulæ are no longer strong enough to control passion adequately, and that we are generating steam in a boiler that is cankered with rust. "The cure is not to cut off the passions, or to be weakly afraid of them, but to find a new, sound, healthy engine of general morality and common sense within which they will work" (Edward Carpenter, _Albany Review_, Sept., 1907). So far as I am aware, however, it was James Hinton who chiefly sought to make clear the possibility of a positive morality on the basis of nakedness, beauty, and sexual influence, regarded as dynamic forces which, when suppressed, make for corruption and when wisely used serve to inspire and ennoble life. He worked out his thoughts on this matter in MSS., written from about 1870 to his death two years later, which, never having been prepared for publication, remain in a fragmentary state and have not been published. I quote a few brief characteristic passages: "Is not," he wrote, "the Hindu refusal to see a woman eating strangely like ours to see one naked? The real sensuality of the thought is visibly identical.... Suppose, because they are delicious to eat, pineapples were forbidden to be seen, except in pictures, and about that there was something dubious. Suppose no one might have sight of a pineapple unless he were rich enough to purchase one for his particular eating, the sight and the eating being so indissolubly joined. What lustfulness would surround them, what constant pruriency, what stealing!... Miss ---- told us of her Syrian adventures, and how she went into a wood-carver's shop and he would not look at her; and how she took up a tool and worked, till at last he looked, and they both burst out laughing. Will it not be even so with our looking at women altogether? There will come a _work_--and at last we shall look up and both burst out laughing.... When men see truly what is amiss, and act with reason and forethought in respect to the sexual relations, will they not insist on the enjoyment of women's beauty by youths, and from the earliest age, that the first feeling may be of beauty? Will they not say, 'We must not allow the false purity, we must have the true.' The false has been tried, and it is not good enough; the power purely to enjoy beauty must be gained; attempting to do with less is fatal. Every instructor of youth shall say: 'This beauty of woman, God's chief work of beauty, it is good you see it; it is a pleasure that serves good; all beauty serves it, and above all this, for its office is to make you pure. Come to it as you come to daily bread, or pure air, or the cleansing bath: this is pure to you if you be pure, it will aid you in your effort to be so. But if any of you are impure, and make of it the feeder of impurity, then you should be ashamed and pray; it is not for you our life can be ordered; it is for men and not for beasts.' This must come when men open their eyes, and act coolly and with reason and forethought, and not in mere panic in respect to the sexual passion in its moral relations." FOOTNOTES: [40] Thus Athenæus (Bk. xiii, Ch. XX) says: "In the Island of Chios it is a beautiful sight to go to the gymnasia and the race-courses, and to see the young men wrestling naked with the maidens who are also naked." [41] Augustine (_De civitate Dei_, lib. ii, cap. XIII) refers to the same point, contrasting the Romans with the Greeks who honored their actors. [42] See "The Evolution of Modesty" in the first volume of these _Studies_, where this question of the relationship of nakedness to modesty is fully discussed. [43] C.H. Stratz, _Die Körperformen in Kunst und Leben der Japaner_, Second edition, Ch. III; id., _Frauenkleidung_, Third edition, pp. 22, 30. [44] I have not considered it in place here to emphasize the æsthetic influence of familiarity with nakedness. The most æsthetic nations (notably the Greeks and the Japanese) have been those that preserved a certain degree of familiarity with the naked body. "In all arts," Maeterlinck remarks, "civilized peoples have approached or departed from pure beauty according as they approached or departed from the habit of nakedness." Ungewitter insists on the advantage to the artist of being able to study the naked body in movement, and it may be worth mentioning that Fidus (Hugo Höppener), the German artist of to-day who has exerted great influence by his fresh, powerful and yet reverent delineation of the naked human form in all its varying aspects, attributes his inspiration and vision to the fact that, as a pupil of Diefenbach, he was accustomed with his companions to work naked in the solitudes outside Munich which they frequented (F. Enzensberger, "Fidus," _Deutsche Kultur_, Aug., 1906). CHAPTER IV. THE VALUATION OF SEXUAL LOVE. The Conception of Sexual Love--The Attitude of Mediæval Asceticism--St. Bernard and St. Odo of Cluny--The Ascetic Insistence on the Proximity of the Sexual and Excretory Centres--Love as a Sacrament of Nature--The Idea of the Impurity of Sex in Primitive Religions Generally--Theories of the Origin of This Idea--The Anti-Ascetic Element in the Bible and Early Christianity--Clement of Alexandria--St. Augustine's Attitude--The Recognition of the Sacredness of the Body by Tertullian, Rufinus and Athanasius--The Reformation--The Sexual Instinct regarded as Beastly--The Human Sexual Instinct Not Animal-like--Lust and Love--The Definition of Love--Love and Names for Love Unknown in Some Parts of the World--Romantic Love of Late Development in the White Race--The Mystery of Sexual Desire--Whether Love is a Delusion--The Spiritual as Well as the Physical Structure of the World in Part Built up on Sexual Love--The Testimony of Men of Intellect to the Supremacy of Love. It will be seen that the preceding discussion of nakedness has a significance beyond what it appeared to possess at the outset. The hygienic value, physically and mentally, of familiarity with nakedness during the early years of life, however considerable it may be, is not the only value which such familiarity possesses. Beyond its æsthetic value, also, there lies in it a moral value, a source of dynamic energy. And now, taking a still further step, we may say that it has a spiritual value in relation to our whole conception of the sexual impulse. Our attitude towards the naked human body is the test of our attitude towards the instinct of sex. If our own and our fellows' bodies seem to us intrinsically shameful or disgusting, nothing will ever really ennoble or purify our conceptions of sexual love. Love craves the flesh, and if the flesh is shameful the lover must be shameful. "Se la cosa amata è vile," as Leonardo da Vinci profoundly said, "l'amante se fa vile." However illogical it may have been, there really was a justification for the old Christian identification of the flesh with the sexual instinct. They stand or fall together; we cannot degrade the one and exalt the other. As our feelings towards nakedness are, so will be our feelings towards love. "Man is nothing else than fetid sperm, a sack of dung, the food of worms.... You have never seen a viler dung-hill." Such was the outcome of St. Bernard's cloistered _Meditationes Piissimæ_.[45] Sometimes, indeed, these mediæval monks would admit that the skin possessed a certain superficial beauty, but they only made that admission in order to emphasize the hideousness of the body when deprived of this film of loveliness, and strained all their perverse intellectual acumen, and their ferocious irony, as they eagerly pointed the finger of mockery at every detail of what seemed to them the pitiful figure of man. St. Odo of Cluny--charming saint as he was and a pioneer in his appreciation of the wild beauty of the Alps he had often traversed--was yet an adept in this art of reviling the beauty of the human body. That beauty only lies in the skin, he insists; if we could see beneath the skin women would arouse nothing but nausea. Their adornments are but blood and mucus and bile. If we refuse to touch dung and phlegm even with a fingertip, how can we desire to embrace a sack of dung?[46] The mediæval monks of the more contemplative order, indeed, often found here a delectable field of meditation, and the Christian world generally was content to accept their opinions in more or less diluted versions, or at all events never made any definite protest against them. Even men of science accepted these conceptions and are, indeed, only now beginning to emancipate themselves from such ancient superstitions. R. de Graef in the Preface to his famous treatise on the generative organs of women, _De Mulierum Organis Generatione Inservientibus_, dedicated to Cosmo III de Medici in 1672, considered it necessary to apologize for the subject of his work. Even a century later, Linnæus in his great work, _The System of Nature_, dismissed as "abominable" the exact study of the female genitals, although he admitted the scientific interest of such investigations. And if men of science have found it difficult to attain an objective vision of women we cannot be surprised that medieval and still more ancient conceptions have often been subtly mingled with the views of philosophical and semi-philosophical writers.[47] We may regard as a special variety of the ascetic view of sex,--for the ascetics, as we see, freely but not quite legitimately, based their asceticism largely on æsthetic considerations,--that insistence on the proximity of the sexual to the excretory centres which found expression in the early Church in Augustine's depreciatory assertion: "Inter fæces et urinam nascimur," and still persists among many who by no means always associate it with religious asceticism.[48] "As a result of what ridiculous economy, and of what Mephistophilian irony," asks Tarde,[49] "has Nature imagined that a function so lofty, so worthy of the poetic and philosophical hymns which have celebrated it, only deserved to have its exclusive organ shared with that of the vilest corporal functions?" It may, however, be pointed out that this view of the matter, however unconsciously, is itself the outcome of the ascetic depreciation of the body. From a scientific point of view, the metabolic processes of the body from one end to the other, whether regarded chemically or psychologically, are all interwoven and all of equal dignity. We cannot separate out any particular chemical or biological process and declare: This is vile. Even what we call excrement still stores up the stuff of our lives. Eating has to some persons seemed a disgusting process. But yet it has been possible to say, with Thoreau, that "the gods have really intended that men should feed divinely, as themselves, on their own nectar and ambrosia.... I have felt that eating became a sacrament, a method of communion, an ecstatic exercise, and a sitting at the communion table of the world." The sacraments of Nature are in this way everywhere woven into the texture of men's and women's bodies. Lips good to kiss with are indeed first of all chiefly good to eat and drink with. So accumulated and overlapped have the centres of force become in the long course of development, that the mucous membranes of the natural orifices, through the sensitiveness gained in their own offices, all become agents to thrill the soul in the contact of love; it is idle to discriminate high or low, pure or impure; all alike are sanctified already by the extreme unction of Nature. The nose receives the breath of life; the vagina receives the water of life. Ultimately the worth and loveliness of life must be measured by the worth and loveliness for us of the instruments of life. The swelling breasts are such divinely gracious insignia of womanhood because of the potential child that hangs at them and sucks; the large curves of the hips are so voluptuous because of the potential child they clasp within them; there can be no division here, we cannot cut the roots from the tree. The supreme function of manhood--the handing on of the lamp of life to future races--is carried on, it is true, by the same instrument that is the daily conduit of the bladder. It has been said in scorn that we are born between urine and excrement; it may be said, in reverence, that the passage through this channel of birth is a sacrament of Nature's more sacred and significant than men could ever invent. These relationships have been sometimes perceived and their meaning realized by a sort of mystical intuition. We catch glimpses of such an insight now and again, first among the poets and later among the physicians of the Renaissance. In 1664 Rolfincius, in his _Ordo et Methods Generationi Partium etc._, at the outset of the second Part devoted to the sexual organs of women, sets forth what ancient writers have said of the Eleusinian and other mysteries and the devotion and purity demanded of those who approached these sacred rites. It is so also with us, he continues, in the rites of scientific investigation. "We also operate with sacred things. The organs of sex are to be held among sacred things. They who approach these altars must come with devout minds. Let the profane stand without, and the doors be closed." In those days, even for science, faith and intuition were alone possible. It is only of recent years that the histologist's microscope and the physiological chemist's test-tube have furnished them with a rational basis. It is no longer possible to cut Nature in two and assert that here she is pure and there impure.[50] There thus appears to be no adequate ground for agreeing with those who consider that the proximity of the generative and excretory centres is "a stupid bungle of Nature's." An association which is so ancient and primitive in Nature can only seem repulsive to those whose feelings have become morbidly unnatural. It may further be remarked that the anus, which is the more æsthetically unattractive of the excretory centres, is comparatively remote from the sexual centre, and that, as R. Hellmann remarked many years ago in discussing this question (_Ueber Geschlechtsfreiheit_, p. 82): "In the first place, freshly voided urine has nothing specially unpleasant about it, and in the second place, even if it had, we might reflect that a rosy mouth by no means loses its charm merely because it fails to invite a kiss at the moment when its possessor is vomiting." A clergyman writes suggesting that we may go further and find a positive advantage in this proximity: "I am glad that you do not agree with the man who considered that Nature had bungled by using the genitals for urinary purposes; apart from teleological or theological grounds I could not follow that line of reasoning. I think there is no need for disgust concerning the urinary organs, though I feel that the anus can never be attractive to the normal mind; but the anus is quite separate from the genitals. I would suggest that the proximity serves a good end in making the organs more or less secret except at times of sexual emotion or to those in love. The result is some degree of repulsion at ordinary times and a strong attraction at times of sexual activity. Hence, the ordinary guarding of the parts, from fear of creating disgust, greatly increases their attractiveness at other times when sexual emotion is paramount. Further, the feeling of disgust itself is merely the result of habit and sentiment, however useful it may be, and according to Scripture everything is clean and good. The ascetic feeling of repulsion, if we go back to origin, is due to other than Christian influence. Christianity came out of Judaism which had no sense of the impurity of marriage, for 'unclean' in the Old Testament simply means 'sacred.' The ascetic side of the religion of Christianity is no part of the religion of Christ as it came from the hands of its Founder, and the modern feeling on this matter is a lingering remnant of the heresy of the Manichæans." I may add, however, that, as Northcote points out (_Christianity and Sex Problems_, p. 14), side by side in the Old Testament with the frank recognition of sexuality, there is a circle of ideas revealing the feeling of impurity in sex and of shame in connection with it. Christianity inherited this mixed feeling. It has really been a widespread and almost universal feeling among the ancient and primitive peoples that there is something impure and sinful in the things of sex, so that those who would lead a religious life must avoid sexual relationships; even in India celibacy has commanded respect (see, e.g., Westermarck, _Marriage_, pp. 150 et seq.). As to the original foundation of this notion--which it is unnecessary to discuss more fully here--many theories have been put forward; St. Augustine, in his _De Civitate Dei_, sets forth the ingenious idea that the penis, being liable to spontaneous movements and erections that are not under the control of the will, is a shameful organ and involves the whole sphere of sex in its shame. Westermarck argues that among nearly all peoples there is a feeling against sexual relationship with members of the same family or household, and as sex was thus banished from the sphere of domestic life a notion of its general impurity arose; Northcote points out that from the first it has been necessary to seek concealment for sexual intercourse, because at that moment the couple would be a prey to hostile attacks, and that it was by an easy transition that sex came to be regarded as a thing that ought to be concealed, and, therefore, a sinful thing. (Diderot, in his _Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville_, had already referred to this motive for seclusion as "the only natural element in modesty.") Crawley has devoted a large part of his suggestive work, _The Mystic Rose_, to showing that, to savage man, sex is a perilous, dangerous, and enfeebling element in life, and, therefore, sinful. It would, however, be a mistake to think that such men as St. Bernard and St. Odo of Cluny, admirably as they represented the ascetic and even the general Christian views of their own time, are to be regarded as altogether typical exponents of the genuine and primitive Christian view. So far as I have been able to discover, during the first thousand years of Christianity we do not find this concentrated intellectual and emotional ferocity of attack on the body; it only developed at the moment when, with Pope Gregory VII, mediæval Christianity reached the climax of its conquest over the souls of European men, in the establishment of the celibacy of the secular clergy, and the growth of the great cloistered communities of monks in severely regulated and secluded orders.[51] Before that the teachers of asceticism were more concerned to exhort to chastity and modesty than to direct a deliberate and systematic attack on the whole body; they concentrated their attention rather on spiritual virtues than on physical imperfections. And if we go back to the Gospels we find little of the mediæval ascetic spirit in the reported sayings and doings of Jesus, which may rather indeed be said to reveal, on the whole, notwithstanding their underlying asceticism, a certain tenderness and indulgence to the body, while even Paul, though not tender towards the body, exhorts to reverence towards it as a temple of the Holy Spirit. We cannot expect to find the Fathers of the Church sympathetic towards the spectacle of the naked human body, for their position was based on a revolt against paganism, and paganism had cultivated the body. Nakedness had been more especially associated with the public bath, the gymnasium, and the theatre; in profoundly disapproving of these pagan institutions Christianity discouraged nakedness. The fact that familiarity with nakedness was favorable, rather than opposed, to the chastity to which it attached so much importance, the Church--though indeed at one moment it accepted nakedness in the rite of baptism--was for the most part unable to see if it was indeed a fact which the special conditions of decadent classic life had tended to disguise. But in their decided preference for the dressed over the naked human body the early Christians frequently hesitated to take the further step of asserting that the body is a focus of impurity and that the physical organs of sex are a device of the devil. On the contrary, indeed, some of the most distinguished of the Fathers, especially those of the Eastern Church who had felt the vivifying breath of Greek thought, occasionally expressed themselves on the subject of Nature, sex, and the body in a spirit which would have won the approval of Goethe or Whitman. Clement of Alexandria, with all the eccentricities of his over-subtle intellect, was yet the most genuinely Greek of all the Fathers, and it is not surprising that the dying ray of classic light reflected from his mind shed some illumination over this question of sex. He protested, for instance, against that prudery which, as the sun of the classic world set, had begun to overshadow life. "We should not be ashamed to name," he declared, "what God has not been ashamed to create."[52] It was a memorable declaration because, while it accepted the old classic feeling of no shame in the presence of nature, it put that feeling on a new and religious basis harmonious to Christianity. Throughout, though not always quite consistently, Clement defends the body and the functions of sex against those who treated them with contempt. And as the cause of sex is the cause of women he always strongly asserts the dignity of women, and also proclaims the holiness of marriage, a state which he sometimes places above that of virginity.[53] Unfortunately, it must be said, St. Augustine--another North African, but of Roman Carthage and not of Greek Alexandria--thought that he had a convincing answer to the kind of argument which Clement presented, and so great was the force of his passionate and potent genius that he was able in the end to make his answer prevail. For Augustine sin was hereditary, and sin had its special seat and symbol in the sexual organs; the fact of sin has modified the original divine act of creation, and we cannot treat sex and its organs as though there had been no inherited sin. Our sexual organs, he declares, have become shameful because, through sin, they are now moved by lust. At the same time Augustine by no means takes up the mediæval ascetic position of contemptuous hatred towards the body. Nothing can be further from Odo of Cluny than Augustine's enthusiasm about the body, even about the exquisite harmony of the parts beneath the skin. "I believe it may be concluded," he even says, "that in the creation of the human body beauty was more regarded than necessity. In truth, necessity is a transitory thing, and the time is coming when we shall be able to enjoy one another's beauty without any lust."[54] Even in the sphere of sex he would be willing to admit purity and beauty, apart from the inherited influence of Adam's sin. In Paradise, he says, had Paradise continued, the act of generation would have been as simple and free from shame as the act of the hand in scattering seed on to the earth. "Sexual conjugation would have been under the control of the will without any sexual desire. The semen would be injected into the vagina in as simple a manner as the menstrual fluid is now ejected. There would not have been any words which could be called obscene, but all that might be said of these members would have been as pure as what is said of the other parts of the body."[55] That, however, for Augustine, is what might have been in Paradise where, as he believed, sexual desire had no existence. As things are, he held, we are right to be ashamed, we do well to blush. And it was natural that, as Clement of Alexandria mentions, many heretics should have gone further on this road and believed that while God made man down to the navel, the rest was made by another power; such heretics have their descendants among us even to-day. Alike in the Eastern and Western Churches, however, both before and after Augustine, though not so often after, great Fathers and teachers have uttered opinions which recall those of Clement rather than of Augustine. We cannot lay very much weight on the utterance of the extravagant and often contradictory Tertullian, but it is worth noting that, while he declared that woman is the gate of hell, he also said that we must approach Nature with reverence and not with blushes. "Natura veneranda est, non erubescenda." "No Christian author," it has indeed been said, "has so energetically spoken against the heretical contempt of the body as Tertullian. Soul and body, according to Tertullian, are in the closest association. The soul is the life-principle of the body, but there is no activity of the soul which is not manifested and conditioned by the flesh."[56] More weight attaches to Rufinus Tyrannius, the friend and fellow-student of St. Jerome, in the fourth century, who wrote a commentary on the Apostles' Creed, which was greatly esteemed by the early and mediæval Church, and is indeed still valued even to-day. Here, in answer to those who declared that there was obscenity in the fact of Christ's birth through the sexual organs of a woman, Rufinus replies that God created the sexual organs, and that "it is not Nature but merely human opinion which teaches that these parts are obscene. For the rest, all the parts of the body are made from the same clay, whatever differences there may be in their uses and functions."[57] He looks at the matter, we see, piously indeed, but naturally and simply, like Clement, and not, like Augustine, through the distorting medium of a theological system. Athanasius, in the Eastern Church, spoke in the same sense as Rufinus in the Western Church. A certain monk named Amun had been much grieved by the occurrence of seminal emissions during sleep, and he wrote to Athanasius to inquire if such emissions are a sin. In the letter he wrote in reply, Athanasius seeks to reassure Amun. "All things," he tells him, "are pure to the pure. For what, I ask, dear and pious friend, can there be sinful or naturally impure in excrement? Man is the handwork of God. There is certainly nothing in us that is impure."[58] We feel as we read these utterances that the seeds of prudery and pruriency are already alive in the popular mind, but yet we see also that some of the most distinguished thinkers of the early Christian Church, in striking contrast to the more morbid and narrow-minded mediæval ascetics, clearly stood aside from the popular movement. On the whole, they were submerged because Christianity, like Buddhism, had in it from the first a germ that lent itself to ascetic renunciation, and the sexual life is always the first impulse to be sacrificed to the passion for renunciation. But there were other germs also in Christianity, and Luther, who in his own plebeian way asserted the rights of the body, although he broke with mediæval asceticism, by no means thereby cast himself off from the traditions of the early Christian Church. I have thought it worth while to bring forward this evidence, although I am perfectly well aware that the facts of Nature gain no additional support from the authority of the Fathers or even of the Bible. Nature and humanity existed before the Bible and would continue to exist although the Bible should be forgotten. But the attitude of Christianity on this point has so often been unreservedly condemned that it seems as well to point out that at its finest moments, when it was a young and growing power in the world, the utterances of Christianity were often at one with those of Nature and reason. There are many, it may be added, who find it a matter of consolation that in following the natural and rational path in this matter they are not thereby altogether breaking with the religious traditions of their race. It is scarcely necessary to remark that when we turn from Christianity to the other great world-religions, we do not usually meet with so ambiguous an attitude towards sex. The Mahommedans were as emphatic in asserting the sanctity of sex as they were in asserting physical cleanliness; they were prepared to carry the functions of sex into the future life, and were never worried, as Luther and so many other Christians have been, concerning the lack of occupation in Heaven. In India, although India is the home of the most extreme forms of religious asceticism, sexual love has been sanctified and divinized to a greater extent than in any other part of the world. "It seems never to have entered into the heads of the Hindu legislators," said Sir William Jones long since (_Works_, vol. ii, p. 311), "that anything natural could be offensively obscene, a singularity which pervades all their writings, but is no proof of the depravity of their morals." The sexual act has often had a religious significance in India, and the minutest details of the sexual life and its variations are discussed in Indian erotic treatises in a spirit of gravity, while nowhere else have the anatomical and physiological sexual characters of women been studied with such minute and adoring reverence. "Love in India, both as regards theory and practice," remarks Richard Schmidt (_Beiträge zur Indischen Erotik_, p. 2) "possesses an importance which it is impossible for us even to conceive." In Protestant countries the influence of the Reformation, by rehabilitating sex as natural, indirectly tended to substitute in popular feeling towards sex the opprobrium of sinfulness by the opprobrium of animality. Henceforth the sexual impulse must be disguised or adorned to become respectably human. This may be illustrated by a passage in Pepys's _Diary_ in the seventeenth century. On the morning after the wedding day it was customary to call up new married couples by music; the absence of this music on one occasion (in 1667) seemed to Pepys "as if they had married like dog and bitch." We no longer insist on the music, but the same feeling still exists in the craving for other disguises and adornments for the sexual impulse. We do not always realize that love brings its own sanctity with it. Nowadays indeed, whenever the repugnance to the sexual side of life manifests itself, the assertion nearly always made is not so much that it is "sinful" as that it is "beastly." It is regarded as that part of man which most closely allies him to the lower animals. It should scarcely be necessary to point out that this is a mistake. On whichever side, indeed, we approach it, the implication that sex in man and animals is identical cannot be borne out. From the point of view of those who accept this identity it would be much more correct to say that men are inferior, rather than on a level with animals, for in animals under natural conditions the sexual instinct is strictly subordinated to reproduction and very little susceptible to deviation, so that from the standpoint of those who wish to minimize sex, animals are nearer to the ideal, and such persons must say with Woods Hutchinson: "Take it altogether, our animal ancestors have quite as good reason to be ashamed of us as we of them." But if we look at the matter from a wider biological standpoint of development, our conclusion must be very different. So far from being animal-like, the human impulses of sex are among the least animal-like acquisitions of man. The human sphere of sex differs from the animal sphere of sex to a singularly great extent.[59] Breathing is an animal function and here we cannot compete with birds; locomotion is an animal function and here we cannot equal quadrupeds; we have made no notable advance in our circulatory, digestive, renal, or hepatic functions. Even as regards vision and hearing, there are many animals that are more keen-sighted than man, and many that are capable of hearing sounds that to him are inaudible. But there are no animals in whom the sexual instinct is so sensitive, so highly developed, so varied in its manifestations, so constantly alert, so capable of irradiating the highest and remotest parts of the organism. The sexual activities of man and woman belong not to that lower part of our nature which degrades us to the level of the "brute," but to the higher part which raises us towards all the finest activities and ideals we are capable of. It is true that it is chiefly in the mouths of a few ignorant and ill-bred women that we find sex referred to as "bestial" or "the animal part of our nature."[60] But since women are the mothers and teachers of the human race this is a piece of ignorance and ill-breeding which cannot be too swiftly eradicated. There are some who seem to think that they have held the balance evenly, and finally stated the matter, if they admit that sexual love may be either beautiful or disgusting, and that either view is equally normal and legitimate. "Listen in turn," Tarde remarks, "to two men who, one cold, the other ardent, one chaste, the other in love, both equally educated and large-minded, are estimating the same thing: one judges as disgusting, odious, revolting, and bestial what the other judges to be delicious, exquisite, ineffable, divine. What, for one, is in Christian phraseology, an unforgivable sin, is, for the other, the state of true grace. Acts that for one seem a sad and occasional necessity, stains that must be carefully effaced by long intervals of continence, are for the other the golden nails from which all the rest of conduct and existence is suspended, the things that alone give human life its value."[61] Yet we may well doubt whether both these persons are "equally well-educated and broad-minded." The savage feels that sex is perilous, and he is right. But the person who feels that the sexual impulse is bad, or even low and vulgar, is an absurdity in the universe, an anomaly. He is like those persons in our insane asylums, who feel that the instinct of nutrition is evil and so proceed to starve themselves. They are alike spiritual outcasts in the universe whose children they are. It is another matter when a man declares that, personally, in his own case, he cherishes an ascetic ideal which leads him to restrain, so far as possible, either or both impulses. The man, who is sanely ascetic seeks a discipline which aids the ideal he has personally set before himself. He may still remain theoretically in harmony with the universe to which he belongs. But to pour contempt on the sexual life, to throw the veil of "impurity" over it, is, as Nietzsche declared, the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost of Life. There are many who seek to conciliate prejudice and reason in their valuation of sex by drawing a sharp distinction between "lust" and "love," rejecting the one and accepting the other. It is quite proper to make such a distinction, but the manner in which it is made will by no means usually bear examination. We have to define what we mean by "lust" and what we mean by "love," and this is not easy if they are regarded as mutually exclusive. It is sometimes said that "lust" must be understood as meaning a reckless indulgence of the sexual impulse without regard to other considerations. So understood, we are quite safe in rejecting it. But that is an entirely arbitrary definition of the word. "Lust" is really a very ambiguous term; it is a good word that has changed its moral values, and therefore we need to define it very carefully before we venture to use it. Properly speaking, "lust" is an entirely colorless word[62] and merely means desire in general and sexual desire in particular; it corresponds to "hunger" or "thirst"; to use it in an offensive sense is much the same as though we should always assume that the word "hungry" had the offensive meaning of "greedy." The result has been that sensitive minds indignantly reject the term "lust" in connection with love.[63] In the early use of our language, "lust," "lusty," and "lustful" conveyed the sense of wholesome and normal sexual vigor; now, with the partial exception of "lusty," they have been so completely degraded to a lower sense that although it would be very convenient to restore them to their original and proper place, which still remains vacant, the attempt at such a restoration scarcely seems a hopeful task. We have so deeply poisoned the springs of feeling in these matters with mediæval ascetic crudities that all our words of sex tend soon to become bespattered with filth; we may pick them up from the mud into which they have fallen and seek to purify them, but to many eyes they will still seem dirty. One result of this tendency is that we have no simple, precise, natural word for the love of the sexes, and are compelled to fall back on the general term, which is so extensive in its range that in English and French and most of the other leading languages of Europe, it is equally correct to "love" God or to "love" eating. Love, in the sexual sense, is, summarily considered, a synthesis of lust (in the primitive and uncolored sense of sexual emotion) and friendship. It is incorrect to apply the term "love" in the sexual sense to elementary and uncomplicated sexual desire; it is equally incorrect to apply it to any variety or combination of varieties of friendship. There can be no sexual love without lust; but, on the other hand, until the currents of lust in the organism have been so irradiated as to affect other parts of the psychic organism--at the least the affections and the social feelings--it is not yet sexual love. Lust, the specific sexual impulse, is indeed the primary and essential element in this synthesis, for it alone is adequate to the end of reproduction, not only in animals but in men. But it is not until lust is expanded and irradiated that it develops into the exquisite and enthralling flower of love. We may call to mind what happens among plants: on the one hand we have the lower organisms in which sex is carried on summarily and cryptogamically, never shedding any shower of gorgeous blossoms on the world, and on the other hand the higher plants among whom sex has become phanersgamous and expanded enormously into form and color and fragrance. While "lust" is, of course, known all over the world, and there are everywhere words to designate it, "love" is not universally known, and in many languages there are no words for "love." The failures to find love are often remarkable and unexpected. We may find it where we least expect it. Sexual desire became idealized (as Sergi has pointed out) even by some animals, especially birds, for when a bird pines to death for the loss of its mate this cannot be due to the uncomplicated instinct of sex, but must involve the interweaving of that instinct with the other elements of life to a degree which is rare even among the most civilized men. Some savage races seem to have no fundamental notion of love, and (like the American Nahuas) no primary word for it, while, on the other hand, in Quichua, the language of the ancient Peruvians, there are nearly six hundred combinations of the verb _munay_, to love. Among some peoples love seems to be confined to the women. Letourneau (_L'Evolution Littéraire_, p. 529) points out that in various parts of the world women have taken a leading part in creating erotic poetry. It may be mentioned in this connection that suicide from erotic motives among primitive peoples occurs chiefly among women (_Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft_, 1899, p. 578). Not a few savages possess love-poems, as, for instance, the Suahali (Velten, in his _Prosa und Poesie der Suahali_, devotes a section to love-poems reproduced in the Suahali language). D.G. Brinton, in an interesting paper on "The Conception of Love in Some American Languages" (_Proceedings American Philosophical Society_, vol. xxiii, p. 546, 1886) states that the words for love in these languages reveal four main ways of expressing the conception: (1) inarticulate cries of emotion; (2) assertions of sameness or similarity; (3) assertions of conjunction or union; (4) assertions of a wish, desire, a longing. Brinton adds that "these same notions are those which underlie the majority of the words of love in the great Aryan family of languages." The remarkable fact emerges, however, that the peoples of Aryan tongue were slow in developing their conception of sexual love. Brinton remarks that the American Mayas must be placed above the peoples of early Aryan culture, in that they possessed a radical word for the joy of love which was in significance purely psychical, referring strictly to a mental state, and neither to similarity nor desire. Even the Greeks were late in developing any ideal of sexual love. This has been well brought out by E.F.M. Benecke in his _Antimachus of Colophon and the Position of Women in Greek Poetry_, a book which contains some hazardous assertions, but is highly instructive from the present point of view. The Greek lyric poets wrote practically no love poems at all to women before Anacreon, and his were only written in old age. True love for the Greeks was nearly always homosexual. The Ionian lyric poets of early Greece regarded woman as only an instrument of pleasure and the founder of the family. Theognis compares marriage to cattle-breeding; Alcman, when he wishes to be complimentary to the Spartan girls, speaks of them as his "female boy-friends." Æschylus makes even a father assume that his daughters will misbehave if left to themselves. There is no sexual love in Sophocles, and in Euripides it is only the women who fall in love. Benecke concludes (p. 67) that in Greece sexual love, down to a comparatively later period, was looked down on, and held to be unworthy of public discussion and representation. It was in Magna Græcia rather than in Greece itself that men took interest in women, and it was not until the Alexandrian period, and notably in Asclepiades, Benecke maintains, that the love of women was regarded as a matter of life and death. Thereafter the conception of sexual love, in its romantic aspects, appears in European life. With the Celtic story of Tristram, as Gaston Paris remarks, it finally appears in the Christian European world of poetry as the chief point in human life, the great motive force of conduct. Romantic love failed, however, to penetrate the masses in Europe. In the sixteenth century, or whenever it was that the ballad of "Glasgerion" was written, we see it is assumed that a churl's relation to his mistress is confined to the mere act of sexual intercourse; he fails to kiss her on arriving or departing; it is only the knight, the man of upper class, who would think of offering that tender civility. And at the present day in, for instance, the region between East Friesland and the Alps, Bloch states (_Sexualleben unserer Zeit_, p. 29), following E.H. Meyer, that the word "love" is unknown among the masses, and only its coarse counterpart recognized. On the other side of the world, in Japan, sexual love seems to be in as great disrepute as it was in ancient Greece; thus Miss Tsuda, a Japanese head-mistress, and herself a Christian, remarks (as quoted by Mrs. Eraser in _World's Work and Play_, Dec., 1906): "That word 'love' has been hitherto a word unknown among our girls, in the foreign sense. Duty, submission, kindness--these were the sentiments which a girl was expected to bring to the husband who had been chosen for her--and many happy, harmonious marriages were the result. Now, your dear sentimental foreign women say to our girls: 'It is wicked to marry without love; the obedience to parents in such a case is an outrage against nature and Christianity. If you love a man you must sacrifice everything to marry him.'" When, however, love is fully developed it becomes an enormously extended, highly complex emotion, and lust, even in the best sense of that word, becomes merely a coördinated element among many other elements. Herbert Spencer, in an interesting passage of his _Principles of Psychology_ (Part IV, Ch. VIII), has analyzed love into as many as nine distinct and important elements: (1) the physical impulse of sex; (2) the feeling for beauty; (3) affection; (4) admiration and respect; (5) love of approbation; (6) self-esteem; (7) proprietary feeling; (8) extended liberty of action from the absence of personal barriers; (9) exaltation of the sympathies. "This passion," he concludes, "fuses into one immense aggregate most of the elementary excitations of which we are capable." It is scarcely necessary to say that to define sexual love, or even to analyze its components, is by no means to explain its mystery. We seek to satisfy our intelligence by means of a coherent picture of love, but the gulf between that picture and the emotional reality must always be incommensurable and impassable. "There is no word more often pronounced than that of love," wrote Bonstetten many years ago, "yet there is no subject more mysterious. Of that which touches us most nearly we know least. We measure the march of the stars and we do not know how we love." And however expert we have become in detecting and analyzing the causes, the concomitants, and the results of love, we must still make the same confession to-day. We may, as some have done, attempt to explain love as a form of hunger and thirst, or as a force analogous to electricity, or as a kind of magnetism, or as a variety of chemical affinity, or as a vital tropism, but these explanations are nothing more than ways of expressing to ourselves the magnitude of the phenomenon we are in the presence of. What has always baffled men in the contemplation of sexual love is the seeming inadequacy of its cause, the immense discrepancy between the necessarily circumscribed region of mucous membrane which is the final goal of such love and the sea of world-embracing emotions to which it seems as the door, so that, as Remy de Gourmont has said, "the mucous membranes, by an ineffable mystery, enclose in their obscure folds all the riches of the infinite." It is a mystery before which the thinker and the artist are alike overcome. Donnay, in his play _L'Escalade_, makes a cold and stern man of science, who regards love as a mere mental disorder which can be cured like other disorders, at last fall desperately in love himself. He forces his way into the girl's room, by a ladder, at dead of night, and breaks into a long and passionate speech: "Everything that touches you becomes to me mysterious and sacred. Ah! to think that a thing so well known as a woman's body, which sculptors have modelled, which poets have sung of, which men of science like myself have dissected, that such a thing should suddenly become an unknown mystery and an infinite joy merely because it is the body of one particular woman--what insanity! And yet that is what I feel."[64] That love is a natural insanity, a temporary delusion which the individual is compelled to suffer for the sake of the race, is indeed an explanation that has suggested itself to many who have been baffled by this mystery. That, as we know, was the explanation offered by Schopenhauer. When a youth and a girl fall into each other's arms in the ecstacy of love they imagine that they are seeking their own happiness. But it is not so, said Schopenhauer; they are deluded by the genius of the race into the belief that they are seeking a personal end in order that they may be induced to effect a far greater impersonal end: the creation of the future race. The intensity of their passion is not the measure of the personal happiness they will secure but the measure of their aptitude for producing offspring. In accepting passion and renouncing the counsels of cautious prudence the youth and the girl are really sacrificing their chances of selfish happiness and fulfilling the larger ends of Nature. As Schopenhauer saw the matter, there was here no vulgar illusion. The lovers thought that they were reaching towards a boundlessly immense personal happiness; they were probably deceived. But they were deceived not because the reality was less than their imagination, but because it was more; instead of pursuing, as they thought, a merely personal end they were carrying on the creative work of the world, a task better left undone, as Schopenhauer viewed it, but a task whose magnitude he fully recognized.[65] It must be remembered that in the lower sense of deception, love may be, and frequently is, a delusion. A man may deceive himself, or be deceived by the object of his attraction, concerning the qualities that she possesses or fails to possess. In first love, occurring in youth, such deception is perhaps entirely normal, and in certain suggestible and inflammable types of people it is peculiarly apt to occur. This kind of deception, although far more frequent and conspicuous in matters of love--and more serious because of the tightness of the marriage bond--is liable to occur in any relation of life. For most people, however, and those not the least sane or the least wise, the memory of the exaltation of love, even when the period of that exaltation is over, still remains as, at the least, the memory of one of the most real and essential facts of life.[66] Some writers seem to confuse the liability in matters of love to deception or disappointment with the larger question of a metaphysical illusion in Schopenhauer's sense. To some extent this confusion perhaps exists in the discussion of love by Renouvier and Prat in _La Nouvelle Monadologie_ (pp. 216 _et seq._). In considering whether love is or is not a delusion, they answer that it is or is not according as we are, or are not, dominated by selfishness and injustice. "It was not an essential error which presided over the creation of the _idol_, for the idol is only what in all things the _ideal_ is. But to realize the ideal in love two persons are needed, and therein is the great difficulty. We are never justified," they conclude, "in casting contempt on our love, or even on its object, for if it is true that we have not gained possession of the sovereign beauty of the world it is equally true that we have not attained a degree of perfection that would have entitled us justly to claim so great a prize." And perhaps most of us, it may be added, must admit in the end, if we are honest with ourselves, that the prizes of love we have gained in the world, whatever their flaws, are far greater than we deserved. We may well agree that in a certain sense not love alone but all the passions and desires of men are illusions. In that sense the Gospel of Buddha is justified, and we may recognize the inspiration of Shakespeare (in the _Tempest_) and of Calderon (in _La Vida es Sueño_), who felt that ultimately the whole world is an insubstantial dream. But short of that large and ultimate vision we cannot accept illusion; we cannot admit that love is a delusion in some special and peculiar sense that men's other cravings and aspirations escape. On the contrary, it is the most solid of realities. All the progressive forms of life are built up on the attraction of sex. If we admit the action of sexual selection--as we can scarcely fail to do if we purge it from its unessential accretions[67]--love has moulded the precise shape and color, the essential beauty, alike of animal and human life. If we further reflect that, as many investigators believe, not only the physical structure of life but also its spiritual structure--our social feelings, our morality, our religion, our poetry and art--are, in some degree at least, also built up on the impulse of sex, and would have been, if not non-existent, certainly altogether different had other than sexual methods of propagation prevailed in the world, we may easily realize that we can only fall into confusion by dismissing love as a delusion. The whole edifice of life topples down, for as the idealist Schiller long since said, it is entirely built up on hunger and on love. To look upon love as in any special sense a delusion is merely to fall into the trap of a shallow cynicism. Love is only a delusion in so far as the whole of life is a delusion, and if we accept the fact of life it is unphilosophical to refuse to accept the fact of love. It is unnecessary here to magnify the functions of love in the world; it is sufficient to investigate its workings in its own proper sphere. It may, however, be worth while to quote a few expressions of thinkers, belonging to various schools, who have pointed out what seemed to them the far-ranging significance of the sexual emotions for the moral life. "The passions are the heavenly fire which gives life to the moral world," wrote Helvétius long since in _De l'Esprit_. "The activity of the mind depends on the activity of the passions, and it is at the period of the passions, from the age of twenty-five to thirty-five or forty that men are capable of the greatest efforts of virtue or of genius." "What touches sex," wrote Zola, "touches the centre of social life." Even our regard for the praise and blame of others has a sexual origin, Professor Thomas argues (_Psychological Review_, Jan., 1904, pp. 61-67), and it is love which is the source of susceptibility generally and of the altruistic side of life. "The appearance of sex," Professor Woods Hutchinson attempts to show ("Love as a Factor in Evolution," _Monist_, 1898), "the development of maleness and femaleness, was not only the birthplace of affection, the well-spring of all morality, but an enormous economic advantage to the race and an absolute necessity of progress. In it first we find any conscious longing for or active impulse toward a fellow creature." "Were man robbed of the instinct of procreation, and of all that spiritually springs therefrom," exclaimed Maudsley in his _Physiology of Mind_, "that moment would all poetry, and perhaps also his whole moral sense, be obliterated from his life." "One seems to oneself transfigured, stronger, richer, more complete; one _is_ more complete," says Nietzsche (_Der Wille zur Macht_, p. 389), "we find here art as an organic function: we find it inlaid in the most angelic instinct of 'love:' we find it as the greatest stimulant of life.... It is not merely that it changes the feeling of values: the lover _is_ worth more, is stronger. In animals this condition produces new weapons, pigments, colors, and forms, above all new movements, new rhythms, a new seductive music. It is not otherwise in man.... Even in art the door is opened to him. If we subtract from lyrical work in words and sounds the suggestions of that intestinal fever, what is left over in poetry and music? _L'Art pour l'art_ perhaps, the quacking virtuosity of cold frogs who perish in their marsh. All the rest is created by love." It would be easy to multiply citations tending to show how many diverse thinkers have come to the conclusion that sexual love (including therewith parental and especially maternal love) is the source of the chief manifestations of life. How far they are justified in that conclusion, it is not our business now to inquire. It is undoubtedly true that, as we have seen when discussing the erratic and imperfect distribution of the conception of love, and even of words for love, over the world, by no means all people are equally apt for experiencing, even at any time in their lives, the emotions of sexual exaltation. The difference between the knight and the churl still subsists, and both may sometimes be found in all social strata. Even the refinements of sexual enjoyment, it is unnecessary to insist, quite commonly remain on a merely physical basis, and have little effect on the intellectual and emotional nature.[68] But this is not the case with the people who have most powerfully influenced the course of the world's thought and feeling. The personal reality of love, its importance for the individual life, are facts that have been testified to by some of the greatest thinkers, after lives devoted to the attainment of intellectual labor. The experience of Renan, who toward the end of his life set down in his remarkable drama _L'Abbesse de Jouarre_, his conviction that, even from the point of view of chastity, love is, after all, the supreme thing in the world, is far from standing alone. "Love has always appeared as an inferior mode of human music, ambition as the superior mode," wrote Tarde, the distinguished sociologist, at the end of his life. "But will it always be thus? Are there not reasons for thinking that the future perhaps reserves for us the ineffable surprise of an inversion of that secular order?" Laplace, half an hour before his death, took up a volume of his own _Mécanique Celeste_, and said: "All that is only trifles, there is nothing true but love." Comte, who had spent his life in building up a Positive Philosophy which should be absolutely real, found (as indeed it may be said the great English Positivist Mill also found) the culmination of all his ideals in a woman, who was, he said, Egeria and Beatrice and Laura in one, and he wrote: "There is nothing real in the world but love. One grows tired of thinking, and even of acting; one never grows tired of loving, nor of saying so. In the worst tortures of affection I have never ceased to feel that the essential of happiness is that the heart should be worthily filled--even with pain, yes, even with pain, the bitterest pain." And Sophie Kowalewsky, after intellectual achievements which have placed her among the most distinguished of her sex, pathetically wrote: "Why can no one love me? I could give more than most women, and yet the most insignificant women are loved and I am not." Love, they all seem to say, is the one thing that is supremely worth while. The greatest and most brilliant of the world's intellectual giants, in their moments of final insight, thus reach the habitual level of the humble and almost anonymous persons, cloistered from the world, who wrote _The Imitation of Christ_ or _The Letters of a Portuguese Nun_. And how many others! FOOTNOTES: [45] _Meditationes Piissimæ de Cognitione Humanæ Conditionis_, Migne's _Patrologia_, vol. clxxiv, p. 489, cap. III, "De Dignitate Animæ et Vilitate Corporis." It may be worth while to quote more at length the vigorous language of the original. "Si diligenter consideres quid per os et nares cæterosque corporis meatus egrediatur, vilius sterquilinum numquam vidisti.... Attende, homo, quid fuisti ante ortum, et quid es ab ortu usque ad occasum, atque quid eris post hanc vitam. Profecto fuit quand non eras: postea de vili materia factus, et vilissimo panno involutus, menstruali sanguine in utero materno fuisti nutritus, et tunica tua fuit pellis secundina. Nihil aliud est homo quam sperma fetidum, saccus stercorum, cibus vermium.... Quid superbis, pulvis et cinis, cujus conceptus cula, nasci miseria, vivere poena, mori angustia?" [46] See (in Mignes' edition) _S. Odonis abbatis Cluniacensis Collationes_, lib. ii, cap. IX. [47] Dühren (_Neue Forshungen über die Marquis de Sade_, pp. 432 et seq.) shows how the ascetic view of woman's body persisted, for instance, in Schopenhauer and De Sade. [48] In "The Evolution of Modesty," in the first volume of these _Studies_, and again in the fifth volume in discussing urolagnia in the study of "Erotic Symbolism," the mutual reactions of the sexual and excretory centres were fully dealt with. [49] "La Morale Sexuelle," _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Jan., 1907. [50] The above passage, now slightly modified, originally formed an unpublished part of an essay on Walt Whitman in _The New Spirit_, first issued in 1889. [51] Even in the ninth century, however, when the monastic movement was rapidly developing, there were some who withstood the tendencies of the new ascetics. Thus, in 850, Ratramnus, the monk of Corbie, wrote a treatise (_Liber de eo quod Christus ex Virgine natus est_) to prove that Mary really gave birth to Jesus through her sexual organs, and not, as some high-strung persons were beginning to think could alone be possible, through the more conventionally decent breasts. The sexual organs were sanctified. "Spiritus sanctus ... et thalamum tanto dignum sponso sanctificavit et portam" (Achery, _Spicilegium_, vol. i, p. 55). [52] _Pædagogus_, lib. ii, cap. X. Elsewhere (id., lib. ii, Ch. VI) he makes a more detailed statement to the same effect. [53] See, e.g., Wilhelm Capitaine, _Die Moral des Clemens von Alexandrien_, pp. 112 et seq. [54] _De Civitate Dei_, lib. xxii, cap. XXIV. "There is no need," he says again (id., lib. xiv, cap. V) "that in our sins and vices we accuse the nature of the flesh to the injury of the Creator, for in its own kind and degree the flesh is good." [55] St. Augustine, _De Civitate Dei_, lib. xiv, cap. XXIII-XXVI. Chrysostom and Gregory, of Nyssa, thought that in Paradise human beings would have multiplied by special creation, but such is not the accepted Catholic doctrine. [56] W. Capitaine, _Die Moral des Clemens von Alexandrien_, pp. 112 et seq. Without the body, Tertullian declared, there could be no virginity and no salvation. The soul itself is corporeal. He carries, indeed, his idea of the omnipresence of the body to the absurd. [57] Rufinus, _Commentarius in Symbolum Apostolorum_, cap. XII. [58] Migne, _Patrologia Græca_, vol. xxvi, pp. 1170 et seq. [59] Even in physical conformation the human sexual organs, when compared with those of the lower animals, show marked differences (see "The Mechanism of Detumescence," in the fifth volume of these _Studies_). [60] It may perhaps be as well to point out, with Forel (_Die Sexuelle Frage_, p. 208), that the word "bestial" is generally used quite incorrectly in this connection. Indeed, not only for the higher, but also for the lower manifestation of the sexual impulse, it would usually be more correct to use instead the qualification "human." [61] _Loc. cit._, _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Jan., 1907. [62] It has, however, become colored and suspect from an early period in the history of Christianity. St. Augustine (_De Civitate Dei_, lib. xiv, cap. XV), while admitting that libido or lust is merely the generic name for all desire, adds that, as specially applied to the sexual appetite, it is justly and properly mixed up with ideas of shame. [63] Hinton well illustrates this feeling. "We call by the name of lust," he declares in his MSS., "the most simple and natural desires. We might as well term hunger and thirst 'lust' as so call sex-passion, when expressing simply Nature's prompting. We miscall it 'lust,' cruelly libelling those to whom we ascribe it, and introduce absolute disorder. For, by foolishly confounding Nature's demands with lust, we insist upon restraint upon her." [64] Several centuries earlier another French writer, the distinguished physician, A. Laurentius (Des Laurens) in his _Historia Anatomica Humani Corporis_ (lib. viii, Quæstio vii) had likewise puzzled over "the incredible desire of coitus," and asked how it was that "that divine animal, full of reason and judgment, which we call Man, should be attracted to those obscene parts of women, soiled with filth, which are placed, like a sewer, in the lowest part of the body." It is noteworthy that, from the first, and equally among men of religion, men of science, and men of letters, the mystery of this problem has peculiarly appealed to the French mind. [65] Schopenhauer, _Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_, vol. ii, pp. 608 et seq. [66] "Perhaps there is scarcely a man," wrote Malthus, a clergyman as well as one of the profoundest thinkers of his day (_Essay on the Principle of Population_, 1798, Ch. XI), "who has once experienced the genuine delight of virtuous love, however great his intellectual pleasures may have been, that does not look back to the period as the sunny spot in his whole life, where his imagination loves to bask, which he recollects and contemplates with the fondest regrets, and which he would most wish to live over again. The superiority of intellectual to sexual pleasures consists rather in their filling up more time, in their having a larger range, and in their being less liable to satiate, than in their being more real and essential." [67] The whole argument of the fourth volume of these _Studies_, on "Sexual Selection in Man," points in this direction. [68] "Perhaps most average men," Forel remarks (_Die Sexuelle Frage_, p. 307), "are but slightly receptive to the intoxication of love; they are at most on the level of the _gourmet_, which is by no means necessarily an immoral plane, but is certainly not that of poetry." CHAPTER V. THE FUNCTION OF CHASTITY. Chastity Essential to the Dignity of Love--The Eighteenth Century Revolt Against the Ideal of Chastity--Unnatural Forms of Chastity--The Psychological Basis of Asceticism--Asceticism and Chastity as Savage Virtues--The Significance of Tahiti--Chastity Among Barbarous Peoples--Chastity Among the Early Christians--Struggles of the Saints with the Flesh--The Romance of Christian Chastity--Its Decay in Mediæval Times--_Aucassin et Nicolette_ and the new Romance of Chaste Love--The Unchastity of the Northern Barbarians--The Penitentials--Influence of the Renaissance and the Reformation--The Revolt Against Virginity as a Virtue--The Modern Conception of Chastity as a Virtue--The Influences That Favor the Virtue of Chastity--Chastity as a Discipline--The Value of Chastity for the Artist--Potency and Impotence in Popular Estimation--The Correct Definitions of Asceticism and Chastity. The supreme importance of chastity, and even of asceticism, has never at any time, or in any greatly vital human society, altogether failed of recognition. Sometimes chastity has been exalted in human estimation, sometimes it has been debased; it has frequently changed the nature of its manifestations; but it has always been there. It is even a part of the beautiful vision of all Nature. "The glory of the world is seen only by a chaste mind," said Thoreau with his fine extravagance. "To whomsoever this fact is not an awful but beautiful mystery there are no flowers in Nature." Without chastity it is impossible to maintain the dignity of sexual love. The society in which its estimation sinks to a minimum is in the last stages of degeneration. Chastity has for sexual love an importance which it can never lose, least of all to-day. It is quite true that during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries many men of high moral and intellectual distinction pronounced very decidedly their condemnation of the ideal of chastity. The great Buffon refused to recognize chastity as an ideal and referred scornfully to "that kind of insanity which has turned a girl's virginity into a thing with a real existence," while William Morris, in his downright manner, once declared at a meeting of the Fellowship of the New Life, that asceticism is "the most disgusting vice that afflicted human nature." Blake, though he seems always to have been a strictly moral man in the most conventional sense, felt nothing but contempt for chastity, and sometimes confers a kind of religious solemnity on the idea of unchastity. Shelley, who may have been unwise in sexual matters but can scarcely be called unchaste, also often seems to associate religion and morality, not with chastity, but with unchastity, and much the same may be said of James Hinton.[69] But all these men--with other men of high character who have pronounced similar opinions--were reacting against false, decayed, and conventional forms of chastity. They were not rebelling against an ideal; they were seeking to set up an ideal in a place where they realized that a mischievous pretense was masquerading as a moral reality. We cannot accept an ideal of chastity unless we ruthlessly cast aside all the unnatural and empty forms of chastity. If chastity is merely a fatiguing effort to emulate in the sexual sphere the exploits of professional fasting men, an effort using up all the energies of the organism and resulting in no achievement greater than the abstinence it involves, then it is surely an unworthy ideal. If it is a feeble submission to an external conventional law which there is no courage to break, then it is not an ideal at all. If it is a rule of morality imposed by one sex on the opposite sex, then it is an injustice and provocative of revolt. If it is an abstinence from the usual forms of sexuality, replaced by more abnormal or more secret forms, then it is simply an unreality based on misconception. And if it is merely an external acceptance of conventions without any further acceptance, even in act, then it is a contemptible farce. These are the forms of chastity which during the past two centuries many fine-souled men have vigorously rejected. The fact that chastity, or asceticism, is a real virtue, with fine uses, becomes evident when we realize that it has flourished at all times, in connection with all kinds of religions and the most various moral codes. We find it pronounced among savages, and the special virtues of savagery--hardness, endurance, and bravery--are intimately connected with the cultivation of chastity and asceticism.[70] It is true that savages seldom have any ideal of chastity in the degraded modern sense, as a state of permanent abstinence from sexual relationships having a merit of its own apart from any use. They esteem chastity for its values, magical or real, as a method of self-control which contributes towards the attainment of important ends. The ability to bear pain and restraint is nearly always a main element in the initiation of youths at puberty. The custom of refraining from sexual intercourse before expeditions of war and hunting, and other serious concerns involving great muscular and mental strain, whatever the motives assigned, is a sagacious method of economizing energy. The extremely widespread habit of avoiding intercourse during pregnancy and suckling, again, is an admirable precaution in sexual hygiene which it is extremely difficult to obtain the observance of in civilization. Savages, also, are perfectly well aware how valuable sexual continence is, in combination with fasting and solitude, to acquire the aptitude for abnormal spiritual powers. Thus C. Hill Tout (_Journal Anthropological Institute_, Jan.-June, 1905, pp. 143-145) gives an interesting account of the self-discipline undergone by those among the Salish Indians of British Columbia, who seek to acquire shamanistic powers. The psychic effects of such training on these men, says Hill Tout, is undoubted. "It enables them to undertake and accomplish feats of abnormal strength, agility, and endurance; and gives them at times, besides a general exaltation of the senses, undoubted clairvoyant and other supernormal mental and bodily powers." At the other end of the world, as shown by the _Reports of the Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_ (vol. v, p. 321), closely analogous methods of obtaining supernatural powers are also customary. There are fundamental psychological reasons for the wide prevalence of asceticism and for the remarkable manner in which it involves self-mortification, even acute physical suffering. Such pain is an actual psychic stimulant, more especially in slightly neurotic persons. This is well illustrated by a young woman, a patient of Janet's, who suffered from mental depression and was accustomed to find relief by slightly burning her hands and feet. She herself clearly understood the nature of her actions. "I feel," she said, "that I make an effort when I hold my hands on the stove, or when I pour boiling water on my feet; it is a violent act and it awakens me: I feel that it is really done by myself and not by another.... To make a mental effort by itself is too difficult for me; I have to supplement it by physical efforts. I have not succeeded in any other way; that is all: when I brace myself up to burn myself I make my mind freer, lighter and more active for several days. Why do you speak of my desire for mortification? My parents believe that, but it is absurd. It would be a mortification if it brought any suffering, but I enjoy this suffering, it gives me back my mind; it prevents my thoughts from stopping: what would one not do to attain such happiness?" (P. Janet, "The Pathogenesis of Some Impulsions," _Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, April, 1906.) If we understand this psychological process we may realize how it is that even in the higher religions, however else they may differ, the practical value of asceticism and mortification as the necessary door to the most exalted religious state is almost universally recognized, and with complete cheerfulness. "Asceticism and ecstacy are inseparable," as Probst-Biraben remarks at the outset of an interesting paper on Mahommedan mysticism ("L'Extase dans le Mysticisme Musulman," _Revue Philosophique_, Nov., 1906). Asceticism is the necessary ante-chamber to spiritual perfection. It thus happens that savage peoples largely base their often admirable enforcement of asceticism not on the practical grounds that would justify it, but on religious grounds that with the growth of intelligence fall into discredit.[71] Even, however, when the scrupulous observances of savages, whether in sexual or in non-sexual matters, are without any obviously sound basis it cannot be said that they are entirely useless if they tend to encourage self-control and the sense of reverence.[72] The would-be intelligent and practical peoples who cast aside primitive observances because they seem baseless or even ridiculous, need a still finer practical sense and still greater intelligence in order to realize that, though the reasons for the observances have been wrong, yet the observances themselves may have been necessary methods of attaining personal and social efficiency. It constantly happens in the course of civilization that we have to revive old observances and furnish them with new reasons. In considering the moral quality of chastity among savages, we must carefully separate that chastity which among semi-primitive peoples is exclusively imposed upon women. This has no moral quality whatever, for it is not exercised as a useful discipline, but merely enforced in order to heighten the economic and erotic value of the women. Many authorities believe that the regard for women as property furnishes the true reason for the widespread insistence on virginity in brides. Thus A.B. Ellis, speaking of the West Coast of Africa (_Yoruba-Speaking Peoples_, pp. 183 _et seq._), says that girls of good class are betrothed as mere children, and are carefully guarded from men, while girls of lower class are seldom betrothed, and may lead any life they choose. "In this custom of infant or child betrothals we probably find the key to that curious regard for ante-nuptial chastity found not only among the tribes of the Gold and Slave Coasts, but also among many other uncivilized peoples in different parts of the world." In a very different part of the world, in Northern Siberia, "the Yakuts," Sieroshevski states (_Journal Anthropological Institute_, Jan.-June, 1901, p. 96), "see nothing immoral in illicit love, providing only that nobody suffers material loss by it. It is true that parents will scold a daughter if her conduct threatens to deprive them of their gain from the bride-price; but if once they have lost hope of marrying her off, or if the bride-price has been spent, they manifest complete indifference to her conduct. Maidens who no longer expect marriage are not restrained at all, if they observe decorum it is only out of respect to custom." Westermarck (_History of Human Marriage_, pp. 123 et seq.) also shows the connection between the high estimates of virginity and the conception of woman as property, and returning to the question in his later work, _The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_ (vol. ii, Ch. XLII), after pointing out that "marriage by purchase has thus raised the standard of female chastity," he refers (p. 437) to the significant fact that the seduction of an unmarried girl "is chiefly, if not exclusively, regarded as an offense against the parents or family of the girl," and there is no indication that it is ever held by savages that any wrong has been done to the woman herself. Westermarck recognizes at the same time that the preference given to virgins has also a biological basis in the instinctive masculine feeling of jealousy in regard to women who have had intercourse with other men, and especially in the erotic charm for men of the emotional state of shyness which accompanies virginity. (This point has been dealt with in the discussion of Modesty in vol. i of these _Studies_.) It is scarcely necessary to add that the insistence on the virginity of brides is by no means confined, as A.B. Ellis seems to imply, to uncivilized peoples, nor is it necessary that wife-purchase should always accompany it. The preference still persists, not only by virtue of its natural biological basis, but as a refinement and extension of the idea of woman as property, among those civilized peoples who, like ourselves, inherit a form of marriage to some extent based on wife-purchase. Under such conditions a woman's chastity has an important social function to perform, being, as Mrs. Mona Caird has put it (_The Morality of Marriage_, 1897, p. 88), the watch-dog of man's property. The fact that no element of ideal morality enters into the question is shown by the usual absence of any demand for ante-nuptial chastity in the husband. It must not be supposed that when, as is most usually the case, there is no complete and permanent prohibition of extra-nuptial intercourse, mere unrestrained license prevails. That has probably never happened anywhere among uncontaminated savages. The rule probably is that, as among the tribes at Torres Straits (_Reports Cambridge Anthropological Expedition_, vol. v, p. 275), there is no complete continence before marriage, but neither is there any unbridled license. The example of Tahiti is instructive as regards the prevalence of chastity among peoples of what we generally consider low grades of civilization. Tahiti, according to all who have visited it, from the earliest explorers down to that distinguished American surgeon, the late Dr. Nicholas Senn, is an island possessing qualities of natural beauty and climatic excellence, which it is impossible to rate too highly. "I seemed to be transported into the garden of Eden," said Bougainville in 1768. But, mainly under the influence of the early English missionaries who held ideas of theoretical morality totally alien to those of the inhabitants of the islands, the Tahitians have become the stock example of a population given over to licentiousness and all its awful results. Thus, in his valuable _Polynesian Researches_ (second edition, 1832, vol. i, Ch. IX) William Ellis says that the Tahitians practiced "the worst pollutions of which it was possible for man to be guilty," though not specifying them. When, however, we carefully examine the narratives of the early visitors to Tahiti, before the population became contaminated by contact with Europeans, it becomes clear that this view needs serious modification. "The great plenty of good and nourishing food," wrote an early explorer, J.R. Forster (_Observations Made on a Voyage Round the World_, 1778, pp. 231, 409, 422), "together with the fine climate, the beauty and unreserved behavior of their females, invite them powerfully to the enjoyments and pleasures of love. They begin very early to abandon themselves to the most libidinous scenes. Their songs, their dances, and dramatic performances, breathe a spirit of luxury." Yet he is over and over again impelled to set down facts which bear testimony to the virtues of these people. Though rather effeminate in build, they are athletic, he says. Moreover, in their wars they fight with great bravery and valor. They are, for the rest, hospitable. He remarks that they treat their married women with great respect, and that women generally are nearly the equals of men, both in intelligence and in social position; he gives a charming description of the women. "In short, their character," Forster concludes, "is as amiable as that of any nation that ever came unimproved out of the hands of Nature," and he remarks that, as was felt by the South Sea peoples generally, "whenever we came to this happy island we could evidently perceive the opulence and happiness of its inhabitants." It is noteworthy also, that, notwithstanding the high importance which the Tahitians attached to the erotic side of life, they were not deficient in regard for chastity. When Cook, who visited Tahiti many times, was among "this benevolent humane" people, he noted their esteem for chastity, and found that not only were betrothed girls strictly guarded before marriage, but that men also who had refrained from sexual intercourse for some time before marriage were believed to pass at death immediately into the abode of the blessed. "Their behavior, on all occasions, seems to indicate a great openness and generosity of disposition. I never saw them, in any misfortune, labor under the appearance of anxiety, after the critical moment was past. Neither does care ever seem to wrinkle their brow. On the contrary, even the approach of death does not appear to alter their usual vivacity" (_Third Voyage of Discovery_, 1776-1780). Turnbull visited Tahiti at a later period (_A Voyage Round the World in 1800_, etc., pp. 374-5), but while finding all sorts of vices among them, he is yet compelled to admit their virtues: "Their manner of addressing strangers, from the king to the meanest subject, is courteous and affable in the extreme.... They certainly live amongst each other in more harmony than is usual amongst Europeans. During the whole time I was amongst them I never saw such a thing as a battle.... I never remember to have seen an Otaheitean out of temper. They jest upon each other with greater freedom than the Europeans, but these jests are never taken in ill part.... With regard to food, it is, I believe, an invariable law in Otaheite that whatever is possessed by one is common to all." Thus we see that even among a people who are commonly referred to as the supreme example of a nation given up to uncontrolled licentiousness, the claims of chastity were admitted, and many other virtues vigorously flourished. The Tahitians were brave, hospitable, self-controlled, courteous, considerate to the needs of others, chivalrous to women, even appreciative of the advantages of sexual restraint, to an extent which has rarely, if ever, been known among those Christian nations which have looked down upon them as abandoned to unspeakable vices. As we turn from savages towards peoples in the barbarous and civilized stages we find a general tendency for chastity, in so far as it is a common possession of the common people, to be less regarded, or to be retained only as a traditional convention no longer strictly observed. The old grounds for chastity in primitive religions and _tabu_ have decayed and no new grounds have been generally established. "Although the progress of civilization," wrote Gibbon long ago, "has undoubtedly contributed to assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have been less favorable to the virtue of chastity," and Westermarck concludes that "irregular connections between the sexes have, on the whole, exhibited a tendency to increase along with the progress of civilization." The main difference in the social function of chastity as we pass from savagery to higher stages of culture seems to be that it ceases to exist as a general hygienic measure or a general ceremonial observance, and, for the most part, becomes confined to special philosophic or religious sects which cultivate it to an extreme degree in a more or less professional way. This state of things is well illustrated by the Roman Empire during the early centuries of the Christian era.[73] Christianity itself was at first one of these sects enamored of the ideal of chastity; but by its superior vitality it replaced all the others and finally imposed its ideals, though by no means its primitive practices, on European society generally. Chastity manifested itself in primitive Christianity in two different though not necessarily opposed ways. On the one hand it took a stern and practical form in vigorous men and women who, after being brought up in a society permitting a high degree of sexual indulgence, suddenly found themselves convinced of the sin of such indulgence. The battle with the society they had been born into, and with their own old impulses and habits, became so severe that they often found themselves compelled to retire from the world altogether. Thus it was that the parched solitudes of Egypt were peopled with hermits largely occupied with the problem of subduing their own flesh. Their pre-occupation, and indeed the pre-occupation of much early Christian literature, with sexual matters, may be said to be vastly greater than was the case with the pagan society they had left. Paganism accepted sexual indulgence and was then able to dismiss it, so that in classic literature we find very little insistence on sexual details except in writers like Martial, Juvenal and Petronius who introduce them mainly for satirical ends. But the Christians could not thus escape from the obsession of sex; it was ever with them. We catch interesting glimpses of their struggles, for the most part barren struggles, in the Epistles of St. Jerome, who had himself been an athlete in these ascetic contests. "Oh, how many times," wrote St. Jerome to Eustochium, the virgin to whom he addressed one of the longest and most interesting of his letters, "when in the desert, in that vast solitude which, burnt up by the heart of the sun, offers but a horrible dwelling to monks, I imagined myself among the delights of Rome! I was alone, for my soul was full of bitterness. My limbs were covered by a wretched sack and my skin was as black as an Ethiopian's. Every day I wept and groaned, and if I was unwillingly overcome by sleep my lean body lay on the bare earth. I say nothing of my food and drink, for in the desert even invalids have no drink but cold water, and cooked food is regarded as a luxury. Well, I, who, out of fear of hell, had condemned myself to this prison, companion of scorpions and wild beasts, often seemed in imagination among bands of girls. My face was pale with fasting and my mind within my frigid body was burning with desire; the fires of lust would still flare up in a body that already seemed to be dead. Then, deprived of all help, I threw myself at the feet of Jesus, washing them with my tears and drying them with my hair, subjugating my rebellious flesh by long fasts. I remember that more than once I passed the night uttering cries and striking my breast until God sent me peace." "Our century," wrote St. Chrysostom in his _Discourse to Those Who Keep Virgins in Their Houses_, "has seen many men who have bound their bodies with chains, clothed themselves in sacks, retired to the summits of mountains where they have lived in constant vigil and fasting, giving the example of the most austere discipline and forbidding all women to cross the thresholds of their humble dwellings; and yet, in spite of all the severities they have exercised on themselves, it was with difficulty they could repress the fury of their passions." Hilarion, says Jerome, saw visions of naked women when he lay down on his solitary couch and delicious meats when he sat down to his frugal table. Such experiences rendered the early saints very scrupulous. "They used to say," we are told in an interesting history of the Egyptian anchorites, Palladius's _Paradise of the Holy Fathers_, belonging to the fourth century (A.W. Budge, _The Paradise_, vol. ii, p. 129), "that Abbâ Isaac went out and found the footprint of a woman on the road, and he thought about it in his mind and destroyed it saying, 'If a brother seeth it he may fall.'" Similarly, according to the rules of St. Cæsarius of Aries for nuns, no male clothing was to be taken into the convent for the purpose of washing or mending. Even in old age, a certain anxiety about chastity still remained. One of the brothers, we are told in _The Paradise_ (p. 132) said to Abbâ Zeno, "Behold thou hast grown old, how is the matter of fornication?" The venerable saint replied, "It knocketh, but it passeth on." As the centuries went by the same strenuous anxiety to guard chastity still remained, and the old struggle constantly reappeared (see, e.g., Migne's _Dictionnaire d'Ascétisme_, art. "Démon, Tentation du"). Some saints, it is true, like Luigi di Gonzaga, were so angelically natured that they never felt the sting of sexual desire. These seem to have been the exception. St. Benedict and St. Francis experienced the difficulty of subduing the flesh. St. Magdalena de Pozzi, in order to dispel sexual desires, would roll on thorny bushes till the blood came. Some saints kept a special cask of cold water in their cells to stand in (Lea, _Sacerdotal Celibacy_, vol. i, p. 124). On the other hand, the Blessed Angela de Fulginio tells us in her _Visiones_ (cap. XIX) that, until forbidden by her confessor, she would place hot coals in her secret parts, hoping by material fire to extinguish the fire of concupiscence. St. Aldhelm, the holy Bishop of Sherborne, in the eighth century, also adopted a homeopathic method of treatment, though of a more literal kind, for William of Malmsbury states that when tempted by the flesh he would have women to sit and lie by him until he grew calm again; the method proved very successful, for the reason, it was thought, that the Devil felt he had been made a fool of. In time the Catholic practice and theory of asceticism became more formalized and elaborated, and its beneficial effects were held to extend beyond the individual himself. "Asceticism from the Christian point of view," writes Brénier de Montmorand in an interesting study ("Ascétisme et Mysticisme," _Revue Philosophique_, March, 1904) "is nothing else than all the therapeutic measures making for moral purification. The Christian ascetic is an athlete struggling to transform his corrupt nature and make a road to God through the obstacles due to his passions and the world. He is not working in his own interests alone, but--by virtue of the reversibility of merit which compensates that of solidarity in error--for the good and for the salvation of the whole of society." This is the aspect of early Christian asceticism most often emphasized. But there is another aspect which may be less familiar, but has been by no means less important. Primitive Christian chastity was on one side a strenuous discipline. On another side it was a romance, and this indeed was its most specifically Christian side, for athletic asceticism has been associated with the most various religious and philosophic beliefs. If, indeed, it had not possessed the charm of a new sensation, of a delicious freedom, of an unknown adventure, it would never have conquered the European world. There are only a few in that world who have in them the stuff of moral athletes; there are many who respond to the attraction of romance. The Christians rejected the grosser forms of sexual indulgence, but in doing so they entered with a more delicate ardor into the more refined forms of sexual intimacy. They cultivated a relationship of brothers and sisters to each other, they kissed one another; at one time, in the spiritual orgy of baptism, they were not ashamed to adopt complete nakedness.[74] A very instructive picture of the forms which chastity assumed among the early Christians is given us in the treatise of Chrysostom _Against Those who Keep Virgins in their Houses_. Our fathers, Chrysostom begins, only knew two forms of sexual intimacy, marriage and fornication. Now a third form has appeared: men introduce young girls into their houses and keep them there permanently, respecting their virginity. "What," Chrysostom asks, "is the reason? It seems to me that life in common with a woman is sweet, even outside conjugal union and fleshly commerce. That is my feeling; and perhaps it is not my feeling alone; it may also be that of these men. They would not hold their honor so cheap nor give rise to such scandals if this pleasure were not violent and tyrannical.... That there should really be a pleasure in this which produces a love more ardent than conjugal union may surprise you at first. But when I give you the proofs you will agree that it is so." The absence of restraint to desire in marriage, he continues, often leads to speedy disgust, and even apart from this, sexual intercourse, pregnancy, delivery, lactation, the bringing up of children, and all the pains and anxieties that accompany these things soon destroy youth and dull the point of pleasure. The virgin is free from these burdens. She retains her vigor and youthfulness, and even at the age of forty may rival the young nubile girl. "A double ardor thus burns in the heart of him who lives with her, and the gratification of desire never extinguishes the bright flame which ever continues to increase in strength." Chrysostom describes minutely all the little cares and attentions which the modern girls of his time required, and which these men delighted to expend on their virginal sweethearts whether in public or in private. He cannot help thinking, however, that the man who lavishes kisses and caresses on a woman whose virginity he retains is putting himself somewhat in the position of Tantalus. But this new refinement of tender chastity, which came as a delicious discovery to the early Christians who had resolutely thrust away the licentiousness of the pagan world, was deeply rooted, as we discover from the frequency with which the grave Fathers of the Church, apprehensive of scandal, felt called upon to reprove it, though their condemnation is sometimes not without a trace of secret sympathy.[75] There was one form in which the new Christian chastity flourished exuberantly and unchecked: it conquered literature. The most charming, and, we may be sure, the most popular literature of the early Church lay in the innumerable romances of erotic chastity--to some extent, it may well be, founded on fact--which are embodied to-day in the _Acta Sanctorum_. We can see in even the most simple and non-miraculous early Christian records of the martyrdom of women that the writers were fully aware of the delicate charm of the heroine who, like Perpetua at Carthage, tossed by wild cattle in the arena, rises to gather her torn garment around her and to put up her disheveled hair.[76] It was an easy step to the stories of romantic adventure. Among these delightful stories I may refer especially to the legend of Thekla, which has been placed, incorrectly it may be, as early as the first century, "The Bride and Bridegroom of India" in _Judas Thomas's Acts_, "The Virgin of Antioch" as narrated by St. Ambrose, the history of "Achilleus and Nereus," "Mygdonia and Karish," and "Two Lovers of Auvergne" as told by Gregory of Tours. Early Christian literature abounds in the stories of lovers who had indeed preserved their chastity, and had yet discovered the most exquisite secrets of love. Thekla's day is the twenty-third of September. There is a very good Syriac version (by Lipsius and others regarded as more primitive than the Greek version) of the _Acts of Paul and Thekla_ (see, e.g., Wright's _Apocryphal Acts_). These _Acts_ belong to the latter part of the second century. The story is that Thekla, refusing to yield to the passion of the high priest of Syria, was put, naked but for a girdle (_subligaculum_) into the arena on the back of a lioness, which licked her feet and fought for her against the other beasts, dying in her defense. The other beasts, however, did her no harm, and she was finally released. A queen loaded her with money, she modified her dress to look like a man, travelled to meet Paul, and lived to old age. Sir W.M. Ramsay has written an interesting study of these _Acts_ (_The Church in the Roman Empire_, Ch. XVI). He is of opinion that the _Acts_ are based on a first century document, and is able to disentangle many elements of truth from the story. He states that it is the only evidence we possess of the ideas and actions of women during the first century in Asia Minor, where their position was so high and their influence so great. Thekla represents the assertion of woman's rights, and she administered the rite of baptism, though in the existing versions of the _Acts_ these features are toned down or eliminated. Some of the most typical of these early Christian romances are described as Gnostical in origin, with something of the germs of Manichæan dualism which were held in the rich and complex matrix of Gnosticism, while the spirit of these romances is also largely Montanist, with the combined chastity and ardor, the pronounced feminine tone due to its origin in Asia Minor, which marked Montanism. It cannot be denied, however, that they largely passed into the main stream of Christian tradition, and form an essential and important part of that tradition. (Renan, in his _Marc-Aurèle_, Chs. IX and XV, insists on the immense debt of Christianity to Gnostic and Montanist contributions). A characteristic example is the story of "The Betrothed of India" in _Judas Thomas's Acts_ (Wright's _Apocryphal Acts_). Judas Thomas was sold by his master Jesus to an Indian merchant who required a carpenter to go with him to India. On disembarking at the city of Sandaruk they heard the sounds of music and singing, and learnt that it was the wedding-feast of the King's daughter, which all must attend, rich and poor, slaves and freemen, strangers and citizens. Judas Thomas went, with his new master, to the banquet and reclined with a garland of myrtle placed on his head. When a Hebrew flute-player came and stood over him and played, he sang the songs of Christ, and it was seen that he was more beautiful than all that were there and the King sent for him to bless the young couple in the bridal chamber. And when all were gone out and the door of the bridal chamber closed, the bridegroom approached the bride, and saw, as it were, Judas Thomas still talking with her. But it was our Lord who said to him, "I am not Judas, but his brother." And our Lord sat down on the bed beside the young people and began to say to them: "Remember, my children, what my brother spake with you, and know to whom he committed you, and know that if ye preserve yourselves from this filthy intercourse ye become pure temples, and are saved from afflictions manifest and hidden, and from the heavy care of children, the end whereof is bitter sorrow. For their sakes ye will become oppressors and robbers, and ye will be grievously tortured for their injuries. For children are the cause of many pains; either the King falls upon them or a demon lays hold of them, or paralysis befalls them. And if they be healthy they come to ill, either by adultery, or theft, or fornication, or covetousness, or vain-glory. But if ye will be persuaded by me, and keep yourselves purely unto God, ye shall have living children to whom not one of these blemishes and hurts cometh nigh; and ye shall be without care and without grief and without sorrow, and ye shall hope for the time when ye shall see the true wedding-feast." The young couple were persuaded, and refrained from lust, and our Lord vanished. And in the morning, when it was dawn, the King had the table furnished early and brought in before the bridegroom and bride. And he found them sitting the one opposite the other, and the face of the bride was uncovered and the bridegroom was very cheerful. The mother of the bride saith to her: "Why art thou sitting thus, and art not ashamed, but art as if, lo, thou wert married a long time, and for many a day?" And her father, too, said; "Is it thy great love for thy husband that prevents thee from even veiling thyself?" And the bride answered and said: "Truly, my father, I am in great love, and am praying to my Lord that I may continue in this love which I have experienced this night. I am not veiled, because the veil of corruption is taken from me, and I am not ashamed, because the deed of shame has been removed far from me, and I am cheerful and gay, and despise this deed of corruption and the joys of this wedding-feast, because I am invited to the true wedding-feast. I have not had intercourse with a husband, the end whereof is bitter repentance, because I am betrothed to the true Husband." The bridegroom answered also in the same spirit, very naturally to the dismay of the King, who sent for the sorcerer whom he had asked to bless his unlucky daughter. But Judas Thomas had already left the city and at his inn the King's stewards found only the flute-player, sitting and weeping because he had not taken her with him. She was glad, however, when she heard what had happened, and hastened to the young couple, and lived with them ever afterwards. The King also was finally reconciled, and all ended chastely, but happily. In these same _Judas Thomas's Acts_, which are not later than the fourth century, we find (eighth act) the story of Mygdonia and Karish. Mygdonia, the wife of Karish, is converted by Thomas and flees from her husband, naked save for the curtain of the chamber door which she has wrapped around her, to her old nurse. With the nurse she goes to Thomas, who pours holy oil over her head, bidding the nurse to anoint her all over with it; then a cloth is put round her loins and he baptizes her; then she is clothed and he gives her the sacrament. The young rapture of chastity grows lyrical at times, and Judas Thomas breaks out: "Purity is the athlete who is not overcome. Purity is the truth that blencheth not. Purity is worthy before God of being to Him a familiar handmaiden. Purity is the messenger of concord which bringeth the tidings of peace." Another romance of chastity is furnished by the episode of Drusiana in _The History of the Apostles_ traditionally attributed to Abdias, Bishop of Babylon (Bk. v, Ch. IV, _et seq._). Drusiana is the wife of Andronicus, and is so pious that she will not have intercourse with him. The youth Callimachus falls madly in love with her, and his amorous attempts involve many exciting adventures, but the chastity of Drusiana is finally triumphant. A characteristic example of the literature we are here concerned with is St. Ambrose's story of "The Virgin in the Brothel" (narrated in his _De Virginibus_, Migne's edition of Ambrose's Works, vols. iii-iv, p. 211). A certain virgin, St. Ambrose tells us, who lately lived at Antioch, was condemned either to sacrifice to the gods or to go to the brothel. She chose the latter alternative. But the first man who came in to her was a Christian soldier who called her "sister," and bade her have no fear. He proposed that they should exchange clothes. This was done and she escaped, while the soldier was led away to death. At the place of execution, however, she ran up and exclaimed that it was not death she feared but shame. He, however, maintained that he had been condemned to death in her place. Finally the crown of martyrdom for which they contended was adjudged to both. We constantly observe in the early documents of this romantic literature of chastity that chastity is insisted on by no means chiefly because of its rewards after death, nor even because the virgin who devotes herself to it secures in Christ an ever-young lover whose golden-haired beauty is sometimes emphasized. Its chief charm is represented as lying in its own joy and freedom and the security it involves from all the troubles, inconveniences and bondages of matrimony. This early Christian movement of romantic chastity was clearly, in large measure, a revolt of women against men and marriage. This is well brought out in the instructive story, supposed to be of third century origin, of the eunuchs Achilleus and Nereus, as narrated in the _Acta Sanctorum_, May 12th. Achilleus and Nereus were Christian eunuchs of the bedchamber to Domitia, a virgin of noble birth, related to the Emperor Domitian and betrothed to Aurelian, son of a Consul. One day, as their mistress was putting on her jewels and her purple garments embroidered with gold, they began in turn to talk to her about all the joys and advantages of virginity, as compared to marriage with a mere man. The conversation is developed at great length and with much eloquence. Domitia was finally persuaded. She suffered much from Aurelian in consequence, and when he obtained her banishment to an island she went thither with Achilleus and Nereus, who were put to death. Incidentally, the death of Felicula, another heroine of chastity, is described. When elevated on the rack because she would not marry, she constantly refused to deny Jesus, whom she called her lover. "Ego non nego amatorem meum!" A special department of this literature is concerned with stories of the conversions or the penitence of courtesans. St. Martinianus, for instance (Feb. 13), was tempted by the courtesan Zoe, but converted her. The story of St. Margaret of Cortona (Feb. 22), a penitent courtesan, is late, for she belongs to the thirteenth century. The most delightful document in this literature is probably the latest, the fourteenth century Italian devotional romance called _The Life of Saint Mary Magdalen_, commonly associated with the name of Frate Domenico Cavalca. (It has been translated into English). It is the delicately and deliciously told romance of the chaste and passionate love of the sweet sinner, Mary Magdalene, for her beloved Master. As time went on the insistence on the joys of chastity in this life became less marked, and chastity is more and more regarded as a state only to be fully rewarded in a future life. Even, however, in Gregory of Tours's charming story of "The Two Lovers of Auvergne," in which this attitude is clear, the pleasures of chaste love in this life are brought out as clearly as in any of the early romances (_Historia Francorum_, lib. i, cap. XLII). Two senators of Auvergne each had an only child, and they betrothed them to each other. When the wedding day came and the young couple were placed in bed, the bride turned to the wall and wept bitterly. The bridegroom implored her to tell him what was the matter, and, turning towards him, she said that if she were to weep all her days she could never wash away her grief for she had resolved to give her little body immaculate to Christ, untouched by men, and now instead of immortal roses she had only had on her brow faded roses, which deformed rather than adorned it, and instead of the dowry of Paradise which Christ had promised her she had become the consort of a merely mortal man. She deplored her sad fate at considerable length and with much gentle eloquence. At length the bridegroom, overcome by her sweet words, felt that eternal life had shone before him like a great light, and declared that if she wished to abstain from carnal desires he was of the same mind. She was grateful, and with clasped hands they fell asleep. For many years they thus lived together, chastely sharing the same bed. At length she died and was buried, her lover restoring her immaculate to the hands of Christ. Soon afterwards he died also, and was placed in a separate tomb. Then a miracle happened which made manifest the magnitude of this chaste love, for the two bodies were found mysteriously placed together. To this day, Gregory concludes (writing in the sixth century), the people of the place call them "The Two Lovers." Although Renan (_Marc-Aurèle_, Ch. XV) briefly called attention to the existence of this copious early Christian literature setting forth the romance of chastity, it seems as yet to have received little or no study. It is, however, of considerable importance, not merely for its own sake, but on account of its psychological significance in making clear the nature of the motive forces which made chastity easy and charming to the people of the early Christian world, even when it involved complete abstinence from sexual intercourse. The early Church anathematized the eroticism of the Pagan world, and exorcized it in the most effectual way by setting up a new and more exquisite eroticism of its own. During the Middle Ages the primitive freshness of Christian chastity began to lose its charm. No more romances of chastity were written, and in actual life men no longer sought daring adventures in the field of chastity. So far as the old ideals survived at all it was in the secular field of chivalry. The last notable figure to emulate the achievements of the early Christians was Robert of Arbrissel in Normandy. Robert of Arbrissel, who founded, in the eleventh century, the famous and distinguished Order of Fontevrault for women, was a Breton. This Celtic origin is doubtless significant, for it may explain his unfailing ardor and gaiety, and his enthusiastic veneration for womanhood. Even those of his friends who deprecated what they considered his scandalous conduct bear testimony to his unfailing and cheerful temperament, his alertness in action, his readiness for any deed of humanity, and his entire freedom from severity. He attracted immense crowds of people of all conditions, especially women, including prostitutes, and his influence over women was great. Once he went into a brothel to warm his feet, and, incidentally, converted all the women there. "Who are you?" asked one of them, "I have been here twenty-five years and nobody has ever come here to talk about God." Robert's relation with his nuns at Fontevrault was very intimate, and he would often sleep with them. This is set forth precisely in letters written by friends of his, bishops and abbots, one of whom remarks that Robert had "discovered a new but fruitless form of martyrdom." A royal abbess of Fontevrault in the seventeenth century, pretending that the venerated founder of the order could not possibly have been guilty of such scandalous conduct, and that the letters must therefore be spurious, had the originals destroyed, so far as possible. The Bollandists, in an unscholarly and incomplete account of the matter (_Acta Sanctorum_, Feb. 25), adopted this view. J. von Walter, however, in a recent and thorough study of Robert of Arbrissel (_Die Ersten Wanderprediger Frankreichs_, Theil I), shows that there is no reason whatever to doubt the authentic and reliable character of the impugned letters. The early Christian legends of chastity had, however, their successors. _Aucassin et Nicolette_, which was probably written in Northern France towards the end of the twelfth century, is above all the descendant of the stories in the _Acta Sanctorum_ and elsewhere. It embodied their spirit and carried it forward, uniting their delicate feeling for chastity and purity with the ideal of monogamic love. _Aucassin et Nicolette_ was the death-knell of the primitive Christian romance of chastity. It was the discovery that the chaste refinements of delicacy and devotion were possible within the strictly normal sphere of sexual love. There were at least two causes which tended to extinguish the primitive Christian attraction to chastity, even apart from the influence of the Church authorities in repressing its romantic manifestations. In the first place, the submergence of the old pagan world, with its practice and, to some extent, ideal of sexual indulgence, removed the foil which had given grace and delicacy to the tender freedom of the young Christians. In the second place, the austerities which the early Christians had gladly practised for the sake of their soul's health, were robbed of their charm and spontaneity by being made a formal part of codes of punishment for sin, first in the Penitentials and afterwards at the discretion of confessors. This, it may be added, was rendered the more necessary because the ideal of Christian chastity was no longer largely the possession of refined people who had been rendered immune to Pagan license by being brought up in its midst, and even themselves steeped in it. It was clearly from the first a serious matter for the violent North Africans to maintain the ideal of chastity, and when Christianity spread to Northern Europe it seemed almost a hopeless task to acclimatize its ideals among the wild Germans. Hereafter it became necessary for celibacy to be imposed on the regular clergy by the stern force of ecclesiastical authority, while voluntary celibacy was only kept alive by a succession of religious enthusiasts perpetually founding new Orders. An asceticism thus enforced could not always be accompanied by the ardent exaltation necessary to maintain it, and in its artificial efforts at self-preservation it frequently fell from its insecure heights to the depths of unrestrained license.[77] This fatality of all hazardous efforts to overpass humanity's normal limits begun to be realized after the Middle Ages were over by clear-sighted thinkers. "Qui veut faire l'ange," said Pascal, pungently summing up this view of the matter, "fait la bête." That had often been illustrated in the history of the Church. The Penitentials began to come into use in the seventh century, and became of wide prevalence and authority during the ninth and tenth centuries. They were bodies of law, partly spiritual and partly secular, and were thrown into the form of catalogues of offences with the exact measure of penance prescribed for each offence. They represented the introduction of social order among untamed barbarians, and were codes of criminal law much more than part of a system of sacramental confession and penance. In France and Spain, where order on a Christian basis already existed, they were little needed. They had their origin in Ireland and England, and especially flourished in Germany; Charlemagne supported them (see, e.g., Lea, _History of Auricular Confession_, vol. ii, p. 96, also Ch. XVII; Hugh Williams, edition of Gildas, Part II, Appendix 3; the chief Penitentials are reproduced in Wasserschleben's _Bussordnungen_). In 1216 the Lateran Council, under Innocent III, made confession obligatory. The priestly prerogative of regulating the amount of penance according to circumstances, with greater flexibility than the rigid Penitentials admitted, was first absolutely asserted by Peter of Poitiers. Then Alain de Lille threw aside the Penitentials as obsolete, and declared that the priest himself must inquire into the circumstances of each sin and weigh precisely its guilt (Lea, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 171). Long before this period, however, the ideals of chastity, so far as they involved any considerable degree of continence, although they had become firmly hardened into the conventional traditions and ideals of the Christian Church, had ceased to have any great charm or force for the people living in Christendom. Among the Northern barbarians, with different traditions of a more vigorous and natural order behind them, the demands of sex were often frankly exhibited. The monk Ordericus Vitalis, in the eleventh century, notes what he calls the "lasciviousness" of the wives of the Norman conquerors of England who, when left alone at home, sent messages that if their husbands failed to return speedily they would take new ones. The celibacy of the clergy was only established with the very greatest difficulty, and when it was established, priests became unchaste. Archbishop Odo of Rouen, in the thirteenth century, recorded in the diary of his diocesan visitations that there was one unchaste priest in every five parishes, and even as regards the Italy of the same period the friar Salimbene in his remarkable autobiography shows how little chastity was regarded in the religious life. Chastity could now only be maintained by force, usually the moral force of ecclesiastical authority, which was itself undermined by unchastity, but sometimes even physical force. It was in the thirteenth century, in the opinion of some, that the girdle of chastity (_cingula castitatis_) first begins to appear, but the chief authority, Caufeynon (_La Ceinture de Chasteté_, 1904) believes it only dates from the Renaissance (Schultz, _Das Höfische Leben zur Zeit der Minnesänger_, vol. i, p. 595; Dufour, _Histoire de la Prostitution_, vol. v, p. 272; Krauss, _Anthropophyteia_, vol. iii, p. 247). In the sixteenth century convents were liable to become almost brothels, as we learn on the unimpeachable authority of Burchard, a Pope's secretary, in his _Diarium_, edited by Thuasne who brings together additional authorities for this statement in a footnote (vol. ii, p. 79); that they remained so in the eighteenth century we see clearly in the pages of Casanova's _Mémoires_, and in many other documents of the period. The Renaissance and the rise of humanism undoubtedly affected the feeling towards asceticism and chastity. On the one hand a new and ancient sanction was found for the disregard of virtues which men began to look upon as merely monkish, and on the other hand the finer spirits affected by the new movement began to realize that chastity might be better cultivated and observed by those who were free to do as they would than by those who were under the compulsion of priestly authority. That is the feeling that prevails in Montaigne, and that is the idea of Rabelais when he made it the only rule of his Abbey of Thelème: "Fay ce que vouldras." A little later this doctrine was repeated in varying tones by many writers more or less tinged by the culture brought into fashion by the Renaissance. "As long as Danae was free," remarks Ferrand in his sixteenth century treatise, _De la Maladie d'Amour_, "she was chaste." And Sir Kenelm Digby, the latest representative of the Renaissance spirit, insists in his _Private Memoirs_ that the liberty which Lycurgus, "the wisest human law-maker that ever was," gave to women to communicate their bodies to men to whom they were drawn by noble affection, and the hope of generous offspring, was the true cause why "real chastity flourished in Sparta more than in any other part of the world." In Protestant countries the ascetic ideal of chastity was still further discredited by the Reformation movement which was in considerable part a revolt against compulsory celibacy. Religion was thus no longer placed on the side of chastity. In the eighteenth century, if not earlier, the authority of Nature also was commonly invoked against chastity. It has thus happened that during the past two centuries serious opinion concerning chastity has only been partially favorable to it. It began to be felt that an unhappy and injurious mistake had been perpetrated by attempting to maintain a lofty ideal which encouraged hypocrisy. "The human race would gain much," as Sénancour wrote early in the nineteenth century in his remarkable book on love, "if virtue were made less laborious. The merit would not be so great, but what is the use of an elevation which can rarely be sustained?"[78] There can be no doubt that the undue discredit into which the idea of chastity began to fall from the eighteenth century onwards was largely due to the existence of that merely external and conventional physical chastity which was arbitrarily enforced so far as it could be enforced,--and is indeed in some degree still enforced, nominally or really,--upon all respectable women outside marriage. The conception of the physical virtue of virginity had degraded the conception of the spiritual virtue of chastity. A mere routine, it was felt, prescribed to a whole sex, whether they would or not, could never possess the beauty and charm of a virtue. At the same time it began to be realized that, as a matter of fact, the state of compulsory virginity is not only not a state especially favorable to the cultivation of real virtues, but that it is bound up with qualities which are no longer regarded as of high value.[79] "How arbitrary, artificial, contrary to Nature, is the life now imposed upon women in this matter of chastity!" wrote James Hinton forty years ago. "Think of that line: 'A woman who deliberates is lost.' We _make_ danger, making all womanhood hang upon a point like this, and surrounding it with unnatural and preternatural dangers. There is a wanton unreason embodied in the life of woman now; the present 'virtue' is a morbid unhealthy plant. Nature and God never poised the life of a woman upon such a needle's point. The whole modern idea of chastity has in it sensual exaggeration, surely, in part, remaining to us from other times, with what was good in it in great part gone." "The whole grace of virginity," wrote another philosopher, Guyau, "is ignorance. Virginity, like certain fruits, can only be preserved by a process of desiccation." Mérimée pointed out the same desiccating influence of virginity. In a letter dated 1859 he wrote: "I think that nowadays people attach far too much importance to chastity. Not that I deny that chastity is a virtue, but there are degrees in virtues just as there are in vices. It seems to be absurd that a woman should be banished from society for having had a lover, while a woman who is miserly, double-faced and spiteful goes everywhere. The morality of this age is assuredly not that which is taught in the Gospel. In my opinion it is better to love too much than not enough. Nowadays dry hearts are stuck up on a pinnacle" (_Revue des Deux Mondes_, April, 1896). Dr. H. Paul has developed an allied point. She writes: "There are girls who, even as children, have prostituted themselves by masturbation and lascivious thoughts. The purity of their souls has long been lost and nothing remains unknown to them, but--they have preserved their hymens! That is for the sake of the future husband. Let no one dare to doubt their innocence with that unimpeachable evidence! And if another girl, who has passed her childhood in complete purity, now, with awakened senses and warm impetuous womanliness, gives herself to a man in love or even only in passion, they all stand up and scream that she is 'dishonored!' And, not least, the prostituted girl with the hymen. It is she indeed who screams loudest and throws the biggest stones. Yet the 'dishonored' woman, who is sound and wholesome, need not fear to tell what she has done to the man who desires her in marriage, speaking as one human being to another. She has no need to blush, she has exercised her human rights, and no reasonable man will on that account esteem her the less" (Dr. H. Paul, "Die Ueberschätzung der Jungfernschaft," _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Bd. ii, p. 14, 1907). In a similar spirit writes F. Erhard (_Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Bd. i, p. 408): "Virginity in one sense has its worth, but in the ordinary sense it is greatly overestimated. Apart from the fact that a girl who possesses it may yet be thoroughly perverted, this over-estimation of virginity leads to the girl who is without it being despised, and has further resulted in the development of a special industry for the preparation, by means of a prudishly cloistral education, of girls who will bring to their husbands the peculiar dainty of a bride who knows nothing about anything. Naturally, this can only be achieved at the expense of any rational education. What the undeveloped little goose may turn into, no man can foresee." Freud (_Sexual-Probleme_, March, 1908) also points out the evil results of the education for marriage which is given to girls on the basis of this ideal of virginity. "Education undertakes the task of repressing the girl's sensuality until the time of betrothal. It not only forbids sexual relations and sets a high premium on innocence, but it also withdraws the ripening womanly individuality from temptation, maintaining a state of ignorance concerning the practical side of the part she is intended to play in life, and enduring no stirring of love which cannot lead to marriage. The result is that when she is suddenly permitted to fall in love by the authority of her elders, the girl cannot bring her psychic disposition to bear, and goes into marriage uncertain of her own feelings. As a consequence of this artificial retardation of the function of love she brings nothing but deception to the husband who has set all his desires upon her, and manifests frigidity in her physical relations with him." Sénancour (_De l'Amour_, vol. i, p. 285) even believes that, when it is possible to leave out of consideration the question of offspring, not only will the law of chastity become equal for the two sexes, but there will be a tendency for the situation of the sexes to be, to some extent, changed. "Continence becomes a counsel rather than a precept, and it is in women that the voluptuous inclination will be regarded with most indulgence. Man is made for work; he only meets pleasure in passing; he must be content that women should occupy themselves with it more than he. It is men whom it exhausts, and men must always, in part, restrain their desires." As, however, we liberate ourselves from the bondage of a compulsory physical chastity, it becomes possible to rehabilitate chastity as a virtue. At the present day it can no longer be said that there is on the part of thinkers and moralists any active hostility to the idea of chastity; there is, on the contrary, a tendency to recognize the value of chastity. But this recognition has been accompanied by a return to the older and sounder conception of chastity. The preservation of a rigid sexual abstinence, an empty virginity, can only be regarded as a pseudo-chastity. The only positive virtue which Aristotle could have recognized in this field was a temperance involving restraint of the lower impulses, a wise exercise and not a non-exercise.[80] The best thinkers of the Christian Church adopted the same conception; St. Basil in his important monastic rules laid no weight on self-discipline as an end in itself, but regarded it as an instrument for enabling the spirit to gain power over the flesh. St. Augustine declared that continence is only excellent when practised in the faith of the highest good,[81] and he regarded chastity as "an orderly movement of the soul subordinating lower things to higher things, and specially to be manifested in conjugal relationships"; Thomas Aquinas, defining chastity in much the same way, defined impurity as the enjoyment of sexual pleasure not according to right reason, whether as regards the object or the conditions.[82] But for a time the voices of the great moralists were unheard. The virtue of chastity was swamped in the popular Christian passion for the annihilation of the flesh, and that view was, in the sixteenth century, finally consecrated by the Council of Trent, which formally pronounced an anathema upon anyone who should declare that the state of virginity and celibacy was not better than the state of matrimony. Nowadays the pseudo-chastity that was of value on the simple ground that any kind of continence is of higher spiritual worth than any kind of sexual relationship belongs to the past, except for those who adhere to ancient ascetic creeds. The mystic value of virginity has gone; it seems only to arouse in the modern man's mind the idea of a piquancy craved by the hardened rake;[83] it is men who have themselves long passed the age of innocence who attach so much importance to the innocence of their brides. The conception of life-long continence as an ideal has also gone; at the best it is regarded as a mere matter of personal preference. And the conventional simulation of universal chastity, at the bidding of respectability, is coming to be regarded as a hindrance rather than a help to the cultivation of any real chastity.[84] The chastity that is regarded by the moralist of to-day as a virtue has its worth by no means in its abstinence. It is not, in St. Theresa's words, the virtue of the tortoise which withdraws its limbs under its carapace. It is a virtue because it is a discipline in self-control, because it helps to fortify the character and will, and because it is directly favorable to the cultivation of the most beautiful, exalted, and effective sexual life. So viewed, chastity may be opposed to the demands of debased mediæval Catholicism, but it is in harmony with the demands of our civilized life to-day, and by no means at variance with the requirements of Nature. There is always an analogy between the instinct of reproduction and the instinct of nutrition. In the matter of eating it is the influence of science, of physiology, which has finally put aside an exaggerated asceticism, and made eating "pure." The same process, as James Hinton well pointed out, has been made possible in the sexual relationships; "science has in its hands the key to purity."[85] Many influences have, however, worked together to favor an insistence on chastity. There has, in the first place, been an inevitable reaction against the sexual facility which had come to be regarded as natural. Such facility was found to have no moral value, for it tended to relaxation of moral fibre and was unfavorable to the finest sexual satisfaction. It could not even claim to be natural in any broad sense of the word, for, in Nature generally, sexual gratification tends to be rare and difficult.[86] Courtship is arduous and long, the season of love is strictly delimited, pregnancy interrupts sexual relationships. Even among savages, so long as they have been untainted by civilization, virility is usually maintained by a fine asceticism; the endurance of hardship, self-control and restraint, tempered by rare orgies, constitute a discipline which covers the sexual as well as every other department of savage life. To preserve the same virility in civilized life, it may well be felt, we must deliberately cultivate a virtue which under savage conditions of life is natural.[87] The influence of Nietzsche, direct and indirect, has been on the side of the virtue of chastity in its modern sense. The command: "Be hard," as Nietzsche used it, was not so much an injunction to an unfeeling indifference towards others as an appeal for a more strenuous attitude towards one's self, the cultivation of a self-control able to gather up and hold in the forces of the soul for expenditure on deliberately accepted ends. "A relative chastity," he wrote, "a fundamental and wise foresight in the face of erotic things, even in thought, is part of a fine reasonableness in life, even in richly endowed and complete natures."[88] In this matter Nietzsche is a typical representative of the modern movement for the restoration of chastity to its proper place as a real and beneficial virtue, and not a mere empty convention. Such a movement could not fail to make itself felt, for all that favors facility and luxurious softness in sexual matters is quickly felt to degrade character as well as to diminish the finest erotic satisfaction. For erotic satisfaction, in its highest planes, is only possible when we have secured for the sexual impulse a high degree of what Colin Scott calls "irradiation," that is to say a wide diffusion through the whole of the psychic organism. And that can only be attained by placing impediments in the way of the swift and direct gratification of sexual desire, by compelling it to increase its force, to take long circuits, to charge the whole organism so highly that the final climax of gratified love is not the trivial detumescence of a petty desire but the immense consummation of a longing in which the whole soul as well as the whole body has its part. "Only the chaste can be really obscene," said Huysmans. And on a higher plane, only the chaste can really love. "Physical purity," remarks Hans Menjago ("Die Ueberschätzung der Physischen Reinheit," _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, vol. ii, Part VIII) "was originally valued as a sign of greater strength of will and firmness of character, and it marked a rise above primitive conditions. This purity was difficult to preserve in those unsure days; it was rare and unusual. From this rarity rose the superstition of supernatural power residing in the virgin. But this has no meaning as soon as such purity becomes general and a specially conspicuous degree of firmness of character is no longer needed to maintain it.... Physical purity can only possess value when it is the result of individual strength of character, and not when it is the result of compulsory rules of morality." Konrad Höller, who has given special attention to the sexual question in schools, remarks in relation to physical exercise: "The greatest advantage of physical exercises, however, is not the development of the active and passive strength of the body and its skill, but the establishment and fortification of the authority of the will over the body and its needs, so much given up to indolence. He who has learnt to endure and overcome, for the sake of a definite aim, hunger and thirst and fatigue, will be the better able to withstand sexual impulses and the temptation to gratify them, when better insight and æsthetic feeling have made clear to him, as one used to maintain authority over his body, that to yield would be injurious or disgraceful" (K. Höller, "Die Aufgabe der Volksschule," _Sexualpädagogik_, p. 70). Professor Schäfenacker (id., p. 102), who also emphasizes the importance of self-control and self-restraint, thinks a youth must bear in mind his future mission, as citizen and father of a family. A subtle and penetrative thinker of to-day, Jules de Gaultier, writing on morals without reference to this specific question, has discussed what new internal inhibitory motives we can appeal to in replacing the old external inhibition of authority and belief which is now decayed. He answers that the state of feeling on which old faiths were based still persists. "May not," he asks, "the desire for a thing that we love and wish for beneficently replace the belief that a thing is by divine will, or in the nature of things? Will not the presence of a bridle on the frenzy of instinct reveal itself as a useful attitude adopted by instinct itself for its own conservation, as a symptom of the force and health of instinct? Is not empire over oneself, the power of regulating one's acts, a mark of superiority and a motive for self-esteem? Will not this joy of pride have the same authority in preserving the instincts as was once possessed by religious fear and the pretended imperatives of reason?" (Jules de Gaultier, _La Dépendance de la Morale et l'Indépendance des Moeurs_, p. 153.) H.G. Wells (in _A Modern Utopia_), pointing out the importance of chastity, though rejecting celibacy, invokes, like Jules de Gaultier, the motive of pride. "Civilization has developed far more rapidly than man has modified. Under the unnatural perfection of security, liberty, and abundance our civilization has attained, the normal untrained human being is disposed to excess in almost every direction; he tends to eat too much and too elaborately, to drink too much, to become lazy faster than his work can be reduced, to waste his interest upon displays, and to make love too much and too elaborately. He gets out of training, and concentrates upon egoistic or erotic broodings. Our founders organized motives from all sorts of sources, but I think the chief force to give men self-control is pride. Pride may not be the noblest thing in the soul, but it is the best king there, for all that. They looked to it to keep a man clean and sound and sane. In this matter, as in all matters of natural desire, they held no appetite must be glutted, no appetite must have artificial whets, and also and equally that no appetite should be starved. A man must come from the table satisfied, but not replete. And, in the matter of love, a straight and clean desire for a clean and straight fellow-creature was our founders' ideal. They enjoined marriage between equals as the duty to the race, and they framed directions of the precisest sort to prevent that uxorious inseparableness, that connubiality, that sometimes reduces a couple of people to something jointly less than either." With regard to chastity as an element of erotic satisfaction, Edward Carpenter writes (_Love's Coming of Age_, p. 11): "There is a kind of illusion about physical desire similar to that which a child suffers from when, seeing a beautiful flower, it instantly snatches the same, and destroys in a few moments the form and fragrance which attracted it. He only gets the full glory who holds himself back a little, and truly possesses, who is willing, if need be, not to possess. He is indeed a master of life who, accepting the grosser desires as they come to his body, and not refusing them, knows how to transform them at will into the most rare and fragrant flowers of human emotion." Beyond its functions in building up character, in heightening and ennobling the erotic life, and in subserving the adequate fulfilment of family and social duties, chastity has a more special value for those who cultivate the arts. We may not always be inclined to believe the writers who have declared that their verse alone is wanton, but their lives chaste. It is certainly true, however, that a relationship of this kind tends to occur. The stuff of the sexual life, as Nietzsche says, is the stuff of art; if it is expended in one channel it is lost for the other. The masters of all the more intensely emotional arts have frequently cultivated a high degree of chastity. This is notably the case as regards music; one thinks of Mozart,[89] of Beethoven, of Schubert, and many lesser men. In the case of poets and novelists chastity may usually seem to be less prevalent but it is frequently well-marked, and is not seldom disguised by the resounding reverberations which even the slightest love-episode often exerts on the poetic organism. Goethe's life seems, at a first glance, to be a long series of continuous love-episodes. Yet when we remember that it was the very long life of a man whose vigor remained until the end, that his attachments long and profoundly affected his emotional life and his work, and that with most of the women he has immortalized he never had actual sexual relationships at all, and when we realize, moreover, that, throughout, he accomplished an almost inconceivably vast amount of work, we shall probably conclude that sexual indulgence had a very much smaller part in Goethe's life than in that of many an average man on whom it leaves no obvious emotional or intellectual trace whatever. Sterne, again, declared that he must always have a Dulcinea dancing in his head, yet the amount of his intimate relations with women appears to have been small. Balzac spent his life toiling at his desk and carrying on during many years a love correspondence with a woman he scarcely ever saw and at the end only spent a few months of married life with. The like experience has befallen many artistic creators. For, in the words of Landor, "absence is the invisible and incorporeal mother of ideal beauty." We do well to remember that, while the auto-erotic manifestations through the brain are of infinite variety and importance, the brain and the sexual organs are yet the great rivals in using up bodily energy, and that there is an antagonism between extreme brain vigor and extreme sexual vigor, even although they may sometimes both appear at different periods in the same individual.[90] In this sense there is no paradox in the saying of Ramon Correa that potency is impotence and impotence potency, for a high degree of energy, whether in athletics or in intellect or in sexual activity, is unfavorable to the display of energy in other directions. Every high degree of potency has its related impotencies. It may be added that we may find a curiously inconsistent proof of the excessive importance attached to sexual function by a society which systematically tries to depreciate sex, in the disgrace which is attributed to the lack of "virile" potency. Although civilized life offers immense scope for the activities of sexually impotent persons, the impotent man is made to feel that, while he need not be greatly concerned if he suffers from nervous disturbances of digestion, if he should suffer just as innocently from nervous disturbances of the sexual impulse, it is almost a crime. A striking example of this was shown, a few years ago, when it was plausibly suggested that Carlyle's relations with his wife might best be explained by supposing that he suffered from some trouble of sexual potency. At once admirers rushed forward to "defend" Carlyle from this "disgraceful" charge; they were more shocked than if it had been alleged that he was a syphilitic. Yet impotence is, at the most, an infirmity, whether due to some congenital anatomical defect or to a disturbance of nervous balance in the delicate sexual mechanism, such as is apt to occur in men of abnormally sensitive temperament. It is no more disgraceful to suffer from it than from dyspepsia, with which, indeed, it may be associated. Many men of genius and high moral character have been sexually deformed. This was the case with Cowper (though this significant fact is suppressed by his biographers); Ruskin was divorced for a reason of this kind; and J.S. Mill, it is said, was sexually of little more than infantile development. Up to this point I have been considering the quality of chastity and the quality of asceticism in their most general sense and without any attempt at precise differentiation.[91] But if we are to accept these as modern virtues, valid to-day, it is necessary that we should be somewhat more precise in defining them. It seems most convenient, and most strictly accordant also with etymology, if we agree to mean by asceticism or _ascesis_, the athlete quality of self-discipline, controlling, by no means necessarily for indefinitely prolonged periods, the gratification of the sexual impulse. By chastity, which is primarily the quality of purity, and secondarily that of holiness, rather than of abstinence, we may best understand a due proportion between erotic claims and the other claims of life. "Chastity," as Ellen Key well says, "is harmony between body and soul in relation to love." Thus comprehended, asceticism is the virtue of control that leads up to erotic gratification, and chastity is the virtue which exerts its harmonizing influence in the erotic life itself. It will be seen that asceticism by no means necessarily involves perpetual continence. Properly understood, asceticism is a discipline, a training, which has reference to an end not itself. If it is compulsorily perpetual, whether at the dictates of a religious dogma, or as a mere fetish, it is no longer on a natural basis, and it is no longer moral, for the restraint of a man who has spent his whole life in a prison is of no value for life. If it is to be natural and to be moral asceticism must have an end outside itself, it must subserve the ends of vital activity, which cannot be subserved by a person who is engaged in a perpetual struggle with his own natural instincts. A man may, indeed, as a matter of taste or preference, live his whole life in sexual abstinence, freely and easily, but in that case he is not an ascetic, and his abstinence is neither a subject for applause nor for criticism. In the same way chastity, far from involving sexual abstinence, only has its value when it is brought within the erotic sphere. A purity that is ignorance, when the age of childish innocence is once passed, is mere stupidity; it is nearer to vice than to virtue. Nor is purity consonant with effort and struggle; in that respect it differs from asceticism. "We conquer the bondage of sex," Rosa Mayreder says, "by acceptance, not by denials, and men can only do this with the help of women." The would-be chastity of cold calculation is equally unbeautiful and unreal, and without any sort of value. A true and worthy chastity can only be supported by an ardent ideal, whether, as among the early Christians, this is the erotic ideal of a new romance, or, as among ourselves, a more humanly erotic ideal. "Only erotic idealism," says Ellen Key, "can arouse enthusiasm for chastity." Chastity in a healthily developed person can thus be beautifully exercised only in the actual erotic life; in part it is the natural instinct of dignity and temperance; in part it is the art of touching the things of sex with hands that remember their aptness for all the fine ends of life. Upon the doorway of entrance to the inmost sanctuary of love there is thus the same inscription as on the doorway to the Epidaurian Sanctuary of Aesculapius: "None but the pure shall enter here." It will be seen that the definition of chastity remains somewhat lacking in precision. That is inevitable. We cannot grasp purity tightly, for, like snow, it will merely melt in our hands. "Purity itself forbids too minute a system of rules for the observance of purity," well says Sidgwick (_Methods of Ethics_, Bk. iii, Ch. IX). Elsewhere (op. cit., Bk. iii, Ch. XI) he attempts to answer the question: What sexual relations are essentially impure? and concludes that no answer is possible. "There appears to be no distinct principle, having any claim to self-evidence, upon which the question can be answered so as to command general assent." Even what is called "Free Love," he adds, "in so far as it is earnestly advocated as a means to a completer harmony of sentiment between men and women, cannot be condemned as impure, for it seems paradoxical to distinguish purity from impurity merely by less rapidity of transition." Moll, from the standpoint of medical psychology, reaches the same conclusion as Sidgwick from that of ethics. In a report on the "Value of Chastity for Men," published as an appendix to the third edition (1899) of his _Konträre Sexualempfindung_, the distinguished Berlin physician discusses the matter with much vigorous common sense, insisting that "chaste and unchaste are _relative ideas_." We must not, he states, as is so often done, identify "chaste" with "sexually abstinent." He adds that we are not justified in describing all extra-marital sexual intercourse as unchaste, for, if we do so, we shall be compelled to regard nearly all men, and some very estimable women, as unchaste. He rightly insists that in this matter we must apply the same rule to women as to men, and he points out that even when it involves what may be technically adultery sexual intercourse is not necessarily unchaste. He takes the case of a girl who, at eighteen, when still mentally immature, is married to a man with whom she finds it impossible to live and a separation consequently occurs, although a divorce may be impossible to obtain. If she now falls passionately in love with a man her love may be entirely chaste, though it involves what is technically adultery. In thus understanding asceticism and chastity, and their beneficial functions in life, we see that they occupy a place midway between the artificially exaggerated position they once held and that to which they were degraded by the inevitable reaction of total indifference or actual hostility which followed. Asceticism and chastity are not rigid categorical imperatives; they are useful means to desirable ends; they are wise and beautiful arts. They demand our estimation, but not our over-estimation. For in over-estimating them, it is too often forgotten, we over-estimate the sexual instinct. The instinct of sex is indeed extremely important. Yet it has not that all-embracing and supereminent importance which some, even of those who fight against it, are accustomed to believe. That artificially magnified conception of the sexual impulse is fortified by the artificial emphasis placed upon asceticism. We may learn the real place of the sexual impulse in learning how we may reasonably and naturally view the restraints on that impulse. FOOTNOTES: [69] For Blake and for Shelley, as well as, it may be added, for Hinton, chastity, as Todhunter remarks in his _Study of Shelley_, is "a type of submission to the actual, a renunciation of the infinite, and is therefore hated by them. The chaste man, i.e., the man of prudence and self-control, is the man who has lost the nakedness of his primitive innocence." [70] For evidence of the practices of savages in this matter, see Appendix _A_ to the third volume of these _Studies_, "The Sexual Instinct in Savages." Cf. also Chs. IV and VII of Westermarck's _History of Human Marriage_, and also Chs. XXXVIII and XLI of the same author's _Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, vol. ii; Frazer's _Golden Bough_ contains much bearing on this subject, as also Crawley's _Mystic Rose_. [71] See, e.g., Westermarck, _Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, vol. ii, pp. 412 et seq. [72] Thus an old Maori declared, a few years ago, that the decline of his race has been entirely due to the loss of the ancient religious faith in the _tabu_. "For," said he (I quote from an Auckland newspaper), "in the olden-time our _tapu_ ramified the whole social system. The head, the hair, spots where apparitions appeared, places which the _tohungas_ proclaimed as sacred, we have forgotten and disregarded. Who nowadays thinks of the sacredness of the head? See when the kettle boils, the young man jumps up, whips the cap off his head, and uses it for a kettle-holder. Who nowadays but looks on with indifference when the barber of the village, if he be near the fire, shakes the loose hair off his cloth into it, and the joke and the laughter goes on as if no sacred operation had just been concluded. Food is consumed on places which, in bygone days, it dared not even be carried over." [73] Thus, long before Christian monks arose, the ascetic life of the cloister on very similar lines existed in Egypt in the worship of Serapis (Dill, _Roman Society_, p. 79). [74] At night, in the baptistry, with lamps dimly burning, the women were stripped even of their tunics, plunged three times in the pool, then anointed, dressed in white, and kissed. [75] Thus Jerome, in his letter to Eustochium, refers to those couples who "share the same room, often even the same bed, and call us suspicious if we draw any conclusions," while Cyprian (_Epistola_, 86) is unable to approve of those men he hears of, one a deacon, who live in familiar intercourse with virgins, even sleeping in the same bed with them, for, he declares, the feminine sex is weak and youth is wanton. [76] Perpetua (_Acta Sanctorum_, March 7) is termed by Hort and Mayor "that fairest flower in the garden of post-Apostolic Christendom." She was not, however, a virgin, but a young mother with a baby at her breast. [77] The strength of early Christian asceticism lay in its spontaneous and voluntary character. When, in the ninth century, the Carlovingians attempted to enforce monastic and clerical celibacy, the result was a great outburst of unchastity and crime; nunneries became brothels, nuns were frequently guilty of infanticide, monks committed unspeakable abominations, the regular clergy formed incestuous relations with their nearest female relatives (Lea, _History of Sacerdotal Celibacy_, vol. i, pp, 155 et seq.). [78] Sénancour, _De l'Amour_, vol. ii, p. 233. Islam has placed much less stress on chastity than Christianity, but practically, it would appear, there is often more regard for chastity under Mohammedan rule than under Christian rule. Thus it is stated by "Viator" (_Fortnightly Review_, Dec., 1908) that formerly, under Turkish Moslem rule, it was impossible to buy the virtue of women in Bosnia, but that now, under the Christian rule of Austria, it is everywhere possible to buy women near the Austrian frontier. [79] The basis of this feeling was strengthened when it was shown by scholars that the physical virtue of "virginity" had been masquerading under a false name. To remain a virgin seems to have meant at the first, among peoples of early Aryan culture, by no means to take a vow of chastity, but to refuse to submit to the yoke of patriarchal marriage. The women who preferred to stand outside marriage were "virgins," even though mothers of large families, and Æschylus speaks of the Amazons as "virgins," while in Greek the child of an unmarried girl was always "the virgin's son." The history of Artemis, the most primitive of Greek deities, is instructive from this point of view. She was originally only virginal in the sense that she rejected marriage, being the goddess of a nomadic and matriarchal hunting people who had not yet adopted marriage, and she was the goddess of childbirth, worshipped with orgiastic dances and phallic emblems. It was by a late transformation that Artemis became the goddess of chastity (Farnell, _Cults of the Greek States_, vol. ii, pp. 442 et seq.; Sir W.M. Ramsay, _Cities of Phrygia_, vol. i, p. 96; Paul Lafargue, "Les Mythes Historiques," _Revue des Idées_, Dec., 1904). [80] See, e.g., Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. iii, Ch. XIII. [81] _De Civitate Dei_, lib. xv, cap. XX. A little further on (lib. xvi, cap. XXV) he refers to Abraham as a man able to use women as a man should, his wife temperately, his concubine compliantly, neither immoderately. [82] _Summa_, Migne's edition, vol. iii, qu. 154, art. I. [83] See the Study of Modesty in the first volume of these _Studies_. [84] The majority of chaste youths, remarks an acute critic of modern life (Hellpach, _Nervosität und Kultur_, p. 175), are merely actuated by traditional principles, or by shyness, fear of venereal infections, lack of self-confidence, want of money, very seldom by any consideration for a future wife, and that indeed would be a tragi-comic error, for a woman lays no importance on intact masculinity. Moreover, he adds, the chaste man is unable to choose a wife wisely, and it is among teachers and clergymen--the chastest class--that most unhappy marriages are made. Milton had already made this fact an argument for facility of divorce. [85] "In eating," said Hinton, "we have achieved the task of combining pleasure with an absence of 'lust.' The problem for man and woman is so to use and possess the sexual passion as to make it the minister to higher things, with no restraint on it but that. It is essentially connected with things of the spiritual order, and would naturally revolve round them. To think of it as merely bodily is a mistake." [86] See "Analysis of the Sexual Impulse," and Appendix, "The Sexual Instinct in Savages," in vol. iii of these _Studies_. [87] I have elsewhere discussed more at length the need in modern civilized life of a natural and sincere asceticism (see _Affirmations_, 1898) "St. Francis and Others." [88] _Der Wille zur Macht_, p. 392. [89] At the age of twenty-five, when he had already produced much fine work, Mozart wrote in his letters that he had never touched a woman, though he longed for love and marriage. He could not afford to marry, he would not seduce an innocent girl, a venial relation was repulsive to him. [90] Reibmayr, _Die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Talentes und Genies._, Bd. i, p. 437. [91] We may exclude altogether, it is scarcely necessary to repeat, the quality of virginity--that is to say, the possession of an intact hymen--since this is a merely physical quality with no necessary ethical relationships. The demand for virginity in women is, for the most part, either the demand for a better marketable article, or for a more powerful stimulant to masculine desire. Virginity involves no moral qualities in its possessor. Chastity and asceticism, on the other hand, are meaningless terms, except as demands made by the spirit on itself or on the body it controls. CHAPTER VI. THE PROBLEM OF SEXUAL ABSTINENCE. The Influence of Tradition--The Theological Conception of Lust--Tendency of These Influences to Degrade Sexual Morality--Their Result in Creating the Problem of Sexual Abstinence--The Protests Against Sexual Abstinence--Sexual Abstinence and Genius--Sexual Abstinence in Women--The Advocates of Sexual Abstinence--Intermediate Attitude--Unsatisfactory Nature of the Whole Discussion--Criticism of the Conception of Sexual Abstinence--Sexual Abstinence as Compared to Abstinence from Food--No Complete Analogy--The Morality of Sexual Abstinence Entirely Negative--Is It the Physician's Duty to Advise Extra-Conjugal Sexual Intercourse?--Opinions of Those Who Affirm or Deny This Duty--The Conclusion Against Such Advice--The Physician Bound by the Social and Moral Ideas of His Age--The Physician as Reformer--Sexual Abstinence and Sexual Hygiene--Alcohol--The Influence of Physical and Mental Exercise--The Inadequacy of Sexual Hygiene in This Field--The Unreal Nature of the Conception of Sexual Abstinence--The Necessity of Replacing It by a More Positive Ideal. When we look at the matter from a purely abstract or even purely biological point of view, it might seem that in deciding that asceticism and chastity are of high value for the personal life we have said all that is necessary to say. That, however, is very far from being the case. We soon realize here, as at every point in the practical application of sexual psychology, that it is not sufficient to determine the abstractly right course along biological lines. We have to harmonize our biological demands with social demands. We are ruled not only by natural instincts but by inherited traditions, that in the far past were solidly based on intelligible grounds, and that even still, by the mere fact of their existence, exert a force which we cannot and ought not to ignore. In discussing the valuation of the sexual impulse we found that we had good ground for making a very high estimate of love. In discussing chastity and asceticism we found that they also are highly to be valued. And we found that, so far from any contradiction being here involved, love and chastity are intertwined in all their finest developments, and that there is thus a perfect harmony in apparent opposition. But when we come to consider the matter in detail, in its particular personal applications, we find that a new factor asserts itself. We find that our inherited social and religious traditions exert a pressure, all on one side, which makes it impossible to place the relations of love and chastity simply on the basis of biology and reason. We are confronted at the outset by our traditions. On the one side these traditions have weighted the word "lust"--considered as expressing all the manifestations of the sexual impulse which are outside marriage or which fail to have marriage as their direct and ostentatious end--with deprecatory and sinister meanings. And on the other side these traditions have created the problem of "sexual abstinence," which has nothing to do with either asceticism or chastity as these have been defined in the previous chapter, but merely with the purely negative pressure on the sexual impulse, exerted, independently of the individual's wishes, by his religious and social environment. The theological conception of "lust," or "libido," as sin, followed logically the early Christian conception of "the flesh," and became inevitable as soon as that conception was firmly established. Not only, indeed, had early Christian ideals a degrading influence on the estimation of sexual desire _per se_, but they tended to depreciate generally the dignity of the sexual relationship. If a man made sexual advances to a woman outside marriage, and thus brought her within the despised circle of "lust," he was injuring her because he was impairing her religious and moral value.[92] The only way he could repair the damage done was by paying her money or by entering into a forced and therefore probably unfortunate marriage with her. That is to say that sexual relationships were, by the ecclesiastical traditions, placed on a pecuniary basis, on the same level as prostitution. By its well-meant intentions to support the theological morality which had developed on an ascetic basis, the Church was thus really undermining even that form of sexual relationship which it sanctified. Gregory the Great ordered that the seducer of a virgin shall marry her, or, in case of refusal, be severely punished corporally and shut up in a monastery to perform penance. According to other ecclesiastical rules, the seducer of a virgin, though held to no responsibility by the civil forum, was required to marry her, or to find a husband and furnish a dowry for her. Such rules had their good side, and were especially equitable when seduction had been accomplished by deceit. But they largely tended in practice to subordinate all questions of sexual morality to a money question. The reparation to the woman, also, largely became necessary because the ecclesiastical conception of lust caused her value to be depreciated by contact with lust, and the reparation might be said to constitute a part of penance. Aquinas held that lust, in however slight a degree, is a mortal sin, and most of the more influential theologians took a view nearly or quite as rigid. Some, however, held that a certain degree of delectation is possible in these matters without mortal sin, or asserted, for instance, that to feel the touch of a soft and warm hand is not mortal sin so long as no sexual feeling is thereby aroused. Others, however, held that such distinctions are impossible, and that all pleasures of this kind are sinful. Tomás Sanchez endeavored at much length to establish rules for the complicated problems of delectation that thus arose, but he was constrained to admit that no rules are really possible, and that such matters must be left to the judgment of a prudent man. At that point casuistry dissolves and the modern point of view emerges (see, e.g., Lea, _History of Auricular Confession_, vol. ii, pp. 57, 115, 246, etc.). Even to-day the influence of the old traditions of the Church still unconsciously survives among us. That is inevitable as regards religious teachers, but it is found also in men of science, even in Protestant countries. The result is that quite contradictory dogmas are found side by side, even in the same writer. On the one hand, the manifestations of the sexual impulse are emphatically condemned as both unnecessary and evil; on the other hand, marriage, which is fundamentally (whatever else it may also be) a manifestation of the sexual impulse, receives equally emphatic approval as the only proper and moral form of living.[93] There can be no reasonable doubt whatever that it is to the surviving and pervading influence of the ancient traditional theological conception of _libido_ that we must largely attribute the sharp difference of opinions among physicians on the question of sexual abstinence and the otherwise unnecessary acrimony with which these opinions have sometimes been stated. On the one side, we find the emphatic statement that sexual intercourse is necessary and that health cannot be maintained unless the sexual activities are regularly exercised. "All parts of the body which are developed for a definite use are kept in health, and in the enjoyment of fair growth and of long youth, by the fulfilment of that use, and by their appropriate exercise in the employment to which they are accustomed." In that statement, which occurs in the great Hippocratic treatise "On the Joints," we have the classic expression of the doctrine which in ever varying forms has been taught by all those who have protested against sexual abstinence. When we come down to the sixteenth century outbreak of Protestantism we find that Luther's revolt against Catholicism was in part a protest against the teaching of sexual abstinence. "He to whom the gift of continence is not given," he said in his _Table Talk_, "will not become chaste by fasting and vigils. For my own part I was not excessively tormented [though elsewhere he speaks of the great fires of lust by which he had been troubled], but all the same the more I macerated myself the more I burnt." And three hundred years later, Bebel, the would-be nineteenth century Luther of a different Protestantism, took the same attitude towards sexual abstinence, while Hinton the physician and philosopher, living in a land of rigid sexual conventionalism and prudery, and moved by keen sympathy for the sufferings he saw around him, would break into passionate sarcasm when confronted by the doctrine of sexual abstinence. "There are innumerable ills--terrible destructions, madness even, the ruin of lives--for which the embrace of man and woman would be a remedy. No one thinks of questioning it. Terrible evils and a remedy in a delight and joy! And man has chosen so to muddle his life that he must say: 'There, that would be a remedy, but I cannot use it. I _must be virtuous!_'" If we confine ourselves to modern times and to fairly precise medical statements, we find in Schurig's _Spermatologia_ (1720, pp. 274 et seq.), not only a discussion of the advantages of moderate sexual intercourse in a number of disorders, as witnessed by famous authorities, but also a list of results--including anorexia, insanity, impotence, epilepsy, even death--which were believed to have been due to sexual abstinence. This extreme view of the possible evils of sexual abstinence seems to have been part of the Renaissance traditions of medicine stiffened by a certain opposition between religion and science. It was still rigorously stated by Lallemand early in the nineteenth century. Subsequently, the medical statements of the evil results of sexual abstinence became more temperate and measured, though still often pronounced. Thus Gyurkovechky believes that these results may be as serious as those of sexual excess. Krafft-Ebing showed that sexual abstinence could produce a state of general nervous excitement (_Jahrbuch für Psychiatrie_, Bd. viii, Heft 1 and 2). Schrenck-Notzing regards sexual abstinence as a cause of extreme sexual hyperæsthesia and of various perversions (in a chapter on sexual abstinence in his _Kriminalpsychologische und Psychopathologische Studien_, 1902, pp. 174-178). He records in illustration the case of a man of thirty-six who had masturbated in moderation as a boy, but abandoned the practice entirely, on moral grounds, twenty years ago, and has never had sexual intercourse, feeling proud to enter marriage a chaste man, but now for years has suffered greatly from extreme sexual hyperæsthesia and concentration of thought on sexual subjects, notwithstanding a strong will and the resolve not to masturbate or indulge in illicit intercourse. In another case a vigorous and healthy man, not inverted, and with strong sexual desires, who remained abstinent up to marriage, suffers from psychic impotence, and his wife remains a virgin notwithstanding all her affection and caresses. Ord considered that sexual abstinence might produce many minor evils. "Most of us," he wrote (_British Medical Journal_, Aug. 2, 1884) "have, no doubt, been consulted by men, chaste in act, who are tormented by sexual excitement. They tell one stories of long-continued local excitement, followed by intense muscular weariness, or by severe aching pain in the back and legs. In some I have had complaints of swelling and stiffness in the legs, and of pains in the joints, particularly in the knees;" he gives the case of a man who suffered after prolonged chastity from inflammatory conditions of knees and was only cured by marriage. Pearce Gould, it may be added, finds that "excessive ungratified sexual desire" is one of the causes of acute orchitis. Remondino ("Some Observations on Continence as a Factor in Health and Disease," _Pacific Medical Journal_, Jan., 1900) records the case of a gentleman of nearly seventy who, during the prolonged illness of his wife, suffered from frequent and extreme priapism, causing insomnia. He was very certain that his troubles were not due to his continence, but all treatment failed and there were no spontaneous emissions. At last Remondino advised him to, as he expresses it, "imitate Solomon." He did so, and all the symptoms at once disappeared. This case is of special interest, because the symptoms were not accompanied by any conscious sexual desire. It is no longer generally believed that sexual abstinence tends to produce insanity, and the occasional cases in which prolonged and intense sexual desire in young women is followed by insanity will usually be found to occur on a basis of hereditary degeneration. It is held by many authorities, however, that minor mental troubles, of a more or less vague character, as well as neurasthenia and hysteria, are by no means infrequently due to sexual abstinence. Thus Freud, who has carefully studied angstneurosis, the obsession of anxiety, finds that it is a result of sexual abstinence, and may indeed be considered as a vicarious form of such abstinence (Freud, _Sammlung Kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre_, 1906, pp. 76 et seq.). The whole subject of sexual abstinence has been discussed at length by Nyström, of Stockholm, in _Das Geschlechtsleben und seine Gesetze_, Ch. III. He concludes that it is desirable that continence should be preserved as long as possible in order to strengthen the physical health and to develop the intelligence and character. The doctrine of permanent sexual abstinence, however, he regards as entirely false, except in the case of a small number of religious or philosophic persons. "Complete abstinence during a long period of years cannot be borne without producing serious results both on the body and the mind.... Certainly, a young man should repress his sexual impulses as long as possible and avoid everything that may artificially act as a sexual stimulant. If, however, he has done so, and still suffers from unsatisfied normal sexual desires, and if he sees no possibility of marriage within a reasonable time, no one should dare to say that he is committing a sin if, with mutual understanding, he enters into sexual relations with a woman friend, or forms temporary sexual relationships, provided, that is, that he takes the honorable precaution of begetting no children, unless his partner is entirely willing to become a mother, and he is prepared to accept all the responsibilities of fatherhood." In an article of later date ("Die Einwirkung der Sexuellen Abstinenz auf die Gesundheit," _Sexual-Probleme_, July, 1908) Nyström vigorously sums up his views. He includes among the results of sexual abstinence orchitis, frequent involuntary seminal emissions, impotence, neurasthenia, depression, and a great variety of nervous disturbances of vaguer character, involving diminished power of work, limited enjoyment of life, sleeplessness, nervousness, and pre-occupation with sexual desires and imaginations. More especially there is heightened sexual irritability with erections, or even seminal emissions on the slightest occasion, as on gazing at an attractive woman or in social intercourse with her, or in the presence of works of art representing naked figures. Nyström has had the opportunity of investigating and recording ninety cases of persons who have presented these and similar symptoms as the result, he believes, of sexual abstinence. He has published some of these cases (_Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, Oct., 1908), but it may be added that Rohleder ("Die Abstinentia Sexualis," ib., Nov., 1908) has criticized these cases, and doubts whether any of them are conclusive. Rohleder believes that the bad results of sexual abstinence are never permanent, and also that no anatomically pathological states (such as orchitis) can be thereby produced. But he considers, nevertheless, that even incomplete and temporary sexual abstinence may produce fairly serious results, and especially neurasthenic disturbances of various kinds, such as nervous irritability, anxiety, depression, disinclination for work; also diurnal emissions, premature ejaculations, and even a state approaching satyriasis; and in women hysteria, hystero-epilepsy, and nymphomaniacal manifestations; all these symptoms may, however, he believes, be cured when the abstinence ceases. Many advocates of sexual abstinence have attached importance to the fact that men of great genius have apparently been completely continent throughout life. This is certainly true (see _ante_, p. 173). But this fact can scarcely be invoked as an argument in favor of the advantages of sexual abstinence among the ordinary population. J.F. Scott selects Jesus, Newton, Beethoven, and Kant as "men of vigor and mental acumen who have lived chastely as bachelors." It cannot, however, be said that Dr. Scott has been happy in the four figures whom he has been able to select from the whole history of human genius as examples of life-long sexual abstinence. We know little with absolute certainty of Jesus, and even if we reject the diagnosis which Professor Binet-Sanglé (in his _Folie de Jesus_) has built up from a minute study of the Gospels, there are many reasons why we should refrain from emphasizing the example of his sexual abstinence; Newton, apart from his stupendous genius in a special field, was an incomplete and unsatisfactory human being who ultimately reached a condition very like insanity; Beethoven was a thoroughly morbid and diseased man, who led an intensely unhappy existence; Kant, from first to last, was a feeble valetudinarian. It would probably be difficult to find a healthy normal man who would voluntarily accept the life led by any of these four, even as the price of their fame. J.A. Godfrey (_Science of Sex_, pp. 139-147) discusses at length the question whether sexual abstinence is favorable to ordinary intellectual vigor, deciding that it is not, and that we cannot argue from the occasional sexual abstinence of men of genius, who are often abnormally constituted, and physically below the average, to the normally developed man. Sexual abstinence, it may be added, is by no means always a favorable sign, even in men who stand intellectually above the average. "I have not obtained the impression," remarks Freud (_Sexual-Probleme_, March, 1908), "that sexual abstinence is helpful to energetic and independent men of action or original thinkers, to courageous liberators or reformers. The sexual conduct of a man is often symbolic of his whole method of reaction in the world. The man who energetically grasps the object of his sexual desire may be trusted to show a similarly relentless energy in the pursuit of other aims." Many, though not all, who deny that prolonged sexual abstinence is harmless, include women in this statement. There are some authorities indeed who believe that, whether or not any conscious sexual desire is present, sexual abstinence is less easily tolerated by women than by men.[94] Cabanis, in his famous and pioneering work, _Rapports du Physique et du Moral_, said in 1802, that women not only bear sexual excess more easily than men, but sexual privations with more difficulty, and a cautious and experienced observer of to-day, Löwenfeld (_Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_, 1899, p. 53), while not considering that normal women bear sexual abstinence less easily than men, adds that this is not the case with women of neuropathic disposition, who suffer much more from this cause, and either masturbate when sexual intercourse is impossible or fall into hystero-neurasthenic states. Busch stated (_Das Geschlechtsleben des Weibes_, 1839, vol. i, pp. 69, 71) that not only is the working of the sexual functions in the organism stronger in women than in men, but that the bad results of sexual abstinence are more marked in women. Sir Benjamin Brodie said long ago that the evils of continence to women are perhaps greater than those of incontinence, and to-day Hammer (_Die Gesundheitlichen Gefahren der Geschlechtlichen Enthaltsamkeit_, 1904) states that, so far as reasons of health are concerned, sexual abstinence is no more to be recommended to women than to men. Nyström is of the same opinion, though he thinks that women bear sexual abstinence better than men, and has discussed this special question at length in a section of his _Geschlechtsleben und seine Gesetze_. He agrees with the experienced Erb that a large number of completely chaste women of high character, and possessing distinguished qualities of mind and heart, are more or less disordered through their sexual abstinence; this is specially often the case with women married to impotent men, though it is frequently not until they approach the age of thirty, Nyström remarks, that women definitely realize their sexual needs. A great many women who are healthy, chaste, and modest, feel at times such powerful sexual desire that they can scarcely resist the temptation to go into the street and solicit the first man they meet. Not a few such women, often of good breeding, do actually offer themselves to men with whom they may have perhaps only the slightest acquaintance. Routh records such cases (_British Gynæcological Journal_, Feb., 1887), and most men have met with them at some time. When a woman of high moral character and strong passions is subjected for a very long period to the perpetual strain of such sexual craving, especially if combined with love for a definite individual, a chain of evil results, physical and moral, may be set up, and numerous distinguished physicians have recorded such cases, which terminated at once in complete recovery as soon as the passion was gratified. Lauvergne long since described a case. A fairly typical case of this kind was reported in detail by Brachet (_De l'Hypochondrie_, p. 69) and embodied by Griesinger in his classic work on "Mental Pathology." It concerned a healthy married lady, twenty-six years old, having three children. A visiting acquaintance completely gained her affections, but she strenuously resisted the seducing influence, and concealed the violent passion that he had aroused in her. Various serious symptoms, physical and mental, slowly began to appear, and she developed what seemed to be signs of consumption. Six months' stay in the south of France produced no improvement, either in the bodily or mental symptoms. On returning home she became still worse. Then she again met the object of her passion, succumbed, abandoned her husband and children, and fled with him. Six months later she was scarcely recognizable; beauty, freshness and plumpness had taken the place of emaciation; while the symptoms of consumption and all other troubles had entirely disappeared. A somewhat similar case is recorded by Camill Lederer, of Vienna (_Monatsschrift für Harnkrankheiten und Sexuelle Hygiene_, 1906, Heft 3). A widow, a few months after her husband's death, began to cough, with symptoms of bronchial catarrh, but no definite signs of lung disease. Treatment and change of climate proved entirely unavailing to effect a cure. Two years later, as no signs of disease had appeared in the lungs, though the symptoms continued, she married again. Within a very few weeks all symptoms had disappeared, and she was entirely fresh and well. Numerous distinguished gynæcologists have recorded their belief that sexual excitement is a remedy for various disorders of the sexual system in women, and that abstinence is a cause of such disorders. Matthews Duncan said that sexual excitement is the only remedy for amenorrhoea; "the only emmenagogue medicine that I know of," he wrote (_Medical Times_, Feb. 2, 1884), "is not to be found in the Pharmacopoeia: it is erotic excitement. Of the value of erotic excitement there is no doubt." Anstie, in his work on _Neuralgia_, refers to the beneficial effect of sexual intercourse on dysmenorrhoea, remarking that the necessity of the full natural exercise of the sexual function is shown by the great improvement in such cases after marriage, and especially after childbirth. (It may be remarked that not all authorities find dysmenorrhoea benefited by marriage, and some consider that the disease is often thereby aggravated; see, e.g., Wythe Cook, _American Journal Obstetrics_, Dec., 1893.) The distinguished gynæcologist, Tilt, at a somewhat earlier date (_On Uterine and Ovarian Inflammation_, 1862, p. 309), insisted on the evil results of sexual abstinence in producing ovarian irritation, and perhaps subacute ovaritis, remarking that this was specially pronounced in young widows, and in prostitutes placed in penitentiaries. Intense desire, he pointed out, determines organic movements resembling those required for the gratification of the desire. These burning desires, which can only be quenched by their legitimate satisfaction, are still further heightened by the erotic influence of thoughts, books, pictures, music, which are often even more sexually stimulating than social intercourse with men, but the excitement thus produced is not relieved by that natural collapse which should follow a state of vital turgescence. After referring to the biological facts which show the effect of psychic influences on the formative powers of the ovario-uterine organs in animals, Tilt continues: "I may fairly infer that similar incitements on the mind of females may have a stimulating effect on the organs of ovulation. I have frequently known menstruation to be irregular, profuse, or abnormal in type during courtship in women in whom nothing similar had previously occurred, and that this protracted the treatment of chronic ovaritis and of uterine inflammation." Bonnifield, of Cincinnati (_Medical Standard_, Dec., 1896), considers that unsatisfied sexual desire is an important cause of catarrhal endometritis. It is well known that uterine fibroids bear a definite relation to organic sexual activity, and that sexual abstinence, more especially the long-continued deprivation of pregnancy, is a very important cause of the disease. This is well shown by an analysis by A.E. Giles (_Lancet_, March 2, 1907) of one hundred and fifty cases. As many as fifty-six of these cases, more than a third, were unmarried women, though nearly all were over thirty years of age. Of the ninety-four married women, thirty-four had never been pregnant; of those who had been pregnant, thirty-six had not been so for at least ten years. Thus eighty-four per cent, had either not been pregnant at all, or had had no pregnancy for at least ten years. It is, therefore, evident that deprivation of sexual function, whether or not involving abstinence from sexual intercourse, is an important cause of uterine fibroid tumors. Balls-Headley, of Victoria (_Evolution of the Diseases of Women_, 1894, and "Etiology of Diseases of Female Genital Organs," Allbutt and Playfair, _System of Gynæcology_,) believes that unsatisfied sexual desire is a factor in very many disorders of the sexual organs in women. "My views," he writes in a private letter, "are founded on a really special gynæcological practice of twenty years, during which I have myself taken about seven thousand most careful records. The normal woman is sexually well-formed and her sexual feelings require satisfaction in the direction of the production of the next generation, but under the restrictive and now especially abnormal conditions of civilization some women undergo hereditary atrophy, and the uterus and sexual feelings are feeble; in others of good average local development the feeling is in restraint; in others the feelings, as well as the organs, are strong, and if normal use be withheld evils ensue. Bearing in mind these varieties of congenital development in relation to the respective condition of virginity, or sterile or parous married life, the mode of occurrence and of progress of disease grows on the physician's mind, and there is no more occasion for bewilderment than to the mathematician studying conic sections, when his knowledge has grown from the basis of the science. The problem is suggested: Has a crowd of unassociated diseases fallen as through a sieve on woman, or have these affections almost necessarily ensued from the circumstances of her unnatural environment?" It may be added that Kisch (_Sexual Life of Woman_), while protesting against any exaggerated estimate of the effects of sexual abstinence, considers that in women it may result, not only in numerous local disorders, but also in nervous disturbance, hysteria, and even insanity, while in neurasthenic women "regulated sexual intercourse has an actively beneficial effect which is often striking." It is important to remark that the evil results of sexual abstinence in women, in the opinion of many of those who insist upon their importance, are by no means merely due to unsatisfied sexual desire. They may be pronounced even when the woman herself has not the slightest consciousness of sexual needs. This was clearly pointed out forty years ago by the sagacious Anstie (_op. cit._) In women, especially, he remarks, "a certain restless hyperactivity of mind, and perhaps of body also, seems to be the expression of Nature's unconscious resentment of the _neglect of sexual functions_." Such women, he adds, have kept themselves free from masturbation "at the expense of a perpetual and almost fierce activity of mind and muscle." Anstie had found that some of the worst cases of the form of nervosity and neurasthenia which he termed "spinal irritation," often accompanied by irritable stomach and anæmia, get well on marriage. "There can be no question," he continues, "that a very large proportion of these cases in single women (who form by far the greater number of subjects of spinal irritation) are due to this conscious or unconscious irritation kept up by an unsatisfied sexual want. It is certain that very many young persons (women more especially) are tormented by the irritability of the sexual organs without having the least consciousness of sexual desire, and present the sad spectacle of a _vie manquée_ without ever knowing the true source of the misery which incapacitates them for all the active duties of life. It is a singular fact that in occasional instances one may even see two sisters, inheriting the same kind of nervous organization, both tormented with the symptoms of spinal irritation and both probably suffering from repressed sexual functions, but of whom one shall be pure-minded and entirely unconscious of the real source of her troubles, while the other is a victim to conscious and fruitless sexual irritation." In this matter Anstie may be regarded as a forerunner of Freud, who has developed with great subtlety and analytic power the doctrine of the transformation of repressed sexual instinct in women into morbid forms. He considers that the nervosity of to-day is largely due to the injurious action on the sexual life of that repression of natural instincts on which our civilization is built up. (Perhaps the clearest brief statement of Freud's views on the matter is to be found in a very suggestive article, "Die 'Kulturelle' Sexualmoral und die Moderne Nervosität," in _Sexual-Probleme_, March, 1908, reprinted in the second series of Freud's _Sammlung Kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre_, 1909). We possess the aptitude, he says, of sublimating and transforming our sexual activities into other activities of a psychically related character, but non-sexual. This process cannot, however, be carried out to an unlimited extent any more than can the conversion of heat into mechanical work in our machines. A certain amount of direct sexual satisfaction is for most organizations indispensable, and the renunciation of this individually varying amount is punished by manifestations which we are compelled to regard as morbid. The process of sublimation, under the influence of civilization, leads both to sexual perversions and to psycho-neuroses. These two conditions are closely related, as Freud views the process of their development; they stand to each other as positive and negative, sexual perversions being the positive pole and psycho-neuroses the negative. It often happens, he remarks, that a brother may be sexually perverse, while his sister, with a weaker sexual temperament, is a neurotic whose symptoms are a transformation of her brother's perversion; while in many families the men are immoral, the women pure and refined but highly nervous. In the case of women who have no defect of sexual impulse there is yet the same pressure of civilized morality pushing them into neurotic states. It is a terribly serious injustice, Freud remarks, that the civilized standard of sexual life is the same for all persons, because though some, by their organization, may easily accept it, for others it involves the most difficult psychic sacrifices. The unmarried girl, who has become nervously weak, cannot be advised to seek relief in marriage, for she must be strong in order to "bear" marriage, while we urge a man on no account to marry a girl who is not strong. The married woman who has experienced the deceptions of marriage has usually no way of relief left but by abandoning her virtue. "The more strenuously she has been educated, and the more completely she has been subjected to the demands of civilization, the more she fears this way of escape, and in the conflict between her desires and her sense of duty, she also seeks refuge--in neurosis. Nothing protects her virtue so surely as disease." Taking a still wider view of the influence of the narrow "civilized" conception of sexual morality on women, Freud finds that it is not limited to the production of neurotic conditions; it affects the whole intellectual aptitude of women. Their education denies them any occupation with sexual problems, although such problems are so full of interest to them, for it inculcates the ancient prejudice that any curiosity in such matters is unwomanly and a proof of wicked inclinations. They are thus terrified from thinking, and knowledge is deprived of worth. The prohibition to think extends, automatically and inevitably, far beyond the sexual sphere. "I do not believe," Freud concludes, "that there is any opposition between intellectual work and sexual activity such as was supposed by Möbius. I am of opinion that the unquestionable fact of the intellectual inferiority of so many women is due to the inhibition of thought imposed upon them for the purpose of sexual repression." It is only of recent years that this problem has been realized and faced, though solitary thinkers, like Hinton, have been keenly conscious of its existence; for "sorrowing virtue," as Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox puts it, "is more ashamed of its woes than unhappy sin, because the world has tears for the latter and only ridicule for the former." "It is an almost cynical trait of our age," Hellpach wrote a few years ago, "that it is constantly discussing the theme of prostitution, of police control, of the age of consent, of the 'white slavery,' and passes over the moral struggle of woman's soul without an attempt to answer her burning questions." On the other hand we find medical writers not only asserting with much moral fervor that sexual intercourse outside marriage is always and altogether unnecessary, but declaring, moreover, the harmlessness or even the advantages of sexual abstinence. Ribbing, the Swedish professor, in his _Hygiène Sexuelle_, advocates sexual abstinence outside marriage, and asserts its harmlessness. Gilles de la Tourette, Féré, and Augagneur in France agree. In Germany Fürbringer (Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage_, vol. i, p. 228) asserts that continence is possible and necessary, though admitting that it may, however, mean serious mischief in exceptional cases. Eulenburg (_Sexuale Neuropathie_, p. 14) doubts whether anyone, who otherwise lived a reasonable life, ever became ill, or more precisely neurasthenic, through sexual abstinence. Hegar, replying to the arguments of Bebel in his well-known book on women, denies that sexual abstinence can ever produce satyriasis or nymphomania. Näcke, who has frequently discussed the problem of sexual abstinence (e.g., _Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie_, 1903, Heft 1, and _Sexual-Probleme_, June, 1908), maintains that sexual abstinence can, at most, produce rare and slight unfavorable results, and that it is no more likely to produce insanity, even in predisposed individuals, than are the opposite extremes of sexual excess and masturbation. He adds that, so far as his own observations are concerned, the patients in asylums suffer scarcely at all from their compulsory sexual abstinence. It is in England, however, that the virtues of sexual abstinence have been most loudly and emphatically proclaimed, sometimes indeed with considerable lack of cautious qualification. Acton, in his _Reproductive Organs_, sets forth the traditional English view, as well as Beale in his _Morality and the Moral Question_. A more distinguished representative of the same view was Paget, who, in his lecture on "Sexual Hypochondriasis," coupled sexual intercourse with "theft or lying." Sir William Gowers (_Syphilis and the Nervous System_, 1892, p. 126) also proclaims the advantages of "unbroken chastity," more especially as a method of avoiding syphilis. He is not hopeful, however, even as regards his own remedy, for he adds: "We can trace small ground for hope that the disease will thus be materially reduced." He would still, however, preach chastity to the individual, and he does so with all the ascetic ardor of a mediæval monk. "With all the force that any knowledge I possess, and any authority I have, can give, I assert that no man ever yet was in the slightest degree or way the worse for continence or better for incontinence. From the latter all are worse morally; a clear majority are worse physically; and in no small number the result is, and ever will be, utter physical shipwreck on one of the many rocks, sharp, jagged-edged, which beset the way, or on one of the many beds of festering slime which no care can possibly avoid." In America the same view widely prevails, and Dr. J.F. Scott, in his _Sexual-Instinct_ (second edition, 1908, Ch. III), argues very vigorously and at great length in favor of sexual abstinence. He will not even admit that there are two sides to the question, though if that were the case, the length and the energy of his arguments would be unnecessary. Among medical authorities who have discussed the question of sexual abstinence at length it is not, indeed, usually possible to find such unqualified opinions in its favor as those I have quoted. There can be no doubt, however, that a large proportion of physicians, not excluding prominent and distinguished authorities, when casually confronted with the question whether sexual abstinence is harmless, will at once adopt the obvious path of least resistance and reply: Yes. In only a few cases will they even make any qualification of this affirmative answer. This tendency is very well illustrated by an inquiry made by Dr. Ludwig Jacobsohn, of St. Petersburgh ("Die Sexuelle Enthaltsamkeit im Lichte der Medizin," _St. Petersburger Medicinische Wochenschrift_, March 17, 1907). He wrote to over two hundred distinguished Russian and German professors of physiology, neurology, psychiatry, etc., asking them if they regarded sexual abstinence as harmless. The majority returned no answer; eleven Russian and twenty-eight Germans replied, but four of them merely said that "they had no personal experience," etc.; there thus remained thirty-five. Of these E. Pflüger, of Bonn, was skeptical of the advantage of any propaganda of abstinence: "if all the authorities in the world declared the harmlessness of abstinence that would have no influence on youth. Forces are here in play that break through all obstacles." The harmlessness of abstinence was affirmed by Kräpelin, Cramer, Gärtner, Tuczek, Schottelius, Gaffky, Finkler, Selenew, Lassar, Seifert, Gruber; the last, however, added that he knew very few abstinent young men, and himself only considered abstinence good before full development, and intercourse not dangerous in moderation even before then. Brieger knew cases of abstinence without harmful results, but himself thought that no general opinion could be given. Jürgensen said that abstinence _in itself_ is not harmful, but that in some cases intercourse exerts a more beneficial influence. Hoffmann said that abstinence is harmless, adding that though it certainly leads to masturbation, that is better than gonorrhoea, to say nothing of syphilis, and is easily kept within bounds. Strümpell replied that sexual abstinence is harmless, and indirectly useful as preserving from the risk of venereal disease, but that sexual intercourse, being normal, is always more desirable. Hensen said that abstinence is not to be unconditionally approved. Rumpf replied that abstinence was not harmful for most before the age of thirty, but after that age there was a tendency to mental obsessions, and marriage should take place at twenty-five. Leyden also considered abstinence harmless until towards thirty, when it leads to psychic anomalies, especially states of anxiety, and a certain affectation. Hein replied that abstinence is harmless for most, but in some leads to hysterical manifestations and indirectly to bad results from masturbation, while for the normal man abstinence cannot be directly beneficial, since intercourse is natural. Grützner thought that abstinence is almost never harmful. Nescheda said it is harmless in itself, but harmful in so far as it leads to unnatural modes of gratification. Neisser believes that more prolonged abstinence than is now usual would be beneficial, but admitted the sexual excitations of our civilization; he added that of course he saw no harm for healthy men in intercourse. Hoche replied that abstinence is quite harmless in normal persons, but not always so in abnormal persons. Weber thought it had a useful influence in increasing will-power. Tarnowsky said it is good in early manhood, but likely to be unfavorable after twenty-five. Orlow replied that, especially in youth, it is harmless, and a man should be as chaste as his wife. Popow said that abstinence is good at all ages and preserves the energy. Blumenau said that in adult age abstinence is neither normal nor beneficial, and generally leads to masturbation, though not generally to nervous disorders; but that even masturbation is better than syphilis. Tschiriew saw no harm in abstinence up to thirty, and thought sexual weakness more likely to follow excess than abstinence. Tschish regarded abstinence as beneficial rather than harmful up to twenty-five or twenty-eight, but thought it difficult to decide after that age when nervous alterations seem to be caused. Darkschewitcz regarded abstinence as harmless up to twenty-five. Fränkel said it was harmless for most, but that for a considerable proportion of people intercourse is a necessity. Erb's opinion is regarded by Jacobsohn as standing alone; he placed the age below which abstinence is harmless at twenty; after that age he regarded it as injurious to health, seriously impeding work and capacity, while in neurotic persons it leads to still more serious results. Jacobsohn concludes that the general opinion of those answering the inquiry may thus be expressed: "Youth should be abstinent. Abstinence can in no way injure them; on the contrary, it is beneficial. If our young people will remain abstinent and avoid extra-conjugal intercourse they will maintain a high ideal of love and preserve themselves from venereal diseases." The harmlessness of sexual abstinence was likewise affirmed in America in a resolution passed by the American Medical Association in 1906. The proposition thus formally accepted was thus worded: "Continence is not incompatible with health." It ought to be generally realized that abstract propositions of this kind are worthless, because they mean nothing. Every sane person, when confronted by the demand to boldly affirm or deny the proposition, "Continence is not incompatible with health," is bound to affirm it. He might firmly believe that continence is incompatible with the health of most people, and that prolonged continence is incompatible with anyone's health, and yet, if he is to be honest in the use of language, it would be impossible for him to deny the vague and abstract proposition that "Continence is not incompatible with health." Such propositions are therefore not only without value, but actually misleading. It is obvious that the more extreme and unqualified opinions in favor of sexual abstinence are based not on medical, but on what the writers regard as moral considerations. Moreover, as the same writers are usually equally emphatic in regard to the advantages of sexual intercourse in marriage, it is clear that they have committed themselves to a contradiction. The same act, as Näcke rightly points out, cannot become good or bad according as it is performed in or out of marriage. There is no magic efficacy in a few words pronounced by a priest or a government official. Remondino (loc. cit.) remarks that the authorities who have committed themselves to declarations in favor of the unconditional advantages of sexual abstinence tend to fall into three errors: (1) they generalize unduly, instead of considering each case individually, on its own merits; (2) they fail to realize that human nature is influenced by highly mixed and complex motives and cannot be assumed to be amenable only to motives of abstract morality; (3) they ignore the great army of masturbators and sexual perverts who make no complaint of sexual suffering, but by maintaining a rigid sexual abstinence, so far as normal relationships are concerned, gradually drift into currents whence there is no return. Between those who unconditionally affirm or deny the harmlessness of sexual abstinence we find an intermediate party of authorities whose opinions are more qualified. Many of those who occupy this more guarded position are men whose opinions carry much weight, and it is probable that with them rather than with the more extreme advocates on either side the greater measure of reason lies. So complex a question as this cannot be adequately investigated merely in the abstract, and settled by an unqualified negative or affirmative. It is a matter in which every case requires its own special and personal consideration. "Where there is such a marked opposition of opinion truth is not exclusively on one side," remarks Löwenfeld (_Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_, second edition, p. 40). Sexual abstinence is certainly often injurious to neuropathic persons. (This is now believed by a large number of authorities, and was perhaps first decisively stated by Krafft-Ebing, "Ueber Neurosen durch Abstinenz," _Jahrbuch für Psychiatrie_, 1889, p. 1). Löwenfeld finds no special proclivity to neurasthenia among the Catholic clergy, and when it does occur, there is no reason to suppose a sexual causation. "In healthy and not hereditarily neuropathic men complete abstinence is possible without injury to the nervous system." Injurious effects, he continues, when they appear, seldom occur until between twenty-four and thirty-six years of age, and even then are not usually serious enough to lead to a visit to a doctor, consisting mainly in frequency of nocturnal emissions, pain in testes or rectum, hyperæsthesia in the presence of women or of sexual ideas. If, however, conditions arise which specially stimulate the sexual emotions, neurasthenia may be produced. Löwenfeld agrees with Freud and Gattel that the neurosis of anxiety tends to occur in the abstinent, careful examination showing that the abstinence is a factor in its production in both sexes. It is common among young women married to much older men, often appearing during the first years of marriage. Under special circumstances, therefore, abstinence can be injurious, but on the whole the difficulties due to such abstinence are not severe, and they only exceptionally call forth actual disturbance in the nervous or psychic spheres. Moll takes a similar temperate and discriminating view. He regards sexual abstinence before marriage as the ideal, but points out that we must avoid any doctrinal extremes in preaching sexual abstinence, for such preaching will merely lead to hypocrisy. Intercourse with prostitutes, and the tendency to change a woman like a garment, induce loss of sensitiveness to the spiritual and personal element in woman, while the dangers of sexual abstinence must no more be exaggerated than the dangers of sexual intercourse (Moll, _Libido Sexualis_, 1898, vol. i, p. 848; id., _Konträre Sexualempfindung_, 1899, p. 588). Bloch also (in a chapter on the question of sexual abstinence in his _Sexualleben unserer Zeit_, 1908) takes a similar standpoint. He advocates abstention during early life and temporary abstention in adult life, such abstention being valuable, not only for the conservation and transformation of energy, but also to emphasize the fact that life contains other matters to strive for beyond the ends of sex. Redlich (_Medizinische Klinik_, 1908, No. 7) also, in a careful study of the medical aspects of the question, takes an intermediate standpoint in relation to the relative advantages and disadvantages of sexual abstinence. "We may say that sexual abstinence is not a condition which must, under all circumstances and at any price, be avoided, though it is true that for the majority of healthy adult persons regular sexual intercourse is advantageous, and sometimes is even to be recommended." It may be added that from the standpoint of Christian religious morality this same attitude, between the extremes of either party, recognizing the advantages of sexual abstinence, but not insisting that they shall be purchased at any price, has also found representation. Thus, in England, an Anglican clergyman, the Rev. H. Northcote (_Christianity and Sex Problems_, pp. 58, 60) deals temperately and sympathetically with the difficulties of sexual abstinence, and is by no means convinced that such abstinence is always an unmixed advantage; while in Germany a Catholic priest, Karl Jentsch (_Sexualethik, Sexualjustiz, Sexualpolizei_, 1900) sets himself to oppose the rigorous and unqualified assertions of Ribbing in favor of sexual abstinence. Jentsch thus expresses what he conceives ought to be the attitude of fathers, of public opinion, of the State and the Church towards the young man in this matter: "Endeavor to be abstinent until marriage. Many succeed in this. If you can succeed, it is good. But, if you cannot succeed, it is unnecessary to cast reproaches on yourself and to regard yourself as a scoundrel or a lost sinner. Provided that you do not abandon yourself to mere enjoyment or wantonness, but are content with what is necessary to restore your peace of mind, self-possession, and cheerful capacity for work, and also that you observe the precautions which physicians or experienced friends impress upon you." When we thus analyze and investigate the the three main streams of expert opinions in regard to this question of sexual abstinence--the opinions in favor of it, the opinions in opposition to it, and the opinions which take an intermediate course--we can scarcely fail to conclude how unsatisfactory the whole discussion is. The state of "sexual abstinence" is a completely vague and indefinite state. The indefinite and even meaningless character of the expression "sexual abstinence" is shown by the frequency with which those who argue about it assume that it can, may, or even must, involve masturbation. That fact alone largely deprives it of value as morality and altogether as abstinence. At this point, indeed, we reach the most fundamental criticism to which the conception of "sexual abstinence" lies open. Rohleder, an experienced physician and a recognized authority on questions of sexual pathology, has submitted the current views on "sexual abstinence" to a searching criticism in a lengthy and important paper.[95] He denies altogether that strict sexual abstinence exists at all. "Sexual abstinence," he points out, in any strict scenes of the term, must involve abstinence not merely from sexual intercourse but from auto-erotic manifestations, from masturbation, from homosexual acts, from all sexually perverse practices. It must further involve a permanent abstention from indulgence in erotic imaginations and voluptuous reverie. When, however, it is possible thus to render the whole psychic field a _tabula rasa_ so far as sexual activity is concerned--and if it fails to be so constantly and consistently there is no strict sexual abstinence--then, Rohleder points out, we have to consider whether we are not in presence of a case of sexual anæsthesia, of _anaphrodisia sexualis_. That is a question which is rarely, if ever, faced by those who discuss sexual abstinence. It is, however, an extremely pertinent question, because, as Rohleder insists, if sexual anæsthesia exists the question of sexual abstinence falls to the ground, for we can only "abstain" from actions that are in our power. Complete sexual anæsthesia is, however, so rare a state that it may be practically left out of consideration, and as the sexual impulse, if it exists, must by physiological necessity sometimes become active in some shape--even if only, according to Freud's view, by transformation into some morbid neurotic condition--we reach the conclusion that "sexual abstinence" is strictly impossible. Rohleder has met with a few cases in which there seemed to him no escape from the conclusion that sexual abstinence existed, but in all of these he subsequently found that he was mistaken, usually owing to the practice of masturbation, which he believes to be extremely common and very frequently accompanied by a persistent attempt to deceive the physician concerning its existence. The only kind of "sexual abstinence" that exists is a partial and temporary abstinence. Instead of saying, as some say, "Permanent abstinence is unnatural and cannot exist without physical and mental injury," we ought to say, Rohleder believes, "Permanent abstinence is unnatural and has never existed." It is impossible not to feel as we contemplate this chaotic mass of opinions, that the whole discussion is revolving round a purely negative idea, and that fundamental fact is responsible for what at first seem to be startling conflicts of statement. If indeed we were to eliminate what is commonly regarded as the religious and moral aspect of the matter--an aspect, be it remembered, which has no bearing on the essential natural facts of the question--we cannot fail to perceive that these ostentatious differences of conviction would be reduced within very narrow and trifling limits. We cannot strictly coordinate the impulse of reproduction with the impulse of nutrition. There are very important differences between them, more especially the fundamental difference that while the satisfaction of the one impulse is absolutely necessary both to the life of the individual and of the race, the satisfaction of the other is absolutely necessary only to the life of the race. But when we reduce this question to one of "sexual abstinence" we are obviously placing it on the same basis as that of abstinence from food, that is to say at the very opposite pole to which we place it when (as in the previous chapter) we consider it from the point of view of asceticism and chastity. It thus comes about that on this negative basis there really is an interesting analogy between nutritive abstinence, though necessarily only maintained incompletely and for a short time, and sexual abstinence, maintained more completely and for a longer time. A patient of Janet's seems to bring out clearly this resemblance. Nadia, whom Janet was able to study during five years, was a young woman of twenty-seven, healthy and intelligent, not suffering from hysteria nor from anorexia, for she had a normal appetite. But she had an idea; she was anxious to be slim and to attain this end she cut down her meals to the smallest size, merely a little soup and a few eggs. She suffered much from the abstinence she thus imposed on herself, and was always hungry, though sometimes her hunger was masked by the inevitable stomach trouble caused by so long a persistence in this _régime_. At times, indeed, she had been so hungry that she had devoured greedily whatever she could lay her hands on, and not infrequently she could not resist the temptation to eat a few biscuits in secret. Such actions caused her horrible remorse, but, all the same, she would be guilty of them again. She realized the great efforts demanded by her way of life, and indeed looked upon herself as a heroine for resisting so long. "Sometimes," she told Janet, "I passed whole hours in thinking about food, I was so hungry. I swallowed my saliva, I bit my handkerchief, I rolled on the ground, I wanted to eat so badly. I searched books for descriptions of meals and feasts, I tried to deceive my hunger by imagining that I too was enjoying all these good things. I was really famished, and in spite of a few weaknesses for biscuits I know that I showed much courage."[96] Nadia's motive idea, that she wished to be slim, corresponds to the abstinent man's idea that he wishes to be "moral," and only differs from it by having the advantage of being somewhat more positive and personal, for the idea of the person who wishes to avoid sexual indulgence because it is "not right" is often not merely negative but impersonal and imposed by the social and religious environment. Nadia's occasional outbursts of reckless greediness correspond to the sudden impulses to resort to prostitution, and her secret weaknesses for biscuits, followed by keen remorse, to lapses into the habit of masturbation. Her fits of struggling and rolling on the ground are precisely like the outbursts of futile desire which occasionally occur to young abstinent men and women in health and strength. The absorption in thoughts about meals and in literary descriptions of meals is clearly analogous to the abstinent man's absorption in wanton thoughts and erotic books. Finally, Nadia's conviction that she is a heroine corresponds exactly to the attitude of self-righteousness which often marks the sexually abstinent. If we turn to Freud's penetrating and suggestive study of the problem of sexual abstinence in relation to "civilized" sexual morality, we find that, though he makes no reference to the analogy with abstinence from food, his words would for the most part have an equal application to both cases. "The task of subduing so powerful an instinct as the sexual impulse, otherwise than by giving it satisfaction," he writes, "is one which may employ the whole strength of a man. Subjugation through sublimation, by guiding the sexual forces into higher civilizational paths, may succeed with a minority, and even with these only for a time, least easily during the years of ardent youthful energy. Most others become neurotic or otherwise come to grief. Experience shows that the majority of people constituting our society are constitutionally unequal to the task of abstinence. We say, indeed, that the struggle with this powerful impulse and the emphasis the struggle involves on the ethical and æsthetic forces in the soul's life 'steels' the character, and for a few favorably organized natures this is true; it must also be acknowledged that the differentiation of individual character so marked in our time only becomes possible through sexual limitations. But in by far the majority of cases the struggle with sensuality uses up the available energy of character, and this at the very time when the young man needs all his strength in order to win his place in the world."[97] When we have put the problem on this negative basis of abstinence it is difficult to see how we can dispute the justice of Freud's conclusions. They hold good equally for abstinence from food and abstinence from sexual love. When we have placed the problem on a more positive basis, and are able to invoke the more active and fruitful motives of asceticism and chastity this unfortunate fight against a natural impulse is abolished. If chastity is an ideal of the harmonious play of all the organic impulses of the soul and body, if asceticism, properly understood, is the athletic striving for a worthy object which causes, for the time, an indifference to the gratification of sexual impulses, we are on wholesome and natural ground, and there is no waste of energy in fruitless striving for a negative end, whether imposed artificially from without, as it usually is, or voluntarily chosen by the individual himself. For there is really no complete analogy between sexual desire and hunger, between abstinence from sexual relations and abstinence from food. When we put them both on the basis of abstinence we put them on a basis which covers the impulse for food but only half covers the impulse for sexual love. We confer no pleasure and no service on our food when we eat it. But the half of sexual love, perhaps the most important and ennobling half, lies in what we give and not in what we take. To reduce this question to the low level of abstinence, is not only to centre it in a merely negative denial but to make it a solely self-regarding question. Instead of asking: How can I bring joy and strength to another? we only ask: How can I preserve my empty virtue? Therefore it is that from whatever aspect we consider the question,--whether in view of the flagrant contradiction between the authorities who have discussed this question, or of the illegitimate mingling here of moral and physiological considerations, or of the merely negative and indeed unnatural character of the "virtue" thus set up, or of the failure involved to grasp the ennoblingly altruistic and mutual side of sexual love,--from whatever aspect we approach the problem of "sexual abstinence" we ought only to agree to do so under protest. If we thus decide to approach it, and if we have reached the conviction--which, in view of all the evidence we can scarcely escape--that, while sexual abstinence in so far as it may be recognized as possible is not incompatible with health, there are yet many adults for whom it is harmful, and a very much larger number for whom when prolonged it is undesirable, we encounter a serious problem. It is a problem which confronts any person, and especially the physician, who may be called upon to give professional advice to his fellows on this matter. If sexual relationships are sometimes desirable for unmarried persons, or for married persons who, for any reason, are debarred from conjugal union, is a physician justified in recommending such sexual relationships to his patient? This is a question that has frequently been debated and decided in opposing senses. Various distinguished physicians, especially in Germany, have proclaimed the duty of the doctor to recommend sexual intercourse to his patient whenever he considers it desirable. Gyurkovechky, for instance, has fully discussed this question, and answered it in the affirmative. Nyström (_Sexual-Probleme_, July, 1908, p. 413) states that it is the physician's duty, in some cases of sexual weakness, when all other methods of treatment have failed, to recommend sexual intercourse as the best remedy. Dr. Max Marcuse stands out as a conspicuous advocate of the unconditional duty of the physician to advocate sexual intercourse in some cases, both to men and to women, and has on many occasions argued in this sense (e.g., _Darf der Arzt zum Ausserehelichen Geschlechtsverkehr raten?_ 1904). Marcuse is strongly of opinion that a physician who, allowing himself to be influenced by moral, sociological, or other considerations, neglects to recommend sexual intercourse when he considers it desirable for the patient's health, is unworthy of his profession, and should either give up medicine or send his patients to other doctors. This attitude, though not usually so emphatically stated, seems to be widely accepted. Lederer goes even further when he states (_Monatsschrift für Harnkrankheiten und Sexuelle Hygiene_, 1906, Heft 3) that it is the physician's duty in the case of a woman who is suffering from her husband's impotence, to advise her to have intercourse with another man, adding that "whether she does so with her husband's consent is no affair of the physician's, for he is not the guardian of morality, but the guardian of health." The physicians who publicly take this attitude are, however, a small minority. In England, so far as I am aware, no physician of eminence has openly proclaimed the duty of the doctor to advise sexual intercourse outside marriage, although, it is scarcely necessary to add, in England, as elsewhere, it happens that doctors, including women doctors, from time to time privately point out to their unmarried and even married patients, that sexual intercourse would probably be beneficial. The duty of the physician to recommend sexual intercourse has been denied as emphatically as it has been affirmed. Thus Eulenburg (_Sexuale Neuropathie_, p. 43), would by no means advise extra-conjugal relations to his patient; "such advice is quite outside the physician's competence." It is, of course, denied by those who regard sexual abstinence as always harmless, if not beneficial. But it is also denied by many who consider that, under some circumstances, sexual intercourse would do good. Moll has especially, and on many occasions, discussed the duty of the physician in relation to the question of advising sexual intercourse outside marriage (e.g., in his comprehensive work, _Aerztliche Ethik_, 1902; also _Zeitschrift für Aerztliche Fortbildung_, 1905, Nos. 12-15; _Mutterschutz_, 1905, Heft 3; _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, vol. ii, Heft 8). At the outset Moll had been disposed to assert the right of the physician to recommend sexual intercourse under some circumstances; "so long as marriage is unduly delayed and sexual intercourse outside marriage exists," he wrote (_Die Conträre Sexualempfindung_, second edition, p. 287), "so long, I think, we may use such intercourse therapeutically, provided that the rights of no third person (husband or wife) are injured." In all his later writings, however, Moll ranges himself clearly and decisively on the opposite side. He considers that the physician has no right to overlook the possible results of his advice in inflicting venereal disease, or, in the case of a woman, pregnancy, on his patient, and he believes that these serious results are far more likely to happen than is always admitted by those who defend the legitimacy of such advice. Nor will Moll admit that the physician is entitled to overlook the moral aspects of the question. A physician may know that a poor man could obtain many things good for his health by stealing, but he cannot advise him to steal. Moll takes the case of a Catholic priest who is suffering from neurasthenia due to sexual abstinence. Even although the physician feels certain that the priest may be able to avoid all the risks of disease as well as of publicity, he is not entitled to urge him to sexual intercourse. He has to remember that in thus causing a priest to break his vows of chastity he may induce a mental conflict and a bitter remorse which may lead to the worst results, even on his patient's physical health. Similar results, Moll remarks, may follow such advice when given to a married man or woman, to say nothing of possible divorce proceedings and accompanying evils. Rohleder (_Vorlesungen über Geschlechtstrieb und Gesamtes Geschlechtsleben der Menschen_) adopts a somewhat qualified attitude in this matter. As a general rule he is decidedly against recommending sexual intercourse outside marriage to those who are suffering from partial or temporary abstinence (the only form of abstinence he recognizes), partly on the ground that the evils of abstinence are not serious or permanent, and partly because the patient is fairly certain to exercise his own judgment in the matter. But in some classes of cases he recommends such intercourse, and notably to bisexual persons, on the ground that he is thus preserving his patient from the criminal risks of homosexual practices. It seems to me that there should be no doubt whatever as to the correct professional attitude of the physician in relation to this question of advice concerning sexual intercourse. The physician is never entitled to advise his patient to adopt sexual intercourse outside marriage nor any method of relief which is commonly regarded as illegitimate. It is said that the physician has nothing to do with considerations of conventional morality. If he considers that champagne would be good for a poor patient he ought to recommend him to take champagne; he is not called upon to consider whether the patient will beg, borrow, or steal the champagne. But, after all, even if that be admitted, it must still be said that the physician knows that the champagne, however obtained, is not likely to be poisonous. When, however, he prescribes sexual intercourse, with the same lofty indifference to practical considerations, he has no such knowledge. In giving such a prescription the physician has in fact not the slightest knowledge of what he may be prescribing. He may be giving his patient a venereal disease; he may be giving the anxieties and responsibilities of an illegitimate child; the prescriber is quite in the dark. He is in the same position as if he had prescribed a quack medicine of which the composition was unknown to him, with the added disadvantage that the medicine may turn out to be far more potently explosive than is the case with the usually innocuous patent medicine. The utmost that a physician can properly permit himself to do is to put the case impartially before his patient and to present to him all the risks. The solution must be for the patient himself to work out, as best he can, for it involves social and other considerations which, while they are indeed by no means outside the sphere of medicine, are certainly entirely outside the control of the individual private practitioner of medicine. Moll also is of opinion that this impartial presentation of the case for and against sexual intercourse corresponds to the physician's duty in the matter. It is, indeed, a duty which can scarcely be escaped by the physician in many cases. Moll points out that it can by no means be assimilated, as some have supposed, with the recommendation of sexual intercourse. It is, on the contrary, he remarks, much more analogous to the physician's duty in reference to operations. He puts before the patient the nature of the operation, its advantages and its risks, but he leaves it to the patient's judgment to accept or reject the operation. Lewitt also (_Geschlechtliche Enthaltsamkeit und Gesundheitsstörungen_, 1905), after discussing the various opinions on this question, comes to the conclusion that the physician, if he thinks that intercourse outside marriage might be beneficial, should explain the difficulties and leave the patient himself to decide. There is another reason why, having regard to the prevailing moral opinions at all events among the middle classes, a physician should refrain from advising extra-conjugal intercourse: he places himself in a false relation to his social environment. He is recommending a remedy the nature of which he could not publicly avow, and so destroying the public confidence in himself. The only physician who is morally entitled to advise his patients to enter into extra-conjugal relationships is one who openly acknowledges that he is prepared to give such advice. The doctor who is openly working for social reform has perhaps won the moral right to give advice in accordance with the tendency of his public activity, but even then his advice may be very dubiously judicious, and he would be better advised to confine his efforts at social reform to his public activities. The voice of the physician, as Professor Max Flesch of Frankfort observes, is more and more heard in the development and new growth of social institutions; he is a natural leaders in such movements, and proposals for reform properly come from him. "But," as Flesch continues, "publicly to accept the excellence of existing institutions and in the privacy of the consulting-room to give advice which assumes the imperfection of those institutions is illogical and confusing. It is the physician's business to give advice which is in accordance with the interests of the community as a whole, and those interests require that sexual relationships should be entered into between healthy men and women who are able and willing to accept the results of their union. That should be the physician's rule of conduct. Only so can he become, what to-day he is often proclaimed to be, the leader of the nation."[98] This view is not, as we see, entirely in accord with that which assumes that the physician's duty is solely and entirely to his patient, without regard to the bearing of his advice on social conduct. The patient's interests are primary, but they are not entitled to be placed in antagonism to the interests of society. The advice given by the wise physician must always be in harmony with the social and moral tone of his age. Thus it is that the tendency among the younger generation of physicians to-day to take an active interest in raising that tone and in promoting social reform--a tendency which exists not only in Germany where such interests have long been acute, but also in so conservative a land as England--is full of promise for the future. The physician is usually content to consider his duty to his patient in relationship to sexual abstinence as sufficiently fulfilled when he attempts to allay sexual hyperæsthesia by medical or hygienic treatment. It can scarcely be claimed, however, that the results of such treatment are usually satisfactory, and sometimes indeed the treatment has a result which is the reverse of that intended. The difficulty generally is that in order to be efficacious the treatment must be carried to an extreme which exhausts or inhibits not only the genital activities alone but the activities of the whole organism, and short of that it may prove a stimulant rather than a sedative. It is difficult and usually impossible to separate out a man's sexual activities and bring influence to bear on these activities alone. Sexual activity is so closely intertwined with the other organic activities, erotic exuberance is so much a flower which is rooted in the whole organism, that the blow which crushes it may strike down the whole man. The bromides are universally recognized as powerful sexual sedatives, but their influence in this respect only makes itself felt when they have dulled all the finest energies of the organism. Physical exercise is universally recommended to sexually hyperæsthetic patients. Yet most people, men and women, find that physical exercise is a positive stimulus to sexual activity. This is notably so as regards walking, and exuberantly energetic young women who are troubled by the irritant activity of their healthy sexual emotions sometimes spend a large part of their time in the vain attempt to lull their activity by long walks. Physical exercise only proves efficacious in this respect when it is carried to an extent which produces general exhaustion. Then indeed the sexual activity is lulled; but so are all the mental and physical activities. It is undoubtedly true that exercises and games of all sorts for young people of both sexes have a sexually hygienic as well as a generally hygienic influence which is undoubtedly beneficial. They are, on all grounds, to be preferred to prolonged sedentary occupations. But it is idle to suppose that games and exercises will suppress the sexual impulses, for in so far as they favor health, they favor all the impulses that are the result of health. The most that can be expected is that they may tend to restrain the manifestations of sex by dispersing the energy they generate. There are many physical rules and precautions which are advocated, not without reason, as tending to inhibit or diminish sexual activity. The avoidance of heat and the cultivation of cold is one of the most important of these. Hot climates, a close atmosphere, heavy bed-clothing, hot baths, all tend powerfully to excite the sexual system, for that system is a peripheral sensory organ, and whatever stimulates the skin generally, stimulates the sexual system.[99] Cold, which contracts the skin, also deadens the sexual feelings, a fact which the ascetics of old knew and acted upon. The garments and the posture of the body are not without influence. Constriction or pressure in the neighborhood of the sexual region, even tight corsets, as well as internal pressure, as from a distended bladder, are sources of sexual irritation. Sleeping on the back, which congests the spinal centres, also acts in the same way, as has long been known by those who attend to sexual hygiene; thus it is stated that in the Franciscan order it is prohibited to lie on the back. Food and drink are, further, powerful sexual stimulants. This is true even of the simplest and most wholesome nourishment, but it is more especially true of flesh meat, and, above all, of alcohol in its stronger forms such as spirits, liqueurs, sparkling and heavy wines, and even many English beers. This has always been clearly realized by those who cultivate asceticism, and it is one of the powerful reasons why alcohol should not be given in early youth. As St. Jerome wrote, when telling Eustochium that she must avoid wine like poison, "wine and youth are the two fires of lust. Why add oil to the flame?"[100] Idleness, again, especially when combined with rich living, promotes sexual activity, as Burton sets forth at length in his _Anatomy of Melancholy_, and constant occupation, on the other hand, concentrates the wandering activities. Mental exercise, like physical exercise, has sometimes been advocated as a method of calming sexual excitement, but it seems to be equally equivocal in its action. If it is profoundly interesting and exciting it may stir up rather than lull the sexual emotions. If it arouses little interest it is unable to exert any kind of influence. This is true even of mathematical occupations which have been advocated by various authorities, including Broussais, as aids to sexual hygiene.[101] "I have tried mechanical mental work," a lady writes, "such as solving arithmetical or algebraic problems, but it does no good; in fact it seems only to increase the excitement." "I studied and especially turned my attention to mathematics," a clergyman writes, "with a view to check my sexual tendencies. To a certain extent I was successful. But at the approach of an old friend, a voice or a touch, these tendencies came back again with renewed strength. I found mathematics, however, the best thing on the whole to take off my attention from women, better than religious exercises which I tried when younger (twenty-two to thirty)." At the best, however, such devices are of merely temporary efficacy. It is easier to avoid arousing the sexual impulses than to impose silence on them by hygienic measures when once they are aroused. It is, therefore, in childhood and youth that all these measures may be most reasonably observed in order to avoid any premature sexual excitement. In one group of stolidly normal children influences that might be expected to act sexually pass away unperceived. At the other extreme, another group of children are so neurotically and precociously sensitive that no precautions will preserve them from such influences. But between these groups there is another, probably much the largest, who resist slight sexual suggestions but may succumb to stronger or longer influences, and on these the cares of sexual hygiene may profitably be bestowed.[102] After puberty, when the spontaneous and inner voice of sex may at any moment suddenly make itself heard, all hygienic precautions are liable to be flung to the winds, and even the youth or maiden most anxious to retain the ideals of chastity can often do little but wait till the storm has passed. It sometimes happens that a prolonged period of sexual storm and stress occurs soon after puberty, and then dies away although there has been little or no sexual gratification, to be succeeded by a period of comparative calm. It must be remembered that in many, and perhaps most, individuals, men and women, the sexual appetite, unlike hunger or thirst, can after a prolonged struggle, be reduced to a more or less quiescent state which, far from injuring, may even benefit the physical and psychic vigor generally. This may happen whether or not sexual gratification has been obtained. If there has never been any such gratification, the struggle is less severe and sooner over, unless the individual is of highly erotic temperament. If there has been gratification, if the mind is filled not merely with desires but with joyous experience to which the body also has grown accustomed, then the struggle is longer and more painfully absorbing. The succeeding relief, however, if it comes, is sometimes more complete and is more likely to be associated with a state of psychic health. For the fundamental experiences of life, under normal conditions, bring not only intellectual sanity, but emotional pacification. A conquest of the sexual appetites which has never at any period involved a gratification of these appetites seldom produces results that commend themselves as rich and beautiful. In these combats there are, however, no permanent conquests. For a very large number of people, indeed, though there may be emotional changes and fluctuations dependent on a variety of circumstances, there can scarcely be said to be any conquest at all. They are either always yielding to the impulses that assail them, or always resisting those impulses, in the first case with remorse, in the second with dissatisfaction. In either case much of their lives, at the time when life is most vigorous, is wasted. With women, if they happen to be of strong passions and reckless impulses to abandonment, the results may be highly enervating, if not disastrous to the general psychic life. It is to this cause, indeed, that some have been inclined to attribute the frequent mediocrity of women's work in artistic and intellectual fields. Women of intellectual force are frequently if not generally women of strong passions, and if they resist the tendency to merge themselves in the duties of maternity their lives are often wasted in emotional conflict and their psychic natures impoverished.[103] The extent to which sexual abstinence and the struggles it involves may hamper and absorb the individual throughout life is well illustrated in the following case. A lady, vigorous, robust, and generally healthy, of great intelligence and high character, has reached middle life without marrying, or ever having sexual relationships. She was an only child, and when between three and four years of age, a playmate some six years older, initiated her into the habit of playing with her sexual parts. She was, however, at this age quite devoid of sexual feelings, and the habit dropped naturally, without any bad effects, as soon as she left the neighborhood of this girl a year or so later. Her health was good and even brilliant, and she developed vigorously at puberty. At the age of sixteen, however, a mental shock caused menstruation to diminish in amount during some years, and simultaneously with this diminution persistent sexual excitement appeared spontaneously, for the first time. She regarded such feelings as abnormal and unhealthy, and exerted all her powers of self-control in resisting them. But will power had no effect in diminishing the feelings. There was constant and imperious excitement, with the sense of vibration, tension, pressure, dilatation and tickling, accompanied, it may be, by some ovarian congestion, for she felt that on the left side there was a network of sexual nerves, and retroversion of the uterus was detected some years later. Her life was strenuous with many duties, but no occupation could be pursued without this undercurrent of sexual hyperæsthesia involving perpetual self-control. This continued more or less acutely for many years, when menstruation suddenly stopped altogether, much before the usual period of the climacteric. At the same time the sexual excitement ceased, and she became calm, peaceful, and happy. Diminished menstruation was associated with sexual excitement, but abundant menstruation and its complete absence were both accompanied by the relief of excitement. This lasted for two years. Then, for the treatment of a trifling degree of anæmia, she was subjected to a long, and, in her case, injudicious course of hypodermic injections of strychnia. From that time, five years ago, up to the present, there has been constant sexual excitement, and she has always to be on guard lest she should be overtaken by a sexual spasm. Her torture is increased by the fact that her traditions make it impossible for her (except under very exceptional circumstances) to allude to the cause of her sufferings. "A woman is handicapped," she writes. "She may never speak to anyone on such a subject. She must live her tragedy alone, smiling as much as she can under the strain of her terrible burden." To add to her trouble, two years ago, she felt impelled to resort to masturbation, and has done so about once a month since; this not only brings no real relief, and leaves irritability, wakefulness, and dark marks under the eyes, but is a cause of remorse to her, for she regards masturbation as entirely abnormal and unnatural. She has tried to gain benefit, not merely by the usual methods of physical hygiene, but by suggestion, Christian Science, etc., but all in vain. "I may say," she writes, "that it is the most passionate desire of my heart to be freed from this bondage, that I may relax the terrible years-long tension of resistance, and be happy in my own way. If I had this affliction once a month, once a week, even twice a week, to stand against it would be child's play. I should scorn to resort to unnatural means, however moderately. But self-control itself has its revenges, and I sometimes feel as if it is no longer to be borne." Thus while it is an immense benefit in physical and psychic development if the eruption of the disturbing sexual emotions can be delayed until puberty or adolescence, and while it is a very great advantage, after that eruption has occurred, to be able to gain control of these emotions, to crush altogether the sexual nature would be a barren, if not, indeed, a perilous victory, bringing with it no satisfaction. "If I had only had three weeks' happiness," said a woman, "I would not quarrel with Fate, but to have one's whole life so absolutely empty is horrible." If such vacuous self-restraint may, by courtesy, be termed a virtue, it is but a negative virtue. The persons who achieve it, as the result of congenitally feeble sexual aptitudes, merely (as Gyurkovechky, Fürbringer, and Löwenfeld have all alike remarked) made a virtue of their weakness. Many others, whose instincts were less weak, when they disdainfully put to flight the desires of sex in early life, have found that in later life that foe returns in tenfold force and perhaps in unnatural shapes.[104] The conception of "sexual abstinence" is, we see, an entirely false and artificial conception. It is not only ill-adjusted to the hygienic facts of the case but it fails even to invoke any genuinely moral motive, for it is exclusively self-regarding and self-centred. It only becomes genuinely moral, and truly inspiring, when we transform it into the altruistic virtue of self-sacrifice. When we have done so we see that the element of abstinence in it ceases to be essential, "Self-sacrifice," writes the author of a thoughtful book on the sexual life, "is acknowledged to be the basis of virtue; the noblest instances of self-sacrifice are those dictated by sexual affection. Sympathy is the secret of altruism; nowhere is sympathy more real and complete than in love. Courage, both moral and physical, the love of truth and honor, the spirit of enterprise, and the admiration of moral worth, are all inspired by love as by nothing else in human nature. Celibacy denies itself that inspiration or restricts its influence, according to the measure of its denial of sexual intimacy. Thus the deliberate adoption of a consistently celibate life implies the narrowing down of emotional and moral experience to a degree which is, from the broad scientific standpoint, unjustified by any of the advantages piously supposed to accrue from it."[105] In a sane natural order all the impulses are centred in the fulfilment of needs and not in their denial. Moreover, in this special matter of sex, it is inevitable that the needs of others, and not merely the needs of the individual himself, should determine action. It is more especially the needs of the female which are the determining factor; for those needs are more various, complex and elusive, and in his attentiveness to their gratification the male finds a source of endless erotic satisfaction. It might be thought that the introduction of an altruistic motive here is merely the claim of theoretical morality insisting that there shall be a firm curb on animal instinct. But, as we have again and again seen throughout the long course of these _Studies_, it is not so. The animal instinct itself makes this demand. It is a biological law that rules throughout the zoölogical world and has involved the universality of courtship. In man it is only modified because in man sexual needs are not entirely concentrated in reproduction, but more or less penetrate the whole of life. While from the point of view of society, as from that of Nature, the end and object of the sexual impulse is procreation, and nothing beyond procreation, that is by no means true for the individual, whose main object it must be to fulfil himself harmoniously with that due regard for others which the art of living demands. Even if sexual relationships had no connection with procreation whatever--as some Central Australian tribes believe--they would still be justifiable, and are, indeed, an indispensable aid to the best moral development of the individual, for it is only in so intimate a relationship as that of sex that the finest graces and aptitudes of life have full scope. Even the saints cannot forego the sexual side of life. The best and most accomplished saints from Jerome to Tolstoy--even the exquisite Francis of Assisi--had stored up in their past all the experiences that go to the complete realization of life, and if it were not so they would have been the less saints. The element of positive virtue thus only enters when the control of the sexual impulse has passed beyond the stage of rigid and sterile abstinence and has become not merely a deliberate refusal of what is evil in sex, but a deliberate acceptance of what is good. It is only at that moment that such control becomes a real part of the great art of living. For the art of living, like any other art, is not compatible with rigidity, but lies in the weaving of a perpetual harmony between refusing and accepting, between giving and taking.[106] The future, it is clear, belongs ultimately to those who are slowly building up sounder traditions into the structure of life. The "problem of sexual abstinence" will more and more sink into insignificance. There remain the great solid fact of love, the great solid fact of chastity. Those are eternal. Between them there is nothing but harmony. The development of one involves the development of the other. It has been necessary to treat seriously this problem of "sexual abstinence" because we have behind us the traditions of two thousand years based on certain ideals of sexual law and sexual license, together with the long effort to build up practices more or less conditioned by those ideals. We cannot immediately escape from these traditions even when we question their validity for ourselves. We have not only to recognize their existence, but also to accept the fact that for some time to come they must still to a considerable extent control the thoughts and even in some degree the actions of existing communities. It is undoubtedly deplorable. It involves the introduction of an artificiality into a real natural order. Love is real and positive; chastity is real and positive. But sexual abstinence is unreal and negative, in the strict sense perhaps impossible. The underlying feelings of all those who have emphasized its importance is that a physiological process can be good or bad according as it is or is not carried out under certain arbitrary external conditions, which render it licit or illicit. An act of sexual intercourse under the name of "marriage" is beneficial; the very same act, under the name of "incontinence," is pernicious. No physiological process, and still less any spiritual process, can bear such restriction. It is as much as to say that a meal becomes good or bad, digestible or indigestible, according as a grace is or is not pronounced before the eating of it. It is deplorable because, such a conception being essentially unreal, an element of unreality is thus introduced into a matter of the gravest concern alike to the individual and to society. Artificial disputes have been introduced where no matter of real dispute need exist. A contest has been carried on marked by all the ferocity which marks contests about metaphysical or pseudo-metaphysical differences having no concrete basis in the actual world. As will happen in such cases, there has, after all, been no real difference between the disputants because the point they quarreled over was unreal. In truth each side was right and each side was wrong. It is necessary, we see, that the balance should be held even. An absolute license is bad; an absolute abstinence--even though some by nature or circumstances are urgently called to adopt it--is also bad. They are both alike away from the gracious equilibrium of Nature. And the force, we see, which naturally holds this balance even is the biological fact that the act of sexual union is the satisfaction of the erotic needs, not of one person, but of two persons. FOOTNOTES: [92] This view was an ambiguous improvement on the view, universally prevalent, as Westermarck has shown, among primitive peoples, that the sexual act involves indignity to a woman or depreciation of her only in so far as she is the property of another person who is the really injured party. [93] This implicit contradiction has been acutely pointed out from the religious side by the Rev. H. Northcote, _Christianity and Sex Problems_, p. 53. [94] It has already been necessary to discuss this point briefly in "The Sexual Impulse in Women," vol. iii of these _Studies_. [95] "Die Abstinentia Sexualis," _Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, Nov., 1908. [96] P. Janet, "La Maladie du Scrupule," _Revue Philosophique_, May, 1901. [97] S. Freud, _Sexual-Probleme_, March, 1908. As Adele Schreiber also points out (_Mutterschutz_, Jan., 1907, p. 30), it is not enough to prove that abstinence is not dangerous; we have to remember that the spiritual and physical energy used up in repressing this mighty instinct often reduces a joyous and energetic nature to a weary and faded shadow. Similarly, Helene Stöcker (_Die Liebe und die Frauen_, p. 105) says: "The question whether abstinence is harmful is, to say the truth, a ridiculous question. One needs to be no nervous specialist to know, as a matter of course, that a life of happy love and marriage is the healthy life, and its complete absence cannot fail to lead to severe psychic depression, even if no direct physiological disturbances can be demonstrated." [98] Max Flesch, "Ehe, Hygine und Sexuelle Moral," _Mutterschutz_, 1905, Heft 7. [99] See the Section on Touch in the fourth volume of these _Studies_. [100] "I have had two years' close experience and connexion with the Trappists," wrote Dr. Butterfield, of Natal (_British Medical Journal_, Sept. 15, 1906, p. 668), "both as medical attendant and as being a Catholic in creed myself. I have studied them and investigated their life, habits and diet, and though I should be very backward in adopting it myself, as not suited to me individually, the great bulk of them are in absolute ideal health and strength, seldom ailing, capable of vast work, mental and physical. Their life is very simple and very regular. A healthier body of men and women, with perfect equanimity of temper--this latter I lay great stress on--it would be difficult to find. Health beams in their eyes and countenance and actions. Only in sickness or prolonged journeys are they allowed any strong foods--meats, eggs, etc.--or any alcohol." [101] Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, second edition, p. 332. [102] Rural life, as we have seen when discussing its relation to sexual precocity, _is_ on one side the reverse of a safeguard against sexual influences. But, on the other hand, in so far as it involves hard work and simple living under conditions that are not nervously stimulating, it is favorable to a considerably delayed sexual activity in youth and to a relative continence. Ammon, in the course of his anthropological investigations of Baden conscripts, found that sexual intercourse was rare in the country before twenty, and even sexual emissions during sleep rare before nineteen or twenty. It is said, also, he repeats, that no one has a right to run after girls who does not yet carry a gun, and the elder lads sometimes brutally ill-treat any younger boy found going about with a girl. No doubt this is often preliminary to much license later. [103] The numerical preponderance which celibate women teachers have now gained in the American school system has caused much misgiving among many sagacious observers, and is said to be unsatisfactory in its results on the pupils of both sexes. A distinguished authority, Professor McKeen Cattell ("The School and the Family," _Popular Science Monthly_, Jan., 1909), referring to this preponderance of "devitalized and unsexed spinsters," goes so far as to say that "the ultimate result of letting the celibate female be the usual teacher has been such as to make it a question whether it would not be an advantage to the country if the whole school plant could be scrapped." [104] Corre (_Les Criminels_, p. 351) mentions that of thirteen priests convicted of crime, six were guilty of sexual attempts on children, and of eighty-three convicted lay teachers, forty-eight had committed similar offenses. This was at a time when lay teachers were in practice almost compelled to live a celibate life; altered conditions have greatly diminished this class of offense among them. Without going so far as crime, many moral and religious men, clergymen and others, who have led severely abstinent lives in youth, sometimes experience in middle age or later the eruption of almost uncontrollable sexual impulses, normal or abnormal. In women such manifestations are apt to take the form of obsessional thoughts of sexual character, as e.g., the case (_Comptes-Rendus Congrès International de Médecine_, Moscow, 1897, vol. iv, p. 27) of a chaste woman who was compelled to think about and look at the sexual organs of men. [105] J.A. Godfrey, _The Science of Sex_, p. 138. [106] See, e.g., Havelock Ellis, "St. Francis and Others," _Affirmations_. CHAPTER VII. PROSTITUTION. I. _The Orgy:_--The Religious Origin of the Orgy--The Feast of Fools--Recognition of the Orgy by the Greeks and Romans--The Orgy Among Savages--The Drama--The Object Subserved by the Orgy. II. _The Origin and Development of Prostitution:_--The Definition of Prostitution--Prostitution Among Savages--The Conditions Under Which Professional Prostitution Arises--Sacred Prostitution--The Rite of Mylitta--The Practice of Prostitution to Obtain a Marriage Portion--The Rise of Secular Prostitution in Greece--Prostitution in the East--India, China, Japan, etc.--Prostitution in Rome--The Influence of Christianity on Prostitution--The Effort to Combat Prostitution--The Mediæval Brothel--The Appearance of the Courtesan--Tullia D'Aragona--Veronica Franco--Ninon de Lenclos--Later Attempts to Eradicate Prostitution--The Regulation of Prostitution--Its Futility Becoming Recognized. III. _The Causes of Prostitution:_--Prostitution as a Part of the Marriage System--The Complex Causation of Prostitution--The Motives Assigned by Prostitutes--(1) Economic Factor of Prostitution--Poverty Seldom the Chief Motive for Prostitution--But Economic Pressure Exerts a Real Influence--The Large Proportion of Prostitutes Recruited from Domestic Service--Significance of This Fact--(2) The Biological Factor of Prostitution--The So-called Born-Prostitute--Alleged Identity with the Born-Criminal--The Sexual Instinct in Prostitutes--The Physical and Psychic Characters of Prostitutes--(3) Moral Necessity as a Factor in the Existence of Prostitution--The Moral Advocates of Prostitution--The Moral Attitude of Christianity Towards Prostitution--The Attitude of Protestantism--Recent Advocates of the Moral Necessity of Prostitution--(4) Civilizational Value as a Factor of Prostitution--The Influence of Urban Life--The Craving for Excitement--Why Servant-girls so Often Turn to Prostitution--The Small Part Played by Seduction--Prostitutes Come Largely from the Country--The Appeal of Civilization Attracts Women to Prostitution--The Corresponding Attraction Felt by Men--The Prostitute as Artist and Leader of Fashion--The Charm of Vulgarity. IV. _The Present Social Attitude Towards Prostitution:_--The Decay of the Brothel--The Tendency to the Humanization of Prostitution--The Monetary Aspects of Prostitution--The Geisha--The Hetaira--The Moral Revolt Against Prostitution--Squalid Vice Based on Luxurious Virtue--The Ordinary Attitude Towards Prostitutes--Its Cruelty Absurd--The Need of Reforming Prostitution--The Need of Reforming Marriage--These These Two Needs Closely Correlated--The Dynamic Relationships Involved. _I. The Orgy_. Traditional morality, religion, and established convention combine to promote not only the extreme of rigid abstinence but also that of reckless license. They preach and idealize the one extreme; they drive those who cannot accept it to adopt the opposite extreme. In the great ages of religion it even happens that the severity of the rule of abstinence is more or less deliberately tempered by the permission for occasional outbursts of license. We thus have the orgy, which flourished in mediæval days and is, indeed, in its largest sense, a universal manifestation, having a function to fulfil in every orderly and laborious civilization, built up on natural energies that are bound by more or less inevitable restraints. The consideration of the orgy, it may be said, lifts us beyond the merely sexual sphere, into a higher and wider region which belongs to religion. The Greek _orgeia_ referred originally to ritual things done with a religious purpose, though later, when dances of Bacchanals and the like lost their sacred and inspiring character, the idea was fostered by Christianity that such things were immoral.[107] Yet Christianity was itself in its origin an orgy of the higher spiritual activities released from the uncongenial servitude of classic civilization, a great festival of the poor and the humble, of the slave and the sinner. And when, with the necessity for orderly social organization, Christianity had ceased to be this it still recognized, as Paganism had done, the need for an occasional orgy. It appears that in 743 at a Synod held in Hainault reference was made to the February debauch (_de Spurcalibus in februario_) as a pagan practice; yet it was precisely this pagan festival which was embodied in the accepted customs of the Christian Church as the chief orgy of the ecclesiastical year, the great Carnival prefixed to the long fast of Lent. The celebration on Shrove Tuesday and the previous Sunday constituted a Christian Bacchanalian festival in which all classes joined. The greatest freedom and activity of physical movement was encouraged; "some go about naked without shame, some crawl on all fours, some on stilts, some imitate animals."[108] As time went on the Carnival lost its most strongly marked Bacchanalian features, but it still retains its essential character as a permitted and temporary relaxation of the tension of customary restraints and conventions. The Mediæval Feast of Fools--a New Year's Revel well established by the twelfth century, mainly in France--presented an expressive picture of a Christian orgy in its extreme form, for here the most sacred ceremonies of the Church became the subject of fantastic parody. The Church, according to Nietzsche's saying, like all wise legislators, recognized that where great impulses and habits have to be cultivated, intercalary days must be appointed in which these impulses and habits may be denied, and so learn to hunger anew.[109] The clergy took the leading part in these folk-festivals, for to the men of that age, as Méray remarks, "the temple offered the complete notes of the human gamut; they found there the teaching of all duties, the consolation of all sorrows, the satisfaction of all joys. The sacred festivals of mediæval Christianity were not a survival from Roman times; they leapt from the very heart of Christian society."[110] But, as Méray admits, all great and vigorous peoples, of the East and the West, have found it necessary sometimes to play with their sacred things. Among the Greeks and Romans this need is everywhere visible, not only in their comedy and their literature generally, but in everyday life. As Nietzsche truly remarks (in his _Geburt der Tragödie_) the Greeks recognized all natural impulses, even those that are seemingly unworthy, and safeguarded them from working mischief by providing channels into which, on special days and in special rites, the surplus of wild energy might harmlessly flow. Plutarch, the last and most influential of the Greek moralists, well says, when advocating festivals (in his essay "On the Training of Children"), that "even in bows and harps we loosen their strings that we may bend and wind them up again." Seneca, perhaps the most influential of Roman if not of European moralists, even recommended occasional drunkenness. "Sometimes," he wrote in his _De Tranquillilate_, "we ought to come even to the point of intoxication, not for the purpose of drowning ourselves but of sinking ourselves deep in wine. For it washes away cares and raises our spirits from the lowest depths. The inventor of wine is called _Liber_ because he frees the soul from the servitude of care, releases it from slavery, quickens it, and makes it bolder for all undertakings." The Romans were a sterner and more serious people than the Greeks, but on that very account they recognized the necessity of occasionally relaxing their moral fibres in order to preserve their tone, and encouraged the prevalence of festivals which were marked by much more abandonment than those of Greece. When these festivals began to lose their moral sanction and to fall into decay the decadence of Rome had begun. All over the world, and not excepting the most primitive savages--for even savage life is built up on systematic constraints which sometimes need relaxation--the principle of the orgy is recognized and accepted. Thus Spencer and Gillen describe[111] the Nathagura or fire-ceremony of the Warramunga tribe of Central Australia, a festival taken part in by both sexes, in which all the ordinary rules of social life are broken, a kind of Saturnalia in which, however, there is no sexual license, for sexual license is, it need scarcely be said, no essential part of the orgy, even when the orgy lightens the burden of sexual constraints. In a widely different part of the world, in British Columbia, the Salish Indians, according to Hill Tout,[112] believed that, long before the whites came, their ancestors observed a Sabbath or seventh day ceremony for dancing and praying, assembling at sunrise and dancing till noon. The Sabbath, or periodically recurring orgy,--not a day of tension and constraint but a festival of joy, a rest from all the duties of everyday life,--has, as we know, formed an essential part of many of the orderly ancient civilizations on which our own has been built;[113] it is highly probable that the stability of these ancient civilizations was intimately associated with their recognition of the need of a Sabbath orgy. Such festivals are, indeed, as Crawley observes, processes of purification and reinvigoration, the effort to put off "the old man" and put on "the new man," to enter with fresh energy on the path of everyday life.[114] The orgy is an institution which by no means has its significance only for the past. On the contrary, the high tension, the rigid routine, the gray monotony of modern life insistently call for moments of organic relief, though the precise form that that orgiastic relief takes must necessarily change with other social changes. As Wilhelm von Humboldt said, "just as men need suffering in order to become strong so they need joy in order to become good." Charles Wagner, insisting more recently (in his _Jeunesse_) on the same need of joy in our modern life, regrets that dancing in the old, free, and natural manner has gone out of fashion or become unwholesome. Dancing is indeed the most fundamental and primitive form of the orgy, and that which most completely and healthfully fulfils its object. For while it is undoubtedly, as we see even among animals, a process by which sexual tumescence is accomplished,[115] it by no means necessarily becomes focused in sexual detumescence but it may itself become a detumescent discharge of accumulated energy. It was on this account that, at all events in former days, the clergy in Spain, on moral grounds, openly encouraged the national passion for dancing. Among cultured people in modern times, the orgy tends to take on a purely cerebral form, which is less wholesome because it fails to lead to harmonious discharge along motor channels. In these comparatively passive forms, however, the orgy tends to become more and more pronounced under the conditions of civilization. Aristotle's famous statement concerning the function of tragedy as "purgation" seems to be a recognition of the beneficial effects of the orgy.[116] Wagner's music-dramas appeal powerfully to this need; the theatre, now as ever, fulfils a great function of the same kind, inherited from the ancient days when it was the ordered expression of a sexual festival.[117] The theatre, indeed, tends at the present time to assume a larger importance and to approximate to the more serious dramatic performances of classic days by being transferred to the day-time and the open-air. France has especially taken the initiative in these performances, analogous to the Dionysiac festivals of antiquity and the Mysteries and Moralities of the Middle Ages. The movement began some years ago at Orange. In 1907 there were, in France, as many as thirty open-air theatres ("Théâtres de la Nature," "Théâtres du Soleil," etc.,) while it is in Marseilles that the first formal open-air theatre has been erected since classic days.[118] In England, likewise, there has been a great extension of popular interest in dramatic performances, and the newly instituted Pageants, carried out and taken part in by the population of the region commemorated in the Pageant, are festivals of the same character. In England, however, at the present time, the real popular orgiastic festivals are the Bank holidays, with which may be associated the more occasional celebrations, "Maffekings," etc., often called out by comparatively insignificant national events but still adequate to arouse orgiastic emotions as genuine as those of antiquity, though they are lacking in beauty and religious consecration. It is easy indeed for the narrowly austere person to view such manifestations with a supercilious smile, but in the eyes of the moralist and the philosopher these orgiastic festivals exert a salutary and preservative function. In every age of dull and monotonous routine--and all civilization involves such routine--many natural impulses and functions tend to become suppressed, atrophied, or perverted. They need these moments of joyous exercise and expression, moments in which they may not necessarily attain their full activity but in which they will at all events be able, as Cyples expresses it, to rehearse their great possibilities.[119] _II. The Origin and Development of Prostitution_. The more refined forms of the orgy flourish in civilization, although on account of their mainly cerebral character they are not the most beneficent or the most effective. The more primitive and muscular forms of the orgy tend, on the other hand, under the influence of civilization, to fall into discredit and to be so far as possible suppressed altogether. It is partly in this way that civilization encourages prostitution. For the orgy in its primitive forms, forbidden to show itself openly and reputably, seeks the darkness, and allying itself with a fundamental instinct to which civilized society offers no complete legitimate satisfaction, it firmly entrenches itself in the very centre of civilized life, and thereby constitutes a problem of immense difficulty and importance.[120] It is commonly said that prostitution has existed always and everywhere. That statement is far from correct. A kind of amateur prostitution is occasionally found among savages, but usually it is only when barbarism is fully developed and is already approaching the stage of civilization that well developed prostitution is found. It exists in a systematic form in every civilization. What is prostitution? There has been considerable discussion as to the correct definition of prostitution.[121] The Roman Ulpian said that a prostitute was one who openly abandons her body to a number of men without choice, for money.[122] Not all modern definitions have been so satisfactory. It is sometimes said a prostitute is a woman who gives herself to numerous men. To be sound, however, a definition must be applicable to both sexes alike and we should certainly hesitate to describe a man who had sexual intercourse with many women as a prostitute. The idea of venality, the intention to sell the favors of the body, is essential to the conception of prostitution. Thus Guyot defines a prostitute as "any person for whom sexual relationships are subordinated to gain."[123] It is not, however, adequate to define a prostitute simply as a woman who sells her body. That is done every day by women who become wives in order to gain a home and a livelihood, yet, immoral as this conduct may be from any high ethical standpoint, it would be inconvenient and even misleading to call it prostitution.[124] It is better, therefore, to define a prostitute as a woman who temporarily sells her sexual favors to various persons. Thus, according to Wharton's _Law-lexicon_ a prostitute is "a woman who indiscriminately consorts with men for hire"; Bonger states that "those women are prostitutes who sell their bodies for the exercise of sexual acts and make of this a profession";[125] Richard again states that "a prostitute is a woman who publicly gives herself to the first comer in return for a pecuniary remuneration."[126] As, finally, the prevalence of homosexuality has led to the existence of male prostitutes, the definition must be put in a form irrespective of sex, and we may, therefore, say that a prostitute is a person who makes it a profession to gratify the lust of various persons of the opposite sex or the same sex. It is essential that the act of prostitution should be habitually performed with "various persons." A woman who gains her living by being mistress to a man, to whom she is faithful, is not a prostitute, although she often becomes one afterwards, and may have been one before. The exact point at which a woman begins to be a prostitute is a question of considerable importance in countries in which prostitutes are subject to registration. Thus in Berlin, not long ago, a girl who was mistress to a rich cavalry officer and supported by him, during the illness of the officer accidentally met a man whom she had formerly known, and once or twice invited him to see her, receiving from him presents in money. This somehow came to the knowledge of the police, and she was arrested and sentenced to one day's imprisonment as an unregistered prostitute. On appeal, however, the sentence was annulled. Liszt, in his _Strafrecht_, lays it down that a girl who obtains whole or part of her income from "fixed relationships" is not practicing unchastity for gain in the sense of the German law (_Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Jahrgang 1, Heft 9, p. 345). It is not altogether easy to explain the origin of the systematized professional prostitution with the existence of which we are familiar in civilization. The amateur kind of prostitution which has sometimes been noted among primitive peoples--the fact, that is, that a man may give a woman a present in seeking to persuade her to allow him to have intercourse with her--is really not prostitution as we understand it. The present in such a case is merely part of a kind of courtship leading to a temporary relationship. The woman more or less retains her social position and is not forced to make an avocation of selling herself because henceforth no other career is possible to her. When Cook came to New Zealand his men found that the women were not impregnable, "but the terms and manner of compliance were as decent as those in marriage among us," and according "to their notions the agreement was as innocent." The consent of the woman's friends was necessary, and when the preliminaries were settled it was also necessary to treat this "Juliet of a night" with "the same delicacy as is here required with the wife for life, and the lover who presumed to take any liberties by which this was violated was sure to be disappointed."[127] In some of the Melanesian Islands, it is said that women would sometimes become prostitutes, or on account of their bad conduct be forced to become prostitutes for a time; they were not, however, particularly despised, and when they had in this way accumulated a certain amount of property they could marry well, after which it would not be proper to refer to their former career.[128] When prostitution first arises among a primitive people it sometimes happens that little or no stigma is attached to it for the reason that the community has not yet become accustomed to attach any special value to the presence of virginity. Schurtz quotes from the old Arabic geographer Al-Bekri some interesting remarks about the Slavs: "The women of the Slavs, after they have married, are faithful to their husbands. If, however, a young girl falls in love with a man she goes to him and satisfies her passion. And if a man marries and finds his wife a virgin he says to her: 'If you were worth anything men would have loved you, and you would have chosen one who would have taken away your virginity.' Then he drives her away and renounces her." It is a feeling of this kind which, among some peoples, leads a girl to be proud of the presents she has received from her lovers and to preserve them as a dowry for her marriage, knowing that her value will thus be still further heightened. Even among the Southern Slavs of modern Europe, who have preserved much of the primitive sexual freedom, this freedom, as Krauss, who has minutely studied the manners and customs of these peoples, declares, is fundamentally different from vice, licentiousness, or immodesty.[129] Prostitution tends to arise, as Schurtz has pointed out, in every society in which early marriage is difficult and intercourse outside marriage is socially disapproved. "Venal women everywhere appear as soon as the free sexual intercourse of young people is repressed, without the necessary consequences being impeded by unusually early marriages."[130] The repression of sexual intimacies outside marriage is a phenomenon of civilization, but it is not itself by any means a measure of a people's general level, and may, therefore, begin to appear at an early period. But it is important to remember that the primitive and rudimentary forms of prostitution, when they occur, are merely temporary, and frequently--though not invariably--involve no degrading influence on the woman in public estimation, sometimes indeed increasing her value as a wife. The woman who sells herself for money purely as a professional matter, without any thought of love or passion, and who, by virtue of her profession, belongs to a pariah class definitely and rigidly excluded from the main body of her sex, is a phenomenon which can seldom be found except in developed civilization. It is altogether incorrect to speak of prostitutes as a mere survival from primitive times. On the whole, while among savages sexual relationships are sometimes free before marriage, as well as on the occasion of special festivals, they are rarely truly promiscuous and still more rarely venal. When savage women nowadays sell themselves, or are sold by their husbands, it has usually been found that we are concerned with the contamination of European civilization. The definite ways in which professional prostitution may arise are no doubt many.[131] We may assent to the general principle, laid down by Schurtz, that whenever the free union of young people is impeded under conditions in which early marriage is also difficult prostitution must certainly arise. There are, however, different ways in which this principle may take shape. So far as our western civilization is concerned--the civilization, that is to say, which has its cradle in the Mediterranean basin--it would seem that the origin of prostitution is to be found primarily in a religious custom, religion, the great conserver of social traditions, preserving in a transformed shape a primitive freedom that was passing out of general social life.[132] The typical example is that recorded by Herodotus, in the fifth century before Christ, at the temple of Mylitta, the Babylonian Venus, where every woman once in her life had to come and give herself to the first stranger who threw a coin in her lap, in worship of the goddess. The money could not be refused, however small the amount, but it was given as an offertory to the temple, and the woman, having followed the man and thus made oblation to Mylitta, returned home and lived chastely ever afterwards.[133] Very similar customs existed in other parts of Western Asia, in North Africa, in Cyprus and other islands of the Eastern Mediterranean, and also in Greece, where the Temple of Aphrodite on the fort at Corinth possessed over a thousand hierodules, dedicated to the service of the goddess, from time to time, as Strabo states, by those who desired to make thank-offering for mercies vouchsafed to them. Pindar refers to the hospitable young Corinthian women ministrants whose thoughts often turn towards Ourania Aphrodite[134] in whose temple they burned incense; and Athenæus mentions the importance that was attached to the prayers of the Corinthian prostitutes in any national calamity.[135] We seem here to be in the presence, not merely of a religiously preserved survival of a greater sexual freedom formerly existing,[136] but of a specialized and ritualized development of that primitive cult of the generative forces of Nature which involves the belief that all natural fruitfulness is associated with, and promoted by, acts of human sexual intercourse which thus acquire a religious significance. At a later stage acts of sexual intercourse having a religious significance become specialized and localized in temples, and by a rational transition of ideas it becomes believed that such acts of sexual intercourse in the service of the god, or with persons devoted to the god's service, brought benefits to the individual who performed them, more especially, if a woman, by insuring her fertility. Among primitive peoples generally this conception is embodied mainly in seasonal festivals, but among the peoples of Western Asia who had ceased to be primitive, and among whom traditional priestly and hieratic influences had acquired very great influence, the earlier generative cult had thus, it seems probable, naturally changed its form in becoming attached to the temples.[137] The theory that religious prostitution developed, as a general rule, out of the belief that the generative activity of human beings possessed a mysterious and sacred influence in promoting the fertility of Nature generally seems to have been first set forth by Mannhardt in his _Antike Wald- und Feldkulte_ (pp. 283 et seq.). It is supported by Dr. F.S. Krauss ("Beischlafausübung als Kulthandlung," _Anthropophyteia_, vol. iii, p. 20), who refers to the significant fact that in Baruch's time, at a period long anterior to Herodotus, sacred prostitution took place under the trees. Dr. J.G. Frazer has more especially developed this conception of the origin of sacred prostitution in his _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_. He thus summarizes his lengthy discussion: "We may conclude that a great Mother Goddess, the personification of all the reproductive energies of nature, was worshipped under different names, but with a substantial similarity of myth and ritual by many peoples of western Asia; that associated with her was a lover, or rather series of lovers, divine yet mortal, with whom she mated year by year, their commerce being deemed essential to the propagation of animals and plants, each in their several kind; and further, that the fabulous union of the divine pair was simulated, and, as it were, multiplied on earth by the real, though temporary, union of the human sexes at the sanctuary of the goddess for the sake of thereby ensuring the fruitfulness of the ground and the increase of man and beast. In course of time, as the institution of individual marriage grew in favor, and the old communism fell more and more into discredit, the revival of the ancient practice, even for a single occasion in a woman's life, became ever more repugnant to the moral sense of the people, and accordingly they resorted to various expedients for evading in practice the obligation which they still acknowledged in theory.... But while the majority of women thus contrived to observe the form of religion without sacrificing their virtue, it was still thought necessary to the general welfare that a certain number of them should discharge the old obligation in the old way. These became prostitutes, either for life or for a term of years, at one of the temples: dedicated to the service of religion, they were invested with a sacred character, and their vocation, far from being deemed infamous, was probably long regarded by the laity as an exercise of more than common virtue, and rewarded with a tribute of mixed wonder, reverence, and pity, not unlike that which in some parts of the world is still paid to women who seek to honor their Creator in a different way by renouncing the natural functions of their sex and the tenderest relations of humanity" (J.G. Frazer, _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, 1907, pp. 23 et seq.). It is difficult to resist the conclusion that this theory represents the central and primitive idea which led to the development of sacred prostitution. It seems equally clear, however, that as time went on, and especially as temple cults developed and priestly influence increased, this fundamental and primitive idea tended to become modified, and even transformed. The primitive conception became specialized in the belief that religious benefits, and especially the gift of fruitfulness, were gained _by the worshipper_, who thus sought the goddess's favor by an act of unchastity which might be presumed to be agreeable to an unchaste deity. The rite of Mylitta, as described by Herodotus, was a late development of this kind in an ancient civilization, and the benefit sought was evidently for the worshipper herself. This has been pointed out by Dr. Westermarck, who remarks that the words spoken to the woman by her partner as he gives her the coin--"May the goddess be auspicious to thee!"--themselves indicate that the object of the act was to insure her fertility, and he refers also to the fact that strangers frequently had a semi-supernatural character, and their benefits a specially efficacious character (Westermarck, _Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, vol. ii, p. 446). It may be added that the rite of Mylitta thus became analogous with another Mediterranean rite, in which the act of simulating intercourse with the representative of a god, or his image, ensured a woman's fertility. This is the rite practiced by the Egyptians of Mendes, in which a woman went through the ceremony of simulated intercourse with the sacred goat, regarded as the representative of a deity of Pan-like character (Herodotus, Bk. ii, Ch. XLVI; and see Dulaure, _Des Divinités Génératrices_, Ch. II; cf. vol. v of these _Studies_, "Erotic Symbolism," Sect. IV). This rite was maintained by Roman women, in connection with the statues of Priapus, to a very much later date, and St. Augustine mentions how Roman matrons placed the young bride on the erect member of Priapus (_De Civitate Dei_, Bk. iii, Ch. IX). The idea evidently running through this whole group of phenomena is that the deity, or the representative or even mere image of the deity, is able, through a real or simulated act of intercourse, to confer on the worshipper a portion of its own exalted generative activity. At a later period, in Corinth, prostitutes were still the priestesses of Venus, more or less loosely attached to her temples, and so long as that was the case they enjoyed a considerable degree of esteem. At this stage, however, we realize that religious prostitution was developing a utilitarian side. These temples flourished chiefly in sea-coast towns, in islands, in large cities to which many strangers and sailors came. The priestesses of Cyprus burnt incense on her altars and invoked her sacred aid, but at the same time Pindar addresses them as "young girls who welcome all strangers and give them hospitality." Side by side with the religious significance of the act of generation the needs of men far from home were already beginning to be definitely recognized. The Babylonian woman had gone to the temple of Mylitta to fulfil a personal religious duty; the Corinthian priestess had begun to act as an avowed minister to the sexual needs of men in strange cities. The custom which Herodotus noted in Lydia of young girls prostituting themselves in order to acquire a marriage portion which they may dispose of as they think fit (Bk. I, Ch. 93) may very well have developed (as Frazer also believes) out of religious prostitution; we can indeed trace its evolution in Cyprus where eventually, at the period when Justinian visited the island, the money given by strangers to the women was no longer placed on the altar but put into a chest to form marriage-portions for them. It is a custom to be found in Japan and various other parts of the world, notably among the Ouled-Nail of Algeria,[138] and is not necessarily always based on religious prostitution; but it obviously cannot exist except among peoples who see nothing very derogatory in free sexual intercourse for the purpose of obtaining money, so that the custom of Mylitta furnished a natural basis for it.[139] As a more spiritual conception of religion developed, and as the growth of civilization tended to deprive sexual intercourse of its sacred halo, religious prostitution in Greece was slowly abolished, though on the coasts of Asia Minor both religious prostitution and prostitution for the purpose of obtaining a marriage portion persisted to the time of Constantine, who put an end to these ancient customs.[140] Superstition was on the side of the old religious prostitution; it was believed that women who had never sacrificed to Aphrodite became consumed by lust, and according to the legend recorded by Ovid--a legend which seems to point to a certain antagonism between sacred and secular prostitution--this was the case with the women who first became public prostitutes. The decay of religious prostitution, doubtless combined with the cravings always born of the growth of civilization, led up to the first establishment, attributed by legend to Solon, of a public brothel, a purely secular establishment for a purely secular end: the safeguarding of the virtue of the general population and the increase of the public revenue. With that institution the evolution of prostitution, and of the modern marriage system of which it forms part, was completed. The Athenian _dikterion_ is the modern brothel; the _dikteriade_ is the modern state-regulated prostitute. The free _hetairæ_, indeed, subsequently arose, educated women having no taint of the _dikterion_, but they likewise had no official part in public worship.[141] The primitive conception of the sanctity of sexual intercourse in the divine service had been utterly lost. A fairly typical example of the conditions existing among savages is to be found in the South Sea Island of Rotuma, where "prostitution for money or gifts was quite unknown." Adultery after marriage was also unknown. But there was great freedom in the formation of sexual relationships before marriage (J. Stanley Gardiner, _Journal Anthropological Institute_, February, 1898, p. 409). Much the same is said of the Bantu Ba mbola of Africa (_op. cit._, July-December, 1905, p. 410). Among the early Cymri of Wales, representing a more advanced social stage, prostitution appears to have been not absolutely unknown, but public prostitution was punished by loss of valuable privileges (R.B. Holt, "Marriage Laws and Customs of the Cymri," _Journal Anthropological Institute_, August-November, 1898, pp. 161-163). Prostitution was practically unknown in Burmah, and regarded as shameful before the coming of the English and the example of the modern Hindus. The missionaries have unintentionally, but inevitably, favored the growth of prostitution by condemning free unions (_Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, November, 1903, p. 720). The English brought prostitution to India. "That was not specially the fault of the English," said a Brahmin to Jules Bois, "it is the crime of your civilization. We have never had prostitutes. I mean by that horrible word the brutalized servants of the gross desire of the passerby. We had, and we have, castes of singers and dancers who are married to trees--yes, to trees--by touching ceremonies which date from Vedic times; our priests bless them and receive much money from them. They do not refuse themselves to those who love them and please them. Kings have made them rich. They represent all the arts; they are the visible beauty of the universe" (Jules Bois, _Visions de l'Inde_, p. 55). Religious prostitutes, it may be added, "the servants of the god," are connected with temples in Southern India and the Deccan. They are devoted to their sacred calling from their earliest years, and it is their chief business to dance before the image of the god, to whom they are married (though in Upper India professional dancing girls are married to inanimate objects), but they are also trained in arousing and assuaging the desires of devotees who come on pilgrimage to the shrine. For the betrothal rites by which, in India, sacred prostitutes are consecrated, see, e.g., A. Van Gennep, _Rites de Passage_, p. 142. In many parts of Western Asia, where barbarism had reached a high stage of development, prostitution was not unknown, though usually disapproved. The Hebrews knew it, and the historical Biblical references to prostitutes imply little reprobation. Jephtha was the son of a prostitute, brought up with the legitimate children, and the story of Tamar is instructive. But the legal codes were extremely severe on Jewish maidens who became prostitutes (the offense was quite tolerable in strange women), while Hebrew moralists exercised their invectives against prostitution; it is sufficient to refer to a well-known passage in the Book of Proverbs (see art. "Harlot," by Cheyne, in the _Encyclopædia Biblica_). Mahomed also severely condemned prostitution, though somewhat more tolerant to it in slave women; according to Haleby, however, prostitution was practically unknown in Islam during the first centuries after the Prophet's time. The Persian adherents of the somewhat ascetic _Zendavesta_ also knew prostitution, and regarded it with repulsion: "It is the Gahi [the courtesan, as an incarnation of the female demon, Gahi], O Spitama Zarathustra! who mixes in her the seed of the faithful and the unfaithful, of the worshipper of Mazda and the worshipper of the Dævas, of the wicked and the righteous. Her look dries up one-third of the mighty floods that run from the mountains, O Zarathustra; her look withers one-third of the beautiful, golden-hued, growing plants, O Zarathustra; her look withers one-third of the strength of Spenta Armaiti [the earth]; and her touch withers in the faithful one-third of his good thoughts, of his good words, of his good deeds, one-third of his strength, of his victorious power, of his holiness. Verily I say unto thee, O Spitama Zarathustra! such creatures ought to be killed even more than gliding snakes, than howling wolves, than the she-wolf that falls upon the fold, or than the she-frog that falls upon the waters with her thousandfold brood" (_Zend-Avesta, the Vendidad_, translated by James Darmesteter, Farfad XVIII). In practice, however, prostitution is well established in the modern East. Thus in the Tartar-Turcoman region houses of prostitution lying outside the paths frequented by Christians have been described by a writer who appears to be well informed ("Orientalische Prostitution," _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, 1907, Bd. ii, Heft 1). These houses are not regarded as immoral or forbidden, but as places in which the visitor will find a woman who gives him for a few hours the illusion of being in his own home, with the pleasure of enjoying her songs, dances, and recitations, and finally her body. Payment is made at the door, and no subsequent question of money arises; the visitor is henceforth among friends, almost as if in his own family. He treats the prostitute almost as if she were his wife, and no indecorum or coarseness of speech occurs. "There is no obscenity in the Oriental brothel." At the same time there is no artificial pretence of innocence. In Eastern Asia, among the peoples of Mongolian stock, especially in China, we find prostitution firmly established and organized on a practical business basis. Prostitution is here accepted and viewed with no serious disfavor, but the prostitute herself is, nevertheless, treated with contempt. Young children are frequently sold to be trained to a life of prostitution, educated accordingly, and kept shut up from the world. Young widows (remarriage being disapproved) frequently also slide into a life of prostitution. Chinese prostitutes often end through opium and the ravages of syphilis (see, e.g., Coltman's _The Chinese_, 1900, Ch. VII). In ancient China, it is said prostitutes were a superior class and occupied a position somewhat similar to that of the _hetairæ_ in Greece. Even in modern China, however, where they are very numerous, and the flower boats, in which in towns by the sea they usually live, very luxurious, it is chiefly for entertainment, according to some writers, that they are resorted to. Tschang Ki Tong, military attaché in Paris (as quoted by Ploss and Bartels), describes the flower boat as less analogous to a European brothel than to a _café chantant_; the young Chinaman comes here for music, for tea, for agreeable conversation with the flower-maidens, who are by no means necessarily called upon to minister to the lust of their visitors. In Japan, the prostitute's lot is not so degraded as in China. The greater refinement of Japanese civilization allows the prostitute to retain a higher degree of self-respect. She is sometimes regarded with pity, but less often with contempt. She may associate openly with men, ultimately be married, even to men of good social class, and rank as a respectable woman. "In riding from Tokio to Yokohama, the past winter," Coltman observes (_op. cit._, p. 113), "I saw a party of four young men and three quite pretty and gaily-painted prostitutes, in the same car, who were having a glorious time. They had two or three bottles of various liquors, oranges, and fancy cakes, and they ate, drank and sang, besides playing jokes on each other and frolicking like so many kittens. You may travel the whole length of the Chinese Empire and never witness such a scene." Yet the history of Japanese prostitutes (which has been written in an interesting and well-informed book, _The Nightless City_, by an English student of sociology who remains anonymous) shows that prostitution in Japan has not only been severely regulated, but very widely looked down upon, and that Japanese prostitutes have often had to suffer greatly; they were at one time practically slaves and often treated with much hardship. They are free now, and any condition approaching slavery is strictly prohibited and guarded against. It would seem, however, that the palmiest days of Japanese prostitution lay some centuries back. Up to the middle of the eighteenth century Japanese prostitutes were highly accomplished in singing, dancing, music, etc. Towards this period, however, they seem to have declined in social consideration and to have ceased to be well educated. Yet even to-day, says Matignon ("La Prostitution au Japon," _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, October, 1906), less infamy attaches to prostitution in Japan than in Europe, while at the same time there is less immorality in Japan than in Europe. Though prostitution is organized like the postal or telegraph service, there is also much clandestine prostitution. The prostitution quarters are clean, beautiful and well-kept, but the Japanese prostitutes have lost much of their native good taste in costume by trying to imitate European fashions. It was when prostitution began to decline two centuries ago, that the geishas first appeared and were organized in such a way that they should not, if possible, compete as prostitutes with the recognized and licensed inhabitants of the Yoshiwara, as the quarter is called to which prostitutes are confined. The geishas, of course, are not prostitutes, though their virtue may not always be impregnable, and in social position they correspond to actresses in Europe. In Korea, at all events before Korea fell into the hands of the Japanese, it would seem that there was no distinction between the class of dancing girls and prostitutes. "Among the courtesans," Angus Hamilton states, "the mental abilities are trained and developed with a view to making them brilliant and entertaining companions. These 'leaves of sunlight' are called _gisaing_, and correspond to the geishas of Japan. Officially, they are attached to a department of government, and are controlled by a bureau of their own, in common with the Court musicians. They are supported from the national treasury, and they are in evidence at official dinners and all palace entertainments. They read and recite; they dance and sing; they become accomplished artists and musicians. They dress with exceptional taste; they move with exceeding grace; they are delicate in appearance, very frail and very human, very tender, sympathetic, and imaginative." But though they are certainly the prettiest women in Korea, move in the highest society, and might become concubines of the Emperor, they are not allowed to marry men of good class (Angus Hamilton, _Korea_, p. 52). The history of European prostitution, as of so many other modern institutions, may properly be said to begin in Rome. Here at the outset we already find that inconsistently mixed attitude towards prostitution which to-day is still preserved. In Greece it was in many respects different. Greece was nearer to the days of religious prostitution, and the sincerity and refinement of Greek civilization made it possible for the better kind of prostitute to exert, and often be worthy to exert, an influence in all departments of life which she has never been able to exercise since, except perhaps occasionally, in a much slighter degree, in France. The course, vigorous, practical Roman was quite ready to tolerate the prostitute, but he was not prepared to carry that toleration to its logical results; he never felt bound to harmonize inconsistent facts of life. Cicero, a moralist of no mean order, without expressing approval of prostitution, yet could not understand how anyone should wish to prohibit youths from commerce with prostitutes, such severity being out of harmony with all the customs of the past or the present.[142] But the superior class of Roman prostitutes, the _bonæ mulieres_, had no such dignified position as the Greek _hetairæ_. Their influence was indeed immense, but it was confined, as it is in the case of their European successors to-day, to fashions, customs, and arts. There was always a certain moral rigidity in the Roman which prevented him from yielding far in this direction. He encouraged brothels, but he only entered them with covered head and face concealed in his cloak. In the same way, while he tolerated the prostitute, beyond a certain point he sharply curtailed her privileges. Not only was she deprived of all influence in the higher concerns of life, but she might not even wear the _vitta_ or the _stola_; she could indeed go almost naked if she pleased, but she must not ape the emblems of the respectable Roman matron.[143] The rise of Christianity to political power produced on the whole less change of policy than might have been anticipated. The Christian rulers had to deal practically as best they might with a very mixed, turbulent, and semi-pagan world. The leading fathers of the Church were inclined to tolerate prostitution for the avoidance of greater evils, and Christian emperors, like their pagan predecessors, were willing to derive a tax from prostitution. The right of prostitution to exist was, however, no longer so unquestionably recognized as in pagan days, and from time to time some vigorous ruler sought to repress prostitution by severe enactments. The younger Theodosius and Valentinian definitely ordained that there should be no more brothels and that anyone giving shelter to a prostitute should be punished. Justinian confirmed that measure and ordered that all panders were to be exiled on pain of death. These enactments were quite vain. But during a thousand years they were repeated again and again in various parts of Europe, and invariably with the same fruitless or worse than fruitless results. Theodoric, king of the Visigoths, punished with death those who promoted prostitution, and Recared, a Catholic king of the same people in the sixth century, prohibited prostitution altogether and ordered that a prostitute, when found, should receive three hundred strokes of the whip and be driven out of the city. Charlemagne, as well as Genserich in Carthage, and later Frederick Barbarossa in Germany, made severe laws against prostitution which were all of no effect, for even if they seemed to be effective for the time the reaction was all the greater afterwards.[144] It is in France that the most persistent efforts have been made to combat prostitution. Most notable of all were the efforts of the King and Saint, Louis IX. In 1254 St. Louis ordained that prostitutes should be driven out altogether and deprived of all their money and goods, even to their mantles and gowns. In 1256 he repeated this ordinance and in 1269, before setting out for the Crusades, he ordered the destruction of all places of prostitution. The repetition of those decrees shows how ineffectual they were. They even made matters worse, for prostitutes were forced to mingle with the general population and their influence was thus extended. St. Louis was unable to put down prostitution even in his own camp in the East, and it existed outside his own tent. His legislation, however, was frequently imitated by subsequent rulers of France, even to the middle of the seventeenth century, always with the same ineffectual and worse results. In 1560 an edict of Charles IX abolished brothels, but the number of prostitutes was thereby increased rather than diminished, while many new kinds of brothels appeared in unsuspected shapes and were more dangerous than the more recognized brothels which had been suppressed.[145] In spite of all such legislation, or because of it, there has been no country in which prostitution has played a more conspicuous part.[146] At Mantua, so great was the repulsion aroused by prostitutes that they were compelled to buy in the markets any fruit or bread that had been soiled by the mere touch of their hands. It was so also in Avignon in 1243. In Catalonia they could not sit at the same table as a lady or a knight or kiss any honorable person.[147] Even in Venice, the paradise of prostitution, numerous and severe regulations were passed against it, and it was long before the Venetian rulers resigned themselves to its toleration and regulation.[148] The last vigorous attempt to uproot prostitution in Europe was that of Maria Theresa at Vienna in the middle of the eighteenth century. Although of such recent date it may be mentioned here because it was mediæval alike in its conception and methods. Its object indeed, was to suppress not only prostitution, but fornication generally, and the means adopted were fines, imprisonment, whipping and torture. The supposed causes of fornication were also dealt with severely; short dresses were prohibited; billiard rooms and cafés were inspected; no waitresses were allowed, and when discovered, a waitress was liable to be handcuffed and carried off by the police. The Chastity Commission, under which these measures were rigorously carried out, was, apparently, established in 1751 and was quietly abolished by the Emperor Joseph II, in the early years of his reign. It was the general opinion that this severe legislation was really ineffective, and that it caused much more serious evils than it cured.[149] It is certain in any case that, for a long time past, illegitimacy has been more prevalent in Vienna than in any other great European capital. Yet the attitude towards prostitutes was always mixed and inconsistent at different places or different times, or even at the same time and place. Dufour has aptly compared their position to that of the mediæval Jews; they were continually persecuted, ecclesiastically, civilly, and socially, yet all classes were glad to have recourse to them and it was impossible to do without them. In some countries, including England in the fourteenth century, a special costume was imposed on prostitutes as a mark of infamy.[150] Yet in many respects no infamy whatever attached to prostitution. High placed officials could claim payment of their expenses incurred in visiting prostitutes when traveling on public business. Prostitution sometimes played an official part in festivities and receptions accorded by great cities to royal guests, and the brothel might form an important part of the city's hospitality. When the Emperor Sigismund came to Ulm in 1434 the streets were illuminated at such times as he or his suite desired to visit the common brothel. Brothels under municipal protection are found in the thirteenth century in Augsburg, in Vienna, in Hamburg.[151] In France the best known _abbayes_ of prostitutes were those of Toulouse and Montpellier.[152] Durkheim is of opinion that in the early middle ages, before this period, free love and marriage were less severely differentiated. It was the rise of the middle class, he considers, anxious to protect their wives and daughters, which led to a regulated and publicly recognized attempt to direct debauchery into a separate channel, brought under control.[153] These brothels constituted a kind of public service, the directors of them being regarded almost as public officials, bound to keep a certain number of prostitutes, to charge according to a fixed tariff, and not to receive into their houses girls belonging to the neighborhood. The institutions of this kind lasted for three centuries. It was, in part, perhaps, the impetus of the new Protestant movement, but mainly the terrible devastation produced by the introduction of syphilis from America at the end of the fifteenth century which, as Burckhardt and others have pointed out, led to the decline of the mediæval brothels.[154] The superior modern prostitute, the "courtesan" who had no connection with the brothel, seems to have been the outcome of the Renaissance and made her appearance in Italy at the end of the fifteenth century. "Courtesan" or "cortegiana" meant a lady following the court, and the term began at this time to be applied to a superior prostitute observing a certain degree of decorum and restraint.[155] In the papal court of Alexander Borgia the courtesan flourished even when her conduct was not altogether dignified. Burchard, the faithful and unimpeachable chronicler of this court, describes in his diary how, one evening, in October, 1501, the Pope sent for fifty courtesans to be brought to his chamber; after supper, in the presence of Cæsar Borgia and his young sister Lucrezia, they danced with the servitors and others who were present, at first clothed, afterwards naked. The candlesticks with lighted candles were then placed upon the floor and chestnuts thrown among them, to be gathered by the women crawling between the candlesticks on their hands and feet. Finally a number of prizes were brought forth to be awarded to those men "qui pluries dictos meretrices carnaliter agnoscerent," the victor in the contest being decided according to the judgment of the spectators.[156] This scene, enacted publicly in the Apostolic palace and serenely set forth by the impartial secretary, is at once a notable episode in the history of modern prostitution and one of the most illuminating illustrations we possess of the paganism of the Renaissance. Before the term "courtesan" came into repute, prostitutes were even in Italy commonly called "sinners," _peccatrice_. The change, Graf remarks in a very interesting study of the Renaissance prostitute ("Una Cortigiana fra Mille," _Attraverso il Cinquecento_, pp. 217-351), "reveals a profound alteration in ideas and in life;" a term that suggested infamy gave place to one that suggested approval, and even honor, for the courts of the Renaissance period represented the finest culture of the time. The best of these courtesans seem to have been not altogether unworthy of the honor they received. We can detect this in their letters. There is a chapter on the letters of Renaissance prostitutes, especially those of Camilla de Pisa which are marked by genuine passion, in Lothar Schmidt's _Frauenbriefe der Renaissance_. The famous Imperia, called by a Pope in the early years of the sixteenth century "nobilissimum Romæ scortum," knew Latin and could write Italian verse. Other courtesans knew Italian and Latin poetry by heart, while they were accomplished in music, dancing, and speech. We are reminded of ancient Greece, and Graf, discussing how far the Renaissance courtesans resembled the hetairæ, finds a very considerable likeness, especially in culture and influence, though with some differences due to the antagonism between religion and prostitution at the later period. The most distinguished figure in every respect among the courtesans of that time was certainly Tullia D'Aragona. She was probably the daughter of Cardinal D'Aragona (an illegitimate scion of the Spanish royal family) by a Ferrarese courtesan who became his mistress. Tullia has gained a high reputation by her verse. Her best sonnet is addressed to a youth of twenty, whom she passionately loved, but who did not return her love. Her _Guerrino Meschino_, a translation from the Spanish, is a very pure and chaste work. She was a woman of refined instincts and aspirations, and once at least she abandoned her life of prostitution. She was held in high esteem and respect. When, in 1546, Cosimo, Duke of Florence, ordered all prostitutes to wear a yellow veil or handkerchief as a public badge of their profession, Tullia appealed to the Duchess, a Spanish lady of high character, and received permission to dispense with this badge on account of her "rara scienzia di poesia et filosofia." She dedicated her _Rime_ to the Duchess. Tullia D'Aragona was very beautiful, with yellow hair, and remarkably large and bright eyes, which dominated those who came near her. She was of proud bearing and inspired unusual respect (G. Biagi, "Un' Etera Romana," _Nuova Antologia_, vol. iv, 1886, pp. 655-711; S. Bongi, _Rivista critica della Letteratura Italiana_, 1886, IV, p. 186). Tullia D'Aragona was clearly not a courtesan at heart. Perhaps the most typical example of the Renaissance courtesan at her best is furnished by Veronica Franco, born in 1546 at Venice, of middle class family and in early life married to a doctor. Of her also it has been said that, while by profession a prostitute, she was by inclination a poet. But she appears to have been well content with her profession, and never ashamed of it. Her life and character have been studied by Arturo Graf, and more slightly in a little book by Tassini. She was highly cultured, and knew several languages; she also sang well and played on many instruments. In one of her letters she advises a youth who was madly in love with her that if he wishes to obtain her favors he must leave off importuning her and devote himself tranquilly to study. "You know well," she adds, "that all those who claim to be able to gain my love, and who are extremely dear to me, are strenuous in studious discipline.... If my fortune allowed it I would spend all my time quietly in the academies of virtuous men." The Diotimas and Aspasias of antiquity, as Graf comments, would not have demanded so much of their lovers. In her poems it is possible to trace some of her love histories, and she often shows herself torn by jealousy at the thought that perhaps another woman may approach her beloved. Once she fell in love with an ecclesiastic, possibly a bishop, with whom she had no relationships, and after a long absence, which healed her love, she and he became sincere friends. Once she was visited by Henry III of France, who took away her portrait, while on her part she promised to dedicate a book to him; she so far fulfilled this as to address some sonnets to him and a letter; "neither did the King feel ashamed of his intimacy with the courtesan," remarks Graf, "nor did she suspect that he would feel ashamed of it." When Montaigne passed through Venice she sent him a little book of hers, as we learn from his _Journal_, though they do not appear to have met. Tintoret was one of her many distinguished friends, and she was a strenuous advocate of the high qualities of modern, as compared with ancient, art. Her friendships were affectionate, and she even seems to have had various grand ladies among her friends. She was, however, so far from being ashamed of her profession of courtesan that in one of her poems she affirms she has been taught by Apollo other arts besides those he is usually regarded as teaching: "Cosi dolce e gustevole divento, Quando mi trovo con persona in letto Da cui amata e gradita mi sento." In a certain _catalogo_ of the prices of Venetian courtesans Veronica is assigned only 2 scudi for her favors, while the courtesan to whom the catalogue is dedicated is set down at 25 scudi. Graf thinks there may be some mistake or malice here, and an Italian gentleman of the time states that she required not less than 50 scudi from those to whom she was willing to accord what Montaigne called the "negotiation entière." In regard to this matter it may be mentioned that, as stated by Bandello, it was the custom for a Venetian prostitute to have six or seven gentlemen at a time as her lovers. Each was entitled to come to sup and sleep with her on one night of the week, leaving her days free. They paid her so much per month, but she always definitely reserved the right to receive a stranger passing through Venice, if she wished, changing the time of her appointment with her lover for the night. The high and special prices which we find recorded are, of course, those demanded from the casual distinguished stranger who came to Venice as, once in the sixteenth century, Montaigne came. In 1580 (when not more than thirty-four) Veronica confessed to the Holy Office that she had had six children. In the same year she formed the design of founding a home, which should not be a monastery, where prostitutes who wished to abandon their mode of life could find a refuge with their children, if they had any. This seems to have led to the establishment of a Casa del Soccorso. In 1591 she died of fever, reconciled with God and blessed by many unfortunates. She had a good heart and a sound intellect, and was the last of the great Renaissance courtesans who revived Greek hetairism (Graf, _Attraverso il Cinquecento_, pp. 217-351). Even in sixteenth century Venice, however, it will be seen, Veronica Franco seems to have been not altogether at peace in the career of a courtesan. She was clearly not adapted for ordinary marriage, yet under the most favorable conditions that the modern world has ever offered it may still be doubted whether a prostitute's career can offer complete satisfaction to a woman of large heart and brain. Ninon de Lenclos, who is frequently called "the last of the great courtesans," may seem an exception to the general rule as to the inability of a woman of good heart, high character, and fine intelligence to find satisfaction in a prostitute's life. But it is a total misconception alike of Ninon de Lenclos's temperament and her career to regard her as in any true sense a prostitute at all. A knowledge of even the barest outlines of her life ought to prevent such a mistake. Born early in the seventeenth century, she was of good family on both sides; her mother was a woman of severe life, but her father, a gentleman of Touraine, inspired her with his own Epicurean philosophy as well as his love of music. She was extremely well educated. At the age of sixteen or seventeen she had her first lover, the noble and valiant Gaspard de Coligny; he was followed for half a century by a long succession of other lovers, sometimes more than one at a time; three years was the longest period during which she was faithful to one lover. Her attractions lasted so long that, it is said, three generations of Sévignés were among her lovers. Tallemant des Réaux enables us to study in detail her _liaisons_. It is not, however, the abundance of lovers which makes a woman a prostitute, but the nature of her relationships with them. Sainte-Beuve, in an otherwise admirable study of Ninon de Lenclos (_Causeries du Lundi_, vol. iv), seems to reckon her among the courtesans. But no woman is a prostitute unless she uses men as a source of pecuniary gain. Not only is there no evidence that this was the case with Ninon, but all the evidence excludes such a relationship. "It required much skill," said Voltaire, "and a great deal of love on her part, to induce her to accept presents." Tallemant, indeed, says that she sometimes took money from her lovers, but this statement probably involves nothing beyond what is contained in Voltaire's remark, and, in any case, Tallemant's gossip, though usually well-informed, was not always reliable. All are agreed as to her extreme disinterestedness. When we hear precisely of Ninon de Lenclos in connection with money, it is not as receiving a gift, but only as repaying a debt to an old lover, or restoring a large sum left with her for safe keeping when the owner was exiled. Such incidents are far from suggesting the professional prostitute of any age; they are rather the relationships which might exist between men friends. Ninon de Lenclos's character was in many respects far from perfect, but she combined many masculine virtues, and especially probity, with a temperament which, on the whole, was certainly feminine; she hated hypocrisy, and she was never influenced by pecuniary considerations. She was, moreover, never reckless, but always retained a certain self-restraint and temperance, even in eating and drinking, and, we are told, she never drank wine. She was, as Sainte-Beuve has remarked, the first to realize that there must be the same virtues for men and for women, and that it is absurd to reduce all feminine virtues to one. "Our sex has been burdened with all the frivolities," she wrote, "and men have reserved to themselves the essential qualities: I have made myself a man." She sometimes dressed as a man when riding (see, e.g., _Correspondence Authentique_ of Ninon de Lenclos, with a good introduction by Emile Colombey). Consciously or not, she represented a new feminine idea at a period when--as we may see in many forgotten novels written by the women of that time--ideas were beginning to emerge in the feminine sphere. She was the first, and doubtless, from one point of view, the most extreme representative of a small and distinguished group of French women among whom Georges Sand is the finest personality. Thus it is idle to attempt to adorn the history of prostitution with the name of Ninon de Lenclos. A debauched old prostitute would never, like Ninon towards the end of her long life, have been able to retain or to conquer the affection and the esteem of many of the best men and women of her time; even to the austere Saint-Simon it seemed that there reigned in her little court a decorum which the greatest princesses cannot achieve. She was not a prostitute, but a woman of unique personality with a little streak of genius in it. That she was inimitable we need not perhaps greatly regret. In her old age, in 1699, her old friend and former lover, Saint-Evremond, wrote to her, with only a little exaggeration, that there were few princesses and few saints who would not leave their courts and their cloisters to change places with her. "If I had known beforehand what my life would be I would have hanged myself," was her oft-quoted answer. It is, indeed, a solitary phrase that slips in, perhaps as the expression of a momentary mood; one may make too much of it. More truly characteristic is the fine saying in which her Epicurean philosophy seems to stretch out towards Nietzsche: "La joie de l'esprit en marque la force." The frank acceptance of prostitution by the spiritual or even the temporal power has since the Renaissance become more and more exceptional. The opposite extreme of attempting to uproot prostitution has also in practice been altogether abandoned. Sporadic attempts have indeed been made, here and there, to put down prostitution with a strong hand even in quite modern times. It is now, however, realized that in such a case the remedy is worse than the disease. In 1860 a Mayor of Portsmouth felt it his duty to attempt to suppress prostitution. "In the early part of his mayoralty," according to a witness before the Select Committee on the Contagious Diseases Acts (p. 393), "there was an order passed that every beerhouse-keeper and licensed victualer in the borough known to harbor these women would be dealt with, and probably lose his license. On a given day about three hundred or four hundred of these forlorn outcasts were bundled wholesale into the streets, and they formed up in a large body, many of them with only a shift and a petticoat on, and with a lot of drunken men and boys with a fife and fiddle they paraded the streets for several days. They marched in a body to the workhouse, but for many reasons they were refused admittance.... These women wandered about for two or three days shelterless, and it was felt that the remedy was very much worse than the disease, and the women were allowed to go back to their former places." Similar experiments have been made even more recently in America. "In Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1891, the houses of prostitutes were closed, the inmates turned out upon the streets, and were refused lodging and even food by the citizens of that place. A wave of popular remonstrance, all over the country, at the outrage on humanity, created a reaction which resulted in a last condition by no means better than the first." In the same year also a similar incident occurred in New York with the same unfortunate results (Isidore Dyer, "The Municipal Control of Prostitution in the United States," report presented to the Brussels International Conference in 1899). There grew up instead the tendency to regulate prostitution, to give it a semi-official toleration which enabled the authorities to exercise a control over it, and to guard as far as possible against its evil by medical and police inspection. The new brothel system differed from the ancient mediæval houses of prostitution in important respects; it involved a routine of medical inspection and it endeavored to suppress any rivalry by unlicensed prostitutes outside. Bernard Mandeville, the author of the _Fable of the Bees_, and an acute thinker, was a pioneer in the advocacy of this system. In 1724, in his _Modest Defense of Publick Stews_, he argues that "the encouraging of public whoring will not only prevent most of the mischievous effects of this vice, but even lessen the quantity of whoring in general, and reduce it to the narrowest bounds which it can possibly be contained in." He proposed to discourage private prostitution by giving special privileges and immunities to brothels by Act of Parliament. His scheme involved the erection of one hundred brothels in a special quarter of the city, to contain two thousand prostitutes and one hundred matrons of ability and experience with physicians and surgeons, as well as commissioners to oversee the whole. Mandeville was regarded merely as a cynic or worse, and his scheme was ignored or treated with contempt. It was left to the genius of Napoleon, eighty years later, to establish the system of "maisons de tolérance," which had so great an influence over modern European practice during a large part of the last century and even still in its numerous survivals forms the subject of widely divergent opinions. On the whole, however, it must be said that the system of registering, examining, and regularizing prostitutes now belongs to the past. Many great battles have been fought over this question; the most important is that which raged for many years in England over the Contagious Diseases Acts, and is embodied in the 600 pages of a Report by a Select Committee on these Acts issued in 1882. The majority of the members of the Committee reported favorably to the Acts which were, notwithstanding, repealed in 1886, since which date no serious attempt has been made in England to establish them again. At the present time, although the old system still stands in many countries with the inert stolidity of established institutions, it no longer commands general approval. As Paul and Victor Margueritte have truly stated, in the course of an acute examination of the phenomena of state-regulated prostitution as found in Paris, the system is "barbarous to start with and almost inefficacious as well." The expert is every day more clearly demonstrating its inefficacy while the psychologist and the sociologist are constantly becoming more convinced that it is barbarous. It can indeed by no means be said that any unanimity has been attained. It is obviously so urgently necessary to combat the flood of disease and misery which proceeds directly from the spread of syphilis and gonorrhoea, and indirectly from the prostitution which is the chief propagator of these diseases, that we cannot be surprised that many should eagerly catch at any system which seems to promise a palliation of the evils. At the present time, however, it is those best acquainted with the operation of the system of control who have most clearly realized that the supposed palliation is for the most part illusory,[157] and in any case attained at the cost of the artificial production of other evils. In France, where the system of the registration and control of prostitutes has been established for over a century,[158] and where consequently its advantages, if such there are, should be clearly realized, it meets with almost impassioned opposition from able men belonging to every section of the community. In Germany the opposition to regularized control has long been led by well-equipped experts, headed by Blaschko of Berlin. Precisely the same conclusions are being reached in America. Gottheil, of New York, finds that the municipal control of prostitution is "neither successful nor desirable." Heidingsfeld concludes that the regulation and control system in force in Cincinnati has done little good and much harm; under the system among the private patients in his own clinic the proportion of cases of both syphilis and gonorrhoea has increased; "suppression of prostitutes is impossible and control is impracticable."[159] It is in Germany that the attempt to regulate prostitution still remains most persistent, with results that in Germany itself are regarded as unfortunate. Thus the German law inflicts a penalty on householders who permit illegitimate sexual intercourse in their houses. This is meant to strike the unlicensed prostitute, but it really encourages prostitution, for a decent youth and girl who decide to form a relationship which later may develop into marriage, and which is not illegal (for extra-marital sexual intercourse _per se_ is not in Germany, as it is by the antiquated laws of several American States, a punishable offense), are subjected to so much trouble and annoyance by the suspicious police that it is much easier for the girl to become a prostitute and put herself under the protection of the police. The law was largely directed against those who live on the profits of prostitution. But in practice it works out differently. The prostitute simply has to pay extravagantly high rents, so that her landlord really lives on the fruits of her trade, while she has to carry on her business with increased activity and on a larger scale in order to cover her heavy expenses (P. Hausmeister, "Zur Analyse der Prostitution," _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, vol. ii, 1907, p. 294). In Italy, opinion on this matter is much divided. The regulation of prostitution has been successively adopted, abandoned, and readopted. In Switzerland, the land of governmental experiments, various plans are tried in different cantons. In some there is no attempt to interfere with prostitution, except under special circumstances; in others all prostitution, and even fornication generally, is punishable; in Geneva only native prostitutes are permitted to practice; in Zurich, since 1897, prostitution is prohibited, but care is taken to put no difficulties in the path of free sexual relationships which are not for gain. With these different regulations, morals in Switzerland generally are said to be much on the same level as elsewhere (Moreau-Christophe, _Du Problème de la Misère_, vol. iii, p. 259). The same conclusion holds good of London. A disinterested observer, Félix Remo (_La Vie Galante en Angleterre_, 1888, p. 237), concluded that, notwithstanding its free trade in prostitution, its alcoholic excesses, its vices of all kinds, "London is one of the most moral capitals in Europe." The movement towards freedom in this matter has been evidenced in recent years by the abandonment of the system of regulation by Denmark in 1906. Even the most ardent advocates of the registration of prostitutes recognize that not only is the tendency of civilization opposed rather than favorable to the system, but that in the numerous countries where the system persists registered prostitutes are losing ground in the struggle against clandestine prostitutes. Even in France, the classic land of police-controlled prostitutes, the "maisons de tolérance" have long been steadily decreasing in number, by no means because prostitution is decreasing but because low-class _brasseries_ and small _cafés-chantants_, which are really unlicensed brothels, are taking their place.[160] The wholesale regularization of prostitution in civilized centres is nowadays, indeed, advocated by few, if any, of the authorities who belong to the newer school. It is at most claimed as desirable in certain places under special circumstances.[161] Even those who would still be glad to see prostitution thoroughly in the control of the police now recognize that experience shows this to be impossible. As many girls begin their career as prostitutes at a very early age, a sound system of regulation should be prepared to enroll as permanent prostitutes even girls who are little more than children. That, however, is a logical conclusion against which the moral sense, and even the common sense, of a community instinctively revolts. In Paris girls may not be inscribed as prostitutes until they have reached the age of sixteen and some consider even that age too low.[162] Moreover, whenever she becomes diseased, or grows tired of her position, the registered woman may always slip out of the hands of the police and establish herself elsewhere as a clandestine prostitute. Every rigid attempt to keep prostitution within the police ring leads to offensive interference with the actions and the freedom of respectable women which cannot fail to be intolerable in any free community. Even in a city like London, where prostitution is relatively free, the supervision of the police has led to scandalous police charges against women who have done nothing whatever which should legitimately arouse suspicion of their behavior. The escape of the infected woman from the police cordon has, it is obvious, an effect in raising the apparent level of health of registered women, and the police statistics are still further fallaciously improved by the fact that the inmates of brothels are older on the average than clandestine prostitutes and have become immune to disease.[163] These facts are now becoming fairly obvious and well recognized. The state regulation of prostitution is undesirable, on moral grounds for the oft-emphasized reason that it is only applied to one sex, and on practical grounds because it is ineffective. Society allows the police to harass the prostitute with petty persecutions under the guise of charges of "solicitation," "disorderly conduct," etc., but it is no longer convinced that she ought to be under the absolute control of the police. The problem of prostitution, when we look at it narrowly, seems to be in the same position to-day as at any time in the course of the past three thousand years. In order, however, to comprehend the real significance of prostitution, and to attain a reasonable attitude towards it, we must look at it from a broader point of view; we must consider not only its evolution and history, but its causes and its relation to the wider aspects of modern social life. When we thus view the problem from a broader standpoint we shall find that there is no conflict between the claims of ethics and those of social hygiene, and that the coördinated activity of both is involved in the progressive refinement and purification of civilized sexual relationships. _III. The Causes of Prostitution._ The history of the rise and development of prostitution enables us to see that prostitution is not an accident of our marriage system, but an essential constituent which appears concurrently with its other essential constituents. The gradual development of the family on a patriarchal and largely monogamic basis rendered it more and more difficult for a woman to dispose of her own person. She belongs in the first place to her father, whose interest it was to guard her carefully until a husband appeared who could afford to purchase her. In the enhancement of her value the new idea of the market value of virginity gradually developed, and where a "virgin" had previously meant a woman who was free to do as she would with her own body its meaning was now reversed and it came to mean a woman who was precluded from having intercourse with men. When she was transferred from her father to a husband, she was still guarded with the same care; husband and father alike found their interest in preserving their women from unmarried men. The situation thus produced resulted in the existence of a large body of young men who were not yet rich enough to obtain wives, and a large number of young women, not yet chosen as wives, and many of whom could never expect to become wives. At such a point in social evolution prostitution is clearly inevitable; it is not so much the indispensable concomitant of marriage as an essential part of the whole system. Some of the superfluous or neglected women, utilizing their money value and perhaps at the same time reviving traditions of an earlier freedom, find their social function in selling their favors to gratify the temporary desires of the men who have not yet been able to acquire wives. Thus every link in the chain of the marriage system is firmly welded and the complete circle formed. But while the history of the rise and development of prostitution shows us how indestructible and essential an element prostitution is of the marriage system which has long prevailed in Europe--under very varied racial, political, social, and religious conditions--it yet fails to supply us in every respect with the data necessary to reach a definite attitude towards prostitution to-day. In order to understand the place of prostitution in our existing system, it is necessary that we should analyze the chief factors of prostitution. We may most conveniently learn to understand these if we consider prostitution, in order, under four aspects. These are: (1) _economic_ necessity; (2) _biological_ predisposition; (3) _moral_ advantages; and (4) what may be called its _civilizational_ value. While these four factors of prostitution seem to me those that here chiefly concern us, it is scarcely necessary to point out that many other causes contribute to produce and modify prostitution. Prostitutes themselves often seek to lead other girls to adopt the same paths; recruits must be found for brothels, whence we have the "white slave trade," which is now being energetically combated in many parts of the world; while all the forms of seduction towards this life are favored and often predisposed to by alcoholism. It will generally be found that several causes have combined to push a girl into the career of prostitution. The ways in which various factors of environment and suggestion unite to lead a girl into the paths of prostitution are indicated in the following statement in which a correspondent has set forth his own conclusions on this matter as a man of the world: "I have had a somewhat varied experience among loose women, and can say, without hesitation, that not more than 1 per cent, of the women I have known could be regarded as educated. This indicates that almost invariably they are of humble origin, and the terrible cases of overcrowding that are daily brought to light suggest that at very early ages the sense of modesty becomes extinct, and long before puberty a familiarity with things sexual takes place. As soon as they are old enough these girls are seduced by their sweethearts; the familiarity with which they regard sexual matters removes the restraint which surrounds a girl whose early life has been spent in decent surroundings. Later they go to work in factories and shops; if pretty and attractive, they consort with managers and foremen. Then the love of finery, which forms so large a part of the feminine character, tempts the girl to become the 'kept' woman of some man of means. A remarkable thing in this connection is the fact that they rarely enjoy excitement with their protectors, preferring rather the coarser embraces of some man nearer their own station in life, very often a soldier. I have not known many women who were seduced and deserted, though this is a fiction much affected by prostitutes. Barmaids supply a considerable number to the ranks of prostitution, largely on account of their addiction to drink; drunkenness invariably leads to laxness of moral restraint in women. Another potent factor in the production of prostitutes lies in the flare of finery flaunted by some friend who has adopted the life. A girl, working hard to live, sees some friend, perhaps making a call in the street where the hard-working girl lives, clothed in finery, while she herself can hardly get enough to eat. She has a conversation with her finely-clad friend who tells her how easily she can earn money, explaining what a vital asset the sexual organs are, and soon another one is added to the ranks." There is some interest in considering the reasons assigned for prostitutes entering their career. In some countries this has been estimated by those who come closely into official or other contact with prostitutes. In other countries, it is the rule for girls, before they are registered as prostitutes, to state the reasons for which they desire to enter the career. Parent-Duchâtelet, whose work on prostitutes in Paris is still an authority, presented the first estimate of this kind. He found that of over five thousand prostitutes, 1441 were influenced by poverty, 1425 by seduction of lovers who had abandoned them, 1255 by the loss of parents from death or other cause. By such an estimate, nearly the whole number are accounted for by wretchedness, that is by economic causes, alone (Parent-Duchâtelet, _De la Prostitution_, 1857, vol. i, p. 107). In Brussels during a period of twenty years (1865-1884) 3505 women were inscribed as prostitutes. The causes they assigned for desiring to take to this career present a different picture from that shown by Parent-Duchâtelet, but perhaps a more reliable one, although there are some marked and curious discrepancies. Out of the 3505, 1523 explained that extreme poverty was the cause of their degradation; 1118 frankly confessed that their sexual passions were the cause; 420 attributed their fall to evil company; 316 said they were disgusted and weary of their work, because the toil was so arduous and the pay so small; 101 had been abandoned by their lovers; 10 had quarrelled with their parents; 7 were abandoned by their husbands; 4 did not agree with their guardians; 3 had family quarrels; 2 were compelled to prostitute themselves by their husbands, and 1 by her parents (_Lancet_, June 28, 1890, p. 1442). In London, Merrick found that of 16,022 prostitutes who passed through his hands during the years he was chaplain at Millbank prison, 5061 voluntarily left home or situation for "a life of pleasure;" 3363 assigned poverty as the cause; 3154 were "seduced" and drifted on to the street; 1636 were betrayed by promises of marriage and abandoned by lover and relations. On the whole, Merrick states, 4790, or nearly one-third of the whole number, may be said to owe the adoption of their career directly to men, 11,232 to other causes. He adds that of those pleading poverty a large number were indolent and incapable (G.P. Merrick, _Work Among the Fallen_, p. 38). Logan, an English city missionary with an extensive acquaintance with prostitutes, divided them into the following groups: (1) One-fourth of the girls are servants, especially in public houses, beer shops, etc., and thus led into the life; (2) one-fourth come from factories, etc.; (3) nearly one-fourth are recruited by procuresses who visit country towns, markets, etc.; (4) a final group includes, on the one hand, those who are induced to become prostitutes by destitution, or indolence, or a bad temper, which unfits them for ordinary avocations, and, on the other hand, those who have been seduced by a false promise of marriage (W. Logan, _The Great Social Evil_, 1871, p. 53). In America Sanger has reported the results of inquiries made of two thousand New York prostitutes as to the causes which induced them to take up their avocation: Destitution 525 Inclination 513 Seduced and abandoned 258 Drink and desire for drink 181 Ill-treatment by parents, relations, or husbands 164 As an easy life 124 Bad company 84 Persuaded by prostitutes 71 Too idle to work 29 Violated 27 Seduced on emigrant ship 16 Seduced in emigrant boarding homes 8 ----- 2,000 (Sanger, _History of Prostitution_, p. 488.) In America, again, more recently, Professor Woods Hutchinson put himself into communication with some thirty representative men in various great metropolitan centres, and thus summarizes the answers as regards the etiology of prostitution: Per cent. Love of display, luxury and idleness 42.1 Bad family surroundings 23.8 Seduction in which they were innocent victims 11.3 Lack of employment 9.4 Heredity 7.8 Primary sexual appetite 5.6 (Woods Hutchinson, "The Economics of Prostitution," _American Gynæcologic and Obstetric Journal_, September, 1895; _Id., The Gospel According to Darwin_, p. 194.) In Italy, in 1881, among 10,422 inscribed prostitutes from the age of seventeen upwards, the causes of prostitution were classified as follows: Vice and depravity 2,752 Death of parents, husband, etc. 2,139 Seduction by lover 1,653 Seduction by employer 927 Abandoned by parents, husband, etc. 794 Love of luxury 698 Incitement by lover or other persons outside family 666 Incitement by parents or husband 400 To support parents or children 393 (Ferriani, _Minorenni Delinquenti_, p. 193.) The reasons assigned by Russian prostitutes for taking up their career are (according to Federow) as follows: 38.5 per cent. insufficient wages. 21. per cent. desire for amusement. 14. per cent. loss of place. 9.5 per cent. persuasion by women friends. 6.5 per cent. loss of habit of work. 5.5 per cent. chagrin, and to punish lover. .5 per cent. drunkenness. (Summarized in _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Nov. 15, 1901.) 1. _The Economic Causation of Prostitution_.--Writers on prostitution frequently assert that economic conditions lie at the root of prostitution and that its chief cause is poverty, while prostitutes themselves often declare that the difficulty of earning a livelihood in other ways was a main cause in inducing them to adopt this career. "Of all the causes of prostitution," Parent-Duchâtelet wrote a century ago, "particularly in Paris, and probably in all large cities, none is more active than lack of work and the misery which is the inevitable result of insufficient wages." In England, also, to a large extent, Sherwell states, "morals fluctuate with trade."[164] It is equally so in Berlin where the number of registered prostitutes increases during bad years.[165] It is so also in America. It is the same in Japan; "the cause of causes is poverty."[166] Thus the broad and general statement that prostitution is largely or mainly an economic phenomenon, due to the low wages of women or to sudden depressions in trade, is everywhere made by investigators. It must, however, be added that these general statements are considerably qualified in the light of the detailed investigations made by careful inquirers. Thus Ströhmberg, who minutely investigated 462 prostitutes, found that only one assigned destitution as the reason for adopting her career, and on investigation this was found to be an impudent lie.[167] Hammer found that of ninety registered German prostitutes not one had entered on the career out of want or to support a child, while some went on the street while in the possession of money, or without wishing to be paid.[168] Pastor Buschmann, of the Teltow Magdalene Home in Berlin, finds that it is not want but indifference to moral considerations which leads girls to become prostitutes. In Germany, before a girl is put on the police register, due care is always taken to give her a chance of entering a Home and getting work; in Berlin, in the course of ten years, only two girls--out of thousands--were willing to take advantage of this opportunity. The difficulty experienced by English Rescue Homes in finding girls who are willing to be "rescued" is notorious. The same difficulty is found in other cities, even where entirely different conditions prevail; thus it is found in Madrid, according to Bernaldo de Quirós and Llanas Aguilaniedo, that the prostitutes who enter the Homes, notwithstanding all the devotion of the nuns, on leaving at once return to their old life. While the economic factor in prostitution undoubtedly exists, the undue frequency and emphasis with which it is put forward and accepted is clearly due, in part to ignorance of the real facts, in part to the fact that such an assumption appeals to those whose weakness it is to explain all social phenomena by economic causes, and in part to its obvious plausibility.[169] Prostitutes are mainly recruited from the ranks of factory girls, domestic servants, shop girls, and waitresses. In some of these occupations it is difficult to obtain employment all the year round. In this way many milliners, dressmakers and tailoresses become prostitutes when business is slack, and return to business when the season begins. Sometimes the regular work of the day is supplemented concurrently by prostitution in the street in the evening. It is said, possibly with some truth, that amateur prostitution of this kind is extremely prevalent in England, as it is not checked by the precautions which, in countries where prostitution is regulated, the clandestine prostitute must adopt in order to avoid registration. Certain public lavatories and dressing-rooms in central London are said to be used by the girls for putting on, and finally washing off before going home, the customary paint.[170] It is certain that in England a large proportion of parents belonging to the working and even lower middle class ranks are unacquainted with the nature of the lives led by their own daughters. It must be added, also, that occasionally this conduct of the daughter is winked at or encouraged by the parents; thus a correspondent writes that he "knows some towns in England where prostitution is not regarded as anything disgraceful, and can remember many cases where the mother's house has been used by the daughter with the mother's knowledge." Acton, in a well-informed book on London prostitution, written in the middle of the last century, said that prostitution is "a transitory stage, through which an untold number of British women are ever on their passage."[171] This statement was strenuously denied at the time by many earnest moralists who refused to admit that it was possible for a woman who had sunk into so deep a pit of degradation ever to climb out again, respectably safe and sound. Yet it is certainly true as regards a considerable proportion of women, not only in England, but in other countries also. Thus Parent-Duchâtelet, the greatest authority on French prostitution, stated that "prostitution is for the majority only a transitory stage; it is quitted usually during the first year; very few prostitutes continue until extinction." It is difficult, however, to ascertain precisely of how large a proportion this is true; there are no data which would serve as a basis for exact estimation,[172] and it is impossible to expect that respectable married women would admit that they had ever been "on the streets"; they would not, perhaps, always admit it even to themselves. The following case, though noted down over twenty years ago, is fairly typical of a certain class, among the lower ranks of prostitution, in which the economic factor counts for much, but in which we ought not too hastily to assume that it is the sole factor. Widow, aged thirty, with two children. Works in an umbrella manufactory in the East End of London, earning eighteen shillings a week by hard work, and increasing her income by occasionally going out on the streets in the evenings. She haunts a quiet side street which is one of the approaches to a large city railway terminus. She is a comfortable, almost matronly-looking woman, quietly dressed in a way that is only noticeable from the skirts being rather short. If spoken to she may remark that she is "waiting for a lady friend," talks in an affected way about the weather, and parenthetically introduces her offers. She will either lead a man into one of the silent neighboring lanes filled with warehouses, or will take him home with her. She is willing to accept any sum the man may be willing or able to give; occasionally it is a sovereign, sometimes it is only a sixpence; on an average she earns a few shillings in an evening. She had only been in London for ten months; before that she lived in Newcastle. She did not go on the streets there; "circumstances alter cases," she sagely remarks. Though not speaking well of the police, she says they do not interfere with her as they do with some of the girls. She never gives them money, but hints that it is sometimes necessary to gratify their desires in order to keep on good terms with them. It must always be remembered, for it is sometimes forgotten by socialists and social reformers, that while the pressure of poverty exerts a markedly modifying influence on prostitution, in that it increases the ranks of the women who thereby seek a livelihood and may thus be properly regarded as a factor of prostitution, no practicable raising of the rate of women's wages could possibly serve, directly and alone, to abolish prostitution. De Molinari, an economist, after remarking that "prostitution is an industry" and that if other competing industries can offer women sufficiently high pecuniary inducements they will not be so frequently attracted to prostitution, proceeds to point out that that by no means settles the question. "Like every other industry prostitution is governed by the demand of the need to which it responds. As long as that need and that demand persist, they will provoke an offer. It is the need and the demand that we must act on, and perhaps science will furnish us the means to do so."[173] In what way Molinari expects science to diminish the demand for prostitutes, however, is not clearly brought out. Not only have we to admit that no practicable rise in the rate of wages paid to women in ordinary industries can possibly compete with the wages which fairly attractive women of quite ordinary ability can earn by prostitution,[174] but we have also to realize that a rise in general prosperity--which alone can render a rise of women's wages healthy and normal--involves a rise in the wages of prostitution, and an increase in the number of prostitutes. So that if good wages is to be regarded as the antagonist of prostitution, we can only say that it more than gives back with one hand what it takes with the other. To so marked a degree is this the case that Després in a detailed moral and demographic study of the distribution of prostitution in France comes to the conclusion that we must reverse the ancient doctrine that "poverty engenders prostitution" since prostitution regularly increases with wealth,[175] and as a département rises in wealth and prosperity, so the number both of its inscribed and its free prostitutes rises also. There is indeed a fallacy here, for while it is true, as Després argues, that wealth demands prostitution, it is also true that a wealthy community involves the extreme of poverty as well as of riches and that it is among the poorer elements that prostitution chiefly finds its recruits. The ancient dictum that "poverty engenders prostitution" still stands, but it is complicated and qualified by the complex conditions of civilization. Bonger, in his able discussion of the economic side of the question, has realized the wide and deep basis of prostitution when he reaches the conclusion that it is "on the one hand the inevitable complement of the existing legal monogamy, and on the other hand the result of the bad conditions in which many young girls grow up, the result of the physical and psychical wretchedness in which the women of the people live, and the consequence also of the inferior position of women in our actual society."[176] A narrowly economic consideration of prostitution can by no means bring us to the root of the matter. One circumstance alone should have sufficed to indicate that the inability of many women to secure "a living wage," is far from being the most fundamental cause of prostitution: a large proportion of prostitutes come from the ranks of domestic service. Of all the great groups of female workers, domestic servants are the freest from economic anxieties; they do not pay for food or for lodging; they often live as well as their mistresses, and in a large proportion of cases they have fewer money anxieties than their mistresses. Moreover, they supply an almost universal demand, so that there is never any need for even very moderately competent servants to be in want of work. They constitute, it is true, a very large body which could not fail to supply a certain contingent of recruits to prostitution. But when we see that domestic service is the chief reservoir from which prostitutes are drawn, it should be clear that the craving for food and shelter is by no means the chief cause of prostitution. It may be added that, although the significance of this predominance of servants among prostitutes is seldom realized by those who fancy that to remove poverty is to abolish prostitution, it has not been ignored by the more thoughtful students of social questions. Thus Sherwell, while pointing out truly that, to a large extent, "morals fluctuate with trade," adds that, against the importance of the economic factor, it is a suggestive and in every way impressive fact that the majority of the girls who frequent the West End of London (88 per cent., according to the Salvation Army's Registers) are drawn from domestic service where the economic struggle is not severely felt (Arthur Sherwell, _Life in West London_, Ch. V, "Prostitution"). It is at the same time worthy of note that by the conditions of their lives servants, more than any other class, resemble prostitutes (Bernaldo de Quirós and Llanas Aguilaniedo have pointed this out in _La Mala Vida en Madrid_, p. 240). Like prostitutes, they are a class of women apart; they are not entitled to the considerations and the little courtesies usually paid to other women; in some countries they are even registered, like prostitutes; it is scarcely surprising that when they suffer from so many of the disadvantages of the prostitute, they should sometimes desire to possess also some of her advantages. Lily Braun (_Frauenfrage_, pp. 389 et seq.) has set forth in detail these unfavorable conditions of domestic labor as they bear on the tendency of servant-girls to become prostitutes. R. de Ryckère, in his important work, _La Servante Criminelle_ (1907, pp. 460 et seq.; cf., the same author's article, "La Criminalité Ancillaire," _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, July and December, 1906), has studied the psychology of the servant-girl. He finds that she is specially marked by lack of foresight, vanity, lack of invention, tendency to imitation, and mobility of mind. These are characters which ally her to the prostitute. De Ryckère estimates the proportion of former servants among prostitutes generally as fifty per cent., and adds that what is called the "white slavery" here finds its most complacent and docile victims. He remarks, however, that the servant prostitute is, on the whole, not so much immoral as non-moral. In Paris Parent-Duchâtelet found that, in proportion to their number, servants furnished the largest contingent to prostitution, and his editors also found that they head the list (Parent-Duchâtelet, edition 1857, vol. i, p. 83). Among clandestine prostitutes at Paris, Commenge has more recently found that former servants constitute forty per cent. In Bordeaux Jeannel (_De le Prostitution Publique_, p. 102) also found that in 1860 forty per cent, of prostitutes had been servants, seamstresses coming next with thirty-seven per cent. In Germany and Austria it has long been recognized that domestic service furnishes the chief number of recruits to prostitution. Lippert, in Germany, and Gross-Hoffinger, in Austria, pointed out this predominance of maid-servants and its significance before the middle of the nineteenth century, and more recently Blaschko has stated ("Hygiene der Syphilis" in Weyl's _Handbuch der Hygiene_, Bd. ii, p. 40) that among Berlin prostitutes in 1898 maid-servants stand at the head with fifty-one per cent. Baumgarten has stated that in Vienna the proportion of servants is fifty-eight per cent. In England, according to the Report of a Select Committee of the Lords on the laws for the protection of children, sixty per cent, of prostitutes have been servants. F. Remo, in his _Vie Galante en Angleterre_, states the proportion as eighty per cent. It would appear to be even higher as regards the West End of London. Taking London as a whole the extensive statistics of Merrick (_Work Among the Fallen_), chaplain of the Millbank Prison, showed that out of 14,790 prostitutes, 5823, or about forty per cent., had previously been servants, laundresses coming next, and then dressmakers; classifying his data somewhat more summarily and roughly, Merrick found that the proportion of servants was fifty-three per cent. In America, among two thousand prostitutes, Sanger states that forty-three per cent, had been servants, dressmakers coming next, but at a long interval, with six per cent. (Sanger, _History of Prostitution_, p. 524). Among Philadelphia prostitutes, Goodchild states that "domestics are probably in largest proportion," although some recruits may be found from almost any occupation. It is the same in other countries. In Italy, according to Tammeo (_La Prostituzione_, p. 100), servants come first among prostitutes with a proportion of twenty-eight per cent., followed by the group of dressmakers, tailoresses and milliners, seventeen per cent. In Sardinia, A Mantegazza states, most prostitutes are servants from the country. In Russia, according to Fiaux, the proportion is forty-five per cent. In Madrid, according to Eslava (as quoted by Bernaldo de Quirós and Llanas Aguilaniedo (_La Mala Vida, en Madrid_, p. 239)), servants come at the head of registered prostitutes with twenty-seven per cent.--almost the same proportion as in Italy--and are followed by dressmakers. In Sweden, according to Welander (_Monatshefte für Praktische Dermatologie_, 1899, p. 477) among 2541 inscribed prostitutes, 1586 (or sixty-two per cent.) were domestic servants; at a long interval followed 210 seamstresses, then 168 factory workers, etc. 2. _The Biological Factor of Prostitution_.--Economic considerations, as we see, have a highly important modificatory influence on prostitution, although it is by no means correct to assert that they form its main cause. There is another question which has exercised many investigators: To what extent are prostitutes predestined to this career by organic constitution? It is generally admitted that economic and other conditions are an exciting cause of prostitution; in how far are those who succumb predisposed by the possession of abnormal personal characteristics? Some inquirers have argued that this predisposition is so marked that prostitution may fairly be regarded as a feminine equivalent for criminality, and that in a family in which the men instinctively turn to crime, the women instinctively turn to prostitution. Others have as strenuously denied this conclusion. Lombroso has more especially advocated the doctrine that prostitution is the vicarious equivalent of criminality. In this he was developing the results reached, in the important study of the Jukes family, by Dugdale, who found that "there where the brothers commit crime, the sisters adopt prostitution;" the fines and imprisonments of the women of the family were not for violations of the right of property, but mainly for offences against public decency. "The psychological as well as anatomical identity of the criminal and the born prostitute," Lombroso and Ferrero concluded, "could not be more complete: both are identical with the moral insane, and therefore, according to the axiom, equal to each other. There is the same lack of moral sense, the same hardness of heart, the same precocious taste for evil, the same indifference to social infamy, the same volatility, love of idleness, and lack of foresight, the same taste for facile pleasures, for the orgy and for alcohol, the same, or almost the same, vanity. Prostitution is only the feminine side of criminality. And so true is it that prostitution and criminality are two analogous, or, so to say, parallel, phenomena, that at their extremes they meet. The prostitute is, therefore, psychologically a criminal: if she commits no offenses it is because her physical weakness, her small intelligence, the facility of acquiring what she wants by more easy methods, dispenses her from the necessity of crime, and on these very grounds prostitution represents the specific form of feminine criminality." The authors add that "prostitution is, in a certain sense, socially useful as an outlet for masculine sexuality and a preventive of crime" (Lombroso and Ferrero, _La Donna Delinquente_, 1893, p. 571). Those who have opposed this view have taken various grounds, and by no means always understood the position they are attacking. Thus W. Fischer (in _Die Prostitution_) vigorously argues that prostitution is not an inoffensive equivalent of criminality, but a factor of criminality. Féré, again (in _Dégénérescence et Criminalité_), asserts that criminality and prostitution are not equivalent, but identical. "Prostitutes and criminals," he holds, "have as a common character their unproductiveness, and consequently they are both anti-social. Prostitution thus constitutes a form of criminality." The essential character of criminals is not, however, their unproductiveness, for that they share with a considerable proportion of the wealthiest of the upper classes; it must be added, also, that the prostitute, unlike the criminal, is exercising an activity for which there is a demand, for which she is willingly paid, and for which she has to work (it has sometimes been noted that the prostitute looks down on the thief, who "does not work"); she is carrying on a profession, and is neither more nor less productive than those who carry on many more reputable professions. Aschaffenburg, also believing himself in opposition to Lombroso, argues, somewhat differently from Féré, that prostitution is not indeed, as Féré said, a form of criminality, but that it is too frequently united with criminality to be regarded as an equivalent. Mönkemöller has more recently supported the same view. Here, however, as usual, there is a wide difference of opinion as to the proportion of prostitutes of whom this is true. It is recognized by all investigators to be true of a certain number, but while Baumgarten, from an examination of eight thousand prostitutes, only found a minute proportion who were criminals, Ströhmberg found that among 462 prostitutes there were as many as 175 thieves. From another side, Morasso (as quoted in _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1896, fasc. I), on the strength of his own investigations, is more clearly in opposition to Lombroso, since he protests altogether against any purely degenerative view of prostitutes which would in any way assimilate them with criminals. The question of the sexuality of prostitutes, which has a certain bearing on the question of their tendency to degeneration, has been settled by different writers in different senses. While some, like Morasso, assert that sexual impulse is a main cause inducing women to adopt a prostitute's career, others assert that prostitutes are usually almost devoid of sexual impulse. Lombroso refers to the prevalence of sexual frigidity among prostitutes.[177] In London, Merrick, speaking from a knowledge of over 16,000 prostitutes, states that he has met with "only a very few cases" in which gross sexual desire has been the motive to adopt a life of prostitution. In Paris, Raciborski had stated at a much earlier period that "among prostitutes one finds very few who are prompted to libertinage by sexual ardor."[178] Commenge, again, a careful student of the Parisian prostitute, cannot admit that sexual desire is to be classed among the serious causes of prostitution. "I have made inquiries of thousands of women on this point," he states, "and only a very small number have told me that they were driven to prostitution for the satisfaction of sexual needs. Although girls who give themselves to prostitution are often lacking in frankness, on this point, I believe, they have no wish to deceive. When they have sexual needs they do not conceal them, but, on the contrary, show a certain _amour-propre_ in acknowledging them, as a sufficient sort of justification for their life; so that if only a very small minority avow this motive the reason is that for the great majority it has no existence." There can be no doubt that the statements made regarding the sexual frigidity of prostitutes are often much too unqualified. This is in part certainly due to the fact that they are usually made by those who speak from a knowledge of old prostitutes whose habitual familiarity with normal sexual intercourse in its least attractive aspects has resulted in complete indifference to such intercourse, so far as their clients are concerned.[179] It may be stated with truth that to the woman of deep passions the ephemeral and superficial relationships of prostitution can offer no temptation. And it may be added that the majority of prostitutes begin their career at a very early age, long before the somewhat late period at which in women the tendency for passion to become strong, has yet arrived.[180] It may also be said that an indifference to sexual relationships, a tendency to attach no personal value to them, is often a predisposing cause in the adoption of a prostitute's career; the general mental shallowness of prostitutes may well be accompanied by shallowness of physical emotion. On the other hand, many prostitutes, at all events early in their careers, appear to show a marked degree of sensuality, and to women of coarse sexual fibre the career of prostitution has not been without attractions from this point of view; the gratification of physical desire is known to act as a motive in some cases and is clearly indicated in others.[181] This is scarcely surprising when we remember that prostitutes are in a very large proportion of cases remarkably robust and healthy persons in general respects.[182] They withstand without difficulty the risks of their profession, and though under its influence the manifestations of sexual feeling can scarcely fail to become modified or perverted in course of time, that is no proof of the original absence of sexual sensibility. It is not even a proof of its loss, for the real sexual nature of the normal prostitute, and her possibilities of sexual ardor, are chiefly manifested, not in her professional relations with her clients, but in her relations with her "fancy boy" or "bully."[183] It is quite true that the conditions of her life often make it practically advantageous to the prostitute to have attached to her a man who is devoted to her interests and will defend them if necessary, but that is only a secondary, occasional, and subsidiary advantage of the "fancy boy," so far as prostitutes generally are concerned. She is attracted to him primarily because he appeals to her personally and she wants him for herself. The motive of her attachment is, above all, erotic, in the full sense, involving not merely sexual relations but possession and common interests, a permanent and intimate life led together. "You know that what one does in the way of business cannot fill one's heart," said a German prostitute; "Why should we not have a husband like other women? I, too, need love. If that were not so we should not want a bully." And he, on his part, reciprocates this feeling and is by no means merely moved by self-interest.[184] One of my correspondents, who has had much experience of prostitutes, not only in Britain, but also in Germany, France, Belgium and Holland, has found that the normal manifestations of sexual feeling are much more common in British than in continental prostitutes. "I should say," he writes, "that in normal coitus foreign women are generally unconscious of sexual excitement. I don't think I have ever known a foreign woman who had any semblance of orgasm. British women, on the other hand, if a man is moderately kind, and shows that he has some feelings beyond mere sensual gratification, often abandon themselves to the wildest delights of sexual excitement. Of course in this life, as in others, there is keen competition, and a woman, to vie with her competitors, must please her gentlemen friends; but a man of the world can always distinguish between real and simulated passion." (It is possible, however, that he may be most successful in arousing the feelings of his own fellow-country women.) On the other hand, this writer finds that the foreign women are more anxious to provide for the enjoyment of their temporary consorts and to ascertain what pleases them. "The foreigner seems to make it the business of her life to discover some abnormal mode of sexual gratification for her consort." For their own pleasure also foreign prostitutes frequently ask for _cunnilinctus_, in preference to normal coitus, while anal coitus is also common. The difference evidently is that the British women, when they seek gratification, find it in normal coitus, while the foreign women prefer more abnormal methods. There is, however, one class of British prostitutes which this correspondent finds to be an exception to the general rule: the class of those who are recruited from the lower walks of the stage. "Such women are generally more licentious--that is to say, more acquainted with the bizarre in sexualism--than girls who come from shops or bars; they show a knowledge of _fellatio_, and even anal coitus, and during menstruation frequently suggest inter-mammary coitus." On the whole it would appear that prostitutes, though not usually impelled to their life by motives of sensuality, on entering and during the early part of their career possess a fairly average amount of sexual impulse, with variations in both directions of excess and deficiency as well as of perversion. At a somewhat later period it is useless to attempt to measure the sexual impulse of prostitutes by the amount of pleasure they take in the professional performance of sexual intercourse. It is necessary to ascertain whether they possess sexual instincts which are gratified in other ways. In a large proportion of cases this is found to be so. Masturbation, especially, is extremely common among prostitutes everywhere; however prevalent it may be among women who have no other means of obtaining sexual gratification it is admitted by all to be still more prevalent among prostitutes, indeed almost universal.[185] Homosexuality, though not so common as masturbation, is very frequently found among prostitutes--in France, it would seem, more frequently than in England--and it may indeed be said that it occurs more often among prostitutes than among any other class of women. It is favored by the acquired distaste for normal coitus due to professional intercourse with men, which leads homosexual relationships to be regarded as pure and ideal by comparison. It would appear also that in a considerable proportion of cases prostitutes present a congenital condition of sexual inversion, such a condition, with an accompanying indifference to intercourse with men, being a predisposing cause of the adoption of a prostitute's career. Kurella even regards prostitutes as constituting a sub-variety of congenital inverts. Anna Rüling in Germany states that about twenty per cent. prostitutes are homosexual; when asked what induced them to become prostitutes, more than one inverted woman of the street has replied to her that it was purely a matter of business, sexual feeling not coming into the question except with a friend of the same sex.[186] The occurrence of congenital inversion among prostitutes--although we need not regard prostitutes as necessarily degenerate as a class--suggests the question whether we are likely to find an unusually large number of physical and other anomalies among them. It cannot be said that there is unanimity of opinion on this point. For some authorities prostitutes are merely normal ordinary women of low social rank, if indeed their instincts are not even a little superior to those of the class in which they were born. Other investigators find among them so large a proportion of individuals deviating from the normal that they are inclined to place prostitutes generally among one or other of the abnormal classes.[187] Baumgarten, in Vienna, from a knowledge of over 8000 prostitutes, concluded that only a very minute proportion are either criminal or psychopathic in temperament or organization (_Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie_, vol. xi, 1902). It is not clear, however, that Baumgarten carried out any detailed and precise investigations. Mr. Lane, a London police magistrate, has stated as the result of his own observation, that prostitution is "at once a symptom and outcome of the same deteriorated physique and decadent moral fibre which determine the manufacture of male tramps, petty thieves, and professional beggars, of whom the prostitute is in general the female analogue" (_Ethnological Journal_, April, 1905, p. 41). This estimate is doubtless correct as regards a considerable proportion of the women, often enfeebled by drink, who pass through the police courts, but it could scarcely be applied without qualification to prostitutes generally. Morasso (_Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1896, fasc. I) has protested against a purely degenerative view of prostitutes on the strength of his own observations. There is, he states, a category of prostitutes, unknown to scientific inquirers, which he calls that of the _prostitute di alto bordo_. Among these the signs of degeneration, physical or moral, are not to be found in greater number than among women who do not belong to prostitution. They reveal all sorts of characters, some of them showing great refinement, and are chiefly marked off by the possession of an unusual degree of sexual appetite. Even among the more degraded group of the _bassa prostituzione_, he asserts, we find a predominance of sexual, as well as professional, characters, rather than the signs of degeneration. It is sufficient to quote one more testimony, as set down many years ago by a woman of high intelligence and character, Mrs. Craik, the novelist: "The women who fall are by no means the worst of their station," she wrote. "I have heard it affirmed by more than one lady--by one in particular whose experience was as large as her benevolence--that many of them are of the very best, refined, intelligent, truthful, and affectionate. 'I don't know how it is,' she would say, 'whether their very superiority makes them dissatisfied with their own rank--such brutes or clowns as laboring men often are!--so that they fall easier victims to the rank above them; or whether, though this theory will shock many people, other virtues can exist and flourish entirely distinct from, and after the loss of, that which we are accustomed to believe the indispensable prime virtue of our sex--chastity. I cannot explain it; I can only say that it is so, that some of my most promising village girls have been the first to come to harm; and some of the best and most faithful servants I ever had, have been girls who have fallen into shame, and who, had I not gone to the rescue and put them in the way to do well, would infallibly have become "lost women"'" (_A Woman's Thoughts About Women_, 1858, p. 291). Various writers have insisted on the good moral qualities of prostitutes. Thus in France, Despine first enumerates their vices as (1) greediness and love of drink, (2) lying, (3) anger, (4) want of order and untidiness, (5) mobility of character, (6) need of movement, (7) tendency to homosexuality; and then proceeds to detail their good qualities: their maternal and filial affection, their charity to each other; and their refusal to denounce each other; while they are frequently religious, sometimes modest, and generally very honest (Despine, _Psychologie Naturelle_, vol. iii, pp. 207 et seq.; as regards Sicilian prostitutes, cf. Callari, _Archivio di Psichiatria_, fasc. IV, 1903). The charity towards each other, often manifested in distress, is largely neutralized by a tendency to professional suspicion and jealousy of each other. Lombroso believes that the basis of prostitution must be found in moral idiocy. If by moral idiocy we are to understand a condition at all closely allied with insanity, this assertion is dubious. There seems no clear relationship between prostitution and insanity, and Tammeo has shown (_La Prostituzione_, p. 76) that the frequency of prostitutes in the various Italian provinces is in inverse ratio to the frequency of insane persons; as insanity increases, prostitution decreases. But if we mean a minor degree of moral imbecility--that is to say, a bluntness of perception for the ordinary moral considerations of civilization which, while it is largely due to the hardening influence of an unfavorable early environment, may also rest on a congenital predisposition--there can be no doubt that moral imbecility of slight degree is very frequently found among prostitutes. It would be plausible, doubtless, to say that every woman who gives her virginity in exchange for an inadequate return is an imbecile. If she gives herself for love, she has, at the worst, made a foolish mistake, such as the young and inexperienced may at any time make. But if she deliberately proposes to sell herself, and does so for nothing or next to nothing, the case is altered. The experiences of Commenge in Paris are instructive on this point. "For many young girls," he writes, "modesty has no existence, they experience no emotion in showing themselves completely undressed, they abandon themselves to any chance individual whom they will never see again. They attach no importance to their virginity; they are deflowered under the strangest conditions, without the least thought or care about the act they are accomplishing. No sentiment, no calculation, pushes them into a man's arms. They let themselves go without reflexion and without motive, in an almost animal manner, from indifference and without pleasure." He was acquainted with forty-five girls between the ages of twelve and seventeen who were deflowered by chance strangers whom they never met again; they lost their virginity, in Dumas's phrase, as they lost their milk-teeth, and could give no plausible account of the loss. A girl of fifteen, mentioned by Commenge, living with her parents who supplied all her wants, lost her virginity by casually meeting a man who offered her two francs if she would go with him; she did so without demur and soon begun to accost men on her own account. A girl of fourteen, also living comfortably with her parents, sacrificed her virginity at a fair in return for a glass of beer, and henceforth begun to associate with prostitutes. Another girl of the same age, at a local fête, wishing to go round on the hobby horse, spontaneously offered herself to the man directing the machinery for the pleasure of a ride. Yet another girl, of fifteen, at another fête, offered her virginity in return for the same momentary joy (Commenge, _Prostitution Clandestine_, 1897, pp. 101 et seq.). In the United States, Dr. W. Travis Gibb, examining physician to the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, bears similar testimony to the fact that in a fairly large proportion of "rape" cases the child is the willing victim. "It is horribly pathetic," he says (_Medical Record_, April 20, 1907), "to learn how far a nickel or a quarter will go towards purchasing the virtue of these children." In estimating the tendency of prostitutes to display congenital physical anomalies, the crudest and most obvious test, though not a precise or satisfactory one, is the general impression produced by the face. In France, when nearly 1000 prostitutes were divided into five groups from the point of view of their looks, only from seven to fourteen per cent, were found to belong to the first group, or that of those who could be said to possess youth and beauty (Jeannel, _De la Prostitution Publique_, 1860, p. 168). Woods Hutchinson, again, judging from an extensive acquaintance with London, Paris, Vienna, New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, asserts that a handsome or even attractive-looking prostitute, is rare, and that the general average of beauty is lower than in any other class of women. "Whatever other evils," he remarks, "the fatal power of beauty may be responsible for, it has nothing to do with prostitution" (Woods Hutchinson, "The Economics of Prostitution," _American Gynæcological and Obstetric Journal_, September, 1895). It must, of course, be borne in mind that these estimates are liable to be vitiated through being based chiefly on the inspection of women who most obviously belong to the class of prostitutes and have already been coarsened by their profession. If we may conclude--and the fact is probably undisputed--that beautiful, agreeable, and harmoniously formed faces are rare rather than common among prostitutes, we may certainly say that minute examination will reveal a large number of physical abnormalities. One of the earliest important physical investigations of prostitutes was that of Dr. Pauline Tarnowsky in Russia (first published in the _Vratch_ in 1887, and afterwards as _Etudes anthropométriques sur les Prostituées et les Voleuses_). She examined fifty St. Petersburg prostitutes who had been inmates of a brothel for not less than two years, and also fifty peasant women of, so far as possible, the same age and mental development. She found that (1) the prostitute showed shorter anterior-posterior and transverse diameters of skull; (2) a proportion equal to eighty-four per cent. showed various signs of physical degeneration (irregular skull, asymmetry of face, anomalies of hard palate, teeth, ears, etc.). This tendency to anomaly among the prostitutes was to some extent explained when it was found that about four-fifths of them had parents who were habitual drunkards, and nearly one-fifth were the last survivors of large families; such families have been often produced by degenerate parents. The frequency of hereditary degeneration has been noted by Bonhoeffer among German prostitutes. He investigated 190 Breslau prostitutes in prison, and therefore of a more abnormal class than ordinary prostitutes, and found that 102 were hereditarily degenerate, and mostly with one or both parents who were drunkards; 53 also showed feeble-mindedness (_Zeitschrift für die Gesamte Strafwissenschaft_, Bd. xxiii, p. 106). The most detailed examinations of ordinary non-criminal prostitutes, both anthropometrically and as regards the prevalence of anomalies, have been made in Italy, though not on a sufficiently large number of subjects to yield absolutely decisive results. Thus Fornasari made a detailed examination of sixty prostitutes belonging chiefly to Emilia and Venice, and also of twenty-seven others belonging to Bologna, the latter group being compared with a third group of twenty normal women belonging to Bologna (_Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1892, fasc. VI). The prostitutes were found to be of lower type than the normal individuals, having smaller heads and larger faces. As the author himself points out, his subjects were not sufficiently numerous to justify far-reaching generalizations, but it may be worth while to summarize some of his results. At equal heights the prostitutes showed greater weight; at equal ages they were of shorter stature than other women, not only of well-to-do, but of the poor class: height of face, bi-zygomatic diameter (though not the distance between zygomas), the distance from chin to external auditory meatus, and the size of the jaw were all greater in the prostitutes; the hands were longer and broader, compared to the palm, than in ordinary women; the foot also was longer in prostitutes, and the thigh, as compared to the calf, was larger. It is noteworthy that in most particulars, and especially in regard to head measurements, the variations were much greater among the prostitutes than among the other women examined; this is to some extent, though not entirely, to be accounted for by the slightly greater number of the former. Ardu (in the same number of the _Archivio_) gave the result of observations (undertaken at Lombroso's suggestion) as to the frequency of abnormalities among prostitutes. The subjects were seventy-four in number and belonged to Professor Giovannini's _Clinica Sifilopatica_ at Turin. The abnormalities investigated were virile distribution of hair on pubes, chest, and limbs, hypertrichosis on forehead, left-handedness, atrophy of nipple, and tattooing (which was only found once). Combining Ardu's observations with another series of observations on fifty-five prostitutes examined by Lombroso, it is found that virile disposition of hair is found in fifteen per cent. as against six per cent. in normal women; some degree of hypertrichosis in eighteen per cent.; left-handedness in eleven per cent. (but in normal women as high as twelve per cent. according to Gallia); and atrophy of nipple in twelve per cent. Giuffrida-Ruggeri, again (_Atti della, Società Romana di Antropologia_, 1897, p. 216), on examining eighty-two prostitutes found anomalies in the following order of decreasing frequency: tendency of eyebrows to meet, lack of cranial symmetry, depression at root of nose, defective development of calves, hypertrichosis and other anomalies of hair, adherent or absent lobule, prominent zigoma, prominent forehead or frontal bones, bad implantation of teeth, Darwinian tubercle of ear, thin vertical lips. These signs are separately of little or no importance, though together not without significance as an indication of general anomaly. More recently Ascarilla, in an elaborate study (_Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1906, fasc. VI, p. 812) of the finger prints of prostitutes, comes to the conclusion that even in this respect prostitutes tend to form a class showing morphological inferiority to normal women. The patterns tend to show unusual simplicity and uniformity, and the significance of this is indicated by the fact that a similar uniformity is shown by the finger prints of the insane and deaf-mutes (De Sanctis and Toscano, _Atti Società Romana Antropologia_, vol. viii, 1901, fasc. II). In Chicago Dr. Harriet Alexander, in conjunction with Dr. E.S. Talbot and Dr. J.G. Kiernan, examined thirty prostitutes in the Bridewell, or House of Correction; only the "obtuse" class of professional prostitutes reach this institution, and it is not therefore surprising that they were found to exhibit very marked stigmata of degeneracy. In race nearly half of those examined were Celtic Irish. In sixteen the zygomatic processes were unequal and very prominent. Other facial asymmetries were common. In three cases the heads were of Mongoloid type; sixteen were epignathic, and eleven prognathic; five showed arrest of development of face. Brachycephaly predominated (seventeen cases); the rest were mesaticephalic; there were no dolichocephals. Abnormalities in shape of the skull were numerous, and twenty-nine had defective ears. Four were demonstrably insane, and one was an epileptic (H.C.B. Alexander, "Physical Abnormalities in Prostitutes," Chicago Academy of Medicine, April, 1893; E.S. Talbot, _Degeneracy_, p. 320; _Id., Irregularities of the Teeth_, fourth edition, p. 141). It would seem, on the whole, so far as the evidence at present goes, that prostitutes are not quite normal representatives of the ranks into which they were born. There has been a process of selection of individuals who slightly deviate congenitally from the normal average and are, correspondingly, slightly inapt for normal life.[188] The psychic characteristics which accompany such deviation are not always necessarily of an obviously unfavorable nature; the slightly neurotic girl of low class birth--disinclined for hard work, through defective energy, and perhaps greedy and selfish--may even seem to possess a refinement superior to her station. While, however, there is a tendency to anomaly among prostitutes, it must be clearly recognized that that tendency remains slight so long as we consider impartially the whole class of prostitutes. Those investigators who have reached the conclusion that prostitutes are a highly degenerate and abnormal class have only observed special groups of prostitutes, more especially those who are frequently found in prison. It is not possible to form a just conception of prostitutes by studying them only in prison, any more than it would be possible to form a just conception of clergymen, doctors, or lawyers by studying them exclusively in prison, and this remains true even although a much larger proportion of prostitutes than of members of the more reputable professions pass through prisons; that fact no doubt partly indicates the greater abnormality of prostitutes. It has, of course, to be remembered that the special conditions of the lives of prostitutes tend to cause in them the appearance of certain professional characteristics which are entirely acquired and not congenital. In that way we may account for the gradual modification of the feminine secondary and tertiary sexual characters, and the appearance of masculine characters, such as the frequent deep voice, etc.[189] But with all due allowance for these acquired characters, it remains true that such comparative investigations as have so far been made, although inconclusive, seem to indicate that, even apart from the prevalence of acquired anomalies, the professional selection of their avocation tends to separate out from the general population of the same social class, individuals who possess anthropometrical characters varying in a definite direction. The observations thus made seem, in this way, to indicate that prostitutes tend to be in weight over the average, though not in stature, that in length of arm they are inferior though the hands are longer (this has been found alike in Italy and Russia); they have smaller ankles and larger calves, and still larger thighs in proportion to their large calves. The estimated skull capacity and the skull circumference and diameters are somewhat below the normal, not only when compared with respectable women but also with thieves; there is a tendency to brachycephaly (both in Italy and Russia); the cheek-bones are usually prominent and the jaws developed; the hair is darker than in respectable women though less so than in thieves; it is also unusually abundant, not only on the head but also on the pudenda and elsewhere; the eyes have been found to be decidedly darker than those of either respectable women or criminals.[190] So far as the evidence goes it serves to indicate that prostitutes tend to approximate to the type which, as was shown in the previous volume, there is reason to regard as specially indicative of developed sexuality. It is, however, unnecessary to discuss this question until our anthropometrical knowledge of prostitutes is more extended and precise. 3. _The Moral Justification of Prostitution_.--There are and always have been moralists--many of them people whose opinions are deserving of the most serious respect--who consider that, allowing for the need of improved hygienic conditions, the existence of prostitution presents no serious problem for solution. It is, at most, they say, a necessary evil, and, at best, a beneficent institution, the bulwark of the home, the inevitable reverse of which monogamy is the obverse. "The immoral guardian of public morality," is the definition of prostitutes given by one writer, who takes the humble view of the matter, and another, taking the loftier ground, writes: "The prostitute fulfils a social mission. She is the guardian of virginal modesty, the channel to carry off adulterous desire, the protector of matrons who fear late maternity; it is her part to act as the shield of the family." "Female Decii," said Balzac in his _Physiologie du Mariage_ of prostitutes, "they sacrifice themselves for the republic and make of their bodies a rampart for the protection of respectable families." In the same way Schopenhauer called prostitutes "human sacrifices on the altar of monogamy." Lecky, again, in an oft-quoted passage of rhetoric,[191] may be said to combine both the higher and the lower view of the prostitute's mission in human society, to which he even seeks to give a hieratic character. "The supreme type of vice," he declared, "she is ultimately the most efficient guardian of virtue. But for her, the unchallenged purity of countless happy homes would be polluted, and not a few who, in the pride of their untempted chastity, think of her with an indignant shudder, would have known the agony of remorse and of despair. On that one degraded and ignoble form are concentrated the passions that might have filled the world with shame. She remains, while creeds and civilizations rise and fall, the eternal priestess of humanity, blasted for the sins of the people."[192] I am not aware that the Greeks were greatly concerned with the moral justification of prostitution. They had not allowed it to assume very offensive forms and for the most part they were content to accept it. The Romans usually accepted it, too, but, we gather, not quite so easily. There was an austerely serious, almost Puritanic, spirit in the Romans of the old stock and they seem sometimes to have felt the need to assure themselves that prostitution really was morally justifiable. It is significant to note that they were accustomed to remember that Cato was said to have expressed satisfaction on seeing a man emerge from a brothel, for otherwise he might have gone to lie with his neighbor's wife.[193] The social necessity of prostitution is the most ancient of all the arguments of moralists in favor of the toleration of prostitutes; and if we accept the eternal validity of the marriage system with which prostitution developed, and of the theoretical morality based on that system, this is an exceedingly forcible, if not an unanswerable, argument. The advent of Christianity, with its special attitude towards the "flesh," necessarily caused an enormous increase of attention to the moral aspects of prostitution. When prostitution was not morally denounced, it became clearly necessary to morally justify it; it was impossible for a Church, whose ideals were more or less ascetic, to be benevolently indifferent in such a matter. As a rule we seem to find throughout that while the more independent and irresponsible divines take the side of denunciation, those theologians who have had thrust upon them the grave responsibilities of ecclesiastical statesmanship have rather tended towards the reluctant moral justification of prostitution. Of this we have an example of the first importance in St. Augustine, after St. Paul the chief builder of the Christian Church. In a treatise written in 386 to justify the Divine regulation of the world, we find him declaring that just as the executioner, however repulsive he may be, occupies a necessary place in society, so the prostitute and her like, however sordid and ugly and wicked they may be, are equally necessary; remove prostitutes from human affairs and you would pollute the world with lust: "Aufer meretrices de rebus humanis, turbaveris omnia libidinibus."[194] Aquinas, the only theological thinker of Christendom who can be named with Augustine, was of the same mind with him on this question of prostitution. He maintained the sinfulness of fornication but he accepted the necessity of prostitution as a beneficial part of the social structure, comparing it to the sewers which keep a palace pure.[195] "Prostitution in towns is like the sewer in a palace; take away the sewers and the palace becomes an impure and stinking place." Liguori, the most influential theologian of more modern times, was of the like opinion. This wavering and semi-indulgent attitude towards prostitution was indeed generally maintained by theologians. Some, following Augustine and Aquinas, would permit prostitution for the avoidance of greater evils; others were altogether opposed to it; others, again, would allow it in towns but nowhere else. It was, however, universally held by theologians that the prostitute has a right to her wages, and is not obliged to make restitution.[196] The earlier Christian moralists found no difficulty in maintaining that there is no sin in renting a house to a prostitute for the purposes of her trade; absolution was always granted for this and abstention not required.[197] Fornication, however, always remained a sin, and from the twelfth century onwards the Church made a series of organized attempts to reclaim prostitutes. All Catholic theologians hold that a prostitute is bound to confess the sin of prostitution, and most, though not all, theologians have believed that a man also must confess intercourse with a prostitute. At the same time, while there was a certain indulgence to the prostitute herself, the Church was always very severe on those who lived on the profits of promoting prostitution, on the _lenones_. Thus the Council of Elvira, which was ready to receive without penance the prostitute who married, refused reconciliation, even at death, to persons who had been guilty of _lenocinium_.[198] Protestantism, in this as in many other matters of sexual morality, having abandoned the confessional, was usually able to escape the necessity for any definite and responsible utterances concerning the moral status of prostitution. When it expressed any opinion, or sought to initiate any practical action, it naturally founded itself on the Biblical injunctions against fornication, as expressed by St. Paul, and showed no mercy for prostitutes and no toleration for prostitution. This attitude, which was that of the Puritans, was the more easy since in Protestant countries, with the exception of special districts at special periods--such as Geneva and New England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries--theologians have in these matters been called upon to furnish religious exhortation rather than to carry out practical policies. The latter task they have left to others, and a certain confusion and uncertainty has thus often arisen in the lay Protestant mind. This attitude in a thoughtful and serious writer, is well illustrated in England by Burton, writing a century after the Reformation. He refers with mitigated approval to "our Pseudo-Catholics," who are severe with adultery but indulgent to fornication, being perhaps of Cato's mind that it should be encouraged to avoid worse mischiefs at home, and who holds brothels "as necessary as churches" and "have whole Colleges of Courtesans in their towns and cities." "They hold it impossible," he continues, "for idle persons, young, rich and lusty, so many servants, monks, friars, to live honest, too tyrannical a burden to compel them to be chaste, and most unfit to suffer poor men, younger brothers and soldiers at all to marry, as also diseased persons, votaries, priests, servants. Therefore as well to keep and ease the one as the other, they tolerate and wink at these kind of brothel-houses and stews. Many probable arguments they have to prove the lawfulness, the necessity, and a toleration of them, as of usery; and without question in policy they are not to be contradicted, but altogether in religion."[199] It was not until the beginning of the following century that the ancient argument of St. Augustine for the moral justification of prostitution was boldly and decisively stated in Protestant England, by Bernard Mandeville in his _Fable of the Bees_, and at its first promulgation it seemed so offensive to the public mind that the book was suppressed. "If courtesans and strumpets were to be prosecuted with as much rigor as some silly people would have it," Mandeville wrote, "what locks or bars would be sufficient to preserve the honor of our wives and daughters?... It is manifest that there is a necessity of sacrificing one part of womankind to preserve the other, and prevent a filthiness of a more heinous nature. From whence I think I may justly conclude that chastity may be supported by incontinence, and the best of virtues want the assistance of the worst of vices."[200] After Mandeville's time this view of prostitution began to become common in Protestant as well as in other countries, though it was not usually so clearly expressed. It may be of interest to gather together a few more modern examples of statements brought forward for the moral justification of prostitution. Thus in France Meusnier de Querlon, in his story of _Psaphion_, written in the middle of the eighteenth century, puts into the mouth of a Greek courtesan many interesting reflections concerning the life and position of the prostitute. She defends her profession with much skill, and argues that while men imagine that prostitutes are merely the despised victims of their pleasures, these would-be tyrants are really dupes who are ministering to the needs of the women they trample beneath their feet, and themselves equally deserve the contempt they bestow. "We return disgust for disgust, as they must surely perceive. We often abandon to them merely a statue, and while inflamed by their own desires they consume themselves on insensible charms, our tranquil coldness leisurely enjoys their sensibility. Then it is we resume all our rights. A little hot blood has brought these proud creatures to our feet, and rendered us mistresses of their fate. On which side, I ask, is the advantage?" But all men, she adds, are not so unjust towards the prostitute, and she proceeds to pronounce a eulogy, not without a slight touch of irony in it, of the utility, facility, and convenience of the brothel. A large number of the modern writers on prostitution insist on its socially beneficial character. Thus Charles Richard concludes his book on the subject with the words: "The conduct of society with regard to prostitution must proceed from the principle of gratitude without false shame for its utility, and compassion for the poor creatures at whose expense this is attained" (_La Prostitution devant le Philosophe_, 1882, p. 171). "To make marriage permanent is to make it difficult," an American medical writer observes; "to make it difficult is to defer it; to defer it is to maintain in the community an increasing number of sexually perfect individuals, with normal, or, in cases where repression is prolonged, excessive sexual appetites. The social evil is the natural outcome of the physical nature of man, his inherited impulses, and the artificial conditions under which he is compelled to live" ("The Social Evil," _Medicine_, August and September, 1906). Woods Hutchinson, while speaking with strong disapproval of prostitution and regarding prostitutes as "the worst specimens of the sex," yet regards prostitution as a social agency of the highest value. "From a medico-economic point of view I venture to claim it as one of the grand selective and eliminative agencies of nature, and of highest value to the community. It may be roughly characterized as a safety valve for the institution of marriage" (_The Gospel According to Darwin_, p. 193; cf. the same author's article on "The Economics of Prostitution," summarized in _Boston Medical and Surgical Journal_, November 21, 1895). Adolf Gerson, in a somewhat similar spirit, argues ("Die Ursache der Prostitution," _Sexual-Probleme_, September, 1908) that "prostitution is one of the means used by Nature to limit the procreative activity of men, and especially to postpone the period of sexual maturity." Molinari considers that the social benefits of prostitution have been manifested in various ways from the first; by sterilizing, for instance, the more excessive manifestations of the sexual impulse prostitution suppressed the necessity for the infanticide of superfluous children, and led to the prohibition of that primitive method of limiting the population (G. de Molinari, _La Viriculture_, p. 45). In quite another way than that mentioned by Molinari, prostitution has even in very recent times led to the abandonment of infanticide. In the Chinese province of Ping-Yang, Matignon states, it was usual not many years ago for poor parents to kill forty per cent. of the girl children, or even all of them, at birth, for they were too expensive to rear and brought nothing in, since men who wished to marry could easily obtain a wife in the neighboring province of Wenchu, where women were very easy to obtain. Now, however, the line of steamships along the coast makes it very easy for girls to reach the brothels of Shang-Hai, where they can earn money for their families; the custom of killing them has therefore died out (Matignon, _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, 1896, p. 72). "Under present conditions," writes Dr. F. Erhard ("Auch ein Wort zur Ehereform," _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Jahrgang I, Heft 9), "prostitution (in the broadest sense, including free relationships) is necessary in order that young men may, in some degree, learn to know women, for conventional conversation cannot suffice for this; an exact knowledge of feminine thought and action is, however, necessary for a proper choice, since it is seldom possible to rely on the certainty of instinct. It is good also that men should wear off their horns before marriage, for the polygamous tendency will break through somewhere. Prostitution will only spoil those men in whom there is not much to spoil, and if the desire for marriage is thus lost, the man's unbegotten children may have cause to thank him." Neisser, Näcke, and many others, have pleaded for prostitution, and even for brothels, as "necessary evils." It is scarcely necessary to add that many, among even the strongest upholders of the moral advantages of prostitution, believe that some improvement in method is still desirable. Thus Bérault looks forward to a time when regulated brothels will become less contemptible. Various improvements may, he thinks, in the near future, "deprive them of the barbarous attributes which mark them out for the opprobrium of the skeptical or ignorant multitude, while their recognizable advantages will put an end to the contempt aroused by their cynical aspect" (_La Maison de Tolérance_, Thèse de Paris, 1904). 4. _The Civilizational Value of Prostitution._--The moral argument for prostitution is based on the belief that our marriage system is so infinitely precious that an institution which serves as its buttress must be kept in existence, however ugly or otherwise objectionable it may in itself be. There is, however, another argument in support of prostitution which scarcely receives the emphasis it deserves. I refer to its influence in adding an element, in some form or another necessary, of gaiety and variety to the ordered complexity of modern life, a relief from the monotony of its mechanical routine, a distraction from its dull and respectable monotony. This is distinct from the more specific function of prostitution as an outlet for superfluous sexual energy, and may even affect those who have little or no commerce with prostitutes. This element may be said to constitute the civilizational value of prostitution. It is not merely the general conditions of civilization, but more specifically the conditions of urban life, which make this factor insistent. Urban life imposes by the stress of competition a very severe and exacting routine of dull work. At the same time it makes men and women more sensitive to new impressions, more enamored of excitement and change. It multiplies the opportunities of social intercourse; it decreases the chances of detection of illegitimate intercourse while at the same time it makes marriage more difficult, for, by heightening social ambitions and increasing the expenses of living, it postpones the time when a home can be created. Urban life delays marriage and yet renders the substitutes for marriage more imperative.[201] There cannot be the slightest doubt that it is this motive--the effort to supplement the imperfect opportunities for self-development offered by our restrained, mechanical, and laborious civilization--which plays one of the chief parts in inducing women to adopt, temporarily or permanently, a prostitute's life. We have seen that the economic factor is not, as was once supposed, by any means predominant in this choice. Nor, again, is there any reason to suppose that an over-mastering sexual impulse is a leading factor. But a large number of young women turn instinctively to a life of prostitution because they are moved by an obscure impulse which they can scarcely define to themselves or express, and are often ashamed to confess. It is, therefore, surprising that this motive should find so large a place even in the formal statistics of the factors of prostitution. Merrick, in London, found that 5000, or nearly a third, of the prostitutes he investigated, voluntarily gave up home or situation "for a life of pleasure," and he puts this at the head of the causes of prostitution.[202] In America Sanger found that "inclination" came almost at the head of the causes of prostitution, while Woods Hutchinson found "love of display, luxury and idleness" by far at the head. "Disgusted and wearied with work" is the reason assigned by a large number of Belgian girls when stating to the police their wish to be enrolled as prostitutes. In Italy a similar motive is estimated to play an important part. In Russia "desire for amusement" comes second among the causes of prostitution. There can, I think, be little doubt that, as a thoughtful student of London life has concluded, the problem of prostitution is "at bottom a mad and irresistible craving for excitement, a serious and wilful revolt against the monotony of commonplace ideals, and the uninspired drudgery of everyday life."[203] It is this factor of prostitution, we may reasonably conclude, which is mainly responsible for the fact, pointed out by F. Schiller,[204] that with the development of civilization the supply of prostitutes tends to outgrow the demand. Charles Booth seems to be of the same opinion, and quotes (_Life and Labor of the People_, Third Series, vol. vii, p. 364) from a Rescue Committee Report: "The popular idea is, that these women are eager to leave a life of sin. The plain and simple truth is that, for the most part, they have no desire at all to be rescued. So many of these women do not, and will not, regard prostitution as a sin. 'I am taken out to dinner and to some place of amusement every night; why should I give it up?'" Merrick, who found that five per cent. of 14,000 prostitutes who passed through Millbank Prison, were accustomed to combine religious observance with the practice of their profession, also remarks in regard to their feelings about morality: "I am convinced that there are many poor men and women who do not in the least understand what is implied in the term 'immorality.' Out of courtesy to you, they may assent to what you say, but they do not comprehend your meaning when you talk of virtue or purity; you are simply talking over their heads" (Merrick, op. cit., p. 28). The same attitude may be found among prostitutes everywhere. In Italy Ferriani mentions a girl of fifteen who, when accused of indecency with a man in a public garden, denied with tears and much indignation. He finally induced her to confess, and then asked her: "Why did you try to make me believe you were a good girl?" She hesitated, smiled, and said: "Because _they say_ girls ought not to do what I do, but ought to work. But I am what I am, and it is no concern of theirs." This attitude is often more than an instinctive feeling; in intelligent prostitutes it frequently becomes a reasoned conviction. "I can bear everything, if so it must be," wrote the author of the _Tagebuch einer Verlorenen_ (p. 291), "even serious and honorable contempt, but I cannot bear scorn. Contempt--yes, if it is justified. If a poor and pretty girl with sick and bitter heart stands alone in life, cast off, with temptations and seductions offering on every side, and, in spite of that, out of inner conviction she chooses the grey and monotonous path of renunciation and middle-class morality, I recognize in that girl a personality, who has a certain justification in looking down with contemptuous pity on weaker girls. But those geese who, under the eyes of their shepherds and life-long owners, have always been pastured in smooth green fields, have certainly no right to laugh scornfully at others who have not been so fortunate." Nor must it be supposed that there is necessarily any sophistry in the prostitute's justification of herself. Some of our best thinkers and observers have reached a conclusion that is not dissimilar. "The actual conditions of society are opposed to any high moral feeling in women," Marro observes (_La Pubertà_, p. 462), "for between those who sell themselves to prostitution and those who sell themselves to marriage, the only difference is in price and duration of the contract." We have already seen how very large a part in prostitution is furnished by those who have left domestic service to adopt this life (_ante_ p. 264). It is not difficult to find in this fact evidence of the kind of impulse which impels a woman to adopt the career of prostitution. "The servant, in our society of equality," wrote Goncourt, recalling somewhat earlier days when she was often admitted to a place in the family life, "has become nothing but a paid pariah, a machine for doing household work, and is no longer allowed to share the employer's human life."[205] And in England, even half a century ago, we already find the same statements concerning the servant's position: "domestic service is a complete slavery," with early hours and late hours, and constant running up and down stairs till her legs are swollen; "an amount of ingenuity appears too often to be exercised, worthy of a better cause, in obtaining the largest possible amount of labor out of the domestic machine"; in addition she is "a kind of lightning conductor," to receive the ill-temper and morbid feelings of her mistress and the young ladies; so that, as some have said, "I felt so miserable I did not care what became of me, I wished I was dead."[206] The servant is deprived of all human relationships; she must not betray the existence of any simple impulse, or natural need. At the same time she lives on the fringe of luxury; she is surrounded by the tantalizing visions of pleasure and amusement for which her fresh young nature craves.[207] It is not surprising that, repelled by unrelieved drudgery and attracted by idle luxury, she should take the plunge which will alone enable her to enjoy the glittering aspects of civilization which seem so desirable to her.[208] It is sometimes stated that the prevalence of prostitution among girls who were formerly servants is due to the immense numbers of servants who are seduced by their masters or the young men of the family, and are thus forced on to the streets. Undoubtedly in a certain proportion of cases, perhaps sometimes a fairly considerable proportion, this is a decisive factor in the matter, but it scarcely seems to be the chief factor. The existence of relationships between servants and masters, it must be remembered, by no means necessarily implies seduction. In a large number of cases the servant in a household is, in sexual matters, the teacher rather than the pupil. (In "The Sexual Impulse in Women," in the third volume of these _Studies_, I have discussed the part played by servants as sexual initiators of the young boys in the households in which they are placed.) The more precise statistics of the causes of prostitution seldom assign seduction as the main determining factor in more than about twenty per cent. of cases, though this is obviously one of the most easily avowable motives (see _ante_, p. 256). Seduction by any kind of employer constitutes only a proportion (usually less than half) even of these cases. The special case of seduction of servants by masters can thus play no very considerable part as a factor of prostitution. The statistics of the parentage of illegitimate children have some bearing on this question. In a series of 180 unmarried mothers assisted by the Berlin Bund für Mutterschutz, particulars are given of the occupations both of the mothers, and, as far as possible, of the fathers. The former were one-third servant-girls, and the great majority of the remainder assistants in trades or girls carrying on work at home. At the head of the fathers (among 120 cases) came artisans (33), followed by tradespeople (22); only a small proportion (20 to 25) could be described as "gentlemen," and even this proportion loses some of its significance when it is pointed out that some of the girls were also of the middle-class; in nineteen cases the fathers were married men (_Mutterschutz_, January, 1907, p. 45). Most authorities in most countries are of opinion that girls who eventually (usually between the ages of fifteen and twenty) become prostitutes have lost their virginity at an early age, and in the great majority of cases through men of their own class. "The girl of the people falls by the people," stated Reuss in France (_La Prostitution_, p. 41). "It is her like, workers like herself, who have the first fruits of her beauty and virginity. The man of the world who covers her with gold and jewels only has their leavings." Martineau, again (_De la Prostitution Clandestine_, 1885), showed that prostitutes are usually deflowered by men of their own class. And Jeannel, in Bordeaux, found reason for believing that it is not chiefly their masters who lead servants astray; they often go into service because they have been seduced in the country, while lazy, greedy, and unintelligent girls are sent from the country into the town to service. In Edinburgh, W. Tait (_Magdalenism_, 1842) found that soldiers more than any other class in the community are the seducers of women, the Highlanders being especially notorious in this respect. Soldiers have this reputation everywhere, and in Germany especially it is constantly found that the presence of the soldiery in a country district, as at the annual manoeuvres, is the cause of unchastity and illegitimate births; it is so also in Austria, where, long ago, Gross-Hoffinger stated that soldiers were responsible for at least a third of all illegitimate births, a share out of all proportion to their numbers. In Italy, Marro, investigating the occasion of the loss of virginity in twenty-two prostitutes, found that ten gave themselves more or less spontaneously to lovers or masters, ten yielded in the expectation of marriage, and two were outraged (_La Pubertà_, p. 461). The loss of virginity, Marro adds, though it may not be the direct cause of prostitution, often leads on to it. "When a door has once been broken in," a prostitute said to him, "it is difficult to keep it closed." In Sardinia, as A. Mantegazza and Ciuffo found, prostitutes are very largely servants from the country who have already been deflowered by men of their own class. This civilizational factor of prostitution, the influence of luxury and excitement and refinement in attracting the girl of the people, as the flame attracts the moth, is indicated by the fact that it is the country-dwellers who chiefly succumb to the fascination. The girls whose adolescent explosive and orgiastic impulses, sometimes increased by a slight congenital lack of nervous balance, have been latent in the dull monotony of country life and heightened by the spectacle of luxury acting on the unrelieved drudgery of town life, find at last their complete gratification in the career of a prostitute. To the town girl, born and bred in the town, this career has not usually much attraction, unless she has been brought up from the first in an environment that predisposes her to adopt it. She is familiar from childhood with the excitements of urban civilization and they do not intoxicate her; she is, moreover, more shrewd to take care of herself than the country girl, and too well acquainted with the real facts of the prostitute's life to be very anxious to adopt her career. Beyond this, also, it is probable that the stocks she belongs to possess a native or acquired power of resistance to unbalancing influences which has enabled them to survive in urban life. She has become immune to the poisons of that life.[209] In all great cities a large proportion, if not the majority, of the inhabitants have usually been born outside the city (in London only about fifty per cent. of heads of households are definitely reported as born in London); and it is not therefore surprising that prostitutes also should often be outsiders. Still it remains a significant fact that so typically urban a phenomenon as prostitution should be so largely recruited from the country. This is everywhere the case. Merrick enumerates the regions from which came some 14,000 prostitutes who passed through Millbank Prison. Middlesex, Kent, Surrey, Essex and Devon are the counties that stand at the head, and Merrick estimates that the contingent of London from the four counties which make up London was 7000, or one-half of the whole; military towns like Colchester and naval ports like Plymouth supply many prostitutes to London; Ireland furnished many more than Scotland, and Germany far more than any other European country, France being scarcely represented at all (Merrick, _Work Among the Fallen_, 1890, pp. 14-18). It is, of course, possible that the proportions among those who pass through a prison do not accurately represent the proportions among prostitutes generally. The registers of the London Salvation Army Rescue Home show that sixty per cent. of the girls and women come from the provinces (A. Sherwell, _Life in West London_, Ch. V). This is exactly the same proportion as Tait found among prostitutes generally, half a century earlier, in Edinburgh. Sanger found that of 2000 prostitutes in New York as many as 1238 were born abroad (706 in Ireland), while of the remaining 762 only half were born in the State of New York, and clearly (though the exact figures are not given) a still smaller proportion in New York City. Prostitutes come from the North--where the climate is uncongenial, and manufacturing and sedentary occupations prevail--much more than from the South; thus Maine, a cold bleak maritime State, sent twenty-four of these prostitutes to New York, while equidistant Virginia, which at the same rate should have sent seventy-two, only sent nine; there was a similar difference between Rhode Island and Maryland (Sanger, _History of Prostitution_, p. 452). It is instructive to see here the influence of a dreary climate and monotonous labor in stimulating the appetite for a "life of pleasure." In France, as shown by a map in Parent-Duchâtelet's work (vol. i, pp. 37-64, 1857), if the country is divided into five zones, on the whole running east and west, there is a steady and progressive decrease in the number of prostitutes each zone sends to Paris, as we descend southwards. Little more than a third seem to belong to Paris, and, as in America, it is the serious and hard-working North, with its relatively cold climate, which furnishes the largest contingent; even in old France, Dufour remarks (_op. cit._, vol. iv, Ch. XV), prostitution, as the _fabliaux_ and _romans_ show, was less infamous in the _langue d'oil_ than in the _langue d'oc_, so that they were doubtless rare in the South. At a later period Reuss states (_La Prostitution_, p. 12) that "nearly all the prostitutes of Paris come from the provinces." Jeannel found that of one thousand Bordeaux prostitutes only forty-six belonged to the city itself, and Potton (Appendix to Parent-Duchâtelet, vol. ii, p. 446) states that of nearly four thousand Lyons prostitutes only 376 belonged to Lyons. In Vienna, in 1873, Schrank remarks that of over 1500 prostitutes only 615 were born in Vienna. The general rule, it will be seen, though the variations are wide, is that little more than a third of a city's prostitutes are children of the city. It is interesting to note that this tendency of the prostitute to reach cities from afar, this migratory tendency--which they nowadays share with waiters--is no merely modern phenomenon. "There are few cities in Lombardy, or France, or Gaul," wrote St. Boniface nearly twelve centuries ago, "in which there is not an adulteress or prostitute of the English nation," and the Saint attributes this to the custom of going on pilgrimage to foreign shrines. At the present time there is no marked English element among Continental prostitutes. Thus in Paris, according to Reuss (_La Prostitution_, p. 12), the foreign prostitutes in decreasing order are Belgian, German (Alsace-Lorraine), Swiss (especially Geneva), Italian, Spanish, and only then English. Connoisseurs in this matter say, indeed, that the English prostitute, as compared with her Continental (and especially French) sister, fails to show to advantage, being usually grasping as regards money and deficient in charm. It is the appeal of civilization, though not of what is finest and best in civilization, which more than any other motive, calls women to the career of a prostitute. It is now necessary to point out that for the man also, the same appeal makes itself felt in the person of the prostitute. The common and ignorant assumption that prostitution exists to satisfy the gross sensuality of the young unmarried man, and that if he is taught to bridle gross sexual impulse or induced to marry early the prostitute must be idle, is altogether incorrect. If all men married when quite young, not only would the remedy be worse than the disease--a point which it would be out of place to discuss here--but the remedy would not cure the disease. The prostitute is something more than a channel to drain off superfluous sexual energy, and her attraction by no means ceases when men are married, for a large number of the men who visit prostitutes, if not the majority, are married. And alike whether they are married or unmarried the motive is not one of uncomplicated lust. In England, a well-informed writer remarks that "the value of marriage as a moral agent is evidenced by the fact that all the better-class prostitutes in London are almost entirely supported by married men," while in Germany, as stated in the interesting series of reminiscences by a former prostitute, Hedwig Hard's _Beichte einer Gefallenen_, (p. 208), the majority of the men who visit prostitutes are married. The estimate is probably excessive. Neisser states that only twenty-five per cent. of cases of gonorrhoea occur in married men. This indication is probably misleading in the opposite direction, as the married would be less reckless than the young and unmarried. As regards the motives which lead married men to prostitutes, Hedwig Hard narrates from her own experiences an incident which is instructive and no doubt typical. In the town in which she lived quietly as a prostitute a man of the best social class was introduced by a friend, and visited her habitually. She had often seen and admired his wife, who was one of the beauties of the place, and had two charming children; husband and wife seemed devoted to each other, and every one envied their happiness. He was a man of intellect and culture who encouraged Hedwig's love of books; she became greatly attached to him, and one day ventured to ask him how he could leave his lovely and charming wife to come to one who was not worthy to tie her shoe-lace. "Yes, my child," he answered, "but all her beauty and culture brings nothing to my heart. She is cold, cold as ice, proper, and, above all, phlegmatic. Pampered and spoilt, she lives only for herself; we are two good comrades, and nothing more. If, for instance, I come back from the club in the evening and go to her bed, perhaps a little excited, she becomes nervous and she thinks it improper to wake her. If I kiss her she defends herself, and tells me that I smell horribly of cigars and wine. And if perhaps I attempt more, she jumps out of bed, bristles up as though I were assaulting her, and threatens to throw herself out of the window if I touch her. So, for the sake of peace, I leave her alone and come to you." There can be no doubt whatever that this is the experience of many married men who would be well content to find the sweetheart as well as the friend in their wives. But the wives, from a variety of causes, have proved incapable of becoming the sexual mates of their husbands. And the husbands, without being carried away by any impulse of strong passion or any desire for infidelity, seek abroad what they cannot find at home. This is not the only reason why married men visit prostitutes. Even men who are happily married to women in all chief respects fitted to them, are apt to find, after some years of married life, a mysterious craving for variety. They are not tired of their wives, they have not the least wish or intention to abandon them, they will not, if they can help it, give them the slightest pain. But from time to time they are led by an almost irresistible and involuntary impulse to seek a temporary intimacy with women to whom nothing would persuade them to join themselves permanently. Pepys, whose _Diary_, in addition to its other claims upon us, is a psychological document of unique importance, furnishes a very characteristic example of this kind of impulse. He had married a young and charming wife, to whom he is greatly attached, and he lives happily with her, save for a few occasional domestic quarrels soon healed by kisses; his love is witnessed by his jealousy, a jealousy which, as he admits, is quite unreasonable, for she is a faithful and devoted wife. Yet a few years after marriage, and in the midst of a life of strenuous official activity, Pepys cannot resist the temptation to seek the temporary favors of other women, seldom prostitutes, but nearly always women of low social class--shop women, workmen's wives, superior servant-girls. Often he is content to invite them to a quiet ale-house, and to take a few trivial liberties. Sometimes they absolutely refuse to allow more than this; when that happens he frequently thanks Almighty God (as he makes his entry in his _Diary_ at night) that he has been saved from temptation and from loss of time and money; in any case, he is apt to vow that it shall never occur again. It always does occur again. Pepys is quite sincere with himself; he makes no attempt at justification or excuse; he knows that he has yielded to a temptation; it is an impulse that comes over him at intervals, an impulse that he seems unable long to resist. Throughout it all he remains an estimable and diligent official, and in most respects a tolerably virtuous man, with a genuine dislike of loose people and loose talk. The attitude of Pepys is brought out with incomparable simplicity and sincerity because he is setting down these things for his own eyes only, but his case is substantially that of a vast number of other men, perhaps indeed of the typical _homme moyen sensuel_ (see Pepys, _Diary_, ed. Wheatley; e.g., vol. iv, passim). There is a third class of married men, less considerable in number but not unimportant, who are impelled to visit prostitutes: the class of sexually perverted men. There are a great many reasons why such men may desire to be married, and in some cases they marry women with whom they find it possible to obtain the particular form of sexual gratification they crave. But in a large proportion of cases this is not possible. The conventionally bred woman often cannot bring herself to humor even some quite innocent fetishistic whim of her husband's, for it is too alien to her feelings and too incomprehensible to her ideas, even though she may be genuinely in love with him; in many cases the husband would not venture to ask, and scarcely even wish, that his wife should lend herself to play the fantastic or possibly degrading part his desires demand. In such a case he turns naturally to the prostitute, the only woman whose business it is to fulfil his peculiar needs. Marriage has brought no relief to these men, and they constitute a noteworthy proportion of a prostitute's clients in every great city. The most ordinary prostitute of any experience can supply cases from among her own visitors to illustrate a treatise of psychopathic sexuality. It may suffice here to quote a passage from the confessions of a young London (Strand) prostitute as written down from her lips by a friend to whom I am indebted for the document; I have merely turned a few colloquial terms into more technical forms. After describing how, when she was still a child of thirteen in the country, a rich old gentleman would frequently come and exhibit himself before her and other girls, and was eventually arrested and imprisoned, she spoke of the perversities she had met with since she had become a prostitute. She knew a young man, about twenty-five, generally dressed in a sporting style, who always came with a pair of live pigeons, which he brought in a basket. She and the girl with whom she lived had to undress and take the pigeons and wring their necks; he would stand in front of them, and as the necks were wrung orgasm occurred. Once a man met her in the street and asked her if he might come with her and lick her boots. She agreed, and he took her to a hotel, paid half a guinea for a room, and, when she sat down, got under the table and licked her boots, which were covered with mud; he did nothing more. Then there were some things, she said, that were too dirty to repeat; well, one man came home with her and her friend and made them urinate into his mouth. She also had stories of flagellation, generally of men who whipped the girls, more rarely of men who liked to be whipped by them. One man, who brought a new birch every time, liked to whip her friend until he drew blood. She knew another man who would do nothing but smack her nates violently. Now all these things, which come into the ordinary day's work of the prostitute, are rooted in deep and almost irresistible impulses (as will be clear to any reader of the discussion of Erotic Symbolism in the previous volume of these _Studies_). They must find some outlet. But it is only the prostitute who can be relied upon, through her interests and training, to overcome the natural repulsion to such actions, and gratify desires which, without gratification, might take on other and more dangerous forms. Although Woods Hutchinson quotes with approval the declaration of a friend, "Out of thousands I have never seen one with good table manners," there is still a real sense in which the prostitute represents, however inadequately, the attraction of civilization. "There was no house in which I could habitually see a lady's face and hear a lady's voice," wrote the novelist Anthony Trollope in his _Autobiography_, concerning his early life in London. "No allurement to decent respectability came in my way. It seems to me that in such circumstances the temptations of loose life will almost certainly prevail with a young man. The temptation at any rate prevailed with me." In every great city, it has been said, there are thousands of men who have no right to call any woman but a barmaid by her Christian name.[210] All the brilliant fever of civilization pulses round them in the streets but their lips never touch it. It is the prostitute who incarnates this fascination of the city, far better than the virginal woman, even if intimacy with her were within reach. The prostitute represents it because she herself feels it, because she has even sacrificed her woman's honor in the effort to identify herself with it. She has unbridled feminine instincts, she is a mistress of the feminine arts of adornment, she can speak to him concerning the mysteries of womanhood and the luxuries of sex with an immediate freedom and knowledge the innocent maiden cloistered in her home would be incapable of. She appeals to him by no means only because she can gratify the lower desires of sex, but also because she is, in her way, an artist, an expert in the art of feminine exploitation, a leader of feminine fashions. For she is this, and there are, as Simmel has stated in his _Philosophie der Mode_, good psychological reasons why she always should be this. Her uncertain social position makes all that is conventional and established hateful to her, while her temperament makes perpetual novelty delightful. In new fashions she finds "an æsthetic form of that instinct of destruction which seems peculiar to all pariah existences, in so far as they are not completely enslaved in spirit." "However surprising it may seem to some," a modern writer remarks, "prostitutes must be put on the same level as artists. Both use their gifts and talents for the joy and pleasure of others, and, as a rule, for payment. What is the essential difference between a singer who gives pleasure to hearers by her throat and a prostitute who gives pleasure to those who seek her by another part of her body? All art works on the senses." He refers to the significant fact that actors, and especially actresses, were formerly regarded much as prostitutes are now (R. Hellmann, _Ueber Geschlechtsfreiheit_, pp. 245-252). Bernaldo de Quirós and Llanas Aguilaniedo (_La Mala Vida en Madrid_, p. 242) trace the same influence still lower in the social scale. They are describing the more squalid kind of _café chantant_, in which, in Spain and elsewhere, the most vicious and degenerate feminine creatures become waitresses (and occasionally singers and dancers), playing the part of amiable and distinguished _hetairæ_ to the public of carmen and shop-boys who frequent these resorts. "Dressed with what seems to the youth irreproachable taste, with hair elaborately prepared, and clean face adorned with flowers or trinkets, affable and at times haughty, superior in charm and in finery to the other women he is able to know, the waitresses become the most elevated example of the _femme galante_ whom he is able to contemplate and talk to, the courtesan of his sphere." But while to the simple, ignorant, and hungry youth the prostitute appeals as the embodiment of many of the refinements and perversities of civilization, on many more complex and civilized men she exerts an attraction of an almost reverse kind. She appeals by her fresh and natural coarseness, her frank familiarity with the crudest facts of life; and so lifts them for a moment out of the withering atmosphere of artificial thought and unreal sentiment in which so many civilized persons are compelled to spend the greater part of their lives. They feel in the words which the royal friend of a woman of this temperament is said to have used in explaining her incomprehensible influence over him: "She is so splendidly vulgar!" In illustration of this aspect of the appeal of prostitution, I may quote a passage in which the novelist, Hermant, in his _Confession d'un Enfant d'Hier_ (Lettre VII), has set down the reasons which may lead the super-refined child of a cultured age, yet by no means radically or completely vicious, to find satisfaction in commerce with prostitutes: "As long as my heart was not touched the object of my satisfaction was completely indifferent to me. I was, moreover, a great lover of absolute liberty, which is only possible in the circle of these anonymous creatures and in their reserved dwelling. There everything became permissible. With other women, however low we may seek them, certain convenances must be observed, a kind of protocol. To these one can say everything: one is protected by incognito and assured that nothing will be divulged. I profited by this freedom, which suited my age, but with a perverse fancy which was not characteristic of my years. I scarcely know where I found what I said to them, for it was the opposite of my tastes, which were simple, and, if I may venture to say so, classic. It is true that, in matters of love, unrestrained naturalism always tends to perversion, a fact that can only seem paradoxical at first sight. Primitive peoples have many traits in common with degenerates. It was, however, only in words that I was unbridled; and that was the only occasion on which I can recollect seriously lying. But that necessity, which I then experienced, of expelling a lower depth of ignoble instincts, seems to me characteristic and humiliating. I may add that even in the midst of these dissipations I retained a certain reserve. The contacts to which I exposed myself failed to soil me; nothing was left when I had crossed the threshold. I have always retained, from that forcible and indifferent commerce, the habit of attributing no consequence to the action of the flesh. The amorous function, which religion and morality have surrounded with mystery or seasoned with sin, seems to me a function like any other, a little vile, but agreeable, and one to which the usual epilogue is too long.... This kind of companionship only lasted for a short time." This analysis of the attitude of a certain common type of civilized modern man seems to be just, but it may perhaps occur to some readers that a commerce which led to "the action of the flesh" being regarded as of no consequence can scarcely be said to have left no taint. In a somewhat similar manner, Henri de Régnier, in his novel, _Les Rencontres de Monsieur Bréot_ (p. 50), represents Bercaillé as deliberately preferring to take his pleasures with servant-girls rather than with ladies, for pleasure was, to his mind, a kind of service, which could well be accommodated with the services they are accustomed to give; and then they are robust and agreeable, they possess the _naïveté_ which is always charming in the common people, and they are not apt to be repelled by those little accidents which might offend the fastidious sensibilities of delicately bred ladies. Bloch, who has especially emphasized this side of the appeal of prostitution (_Das Sexualleben unserer Zeit_, pp. 359-362), refers to the delicate and sensitive young Danish writer, J.P. Jakobsen, who seems to have acutely felt the contrast between the higher and more habitual impulses, and the occasional outburst of what he felt to be lower instincts; in his _Niels Lyhne_ he describes the kind of double life in which a man is true for a fortnight to the god he worships, and is then overcome by other powers which madly bear him in their grip towards what he feels to be humiliating, perverse, and filthy. "At such moments," Bloch remarks, "the man is another being. The 'two souls' in the breast become a reality. Is that the famous scholar, the lofty idealist, the fine-souled æsthetician, the artist who has given us so many splendid and pure works in poetry and painting? We no longer recognize him, for at such moments another being has come to the surface, another nature is moving within him, and with the power of an elementary force is impelling him towards things at which his 'upper consciousness,' the civilized man within him, would shudder." Bloch believes that we are here concerned with a kind of normal masculine masochism, which prostitution serves to gratify. _IV. The Present Social Attitude Towards Prostitution._ We have now surveyed the complex fact of prostitution in some of its most various and typical aspects, seeking to realise, intelligently and sympathetically, the fundamental part it plays as an elementary constituent of our marriage system. Finally we have to consider the grounds on which prostitution now appears to a large and growing number of persons not only an unsatisfactory method of sexual gratification but a radically bad method. The movement of antagonism towards prostitution manifests itself most conspicuously, as might beforehand have been anticipated, by a feeling of repugnance towards the most ancient and typical, once the most credited and best established prostitutional manifestation, the brothel. The growth of this repugnance is not confined to one or two countries but is international, and may thus be regarded as corresponding to a real tendency in our civilization. It is equally pronounced in prostitutes themselves and in the people who are their clients. The distaste on the one side increases the distaste on the other. Since only the most helpless or the most stupid prostitutes are nowadays willing to accept the servitude of the brothel, the brothel-keeper is forced to resort to extraordinary methods for entrapping victims, and even to take part in that cosmopolitan trade in "white slaves" which exists solely to feed brothels.[211] This state of things has a natural reaction in prejudicing the clients of prostitution against an institution which is going out of fashion and out of credit. An even more fundamental antipathy is engendered by the fact that the brothel fails to respond to the high degree of personal freedom and variety which civilization produces, and always demands even when it fails to produce. On one side the prostitute is disinclined to enter into a slavery which usually fails even to bring her any reward; on the other side her client feels it as part of the fascination of prostitution under civilized conditions that he shall enjoy a freedom and choice the brothel cannot provide.[212] Thus it comes about that brothels which once contained nearly all the women who made it a business to minister to the sexual needs of men, now contain only a decreasing minority, and that the transformation of cloistered prostitution into free prostitution is approved by many social reformers as a gain to the cause of morality.[213] The decay of brothels, whether as cause or as effect, has been associated with a vast increase of prostitution outside brothels. But the repugnance to brothels in many essential respects also applies to prostitution generally, and, as we shall see, it is exerting a profoundly modifying influence on that prostitution. The changing feeling in regard to prostitution seems to express itself mainly in two ways. On the one hand there are those who, without desiring to abolish prostitution, resent the abnegation which accompanies it, and are disgusted by its sordid aspects. They may have no moral scruples against prostitution, and they know no reason why a woman should not freely do as she will with her own person. But they believe that, if prostitution is necessary, the relationships of men with prostitutes should be humane and agreeable to each party, and not degrading to either. It must be remembered that under the conditions of civilized urban life, the discipline of work is often too severe, and the excitements of urban existence too constant, to render an abandonment to orgy a desirable recreation. The gross form of orgy appeals, not to the town-dweller but to the peasant, and to the sailor or soldier who reaches the town after long periods of dreary routine and emotional abstinence. It is a mistake, even, to suppose that the attraction of prostitution is inevitably associated with the fulfilment of the sexual act. So far is this from being the case that the most attractive prostitute may be a woman who, possessing few sexual needs of her own, desires to please by the charm of her personality; these are among those who most often find good husbands. There are many men who are even well content merely to have a few hours' free intimacy with an agreeable woman, without any further favor, although that may be open to them. For a very large number of men under urban conditions of existence the prostitute is ceasing to be the degraded instrument of a moment's lustful desire; they seek an agreeable human person with whom they may find relaxation from the daily stress or routine of life. When an act of prostitution is thus put on a humane basis, although it by no means thereby becomes conducive to the best development of either party, it at least ceases to be hopelessly degrading. Otherwise it would not have been possible for religious prostitution to flourish for so long in ancient days among honorable women of good birth on the shores of the Mediterranean, even in regions like Lydia, where the position of women was peculiarly high.[214] It is true that the monetary side of prostitution would still exist. But it is possible to exaggerate its importance. It must be pointed out that, though it is usual to speak of the prostitute as a woman who "sells herself," this is rather a crude and inexact way of expressing, in its typical form, the relationship of a prostitute to her client. A prostitute is not a commodity with a market-price, like a loaf or a leg of mutton. She is much more on a level with people belonging to the professional classes, who accept fees in return for services rendered; the amount of the fee varies, on the one hand in accordance with professional standing, on the other hand in accordance with the client's means, and under special circumstances may be graciously dispensed with altogether. Prostitution places on a venal basis intimate relationships which ought to spring up from natural love, and in so doing degrades them. But strictly speaking there is in such a case no "sale." To speak of a prostitute "selling herself" is scarcely even a pardonable rhetorical exaggeration; it is both inexact and unjust.[215] This tendency in an advanced civilization towards the humanization of prostitution is the reverse process, we may note, to that which takes place at an earlier stage of civilization when the ancient conception of the religious dignity of prostitution begins to fall into disrepute. When men cease to reverence women who are prostitutes in the service of a goddess they set up in their place prostitutes who are merely abject slaves, flattering themselves that they are thereby working in the cause of "progress" and "morality." On the shores of the Mediterranean this process took place more than two thousand years ago, and is associated with the name of Solon. To-day we may see the same process going on in India. In some parts of India (as at Jejuri, near Poonah) first born girls are dedicated to Khandoba or other gods; they are married to the god and termed _muralis_. They serve in the temple, sweep it, and wash the holy vessels, also they dance, sing and prostitute themselves. They are forbidden to marry, and they live in the homes of their parents, brothers, or sisters; being consecrated to religious service, they are untouched by degradation. Nowadays, however, Indian "reformers," in the name of "civilization and science," seek to persuade the _muralis_ that they are "plunged in a career of degradation." No doubt in time the would-be moralists will drive the _muralis_ out of their temples and their homes, deprive them of all self-respect, and convert them into wretched outcasts, all in the cause of "science and civilization" (see, e.g., an article by Mrs. Kashibai Deodhar, _The New Reformer_, October, 1907). So it is that early reformers create for the reformers of a later day the task of humanizing prostitution afresh. There can be no doubt that this more humane conception of prostitution is to-day beginning to be realized in the actual civilized life of Europe. Thus in writing of prostitution in Paris, Dr. Robert Michels ("Erotische Streifzüge," _Mutterschutz_, 1906, Heft 9, p. 368) remarks: "While in Germany the prostitute is generally considered as an 'outcast' creature, and treated accordingly, an instrument of masculine lust to be used and thrown away, and whom one would under no circumstances recognize in public, in France the prostitute plays in many respects the part which once give significance and fame to the _hetairæ_ of Athens." And after describing the consideration and respect which the Parisian prostitute is often able to require of her friends, and the non-sexual relation of comradeship which she can enter into with other men, the writer continues: "A girl who certainly yields herself for money, but by no means for the first comer's money, and who, in addition to her 'business friends,' feels the need of, so to say, non-sexual companions with whom she can associate in a free comrade-like way, and by whom she is treated and valued as a free human being, is not wholly lost for the moral worth of humanity." All prostitution is bad, Michels concludes, but we should have reason to congratulate ourselves if love-relationships of this Parisian species represented the lowest known form of extra-conjugal sexuality. (As bearing on the relative consideration accorded to prostitutes I may mention that a Paris prostitute remarked to a friend of mine that Englishmen would ask her questions which no Frenchman would venture to ask.) It is not, however, only in Paris, although here more markedly and prominently, that this humanizing change in prostitution is beginning to make itself felt. It is manifested, for instance, in the greater openness of a man's sexual life. "While he formerly slinked into a brothel in a remote street," Dr. Willy Hellpach remarks (_Nervosität und Kultur_, p. 169), "he now walks abroad with his 'liaison,' visiting the theatres and cafés, without indeed any anxiety to meet his acquaintances, but with no embarrassment on that point. The thing is becoming more commonplace, more--natural." It is also, Hellpach proceeds to point out, thus becoming more moral also, and much unwholesome prudery and pruriency is being done away with. In England, where change is slow, this tendency to the humanization of prostitution may be less pronounced. But it certainly exists. In the middle of the last century Lecky wrote (_History of European Morals_, vol. ii, p. 285) that habitual prostitution "is in no other European country so hopelessly vicious or so irrevocable." That statement, which was also made by Parent-Duchâtelet and other foreign observers, is fully confirmed by the evidence on record. But it is a statement which would hardly be made to-day, except perhaps, in reference to special confined areas of our cities. It is the same in America, and we may doubtless find this tendency reflected in the report on _The Social Evil_ (1902), drawn up by a committee in New York, who gave it (p. 176) as one of their chief recommendations that prostitution should no longer be regarded as a crime, in which light, one gathers, it had formerly been regarded in New York. That may seem but a small step in the path of humanization, but it is in the right direction. It is by no means only in lands of European civilization that we may trace with developing culture the refinement and humanization of the slighter bonds of relationship with women. In Japan exactly the same demands led, several centuries ago, to the appearance of the geisha. In the course of an interesting and precise study of the geisha Mr. R.T. Farrer remarks (_Nineteenth Century_, April, 1904): "The geisha is in no sense necessarily a courtesan. She is a woman educated to attract; perfected from her childhood in all the intricacies of Japanese literature; practiced in wit and repartee; inured to the rapid give-and-take of conversation on every topic, human and divine. From her earliest youth she is broken into an inviolable charm of manner incomprehensible to the finest European, yet she is almost invariably a blossom of the lower classes, with dumpy claws, and squat, ugly nails. Her education, physical and moral, is far harder than that of the _ballerina_, and her success is achieved only after years of struggle and a bitter agony of torture.... And the geisha's social position may be compared with that of the European actress. The Geisha-house offers prizes as desirable as any of the Western stage. A great geisha with twenty nobles sitting round her, contending for her laughter, and kept in constant check by the flashing bodkin of her wit, holds a position no less high and famous than that of Sarah Bernhardt in her prime. She is equally sought, equally flattered, quite as madly adored, that quiet little elderly plain girl in dull blue. But she is prized thus primarily for her tongue, whose power only ripens fully as her physical charms decline. She demands vast sums for her owners, and even so often appears and dances only at her own pleasure. Few, if any, Westerners ever see a really famous geisha. She is too great to come before a European, except for an august or imperial command. Finally she may, and frequently does, marry into exalted places. In all this there is not the slightest necessity for any illicit relation." In some respects the position of the ancient Greek _hetaira_ was more analogous to that of the Japanese _geisha_ than to that of the prostitute in the strict sense. For the Greeks, indeed, the _hetaira_, was not strictly a _porne_ or prostitute at all. The name meant friend or companion, and the woman to whom the name was applied held an honorable position, which could not be accorded to the mere prostitute. Athenæus (Bk. xiii, Chs. XXVIII-XXX) brings together passages showing that the _hetaira_ could be regarded as an independent citizen, pure, simple, and virtuous, altogether distinct from the common crew of prostitutes, though these might ape her name. The _hetairæ_ "were almost the only Greek women," says Donaldson (_Woman_, p. 59), "who exhibited what was best and noblest in women's nature." This fact renders it more intelligible why a woman of such intellectual distinction as Aspasia should have been a _hetaira_. There seems little doubt as to her intellectual distinction. "Æschines, in his dialogue entitled 'Aspasia,'" writes Gomperz, the historian of Greek philosophy (_Greek Thinkers_, vol. iii, pp. 124 and 343), "puts in the mouth of that distinguished woman an incisive criticism of the mode of life traditional for her sex. It would be exceedingly strange," Gomperz adds, in arguing that an inference may thus be drawn concerning the historical Aspasia, "if three authors--Plato, Xenophon and Æschines--had agreed in fictitiously enduing the companion of Pericles with what we might very reasonably have expected her to possess--a highly cultivated mind and intellectual influence." It is even possible that the movement for woman's right which, as we dimly divine through the pages of Aristophanes, took place in Athens in the fourth century B.C., was led by _hetairæ_. According to Ivo Bruns (_Frauenemancipation in Athen_, 1900, p. 19) "the most certain information which we possess concerning Aspasia bears a strong resemblance to the picture which Euripides and Aristophanes present to us of the leaders of the woman movement." It was the existence of this movement which made Plato's ideas on the community of women appear far less absurd than they do to us. It may perhaps be thought by some that this movement represented on a higher plane that love of distruction, or, as we should better say, that spirit of revolt and aspiration, which Simmel finds to mark the intellectual and artistic activity of those who are unclassed or dubiously classed in the social hierarchy. Ninon de Lenclos, as we have seen, was not strictly a courtesan, but she was a pioneer in the assertion of woman's rights. Aphra Behn who, a little later in England, occupied a similarly dubious social position, was likewise a pioneer in generous humanitarian aspirations, which have since been adopted in the world at large. These refinements of prostitution may be said to be chiefly the outcome of the late and more developed stages in civilization. As Schurtz has put it (_Altersklassen und Männerbünde_, p. 191): "The cheerful, skilful and artistically accomplished _hetaira_ frequently stands as an ideal figure in opposition to the intellectually uncultivated wife banished to the interior of the house. The courtesan of the Italian Renaissance, Japanese geishas, Chinese flower-girls, and Indian bayaderas, all show some not unnoble features, the breath of a free artistic existence. They have achieved--with, it is true, the sacrifice of their highest worth--an independence from the oppressive rule of man and of household duties, and a part of the feminine endowment which is so often crippled comes in them to brilliant development. Prostitution in its best form may thus offer a path by which these feminine characteristics may exert a certain influence on the development of civilization. We may also believe that the artistic activity of women is in some measure able to offer a counterpoise to the otherwise less pleasant results of sexual abandonment, preventing the coarsening and destruction of the emotional life; in his _Magda_ Sudermann has described a type of woman who, from the standpoint of strict morality, is open to condemnation, but in her art finds a foothold, the strength of which even ill-will must unwillingly recognize." In his _Sex and Character_, Weininger has developed in a more extreme and extravagant manner the conception of the prostitute as a fundamental and essential part of life, a permanent feminine type. There are others, apparently in increasing numbers, who approach the problem of prostitution not from an æsthetic standpoint but from a moral standpoint. This moral attitude is not, however, that conventionalized morality of Cato and St. Augustine and Lecky, set forth in previous pages, according to which the prostitute in the street must be accepted as the guardian of the wife in the home. These moralists reject indeed the claim of that belief to be considered moral at all. They hold that it is not morally possible that the honor of some women shall be purchaseable at the price of the dishonor of other women, because at such a price virtue loses all moral worth. When they read that, as Goncourt stated, "the most luxurious articles of women's _trousseaux_, the bridal chemises of girls with dowries of six hundred thousand francs, are made in the prison of Clairvaux,"[216] they see the symbol of the intimate dependence of our luxurious virtue on our squalid vice. And while they accept the historical and sociological evidence which shows that prostitution is an inevitable part of the marriage system which still survives among us, they ask whether it is not possible so to modify our marriage system that it shall not be necessary to divide feminine humanity into "disreputable" women, who make sacrifices which it is dishonorable to make, and "respectable" women, who take sacrifices which it cannot be less dishonorable to accept. Prostitutes, a distinguished man of science has said (Duclaux, _L'Hygiène Sociale_, p. 243), "have become things which the public uses when it wants them, and throws on the dungheap when it has made them vile. In its pharisaism it even has the insolence to treat their trade as shameful, as though it were not just as shameful to buy as to sell in this market." Bloch (_Sexualleben unserer Zeit_, Ch. XV) insists that prostitution must be ennobled, and that only so can it be even diminished. Isidore Dyer, of New Orleans, also argues that we cannot check prostitution unless we create "in the minds of men and women a spirit of tolerance instead of intolerance of fallen women." This point may be illustrated by a remark by the prostitute author of the _Tagebuch einer Verlorenen_. "If the profession of yielding the body ceased to be a shameful one," she wrote, "the army of 'unfortunates' would diminish by four-fifths--I will even say nine-tenths. Myself, for example! How gladly would I take a situation as companion or governess!" "One of two things," wrote the eminent sociologist Tarde ("La Morale Sexuelle," _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, January, 1907), "either prostitution will disappear through continuing to be dishonorable and will be replaced by some other institution which will better remedy the defects of monogamous marriage, or it will survive by becoming respectable, that is to say, by making itself respected, whether liked or disliked." Tarde thought this might perhaps come about by a better organization of prostitutes, a more careful selection among those who desired admission to their ranks and the cultivation of professional virtues which would raise their moral level. "If courtesans fulfil a need," Balzac had already said in his _Physiologie du Mariage_, "they must become an institution." This moral attitude is supported and enforced by the inevitable democratic tendency of civilization which, although it by no means destroys the idea of class, undermines that idea as the mark of fundamental human distinctions and renders it superficial. Prostitution no longer makes a woman a slave; it ought not to make her even a pariah: "My body is my own," said the young German prostitute of to-day, "and what I do with it is nobody else's concern." When the prostitute was literally a slave moral duty towards her was by no means necessarily identical with moral duty towards the free woman. But when, even in the same family, the prostitute may be separated by a great and impassable social gulf from her married sister, it becomes possible to see, and in the opinion of many imperatively necessary to see, that a readjustment of moral values is required. For thousands of years prostitution has been defended on the ground that the prostitute is necessary to ensure the "purity of women." In a democratic age it begins to be realized that prostitutes also are women. The developing sense of a fundamental human equality underlying the surface divisions of class tends to make the usual attitude towards the prostitute, the attitude of her clients even more than that of society generally, seem painfully cruel. The callous and coarsely frivolous tone of so many young men about prostitutes, it has been said, is "simply cruelty of a peculiarly brutal kind," not to be discerned in any other relation of life.[217] And if this attitude is cruel even in speech it is still more cruel in action, whatever attempts may be made to disguise its cruelty. Canon Lyttelton's remarks may be taken to refer chiefly to young men of the upper middle class. Concerning what is perhaps the usual attitude of lower middle class people towards prostitution, I may quote from a remarkable communication which has reached me from Australia: "What are the views of a young man brought up in a middle-class Christian English family on prostitutes? Take my father, for instance. He first mentioned prostitutes to me, if I remember rightly, when speaking of his life before marriage. And he spoke of them as he would speak of a horse he had hired, paid for, and dismissed from his mind when it had rendered him service. Although my mother was so kind and good she spoke of abandoned women with disgust and scorn as of some unclean animal. As it flatters vanity and pride to be able with good countenance and universal consent to look down on something, I soon grasped the situation and adopted an attitude which is, in the main, that of most middle-class Christian Englishmen towards prostitutes. But as puberty develops this attitude has to be accommodated with the wish to make use of this scum, these moral lepers. The ordinary young man, who likes a spice of immorality and has it when in town, and thinks it is not likely to come to his mother's or sisters' ears, does not get over his arrogance and disgust or abate them in the least. He takes them with him, more or less disguised, to the brothel, and they color his thoughts and actions all the time he is sleeping with prostitutes, or kissing them, or passing his hands over them, as he would over a mare, getting as much as he can for his money. To tell the truth, on the whole, that was my attitude too. But if anyone had asked me for the smallest reason for this attitude, for this feeling of superiority, pride, _hauteur_, and prejudice, I should, like any other 'respectable' young man, have been entirely at a loss, and could only have gaped foolishly." From the modern moral standpoint which now concerns us, not only is the cruelty involved in the dishonor of the prostitute absurd, but not less absurd, and often not less cruel, seems the honor bestowed on the respectable women on the other side of the social gulf. It is well recognized that men sometimes go to prostitutes to gratify the excitement aroused by fondling their betrothed.[218] As the emotional and physical results of ungratified excitement are not infrequently more serious in women than in men, the betrothed women in these cases are equally justified in seeking relief from other men, and the vicious circle of absurdity might thus be completed. From the point of view of the modern moralist there is another consideration which was altogether overlooked in the conventional and traditional morality we have inherited, and was indeed practically non-existent in the ancient days when that morality was still a living reality. Women are no longer divided only into the two groups of wives who are to be honored, and prostitutes who are the dishonored guardians of that honor; there is a large third class of women who are neither wives nor prostitutes. For this group of the unmarried virtuous the traditional morality had no place at all; it simply ignored them. But the new moralist, who is learning to recognize both the claims of the individual and the claims of society, begins to ask whether on the one hand these women are not entitled to the satisfaction of their affectional and emotional impulses if they so desire, and on the other hand whether, since a high civilization involves a diminished birthrate, the community is not entitled to encourage every healthy and able-bodied woman to contribute to maintain the birthrate when she so desires. All the considerations briefly indicated in the preceding pages--the fundamental sense of human equality generated by our civilization, the repugnance to cruelty which accompanies the refinement of urban life, the ugly contrast of extremes which shock our developing democratic tendencies, the growing sense of the rights of the individual to authority over his own person, the no less strongly emphasized right of the community to the best that the individual can yield--all these considerations are every day more strongly influencing the modern moralist to assume towards the prostitute an attitude altogether different from that of the morality which we derived from Cato and Augustine. He sees the question in a larger and more dynamic manner. Instead of declaring that it is well worth while to tolerate and at the same time to condemn the prostitute, in order to preserve the sanctity of the wife in her home, he is not only more inclined to regard each as the proper guardian of her own moral freedom, but he is less certain about the time-honored position of the prostitute, and moreover, by no means sure that the wife in the home may not be fully as much in need of rescuing as the prostitute in the street; he is prepared to consider whether reform in this matter is not most likely to take place in the shape of a fairer apportionment of sexual privileges and sexual duties to women generally, with an inevitably resultant elevation in the sexual lives of men also. The revolt of many serious reformers against the injustice and degradation now involved by our system of prostitution is so profound that some have declared themselves ready to accept any revolution of ideas which would bring about a more wholesome transmutation of moral values. "Better indeed were a saturnalia of _free_ men and women," exclaims Edward Carpenter (_Love's Coming of Age_, p. 62), "than the spectacle which, as it is, our great cities present at night." Even those who would be quite content with as conservative a treatment as possible of social institutions still cannot fail to realize that prostitution is unsatisfactory, unless we are content to make very humble claims of the sexual act. "The act of prostitution," Godfrey declares (_The Science of Sex_, p. 202), "may be physiologically complete, but it is complete in no other sense. All the moral and intellectual factors which combine with physical desire to form the perfect sexual attraction are absent. All the higher elements of love--admiration, respect, honor, and self-sacrificing devotion--are as foreign to prostitution as to the egoistic act of masturbation. The principal drawbacks to the morality of the act lie in its associations more than in the act itself. Any affectional quality which a more or less promiscuous connection might possess is at once destroyed by the intrusion of the monetary element. In the resulting degradation the woman has the largest share, since it makes her a pariah and involves her in all the hardening and depraving influences of social ostracism. But her degradation only serves to render her influence on her partners more demoralizing. Prostitution," he concludes, "has a strong tendency towards emphasizing the naturally selfish attitude of men towards women, and encouraging them in the delusion, born of unregulated passions, that the sexual act itself is the aim and end of the sex life. Prostitution can therefore make no claim to afford even a temporary solution to the sex problem. It fulfils only that mission which has made it a 'necessary evil'--the mission of palliative to the physical rigors of celibacy and monogamy. It does so at the cost of a considerable amount of physical and moral deterioration, much of which is undoubtedly due to the action of society in completing the degradation of the prostitute by persistent ostracism. Prostitution was not so great an evil when it was not thought so great, yet even at its best it was a real evil, a melancholy and sordid travesty of sincere and natural passional relations. It is an evil which we are bound to have with us so long as celibacy is a custom and monogamy a law." It is the wife as well as the prostitute who is degraded by a system which makes venal love possible. "The time has gone past," the same writer remarks elsewhere (p. 195) "when a mere ceremony can really sanctify what is base and transform lust and greed into the sincerity of sexual affection. If, to enter into sexual connections with a man for a solely material end is a disgrace to humanity, it is a disgrace under the marriage bond just as much as apart from the hypocritical blessing of the church or the law. If the public prostitute is a being who deserves to be treated as a pariah, it is hopelessly irrational to withhold every sort of moral opprobrium from the woman who leads a similar life under a different set of external circumstances. Either the prostitute wife must come under the moral ban, or there must be an end to the complete ostracism under which the prostitute labors." The thinker who more clearly and fundamentally than others, and first of all, realized the dynamical relationships of prostitution, as dependent upon a change in the other social relationships of life, was James Hinton. More than thirty years ago, in fragmentary writings that still remain unpublished, since he never worked them into an orderly form, Hinton gave vigorous and often passionate expression to this fundamental idea. It may be worth while to quote a few brief passages from Hinton's MSS.: "I feel that the laws of force should hold also amid the waves of human passion, that the relations of mechanics are true, and will rule also in human life.... There is a tension, a crushing of the soul, by our modern life, and it is ready for a sudden spring to a different order in which the forces shall rearrange themselves. It is a dynamical question presented in moral terms.... Keeping a portion of the woman population without prospect of marriage means having prostitutes, that is women as instruments of man's mere sensuality, and this means the killing, in many of them, of all pure love or capacity of it. This is the fact we have to face.... To-day I saw a young woman whose life was being consumed by her want of love, a case of threatened utter misery: now see the price at which we purchase her ill-health; for her ill-health we pay the crushing of another girl into hell. We give that for it; her wretchedness of soul and body are bought by prostitution; we have prostitutes made for that.... We devote some women recklessly to perdition to make a hothouse Heaven for the rest.... One wears herself out in vainly trying to endure pleasures she is not strong enough to enjoy, while other women are perishing for lack of these very pleasures. If marriage is this, is it not embodied lust? The happy Christian homes are the true dark places of the earth.... Prostitution for man, restraint for woman--they are two sides of the same thing, and both are denials of love, like luxury and asceticism. The mountains of restraint must be used to fill up the abysses of luxury." Some of Hinton's views were set forth by a writer intimately acquainted with him in a pamphlet entitled _The Future of Marriage: An Eirenicon for a Question of To-day_, by a Respectable Woman (1885). "When once the conviction is forced home upon the 'good' women," the writer remarks, "that their place of honor and privilege rests upon the degradation of others as its basis, they will never rest till they have either abandoned it or sought for it some other pedestal. If our inflexible marriage system has for its essential condition the existence side by side with it of prostitution, then one of two things follows: either prostitution must be shown to be compatible with the well-being, moral and physical, of the women who practice it, or our marriage system must be condemned. If it was clearly put before anyone, he could not seriously assert that to be 'virtue' which could only be practiced at the expense of another's vice.... Whilst the laws of physics are becoming so universally recognized that no one dreams of attempting to annihilate a particle of matter, or of force, yet we do not instinctively apply the same conception to moral forces, but think and act as if we could simply do away with an evil, while leaving unchanged that which gives it its strength. This is the only view of the social problem which can give us hope. That prostitution should simply cease, leaving everything else as it is, would be disastrous if it were possible. But it is not possible. The weakness of all existing efforts to put down prostitution is that they are directed against it as an isolated thing, whereas it is only one of the symptoms proceeding from a common disease." Ellen Key, who during recent years has been the chief apostle of a gospel of sexual morality based on the needs of women as the mothers of the race, has, in a somewhat similar spirit, denounced alike prostitution and rigid marriage, declaring (in her _Essays on Love and Marriage_) that "the development of erotic personal consciousness is as much hindered by socially regulated 'morality' as by socially regulated 'immorality,'" and that "the two lowest and socially sanctioned expressions of sexual dualism, rigid marriage and prostitution, will gradually become impossible, because with the conquest of the idea of erotic unity they will no longer correspond to human needs." We may sum up the present situation as regards prostitution by saying that on the one hand there is a tendency for its elevation, in association with the growing humanity and refinement of civilization, characteristics which must inevitably tend to mark more and more both those women who become prostitutes and those men who seek them; on the other hand, but perhaps through the same dynamic force, there is a tendency towards the slow elimination of prostitution by the successful competition of higher and purer methods of sexual relationship freed from pecuniary considerations. This refinement and humanization, this competition by better forms of sexual love, are indeed an essential part of progress as civilization becomes more truly sound, wholesome, and sincere. This moral change cannot, it seems probable, fail to be accompanied by the realization that the facts of human life are more important than the forms. For all changes from lower to higher social forms, from savagery to civilization, are accompanied--in so far as they are vital changes--by a slow and painful groping towards the truth that it is only in natural relations that sanity and sanctity can be found, for, as Nietzsche said, the "return" to Nature should rather be called the "ascent." Only so can we achieve the final elimination from our hearts of that clinging tradition that there is any impurity or dishonor in acts of love for which the reasonable, and not merely the conventional, conditions have been fulfilled. For it is vain to attempt to cleanse our laws, or even our by-laws, until we have first cleansed our hearts. It would be out of place here to push further the statement of the moral question as it is to-day beginning to shape itself in the sphere of sex. In a psychological discussion we are only concerned to set down the actual attitude of the moralist, and of civilization. The practical outcome of that attitude must be left to moralists and sociologists and the community generally to work out. Our inquiry has also, it may be hoped, incidentally tended to show that in practically dealing with the question of prostitution it is pre-eminently necessary to remember the warning which, as regards many other social problems, has been embodied by Herbert Spencer in his famous illustration of the bent iron plate. In trying to make the bent plate smooth, it is useless, Spencer pointed out, to hammer directly on the buckled up part; if we do so we merely find that we have made matters worse; our hammering, to be effective, must be around, and not directly on, the offensive elevation we wish to reduce; only so can the iron plate be hammered smooth.[219] But this elementary law has not been understood by moralists. The plain, practical, common-sense reformer, as he fancied himself to be--from the time of Charlemagne onwards--has over and over again brought his heavy fist directly down on to the evil of prostitution and has always made matters worse. It is only by wisely working outside and around the evil that we can hope to lessen it effectually. By aiming to develop and raise the relationships of men to women, and of women to women, by modifying our notions of sexual relationships, and by introducing a saner and truer conception of womanhood and of the responsibilities of women as well as of men, by attaining, socially as well as economically, a higher level of human living--it is only by such methods as these that we can reasonably expect to see any diminution and alleviation of the evil of prostitution. So long as we are incapable of such methods we must be content with the prostitution we deserve, learning to treat it with the pity, and the respect, which so intimate a failure of our civilization is entitled to. FOOTNOTES: [107] See, e.g., Cheetham's Hulsean Lectures, _The Mysteries, Pagan and Christian_, pp. 123, 136. [108] Hormayr's _Taschenbuch_, 1835, p. 255. Hagelstange, in a chapter on mediæval festivals in his _Süddeutsches Bauernleben im Mittelalter_, shows how, in these Christian orgies which were really of pagan origin, the German people reacted with tremendous and boisterous energy against the laborious and monotonous existence of everyday life. [109] This was clearly realized by the more intelligent upholders of the Feast of Fools. Austere persons wished to abolish this Feast, and in a remarkable petition sent up to the Theological Faculty of Paris (and quoted by Flogel, _Geschichte des Grotesk-Komischen_, fourth edition, p. 204) the case for the Feast is thus presented: "We do this according to ancient custom, in order that folly, which is second nature to man and seems to be inborn, may at least once a year have free outlet. Wine casks would burst if we failed sometimes to remove the bung and let in air. Now we are all ill-bound casks and barrels which would let out the wine of wisdom if by constant devotion and fear of God we allowed it to ferment. We must let in air so that it may not be spoilt. Thus on some days we give ourselves up to sport, so that with the greater zeal we may afterwards return to the worship of God." The Feast of Fools was not suppressed until the middle of the sixteenth century, and relics of it persisted (as at Aix) till near the end of the eighteenth century. [110] A Méray, _La Vie au Temps des Libres Prêcheurs_, vol. ii, Ch. X. A good and scholarly account of the Feast of Fools is given by E.K. Chambers, _The Mediæval Stage_, Ch. XIII. It is true that the Church and the early Fathers often anathematized the theatre. But Gregory of Nazianzen wished to found a Christian theatre; the Mediæval Mysteries were certainly under the protection of the clergy; and St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of the schoolmen, only condemns the theatre with cautious qualifications. [111] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, Ch. XII. [112] _Journal Anthropological Institute_, July-Dec., 1904, p. 329. [113] Westermarck (_Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, vol. ii, pp. 283-9) shows how widespread is the custom of setting apart a periodical rest day. [114] A.E. Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_, pp. 273 et seq., Crawley brings into association with this function of great festivals the custom, found in some parts of the world, of exchanging wives at these times. "It has nothing whatever to do with the marriage system, except as breaking it for a season, women of forbidden degree being lent, on the same grounds as conventions and ordinary relations are broken at festivals of the Saturnalia type, the object being to change life and start afresh, by exchanging every thing one can, while the very act of exchange coincides with the other desire, to weld the community together" (Ib., p. 479). [115] See "The Analysis of the Sexual Impulse" in vol. iii of these _Studies_. [116] G. Murray, _Ancient Greek Literature_, p. 211. [117] The Greek drama probably arose out of a folk-festival of more or less sexual character, and it is even possible that the mediæval drama had a somewhat similar origin (see Donaldson, _The Greek Theatre_; Gilbert Murray, loc. cit.; Karl Pearson, _The Chances of Death_, vol. ii, pp. 135-6, 280 et seq.). [118] R. Canudo, "Les Chorèges Français," _Mercure de France_, May 1, 1907, p. 180. [119] "This is, in fact," Cyples declares (_The Process of Human Experience_, p. 743), "Art's great function--to rehearse within us greater egoistic possibilities, to habituate us to larger actualizations of personality in a rudimentary manner," and so to arouse, "aimlessly but splendidly, the sheer as yet unfulfilled possibilities within us." [120] Even when monotonous labor is intellectual, it is not thereby protected against degrading orgiastic reactions. Prof. L. Gurlitt shows (_Die Neue Generation_, January, 1909, pp. 31-6) how the strenuous, unremitting intellectual work of Prussian seminaries leads among both teachers and scholars to the worst forms of the orgy. [121] Rabutaux discusses various definitions of prostitution, _De la Prostitution en Europe_, pp. 119 et seq. For the origin of the names to designate the prostitute, see Schrader, _Reallexicon_, art. "Beischläferin." [122] _Digest_, lib. xxiii, tit. ii, p. 43. If she only gave herself to one or two persons, though for money, it was not prostitution. [123] Guyot, _La Prostitution_, p. 8. The element of venality is essential, and religious writers (like Robert Wardlaw, D.D., of Edinburgh, in his _Lectures on Female Prostitution_, 1842, p. 14) who define prostitution as "the illicit intercourse of the sexes," and synonymous with theological "fornication," fall into an absurd confusion. [124] "Such marriages are sometimes stigmatized as 'legalized prostitution,'" remarks Sidgwick (_Methods of Ethics_, Bk. iii, Ch. XI), "but the phrase is felt to be extravagant and paradoxical." [125] Bonger, _Criminalité et Conditions Economiques_, p. 378. Bonger believes that the act of prostitution is "intrinsically equal to that of a man or woman who contracts a marriage for economical reasons." [126] E. Richard, _La Prostitution à Paris_, 1890, p. 44. It may be questioned whether publicity or notoriety should form an essential part of the definition; it seems, however, to be involved, or the prostitute cannot obtain clients. Reuss states that she must, in addition, be absolutely without means of subsistence; that is certainly not essential. Nor is it necessary, as the _Digest_ insisted, that the act should be performed "without pleasure;" that may be as it will, without affecting the prostitutional nature of the act. [127] Hawkesworth, _Account of the Voyages_, etc., 1775, vol. ii, p. 254. [128] R.W. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 235. [129] F.S. Krauss, _Romanische Forschungen_, 1903, p. 290. [130] H. Schurtz, _Altersklassen und Männerbünde_, 1902, p. 190. In this work Schurtz brings together (pp. 189-201) some examples of the germs of prostitution among primitive peoples. Many facts and references are given by Westermarck (_History of Human Marriage_, pp. 66 et seq., and _Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, vol. ii, pp. 441 _et seq._). [131] Bachofen (more especially in his _Mutterrecht_ and _Sage von Tanaquil_) argued that even religious prostitution sprang from the resistance of primitive instincts to the individualization of love. Cf. Robertson Smith, _Religion of Semites_, second edition, p. 59. [132] Whatever the reason may be, there can be no doubt that there is a widespread tendency for religion and prostitution to be associated; it is possibly to some extent a special case of that general connection between the religious and sexual impulses which has been discussed elsewhere (Appendix C to vol. i of these _Studies_). Thus A.B. Ellis, in his book on _The Ewe-speaking Peoples of West Africa_ (pp. 124, 141) states that here women dedicated to a god become promiscuous prostitutes. W.G. Sumner (_Folkways_, Ch. XVI) brings together many facts concerning the wide distribution of religious prostitution. [133] Herodotus, Bk. I, Ch. CXCIX; Baruch, Ch. VI, p. 43. Modern scholars confirm the statements of Herodotus from the study of Babylonian literature, though inclined to deny that religious prostitution occupied so large a place as he gives it. A tablet of the Gilgamash epic, according to Morris Jastrow, refers to prostitutes as attendants of the goddess Ishtar in the city Uruk (or Erech), which was thus a centre, and perhaps the chief centre, of the rites described by Herodotus (Morris Jastrow, _The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria_, 1898, p. 475). Ishtar was the goddess of fertility, the great mother goddess, and the prostitutes were priestesses, attached to her worship, who took part in ceremonies intended to symbolize fertility. These priestesses of Ishtar were known by the general name Kadishtu, "the holy ones" (op. cit., pp. 485, 660). [134] It is usual among modern writers to associate Aphrodite Pandemos, rather than Ourania, with venal or promiscuous sexuality, but this is a complete mistake, for the Aphrodite Pandemos was purely political and had no sexual significance. The mistake was introduced, perhaps intentionally, by Plato. It has been suggested that that arch-juggler, who disliked democratic ideas, purposely sought to pervert and vulgarize the conception of Aphrodite Pandemos (Farnell, _Cults of Greek States_, vol. ii, p. 660). [135] Athenæus, Bk. xiii, cap. XXXII. It appears that the only other Hellenic community where the temple cult involved unchastity was a city of the Locri Epizephyrii (Farnell, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 636). [136] I do not say an earlier "promiscuity," for the theory of a primitive sexual promiscuity is now widely discredited, though there can be no reasonable doubt that the early prevalence of mother-right was more favorable to the sexual freedom of women than the later patriarchal system. Thus in very early Egyptian days a woman could give her favors to any man she chose by sending him her garment, even if she were married. In time the growth of the rights of men led to this being regarded as criminal, but the priestesses of Amen retained the privilege to the last, as being under divine protection (Flinders Petrie, _Egyptian Tales_, pp. 10, 48). [137] It should be added that Farnell ("The Position of Women in Ancient Religion," _Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_, 1904, p. 88) seeks to explain the religious prostitution of Babylonia as a special religious modification of the custom of destroying virginity before marriage in order to safeguard the husband from the mystic dangers of defloration. E.S. Hartland, also ("Concerning the Rite at the Temple of Mylitta," _Anthropological Essays Presented to E.B. Tyler_, p. 189), suggests that this was a puberty rite connected with ceremonial defloration. This theory is not, however, generally accepted by Semitic scholars. [138] The girls of this tribe, who are remarkably pretty, after spending two or three years in thus amassing a little dowry, return home to marry, and are said to make model wives and mothers. They are described by Bertherand in Parent-Duchâtelet, _La Prostitution à Paris_, vol. ii, p. 539. [139] In Abyssinia (according to Fiaschi, _British Medical Journal_, March 13, 1897), where prostitution has always been held in high esteem, the prostitutes, who are now subject to medical examination twice a week, still attach no disgrace to their profession, and easily find husbands afterwards. Potter (_Sohrab and Rustem_, pp. 168 et seq.) gives references as regards peoples, widely dispersed in the Old World and the New, among whom the young women have practiced prostitution to obtain a dowry. [140] At Tralles, in Lydia, even in the second century A.D., as Sir W.M. Ramsay notes (_Cities of Phrygia_, vol. i, pp. 94, 115), sacred prostitution was still an honorable practice for women of good birth who "felt themselves called upon to live the divine life under the influence of divine inspiration." [141] The gradual secularization of prostitution from its earlier religious form has been traced by various writers (see, e.g., Dupouey, _La Prostitution dans l'Antiquité_). The earliest complimentary reference to the _Hetaira_ in literature is to be found, according to Benecke (_Antimachus of Colophon_, p. 36), in Bacchylides. [142] Cicero, _Oratio prô Coelio_, Cap. XX. [143] Pierre Dufour, _Histoire de la Prostitution_, vol. ii, Chs. XIX-XX. The real author of this well-known history of prostitution, which, though not scholarly in its methods, brings together a great mass of interesting information, is said to be Paul Lacroix. [144] Rabutaux, in his _Histoire de la Prostitution en Europe_, describes many attempts to suppress prostitution; cf. Dufour, _op. cit._, vol. iii. [145] Dufour, op. cit., vol. vi, Ch. XLI. It was in the reign of the homosexual Henry III that the tolerance of brothels was established. [146] In the eighteenth century, especially, houses of prostitution in Paris attained to an astonishing degree of elaboration and prosperity. Owing to the constant watchful attention of the police a vast amount of detailed information concerning these establishments was accumulated, and during recent years much of it has been published. A summary of this literature will be found in Dühren's _Neue Forshungen über den Marquis de Sade und seine Zeit_, 1904, pp. 97 et seq. [147] Rabutaux, op. cit., p. 54. [148] Calza has written the history of Venetian prostitution; and some of the documents he found have been reproduced by Mantegazza, _Gli Amori degli Uomimi_, cap. XIV. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, a comparatively late period, Coryat visited Venice, and in his _Crudities_ gives a full and interesting account of its courtesans, who then numbered, he says, at least 20,000; the revenue they brought into the State maintained a dozen galleys. [149] J. Schrank, _Die Prostitution in Wien_, Bd. I, pp. 152-206. [150] U. Robert, _Les Signes d'Infamie au Moyen Age_, Ch. IV. [151] Rudeck (_Geschichte der öffentlichen Sittlichkeit in Deutschland_, pp. 26-36) gives many details concerning the important part played by prostitutes and brothels in mediæval German life. [152] They are described by Rabutaux, op. cit., pp. 90 _et seq._ [153] _L'Année Sociologique_, seventh year, 1904, p. 440. [154] Bloch, _Der Ursprung der Syphilis_. As regards the German "Frauenhausen" see Max Bauer, _Das Geschlechtsleben in der Deutschen Vergangenheit_, pp. 133-214. In Paris, Dufour states (op. cit., vol. v, Ch. XXXIV), brothels under the ordinances of St. Louis had many rights which they lost at last in 1560, when they became merely tolerated houses, without statutes, special costumes, or confinement to special streets. [155] "Cortegiana, hoc est meretrix honesta," wrote Burchard, the Pope's Secretary, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, _Diarium_, ed. Thuasne, vol. ii, p. 442; other authorities are quoted by Thuasne in a note. [156] Burchard, _Diarium_, vol. iii, p. 167. Thuasne quotes other authorities in confirmation. [157] The example of Holland, where some large cities have adopted the regulation of prostitution and others have not, is instructive as regards the illusory nature of the advantages of regulation. In 1883 Dr. Després brought forward figures, supplied by Dutch officials, showing that in Rotterdam, where prostitution was regulated, both prostitution and venereal diseases were more prevalent than in Amsterdam, a city without regulation (A. Després, _La Prostitution en France_, p. 122). [158] It was in 1802 that the medical inspection of prostitutes in Paris brothels was introduced, though not until 1825 fully established and made general. [159] M.L. Heidingsfeld, "The Control of Prostitution," _Journal American Medical Association_, January 30, 1904. [160] See, e.g., G. Bérault, _La Maison de Tolérance_, Thèse de Paris, 1904. [161] Thus the circumstances of the English army in India are of a special character. A number of statements (from the reports of committees, official publications, etc.) regarding the good influence of regulation in reducing venereal diseases in India are brought together by Surgeon-Colonel F.H. Welch, "The Prevention of Syphilis," _Lancet_, August 12, 1899. The system has been abolished, but only as the result of a popular outcry and not on the question of its merits. [162] Thus Richard, who accepts regulation and was instructed to report on it for the Paris Municipal Council, would not have girls inscribed as professional prostitutes until they are of age and able to realize what they are binding themselves to (E. Richard, _La Prostitution à Paris_, p. 147). But at that age a large proportion of prostitutes have been practicing their profession for years. [163] In Germany, where the cure of infected prostitutes under regulation is nearly everywhere compulsory, usually at the cost of the community, it is found that 18 is the average age at which they are affected by syphilis; the average age of prostitutes in brothels is higher than that of those outside, and a much larger proportion have therefore become immune to disease (Blaschko, "Hygiene der Syphilis," in Weyl's _Handbuch der Hygiene_, Bd. ii, p. 62, 1900). [164] A. Sherwell, _Life in West London_, 1897, Ch. V. [165] Bonger brings together statistics illustrating this point, op. cit., pp. 402-6. [166] _The Nightless City_, p. 125. [167] Ströhmberg, as quoted by Aschaffenburg, _Das Verbrechen_, 1903, p. 77. [168] _Monatsschrift für Harnkrankheiten und Sexuelle Hygiene_, 1906. Heft 10, p. 460. But this cause is undoubtedly effective in some cases of unmarried women in Germany unable to get work (see article by Sister Henrietta Arendt, Police-Assistant at Stuttgart, _Sexual-Probleme_, December, 1908). [169] Thus, for instance, we find Irma von Troll-Borostyáni saying in her book, _Im Freien Reich_ (p. 176): "Go and ask these unfortunate creatures if they willingly and freely devoted themselves to vice. And nearly all of them will tell you a story of need and destitution, of hunger and lack of work, which compelled them to it, or else of love and seduction and the fear of the discovery of their false step which drove them out of their homes, helpless and forsaken, into the pool of vice from which there is hardly any salvation." It is, of course, quite true that the prostitute is frequently ready to tell such stories to philanthropic persons who expect to hear them, and sometimes even put the words into her mouth. [170] C. Booth, _Life and Labour_, final volume, p. 125. Similarly in Sweden, Kullberg states that girls of thirteen to seventeen, living at home with their parents in comfortable circumstances, have often been found on the streets. [171] W. Acton, _Prostitution_, 1870, pp. 39, 49. [172] In Lyons, according to Potton, of 3884 prostitutes, 3194 abandoned, or apparently abandoned, their profession; in Paris a very large number became servants, dressmakers, or tailoresses, occupations which, in many cases, doubtless, they had exercised before (Parent-Duchâtelet, _De la Prostitution_, 1857, vol. i, p. 584; vol. ii, p. 451). Sloggett (quoted by Acton) stated that at Davenport, 250 of the 1775 prostitutes there married. It is well known that prostitutes occasionally marry extremely well. It was remarked nearly a century ago that marriages of prostitutes to rich men were especially frequent in England, and usually turned out well; the same seems to be true still. In their own social rank they not infrequently marry cabmen and policemen, the two classes of men with whom they are brought most closely in contact in the streets. As regards Germany, C.K. Schneider (_Die Prostituirte und die Gesellschaft_), states that young prostitutes take up all sorts of occupations and situations, sometimes, if they have saved a little money, establishing a business, while old prostitutes become procuresses, brothel-keepers, lavatory women, and so on. Not a few prostitutes marry, he adds, but the proportion among inscribed German prostitutes is very small, less than 2 per cent. [173] G. de Molinari, _La Viriculture_, 1897, p. 155. [174] Reuss and other writers have reproduced typical extracts from the private account books of prostitutes, showing the high rate of their earnings. Even in the common brothels, in Philadelphia (according to Goodchild, "The Social Evil in Philadelphia," _Arena_, March, 1896), girls earn twenty dollars or more a week, which is far more than they could earn in any other occupation open to them. [175] A. Després, _La Prostitution en France_, 1883. [176] Bonger, _Criminalité et Conditions Economiques_, 1905, pp. 378-414. [177] _La Donna Delinquente_, p. 401. [178] Raciborski, _Traité de l'Impuissance_, p. 20. It may be added that Bergh, a leading authority on the anatomical peculiarities of the external female sexual organs, who believe that strong development of the external genital organs accompanies libidinous tendencies, has not found such development to be common among prostitutes. [179] Hammer, who has had much opportunity of studying the psychology of prostitutes, remarks that he has seen no reason to suspect sexual coldness (_Monatsschrift für Harnkrankheiten und Sexuelle Hygiene_, 1906, Heft 2, p. 85), although, as he has elsewhere stated, he is of opinion that indolence, rather than excess of sensuality, is the chief cause of prostitution. [180] See "The Sexual Impulse in Women," in the third volume of these _Studies_. [181] Tait stated that in Edinburgh many married women living with their husbands in comfortable circumstances, and having children, were found to be acting as prostitutes, that is, in the regular habit of making assignations with strangers (W. Tait, _Magdalenism in Edinburgh_, 1842, p. 16). [182] Janke brings together opinions to this effect, _Die Willkürliche Hervorbringen des Geschlechts_, p. 275. "If we compare a prostitute of thirty-five with her respectable sister," Acton remarked (_Prostitution_, 1870, p. 39), "we seldom find that the constitutional ravages often thought to be necessary consequences of prostitution exceed those attributable to the cares of a family and the heart-wearing struggles of virtuous labor." [183] Hirschfeld states (_Wesen der Liebe_, p. 35) that the desire for intercourse with a sympathetic person is heightened, and not decreased, by a professional act of coitus. [184] This has been clearly shown by Hans Ostwald (from whom I take the above-quoted observation of a prostitute), one of the best authorities on prostitute life and character; see, e.g., his article, "Die erotischen Beziehungen zwischen Dirne und Zuhälter," _Sexual-Probleme_, June, 1908. In the subsequent number of the same periodical (July, 1908, p. 393) Dr. Max Marcuse supports Ostwald's experiences, and says that the letters of prostitutes and their bullies are love-letters exactly like those of respectable people of the same class, and with the same elements of love and jealousy; these relationships, he remarks, often prove very enduring. The prostitute author of the _Tagebuch einer Verlorenen_ (p. 147) also has some remarks on the prostitute's relations to her bully, stating that it is simply the natural relationship of a girl to her lover. [185] Thus Moraglia found that among 180 prostitutes in North Italian brothels, and among 23 elegant Italian and foreign cocottes, every one admitted that she masturbated, preferably by friction of the clitoris; 113 of them, the majority, declared that they preferred solitary or mutual masturbation to normal coitus. Hammer states (_Zehn Lebensläufe Berliner Kontrollmädchen_ in Ostwald's series of "Grosstadt Dokumente," 1905) that when in hospital all but three or four of sixty prostitutes masturbate, and those who do not are laughed at by the rest. [186] _Jahrbuch für Sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Jahrgang VII, 1905, p. 148; "Sexual Inversion," vol. ii of these _Studies_, Ch. IV. Hammer found that of twenty-five prostitutes in a reformatory as many as twenty-three were homosexual, or, on good grounds, suspected to be such. Hirschfeld (_Berlins Drittes Geschlecht_, p. 65) mentions that prostitutes sometimes accost better-class women who, from their man-like air, they take to be homosexual; from persons of their own sex prostitutes will accept a smaller remuneration, and sometimes refuse payment altogether. [187] With prostitution, as with criminality, it is of course difficult to disentangle the element of heredity from that of environment, even when we have good grounds for believing that the factor of heredity here, as throughout the whole of life, cannot fail to carry much weight. It is certain, in any case, that prostitution frequently runs in families. "It has often been my experience," writes a former prostitute (Hedwig Hard, _Beichte einer Gefallenen_, p. 156) "that when in a family a girl enters this path, her sister soon afterwards follows her: I have met with innumerable cases; sometimes three sisters will all be on the register, and I knew a case of four sisters, whose mother, a midwife, had been in prison, and the father drank. In this case, all four sisters, who were very beautiful, married, one at least very happily, to a rich doctor who took her out of the brothel at sixteen and educated her." [188] This fact is not contradicted by the undoubted fact that prostitutes are by no means always contented with the life they choose. [189] This point has been discussed by Bloch, _Sexualleben unserer Zeit_, Ch. XIII. [190] Various series of observations are summarized by Lombroso and Ferrero, _La Donna Delinquente_, 1893, Part III, cap. IV. [191] _History of European Morals_, vol. iii, p. 283. [192] Similarly Lord Morley has written (_Diderot_, vol. ii, p. 20): "The purity of the family, so lovely and dear as it is, has still only been secured hitherto by retaining a vast and dolorous host of female outcasts ... upon whose heads, as upon the scapegoat of the Hebrew ordinance, we put all the iniquities of the children of the house, and all their transgressions in all their sins, and then banish them with maledictions into the foul outer wilderness and the land not inhabited." [193] Horace, _Satires_, lib. i, 2. [194] Augustine, _De Ordine_, Bk. II, Ch. IV. [195] _De Regimine Principum_ (_Opuscula XX_), lib. iv, cap. XIV. I am indebted to the Rev. H. Northcote for the reference to the precise place where this statement occurs; it is usually quoted more vaguely. [196] Lea, _History of Auricular Confession_, vol. ii, p. 69. There was even, it seems, an eccentric decision of the Salamanca theologians that a nun might so receive money, "licite et valide." [197] Lea, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 263, 399. [198] Rabutaux, _De la Prostitution en Europe_, pp. 22 et seq. [199] Burton, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part III, Sect. III, Mem. IV, Subs. II. [200] B. Mandeville, _Remarks to Fable of the Bees_, 1714, pp. 93-9; cf. P. Sakmann, _Bernard de Mandeville_, pp. 101-4. [201] These conditions favor temporary free unions, but they also favor prostitution. The reason is, according to Adolf Gerson (_Sexual-Probleme_, September, 1908), that the woman of good class will not have free unions. Partly moved by moral traditions, and partly by the feeling that a man should be legally her property, she will not give herself out of love to a man; and he therefore turns to the lower-class woman who gives herself for money. [202] Many girls, said Ellice Hopkins, get into mischief merely because they have in them an element of the "black kitten," which must frolic and play, but has no desire to get into danger. "Do you not think it a little hard," she added, "that men should have dug by the side of her foolish dancing feet a bottomless pit, and that she cannot have her jump and fun in safety, and put on her fine feathers like the silly bird-witted thing she is, without a single false step dashing her over the brink, and leaving her with the very womanhood dashed out of her?" [203] A. Sherwell, _Life in West London_, 1897, Ch. V. [204] As quoted by Bloch, _Sexualleben Unserer Zeit_, p. 358. In Berlin during recent years the number of prostitutes has increased at nearly double the rate at which the general population has increased. It is no doubt probable that the supply tends to increase the demand. [205] Goncourt, _Journal_, vol. iii, p. 49. [206] Vanderkiste, _The Dens of London_, 1854, p. 242. [207] Bonger (_Criminalité et Conditions Economiques_, p. 406) refers to the prevalence of prostitution among dressmakers and milliners, as well as among servants, as showing the influence of contact with luxury, and adds that the rich women, who look down on prostitution, do not always realize that they are themselves an important factor of prostitution, both by their luxury and their idleness; while they do not seem to be aware that they would themselves act in the same way if placed under the same conditions. [208] H. Lippert, in his book on prostitution in Hamburg, laid much stress on the craving for dress and adornment as a factor of prostitution, and Bloch (_Das Sexualleben unsurer Zeit_, p. 372) considers that this factor is usually underestimated, and that it exerts an especially powerful influence on servants. [209] Since this was written the influence of several generations of town-life in immunizing a stock to the evils of that life (though without reference to prostitution) has been set forth by Reibmayr, _Die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Talentes und Genies_, 1908, vol. ii, pp. 73 _et seq._ [210] In France this intimacy is embodied in the delicious privilege of _tutoiement_. "The mystery of _tutoiement!_" exclaims Ernest La Jennesse in _L'Holocauste:_ "Barriers broken down, veils drawn away, and the ease of existence! At a time when I was very lonely, and trying to grow accustomed to Paris and to misfortune, I would go miles--on foot, naturally--to see a girl cousin and an aunt, merely to have something to _tutoyer_. Sometimes they were not at home, and I had to come back with my _tu_, my thirst for confidence and familiarity and brotherliness." [211] For some facts and references to the extensive literature concerning this trade, see, e.g., Bloch, _Das Sexualleben Unserer Zeit_, pp. 374-376; also K.M. Baer, _Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, Sept., 1908; Paulucci de Calboli, _Nuova Antologia_, April, 1902. [212] These considerations do not, it is true, apply to many kinds of sexual perverts who form an important proportion of the clients of brothels. These can frequently find what they crave inside a brothel much more easily than outside. [213] Thus Charles Booth, in his great work on _Life and Labor in London_, final volume (p. 128), recommends that "houses of accommodation," instead of being hunted out, should be tolerated as a step towards the suppression of brothels. [214] "Towns like Woolwich, Aldershot, Portsmouth, Plymouth," it has been said, "abound with wretched, filthy monsters that bear no resemblance to women; but it is drink, scorn, brutality and disease which have reduced them to this state, not the mere fact of associating with men." [215] "The contract of prostitution in the opinion of prostitutes themselves," Bernaldo de Quirós and Llanas Aguilaniedo remark (_La Mala Vida en Madrid_, p. 254), "cannot be assimilated to a sale, nor to a contract of work, nor to any other form of barter recognized by the civil law. They consider that in these pacts there always enters an element which makes it much more like a gift in a matter in which no payment could be adequate. 'A woman's body is without price' is an axiom of prostitution. The money placed in the hands of her who procures the satisfaction of sexual desire is not the price of the act, but an offering which the priestess of Venus applies to her maintenance." To the Spaniard, it is true, every transaction which resembles trade is repugnant, but the principle underlying this feeling holds good of prostitution generally. [216] _Journal des Goncourt_, vol. iii; this was in 1866. [217] Rev. the Hon. C. Lyttelton, _Training of the Young in Laws of Sex_, p. 42. [218] See, e.g., R.W. Taylor, _Treatise on Sexual Disorders_, 1897, pp. 74-5. Georg Hirth (_Wege zur Heimat_, 1909, p. 619) narrates the case of a young officer who, being excited by the caresses of his betrothed and having too much respect for her to go further than this, and too much respect for himself to resort to masturbation, knew nothing better than to go to a prostitute. Syphilis developed a few days after the wedding. Hirth adds, briefly, that the results were terrible. [219] It is an oft-quoted passage, but can scarcely be quoted too often: "You see that this wrought-iron plate is not quite flat: it sticks up a little, here towards the left--'cockles,' as we say. How shall we flatten it? Obviously, you reply, by hitting down on the part that is prominent. Well, here is a hammer, and I give the plate a blow as you advise. Harder, you say. Still no effect. Another stroke? Well, there is one, and another, and another. The prominence remains, you see: the evil is as great as ever--greater, indeed. But that is not all. Look at the warp which the plate has got near the opposite edge. Where it was flat before it is now curved. A pretty bungle we have made of it. Instead of curing the original defect we have produced a second. Had we asked an artisan practiced in 'planishing,' as it is called, he would have told us that no good was to be done, but only mischief, by hitting down on the projecting part. He would have taught us how to give variously-directed and specially-adjusted blows with a hammer elsewhere: so attacking the evil, not by direct, but by indirect actions. The required process is less simple than you thought. Even a sheet of metal is not to be successfully dealt with after those common-sense methods in which you have so much confidence. What, then, shall we say about a society?... Is humanity more readily straightened than an iron plate?" (_The Study of Sociology_, p. 270.) CHAPTER VIII. THE CONQUEST OF THE VENEREAL DISEASES. The Significance of the Venereal Diseases--The History of Syphilis--The Problem of Its Origin--The Social Gravity of Syphilis--The Social Dangers of Gonorrhoea--The Modern Change in the Methods of Combating Venereal Diseases--Causes of the Decay of the System of Police Regulation--Necessity of Facing the Facts--The Innocent Victims of Venereal Diseases--Diseases Not Crimes--The Principle of Notification--The Scandinavian System--Gratuitous Treatment--Punishment for Transmitting Venereal Diseases--Sexual Education in Relation to Venereal Diseases--Lectures, Etc.--Discussion in Novels and on the Stage--The "Disgusting" Not the "Immoral." It may, perhaps, excite surprise that in the preceding discussion of prostitution scarcely a word has been said of venereal diseases. In the eyes of many people, the question of prostitution is simply the question of syphilis. But from the psychological point of view with which we are directly concerned, as from the moral point of view with which we cannot fail to be indirectly concerned, the question of the diseases which may be, and so frequently are, associated with prostitution cannot be placed in the first line of significance. The two questions, however intimately they may be mingled, are fundamentally distinct. Not only would venereal diseases still persist even though prostitution had absolutely ceased, but, on the other hand, when we have brought syphilis under the same control as we have brought the somewhat analogous disease of leprosy, the problem of prostitution would still remain. Yet, even from the standpoint which we here occupy, it is scarcely possible to ignore the question of venereal disease, for the psychological and moral aspects of prostitution, and even the whole question of the sexual relationships, are, to some extent, affected by the existence of the serious diseases which are specially liable to be propagated by sexual intercourse. Fournier, one of the leading authorities on this subject, has well said that syphilis, alcoholism, and tuberculosis are the three modern plagues. At a much earlier period (1851) Schopenhauer in _Parerga und Paralipomena_ had expressed the opinion that the two things which mark modern social life, in distinction from that of antiquity, and to the advantage of the latter, are the knightly principle of honor and venereal disease; together, he added, they have poisoned life, and introduced a hostile and even diabolical element into the relations of the sexes, which has indirectly affected all other social relationships.[220] It is like a merchandise, says Havelburg, of syphilis, which civilization has everywhere carried, so that only a very few remote districts of the globe (as in Central Africa and Central Brazil) are to-day free from it.[221] It is undoubtedly true that in the older civilized countries the manifestations of syphilis, though still severe and a cause of physical deterioration in the individual and the race, are less severe than they were even a generation ago.[222] This is partly the result of earlier and better treatment, partly, it is possible, the result also of the syphilization of the race, some degree of immunity having now become an inherited possession, although it must be remembered that an attack of syphilis does not necessarily confer immunity from the actual attack of the disease even in the same individual. But it must be added that, even though it has become less severe, syphilis, in the opinion of many, is nevertheless still spreading, even in the chief centres of civilization; this has been noted alike in Paris and in London.[223] According to the belief which is now tending to prevail, syphilis was brought to Europe at the end of the fifteenth century by the first discoverers of America. In Seville, the chief European port for America, it was known as the Indian disease, but when Charles VIII and his army first brought it to Italy in 1495, although this connection with the French was only accidental, it was called the Gallic disease, "a monstrous disease," said Cataneus, "never seen in previous centuries and altogether unknown in the world." The synonyms of syphilis were at first almost innumerable. It was in his Latin poem _Syphilis sive Morbus Gallicus_, written before 1521 and published at Verona in 1530, that Fracastorus finally gave the disease its now universally accepted name, inventing a romantic myth to account for its origin. Although the weight of authoritative opinion now seems to incline towards the belief that syphilis was brought to Europe from America, on the discovery of the New World, it is only within quite recent years that that belief has gained ground, and it scarcely even yet seems certain that what the Spaniards brought back from America was really a disease absolutely new to the Old World, and not a more virulent form of an old disease of which the manifestations had become benign. Buret, for instance (_Le Syphilis Aujourd'hui et chez les Anciens_, 1890), who some years ago reached "the deep conviction that syphilis dates from the creation of man," and believed, from a minute study of classic authors, that syphilis existed in Rome under the Cæsars, was of opinion that it has broken out at different places and at different times, in epidemic bursts exhibiting different combinations of its manifold symptoms, so that it passed unnoticed at ordinary times, and at the times of its more intense manifestation was looked upon as a hitherto unknown disease. It was thus regarded in classic times, he considers, as coming from Egypt, though he looked upon its real home as Asia. Leopold Glück has likewise quoted (_Archiv für Dermatologie und Syphilis_, January, 1899) passages from the medical epigrams of a sixteenth century physician, Gabriel Ayala, declaring that syphilis is not really a new disease, though popularly supposed to be so, but an old disease which has broken out with hitherto unknown violence. There is, however, no conclusive reason for believing that syphilis was known at all in classic antiquity. A.V. Notthaft ("Die Legende von der Althertums-syphilis," in the Rindfleisch _Festschrift_, 1907, pp. 377-592) has critically investigated the passages in classic authors which were supposed by Rosenbaum, Buret, Proksch and others to refer to syphilis. It is quite true, Notthaft admits, that many of these passages might possibly refer to syphilis, and one or two would even better fit syphilis than any other disease. But, on the whole, they furnish no proof at all, and no syphilologist, he concludes, has ever succeeded in demonstrating that syphilis was known in antiquity. That belief is a legend. The most damning argument against it, Notthaft points out, is the fact that, although in antiquity there were great physicians who were keen observers, not one of them gives any description of the primary, secondary, tertiary, and congenital forms of this disease. China is frequently mentioned as the original home of syphilis, but this belief is also quite without basis, and the Japanese physician, Okamura, has shown (_Monatsschrift für praktische Dermatologie_, vol. xxviii, pp. 296 et seq.) that Chinese records reveal nothing relating to syphilis earlier than the sixteenth century. At the Paris Academy of Medicine in 1900 photographs from Egypt were exhibited by Fouquet of human remains which date from B.C. 2400, showing bone lesions which seemed to be clearly syphilitic; Fournier, however, one of the greatest of authorities, considered that the diagnosis of syphilis could not be maintained until other conditions liable to produce somewhat similar bone lesions had been eliminated (_British Medical Journal_, September 29, 1900, p. 946). In Florida and various regions of Central America, in undoubtedly pre-Columbian burial places, diseased bones have been found which good authorities have declared could not be anything else than syphilitic (e.g., _British Medical Journal_, November 20, 1897, p. 1487), though it may be noted that so recently as 1899 the cautious Virchow stated that pre-Columbian syphilis in America was still for him an open question (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, Heft 2 and 3, 1899, p. 216). From another side, Seler, the distinguished authority on Mexican antiquity, shows (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1895, Heft 5, p. 449) that the ancient Mexicans were acquainted with a disease which, as they described it, might well have been syphilis. It is obvious, however, that while the difficulty of demonstrating syphilitic diseased bones in America is as great as in Europe, the demonstration, however complete, would not suffice to show that the disease had not already an existence also in the Old World. The plausible theory of Ayala that fifteenth century syphilis was a virulent recrudescence of an ancient disease has frequently been revived in more modern times. Thus J. Knott ("The Origin of Syphilis," _New York Medical Journal_, October 31, 1908) suggests that though not new in fifteenth century Europe, it was then imported afresh in a form rendered more aggravated by coming from an exotic race, as is believed often to be the case. It was in the eighteenth century that Jean Astruc began the rehabilitation of the belief that syphilis is really a comparatively modern disease of American origin, and since then various authorities of weight have given their adherence to this view. It is to the energy and learning of Dr. Iwan Bloch, of Berlin (the first volume of whose important work, _Der Ursprung der Syphilis_, was published in 1901) that we owe the fullest statement of the evidence in favor of the American origin of syphilis. Bloch regards Ruy Diaz de Isla, a distinguished Spanish physician, as the weightiest witness for the Indian origin of the disease, and concludes that it was brought to Europe by Columbus's men from Central America, more precisely from the Island of Haiti, to Spain in 1493 and 1494, and immediately afterwards was spread by the armies of Charles VIII in an epidemic fashion over Italy and the other countries of Europe. It may be added that even if we have to accept the theory that the central regions of America constitute the place of origin of European syphilis, we still have to recognize that syphilis has spread in the North American continent very much more slowly and partially than it has in Europe, and even at the present day there are American Indian tribes among whom it is unknown. Holder, on the basis of his own experiences among Indian tribes, as well as of wide inquiries among agency physicians, prepared a table showing that among some thirty tribes and groups of tribes, eighteen were almost or entirely free from venereal disease, while among thirteen it was very prevalent. Almost without exception, the tribes where syphilis is rare or unknown refuse sexual intercourse with strangers, while those among whom such disease is prevalent are morally lax. It is the whites who are the source of infection among these tribes (A.B. Holder, "Gynecic Notes Among the American Indians," _American Journal of Obstetrics_, 1892, No. 1). Syphilis is only one, certainly the most important, of a group of three entirely distinct "venereal diseases" which have only been distinguished in recent times, and so far as their precise nature and causation are concerned, are indeed only to-day beginning to be understood, although two of them were certainly known in antiquity. It is but seventy years ago since Ricord, the great French syphilologist, following Bassereau, first taught the complete independence of syphilis both from gonorrhoea and soft chancre, at the same time expounding clearly the three stages, primary, secondary and tertiary, through which syphilitic manifestations tend to pass, while the full extent of tertiary syphilitic symptoms is scarcely yet grasped, and it is only to-day beginning to be generally realized that two of the most prevalent and serious diseases of the brain and nervous system--general paralysis and tabes dorsalis or locomotor ataxia--have their predominant though not sole and exclusive cause in the invasion of the syphilitic poison many years before. In 1879 a new stage of more precise knowledge of the venereal diseases began with Neisser's discovery of the gonococcus which is the specific cause of gonorrhoea. This was followed a few years later by the discovery by Ducrey and Unna of the bacillus of soft chancre, the least important of the venereal diseases because exclusively local in its effects. Finally, in 1905--after Metchnikoff had prepared the way by succeeding in carrying syphilis from man to monkey, and Lassar, by inoculation, from monkey to monkey--Fritz Schaudinn made his great discovery of the protozoal _Spirochoeta pallida_ (since sometimes called _Treponema pallidum_), which is now generally regarded as the cause of syphilis, and thus revealed the final hiding place of one of the most dangerous and insidious foes of humanity.[224] There is no more subtle poison than that of syphilis. It is not, like smallpox or typhoid, a disease which produces a brief and sudden storm, a violent struggle with the forces of life, in which it tends, even without treatment, provided the organism is healthy, to succumb, leaving little or no traces of its ravages behind. It penetrates ever deeper and deeper into the organism, with the passage of time leading to ever new manifestations, and no tissue is safe from its attack. And so subtle is this all-pervading poison that though its outward manifestations are amenable to prolonged treatment, it is often difficult to say that the poison has been finally killed out.[225] The immense importance of syphilis, and the chief reason why it is necessary to consider it here, lies in the fact that its results are not confined to the individual himself, nor even to the persons to whom he may impart it by the contagion due to contact in or out of sexual relationships: it affects the offspring, and it affects the power to produce offspring. It attacks men and women at the centre of life, as the progenitors of the coming race, inflicting either sterility or the tendency to aborted and diseased products of conception. The father alone can perhaps transmit syphilis to his child, even though the mother escapes infection, and the child born of syphilitic parents may come into the world apparently healthy only to reveal its syphilitic origin after a period of months or even years. Thus syphilis is probably a main cause of the enfeeblement of the race.[226] Alike in the individual and in his offspring syphilis shows its deteriorating effects on all the structures of the body, but especially on the brain and nervous system. There are, as has been pointed out by Mott, a leading authority in this matter,[227] five ways in which syphilis affects the brain and nervous system: (1) by moral shock; (2) by the effects of the poison in producing anæmia and impaired general nutrition; (3) by causing inflammation of the membranes and tissues of the brain; (4) by producing arterial degeneration, leading on to brain-softening, paralysis, and dementia; (5) as a main cause of the para-syphilitic affections of general paralysis and tabes dorsalis. It is only within recent years that medical men have recognized the preponderant part played by acquired or inherited syphilis in producing general paralysis, which so largely helps to fill lunatic asylums, and tabes dorsalis which is the most important disease of the spinal cord. Even to-day it can scarcely be said that there is complete agreement as to the supreme importance of the factor of syphilis in these diseases. There can, however, be little doubt that in about ninety-five per cent. at least of cases of general paralysis syphilis is present.[228] Syphilis is not indeed by itself an adequate cause of general paralysis for among many savage peoples syphilis is very common while general paralysis is very rare. It is, as Krafft-Ebing was accustomed to say, syphilization and civilization working together which produce general paralysis, perhaps in many cases, there is reason for thinking, on a nervous soil that is hereditarily degenerated to some extent; this is shown by the abnormal prevalence of congenital stigmata of degeneration found in general paralytics by Näcke and others. "Paralyticus nascitur atque fit," according to the dictum of Obersteiner. Once undermined by syphilis, the deteriorated brain is unable to resist the jars and strains of civilized life, and the result is general paralysis, truly described as "one of the most terrible scourges of modern times." In 1902 the Psychological Section of the British Medical Association, embodying the most competent English authority on this question, unanimously passed a resolution recommending that the attention of the Legislature and other public bodies should be called to the necessity for immediate action in view of the fact that "general paralysis, a very grave and frequent form of brain disease, together with other varieties of insanity, is largely due to syphilis, and is therefore preventable." Yet not a single step has yet been taken in this direction. The dangers of syphilis lie not alone in its potency and its persistence but also in its prevalence. It is difficult to state the exact incidence of syphilis, but a great many partial investigations have been made in various countries, and it would appear that from five to twenty per cent. of the population in European countries is syphilitic, while about fifteen per cent. of the syphilitic cases die from causes directly or indirectly due to the disease.[229] In France generally, Fournier estimates that seventeen per cent. of the whole population have had syphilis, and at Toulouse, Audry considers that eighteen per cent. of all his patients are syphilitic. In Copenhagen, where notification is obligatory, over four per cent. of the population are said to be syphilitic. In America a committee of the Medical Society of New York, appointed to investigate the question, reported as the result of exhaustive inquiry that in the city of New York not less than a quarter of a million of cases of venereal disease occurred every year, and a leading New York dermatologist has stated that among the better class families he knows intimately at least one-third of the sons have had syphilis. In Germany eight hundred thousand cases of venereal disease are by one authority estimated to occur yearly, and in the larger universities twenty-five per cent. of the students are infected every term, venereal disease being, however, specially common among students. The yearly number of men invalided in the German army by venereal diseases equals a third of the total number wounded in the Franco-Prussian war. Yet the German army stands fairly high as regards freedom from venereal disease when compared with the British army which is more syphilized than any other European army.[230] The British army, however, being professional and not national, is less representative of the people than is the case in countries where some form of conscription prevails. At one London hospital it could be ascertained that ten per cent. of the patients had had syphilis; this probably means a real proportion of about fifteen per cent., a high though not extremely high ratio. Yet it is obvious that even if the ratio is really lower than this the national loss in life and health, in defective procreation and racial deterioration, must be enormous and practically incalculable. Even in cash the venereal budget is comparable in amount to the general budget of a great nation. Stritch estimates that the cost to the British nation of venereal diseases in the army, navy and Government departments alone, amounts annually to £3,000,000, and when allowance is made for superannuations and sick-leave indirectly occasioned through these diseases, though not appearing in the returns as such, the more accurate estimate of the cost to the nation is stated to be £7,000,000. The adoption of simple hygienic measures for the prevention and the speedy cure of venereal diseases will be not only indirectly but even directly a source of immense wealth to the nation. Syphilis is the most obviously and conspicuously appalling of the venereal diseases. Yet it is less frequent and in some respects less dangerously insidious than the other chief venereal disease, gonorrhoea.[231] At one time the serious nature of gonorrhoea, especially in women, was little realized. Men accepted it with a light heart as a trivial accident; women ignored it. This failure to realize the gravity of gonorrhoea, even sometimes on the part of the medical profession--so that it has been popularly looked upon, in Grandin's words, as of little more significance than a cold in the nose--has led to a reaction on the part of some towards an opposite extreme, and the risks and dangers of gonorrhoea have been even unduly magnified. This is notably the case as regards sterility. The inflammatory results of gonorrhoea are indubitably a potent cause of sterility in both sexes; some authorities have stated that not only eighty per cent. of the deaths from inflammatory diseases of the pelvic organs and the majority of the cases of chronic invalidism in women, but ninety per cent. of involuntary sterile marriages, are due to gonorrhoea. Neisser, a great authority, ascribes to this disease without doubt fifty per cent, of such marriages. Even this estimate is in the experience of some observers excessive. It is fully proved that the great majority of men who have had gonorrhoea, even if they marry within two years of being infected, fail to convey the disease to their wives, and even of the women infected by their husbands more than half have children. This is, for instance, the result of Erb's experience, and Kisch speaks still more strongly in the same sense. Bumm, again, although regarding gonorrhoea as one of the two chief causes of sterility in women, finds that it is not the most frequent cause, being only responsible for about one-third of the cases; the other two-thirds are due to developmental faults in the genital organs. Dunning in America has reached results which are fairly concordant with Bumm's. With regard to another of the terrible results of gonorrhoea, the part it plays in producing life-long blindness from infection of the eyes at birth, there has long been no sort of doubt. The Committee of the Ophthalmological Society in 1884, reported that thirty to forty-one per cent. of the inmates of four asylums for the blind in England owed their blindness to this cause.[232] In German asylums Reinhard found that thirty per cent. lost their sight from the same cause. The total number of persons blind from gonorrhoeal infection from their mothers at birth is enormous. The British Royal Commission on the Condition of the Blind estimated there were about seven thousand persons in the United Kingdom alone (or twenty-two per cent. of the blind persons in the country) who became blind as the result of this disease, and Mookerji stated in his address on Ophthalmalogy at the Indian Medical Congress of 1894 that in Bengal alone there were six hundred thousand totally blind beggars, forty per cent. of whom lost their sight at birth through maternal gonorrhoea; and this refers to the beggar class alone. Although gonorrhoea is liable to produce many and various calamities,[233] there can be no doubt that the majority of gonorrhoeal persons escape either suffering or inflicting any very serious injury. The special reason why gonorrhoea has become so peculiarly serious a scourge is its extreme prevalence. It is difficult to estimate the proportion of men and women in the general population who have had gonorrhoea, and the estimates vary within wide limits. They are often set too high. Erb, of Heidelberg, anxious to disprove exaggerated estimates of the prevalence of gonorrhoea, went over the records of two thousand two hundred patients in his private practice (excluding all hospital patients) and found the proportion of those who had suffered from gonorrhoea was 48.5 per cent. Among the working classes the disease is much less prevalent than among higher-class people. In a Berlin Industrial Sick Club, 412 per 10,000 men and 69 per 10,000 women had gonorrhoea in a year; taking a series of years the Club showed a steady increase in the number of men, and decrease in the number of women, with venereal infection; this seems to indicate that the laboring classes are beginning to have intercourse more with prostitutes and less with respectable girls.[234] In America Wood Ruggles has given (as had Noggerath previously, for New York), the prevalence of gonorrhoea among adult males as from 75 to 80 per cent.; Tenney places it much lower, 20 per cent. for males and 5 per cent. for females. In England, a writer in the _Lancet_, some years ago,[235] found as the result of experience and inquiries that 75 per cent. adult males have had gonorrhoea once, 40 per cent. twice, 15 per cent. three or more times. According to Dulberg about twenty per cent. of new cases occur in married men of good social class, the disease being comparatively rare among married men of the working class in England. Gonorrhoea in its prevalence is thus only second to measles and in the gravity of its results scarcely second to tuberculosis. "And yet," as Grandin remarks in comparing gonorrhoea to tuberculosis, "witness the activity of the crusade against the latter and the criminal apathy displayed when the former is concerned."[236] The public must learn to understand, another writer remarks, that "gonorrhoea is a pest that concerns its highest interests and most sacred relations as much as do smallpox, cholera, diphtheria, or tuberculosis."[237] It cannot fairly be said that no attempts have been made to beat back the flood of venereal disease. On the contrary, such attempts have been made from the first. But they have never been effectual;[238] they have never been modified to changed condition; at the present day they are hopelessly unscientific and entirely opposed alike to the social and the individual demands of modern peoples. At the various conferences on this question which have been held during recent years the only generally accepted conclusion which has emerged is that all the existing systems of interference or non-interference with prostitution are unsatisfactory.[239] The character of prostitution has changed and the methods of dealing with it must change. Brothels, and the systems of official regulation which grew up with special reference to brothels, are alike out of date; they have about them a mediæval atmosphere, an antiquated spirit, which now render them unattractive and suspected. The conspicuously distinctive brothel is falling into disrepute; the liveried prostitute absolutely under municipal control can scarcely be said to exist. Prostitution tends to become more diffused, more intimately mingled with social life generally, less easily distinguished as a definitely separable part of life. We can nowadays only influence it by methods of permeation which bear upon the whole of our social life. The objection to the regulation of prostitution is still of slow growth, but it is steadily developing everywhere, and may be traced equally in scientific opinion and in popular feeling. In France the municipalities of some of the largest cities have either suppressed the system of regulation entirely or shown their disapproval of it, while an inquiry among several hundred medical men showed that less than one-third were in favor of maintaining regulation (_Die Neue Generation_, June, 1909, p. 244). In Germany, where there is in some respects more patient endurance of interference with the liberty of the individual than in France, England, or America, various elaborate systems for organizing prostitution and dealing with venereal disease continue to be maintained, but they cannot be completely carried out, and it is generally admitted that in any case they could not accomplish the objects sought. Thus in Saxony no brothels are officially tolerated, though as a matter of fact they nevertheless exist. Here, as in many other parts of Germany, most minute and extensive regulations are framed for the use of prostitutes. Thus at Leipzig they must not sit on the benches in public promenades, nor go to picture galleries, or theatres, or concerts, or restaurants, nor look out of their windows, nor stare about them in the street, nor smile, nor wink, etc., etc. In fact, a German prostitute who possesses the heroic self-control to carry out conscientiously all the self-denying ordinances officially decreed for her guidance would seem to be entitled to a Government pension for life. Two methods of dealing with prostitution prevail in Germany. In some cities public houses of prostitution are tolerated (though not licensed); in other cities prostitution is "free," though "secret." Hamburg is the most important city where houses of prostitution are tolerated and segregated. But, it is stated, "everywhere, by far the larger proportion of the prostitutes belong to the so-called 'secret' class." In Hamburg, alone, are suspected men, when accused of infecting women, officially examined; men of every social class must obey a summons of this kind, which is issued secretly, and if diseased, they are bound to go under treatment, if necessary under compulsory treatment in the city hospital, until no longer dangerous to the community. In Germany it is only when a woman has been repeatedly observed to act suspiciously in the streets that she is quietly warned; if the warning is disregarded she is invited to give her name and address to the police, and interviewed. It is not until these methods fail that she is officially inscribed as a prostitute. The inscribed women, in some cities at all events, contribute to a sick benefit fund which pays their expenses when in hospital. The hesitation of the police to inscribe a woman on the official list is legitimate and inevitable, for no other course would be tolerated; yet the majority of prostitutes begin their careers very young, and as they tend to become infected very early after their careers begin, it is obvious that this delay contributes to render the system of regulation ineffective. In Berlin, where there are no officially recognized brothels, there are some six thousand inscribed prostitutes, but it is estimated that there are over sixty thousand prostitutes who are not inscribed. (The foregoing facts are taken from a series of papers describing personal investigations in Germany made by Dr. F. Bierhoff, of New York, "Police Methods for the Sanitary Control of Prostitution," _New York Medical Journal_, August, 1907.) The estimation of the amount of clandestine prostitution can indeed never be much more than guesswork; exactly the same figure of sixty thousand is commonly brought forward as the probable number of prostitutes not only in Berlin, but also in London and in New York. It is absolutely impossible to say whether it is under or over the real number, for secret prostitution is quite intangible. Even if the facts were miraculously revealed there would still remain the difficulty of deciding what is and what is not prostitution. The avowed and public prostitute is linked by various gradations on the one side to the respectable girl living at home who seeks some little relief from the oppression of her respectability, and on the other hand to the married woman who has married for the sake of a home. In any case, however, it is very certain that public prostitutes living entirely on the earnings of prostitution form but a small proportion of the vast army of women who may be said, in a wide sense of the word, to be prostitutes, i.e., who use their attractiveness to obtain from men not love alone, but money or goods. "The struggle against syphilis is only possible if we agree to regard its victims as unfortunate and not as guilty.... We must give up the prejudice which has led to the creation of the term 'shameful diseases,' and which commands silence concerning this scourge of the family and of humanity." In these words of Duclaux, the distinguished successor of Pasteur at the Pasteur Institute, in his noble and admirable work _L'Hygiène Sociale_, we have indicated to us, I am convinced, the only road by which we can approach the rational and successful treatment of the great social problem of venereal disease. The supreme importance of this key to the solution of a problem which has often seemed insoluble is to-day beginning to become recognized in all quarters, and in every country. Thus a distinguished German authority, Professor Finger (_Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Bd. i, Heft 5) declares that venereal disease must not be regarded as the well-merited punishment for a debauched life, but as an unhappy accident. It seems to be in France, however, that this truth has been proclaimed with most courage and humanity, and not alone by the followers of science and medicine, but by many who might well be excused from interfering with so difficult and ungrateful a task. Thus the brothers, Paul and Victor Margueritte, who occupy a brilliant and honorable place in contemporary French letters, have distinguished themselves by advocating a more humane attitude towards prostitutes, and a more modern method of dealing with the question of venereal disease. "The true method of prevention is that which makes it clear to all that syphilis is not a mysterious and terrible thing, the penalty of the sin of the flesh, a sort of shameful evil branded by Catholic malediction, but an ordinary disease which may be treated and cured." It may be remarked that the aversion to acknowledge venereal disease is at least as marked in France as in any other country; "maladies honteuses" is a consecrated French term, just as "loathsome disease" is in English; "in the hospital," says Landret, "it requires much trouble to obtain an avowal of gonorrhoea, and we may esteem ourselves happy if the patient acknowledges the fact of having had syphilis." No evils can be combated until they are recognized, simply and frankly, and honestly discussed. It is a significant and even symbolic fact that the bacteria of disease rarely flourish when they are open to the free currents of pure air. Obscurity, disguise, concealment furnish the best conditions for their vigor and diffusion, and these favoring conditions we have for centuries past accorded to venereal diseases. It was not always so, as indeed the survival of the word 'venereal' itself in this connection, with its reference to a goddess, alone suffices to show. Even the name "syphilis" itself, taken from a romantic poem in which Fracastorus sought a mythological origin for the disease, bears witness to the same fact. The romantic attitude is indeed as much out of date as that of hypocritical and shamefaced obscurantism. We need to face these diseases in the same simple, direct, and courageous way which has already been adopted successfully in the ease of smallpox, a disease which, of old, men thought analogous to syphilis and which was indeed once almost as terrible in its ravages. At this point, however, we encounter those who say that it is unnecessary to show any sort of recognition of venereal diseases, and immoral to do anything that might seem to involve indulgence to those who suffer from such diseases; they have got what they deserve and may well be left to perish. Those who take this attitude place themselves so far outside the pale of civilization--to say nothing of morality or religion--that they might well be disregarded. The progress of the race, the development of humanity, in fact and in feeling, has consisted in the elimination of an attitude which it is an insult to primitive peoples to term savage. Yet it is an attitude which should not be ignored for it still carries weight with many who are too weak to withstand those who juggle with fine moral phrases. I have even seen in a medical quarter the statement that venereal disease cannot be put on the same level with other infectious diseases because it is "the result of voluntary action." But all the diseases, indeed all the accidents and misfortunes of suffering human beings, are equally the involuntary results of voluntary actions. The man who is run over in crossing the street, the family poisoned by unwholesome food, the mother who catches the disease of the child she is nursing, all these suffer as the involuntary result of the voluntary act of gratifying some fundamental human instinct--the instinct of activity, the instinct of nutrition, the instinct of affection. The instinct of sex is as fundamental as any of these, and the involuntary evils which may follow the voluntary act of gratifying it stand on exactly the same level. This is the essential fact: a human being in following the human instincts implanted within him has stumbled and fallen. Any person who sees, not this essential fact but merely some subsidiary aspect of it, reveals a mind that is twisted and perverted; he has no claim to arrest our attention. But even if we were to adopt the standpoint of the would-be moralist, and to agree that everyone must be left to suffer his deserts, it is far indeed from being the fact that all those who contract venereal diseases are in any sense receiving their deserts. In a large number of cases the disease has been inflicted on them in the most absolutely involuntary manner. This is, of course, true in the case of the vast number of infants who are infected at conception or at birth. But it is also true in a scarcely less absolute manner of a large proportion of persons infected in later life. _Syphilis insontium_, or syphilis of the innocent, as it is commonly called, may be said to fall into five groups: (1) the vast army of congenitally syphilitic infants who inherit the disease from father or mother; (2) the constantly occurring cases of syphilis contracted, in the course of their professional duties, by doctors, midwives and wet-nurses; (3) infection as a result of affection, as in simple kissing; (4) accidental infection from casual contacts and from using in common the objects and utensils of daily life, such as cups, towels, razors, knives (as in ritual circumcision), etc; (5) the infection of wives by their husbands.[240] Hereditary congenital syphilis belongs to the ordinary pathology of the disease and is a chief element in its social danger since it is responsible for an enormous infantile mortality.[241] The risks of extragenital infection in the professional activity of doctors, midwives and wet-nurses is also universally recognized. In the case of wet-nurses infected by their employers' syphilitic infants at their breast, the penalty inflicted on the innocent is peculiarly harsh and unnecessary. The influence of infected low-class midwives is notably dangerous, for they may inflict widespread injury in ignorance; thus the case has been recorded of a midwife, whose finger became infected in the course of her duties, and directly or indirectly contaminated one hundred persons. Kissing is an extremely common source of syphilitic infection, and of all extragenital regions the mouth is by far the most frequent seat of primary syphilitic sores. In some cases, it is true, especially in prostitutes, this is the result of abnormal sexual contacts. But in the majority of cases it is the result of ordinary and slight kisses as between young children, between parents and children, between lovers and friends and acquaintances. Fairly typical examples, which have been reported, are those of a child, kissed by a prostitute, who became infected and subsequently infected its mother and grandmother; of a young French bride contaminated on her wedding-day by one of the guests who, according to French custom, kissed her on the cheek after the ceremony; of an American girl who, returning from a ball, kissed, at parting, the young man who had accompanied her home, thus acquiring the disease which she not long afterwards imparted in the same way to her mother and three sisters. The ignorant and unthinking are apt to ridicule those who point out the serious risks of miscellaneous kissing. But it remains nevertheless true that people who are not intimate enough to know the state of each other's health are not intimate enough to kiss each other. Infection by the use of domestic utensils, linen, etc., while comparatively rare among the better social classes, is extremely common among the lower classes and among the less civilized nations; in Russia, according to Tarnowsky, the chief authority, seventy per cent. of all cases of syphilis in the rural districts are due to this cause and to ordinary kissing, and a special conference in St. Petersburg in 1897, for the consideration of the methods of dealing with venereal disease, recorded its opinion to the same effect; much the same seems to be true regarding Bosnia and various parts of the Balkan peninsula where syphilis is extremely prevalent among the peasantry. As regards the last group, according to Bulkley in America, fifty per cent. of women generally contract syphilis innocently, chiefly from their husbands, while Fournier states that in France seventy-five per cent. of married women with syphilis have been infected by their husbands, most frequently (seventy per cent.) by husbands who were themselves infected before marriage and supposed that they were cured. Among men the proportion of syphilitics who have been accidentally infected, though less than among women, is still very considerable; it is stated to be at least ten per cent., and possibly it is a much larger proportion of cases. The scrupulous moralist who is anxious that all should have their deserts cannot fail to be still more anxious to prevent the innocent from suffering in place of the guilty. But it is absolutely impossible for him to combine these two aims; syphilis cannot be at the same time perpetuated for the guilty and abolished for the innocent. I have been taking only syphilis into account, but nearly all that is said of the accidental infection of syphilis applies with equal or greater force to gonorrhoea, for though gonorrhoea does not enter into the system by so many channels as syphilis, it is a more common as well as a more subtle and elusive disease. The literature of Syphilis Insontium is extremely extensive. There is a bibliography at the end of Duncan Bulkley's _Syphilis in the Innocent_, and a comprehensive summary of the question in a Leipzig Inaugural Dissertation by F. Moses, _Zur Kasuistik der Extragenitalen Syphilis-infektion_, 1904. Even, however, when we have put aside the vast number of venereally infected people who may be said to be, in the narrowest and most conventionally moral sense, "innocent" victims of the diseases they have contracted, there is still much to be said on this question. It must be remembered that the majority of those who contract venereal diseases by illegitimate sexual intercourse are young. They are youths, ignorant of life, scarcely yet escaped from home, still undeveloped, incompletely educated, and easily duped by women; in many cases they have met, as they thought, a "nice" girl, not indeed strictly virtuous but, it seemed to them, above all suspicion of disease, though in reality she was a clandestine prostitute. Or they are young girls who have indeed ceased to be absolutely chaste, but have not yet lost all their innocence, and who do not consider themselves, and are not by others considered, prostitutes; that indeed, is one of the rocks on which the system of police regulation of prostitution comes to grief, for the police cannot catch the prostitute at a sufficiently early stage. Of women who become syphilitic, according to Fournier, twenty per cent. are infected before they are nineteen; in hospitals the proportion is as high as forty per cent.; and of men fifteen per cent. cases occur between eleven and twenty-one years of age. The age of maximum frequency of infection is for women twenty years (in the rural population eighteen), and for men twenty-three years. In Germany Erb finds that as many as eighty-five per cent men with gonorrhoea contracted the disease between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five, a very small percentage being infected after thirty. These young things for the most part fell into a trap which Nature had baited with her most fascinating lure; they were usually ignorant; not seldom they were deceived by an attractive personality; often they were overcome by passion; frequently all prudence and reserve had been lost in the fumes of wine. From a truly moral point of view they were scarcely less innocent than children. "I ask," says Duclaux, "whether when a young man, or a young girl, abandon themselves to a dangerous caress society has done what it can to warn them. Perhaps its intentions were good, but when the need came for precise knowledge a silly prudery has held it back, and it has left its children without _viaticum_.... I will go further, and proclaim that in a large number of cases the husbands who contaminate their wives are innocent. No one is responsible for the evil which he commits without knowing it and without willing it." I may recall the suggestive fact, already referred to, that the majority of husbands who infect their wives contracted the disease before marriage. They entered on marriage believing that their disease was cured, and that they had broken with their past. Doctors have sometimes (and quacks frequently) contributed to this result by too sanguine an estimate of the period necessary to destroy the poison. So great an authority as Fournier formerly believed that the syphilitic could safely be allowed to marry three or four years after the date of infection, but now, with increased experience, he extends the period to four or five years. It is undoubtedly true that, especially when treatment has been thorough and prompt, the diseased constitution, in a majority of cases, can be brought under complete control in a shorter period than this, but there is always a certain proportion of cases in which the powers of infection persist for many years, and even when the syphilitic husband is no longer capable of infecting his wife he may still perhaps be in a condition to effect a disastrous influence on the offspring. In nearly all these cases there was more or less ignorance--which is but another word for innocence as we commonly understand innocence--and when at last, after the event, the facts are more or less bluntly explained to the victim he frequently exclaims: "Nobody told me!" It is this fact which condemns the pseudo-moralist. If he had seen to it that mothers began to explain the facts of sex to their little boys and girls from childhood, if he had (as Dr. Joseph Price urges) taught the risks of venereal disease in the Sunday-school, if he had plainly preached on the relations of the sexes from the pulpit, if he had seen to it that every youth at the beginning of adolescence received some simple technical instruction from his family doctor concerning sexual health and sexual disease--then, though there would still remain the need of pity for those who strayed from a path that must always be difficult to walk in, the would-be moralist at all events would in some measure be exculpated. But he has seldom indeed lifted a finger to do any of these things. Even those who may be unwilling to abandon an attitude of private moral intolerance towards the victims of venereal diseases may still do well to remember that since the public manifestation of their intolerance is mischievous, and at the best useless, it is necessary for them to restrain it in the interests of society. They would not be the less free to order their own personal conduct in the strictest accordance with their superior moral rigidity; and that after all is for them the main thing. But for the sake of society it is necessary for them to adopt what they may consider the convention of a purely hygienic attitude towards these diseases. The erring are inevitably frightened by an attitude of moral reprobation into methods of concealment, and these produce an endless chain of social evils which can only be dissipated by openness. As Duclaux has so earnestly insisted, it is impossible to grapple successfully with venereal disease unless we consent not to introduce our prejudices, or even our morals and religion, into the question, but treat it purely and simply as a sanitary question. And if the pseudo-moralist still has difficulty in coöperating towards the healing of this social sore he may be reminded that he himself--like every one of us little though we may know it--has certainly had a great army of syphilitic and gonorrhoeal persons among his own ancestors during the past four centuries. We are all bound together, and it is absurd, even when it is not inhuman, to cast contempt on our own flesh and blood. I have discussed rather fully the attitude of those who plead morality as a reason for ignoring the social necessity of combating venereal disease, because although there may not be many who seriously and understandingly adopt so anti-social and inhuman an attitude there are certainly many who are glad at need of the existence of so fine an excuse for their moral indifference or their mental indolence.[242] When they are confronted by this great and difficult problem they find it easy to offer the remedy of conventional morality, although they are well aware that on a large scale that remedy has long been proved to be ineffectual. They ostentatiously affect to proffer the useless thick end of the wedge at a point where it is only possible with much skill and prudence to insinuate the thin working end. The general acceptance of the fact that syphilis and gonorrhoea are diseases, and not necessarily crimes or sins, is the condition for any practical attempt to deal with this question from the sanitary point of view which is now taking the place of the antiquated and ineffective police point of view. The Scandinavian countries of Europe have been the pioneers in practical modern hygienic methods of dealing with venereal disease. There are several reasons why this has come about. All the problems of sex--of sexual love as well as of sexual disease--have long been prominent in these countries, and an impatience with prudish hypocrisy seems here to have been more pronounced than elsewhere; we see this spirit, for instance, emphatically embodied in the plays of Ibsen, and to some extent in Björnson's works. The fearless and energetic temper of the people impels them to deal practically with sexual difficulties, while their strong instincts of independence render them averse to the bureaucratic police methods which have flourished in Germany and France. The Scandinavians have thus been the natural pioneers of the methods of combating venereal diseases which are now becoming generally recognized to be the methods of the future, and they have fully organized the system of putting venereal diseases under the ordinary law and dealing with them as with other contagious diseases. The first step in dealing with a contagious disease is to apply to it the recognized principles of notification. Every new application of the principle, it is true, meets with opposition. It is without practical result, it is an unwarranted inquisition into the affairs of the individual, it is a new tax on the busy medical practitioner, etc. Certainly notification by itself will not arrest the progress of any infectious disease. But it is an essential element in every attempt to deal with the prevention of disease. Unless we know precisely the exact incidence, local variations, and temporary fluctuations of a disease we are entirely in the dark and can only beat about at random. All progress in public hygiene has been accompanied by the increased notification of disease, and most authorities are agreed that such notification must be still further extended, any slight inconvenience thus caused to individuals being of trifling importance compared to the great public interests at stake. It is true that so great an authority as Neisser has expressed doubt concerning the extension of notification to gonorrhoea; the diagnosis cannot be infallible, and the patients often give false names. These objections, however, seem trivial; diagnosis can very seldom be infallible (though in this field no one has done so much for exact diagnosis as Neisser himself), and names are not necessary for notification, and are not indeed required in the form of compulsory notification of venereal disease which existed a few years ago in Norway. The principle of the compulsory notification of venereal diseases seems to have been first established in Prussia, where it dates from 1835. The system here, however, is only partial, not being obligatory in all cases but only when in the doctor's opinion secrecy might be harmful to the patient himself or to the community; it is only obligatory when the patient is a soldier. This method of notification is indeed on a wrong basis, it is not part of a comprehensive sanitary system but merely an auxiliary to police methods of dealing with prostitution. According to the Scandinavian system, notification, though not an essential part of this system, rests on an entirely different basis. The Scandinavian plan in a modified form has lately been established in Denmark. This little country, so closely adjoining Germany, for some time followed in this matter the example of its great neighbor and adopted the police regulation of prostitution and venereal disease. The more fundamental Scandinavian affinities of Denmark were, however, eventually asserted, and in 1906, the system of regulation was entirely abandoned and Denmark resolved to rely on thorough and systematic application of the sanitary principle already accepted in the country, although something of German influence still persists in the strict regulation of the streets and the penalties imposed upon brothel-keepers, leaving prostitution itself free. The decisive feature of the present system is, however, that the sanitary authorities are now exclusively medical. Everyone, whatever his social or financial position, is entitled to the free treatment of venereal disease. Whether he avails himself of it or not, he is in any case bound to undergo treatment. Every diseased person is thus, so far as it can be achieved, in a doctor's hands. All doctors have their instructions in regard to such cases, they have not only to inform their patients that they cannot marry so long as risks of infection are estimated to be present, but that they are liable for the expenses of treatment, as well as the dangers suffered, by any persons whom they may infect. Although it has not been possible to make the system at every point thoroughly operative, its general success is indicated by the entire reliance now placed on it, and the abandonment of the police regulation of prostitution. A system very similar to that of Denmark was established some years previously in Norway. The principle of the treatment of venereal disease at the public expense exists also in Sweden as well as in Finland, where treatment is compulsory.[243] It can scarcely be said that the principle of notification has yet been properly applied on a large scale to venereal diseases. But it is constantly becoming more widely advocated, more especially in England and the United States,[244] where national temperament and political traditions render the system of the police regulation of prostitution impossible--even if it were more effective than it practically is--and where the system of dealing with venereal disease on the basis of public health has to be recognized as not only the best but the only possible system.[245] In association with this, it is necessary, as is also becoming ever more widely recognized, that there should be the most ample facilities for the gratuitous treatment of venereal diseases; the general establishment of free dispensaries, open in the evenings, is especially necessary, for many can only seek advice and help at this time. It is largely to the systematic introduction of facilities for gratuitous treatment that the enormous reduction in venereal disease in Sweden, Norway, and Bosnia is attributed. It is the absence of the facilities for treatment, the implied feeling that the victims of venereal disease are not sufferers but merely offenders not entitled to care, that has in the past operated so disastrously in artificially promoting the dissemination of preventable diseases which might be brought under control. If we dispense with the paternal methods of police regulation, if we rely on the general principles of medical hygiene, and for the rest allow the responsibility for his own good or bad actions to rest on the individual himself, there is a further step, already fully recognized in principle, which we cannot neglect to take: We must look on every person as accountable for the venereal diseases he transmits. So long as we refuse to recognize venereal diseases as on the same level as other infectious diseases, and so long as we offer no full and fair facilities for their treatment, it is unjust to bring the individual to account for spreading them. But if we publicly recognize the danger of infectious venereal diseases, and if we leave freedom to the individual, we must inevitably declare, with Duclaux, that every man or woman must be held responsible for the diseases he or she communicates. According to the Oldenburg Code of 1814 it was a punishable offence for a venereally diseased person to have sexual intercourse with a healthy person, whether or not infection resulted. In Germany to-day, however, there is no law of this kind, although eminent German legal authorities, notably Von Liszt, are of opinion that a paragraph should be added to the Code declaring that sexual intercourse on the part of a person who knows that he is diseased should be punishable by imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years, the law not to be applied as between married couples except on the application of one of the parties. At the present time in Germany the transmission of venereal disease is only punishable as a special case of the infliction of bodily injury.[246] In this matter Germany is behind most of the Scandinavian countries where individual responsibility for venereal infection is well recognized and actively enforced. In France, though the law is not definite and satisfactory, actions for the transmission of syphilis are successfully brought before the courts. Opinion seems to be more decisively in favor of punishment for this offense than it is in Germany. In 1883 Després discussed the matter and considered the objections. Few may avail themselves of the law, he remarks, but all would be rendered more cautious by the fear of infringing it; while the difficulties of tracing and proving infection are not greater, he points out, than those of tracing and proving paternity in the case of illegitimate children. Després would punish with imprisonment for not more than two years any person, knowing himself to be diseased, who transmitted a venereal disease, and would merely fine those who communicated the contagion by imprudence, not realizing that they were diseased.[247] The question has more recently been discussed by Aurientis in a Paris thesis. He states that the present French law as regards the transmission of sexual diseases is not clearly established and is difficult to act upon, but it is certainly just that those who have been contaminated and injured in this way should easily be able to obtain reparation. Although it is admitted in principle that the communication of syphilis is an offence even under common law he is in agreement with those who would treat it as a special offence, making a new and more practical law.[248] Heavy damages are even at the present time obtained in the French courts from men who have infected young women in sexual intercourse, and also from the doctors as well as the mothers of syphilitic infants who have infected the foster-mothers they were entrusted to. Although the French Penal Code forbids in general the disclosure of professional secrets, it is the duty of the medical practitioner to warn the foster-mother in such a case of the danger she is incurring, but without naming the disease; if he neglects to give this warning he may be held liable. In England, as well as in the United States, the law is more unsatisfactory and more helpless, in relation to this class of offences, than it is in France. The mischievous and barbarous notion, already dealt with, according to which venereal disease is the result of illicit intercourse and should be tolerated as a just visitation of God, seems still to flourish in these countries with fatal persistency. In England the communication of venereal disease by illicit intercourse is not an actionable wrong if the act of intercourse has been voluntary, even although there has been wilful and intentional concealment of the disease. _Ex turpi causâ non oritur actio_, it is sententiously said; for there is much dormitative virtue in a Latin maxim. No legal offence has still been committed if a husband contaminates his wife, or a wife her husband.[249] The "freedom" enjoyed in this matter by England and the United States is well illustrated by an American case quoted by Dr. Isidore Dyer, of New Orleans, in his report to the Brussels Conference on the Prevention of Venereal Diseases, in 1899: "A patient with primary syphilis refused even charitable treatment and carried a book wherein she kept the number of men she had inoculated. When I first saw her she declared the number had reached two hundred and nineteen and that she would not be treated until she had had revenge on five hundred men." In a community where the most elementary rules of justice prevailed facilities would exist to enable this woman to obtain damages from the man who had injured her or even to secure his conviction to a term of imprisonment. In obtaining some indemnity for the wrong done her, and securing the "revenge" she craved, she would at the same time have conferred a benefit on society. She is shut out from any action against the one person who injured her; but as a sort of compensation she is allowed to become a radiating focus of disease, to shorten many lives, to cause many deaths, to pile up incalculable damages; and in so doing she is to-day perfectly within her legal rights. A community which encourages this state of things is not only immoral but stupid. There seems, however, to be a growing body of influential opinion, both in England and in the United States, in favor of making the transmission of venereal disease an offence punishable by heavy fine or by imprisonment.[250] In any enactment no stress should be put on the infection being conveyed "knowingly." Any formal limitation of this kind is unnecessary, as in such a case the Court always takes into account the offender's ignorance or mere negligence, and it is mischievous because it tends to render an enactment ineffective and to put a premium on ignorance; the husbands who infect their wives with gonorrhoea immediately after marriage have usually done so from ignorance, and it should be at least necessary for them to prove that they have been fortified in their ignorance by medical advice. It is sometimes said that the existing law could be utilized for bringing actions of this kind, and that no greater facilities should be offered for fear of increasing attempts at blackmail. The inutility of the law at present for this purpose is shown by the fact that it seldom or never happens that any attempt is made to utilize it, while not only are there a number of existing punishable offences which form the subject of attempts at blackmail, but blackmail can still be demanded even in regard to disreputable actions that are not legally punishable at all. Moreover, the attempt to levy blackmail is itself an offence always sternly dealt with in the courts. It is possible to trace the beginning of a recognition that the transmission of a venereal disease is a matter of which legal cognizance may be taken in the English law courts. It is now well settled that the infection of a wife by her husband may be held to constitute the legal cruelty which, according to the present law, must be proved, in addition to adultery, before a wife can obtain divorce from her husband. In 1777 Restif de la Bretonne proposed in his _Gynographes_ that the communication of a venereal disease should itself be an adequate ground for divorce; this, however, is not at present generally accepted.[251] It is sometimes said that it is very well to make the individual legally responsible for the venereal disease he communicates, but that the difficulties of bringing that responsibility home would still remain. And those who admit these difficulties frequently reply that at the worst we should have in our hands a means of educating responsibility; the man who deliberately ran the risk of transmitting such infection would be made to feel that he was no longer fairly within his legal rights but had done a bad action. We are thus led on finally to what is now becoming generally recognized as the chief and central method of combating venereal disease, if we are to accept the principle of individual responsibility as ruling in this sphere of life. Organized sanitary and medical precautions, and proper legal protection for those who have been injured, are inoperative without the educative influence of elementary hygienic instruction placed in the possession of every young man and woman. In a sphere that is necessarily so intimate medical organization and legal resort can never be all-sufficing; knowledge is needed at every step in every individual to guide and even to awaken that sense of personal moral responsibility which must here always rule. Wherever the importance of these questions is becoming acutely realized--and notably at the Congresses of the German Society for Combating Venereal Disease--the problem is resolving itself mainly into one of education.[252] And although opinion and practice in this matter are to-day more advanced in Germany than elsewhere the conviction of this necessity is becoming scarcely less pronounced in all other civilized countries, in England and America as much as in France and the Scandinavian lands. A knowledge of the risks of disease by sexual intercourse, both in and out of marriage,--and indeed, apart from sexual intercourse altogether,--is a further stage of that sexual education which, as we have already seen, must begin, so far as the elements are concerned, at a very early age. Youths and girls should be taught, as the distinguished Austrian economist, Anton von Menger wrote, shortly before his death, in his excellent little book, _Neue Sittenlehre_, that the production of children is a crime when the parents are syphilitic or otherwise incompetent through transmissible chronic diseases. Information about venereal disease should not indeed be given until after puberty is well established. It is unnecessary and undesirable to impart medical knowledge to young boys and girls and to warn them against risks they are yet little liable to be exposed to. It is when the age of strong sexual instinct, actual or potential, begins that the risks, under some circumstances, of yielding to it, need to be clearly present to the mind. No one who reflects on the actual facts of life ought to doubt that it is in the highest degree desirable that every adolescent youth and girl ought to receive some elementary instruction in the general facts of venereal disease, tuberculosis, and alcoholism. These three "plagues of civilization" are so widespread, so subtle and manifold in their operation, that everyone comes in contact with them during life, and that everyone is liable to suffer, even before he is aware, perhaps hopelessly and forever, from the results of that contact. Vague declamation about immorality and vaguer warnings against it have no effect and possess no meaning, while rhetorical exaggeration is unnecessary. A very simple and concise statement of the actual facts concerning the evils that beset life is quite sufficient and adequate, and quite essential. To ignore this need is only possible to those who take a dangerously frivolous view of life. It is the young woman as much as the youth who needs this enlightenment. There are still some persons so ill-informed as to believe that though it may be necessary to instruct the youth it is best to leave his sister unsullied, as they consider it, by a knowledge of the facts of life. This is the very reverse of the truth. It is desirable indeed that all should be acquainted with facts so vital to humanity, even although not themselves personally concerned. But the girl is even more concerned than the youth. A man has the matter more within his own grasp, and if he so chooses he may avoid all the grosser risks of contact with venereal disease. But it is not so with the woman. Whatever her own purity, she cannot be sure that she may not have to guard against the possibility of disease in her future husband as well as in those to whom she may entrust her child. It is a possibility which the educated woman, so far from being dispensed from, is more liable to encounter than is the working-class woman, for venereal disease is less prevalent among the poor than the rich.[253] The careful physician, even when his patient is a minister of religion, considers it his duty to inquire if he has had syphilis, and the clergyman of most severely correct life recognizes the need of such inquiry and may perhaps smile, but seldom feels himself insulted. The relationship between husband and wife is even much more intimate and important than that between doctor and patient, and a woman is not dispensed from the necessity of such inquiry concerning her future husband by the conviction that the reply must surely be satisfactory. Moreover, it may well be in some cases that, if she is adequately enlightened, she may be the means of saving him, before it is too late, from the guilt of premature marriage and its fateful consequences, so deserving to earn his everlasting gratitude. Even if she fails in winning that, she still has her duty to herself and to the future race which her children will help to form. In most countries there is a growing feeling in favor of the enlightenment of young women equally with young men as regards venereal diseases. Thus in Germany Max Flesch, in his _Prostitution und Frauenkrankheiten_, considers that at the end of their school days all girls should receive instruction concerning the grave physical and social dangers to which women are exposed in life. In France Duclaux (in his _L'Hygiène Sociale_) is emphatic that women must be taught. "Already," he states, "doctors who by custom have been made, in spite of themselves, the husband's accomplices, will tell you of the ironical gaze they sometimes encounter when they seek to lead a wife astray concerning the causes of her ills. The day is approaching of a revolt against the social lie which has made so many victims, and you will be obliged to teach women what they need to know in order to guard themselves against you." It is the same in America. Reform in this field, Isidore Dyer declares, must emblazon on its flag the motto, "Knowledge is Health," as well of mind as of body, for women as well as for men. In a discussion introduced by Denslow Lewis at the annual meeting of the American Medical Association in 1901 on the limitation of venereal diseases (_Medico-Legal Journal_, June and September, 1903), there was a fairly general agreement among all the speakers that almost or quite the chief method of prevention lay in education, the education of women as much as of men. "Education lies at the bottom of the whole thing," declared one speaker (Seneca Egbert, of Philadelphia), "and we will never gain much headway until every young man, and every young woman, even before she falls in love and becomes engaged, knows what these diseases are, and what it will mean if she marries a man who has contracted them." "Educate father and mother, and they will educate their sons and daughters," exclaims Egbert Grandin, more especially in regard to gonorrhoea (_Medical Record_, May 26, 1906); "I lay stress on the daughter because she becomes the chief sufferer from inoculation, and it is her right to know that she should protect herself against the gonorrhoeic as well as against the alcoholic." We must fully face the fact that it is the woman herself who must be accounted responsible, as much as a man, for securing the right conditions of a marriage she proposes to enter into. In practice, at the outset, that responsibility may no doubt be in part delegated to parents or guardians. It is unreasonable that any false delicacy should be felt about this matter on either side. Questions of money and of income are discussed before marriage, and as public opinion grows sounder none will question the necessity of discussing the still more serious question of health, alike that of the prospective bridegroom and of the bride. An incalculable amount of disease and marital unhappiness would be prevented if before an engagement was finally concluded each party placed himself or herself in the hands of a physician and authorized him to report to the other party. Such a report would extend far beyond venereal disease. If its necessity became generally recognized it would put an end to much fraud which now takes place when entering the marriage bond. It constantly happens at present that one party or the other conceals the existence of some serious disease or disability which is speedily discovered after marriage, sometimes with a painful and alarming shock--as when a man discovers his wife in an epileptic fit on the wedding night--and always with the bitter and abiding sense of having been duped. There can be no reasonable doubt that such concealment is an adequate cause of divorce. Sir Thomas More doubtless sought to guard against such frauds when he ordained in his _Utopia_ that each party should before marriage be shown naked to the other. The quaint ceremony he describes was based on a reasonable idea, for it is ludicrous, if it were not often tragic in its results, that any person should be asked to undertake to embrace for life a person whom he or she has not so much as seen. It may be necessary to point out that every movement in this direction must be the spontaneous action of individuals directing their own lives according to the rules of an enlightened conscience, and cannot be initiated by the dictation of the community as a whole enforcing its commands by law. In these matters law can only come in at the end, not at the beginning. In the essential matters of marriage and procreation laws are primarily made in the brains and consciences of individuals for their own guidance. Unless such laws are already embodied in the actual practice of the great majority of the community it is useless for parliaments to enact them by statute. They will be ineffective or else they will be worse than ineffective by producing undesigned mischiefs. We can only go to the root of the matter by insisting on education in moral responsibility and instruction, in matters of fact. The question arises as to the best person to impart this instruction. As we have seen there can be little doubt that before puberty the parents, and especially the mother, are the proper instructors of their children in esoteric knowledge. But after puberty the case is altered. The boy and the girl are becoming less amenable to parental influence, there is greater shyness on both sides, and the parents rarely possess the more technical knowledge that is now required. At this stage it seems that the assistance of the physician, of the family doctor if he has the proper qualities for the task, should be called in. The plan usually adopted, and now widely carried out, is that of lectures setting forth the main facts concerning venereal diseases, their dangers, and allied topics.[254] This method is quite excellent. Such lectures should be delivered at intervals by medical lecturers at all urban, educational, manufacturing, military, and naval centres, wherever indeed a large number of young persons are gathered together. It should be the business of the central educational authority either to carry them out or to enforce on those controlling or employing young persons the duty of providing such lectures. The lectures should be free to all who have attained the age of sixteen. In Germany the principle of instruction by lectures concerning venereal diseases seems to have become established, at all events so far as young men are concerned, and such lectures are constantly becoming more usual. In 1907 the Minister of Education established courses of lectures by doctors on sexual hygiene and venereal diseases for higher schools and educational institutions, though attendance was not made compulsory. The courses now frequently given by medical men to the higher classes in German secondary schools on the general principles of sexual anatomy and physiology nearly always include sexual hygiene with special reference to venereal diseases (see, e.g., _Sexualpädagogik_, pp. 131-153). In Austria, also, lectures on personal hygiene and the dangers of venereal disease are delivered to students about to leave the gymnasium for the university; and the working men's clubs have instituted regular courses of lectures on the same subjects delivered by physicians. In France many distinguished men, both inside and outside the medical profession, are working for the cause of the instruction of the young in sexual hygiene, though they have to contend against a more obstinate degree of prejudice and prudery on the part of the middle class than is to be found in the Germanic lands. The Commission Extraparlementaire du Régime des Moeurs, with the conjunction of Augagneur, Alfred Fournier, Yves Guyot, Gide, and other distinguished professors, teachers, etc., has lately pronounced in favor of the official establishment of instruction in sexual hygiene, to be given in the highest classes at the lycées, or in the earliest class at higher educational colleges; such instruction, it is argued, would not only furnish needed enlightenment, but also educate the sense of moral responsibility. There is in France, also, an active and distinguished though unofficial Société Française de Prophylaxie Sanitaire et Morale, which delivers public lectures on sexual hygiene. Fournier, Pinard, Burlureaux and other eminent physicians have written pamphlets on this subject for popular distribution (see, e.g., _Le Progrès Médical_ of September, 1907). In England and the United States very little has yet been done in this direction, but in the United States, at all events, opinion in favor of action is rapidly growing (see, e.g., W.A. Funk, "The Venereal Peril," _Medical Record_, April 13, 1907). The American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis (based on the parent society founded in Paris in 1900 by Fournier) was established in New York in 1905. There are similar societies in Chicago and Philadelphia. The main object is to study venereal diseases and to work toward their social control. Doctors, laymen, and women are members. Lectures and short talks are now given under the auspices of these societies to small groups of young women in social settlements, and in other ways, with encouraging success; it is found to be an excellent method of reaching the young women of the working classes. Both men and women physicians take part in the lectures (Clement Cleveland, Presidential Address on "Prophylaxis of Venereal Diseases," _Transactions American Gynecological Society_, Philadelphia, vol. xxxii, 1907). An important auxiliary method of carrying out the task of sexual hygiene, and at the same time of spreading useful enlightenment, is furnished by the method of giving to every syphilitic patient in clinics where such cases are treated a card of instruction for his guidance in hygienic matters, together with a warning of the risks of marriage within four or five years after infection, and in no case without medical advice. Such printed instruction, in clear, simple, and incisive language, should be put into the hands of every syphilitic patient as a matter of routine, and it might be as well to have a corresponding card for gonorrhoeal patients. This plan has already been introduced at some hospitals, and it is so simple and unobjectionable a precaution that it will, no doubt, be generally adopted. In some countries this measure is carried out on a wider scale. Thus in Austria, as the result of a movement in which several university professors have taken an active part, leaflets and circulars, explaining briefly the chief symptoms of venereal diseases and warning against quacks and secret remedies, are circulated among young laborers and factory hands, matriculating students, and scholars who are leaving trade schools. In France, where great social questions are sometimes faced with a more chivalrous daring than elsewhere, the dangers of syphilis, and the social position of the prostitute, have alike been dealt with by distinguished novelists and dramatists. Huysmans inaugurated this movement with his first novel, _Marthe_, which was immediately suppressed by the police. Shortly afterwards Edmond de Goncourt published _La Fille Elisa_, the first notable novel of the kind by a distinguished author. It was written with much reticence, and was not indeed a work of high artistic value, but it boldly faced a great social problem and clearly set forth the evils of the common attitude towards prostitution. It was dramatized and played by Antoine at the Théâtre Libre, but when, in 1891, Antoine wished to produce it at the Porte-Saint-Martin Theatre, the censor interfered and prohibited the play on account of its "contexture générale." The Minister of Education defended this decision on the ground that there was much in the play that might arouse repugnance and disgust. "Repugnance here is more moral than attraction," exclaimed M. Paul Déroulède, and the newspapers criticized a censure which permitted on the stage all the trivial indecencies which favor prostitution, but cannot tolerate any attack on prostitution. In more recent years the brothers Margueritte, both in novels and in journalism, have largely devoted their distinguished abilities and high literary skill to the courageous and enlightened advocacy of many social reforms. Victor Margueritte, in his _Prostituée_ (1907)--a novel which has attracted wide attention and been translated into various languages--has sought to represent the condition of women in our actual society, and more especially the condition of the prostitute under what he regards as the odious and iniquitous system still prevailing. The book is a faithful picture of the real facts, thanks to the assistance the author received from the Paris Préfecture of Police, and largely for that reason is not altogether a satisfactory work of art, but it vividly and poignantly represents the cruelty, indifference, and hypocrisy so often shown by men towards women, and is a book which, on that account, cannot be too widely read. One of the most notable of modern plays is Brieux's _Les Avariés_ (1902). This distinguished dramatist, himself a medical man, dedicates his play to Fournier, the greatest of syphilographers. "I think with you," he writes here, "that syphilis will lose much of its danger when it is possible to speak openly of an evil which is neither a shame nor a punishment, and when those who suffer from it, knowing what evils they may propagate, will better understand their duties towards others and towards themselves." The story developed in the drama is the old and typical story of the young man who has spent his bachelor days in what he considers a discrete and regular manner, having only had two mistresses, neither of them prostitutes, but at the end of this period, at a gay supper at which he bids farewell to his bachelor life, he commits a fatal indiscretion and becomes infected by syphilis; his marriage is approaching and he goes to a distinguished specialist who warns him that treatment takes time, and that marriage is impossible for several years; he finds a quack, however, who undertakes to cure him in six months; at the end of the time he marries; a syphilitic child is born; the wife discovers the state of things and forsakes her home to return to her parents; her indignant father, a deputy in Parliament, arrives in Paris; the last word is with the great specialist who brings finally some degree of peace and hope into the family. The chief morals Brieux points out are that it is the duty of the bride's parents before marriage to ascertain the bridegroom's health; that the bridegroom should have a doctor's certificate; that at every marriage the part of the doctors is at least as important as that of the lawyers. Even if it were a less accomplished work of art than it is, _Les Avariés_ is a play which, from the social and educative point of view alone, all who have reached the age of adolescence should be compelled to see. Another aspect of the same problem has been presented in _Plus Fort que le Mal_, a book written in dramatic form (though not as a properly constituted play intended for the stage) by a distinguished French medical author who here adopts the name of Espy de Metz. The author (who is not, however, pleading _pro domo_) calls for a more sympathetic attitude towards those who suffer from syphilis, and though he writes with much less dramatic skill than Brieux, and scarcely presents his moral in so unequivocal a form, his work is a notable contribution to the dramatic literature of syphilis. It will probably be some time before these questions, poignant as they are from the dramatic point of view, and vitally important from the social point of view, are introduced on the English or the American stage. It is a remarkable fact that, notwithstanding the Puritanic elements which still exist in Anglo-Saxon thought and feeling generally, the Puritanic aspect of life has never received embodiment in the English or American drama. On the English stage it is never permitted to hint at the tragic side of wantonness; vice must always be made seductive, even though a _deus ex machina_ causes it to collapse at the end of the performance. As Mr. Bernard Shaw has said, the English theatrical method by no means banishes vice; it merely consents that it shall be made attractive; its charms are advertised and its penalties suppressed. "Now, it is futile to plead that the stage is not the proper place for the representation and discussion of illegal operations, incest, and venereal disease. If the stage is the proper place for the exhibition and discussion of seduction, adultery, promiscuity, and prostitution, it must be thrown open to all the consequences of these things, or it will demoralize the nation." The impulse to insist that vice shall always be made attractive is not really, notwithstanding appearances, a vicious impulse. It arises from a mental confusion, a common psychic tendency, which is by no means confined to Anglo-Saxon lands, and is even more well marked among the better educated in the merely literary sense, than among the worse educated people. The æsthetic is confused with the moral, and what arouses disgust is thus regarded as immoral. In France the novels of Zola, the most pedestrianally moralistic of writers, were for a long time supposed to be immoral because they were often disgusting. The same feeling is still more widespread in England. If a prostitute is brought on the stage, and she is pretty, well-dressed, seductive, she may gaily sail through the play and every one is satisfied. But if she were not particularly pretty, well-dressed, or seductive, if it were made plain that she was diseased and was reckless in infecting others with that disease, if it were hinted that she could on occasion be foul-mouthed, if, in short, a picture were shown from life--then we should hear that the unfortunate dramatist had committed something that was "disgusting" and "immoral." Disgusting it might be, but, on that very account, it would be moral. There is a distinction here that the psychologist cannot too often point out or the moralist too often emphasize. It is not for the physician to complicate and confuse his own task as teacher by mixing it up with considerations which belong to the spiritual sphere. But in carrying out impartially his own special work of enlightenment he will always do well to remember that there is in the adolescent mind, as it has been necessary to point out in a previous chapter, a spontaneous force working on the side of sexual hygiene. Those who believe that the adolescent mind is merely bent on sensual indulgence are not less false and mischievous in their influence than are those who think it possible and desirable for adolescents to be preserved in sheer sexual ignorance. However concealed, suppressed, or deformed--usually by the misplaced and premature zeal of foolish parents and teachers--there arise at puberty ideal impulses which, even though they may be rooted in sex, yet in their scope transcend sex. These are capable of becoming far more potent guides of the physical sex impulse than are merely material or even hygienic considerations. It is time to summarize and conclude this discussion of the prevention of venereal disease, which, though it may seem to the superficial observer to be merely a medical and sanitary question outside the psychologist's sphere, is yet seen on closer view to be intimately related even to the most spiritual conception of the sexual relationships. Not only are venereal diseases the foes to the finer development of the race, but we cannot attain to any wholesome and beautiful vision of the relationships of sex so long as such relationships are liable at every moment to be corrupted and undermined at their source. We cannot yet precisely measure the interval which must elapse before, so far as Europe at least is concerned, syphilis and gonorrhoea are sent to that limbo of monstrous old dead diseases to which plague and leprosy have gone and smallpox is already drawing near. But society is beginning to realize that into this field also must be brought the weapons of light and air, the sword and the breastplate with which all diseases can alone be attacked. As we have seen, there are four methods by which in the more enlightened countries venereal disease is now beginning to be combated.[255] (1) By proclaiming openly that the venereal diseases are diseases like any other disease, although more subtle and terrible than most, which may attack anyone from the unborn baby to its grandmother, and that they are not, more than other diseases, the shameful penalties of sin, from which relief is only to be sought, if at all, by stealth, but human calamities; (2) by adopting methods of securing official information concerning the extent, distribution, and variation of venereal disease, through the already recognized plan of notification and otherwise, and by providing such facilities for treatment, especially for free treatment, as may be found necessary; (3) by training the individual sense of moral responsibility, so that every member of the community may realize that to inflict a serious disease on another person, even only as a result of reckless negligence, is a more serious offence than if he or she had used the knife or the gun or poison as the method of attack, and that it is necessary to introduce special legal provision in every country to assist the recovery of damages for such injuries and to inflict penalties by loss of liberty or otherwise; (4) by the spread of hygienic knowledge, so that all adolescents, youths and girls alike, may be furnished at the outset of adult life with an equipment of information which will assist them to avoid the grosser risks of contamination and enable them to recognize and avoid danger at the earliest stages. A few years ago, when no method of combating venereal disease was known except that system of police regulation which is now in its decadence, it would have been impossible to bring forward such considerations as these; they would have seemed Utopian. To-day they are not only recognizable as practical, but they are being actually put into practice, although, it is true, with very varying energy and insight in different countries. Yet it is certain that in the competition of nationalities, as Max von Niessen has well said, "that country will best take a leading place in the march of civilization which has the foresight and courage to introduce and carry through those practical movements of sexual hygiene which have so wide and significant a bearing on its own future, and that of the human race generally."[256] FOOTNOTES: [220] It is probable that Schopenhauer felt a more than merely speculative interest in this matter. Bloch has shown good reason for believing that Schopenhauer himself contracted syphilis in 1813, and that this was a factor in constituting his conception of the world and in confirming his constitutional pessimism (_Medizinische Klinik_, Nos. 25 and 26, 1906). [221] Havelburg, in Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage_, vol. i, pp. 186-189. [222] This is the very definite opinion of Lowndes after an experience of fifty-four years in the treatment of venereal diseases in Liverpool (_British Medical Journal_, Feb. 9, 1907, p. 334). It is further indicated by the fact (if it is a real fact) that since 1876 there has been a decline of both the infantile and general mortality from syphilis in England. [223] "There is no doubt whatever that syphilis is on the increase in London, judging from hospital work alone," says Pernet (_British Medical Journal_, March 30, 1907). Syphilis was evidently very prevalent, however, a century or two ago, and there is no ground for asserting positively that it is more prevalent to-day. [224] See, e.g., A. Neisser, _Die experimentelle Syphilisforschung_, 1906, and E. Hoffmann (who was associated with Schaudinn's discovery), _Die Aetiologie der Syphilis_, 1906; D'Arcy Power, _A System of Syphilis_, 1908, etc.; F.W. Mott, "Pathology of Syphilis in the Light of Modern Research," _British Medical Journal_, February 20, 1909; also, _Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry_, vol. iv, 1909. [225] There is some difference of opinion on this point, and though it seems probable that early and thorough treatment usually cures the disease in a few years and renders further complications highly improbable, it is not possible, even under the most favorable circumstances, to speak with absolute certainty as to the future. [226] "That syphilis has been, and is, one of the chief causes of physical degeneration in England cannot be denied, and it is a fact that is acknowledged on all sides," writes Lieutenant-Colonel Lambkin, the medical officer in command of the London Military Hospital for Venereal Diseases. "To grapple with the treatment of syphilis among the civil population of England ought to be the chief object of those interested in that most burning question, the physical degeneration of our race" (_British Medical Journal_, August 19, 1905). [227] F.W. Mott, "Syphilis as a Cause of Insanity," _British Medical Journal_, October 18, 1902. [228] It can seldom be proved in more than eighty per cent. of cases, but in twenty per cent. of old syphilitic cases it is commonly impossible to find traces of the disease or to obtain a history of it. Crocker found that it was only in eighty per cent. of cases of absolutely certain syphilitic skin diseases that he could obtain a history of syphilitic infection, and Mott found exactly the same percentage in absolutely certain syphilitic lesions of the brain; Mott believes (e.g., "Syphilis in Relation to the Nervous System," _British Medical Journal_, January 4, 1908) that syphilis is the essential cause of general paralysis and tabes. [229] Audry. _La Semaine Médicale_, June 26, 1907. When Europeans carry syphilis to lands inhabited by people of lower race, the results are often very much worse than this. Thus Lambkin, as a result of a special mission to investigate syphilis in Uganda, found that in some districts as many as ninety per cent, of the people suffer from syphilis, and fifty to sixty per cent, of the infant mortality is due to this cause. These people are Baganda, a highly intelligent, powerful, and well-organized tribe before they received, in the gift of syphilis, the full benefit of civilization and Christianity, which (Lambkin points out) has been largely the cause of the spread of the disease by breaking down social customs and emancipating the women. Christianity is powerful enough to break down the old morality, but not powerful enough to build up a new morality (_British Medical Journal_, October 3, 1908, p. 1037). [230] Even within the limits of the English army it is found In India (H.C. French, _Syphilis in the Army_, 1907) that venereal disease is ten times more frequent among British troops than among Native troops. Outside of national armies it is found, by admission to hospital and death rates, that the United States stands far away at the head for frequency of venereal disease, being followed by Great Britain, then France and Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Germany. [231] There is no dispute concerning the antiquity of gonorrhoea in the Old World as there is regarding syphilis. The disease was certainly known at a very remote period. Even Esarhaddon, the famous King of Assyria, referred to in the Old Testament, was treated by the priests for a disorder which, as described in the cuneiform documents of the time, could only have been gonorrhoea. The disease was also well known to the ancient Egyptians, and evidently common, for they recorded many prescriptions for its treatment (Oefele, "Gonorrhoe 1350 vor Christi Geburt," _Monatshefte für Praktische Dermatologie_, 1899, p. 260). [232] Cf. Memorandum by Sydney Stephenson, Report of Ophthalmia Neonatorum Committee, _British Medical Journal_, May 8, 1909. [233] The extent of these evils is set forth, e.g., in a comprehensive essay by Taylor, _American Journal Obstetrics_, January, 1908. [234] Neisser brings together figures bearing on the prevalence of gonorrhoea in Germany, Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage_, vol. ii, pp. 486-492. [235] _Lancet_, September 23, 1882. As regards women, Dr. Frances Ivens (_British Medical Journal_, June 19, 1909) has found at Liverpool that 14 per cent. of gynæcological cases revealed the presence of gonorrhoea. They were mostly poor respectable married women. This is probably a high proportion, as Liverpool is a busy seaport, but it is less than Sänger's estimate of 18 per cent. [236] E.H. Grandin, _Medical Record_, May 26, 1906. [237] E.W. Cushing, "Sociological Aspects of Gonorrhoea," _Transactions American Gynecological Society_, vol. xxii, 1897. [238] It is only in very small communities ruled by an autocratic power with absolute authority to control conditions and to examine persons of both sexes that reglementation becomes in any degree effectual. This is well shown by Dr. W.E. Harwood, who describes the system he organized in the mines of the Minnesota Iron Company (_Journal American Medical Association_, December 22, 1906). The women in the brothels on the company's estate were of the lowest class, and disease was very prevalent. Careful examination of the women was established, and control of the men, who, immediately on becoming diseased, were bound to declare by what woman they had been infected. The woman was responsible for the medical bill of the man she infected, and even for his board, if incapacitated, and the women were compelled to maintain a fund for their own hospital expenses when required. In this way venereal disease, though not entirely uprooted, was very greatly diminished. [239] A clear and comprehensive statement of the present position of the question is given by Iwan Bloch, _Das Sexualleben Unserer Zeit_, Chs. XIII-XV. How ineffectual the system of police regulation is, even in Germany, where police interference is tolerated to so marked a degree, may be illustrated by the case of Mannheim. Here the regulation of prostitution is very severe and thorough, yet a careful inquiry in 1905 among the doctors of Mannheim (ninety-two of whom sent in detailed returns) showed that of six hundred cases of venereal disease in men, nearly half had been contracted from prostitutes. About half the remaining cases (nearly a quarter of the whole) were due to waitresses and bar-maids; then followed servant-girls (Lion and Loeb, in _Sexualpädagogik_, the Proceedings of the Third German Congress for Combating Venereal Diseases, 1907, p. 295). [240] A sixth less numerous class might be added of the young girls, often no more than children, who have been practically raped by men who believe that intercourse with a virgin is a cure for obstinate venereal disease. In America this belief is frequently held by Italians, Chinese, negroes, etc. W. Travis Gibb, Examining Physician of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, has examined over 900 raped children (only a small proportion, he states, of the cases actually occurring), and finds that thirteen per cent have venereal diseases. A fairly large proportion of these cases, among girls from twelve to sixteen, are, he states, willing victims. Dr. Flora Pollack, also, of the Johns Hopkins Hospital Dispensary, estimates that in Baltimore alone from 800 to 1,000 children between the ages of one and fifteen are venereally infected every year. The largest number, she finds, is at the age of six, and the chief cause appears to be, not lust, but superstition. [241] For a discussion of inherited syphilis, see, e.g., Clement Lucas, _Lancet_, February 1, 1908. [242] Much harm has been done in some countries by the foolish and mischievous practice of friendly societies and sick clubs of ignoring venereal diseases, and not according free medical aid or sick pay to those members who suffer from them. This practice prevailed, for instance, in Vienna until 1907, when a more humane and enlightened policy was inaugurated, venereal diseases being placed on the same level as other diseases. [243] Active measures against venereal disease were introduced in Sweden early in the last century, and compulsory and gratuitous treatment established. Compulsory notification was introduced many years ago in Norway, and by 1907 there was a great diminution in the prevalence of venereal diseases; there is compulsory treatment. [244] See, e.g., Morrow, _Social Diseases and Marriage_, Ch. XXXVII. [245] A committee of the Medical Society of New York, appointed in 1902 to consider this question, reported in favor of notification without giving names and addresses, and Dr. C.R. Drysdale, who took an active part in the Brussels International Conference of 1899, advocated a similar plan in England, _British Medical Journal_, February 3, 1900. [246] Thus in Munich, in 1908, a man who had given gonorrhoea to a servant-girl was sent to prison for ten months on this ground. The state of German opinion to-day on this subject is summarized by Bloch, _Sexualleben unserer Zeit_, p. 424. [247] A. Després, _La Prostitution à Paris_, p. 191. [248] F. Aurientis, _Etude Medico-légale sur la jurisprudence actuelle à propos de la Transmission des Maladies Venériennes_, Thèse de Paris, 1906. [249] In England at present "a husband knowingly and wilfully infecting his wife with the venereal disease, cannot be convicted criminally, either under a charge of assault or of inflicting grievous bodily harm" (N. Geary, _The Law of Marriage_, p. 479). This was decided in 1888 in the case of _R. v. Clarence_ by nine judges to four judges in the Court for the Consideration of Crown Cases Reserved. [250] Modern democratic sentiment is opposed to the sequestration of a prostitute merely because she is diseased. But there can be no reasonable doubt whatever that if a diseased prostitute infects another person, and is unable to pay the very heavy damages which should be demanded in such a case, she ought to be secluded and subjected to treatment. That is necessary in the interests of the community. But it is also necessary, to avoid placing a premium on the commission of an offence which would ensure gratuitous treatment and provision for a prostitute without means, that she should be furnished with facilities for treatment in any case. [251] It has, however, been decided by the Paris Court of Appeal that for a husband to marry when knowingly suffering from a venereal disease and to communicate that disease to his wife is a sufficient cause for divorce (_Semaine Médicale_, May, 1896). [252] The large volume, entitled _Sexualpädagogik_, containing the Proceedings of the Third of these Congresses, almost ignores the special subject of venereal disease, and is devoted to the questions involved by the general sexual education of the young, which, as many of the speakers maintained, must begin with the child at his mother's knee. [253] "Workmen, soldiers, and so on," Neisser remarks (Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage_, vol. ii, p. 485), "can more easily find non-prostitute girls of their own class willing to enter into amorous relations with them which result in sexual intercourse, and they are therefore less exposed to the danger of infection than those men who have recourse almost exclusively to prostitutes" (see also Bloch, _Sexualleben unserer Zeit_, p. 437). [254] The character and extent of such lectures are fully discussed in the Proceedings of the Third Congress of the German Society for Combating Venereal Diseases, _Sexualpädagogik_, 1907. [255] I leave out of account, as beyond the scope of the present work, the auxiliary aids to the suppression of venereal diseases furnished by the promising new methods, only now beginning to be understood, of treating or even aborting such diseases (see, e.g., Metchnikoff, _The New Hygiene_, 1906). [256] Max von Niessen, "Herr Doktor, darf ich heiraten?" _Mutterschutz_, 1906, p. 352. CHAPTER IX. SEXUAL MORALITY. Prostitution in Relation to Our Marriage System--Marriage and Morality--The Definition of the Term "Morality"--Theoretical Morality--Its Division Into Traditional Morality and Ideal Morality--Practical Morality--Practical Morality Based on Custom--The Only Subject of Scientific Ethics--The Reaction Between Theoretical and Practical Morality--Sexual Morality in the Past an Application of Economic Morality--The Combined Rigidity and Laxity of This Morality--The Growth of a Specific Sexual Morality and the Evolution of Moral Ideals--Manifestations of Sexual Morality--Disregard of the Forms of Marriage--Trial Marriage--Marriage After Conception of Child--Phenomena in Germany, Anglo-Saxon Countries, Russia, etc.--The Status of Woman--The Historical Tendency Favoring Moral Equality of Women with Men--The Theory of the Matriarchate--Mother-Descent--Women in Babylonia--Egypt--Rome--The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries--The Historical Tendency Favoring Moral Inequality of Woman--The Ambiguous Influence of Christianity--Influence of Teutonic Custom and Feudalism--Chivalry--Woman in England--The Sale of Wives--The Vanishing Subjection of Woman--Inaptitude of the Modern Man to Domineer--The Growth of Moral Responsibility in Women--The Concomitant Development of Economic Independence--The Increase of Women Who Work--Invasion of the Modern Industrial Field by Women--In How Far This Is Socially Justifiable--The Sexual Responsibility of Women and Its Consequences--The Alleged Moral Inferiority of Women--The "Self-Sacrifice" of Women--Society Not Concerned with Sexual Relationships--Procreation the Sole Sexual Concern of the State--The Supreme Importance of Maternity. It has been necessary to deal fully with the phenomena of prostitution because, however aloof we may personally choose to hold ourselves from those phenomena, they really bring us to the heart of the sexual question in so far as it constitutes a social problem. If we look at prostitution from the outside, as an objective phenomenon, as a question of social dynamics, it is seen to be not a merely accidental and eliminable incident of our present marriage system but an integral part of it, without which it would fall to pieces. This will probably be fairly clear to all who have followed the preceding exposition of prostitutional phenomena. There is, however, more than this to be said. Not only is prostitution to-day, as it has been for more than two thousand years, the buttress of our marriage system, but if we look at marriage, not from the outside as a formal institution, but from the inside with relation to the motives that constitute it, we find that marriage in a large proportion of cases is itself in certain respects a form of prostitution. This has been emphasized so often and from so many widely different standpoints that it may seem hardly necessary to labor the point here. But the point is one of extreme importance in relation to the question of sexual morality. Our social conditions are unfavorable to the development of a high moral feeling in woman. The difference between the woman who sells herself in prostitution and the woman who sells herself in marriage, according to the saying of Marro already quoted, "is only a difference in price and duration of the contract." Or, as Forel puts it, marriage is "a more fashionable form of prostitution," that is to say, a mode of obtaining, or disposing of, for monetary considerations, a sexual commodity. Marriage is, indeed, not merely a more fashionable form of prostitution, it is a form sanctified by law and religion, and the question of morality is not allowed to intrude. Morality may be outraged with impunity provided that law and religion have been invoked. The essential principle of prostitution is thus legalized and sanctified among us. That is why it is so difficult to arouse any serious indignation, or to maintain any reasoned objections, against our prostitution considered by itself. The most plausible ground is that of those[257] who, bringing marriage down to the level of prostitution, maintain that the prostitute is a "blackleg" who is accepting less than the "market rate of wages," i.e., marriage, for the sexual services she renders. But even this low ground is quite unsafe. The prostitute is really paid extremely well considering how little she gives in return; the wife is really paid extremely badly considering how much she often gives, and how much she necessarily gives up. For the sake of the advantage of economic dependence on her husband, she must give up, as Ellen Key observes, those rights over her children, her property, her work, and her own person which she enjoys as an unmarried woman, even, it may be added, as a prostitute. The prostitute never signs away the right over her own person, as the wife is compelled to do; the prostitute, unlike the wife, retains her freedom and her personal rights, although these may not often be of much worth. It is the wife rather than the prostitute who is the "blackleg." It is by no means only during recent years that our marriage system has been arraigned before the bar of morals. Forty years ago James Hinton exhausted the vocabulary of denunciation in describing the immorality and selfish licentiousness which our marriage system covers with the cloak of legality and sanctity. "There is an unsoundness in our marriage relations," Hinton wrote. "Not only practically are they dreadful, but they do not answer to feelings and convictions far too widespread to be wisely ignored. Take the case of women of marked eminence consenting to be a married man's mistress; of pure and simple girls saying they cannot see why they should have a marriage by law; of a lady saying that if she were in love she would not have any legal tie; of its being necessary--or thought so by good and wise men--to keep one sex in bitter and often fatal ignorance. These things (and how many more) show some deep unsoundness in the marriage relations. This must be probed and searched to the bottom." At an earlier date, in 1847, Gross-Hoffinger, in his _Die Schicksale der Frauen und die Prostitution_--a remarkable book which Bloch, with little exaggeration, describes as possessing an epoch-marking significance--vigorously showed that the problem of prostitution is in reality the problem of marriage, and that we can only reform away prostitution by reforming marriage, regarded as a compulsory institution resting on an antiquated economic basis. Gross-Hoffinger was a pioneering precursor of Ellen Key. More than a century and a half earlier a man of very different type scathingly analyzed the morality of his time, with a brutal frankness, indeed, that seemed to his contemporaries a revoltingly cynical attitude towards their sacred institutions, and they felt that nothing was left to them save to burn his books. Describing modern marriage in his _Fable of the Bees_ (1714, p. 64), and what that marriage might legally cover, Mandeville wrote: "The fine gentleman I spoke of need not practice any greater self-denial than the savage, and the latter acted more according to the laws of nature and sincerity than the first. The man that gratifies his appetite after the manner the custom of the country allows of, has no censure to fear. If he is hotter than goats or bulls, as soon as the ceremony is over, let him sate and fatigue himself with joy and ecstasies of pleasure, raise and indulge his appetite by turns, as extravagantly as his strength and manhood will give him leave. He may, with safety, laugh at the wise men that should reprove him: all the women and above nine in ten of the men are of his side; nay, he has the liberty of valuing himself upon the fury of his unbridled passions, and the more he wallows in lust and strains every faculty to be abandonedly voluptuous, the sooner he shall have the good-will and gain the affection of the women, not the young, vain, and lascivious only, but the prudent, grave, and most sober matrons." Thus the charge brought against our marriage system from the point of view of morality is that it subordinates the sexual relationship to considerations of money and of lust. That is precisely the essence of prostitution. The only legitimately moral end of marriage--whether we regard it from the wider biological standpoint or from the narrower standpoint of human society--is as a sexual selection, effected in accordance with the laws of sexual selection, and having as its direct object a united life of complete mutual love and as its indirect object the procreation of the race. Unless procreation forms part of the object of marriage, society has nothing whatever to do with it and has no right to make its voice heard. But if procreation is one of the ends of marriage, then it is imperative from the biological and social points of view that no influences outside the proper natural influence of sexual selection should be permitted to affect the choice of conjugal partners, for in so far as wholesome sexual selection is interfered with the offspring is likely to be injured and the interests of the race affected. It must, of course, be clearly understood that the idea of marriage as a form of sexual union based not on biological but on economic considerations, is very ancient, and is sometimes found in societies that are almost primitive. Whenever, however, marriage on a purely property basis, and without due regard to sexual selection, has occurred among comparatively primitive and vigorous peoples, it has been largely deprived of its evil results by the recognition of its merely economic character, and by the absence of any desire to suppress, even nominally, other sexual relationships on a more natural basis which were outside this artificial form of marriage. Polygamy especially tended to conciliate unions on an economic basis with unions on a natural sexual basis. Our modern marriage system has, however, acquired an artificial rigidity which excludes the possibility of this natural safeguard and compensation. Whatever its real moral content may be, a modern marriage is always "legal" and "sacred." We are indeed so accustomed to economic forms of marriage that, as Sidgwick truly observed (_Method of Ethics_, Bk. ii, Ch. XI), when they are spoken of as "legalized prostitution" it constantly happens that "the phrase is felt to be extravagant and paradoxical." A man who marries for money or for ambition is departing from the biological and moral ends of marriage. A woman who sells herself for life is morally on the same level as one who sells herself for a night. The fact that the payment seems larger, that in return for rendering certain domestic services and certain personal complacencies--services and complacencies in which she may be quite inexpert--she will secure an almshouse in which she will be fed and clothed and sheltered for life makes no difference in the moral aspect of her case. The moral responsibility is, it need scarcely be said, at least as much the man's as the woman's. It is largely due to the ignorance and even the indifference of men, who often know little or nothing of the nature of women and the art of love. The unintelligence with which even men who might, one thinks, be not without experience, select as a mate, a woman who, however fine and charming she may be, possesses none of the qualities which her wooer really craves, is a perpetual marvel. To refrain from testing and proving the temper and quality of the woman he desires for a mate is no doubt an amiable trait of humility on a man's part. But it is certain that a man should never be content with less than the best of what a woman's soul and body have to give, however unworthy he may feel himself of such a possession. This demand, it must be remarked, is in the highest interests of the woman herself. A woman can offer to a man what is a part at all events of the secret of the universe. The woman degrades herself who sinks to the level of a candidate for an asylum for the destitute. Our discussion of the psychic facts of sex has thus, it will be seen, brought us up to the question of morality. Over and over again, in setting forth the phenomena of prostitution, it has been necessary to use the word "moral." That word, however, is vague and even, it may be, misleading because it has several senses. So far, it has been left to the intelligent reader, as he will not fail to perceive, to decide from the context in what sense the word was used. But at the present point, before we proceed to discuss sexual psychology in relation to marriage, it is necessary, in order to avoid ambiguity, to remind the reader what precisely are the chief main senses in which the word "morality" is commonly used. The morality with which ethical treatises are concerned is _theoretical morality_. It is concerned with what people "ought"--or what is "right" for them--to do. Socrates in the Platonic dialogues was concerned with such theoretical morality: what "ought" people to seek in their actions? The great bulk of ethical literature, until recent times one may say the whole of it, is concerned with that question. Such theoretical morality is, as Sidgwick said, a study rather than a science, for science can only be based on what is, not on what ought to be. Even within the sphere of theoretical morality there are two very different kinds of morality, so different indeed that sometimes each regards the other as even inimical or at best only by courtesy, with yet a shade of contempt, "moral." These two kinds of theoretical morality are _traditional morality_ and _ideal morality_. Traditional morality is founded on the long established practices of a community and possesses the stability of all theoretical ideas based in the past social life and surrounding every individual born into the community from his earliest years. It becomes the voice of conscience which speaks automatically in favor of all the rules that are thus firmly fixed, even when the individual himself no longer accepts them. Many persons, for example, who were brought up in childhood to the Puritanical observance of Sunday, will recall how, long after they had ceased to believe that such observances were "right," they yet in the violation of them heard the protest of the automatically aroused voice of "conscience," that is to say the expression within the individual of customary rules which have indeed now ceased to be his own but were those of the community in which he was brought up. Ideal morality, on the other hand, refers not to the past of the community but to its future. It is based not on the old social actions that are becoming antiquated, and perhaps even anti-social in their tendency, but on new social actions that are as yet only practiced by a small though growing minority of the community. Nietzsche in modern times has been a conspicuous champion of ideal morality, the heroic morality of the pioneer, of the individual of the coming community, against traditional morality, or, as he called it, herd-morality, the morality of the crowd. These two moralities are necessarily opposed to each other, but, we have to remember, they are both equally sound and equally indispensable, not only to those who accept them but to the community which they both contribute to hold in vital theoretical balance. We have seen them both, for instance, applied to the question of prostitution; traditional morality defends prostitution, not for its own sake, but for the sake of the marriage system which it regards as sufficiently precious to be worth a sacrifice, while ideal morality refuses to accept the necessity of prostitution, and looks forward to progressive changes in the marriage system which will modify and diminish prostitution. But altogether outside theoretical morality, or the question of what people "ought" to do, there remains _practical morality_, or the question of what, as a matter of fact, people actually do. This is the really fundamental and essential morality. Latin _mores_ and Greek aethos both refer to _custom_, to the things that are, and not to the things that "ought" to be, except in the indirect and secondary sense that whatever the members of the community, in the mass, actually do, is the thing that they feel they ought to do. In the first place, however, a moral act was not done because it was felt that it ought to be done, but for reasons of a much deeper and more instinctive character.[258] It was not first done because it was felt it ought to be done, but it was felt it "ought" to be done because it had actually become the custom to do it. The actions of a community are determined by the vital needs of a community under the special circumstances of its culture, time, and land. When it is the general custom for children to kill their aged parents that custom is always found to be the best not only for the community but even for the old people themselves, who desire it; the action is both practically moral and theoretically moral.[259] And when, as among ourselves, the aged are kept alive, that action is also both practically and theoretically moral; it is in no wise dependent on any law or rule opposed to the taking of life, for we glory in the taking of life under the patriotic name of "war," and are fairly indifferent to it when involved by the demands of our industrial system; but the killing of the aged no longer subserves any social need and their preservation ministers to our civilized emotional needs. The killing of a man is indeed notoriously an act which differs widely in its moral value at different periods and in different countries. It was quite moral in England two centuries ago and less, to kill a man for trifling offences against property, for such punishment commended itself as desirable to the general sense of the educated community. To-day it would be regarded as highly immoral. We are even yet only beginning to doubt the morality of condemning to death and imprisoning for life an unmarried girl who destroyed her infant at birth, solely actuated, against all her natural impulses, by the primitive instinct of self-defense. It cannot be said that we have yet begun to doubt the morality of killing men in war, though we no longer approve of killing women and children, or even non-combatants generally. Every age or land has its own morality. "Custom, in the strict sense of the word," well says Westermarck, "involves a moral rule.... Society is the school in which men learn to distinguish between right and wrong. The headmaster is custom."[260] Custom is not only the basis of morality but also of law. "Custom is law."[261] The field of theoretical morality has been found so fascinating a playground for clever philosophers that there has sometimes been a danger of forgetting that, after all, it is not theoretical morality but practical morality, the question of what men in the mass of a community actually do, which constitutes the real stuff of morals.[262] If we define more precisely what we mean by morals, on the practical side, we may say that it is constituted by those customs which the great majority of the members of a community regard as conducive to the welfare of the community at some particular time and place. It is for this reason--i.e., because it is a question of what is and not of merely what some think ought to be--that practical morals form the proper subject of science. "If the word 'ethics' is to be used as the name for a science," Westermarck says, "the object of that science can only be to study the moral consciousness as a fact."[263] Lecky's _History of European Morals_ is a study in practical rather than in theoretical morals. Dr. Westermarck's great work, _The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, is a more modern example of the objectively scientific discussion of morals, although this is not perhaps clearly brought out by the title. It is essentially a description of the actual historical facts of what has been, and not of what "ought" to be. Mr. L.T. Hobhouse's _Morals in Evolution_, published almost at the same time, is similarly a work which, while professedly dealing with ideas, i.e., with rules and regulations, and indeed disclaiming the task of being "the history of conduct," yet limits itself to those rules which are "in fact, the normal conduct of the average man" (vol. i, p. 26). In other words, it is essentially a history of practical morality, and not of theoretical morality. One of the most subtle and suggestive of living thinkers, M. Jules de Gaultier, in several of his books, and notably in _La Dépendance de la Morale et l'Indépendance des Moeurs_ (1907), has analyzed the conception of morals in a somewhat similar sense. "Phenomena relative to conduct," as he puts it (op. cit., p. 58), "are given in experience like other phenomena, so that morality, or the totality of the laws which at any given moment of historic evolution are applied to human practice, is dependent on customs." I may also refer to the masterly exposition of this aspect of morality in Lévy-Bruhl's _La Morale et la Science des Moeurs_ (there is an English translation). Practical morality is thus the solid natural fact which forms the biological basis of theoretical morality, whether traditional or ideal. The excessive fear, so widespread among us, lest we should injure morality is misplaced. We cannot hurt morals though we can hurt ourselves. Morals is based on nature and can at the most only be modified. As Crawley rightly insists,[264] even the categorical imperatives of our moral traditions, so far from being, as is often popularly supposed, attempts to suppress Nature, arise in the desire to assist Nature; they are simply an attempt at the rigid formulation of natural impulses. The evil of them only lies in the fact that, like all things that become rigid and dead, they tend to persist beyond the period when they were a beneficial vital reaction to the environment. They thus provoke new forms of ideal morality; and practical morals develops new structures, in accordance with new vital relationships, to replace older and desiccated traditions. There is clearly an intimate relationship between theoretical morals and practical morals or morality proper. For not only is theoretical morality the outcome in consciousness of realized practices embodied in the general life of the community, but, having thus become conscious, it reacts on those practices and tends to support them or, by its own spontaneous growth, to modify them. This action is diverse, according as we are dealing with one or the other of the strongly marked divisions of theoretical morality: traditional and posterior morality, retarding the vital growth of moral practice, or ideal and anterior morality, stimulating the vital growth of moral practice. Practical morality, or morals proper, may be said to stand between these two divisions of theoretical morality. Practice is perpetually following after anterior theoretical morality, in so far of course as ideal morality really is anterior and not, as so often happens, astray up a blind alley. Posterior or traditional morality always follows after practice. The result is that while the actual morality, in practice at any time or place, is always closely related to theoretical morality, it can never exactly correspond to either of its forms. It always fails to catch up with ideal morality; it is always outgrowing traditional morality. It has been necessary at this point to formulate definitely the three chief forms in which the word "moral" is used, although under one shape or another they cannot but be familiar to the reader. In the discussion of prostitution it has indeed been easily possible to follow the usual custom of allowing the special sense in which the word was used to be determined by the context. But now, when we are, for the moment, directly concerned with the specific question of the evolution of sexual morality, it is necessary to be more precise in formulating the terms we use. In this chapter, except when it is otherwise stated, we are concerned primarily with morals proper, with actual conduct as it develops among the masses of a community, and only secondarily with anterior morality or with posterior morality. Sexual morality, like all other kinds of morality, is necessarily constituted by inherited traditions modified by new adaptations to the changing social environment. If the influence of tradition becomes unduly pronounced the moral life tends to decay and lose its vital adaptability. If adaptability becomes too facile the moral life tends to become unstable and to lose authority. It is only by a reasonable synthesis of structure and function--of what is called the traditional with what is called the ideal--that the moral life can retain its authority without losing its reality. Many, even among those who call themselves moralists, have found this hard to understand. In a vain desire for an impossible logicality they have over-emphasized either the ideal influence on practical morals or, still more frequently, the traditional influence, which has appealed to them because of the impressive authority its _dicta_ seem to convey. The results in the sphere we are here concerned with have often been unfortunate, for no social impulse is so rebellious to decayed traditions, so volcanically eruptive, as that of sex. We are accustomed to identify our present marriage system with "morality" in the abstract, and for many people, perhaps for most, it is difficult to realize that the slow and insensible movement which is always affecting social life at the present time, as at every other time, is profoundly affecting our sexual morality. A transference of values is constantly taking place; what was once the very standard of morality becomes immoral, what was once without question immoral becomes a new standard. Such a process is almost as bewildering as for the European world two thousand years ago was the great struggle between the Roman city and the Christian Church, when it became necessary to realize that what Marcus Aurelius, the great pattern of morality, had sought to crush as without question immoral,[265] was becoming regarded as the supreme standard of morality. The classic world considered love and pity and self-sacrifice as little better than weakness and sometimes worse; the Christian world not only regarded them as moralities but incarnated them in a god. Our sexual morality has likewise disregarded natural human emotions, and is incapable of understanding those who declare that to retain unduly traditional laws that are opposed to the vital needs of human societies is not a morality but an immorality. The reason why the gradual evolution of moral ideals, which is always taking place, tends in the sexual sphere, at all events among ourselves, to reach a stage in which there seems to be an opposition between different standards lies in the fact that as yet we really have no specific sexual morality at all.[266] That may seem surprising at first to one who reflects on the immense weight which is usually attached to "sexual morality." And it is undoubtedly true that we have a morality which we apply to the sphere of sex. But that morality is one which belongs mainly to the sphere of property and was very largely developed on a property basis. All the historians of morals in general, and of marriage in particular, have set forth this fact, and illustrated it with a wealth of historical material. We have as yet no generally recognized sexual morality which has been based on the specific sexual facts of life. That becomes clear at once when we realize the central fact that the sexual relationship is based on love, at the very least on sexual desire, and that that basis is so deep as to be even physiological, for in the absence of such sexual desire it is physiologically impossible for a man to effect intercourse with a woman. Any specific sexual morality must be based on that fact. But our so-called "sexual morality," so far from being based on that fact, attempts to ignore it altogether. It makes contracts, it arranges sexual relationships beforehand, it offers to guarantee permanency of sexual inclinations. It introduces, that is, considerations of a kind that is perfectly sound in the economic sphere to which such considerations rightly belong, but ridiculously incongruous in the sphere of sex to which they have solemnly been applied. The economic relationships of life, in the large sense, are, as we shall see, extremely important in the evolution of any sound sexual morality, but they belong to the conditions of its development and do not constitute its basis.[267] The fact that, from the legal point of view, marriage is primarily an arrangement for securing the rights of property and inheritance is well illustrated by the English divorce law to-day. According to this law, if a woman has sexual intercourse with any man beside her husband, he is entitled to divorce her; if, however, the husband has intercourse with another woman beside his wife, she is not entitled to a divorce; that is only accorded if, in addition, he has also been cruel to her, or deserted her, and from any standpoint of ideal morality such a law is obviously unjust, and it has now been discarded in nearly all civilized lands except England. But from the standpoint of property and inheritance it is quite intelligible, and on that ground it is still supported by the majority of Englishmen. If the wife has intercourse with other men there is a risk that the husband's property will be inherited by a child who is not his own. But the sexual intercourse of the husband with other women is followed by no such risk. The infidelity of the wife is a serious offence against property; the infidelity of the husband is no offence against property, and cannot possibly, therefore, be regarded as a ground for divorce from our legal point of view. The fact that his adultery complicated by cruelty is such a ground, is simply a concession to modern feeling. Yet, as Helena Stöcker truly points out ("Verschiedenheit im Liebesleben des Weibes und des Mannes," _Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, Dec., 1908), a married man who has an unacknowledged child with a woman outside of marriage, has committed an act as seriously anti-social as a married woman who has a child without acknowledging that the father is not her husband. In the first case, the husband, and in the second case, the wife, have placed an undue amount of responsibility on another person. (The same point is brought forward by the author of _The Question of English Divorce_, p. 56.) I insist here on the economic element in our sexual morality, because that is the element which has given it a kind of stability and become established in law. But if we take a wider view of our sexual morality, we cannot ignore the ancient element of asceticism, which has given religious passion and sanction to it. Our sexual morality is thus, in reality, a bastard born of the union of property-morality with primitive ascetic morality, neither in true relationship to the vital facts of the sexual life. It is, indeed, the property element which, with a few inconsistencies, has become finally the main concern of our law, but the ascetic element (with, in the past, a wavering relationship to law) has had an important part in moulding popular sentiment and in creating an attitude of reprobation towards sexual intercourse _per se_, although such intercourse is regarded as an essential part of the property-based and religiously sanctified institution of legal marriage. The glorification of virginity led by imperceptible stages to the formulation of "fornication" as a deadly sin, and finally as an actual secular "crime." It is sometimes stated that it was not until the Council of Trent that the Church formally anathematized those who held that the state of marriage was higher than that of virginity, but the opinion had been more or less formally held from almost the earliest ages of Christianity, and is clear in the epistles of Paul. All the theologians agree that fornication is a mortal sin. Caramuel, indeed, the distinguished Spanish theologian, who made unusual concessions to the demands of reason and nature, held that fornication is only evil because it is forbidden, but Innocent XI formally condemned that proposition. Fornication as a mortal sin became gradually secularized into fornication as a crime. Fornication was a crime in France even as late as the eighteenth century, as Tarde found in his historical investigations of criminal procedure in Périgord; adultery was also a crime and severely punished quite independently of any complaint from either of the parties (Tarde, "Archéologie Criminelle en Périgord," _Archives de l'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Nov. 15, 1898). The Puritans of the Commonwealth days in England (like the Puritans of Geneva) followed the Catholic example and adopted ecclesiastical offences against chastity into the secular law. By an Act passed in 1653 fornication became punishable by three months' imprisonment inflicted on both parties. By the same Act the adultery of a wife (nothing is said of a husband) was made felony, both for her and her partner in guilt, and therefore punishable by death (Scobell, _Acts and Ordinances_, p. 121). The action of a pseudo-morality, such as our sexual morality has been, is double-edged. On the one side it induces a secret and shamefaced laxity, on the other it upholds a rigid and uninspiring theoretical code which so few can consistently follow that theoretical morality is thereby degraded into a more or less empty form. "The human race would gain much," said the wise Sénancour, "if virtue were made less laborious. The merit would not be so great, but what is the use of an elevation which can rarely be sustained?"[268] At present, as a more recent moralist, Ellen Key, puts it, we only have an immorality which favors vice and makes virtue irrealizable, and, as she exclaims with pardonable extravagance, to preach a sounder morality to the young, without at the same time condemning the society which encourages the prevailing immorality, is "worse than folly, it is crime." It is on the lines along which Sénancour a century ago and Ellen Key to-day are great pioneers that the new forms of anterior or ideal theoretical morality are now moving, in advance, according to the general tendency in morals, of traditional morality and even of practice. There is one great modern movement of a definite kind which will serve to show how clearly sexual morality is to-day moving towards a new standpoint. This is the changing attitude of the bulk of the community towards both State marriage and religious marriage, and the growing tendency to disallow State interference with sexual relationships, apart from the production of children. There has no doubt always been a tendency among the masses of the population in Europe to dispense with the official sanction of sexual relationships until such relationships have been well established and the hope of offspring has become justifiable. This tendency has been crystallized into recognized customs among numberless rural communities little touched either by the disturbing influences of the outside world or the controlling influences of theological Christian conceptions. But at the present day this tendency is not confined to the more primitive and isolated communities of Europe among whom, on the contrary, it has tended to die out. It is an unquestionable fact, says Professor Bruno Meyer, that far more than the half of sexual intercourse now takes place outside legal marriage.[269] It is among the intelligent classes and in prosperous and progressive communities that this movement is chiefly marked. We see throughout the world the practical common sense of the people shaping itself in the direction which has been pioneered by the ideal moralists who invariably precede the new growth of practical morality. The voluntary childless marriages of to-day have served to show the possibility of such unions outside legal marriage, and such free unions are becoming, as Mrs. Parsons points out, "a progressive substitute for marriage."[270] The gradual but steady rise in the age for entering on legal marriage also points in the same direction, though it indicates not merely an increase of free unions but an increase of all forms of normal and abnormal sexuality outside marriage. Thus in England and Wales, in 1906, only 43 per 1,000 husbands and 146 per 1,000 wives were under age, while the average age for husbands was 28.6 years and for wives 26.4 years. For men the age has gone up some eight months during the past forty years, for women more than this. In the large cities, like London, where the possibilities of extra-matrimonial relationships are greater, the age for legal marriage is higher than in the country. If we are to regard the age of legal marriage as, on the whole, the age at which the population enters into sexual unions, it is undoubtedly too late. Beyer, a leading German neurologist, finds that there are evils alike in early and in late marriage, and comes to the conclusion that in temperate zones the best age for women to marry is the twenty-first year, and for men the twenty-fifth year. Yet, under bad economic conditions and with a rigid marriage law, early marriages are in every respect disastrous. They are among the poor a sign of destitution. The very poorest marry first, and they do so through the feeling that their condition cannot be worse. (Dr. Michael Ryan brought together much interesting evidence concerning the causes of early marriage in Ireland in his _Philosophy of Marriage_, 1837, pp. 58-72). Among the poor, therefore, early marriage is always a misfortune. "Many good people," says Mr. Thomas Holmes, Secretary of the Howard Association and missionary at police courts (in an interview, _Daily Chronicle_, Sept. 8, 1906), "advise boys and girls to get married in order to prevent what they call a 'disgrace.' This I consider to be absolutely wicked, and it leads to far greater evils than it can possibly avert." Early marriages are one of the commonest causes both of prostitution and divorce. They lead to prostitution in innumerable cases, even when no outward separation takes place. The fact that they lead to divorce is shown by the significant circumstance that in England, although only 146 per 1,000 women are under twenty-one at marriage, of the wives concerned in divorce cases, 280 per 1,000 were under twenty-one at marriage, and this discrepancy is even greater than it appears, for in the well-to-do class, which can alone afford the luxury of divorce, the normal age at marriage is much higher than for the population generally. Inexperience, as was long ago pointed out by Milton (who had learnt this lesson to his cost), leads to shipwreck in marriage. "They who have lived most loosely," he wrote, "prove most successful in their matches, because their wild affections, unsettling at will, have been so many divorces to teach them experience." Miss Clapperton, referring to the educated classes, advocates very early marriage, even during student life, which might then be to some extent carried on side by side (_Scientific Meliorism_, Ch. XVII). Ellen Key, also, advocates early marriage. But she wisely adds that it involves the necessity for easy divorce. That, indeed, is the only condition which can render early marriage generally desirable. Young people--unless they possess very simple and inert natures--can neither foretell the course of their own development and their own strongest needs, nor estimate accurately the nature and quality of another personality. A marriage formed at an early age very speedily ceases to be a marriage in anything but name. Sometimes a young girl applies for a separation from her husband even on the very day after marriage. The more or less permanent free unions formed among us in Europe are usually to be regarded merely as trial-marriages. That is to say they are a precaution rendered desirable both by uncertainty as to either the harmony or the fruitfulness of union until actual experiment has been made, and by the practical impossibility of otherwise rectifying any mistake in consequence of the antiquated rigidity of most European divorce laws. Such trial marriages are therefore demanded by prudence and caution, and as foresight increases with the development of civilization, and constantly grows among us, we may expect that there will be a parallel development in the frequency of trial marriage and in the social attitude towards such unions. The only alternative--that a radical reform in European marriage laws should render the divorce of a legal marriage as economical and as convenient as the divorce of a free marriage--cannot yet be expected, for law always lags behind public opinion and public practice. If, however, we take a wider historical view, we find that we are in presence of a phenomenon which, though favored by modern conditions, is very ancient and widespread, dating, so far as Europe is concerned, from the time when the Church first sought to impose ecclesiastical marriage, so that it is practically a continuation of the ancient European custom of private marriage. Trial-marriages pass by imperceptible gradations into the group of courtship customs which, while allowing the young couple to spend the night together, in a position of more or less intimacy, exclude, as a rule, actual sexual intercourse. Night-courtship flourishes in stable and well-knit European communities not liable to disorganization by contact with strangers. It seems to be specially common in Teutonic and Celtic lands, and is known by various names, as _Probenächte, fensterln, Kiltgang, hand-fasting, bundling, sitting-up, courting on the bed, etc_. It is well known in Wales; it is found in various English counties as in Cheshire; it existed in eighteenth century Ireland (according to Richard Twiss's _Travels_); in New England it was known as _tarrying_; in Holland it is called _questing_. In Norway, where it is called _night-running_, on account of the long distance between the homesteads, I am told that it is generally practiced, though the clergy preach against it; the young girl puts on several extra skirts and goes to bed, and the young man enters by door or window and goes to bed with her; they talk all night, and are not bound to marry unless it should happen that the girl becomes pregnant. Rhys and Brynmor-Jones (_Welsh People_, pp. 582-4) have an interesting passage on this night-courtship with numerous references. As regards Germany see, e.g., Rudeck, _Geschichte der öffentlichen Sittlichkeit_, pp. 146-154. With reference to trial-marriage generally many facts and references are given by M.A. Potter (_Sohrab and Rustem_, pp. 129-137). The custom of free marriage unions, usually rendered legal before or after the birth of children, seems to be fairly common in many, or perhaps all, rural parts of England. The union is made legal, if found satisfactory, even when there is no prospect of children. In some counties it is said to be almost a universal practice for the women to have sexual relationships before legal marriage; sometimes she marries the first man whom she tries; sometimes she tries several before finding the man who suits her. Such marriages necessarily, on the whole, turn out better than marriages in which the woman, knowing nothing of what awaits her and having no other experiences for comparison, is liable to be disillusioned or to feel that she "might have done better." Even when legal recognition is not sought until after the birth of children, it by no means follows that any moral deterioration is involved. Thus in some parts of Staffordshire where it is the custom of the women to have a child before marriage, notwithstanding this "corruption," we are told (Burton, _City of the Saints_, Appendix IV), the women are "very good neighbors, excellent, hard-working, and affectionate wives and mothers." "The lower social classes, especially peasants," remarks Dr. Ehrhard ("Auch Ein Wort zur Ehereform," _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Jahrgang I, Heft 10), "know better than we that the marriage bed is the foundation of marriage. On that account they have retained the primitive custom of trial-marriage which, in the Middle Ages, was still practiced even in the best circles. It has the further advantage that the marriage is not concluded until it has shown itself to be fruitful. Trial-marriage assumes, of course, that virginity is not valued beyond its true worth." With regard to this point it may be mentioned that in many parts of the world a woman is more highly esteemed if she has had intercourse before marriage (see, e.g., Potter, op. cit., pp. 163 et seq.). While virginity is one of the sexual attractions a woman may possess, an attraction that is based on a natural instinct (see "The Evolution of Modesty," in vol. i of these _Studies_), yet an exaggerated attention to virginity can only be regarded as a sexual perversion, allied to _paidophilia_, the sexual attraction to children. In very small coördinated communities the primitive custom of trial-marriage tends to decay when there is a great invasion of strangers who have not been brought up to the custom (which seems to them indistinguishable from the license of prostitution), and who fail to undertake the obligations which trial-marriage involves. This is what happened in the case of the so-called "island custom" of Portland, which lasted well on into the nineteenth century; according to this custom a woman before marriage lived with her lover until pregnant and then married him; she was always strictly faithful to him while living with him, but if no pregnancy occurred the couple might decide that they were not meant for each other, and break off relations. The result was that for a long period of years no illegitimate children were born, and few marriages were childless. But when the Portland stone trade was developed, the workmen imported from London took advantage of the "island custom," but refused to fulfil the obligation of marriage when pregnancy occurred. The custom consequently fell into disuse (see, e.g., translator's note to Bloch's _Sexual Life of Our Time_, p. 237, and the quotation there given from Hutchins, _History and Antiquities of Dorset_, vol. ii, p. 820). It is, however, by no means only in rural districts, but in great cities also that marriages are at the outset free unions. Thus in Paris Després stated more than thirty years ago (_La Prostitution à Paris_, p. 137) that in an average arrondissement nine out of ten legal marriages are the consolidation of a free union; though, while that was an average, in a few arrondissements it was only three out of ten. Much the same conditions prevail in Paris to-day; at least half the marriages, it is stated, are of this kind. In Teutonic lands the custom of free unions is very ancient and well-established. Thus in Sweden, Ellen Key states (_Liebe und Ehe_, p. 123), the majority of the population begin married life in this way. The arrangement is found to be beneficial, and "marital fidelity is as great as pre-marital freedom is unbounded." In Denmark, also, a large number of children are conceived before the unions of the parents are legalized (Rubin and Westergaard, quoted by Gaedeken, _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Feb. 15, 1909). In Germany not only is the proportion of illegitimate births very high, since in Berlin it is 17 per cent., and in some towns very much higher, but ante-nuptial conceptions take place in nearly half the marriages, and sometimes in the majority. Thus in Berlin more than 40 per cent, of all legitimate firstborn children are conceived before marriage, while in some rural provinces (where the proportion of illegitimate births is lower) the percentage of marriages following ante-nuptial conceptions is much higher than in Berlin. The conditions in rural Germany have been especially investigated by a committee of Lutheran pastors, and were set forth a few years ago in two volumes, _Die Geschlecht-sittlich Verhältnisse im Deutschen Reiche_, which are full of instruction concerning German sexual morality. In Hanover, it is said in this work, the majority of authorities state that intercourse before marriage is the rule. At the very least, a _probe_, or trial, is regarded as a matter-of-course preliminary to a marriage, since no one wishes "to buy a pig in a poke." In Saxony, likewise, we are told, it is seldom that a girl fails to have intercourse before marriage, or that her first child is not born, or at all events conceived, outside marriage. This is justified as a proper proving of a bride before taking her for good. "One does not buy even a penny pipe without trying it," a German pastor was informed. Around Stettin, in twelve districts (nearly half the whole), sexual intercourse before marriage is a recognized custom, and in the remainder, if not exactly a custom, it is very common, and is not severely or even at all condemned by public opinion. In some districts marriage immediately follows pregnancy. In the Dantzig neighborhood, again, according to the Lutheran Committee, intercourse before marriage occurs in more than half the cases, but marriage by no means always follows pregnancy. Nearly all the girls who go as servants have lovers, and country people in engaging servants sometimes tell them that at evening and night they may do as they like. This state of things is found to be favorable to conjugal fidelity. The German peasant girl, as another authority remarks (E.H. Meyer, _Deutsche Volkskunde_, 1898, pp. 154, 164), has her own room; she may receive her lover; it is no great shame if she gives herself to him. The number of women who enter legal marriage still virgins is not large (this refers more especially to Baden), but public opinion protects them, and such opinion is unfavorable to the disregard of the responsibilities involved by sexual relationships. The German woman is less chaste before marriage than her French or Italian sister. But, Meyer adds, she is probably more faithful after marriage than they are. It is assumed by many that this state of German morality as it exists to-day is a new phenomenon, and the sign of a rapid national degeneration. That is by no means the case. In this connection we may accept the evidence of Catholic priests, who, by the experience of the confessional, are enabled to speak with authority. An old Bavarian priest thus writes (_Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, 1907, Bd. ii, Heft I): "At Moral Congresses we hear laudation of 'the good old times' when, faith and morality prevailed among the people. Whether that is correct is another question. As a young priest I heard of as many and as serious sins as I now hear of as an old man. The morality of the people is not greater nor is it less. The error is the belief that immorality goes out of the towns and poisons the country. People talk as though the country were a pure Paradise of innocence. I will by no means call our country people immoral, but from an experience of many years I can say that in sexual respects there is no difference between town and country. I have learnt to know more than a hundred different parishes, and in the most various localities, in the mountain and in the plain, on poor land and on rich land. But everywhere I find the same morals and lack of morals. There are everywhere the same men, though in the country there are often better Christians than in the towns." If, however, we go much farther back than the memories of a living man it seems highly probable that the sexual customs of the German people of the present day are not substantially different--though it may well be that at different periods different circumstances have accentuated them--from what they were in the dawn of Teutonic history. This is the opinion of one of the profoundest students of Indo-Germanic origins. In his _Reallexicon_ (art. "Keuschheit") O. Schrader points out that the oft-quoted Tacitus, strictly considered, can only be taken to prove that women were chaste after marriage, and that no prostitution existed. There can be no doubt, he adds, and the earliest historical evidence shows, that women in ancient Germany were not chaste before marriage. This fact has been disguised by the tendency of the old classic writers to idealize the Northern peoples. Thus we have to realize that the conception of "German virtue," which has been rendered so familiar to the world by a long succession of German writers, by no means involves any special devotion to the virtue of chastity. Tacitus, indeed, in the passage more often quoted in Germany than any other passage in classic literature, while correctly emphasizing the late puberty of the Germans and their brutal punishment of conjugal infidelity on the part of the wife, seemed to imply that they were also chaste. But we have always to remark that Tacitus wrote as a satirizing moralist as well as a historian, and that, as he declaimed concerning the virtues of the German barbarians, he had one eye on the Roman gallery whose vices he desired to lash. Much the same perplexing confusion has been created by Gildas, who, in describing the results of the Saxon Conquest of Britain, wrote as a preacher as well as a historian, and the same moral purpose (as Dill has pointed out) distorts Salvian's picture of the vices of fifth century Gaul. (I may add that some of the evidence in favor of the sexual freedom involved by early Teutonic faiths and customs is brought together in the study of "Sexual Periodicity" in the first volume of these _Studies_; cf. also, Rudeck, _Geschichte der öffentlichen Sittlichkeit in Deutschland_, 1897, pp. 146 et seq.). The freedom and tolerance of Russian sexual customs is fairly well-known. As a Russian correspondent writes to me, "the liberalism of Russian manners enables youths and girls to enjoy complete independence. They visit each other alone, they walk out alone, and they return home at any hour they please. They have a liberty of movement as complete as that of grown-up persons; some avail themselves of it to discuss politics and others to make love. They are able also to procure any books they please; thus on the table of a college girl I knew I saw the _Elements of Social Science_, then prohibited in Russia; this girl lived with her aunt, but she had her own room, which only her friends were allowed to enter: her aunt or other relations never entered it. Naturally, she went out and came back at what hours she pleased. Many other college girls enjoy the same freedom in their families. It is very different in Italy, where girls have no freedom of movement, and can neither go out alone nor receive gentlemen alone, and where, unlike Russia, a girl who has sexual intercourse outside marriage is really 'lost' and 'dishonored'" (cf. _Sexual-Probleme_, Aug., 1908, p. 506). It would appear that freedom of sexual relationships in Russia--apart from the influence of ancient custom--has largely been rendered necessary by the difficulty of divorce. Married couples, who were unable to secure divorce, separated and found new partners without legal marriage. In 1907, however, an attempt was made to remedy this defect in the law; a liberal divorce law has been introduced, mutual consent with separation for a period of over a year being recognized as adequate ground for divorce (Beiblatt to _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Bd. ii, Heft 5, p. 145). During recent years there has developed among educated young men and women in Russia a movement of sexual license, which, though it is doubtless supported by the old traditions of sexual freedom, must by no means be confused with that freedom, since it is directly due to causes of an entirely different order. The strenuous revolutionary efforts made during the last years of the past century to attain political freedom absorbed the younger and more energetic section of the educated classes, involved a high degree of mental tension, and were accompanied by a tendency to asceticism. The prospect of death was constantly before their eyes, and any pre-occupation with sexual matters would have been felt as out of harmony with the spirit of revolution. But during the present century revolutionary activity has largely ceased. It has been, to a considerable extent, replaced by a movement of interest in sexual problems and of indulgence in sexual unrestraint, often taking on a somewhat licentious and sensual character. "Free love" unions have been formed by the students of both sexes for the cultivation of these tendencies. A novel, Artzibascheff's _Ssanin_, has had great influence in promoting these tendencies. It is not likely that this movement, in its more extravagant forms, will be of long duration. (For some account of this movement, see, e.g., Werner Daya, "Die Sexuelle Bewegung in Russland," _Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, Aug., 1908; also, "Les Associations Erotiques en Russe," _Journal du Droit International Privé_, Jan., 1909, fully summarized in _Revue des Idées_, Feb., 1909.) The movement of sexual freedom in Russia lies much deeper, however, than this fashion of sensual license; it is found in remote and uncontaminated parts of the country, and is connected with very ancient customs. There is considerable interest in realizing the existence of long-continued sexual freedom--by some incorrectly termed "immorality," for what is in accordance with the customs or _mores_ of a people cannot be immoral--among peoples so virile and robust, so eminently capable of splendid achievements, as the Germans and the Russians. There is, however, a perhaps even greater interest in tracing the development of the same tendency among new prosperous and highly progressive communities who have either not inherited the custom of sexual freedom or are now only reviving it. We may, for instance, take the case of Australia and New Zealand. This development may not, indeed, be altogether recent. The frankness of sexual freedom in Australia and the tolerance in regard to it were conspicuous thirty years ago to those who came from England to live in the Southern continent, and were doubtless equally visible at an earlier date. It seems, however, to have developed with the increase of self-conscious civilization. "After careful inquiry," says the Rev. H. Northcote, who has lived for many years in the Southern hemisphere (_Christianity and Sex Problems_, Ch. VIII), "the writer finds sufficient evidence that of recent years intercourse out of wedlock has tended towards an actual increase in parts of Australia." Coghlan, the chief authority on Australian statistics, states more precisely in his _Childbirth in New South Wales_, published a few years ago: "The prevalence of births of ante-nuptial conception--a matter hitherto little understood--has now been completely investigated. In New South Wales, during six years, there were 13,366 marriages, in respect of which there was ante-nuptial conception, and, as the total number of marriages was 49,641, at least twenty-seven marriages in a hundred followed conception. During the same period the illegitimate births numbered 14,779; there were, therefore, 28,145 cases of conception amongst unmarried women; in 13,366 instances marriage preceded the birth of the child, so that the children were legitimatized in rather more than forty-seven cases out of one hundred. A study of the figures of births of ante-nuptial conception makes it obvious that in a very large number of instances pre-marital intercourse is not an anticipation of marriage already arranged, but that the marriages are forced upon the parties, and would not be entered into were it not for the condition of the woman" (cf. Powys, _Biometrika_, vol. i, 1901-2, p. 30). That marriage should be, as Coghlan puts it, "forced upon the parties," is not, of course, desirable in the general moral interests, and it is also a sign of imperfect moral responsibility in the parties themselves. The existence of such a state of things, in a young country belonging to a part of the world where the general level of prosperity, intelligence, morality and social responsibility may perhaps be said to be higher than in any other region inhabited by people of white race, is a fact of the very first significance when we are attempting to forecast the direction in which civilized morality is moving. It is sometimes said, or at least implied, that in this movement women are taking only a passive part, and that the initiative lies with men who are probably animated by a desire to escape the responsibilities of marriage. This is very far from being the case. The active part taken by German girls in sexual matters is referred to again and again by the Lutheran pastors in their elaborate and detailed report. Of the Dantzig district it is said "the young girls give themselves to the youths, or even seduce them." The military manoeuvres are frequently a source of unchastity in rural districts. "The fault is not merely with the soldiers, but chiefly with the girls, who become half mad as soon as they see a soldier," it is reported from the Dresden district. And in summarizing conditions in East Germany the report states: "In sexual wantonness girls are not behind the young men; they allow themselves to be seduced only too willingly; even grown-up girls often go with half-grown youths, and girls frequently give themselves to several men, one after the other. It is by no means always the youth who effects the seduction, it is very frequently the girls who entice the youth to sexual intercourse; they do not always wait till the men come to their rooms, but will go to the men's rooms and await them in their beds. With this inclination to sexual intercourse, it is not surprising that many believe that after sixteen no girl is a virgin. Unchastity among the rural laboring classes is universal, and equally pronounced in both sexes" (op. cit., vol. i, 218). Among women of the educated classes the conditions are somewhat different. Restraints, both internal and external, are very much greater. Virginity, at all events in its physical fact, is retained, for the most part, till long past girlhood, and when it is lost that loss is concealed with a scrupulous care and prudence unknown to the working-classes. Yet the fundamental tendencies remain the same. So far as England is concerned, Geoffrey Mortimer quite truly writes (_Chapters on Human Love_, 1898, p. 117) that the two groups of (1) women who live in constant secret association with a single lover, and (2) women who give themselves to men, without fear, from the force of their passions, are "much larger than is generally supposed. In all classes of society there are women who are only virgins by repute. Many have borne children without being even suspected of cohabitation; but the majority adopt methods of preventing conception. A doctor in a small provincial town declared to me that such irregular intimacies were the rule, and not by any means the exception in his district." As regards Germany, a lady doctor, Frau Adams-Lehmann, states in a volume of the Transactions of the German Society for Combating Venereal Disease (_Sexualpädagogik_, p. 271): "I can say that during consultation hours I see very few virgins over thirty. These women," she adds, "are sensible, courageous and natural, often the best of their sex; and we ought to give them our moral support. They are working towards a new age." It is frequently stated that the pronounced tendency witnessed at the present time to dispense as long as possible with the formal ceremony of binding marriage is unfortunate because it places women in a disadvantageous position. In so far as the social environment in which she lives views with disapproval sexual relationship without formal marriage, the statement is obviously to that extent true, though it must be remarked, on the other hand, that when social opinion strongly favors legal marriage it acts as a compelling force in the direction of legitimating free unions. But if the absence of the formal marriage bond constituted a real and intrinsic disadvantage to women in sexual relations they would not show themselves so increasingly ready to dispense with it. And, as a matter of fact, those who are intimately acquainted with the facts declare that the absence of formal marriage tends to give increased consideration to women and is even favorable to fidelity and to the prolongation of the union. This seems to be true as regards people of the most different social classes and even of different races. It is probably based on fundamental psychological facts, for the sense of compulsion always tends to produce a movement of exasperation and revolt. We are not here concerned with the question as to how far formal marriage also is based on natural facts; that is a question which will come up for discussion at a later stage. The advantage for women of free sexual unions over compulsory marriage is well recognized in the case of the working classes of London, among whom sexual relationships before marriage are not unusual, and are indulgently regarded. It is, for instance, clearly asserted in the monumental work of C. Booth, _Life and Labour of the People_. "It is even said of rough laborers," we read, for instance, in the final volume of this work (p. 41), "that they behave best if not married to the woman with whom they live." The evidence on this point is often the more impressive because brought forward by people who are very far indeed from being anxious to base any general conclusions on it. Thus in the same volume a clergyman is quoted as saying: "These people manage to live together fairly peaceably so long as they are not married, but if they marry it always seems to lead to blows and rows." It may be said that in such a case we witness not so much the operation of a natural law as the influences of a great centre of civilization exerting its moralizing effects even on those who stand outside the legally recognized institution of marriage. That contention may, however, be thrust aside. We find exactly the same tendency in Jamaica where the population is largely colored, and the stress of a high civilization can scarcely be said to exist. Legal marriage is here discarded to an even greater extent than in London, for little care is taken to legitimate children by marriage. It was found by a committee appointed to inquire into the marriage laws of Jamaica, that three out of every five births are illegitimate, that is to say that legal illegitimacy has ceased to be immoral, having become the recognized custom of the majority of the inhabitants. There is no social feeling against illegitimacy. The men approve of the decay of legal marriage, because they say the women work better in the house when they are not married; the women approve of it, because they say that men are more faithful when not bound by legal marriage. This has been well brought out by W.P. Livingstone in his interesting book, _Black Jamaica_ (1899). The people recognize, he tells us (p. 210), that "faithful living together constitutes marriage;" they say that they are "married but not parsoned." One reason against legal marriage is that they are disinclined to incur the expense of the official sanction. (In Venezuela, it may be added, where also the majority of births take place outside official marriage, the chief reason is stated to be, not moral laxity, but the same disinclination to pay the expenses of legal weddings.) Frequently in later life, sometimes when they have grown up sons and daughters, couples go through the official ceremony. (In Abyssinia, also, it is stated by Hugues Le Roux, where the people are Christian and marriage is indissoluble and the ceremony expensive, it is not usual for married couples to make their unions legal until old age is coming on, _Sexual-Probleme_, April, 1908, p. 217.) It is significant that this condition of things in Jamaica, as elsewhere, is associated with the superiority of women. "The women of the peasant class," remarks Livingstone (p. 212), "are still practically independent of the men, and are frequently their superiors, both in physical and mental capacity." They refuse to bind themselves to a man who may turn out to be good for nothing, a burden instead of a help and protection. So long as the unions are free they are likely to be permanent. If made legal, the risk is that they will become intolerable, and cease by one of the parties leaving the other. "The necessity for mutual kindness and forbearance establishes a condition that is the best guarantee of permanency" (p. 214). It is said, however, that under the influence of religious and social pressure the people are becoming more anxious to adopt "respectable" ideas of sexual relationships, though it seems evident, in view of Livingstone's statement, that such respectability is likely to involve a decrease of real morality. Livingstone points out, however, one serious defect in the present conditions which makes it easy for immoral men to escape paternal responsibilities, and this is the absence of legal provision for the registration of the father's name on birth certificates (p. 256). In every country where the majority of births are illegitimate it is an obvious social necessity that the names of both parents should be duly registered on all birth certificates. It has been an unpardonable failure on the part of the Jamaican Government to neglect the simple measure needed to give "each child born in the country a legal father" (p. 258). We thus see that we have to-day reached a position in which--partly owing to economic causes and partly to causes which are more deeply rooted in the tendencies involved by civilization--women are more often detached than of old from legal sexual relationship with men and both sexes are less inclined than in earlier stages of civilization to sacrifice their own independence even when they form such relationships. "I never heard of a woman over sixteen years of age who, prior to the breakdown of aboriginal customs after the coming of the whites, had not a husband," wrote Curr of the Australian Blacks.[271] Even as regards some parts of Europe, it is still possible to-day to make almost the same statement. But in all the richer, more energetic, and progressive countries very different conditions prevail. Marriage is late and a certain proportion of men, and a still larger proportion of women (who exceed the men in the general population) never marry at all.[272] Before we consider the fateful significance of this fact of the growing proportion of adult unmarried women whose sexual relationships are unrecognized by the state and largely unrecognized altogether, it may be well to glance summarily at the two historical streams of tendency, both still in action among us, which affect the status of women, the one favoring the social equality of the sexes, the other favoring the social subjection of women. It is not difficult to trace these two streams both in conduct and opinion, in practical morality and in theoretical morality. At one time it was widely held that in early states of society, before the establishment of the patriarchal stage which places women under the protection of men, a matriarchal stage prevailed in which women possessed supreme power.[273] Bachofen, half a century ago, was the great champion of this view. He found a typical example of a matriarchal state among the ancient Lycians of Asia Minor with whom, Herodotus stated, the child takes the name of the mother, and follows her status, not that of the father.[274] Such peoples, Bachofen believed, were gynæcocratic; power was in the hands of women. It can no longer be said that this opinion, in the form held by Bachofen, meets with any considerable support. As to the widespread prevalence of descent through the mother, there is no doubt whatever that it has prevailed very widely. But such descent through the mother, it has become recognized, by no means necessarily involves the power of the mother, and mother-descent may even be combined with a patriarchal system.[275] There has even been a tendency to run to the opposite extreme from Bachofen and to deny that mother-descent conferred any special claim for consideration on women. That, however, seems scarcely in accordance with the evidence and even in the absence of evidence could scarcely be regarded as probable. It would seem that we may fairly take as a type of the matriarchal family that based on the _ambil anak_ marriage of Sumatra, in which the husband lives in the wife's family, paying nothing and occupying a subordinate position. The example of the Lycians is here in point, for although, as reported by Herodotus, there is nothing to show that there was anything of the nature of a gynæcocracy in Lycia, we know that women in all these regions of Asia Minor enjoyed high consideration and influence, traces of which may be detected in the early literature and history of Christianity. A decisive and better known example of the favorable influence of mother-descent on the status of woman is afforded by the _beena_ marriage of early Arabia. Under such a system the wife is not only preserved from the subjection involved by purchase, which always casts upon her some shadow of the inferiority belonging to property, but she herself is the owner of the tent and the household property, and enjoys the dignity always involved by the possession of property and the ability to free herself from her husband.[276] It is also impossible to avoid connecting the primitive tendency to mother-descent, and the emphasis it involved on maternal rather than paternal generative energy, with the tendency to place the goddess rather than the god in the forefront of primitive pantheons, a tendency which cannot possibly fail to reflect honor on the sex to which the supreme deity belongs, and which may be connected with the large part which primitive women often play in the functions of religion. Thus, according to traditions common to all the central tribes of Australia, the woman formerly took a much greater share in the performance of sacred ceremonies which are now regarded as coming almost exclusively within the masculine province, and in at least one tribe which seems to retain ancient practices the women still actually take part in these ceremonies.[277] It seems to have been much the same in Europe. We observe, too, both in the Celtic pantheon and among Mediterranean peoples, that while all the ancient divinities have receded into the dim background yet the goddesses loom larger than the gods.[278] In Ireland, where ancient custom and tradition have always been very tenaciously preserved, women retained a very high position, and much freedom both before and after marriage. "Every woman," it was said, "is to go the way she willeth freely," and after marriage she enjoyed a better position and greater freedom of divorce than was afforded either by the Christian Church or the English common law.[279] There is less difficulty in recognizing that mother-descent was peculiarly favorable to the high status of women when we realize that even under very unfavorable conditions women have been able to exert great pressure on the men and to resist successfully the attempts to tyrannize over them.[280] If we consider the status of woman in the great empires of antiquity we find on the whole that in their early stage, the stage of growth, as well as in their final stage, the stage of fruition, women tend to occupy a favorable position, while in their middle stage, usually the stage of predominating military organization on a patriarchal basis, women occupy a less favorable position. This cyclic movement seems to be almost a natural law of the development of great social groups. It was apparently well marked in the very stable and orderly growth of Babylonia. In the earliest times a Babylonian woman had complete independence and equal rights with her brothers and her husband; later (as shown by the code of Hamurabi) a woman's rights, though not her duties, were more circumscribed; in the still later Neo-Babylonian periods, she again acquired equal rights with her husband.[281] In Egypt the position of women stood highest at the end, but it seems to have been high throughout the whole of the long course of Egyptian history, and continuously improving, while the fact that little regard was paid to prenuptial chastity and that marriage contracts placed no stress on virginity indicate the absence of the conception of women as property. More than three thousand five hundred years ago men and women were recognized as equal in Egypt. The high position of the Egyptian woman is significantly indicated by the fact that her child was never illegitimate; illegitimacy was not recognized even in the case of a slave woman's child.[282] "It is the glory of Egyptian morality," says Amélineau, "to have been the first to express the Dignity of Woman."[283] The idea of marital authority was altogether unknown in Egypt. There can be no doubt that the high status of woman in two civilizations so stable, so vital, so long-lived, and so influential on human culture as Babylonia and Egypt, is a fact of much significance. Among the Jews there seems to have been no intermediate stage of subordination of women, but instead a gradual progress throughout from complete subjection of the woman as wife to ever greater freedom. At first the husband could repudiate his wife at will without cause. (This was not an extension of patriarchal authority, but a purely marital authority.) The restrictions on this authority gradually increased, and begin to be observable already in the Book of Deuteronomy. The Mishnah went further and forbade divorce whenever the wife's condition inspired pity (as in insanity, captivity, etc.). By A.D. 1025, divorce was no longer possible except for legitimate reasons or by the wife's consent. At the same time, the wife also began to acquire the right of divorce in the form of compelling the husband to repudiate her on penalty of punishment in case of refusal. On divorce the wife became an independent woman in her own right, and was permitted to carry off the dowry which her husband gave her on marriage. Thus, notwithstanding Jewish respect for the letter of the law, the flexible jurisprudence of the Rabbis, in harmony with the growth of culture, accorded an ever-growing measure of sexual justice and equality to women (D.W. Amram, _The Jewish Law of Divorce_). Among the Arabs the tendency of progress has also been favorable to women in many respects, especially as regards inheritance. Before Mahommed, in accordance with the system prevailing at Medina, women had little or no right of inheritance. The legislation of the Koran modified this rule, without entirely abolishing it, and placed women in a much better position. This is attributed largely to the fact that Mahommed belonged not to Medina, but to Mecca, where traces of matriarchal custom still survived (W. Marçais, _Des Parents et des Alliés Successibles en Droit Musulman_). It may be pointed out--for it is not always realized--that even that stage of civilization--when it occurs--which involves the subordination and subjection of woman and her rights really has its origin in the need for the protection of women, and is sometimes even a sign of the acquirement of new privileges by women. They are, as it were, locked up, not in order to deprive them of their rights, but in order to guard those rights. In the later more stable phase of civilization, when women are no longer exposed to the same dangers, this motive is forgotten and the guardianship of woman and her rights seems, and indeed has really become, a hardship rather than an advantage. Of the status of women at Rome in the earliest periods we know little or nothing; the patriarchal system was already firmly established when Roman history begins to become clear and it involved unusually strict subordination of the woman to her father first and then to her husband. But nothing is more certain than that the status of women in Rome rose with the rise of civilization, exactly in the same way as in Babylonia and in Egypt. In the case of Rome, however, the growing refinement of civilization, and the expansion of the Empire, were associated with the magnificent development of the system of Roman law, which in its final forms consecrated the position of women. In the last days of the Republic women already began to attain the same legal level as men, and later the great Antonine jurisconsults, guided by their theory of natural law, reached the conception of the equality of the sexes as a principle of the code of equity. The patriarchal subordination of women fell into complete discredit, and this continued until, in the days of Justinian, under the influence of Christianity, the position of women began to suffer.[284] In the best days the older forms of Roman marriage gave place to a form (apparently old but not hitherto considered reputable) which amounted in law to a temporary deposit of the woman by her family. She was independent of her husband (more especially as she came to him with her own dowry) and only nominally dependent on her family. Marriage was a private contract, accompanied by a religious ceremony if desired, and being a contract it could be dissolved, for any reason, in the presence of competent witnesses and with due legal forms, after the advice of the family council had been taken. Consent was the essence of this marriage and no shame, therefore, attached to its dissolution. Nor had it any evil effect either on the happiness or the morals of Roman women.[285] Such a system is obviously more in harmony with modern civilized feeling than any system that has ever been set up in Christendom. In Rome, also, it is clear that this system was not a mere legal invention but the natural outgrowth of an enlightened public feeling in favor of the equality of men and women, often even in the field of sexual morality. Plautus, who makes the old slave Syra ask why there is not the same law in this respect for the husband as for the wife,[286] had preceded the legist Ulpian who wrote: "It seems to be very unjust that a man demands chastity of his wife while he himself shows no example of it."[287] Such demands lie deeper than social legislation, but the fact that these questions presented themselves to typical Roman men indicates the general attitude towards women. In the final stage of Roman society the bond of the patriarchal system so far as women were concerned dwindled to a mere thread binding them to their fathers and leaving them quite free face to face with their husbands. "The Roman matron of the Empire," says Hobhouse, "was more fully her own mistress than the married woman of any earlier civilization, with the possible exception of a certain period of Egyptian history, and, it must be added, than the wife of any later civilization down to our own generation."[288] On the strength of the statements of two satirical writers, Juvenal and Tacitus, it has been supposed by many that Roman women of the late period were given up to license. It is, however, idle to seek in satirists any balanced picture of a great civilization. Hobhouse (loc. cit., p. 216) concludes that on the whole, Roman women worthily retained the position of their husbands' companions, counsellors and friends which they had held when an austere system placed them legally in his power. Most authorities seem now to be of this opinion, though at an earlier period Friedländer expressed himself more dubiously. Thus Dill, in his judicious _Roman Society_ (p. 163), states that the Roman woman's position, both in law and in fact, rose during the Empire; without being less virtuous or respected, she became far more accomplished and attractive; with fewer restraints she had greater charm and influence, even in public affairs, and was more and more the equal of her husband. "In the last age of the Western Empire there is no deterioration in the position and influence of women." Principal Donaldson, also, in his valuable historical sketch, _Woman_, considers (p. 113) that there was no degradation of morals in the Roman Empire; "the licentiousness of Pagan Rome is nothing to the licentiousness of Christian Africa, Rome, and Gaul, if we can put any reliance on the description of Salvian." Salvian's description of Christendom is probably exaggerated and one-sided, but exactly the same may be said in an even greater degree of the descriptions of ancient Rome left by clever Pagan satirists and ascetic Christian preachers. It thus becomes necessary to leap over considerably more than a thousand years before we reach a stage of civilization in any degree approaching in height the final stage of Roman society. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, at first in France, then in England, we find once more the moral and legal movement tending towards the equalization of women with men. We find also a long series of pioneers of that movement foreshadowing its developments: Mary Astor, "Sophia, a Lady of Quality," Ségur, Mrs. Wheeler, and very notably Mary Wollstonecraft in _A Vindication of the Rights of Woman_, and John Stuart Mill in _The Subjection of Women_.[289] The main European stream of influences in this matter within historical times has involved, we can scarcely doubt when we take into consideration its complex phenomena as a whole, the maintenance of an inequality to the disadvantage of women. The fine legacy of Roman law to Europe was indeed favorable to women, but that legacy was dispersed and for the most part lost in the more predominating influence of tenacious Teutonic custom associated with the vigorously organized Christian Church. Notwithstanding that the facts do not all point in the same direction, and that there is consequently some difference of opinion, it seems evident that on the whole both Teutonic custom and Christian religion were unfavorable to the equality of women with men. Teutonic custom in this matter was determined by two decisive factors: (1) the existence of marriage by purchase which although, as Crawley has pointed out, it by no means necessarily involves the degradation of women, certainly tends to place them in an inferior position, and (2) pre-occupation with war which is always accompanied by a depreciation of peaceful and feminine occupations and an indifference to love. Christianity was at its origin favorable to women because it liberated and glorified the most essentially feminine emotions, but when it became an established and organized religion with definitely ascetic ideals, its whole emotional tone grew unfavorable to women. It had from the first excluded them from any priestly function. It now regarded them as the special representatives of the despised element of sex in life.[290] The eccentric Tertullian had once declared that woman was _janua Diaboli_; nearly seven hundred years later, even the gentle and philosophic Anselm wrote: _Femina fax est Satanæ_.[291] Thus among the Franks, with whom the practice of monogamy prevailed, a woman was never free; she could not buy or sell or inherit without the permission of those to whom she belonged. She passed into the possession of her husband by acquisition, and when he fixed the wedding day he gave her parents coins of small money as _arrha_, and the day after the wedding she received from him a present, the _morgengabe_. A widow belonged to her parents again (Bedollière, _Histoire de Moeurs des Français_, vol. i, p. 180). It is true that the Salic law ordained a pecuniary fine for touching a woman, even for squeezing her finger, but it is clear that the offence thus committed was an offence against property, and by no means against the sanctity of a woman's personality. The primitive German husband could sell his children, and sometimes his wife, even into slavery. In the eleventh century cases of wife-selling are still heard of, though no longer recognized by law. The traditions of Christianity were more favorable to sexual equality than were Teutonic customs, but in becoming amalgamated with those customs they added their own special contribution as to woman's impurity. This spiritual inferiority of woman was significantly shown by the restrictions sometimes placed on women in church, and even in the right to enter a church; in some places they were compelled to remain in the narthex, even in non-monastic churches (see for these rules, Smith and Cheetham, _Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_, art. "Sexes, Separation of"). By attempting to desexualize the idea of man and to oversexualize the idea of woman, Christianity necessarily degraded the position of woman and the conception of womanhood. As Donaldson well remarks, in pointing this out (op. cit., p. 182), "I may define man as a male human being and woman as a female human being.... What the early Christians did was to strike the 'male' out of the definition of man, and 'human being' out of the definition of woman." Religion generally appears to be a powerfully depressing influence on the position of woman notwithstanding the appeal which it makes to woman. Westermarck considers, indeed (_Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, vol. i, p. 669), that religion "has probably been the most persistent cause of the wife's subjection to her husband's rule." It is sometimes said that the Christian tendency to place women in an inferior spiritual position went so far that a church council formally denied that women have souls. This foolish story has indeed been repeated in a parrot-like fashion by a number of writers. The source of the story is probably to be found in the fact, recorded by Gregory of Tours, in his history (lib. viii, cap. XX), that at the Council of Mâcon, in 585, a bishop was in doubt as to whether the term "man" included woman, but was convinced by the other members of the Council that it did. The same difficulty has presented itself to lawyers in more modern times, and has not always been resolved so favorably to woman as by the Christian Council of Mâcon. The low estimate of women that prevailed even in the early Church is admitted by Christian scholars. "We cannot but notice," writes Meyrick (art. "Marriage," Smith and Cheetham, _Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_), "even in the greatest of the Christian fathers a lamentably low estimate of woman, and consequently of the marriage relationship. Even St. Augustine can see no justification for marriage, except in a grave desire deliberately adopted of having children; and in accordance with this view, all married intercourse, except for this single purpose, is harshly condemned. If marriage is sought after for the sake of children, it is justifiable; if entered into as a _remedium_ to avoid worse evils, it is pardonable; the idea of the mutual society, help, and comfort that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity, hardly existed, and could hardly yet exist." From the woman's point of view, Lily Braun, in her important work on the woman question (_Die Frauenfrage_, 1901, pp. 28 et seq.) concludes that, in so far as Christianity was favorable to women, we must see that favorable influence in the placing of women on the same moral level as men, as illustrated in the saying of Jesus, "Let him who is without sin amongst you cast the first stone," implying that each sex owes the same fidelity. It reached, she adds, no further than this. "Christianity, which women accepted as a deliverance with so much enthusiasm, and died for as martyrs, has not fulfilled their hopes." Even as regards the moral equality of the sexes in marriage, the position of Christian authorities was sometimes equivocal. One of the greatest of the Fathers, St. Basil, in the latter half of the fourth century, distinguished between adultery and fornication as committed by a married man; if with a married woman, it was adultery; if with an unmarried woman, it was merely fornication. In the former case, a wife should not receive her husband back; in the latter case, she should (art. "Adultery," Smith and Cheetham, _Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_). Such a decision, by attaching supreme importance to a distinction which could make no difference to the wife, involved a failure to recognize her moral personality. Many of the Fathers in the Western Church, however, like Jerome, Augustine, and Ambrose, could see no reason why the moral law should not be the same for the husband as for the wife, but as late Roman feeling both on the legal and popular side was already approximating to that view, the influence of Christianity was scarcely required to attain it. It ultimately received formal sanction in the Roman Canon Law, which decreed that adultery is equally committed by either conjugal party in two degrees: (1) _simplex_, of the married with the unmarried, and (2) _duplex_, of the married with the married. It can scarcely be said, however, that Christianity succeeded in attaining the inclusion of this view of the moral equality of the sexes into actual practical morality. It was accepted in theory; it was not followed in practice. W.G. Sumner, discussing this question (_Folkways_, pp. 359-361), concludes: "Why are these views not in the _mores?_ Undoubtedly it is because they are dogmatic in form, invented or imposed by theological authority or philosophical speculation. They do not grow out of the experience of life, and cannot be verified by it. The reasons are in ultimate physiological facts, by virtue of which one is a woman and the other is a man." There is, however, more to be said on this point later. It was probably, however, not so much the Church as Teutonic customs and the development of the feudal system, with the masculine and military ideals it fostered, that was chiefly decisive in fixing the inferior position of women in the mediæval world. Even the ideas of chivalry, which have often been supposed to be peculiarly favorable to women, so far as they affected women seem to have been of little practical significance. In his great work on chivalry Gautier brings forward much evidence to show that the feudal spirit, like the military spirit always and everywhere, on the whole involved at bottom a disdain for women, even though it occasionally idealized them. "Go into your painted and gilded rooms," we read in _Renaus de Montauban_, "sit in the shade, make yourselves comfortable, drink, eat, work tapestry, dye silk, but remember that you must not occupy yourselves with our affairs. Our business is to strike with the steel sword. Silence!" And if the woman insists she is struck on the face till the blood comes. The husband had a legal right to beat his wife, not only for adultery, but even for contradicting him. Women were not, however, entirely without power, and in a thirteenth century collection of _Coutumes_, it is set down that a husband must only beat his wife reasonably, _resnablement_. (As regards the husband's right to chastise his wife, see also Hobhouse, _Morals in Evolution_, vol. i, p. 234. In England it was not until the reign of Charles II, from which so many modern movements date, that the husband was deprived of this legal right.) In the eyes of a feudal knight, it may be added, the beauty of a horse competed, often successfully, with the beauty of a woman. In _Girbers de Metz_, two knights, Garin and his cousin Girbert, ride by a window at which sits a beautiful girl with the face of a rose and the white flesh of a lily. "Look, cousin Girbert, look! By Saint Mary, a beautiful woman!" "Ah," Girbert replies, "a beautiful beast is my horse!" "I have never seen anything so charming as that young girl with her fresh color and her dark eyes," says Garin. "I know no steed to compare with mine," retorts Girbert. When the men were thus absorbed in the things that pertain to war, it is not surprising that amorous advances were left to young girls to make. "In all the _chansons de geste_," Gautier remarks, "it is the young girls who make the advances, often with effrontery," though, he adds, wives are represented as more virtuous (L. Gautier, _La Chevalerie_, pp. 236-8, 348-50). In England Pollock and Maitland (_History of English Law_, vol. ii, p. 437) do not believe that a life-long tutela of women ever existed as among other Teutonic peoples. "From the Conquest onwards," Hobhouse states (op. cit., vol. i, p. 224), "the unmarried English woman, on attaining her majority, becomes fully equipped with all legal and civil rights, as much a legal personality as the Babylonian woman had been three thousand years before." But the developed English law more than made up for any privileges thus accorded to the unmarried by the inconsistent manner in which it swathed up the wife in endless folds of irresponsibility, except when she committed the supreme offence of injuring her lord and master. The English wife, as Hobhouse continues (loc. cit.) was, if not her husband's slave, at any rate his liege subject; if she killed him it was "petty treason," the revolt of a subject against a sovereign in a miniature kingdom, and a more serious offence than murder. Murder she could not commit in his presence, for her personality was merged in him; he was responsible for most of her crimes and offences (it was that fact which gave him the right to chastise her), and he could not even enter into a contract with her, for that would be entering into a contract with himself. "The very being and legal existence of a woman is suspended during marriage," said Blackstone, "or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of her husband, under whose wing, protection and cover she performs everything. So great a favorite," he added, "is the female sex of the laws of England." "The strength of woman," says Hobhouse, interpreting the sense of the English law, "was her weakness. She conquered by yielding. Her gentleness had to be guarded from the turmoil of the world, her fragrance to be kept sweet and fresh, away from the dust and the smoke of battle. Hence her need of a champion and guardian." In France the wife of the mediæval and Renaissance periods occupied much the same position in her husband's house. He was her absolute master and lord, the head and soul of "the feminine and feeble creature" who owed to him "perfect love and obedience." She was his chief servant, the eldest of his children, his wife and subject; she signed herself "your humble obedient daughter and friend," when she wrote to him. The historian, De Maulde la Clavière, who has brought together evidence on this point in his _Femmes de la Renaissance_, remarks that even though the husband enjoyed this lofty and superior position in marriage, it was still generally he, and not the wife, who complained of the hardships of marriage. Law and custom assumed that a woman should be more or less under the protection of a man, and even the ideals of fine womanhood which arose in this society, during feudal and later times, were necessarily tinged by the same conception. It involved the inequality of women as compared with men, but under the social conditions of a feudal society such inequality was to woman's advantage. Masculine force was the determining factor in life and it was necessary that every woman should have a portion of this force on her side. This sound and reasonable idea naturally tended to persist even after the growth of civilization rendered force a much less decisive factor in social life. In England in Queen Elizabeth's time no woman must be masterless, although the feminine subjects of Queen Elizabeth had in their sovereign the object lesson of a woman who could play a very brilliant and effective part in life and yet remain absolutely masterless. Still later, in the eighteenth century, even so fine a moralist as Shaftesbury, in his _Characteristics_, refers to lovers of married women as invaders of property. If such conceptions still ruled even in the best minds, it is not surprising that in the same century, even in the following century, they were carried out into practice by less educated people who frankly bought and sold women. Schrader, in his _Reallexicon_ (art. "Brautkauf"), points out that, originally, the purchase of a wife was the purchase of her person, and not merely of the right of protecting her. The original conception probably persisted long in Great Britain on account of its remoteness from the centres of civilization. In the eleventh century Gregory VII desired Lanfranc to stop the sale of wives in Scotland and elsewhere in the island of the English (Pike, _History of Crime in England_, vol. i, p. 99). The practice never quite died out, however, in remote country districts. Such transactions have taken place even in London. Thus in the _Annual Register_ for 1767 (p. 99) we read: "About three weeks ago a bricklayer's laborer at Marylebone sold a woman, whom he had cohabited with for several years, to a fellow-workman for a quarter guinea and a gallon of beer. The workman went off with the purchase, and she has since had the good fortune to have a legacy of £200, and some plate, left her by a deceased uncle in Devonshire. The parties were married last Friday." The Rev. J. Edward Vaux (_Church Folk-lore_, second edition, p. 146) narrates two authentic cases in which women had been bought by their husbands in open market in the nineteenth century. In one case the wife, with her own full consent, was brought to market with a halter round her neck, sold for half a crown, and led to her new home, twelve miles off by the new husband who had purchased her; in the other case a publican bought another man's wife for a two-gallon jar of gin. It is the same conception of woman as property which, even to the present, has caused the retention in many legal codes of clauses rendering a man liable to pay pecuniary damages to a woman, previously a virgin, whom he has intercourse with and subsequently forsakes (Natalie Fuchs, "Die Jungfernschaft im Recht und Sitte," _Sexual-Probleme_, Feb., 1908). The woman is "dishonored" by sexual intercourse, depreciated in her market value, exactly as a new garment becomes "second-hand," even if it has but once been worn. A man, on the other hand, would disdain the idea that his personal value could be diminished by any number of acts of sexual intercourse. This fact has even led some to advocate the "abolition of physical virginity." Thus the German authoress of _Una Poenitentium_ (1907), considering that the protection of a woman is by no means so well secured by a little piece of membrane as by the presence of a true and watchful soul inside, advocates the operation of removal of the hymen in childhood. It is undoubtedly true that the undue importance attached to the hymen has led to a false conception of feminine "honor," and to an unwholesome conception of feminine purity. Custom and law are slowly changing in harmony with changed social conditions which no longer demand the subjection of women either in their own interests or in the interests of the community. Concomitantly with these changes a different ideal of womanly personality is developing. It is true that the ancient ideal of the lordship of the husband over the wife is still more or less consciously affirmed around us. The husband frequently dictates to the wife what avocations she may not pursue, what places she may not visit, what people she may not know, what books she may not read. He assumes to control her, even in personal matters having no direct concern with himself, by virtue of the old masculine prerogative of force which placed a woman under the hand, as the ancient patriarchal legists termed it, of a man. It is, however, becoming more and more widely recognized that such a part is not suited to the modern man. The modern man, as Rosa Mayreder has pointed out in a thoughtful essay,[292] is no longer equipped to play this domineering part in relation to his wife. The "noble savage," leading a wild life on mountain and in forest, hunting dangerous beasts and scalping enemies when necessary, may occasionally bring his club gently and effectively on to the head of his wife, even, it may be, with grateful appreciation on her part.[293] But the modern man, who for the most part spends his days tamely at a desk, who has been trained to endure silently the insults and humiliations which superior officials or patronizing clients may inflict upon him, this typical modern man is no longer able to assume effectually the part of the "noble savage" when he returns to his home. He is indeed so unfitted for the part that his wife resents his attempts to play it. He is gradually recognizing this, even apart from any consciousness of the general trend of civilization. The modern man of ideas recognizes that, as a matter of principle, his wife is entitled to equality with himself; the modern man of the world feels that it would be both ridiculous and inconvenient not to accord his wife much the same kind of freedom which he himself possesses. And, moreover, while the modern man has to some extent acquired feminine qualities, the modern woman has to a corresponding extent acquired masculine qualities. Brief and summary as the preceding discussion has necessarily been, it will have served to bring us face to face with the central fact in the sexual morality which the growth of civilization has at the present day rendered inevitable: personal responsibility. "The responsible human being, man or woman, is the centre of modern ethics as of modern law;" that is the conclusion reached by Hobhouse in his discussion of the evolution of human morality.[294] The movement which is taking place among us to liberate sexual relationships from an excessive bondage to fixed and arbitrary regulations would have been impossible and mischievous but for the concomitant growth of a sense of personal responsibility in the members of the community. It could not indeed have subsisted for a single year without degenerating into license and disorder. Freedom in sexual relations involves mutual trust and that can only rest on a basis of personal responsibility. Where there can be no reliance on personal responsibility there can be no freedom. In most fields of moral action this sense of personal responsibility is acquired at a fairly early stage of social progress. Sexual morality is the last field of morality to be brought within the sphere of personal responsibility. The community imposes the most varied, complicated, and artificial codes of sexual morality on its members, especially its feminine members, and, naturally enough, it is always very suspicious of their ability to observe these codes, and is careful to allow them, so far as possible, no personal responsibility in the matter. But a training in restraint, when carried through a long series of generations, is the best preparation for freedom. The law laid on the earlier generations, as old theology stated the matter, has been the schoolmaster to bring the later generations to Christ; or, as new science expresses exactly the same idea, the later generations have become immunized and have finally acquired a certain degree of protection against the virus which would have destroyed the earlier generations. The process by which a people acquires the sense of personal responsibility is slow, and perhaps it cannot be adequately acquired at all by races lacking a high grade of nervous organization. This is especially the case as regards sexual morality, and has often been illustrated on the contact of a higher with a lower civilization. It has constantly happened that missionaries--entirely against their own wishes, it need not be said--by overthrowing the strict moral system they have found established, and by substituting the freedom of European customs among people entirely unprepared for such freedom, have exerted the most disastrous effects on morality. This has been the case among the formerly well-organized and highly moral Baganda of Central Africa, as recorded in an official report by Colonel Lambkin (_British Medical Journal_, Oct. 3, 1908). As regards Polynesia, also, R.L. Stevenson, in his interesting book, _In the South Seas_ (Ch. V), pointed out that, while before the coming of the whites the Polynesians were, on the whole, chaste, and the young carefully watched, now it is far otherwise. Even in Fiji, where, according to Lord Stanmore--who was High Commissioner of the Pacific, and an independent critic--missionary effort has been "wonderfully successful," where all own at least nominal allegiance to Christianity, which has much modified life and character, yet chastity has suffered. This was shown by a Royal Commission on the condition of the native races in Fiji. Mr. Fitchett, commenting on this report (Australasian _Review of Reviews_, Oct., 1897) remarks: "Not a few witnesses examined by the commission declare that the moral advance in Fiji is of a curiously patchy type. The abolition of polygamy, for example, they say, has not told at every point in favor of women. The woman is the toiler in Fiji; and when the support of the husband was distributed over four wives, the burden on each wife was less than it is now, when it has to be carried by one. In heathen times female chastity was guarded by the club; a faithless wife, an unmarried mother, was summarily put to death. Christianity has abolished club-law, and purely moral restraints, or the terror of the penalties of the next world, do not, to the limited imagination of the Fijian, quite take its place. So the standard of Fijian chastity is distressingly low." It must always be remembered that when the highly organized primitive system of mixed spiritual and physical restraints is removed, chastity becomes more delicately and unstably poised. The controlling power of personal responsibility, valuable and essential as it is, cannot permanently and unremittingly restrain the volcanic forces of the passion of love even in high civilizations. "No perfection of moral constitution in a woman," Hinlon has well said, "no power of will, no wish and resolution to be 'good,' no force of religion or control of custom, can secure what is called the virtue of woman. The emotion of absolute devotion with which some man may inspire her will sweep them all away. Society, in choosing to erect itself on that basis, chooses inevitable disorder, and so long as it continues to choose it will continue to have that result." It is necessary to insist for a while on this personal responsibility in matters of sexual morality, in the form in which it is making itself felt among us, and to search out its implications. The most important of these is undoubtedly economic independence. That is indeed so important that moral responsibility in any fine sense can scarcely be said to have any existence in its absence. Moral responsibility and economic independence are indeed really identical; they are but two sides of the same social fact. The responsible person is the person who is able to answer for his actions and, if need be, to pay for them. The economically dependent person can accept a criminal responsibility; he can, with an empty purse, go to prison or to death. But in the ordinary sphere of everyday morality that large penalty is not required of him; if he goes against the wishes of his family or his friends or his parish, they may turn their backs on him but they cannot usually demand against him the last penalties of the law. He can exert his own personal responsibility, he can freely choose to go his own way and to maintain himself in it before his fellowmen on one condition, that he is able to pay for it. His personal responsibility has little or no meaning except in so far as it is also economic independence. In civilized societies as they attain maturity, the women tend to acquire a greater and greater degree alike of moral responsibility and economic independence. Any freedom and seeming equality of women, even when it actually assumes the air of superiority, which is not so based, is unreal. It is only on sufferance; it is the freedom accorded to the child, because it asks for it so prettily or may scream if it is refused. This is merely parasitism.[295] The basis of economic independence ensures a more real freedom. Even in societies which by law and custom hold women in strict subordination, the woman who happens to be placed in possession of property enjoys a high degree alike of independence and of responsibility.[296] The growth of a high civilization seems indeed to be so closely identified with the economic freedom and independence of women that it is difficult to say which is cause and which effect. Herodotus, in his fascinating account of Egypt, a land which he regarded as admirable beyond all other lands, noted with surprise that, totally unlike the fashion of Greece, women left the men at home to the management of the loom and went to market to transact the business of commerce.[297] It is the economic factor in social life which secures the moral responsibility of women and which chiefly determines the position of the wife in relation to her husband.[298] In this respect in its late stages civilization returns to the same point it had occupied at the beginning, when, as has already been noted, we find greater equality with men and at the same time greater economic independence.[299] In all the leading modern civilized countries, for a century past, custom and law have combined to give an ever greater economic independence to women. In some respects England took the lead by inaugurating the great industrial movement which slowly swept women into its ranks,[300] and made inevitable the legal changes which, by 1882, insured to a married woman the possession of her own earnings. The same movement, with its same consequences, is going on elsewhere. In the United States, just as in England, there is a vast army of five million women, rapidly increasing, who earn their own living, and their position in relation to men workers is even better than in England. In France from twenty-five to seventy-five per cent. of the workers in most of the chief industries--the liberal professions, commerce, agriculture, factory industries--are women, and in some of the very largest, such as home industries and textile industries, more women are employed than men. In Japan, it is said, three-fifths of the factory workers are women, and all the textile industries are in the hands of women.[301] This movement is the outward expression of the modern conception of personal rights, personal moral worth, and personal responsibility, which, as Hobhouse has remarked, has compelled women to take their lives into their own hands, and has at the same time rendered the ancient marriage laws an anachronism, and the ancient ideals of feminine innocence shrouded from the world a mere piece of false sentiment.[302] There can be no doubt that the entrance of women into the field of industrial work, in rivalry with men and under somewhat the same conditions as men, raises serious questions of another order. The general tendency of civilization towards the economic independence and the moral responsibility of women is unquestionable. But it is by no means absolutely clear that it is best for women, and, therefore, for the community, that women should exercise all the ordinary avocations and professions of men on the same level as men. Not only have the conditions of the avocations and professions developed in accordance with the special aptitudes of men, but the fact that the sexual processes by which the race is propagated demand an incomparably greater expenditure of time and energy on the part of women than of men, precludes women in the mass from devoting themselves so exclusively as men to industrial work. For some biologists, indeed, it seems clear that outside the home and the school women should not work at all. "Any nation that works its women is damned," says Woods Hutchinson (_The Gospel According to Darwin_, p. 199). That view is extreme. Yet from the economic side, also, Hobson, in summing up this question, regards the tendency of machine-industry to drive women away from the home as "a tendency antagonistic to civilization." The neglect of the home, he states, is, "on the whole, the worst injury modern industry has inflicted on our lives, and it is difficult to see how it can be compensated by any increase of material products. Factory life for women, save in extremely rare cases, saps the physical and moral health of the family. The exigencies of factory life are inconsistent with the position of a good mother, a good wife, or the maker of a home. Save in extreme circumstances, no increase of the family wage can balance these losses, whose values stand upon a higher qualitative level" (J.A. Hobson, _Evolution of Modern Capitalism_, Ch. XII; cf. what has been said in Ch. I of the present volume). It is now beginning to be recognized that the early pioneers of the "woman's movement" in working to remove the "subjection of woman" were still dominated by the old ideals of that subjection, according to which the masculine is in all main respects the superior sex. Whatever was good for man, they thought, must be equally good for woman. That has been the source of all that was unbalanced and unstable, sometimes both a little pathetic and a little absurd, in the old "woman's movement." There was a failure to perceive that, first of all, women must claim their right to their own womanhood as mothers of the race, and thereby the supreme law-givers in the sphere of sex and the large part of life dependent on sex. This special position of woman seems likely to require a readjustment of economic conditions to their needs, though it is not likely that such readjustment would be permitted to affect their independence or their responsibility. We have had, as Madame Juliette Adam has put it, the rights of men sacrificing women, followed by the rights of women sacrificing the child; that must be followed by the rights of the child reconstituting the family. It has already been necessary to touch on this point in the first chapter of this volume, and it will again be necessary in the last chapter. The question as to the method by which the economic independence of women will be completely insured, and the part which the community may be expected to take in insuring it, on the ground of woman's special child-bearing functions, is from the present point of view subsidiary. There can be no doubt, however, as to the reality of the movement in that direction, whatever doubt there may be as to the final adjustment of the details. It is only necessary in this place to touch on some of the general and more obvious respects in which the growth of woman's responsibility is affecting sexual morality. The first and most obvious way in which the sense of moral responsibility works is in an insistence on reality in the relationships of sex. Moral irresponsibility has too often combined with economic dependence to induce a woman to treat the sexual event in her life which is biologically of most fateful gravity as a merely gay and trivial event, at the most an event which has given her a triumph over her rivals and over the superior male, who, on his part, willingly condescends, for the moment, to assume the part of the vanquished. "Gallantry to the ladies," we are told of the hero of the greatest and most typical of English novels, "was among his principles of honor, and he held it as much incumbent on him to accept a challenge to love as if it had been a challenge to fight;" he heroically goes home for the night with a lady of title he meets at a masquerade, though at the time very much in love with the girl whom he eventually marries.[303] The woman whose power lies only in her charms, and who is free to allow the burden of responsibility to fall on a man's shoulder,[304] could lightly play the seducing part, and thereby exert independence and authority in the only shapes open to her. The man on his part, introducing the misplaced idea of "honor" into the field from which the natural idea of responsibility has been banished, is prepared to descend at the lady's bidding into the arena, according to the old legend, and rescue the glove, even though he afterwards flings it contemptuously in her face. The ancient conception of gallantry, which Tom Jones so well embodies, is the direct outcome of a system involving the moral irresponsibility and economic dependence of women, and is as opposed to the conceptions, prevailing in the earlier and later civilized stages, of approximate sexual equality as it is to the biological traditions of natural courtship in the world generally. In controlling her own sexual life, and in realizing that her responsibility for such control can no longer be shifted on to the shoulders of the other sex, women will also indirectly affect the sexual lives of men, much as men already affect the sexual lives of women. In what ways that influence will in the main be exerted it is still premature to say. According to some, just as formerly men bought their wives and demanded prenuptial virginity in the article thus purchased, so nowadays, among the better classes, women are able to buy their husbands, and in their turn are disposed to demand continence.[305] That, however, is too simple-minded a way of viewing the question. It is enough to refer to the fact that women are not attracted to virginal innocence in men and that they frequently have good ground for viewing such innocence with suspicion.[306] Yet it may well be believed that women will more and more prefer to exert a certain discrimination in the approval of their husbands' past lives. However instinctively a woman may desire that her husband shall be initiated in the art of making love to her, she may often well doubt whether the finest initiation is to be secured from the average prostitute. Prostitution, as we have seen, is ultimately as incompatible with complete sexual responsibility as is the patriarchal marriage system with which it has been so closely associated. It is an arrangement mainly determined by the demands of men, to whatever extent it may have incidentally subserved various needs of women. Men arranged that one group of women should be set apart to minister exclusively to their sexual necessities, while another group should be brought up in asceticism as candidates for the privilege of ministering to their household and family necessities. That this has been in many respects a most excellent arrangement is sufficiently proved by the fact that it has nourished for so long a period, notwithstanding the influences that are antagonistic to it. But it is obviously only possible during a certain stage of civilization and in association with a certain social organization. It is not completely congruous with a democratic stage of civilization involving the economic independence and the sexual responsibility of both sexes alike in all social classes. It is possible that women may begin to realize this fact earlier than men. It is also believed by many that women will realize that a high degree of moral responsibility is not easily compatible with the practice of dissimulation and that economic independence will deprive deceit--which is always the resort of the weak--of whatever moral justification it may possess. Here, however, it is necessary to speak with caution or we may be unjust to women. It must be remarked that in the sphere of sex men also are often the weak, and are therefore apt to resort to the refuge of the weak. With the recognition of that fact we may also recognize that deception in women has been the cause of much of the age-long blunders of the masculine mind in the contemplation of feminine ways. Men have constantly committed the double error of overlooking the dissimulation of women and of over-estimating it. This fact has always served to render more difficult still the inevitably difficult course of women through the devious path of sexual behavior. Pepys, who represents so vividly and so frankly the vices and virtues of the ordinary masculine mind, tells how one day when he called to see Mrs. Martin her sister Doll went out for a bottle of wine and came back indignant because a Dutchman had pulled her into a stable and tumbled and tossed her. Pepys having been himself often permitted to take liberties with her, it seemed to him that her indignation with the Dutchman was "the best instance of woman's falseness in the world."[307] He assumes without question that a woman who has accorded the privilege of familiarity to a man she knows and, one hopes, respects, would be prepared to accept complacently the brutal attentions of the first drunken stranger she meets in the street. It was the assumption of woman's falseness which led the ultra-masculine Pepys into a sufficiently absurd error. At this point, indeed, we encounter what has seemed to some a serious obstacle to the full moral responsibility of women. Dissimulation, Lombroso and Ferrero argue, is in woman "almost physiological," and they give various grounds for this conclusion.[308] The theologians, on their side, have reached a similar conclusion. "A confessor must not immediately believe a woman's words," says Father Gury, "for women are habitually inclined to lie."[309] This tendency, which seems to be commonly believed to affect women as a sex, however free from it a vast number of individual women are, may be said, and with truth, to be largely the result of the subjection of women and therefore likely to disappear as that subjection disappears. In so far, however, as it is "almost physiological," and based on radical feminine characters, such as modesty, affectability, and sympathy, which have an organic basis in the feminine constitution and can therefore never altogether be changed, feminine dissimulation seems scarcely likely to disappear. The utmost that can be expected is that it should be held in check by the developed sense of moral responsibility, and, being reduced to its simply natural proportions, become recognizably intelligible. It is unnecessary to remark that there can be no question here as to any inherent moral superiority of one sex over the other. The answer to that question was well stated many years ago by one of the most subtle moralists of love. "Taken altogether," concluded Sénancour (_De l'Amour_, vol. ii, p. 85), "we have no reason to assert the moral superiority of either sex. Both sexes, with their errors and their good intentions, very equally fulfil the ends of nature. We may well believe that in either of the two divisions of the human species the sum of evil and that of good are about equal. If, for instance, as regards love, we oppose the visibly licentious conduct of men to the apparent reserve of women, it would be a vain valuation, for the number of faults committed by women with men is necessarily the same as that of men with women. There exist among us fewer scrupulous men than perfectly honest women, but it is easy to see how the balance is restored. If this question of the moral preëminence of one sex over the other were not insoluble it would still remain very complicated with reference to the whole of the species, or even the whole of a nation, and any dispute here seems idle." This conclusion is in accordance with the general compensatory and complementary relationship of women to men (see, e.g., Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition, especially pp. 448 et seq.). In a recent symposium on the question whether women are morally inferior to men, with special reference to aptitude for loyalty (_La Revue_, Jan. 1, 1909), to which various distinguished French men and women contributed their opinions, some declared that women are usually superior; others regarded it as a question of difference rather than of superiority or inferiority; all were agreed that when they enjoy the same independence as men, women are quite as loyal as men. It is undoubtedly true that--partly as a result of ancient traditions and education, partly of genuine feminine characteristics--many women are diffident as to their right to moral responsibility and unwilling to assume it. And an attempt is made to justify their attitude by asserting that woman's part in life is naturally that of self-sacrifice, or, to put the statement in a somewhat more technical form, that women are naturally masochistic; and that there is, as Krafft-Ebing argues, a natural "sexual subjection" of woman. It is by no means clear that this statement is absolutely true, and if it were true it would not serve to abolish the moral responsibility of women. Bloch (_Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Part II, p. 178), in agreement with Eulenburg, energetically denies that there is any such natural "sexual subjection" of women, regarding it as artificially produced, the result of the socially inferior position of women, and arguing that such subjection is in much higher degree a physiological characteristic of men than of women. (It has been necessary to discuss this question in dealing with "Love and Pain" in the third volume of these _Studies_.) It seems certainly clear that the notion that women are especially prone to self-sacrifice has little biological validity. Self-sacrifice by compulsion, whether physical or moral compulsion, is not worthy of the name; when it is deliberate it is simply the sacrifice of a lesser good for the sake of a greater good. Doubtless a man who eats a good dinner may be said to "sacrifice" his hunger. Even within the sphere of traditional morality a woman who sacrifices her "honor" for the sake of her love to a man has, by her "sacrifice," gained something that she values more. "What a triumph it is to a woman," a woman has said, "to give pleasure to a man she loves!" And in a morality on a sound biological basis no "sacrifice" is here called for. It may rather be said that the biological laws of courtship fundamentally demand self-sacrifice of the male rather than of the female. Thus the lioness, according to Gérard the lion-hunter, gives herself to the most vigorous of her lion wooers; she encourages them to fight among themselves for superiority, lying on her belly to gaze at the combat and lashing her tail with delight. Every female is wooed by many males, but she only accepts one; it is not the female who is called upon for erotic self-sacrifice, but the male. That is indeed part of the divine compensation of Nature, for since the heavier part of the burden of sex rests on the female, it is fitting that she should be less called upon for renunciation. It thus seems probable that the increase of moral responsibility may tend to make a woman's conduct more intelligible to others;[310] it will in any case certainly tend to make it less the concern of others. This is emphatically the case as regards the relations of sex. In the past men have been invited to excel in many forms of virtue; only one virtue has been open to women. That is no longer possible. To place upon a woman the main responsibility for her own sexual conduct is to deprive that conduct of its conspicuously public character as a virtue or a vice. Sexual union, for a woman as much as for a man, is a physiological fact; it may also be a spiritual fact; but it is not a social act. It is, on the contrary, an act which, beyond all other acts, demands retirement and mystery for its accomplishment. That indeed is a general human, almost zoölogical, fact. Moreover, this demand of mystery is more especially made by woman in virtue of her greater modesty which, we have found reason to believe, has a biological basis. It is not until a child is born or conceived that the community has any right to interest itself in the sexual acts of its members. The sexual act is of no more concern to the community than any other private physiological act. It is an impertinence, if not an outrage, to seek to inquire into it. But the birth of a child is a social act. Not what goes into the womb but what comes out of it concerns society. The community is invited to receive a new citizen. It is entitled to demand that that citizen shall be worthy of a place in its midst and that he shall be properly introduced by a responsible father and a responsible mother. The whole of sexual morality, as Ellen Key has said, revolves round the child. At this final point in our discussion of sexual morality we may perhaps be able to realize the immensity of the change which has been involved by the development in women of moral responsibility. So long as responsibility was denied to women, so long as a father or a husband, backed up by the community, held himself responsible for a woman's sexual behavior, for her "virtue," it was necessary that the whole of sexual morality should revolve around the entrance to the vagina. It became absolutely essential to the maintenance of morality that all eyes in the community should be constantly directed on to that point, and the whole marriage law had to be adjusted accordingly. That is no longer possible. When a woman assumes her own moral responsibility, in sexual as in other matters, it becomes not only intolerable but meaningless for the community to pry into her most intimate physiological or spiritual acts. She is herself directly responsible to society as soon as she performs a social act, and not before. In relation to the fact of maternity the realization of all that is involved in the new moral responsibility of women is especially significant. Under a system of morality by which a man is left free to accept the responsibility for his sexual acts while a woman is not equally free to do the like, a premium is placed on sexual acts which have no end in procreation, and a penalty is placed on the acts which lead to procreation. The reason is that it is the former class of acts in which men find chief gratification; it is the latter class in which women find chief gratification. For the tragic part of the old sexual morality in its bearing on women was that while it made men alone morally responsible for sexual acts in which both a man and a woman took part, women were rendered both socially and legally incapable of availing themselves of the fact of masculine responsibility unless they had fulfilled conditions which men had laid down for them, and yet refrained from imposing upon themselves. The act of sexual intercourse, being the sexual act in which men found chief pleasure, was under all circumstances an act of little social gravity; the act of bringing a child into the world, which is for women the most massively gratifying of all sexual acts, was counted a crime unless the mother had before fulfilled the conditions demanded by man. That was perhaps the most unfortunate and certainly the most unnatural of the results of the patriarchal regulation of society. It has never existed in any great State where women have possessed some degree of regulative power. It has, of course, been said by abstract theorists that women have the matter in their own hands. They must never love a man until they have safely locked him up in the legal bonds of matrimony. Such an argument is absolutely futile, for it ignores the fact that, while love and even monogamy are natural, legal marriage is merely an external form, with a very feeble power of subjugating natural impulses, except when those impulses are weak, and no power at all of subjugating them permanently. Civilization involves the growth of foresight, and of self-control in both sexes; but it is foolish to attempt to place on these fine and ultimate outgrowths of civilization a strain which they could never bear. How foolish it is has been shown, once and for all, by Lea in his admirable _History of Sacerdotal Celibacy_. Moreover, when we compare the respective aptitudes of men and women in this particular region, it must be remembered that men possess a greater power of forethought and self-control than women, notwithstanding the modesty and reserve of women. The sexual sphere is immensely larger in women, so that when its activity is once aroused it is much more difficult to master or control. (The reasons were set out in detail in the discussion of "The Sexual Impulse in Women" in volume iii of these _Studies_.) It is, therefore, unfair to women, and unduly favors men, when too heavy a premium is placed on forethought and self-restraint in sexual matters. Since women play the predominant part in the sexual field their natural demands, rather than those of men, must furnish the standard. With the realization of the moral responsibility of women the natural relations of life spring back to their due biological adjustment. Motherhood is restored to its natural sacredness. It becomes the concern of the woman herself, and not of society nor of any individual, to determine the conditions under which the child shall be conceived. Society is entitled to require that the father shall in every case acknowledge the fact of his paternity, but it must leave the chief responsibility for all the circumstances of child-production to the mother. That is the point of view which is now gaining ground in all civilized lands both in theory and in practice.[311] FOOTNOTES: [257] E.g., E. Belfort Bax, _Outspoken Essays_, p. 6. [258] Such reasons are connected with communal welfare. "All immoral acts result in communal unhappiness, all moral acts in communal happiness," as Prof. A. Mathews remarks, "Science and Morality," _Popular Science Monthly_, March, 1909. [259] See Westermarck, _Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, vol. i, pp. 386-390, 522. [260] Westermarck, _Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, pp. 9, 159; also the whole of Ch. VII. Actions that are in accordance with custom call forth public approval, actions that are opposed to custom call forth public resentment, and Westermarck powerfully argues that such approval and such resentment are the foundation of moral judgments. [261] This is well recognized by legal writers (e.g., E.A. Schroeder, _Das Recht in der Geschlechtlichen Ordnung_, p. 5). [262] W.G. Sumner (_Folkways_, p. 418) even considers it desirable to change the form of the word in order to emphasize the real and fundamental meaning of morals, and proposes the word _mores_ to indicate "popular usages and traditions conducive to societal reform." "'Immoral,'" he points out, "never means anything but contrary to the _mores_ of the time and place." There is, however, no need whatever to abolish or to supplement the good old ancient word "morality," so long as we clearly realize that, on the practical side, it means essentially custom. [263] Westermarck, op. cit., vol. i, p. 19. [264] See, e.g., "Exogamy and the Mating of Cousins," in _Essays Presented to E.B. Tylor_, 1907, p. 53. "In many departments of primitive life we find a naïve desire to, as it were, assist Nature, to affirm what is normal, and later to confirm it by the categorical imperative of custom and law. This tendency still flourishes in our civilized communities, and, as the worship of the normal, is often a deadly foe to the abnormal and eccentric, and too often paralyzes originality." [265] The spirit of Christianity, as illustrated by Paulinus, in his _Epistle XXV_, was from the Roman point of view, as Dill remarks (_Roman Society_, p. 11), "a renunciation, not only of citizenship, but of all the hard-won fruits of civilization and social life." [266] It thus happens that, as Lecky said in his _History of European Morals_, "of all the departments of ethics the questions concerning the relations of the sexes and the proper position of woman are those upon the future of which there rests the greatest uncertainty." Some progress has perhaps been made since these words were written, but they still hold true for the majority of people. [267] Concerning economic marriage as a vestigial survival, see, e.g., Bloch, _The Sexual Life of Our Time_, p. 212. [268] Sénancour, _De l'Amour_, vol. ii, p. 233. The author of _The Question of English Divorce_ attributes the absence of any widespread feeling against sexual license to the absurd rigidity of the law. [269] Bruno Meyer, "Etwas von Positiver Sexualreform," _Sexual-Probleme_, Nov., 1908. [270] Elsie Clews Parsons, _The Family_, p. 351. Dr. Parsons rightly thinks such unions a social evil when they check the development of personality. [271] For evidence regarding the general absence of celibacy among both savage and barbarous peoples, see, e.g., Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, Ch. VII. [272] There are, for instance, two millions of unmarried women in France, while in Belgium 30 per cent, of the women, and in Germany sometimes even 50 per cent, are unmarried. [273] Such a position would not be biologically unreasonable, in view of the greatly preponderant part played by the female in the sexual process which insures the conservation of the race. "If the sexual instinct is regarded solely from the physical side," says D.W.H. Busch (_Das Geschlechtsleben des Weibes_, 1839, vol. i, p. 201), "the woman cannot be regarded as the property of the man, but with equal and greater reason the man may be regarded as the property of the woman." [274] Herodotus, Bk. i, Ch. CLXXIII. [275] That power and relationship are entirely distinct was pointed out many years ago by L. von Dargun, _Mutterrecht und Vaterrecht_, 1892. Westermarck (_Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, vol. i, p. 655), who is inclined to think that Steinmetz has not proved conclusively that mother-descent involves less authority of husband over wife, makes the important qualification that the husband's authority is impaired when he lives among his wife's kinsfolk. [276] Robertson Smith, _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_; J.G. Frazer has pointed out (_Academy_, March 27, 1886) that the partially Semitic peoples on the North frontier of Abyssinia, not subjected to the revolutionary processes of Islam, preserve a system closely resembling _beena_ marriage, as well as some traces of the opposite system, by Robertson Smith called _ba'al_ marriage, in which the wife is acquired by purchase and becomes a piece of property. [277] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 358. [278] Rhys and Brynmor-Jones, _The Welsh People_, pp. 55-6; cf. Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_, p. 93. [279] Rhys and Brynmor-Jones, op. cit., p. 214. [280] Crawley (_The Mystic Rose_, p. 41 et seq.) gives numerous instances. [281] Revillout, "La Femme dans l'Antiquité," _Journal Asiatique_, 1906, vol. vii, p. 57. See, also, Victor Marx, _Beiträge zur Assyriologie_, 1899, Bd. iv, Heft 1. [282] Donaldson, _Woman_, pp. 196, 241 et seq. Nietzold, (_Die Ehe in_ "_Agypten_," p. 17), thinks the statement of Diodorus that no children were illegitimate, needs qualification, but that certainly the illegitimate child in Egypt was at no social disadvantage. [283] Amélineau, _La Morale Egyptienne_, p. 194; Hobhouse, _Morals in Evolution_, vol. i, p. 187; Flinders Petrie, _Religion and Conscience in Ancient Egypt_, pp. 131 et seq. [284] Maine, _Ancient Law_, Ch. V. [285] Donaldson, _Woman_, pp. 109, 120. [286] _Mercator_, iv, 5. [287] Digest XLVIII, 13, 5. [288] Hobhouse, _Morals in Evolution_, vol. i, p. 213. [289] For an account of the work of some of the less known of these pioneers, see a series of articles by Harriet McIlquham in the _Westminster Review_, especially Nov., 1898, and Nov., 1903. [290] The influence of Christianity on the position of women has been well discussed by Lecky, _History of European Morals_, vol. ii, pp. 316 et seq., and more recently by Donaldson, _Woman_, Bk. iii. [291] Migne, _Patrologia_, vol. clviii, p. 680. [292] Rosa Mayreder, "Einiges über die Starke Faust," _Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit_, 1905. [293] Rasmussen (_People of the Polar North_, p. 56), describes a ferocious quarrel between husband and wife, who each in turn knocked the other down. "Somewhat later, when I peeped in, they were lying affectionately asleep, with their arms around each other." [294] Hobhouse, _Morals in Evolution_, vol. ii, p. 367. Dr. Stöcker, in _Die Liebe und die Frauen_, also insists on the significance of this factor of personal responsibility. [295] Olive Schreiner has especially emphasized the evils of parasitism for women. "The increased wealth of the male," she remarks ("The Woman's Movement of Our Day," _Harper's Bazaar_, Jan., 1902), "no more of necessity benefits and raises the female upon whom he expends it, than the increased wealth of his mistress necessarily benefits, mentally or physically, a poodle, because she can then give him a down cushion in place of one of feathers, and chicken in place of beef." Olive Schreiner believes that feminine parasitism is a danger which really threatens society at the present time, and that if not averted "the whole body of females in civilized societies must sink into a state of more or less absolute dependence." [296] In Rome and in Japan, Hobhouse notes (op. cit., vol. i, pp. 169, 176), the patriarchal system reached its fullest extension, yet the laws of both these countries placed the husband in a position of practical subjugation to a rich wife. [297] Herodotus, Bk. ii, Ch. XXXV. Herodotus noted that it was the woman and not the man on whom the responsibility for supporting aged parents rested. That alone involved a very high economic position of women. It is not surprising that to some observers, as to Diodorus Siculus, it seemed that the Egyptian woman was mistress over her husband. [298] Hobhouse (loc. cit.), Hale, and also Grosse, believe that good economic position of a people involves high position of women. Westermarck (_Moral Ideas_, vol. i, p. 661), here in agreement with Olive Schreiner, thinks this statement cannot be accepted without modification, though agreeing that agricultural life has a good effect on woman's position, because they themselves become actively engaged in it. A good economic position has no real effect in raising woman's position, unless women themselves take a real and not merely parasitic part in it. [299] Westermarck (_Moral Ideas_, vol. i, Ch. XXVI, vol. ii, p. 29) gives numerous references with regard to the considerable proprietary and other privileges of women among savages which tend to be lost at a somewhat higher stage of culture. [300] The steady rise in the proportion of women among English workers in machine industries began in 1851. There are now, it is estimated, three and a half million women employed in industrial occupations, beside a million and a half domestic servants. (See for details, James Haslam, in a series of papers in the _Englishwoman_ 1909.) [301] See, e.g., J.A. Hobson, _The Evolution of Modern Capitalism_, second edition, 1907, Ch. XII, "Women in Modern Industry." [302] Hobhouse, op. cit., vol. i, p. 228. [303] Fielding, _Tom Jones_, Bk. iii, Ch. VII. [304] Even the Church to some extent adopted this allotment of the responsibility, and "solicitation," i.e., the sin of a confessor in seducing his female penitent, is constantly treated as exclusively the confessor's sin. [305] Adolf Gerson, _Sexual-Probleme_, Sept., 1908, p. 547. [306] It has already been necessary to refer to the unfortunate results which may follow the ignorance of husbands (see, e.g., "The Sexual Impulse in Women," vol. iii of these _Studies_), and will be necessary again in Ch. XI of the present volume. [307] Pepys, _Diary_, ed. Wheatley, vol. vii, p. 10. [308] Lombroso and Ferrero, _La Donna Delinquente_; cf. Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition, p. 196. [309] Gury, _Théologie Morale_, art. 381. [310] "Men will not learn what women are," remarks Rosa Mayreder (_Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit_, p. 199), "until they have left off prescribing what they ought to be." [311] It has been set out, for instance, by Professor Wahrmund in _Ehe und Eherecht_, 1908. I need scarcely refer again to the writings of Ellen Key, which may be said to be almost epoch-making in their significance, especially (in German translation) _Ueber Liebe und Ehe_ (also French translation), and (in English translation, Putnam, 1909), the valuable, though less important work, _The Century of the Child_. See also Edward Carpenter, _Love's Coming of Age_; Forel, _Die Sexuelle Frage_ (English translation, abridged, _The Sexual Question_, Rebman, 1908); Bloch, _Sexualleben unsere Zeit_ (English translation, _The Sexual Life of Our Time_, Rebman, 1908); Helene Stöcker, _Die Liebe und die Frauen_, 1906; and Paul Lapie, _La Femme dans la Famille_, 1908. CHAPTER X. MARRIAGE. The Definition of Marriage--Marriage Among Animals--The Predominance of Monogamy--The Question of Group Marriage--Monogamy a Natural Fact, Not Based on Human Law--The Tendency to Place the Form of Marriage Above the Fact of Marriage--The History of Marriage--Marriage in Ancient Rome--Germanic Influence on Marriage--Bride-Sale--The Ring--The Influence of Christianity on Marriage--The Great Extent of This Influence--The Sacrament of Matrimony--Origin and Growth of the Sacramental Conception--The Church Made Marriage a Public Act--Canon Law--Its Sound Core--Its Development--Its Confusions and Absurdities--Peculiarities of English Marriage Law--Influence of the Reformation on Marriage--The Protestant Conception of Marriage as a Secular Contract--The Puritan Reform of Marriage--Milton as the Pioneer of Marriage Reform--His Views on Divorce--The Backward Position of England in Marriage Reform--Criticism of the English Divorce Law--Traditions of the Canon Law Still Persistent--The Question of Damages for Adultery--Collusion as a Bar to Divorce--Divorce in France, Germany, Austria, Russia, etc.--The United States--Impossibility of Deciding by Statute the Causes for Divorce--Divorce by Mutual Consent--Its Origin and Development--Impeded by the Traditions of Canon Law--Wilhelm von Humboldt--Modern Pioneer Advocates of Divorce by Mutual Consent--The Arguments Against Facility of Divorce--The Interests of the Children--The Protection of Women--The Present Tendency of the Divorce Movement--Marriage Not a Contract--The Proposal of Marriage for a Term of Years--Legal Disabilities and Disadvantages in the Position of the Husband and the Wife--Marriage Not a Contract But a Fact--Only the Non-Essentials of Marriage, Not the Essentials, a Proper Matter for Contract--The Legal Recognition of Marriage as a Fact Without Any Ceremony--Contracts of the Person Opposed to Modern Tendencies--The Factor of Moral Responsibility--Marriage as an Ethical Sacrament--Personal Responsibility Involves Freedom--Freedom the Best Guarantee of Stability--False Ideas of Individualism--Modern Tendency of Marriage--With the Birth of a Child Marriage Ceases to be a Private Concern--Every Child Must Have a Legal Father and Mother--How This Can be Effected--The Firm Basis of Monogamy--The Question of Marriage Variations--Such Variations Not Inimical to Monogamy--The Most Common Variations--The Flexibility of Marriage Holds Variations in Check--Marriage Variations _versus_ Prostitution--Marriage on a Reasonable and Humane Basis--Summary and Conclusion. The discussion in the previous chapter of the nature of sexual morality, with the brief sketch it involved of the direction in which that morality is moving, has necessarily left many points vague. It may still be asked what definite and precise forms sexual unions are tending to take among us, and what relation these unions bear to the religious, social, and legal traditions we have inherited. These are matters about which a very considerable amount of uncertainty seems to prevail, for it is not unusual to hear revolutionary or eccentric opinions concerning them. Sexual union, involving the cohabitation, temporary or permanent, of two or more persons, and having for one of its chief ends the production and care of offspring, is commonly termed marriage. The group so constituted forms a family. This is the sense in which the words "marriage" and the "family" are most properly used, whether we speak of animals or of Man. There is thus seen to be room for variation as regards both the time during which the union lasts, and the number of individuals who form it, the chief factor in the determination of these points being the interests of the offspring. In actual practice, however, sexual unions, not only in Man but among the higher animals, tend to last beyond the needs of the offspring of a single season, while the fact that in most species the numbers of males and females are approximately equal makes it inevitable that both among animals and in Man the family is produced by a single sexual couple, that is to say that monogamy is, with however many exceptions, necessarily the fundamental rule. It will thus be seen that marriage centres in the child, and has at the outset no reason for existence apart from the welfare of the offspring. Among those animals of lowly organization which are able to provide for themselves from the beginning of existence there is no family and no need for marriage. Among human races, when sexual unions are not followed by offspring, there may be other reasons for the continuance of the union but they are not reasons in which either Nature or society is in the slightest degree directly concerned. The marriage which grew up among animals by heredity on the basis of natural selection, and which has been continued by the lower human races through custom and tradition, by the more civilized races through the superimposed regulative influence of legal institutions, has been marriage for the sake of the offspring.[312] Even in civilized races among whom the proportion of sterile marriages is large, marriage tends to be so constituted as always to assume the procreation of children and to involve the permanence required by such procreation. Among birds, which from the point of view of erotic development stand at the head of the animal world, monogamy frequently prevails (according to some estimates among 90 per cent.), and unions tend to be permanent; there is an approximation to the same condition among some of the higher mammals, especially the anthropoid apes; thus among gorillas and oran-utans permanent monogamic marriages take place, the young sometimes remaining with the parents to the age of six, while any approach to loose behavior on the part of the wife is severely punished by the husband. The variations that occur are often simply matters of adaptation to circumstances; thus, according to J.G. Millais (_Natural History of British Ducks_, pp. 8, 63), the Shoveler duck, though normally monogamic, will become polyandric when males are in excess, the two males being in constant and amicable attendance on the female without signs of jealousy; among the monogamic mallards, similarly, polygyny and polyandry may also occur. See also R.W. Shufeldt, "Mating Among Birds," _American Naturalist_, March, 1907; for mammal marriages, a valuable paper by Robert Müller, "Säugethierehen," _Sexual-Probleme_, Jan., 1909, and as regards the general prevalence of monogamy, Woods Hutchinson, "Animal Marriage," _Contemporary Review_, Oct., 1904, and Sept., 1905. There has long been a dispute among the historians of marriage as to the first form of human marriage. Some assume a primitive promiscuity gradually modified in the direction of monogamy; others argue that man began where the anthropoid apes left off, and that monogamy has prevailed, on the whole, throughout. Both these opposed views, in an extreme form, seem untenable, and the truth appears to lie midway. It has been shown by various writers, and notably Westermarck (_History of Human Marriage_, Chs. IV-VI), that there is no sound evidence in favor of primitive promiscuity, and that at the present day there are few, if any, savage peoples living in genuine unrestricted sexual promiscuity. This theory of a primitive promiscuity seems to have been suggested, as J.A. Godfrey has pointed out (_Science of Sex_, p. 112), by the existence in civilized societies of promiscuous prostitution, though this kind of promiscuity was really the result, rather than the origin, of marriage. On the other hand, it can scarcely be said that there is any convincing evidence of primitive strict monogamy beyond the assumption that early man continued the sexual habits of the anthropoid apes. It would seem probable, however, that the great forward step involved in passing from ape to man was associated with a change in sexual habits involving the temporary adoption of a more complex system than monogamy. It is difficult to see in what other social field than that of sex primitive man could find exercise for the developing intellectual and moral aptitudes, the subtle distinctions and moral restraints, which the strict monogamy practiced by animals could afford no scope for. It is also equally difficult to see on what basis other than that of a more closely associated sexual system the combined and harmonious efforts needed for social progress could have developed. It is probable that at least one of the motives for exogamy, or marriage outside the group, is (as was probably first pointed out by St. Augustine in his _De Civitate Dei_) the need of creating a larger social circle, and so facilitating social activities and progress. Exactly the same end is effected by a complex marriage system binding a large number of people together by common interests. The strictly small and confined monogamic family, however excellently it subserved the interests of the offspring, contained no promise of a wider social progress. We see this among both ants and bees, who of all animals, have attained the highest social organization; their progress was only possible through a profound modification of the systems of sexual relationship. As Espinas said many years ago (in his suggestive work, _Des Sociétés Animales_): "The cohesion of the family and the probabilities for the birth of societies are inverse." Or, as Schurtz more recently pointed out, although individual marriage has prevailed more or less from the first, early social institutions, early ideas and early religion involved sexual customs which modified a strict monogamy. The most primitive form of complex human marriage which has yet been demonstrated as still in existence is what is called group-marriage, in which all the women of one class are regarded as the actual, or at all events potential, wives of all the men in another class. This has been observed among some central Australian tribes, a people as primitive and as secluded from external influence as could well be found, and there is evidence to show that it was formerly more widespread among them. "In the Urabunna tribe, for example," say Spencer and Gillen, "a group of men actually do have, continually and as a normal condition, marital relations with a group of women. This state of affairs has nothing whatever to do with polygamy any more than it has with polyandry. It is simply a question of a group of men and a group of women who may lawfully have what we call marital relations. There is nothing whatever abnormal about it, and, in all probability, this system of what has been called group marriage, serving as it does to bind more or less closely together groups of individuals who are mutually interested in one another's welfare, has been one of the most powerful agents in the early stages of the upward development of the human race" (Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 74; cf. A.W. Howitt, _The Native Tribes of South-East Australia_). Group-marriage, with female descent, as found in Australia, tends to become transformed by various stages of progress into individual marriage with descent in the male line, a survival of group-marriage perhaps persisting in the much-discussed _jus primæ noctis_. (It should be added that Mr. N.W. Thomas, in his book on _Kinship and Marriage in Australia_, 1908, concludes that group-marriage in Australia has not been demonstrated, and that Professor Westermarck, in his _Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, as in his previous _History of Human Marriage_, maintains a skeptical opinion in regard to group-marriage generally; he thinks the Urabunna custom may have developed out of ordinary individual marriage, and regards the group-marriage theory as "the residuary legatee of the old theory of promiscuity." Durkheim also believes that the Australian marriage system is not primitive, "Organisation Matrimoniale Australienne," _L'Année Sociologique_, eighth year, 1905). With the attainment of a certain level of social progress it is easy to see that a wide and complicated system of sexual relationships ceases to have its value, and a more or less qualified monogamy tends to prevail as more in harmony with the claims of social stability and executive masculine energy. The best historical discussion of marriage is still probably Westermarck's _History of Human Marriage_, though at some points it now needs to be corrected or supplemented; among more recent books dealing with primitive sexual conceptions may be specially mentioned Crawley's _Mystic Rose_, while the facts concerning the transformation of marriage among the higher human races are set forth in G.E. Howard's _History of Matrimonial Institutions_ (3 vols.), which contains copious bibliographical references. There is an admirably compact, but clear and comprehensive, sketch of the development of modern marriage in Pollock and Maitland, _History of English Law_, vol. ii. It is necessary to make allowance for variations, thereby shunning the extreme theorists who insist on moulding all facts to their theories, but we may conclude that--as the approximately equal number of the sexes indicates--in the human species, as among many of the higher animals, a more or less permanent monogamy has on the whole tended to prevail. That is a fact of great significance in its implications. For we have to realize that we are here in the presence of a natural fact. Sexual relationships, in human as in animal societies, follow a natural law, oscillating on each side of the norm, and there is no place for the theory that that law was imposed artificially. If all artificial "laws" could be abolished the natural order of the sexual relationships would continue to subsist substantially as at present. Virtue, said Cicero, is but Nature carried out to the utmost. Or, as Holbach put it, arguing that our institutions tend whither Nature tends, "art is only Nature acting by the help of the instruments she has herself made." Shakespeare had already seen much the same truth when he said that the art which adds to Nature "is an art that Nature makes." Law and religion have buttressed monogamy; it is not based on them but on the needs and customs of mankind, and these constitute its completely adequate sanctions.[313] Or, as Cope put it, marriage is not the creation of law but the law is its creation.[314] Crawley, again, throughout his study of primitive sex relationships, emphasizes the fact that our formal marriage system is not, as so many religious and moral writers once supposed, a forcible repression of natural impulses, but merely the rigid crystallization of those natural impulses, which in a more fluid form have been in human nature from the first. Our conventional forms, we must believe, have not introduced any elements of value, while in some respects they have been mischievous. It is necessary to bear in mind that the conclusion that monogamic marriage is natural, and represents an order which is in harmony with the instincts of the majority of people, by no means involves agreement with the details of any particular legal system of monogamy. Monogamic marriage is a natural biological fact, alike in many animals and in man. But no system of legal regulation is a natural biological fact. When a highly esteemed alienist, Dr. Clouston, writes (_The Hygiene of Mind_, p. 245) "there is only one natural mode of gratifying sexual _nisus_ and reproductive instinct, that of marriage," the statement requires considerable exegesis before it can be accepted, or even receive an intelligible meaning, and if we are to understand by "marriage" the particular form and implications of the English marriage law, or even of the somewhat more enlightened Scotch law, the statement is absolutely false. There is a world of difference, as J.A. Godfrey remarks (_The Science of Sex_, 1901, p. 278), between natural monogamous marriage and our legal system; "the former is the outward expression of the best that lies in the sexuality of man; the latter is a creation in which religious and moral superstitions have played a most important part, not always to the benefit of individual and social health." We must, therefore, guard against the tendency to think that there is anything rigid or formal in the natural order of monogamy. Some sociologists would even limit the naturalness of monogamy still further. Thus Tarde ("La Morale Sexuelle," _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Jan., 1907), while accepting as natural under present conditions the tendency for monogamy, mitigated by more or less clandestine concubinage, to prevail over all other forms of marriage, considers that this is not due to any irresistible influence, but merely to the fact that this kind of marriage is practiced by the majority of people, including the most civilized. With the acceptance of the tendency to monogamy we are not at the end of sexual morality, but only at the beginning. It is not monogamy that is the main thing, but the kind of lives that people lead in monogamy. The mere acceptance of a monogamic rule carries us but a little way. That is a fact which cannot fail to impress itself on those who approach the questions of sex from the psychological side. If monogamy is thus firmly based it is unreasonable to fear, or to hope for, any radical modification in the institution of marriage, regarded, not under its temporary religious and legal aspects but as an order which appeared on the earth even earlier than man. Monogamy is the most natural expression of an impulse which cannot, as a rule, be so adequately realized in full fruition under conditions involving a less prolonged period of mutual communion and intimacy. Variations, regarded as inevitable oscillations around the norm, are also natural, but union in couples must always be the rule because the numbers of the sexes are always approximately equal, while the needs of the emotional life, even apart from the needs of offspring, demand that such unions based on mutual attraction should be so far as possible permanent. It must here again be repeated that it is the reality, and not the form or the permanence of the marriage union, which is its essential and valuable part. It is not the legal or religious formality which sanctifies marriage, it is the reality of the marriage which sanctifies the form. Fielding has satirized in Nightingale, Tom Jones's friend, the shallow-brained view of connubial society which degrades the reality of marriage to exalt the form. Nightingale has the greatest difficulty in marrying a girl with whom he has already had sexual relations, although he is the only man who has had relations with her. To Jones's arguments he replies: "Common-sense warrants all you say, but yet you well know that the opinion of the world is so contrary to it, that were I to marry a whore, though my own, I should be ashamed of ever showing my face again." It cannot be said that Fielding's satire is even yet out of date. Thus in Prussia, according to Adele Schreiber ("Heirathsbeschränkungen," _Die Neue Generation_, Feb., 1909), it seems to be still practically impossible for a military officer to marry the mother of his own illegitimate child. The glorification of the form at the expense of the reality of marriage has even been attempted in poetry by Tennyson in the least inspired of his works, _The Idylls of the King_. In "Lancelot and Elaine" and "Guinevere" (as Julia Magruder points out, _North American Review_, April, 1905) Guinevere is married to King Arthur, whom she has never seen, when already in love with Lancelot, so that the "marriage" was merely a ceremony, and not a real marriage (cf., May Child, "The Weird of Sir Lancelot," _North American Review_, Dec., 1908). It may seem to some that so conservative an estimate of the tendencies of civilization in matters of sexual love is due to a timid adherence to mere tradition. That is not the case. We have to recognize that marriage is firmly held in position by the pressure of two opposing forces. There are two currents in the stream of our civilization: one that moves towards an ever greater social order and cohesion, the other that moves towards an ever greater individual freedom. There is real harmony underlying the apparent opposition of these two tendencies, and each is indeed the indispensable complement of the other. There can be no real freedom for the individual in the things that concern that individual alone unless there is a coherent order in the things that concern him as a social unit. Marriage in one of its aspects only concerns the two individuals involved; in another of its aspects it chiefly concerns society. The two forces cannot combine to act destructively on marriage, for the one counteracts the other. They combine to support monogamy, in all essentials, on its immemorial basis. It must be added that in the circumstances of monogamy that are not essential there always has been, and always must be, perpetual transformation. All traditional institutions, however firmly founded on natural impulses, are always growing dead and rigid at some points and putting forth vitally new growths at other points. It is the effort to maintain their vitality, and to preserve their elastic adjustment to the environment, which involves this process of transformation in non-essentials. The only way in which we can fruitfully approach the question of the value of the transformations now taking place in our marriage-system is by considering the history of that system in the past. In that way we learn the real significance of the marriage-system, and we understand what transformations are, or are not, associated with a fine civilization. When we are acquainted with the changes of the past we are enabled to face more confidently the changes of the present. The history of the marriage-system of modern civilized peoples begins in the later days of the Roman Empire at the time when the foundations were being laid of that Roman law which has exerted so large an influence in Christendom. Reference has already been made[315] to the significant fact that in late Rome women had acquired a position of nearly complete independence in relation to their husbands, while the patriarchal authority still exerted over them by their fathers had become, for the most part, almost nominal. This high status of women was associated, as it naturally tends to be, with a high degree of freedom in the marriage system. Roman law had no power of intervening in the formation of marriages and there were no legal forms of marriage. The Romans recognized that marriage is a fact and not a mere legal form; in marriage by _usus_ there was no ceremony at all; it was constituted by the mere fact of living together for a whole year; yet such marriage was regarded as just as legal and complete as if it had been inaugurated by the sacred rite of _confarreatio_. Marriage was a matter of simple private agreement in which the man and the woman approached each other on a footing of equality. The wife retained full control of her own property; the barbarity of admitting an action for restitution of conjugal rights was impossible, divorce was a private transaction to which the wife was as fully entitled as the husband, and it required no inquisitorial intervention of magistrate or court; Augustus ordained, indeed, that a public declaration was necessary, but the divorce itself was a private legal act of the two persons concerned.[316] It is interesting to note this enlightened conception of marriage prevailing in the greatest and most masterful Empire which has ever dominated the world, at the period not indeed of its greatest force,--for the maximum of force and the maximum of expansion, the bud and the full flower, are necessarily incompatible,--but at the period of its fullest development. In the chaos that followed the dissolution of the Empire Roman law remained as a precious legacy to the new developing nations, but its influence was inextricably mingled with that of Christianity, which, though not at the first anxious to set up marriage laws of its own, gradually revealed a growing ascetic feeling hostile alike to the dignity of the married woman and the freedom of marriage and divorce.[317] With that influence was combined the influence, introduced through the Bible, of the barbaric Jewish marriage-system conferring on the husband rights in marriage and divorce which were totally denied to the wife; this was an influence which gained still greater force at the Reformation when the authority once accorded to the Church was largely transformed to the Bible. Finally, there was in a great part of Europe, including the most energetic and expansive parts, the influence of the Germans, an influence still more primitive than that of the Jews, involving the conception of the wife as almost her husband's chattel, and marriage as a purchase. All these influences clashed and often appeared side by side, though they could not be harmonized. The result was that the fifteen hundred years that followed the complete conquest of Christianity represent on the whole the most degraded condition to which the marriage system has ever been known to fall for so long a period during the whole course of human history. At first indeed the beneficent influence of Rome continued in some degree to prevail and even exhibited new developments. In the time of the Christian Emperors freedom of divorce by mutual consent was alternately maintained, and abolished.[318] We even find the wise and far-seeing provision of the law enacting that a contract of the two parties never to separate could have no legal validity. Justinian's prohibition of divorce by consent led to much domestic unhappiness, and even crime, which appears to be the reason why it was immediately abrogated by his successor, Theodosius, still maintaining the late Roman tradition of the moral equality of the sexes, allowed the wife equally with the husband to obtain a divorce for adultery; that is a point we have not yet attained in England to-day. It seems to be admitted on all sides that it was largely the fatal influence of the irruption of the barbarous Germans which degraded, when it failed to sweep away, the noble conception of the equality of women with men, and the dignity and freedom of marriage, slowly moulded by the organizing genius of the Roman into a great tradition which still retains a supreme value. The influence of Christianity had at the first no degrading influence of this kind; for the ascetic ideal was not yet predominant, priests married as a matter of course, and there was no difficulty in accepting the marriage order established in the secular world; it was even possible to add to it a new vitality and freedom. But the Germans, with all the primitively acquisitive and combative instincts of untamed savages, went far beyond even the early Romans in the subjection of their wives; they allowed indeed to their unmarried girls a large measure of indulgence and even sexual freedom,--just as the Christians also reverenced their virgins,[319]--but the German marriage system placed the wife, as compared to the wife of the Roman Empire, in a condition little better than that of a domestic slave. In one form or another, under one disguise or another, the system of wife-purchase prevailed among the Germans, and, whenever that system is influential, even when the wife is honored her privileges are diminished.[320] Among the Teutonic peoples generally, as among the early English, marriage was indeed a private transaction but it took the form of a sale of the bride by the father, or other legal guardian, to the bridegroom. The _beweddung_ was a real contract of sale.[321] "Sale-marriage" was the most usual form of marriage. The ring, indeed, probably was not in origin, as some have supposed, a mark of servitude, but rather a form of bride-price, or _arrha_, that is to say, earnest money on the contract of marriage and so the symbol of it.[322] At first a sign of the bride's purchase, it was not till later that the ring acquired the significance of subjection to the bridegroom, and that significance, later in the Middle Ages, was further emphasized by other ceremonies. Thus in England the York and Sarum manuals in some of their forms direct the bride, after the delivery of the ring, to fall at her husband's feet, and sometimes to kiss his right foot. In Russia, also, the bride kissed her husband's feet. At a later period, in France, this custom was attenuated, and it became customary for the bride to let the ring fall in front of the altar and then stoop at her husband's feet to pick it up.[323] Feudalism carried on, and by its military character exaggerated, these Teutonic influences. A fief was land held on condition of military service, and the nature of its influence on marriage is implied in that fact. The woman was given with the fief and her own will counted for nothing.[324] The Christian Church in the beginning accepted the forms of marriage already existing in those countries in which it found itself, the Roman forms in the lands of Latin tradition and the German forms in Teutonic lands. It merely demanded (as it also demanded for other civil contracts, such as an ordinary sale) that they should be hallowed by priestly benediction. But the marriage was recognized by the Church even in the absence of such benediction. There was no special religious marriage service, either in the East or the West, earlier than the sixth century. It was simply the custom for the married couple, after the secular ceremonies were completed, to attend the church, listen to the ordinary service and take the sacrament. A special marriage service was developed slowly, and it was no part of the real marriage. During the tenth century (at all events in Italy and France) it was beginning to become customary to celebrate the first part of the real nuptials, still a purely temporal act, outside the church door. Soon this was followed by the regular bride-mass, directly applicable to the occasion, inside the church. By the twelfth century the priest directed the ceremony, now involving an imposing ritual, which began outside the church and ended with the bridal mass inside. By the thirteenth century, the priest, superseding the guardians of the young couple, himself officiated through the whole ceremony. Up to that time marriage had been a purely private business transaction. Thus, after more than a millennium of Christianity, not by law but by the slow growth of custom, ecclesiastical marriage was established.[325] It was undoubtedly an event of very great importance not merely for the Church but for the whole history of European marriage even down to to-day. The whole of our public method of celebrating marriage to-day is based on that of the Catholic Church as established in the twelfth century and formulated in the Canon law. Even the publication of banns has its origin here, and the fact that in our modern civil marriage the public ceremony takes place in an office and not in a Church may disguise but cannot alter the fact that it is the direct and unquestionable descendant of the public ecclesiastical ceremony which embodied the slow and subtle triumph--so slow and subtle that its history is difficult to trace--of Christian priests over the private affairs of men and women. Before they set themselves to this task marriage everywhere was the private business of the persons concerned; when they had completed their task,--and it was not absolutely complete until the Council of Trent,--a private marriage had become a sin and almost a crime.[326] It may seem a matter for surprise that the Church which, as we know, had shown an ever greater tendency to reverence virginity and to cast contumely on the sexual relationship, should yet, parallel with that movement and with the growing influence of asceticism, have shown so great an anxiety to capture marriage and to confer on it a public, dignified, and religious character. There was, however, no contradiction. The factors that were constituting European marriage, taken as a whole, were indeed of very diverse characters and often involved unreconciled contradictions. But so far as the central efforts of the ecclesiastical legislators were concerned, there was a definite and intelligible point of view. The very depreciation of the sexual instinct involved the necessity, since the instinct could not be uprooted, of constituting for it a legitimate channel, so that ecclesiastical matrimony was, it has been said, "analogous to a license to sell intoxicating liquors."[327] Moreover, matrimony exhibited the power of the Church to confer on the license a dignity and distinction which would clearly separate it from the general stream of lust. Sexual enjoyment is impure, the faithful cannot partake of it until it has been purified by the ministrations of the Church. The solemnization of marriage was the necessary result of the sanctification of virginity. It became necessary to sanctify marriage also, and hence was developed the indissoluble sacrament of matrimony. The conception of marriage as a religious sacrament, a conception of far-reaching influence, is the great contribution of the Catholic Church to the history of marriage. It is important to remember that, while Christianity brought the idea of marriage as a sacrament into the main stream of the institutional history of Europe, that idea was merely developed, not invented, by the Church. It is an ancient and even primitive idea. The Jews believed that marriage is a magico-religious bond, having in it something mystical resembling a sacrament, and that idea, says Durkheim (_L'Année Sociologique_, eighth year, 1905, p. 419), is perhaps very archaic, and hangs on to the generally magic character of sex relations. "The mere act of union," Crawley remarks (_The Mystic Rose_, p. 318) concerning savages, "is potentially a marriage ceremony of the sacramental kind.... One may even credit the earliest animistic men with some such vague conception before any ceremony became crystallized." The essence of a marriage ceremony, the same writer continues, "is the 'joining together' of a man and a woman; in the words of our English service, 'for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife; and they two shall be one flesh.' At the other side of the world, amongst the Orang Benuas, these words are pronounced by an elder, when a marriage is solemnized: 'Listen all ye that are present; those that were distant are now brought together; those that were separated are now united.' Marriage ceremonies in all stages of culture may be called religious with as much propriety as any ceremony whatever. Those who were separated are now joined together, those who were mutually taboo now break the taboo." Thus marriage ceremonies prevent sin and neutralize danger. The Catholic conception of marriage was, it is clear, in essentials precisely the primitive conception. Christianity drew the sacramental idea from the archaic traditions in popular consciousness, and its own ecclesiastical contribution lay in slowly giving that idea a formal and rigid shape, and in declaring it indissoluble. As among savages, it was in the act of consent that the essence of the sacrament lay; the intervention of the priest was not, in principle, necessary to give marriage its religiously binding character. The essence of the sacrament was mutual acceptance of each other by the man and the woman, as husband and wife, and technically the priest who presided at the ceremony was simply a witness of the sacrament. The essential fact being thus the mental act of consent, the sacrament of matrimony had the peculiar character of being without any outward and visible sign. Perhaps it was this fact, instinctively felt as a weakness, which led to the immense emphasis on the indissolubility of the sacrament of matrimony, already established by St. Augustine. The Canonists brought forward various arguments to account for that indissolubility, and a frequent argument has always been the Scriptural application of the term "one flesh" to married couples; but the favorite argument of the Canonists was that matrimony represents the union of Christ with the Church; that is indissoluble, and therefore its image must be indissoluble (Esmein, op. cit., vol. i, p. 64). In part, also, one may well believe, the idea of the indissolubility of marriage suggested itself to the ecclesiastical mind by a natural association of ideas: the vow of virginity in monasticism was indissoluble; ought not the vow of sexual relationship in matrimony to be similarly indissoluble? It appears that it was not until 1164, in Peter Lombard's _Sentences_, that clear and formal recognition is found of matrimony as one of the seven sacraments (Howard, op. cit., vol. i, p. 333). The Church, however, had not only made marriage a religious act; it had also made it a public act. The officiating priest, who had now become the arbiter of marriage, was bound by all the injunctions and prohibitions of the Church, and he could not allow himself to bend to the inclinations and interests of individual couples or their guardians. It was inevitable that in this matter, as in other similar matters, a code of ecclesiastical regulations should be gradually developed for his guidance. This need of the Church, due to its growing control of the world's affairs, was the origin of Canon law. With the development of Canon law the whole field of the regulation of the sexual relationships, and the control of its aberrations, became an exclusively ecclesiastical matter. The secular law could take no more direct cognizance of adultery than of fornication or masturbation; bigamy, incest, and sodomy were not temporal crimes; the Church was supreme in the whole sphere of sex. It was during the twelfth century that Canon law developed, and Gratian was the master mind who first moulded it. He belonged to the Bolognese school of jurisprudence which had inherited the sane traditions of Roman law. The Canons which Gratian compiled were, however, no more the mere result of legal traditions than they were the outcome of cloistered theological speculation. They were the result of a response to the practical needs of the day before those needs had had time to form a foundation for fine-spun subtleties. At a somewhat later period, before the close of the century, the Italian jurists were vanquished by the Gallic theologians of Paris as represented by Peter Lombard. The result was the introduction of mischievous complexities which went far to rob Canon law alike of its certainty and its adaptation to human necessities. Notwithstanding, however, all the parasitic accretions which swiftly began to form around the Canon law and to entangle its practical activity, that legislation embodied--predominantly at the outset and more obscurely throughout its whole period of vital activity--a sound core of real value. The Canon law recognized at the outset that the essential fact of marriage is the actual sexual union, accomplished with the intention of inaugurating a permanent relationship. The _copula carnalis_, the making of two "one flesh," according to the Scriptural phrase, a mystic symbol of the union of the Church to Christ, was the essence of marriage, and the mutual consent of the couple alone sufficed to constitute marriage, even without any religious benediction, or without any ceremony at all. The formless and unblessed union was still a real and binding marriage if the two parties had willed it so to be.[328] Whatever hard things may be said about the Canon law, it must never be forgotten that it carried through the Middle Ages until the middle of the sixteenth century the great truth that the essence of marriage lies not in rites and forms, but in the mutual consent of the two persons who marry each other. When the Catholic Church, in its growing rigidity, lost that conception, it was taken up by the Protestants and Puritans in their first stage of ardent vital activity, though it was more or less dropped as they fell back into a state of subservience to forms. It continued to be maintained by moralists and poets. Thus George Chapman, the dramatist, who was both moralist and poet, in _The Gentleman Usher_ (1606), represents the riteless marriage of his hero and heroine, which the latter thus introduces:-- "May not we now Our contract make and marry before Heaven? Are not the laws of God and Nature more Than formal laws of men? Are outward rites More virtuous than the very substance is Of holy nuptials solemnized within? .... The eternal acts of our pure souls Knit us with God, the soul of all the world, He shall be priest to us; and with such rites As we can here devise we will express And strongly ratify our hearts' true vows, Which no external violence shall dissolve." And to-day, Ellen Key, the distinguished prophet of marriage reform, declares at the end of her _Liebe und Ehe_ that the true marriage law contains only the paragraph: "They who love each other are husband and wife." The establishment of marriage on this sound and naturalistic basis had the further excellent result that it placed the man and the woman, who could thus constitute marriage by their consent in entire disregard of the wishes of their parents or families, on the same moral level. Here the Church was following alike the later Romans and the early Christians like Lactantius and Jerome who had declared that what was licit for a man was licit for a woman. The Penitentials also attempted to set up this same moral law for both sexes. The Canonists finally allowed a certain supremacy to the husband, though, on the other hand, they sometimes seemed to assign even the chief part in marriage to the wife, and the attempt was made to derive the word _matrimonium_ from _matris munium_, thereby declaring the maternal function to be the essential fact of marriage.[329] The sound elements in the Canon law conception of marriage were, however, from a very early period largely if not altogether neutralized by the verbal subtleties by which they were overlaid, and even by its own fundamental original defects. Even in the thirteenth century it began to be possible to attach a superior force to marriage verbally formed _per verba de præsenti_ than to one constituted by sexual union, while so many impediments to marriage were set up that it became difficult to know what marriages were valid, an important point since a marriage even innocently contracted within the prohibited degrees was only a putative marriage. The most serious and the most profoundly unnatural feature of this ecclesiastical conception of marriage was the flagrant contradiction between the extreme facility with which the gate of marriage was flung open to the young couple, even if they were little more than children, and the extreme rigor with which it was locked and bolted when they were inside. That is still the defect of the marriage system we have inherited from the Church, but in the hands of the Canonists it was emphasized both on the side of its facility for entrance and of its difficulty for exit.[330] Alike from the standpoint of reason and of humanity the gate that is easy of ingress must be easy of egress; or if the exit is necessarily difficult then extreme care must be taken in admission. But neither of these necessary precautions was possible to the Canonists. Matrimony was a sacrament and all must be welcome to a sacrament, the more so since otherwise they may be thrust into the mortal sin of fornication. On the other side, since matrimony was a sacrament, when once truly formed, beyond the permissible power of verbal quibbles to invalidate, it could never be abrogated. The very institution that, in the view of the Church, had been set up as a bulwark against license became itself an instrument for artificially creating license. So that the net result of the Canon law in the long run was the production of a state of things which--in the eyes of a large part of Christendom--more than neutralized the soundness of its original conception.[331] In England, where from the ninth century, marriage was generally accepted by the ecclesiastical and temporal powers as indissoluble, Canon law was, in the main, established as in the rest of Christendom. There were, however, certain points in which Canon law was not accepted by the law of England. By English law a ceremony before a priest was necessary to the validity of a marriage, though in Scotland the Canon law doctrine was accepted that simple consent of the parties, even exchanged secretly, sufficed to constitute marriage. Again, the issue of a void marriage contracted in innocence, and the issue of persons who subsequently marry each other, are legitimate by Canon law, but not by the common law of England (Geary, _Marriage and Family Relations_, p. 3; Pollock and Maitland, loc. cit.). The Canonists regarded the disabilities attaching to bastardy as a punishment inflicted on the offending parents, and considered, therefore, that no burden should fall on the children when there had been a ceremony in good faith on the part of one at least of the parents. In this respect the English law is less reasonable and humane. It was at the Council of Merton, in 1236, that the barons of England rejected the proposal to make the laws of England harmonize with the Canon law, that is, with the ecclesiastical law of Christendom generally, in allowing children born before wedlock to be legitimated by subsequent marriage. Grosseteste poured forth his eloquence and his arguments in favor of the change, but in vain, and the law of England has ever since stood alone in this respect (Freeman, "Merton Priory," _English Towns and Districts_). The proposal was rejected in the famous formula, "Nolumus leges Angliæ mutare," a formula which merely stood for an unreasonable and inhumane obstinacy. In the United States, while by common law subsequent marriage fails to legitimate children born before marriage, in many of the States the subsequent marriage of the parents effects by statute the legitimacy of the child, sometimes (as in Maine) automatically, more usually (as in Massachusetts) through special acknowledgment by the father. The appearance of Luther and the Reformation involved the decay of the Canon law system so far as Europe as a whole was concerned. It was for many reasons impossible for the Protestant reformers to retain formally either the Catholic conception of matrimony or the precariously elaborate legal structure which the Church had built up on that conception. It can scarcely be said, indeed, that the Protestant attitude towards the Catholic idea of matrimony was altogether a clear, logical, or consistent attitude. It was a revolt, an emotional impulse, rather than a matter of reasoned principle. In its inevitable necessity, under the circumstances of the rise of Protestantism, lies its justification, and, on the whole, its wholesome soundness. It took the form, which may seem strange in a religious movement, of proclaiming that marriage is not a religious but a secular matter. Marriage is, said Luther, "a worldly thing," and Calvin put it on the same level as house-building, farming, or shoe-making. But while this secularization of marriage represents the general and final drift of Protestantism, the leaders of Protestantism were themselves not altogether confident and clear-sighted in the matter. Even Luther was a little confused on this point; sometimes he seems to call marriage "a sacrament," sometimes "a temporal business," to be left to the state.[332] It was the latter view which tended to prevail. But at first there was a period of confusion, if not of chaos, in the minds of the Reformers; not only were they not always convinced in their own minds; they were at variance with each other, especially on the very practical question of divorce. Luther on the whole belonged to the more rigid party, including Calvin and Beza, which would grant divorce only for adultery and malicious desertion; some, including many of the early English Protestants, were in favor of allowing the husband to divorce for adultery but not the wife. Another party, including Zwingli, were influenced by Erasmus in a more liberal direction, and--moving towards the standpoint of Roman Imperial legislation--admitted various causes of divorce. Some, like Bucer, anticipating Milton, would even allow divorce when the husband was unable to love his wife. At the beginning some of the Reformers adopted the principle of self-divorce, as it prevailed among the Jews and was accepted by some early Church Councils. In this way Luther held that the cause for the divorce itself effected the divorce without any judicial decree, though a magisterial permission was needed for remarriage. This question of remarriage, and the treatment of the adulterer, were also matters of dispute. The remarriage of the innocent party was generally accepted; in England it began in the middle of the sixteenth century, was pronounced valid by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and confirmed by Parliament. Many Reformers were opposed, however, to the remarriage of the adulterous party. Beust, Beza, and Melancthon would have him hanged and so settle the question of remarriage; Luther and Calvin would like to kill him, but since the civil rulers were slack in adopting that measure they allowed him to remarry, if possible in some other part of the country.[333] The final outcome was that Protestantism framed a conception of marriage mainly on the legal and economic factor--a factor not ignored but strictly subordinated by the Canonists--and regarded it as essentially a contract. In so doing they were on the negative side effecting a real progress, for they broke the power of an antiquated and artificial system, but on the positive side they were merely returning to a conception which prevails in barbarous societies, and is most pronounced when marriage is most assimilable to purchase. The steps taken by Protestantism involved a considerable change in the nature of marriage, but not necessarily any great changes in its form. Marriage was no longer a sacrament, but it was still a public and not a private function and was still, however inconsistently, solemnized in Church. And as Protestantism had no rival code to set up, both in Germany and England it fell back on the general principles of Canon law, modifying them to suit its own special attitude and needs.[334] It was the later Puritanic movement, first in the Netherlands (1580), then in England (1653), and afterwards in New England, which introduced a serious and coherent conception of Protestant marriage, and began to establish it on a civil base. The English Reformers under Edward VI and his enlightened advisers, including Archbishop Cranmer, took liberal views of marriage, and were prepared to carry through many admirable reforms. The early death of that King exerted a profound influence on the legal history of English marriage. The Catholic reaction under Queen Mary killed off the more radical Reformers, while the subsequent accession of Queen Elizabeth, whose attitude towards marriage was grudging, illiberal, and old-fashioned, approximating to that of her father, Henry VIII (as witnessed, for instance, in her decided opposition to the marriage of the clergy), permanently affected English marriage law. It became less liberal than that of other Protestant countries, and closer to that of Catholic countries. The reform of marriage attempted by the Puritans began in England in 1644, when an Act was passed asserting "marriage to be no sacrament, nor peculiar to the Church of God, but common to mankind and of public interest to every Commonwealth." The Act added, notwithstanding, that it was expedient marriage should be solemnized by "a lawful minister of the Word." The more radical Act of 1653 swept away this provision, and made marriage purely secular. The banns were to be published (by registrars specially appointed) in the Church, or (if the parties desired) the market-place. The marriage was to be performed by a Justice of the Peace; the age of consent to marriage for a man was made sixteen, for a woman fourteen (Scobell's _Acts and Ordinances_, pp. 86, 236). The Restoration abolished this sensible Act, and reintroduced Canon-law traditions, but the Puritan conception of marriage was carried over to America, where it took root and flourished. It was out of Puritanism, moreover, as represented by Milton, that the first genuinely modern though as yet still imperfect conception of the marriage relationship was destined to emerge. The early Reformers in this matter acted mainly from an obscure instinct of natural revolt in an environment of plebeian materialism. The Puritans were moved by their feeling for simplicity and civil order as the conditions for religious freedom. Milton, in his _Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_, published in 1643, when he was thirty-five years of age, proclaimed the supremacy of the substance of marriage over the form of it, and the spiritual autonomy of the individual in the regulation of that form. He had grasped the meaning of that conception of personal responsibility which is the foundation of sexual relationships as they are beginning to appear to men to-day. If Milton had left behind him only his writings on marriage and divorce they would have sufficed to stamp him with the seal of genius. Christendom had to wait a century and a half before another man of genius of the first rank, Wilhelm von Humboldt, spoke out with equal authority and clearness in favor of free marriage and free divorce. It is to the honor of Milton, and one of his chief claims on our gratitude, that he is the first great protagonist in Christendom of the doctrine that marriage is a private matter, and that, therefore, it should be freely dissoluble by mutual consent, or even at the desire of one of the parties. We owe to him, says Howard, "the boldest defence of the liberty of divorce which had yet appeared. If taken in the abstract, and applied to both sexes alike, it is perhaps the strongest defence which can be made through an appeal to mere authority;" though his arguments, being based on reason and experience, are often ill sustained by his authority; he is really speaking the language of the modern social reformer, and Milton's writings on this subject are now sometimes ranked in importance above all his other work (Masson, _Life of Milton_, vol. iii; Howard, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 86, vol. iii, p. 251; C.B. Wheeler, "Milton's Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce," _Nineteenth Century_, Jan., 1907). Marriage, said Milton, "is not a mere carnal coition, but a human society; where that cannot be had there can be no true marriage" (_Doctrine of Divorce_, Bk. i, Ch. XIII); it is "a covenant, the very being whereof consists not in a forced cohabitation, and counterfeit performance of duties, but in unfeigned love and peace" (Ib., Ch. VI). Any marriage that is less than this is "an idol, nothing in the world." The weak point in Milton's presentation of the matter is that he never explicitly accords to the wife the same power of initiative in marriage and divorce as to the husband. There is, however, nothing in his argument to prevent its equal application to the wife, an application which, while never asserting he never denies; and it has been pointed out that he assumes that women are the equals of men and demands from them intellectual and spiritual companionship; however ready Milton may have been to grant complete equality of divorce to the wife, it would have been impossible for a seventeenth century Puritan to have obtained any hearing for such a doctrine; his arguments would have been received with, if that were possible, even more neglect than they actually met. (Milton's scornful sonnet concerning the reception of his book is well known.) Milton insists that in the conventional Christian marriage exclusive importance is attached to carnal connection. So long as that connection is possible, no matter what antipathy may exist between the couple, no matter how mistaken they may have been "through any error, concealment, or misadventure," no matter if it is impossible for them to "live in any union or contentment all their days," yet the marriage still holds good, the two must "fadge together" (op. cit., Bk. i). It is the Canon law, he says, which is at fault, "doubtless by the policy of the devil," for the Canon law leads to licentiousness (op. cit.). It is, he argues, the absence of reasonable liberty which causes license, and it is the men who desire to retain the privileges of license who oppose the introduction of reasonable liberty. The just ground for divorce is "indisposition, unfitness, or contrariety of mind, arising from a cause in nature unchangeable, hindering, and ever likely to hinder, the main benefits of conjugal society, which are solace and peace." Without the "deep and serious verity" of mutual love, wedlock is "nothing but the empty husks of a mere outside matrimony," a mere hypocrisy, and must be dissolved (op. cit.). Milton goes beyond the usual Puritan standpoint, and not only rejects courts and magistrates, but approves of self-divorce; for divorce cannot rightly belong to any civil or earthly power, since "ofttimes the causes of seeking divorce reside so deeply in the radical and innocent affections of nature, as is not within the diocese of law to tamper with." He adds that, for the prevention of injustice, special points may be referred to the magistrate, who should not, however, in any case, be able to forbid divorce (op. cit., Bk. ii, Ch. XXI). Speaking from a standpoint which we have not even yet attained, he protests against the absurdity of "authorizing a judicial court to toss about and divulge the unaccountable and secret reason of disaffection between man and wife." In modern times Hinton was accustomed to compare the marriage law to the law of the Sabbath as broken by Jesus. We find exactly the same comparison in Milton. The Sabbath, he believes, was made for God. "Yet when the good of man comes into the scales, we have that voice of infinite goodness and benignity, that 'Sabbath was made for man and not man for Sabbath.' What thing ever was made more for man alone, and less for God, than marriage?" (_op. cit._, Bk. i, Ch. XI). "If man be lord of the Sabbath, can he be less than lord of marriage?" Milton, in this matter as in others, stood outside the currents of his age. His conception of marriage made no more impression on contemporary life than his _Paradise Lost_. Even his own Puritan party who had passed the Act of 1653 had strangely failed to transfer divorce and nullity cases to the temporal courts, which would at least have been a step on the right road. The Puritan influence was transferred to America and constituted the leaven which still works in producing the liberal though too minutely detailed divorce laws of many States. The American secular marriage procedure followed that set up by the English Commonwealth, and the dictum of the great Quaker, George Fox, "We marry none, but are witnesses of it,"[335] (which was really the sound kernel in the Canon law) is regarded as the spirit of the marriage law of the conservative but liberal State of Pennsylvania, where, as recently as 1885, a statute was passed expressly authorizing a man and woman to solemnize their own marriage.[336] In England itself the reforms in marriage law effected by the Puritans were at the Restoration largely submerged. For two and a half centuries longer the English spiritual courts administered what was substantially the old Canon law. Divorce had, indeed, become more difficult than before the Reformation, and the married woman's lot was in consequence harder. From the sixteenth century to the second half of the nineteenth, English marriage law was peculiarly harsh and rigid, much less liberal than that of any other Protestant country. Divorce was unknown to the ordinary English law, and a special act of Parliament, at enormous expense, was necessary to procure it in individual cases.[337] There was even an attitude of self-righteousness in the maintenance of this system. It was regarded as moral. There was complete failure to realize that nothing is more immoral than the existence of unreal sexual unions, not only from the point of view of theoretical but also of practical morality, for no community could tolerate a majority of such unions.[338] In 1857 an act for reforming the system was at last passed with great difficulty. It was a somewhat incoherent and make-shift measure, and was avowedly put forward only as a step towards further reform; but it still substantially governs English procedure, and in the eyes of many has set a permanent standard of morality. The spirit of blind conservatism,--_Nolumus leges Angliæ mutare_,--which in this sphere had reasserted itself after the vital movement of Reform and Puritanism, still persists. In questions of marriage and divorce English legislation and English public feeling are behind alike both the Latin land of France and the Puritanically moulded land of the United States. The author of an able and temperate essay on _The Question of English Divorce_, summing up the characteristics of the English divorce law, concludes that it is: (1) unequal, (2) immoral, (3) contradictory, (4) illogical, (5) uncertain, and (6) unsuited to present requirements. It was only grudgingly introduced in a bill, presented to Parliament in 1857, which was stubbornly resisted during a whole session, not only on religious grounds by the opponents of divorce, but also by the friends of divorce, who desired a more liberal measure. It dealt with the sexes unequally, granting the husband but not the wife divorce for adultery alone. In introducing the bill the Attorney-General apologized for this defect, stating that the measure was not intended to be final, but merely as a step towards further legislation. That was more than half a century ago, but the further step has not yet been taken. Incomplete and unsatisfactory as the measure was, it seems to have been regarded by many as revolutionary and dangerous in the highest degree. The author of an article on "Modern Divorce" in the _Universal Review_ for July, 1859, while approving in principle of the establishment of a special Divorce Court, yet declared that the new court was "tending to destroy marriage as a social institution and to sap female chastity," and that "everyone now is a husband and wife at will." "No one," he adds, "can now justly quibble at a deficiency of matrimonial vomitories." Yet, according to this law, it is not even possible for a wife to obtain a divorce for her husband's adultery, unless he is also cruel or deserts her. At first "cruelty" meant physical cruelty and of a serious kind. But in course of time the meaning of the word was extended to pain inflicted on the mind, and now coldness and neglect may almost of themselves constitute cruelty, though the English court has sometimes had the greatest hesitation in accepting the most atrocious forms of refined cruelty, because it involved no "physical" element. "The time may very reasonably be looked forward to, however," a legal writer has stated (Montmorency, "The Changing Status of a Married Woman," _Law Quarterly Review_, April, 1897), "when almost any act of misconduct will, in itself, be considered to convey such mental agony to the innocent party as to constitute the cruelty requisite under the Act of 1857." (The question of cruelty is fully discussed in J.R. Bishop's _Commentaries on Marriage, Divorce and Separation_, 1891, vol. i, Ch. XLIX; cf. Howard, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 111). There can be little doubt, however, that cruelty alone is a reasonable cause for divorce. In many American States, where the facilities for divorce are much greater than in England, cruelty is recognized as itself sufficient cause, whether the wife or the husband is the complainant. The acts of cruelty alleged have sometimes been seemingly very trivial. Thus divorces have been pronounced in America on the ground of the "cruel and inhuman conduct" of a wife who failed to sew her husband's buttons on, or because a wife "struck plaintiff a violent blow with her bustle," or because a husband does not cut his toe-nails, or because "during our whole married life my husband has never offered to take me out riding. This has been a source of great mental suffering and injury." In many other cases, it must be added, the cruelty inflicted by the husband, even by the wife--for though usually, it is not always, the husband who is the brute--is of an atrocious and heart-rending character (_Report on Marriage and Divorce in the United States_, issued by Hon. Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner of Labor, 1889). But even in many of the apparently trivial cases--as of a husband who will not wash, and a wife who is constantly evincing a hasty temper--it must be admitted that circumstances which, in the more ordinary relationships of life may be tolerated, become intolerable in the intimate relationship of sexual union. As a matter of fact, it has been found by careful investigation that the American courts weigh well the cases that come before them, and are not careless in the granting of decrees of divorce. In 1859 an exaggerated importance was attached to the gross reasons for divorce, to the neglect of subtle but equally fatal impediments to the continuance of marriage. This was pointed out by Gladstone, who was opposed to making adultery a cause of divorce at all. "We have many causes," he said, "more fatal to the great obligation of marriage, as disease, idiocy, crime involving punishment for life." Nowadays we are beginning to recognize not only such causes as these, but others of a far more intimate character which, as Milton long ago realized, cannot be embodied in statutes, or pleaded in law courts. The matrimonial bond is not merely a physical union, and we have to learn that, as the author of _The Question of English Divorce_ (p. 49) remarks, "other than physical divergencies are, in fact, by far the most important of the originating causes of matrimonial disaster." In England and Wales more husbands than wives petition for divorce, the wives who petition being about 40 per cent, of the whole. Divorces are increasing, though the number is not large, in 1907 about 1,300, of whom less than half remarried. The inadequacy of the divorce law is shown by the fact that during the same year about 7,000 orders for judicial separation were issued by magistrates. These separation orders not only do not give the right to remarry, but they make it impossible to obtain divorce. They are, in effect, an official permission to form relationships outside State marriage. In the United States during the years 1887-1906 nearly 40 per cent, of the divorces granted were for "desertion," which is variously interpreted in different States, and must often mean a separation by mutual consent. Of the remainder, 19 per cent, were for unfaithfulness, and the same proportion for cruelty; but while the divorces granted to husbands for the infidelity of their wives are nearly three times as great proportionately as those granted to wives for their husband's adultery, with regard to cruelty it is the reverse, wives obtaining 27 per cent, of their divorces on that ground and husbands only 10 per cent. In Prussia divorce is increasing. In 1907 there were eight thousand divorces, the cause in half the cases being adultery, and in about a thousand cases malicious desertion. In cases of desertion the husbands were the guilty parties nearly twice as often as the wives, in cases of adultery only a fifth to an eighth part. There cannot be the slightest doubt that the difficulty, the confusion, the inconsistency, and the flagrant indecency which surround divorce and the methods of securing it are due solely and entirely to the subtle persistence of traditions based, on the one hand, on the Canon law doctrines of the indissolubility of marriage and the sin of sexual intercourse outside marriage, and, on the other hand, on the primitive idea of marriage as a contract which economically subordinates the wife to the husband and renders her person, or at all events her guardianship, his property. It is only when we realize how deeply these traditions have become embedded in the religious, legal, social and sentimental life of Europe that we can understand how it is that barbaric notions of marriage and divorce can to-day subsist in a stage of civilization which has, in many respects, advanced beyond such notions. The Canon law conception of the abstract religious sanctity of matrimony, when transferred to the moral sphere, makes a breach of the marriage relationship seem a public wrong; the conception of the contractive subordination of the wife makes such a breach on her part, and even, by transference of ideas, on his part, seem a private wrong. These two ideas of wrong incoherently flourish side by side in the vulgar mind, even to-day. The economic subordination of the wife as a species of property significantly comes into view when we find that a husband can claim, and often secure, large sums of money from the man who sexually approaches his property, by such trespass damaging it in its master's eyes.[339] To a psychologist it would be obvious that a husband who has lacked the skill so to gain and to hold his wife's love and respect that it is not perfectly easy and natural to her to reject the advances of any other man owes at least as much damages to her as she or her partner owes to him; while if the failure is really on her side, if she is so incapable of responding to love and trust and so easy a prey to an outsider, then surely the husband, far from wishing for any money compensation, should consider himself more than fully compensated by being delivered from the necessity of supporting such a woman. In the absence of any false traditions that would be obvious. It might not, indeed, be unreasonable that a husband should pay heavily in order to free himself from a wife whom, evidently, he has made a serious mistake in choosing. But to ordain that a man should actually be indemnified because he has shown himself incapable of winning a woman's love is an idea that could not occur in a civilized society that was not twisted by inherited prejudice.[340] Yet as matters are to-day there are civilized countries in which it is legally possible for a husband to enter a prayer for damages against his wife's paramour in combination with either a petition for judicial separation or for dissolution of wedlock. In this way adultery is not a crime but a private injury.[341] At the same time, however, the influence of Canon law comes inconsistently to the surface and asserts that a breach of matrimony is a public wrong, a sin transformed by the State into something almost or quite like a crime. This is clearly indicated by the fact that in some countries the adulterer is liable to imprisonment, a liability scarcely nowadays carried into practice. But exactly the same idea is beautifully illustrated by the doctrine of "collusion," which, in theory, is still strictly observed in many countries. According to the doctrine of "collusion" the conditions necessary to make the divorce possible must on no account be secured by mutual agreement. In practice it is impossible to prevent more or less collusion, but if proved in court it constitutes an absolute impediment to the granting of a divorce, however just and imperative the demand for divorce may be. The English Divorce Act of 1857 refused divorce when there was collusion, as well as when there was any countercharge against the petitioner, and the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1860 provided the machinery for guaranteeing these bars to divorce. This question of collusion is discussed by G.P. Bishop (op. cit., vol. ii, Ch. IX). "However just a cause may be," Bishop remarks, "if parties collude in its management, so that in real fact both parties are plaintiffs, while by the record the one appears as plaintiff and the other as defendant, it cannot go forward. All conduct of this sort, disturbing to the course of justice, falls within the general idea of fraud on the court. Such is the doctrine in principle everywhere." It is quite evident that from the social or the moral point of view, it is best that when a husband and wife can no longer live together, they should part amicably, and in harmonious agreement effect all the arrangements rendered necessary by their separation. The law ridiculously forbids them to do so, and declares that they must not part at all unless they are willing to part as enemies. In order to reach a still lower depth of absurdity and immorality the law goes on to say that if as a matter of fact they have succeeded in becoming enemies to each other to such an extent that each has wrongs to plead against the other party they cannot be divorced at all![342] That is to say that when a married couple have reached a degree of separation which makes it imperatively necessary, not merely in their own interests but in the moral interests of society, that they should be separated and their relations to other parties concerned regularized, then they must on no account be separated. It is clear how these provisions of the law are totally opposed to the demands of reason and morality. Yet at the same time it is equally clear how no efforts of the lawyers, however skilful or humane those efforts may be, can bring the present law into harmony with the demands of modern civilization. It is not the lawyers who are at fault; they have done their best, and, in England, it is entirely owing to the skilful and cautious way in which the judges have so far as possible pressed the law into harmony with modern needs, that our antiquated divorce laws have survived at all. It is the system which is wrong. That system is the illegitimate outgrowth of the Canon law which grew up around conceptions long since dead. It involves the placing of the person who imperils the theoretical indissolubility of the matrimonial bond in the position of a criminal, now that he can no longer be publicly condemned as a sinner. To aid and abet that criminal is itself an offence, and the aider and abettor of the criminal must, therefore, be inconsequently punished by the curious method of refraining from punishing the criminal. We do not openly assert that the defendant in a divorce case is a criminal; that would be to render the absurdity of it too obvious, and, moreover, would be hardly consistent with the permission to claim damages which is based on a different idea. We hover uncertainly between two conceptions of divorce, both of them bad, each inconsistent with the other, and neither of them capable of being pushed to its logical conclusions. The result is that if a perfectly virtuous married couple comes forward to claim divorce, they are told that it is out of the question, for in such a case there must be a "defendant." They are to be punished for their virtue. If each commits adultery and they again come forward to claim divorce, they are told that it is still out of the question, for there must be a "plaintiff." Before they were punished for their virtue; now they are to be punished in exactly the same way for their lack of it. The couple must humor the law by adopting a course of action which may be utterly repugnant to both. If only the wife alone will commit adultery, if only the husband will commit adultery and also inflict some act of cruelty upon his wife, if the innocent party will descend to the degradation of employing detectives and hunting up witnesses, the law is at their feet and hastens to accord to both parties the permission to remarry. Provided, of course, that the parties have arranged this without "collusion." That is to say that our law, with its ecclesiastical traditions behind it, says to the wife: Be a sinner, or to the husband: Be a sinner and a criminal--then we will do all you wish. The law puts a premium on sin and on crime. In order to pile absurdity on absurdity it claims that this is done in the cause of "public morality." To those who accept this point of view it seems that the sweeping away of divorce laws would undermine the bases of morality. Yet there can be little doubt that the sooner such "morality" is undermined, and indeed utterly destroyed, the better it will be for true morality. There is an influential movement in England for the reform of divorce, on the grounds that the present law is unjust, illogical, and immoral, represented by the Divorce Law Reform Union. Even the former president of the Divorce Court, Lord Gorell, declared from the bench in 1906 that the English law produces deplorable results, and is "full of inconsistencies, anomalies and inequalities, amounting almost to absurdities." The points in the law which have aroused most protest, as being most behind the law of other nations, are the great expense of divorce, the inequality of the sexes, the failure to grant divorces for desertion and in cases of hopeless insanity, and the failure of separation orders to enable the separated parties to marry again. Separation orders are granted by magistrates for cruelty, adultery, and desertion. This "separation" is really the direct descendant of the Canon law divorce _a mensa et thoro_, and the inability to marry which it involves is merely a survival of the Canon law tradition. At the present time magistrates--exercising their discretion, it is admitted, in a careful and prudent manner--issue some 7,000 separation orders annually, so that every year the population is increased by 14,000 individuals mostly in the age of sexual vigor, and some little more than children, who are forbidden by law to form legal marriages. They contribute powerfully to the great forward movement which, as was shown in the previous chapter, marks the morality of our age. But it is highly undesirable that free marriages should be formed, helplessly, by couples who have no choice in the matter, for it is unlikely that under such circumstances any high level of personal responsibility can be reached. The matter could be easily remedied by dropping altogether a Canon law tradition which no longer has any vitality or meaning, and giving to the magistrate's separation order the force of a decree of divorce. New Zealand and the Australian colonies, led by Victoria in 1889, have passed divorce laws which, while more or less framed on the English model, represent a distinct advance. Thus in New Zealand the grounds for divorce are adultery on either side, wilful desertion, habitual drunkenness, and conviction to imprisonment for a term of years. It is natural that an Englishman should feel acutely sensitive to this blot in the law of England and desire the speedy disappearance of a system so open to scathing sarcasm. It is natural that every humane person should grow impatient of the spectacle of so many blighted lives, of so much misery inflicted on innocent persons--and on persons who even when technically guilty are often the victims of unnatural circumstances--by the persistence of a mediæval system of ecclesiastical tyranny and inquisitorial insolence into an age when sexual relationships are becoming regarded as the sacred secret of the persons intimately concerned, and when more and more we rely on the responsibility of the individual in making and maintaining such relationships. When, however, we refrain from concentrating our attention on particular countries and embrace the general movement of civilization in the matter of divorce during recent times, there cannot be the slightest doubt as to the direction of that movement. England was a pioneer in the movement half a century ago, and to-day every civilized country is moving in the same direction. France broke with the old ecclesiastical tradition of the indissolubility of matrimony in 1885 by a divorce law in some respects very reasonable. The wife may obtain a divorce on an equality with the husband (though she is liable to imprisonment for adultery), the co-respondent occupies a very subordinate position in adultery charges, and facility is offered for divorce on the ground of simple _injures graves_ (excluding as far as possible mere incompatibility of temper), while the judge has the power, which he often successfully exerts, to effect a reconciliation in private or to grant a decree without public trial. The influence of France has doubtless been influential in moulding the divorce laws of the other Latin countries. In Prussia an enlightened divorce law formerly prevailed by which it was possible for a couple to separate without scandal when it was clearly shown that they could not live together in agreement. But the German Code of 1900 introduced provisions as regards divorce which--while in some respects more liberal than those of the English law, especially by permitting divorce for desertion and insanity--are, on the whole, retrograde as compared with the earlier Prussian law and place the matter on a cruder and more brutal basis. For two years after the Code came into operations the number of divorces sank; after that the public and the courts adapted themselves to the new provisions (more especially one which allowed divorce for serious neglect of conjugal duties) and the number of divorces began to increase with great rapidity. "But," remarks Hirschfeld, "how painful it has now become to read divorce cases! One side abuses the other, makes accusations of the grossest character, employs detectives to obtain the necessary proofs of 'dishonorable and immoral conduct,' whereas, before, both parties realized that they had been deceived in each other, that they failed to suit each other, and that they could no longer live together. Thus we see that the narrowing of individual responsibility in sexual matters has not only had no practical effect, but leads to injurious results of a serious kind."[343] In England a similar state of things has prevailed ever since divorce was established, but it seems to have become too familiar to excite either pain or disgust. Yet, as Adner has pointed out,[344] it has moved in a direction contrary to the general tendency of civilization, not only by increasing the inquisitorial authority of public courts but by emphasizing merely external causes of divorce and abolishing the more subtle internal causes which constantly grow in importance with the refinement of civilization. In Austria until recent years, Canon law ruled absolutely, and matrimony was indissoluble, as it still remains for the Catholic population. The results as regards matrimonial happiness were in the highest degree deplorable. Half a century ago Gross-Hoffinger investigated the marital happiness of 100 Viennese couples of all social classes, without choice of cases, and presented the results in detail. He found that 48 couples were positively unhappy, only 16 were undoubtedly happy, and even among these there was only one case in which happiness resulted from mutual faithfulness, happiness in the other cases being only attained by setting aside the question of fidelity.[345] This picture, it is to be hoped, no longer remains true. There is an influential Austrian Marriage Reform Association, publishing a journal called _Die Fessel_, or The Fetter. "One was chained to another," we are told. "In certain circumstances this must have been the worst and most torturing penalty of all. The most bizarre and repulsive couplings took place. There were, it is true, many affectionate companionships of the chain. But there were many more which inflicted an eternity of suffering upon one of the pair." This quotation, it must be added, has nothing to do with what the Canonists, borrowing the technical term for a prisoner's shackles, suggestively termed the _vinculum matrimonii_; it was written many years ago concerning the galleys of the old French convict system. It is, however, recalled to one's mind by the title which the Austrian Marriage Reform Association has given to its official organ. Russia, where the marriage laws are arranged by the Holy Synod aided by jurists, stands almost alone among the great countries in the reasonable simplicity of its divorce provisions. Before 1907 divorce was very difficult to obtain in Russia, but in that year it became possible for a married couple to separate by mutual consent and after living apart for a year to become thereby entitled to a divorce enabling them to remarry. This provision is in accordance with the humane conception of the sexual relationship which has always tended to prevail in Russia, whither, it must be remembered, the stern and unnatural ideals of compulsory celibacy cherished by the Western Church never completely penetrated; the clergy of the Eastern Church are married, though the marriage must take place before they enter the priesthood, and they could not sympathize with the anti-sexual tone of the marriage regulations laid down by the celibate clergy of the west. Switzerland, again, which has been regarded as the political laboratory of Europe, also stands apart in the liberality of its divorce legislation. A renewable divorce for two years may be obtained in Switzerland when there are "circumstances which seriously affect the maintenance of the conjugal tie." To the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, finally, belongs the honor of having firmly maintained throughout the great principle of divorce by mutual consent under legal conditions, as established by Napoleon in his Code of 1803. The smaller countries generally are in advance of the large in matters of divorce law. The Norwegian law is liberal. The new Roumanian Code permits divorce by mutual consent, provided both parents grant equal shares of their property to the children. The little principality of Monaco has recently introduced the reasonable provision of granting divorce for, among other causes, alcoholism, syphilis, and epilepsy, so protecting the future race. Outside Europe the most instructive example of the tendency of divorce is undoubtedly furnished by the United States of America. The divorce laws of the States are mainly on a Puritanic basis, and they retain not only the Puritanic love of individual freedom but the Puritanic precisianism.[346] In some States, notably Iowa, the statute-makers have been constantly engaged in adopting, changing, abrogating and re-enacting the provisions of their divorce laws, and Howard has shown how much confusion and awkwardness arise by such perpetual legislative fiddling over small details. This restless precisianism has somewhat disguised the generally broad and liberal tendency of marriage law in America, and has encouraged foreign criticism of American social institutions. As a matter of fact the prevalence of divorce in America is enormously exaggerated. The proportion of divorced persons in the population appears to be less than one per cent., and, contrary to a frequent assertion, it is by no means the rule for divorced persons to remarry immediately. Taking into account the special conditions of life in the United States the prevalence of divorce is small and its character by no means reveals a low grade morality. An impartial and competent critic of the American people, Professor Münsterberg, remarks that the real ground which mainly leads to divorce in the United States--not the mere legal pretexts made compulsory by the precisianism of the law--is the highly ethical objection to continuing externally in a marriage which has ceased to be spiritually congenial. "It is the women especially," he says, "and generally the very best women, who prefer to take the step, with all the hardships which it involves, to prolonging a marriage which is spiritually hypocritical and immoral."[347] The people of the United States, above all others, cherish ideals of individualism; they are also the people among whom, above all others, there is the greatest amount of what Reibmayr calls "blood-chaos." Under such circumstances the difficulties of conjugal life are necessarily at a maximum, and marriage union is liable to subtle impediments which must forever elude the statute-book.[348] There can be little doubt that the practical sagacity of the American people will enable them sooner or later to recognize this fact, and that finally fulfilling the Puritanic drift of their divorce legislation--as foreshadowed in its outcome by Milton--they will agree to trust their own citizens with the responsibility of deciding so private a matter as their conjugal relationships, with, of course, authority in the courts to see that no injustice is committed. It is, indeed, surprising that the American people, usually intolerant of State interference, should in this matter so long have tolerated such interference in so private a matter. The movement of divorce is not confined to Christendom; it is a mark of modern civilization. In Japan the proportion of divorces is higher than in any other country, not excluding the United States.[349] The most vigorous and progressive countries are those that insist most firmly on the purity of sexual unions. In the United States it was pointed out many years ago that divorce is most prevalent where the standard of education and morality is highest. It was the New England States, with strong Puritanic traditions of moral freedom, which took the lead in granting facility to divorce. The divorce movement is not, as some have foolishly supposed, a movement making for immorality.[350] Immorality is the inevitable accompaniment of indissoluble marriage; the emphasis on the sanctity of a merely formal union discourages the growth of moral responsibility as regards the hypothetically unholy unions which grow up beneath its shadow. To insist, on the other hand, by establishing facility of divorce, that sexual unions shall be real, is to work in the cause of morality. The lands in which divorce by mutual consent has prevailed longest are probably among the most, and not the least, moral of lands. Surprise has been expressed that although divorce by mutual consent commended itself as an obviously just and reasonable measure two thousand years ago to the legally-minded Romans that solution has even yet been so rarely attained by modern states.[351] Wherever society is established on a solidly organized basis and the claims of reason and humanity receive due consideration--even when the general level of civilization is not in every respect high--there we find a tendency to divorce by mutual consent. In Japan, according to the new Civil Code, much as in ancient Rome, marriage is effected by giving notice of the fact to the registrar in the presence of two witnesses, and with the consent (in the case of young couples) of the heads of their families. There may be a ceremony, but it is not demanded by the law. Divorce is effected in exactly the same way, by simply having the registration cancelled, provided both husband and wife are over twenty-five years of age. For younger couples unhappily married, and for cases in which mutual consent cannot be obtained, judicial divorce exists. This is granted for various specific causes, of which the most important is "grave insult, such as to render living together unbearable" (Ernest W. Clement, "The New Woman in Japan," _American Journal Sociology_, March, 1903). Such a system, like so much else achieved by Japanese organization, seems reasonable, guarded, and effective. In the very different and far more ancient marriage system of China, divorce by mutual consent is equally well-established. Such divorce by mutual consent takes place for incompatibility of temperament, or when both husband and wife desire it. There are, however, various antiquated and peculiar provisions in the Chinese marriage laws, and divorce is compulsory for the wife's adultery or serious physical injuries inflicted by either party on the other. (The marriage laws of China are fully set forth by Paul d'Enjoy, _La Revue_, Sept. 1, 1905.) Among the Eskimo (who, as readers of Nansen's fascinating books on their morals will know, are in some respects a highly socialized people) the sexes are absolutely equal, marriages are perfectly free, and separation is equally free. The result is that there are no uncongenial unions, and that no unpleasant word is heard between man and wife (Stefánsson, _Harper's Magazine_, Nov., 1908). Among the ancient Welsh, women, both before and after marriage, enjoyed great freedom, far more than was afforded either by Christianity or the English Common law. "Practically either husband or wife could separate when either one or both chose" (Rhys and Brynmor-Jones, _The Welsh People_, p. 214). It was so also in ancient Ireland. Women held a very high position, and the marriage tie was very free, so as to be practically, it would appear, dissoluble by mutual consent. So far as the Brehon laws show, says Ginnell (_The Brehon Laws_, p. 212), "the marriage relation was extremely loose, and divorce was as easy, and could be obtained on as slight ground, as is now the case in some of the States of the American Union. It appears to have been obtained more easily by the wife than by the husband. When obtained on her petition, she took away with her all the property she had brought her husband, all her husband had settled upon her on their marriage, and in addition so much of her husband's property as her industry appeared to have entitled her to." Even in early French history we find that divorce by mutual consent was very common. It was sufficient to prepare in duplicate a formal document to this effect: "Since between N. and his wife there is discord instead of charity according to God, and that in consequence it is impossible for them to live together, it has pleased both to separate, and they have accordingly done so." Each of the parties was thus free either to retire into a cloister or to contract another union (E. de la Bedollière, _Histoire des Moeurs des Français_, vol. i, p. 317). Such a practice, however it might accord with the germinal principle of consent embodied in the Canon law, was far too opposed to the ecclesiastical doctrine of the sacramental indissolubility of matrimony to be permanently allowed, and it was completely crushed out. The fact that we so rarely find divorce by mutual consent in Christendom until the beginning of the nineteenth century, that then it required a man of stupendous and revolutionary genius like Napoleon to reintroduce it, and that even he was unable to do so effectually, is clearly due to the immense victory which the ascetic spirit of Christianity, as firmly embodied in the Canon law, had gained over the souls and bodies of men. So subjugated were European traditions and institutions by this spirit that even the volcanic emotional uprising of the Reformation, as we have seen, could not shake it off. When Protestant States naturally resumed the control of secular affairs which had been absorbed by the Church, and rescued from ecclesiastical hands those things which belonged to the sphere of the individual conscience, it might have seemed that marriage and divorce would have been among the first concerns to be thus transferred. Yet, as we know, England was about as much enslaved to the spirit and even the letter of Canon law in the nineteenth as in the fourteenth century, and even to-day English law, though no longer supported by the feeling of the masses, clings to the same traditions. There seems to be little doubt, however, that the modern movement for divorce must inevitably tend to reach the goal of separation by the will of both parties, or, under proper conditions and restrictions, by the will of one party. It now requires the will of two persons to form a marriage; law insists on that condition.[352] It is logical as well as just that law should take the next step involved by the historical evolution of marriage, and equally insist that it requires the will of two persons to maintain a marriage. This solution is, without doubt, the only way of deliverance from the crudities, the indecencies, the inextricable complexities which are introduced into law by the vain attempt to foresee in detail all the possibilities of conjugal disharmony which may arise under the conditions of modern civilization. It is, moreover, we may rest assured, the only solution which the growing modern sense of personal responsibility in sexual matters traced in the previous chapter--the responsibility of women as well as of men--will be content to accept. The subtle and complex character of the sexual relationships in a high civilization and the unhappy results of their State regulation were well expressed by Wilhelm von Humboldt in his _Ideen zu einen Versuch die Grenzen der Wirksamkeit des Staates zu bestimmen_, so long ago as 1792. "A union so closely allied with the very nature of the respective individuals must be attended with the most hurtful consequences when the State attempts to regulate it by law, or, through the force of its institutions, to make it repose on anything save simple inclination. When we remember, moreover, that the State can only contemplate the final results of such regulations on the race, we shall be still more ready to admit the justice of this conclusion. It may reasonably be argued that a solicitude for the race only conducts to the same results as the highest solicitude for the most beautiful development of the inner man. For, after careful observation, it has been found that the uninterrupted union of one man with one woman is most beneficial to the race, and it is likewise undeniable that no other union springs from true, natural, harmonious love. And further, it may be observed, that such love leads to the same results as those very relations which law and custom tend to establish. The radical error seems to be that the law commands; whereas such a relation cannot mould itself according to external arrangements, but depends wholly on inclination; and wherever coercion or guidance comes into collision with inclination, they divert it still farther from the proper path. Wherefore it appears to me that the State should not only loosen the bonds in this instance and leave ampler freedom to the citizen, but that it should entirely withdraw its active solicitude from the institution of marriage, and, both generally and in its particular modifications, should rather leave it wholly to the free choice of the individuals, and the various contracts they may enter into with respect to it. I should not be deterred from the adoption of this principle by the fear that all family relations might be disturbed, for, although such a fear might be justified by considerations of particular circumstances and localities, it could not fairly be entertained in an inquiry into the nature of men and States in general. For experience frequently convinces us that just where law has imposed no fetters, morality most surely binds; the idea of external coercion is one entirely foreign to an institution which, like marriage, reposes only on inclination and an inward sense of duty; and the results of such coercive institutions do not at all correspond to the intentions in which they originate." A long succession of distinguished thinkers--moralists, sociologists, political reformers--have maintained the social advantages of divorce by mutual consent, or, under guarded circumstances, at the wish of one party. Mutual consent was the corner-stone of Milton's conception of marriage. Montesquieu said that true divorce must be the result of mutual consent and based on the impossibility of living together. Sénancour seems to agree with Montesquieu. Lord Morley (_Diderot_, vol. ii, Ch. I), echoing and approving the conclusions of Diderot's _Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville_ (1772), adds that the separation of husband and wife is "a transaction in itself perfectly natural and blameless, and often not only laudable, but a duty." Bloch (_Sexual Life of Our Time_, p. 240), with many other writers, emphasizes the truth of Shelley's saying, that the freedom of marriage is the guarantee of its durability. (That the facts of life point in the same direction has been shown in the previous chapter.) The learned Caspari (_Die Soziale Frage über die Freiheit der Ehe_), while disclaiming any prevision of the future, declares that if sexual relationships are to remain or to become moral, there must be an easier dissolution of marriage. Howard, at the conclusion of his exhaustive history of matrimonial institutions (vol. iii p. 220), though he himself believes that marriage is peculiarly in need of regulation by law, is yet constrained to admit that it is perfectly clear to the student of history that the modern divorce movement is "but a part of the mighty movement for social liberation which has been gaining in volume and strength since the Reformation." Similarly the cautious and judicial Westermarck concludes the chapter on marriage of his _Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_ (vol. ii, p. 398) with the statement that "when both husband and wife desire to separate, it seems to many enlightened minds that the State has no right to prevent them from dissolving the marriage contract, provided the children are properly cared for; and that, for the children, also, it is better to have the supervision of one parent only than of two who cannot agree." In France the leaders of the movement of social reform seem to be almost, or quite, unanimous in believing that the next step in regard to divorce is the establishment of divorce by mutual consent. This was, for instance, the result reached in a symposium to which thirty-one distinguished men and women contributed. All were in favor of divorce by mutual consent; the only exception was Madame Adam, who said she had reached a state of skepticism with regard to political and social forms, but admitted that for nearly half a century she had been a strong advocate of divorce. A large number of the contributors were in favor of divorce at the desire of one party only (_La Revue_, March 1, 1901). In other countries, also, there is a growing recognition that this solution of the question, with due precautions to avoid any abuses to which it might otherwise be liable, is the proper and inevitable solution. As to the exact method by which divorce by mutual consent should be effected, opinions differ, and the matter is likely to be differently arranged in different countries. The Japanese plan seems simple and judicious (see _ante_, p. 461). Paul and Victor Margueritte (_Quelques Idées_, pp. 3 et seq.), while realizing that the conflict of feeling in the matter of personal associations involves decisions which are entirely outside the competence of legal tribunals, recognize that such tribunals are necessary in order to deal with the property of divorced persons, and also, in the last resort, with the question of the care of the children. They should not act in public. These writers propose that each party should choose a representative, and that these two should choose a third; and that this tribunal should privately investigate, and if they agreed should register the divorce, which should take place six or twelve months later, or three years later, if only desired by one of the parties. Dr. Shufeldt ("Psychopathia Sexualis and Divorce") proposes that a divorce-court judge should conduct, alone, the hearing of any cases of marital discord, the husband and wife appearing directly before him, without counsel, though with their witnesses, if necessary; should medical experts be required the judge alone would be empowered to call them. When we realize that the long delay in the acceptance of so just and natural a basis of divorce is due to an artificial tension created by the pressure of the dead hand of Canon law--a tension confined exclusively to Christendom--we may also realize that with the final disappearance of that tension the just and natural order in this relationship will spring back the more swiftly because that relief has been so long delayed. "Nature abhors a vacuum nowhere more than in a marriage," Ellen Key remarks in the language of antiquated physical metaphor; the vacuum will somehow be filled, and if it cannot be filled in a natural and orderly manner it will be filled in an unnatural and disorderly manner. It is the business of society to see that no laws stand in the way of the establishment of natural order. Reform upon a reasonable basis has been made difficult by the unfortunate retention of the idea of delinquency. With the traditions of the Canonists at the back of our heads we have somehow persuaded ourselves that there cannot be a divorce unless there is a delinquent, a real serious delinquent who, if he had his deserts, would be imprisoned and consigned to infamy. But in the marriage relationship, as in all other relationships, it is only in a very small number of cases that one party stands towards the other as a criminal, even a defendant. This is often obvious in the early stages of conjugal alienation. But it remains true in the end. The wife commits adultery and the husband as a matter of course assumes the position of plaintiff. But we do not inquire how it is that he has not so won her love that her adultery is out of the question; such inquiry might lead to the conclusion that the real defendant is the husband. And similarly when the husband is accused of brutal cruelty the law takes no heed to inquire whether in the infliction of less brutal but not less poignant wounds, the wife also should not be made defendant. There are a few cases, but only a few, in which the relationship of plaintiff and defendant is not a totally false and artificial relationship, an immoral legal fiction. In most cases, if the truth were fully known, husband and wife should come side by side to the divorce court and declare: "We are both in the wrong: we have not been able to fulfil our engagements to each other; we have erred in choosing each other." The long reports of the case in open court, the mutual recriminations, the detectives, the servant girls and other witnesses, the infamous inquisition into intimate secrets--all these things, which no necessity could ever justify, are altogether unnecessary. It is said by some that if there were no impediments to divorce a man might be married in succession to half a dozen women. These simple-minded or ignorant persons do not seem to be aware that even when marriage is absolutely indissoluble a man can, and frequently does, carry on sexual relationships not merely successively, but, if he chooses, even simultaneously, with half a dozen women. There is, however, this important difference that, in the one case, the man is encouraged by the law to believe that he need only treat at most one of the six women with anything approaching to justice and humanity; in the other case the law insists that he shall fairly and openly fulfil his obligations towards all the six women. It is a very important difference, and there ought to be no question as to which state of things is moral and which immoral. It is no concern of the State to inquire into the number of persons with whom a man or a woman chooses to have sexual relationships; it is a private matter which may indeed affect their own finer spiritual development but which it is impertinent for the State to pry into. It is, however, the concern of the State, in its own collective interest and that of its members, to see that no injustice is done. But what about the children? That is necessarily a very important question. The question of the arrangements made for the children in cases of divorce is always one to which the State must give its regulative attention, for it is only when there are children that the State has any real concern in the matter. At one time it was even supposed by some that the existence of children was a serious argument against facility of divorce. A more reasonable view is now generally taken. It is, in the first place, recognized that a very large proportion of couples seeking divorce have no children. In England the proportion is about forty per cent.; in some other countries it is doubtless larger still. But even when there are children no one who realizes what the conditions are in families where the parents ought to be but are not divorced can have any doubt that usually those conditions are extremely bad for the children. The tension between the parents absorbs energy which should be devoted to the children. The spectacle of the grievances or quarrels of their parents is demoralizing for the children, and usually fatal to any respect towards them. At the best it is injuriously distressing to the children. One effective parent, there cannot be the slightest doubt, is far better for a child than two ineffective parents. There is a further point, often overlooked, for consideration here. Two people when living together at variance--one of them perhaps, it is not rarely the case, nervously abnormal or diseased--are not fitted to become parents, nor in the best condition for procreation. It is, therefore, not merely an act of justice to the individual, but a measure called for in the interests of the State, that new citizens should not be brought into the community through such defective channels.[353] From this point of view all the interests of the State are on the side of facility of divorce. There is a final argument which is often brought forward against facility of divorce. Marriage, it is said, is for the protection of women; facilitate divorce and women are robbed of that protection. It is obvious that this argument has little application as against divorce by mutual consent. Certainly it is necessary that divorce should only be arranged under conditions which in each individual case have received the approval of the law as just. But it must always be remembered that the essential fact of marriage is not naturally, and should never artificially be made, an economic question. It is possible--that is a question which society will have to consider--that a woman should be paid for being a mother on the ground that she is rearing new citizens for the State. But neither the State nor her husband nor anyone else ought to pay her for exercising conjugal rights. The fact that such an argument can be brought forward shows how far we are from the sound biological attitude towards sexual relationships. Equally unsound is the notion that the virgin bride brings her husband at marriage an important capital which is consumed in the first act of intercourse and can never be recovered. That is a notion which has survived into civilization, but it belongs to barbarism and not to civilization. So far as it has any validity it lies within a sphere of erotic perversity which cannot be taken into consideration in an estimation of moral values. For most men, however, in any case, whether they realize it or not, the woman who has been initiated into the mysteries of love has a higher erotic value than the virgin, and there need be no anxiety on this ground concerning the wife who has lost her virginity. It is probably a significant fact that this anxiety for the protection of women by the limitation of divorce is chiefly brought forward by men and not by women themselves. A woman at marriage is deprived by society and the law of her own name. She has been deprived until recently of the right to her own earnings. She is deprived of the most intimate rights in her own person. She is deprived under some circumstances of her own child, against whom she may have committed no offence whatever. It is perhaps scarcely surprising that she is not greatly appreciative of the protection afforded her by the withholding of the right to divorce her husband. "Ah, no, no protection!" a brilliant French woman has written. "We have been protected long enough. The only protection to grant women is to cease protecting them."[354] As a matter of fact the divorce movement appears to develop, on the whole, with that development of woman's moral responsibility traced in the previous chapter, and where divorce is freest women occupy the highest position. We cannot fail to realize as we grasp the nature and direction of the modern movement of divorce that the final tendency of that movement is to efface itself. Necessary as the Divorce Court has been as the inevitable corollary of an impossible ecclesiastical conception of marriage, no institution is now more hideous, more alien to the instinctive feelings generated by a fine civilization, and more opposed to the dignity of womanhood.[355] Its disappearance and its substitution by private arrangements, effected on their contractive sides, especially if there are children to provide for, under legal and if necessary judicial supervision, is, and always has been, the natural result of the attainment of a reasonably high stage of civilization. The Divorce Court has merely been a phase in the history of modern marriage, and a phase that has really been repugnant to all concerned in it. There is no need to view the project of its ultimate disappearance with anything but satisfaction. It was merely the outcome of an artificial conception of marriage. It is time to return to the consideration of that conception. We have seen that when the Catholic development of the archaic conception of marriage as a sacrament, slowly elaborated and fossilized by the ingenuity of the Canonists, was at last nominally dethroned, though not destroyed, by the movement associated with the Reformation, it was replaced by the conception of marriage as a contract. This conception of marriage as a contract still enjoys a considerable amount of credit amongst us. There must always be contractive elements, implicit or explicit, in a marriage; that was well recognized even by the Canonists. But when we treat marriage as all contract, and nothing but contract, we have to realize that we have set up a very peculiar form of contract, not voidable, like other contracts, by the agreement of the parties to it, but dissoluble as a sort of punishment of delinquency rather than by the voluntary annulment of a bond.[356] When the Protestant Reformers seized on the idea of marriage as a contract they were not influenced by any reasoned analysis of the special characteristics of a contract; they were merely anxious to secure a plausible ground, already admitted even by the Canonists to cover certain aspects of the matrimonial union, on which they could declare that marriage is a secular and not an ecclesiastical matter, a civil bond and not a sacramental process.[357] Like so much else in the Protestant revolt, the strength of this attitude lay in the fact that it was a protest, based on its negative side on reasonable and natural grounds. But while Protestantism was right in its attempt--for it was only an attempt--to deny the authority of Canon law, that attempt was altogether unsatisfactory on the positive side. As a matter of fact marriage is not a true contract and no attempt has ever been made to convert it into a true contract. Various writers have treated marriage as an actual contract or argued that it ought to be converted into a true contract. Mrs. Mona Caird, for instance ("The Morality of Marriage," _Fortnightly Review_, 1890), believes that when marriage becomes really a contract "a couple would draw up their agreement, or depute the task to their friends, as is now generally done as regards marriage settlements. They agree to live together on such and such terms, making certain stipulations within the limits of the code." The State, she holds, should, however, demand an interval of time between notice of divorce and the divorce itself, if still desired when that interval has passed. Similarly, in the United States Dr. Shufeldt ("Needed Revision of the Laws of Marriage and Divorce," _Medico-Legal Journal_, Dec., 1897) insists that marriage must be entirely put into the hands of the legal profession and "made a civil contract, explicit in detail, and defining terms of divorce, in the event that a dissolution of the contract is subsequently desired." He adds that medical certificates of freedom from hereditary and acquired disease should be required, and properly regulated probationary marriages also be instituted. In France, a deputy of the Chamber was, in 1891, so convinced that marriage is a contract, like any other contract, that he declared that "to perform music at the celebration of a marriage is as ridiculous as it would be to send for a tenor to a notary's to celebrate a sale of timber." He was of quite different mind from Pepys, who, a couple of centuries earlier, had been equally indignant at the absence of music from a wedding, which, he said, made it like a coupling of dog and bitch. A frequent demand of those who insist that marriage must be regarded as a contract is marriage contracted for a term of years. Marriages could be contracted for a term of five years or less in old Japan, and it is said that they were rarely or never dissolved at the end of the term. Goethe, in his _Wahlverwandtschaften_ (Part I, Ch. X) incidentally introduced a proposal for marriages for a term of five years and attached much moral significance to the prolongation of the marriage beyond that term without external compulsion. (Bloch considers that Goethe had probably heard of the Japanese custom, _Sexual Life of Our Time_, p. 241.) Professor E.D. Cope ("The Marriage Problem," _Open Court_, Nov. 15 and 22, 1888), likewise, in order to remove matrimony from the domain of caprice and to permit full and fair trial, advocated "a system of civil marriage contracts which shall run for a definite time. These contracts should be of the same value and effect as the existing marriage contract. The time limits should be increased rapidly, so as to prevent women of mature years being deprived of support. The first contract ought not to run for less than five years, so as to give ample opportunity for acquaintance, and for the recovery from temporary disagreements." This first contract, Cope held, should be terminable at the wish of either party; the second contract, for ten or fifteen years, should only be terminable at the wish of both parties, and the third should be permanent and indissoluble. George Meredith, the distinguished novelist, also, more recently, threw out the suggestion that marriages should be contracted for a term of years. It can scarcely be said that marriages for a term of years constitute a very satisfactory solution of the difficulties at present encountered. They would not commend themselves to young lovers, who believe that their love is eternal, nor, so long as the union proves satisfactory, is there any need to introduce the disturbing idea of a legal termination of the contract. On the other hand, if the union proves unhappy, it is not reasonable to insist on the continuation for ten or even five years of an empty form which corresponds to no real marriage union. Even if marriage is placed on the most prosaic contractive basis it is a mistake, and indeed an impossibility, to pre-ordain the length of its duration. The system of fixing the duration of marriage beforehand for a term of years involves exactly the same principle as the system of fixing it beforehand for life. It is open to the same objection that it is incompatible with any vital relationship. As the demand for vital reality and effectiveness in social relationships grows, this fact is increasingly felt. We see exactly the same change among us in regard to the system of inflicting fixed sentences of imprisonment on criminals. To send a man to prison for five years or for life, without any regard to the unknown problem of the vital reaction of imprisonment on the man--a reaction which will be different in every individual case--is slowly coming to be regarded as an absurdity. If marriage were really placed on the basis of a contract, not only would that contract be voidable at the will of the two parties concerned, without any question of delinquency coming into the question, but those parties would at the outset themselves determine the conditions regulating the contract. But nothing could be more unlike our actual marriage. The two parties are bidden to accept each other as husband and wife; they are not invited to make a contract; they are not even told that, little as they may know it, they have in fact made a very complicated and elaborate contract that was framed on lines laid down, for a large part, thousands of years before they were born. Unless they have studied law they are totally ignorant, also, that this contract contains clauses which under some circumstances may be fatal to either of them. All that happens is that a young couple, perhaps little more than children, momentarily dazed by emotion, are hurried before the clergyman or the civil registrar of marriages, to bind themselves together for life, knowing nothing of the world and scarcely more of each other, knowing nothing also of the marriage laws, not even perhaps so much as that there are any marriage laws, never realizing that--as has been truly said--from the place they are entering beneath a garland of flowers there is, on this side of death, no exit except through the trapdoor of a sewer.[358] When a woman marries she gives up the right to her own person. Thus, according to the law of England, a man "cannot be guilty of a rape upon his lawful wife." Stephen, who, in the first edition of his _Digest of Criminal Law_, thought that under some circumstances a man might be indicted for rape upon his wife, in the last edition withdrew that opinion. A man may rape a prostitute, but he cannot rape his wife. Having once given her consent to sexual intercourse by the act of marrying a man, she has given it forever, whatever new circumstances may arise, and he has no need to ask her consent to sexual intercourse, not even if he is knowingly suffering at the time from a venereal disease (see, e.g., an article on "Sex Bias," _Westminster Review_, March, 1888). The duty of the wife to allow "conjugal rights" to her husband is another aspect of her legal subjection to him. Even in the nineteenth century a Suffolk lady of good family was imprisoned in Ipswich Goal for many years and fed on bread and water, though suffering from various diseases, till she died, simply because she continued to disregard the decree requiring her to render conjugal rights to her husband. This state of things was partly reformed by the Matrimonial Causes Bill of 1884, and that bill was passed, not to protect women, but men, against punishment for refusal to restore conjugal rights. Undoubtedly, the modern tendency, although it has progressed very slowly, is against applying compulsion to either husband or wife to yield "conjugal rights;" and since the Jackson case it is not possible in England for a husband to use force in attempting to compel his wife to live with him. This tendency is still more marked in the United States; thus the Iowa Supreme Court, a few years ago, decided that excessive demands for coitus constituted cruelty of a degree justifying divorce (J.G. Kiernan, _Alienist and Neurologist_, Nov. 1906, p. 466). The slender tenure of the wife over her person is not confined to the sexual sphere, but even extends to her right to life. In England, if a wife kills her husband, it was formerly the very serious offence of "petit treason," and it is still murder. But, if a husband kills his wife and is able to plead her adultery and his jealousy, it is only manslaughter. (In France, where jealousy is regarded with extreme indulgence, even a wife who kills her husband is often acquitted.) It must not, however, be supposed that all the legal inequalities involved by marriage are in favor of the husband. A large number of injustices are also inflicted on the husband. The husband, for instance, is legally responsible for the libels uttered by his wife, and he is equally responsible civilly for the frauds she commits, even if she is living apart from him. (This was, for instance, held by an English judge in 1908; "he could only say he regretted it, for it seems a hard case. But it was the law.") Belfort Bax has, in recent years, especially insisted on the hardships inflicted by English law in such ways as these. There can be no doubt that marriage, as at present constituted, inflicts serious wrongs on the husband as well as on the wife. Marriage is, therefore, not only not a contract in the true sense,[359] but in the only sense in which it is a contract it is a contract of an exceedingly bad kind. When the Canonists superseded the old conception of marriage as a contract of purchase by their sacramental marriage, they were in many respects effecting a real progress, and the return to the idea of a contract, as soon as its temporary value as a protest has ceased, proves altogether out of harmony with any advanced stage of civilization. It was revived in days before the revolt against slavery had been inaugurated. Personal contracts are out of harmony with our modern civilization and our ideas of individual liberty. A man can no longer contract himself as a slave nor sell his wife. Yet marriage, regarded as a contract, is of precisely the same class as those transactions.[360] In every high stage of civilization this fact is clearly recognized, and young couples are not even allowed to contract themselves out in marriage unconditionally. We see this, for instance, in the wise legislation of the Romans. Even under the Christian Emperors that sound principle was maintained and the lawyer Paulus wrote:[361] "Marriage was so free, according to ancient opinion, that even agreements between the parties not to separate from one another could have no validity." In so far as the essence and not any accidental circumstance of the marital relationships is made a contract, it is a contract of a nature which the two parties concerned are not competent to make. Biologically and psychologically it cannot be valid, and with the growth of a humane civilization it is explicitly declared to be legally invalid. For, there can be no doubt about it, the intimate and essential fact of marriage--the relationship of sexual intercourse--is not and cannot be a contract. It is not a contract but a fact; it cannot be effected by any mere act of will on the part of the parties concerned; it cannot be maintained by any mere act of will. To will such a contract is merely to perform a worse than indecorous farce. Certainly many of the circumstances of marriage are properly the subject of contract, to be voluntarily and deliberately made by the parties to the contract. But the essential fact of marriage--a love strong enough to render the most intimate of relationships possible and desirable through an indefinite number of years--cannot be made a matter for contract. Alike from the physical point of view, and the psychical point of view, no binding contract--and a contract is worthless if it is not binding--can possibly be made. And the making of such pseudo-contracts concerning the future of a marriage, before it has even been ascertained that the marriage can ever become a fact at all, is not only impossible but absurd. It is of course true that this impossibility, this absurdity, are never visible to the contracting parties. They have applied to the question all the very restricted tests that are conventionally permitted to them, and the satisfactory results of these tests, together with the consciousness of possessing an immense and apparently inexhaustible fund of loving emotion, seem to them adequate to the fulfilment of the contract throughout life, if not indeed eternity. As a child of seven I chanced to be in a semi-tropical island of the Pacific supplied with fruit, especially grapes, from the mainland, and a dusky market woman always presented a large bunch of grapes to the little English stranger. But a day came when the proffered bunch was firmly refused; the superabundance of grapes had produced a reaction of disgust. A space of nearly forty years was needed to overcome the repugnance to grapes thus acquired. Yet there can be no doubt that if at the age of six that little boy had been asked to sign a contract binding him to accept grapes every day, to keep them always near him, to eat them and to enjoy them every day, he would have signed that contract as joyously as any radiant bridegroom or demure bride signs the register in the vestry. But is a complex man or woman, with unknown capacities for changing or deteriorating, and with incalculable aptitudes for inflicting torture and arousing loathing, is such a creature more easy to be bound to than an exquisite fruit? All the countries of the world in which the subtle influence of the Canon law of Christendom still makes itself felt, have not yet grasped a general truth which is well within the practical experience of a child of seven.[362] The notion that such a relationship as that of marriage can rest on so fragile a basis as a pre-ordained contract has naturally never prevailed widely in its extreme form, and has been unknown altogether in many parts of the world. The Romans, as we know, explicitly rejected it, and even at a comparatively early period recognized the legality of marriage by _usus_, thus declaring in effect that marriage must be a fact, and not a mere undertaking. There has been a widespread legal tendency, especially where the traditions of Roman law have retained any influence, to regard the cohabitation of marriage as the essential fact of the relationship. It was an old rule even under the Catholic Church that marriage may be presumed from cohabitation (see, e.g., Zacchia, _Questionum Medico-legalium Opus_, edition of 1688, vol. iii, p. 234). Even in England cohabitation is already one of the presumptions in favor of the existence of marriage (though not necessarily by itself regarded as sufficient), provided the woman is of unblemished character, and does not appear to be a common prostitute (Nevill Geary, _The Law of Marriage_, Ch. III). If, however, according to Lord Watson's judicial statement in the Dysart Peerage case, a man takes his mistress to a hotel or goes with her to a baby-linen shop and speaks of her as his wife, it is to be presumed that he is acting for the sake of decency, and this furnishes no evidence of marriage. In Scotland the presumption of marriage arises on much slighter grounds than in England. This may be connected with the ancient and deep-rooted custom in Scotland of marriage by exchange of consent (Geary, op. cit. Ch. XVIII; cf., Howard, _Matrimonial Institutions_, vol. i, p. 316). In the Bredalbane case (Campbell _v._ Campbell, 1867), which was of great importance because it involved the succession to the vast estates of the Marquis of Bredalbane, the House of Lords decided than even an adulterous connection may, on ceasing to be adulterous, become matrimonial by the simple consent of the parties, as evidenced by habit and repute, without any need for the matrimonial character of the connection to be indicated by any public act, nor any necessity to prove the specific period when the consent was interchanged. This decision has been confirmed in the Dysart case (Geary, loc. cit.; cf. C.G. Garrison, "Limits of Divorce," _Contemporary Review_, Feb., 1894). Similarly, as decided by Justice Kekewich in the Wagstaff case in 1907, if a man leaves money to his "widow," on condition that she never marries again, although he has never been married to her, and though she has been legally married to another man, the testator's intentions must be upheld. Garrison, in his valuable discussion of this aspect of legal marriage (_loc. cit._), forcibly insists that by English law marriage is a fact and not a contract, and that where "conduct characterized by connubial purpose and constancy" exists, there marriage legally exists, marriage being simply "a name for an existing fact." In the United States, marriage "by habit and repute" similarly exists, and in some States has even been confirmed and extended by statute (J.P. Bishop, _Commentaries_, vol. i, Ch. XV). "Whatever the form of the ceremony, and even if all ceremony was dispensed with," said Judge Cooley, of Michigan, in 1875 (in an opinion accepted as authoritative by the Federal courts), "if the parties agreed presently to take each other for husband and wife, and from that time lived together professedly in that relation, proof of these facts would be sufficient.... This has been the settled doctrine of the American courts." (Howard, op. cit., vol. iii, pp. 177 et seq. Twenty-three States sanction common-law marriage, while eighteen repudiate, or are inclined to repudiate, any informal agreement.) This legal recognition by the highest judicial authorities, alike in Great Britain and the United States, that marriage is essentially a fact, and that no evidence of any form or ceremony of marriage is required for the most complete legal recognition of marriage, undoubtedly carries with it highly important implications. It became clear that the reform of marriage is possible even without change in the law, and that honorable sexual relationships, even when entered into without any legal forms, are already entitled to full legal recognition and protection. There are, however, it need scarcely be added here, other considerations which render reform along these lines incomplete. It thus tends to come about that with the growth of civilization the conception of marriage as a contract falls more and more into discredit. It is realized, on the one hand, that personal contracts are out of harmony with our general and social attitude, for if we reject the idea of a human being contracting himself as a slave, how much more we should reject the idea of entering by contract into the still more intimate relationship of a husband or a wife; on the other hand it is felt that the idea of pre-ordained contracts on a matter over which the individual himself has no control is quite unreal and when any strict rules of equity prevail, necessarily invalid. It is true that we still constantly find writers sententiously asserting their notions of the duties or the privileges involved by the "contract" of marriage, with no more attempt to analyze the meaning of the term "contract" in this connection than the Protestant Reformers made, but it can scarcely be said that these writers have yet reached the alphabet of the subject they dogmatize about. The transference of marriage from the Church to the State which, in the lands where it first occurred, we owe to Protestantism and, in the English-speaking lands, especially to Puritanism, while a necessary stage, had the unfortunate result of secularizing the sexual relationships. That is to say, it ignored the transcendent element in love which is really the essential part of such relationships, and it concentrated attention on those formal and accidental parts of marriage which can alone be dealt with in a rigid and precise manner, and can alone properly form the subject of contracts. The Canon law, fantastic and impossible as it became in many of its developments, at least insisted on the natural and actual fact of marriage as, above all, a bodily union, while, at the same time, it regarded that union as no mere secular business contract but a sacred and exalted function, a divine fact, and the symbol of the most divine fact in the world. We are returning to-day to the Canonist's conception of marriage on a higher and freer plane, bringing back the exalted conception of the Canon law, yet retaining the individualism which the Puritan wrongly thought he could secure on the basis of mere secularization, while, further, we recognize that the whole process belongs to the private sphere of moral responsibility. As Hobhouse has well said, in tracing the evolutionary history of the modern conception of marriage, the sacramental idea of marriage has again emerged but on a higher plane; "from being a sacrament in the magical, it has become one in the ethical, sense." We are thus tending towards, though we have not yet legally achieved, marriage made and maintained by consent, "a union between two free and responsible persons in which the equal rights of both are maintained."[363] It is supposed by some that to look upon sexual union as a sacrament is necessarily to accept the ancient Catholic view, embodied in the Canon law, that matrimony is indissoluble. That is, however, a mistake. Even the Canonists themselves were never able to put forward any coherent and consistent ground for the indissolubility of matrimony which could commend itself rationally, while Luther and Milton and Wilhelm von Humboldt, who maintained the religious and sacred nature of sexual union--though they were cautious about using the term sacrament on account of its ecclesiastical implications--so far from believing that its sanctity involved indissolubility, argued in the reverse sense. This point of view may be defended even from a strictly Protestant standpoint. "I take it," Mr. G.C. Maberly says, "that the Prayer Book definition of a sacrament, 'the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace,' is generally accepted. In marriage the legal and physical unions are the outward and visible signs, while the inward and spiritual grace is the God-given love that makes the union of heart and soul: and it is precisely because I take this view of marriage that I consider the legal and physical union should be dissolved whenever the spiritual union of unselfish, divine love and affection has ceased. It seems to me that the sacramental view of marriage compels us to say that those who continue the legal or physical union when the spiritual union has ceased, are--to quote again from the Prayer Book words applied to those who take the outward sign of another sacrament when the inward and spiritual grace is not present--'eating and drinking their own damnation.'" If from the point we have now reached we look back at the question of divorce we see that, as the modern aspects of the marriage relationship becomes more clearly realized by the community, that question will be immensely simplified. Since marriage is not a mere contract but a fact of conduct, and even a sacred fact, the free participation of both parties is needed to maintain it. To introduce the idea of delinquency and punishment into divorce, to foster mutual recrimination, to publish to the world the secrets of the heart or the senses, is not only immoral, it is altogether out of place. In the question as to when a marriage has ceased to be a marriage the two parties concerned can alone be the supreme judges; the State, if the State is called in, can but register the sentence they pronounce, merely seeing to it that no injustice is involved in the carrying out of that sentence.[364] In discussing in the previous chapter the direction in which sexual morality tends to develop with the development of civilization we came to the conclusion that in its main lines it involved, above all, personal responsibility. A relationship fixed among savage peoples by social custom which none dare break, and in a higher stage of culture by formal laws which must be observed in the letter even if broken in the spirit, becomes gradually transferred to the sphere of individual moral responsibility. Such a transference is necessarily meaningless, and indeed impossible, unless the increasing stringency of the moral bond is accompanied by the decreasing stringency of the formal bond. It is only by the process of loosening the artificial restraints that the natural restraints can exert their full control. That process takes place in two ways, in part on the basis of the indifference to formal marriage which has marked the masses of the population everywhere and doubtless stretches back to the tenth century before the domination of ecclesiastical matrimony began, and partly by the progressive modification of marriage laws which were made necessary by the needs of the propertied classes anxious to secure the State recognition of their unions. The whole process is necessarily a gradual and indeed imperceptible process. It is impossible to fix definitely the dates of the stages by which the Church effected the immense revolution by which it grasped, and eventually transferred to the State, the complete control of marriage, for that revolution was effected without the intervention of any law. It will be equally difficult to perceive the transference of the control of marriage from the State to the individuals concerned, and the more difficult because, as we shall see, although the essential and intimately personal fact of marriage is not a proper matter for State control, there are certain aspects of marriage which touch the interests of the community so closely that the State is bound to insist on their registration and to take an interest in their settlement. The result of dissolving the formal stringency of the marriage relationship, it is sometimes said, would be a tendency to an immoral laxity. Those who make this statement overlook the fact that laxity tends to reach a maximum as a result of stringency, and that where the merely external authority of a rigid marriage law prevails, there the extreme excesses of license most flourish. It is also undoubtedly true, and for the same reason, that any sudden removal of restraints necessarily involves a reaction to the opposite extreme of license; a slave is not changed at a stroke into an autonomous freeman. Yet we have to remember that the marriage order existed for millenniums before any attempt was made to mould it into arbitrary shapes by human legislation. Such legislation, we have seen, was indeed the effort of the human spirit to affirm more emphatically the demands of its own instincts.[365] But its final result is to choke and impede rather than to further the instincts which inspired it. Its gradual disappearance allows the natural order free and proper scope. The great truth that compulsion is not really a force on the side of virtue, but on the side of vice, had been clearly realized by the genius of Rabelais, when he said of his ideal social state, the Abbey of Thelema, that there was but one clause in its rule: Fay ce que vouldras. "Because," said Rabelais (Bk. i, Ch. VII), "men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompts them unto virtuous actions and withdraws them from vice. These same men, when by base subjection and constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition by which they freely were inclined to virtue, to shake off and break that bond of servitude." So that when a man and a woman who had lived under the rule of Thelema married each other, Rabelais tells us, their mutual love lasted undiminished to the day of their death. When the loss of autonomous freedom fails to lead to licentious rebellion it incurs the opposite risk and tends to become a flabby reliance on an external support. The artificial support of marriage by State regulation then resembles the artificial support of the body furnished by corset-wearing. The reasons for and against adopting artificial support are the same in one case as the other. Corsets really give a feeling of support; they really furnish without trouble a fairly satisfactory appearance of decorum; they are a real protection against various accidents. But the price at which they furnish these advantages is serious, and the advantages themselves only exist under unnatural conditions. The corset cramps the form and the healthy development of the organs; it enfeebles the voluntary muscular system; it is incompatible with perfect grace and beauty; it diminishes the sum of active energy. It exerts, in short, the same kind of influence on physical responsibility as formal marriage on moral responsibility. It is too often forgotten, and must therefore be repeated, that married people do not remain together because of any religious or legal tie; that tie is merely the historical outcome of their natural tendency to remain together, a tendency which is itself far older than history. "Love would exist in the world to-day, just as pure and just as enduring," says Shufeldt (_Medico-Legal Journal_, Dec., 1897), "had man never invented 'marriage.' Truly affined mates would have remained faithful to each other as long as life lasted. It is only when men attempt to improve upon nature that crime, disease, and unhappiness step in." "The abolition of marriage in the form now practiced," wrote Godwin more than a century ago (_Political Justice_, second edition, 1796, vol. i, p. 248), "will be attended with no evils. We are apt to represent it to ourselves as the harbinger of brutal lust and depravity. But it really happens in this, as in other cases, that the positive laws which are made to restrain our vices irritate and multiply them." And Professor Lester Ward, in insisting on the strength of the monogamic sentiment in modern society, truly remarks (_International Journal of Ethics_, Oct., 1896) that the rebellion against rigid marriage bonds "is, in reality, due to the very strengthening of the true bonds of conjugal affection, coupled with a rational and altogether proper determination on the part of individuals to accept, in so important a matter, nothing less than the genuine article." "If by a single stroke," says Professor Woods Hutchinson (_Contemporary Review_, Sept., 1905), "all marriage ties now in existence were struck off or declared illegal, eight-tenths of all couples would be remarried within forty eight hours, and seven-tenths could not be kept asunder with bayonets." An experiment of this kind on a small scale was witnessed in 1909 in an English village in Buckinghamshire. It was found that the parish church had never been licensed for marriages, and that in consequence all the people who had gone through the ceremony of marriage in that church during the previous half century had never been legally married. Yet, so far as could be ascertained, not a single couple thus released from the legal compulsion of marriage took advantage of the freedom bestowed. In the face of such a fact it is obviously impossible to attach any moral value to the form of marriage. It is certainly inevitable that during a period of transition the natural order is to some extent disturbed by the persistence, even though in a weakened form, of external bonds which are beginning to be consciously realized as inimical to the authoritative control of individual moral responsibility. We can clearly trace this at the present time. A sensitive anxiety to escape from external constraint induces an under-valuation of the significance of personal constraint in the relationship of marriage. Everyone is probably familiar with cases in which a couple will live together through long years without entering the legal bond of marriage, notwithstanding difficulties in their mutual relationship which would have long since caused a separation or a divorce had they been legally married. When the inherent difficulties of the marital relationship are complicated by the difficulties due to external constraint, the development of individual moral responsibility cuts two ways, and leads to results that are not entirely satisfactory. This has been seen in the United States of America and attention has often been called to it by thoughtful American observers. It is, naturally, noted especially in women because it is in women that the new growth of personal freedom and moral responsibility has chiefly made itself felt. The first stirring of these new impulses, especially when associated, as it often is, with inexperience and ignorance, leads to impatience with the natural order, to a demand for impossible conditions of existence, and to an inaptitude not only for the arbitrary bondage of law but even for the wholesome and necessary bonds of human social life. It is always a hard lesson for the young and idealistic that in order to command Nature we must obey her; it can only be learnt through contact with life and by the attainment of full human growth. Dr. Felix Adler (in an address before the Society of Ethical Culture of New York, Nov. 17, 1889) called attention to what he regarded as the most deep-rooted cause of an undue prevalence of divorce in America. "The false idea of individual liberty is largely held in America," and when applied to family life it often leads to an impatience with these duties which the individual is either born into or has voluntarily accepted. "I am constrained to think that the prevalence of divorce is to be ascribed in no small degree to the influence of democratic ideas--that is, of false democratic ideas--and our hope lies in advancing towards a higher and truer democracy." A more recent American writer, this time a woman, Anna A. Rogers ("Why American Marriages Fail," _Atlantic Monthly_, Sept., 1907) speaks in the same sense, though perhaps in too unqualified a manner. She states that the frequency of divorce in America is due to three causes: (1) woman's failure to realize that marriage is her work in the world; (2) her growing individualism; (3) her lost art of giving, replaced by a highly developed receptive faculty. The American woman, this writer states, in discovering her own individuality has not yet learnt how to manage it; it is still "largely a useless, uneasy factor, vouchsafing her very little more peace than it does those in her immediate surcharged vicinity." Her circumstances tend to make of her "a curious anomalous hybrid; a cross between a magnificent, rather unmannerly boy, and a spoiled, exacting _demi-mondaine_, who sincerely loves in this world herself alone." She has not yet learnt that woman's supreme work in the world can only be attained through the voluntary acceptance of the restraints of marriage. The same writer points out that the fault is not alone with American women, but also with American men. Their idolatry of their women is largely responsible for that intolerance and selfishness which causes so many divorces; "American women are, as a whole, pampered and worshipped out of all reason." But the men, who lend themselves to this, do not feel that they can treat their wives with the same comradeship as the French treat their wives, nor seek their advice with the same reliance; the American woman is placed on an unreal pedestal. Yet another American writer, Rafford Pyke ("Husbands and Wives," _Cosmopolitan_, 1902), points out that only a small proportion of American marriages are really unhappy, these being chiefly among the more cultured classes, in which the movement of expansion in women's interests and lives is taking place; it is more often the wife than the husband who is disappointed in marriage, and this is largely due to her inability to merge, not necessarily subordinate, her individuality in an equal union with his. "Marriage to-day is becoming more and more dependent for its success upon the adjustment of conditions that are psychical. Whereas in former generations it was sufficient that the union should involve physical reciprocity, in this age of ours the union must involve a psychic reciprocity as well. And whereas, heretofore, the community of interest was attained with ease, it is now becoming far more difficult because of the tendency to discourage a woman who marries from merging her separate individuality in her husband's. Yet, unless she does this, how can she have a complete and perfect interest in the life together, and, for that matter, how can he have such an interest either?" Professor Münsterberg, the distinguished psychologist, in his frank but appreciative study of American institutions, _The Americans_, taking a broader outlook, points out that the influence of women on morals in America has not been in every respect satisfactory, in so far as it has tended to encourage shallowness and superficiality. "The American woman who has scarcely a shred of education," he remarks (p. 587), "looks in vain for any subject on which she has not firm convictions already at hand.... The arrogance of this feminine lack of knowledge is the symptom of a profound trait in the feminine soul, and points to dangers springing from the domination of women in the intellectual life.... And in no other civilized land are ethical conceptions so worm-eaten by superstitions." We have seen that the modern tendency as regards marriage is towards its recognition as a voluntary union entered into by two free, equal, and morally responsible persons, and that that union is rather of the nature of an ethical sacrament than of a contract, so that in its essence as a physical and spiritual bond it is outside the sphere of the State's action. It has been necessary to labor that point before we approach what may seem to many not only a different but even a totally opposed aspect of marriage. If the marriage union itself cannot be a matter for contract, it naturally leads to a fact which must necessarily be a matter for implicit or explicit contract, a matter, moreover, in which the community at large has a real and proper interest: that is the fact of procreation.[366] The ancient Egyptians--among whom matrimonial institutions were so elastic and the position of woman so high--recognized a provisional and slight marriage bond for the purpose of testing fecundity.[367] Among ourselves the law makes no such paternal provision, leaving to young couples themselves the responsibility of making any tests, a permission, we know, they largely avail themselves of, usually entering the legal bonds of marriage, however, before the birth of their child. That legal bond is a recognition that the introduction of a new individual into the community is not, like sexual union, a mere personal fact, but a social fact, a fact in which the State cannot fail to be concerned. And the more we investigate the tendency of the modern marriage movement the more we shall realize that its attitude of freedom, of individual moral responsibility, in the formation of sexual relationships, is compensated by an attitude of stringency, of strict social oversight, in the matter of procreation. Two people who form an erotic relationship are bound, when they reach the conviction that their relationship is a real marriage, having its natural end in procreation, to subscribe to a contract which, though it may leave themselves personally free, must yet bind them both to their duties towards their children.[368] The necessity for such an undertaking is double, even apart from the fact that it is in the highest interests of the parents themselves. It is required in the interests of the child. It is required in the interests of the State. A child can be bred, and well-bred, by one effective parent. But to equip a child adequately for its entrance into life both parents are usually needed. The State on its side--that is to say, the community of which parents and child alike form part--is bound to know who these persons are who have become sponsors for a new individual now introduced into its midst. The most Individualistic State, the most Socialistic State, are alike bound, if faithful to the interests, both biological and economic, of their constituent members generally, to insist on the full legal and recognized parentage of the father and mother of every child. That is clearly demanded in the interests of the child; it is clearly demanded also in the interests of the State. The barrier which in Christendom has opposed itself to the natural recognition of this fact, so injuring alike the child and the State, has clearly been the rigidity of the marriage system, more especially as moulded by the Canon law. The Canonists attributed a truly immense importance to the _copula carnalis_, as they technically termed it. They centred marriage strictly in the vagina; they were not greatly concerned about either the presence or the absence of the child. The vagina, as we know, has not always proved a very firm centre for the support of marriage, and that centre is now being gradually transferred to the child. If we turn from the Canonists to the writings of a modern like Ellen Key, who so accurately represents much that is most characteristic and essential in the late tendencies of marriage development, we seem to have entered a new world, even a newly illuminated world. For "in the new sexual morality, as in Corregio's _Notte_, the light emanates from the child."[369] No doubt this change is largely a matter of sentiment, of, as we sometimes say, mere sentiment, although there is nothing so powerful in human affairs as sentiment, and the revolution effected by Jesus, the later revolution effected by Rousseau, were mainly revolutions in sentiment. But the change is also a matter of the growing recognition of interests and rights, and as such it manifests itself in law. We can scarcely doubt that we are approaching a time when it will be generally understood that the entrance into the world of every child, without exception, should be preceded by the formation of a marriage contract which, while in no way binding the father and mother to any duties, or any privileges, towards each other, binds them both towards their child and at the same time ensures their responsibility towards the State. It is impossible for the State to obtain more than this, but it should be impossible for it to demand less. A contract of such a kind "marries" the father and mother so far as the parentage of the individual child is concerned, and in no other respect; it is a contract which leaves entirely unaffected their past, present, or future relations towards other persons, otherwise it would be impossible to enforce it. In all parts of the world this elementary demand of social morality is slowly beginning to be recognized, and as it affects hundreds of thousands of infants[370] who are yearly branded as "illegitimate" through no act of their own, no one can say that the recognition has come too soon. As yet, indeed, it seems nowhere to be complete. Most attempts or proposals for the avoidance of illegitimate births are concerned with the legalizing of unions of a less binding degree than the present legal marriage. Such unions would serve to counteract other evils. Thus an English writer, who has devoted much study to sex questions, writes in a private letter: "The best remedy for the licentiousness of celibate men and the mental and physical troubles of continence in woman would be found in a recognized honorable system of free unions and trial-marriages, in which preventive intercourse is practiced until the lovers were old enough to become parents, and possessed of sufficient means to support a family. The prospect of a loveless existence for young men and women of ardent natures is intolerable and as terrible as the prospect of painful illness and death. But I think the old order must change ere long." In Teutonic countries there is a strongly marked current of feeling in the direction of establishing legal unions of a lower degree than marriage. They exist in Sweden, as also in Norway where by a recent law the illegitimate child is entitled to the same rights in relation to both parents as the legitimate child, bearing the father's name and inheriting his property (_Die Neue Generation_, July, 1909, p. 303). In France the well-known judge, Magnard, so honorably distinguished for his attitude towards cases of infanticide by young mothers, has said: "I heartily wish that alongside the institution of marriage as it now exists we had a free union constituted by simple declaration before a magistrate and conferring almost the same family rights as ordinary marriage." This wish has been widely echoed. In China, although polygamy in the strict sense cannot properly be said to exist, the interests of the child, the woman, and the State are alike safeguarded by enabling a man to enter into a kind of secondary marriage with the mother of his child. "Thanks to this system," Paul d'Enjoy states (_La Revue_, Sept., 1905), "which allows the husband to marry the woman he desires, without being prevented by previous and undissolved unions, it is only right to remark that there are no seduced and abandoned girls, except such as no law could save from what is really innate depravity; and that there are no illegitimate children except those whose mothers are unhappily nearer to animals by their senses than to human beings by their reason and dignity." The new civil code of Japan, which is in many respects so advanced, allows an illegitimate child to be "recognized" by giving notice to the registrar; when a married man so recognizes a child, it appears, the child may be adopted by the wife as her own, though not actually rendered legitimate. This state of things represents a transition stage; it can scarcely be said to recognize the rights of the "recognized" child's mother. Japan, it may be added, has adopted the principle of the automatic legitimation by marriage of the children born to the couple before marriage. In Australia, where women possess a larger share than elsewhere in making and administering the laws, some attention is beginning to be given to the rights of illegitimate children. Thus in South Australia, paternity may be proved before birth, and the father (by magistrate's order) provides lodging for one month before and after birth, as well as nurse, doctor, and clothing, furnishing security that he will do so; after birth, at the magistrate's decision, he pays a weekly sum for the child's maintenance. An "illegitimate" mother may also be kept in a public institution at the public expense for six months to enable her to become attached to her child. Such provisions are developed from the widely recognized right of the unmarried woman to claim support for her child from its father. In France, indeed, and in the legal codes which follow the French example, it is not legally permitted to inquire into the paternity of an illegitimate child. Such a law is, needless to say, alike unjust to the mother, to the child, and to the State. In Austria, the law goes to the opposite, though certainly more reasonable, extreme, and permits even the mother who has had several lovers to select for herself which she chooses to make responsible for her child. The German code adopts an intermediate course, and comes only to the aid of the unmarried mother who has one lover. In all such cases, however, the aid given is pecuniary only; it insures the mother no recognition or respect, and (as Wahrmund has truly said in his _Ehe und Eherecht_) it is still necessary to insist on "the unconditional sanctity of motherhood, which is entitled, under whatever circumstances it arises, to the respect and protection of society." It must be added that, from the social point of view, it is not the sexual union which requires legal recognition, but the child which is the product of that union. It would, moreover, be hopeless to attempt to legalize all sexual connection, but it is comparatively easy to legalize all children. There has been much discussion in the past concerning the particular form which marriage ought to take. Many theorists have exercised their ingenuity in inventing and preaching new and unusual marriage-arrangements as panaceas for social ills; while others have exerted even greater energy in denouncing all such proposals as subversive of the foundations of human society. We may regard all such discussions, on the one side or the other, as idle. In the first place marriage customs are far too fundamental, far too intimately blended with the primary substance of human and indeed animal society, to be in the slightest degree shaken by the theories or the practices of mere individuals, or even groups of individuals. Monogamy--the more or less prolonged cohabitation of two individuals of opposite sex--has been the prevailing type of sexual relationship among the higher vertebrates and through the greater part of human history. This is admitted even by those who believe (without any sound evidence) that man has passed through a stage of sexual promiscuity. There have been tendencies to variation in one direction or another, but at the lowest stages and the highest stages, so far as can be seen, monogamy represents the prevailing rule. It must be said also, in the second place, that the natural prevalence of monogamy as the normal type of sexual relationship by no means excludes variations. Indeed it assumes them. "There is nothing precise in Nature," according to Diderot's saying. The line of Nature is a curve that oscillates from side to side of the norm. Such oscillations inevitably occur in harmony with changes in environmental conditions, and, no doubt, with peculiarities of personal disposition. So long as no arbitrary and merely external attempt is made to force Nature, the vital order is harmoniously maintained. Among certain species of ducks when males are in excess polyandric families are constituted, the two males attending their female partner without jealousy, but when the sexes again become equal in number the monogamic order is restored. The natural human deviations from the monogamic order seem to be generally of this character, and largely conditioned by the social and economic environment. The most common variation, and that which most clearly possesses a biological foundation, is the tendency to polygyny, which is found at all stages of culture, even, in an unrecognized and more or less promiscuous shape, in the highest civilization.[371] It must be remembered, however, that recognized polygyny is not the rule even where it prevails; it is merely permissive; there is never a sufficient excess of women to allow more than a few of the richer and more influential persons to have more than one wife.[372] It has further to be borne in mind that a certain elasticity of the formal side of marriage while, on the one side, it permits variations from the general monogamic order, where such are healthful or needed to restore a balance in natural conditions, on the other hand restrains such variations in so far as they are due to the disturbing influence of artificial constraint. Much of the polygyny, and polyandry also, which prevails among us to-day is an altogether artificial and unnatural form of polygamy. Marriages which on a more natural basis would be dissolved cannot legally be dissolved, and consequently the parties to them, instead of changing their partners and so preserving the natural monogamic order, take on other additional partners and so introduce an unnatural polygamy. There will always be variations from the monogamic order and civilization is certainly not hostile to sexual variation. Whether we reckon these variations as legitimate or illegitimate, they will still take place; of that we may be certain. The path of social wisdom seems to lie on the one hand in making the marriage relationship flexible enough to reduce to a minimum these deviations--not because such deviations are intrinsically bad but because they ought not to be forced into existence--and on the other hand in according to these deviations when they occur such a measure of recognition as will deprive them of injurious influence and enable justice to be done to all the parties concerned. We too often forget that our failure to recognize such variations merely means that we accord in such cases an illegitimate permission to perpetrate injustice. In those parts of the world in which polygyny is recognized as a permissible variation a man is legally held to his natural obligations towards all his sexual mates and towards the children he has by those mates. In no part of the world is polygyny so prevalent as in Christendom; in no part of the world is it so easy for a man to escape the obligations incurred by polygyny. We imagine that if we refuse to recognize the fact of polygyny, we may refuse to recognize any obligations incurred by polygyny. By enabling a man to escape so easily from the obligations of his polygamous relationships we encourage him, if he is unscrupulous, to enter into them; we place a premium on the immorality we loftily condemn.[373] Our polygyny has no legal existence, and therefore its obligations can have no legal existence. The ostrich, it was once imagined, hides its head in the sand and attempts to annihilate facts by refusing to look at them; but there is only one known animal which adopts this course of action, and it is called Man. Monogamy, in the fundamental biological sense, represents the natural order into which the majority of sexual facts will always naturally fall because it is the relationship which most adequately corresponds to all the physical and spiritual facts involved. But if we realize that sexual relationships primarily concern only the persons who enter into those relationships, and if we further realize that the interest of society in such relationships is confined to the children which they produce, we shall also realize that to fix by law the number of women with whom a man shall have sexual relationships, and the number of men with whom a woman shall unite herself, is more unreasonable than it would be to fix by law the number of children they shall produce. The State has a right to declare whether it needs few citizens or many; but in attempting to regulate the sexual relationships of its members the State attempts an impossible task and is at the same time guilty of an impertinence. There is always a tendency, at certain stages of civilization, to insist on a merely formal and external uniformity, and a corresponding failure to see not only that such uniformity is unreal, but also that it has an injurious effect, in so far as it checks beneficial variations. The tendency is by no means confined to the sexual sphere. In England there is, for instance, a tendency to make building laws which enjoin, in regard to places of human habitation, all sorts of provisions that on the whole are fairly beneficial, but which in practice act injuriously, because they render many simple and excellent human habitations absolutely illegal, merely because such habitations fail to conform to regulations which, under some circumstances, are not only unnecessary, but mischievous. Variation is a fact that will exist whether we will or no; it can only become healthful if we recognize and allow for it. We may even have to recognize that it is a more marked tendency in civilization than in more primitive social stages. Thus Gerson argues (_Sexual-Probleme_, Sept., 1908, p. 538) that just as the civilized man cannot be content with the coarse and monotonous food which satisfies the peasant, so it is in sexual matters; the peasant youth and girl in their sexual relationships are nearly always monogamous, but civilized people, with their more versatile and sensitive tastes, are apt to crave for variety. Sénancour (_De l'Amour_, vol. ii, "Du Partage," p. 127) seems to admit the possibility of marriage variations, as of sharing a wife, provided nothing is done to cause rivalry, or to impair the soul's candor. Lecky, near the end of his _History of European Morals_, declared his belief that, while the permanent union of two persons is the normal and prevailing type of marriage, it by no means follows that, in the interests of society, it should be the only form. Remy de Gourmont similarly (_Physique de l'Amour_, p. 186), while stating that the couple is the natural form of marriage and its prolonged continuance a condition of human superiority, adds that the permanence of the union can only be achieved with difficulty. So, also, Professor W. Thomas (_Sex and Society_, 1907, p. 193), while regarding monogamy as subserving social needs, adds: "Speaking from the biological standpoint monogamy does not, as a rule, answer to the conditions of highest stimulation, since here the problematical and elusive elements disappear to some extent, and the object of attention has grown so familiar in consciousness that the emotional reactions are qualified. This is the fundamental explanation of the fact that married men and women frequently become interested in others than their partners in matrimony." Pepys, whose unconscious self-dissection admirably illustrates so many psychological tendencies, clearly shows how--by a logic of feeling deeper than any intellectual logic--the devotion to monogamy subsists side by side with an irresistible passion for sexual variety. With his constantly recurring wayward attraction to a long series of women he retains throughout a deep and unchanging affection for his charming young wife. In the privacy of his _Diary_ he frequently refers to her in terms of endearment which cannot be feigned; he enjoys her society; he is very particular about her dress; he delights in her progress in music, and spends much money on her training; he is absurdly jealous when he finds her in the society of a man. His subsidiary relationships with other women recur irresistibly, but he has no wish either to make them very permanent or to allow them to engross him unduly. Pepys represents a common type of civilized "monogamist" who is perfectly sincere and extremely convinced in his advocacy of monogamy, as he understands it, but at the same time believes and acts on the belief that monogamy by no means excludes the need for sexual variation. Lord Morley's statement (_Diderot_, vol. ii, p. 20) that "man is instinctively polygamous," can by no means be accepted, but if we interpret it as meaning that man is an instinctively monogamous animal with a concomitant desire for sexual variation, there is much evidence in its favor. Women must be as free as men to mould their own amatory life. Many consider, however, that such freedom on the part of women will be, and ought to be, exercised within narrower limits (see, e.g., Bloch, _Sexual Life of Our Time_, Ch. X). In part this limitation is considered due to the greater absorption of a woman in the task of breeding and rearing her child, and in part to a less range of psychic activities. A man, as G. Hirth puts it, expressing this view of the matter (_Wege zur Liebe_, p. 342), "has not only room in his intellectual horizon for very various interests, but his power of erotic expansion is much greater and more differentiated than that of women, although he may lack the intimacy and depth of a woman's devotion." It may be argued that, since variations in the sexual order will inevitably take place, whether or not they are recognized or authorized, no harm is likely to be done by using the weight of social and legal authority on the side of that form which is generally regarded as the best, and, so far as possible, covering the other forms with infamy. There are many obvious defects in such an attitude, apart from the supremely important fact that to cast infamy on sexual relationships is to exert a despicable cruelty on women, who are inevitably the chief sufferers. Not the least is the injustice and the hampering of vital energy which it inflicts on the better and more scrupulous people to the advantage of the worse and less scrupulous. This always happens when authority exerts its power in favor of a form. When, in the thirteenth century, Alexander III--one of the greatest and most effective potentates who ever ruled Christendom--was consulted by the Bishop of Exeter concerning subdeacons who persisted in marrying, the Pope directed him to inquire into the lives and characters of the offenders; if they were of regular habits and staid morality, they were to be forcibly separated and the wives driven out; if they were men of notoriously disorderly character, they were to be permitted to retain their wives, if they so desired (Lea, _History of Sacerdotal Celibacy_, third edition, vol. i, p. 396). It was an astute policy, and was carried out by the same Pope elsewhere, but it is easy to see that it was altogether opposed to morality in every sense of the term. It destroyed the happiness and the efficiency of the best men; it left the worst men absolutely free. To-day we are quite willing to recognize the evil result of this policy; it was dictated by a Pope and carried out seven hundred years ago. Yet in England we carry out exactly the same policy to-day by means of our separation orders, which are scattered broadcast among the population. None of the couples thus separated--and never disciplined to celibacy as are the Catholic clergy of to-day--may marry again; we, in effect, bid the more scrupulous among them to become celibates, and to the less scrupulous we grant permission to do as they like. This process is carried on by virtue of the collective inertia of the community, and when it is supported by arguments, if that ever happens, they are of an antiquarian character which can only call forth a pitying smile. It may be added that there is a further reason why the custom of branding sexual variations from the norm as "immoral" is not so harmless as some affect to believe: such variations appear to be not uncommon among men and women of superlative ability whose powers are needed unimpeded in the service of mankind. To attempt to fit such persons into the narrow moulds which suit the majority is not only an injustice to them as individuals, but it is an offence against society, which may fairly claim that its best members shall not be hampered in its service. The notion that the person whose sexual needs differ from those of the average is necessarily a socially bad person, is a notion unsupported by facts. Every case must be judged on its own merits. Undoubtedly the most common variation from normal monogamy has in all stages of human culture been polygyny or the sexual union of one man with more than one woman. It has sometimes been socially and legally recognized, and sometimes unrecognized, but in either case it has not failed to occur. Polyandry, or the union of a woman with more than one man, has been comparatively rare and for intelligible reasons: men have most usually been in a better position, economically and legally, to organize a household with themselves as the centre; a woman is, unlike a man, by nature and often by custom unfitted for intercourse for considerable periods at a time; a woman, moreover, has her thoughts and affections more concentrated on her children. Apart from this the biological masculine traditions point to polygyny much more than the feminine traditions point to polyandry. Although it is true that a woman can undergo a much greater amount of sexual intercourse than a man, it also remains true that the phenomena of courtship in nature have made it the duty of the male to be alert in offering his sexual attention to the female, whose part it has been to suspend her choice coyly until she is sure of her preference. Polygynic conditions have also proved advantageous, as they have permitted the most vigorous and successful members of a community to have the largest number of mates and so to transmit their own superior qualities. "Polygamy," writes Woods Hutchinson (_Contemporary Review_, Oct., 1904), though he recognizes the advantages of monogamy, "as a racial institution, among animals as among men, has many solid and weighty considerations in its favor, and has resulted in both human and pre-human times, in the production of a very high type of both individual and social development." He points out that it promotes intelligence, coöperation, and division of labor, while the keen competition for women weeds out the weaker and less attractive males. Among our European ancestors, alike among Germans and Celts, polygyny and other sexual forms existed as occasional variations. Tacitus noted polygyny in Germany, and Cæsar found in Britain that brothers would hold their wives in common, the children being reckoned to the man to whom the woman had been first given in marriage (see, e.g., Traill's _Social England_, vol. i, p. 103, for a discussion of this point). The husband's assistant, also, who might be called in to impregnate the wife when the husband was impotent, existed in Germany, and was indeed a general Indo-Germanic institution (Schrader, _Reallexicon_, art. "Zeugungshelfer"). The corresponding institution of the concubine has been still more deeply rooted and widespread. Up to comparatively modern times, indeed, in accordance with the traditions of Roman law, the concubine held a recognized and honorable position, below that of a wife but with definite legal rights, though it was not always, or indeed usually, legal for a married man to have a concubine. In ancient Wales, as well as in Rome, the concubine was accepted and never despised (R.B. Holt, "Marriage Laws of the Cymri," _Journal Anthropological Institute_, Aug. and Nov., 1898, p. 155). The fact that when a concubine entered the house of a married man her dignity and legal position were less than those of the wife preserved domestic peace and safeguarded the wife's interests. (A Korean husband cannot take a concubine under his roof without his wife's permission, but she rarely objects, and seems to enjoy the companionship, says Louise Jordan Miln, _Quaint Korea_, 1895, p. 92.) In old Europe, we must remember, as Dufour points out in speaking of the time of Charlemagne (_Histoire de la Prostitution_, vol. iii, p. 226), "concubine" was an honorable term; the concubine was by no means a mistress, and she could be accused of adultery just the same as a wife. In England, late in the thirteenth century, Bracton speaks of the _concubina legitima_ as entitled to certain rights and considerations, and it was the same in other parts of Europe, sometimes for several centuries later (see Lea, _History of Sacerdotal Celibacy_, vol. i, p. 230). The early Christian Church was frequently inclined to recognize the concubine, at all events if attached to an unmarried man, for we may trace in the Church "the wish to look upon every permanent union of man or woman as possessing the character of a marriage in the eyes of God, and, therefore, in the judgment of the Church" (art. "Concubinage," Smith and Cheetham, _Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_). This was the feeling of St. Augustine (who had himself, before his conversion, had a concubine who was apparently a Christian), and the Council of Toledo admitted an unmarried man who was faithful to a concubine. As the law of the Catholic Church grew more and more rigid, it necessarily lost touch with human needs. It was not so in the early Church during the great ages of its vital growth. In those ages even the strenuous general rule of monogamy was relaxed when such relaxation seemed reasonable. This was so, for instance, in the case of sexual impotency. Thus early in the eighth century Gregory II, writing to Boniface, the apostle of Germany, in answer to a question by the latter, replies that when a wife is incapable from physical infirmity from fulfilling her marital duties it is permissible for the husband to take a second wife, though he must not withdraw maintenance from the first. A little later Archbishop Egbert of York, in his _Dialogus de Institutione Ecclesiastica_, though more cautiously, admits that when one of two married persons is infirm the other, with the permission of the infirm one, may marry again, but the infirm one is not allowed to marry again during the other's life. Impotency at the time of marriage, of course, made the marriage void without the intervention of any ecclesiastical law. But Aquinas, and later theologians, allow that an excessive disgust for a wife justifies a man in regarding himself as impotent in relation to her. These rules are, of course, quite distinct from the permissions to break the marriage laws granted to kings and princes; such permissions do not count as evidence of the Church's rules, for, as the Council of Constantinople prudently decided in 809, "Divine law can do nothing against Kings" (art. "Bigamy," _Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_). The law of monogamy was also relaxed in cases of enforced or voluntary desertion. Thus the Council of Vermerie (752) enacted that if a wife will not accompany her husband when he is compelled to follow his lord into another land, he may marry again, provided he sees no hope of returning. Theodore of Canterbury (688), again, pronounces that if a wife is carried away by the enemy and her husband cannot redeem her, he may marry again after an interval of a year, or, if there is a chance of redeeming her, after an interval of five years; the wife may do the same. Such rules, though not general, show, as Meyrick points out (art. "Marriage," _Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_), a willingness "to meet particular cases as they arise." As the Canon law grew rigid and the Catholic Church lost its vital adaptibility, sexual variations ceased to be recognized within its sphere. We have to wait for the Reformation for any further movement. Many of the early Protestant Reformers, especially in Germany, were prepared to admit a considerable degree of vital flexibility in sexual relationships. Thus Luther advised married women with impotent husbands, in cases where there was no wish or opportunity for divorce, to have sexual relations with another man, by preference the husband's brother; the children were to be reckoned to the husband ("Die Sexuelle Frage bei Luther," _Mutterschutz_, Sept., 1908). In England the Puritan spirit, which so largely occupied itself with the reform of marriage, could not fail to be concerned with the question of sexual variations, and from time to time we find the proposal to legalize polygyny. Thus, in 1658, "A Person of Quality" published in London a small pamphlet dedicated to the Lord Protector, entitled _A Remedy for Uncleanness_. It was in the form of a number of queries, asking why we should not admit polygamy for the avoidance of adultery and infanticide. The writer inquires whether it may not "stand with a gracious spirit, and be every way consistent with the principles of a man fearing God and loving holiness, to have more women than one to his proper use.... He that takes another man's ox or ass is doubtless a transgressor; but he that puts himself out of the occasion of that temptation by keeping of his own seems to be a right honest and well-meaning man." More than a century later (1780), an able, learned, and distinguished London clergyman of high character (who had been a lawyer before entering the Church), the Rev. Martin Madan, also advocated polygamy in a book called _Thelyphthora; or, a Treatise on Female Ruin_. Madan had been brought into close contact with prostitution through a chaplaincy at the Lock Hospital, and, like the Puritan advocate of polygamy, he came to the conclusion that only by the reform of marriage is it possible to work against prostitution and the evils of sexual intercourse outside marriage. His remarkable book aroused much controversy and strong feeling against the author, so that he found it desirable to leave London and settle in the country. Projects of marriage reform have never since come from the Church, but from philosophers and moralists, though not rarely from writers of definitely religious character. Sénancour, who was so delicate and sensitive a moralist in the sexual sphere, introduced a temperate discussion of polygamy into his _De l'Amour_ (vol. ii, pp. 117-126). It seemed to him to be neither positively contrary nor positively conformed to the general tendency of our present conventions, and he concluded that "the method of conciliation, in part, would be no longer to require that the union of a man and a woman should only cease with the death of one of them." Cope, the biologist, expressed a somewhat more decided opinion. Under some circumstances, if all three parties agreed, he saw no objection to polygyny or polyandry. "There are some cases of hardship," he said, "which such permission would remedy. Such, for instance, would be the case where the man or woman had become the victim of a chronic disease; or, when either party should be childless, and in other contingencies that could be imagined." There would be no compulsion in any direction, and full responsibility as at present. Such cases could only arise exceptionally, and would not call for social antagonism. For the most part, Cope remarks, "the best way to deal with polygamy is to let it alone" (E.D. Cope, "The Marriage Problem," _Open Court_, Nov. 15 and 22, 1888). In England, Dr. John Chapman, the editor of the _Westminster Review_, and a close associate of the leaders of the Radical movement in the Victorian period, was opposed to State dictation as regards the form of marriage, and believed that a certain amount of sexual variation would be socially beneficial. Thus he wrote in 1884 (in a private letter): "I think that as human beings become less selfish polygamy [i.e., polygyny], and even polyandry, in an ennobled form, will become increasingly frequent." James Hinton, who, a few years earlier, had devoted much thought and attention to the sexual question, and regarded it as indeed the greatest of moral problems, was strongly in favor of a more vital flexibility of marriage regulations, an adaptation to human needs such as the early Christian Church admitted. Marriage, he declared, must be "subordinated to service," since marriage, like the Sabbath, is made for man and not man for marriage. Thus in case of one partner becoming insane he would permit the other partner to marry again, the claim of the insane partner, in case of recovery, still remaining valid. That would be a form of polygamy, but Hinton was careful to point out that by "polygamy" he meant "less a particular marriage-order than such an order as best serves good, and which therefore must be essentially variable. Monogamy may be good, even the only good order, if of free choice; but a _law_ for it is another thing. The sexual relationship must be a _natural_ thing. The true social life will not be any fixed and definite relationship, as of monogamy, polygamy, or anything else, but a perfect subordination of every sexual relationship whatever to reason and human good." Ellen Key, who is an enthusiastic advocate of monogamy, and who believes that the civilized development of personal love removes all danger of the growth of polygamy, still admits the existence of variations. She has in mind such solutions of difficult problems as Goethe had before him when he proposed at first in his _Stella_ to represent the force of affection and tender memories as too strong to admit of the rupture of an old bond in the presence of a new bond. The problem of sexual variation, she remarks, however (_Liebe und Ethik_, p. 12), has changed its form under modern conditions; it is no longer a struggle between the demand of society for a rigid marriage-order and the demand of the individual for sexual satisfaction, but it has become the problem of harmonizing the ennoblement of the race with heightened requirements of erotic happiness. She also points out that the existence of a partner who requires the other partner's care as a nurse or as an intellectual companion by no means deprives that other partner of the right to fatherhood or motherhood, and that such rights must be safeguarded (Ellen Key, _Ueber Liebe und Ehe_, pp. 166-168). A prominent and extreme advocate of polygyny, not as a simple rare variation, but as a marriage order superior to monogamy, is to be found at the present day in Professor Christian von Ehrenfels of Prague (see, e.g., his _Sexualethik_, 1908; "Die Postulate des Lebens," _Sexual-Probleme_, Oct., 1908; and letter to Ellen Key in her _Ueber Liebe und Ehe_, p. 466). Ehrenfels believes that the number of men inapt for satisfactory reproduction is much larger than that of women, and that therefore when these are left out of account, a polygynic marriage order becomes necessary. He calls this "reproduction-marriage" (Zeugungsehe), and considers that it will entirely replace the present marriage order, to which it is morally superior. It would be based on private contracts. Ehrenfels holds that women would offer no objection, as a woman, he believes, attaches less importance to a man as a wooer than as the father of her child. Ehrenfels's doctrine has been seriously attacked from many sides, and his proposals are not in the line of our progress. Any radical modification of the existing monogamic order is not to be expected, even if it were generally recognized, which cannot be said to be the case, that it is desirable. The question of sexual variations, it must be remembered, is not a question of introducing an entirely new form of marriage, but only of recognizing the rights of individuals, in exceptional cases, to adopt such aberrant forms, and of recognizing the corresponding duties of such individuals to accept the responsibilities of any aberrant marriage forms they may find it best to adopt. So far as the question of sexual variations is more than this, it is, as Hinton argued, a dynamical method of working towards the abolition of the perilous and dangerous promiscuity of prostitution. A rigid marriage order involves prostitution; a flexible marriage order largely--though not, it may be, entirely--renders prostitution unnecessary. The democratic morality of the present day, so far as the indications at present go, is opposed to the encouragement of a _quasi_-slave class, with diminished social rights, such as prostitutes always constitute in a more or less marked degree. It is fairly evident, also, that the rapidly growing influence of medical hygiene is on the same side. We may, therefore, reasonably expect in the future a slow though steady increase in the recognition, and even the extension, of those variations of the monogamic order which have, in reality, never ceased to exist. It is lamentable that at this period of the world's history, nearly two thousand years after the wise legislators of Rome had completed their work, it should still be necessary to conclude that we are to-day only beginning to place marriage on a reasonable and humane basis. I have repeatedly pointed out how largely the Canon law has been responsible for this arrest of development. One may say, indeed, that the whole attitude of the Church, after it had once acquired complete worldly dominance, must be held responsible. In the earlier centuries the attitude of Christianity was, on the whole, admirable. It held aloft great ideals but it refrained from enforcing those ideals at all costs; thus its ideals remained genuine and could not degenerate into mere hypocritical empty forms; much flexibility was allowed when it seemed to be for human good and made for the avoidance of evil and injustice. But when the Church attained temporal power, and when that power was concentrated in the hands of Popes who subordinated moral and religious interests to political interests, all the claims of reason and humanity were flung to the winds. The ideal was no more a fact than it was before, but it was now treated as a fact. Human relationships remained what they were before, as complicated and as various, but henceforth one rigid pattern, admirable as an ideal but worse than empty as a form, was arbitrarily set up, and all deviations from it treated either as non-existent or damnable. The vitality was crushed out of the most central human institutions, and they are only to-day beginning to lift their heads afresh. If--to sum up--we consider the course which the regulation of marriage has run during the Christian era, the only period which immediately concerns us, it is not difficult to trace the main outlines. Marriage began as a private arrangement, which the Church, without being able to control, was willing to bless, as it also blessed many other secular affairs of men, making no undue attempt to limit its natural flexibility to human needs. Gradually and imperceptibly, however, without the medium of any law, Christianity gained the complete control of marriage, coördinated it with its already evolved conceptions of the evil of lust, of the virtue of chastity, of the mortal sin of fornication, and, having through the influence of these dominating conceptions limited the flexibility of marriage in every possible direction, it placed it on a lofty but narrow pedestal as the sacrament of matrimony. For reasons which by no means lay in the nature of the sexual relationships, but which probably seemed cogent to sacerdotal legislators who assimilated it to ordination, matrimony was declared indissoluble. Nothing was so easy to enter as the gate of matrimony, but, after the manner of a mouse-trap, it opened inwards and not outwards; once in there was no way out alive. The Church's regulation of marriage while, like the celibacy of the clergy, it was a success from the point of view of ecclesiastical politics, and even at first from the point of view of civilization, for it at least introduced order into a chaotic society, was in the long run a failure from the point of view of society and morals. On the one hand it drifted into absurd subtleties and quibbles; on the other, not being based on either reason or humanity, it had none of that vital adaptability to the needs of life, which early Christianity, while holding aloft austere ideals, still largely retained. On the side of tradition this code of marriage law became awkward and impracticable; on the biological side it was hopelessly false. The way was thus prepared for the Protestant reintroduction of the conception of marriage as a contract, that conception being, however, brought forward less on its merits than as a protest against the difficulties and absurdities of the Catholic Canon law. The contractive view, which still largely persists even to-day, speedily took over much of the Canon law doctrines of marriage, becoming in practice a kind of reformed and secularized Canon law. It was somewhat more adapted to modern needs, but it retained much of the rigidity of the Catholic marriage without its sacramental character, and it never made any attempt to become more than nominally contractive. It has been of the nature of an incongruous compromise and has represented a transitional phase towards free private marriage. We can recognize that phase in the tendency, well marked in all civilized lands, to an ever increasing flexibility of marriage. The idea, and even the fact, of marriage by consent and divorce by failure of that consent, which we are now approaching, has never indeed been quite extinct. In the Latin countries it has survived with the tradition of Roman law; in the English-speaking countries it is bound up with the spirit of Puritanism which insists that in the things that concern the individual alone the individual himself shall be the supreme judge. That doctrine as applied to marriage was in England magnificently asserted by the genius of Milton, and in America it has been a leaven which is still working in marriage legislation towards an inevitable goal which is scarcely yet in sight. The marriage system of the future, as it moves along its present course, will resemble the old Christian system in that it will recognize the sacred and sacramental character of the sexual relationship, and it will resemble the civil conception in that it will insist that marriage, so far as it involves procreation, shall be publicly registered by the State. But in opposition to the Church it will recognize that marriage, in so far as it is purely a sexual relationship, is a private matter the conditions of which must be left to the persons who alone are concerned in it; and in opposition to the civil theory it will recognize that marriage is in its essence a fact and not a contract, though it may give rise to contracts, so long as such contracts do not touch that essential fact. And in one respect it will go beyond either the ecclesiastical conception or the civil conception. Man has in recent times gained control of his own procreative powers, and that control involves a shifting of the centre of gravity of marriage, in so far as marriage is an affair of the State, from the vagina to the child which is the fruit of the womb. Marriage as a state institution will centre, not around the sexual relationship, but around the child which is the outcome of that relationship. In so far as marriage is an inviolable public contract it will be of such a nature that it will be capable of automatically covering with its protection every child that is born into the world, so that every child may possess a legal mother and a legal father. On the one side, therefore, marriage is tending to become less stringent; on the other side it is tending to become more stringent. On the personal side it is a sacred and intimate relationship with which the State has no concern; on the social side it is the assumption of the responsible public sponsorship of a new member of the State. Some among us are working to further one of these aspects of marriage, some to further the other aspect. Both are indispensable to establish a perfect harmony. It is necessary to hold the two aspects of marriage apart, in order to do equal justice to the individual and to society, but in so far as marriage approaches its ideal state those two aspects become one. We have now completed the discussion of marriage as it presents itself to the modern man born in what in mediæval days was called Christendom. It is not an easy subject to discuss. It is indeed a very difficult subject, and only after many years is it possible to detect the main drift of its apparently opposing and confused currents when one is oneself in the midst of them. To an Englishman it is, perhaps, peculiarly difficult, for the Englishman is nothing if not insular; in that fact lie whatever virtues he possesses, as well as their reverse sides.[374] Yet it is worth while to attempt to climb to a height from which we can view the stream of social tendency in its true proportions and estimate its direction. It is necessary to do so if we value our mental peace in an age when men's minds are agitated by many petty movements which have nothing to do with their great temporal interests, to say nothing of their eternal interests. When we have attained a wide vision of the solid biological facts of life, when we have grasped the great historical streams of tradition,--which together make up the map of human affairs,--we can face serenely the little social transitions which take place in our own age, as they have taken place in every age. FOOTNOTES: [312] Rosenthal, of Breslau, from the legal side, goes so far as to argue ("Grundfragen des Eheproblems," _Die Neue Generation_, Dec., 1908), that the intention of procreation is essential to the conception of legal marriage. [313] J.A. Godfrey, _Science of Sex_, p. 119. [314] E.D. Cope, "The Marriage Problem," _Open Court_, Nov., 1888. [315] See _ante_, p. 395. [316] Wächter, _Eheschiedungen_, pp. 95 et seq.; Esmein, _Marriage en Droit Canonique_, vol. i, p. 6; Howard, _History of Matrimonial Institutions_, vol. ii, p. 15. Howard (in agreement with Lecky) considers that the freedom of divorce was only abused by a small section of the Roman population, and that such abuse, so far as it existed, was not the cause of any decline of Roman morals. [317] The opinions of the Christian Fathers were very varied, and they were sometimes doubtful about them; see, e.g., the opinions collected by Cranmer and enumerated by Burnet, _History of Reformation_ (ed. Nares), vol. ii, p. 91. [318] Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, enacted a strict and peculiar divorce law (allowing a wife to divorce her husband only when he was a homicide, a poisoner, or a violator of sepulchres), which could not be maintained. In 497, therefore, Anastasius decreed divorce by mutual consent. This was abolished by Justinian, who only allowed divorce for various specified causes, among them, however, including the husband's adultery. These restrictions proved unworkable, and Justinian's successor and nephew, Justin, restored divorce by mutual consent. Finally, in 870, Leo the Philosopher returned to Justinian's enactment (see, e.g., Smith and Cheetham, _Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_, arts. "Adultery" and "Marriage"). [319] The element of reverence in the early German attitude towards women and the privileges which even the married woman enjoyed, so far as Tacitus can be considered a reliable guide, seem to have been the surviving vestiges of an earlier social state on a more matriarchal basis. They are most distinct at the dawn of German history. From the first, however, though divorce by mutual consent seems to have been possible, German custom was pitiless to the married woman who was unfaithful, sterile, or otherwise offended, though for some time after the introduction of Christianity it was no offence for the German husband to commit adultery (Westermarck, _Origin of the Moral Ideas_, vol. ii, p. 453). [320] "This form of marriage," says Hobhouse (op. cit., vol. i, p. 156), "is intimately associated with the extension of marital power." Cf. Howard, op. cit., vol. i, p. 231. The very subordinate position of the mediæval German woman is set forth by Hagelstange, _Süddeutsches Bauernleben in Mittelalter_, 1898, pp. 70 et seq. [321] Howard, op. cit., vol. i, p. 259; Smith and Cheetham, _Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_, art. _Arrhæ_. It would appear, however, that the "bride-sale," of which Tacitus speaks, was not strictly the sale of a chattel nor of a slave-girl, but the sale of the _mund_ or protectorship over the girl. It is true the distinction may not always have been clear to those who took part in the transaction. Similarly the Anglo-Saxon betrothal was not so much a payment of the bride's price to her kinsmen, although as a matter of fact, they might make a profit out of the transaction, as a covenant stipulating for the bride's honorable treatment as wife and widow. Reminiscences of this, remark Pollock and Maitland (op. cit., vol. ii, p. 364), may be found in "that curious cabinet of antiquities, the marriage ritual of the English Church." [322] Howard, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 278-281, 386. The _Arrha_ crept into Roman and Byzantine law during the sixth century. [323] J. Wickham Legg, _Ecclesiological Essays_, p. 189. It may be added that the idea of the subordination of the wife to the husband appeared in the Christian Church at a somewhat early period, and no doubt independently of Germanic influences; St. Augustine said (Sermo XXXVII, cap. vi) that a good _materfamilias_ must not be ashamed to call herself her husband's servant (_ancilla_). [324] See, e.g., L. Gautier, _La Chevalerie_, Ch. IX. [325] Howard, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 293 et seq.; Esmein, _op. cit._, vol. i, pp. 25 et seq.; Smith and Cheetham, _Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_ art. "Contract of Marriage." [326] Any later changes in Catholic Canon law have merely been in the direction of making matrimony still narrower and still more remote from the practice of the world. By a papal decree of 1907, civil marriages and marriages in non-Catholic places of worship are declared to be not only sinful and unlawful (which they were before), but actually null and void. [327] E.S.P. Haynes, _Our Divorce Law_, p. 3. [328] It was the Council of Trent, in the sixteenth century, which made ecclesiastical rites essential to binding marriage; but even then fifty-six prelates voted against that decision. [329] Esmein, op. cit., vol. i, p. 91. [330] It is sometimes said that the Catholic Church is able to diminish the evils of its doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage by the number of impediments to marriage it admits, thus affording free scope for dispensations from marriage. This scarcely seems to be the case. Dr. P.J. Hayes, who speaks with authority as Chancellor of the Catholic Archdiocese of New York, states ("Impediments to Marriage in the Catholic Church," _North American Review_, May, 1905) that even in so modern and so mixed a community as this there are few applications for dispensations on account of impediments; there are 15,000 Catholic marriages per annum in New York City, but scarcely five per annum are questioned as to validity, and these chiefly on the ground of bigamy. [331] The Canonists, say Pollock and Maitland (loc. cit.), "made a capricious mess of the marriage law." "Seldom," says Howard (_op. cit._, vol i, p. 340), "have mere theory and subtle quibbling had more disastrous consequences in practical life than in the case of the distinction between _sponsalia de præsenti_ and _de futuro_." [332] Howard, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 386 et seq. On the whole, however, Luther's opinion was that marriage, though a sacred and mysterious thing, is not a sacrament; his various statements on the matter are brought together by Strampff, _Luther über die Ehe_, pp. 204-214. [333] Howard, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 61 et seq. [334] Probably as a result of the somewhat confused and incoherent attitude of the Reformers, the Canon law of marriage, in a modified form, really persisted in Protestant countries to a greater extent than in Catholic countries; in France, especially, it has been much more profoundly modified (Esmein, op. cit., vol. i, p. 33). [335] The Quaker conception of marriage is still vitally influential. "Why," says Mrs. Besant (_Marriage_, p. 19), "should not we take a leaf out of the Quaker's book, and substitute for the present legal forms of marriage a simple declaration publicly made?" [336] Howard, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 456. The actual practice in Pennsylvania appears, however, to differ little from that usual in the other States. [337] Howard, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 109. "It is, indeed, wonderful," Howard remarks, "that a great nation, priding herself on a love of equity and social liberty, should thus for five generations tolerate an invidious indulgence, rather than frankly and courageously to free herself from the shackles of an ecclesiastical tradition." [338] "The enforced continuance of an unsuccessful union is perhaps the most immoral thing which a civilized society ever countenanced, far less encouraged," says Godfrey (_Science of Sex_, p. 123). "The morality of a union is dependent upon mutual desire, and a union dictated by any other cause is outside the moral pale, however custom may sanction it, or religion and law condone it." [339] Adultery in most savage and barbarous societies is regarded, in the words of Westermarck, as "an illegitimate appropriation of the exclusive claims which the husband has acquired by the purchase of his wife, as an offence against property;" the seducer is, therefore, punished as a thief, by fine, mutilation, even death (_Origin of the Moral Ideas_, vol. ii, pp. 447 et seq.; id., _History of Human Marriage_, p. 121). Among some peoples it is the seducer who alone suffers, and not the wife. [340] It is sometimes said in defence of the claim for damages for seducing a wife that women are often weak and unable to resist masculine advances, so that the law ought to press heavily on the man who takes advantage of that weakness. This argument seems a little antiquated. The law is beginning to accept the responsibility even of married women in other respects, and can scarcely refuse to accept it for the control of her own person. Moreover, if it is so natural for the woman to yield, it is scarcely legitimate to punish the man with whom she has performed that natural act. It must further be said that if a wife's adultery is only an irresponsible feminine weakness, a most undue brutality is inflicted on her by publicly demanding her pecuniary price from her lover. If, indeed, we accept this argument, we ought to reintroduce the mediæval girdle of chastity. [341] Howard, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 114. [342] This rule is, in England, by no means a dead letter. Thus, in 1907, a wife who had left her home, leaving a letter stating that her husband was not the father of her child, subsequently brought an action for divorce, which, as the husband made no defence, she obtained. But, the King's Proctor having learnt the facts, the decree was rescinded. Then the husband brought an action for divorce, but could not obtain it, having already admitted his own adultery by leaving the previous case undefended. He took the matter up to the Court of Appeal, but his petition was dismissed, the Court being of opinion that "to grant relief in such a case was not in the interest of public morality." The safest way in England to render what is legally termed marriage absolutely indissoluble is for both parties to commit adultery. [343] Magnus Hirschfeld, _Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, Oct., 1908. [344] H. Adner, "Die Richterliche Beurteilung der 'Zerrütteten' Ehe," _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Bd. ii, Teil 8. [345] Gross-Hoffinger, _Die Schichsale der Frauen und die Prostitution_, 1847; Bloch presents a full summary of the results of this inquiry in an _Appendix_ to Ch. X of his _Sexual Life of Our Times_. [346] Divorce in the United States is fully discussed by Howard, op. cit., vol. iii. [347] H. Münsterberg, _The Americans_, p. 575. Similarly, Dr. Felix Adler, in a study of "The Ethics of Divorce" (_The Ethical Record_, 1890, p. 200), although not himself an admirer of divorce, believes that the first cause of the frequency of divorce in the United States is the high position of women. [348] In an important article, with illustrative cases, on "The Neuro-psychical Element in Conjugal Aversion" (_Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases_, Sept., 1892) Smith Baker refers to the cases in which "a man may find himself progressively becoming antipathetic, through recognition of the comparatively less developed personality of the one to whom he happens to be married. Marrying, perhaps, before he has learned to accurately judge of character and its tendencies, he awakens to the fact that he is honorably bound to live all his physiological life with, not a real companion, but a mere counterfeit." The cases are still more numerous, the same writer observes, in which the sexual appetite of the wife fails to reveal itself except as the result of education and practice. "This sort of natural-unnatural condition is the source of much disappointment, and of intense suffering on the part of the woman as well as of family dissatisfaction." Yet such causes for divorce are far too complex to be stated in statute-books, and far too intimate to be pleaded in courts of justice. [349] Ten years ago, if not still, the United States came fourth in order of frequency of divorce, after Japan, Denmark, and Switzerland. [350] Lecky, the historian of European morals, has pointed out (_Democracy and Liberty_, vol. ii, p. 172) the close connection generally between facility of divorce and a high standard of sexual morality. [351] So, e.g., Hobhouse, _Morals in Evolution_, vol. i, p. 237. [352] In England this step was taken in the reign of Henry VII, when the forcible marriage of women against their will was forbidden by statute (3 Henry VII, c. 2). Even in the middle of the seventeenth century, however, the question of forcible marriage had again to be dealt with (_Inderwick_, Interregnum, pp. 40 et seq.). [353] Woods Hutchinson (_Contemporary Review_, Sept., 1905) argues that when there is epilepsy, insanity, moral perversion, habitual drunkenness, or criminal conduct of any kind, divorce, for the sake of the next generation, should be not permissive but compulsory. Mere divorce, however, would not suffice to attain the ends desired. [354] Similarly in Germany, Wanda von Sacher-Masoch, who had suffered much from marriage, whatever her own defects of character may have been, writes at the end of _Meine Lebensbeichte_ that "as long as women have not the courage to regulate, without State-interference or Church-interference, relationships which concern themselves alone, they will not be free." In place of this old decayed system of marriage so opposed to our modern thoughts and feelings, she would have private contracts made by a lawyer. In England, at a much earlier period, Charles Kingsley, who was an ardent friend to women's movements, and whose feeling for womanhood amounted almost to worship, wrote to J.S. Mill: "There will never be a good world for women until the last remnant of the Canon law is civilized off the earth." [355] "No fouler institution was ever invented," declared Auberon Herbert many years ago, expressing, before its time, a feeling which has since become more common; "and its existence drags on, to our deep shame, because we have not the courage frankly to say that the sexual relations of husband and wife, or those who live together, concern their own selves, and do not concern the prying, gloating, self-righteous, and intensely untruthful world outside." [356] Hobhouse, op. cit. vol. i, p. 237. [357] The same conception of marriage as a contract still persists to some extent also in the United States, whither it was carried by the early Protestants and Puritans. No definition of marriage is indeed usually laid down by the States, but, Howard says (op. cit., vol. ii, p. 395), "in effect matrimony is treated as a relation partaking of the nature of both status and contract." [358] This point of view has been vigorously set forth by Paul and Victor Margueritte, _Quelques Idées_. [359] I may remark that this was pointed out, and its consequences vigorously argued, many years ago by C.G. Garrison, "Limits of Divorce," _Contemporary Review_, Feb., 1894. "It may safely be asserted," he concludes, "that marriage presents not one attribute or incident of anything remotely resembling a contract, either in form, remedy, procedure, or result; but that in all these aspects, on the contrary, it is fatally hostile to the principles and practices of that division of the rights of persons." Marriage is not contract, but conduct. [360] See, e.g., P. and V. Margueritte, op. cit. [361] As quoted by Howard, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 29. [362] Ellen Key similarly (_Ueber Liebe und Ehe_, p. 343) remarks that to talk of "the duty of life-long fidelity" is much the same as to talk of "the duty of life-long health." A man may promise, she adds, to do his best to preserve his life, or his love; he cannot unconditionally undertake to preserve them. [363] Hobhouse, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 159, 237-9; cf. P. and V. Margueritte, _Quelques Idées_. [364] "Divorce," as Garrison puts it ("Limits of Divorce," _Contemporary Review_, Feb., 1894), "is the judicial announcement that conduct once connubial in character and purpose, has lost these qualities.... Divorce is a question of fact, and not a license to break a promise." [365] See, _ante_, p. 425. [366] It has been necessary to discuss reproduction in the first chapter of the present volume, and it will again be necessary in the concluding chapter. Here we are only concerned with procreation as an element of marriage. [367] Nietzold, _Die Ehe in Ægypten zur Ptolemäisch-römischen Zeit_, 1903, p. 3. This bond also accorded rights to any children that might be born during its existence. [368] See, e.g., Ellen Key, _Mutter und Kind_, p. 21. The necessity for the combination of greater freedom of sexual relationships with greater stringency of parental relationships was clearly realized at an earlier period by another able woman writer, Miss J.H. Clapperton, in her notable book, _Scientific Meliorism_, published in 1885. "Legal changes," she wrote (p. 320), "are required in two directions, viz., towards greater freedom as to marriage and greater strictness as to parentage. The marriage union is essentially a private matter with which society has no call and no right to interfere. Childbirth, on the contrary, is a public event. It touches the interests of the whole nation." [369] Ellen Key, _Liebe und Ehe_, p. 168; cf. the same author's _Century of the Child_. [370] In Germany alone 180,000 "illegitimate" children are born every year, and the number is rapidly increasing; in England it is only 40,000 per annum, the strong feeling which often exists against such births in England (as also in France) leading to the wide adoption of methods for preventing conception. [371] "Where are real monogamists to be found?" asked Schopenhauer in his essay, "Ueber die Weibe." And James Hinton was wont to ask: "What is the meaning of maintaining monogamy? Is there any chance of getting it, I should like to know? Do you call English life monogamous?" [372] "Almost everywhere," says Westermarck of polygyny (which he discusses fully in Chs. XX-XXII of his _History of Human Marriage_) "it is confined to the smaller part of the people, the vast majority being monogamous." Maurice Gregory (_Contemporary Review_, Sept., 1906) gives statistics showing that nearly everywhere the tendency is towards equality in number of the sexes. [373] In a polygamous land a man is of course as much bound by his obligations to his second wife as to his first. Among ourselves the man's "second wife" is degraded with the name of "mistress," and the worse he treats her and her children the more his "morality" is approved, just as the Catholic Church, when struggling to establish sacerdotal celibacy, approved more highly the priest who had illegitimate relations with women than the priest who decently and openly married. If his neglect induces a married man's mistress to make known her relationship to him the man is justified in prosecuting her, and his counsel, assured of general sympathy, will state in court that "this woman has even been so wicked as to write to the prosecutor's wife!" [374] Howard, in his judicial _History of Matrimonial Institutions_ (vol. ii. pp. 96 et seq.), cannot refrain from drawing attention to the almost insanely wild character of the language used in England not so many years ago by those who opposed marriage with a deceased wife's sister, and he contrasts it with the much more reasonable attitude of the Catholic Church. "Pictures have been drawn," he remarks, "of the moral anarchy such marriages must produce, which are read by American, Colonial, and Continental observers with a bewilderment that is not unmixed with disgust, and are, indeed, a curious illustration of the extreme insularity of the English mind." So recently as A.D. 1908 a bill was brought into the British House of Lords proposing that desertion without cause for two years shall be a ground for divorce, a reasonable and humane measure which is law in most parts of the civilized world. The Lord Chancellor (Lord Loreburn), a Liberal, and in the sphere of politics an enlightened and sagacious leader, declared that such a proposal was "absolutely impossible." The House rejected the proposal by 61 votes to 2. Even the marriage decrees of the Council of Trent were not affirmed by such an overwhelming majority. In matters of marriage legislation England has scarcely yet emerged from the Middle Ages. CHAPTER XI. THE ART OF LOVE. Marriage Not Only for Procreation--Theologians on the _Sacramentum Solationis_--Importance of the _Art of Love_--The Basis of Stability in Marriage and the Condition for Right Procreation--The Art of Love the Bulwark Against Divorce--The Unity of Love and Marriage a Principle of Modern Morality--Christianity and the Art of Love--Ovid--The Art of Love Among Primitive Peoples--Sexual Initiation in Africa and Elsewhere--The Tendency to Spontaneous Development of the Art of Love in Early Life--Flirtation--Sexual Ignorance in Women--The Husband's Place in Sexual Initiation--Sexual Ignorance in Men--The Husband's Education for Marriage--The Injury Done by the Ignorance of Husbands--The Physical and Mental Results of Unskilful Coitus--Women Understand the Art of Love Better Than Men--Ancient and Modern Opinions Concerning Frequency of Coitus--Variation in Sexual Capacity--The Sexual Appetite--The Art of Love Based on the Biological Facts of Courtship--The Art of Pleasing Women--The Lover Compared to the Musician--The Proposal as a Part of Courtship--Divination in the Art of Love--The Importance of the Preliminaries in Courtship--The Unskilful Husband Frequently the Cause of the Frigid Wife--The Difficulty of Courtship--Simultaneous Orgasm--The Evils of Incomplete Gratification in Women--Coitus Interruptus--Coitus Reservatus--The Human Method of Coitus--Variations in Coitus--Posture in Coitus--The Best Time for Coitus--The Influence of Coitus in Marriage--The Advantages of Absence in Marriage--The Risks of Absence--Jealousy--The Primitive Function of Jealousy--Its Predominance Among Animals, Savages, etc., and in Pathological States--An Anti-Social Emotion--Jealousy Incompatible with the Progress of Civilization--The Possibility of Loving More Than One Person at a Time--Platonic Friendship--The Conditions Which Make It Possible--The Maternal Element in Woman's Love--The Final Development of Conjugal Love--The Problem of Love One of the Greatest of Social Questions. It will be clear from the preceding discussion that there are two elements in every marriage so far as that marriage is complete. On the one hand marriage is a union prompted by mutual love and only sustainable as a reality, apart from its mere formal side, by the cultivation of such love. On the other hand marriage is a method for propagating the race and having its end in offspring. In the first aspect its aim is erotic, in the second parental. Both these ends have long been generally recognized. We find them set forth, for instance, in the marriage service of the Church of England, where it is stated that marriage exists both for "the mutual society, help and comfort that the one ought to have of the other," and also for "the procreation of children." Without the factor of mutual love the proper conditions for procreation cannot exist; without the factor of procreation the sexual union, however beautiful and sacred a relationship it may in itself be, remains, in essence, a private relationship, incomplete as a marriage and without public significance. It becomes necessary, therefore, to supplement the preceding discussion of marriage in its general outlines by a final and more intimate consideration of marriage in its essence, as embracing the art of love and the science of procreation. There has already been occasion from time to time to refer to those who, starting from various points of view, have sought to limit the scope of marriage and to suppress one or other of its elements. (See e.g., _ante_, p. 135.) In modern times the tendency has been to exclude the factor of procreation, and to regard the relationship of marriage as exclusively lying in the relationship of the two parties to each other. Apart from the fact, which it is unnecessary again to call attention to, that, from the public and social point of view, a marriage without children, however important to the two persons concerned, is a relationship without any public significance, it must further be said that, in the absence of children, even the personal erotic life itself is apt to suffer, for in the normal erotic life, especially in women, sexual love tends to grow into parental love. Moreover, the full development of mutual love and dependence is with difficulty attained, and there is absence of that closest of bonds, the mutual coöperation of two persons in producing a new person. The perfect and complete marriage in its full development is a trinity. Those who seek to eliminate the erotic factor from marriage as unessential, or at all events as only permissible when strictly subordinated to the end of procreation, have made themselves heard from time to time at various periods. Even the ancients, Greeks and Romans alike, in their more severe moments advocated the elimination of the erotic element from marriage, and its confinement to extra-marital relationships, that is so far as men were concerned; for the erotic needs of married women they had no provision to make. Montaigne, soaked in classic traditions, has admirably set forth the reasons for eliminating the erotic interest from marriage: "One does not marry for oneself, whatever may be said; a man marries as much, or more, for his posterity, for his family; the usage and interest of marriage touch our race beyond ourselves.... Thus it is a kind of incest to employ, in this venerable and sacred parentage, the efforts and the extravagances of amorous license" (_Essais_, Bk. i, Ch. XXIX; Bk. iii, Ch. V). This point of view easily commended itself to the early Christians, who, however, deliberately overlooked its reverse side, the establishment of erotic interests outside marriage. "To have intercourse except for procreation," said Clement of Alexandria (_Pædagogus_, Bk. ii, Ch. X), "is to do injury to Nature." While, however, that statement is quite true of the lower animals, it is not true of man, and especially not true of civilized man, whose erotic needs are far more developed, and far more intimately associated with the finest and highest part of the organism, than is the case among animals generally. For the animal, sexual desire, except when called forth by the conditions involved by procreative necessities, has no existence. It is far otherwise in man, for whom, even when the question of procreation is altogether excluded, sexual love is still an insistent need, and even a condition of the finest spiritual development. The Catholic Church, therefore, while regarding with admiration a continence in marriage which excluded sexual relations except for the end of procreation, has followed St. Augustine in treating intercourse apart from procreation with considerable indulgence, as only a venial sin. Here, however, the Church was inclined to draw the line, and it appears that in 1679 Innocent XI condemned the proposition that "the conjugal act, practiced for pleasure alone, is exempt even from venial sin." Protestant theologians have been inclined to go further, and therein they found some authority even in Catholic writers. John à Lasco, the Catholic Bishop who became a Protestant and settled in England during Edward VI's reign, was following many mediæval theologians when he recognized the _sacramentum solationis_, in addition to _proles_, as an element of marriage. Cranmer, in his marriage service of 1549, stated that "mutual help and comfort," as well as procreation, enter into the object of marriage (Wickham Legg, _Ecclesiological Essays_, p. 204; Howard, _Matrimonial Institutions_, vol. i, p. 398). Modern theologians speak still more distinctly. "The sexual act," says Northcote (_Christianity and Sex Problems_, p. 55), "is a love act. Duly regulated, it conduces to the ethical welfare of the individual and promotes his efficiency as a social unit. The act itself and its surrounding emotions stimulate within the organism the powerful movements of a vast psychic life." At an earlier period also, Schleiermacher, in his _Letters on Lucinde_, had pointed out the great significance of love for the spiritual development of the individual. Edward Carpenter truly remarks, in _Love's Coming of Age_, that sexual love is not only needed for physical creation, but also for spiritual creation. Bloch, again, in discussing this question (_The Sexual Life of Our Time_, Ch. VI) concludes that "love and the sexual embrace have not only an end in procreation, they constitute an end in themselves, and are necessary for the life, development, and inner growth of the individual himself." It is argued by some, who admit mutual love as a constituent part of marriage, that such love, once recognized at the outset, may be taken for granted, and requires no further discussion; there is, they believe, no art of love to be either learnt or taught; it comes by nature. Nothing could be further from the truth, most of all as regards civilized man. Even the elementary fact of coitus needs to be taught. No one could take a more austerely Puritanic view of sexual affairs than Sir James Paget, and yet Paget (in his lecture on "Sexual Hypochondriasis") declared that "Ignorance about sexual affairs seems to be a notable characteristic of the more civilized part of the human race. Among ourselves it is certain that the method of copulating needs to be taught, and that they to whom it is not taught remain quite ignorant about it." Gallard, again, remarks similarly (in his _Clinique des Maladies des Femmes_) that young people, like Daphnis in Longus's pastoral, need a beautiful Lycenion to give them a solid education, practical as well as theoretical, in these matters, and he considers that mothers should instruct their daughters at marriage, and fathers their sons. Philosophers have from time to time recognized the gravity of these questions and have discoursed concerning them; thus Epicurus, as Plutarch tells us,[375] would discuss with his disciples various sexual matters, such as the proper time for coitus; but then, as now, there were obscurantists who would leave even the central facts of life to the hazards of chance or ignorance, and these presumed to blame the philosopher. There is, however, much more to be learnt in these matters than the mere elementary facts of sexual intercourse. The art of love certainly includes such primary facts of sexual hygiene, but it involves also the whole erotic discipline of marriage, and that is why its significance is so great, for the welfare and happiness of the individual, for the stability of sexual unions, and indirectly for the race, since the art of love is ultimately the art of attaining the right conditions for procreation. "It seems extremely probable," wrote Professor E.D. Cope,[376] "that if this subject could be properly understood, and become, in the details of its practical conduct, a part of a written social science, the monogamic marriage might attain a far more general success than is often found in actual life." There can be no doubt whatever that this is the case. In the great majority of marriages success depends exclusively upon the knowledge of the art of love possessed by the two persons who enter into it. A life-long monogamic union may, indeed, persist in the absence of the slightest inborn or acquired art of love, out of religious resignation or sheer stupidity. But that attitude is now becoming less common. As we have seen in the previous chapter, divorces are becoming more frequent and more easily obtainable in every civilized country. This is a tendency of civilization; it is the result of a demand that marriage should be a real relationship, and that when it ceases to be real as a relationship it should also cease as a form. That is an inevitable tendency, involved in our growing democratization, for the democracy seems to care more for realities than for forms, however venerable. We cannot fight against it; and we should be wrong to fight against it even if we could. Yet while we are bound to aid the tendency to divorce, and to insist that a valid marriage needs the wills of two persons to maintain it, it is difficult for anyone to argue that divorce is in itself desirable. It is always a confession of failure. Two persons, who, if they have been moved in the slightest degree by the normal and regular impulse of sexual selection, at the outset regarded each other as lovable, have, on one side or the other or on both, proved not lovable. There has been a failure in the fundamental art of love. If we are to counterbalance facility of divorce our only sound course is to increase the stability of marriage, and that is only possible by cultivating the art of love, the primal foundation of marriage. It is by no means unnecessary to emphasize this point. There are still many persons who have failed to realize it. There are even people who seem to imagine that it is unimportant whether or not pleasure is present in the sexual act. "I do not believe mutual pleasure in the sexual act has any particular bearing on the happiness of life," once remarked Dr. Howard A. Kelly.[377] Such a statement means--if indeed it means anything--that the marriage tie has no "particular bearing" on human happiness; it means that the way must be freely opened to adultery and divorce. Even the most perverse ascetic of the Middle Ages scarcely ventured to make a statement so flagrantly opposed to the experiences of humanity, and the fact that a distinguished gynecologist of the twentieth century can make it, with almost the air of stating a truism, is ample justification for the emphasis which it has nowadays become necessary to place on the art of love. "Uxor enim dignitatis nomen est, non voluptatis," was indeed an ancient Pagan dictum. But it is not in harmony with modern ideas. It was not even altogether in harmony with Christianity. For our modern morality, as Ellen Key well says, the unity of love and marriage is a fundamental principle.[378] The neglect of the art of love has not been a universal phenomenon; it is more especially characteristic of Christendom. The spirit of ancient Rome undoubtedly predisposed Europe to such a neglect, for with their rough cultivation of the military virtues and their inaptitude for the finer aspects of civilization the Romans were willing to regard love as a permissible indulgence, but they were not, as a people, prepared to cultivate it as an art. Their poets do not, in this matter, represent the moral feeling of their best people. It is indeed a highly significant fact that Ovid, the most distinguished Latin poet who concerned himself much with the art of love, associated that art not so much with morality as with immorality. As he viewed it, the art of love was less the art of retaining a woman in her home than the art of winning her away from it; it was the adulterer's art rather than the husband's art. Such a conception would be impossible out of Europe, but it proved very favorable to the growth of the Christian attitude towards the art of love. Love as an art, as well as a passion, seems to have received considerable study in antiquity, though the results of that study have perished. Cadmus Milesius, says Suidas, wrote fourteen great volumes on the passion of love, but they are not now to be found. Rohde (_Das Griechische Roman_, p. 55) has a brief section on the Greek philosophic writers on love. Bloch (_Beiträge zur Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil I, p. 191) enumerates the ancient women writers who dealt with the art of love. Montaigne (_Essais_, liv. ii, Ch. V) gives a list of ancient classical lost books on love. Burton (_Anatomy of Melancholy_, Bell's edition, vol. iii, p. 2) also gives a list of lost books on love. Burton himself dealt at length with the manifold signs of love and its grievous symptoms. Boissier de Sauvages, early in the eighteenth century, published a Latin thesis, _De Amore_, discussing love somewhat in the same spirit as Burton, as a psychic disease to be treated and cured. The breath of Christian asceticism had passed over love; it was no longer, as in classic days, an art to be cultivated, but only a malady to be cured. The true inheritor of the classic spirit in this, as in many other matters, was not the Christian world, but the world of Islam. _The Perfumed Garden_ of the Sheik Nefzaoui was probably written in the city of Tunis early in the sixteenth century by an author who belonged to the south of Tunis. Its opening invocation clearly indicates that it departs widely from the conception of love as a disease: "Praise be to God who has placed man's greatest pleasures in the natural parts of woman, and has destined the natural parts of man to afford the greatest enjoyments to woman." The Arabic book, _El Ktab_, or "The Secret Laws of Love," is a modern work, by Omer Haleby Abu Othmân, who was born in Algiers of a Moorish mother and a Turkish father. For Christianity the permission to yield to the sexual impulse at all was merely a concession to human weakness, an indulgence only possible when it was carefully hedged and guarded on every side. Almost from the first the Christians began to cultivate the art of virginity, and they could not so dislocate their point of view as to approve of the art of love. All their passionate adoration in the sphere of sex went out towards chastity. Possessed by such ideals, they could only tolerate human love at all by giving to one special form of it a religious sacramental character, and even that sacramental halo imparted to love a quasi-ascetic character which precluded the idea of regarding love as an art.[379] Love gained a religious element but it lost a moral element, since, outside Christianity, the art of love is part of the foundation of sexual morality, wherever such morality in any degree exists. In Christendom love in marriage was left to shift for itself as best it might; the art of love was a dubious art which was held to indicate a certain commerce with immorality and even indeed to be itself immoral. That feeling was doubtless strengthened by the fact that Ovid was the most conspicuous master in literature of the art of love. His literary reputation--far greater than it now seems to us[380]--gave distinction to his position as the author of the chief extant text-book of the art of love. With Humanism and the Renaissance and the consequent realization that Christianity had overlooked one side of life, Ovid's _Ars Amatoria_ was placed on a pedestal it had not occupied before or since. It represented a step forward in civilization; it revealed love not as a mere animal instinct or a mere pledged duty, but as a complex, humane, and refined relationship which demanded cultivation; "_arte regendus amor_." Boccaccio made a wise teacher put Ovid's _Ars Amatoria_ into the hands of the young. In an age still oppressed by the mediæval spirit, it was a much needed text-book, but it possessed the fatal defect, as a text-book, of presenting the erotic claims of the individual as divorced from the claims of good social order. It never succeeded in establishing itself as a generally accepted manual of love, and in the eyes of many it served to stamp the subject it dealt with as one that lies outside the limits of good morals. When, however, we take a wider survey, and inquire into the discipline for life that is imparted to the young in many parts of the world, we shall frequently find that the art of love, understood in varying ways, is an essential part of that discipline. Summary, though generally adequate, as are the educational methods of primitive peoples, they not seldom include a training in those arts which render a woman agreeable to a man and a man agreeable to a woman in the relationship of marriage, and it is often more or less dimly realized that courtship is not a mere preliminary to marriage, but a biologically essential part of the marriage relationship throughout. Sexual initiation is carried out very thoroughly in Azimba land, Central Africa. H. Crawford Angus, the first European to visit the Azimba people, lived among them for a year, and has described the Chensamwali, or initiation ceremony, of girls. "At the first sign of menstruation in a young girl, she is taught the mysteries of womanhood, and is shown the different positions for sexual intercourse. The vagina is handled freely, and if not previously enlarged (which may have taken place at the harvest festival when a boy and girl are allowed to 'keep house' during the day-time by themselves, and when quasi-intercourse takes place) it is now enlarged by means of a horn or corn-cob, which is inserted and secured in place by bands of bark cloth. When all signs [of menstruation] have passed, a public announcement of a dance is given to the women in the village. At this dance no men are allowed to be present, and it was only with a great deal of trouble that I managed to witness it. The girl to be 'danced' is led back from the bush to her mother's hut where she is kept in solitude to the morning of the dance. On that morning she is placed on the ground in a sitting position, while the dancers form a ring around her. Several songs are then sung with reference to the genital organs. The girl is then stripped and made to go through the mimic performance of sexual intercourse, and if the movements are not enacted properly, as is often the case when the girl is timid and bashful, one of the older women will take her place and show her how she is to perform. Many songs about the relation between men and women are sung, and the girl is instructed as to all her duties when she becomes a wife. She is also instructed that during the time of her menstruation she is unclean, and that during her monthly period she must close her vulva with a pad of fibre used for the purpose. The object of the dance is to inculcate to the girl the knowledge of married life. The girl is taught to be faithful to her husband and to try to bear children, and she is also taught the various arts and methods of making herself seductive and pleasing to her husband, and of thus retaining him in her power." (H. Crawford Angus, "The Chensamwali," _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1898, Heft 6, p. 479). In Abyssinia, as well as on the Zanzibar coast, according to Stecker (quoted by Ploss-Bartels, _Das Weib_, Section 119) young girls are educated in buttock movements which increase their charm in coitus. These movements, of a rotatory character, are called Duk-Duk. To be ignorant of Duk-Duk is a great disgrace to a girl. Among the Swahili women of Zanzibar, indeed, a complete artistic system of hip-movements is cultivated, to be displayed in coitus. It prevails more especially on the coast, and a Swahili woman is not counted a "lady" (bibi) unless she is acquainted with this art. From sixty to eighty young women practice this buttock dance together for some eight hours a day, laying aside all clothing, and singing the while. The public are not admitted. The dance, which is a kind of imitation of coitus, has been described by Zache ("Sitten und Gebräuche der Suaheli," _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1899, Heft 2-3, p. 72). The more accomplished dancers excite general admiration. During the latter part of this initiation various feats are imposed, to test the girl's skill and self-control. For instance, she must dance up to a fire and remove from the midst of the fire a vessel full of water to the brim, without spilling it. At the end of three months the training is over, and the girl goes home in festival attire. She is now eligible for marriage. Similar customs are said to prevail in the Dutch East Indies and elsewhere. The Hebrews had erotic dances, which were doubtless related to the art of love in marriage, and among the Greeks, and their disciples the Romans, the conception of love as an art which needs training, skill, and cultivation, was still extant. That conception was crushed by Christianity which, although it sanctified the institution of matrimony, degraded that sexual love which is normally the content of marriage. In 1176 the question was brought before a Court of Love by a baron and lady of Champagne, whether love is compatible with marriage. "No," said the baron, "I admire and respect the sweet intimacy of married couples, but I cannot call it love. Love desires obstacles, mystery, stolen favors. Now husbands and wives boldly avow their relationship; they possess each other without contradiction and without reserve. It cannot then be love that they experience." And after mature deliberation the ladies of the Court of Love adopted the baron's conclusions (E. de la Bedollière, _Histoire des Moeurs des Français_, vol. iii, p. 334). There was undoubtedly an element of truth in the baron's arguments. Yet it may well be doubted whether in any non-Christian country it would ever have been possible to obtain acceptance for the doctrine that love and marriage are incompatible. This doctrine was, however, as Ribot points out in his _Logique des Sentiments_, inevitable, when, as among the medieval nobility, marriage was merely a political or domestic treaty and could not, therefore, be a method of moral elevation. "Why is it," asked Rétif de la Bretonne, towards the end of the eighteenth century, "that girls who have no morals are more seductive and more loveable than honest women? It is because, like the Greek courtesans to whom grace and voluptuousness were taught, they have studied the art of pleasing. Among the foolish detractors of my _Contemporaines_, not one guessed the philosophic aim of nearly everyone of these tales, which is to suggest to honest women the ways of making themselves loved. I should like to see the institution of initiations, such as those of the ancients.... To-day the happiness of the human species is abandoned to chance; all the experience of women is individual, like that of animals; it is lost with those women who, being naturally amiable, might have taught others to become so. Prostitutes alone make a superficial study of it, and the lessons they receive are, for the most part, as harmful as those of respectable Greek and Roman matrons were holy and honorable, only tending to wantonness, to the exhaustion alike of the purse and of the physical faculties, while the aim of the ancient matrons was the union of husband and wife and their mutual attachment through pleasure. The Christian religion annihilated the Mysteries as infamous, but we may regard that annihilation as one of the wrongs done by Christianity to humanity, as the work of men with little enlightenment and bitter zeal, dangerous puritans who were the natural enemies of marriage" (Rétif de la Bretonne, _Monsieur Nicolas_, reprint of 1883, vol. x, pp. 160-3). It may be added that Dühren (Dr. Iwan Bloch) regards Rétif as "a master in the _Ars Amandi_," and discusses him from this point of view in his _Rétif de la Bretonne_ (pp. 362-371). Whether or not Christianity is to be held responsible, it cannot be doubted that throughout Christendom there has been a lamentable failure to recognize the supreme importance, not only erotically but morally, of the art of love. Even in the great revival of sexual enlightenment now taking place around us there is rarely even the faintest recognition that in sexual enlightenment the one thing essentially necessary is a knowledge of the art of love. For the most part, sexual instruction as at present understood, is purely negative, a mere string of thou-shalt-nots. If that failure were due to the conscious and deliberate recognition that while the art of love must be based on physiological and psychological knowledge, it is far too subtle, too complex, too personal, to be formulated in lectures and manuals, it would be reasonable and sound. But it seems to rest entirely on ignorance, indifference, or worse. Love-making is indeed, like other arts, an art that is partly natural--"an art that nature makes"--and therefore it is a natural subject for learning and exercising in play. Children left to themselves tend, both playfully and seriously, to practice love, alike on the physical and the psychic sides.[381] But this play is on its physical side sternly repressed by their elders, when discovered, and on its psychic side laughed at. Among the well-bred classes it is usually starved out at an early age. After puberty, if not before, there is another form in which the art of love is largely experimented and practised, especially in England and America, the form of flirtation. In its elementary manifestations flirting is entirely natural and normal; we may trace it even in animals; it is simply the beginning of courtship, at the early stage when courtship may yet, if desired, be broken off. Under modern civilized conditions, however, flirtation is often more than this. These conditions make marriage difficult; they make love and its engagements too serious a matter to be entered on lightly; they make actual sexual intercourse dangerous as well as disreputable. Flirtation adapts itself to these conditions. Instead of being merely the preliminary stage of normal courtship, it is developed into a form of sexual gratification as complete as due observation of the conditions already mentioned will allow. In Germany, and especially in France where it is held in great abhorrence, this is the only form of flirtation known; it is regarded as an exportation from the United States and is denominated "flirtage." Its practical outcome is held to be the "demi-vierge," who knows and has experienced the joys of sex while yet retaining her hymen intact. This degenerate form of flirtation, cultivated not as a part of courtship, but for its own sake, has been well described by Forel (_Die Sexuelle Frage_, pp. 97-101). He defines it as including "all those expressions of the sexual instinct of one individual towards another individual which excite the other's sexual instinct, coitus being always excepted." In the beginning it may be merely a provocative look or a simple apparently unintentional touch or contact; and by slight gradations it may pass on to caresses, kisses, embraces, and even extend to pressure or friction of the sexual parts, sometimes leading to orgasm. Thus, Forel mentions, a sensuous woman by the pressure of her garments in dancing can produce ejaculation in her partner. Most usually the process is that voluptuous contact and revery which, in English slang, is called "spooning." From first to last there need not be any explicit explanations, proposals, or declarations on either side, and neither party is committed to any relationship with the other beyond the period devoted to flirtage. In one form, however, flirtage consists entirely in the excitement of a conversation devoted to erotic and indecorous topics. Either the man or the woman may take the active part in flirtage, but in a woman more refinement and skill is required to play the active part without repelling the man or injuring her reputation. Indeed, much the same is true of men also, for women, while they often like flirting, usually prefer its more refined forms. There are infinite forms of flirtage, and while as a preliminary part of courtship, it has its normal place and justification, Forel concludes that "as an end in itself, and never passing beyond itself, it is a phenomenon of degeneration." From the French point of view, flirtage and flirtation generally have been discussed by Madame Bentzon ("Family Life in America," _Forum_, March, 1896) who, however, fails to realize the natural basis of flirtation in courtship. She regards it as a sin against the law "Thou shalt not play with love," for it ought to have the excuse of an irresistible passion, but she thinks it is comparatively inoffensive in America (though still a deteriorating influence on the women) on account of the temperament, education, and habits of the people. It must, however, be remembered that play has a proper relationship to all vital activities, and that a reasonable criticism of flirtation is concerned rather with its normal limitations than with its right to exist (see the observations on the natural basis of coquetry and the ends it subserves in "The Evolution of Modesty" in volume i of these _Studies_). While flirtation in its natural form--though not in the perverted form of "flirtage"--has sound justification, alike as a method of testing a lover and of acquiring some small part of the art of love, it remains an altogether inadequate preparation for love. This is sufficiently shown by the frequent inaptitude for the art of love, and even for the mere physical act of love, so frequently manifested both by men and women in the very countries where flirtation most flourishes. This ignorance, not merely of the art of love but even of the physical facts of sexual love, is marked not only in women, especially women of the middle class, but also in men, for the civilized man, as Fritsch long ago remarked, often knows less of the facts of the sexual life than a milkmaid. It shows itself differently, however, in the two sexes. Among women sexual ignorance ranges from complete innocence of the fact that it involves any intimate bodily relationship at all to misapprehensions of the most various kind; some think that the relationship consists in lying side by side, many that intercourse takes place at the navel, not a few that the act occupies the whole night. It has been necessary in a previous chapter to discuss the general evils of sexual ignorance; it is here necessary to refer to its more special evils as regards the relationship of marriage. Girls are educated with the vague idea that they will marry,--quite correctly, for the majority of them do marry,--but the idea that they must be educated for the career that will naturally fall to their lot is an idea which as yet has never seemed to occur to the teachers of girls. Their heads are crammed to stupidity with the knowledge of facts which it is no one's concern to know, but the supremely important training for life they are totally unable to teach. Women are trained for nearly every avocation under the sun; for the supreme avocation of wifehood and motherhood they are never trained at all! It may be said, and with truth, that the present incompetent training of girls is likely to continue so long as the mothers of girls are content to demand nothing better. It may also be said, with even greater truth, that there is much that concerns the knowledge of sexual relationships which the mother herself may most properly impart to her daughter. It may further be asserted, most unanswerably, that the art of love, with which we are here more especially concerned, can only be learnt by actual experience, an experience which our social traditions make it difficult for a virtuous girl to acquire with credit. Without here attempting to apportion the share of blame which falls to each cause, it remains unfortunate that a woman should so often enter marriage with the worst possible equipment of prejudices and misapprehensions, even when she believes, as often happens, that she knows all about it. Even with the best equipment, a woman, under present conditions, enters marriage at a disadvantage. She awakes to the full realization of love more slowly than a man, and, on the average, at a later age, so that her experiences of the life of sex before marriage have usually been of a much more restricted kind than her husband's.[382] So that even with the best preparation, it often happens that it is not until several years after marriage that a woman clearly realizes her own sexual needs and adequately estimates her husband's ability to satisfy those needs. We cannot over-estimate the personal and social importance of a complete preparation for marriage, and the greater the difficulties placed in the way of divorce the more weight necessarily attaches to that preparation.[383] Everyone is probably acquainted with many cases of the extreme ignorance of women on entering marriage. The following case concerning a woman of twenty-seven, who had been asked in marriage, is somewhat extreme, but not very exceptional. "She did not feel sure of her affection and she asked a woman cousin concerning the meaning of love. This cousin lent her Ellis Ethelmer's pamphlet, _The Human Flower_. She learnt from this that men desired the body of a woman, and this so appalled her that she was quite ill for several days. The next time her lover attempted a caress she told him that it was 'lust.' Since then she has read George Moore's _Sister Teresa_, and the knowledge that 'women can be as bad as men' has made her sad." The "Histories" contained in the Appendices to previous volumes of these _Studies_ reveal numerous instances of the deplorable ignorance of young girls concerning the most central facts of the sexual life. It is not surprising, under such circumstances, that marriage leads to disillusionment or repulsion. It is commonly said that the duty of initiating the wife into the privileges and obligations of marriage properly belongs to the husband. Apart, however, altogether from the fact that it is unjust to a woman to compel her to bind herself in marriage before she has fully realized what marriage means, it must also be said that there are many things necessary for women to know that it is unreasonable to expect a husband to explain. This is, for instance, notably the case as regards the more fatiguing and exhausting effects of coitus on a man as compared with a woman. The inexperienced bride cannot know beforehand that the frequently repeated orgasms which render her vigorous and radiant exert a depressing effect on her husband, and his masculine pride induces him to attempt to conceal that fact. The bride, in her innocence, is unconscious that her pleasure is bought at her husband's expense, and that what is not excess to her, may be a serious excess to him. The woman who knows (notably, for instance, a widow who remarries) is careful to guard her husband's health in this respect, by restraining her own ardor, for she realizes that a man is not willing to admit that he is incapable of satisfying his wife's desires. (G. Hirth has also pointed out how important it is that women should know before marriage the natural limits of masculine potency, _Wege zur Liebe_, p. 571.) The ignorance of women of all that concerns the art of love, and their total lack of preparation for the natural facts of the sexual life, would perhaps be of less evil augury for marriage if it were always compensated by the knowledge, skill, and considerateness of the husband. But that is by no means always the case. Within the ordinary range we find, at all events in England, the large group of men whose knowledge of women before marriage has been mainly confined to prostitutes, and the important and not inconsiderable group of men who have had no intimate intercourse with women, their sexual experiences having been confined to masturbation or other auto-erotic manifestations, and to flirtation. Certainly the man of sensitive and intelligent temperament, whatever his training or lack of training, may succeed with patience and consideration in overcoming all the difficulties placed in the way of love by the mixture of ignorances and prejudices which so often in woman takes the place of an education for the erotic part of her life. But it cannot be said that either of these two groups of men has been well equipped for the task. The training and experience which a man receives from a prostitute, even under fairly favorable conditions, scarcely form the right preparation for approaching a woman of his own class who has no intimate erotic experiences.[384] The frequent result is that he is liable to waver between two opposite courses of action, both of them mistaken. On the one hand, he may treat his bride as a prostitute, or as a novice to be speedily moulded into the sexual shape he is most accustomed to, thus running the risk either of perverting or of disgusting her. On the other hand, realizing that the purity and dignity of his bride place her in an altogether different class from the women he has previously known, he may go to the opposite extreme of treating her with an exaggerated respect, and so fail either to arouse or to gratify her erotic needs. It is difficult to say which of these two courses of action is the more unfortunate; the result of both, however, is frequently found to be that a nominal marriage never becomes a real marriage.[385] Yet there can be no doubt whatever that the other group of men, the men who enter marriage without any erotic experiences, run even greater risks. These are often the best of men, both as regards personal character and mental power. It is indeed astonishing to find how ignorant, both practically and theoretically, very able and highly educated men may be concerning sexual matters. "Complete abstinence during youth," says Freud (_Sexual-Probleme_, March, 1908), "is not the best preparation for marriage in a young man. Women divine this and prefer those of their wooers who have already proved themselves to be men with other women." Ellen Key, referring to the demand sometimes made by women for purity in men (_Ueber Liebe und Ehe_, p. 96), asks whether women realize the effect of their admiration of the experienced and confident man who knows women, on the shy and hesitating youth, "who perhaps has been struggling hard for his erotic purity, in the hope that a woman's happy smile will be the reward of his conquest, and who is condemned to see how that woman looks down on him with lofty compassion and gazes with admiration at the leopard's spots." When the lover, in Laura Marholm's _Was war es_? says to the heroine, "I have never yet touched a woman," the girl "turns from him with horror, and it seemed to her that a cold shudder went through her, a chilling deception." The same feeling is manifested in an exaggerated form in the passion often experienced by vigorous girls of eighteen to twenty-four for old roués. (This has been discussed by Forel, _Die Sexuelle Frage_, pp. 217 et seq.) Other factors may enter in a woman's preference for the man who has conquered other women. Even the most religious and moral young woman, Valera remarks (_Doña Luz_, p. 205), likes to marry a man who has loved many women; it gives a greater value to his choice of her; it also offers her an opportunity of converting him to higher ideals. No doubt when the inexperienced man meets in marriage the equally inexperienced woman they often succeed in adapting themselves to each other and a permanent _modus vivendi_ is constituted. But it is by no means so always. If the wife is taught by instinct or experience she is apt to resent the awkwardness and helplessness of her husband in the art of love. Even if she is ignorant she may be permanently alienated and become chronically frigid, through the brutal inconsiderateness of her ignorant husband in carrying out what he conceives to be his marital duties. (It has already been necessary to touch on this point in discussing "The Sexual Impulse in Women" in vol. iii of these _Studies_.) Sometimes, indeed, serious physical injury has been inflicted on the bride owing to this ignorance of the husband. "I take it that most men have had pre-matrimonial sex-relationships," a correspondent writes. "But I have known one man at least who, up till the age of twenty, had not even a rudimentary idea of sex matters. At twenty-nine, a few months before marriage, he came to ask me how coitus was performed, and displayed an ignorance that I could not believe to exist in the mind of an otherwise intelligent man. He had evidently no instinct to guide him, as the brutes have, and his reason was unable to supply the necessary knowledge. It is very curious that man should lose this instinctive knowledge. I have known another man almost equally ignorant. He also came to me for advice in marital duties. Both of these men masturbated, and they were normally passionate." Such cases are not so very rare. Usually, however, a certain amount of information has been acquired from some for the most part unsatisfactory source, and the ignorance is only partial, though not on that account less dangerous. Balzac has compared the average husband to an orang-utan trying to play the violin. "Love, as we instinctively feel, is the most melodious of harmonies. Woman is a delicious instrument of pleasure, but it is necessary to know its quivering strings, study the pose of it, its timid keyboard, the changing and capricious fingering. How many orangs--men, I mean, marry without knowing what a woman is!... Nearly all men marry in the most profound ignorance of women and of love" (Balzac, _Physiologie du Mariage_, Meditation VII). Neugebauer (_Monatsschrift für Geburtshülfe_, 1889, Bk. ix, pp. 221 et seq.) has collected over one hundred and fifty cases of injury to women in coitus inflicted by the penis. The causes were brutality, drunkenness of one or both parties, unusual position in coitus, disproportion of the organs, pathological conditions of the woman's organs (Cf. R.W. Taylor, _Practical Treatise on Sexual Disorders_, Ch. XXXV). Blumreich also discusses the injuries produced by violent coitus (Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage_, vol. ii, pp. 770-779). C.M. Green (_Boston Medical and Surgical Journal_, 13 Ap., 1893) records two cases of rupture of vagina by sexual intercourse in newly-married ladies, without evidence of any great violence. Mylott (_British Medical Journal_, Sept. 16, 1899) records a similar case occurring on the wedding night. The amount of force sometimes exerted in coitus is evidenced by the cases, occurring from time to time, in which intercourse takes place by the urethra. Eulenburg finds (_Sexuale Neuropathie_, p. 69) that vaginismus, a condition of spasmodic contraction of the vulva and exaggerated sensibility on the attempt to effect coitus, is due to forcible and unskilful attempts at the first coitus. Adler (_Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, p. 160) also believes that the scarred remains of the hymen, together with painful memories of a violent first coitus, are the most frequent cause of vaginismus. The occasional cases, however, of physical injury or of pathological condition produced by violent coitus at the beginning of marriage constitute but a very small portion of the evidence which witnesses to the evil results of the prevalent ignorance regarding the art of love. As regards Germany, Fürbringer writes (Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage_, vol. i, p. 215): "I am perfectly satisfied that the number of young married women who have a lasting painful recollection of their first sexual intercourse exceeds by far the number of those who venture to consult a doctor." As regards England, the following experience is instructive: A lady asked six married women in succession, privately, on the same day concerning their bridal experiences. To all, sexual intercourse had come as a shock; two had been absolutely ignorant about sexual matters; the others had thought they knew what coitus was, but were none the less shocked. These women were of the middle class, perhaps above the average in intelligence; one was a doctor. Breuer and Freud, in their _Studien über Hysterie_ (p. 216), pointed out that the bridal night is practically often a rape, and that it sometimes leads to hysteria, which is not cured until satisfying sexual relationships are established. Even when there is no violence, Kisch (_Sexual Life of Woman_, Part II) regards awkward and inexperienced coitus, leading to incomplete excitement of the wife, as the chief cause of dyspareunia, or absence of sexual gratification, although gross disproportion in the size of the male and female organs, or disease in either party, may lead to the same result. Dyspareunia, Kisch adds, is astonishingly frequent, though sometimes women complain of it without justification in order to arouse sympathy for themselves as sacrifices on the altar of marriage; the constant sign is absence of ejaculation on the woman's part. Kisch also observes that wedding night deflorations are often really rapes. One young bride, known to him, was so ignorant of the physical side of love, and so overwhelmed by her husband's first attempt at intercourse, that she fled from the house in the night, and nothing would ever persuade her to return to her husband. (It is worth noting that by Canon law, under such circumstances, the Church might hold the marriage invalid. See Thomas Slater's _Moral Theology_, vol. ii, p. 318, and a case in point, both quoted by Rev. C.J. Shebbeare, "Marriage Law in the Church of England," _Nineteenth Century_, Aug., 1909, p. 263.) Kisch considers, also, that wedding tours are a mistake; since the fatigue, the excitement, the long journeys, sight-seeing, false modesty, bad hotel arrangements, often combine to affect the bride unfavorably and produce the germs of serious illness. This is undoubtedly the case. The extreme psychic importance of the manner in which the act of defloration is accomplished is strongly emphasized by Adler. He regards it as a frequent cause of permanent sexual anæsthesia. "This first moment in which the man's individuality attains its full rights often decides the whole of life. The unskilled, over-excited husband can then implant the seed of feminine insensibility, and by continued awkwardness and coarseness develop it into permanent anæsthesia. The man who takes possession of his rights with reckless brutal masculine force merely causes his wife anxiety and pain, and with every repetition of the act increases her repulsion.... A large proportion of cold-natured women represent a sacrifice by men, due either to unconscious awkwardness, or, occasionally, to conscious brutality towards the tender plant which should have been cherished with peculiar art and love, but has been robbed of the splendor of its development. All her life long, a wistful and trembling woman will preserve the recollection of a brutal wedding night, and, often enough, it remains a perpetual source of inhibition every time that the husband seeks anew to gratify his desires without adapting himself to his wife's desires for love" (O. Adler, _Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, pp. 159 et seq., 181 et seq.). "I have seen an honest woman shudder with horror at her husband's approach," wrote Diderot long ago in his essay "Sur les Femmes"; "I have seen her plunge in the bath and feel herself never sufficiently washed from the stain of duty." The same may still be said of a vast army of women, victims of a pernicious system of morality which has taught them false ideas of "conjugal duty" and has failed to teach their husbands the art of love. Women, when their fine natural instincts have not been hopelessly perverted by the pruderies and prejudices which are so diligently instilled into them, understand the art of love more readily than men. Even when little more than children they can often completely take the cue that is given to them. Much more than is the case with men, at all events under civilized conditions, the art of love is with them an art that Nature makes. They always know more of love, as Montaigne long since said, than men can teach them, for it is a discipline that is born in their blood.[386] The extensive inquiries of Sanford Bell (loc. cit.) show that the emotions of sex-love may appear as early as the third year. It must also be remembered that, both physically and psychically, girls are more precocious, more mature, than boys (see, e.g., Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition, pp. 34 _et seq._, 200, etc.). Thus, by the time she has reached the age of puberty a girl has had time to become an accomplished mistress of the minor arts of love. That the age of puberty is for girls the age of love seems to be widely recognized by the popular mind. Thus in a popular song of Bresse a girl sings:-- "J'ai calculé mon âge, J'ai quatorze à quinze ans. Ne suis-je pas dans l'âge D'y avoir un amant?" This matter of the sexual precocity of girls has an important bearing on the question of the "age of consent," or the age at which it should be legal for a girl to consent to sexual intercourse. Until within the last twenty-five years there has been a tendency to set a very low age (even as low as ten) as the age above which a man commits no offence in having sexual intercourse with a girl. In recent years there has been a tendency to run to the opposite and equally unfortunate extreme of raising it to a very late age. In England, by the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, the age of consent was raised to sixteen (this clause of the bill being carried in the House of Commons by a majority of 108). This seems to be the reasonable age at which the limit should be set and its extreme high limit in temperate climates. It is the age recognized by the Italian Criminal Code, and in many other parts of the civilized world. Gladstone, however, was in favor of raising it to eighteen, and Howard, in discussing this question as regards the United States (_Matrimonial Institutions_, vol. iii, pp. 195-203), thinks it ought everywhere to be raised to twenty-one, so coinciding with the age of legal majority at which a woman can enter into business or political relations. There has been, during recent years, a wide limit of variation in the legislation of the different American States on this point, the differences of the two limits being as much as eight years, and in some important States the act of intercourse with a girl under eighteen is declared to be "rape," and punishable with imprisonment for life. Such enactments as these, however, it must be recognized, are arbitrary, artificial, and unnatural. They do not rest on a sound biological basis, and cannot be enforced by the common sense of the community. There is no proper analogy between the age of legal majority which is fixed, approximately, with reference to the ability to comprehend abstract matters of intelligence, and the age of sexual maturity which occurs much earlier, both physically and psychically, and is determined in women by a very precise biological event: the completion of puberty in the onset of menstruation. Among peoples living under natural conditions in all parts of the world it is recognized that a girl becomes sexually a woman at puberty; at that epoch she receives her initiation into adult life and becomes a wife and a mother. To declare that the act of intercourse with a woman who, by the natural instinct of mankind generally, is regarded as old enough for all the duties of womanhood, is a criminal act of rape, punishable by imprisonment for life, can only be considered an abuse of language, and, what is worse, an abuse of law, even if we leave all psychological and moral considerations out of the question, for it deprives the conception of rape of all that renders it naturally and properly revolting. The sound view in this question is clearly the view that it is the girl's puberty which constitutes the criterion of the man's criminality in sexually approaching her. In the temperate regions of Europe and North America the average age of the appearance of menstruation, the critical moment in the establishment of complete puberty, is fifteen (see, e.g., Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, Ch. XI; the facts are set forth at length in Kisch's _Sexual Life of Woman_, 1909). Therefore it is reasonable that the act of an adult man in having sexual connection with a girl under sixteen, with or without her consent, should properly be a criminal act, severely punishable. In those lands where the average age of puberty is higher or lower, the age of consent should be raised or lowered accordingly. (Bruno Meyer, arguing against any attempt to raise the age of consent above sixteen, considers that the proper age of consent is generally fourteen, for, as he rightly insists, the line of division is between the ripe and the unripe personality, and while the latter should be strictly preserved from the sphere of sexuality, only voluntary, not compulsory, influence should be brought to bear on the former. _Sexual-Probleme_, Ap., 1909.) If we take into our view the wider considerations of psychology, morality, and law, we shall find ample justification for this point of view. We have to remember that a girl, during all the years of ordinary school life, is always more advanced, both physically and psychically, than a boy of the same age, and we have to recognize that this precocity covers her sexual development; for even though it is true, on the average, that active sexual desire is not usually aroused in women until a somewhat later age, there is also truth in the observation of Mr. Thomas Hardy (_New Review_, June, 1894): "It has never struck me that the spider is invariably male and the fly invariably female." Even, therefore, when sexual intercourse takes place between a girl and a youth somewhat older than herself, she is likely to be the more mature, the more self-possessed, and the more responsible of the two, and often the one who has taken the more active part in initiating the act. (This point has been discussed in "The Sexual Impulse in Women" in vol. iii of these _Studies_.) It must also be remembered that when a girl has once reached the age of puberty, and put on all the manner and habits as well as the physical development of a woman, it is no longer possible for a man always to estimate her age. It is easy to see that a girl has not yet reached the age of puberty; it is impossible to tell whether a mature woman is under or over eighteen; it is therefore, to say the least, unjust to make her male partner's fate for life depend on the recognition of a distinction which has no basis in nature. Such considerations are, indeed, so obvious that there is no chance of carrying out thoroughly in practice the doctrine that a man should be imprisoned for life for having intercourse with a girl who is over the age of sixteen. It is better, from the legal point of view, to cast the net less widely and to be quite sure that it is adapted to catch the real and conscious offender, who may be punished without offending the common sense of the community. (Cf. Bloch, _The Sexual Life of Our Time_, Ch. XXIV; he considers that the "age of consent" should begin with the completion of the sixteenth year.) It may be necessary to add that the establishment of the "age of consent" on this basis by no means implies that intercourse with girls but little over sixteen should be encouraged, or even socially and morally tolerated. Here, however, we are not in the sphere of law. It is the natural tendency of the well-born and well-nurtured girl under civilized conditions to hold herself in reserve, and the pressure whereby that tendency is maintained and furthered must be supplied by the whole of her environment, primarily by the intelligent reflection of the girl herself when she has reached the age of adolescence. To foster in a young woman who has long passed the epoch of puberty the notion that she has no responsibility in the guardianship of her own body and soul is out of harmony with modern feeling, as well as unfavorable to the training of women for the world. The States which have been induced to adopt the high limit of the age of consent have, indeed, thereby made an abject confession of their inability to maintain a decent moral level by more legitimate means; they may profitably serve as a warning rather than as an example. The knowledge of women cannot, however, replace, the ignorance of men, but, on the contrary, merely serves to reveal it. For in the art of love the man must necessarily take the initiative. It is he who must first unseal the mystery of the intimacies and audacities which the woman's heart may hold. The risk of meeting with even the shadow of contempt or disgust is too serious to allow a woman, even a wife, to reveal the secrets of love to a man who has not shown himself to be an initiate.[387] Numberless are the jovial and contented husbands who have never suspected, and will never know, that their wives carry about with them, sometimes with silent resentment, the ache of mysterious _tabus_. The feeling that there are delicious privacies and privileges which she has never been asked to take, or forced to accept, often erotically divorces a wife from a husband who never realizes what he has missed.[388] The case of such husbands is all the harder because, for the most part, all that they have done is the result of the morality that has been preached to them. They have been taught from boyhood to be strenuous and manly and clean-minded, to seek by all means to put out of their minds the thought of women or the longing for sensuous indulgence. They have been told on all sides that only in marriage is it right or even safe to approach women. They have acquired the notion that sexual indulgence and all that appertains to it is something low and degrading, at the worst a mere natural necessity, at the best a duty to be accomplished in a direct, honorable and straight-forward manner. No one seems to have told them that love is an art, and that to gain real possession of a woman's soul and body is a task that requires the whole of a man's best skill and insight. It may well be that when a man learns his lesson too late he is inclined to turn ferociously on the society that by its conspiracy of pseudo-morality has done its best to ruin his life, and that of his wife. In some of these cases husband or wife or both are finally attracted to a third person, and a divorce enables them to start afresh with better experience under happier auspices. But as things are at present that is a sad and serious process, for many impossible. They are happier, as Milton pointed out, whose trials of love before marriage "have been so many divorces to teach them experience." The general ignorance concerning the art of love may be gauged by the fact that perhaps the question in this matter most frequently asked is the crude question how often sexual intercourse should take place. That is a question, indeed, which has occupied the founders of religion, the law-givers, and the philosophers of mankind, from the earliest times.[389] Zoroaster said it should be once in every nine days. The laws of Manes allowed intercourse during fourteen days of the month, but a famous ancient Hindu physician, Susruta, prescribed it six times a month, except during the heat of summer when it should be once a month, while other Hindu authorities say three or four times a month. Solon's requirement of the citizen that intercourse should take place three times a month fairly agrees with Zoroaster's. Mohammed, in the Koran, decrees intercourse once a week. The Jewish Talmud is more discriminating, and distinguishes between different classes of people; on the vigorous and healthy young man, not compelled to work hard, once a day is imposed, on the ordinary working man twice a week, on learned men once a week. Luther considered twice a week the proper frequency of intercourse. It will be observed that, as we might expect, these estimates tend to allow a greater interval in the earlier ages when erotic stimulation was probably less and erotic erethism probably rare, and to involve an increased frequency as we approach modern civilization. It will also be observed that variation occurs within fairly narrow limits. This is probably due to the fact that these law-givers were in all cases men. Women law-givers would certainly have shown a much greater tendency to variation, since the variations of the sexual impulse are greater in women.[390] Thus Zenobia required the approach of her husband once a month, provided that impregnation had not taken place the previous month, while another queen went very far to the other extreme, for we are told that the Queen of Aragon, after mature deliberation, ordained six times a day as the proper rule in a legitimate marriage.[391] It may be remarked, in passing, that the estimates of the proper frequency of sexual intercourse may always be taken to assume that there is a cessation during the menstrual period. This is especially the case as regards early periods of culture when intercourse at this time is usually regarded as either dangerous or sinful, or both. (This point has been discussed in the "Phenomena of Periodicity" in volume i of these _Studies_.) Under civilized conditions the inhibition is due to æsthetic reasons, the wife, even if she desires intercourse, feeling a repugnance to be approached at a time when she regards herself as "disgusting," and the husband easily sharing this attitude. It may, however, be pointed out that the æsthetic objection is very largely the result of the superstitious horror of water which is still widely felt at this time, and would, to some extent, disappear if a more scrupulous cleanliness were observed. It remains a good general rule to abstain from sexual intercourse during the menstrual period, but in some cases there may be adequate reason for breaking it. This is so when desire is specially strong at this time, or when intercourse is physically difficult at other times but easier during the relaxation of the parts caused by menstruation. It must be remembered also that the time when the menstrual flow is beginning to cease is probably, more than any other period of the month, the biologically proper time for sexual intercourse, since not only is intercourse easiest then, and also most gratifying to the female, but it affords the most favorable opportunity for securing fertilization. Schurig long since brought together evidence (_Parthenologia_, pp. 302 et seq.) showing that coitus is most easy during menstruation. Some of the Catholic theologians (like Sanchez, and later, Liguori), going against the popular opinion, have distinctly permitted intercourse during menstruation, though many earlier theologians regarded it as a mortal sin. From the medical side, Kossmann (Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage_, vol. i, p. 249) advocates coitus not only at the end of menstruation, but even during the latter part of the period, as being the time when women most usually need it, the marked disagreeableness of temper often shown by women at this time, he says, being connected with the suppression, demanded by custom, of a natural desire. "It is almost always during menstruation that the first clouds appear on the matrimonial horizon." In modern times the physiologists and physicians who have expressed any opinion on this subject have usually come very near to Luther's dictum. Haller said that intercourse should not be much more frequent than twice a week.[392] Acton said once a week, and so also Hammond, even for healthy men between the ages of twenty-five and forty.[393] Fürbringer only slightly exceeds this estimate by advocating from fifty to one hundred single acts in the year.[394] Forel advises two or three times a week for a man in the prime of manhood, but he adds that for some healthy and vigorous men once a month appears to be excess.[395] Mantegazza, in his _Hygiene of Love_, also states that, for a man between twenty and thirty, two or three times a week represents the proper amount of intercourse, and between the ages of thirty and forty-five, twice a week. Guyot recommends every three days.[396] It seems, however, quite unnecessary to lay down any general rules regarding the frequency of coitus. Individual desire and individual aptitude, even within the limits of health, vary enormously. Moreover, if we recognize that the restraint of desire is sometimes desirable, and often necessary for prolonged periods, it is as well to refrain from any appearance of asserting the necessity of sexual intercourse at frequent and regular intervals. The question is chiefly of importance in order to guard against excess, or even against the attempt to live habitually close to the threshold of excess. Many authorities are, therefore, careful to point out that it is inadvisable to be too definite. Thus Erb, while remarking that, for some, Luther's dictum represents the extreme maximum, adds that others can go far beyond that amount with impunity, and he considers that such variations are congenital.[397] Ribbing, again, while expressing general agreement with Luther's rule, protests against any attempt to lay down laws for everyone, and is inclined to say that as often as one likes is a safe rule, so long as there are no bad after-effects.[398] It seems to be generally agreed that bad effects from excess in coitus, when they do occur, are rare in women (see, e.g., Hammond, _Sexual Impotence_, p. 127). Occasionally, however, evil effects occur in women. (The case, possibly to be mentioned in this connection, has been recorded of a man whose three wives all became insane after marriage, _Journal of Mental Science_, Jan., 1879, p. 611.) In cases of sexual excess great physical exhaustion, with suspicion and delusions, is often observed. Hutchinson has recorded three cases of temporary blindness, all in men, the result of sexual excess after marriage (_Archives of Surgery_, Jan., 1893). The old medical authors attributed many evil results to excess in coitus. Thus Schurig (_Spermatologia_, 1720, pp. 260 et seq.) brings together cases of insanity, apoplexy, syncope, epilepsy, loss of memory, blindness, baldness, unilateral perspiration, gout, and death attributed to this cause; of death many cases are given, some in women, but one may easily perceive that _post_ was often mistaken for _propter_. There is, however, another consideration which can scarcely escape the reader of the present work. Nearly all the estimates of the desirable frequence of coitus are framed to suit the supposed physiological needs of the husband,[399] and they appear usually to be framed in the same spirit of exclusive attention to those needs as though the physiological needs of the evacuation of the bowels or the bladder were in question. But sexual needs are the needs of two persons, of the husband and of the wife. It is not enough to ascertain the needs of the husband; it is also necessary to ascertain the needs of the wife. The resultant must be a harmonious adjustment of these two groups of needs. That consideration alone, in conjunction with the wide variations of individual needs, suffices to render any definite rules of very trifling value. It is important to remember the wide limits of variation in sexual capacity, as well as the fact that such variations in either direction may be healthy and normal, though undoubtedly when they become extreme variations may have a pathological significance. In one case, for instance, a man has intercourse once a month and finds this sufficient; he has no nocturnal emissions nor any strong desires in the interval; yet he leads an idle and luxurious life and is not restrained by any moral or religious scruples; if he much exceeds the frequency which suits him he suffers from ill-health, though otherwise quite healthy except for a weak digestion. At the other extreme, a happily married couple, between forty-five and fifty, much attached to each other, had engaged in sexual intercourse every night for twenty years, except during the menstrual period and advanced pregnancy, which had only occurred once; they are hearty, full-blooded, intellectual people, fond of good living, and they attribute their affection and constancy to this frequent indulgence in coitus; the only child, a girl, is not strong, though fairly healthy. The cases are numerous in which, on special occasions, it is possible for people who are passionately attached to each other to repeat the act of coitus, or at all events the orgasm, an inordinate number of times within a few hours. This usually occurs at the beginning of an intimacy or after a long separation. Thus in one case a newly-married woman experienced the orgasm fourteen times in one night, her husband in the same period experiencing it seven times. In another case a woman who had lived a chaste life, when sexual relationships finally began, once experienced orgasm fourteen or fifteen times to her partner's three times. In a case which, I have been assured may be accepted as authentic, a young wife of highly erotic, very erethic, slightly abnormal temperament, after a month's absence from her husband, was excited twenty-six times within an hour and a quarter; her husband, a much older man, having two orgasms during this period; the wife admitted that she felt a "complete wreck" after this, but it is evident that if this case may be regarded as authentic the orgasms were of extremely slight intensity. A young woman, newly married to a physically robust man, once had intercourse with him eight times in two hours, orgasm occurring each time in both parties. Guttceit (_Dreissig Jahre Praxis_, vol. ii. p. 311), in Russia, knew many cases in which young men of twenty-two to twenty-eight had intercourse more than ten times in one night, though after the fourth time there is seldom any semen. He had known some men who had masturbated in early boyhood, and began to consort with women at fifteen, yet remained sexually vigorous in old age, while he knew others who began intercourse late and were losing force at forty. Mantegazza, who knew a man who had intercourse fourteen times in one day, remarks that the stories of the old Italian novelists show that twelve times was regarded as a rare exception. Burchard, Alexander VI's secretary, states that the Florentine Ambassador's son, in Rome in 1489, "knew a girl seven times in one hour" (J. Burchard, _Diarium_, ed. Thuasne, vol. i, p. 329). Olivier, Charlemagne's knight, boasted, according to legend, that he could show his virile power one hundred times in one night, if allowed to sleep with the Emperor of Constantinople's daughter; he was allowed to try, it is said, and succeeded thirty times (Schultz, _Das Höfische Leben_, vol. i, p. 581). It will be seen that whenever the sexual act is repeated frequently within a short time it is very rarely indeed that the husband can keep pace with the wife. It is true that the woman's sexual energy is aroused more slowly and with more difficulty than the man's, but as it becomes aroused its momentum increases. The man, whose energy is easily aroused, is easily exhausted; the woman has often scarcely attained her energy until after the first orgasm is over. It is sometimes a surprise to a young husband, happily married, to find that the act of sexual intercourse which completely satisfies him has only served to arouse his wife's ardor. Very many women feel that the repetition of the act several times in succession is needed to, as they may express it, "clear the system," and, far from producing sleepiness and fatigue, it renders them bright and lively. The young and vigorous woman, who has lived a chaste life, sometimes feels when she commences sexual relationships as though she really required several husbands, and needed intercourse at least once a day, though later when she becomes adjusted to married life she reaches the conclusion that her desires are not abnormally excessive. The husband has to adjust himself to his wife's needs, through his sexual force when he possesses it, and, if not, through his skill and consideration. The rare men who possess a genital potency which they can exert to the gratification of women without injury to themselves have been, by Professor Benedikt, termed "sexual athletes," and he remarks that such men easily dominate women. He rightly regards Casanova as the type of the sexual athlete (_Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Jan., 1896). Näcke reports the case of a man whom he regards as a sexual athlete, who throughout his life had intercourse once or twice daily with his wife, or if she was unwilling, with another woman, until he became insane at the age of seventy-five (_Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, Aug., 1908, p. 507). This should probably, however, be regarded rather as a case of morbid hyperæsthesia than of sexual athleticism. At this stage we reach the fundamental elements of the art of love. We have seen that many moral practices and moral theories which have been widely current in Christendom have developed traditions, still by no means extinct among us, which were profoundly antagonistic to the art of love. The idea grew up of "marital duties," of "conjugal rights."[400] The husband had the right and the duty to perform sexual intercourse with his wife, whatever her wishes in the matter might be, while the wife had the duty and the right (the duty in her case being usually put first) to submit to such intercourse, which she was frequently taught to regard as something low and merely physical, an unpleasant and almost degrading necessity which she would do well to put out of her thoughts as speedily as possible. It is not surprising that such an attitude towards marriage has been highly favorable to conjugal unhappiness, more especially that of the wife,[401] and it has tended to promote adultery and divorce. We might have been more surprised had it been otherwise. The art of love is based on the fundamental natural fact of courtship; and courtship is the effort of the male to make himself acceptable to the female.[402] "The art of love," said Vatsyayana, one of the greatest of authorities, "is the art of pleasing women." "A man must never permit himself a pleasure with his wife," said Balzac in his _Physiologie du Mariage_, "which he has not the skill first to make her desire." The whole art of love is there. Women, naturally and instinctively, seek to make themselves desirable to men, even to men whom they are supremely indifferent to, and the woman who is in love with a man, by an equally natural instinct, seeks to shape herself to the measure which individually pleases him. This tendency is not really modified by the fundamental fact that in these matters it is only the arts that Nature makes which are truly effective. It is finally by what he is that a man arouses a woman's deepest emotions of sympathy or of antipathy, and he is often pleasing her more by displaying his fitness to play a great part in the world outside than by any acquired accomplishments in the arts of courtship. When, however, the serious and intimate play of physical love begins, the woman's part is, even biologically, on the surface the more passive part.[403] She is, on the physical side, inevitably the instrument in love; it must be his hand and his bow which evoke the music. In speaking of the art of love, however, it is impossible to disentangle completely the spiritual from the physical. The very attempt to do so is, indeed, a fatal mistake. The man who can only perceive the physical side of the sexual relationship is, as Hinton was accustomed to say, on a level with the man who, in listening to a sonata of Beethoven on the violin, is only conscious of the physical fact that a horse's tail is being scraped against a sheep's entrails. The image of the musical instrument constantly recurs to those who write of the art of love. Balzac's comparison of the unskilful husband to the orang-utan attempting to play the violin has already been quoted. Dr. Jules Guyot, in his serious and admirable little book, _Bréviaire de l'Amour Expérimental_, falls on to the same comparison: "There are an immense number of ignorant, selfish, and brutal men who give themselves no trouble to study the instrument which God has confided to them, and do not so much as suspect that it is necessary to study it in order to draw out its slightest chords.... Every direct contact, even with the clitoris, every attempt at coitus [when the feminine organism is not aroused], exercises a painful sensation, an instinctive repulsion, a feeling of disgust and aversion. Any man, any husband, who is ignorant of this fact, is ridiculous and contemptible. Any man, any husband, who, knowing it, dares to disregard it, has committed an outrage.... In the final combination of man and woman, the positive element, the husband, has the initiative and the responsibility for the conjugal life. He is the minstrel who will produce harmony or cacophony by his hand and his bow. The wife, from this point of view, is really the many-stringed instrument who will give out harmonious or discordant sounds, according as she is well or ill handled" (Guyot, _Bréviaire_, pp. 99, 115, 138). That such love corresponds to the woman's need there cannot be any doubt. All developed women desire to be loved, says Ellen Key, not "en mâle" but "en artiste" (_Liebe und Ehe_, p. 92). "Only a man of whom she feels that he has also the artist's joy in her, and who shows this joy through his timid and delicate touch on her soul as on her body, can keep the woman of to-day. She will only belong to a man who continues to long for her even when he holds her locked in his arms. And when such a woman breaks out: 'You want me, but you cannot caress me, you cannot tell what I want,' then that man is judged." Love is indeed, as Remy de Gourmont remarks, a delicate art, for which, as for painting or music, only some are apt. It must not be supposed that the demand on the lover and husband to approach a woman in the same spirit, with the same consideration and skilful touch, as a musician takes up his instrument is merely a demand made by modern women who are probably neurotic or hysterical. No reader of these _Studies_ who has followed the discussions of courtship and of sexual selection in previous volumes can fail to realize that--although we have sought to befool ourselves by giving an illegitimate connotation to the word "brutal"--consideration and respect for the female is all but universal in the sexual relationships of the animals below man; it is only at the furthest remove from the "brutes," among civilized men, that sexual "brutality" is at all common, and even there it is chiefly the result of ignorance. If we go as low as the insects, who have been disciplined by no family life, and are generally counted as careless and wanton, we may sometimes find this attitude towards the female fully developed, and the extreme consideration of the male for the female whom yet he holds firmly beneath him, the tender preliminaries, the extremely gradual approach to the supreme sexual act, may well furnish an admirable lesson. This greater difficulty and delay on the part of women in responding to the erotic excitation of courtship is really very fundamental and--as has so often been necessary to point out in previous volumes of these _Studies_--it covers the whole of woman's erotic life, from the earliest age when coyness and modesty develop. A woman's love develops much more slowly than a man's for a much longer period. There is real psychological significance in the fact that a man's desire for a woman tends to arise spontaneously, while a woman's desire for a man tends only to be aroused gradually, in the measure of her complexly developing relationship to him. Hence her sexual emotion is often less abstract, more intimately associated with the individual lover in whom it is centred. "The way to my senses is through my heart," wrote Mary Wollstonecraft to her lover Imlay, "but, forgive me! I think there is sometimes a shorter cut to yours." She spoke for the best, if not for the largest part, of her sex. A man often reaches the full limit of his physical capacity for love at a single step, and it would appear that his psychic limits are often not more difficult to reach. This is the solid fact underlying the more hazardous statement, so often made, that woman is monogamic and man polygamic. On the more physical side, Guttceit states that a month after marriage not more than two women out of ten have experienced the full pleasure of sexual intercourse, and it may not be for six months, a year, or even till after the birth of several children, that a woman experiences the full enjoyment of the physical relationship, and even then only with a man she completely loves, so that the conditions of sexual gratification are much more complex in women than in men. Similarly, on the psychic side, Ellen Key remarks (_Ueber Liebe und Ehe_, p. 111): "It is certainly true that a woman desires sexual gratification from a man. But while in her this desire not seldom only appears after she has begun to love a man enough to give her life for him, a man often desires to possess a woman physically before he loves her enough to give even his little finger for her. The fact that love in a woman mostly goes from the soul to the senses and often fails to reach them, and that in a man it mostly goes from the senses to the soul and frequently never reaches that goal--this is of all the existing differences between men and women that which causes most torture to both." It will, of course, be apparent to the reader of the fourth volume of these _Studies_ on "Sexual Selection in Man" that the method of stating the difference which has commended itself to Mary Wollstonecraft, Ellen Key, and others, is not strictly correct, and the chastest woman, after, for example, taking too hot a bath, may find that her heart is not the only path through which her senses may be affected. The senses are the only channels to the external world which we possess, and love must come through these channels or not at all. The difference, however, seems to be a real one, if we translate it to mean that, as we have seen reason to believe in previous volumes of these _Studies_, there are in women (1) preferential sensory paths of sexual stimuli, such as, apparently, a predominence of tactile and auditory paths as compared with men; (2) a more massive, complex, and delicately poised sexual mechanism; and, as a result of this, (3) eventually a greater amount of nervous and cerebral sexual irradiation. It must be remembered, at the same time, that while this distinction represents a real tendency in sexual differentiation, with an organic and not merely traditional basis, it has about it nothing whatever that is absolute. There are a vast number of women whose sexual facility, again by natural tendency and not merely by acquired habits, is as marked as that of any man, if not more so. In the sexual field, as we have seen in a previous volume (_Analysis of the Sexual Impulse_), the range of variability is greater in women than in men. The fact that love is an art, a method of drawing music from an instrument, and not the mere commission of an act by mutual consent, makes any verbal agreement to love of little moment. If love were a matter of contract, of simple intellectual consent, of question and answer, it would never have come into the world at all. Love appeared as art from the first, and the subsequent developments of the summary methods of reason and speech cannot abolish that fundamental fact. This is scarcely realized by those ill-advised lovers who consider that the first step in courtship--and perhaps even the whole of courtship--is for a man to ask a woman to be his wife. That is so far from being the case that it constantly happens that the premature exhibition of so large a demand at once and for ever damns all the wooer's chances. It is lamentable, no doubt, that so grave and fateful a matter as that of marriage should so often be decided without calm deliberation and reasonable forethought. But sexual relationships can never, and should never, be merely a matter of cold calculation. When a woman is suddenly confronted by the demand that she should yield herself up as a wife to a man who has not yet succeeded in gaining her affections she will not fail to find--provided she is lifted above the cold-hearted motives of self-interest--that there are many sound reasons why she should not do so. And having thus squarely faced the question in cool blood and decided it, she will henceforth, probably, meet that wooer with a tunic of steel enclosing her breast. "Love must be _revealed_ by acts and not _betrayed_ by words. I regard as abnormal the extraordinary method of a hasty avowal beforehand; for that represents not the direct but the reflex path of transmission. However sweet and normal the avowal may be when once reciprocity has been realized, as a method of conquest I consider it dangerous and likely to produce the reverse of the result desired." I take these wise words from a thoughtful "Essai sur l'Amour" (_Archives de Psychologie_, 1904) by a non-psychological Swiss writer who is recording his own experiences, and who insists much on the predominance of the spiritual and mental element in love. It is worthy of note that this recognition that direct speech is out of place in courtship must not be regarded as a refinement of civilization. Among primitive peoples everywhere it is perfectly well recognized that the offer of love, and its acceptance or its refusal, must be made by actions symbolically, and not by the crude method of question and answer. Among the Indians of Paraguay, who allow much sexual freedom to their women, but never buy or sell love, Mantegazza states (_Rio de la Plata e Tenerife_, 1867, p. 225) that a girl of the people will come to your door or window and timidly, with a confused air, ask you, in the Guarani tongue, for a drink of water. But she will smile if you innocently offer her water. Among the Tarahumari Indians of Mexico, with whom the initiative in courting belongs to the women, the girl takes the first step through her parents, then she throws small pebbles at the young man; if he throws them back the matter is concluded (Carl Lumholtz, _Scribner's Magazine_, Sept., 1894, p. 299). In many parts of the world it is the woman who chooses her husband (see, e.g., M.A. Potter, _Sohrab and Rustem_, pp. 169 et seq.), and she very frequently adopts a symbolical method of proposal. Except when the commercial element predominates in marriage, a similar method is frequently adopted by men also in making proposals of marriage. It is not only at the beginning of courtship that the act of love has little room for formal declarations, for the demands and the avowals that can be clearly defined in speech. The same rule holds even in the most intimate relationships of old lovers, throughout the married life. The permanent element in modesty, which survives every sexual initiation to become intertwined with all the exquisite impudicities of love, combines with a true erotic instinct to rebel against formal demands, against verbal affirmations or denials. Love's requests cannot be made in words, nor truthfully answered in words: a fine divination is still needed as long as love lasts. The fact that the needs of love cannot be expressed but must be divined has long been recognized by those who have written of the art of love, alike by writers within and without the European Christian traditions. Thus Zacchia, in his great medico-legal treatise, points out that a husband must be attentive to the signs of sexual desire in his wife. "Women," he says, "when sexual desire arises within them are accustomed to ask their husbands questions on matters of love; they flatter and caress them; they allow some part of their body to be uncovered as if by accident; their breasts appear to swell; they show unusual alacrity; they blush; their eyes are bright; and if they experience unusual ardor they stammer, talk beside the mark, and are scarcely mistress of themselves. At the same time their private parts become hot and swell. All these signs should convince a husband, however inattentive he may be, that his wife craves for satisfaction" (_Zacchiæ Quæstionum Medico-legalium Opus_, lib. vii, tit. iii, quæst. I; vol. ii, p. 624 in ed. of 1688). The old Hindu erotic writers attributed great importance alike to the man's attentiveness to the woman's erotic needs, and to his skill and consideration in all the preliminaries of the sexual act. He must do all that he can to procure her pleasure, says Vatsyayana. When she is on her bed and perhaps absorbed in conversation, he gently unfastens the knot of her lower garment. If she protests he closes her mouth with kisses. Some authors, Vatsyayana remarks, hold that the lover should begin by sucking the nipples of her breasts. When erection occurs he touches her with his hands, softly caressing the various parts of her body. He should always press those parts of her body towards which she turns her eyes. If she is shy, and it is the first time, he will place his hands between her thighs which she will instinctively press together. If she is young he will put his hands on her breasts, and she will no doubt cover them with her own. If she is mature he will do all that may seem fitting and agreeable to both parties. Then he will take her hair and her chin between his fingers and kiss them. If she is very young she will blush and close her eyes. By the way in which she receives his caresses he will divine what pleases her most in union. The signs of her enjoyment are that her body becomes limp, her eyes close, she loses all timidity, and takes part in the movements which bring her most closely to him. If, on the other hand, she feels no pleasure, she strikes the bed with her hands, will not allow the man to continue, is sullen, even bites or kicks, and continues the movements of coitus when the man has finished. In such cases, Vatsyayana adds, it is his duty to rub the vulva with his hand before union until it is moist, and he should perform the same movements afterwards if his own orgasm has occurred first. With regard to Indian erotic art generally, and more especially Vatsyayana, who appears to have lived some sixteen hundred years ago, information will be found in Valentino, "L'Hygiène conjugale chez les Hindous," _Archives Générales de Médecine_, Ap. 25, 1905; Iwan Bloch, "Indische Medizin," Puschmann's _Handbuch der Geschichte der Medizin_, vol. i; Heimann and Stephan, "Beiträge zur Ehehygiene nach der Lehren des Kamasutram," _Zeitschaft für Sexualwissenschaft_, Sept., 1908; also a review of Richard Schmidt's German translation of the _Kamashastra_ of Vatsyayana in _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1902, Heft 2. There has long existed an English translation of this work. In the lengthy preface to the French translation Lamairesse points out the superiority of Indian erotic art to that of the Latin poets by its loftier spirit, and greater purity and idealism. It is throughout marked by respect for women, and its spirit is expressed in the well-known proverb: "Thou shalt not strike a woman even with a flower." See also Margaret Noble's _Web of Indian Life_, especially Ch. III, "On the Hindu Woman as Wife," and Ch. IV, "Love Strong as Death." The advice given to husbands by Guyot (_Bréviaire de l'Amour Expérimental_, p. 422) closely conforms to that given, under very different social conditions, by Zacchia and Vatsyayana. "In a state of sexual need and desire the woman's lips are firm and vibrant, the breasts are swollen, and the nipples erect. The intelligent husband cannot be deceived by these signs. If they do not exist, it is his part to provoke them by his kisses and caresses, and if, in spite of his tender and delicate excitations, the lips show no heat and the breasts no swelling, and especially if the nipples are disagreeably irritated by slight suction, he must arrest his transports and abstain from all contact with the organs of generation, for he would certainly find them in a state of exhaustion and disposed to repulsion. If, on the contrary, the accessory organs are animated, or become animated beneath his caresses, he must extend them to the generative organs, and especially to the clitoris, which beneath his touch will become full of appetite and ardor." The importance of the preliminary titillation of the sexual organs has been emphasized by a long succession alike of erotic writers and physicians, from Ovid (_Ars Amatoria_ end of Bk. II) onwards. Eulenburg (_Die Sexuale Neuropathie_, p. 79) considers that titillation is sometimes necessary, and Adler, likewise insisting on the preliminaries of psychic and physical courtship (_Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, p. 188), observes that the man who is gifted with insight and skill in these matters possesses a charm which will draw sparks of sensibility from the coldest feminine heart. The advice of the physician is at one in this matter with the maxims of the erotic artist and with the needs of the loving woman. In making love there must be no haste, wrote Ovid:-- "Crede mihi, non est Veneris properanda voluptas, Sed sensim tarda prolicienda mora." "Husbands, like spoiled children," a woman has written, "too often miss the pleasure which might otherwise be theirs, by clamoring for it at the wrong time. The man who thinks this prolonged courtship previous to the act of sex union wearisome, has never given it a trial. It is the approach to the marital embrace, as well as the embrace itself, which constitutes the charm of the relation between the sexes." It not seldom happens, remarks Adler (op. cit., p. 186), that the insensibility of the wife must be treated--in the husband. And Guyot, bringing forward the same point, writes (op. cit., p. 130): "If by a delay of tender study the husband has understood his young bride, if he is able to realize for her the ineffable happiness and dreams of youth, he will be beloved forever; he will be her master and sovereign lord. If he has failed to understand her he will fatigue and exhaust himself in vain efforts, and finally class her among the indifferent and cold women. She will be his wife by duty, the mother of his children. He will take his pleasure elsewhere, for man is ever in pursuit of the woman who experiences the genesic spasm. Thus the vague and unintelligent search for a half who can unite in that delirious finale is the chief cause of all conjugal dissolutions. In such a case a man resembles a bad musician who changes his violin in the hope that a new instrument will bring the melody he is unable to play." The fact that there is thus an art in love, and that sexual intercourse is not a mere physical act to be executed by force of muscles, may help to explain why it is that in so many parts of the world defloration is not immediately effected on marriage.[404] No doubt religious or magic reasons may also intervene here, but, as so often happens, they harmonize with the biological process. This is the case even among uncivilized peoples who marry early. The need for delay and considerate skill is far greater when, as among ourselves, a woman's marriage is delayed long past the establishment of puberty to a period when it is more difficult to break down the psychic and perhaps even physical barriers of personality. It has to be added that the art of love in the act of courtship is not confined to the preliminaries to the single act of coitus. In a sense the life of love is a continuous courtship with a constant progression. The establishment of physical intercourse is but the beginning of it. This is especially true of women. "The consummation of love," says Sénancour,[405] "which is often the end of love with man is only the beginning of love with woman, a test of trust, a gage of future pleasure, a sort of engagement for an intimacy to come." "A woman's soul and body," says another writer,[406] "are not given at one stroke at a given moment; but only slowly, little by little, through many stages, are both delivered to the beloved. Instead of abandoning the young woman to the bridegroom on the wedding night, as an entrapped mouse is flung to the cat to be devoured, it would be better to let the young bridal couple live side by side, like two friends and comrades, until they gradually learn how to develop and use their sexual consciousness." The conventional wedding is out of place as a preliminary to the consummation of marriage, if only on the ground that it is impossible to say at what stage in the endless process of courtship it ought to take place. A woman, unlike a man, is prepared by Nature, to play a skilful part in the art of love. The man's part in courtship, which is that of the male throughout the zoölogical series, may be difficult and hazardous, but it is in a straight line, fairly simple and direct. The woman's part, having to follow at the same moment two quite different impulses, is necessarily always in a zigzag or a curve. That is to say that at every erotic moment her action is the resultant of the combined force of her desire (conscious or unconscious) and her modesty. She must sail through a tortuous channel with Scylla on the one side and Charybdis on the other, and to avoid either danger too anxiously may mean risking shipwreck on the other side. She must be impenetrable to all the world, but it must be an impenetrability not too obscure for the divination of the right man. Her speech must be honest, but yet on no account tell everything; her actions must be the outcome of her impulses, and on that very account be capable of two interpretations. It is only in the last resort of complete intimacy that she can become the perfect woman, "Whose speech Truth knows not from her thought, Nor Love her body from her soul." For many a woman the conditions for that final erotic avatar--"that splendid shamelessness which," as Rafford Pyke says, "is the finest thing in perfect love"--never present themselves at all. She is compelled to be to the end of her erotic life, what she must always be at the beginning, a complex and duplex personality, naturally artful. Therewith she is better prepared than man to play her part in the art of love. The man's part in the art of love is, however, by no means easy. That is not always realized by the women who complain of his lack of skill in playing it. Although a man has not to cultivate the same natural duplicity as a woman, it is necessary that he should possess a considerable power of divination. He is not well prepared for that, because the traditional masculine virtue is force rather than insight. The male's work in the world, we are told, is domination, and it is by such domination that the female is attracted. There is an element of truth in that doctrine, an element of truth which may well lead astray the man who too exclusively relies upon it in the art of love. Violence is bad in every art, and in the erotic art the female desires to be won to love and not to be ordered to love. That is fundamental. We sometimes see the matter so stated as if the objection to force and domination in love constituted some quite new and revolutionary demand of the "modern woman." That is, it need scarcely be said, the result of ignorance. The art of love, being an art that Nature makes, is the same now as in essentials it has always been,[407] and it was well established before woman came into existence. That it has not always been very skilfully played is another matter. And, so far as the man is concerned, it is this very tradition of masculine predominance which has contributed to the difficulty of playing it skilfully. The woman admires the male's force; she even wishes herself to be forced to the things that she altogether desires; and yet she revolts from any exertion of force outside that narrow circle, either before the boundary of it is reached or after the boundary is passed. Thus the man's position is really more difficult than the women who complain of his awkwardness in love are always ready to admit. He must cultivate force, not only in the world but even for display in the erotic field; he must be able to divine the moments when, in love, force is no longer force because his own will is his partner's will; he must, at the same time, hold himself in complete restraint lest he should fall into the fatal error of yielding to his own impulse of domination; and all this at the very moment when his emotions are least under control. We need scarcely be surprised that of the myriads who embark on the sea of love, so few women, so very few men, come safely into port. It may still seem to some that in dwelling on the laws that guide the erotic life, if that life is to be healthy and complete, we have wandered away from the consideration of the sexual instinct in its relationship to society. It may therefore be desirable to return to first principles and to point out that we are still clinging to the fundamental facts of the personal and social life. Marriage, as we have seen reason to believe, is a great social institution; procreation, which is, on the public side, its supreme function, is a great social end. But marriage and procreation are both based on the erotic life. If the erotic life is not sound, then marriage is broken up, practically if not always formally, and the process of procreation is carried out under unfavorable conditions or not at all. This social and personal importance of the erotic life, though, under the influence of a false morality and an equally false modesty, it has sometimes been allowed to fall into the background in stages of artificial civilization, has always been clearly realized by those peoples who have vitally grasped the relationships of life. Among most uncivilized races there appear to be few or no "sexually frigid" women. It is little to the credit of our own "civilization" that it should be possible for physicians to-day to assert, even with the faintest plausibility, that there are some 25 per cent. of women who may thus be described. The whole sexual structure of the world is built up on the general fact that the intimate contact of the male and female who have chosen each other is mutually pleasurable. Below this general fact is the more specific fact that in the normal accomplishment of the act of sexual consummation the two partners experience the acute gratification of simultaneous orgasm. Herein, it has been said, lies the secret of love. It is the very basis of love, the condition of the healthy exercise of the sexual functions, and, in many cases, it seems probable, the condition also of fertilization. Even savages in a very low degree of culture are sometimes patient and considerate in evoking and waiting for the signs of sexual desire in their females. (I may refer to the significant case of the Caroline Islanders, as described by Kubary in his ethnographic study of that people and quoted in volume iv of these _Studies_, "Sexual Selection in Man," Sect. III.) In Catholic days theological influence worked wholesomely in the same direction, although the theologians were so keen to detect the mortal sin of lust. It is true that the Catholic insistence on the desirability of simultaneous orgasm was largely due to the mistaken notion that to secure conception it was necessary that there should be "insemination" on the part of the wife as well as of the husband, but that was not the sole source of the theological view. Thus Zacchia discusses whether a man ought to continue with his wife until she has the orgasm and feels satisfied, and he decides that that is the husband's duty; otherwise the wife falls into danger either of experiencing the orgasm during sleep, or, more probably, by self-excitation, "for many women, when their desires have not been satisfied by coitus, place one thigh on the other, pressing and rubbing them together until the orgasm occurs, in the belief that if they abstain from using the hands they have committed no sin." Some theologians, he adds, favor that belief, notably Hurtado de Mendoza and Sanchez, and he further quotes the opinion of the latter that women who have not been satisfied in coitus are liable to become hysterical or melancholic (_Zacchiæ Quæstionum Medico-legalium Opus_, lib. vii, tit. iii, quæst. VI). In the same spirit some theologians seem to have permitted _irrumatio_ (without ejaculation), so long as it is only the preliminary to the normal sexual act. Nowadays physicians have fully confirmed the belief of Sanchez. It is well recognized that women in whom, from whatever cause, acute sexual excitement occurs with frequency without being followed by the due natural relief of orgasm are liable to various nervous and congestive symptoms which diminish their vital effectiveness, and very possibly lead to a breakdown in health. Kisch has described, as a cardiac neurosis of sexual origin, a pathological tachycardia which is an exaggeration of the physiological quick heart of sexual excitement. J. Inglis Parsons (_British Medical Journal_, Oct. 22, 1904, p. 1062) refers to the ovarian pain produced by strong unsatisfied sexual excitement, often in vigorous unmarried women, and sometimes a cause of great distress. An experienced Austrian gynæcologist told Hirth (_Wege zur Heimat_, p. 613) that of every hundred women who come to him with uterine troubles seventy suffered from congestion of the womb, which he regarded as due to incomplete coitus. It is frequently stated that the evil of incomplete gratification and absence of orgasm in women is chiefly due to male withdrawal, that is to say _coitus interruptus_, in which the penis is hastily withdrawn as soon as involuntary ejaculation is impending; and it is sometimes said that the same widely prevalent practice is also productive of slight or serious results in the male (see, e.g., L.B. Bangs, _Transactions New York Academy of Medicine_, vol. ix, 1893; D.S. Booth, "Coitus Interruptus and Coitus Reservatus as Causes of Profound Neurosis and Psychosis," _Alienist and Neurologist_, Nov., 1906; also, _Alienist and Neurologist_, Oct., 1897, p. 588). It is undoubtedly true that coitus interruptus, since it involves sudden withdrawal on the part of the man without reference to the stage of sexual excitation which his partner may have reached, cannot fail to produce frequently an injurious nervous effect on the woman, though the injurious effect on the man, who obtains ejaculation, is little or none. But the practice is so widespread that it cannot be regarded as necessarily involving this evil result. There can, I am assured, be no doubt whatever that Blumreich is justified in his statement (Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage_, vol. ii, p. 783) that "interrupted coitus is injurious to the genital system of those women only who are disturbed in their sensation of delight by this form of cohabitation, in whom the orgasm is not produced, and who continue for hours subsequently to be tormented by feelings of an unsatisfied desire." Equally injurious effects follow in normal coitus when the man's orgasm occurs too soon. "These phenomena, therefore," he concludes, "are not characteristic of interrupted coitus, but consequences of an imperfectly concluded sexual cohabitation as such." Kisch, likewise, in his elaborate and authoritative work on _The Sexual Life of Woman_, also states that the question of the evil results of _coitus interruptus_ in women is simply a question of whether or not they receive sexual satisfaction. (Cf. also Fürbringer, _Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage_, vol. i, pp. 232 _et seq._) This is clearly the most reasonable view to take concerning what is the simplest, the most widespread, and certainly the most ancient of the methods of preventing conception. In the Book of Genesis we find it practiced by Onan, and to come down to modern times, in the sixteenth century it seems to have been familiar to French ladies, who, according to Brantôme, enjoined it on their lovers. Coitus reservatus,--in which intercourse is maintained even for very long periods, during which the woman may have orgasm several times while the man succeeds in holding back orgasm,--so far from being injurious to the woman, is probably the form of coitus which gives her the maximum of gratification and relief. For most men, however, it seems probable that this self-control over the processes leading to the involuntary act of detumescence is difficult to acquire, while in weak, nervous, and erethic persons it is impossible. It is, however, a desirable condition for completely adequate coitus, and in the East this is fully recognized, and the aptitude carefully cultivated. Thus W.D. Sutherland states ("Einiges über das Alltagsleben und die Volksmedizin unter den Bauern Britischostindiens," _Münchener Medizinische Wochenschrift_, No. 12, 1906) that the Hindu smokes and talks during intercourse in order to delay orgasm, and sometimes applies an opium paste to the glans of the penis for the same purpose. (See also vol. iii of these _Studies_, "The Sexual Impulse in Women.") Some authorities have, indeed, stated that the prolongation of the act of coitus is injurious in its effect on the male. Thus R.W. Taylor (_Practical Treatise on Sexual Disorders_, third ed., p. 121) states that it tends to cause atonic impotence, and Löwenfeld (_Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_, p. 74) thinks that the swift and unimpeded culmination of the sexual act is necessary in order to preserve the vigor of the reflex reactions. This is probably true of extreme and often repeated cases of indefinite prolongation of pronounced erection without detumescence, but it is not true within fairly wide limits in the case of healthy persons. Prolonged _coitus reservatus_ was a practice of the complex marriage system of the Oneida community, and I was assured by the late Noyes Miller, who had spent the greater part of his life in the community, that the practice had no sort of evil result. _Coitus reservatus_ was erected into a principle in the Oneida community. Every man in the community was theoretically the husband of every woman, but every man was not free to have children with every woman. Sexual initiation took place soon after puberty in the case of boys, some years later in the case of girls, by a much older person of the opposite sex. In intercourse the male inserted his penis into the vagina and retained it there for even an hour without emission, though orgasm took place in the woman. There was usually no emission in the case of the man, even after withdrawal, and he felt no need of emission. The social feeling of the community was a force on the side of this practice, the careless, unskilful men being avoided by women, while the general romantic sentiment of affection for all the women in the community was also a force. Masturbation was unknown, and no irregular relations took place with persons outside the community. The practice was maintained for thirty years, and was finally abandoned, not on its demerits, but in deference to the opinions of the outside world. Mr. Miller admitted that the practice became more difficult in ordinary marriage, which favors a more mechanical habit of intercourse. The information received from Mr. Miller is supplemented in a pamphlet entitled _Male Continence_ (the name given to _coitus reservatus_ in the community), written in 1872 by the founder, John Humphrey Noyes. The practice is based, he says, on the fact that sexual intercourse consists of two acts, a social and a propagative, and that if propagation is to be scientific there must be no confusion of these two acts, and procreation must never be involuntary. It was in 1844, he states, that this idea occurred to him as a result of a resolve to abstain from sexual intercourse in consequence of his wife's delicate health and inability to bear healthy children, and in his own case he found the practice "a great deliverance. It made a happy household." He points out that the chief members of the Oneida community "belonged to the most respectable families in Vermont, had been educated in the best schools of New England morality and refinement, and were, by the ordinary standards, irreproachable in their conduct so far as sexual matters are concerned, till they deliberately commenced, in 1846, the experiment of a new state of society, on principles which they had been long maturing and were prepared to defend before the World." In relation to male continence, therefore, Noyes thought the community might fairly be considered "the Committee of Providence to test its value in actual life." He states that a careful medical comparison of the statistics of the community had shown that the rate of nervous disease in the community was considerably below the average outside, and that only two cases of nervous disorder had occurred which could be traced with any probability to a misuse of male continence. This has been confirmed by Van de Warker, who studied forty-two women of the community without finding any undue prevalence of reproductive diseases, nor could he find any diseased condition attributable to the sexual habits of the community (cf. C. Reed, _Text-Book of Gynecology_, 1901, p. 9). Noyes believed that "male continence" had never previously been a definitely recognized practice based on theory, though there might have been occasional approximation to it. This is probably true if the coitus is _reservatus_ in the full sense, with complete absence of emission. Prolonged coitus, however, permitting the woman to have orgasm more than once, while the man has none, has long been recognized. Thus in the seventeenth century Zacchia discussed whether such a practice is legitimate (_Zacchiæ Quæstionum Opus_, ed. of 1688, lib. vii, tit. iii, quæst. VI). In modern times it is occasionally practiced, without any theory, and is always appreciated by the woman, while it appears to have no bad effect on the man. In such a case it will happen that the act of coitus may last for an hour and a quarter or even longer, the maximum of the woman's pleasure not being reached until three-quarters of an hour have passed; during this period the woman will experience orgasm some four or five times, the man only at the end. It may occasionally happen that a little later the woman again experiences desire, and intercourse begins afresh in the same way. But after that she is satisfied, and there is no recurrence of desire. It may be desirable at this point to refer briefly to the chief variations in the method of effecting coitus in their relationship to the art of love and the attainment of adequate and satisfying detumescence. The primary and essential characteristic of the specifically human method of coitus is the fact that it takes place face to face. The fact that in what is usually considered the typically normal method of coitus the woman lies supine and the man above her is secondary. Psychically, this front-to-front attitude represents a great advance over the quadrupedal method. The two partners reveal to each other the most important, the most beautiful, the most expressive sides of themselves, and thus multiply the mutual pleasure and harmony of the intimate act of union. Moreover, this face-to-face attitude possesses a great significance, in the fact that it is the outward sign that the human couple has outgrown the animal sexual attitude of the hunter seizing his prey in the act of flight, and content to enjoy it in that attitude, from behind. The human male may be said to retain the same attitude, but the female has turned round; she has faced her partner and approached him, and so symbolizes her deliberate consent to the act of union. The human variations in the exercise of coitus, both individual and national, are, however, extremely numerous. "To be quite frank," says Fürbringer (Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage_, vol. i, p. 213), "I can hardly think of any combination which does not figure among my case-notes as having been practiced by my patients." We must not too hastily conclude that such variations are due to vicious training. That is far from being the case. They often occur naturally and spontaneously. Freud has properly pointed out (in the second series of his _Beiträge zur Neurosenlehre_, "Bruchstück" etc.) that we must not be too shocked even when the idea of _fellatio_ spontaneously presents itself to a woman, for that idea has a harmless origin in the resemblance between the penis and the nipple. Similarly, it may be added, the desire for _cunnilinctus_, which seems to be much more often latently present in women than is the desire for its performance in men, has a natural analogy in the pleasure of suckling, a pleasure which is itself indeed often erotically tinged (see vol. iv of these _Studies_, "Sexual Selection in Man," Touch, Sect. III). Every variation in this matter, remarks Remy de Gourmont (_Physique de l'Amour_, p. 264) partakes of the sin of luxury, and some of the theologians have indeed considered any position in coitus but that which is usually called normal in Europe as a mortal sin. Other theologians, however, regarded such variations as only venial sins, provided ejaculation took place in the vagina, just as some theologians would permit _irrumatio_ as a preliminary to coitus, provided there was no ejaculation. Aquinas took a serious view of the deviations from normal intercourse; Sanchez was more indulgent, especially in view of his doctrine, derived from the Greek and Arabic natural philosophers, that the womb can attract the sperm, so that the natural end may be attained even in unusual positions. Whatever difference of opinion there may have been among ancient theologians, it is well recognized by modern physicians that variations from the ordinary method of coitus are desirable in special cases. Thus Kisch points out (_Sterilität des Weibes_, p. 107) that in some cases it is only possible for the woman to experience sexual excitement when coitus takes place in the lateral position, or in the _a posteriori_ position, or when the usual position is reversed; and in his _Sexual Life of Woman_, also, Kisch recommends several variations of position for coitus. Adler points out (op. cit., pp. 151, 186) the value of the same positions in some cases, and remarks that such variations often call forth latent sexual feelings as by a charm. Such cases are indeed, by no means infrequent, the advantage of the unusual position being due either to physical or psychic causes, and the discovery of the right variation is sometimes found in a merely playful attempt. It has occasionally happened, also, that when intercourse has habitually taken place in an abnormal position, no satisfaction is experienced by the woman until the normal position is adopted. The only fairly common variation of coitus which meets with unqualified disapproval is that in the erect posture. (See e.g., Hammond, op. cit. pp. 257 et seq.) Lucretius specially recommended the quadrupedal variation of coitus (Bk. iv, 1258), and Ovid describes (end of Bk. iii of the _Ars Amatoria_) what he regards as agreeable variations, giving the preference, as the easiest and simplest method, to that in which the woman lies half supine on her side. Perhaps, however, the variation which is nearest to the normal attitude and which has most often and most completely commended itself is that apparently known to Arabic erotic writers as _dok el arz_, in which the man is seated and his partner is astride his thighs, embracing his body with her legs and his neck with her arms, while he embraces her waist; this is stated in the Arabic _Perfumed Garden_ to be the method preferred by most women. The other most usual variation is the inverse normal position in which the man is supine, and the woman adapts herself to this position, which permits of several modifications obviously advantageous, especially when the man is much larger than his partner. The Christian as well as the Mahommedan theologians appear, indeed, to have been generally opposed to this superior position of the female, apparently, it would seem, because they regarded the literal subjection of the male which it involves as symbolic of a moral subjection. The testimony of many people to-day, however, is decidedly in favor of this position, more especially as regards the woman, since it enables her to obtain a better adjustment and greater control of the process, and so frequently to secure sexual satisfaction which she may find difficult or impossible in the normal position. The theologians seem to have been less unfavorably disposed to the position normal among quadrupeds, _a posteriori_, though the old Penitentials were inclined to treat it severely, the Penitential of Angers prescribing forty days penance, and Egbert's three years, if practiced habitually. (It is discussed by J. Petermann, "Venus Aversa," _Sexual-Probleme_, Feb., 1909). There are good reasons why in many cases this position should be desirable, more especially from the point of view of women, who indeed not infrequently prefer it. It must be always remembered, as has already been pointed out, that in the progress from anthropoid to man it is the female, not the male, whose method of coitus has been revolutionized. While, however, the obverse human position represents a psychic advance, there has never been a complete physical readjustment of the female organs to the obverse method. More especially, in Adler's opinion (op. cit., pp. 117-119), the position of the clitoris is such that, as a rule, it is more easily excited by coitus from behind than from in front. A more recent writer, Klotz, in his book, _Der Mensch ein Vierfüssler_ (1908), even takes the too extreme position that the quadrupedal method of coitus, being the only method that insures due contact with the clitoris, is the natural human method. It must, however, be admitted that the posterior mode of coitus is not only a widespread, but a very important variation, in either of its two most important forms: the Pompeiian method, in which the woman bends forwards and the man approaches behind, or the method described by Boccaccio, in which the man is supine and the woman astride. _Fellatio_ and _cunnilinctus_, while they are not strictly methods of coitus, in so far as they do not involve the penetration of the penis into the vagina, are very widespread as preliminaries, or as vicarious forms of coitus, alike among civilized and uncivilized peoples. Thus, in India, I am told that _fellatio_ is almost universal in households, and regarded as a natural duty towards the paterfamilias. As regards _cunnilinctus_ Max Dessoir has stated (_Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, 1894, Heft 5) that the superior Berlin prostitutes say that about a quarter of their clients desire to exercise this, and that in France and Italy the proportion is higher; the number of women who find _cunnilinctus_ agreeable is without doubt much greater. Intercourse _per anum_ must also be regarded as a vicarious form of coitus. It appears to be not uncommon, especially among the lower social classes, and while most often due to the wish to avoid conception, it is also sometimes practiced as a sexual aberration, at the wish either of the man or the woman, the anus being to some extent an erogenous zone. The ethnic variations in method of coitus were briefly discussed in volume v of these _Studies_, "The Mechanism of Detumescence," Section II. In all civilized countries, from the earliest times, writers on the erotic art have formally and systematically set forth the different positions for coitus. The earliest writing of this kind now extant seems to be an Egyptian papyrus preserved at Turin of the date B.C. 1300; in this, fourteen different positions are represented. The Indians, according to Iwan Bloch, recognize altogether forty-eight different positions; the _Ananga Ranga_ describes thirty-two main forms. The Mohammedan _Perfumed Garden_ describes forty forms, as well as six different kinds of movement during coitus. The Eastern books of this kind are, on the whole, superior to those that have been produced by the Western world, not only by their greater thoroughness, but by the higher spirit by which they have often been inspired. The ancient Greek erotic writings, now all lost, in which the modes of coitus were described, were nearly all attributed to women. According to a legend recorded by Suidas, the earliest writer of this kind was Astyanassa, the maid of Helen of Troy. Elephantis, the poetess, is supposed to have enumerated nine different postures. Numerous women of later date wrote on these subjects, and one book is attributed to Polycrates, the sophist. Aretino--who wrote after the influence of Christianity had degraded erotic matters perilously near to that region of pornography from which they are only to-day beginning to be rescued--in his _Sonnetti Lussuriosi_ described twenty-six different methods of coitus, each one accompanied by an illustrative design by Giulio Romano, the chief among Raphael's pupils. Veniero, in his _Puttana Errante_, described thirty-two positions. More recently Forberg, the chief modern authority, has enumerated ninety positions, but, it is said, only forty-eight can, even on the most liberal estimate, be regarded as coming within the range of normal variation. The disgrace which has overtaken the sexual act, and rendered it a deed of darkness, is doubtless largely responsible for the fact that the chief time for its consummation among modern civilized peoples is the darkness of the early night in stuffy bedrooms when the fatigue of the day's labors is struggling with the artificial stimulation produced by heavy meals and alcoholic drinks. This habit is partly responsible for the indifference or even disgust with which women sometimes view coitus. Many more primitive peoples are wiser. The New Guinea Papuans of Astrolabe Bay, according to Vahness (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1900, Heft 5, p. 414), though it must be remembered that the association of the sexual act with darkness is much older than Christianity, and connected with early religious notions (cf. Hesiod, _Works and Days_, Bk. II), always have sexual intercourse in the open air. The hard-working women of the Gebvuka and Buru Islands, again, are too tired for coitus at night; it is carried out in the day time under the trees, and the Serang Islanders also have coitus in the woods (Ploss and Bartels, Das _Weib_, Bk. i, Ch. XVII). It is obviously impracticable to follow these examples in modern cities, even if avocation and climate permitted. It is also agreed that sexual intercourse should be followed by repose. There seems to be little doubt, however, that the early morning and the daylight are a more favorable time than the early night. Conception should take place in the light, said Michelet (_L'Amour_, p. 153); sexual intercourse in the darkness of night is an act committed with a mere female animal; in the day-time it is union with a loving and beloved individual person. This has been widely recognized. The Greeks, as we gather from Aristophanes in the _Archarnians_, regarded sunrise as the appropriate time for coitus. The South Slavs also say that dawn is the time for coitus. Many modern authorities have urged the advantages of early morning coitus. Morning, said Roubaud (_Traité de l'Impuissance_, pp. 151-3) is the time for coitus, and even if desire is greater in the evening, pleasure is greater in the morning. Osiander also advised early morning coitus, and Venette, in an earlier century, discussing "at what hour a man should amorously embrace his wife" (_La Génération de l'Homme_, Part II, Ch. V), while thinking it is best to follow inclination, remarks that "a beautiful woman looks better by sunlight than by candlelight." A few authorities, like Burdach, have been content to accept the custom of night coitus, and Busch (_Das Geschlechtsleben des Weibes_, vol. i, p. 214) was inclined to think the darkness of night the most "natural" time, while Fürbringer (Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage_, vol. i, p. 217) thinks that early morning is "occasionally" the best time. To some, on the other hand, the exercise of sexual intercourse in the sunlight and the open air seems so important that they are inclined to elevate it to the rank of a religious exercise. I quote from a communication on this point received from Australia: "This shameful thing that must not be spoken of or done (except in the dark) will some day, I believe, become the one religious ceremony of the human race, in the spring. (Oh, what springs!) People will have become very sane, well-bred, aristocratic (all of them aristocrats), and on the whole opposed to rites and superstitions, for they will have a perfect knowledge of the past. The coition of lovers in the springtime will be the one religious ceremony they will allow themselves. I have a vision sometimes of the holy scene, but I am afraid it is too beautiful to describe. 'The intercourse of the sexes, I have dreamed, is ineffably beautiful, too fair to be remembered,' wrote the chaste Thoreau. Verily human beauty, joy, and love will reach their divinest height during those inaugural days of springtide coupling. When the world is one Paradise, the consummation of the lovers, the youngest and most beautiful, will take place in certain sacred valleys in sight of thousands assembled to witness it. For days it will take place in these valleys where the sun will rise on a dream of passionate voices, of clinging human forms, of flowers and waters, and the purple and gold of the sunrise are reflected on hills illumined with pansies. [I know not if the writer recalled George Chapman's "Enamelled pansies used at nuptials still"], and repeated on golden human flesh and human hair. In these sacred valleys the subtle perfume of the pansies will mingle with the divine fragrance of healthy naked young women and men in the spring coupling. You and I shall not see that, but we may help to make it possible." This rhapsody (an unconscious repetition of Saint-Lambert's at Mlle. Quinault's table in the eighteenth century) serves to illustrate the revolt which tends to take place against the unnatural and artificial degradation of the sexual act. In some parts of the world it has seemed perfectly natural and reasonable that so great and significant an act as that of coitus should be consecrated to the divinity, and hence arose the custom of prayer before sexual intercourse. Thus Zoroaster ordained that a married couple should pray before coitus, and after the act they should say together: "O, Sapondomad, I trust this seed to thee, preserve it for me, for it is a man." In the Gorong Archipelago it is customary also for husband and wife to pray together before the sexual act (Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, Bd. i, Ch. XVII). The civilized man, however, has come to regard his stomach as the most important of his organs, and he utters his conventional grace, not before love, but only before food. Even the degraded ritual vestiges of the religious recognition of coitus are difficult to find in Europe. We may perhaps detect it among the Spaniards, with their tenacious instinct for ritual, in the solemn etiquette with which, in the seventeenth century, it was customary, according to Madame d'Aulnoy, for the King to enter the bedchamber of the Queen: "He has on his slippers, his black mantle over his shoulder, his shield on one arm, a bottle hanging by a cord over the other arm (this bottle is not to drink from, but for a quite opposite purpose, which you will guess). With all this the King must also have his great sword in one hand and a dark lantern in the other. In this way he must enter, alone, the Queen's chamber" (Madame d'Aulnoy, _Relation du Voyage d'Espagne_, 1692, vol. iii, p. 221). In discussing the art of love it is necessary to give a primary place to the central fact of coitus, on account of the ignorance that widely prevails concerning it, and the unfortunate prejudices which in their fungous broods flourish in the noisome obscurity around it. The traditions of the Christian Church, which overspread the whole of Europe, and set up for worship a Divine Virgin and her Divine Son, both of whom it elaborately disengaged from personal contact with sexuality effectually crushed any attempt to find a sacred and avowable ideal in married love. Even the Church's own efforts to elevate matrimony were negatived by its own ideals. That influence depresses our civilization even to-day. When Walt Whitman wrote his "Children of Adam" he was giving imperfect expression to conceptions of the religious nature of sexual love which have existed wholesomely and naturally in all parts of the world, but had not yet penetrated the darkness of Christendom where they still seemed strange and new, if not terrible. And the refusal to recognize the solemnity of sex had involved the placing of a pall of blackness and disrepute on the supreme sexual act itself. It was shut out from the sunshine and excluded from the sphere of worship. The sexual act is important from the point of view of erotic art, not only from the ignorance and prejudices which surround it, but also because it has a real value even in regard to the psychic side of married life. "These organs," according to the oft-quoted saying of the old French physician, Ambrose Paré, "make peace in the household." How this comes about we see illustrated from time to time in Pepys's Diary. At the same time, it is scarcely necessary to say, after all that has gone before, that this ancient source of domestic peace tends to be indefinitely complicated by the infinite variety in erotic needs, which become ever more pronounced with the growth of civilization.[408] The art of love is, indeed, only beginning with the establishment of sexual intercourse. In the adjustment of that relationship all the forces of nature are so strongly engaged that under completely favorable conditions--which indeed very rarely occur in our civilization--the knowledge of the art and a possible skill in its exercise come almost of themselves. The real test of the artist in love is in the skill to carry it beyond the period when the interests of nature, having been really or seemingly secured, begin to slacken. The whole art of love, it has been well said, lies in forever finding something new in the same person. The art of love is even more the art of retaining love than of arousing it. Otherwise it tends to degenerate towards the Shakespearian lust, "Past reason hunted, and no sooner had, Past reason hated," though it must be remembered that even from the most strictly natural point of view the transitions of passion are not normally towards repulsion but towards affection.[409] The young man and woman who are brought into the complete unrestraint of marriage after a prolonged and unnatural separation, during which desire and the satisfactions of desire have been artificially disconnected, are certainly not under the best conditions for learning the art of love. They are tempted by reckless and promiscuous indulgence in the intimacies of marriage to fling carelessly aside all the reasons that make that art worth learning. "There are married people," as Ellen Key remarks, "who might have loved each other all their lives if they had not been compelled, every day and all the year, to direct their habits, wills, and inclinations towards each other." All the tendencies of our civilized life are, in personal matters, towards individualism; they involve the specialization, and they ensure the sacredness, of personal habits and even peculiarities. This individualism cannot be broken down suddenly at the arbitrary dictation of a tradition, or even by the force of passion from which the restraints have been removed. Out of deference to the conventions and prejudices of their friends, or out of the reckless abandonment of young love, or merely out of a fear of hurting each other's feelings, young couples have often plunged prematurely into an unbroken intimacy which is even more disastrous to the permanency of marriage than the failure ever to reach a complete intimacy at all. That is one of the chief reasons why most writers on the moral hygiene of marriage nowadays recommend separate beds for the married couple, if possible separate bedrooms, and even sometimes, with Ellen Key, see no objection to their living in separate houses. Certainly the happiest marriages have often involved the closest and most unbroken intimacy, in persons peculiarly fitted for such intimacy. It is far from true that, as Bloch has affirmed, familiarity is fatal to love. It is deadly to a love that has no roots, but it is the nourishment of the deeply-rooted love. Yet it remains true that absence is needed to maintain the keen freshness and fine idealism of love. "Absence," as Landor said, "is the invisible and incorporeal mother of ideal beauty." The married lovers who are only able to meet for comparatively brief periods between long absences have often experienced in these meetings a life-long succession of honeymoons.[410] There can be no question that as presence has its risks for love, so also has absence. Absence like presence, in the end, if too prolonged, effaces the memory of love, and absence, further, by the multiplied points of contact with the world which it frequently involves, introduces the problem of jealousy, although, it must be added, it is difficult indeed to secure a degree of association which excludes jealousy or even the opportunities for motives of jealousy. The problem of jealousy is so fundamental in the art of love that it is necessary at this point to devote to it a brief discussion. Jealousy is based on fundamental instincts which are visible at the beginning of animal life. Descartes defined jealousy as "a kind of fear related to a desire to preserve a possession." Every impulse of acquisition in the animal world is stimulated into greater activity by the presence of a rival who may snatch beforehand the coveted object. This seems to be a fundamental fact in the animal world; it has been a life-conserving tendency, for, it has been said, an animal that stood aside while its fellows were gorging themselves with food, and experienced nothing but pure satisfaction in the spectacle, would speedily perish. But in this fact we have the natural basis of jealousy.[411] It is in reference to food that this impulse appears first and most conspicuously among animals. It is a well-known fact that association with other animals induces an animal to eat much more than when kept by himself. He ceases to eat from hunger but eats, as it has been put, in order to preserve his food from rivals in the only strong box he knows. The same feeling is transferred among animals to the field of sex. And further in the relations of dogs and other domesticated animals to their masters the emotion of jealousy is often very keenly marked.[412] Jealousy is an emotion which is at its maximum among animals, among savages,[413] among children,[414] in the senile, in the degenerate, and very specially in chronic alcoholics.[415] It is worthy of note that the supreme artists and masters of the human heart who have most consummately represented the tragedy of jealousy clearly recognized that it is either atavistic or pathological; Shakespeare made his Othello a barbarian, and Tolstoy made the Pozdnischeff of his _Kreutzer Sonata_ a lunatic. It is an anti-social emotion, though it has been maintained by some that it has been the cause of chastity and fidelity. Gesell, for instance, while admitting its anti-social character and accumulating quotations in evidence of the torture and disaster it occasions, seems to think that it still ought to be encouraged in order to foster sexual virtues. Very decided opinions have been expressed in the opposite sense. Jealousy, like other shadows, says Ellen Key, belongs only to the dawn and the setting of love, and a man should feel that it is a miracle, and not his right, if the sun stands still at the zenith.[416] Even therefore if jealousy has been a beneficial influence at the beginning of civilization, as well as among animals,--as may probably be admitted, though on the whole it seems rather to be the by-product of a beneficial influence than such an influence itself,--it is still by no means clear that it therefore becomes a desirable emotion in more advanced stages of civilization. There are many primitive emotions, like anger and fear, which we do not think it desirable to encourage in complex civilized societies but rather seek to restrain and control, and even if we are inclined to attribute an original value to jealousy, it seems to be among these emotions that it ought to be placed. Miss Clapperton, in discussing this problem (_Scientific Meliorism_, pp. 129-137), follows Darwin (_Descent of Man_, Part I, Ch. IV) in thinking that jealousy led to "the inculcation of female virtue," but she adds that it has also been a cause of woman's subjection, and now needs to be eliminated. "To rid ourselves as rapidly as may be of jealousy is essential; otherwise the great movement in favor of equality of sex will necessarily meet with checks and grave obstruction." Ribot (_La Logique des Sentiments_, pp. 75 et seq.; _Essai sur les Passions_, pp. 91, 175), while stating that subjectively the estimate of jealousy must differ in accordance with the ideal of life held, considers that objectively we must incline to an unfavorable estimate "Even a brief passion is a rupture in the normal life; it is an abnormal, if not a pathological state, an excrescence, a parasitism." Forel (_Die Sexuelle Frage_, Ch. V) speaks very strongly in the same sense, and considers that it is necessary to eliminate jealousy by non-procreation of the jealous. Jealousy is, he declares, "the worst and unfortunately the most deeply-rooted of the 'irradiations,' or, better, the 'contrast-reactions,' of sexual love inherited from our animal ancestors. An old German saying, 'Eifersucht ist eine Leidenschaft die mit Eifer sucht was Leider schafft,' says by no means too much.... Jealousy is a heritage of animality and barbarism; I would recall this to those who, under the name of 'injured honor,' attempt to justify it and place it on a high pedestal. An unfaithful husband is ten times more to be wished for a woman than a jealous husband.... We often hear of 'justifiable jealousy.' I believe, however, that there is no justifiable jealousy; it is always atavistic or else pathological; at the best it is nothing more than a brutal animal stupidity. A man who, by nature, that is by his hereditary constitution, is jealous is certain to poison his own life and that of his wife. Such men ought on no account to marry. Both education and selection should work together to eliminate jealousy as far as possible from the human brain." Eric Gillard in an article on "Jealousy" (_Free Review_, Sept., 1896), in opposition to those who believe that jealousy "makes the home," declares that, on the contrary, it is the chief force that unmakes the home. "So long as egotism waters it with the tears of sentiment and shields it from the cold blasts of scientific inquiry, so long will it thrive. But the time will come when it will be burned in the Garden of Love as a noxious weed. Its mephitic influence in society is too palpable to be overlooked. It turns homes that might be sanctuaries of love into hells of discord and hate; it causes suicides, and it drives thousands to drink, reckless excesses, and madness. Makes the home! One of your married men friends sees a probable seducer in every man who smiles at his wife; another is jealous of his wife's women acquaintances; a third is wounded because his wife shows so much attention to the children. Some of the women you know display jealousy of every other woman, of their husband's acquaintances, and some, of his very dog. You must be completely monopolized or you do not thoroughly love. You must admire no one but the person with whom you have immured yourself for life. Old friendships must be dissolved, new friendships must not be formed, for fear of invoking the beautiful emotion that 'makes the home.'" Even if jealousy in matters of sex could be admitted to be an emotion working on the side of civilized progress, it must still be pointed out that it merely acts externally; it can have little or no real influence; the jealous person seldom makes himself more lovable by his jealousy and frequently much less lovable. The main effect of his jealousy is to increase, and not seldom to excite, the causes for jealousy, and at the same time to encourage hypocrisy. All the circumstances, accompaniments, and results of domestic jealousy in their completely typical form, are well illustrated by a very serious episode in the history of the Pepys household, and have been fully and faithfully set down by the great diarist. The offence--an embrace of his wife's lady-help, as she might now be termed--was a slight one, but, as Pepys himself admits, quite inexcusable. He is writing, being in his thirty-sixth year, on the 25th of Oct., 1668 (Lord's Day). "After supper, to have my hair combed by Deb, which occasioned the greatest sorrow to me that ever I knew in this world, for my wife, coming up suddenly, did find me embracing the girl.... I was at a wonderful loss upon it, and the girl also, and I endeavored to put it off, but my wife was struck mute and grew angry.... Heartily afflicted for this folly of mine.... So ends this month," he writes a few days later, "with some quiet to my mind, though not perfect, after the greatest falling out with my poor wife, and through my folly with the girl, that ever I had, and I have reason to be sorry and ashamed of it, and more to be troubled for the poor girl's sake. Sixth November. Up, and presently my wife up with me, which she professedly now do every day to dress me, that I may not see Willet [Deb], and do eye me, whether I cast my eye upon her, or no, and do keep me from going into the room where she is. Ninth November. Up, and I did, by a little note which I flung to Deb, advise her that I did continue to deny that ever I kissed her, and so she might govern herself. The truth is that I did adventure upon God's pardoning me this lie, knowing how heavy a thing it would be for me, to the ruin of the poor girl, and next knowing that if my wife should know all it would be impossible for her ever to be at peace with me again, and so our whole lives would be uncomfortable. The girl read, and as I bid her returned me the note, flinging it to me in passing by." Next day, however, he is "mightily troubled," for his wife has obtained a confession from the girl of the kissing. For some nights Mr. and Mrs. Pepys are both sleepless, with much weeping on either side. Deb gets another place, leaving on the 14th of November, and Pepys is never able to see her before she leaves the house, his wife keeping him always under her eye. It is evident that Pepys now feels strongly attracted to Deb, though there is no evidence of this before she became the subject of the quarrel. On the 13th of November, hearing she was to leave next day, he writes: "The truth is I have a good mind to have the maidenhead of this girl." He was, however, the "more troubled to see how my wife is by this means likely forever to have her hand over me, and that I shall forever be a slave to her--that is to say, only in matters of pleasure." At the same time his love for his wife was by no means diminished, nor hers for him. "I must here remark," he says, "that I have lain with my moher [i.e., _muger_, wife] as a husband more times since this falling out than in, I believe, twelve months before. And with more pleasure to her than in all the time of our marriage before." The next day was Sunday. On Monday Pepys at once begins to make inquiries which will put him on the track of Deb. On the 18th he finds her. She gets up into the coach with him, and he kisses her and takes liberties with her, at the same time advising her "to have a care of her honor and to fear God," allowing no one else to do what he has done; he also tells her how she can find him if she desires. Pepys now feels that everything is settled satisfactorily, and his heart is full of joy. But his joy is short-lived, for Mrs. Pepys discovers this interview with Deb on the following day. Pepys denies it at first, then confesses, and there is a more furious scene than ever. Pepys is now really alarmed, for his wife threatens to leave him; he definitely abandons Deb, and with prayers to God resolves never to do the like again. Mrs. Pepys is not satisfied, however, till she makes her husband write a letter to Deb, telling her that she is little better than a whore, and that he hates her, though Deb is spared this, not by any stratagem of Pepys, but by the considerateness of the friend to whom the letter was entrusted for delivery. Moreover, Mrs. Pepys arranges with her husband that, in future, whenever he goes abroad he shall be accompanied everywhere by his clerk. We see that Mrs. Pepys plays with what appears to be triumphant skill and success the part of the jealous and avenging wife, and digs her little French heels remorselessly into her prostrate husband and her rival. Unfortunately, we do not know what the final outcome was, for a little later, owing to trouble with his eyesight, Pepys was compelled to bring his Diary to an end. It is evident, however, when we survey the whole of this perhaps typical episode, that neither husband nor wife were in the slightest degree prepared for the commonplace position into which they were thrown; that each of them appears in a painful, undignified, and humiliating light; that as a result of it the husband acquires almost a genuine and strong affection for the girl who is the cause of the quarrel; and finally that, even though he is compelled, for the time at all events, to yield to his wife, he remains at the end exactly what he was at the beginning. Nor had husband or wife the very slightest wish to leave each other; the bond of marriage remained firm, but it had been degraded by insincerity on one side and the jealous endeavor on the other to secure fidelity by compulsion. Apart altogether, however, from the question of its effectiveness, or even of the misery that it causes to all concerned, it is evident that jealousy is incompatible with all the tendencies of civilization. We have seen that a certain degree of variation is involved in the sexual relationship, as in all other relationships, and unless we are to continue to perpetuate many evils and injustices, that fact has to be faced and recognized. We have also seen that the line of our advance involves a constant increase in moral responsibility and self-government, and that, in its turn, implies not only a high degree of sincerity but also the recognition that no person has any right, or indeed any power, to control the emotions and actions of another person. If our sun of love stands still at midday, according to Ellen Key's phrase, that is a miracle to be greeted with awe and gratitude, and by no means a right to be demanded. The claim of jealousy falls with the claim of conjugal rights. It is quite possible, Bloch remarks (_The Sexual Life of Our Time_, Ch. X), to love more than one person at the same time, with nearly equal tenderness, and to be honestly able to assure each of the passion felt for her or him. Bloch adds that the vast psychic differentiation involved by modern civilization increases the possibility of this double love, for it is difficult for anyone to find his complement in a single person, and that this applies to women as well as to men. Georg Hirth likewise points out (_Wege zur Heimat_, pp. 543-552) that it is important to remember that women, as well as men, can love two persons at the same time. Men flatter themselves, he remarks, with the prejudice that the female heart, or rather brain, can only hold one man at a time, and that if there is a second man it is by a kind of prostitution. Nearly all erotic writers, poets, and novelists, even physicians and psychologists, belong to this class, he says; they look on a woman as property, and of course two men cannot "possess" a woman. (Regarding novelists, however, the remark may be interpolated that there are many exceptions, and Thomas Hardy, for instance, frequently represents a woman as more or less in love with two men at the same time.) As against this desire to depreciate women's psychic capacity, Hirth maintains that a woman is not necessarily obliged to be untrue to one man because she has conceived a passion for another man. "Today," Hirth truly declares, "only love and justice can count as honorable motives in marriage. The modern man accords to the beloved wife and life-companion the same freedom which he himself took before marriage, and perhaps still takes in marriage. If she makes no use of it, as is to be hoped--so much the better! But let there be no lies, no deception; the indispensable foundation of modern marriage is boundless sincerity and friendship, the deepest trust, affectionate devotion, and consideration. This is the best safeguard against adultery.... Let him, however, who is, nevertheless, overtaken by the outbreak of it console himself with the undoubted fact that of two real lovers the most noble-minded and deep-seeing _friend_ will always have the preference." These wise words cannot be too deeply meditated. The policy of jealousy is only successful--when it is successful--in the hands of the man who counts the external husk of love more precious than the kernel. It seems to some that the recognition of variations in sexual relationships, of the tendency of the monogamic to overpass its self-imposed bounds, is at best a sad necessity, and a lamentable fall from a high ideal. That, however, is the reverse of the truth. The great evil of monogamy, and its most seriously weak point, is its tendency to self-concentration at the expense of the outer world. The devil always comes to a man in the shape of his wife and children, said Hinton. The family is a great social influence in so far as it is the best instrument for creating children who will make the future citizens; but in a certain sense the family is an anti-social influence, for it tends to absorb unduly the energy that is needed for the invigoration of society. It is possible, indeed, that that fact led to the modification of the monogamic system in early developing periods of human history, when social expansion and cohesion were the primary necessities. The family too often tends to resemble, as someone has said, the secluded collection of grubs sometimes revealed in their narrow home when we casually raise a flat stone in our gardens. Great as are the problems of love, and great as should be our attention to them, it must always be remembered that love is not a little circle that is complete in itself. It is the nature of love to irradiate. Just as family life exists mainly for the social end of breeding the future race, so family love has its social ends in the extension of sympathy and affection to those outside it, and even in ends that go beyond love altogether.[417] The question is debated from time to time as to how far it is possible for men and women to have intimate friendships with each other outside the erotic sphere.[418] There can be no doubt whatever that it is perfectly possible for a man and a woman to experience for each other a friendship which never intrudes into the sexual sphere. As a rule, however, this only happens under special conditions, and those are generally conditions which exclude the closest and most intimate friendship. If, as we have seen, love may be defined as a synthesis of lust and friendship, friendship inevitably enters into the erotic sphere. Just as sexual emotion tends to merge into friendship, so friendship between persons of opposite sex, if young, healthy, and attractive, tends to involve sexual emotion. The two feelings are too closely allied for an artificial barrier to be permanently placed between them without protest. Men who offer a woman friendship usually find that it is not received with much satisfaction except as the first installment of a warmer emotion, and women who offer friendship to a man usually find that he responds with an offer of love; very often the "friendship" is from the first simply love or flirtation masquerading under another name. "In the long run," a woman writes (in a letter published in _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Bd. i, Heft 7), "the senses become discontented at their complete exclusion. And I believe that a man can only come into the closest mutual association with a woman by whom, consciously or unconsciously, he is physically attracted. He cannot enter into the closest psychic intercourse with a woman with whom he could not imagine himself in physical intercourse. His prevailing wish is for the possession of a woman, of the whole woman, her soul as well as her body. And a woman also cannot imagine an intimate relation to a man in which the heart and the body, as well as the mind, are not involved. (Naturally I am thinking of people with sound nerves and healthy blood.) Can a woman carry on a Platonic relation with a man from year to year without the thought sometimes coming to her: 'Why does he never kiss me? Have I no charm for him?' And in the most concealed corner of her heart will it not happen that she uses that word 'kiss' in the more comprehensive sense in which the French sometimes employ it?" There is undoubtedly an element of truth in this statement. The frontier between erotic love and friendship is vague, and an intimate psychic intercourse that is sternly debarred from ever manifesting itself in a caress, or other physical manifestation of tender intimacy, tends to be constrained, and arouses unspoken and unspeakable thoughts and desires which are fatal to any complete friendship. Undoubtedly the only perfect "Platonic friendships" are those which have been reached through the portal of a preliminary erotic intimacy. In such a case bad lovers, when they have resolutely traversed the erotic stage, may become exceedingly good friends. A satisfactory friendship is possible between brother and sister because they have been physically intimate in childhood, and all erotic curiosities are absent. The most admirable "Platonic friendship" may often be attained by husband and wife in whom sympathy and affection and common interests have outlived passion. In nearly all the most famous friendships of distinguished men and women--as we know in some cases and divine in others--an hour's passion, in Sainte-Beuve's words, has served as the golden key to unlock the most precious and intimate secrets of friendship.[419] The friendships that have been entered through the erotic portal possess an intimacy and retain a spiritually erotic character which could not be attained on the basis of a normal friendship between persons of the same sex. This is true in a far higher degree of the ultimate relationship, under fortunate circumstances, of husband and wife in the years after passion has become impossible. They have ceased to be passionate lovers but they have not become mere friends and comrades. More especially their relationship takes on elements borrowed from the attitude of child to parent, of parent to child. Everyone from his first years retains something of the child which cannot be revealed to all the world; everyone acquires something of the guardian paternal or maternal spirit. Husband and wife are each child to the other, and are indeed parent and child by turn. And here still the woman retains a certain erotic supremacy, for she is to the last more of a child than it is ever easy for the man to be, and much more essentially a mother than he is a father. Groos (_Der Æsthetische Genuss_, p. 249) has pointed out that "love" is really made up of both sexual instinct and parental instinct. "So-called happy marriages," says Professor W. Thomas (_Sex and Society_, p. 246), "represent an equilibrium reached through an extension of the maternal interest of the woman to the man, whereby she looks after his personal needs as she does after those of the children--cherishing him, in fact, as a child--or in an extension to woman on the part of man of the nurture and affection which is in his nature to give to pets and all helpless (and preferably dumb) creatures." "When the devotion in the tie between mother and son," a woman writes, "is added to the relation of husband and wife, the union of marriage is raised to the high and beautiful dignity it deserves, and can attain in this world. It comprehends sympathy, love, and perfect understanding, even of the faults and weaknesses of both sides." "The foundation of every true woman's love," another woman writes, "is a mother's tenderness. He whom she loves is a child of larger growth, although she may at the same time have a deep respect for him." (See also, for similar opinion of another woman of distinguished intellectual ability, footnote at beginning of "The Psychic State in Pregnancy" in volume v of these _Studies_.) It is on the basis of these elemental human facts that the permanently seductive and inspiring relationships of sex are developed, and not by the emergence of personalities who combine impossibly exalted characteristics. "The task is extremely difficult," says Kisch in his _Sexual Life of Woman_, "but a clever and virtuous modern wife must endeavor to combine in her single personality the sensuous attractiveness of an Aspasia, the chastity of a Lucrece, and the intellectual greatness of a Cornelia." And in an earlier century we are told in the novel of _La Tia Fingida_, which has sometimes been attributed to Cervantes, that "a woman should be an angel in the street, a saint in church, beautiful at the window, honest in the house, and a demon in bed." The demands made of men by women, on the other hand, have been almost too lofty to bear definite formulation at all. "Ninety-nine out of a hundred loving women," says Helene Stöcker, "certainly believe that if a thousand other men have behaved ignobly, and forsaken, ill-used, and deceived the woman they love, the man they love is an exception, marked out from all other men; that is the reason they love him." It may be doubted, however, if the great lovers have ever stood very far above the ordinary level of humanity by their possession of perfection. They have been human, and their art of love has not always excluded the possession of human frailties; perfection, indeed, even if it could be found, would furnish a bad soil for love to strike deep roots in. It is only when we realize the highly complex nature of the elements which make up erotic love that we can understand how it is that that love can constitute so tremendous a revelation and exert so profound an influence even in men of the greatest genius and intellect and in the sphere of their most spiritual activity. It is not merely passion, nor any conscious skill in the erotic art,--important as these may be,--that would serve to account for Goethe's relationship to Frau von Stein, or Wagner's to Mathilde Wesendonck, or that of Robert and Elizabeth Browning to each other.[420] It may now be clear to the reader why it has been necessary in a discussion of the sexual impulse in its relationship to society to deal with the art of love. It is true that there is nothing so intimately private and personal as the erotic affairs of the individual. Yet it is equally true that these affairs lie at the basis of the social life, and furnish the conditions--good or bad as the case may be--of that procreative act which is a supreme concern of the State. It is because the question of love is of such purely private interest that it tends to be submerged in the question of breed. We have to realize, not only that the question of love subserves the question of breed, but also that love has a proper, a necessary, even a socially wholesome claim, to stand by itself and to be regarded for its own worth. In the profoundly suggestive study of love which the distinguished sociologist Tarde left behind at his death (_Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, loc. cit.), there are some interesting remarks on this point: "Society," he says, "has been far more, and more intelligently, preoccupied with the problem of answering the 'question of breed' than the 'question of love.' The first problem fills all our civil and commercial codes. The second problem has never been clearly stated, or looked in the face, not even in antiquity, still less since the coming of Christianity, for merely to offer the solutions of marriage and prostitution is manifestly inadequate. Statesmen have only seen the side on which it touches population. Hence the marriage laws. Sterile love they profess to disdain. Yet it is evident that, though born as the serf of generation, love tends by civilization to be freed from it. In place of a simple method of procreation it has become an end, it has created itself a title, a royal title. Our gardens cultivate flowers that are all the more charming because they are sterile; why is the double corolla of love held more infamous than the sterilized flowers of our gardens?" Tarde replies that the reason is that our politicians are merely ambitious persons thirsting for power and wealth, and even when they are lovers they are Don Juans rather than Virgils. "The future," he continues, "is to the Virgilians, because if the ambition of power, the regal wealth of American or European millionarism, once seemed nobler, love now more and more attracts to itself the best and highest parts of the soul, where lies the hidden ferment of all that is greatest in science and art, and more and more those studious and artist souls multiply who, intent on their peaceful activities, hold in horror the business men and the politicians, and will one day succeed in driving them back. That assuredly will be the great and capital revolution of humanity, an active psychological revolution: the recognized preponderance of the meditative and contemplative, the lover's side of the human soul, over the feverish, expansive, rapacious, and ambitious side. And then it will be understood that one of the greatest of social problems, perhaps the most arduous of all, has been the problem of love." FOOTNOTES: [375] _Quæstionum Convivalium_, lib. iii, quæstio 6. [376] E.D. Cope, "The Marriage Problem," _Open Court_, Nov. 1888. [377] Columbus meeting of the American Medical Association, 1900. [378] Ellen Key, _Ueber Liebe und Ehe_, p. 24. [379] In an admirable article on Friedrich Schlegel's _Lucinde_ (_Mutterschutz_, 1906, Heft 5), Heinrich Meyer-Benfey, in pointing out that the Catholic sacramental conception of marriage licensed love, but failed to elevate it, regards _Lucinde_, with all its defects, as the first expression of the unity of the senses and the soul, and, as such, the basis of the new ethics of love. It must, however, be said that four hundred years earlier Pontano had expressed this same erotic unity far more robustly and wholesomely than Schlegel, though the Latin verse in which he wrote, fresh and vital as it is, remained without influence. Pontano's _Carmina_, including the "De Amore Conjugali," have at length been reprinted in a scholarly edition by Soldati. [380] From the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries Ovid was, in reality, the most popular and influential classic poet. His works played a large part in moulding Renaissance literature, not least in England, where Marlowe translated his _Amores_, and Shakespeare, during the early years of his literary activity, was greatly indebted to him (see, e.g., Sidney Lee, "Ovid and Shakespeare's Sonnets," _Quarterly Review_, Ap., 1909). [381] This has already been discussed in Chapter II. [382] By the age of twenty-five, as G. Hirth remarks (_Wege zur Heimat_, p. 541), an energetic and sexually disposed man in a large city has, for the most part, already had relations with some twenty-five women, perhaps even as many as fifty, while a well-bred and cultivated woman at that age is still only beginning to realize the slowly summating excitations of sex. [383] In his study of "Conjugal Aversion" (_Journal Nervous and Mental Disease_, Sept., 1892) Smith Baker points out the value of adequate sexual knowledge before marriage in lessening the risks of such aversion. [384] "It may be said to the honor of men," Adler truly remarks (op. cit., p. 182), "that it is perhaps not often their conscious brutality that is at fault in this matter, but merely lack of skill and lack of understanding. The husband who is not specially endowed by nature and experience for psychic intercourse with women, is not likely, through his earlier intercourse with Venus vulgivaga, to bring into marriage any useful knowledge, psychic or physical." [385] "The first night," writes a correspondent concerning his marriage, "she found the act very painful and was frightened and surprised at the size of my penis, and at my suddenly getting on her. We had talked very openly about sex things before marriage, and it never occurred to me that she was ignorant of the details of the act. I imagined it would disgust her to talk about these things; but I now see I should have explained things to her. Before marrying I had come to the conclusion that the respect owed to one's wife was incompatible with any talk that might seem indecent, and also I had made a resolve not to subject her to what I thought then were dirty tricks, even to be naked and to have her naked. In fact, I was the victim of mock modesty; it was an artificial reaction from the life I had been living before marriage. Now it seems to me to be natural, if you love a woman, to do whatever occurs to you and to her. If I had not felt it wrong to encourage such acts between us, there might have been established a sexual sympathy which would have bound me more closely to her." [386] Montaigne, _Essais_, Bk. iii, Ch. V. It is a significant fact that, even in the matter of information, women, notwithstanding much ignorance and inexperience, are often better equipped for marriage than men. As Fürbringer remarks (Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage_, vol. i, p. 212), although the wife is usually more chaste at marriage than the husband, yet "she is generally the better informed partner in matters pertaining to the married state, in spite of occasional astonishing confessions." [387] "She never loses her self-respect nor my respect for her," a man writes in a letter, "simply because we are desperately in love with one another, and everything we do--some of which the lowest prostitute might refuse to do--seems but one attempt after another to translate our passion into action. I never realized before, not that to the pure all things are pure, indeed, but that to the lover nothing is indecent. Yes, I have always felt it, to love her is a liberal education." It is obviously only the existence of such an attitude as this that can enable a pure woman to be passionate. [388] "To be really understood," as Rafford Pyke well says, "to say what she likes, to utter her innermost thoughts in her own way, to cast aside the traditional conventions that gall her and repress her, to have someone near her with whom she can be quite frank, and yet to know that not a syllable of what she says will be misinterpreted or mistaken, but rather felt just as she feels it all--how wonderfully sweet is this to every woman, and how few men are there who can give it to her!" [389] In more recent times it has been discussed in relation to the frequency of spontaneous nocturnal emissions. See "The Phenomena of Sexual Periodicity," Sect. II, in volume i of these _Studies_, and cf. Mr. Perry-Coste's remarks on "The Annual Rhythm," in Appendix B of the same volume. [390] See "The Sexual Impulse in Women," vol. iii of these _Studies_. [391] Zenobia's practice is referred to by Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_, ed. Bury, vol. i, p. 302. The Queen of Aragon's decision is recorded by the Montpellier jurist, Nicolas Bohier (Boerius) in his _Decisiones_, etc., ed. of 1579, p. 563; it is referred to by Montaigne, _Essais_, Bk. iii, Ch. V. [392] Haller, _Elementa Physiologiæ_, 1778, vol. vii, p. 57. [393] Hammond, _Sexual Impotence_, p. 129. [394] Fürbringer, Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage_, vol. i, p. 221. [395] Forel, _Die Sexuelle Frage_, p. 80. [396] Guyot, _Bréviaire de l'Amour Expérimental_, p. 144. [397] Erb, Ziemssen's _Handbuch_, Bd. xi, ii, p. 148. Guttceit also considered that the very wide variations found are congenital and natural. It may be added that some believe that there are racial variations. Thus it has been stated that the genital force of the Englishman is low, and that of the Frenchman (especially Provençal, Languedocian, and Gascon) high, while Löwenfeld believes that the Germanic race excels the French in aptitude to repeat the sex act frequently. It is probable that little weight attaches to these opinions, and that the chief differences are individual rather than racial. [398] Ribbing, _L'Hygiène Sexualle_, p. 75. Kisch, in his _Sexual Life of Woman_, expresses the same opinion. [399] Mohammed, who often displayed a consideration for women very rare in the founders of religions, is an exception. His prescription of once a week represented the right of the wife, quite independently of the number of wives a man might possess. [400] How fragile the claim of "conjugal rights" is, may be sufficiently proved by the fact that it is now considered by many that the very term "conjugal rights" arose merely by a mistake for "conjugal rites." Before 1733, when legal proceedings were in Latin, the term used was _obsequies_, and "rights," instead of "rites," seems to have been merely a typesetter's error (see _Notes and Queries_, May 16, 1891; May 6, 1899). This explanation, it should be added, only applies to the consecrated term, for there can be no doubt that the underlying idea has an existence quite independent of the term. [401] "In most marriages that are not happy," it is said in Rafford Pyke's thoughtful paper on "Husbands and Wives" (_Cosmopolitan_, 1902), "it is the wife rather than the husband who is oftenest disappointed." [402] See "Analysis of the Sexual Impulse," in vol. iii of these _Studies_. [403] It is well recognized by erotic writers, however, that women may sometimes take a comparatively active part. Thus Vatsyayana says that sometimes the woman may take the man's position, and with flowers in her hair and smiles mixed with sighs and bent head, caressing him and pressing her breasts against him, say: "You have been my conqueror; it is my turn to make you cry for mercy." [404] Thus among the Swahili it is on the third day after marriage that the bridegroom is allowed, by custom, to complete defloration, according to Zache, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1899, II-III, p. 84. [405] _De l'Amour_, vol. ii, p. 57. [406] Robert Michels, "Brautstandsmoral," _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Jahrgang I, Heft 12. [407] I may refer once more to the facts brought together in volume iii of these _Studies_, "The Analysis of the Sexual Impulse." [408] This has been pointed out, for instance, by Rutgers, "Sexuelle Differenzierung," _Die Neue Generation_, Dec., 1908. [409] Thus, among the Eskimo, who practice temporary wife-exchange, Rasmussen states that "a man generally discovers that his own wife is, in spite of all, the best." [410] "I have always held with the late Professor Laycock," remarks Clouston (_Hygiene of Mind_, p. 214), "who was a very subtle student of human nature, that a married couple need not be always together to be happy, and that in fact reasonable absences and partings tend towards ultimate and closer union." That the prolongation of passion is only compatible with absence scarcely needs pointing out; as Mary Wollstonecraft long since said (_Rights of Woman_, original ed., p. 61), it is only in absence or in misfortune that passion is durable. It may be added, however, that in her love-letters to Imlay she wrote: "I have ever declared that two people who mean to live together ought not to be long separated." [411] "Viewed broadly," says Arnold L. Gesell, in his interesting study of "Jealousy" (_American Journal of Psychology_, Oct., 1906), "jealousy seems such a necessary psychological accompaniment to biological behavior, amidst competitive struggle, that one is tempted to consider it genetically among the oldest of the emotions, synonymous almost with the will to live, and to make it scarcely less fundamental than fear or anger. In fact, jealousy readily passes into anger, and is itself a brand of fear.... In sociability and mutual aid we see the other side of the shield; but jealousy, however anti-social it may be, retains a function in zoölogical economy: viz., to conserve the individual as against the group. It is Nature's great corrective for the purely social emotions." [412] Many illustrations are brought together in Gesell's study of "Jealousy." [413] Jealousy among lower races may be disguised or modified by tribal customs. Thus Rasmussen (_People of the Polar North_, p. 65) says in reference to the Eskimo custom of wife-exchange: "A man once told me that he only beat his wife when she would not receive other men. She would have nothing to do with anyone but him--and that was her only failing!" Rasmussen elsewhere shows that the Eskimo are capable of extreme jealousy. [414] See, e.g., Moll, _Sexualleben des Kindes_, p. 158; cf., Gesell's "Study of Jealousy." [415] Jealousy is notoriously common among drunkards. As K. Birnbaum points out ("Das Sexualleben der Alkokolisten," _Sexual-Probleme_, Jan., 1909), this jealousy is, in most cases, more or less well-founded, for the wife, disgusted with her husband, naturally seeks sympathy and companionship elsewhere. Alcoholic jealousy, however, goes far beyond its basis of support in fact, and is entangled with delusions and hallucinations. (See e.g., G. Dumas, "La Logique d'un Dément," _Revue Philosophique_, Feb., 1908; also Stefanowski, "Morbid Jealousy," _Alienist and Neurologist_, July, 1893.) [416] Ellen Key, _Ueber Liebe und Ehe_, p. 335. [417] Schrempf points out ("Von Stella zu Klärchen," _Mutterschutz_, 1906, Heft 7, p. 264) that Goethe strove to show in _Egmont_ that a woman is repelled by the love of a man who knows nothing beyond his love to her, and that it is easy for her to devote herself to the man whose aims lie in the larger world beyond herself. There is profound truth in this view. [418] A discussion on "Platonic friendship" of this kind by several writers, mostly women, whose opinions were nearly equally divided, may be found, for instance, in the _Lady's Realm_, March, 1900. [419] There are no doubt important exceptions. Thus Mérimée's famous friendship with Mlle. Jenny Dacquin, enshrined in the _Lettres à une Inconnue_, was perhaps Platonic throughout on Mérimée's side, Mlle. Dacquin adapting herself to his attitude. Cf. A. Lefebvre, _La Célèbre Inconnue de Mérimée_, 1908. [420] The love-letters of all these distinguished persons have been published. Rosa Mayreder (_Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit_, pp. 229 _et seq._) discusses the question of the humble and absolute manner in which even men of the most masculine and impetuous genius abandon themselves to the inspiration of the beloved woman. The case of the Brownings, who have been termed "the hero and heroine of the most wonderful love-story that the world knows of," is specially notable; (Ellen Key has written of the Brownings from this point of view in _Menschen_, and reference may be made to an article on the Brownings' love-letters in the _Edinburgh Review_, April, 1899). It is scarcely necessary to add that an erotic relationship may mean very much to persons of high intellectual ability, even when its issue is not happy; of Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the most intellectually distinguished of women, it may be said that the letters which enshrine her love to the worthless Imlay are among the most passionate and pathetic love-letters in English. CHAPTER XII. THE SCIENCE OF PROCREATION. The Relationship of the Science of Procreation to the Art of Love--Sexual Desire and Sexual Pleasure as the Conditions of Conception--Reproduction Formerly Left to Caprice and Lust--The Question of Procreation as a Religious Question--The Creed of Eugenics--Ellen Key and Sir Francis Galton--Our Debt to Posterity--The Problem of Replacing Natural Selection--The Origin and Development of Eugenics--The General Acceptance of Eugenical Principles To-day--The Two Channels by Which Eugenical Principles are Becoming Embodied in Practice--The Sense of Sexual Responsibility in Women--The Rejection of Compulsory Motherhood--The Privilege of Voluntary Motherhood--Causes of the Degradation of Motherhood--The Control of Conception--Now Practiced by the Majority of the Population in Civilized Countries--The Fallacy of "Racial Suicide"--Are Large Families a Stigma of Degeneration?--Procreative Control the Outcome of Natural and Civilized Progress--The Growth of Neo-Malthusian Beliefs and Practices--Facultative Sterility as Distinct from Neo-Malthusianism--The Medical and Hygienic Necessity of Control of Conception--Preventive Methods--Abortion--The New Doctrine of the Duty to Practice Abortion--How Far is this Justifiable?--Castration as a Method of Controlling Procreation--Negative Eugenics and Positive Eugenics--The Question of Certificates for Marriage--The Inadequacy of Eugenics by Act of Parliament--The Quickening of the Social Conscience in Regard to Heredity--Limitations to the Endowment of Motherhood--The Conditions Favorable to Procreation--Sterility--The Question of Artificial Fecundation--The Best Age of Procreation--The Question of Early Motherhood--The Best Time for Procreation--The Completion of the Divine Cycle of Life. We have seen that the art of love has an independent and amply justifiable right to existence apart, altogether, from procreation. Even if we still believed--as all men must once have believed and some Central Australians yet believe[421]--that sexual intercourse has no essential connection with the propagation of the race it would have full right to existence. In its finer manifestations as an art it is required in civilization for the full development of the individual, and it is equally required for that stability of relationships which is nearly everywhere regarded as a demand of social morality. When we now turn to the second great constitutional factor of marriage, procreation, the first point we encounter is that the art of love here also has its place. In ancient times the sexual congruence of any man with any woman was supposed to be so much a matter of course that all questions of love and of the art of love could be left out of consideration. The propagative act might, it was thought, be performed as impersonally, as perfunctorily, as the early Christian Fathers imagined it had been performed in Paradise. That view is no longer acceptable. It fails to commend itself to men, and still less to women. We know that in civilization at all events--and it is often indeed the same among savages--erethism is not always easy between two persons selected at random, nor even when they are more specially selected. And we also know, on the authority of very distinguished gynæcologists, that it is not in very many cases sufficient even to effect coitus, it is also necessary to excite orgasm, if conception is to be achieved. Many primitive peoples, as well as the theologians of the Middle Ages, have believed that sexual excitement on the woman's part is necessary to conception, though they have sometimes mixed up that belief with false science and mere superstition. The belief itself is supported by some of the most cautious and experienced modern gynæcologists. Thus, Matthews Duncan (in his lectures on _Sterility in Women_) argued that the absence of sexual desire in women, and the absence of pleasure in the sexual act, are powerful influences making for sterility. He brought forward a table based on his case-books, showing that of nearly four hundred sterile women, only about one-fourth experienced sexual desire, while less than half experienced pleasure in the sexual act. In the absence, however, of a corresponding table concerning fertile women, nothing is hereby absolutely proved, and, at most, only a probability established. Kisch, more recently (in his _Sexual Life of Woman_), has dealt fully with this question, and reaches the conclusion that it is "extremely probable" that the active erotic participation of the woman in coitus is an important link in the chain of conditions producing conception. It acts, he remarks, in either or both of two ways, by causing reflex changes in the cervical secretions, and so facilitating the passage of the spermatozoa, and by causing reflex erectile changes in the cervix itself, with slight descent of the uterus, so rendering the entrance of the semen easier. Kisch refers to the analogous fact that the first occurrence of menstruation is favored by sexual excitement. Some authorities go so far as to assert that, until voluptuous excitement occurs in women, no impregnation is possible. This statement seems too extreme. It is true that the occurrence of impregnation during sleep, or in anæsthesia, cannot be opposed to it, for we know that the unconsciousness of these states by no means prevents the occurrence of complete sexual excitement. We cannot fail, however, to connect the fact that impregnation frequently fails to occur for months and even years after marriage, with the fact that sexual pleasure in coitus on the wife's part also frequently fails to occur for a similar period. "Of all human instincts," Pinard has said,[422] "that of reproduction is the only one which remains in the primitive condition and has received no education. We procreate to-day as they procreated in the Stone Age. The most important act in the life of man, the sublimest of all acts since it is that of his reproduction, man accomplishes to-day with as much carelessness as in the age of the cave-man." And though Pinard himself, as the founder of puericulture, has greatly contributed to call attention to the vast destinies that hang on the act of procreation, there still remains a lamentable amount of truth in this statement. "Future generations," writes Westermarck in his great history of moral ideas,[423] "will probably with a kind of horror look back at a period when the most important, and in its consequences the most far-reaching, function which has fallen to the lot of man was entirely left to individual caprice and lust." We are told in his _Table Talk_, that the great Luther was accustomed to say that God's way of making man was very foolish ("sehr närrisch"), and that if God had deigned to take him into His counsel he would have strongly advised Him to make the whole human race, as He made Adam, "out of earth." And certainly if applied to the careless and reckless manner in which procreation in Luther's day, as still for the most part in our own, was usually carried out there was sound common sense in the Reformer's remarks. If that is the way procreation is to be carried on, it would be better to create and mould every human being afresh out of the earth; in that way we could at all events eliminate evil heredity. It was, however, unjust to place the responsibility on God. It is men and women who breed the people that make the world good or bad. They seek to put the evils of society on to something outside themselves. They see how large a proportion of human beings are defective, ill-conditioned, anti-social, incapable of leading a whole and beautiful human life. In old theological language it was often said that such were "children of the Devil," and Luther himself was often ready enough to attribute the evil of the world to the direct interposition of the Devil. Yet these ill-conditioned people who clog the wheels of society are, after all, in reality the children of Man. The only Devil whom we can justly invoke in this matter is Man. The command "Be fruitful and multiply," which the ancient Hebrews put into the mouth of their tribal God, was, as Crackanthorpe points out,[424] a command supposed to have been uttered when there were only eight persons in the world. If the time should ever again occur when the inhabitants of the world could be counted on one's fingers, such an injunction, as Crackanthorpe truly observes, would again be reasonable. But we have to remember that to-day humanity has spawned itself over the world in hundreds and even thousands of millions of creatures, a large proportion of whom, as is but too obvious, ought never to have been born at all, and the voice of Jehovah is now making itself heard through the leaders of mankind in a very different sense. It is not surprising that as this fact tends to become generally recognized, the question of the procreation of the race should gain a new significance, and even tend to take on the character of a new religious movement. Mere morality can never lead us to concern ourselves with the future of the race, and in the days of old, men used to protest against the tendency to subordinate the interests of religion to the claims of "mere morality." There was a sound natural instinct underlying that protest, so often and so vigorously made by Christianity, and again revived to-day in a more intelligent form. The claim of the race is the claim of religion. We have to beware lest we subordinate that claim to our moralities. Moralities are, indeed, an inevitable part of our social order from which we cannot escape; every community must have its _mores_. But we are not entitled to make a fetich of our morality, sacrificing to it the highest interests entrusted to us. The nations which have done so have already signed their own death-warrant.[425] From this point of view, the whole of Christianity, rightly considered, with its profound conviction of the necessity for forethought and preparation for the life hereafter, has been a preparation for eugenics, a schoolmaster to discipline within us a higher ideal than itself taught, and we cannot therefore be surprised at the solidity of the basis on which eugenical conceptions of life are developing. The most distinguished pioneers of the new movement of devotion to the creation of the race seem independently to have realized its religious character. This attitude is equally marked in Ellen Key and Francis Galton. In her _Century of the Child_ (English translation, 1909), Ellen Key entirely identifies herself with the eugenic movement. "It is only a question of time," she elsewhere writes (_Ueber Liebe und Ehe_, p. 445), "when the attitude of society towards a sexual union will depend not on the form of the union, but on the value of the children created. Men and women will then devote the same religious earnestness to the psychic and physical perfectioning of this sexual task as Christians have devoted to the salvation of their souls." Sir Francis Galton, writing a few years later, but without doubt independently, in 1905, on "Restrictions in Marriage," and "Eugenics as a Factor in Religion" (_Sociological Papers_ of the Sociological Society, vol. ii, pp. 13, 53), remarks: "Religious precepts, founded on the ethics and practice of older days, require to be reinterpreted, to make them conform to the needs of progressive nations. Ours are already so far behind modern requirements that much of our practice and our profession cannot be reconciled without illegitimate casuistry. It seems to me that few things are more needed by us in England than a revision of our religion, to adapt it to the intelligence and needs of this present time.... Evolution is a grand phantasmagoria, but it assumes an infinitely more interesting aspect under the knowledge that the intelligent action of the human will is, in some small measure, capable of guiding its course. Man has the power of doing this largely, so far as the evolution of humanity is concerned; he has already affected the quality and distribution of organic life so widely that the changes on the surface of the earth, merely through his disforestings and agriculture, would be recognizable from a distance as great as that of the moon. Eugenics is a virile creed, full of hopefulness, and appealing to many of the noblest feelings of our nature." As will always happen in every great movement, a few fanatics have carried into absurdity the belief in the supreme religious importance of procreation. Love, apart from procreation, writes one of these fanatics, Vacher de Lapouge, in the spirit of some of the early Christian Fathers (see _ante_ p. 509), is an aberration comparable to sadism and sodomy. Procreation is the only thing that matters, and it must become "a legally prescribed social duty" only to be exercised by carefully selected persons, and forbidden to others, who must, by necessity, be deprived of the power of procreation, while abortion and infanticide must, under some circumstances, become compulsory. Romantic love will disappear by a process of selection, as also will all religion except a new form of phallic worship (G. Vacher de Lapouge, "Die Crisis der Sexuellen Moral," _Politisch Anthropologische Revue_, No. 8, 1908). It is sufficient to point out that love is, and always must be, the natural portal to generation. Such excesses of procreative fanaticism cannot fail to occur, and they render the more necessary the emphasis which has here been placed on the art of love. "What has posterity done for me that I should do anything for posterity?" a cynic is said to have asked. The answer is very simple. The human race has done everything for him. All that he is, and can be, is its creation; all that he can do is the result of its laboriously accumulated traditions. It is only by working towards the creation of a still better posterity, that he can repay the good gifts which the human race has brought him.[426] Just as, within the limits of this present life, many who have received benefits and kindnesses they can never repay to the actual givers, find a pleasure in vicariously repaying the like to others, so the heritage we have received from our ascendents we can never repay, save by handing it on in a better form to our descendants. It is undoubtedly true that the growth of eugenical ideals has not been, for the most part, due to religious feeling. It has been chiefly the outcome of a very gradual, but very comprehensive, movement towards social amelioration, which has been going on for more than a century, and which has involved a progressive effort towards the betterment of all the conditions of life. The ideals of this movement were proclaimed in the eighteenth century, they began to find expression early in the nineteenth century, in the initiation of the modern system of sanitation, in the growth of factory legislation, in all the movements which have been borne onwards by socialism hand in hand with individualism. The inevitable tendency has been slowly towards the root of the matter; it began to be seen that comparatively little can be effected by improving the conditions of life of adults; attention began to be concentrated on the child, on the infant, on the embryo in its mother's womb, and this resulted in the fruitful movement of puericulture inspired by Pinard, and finally the problem is brought to its source at the point of procreation, and the regulation of sexual selection between stocks and between individuals as the prime condition of life. Here we have the science of eugenics which Sir Francis Galton has done so much to make a definite, vital, and practical study, and which in its wider bearings he defines as "the science which deals with those social eugenics that influence, mentally or physically, the racial qualities of future generations." In its largest aspect, eugenics is, as Galton has elsewhere said, man's attempt "to replace Natural Selection by other processes that are more merciful and not less effective." In the last chapter of his _Memories of My Life_ (1908), on "Race Improvement," Sir Francis Galton sets forth the origin and development of his conception of the science of eugenics. The term, "eugenics," he first used in 1884, in his _Human Faculty_, but the conception dates from 1865, and even earlier. Galton has more recently discussed the problems of eugenics in papers read before the Sociological Society (_Sociological Papers_, vols. i and ii, 1905), in the Herbert Spencer Lecture on "Probability the Foundation of Eugenics," (1907), and elsewhere. Galton's numerous memoirs on this subject have now been published in a collected form by the Eugenics Education Society, which was established in 1907, to further and to popularize the eugenical attitude towards social questions; _The Eugenics Review_ is published by this Society. On the more strictly scientific side, eugenic studies are carried on in the Eugenics Laboratory of the University of London, established by Sir Francis Galton, and now working in connection with Professor Karl Pearson's biometric laboratory, in University College. Much of Professor Pearson's statistical work in this and allied directions, is the elaboration of ideas and suggestions thrown out by Galton. See, e.g., Karl Pearson's Robert Boyle Lecture, "The Scope and Importance to the State of the Science of National Eugenics" (1907). _Biometrika_, edited by Karl Pearson in association with other workers, contains numerous statistical memoirs on eugenics. In Germany, the _Archiv für Rassen und Gesellschafts-biologie_, and the _Politisch-Anthropologische Revue_, are largely occupied with various aspects of such subjects, and in America, _The Popular Science Monthly_ from time to time, publishes articles which have a bearing on eugenics. At one time there was a tendency to scoff, or to laugh, at the eugenic movement. It was regarded as an attempt to breed men as men breed animals, and it was thought a sufficiently easy task to sweep away this new movement with the remark that love laughs at bolts and bars. It is now beginning to be better understood. None but fanatics dream of abolishing love in order to effect pairing by rule. It is merely a question of limiting the possible number of mates from whom each may select a partner, and that, we must remember, has always been done even by savages, for, as it has been said, "eugenics is the oldest of the sciences." The question has merely been transformed. Instead of being limited mechanically by caste, we begin to see that the choice of sexual mates must be limited intelligently by actual fitness. Promiscuous marriages have never been the rule; the possibility of choice has always been narrow, and the most primitive peoples have exerted the most marked self-restraint. It is not so merely among remote races but among our own European ancestors. Throughout the whole period of Catholic supremacy the Canon law multiplied the impediments to matrimony, as by ordaining that consanguinity to the fourth degree (third cousins), as well as spiritual relationship, is an impediment, and by such arbitrary prohibitions limited the range of possible mates at least as much as it would be limited by the more reasonable dictates of eugenic considerations. At the present day it may be said that the principle of the voluntary control of procreation, not for the selfish ends of the individual, but in order to extinguish disease, to limit human misery, and to raise the general level of humanity by substituting the ideal of quality for the vulgar ideal of mere quantity, is now generally accepted, alike by medical pathologists, embryologists and neurologists, and by sociologists and moralists. It would be easy to multiply quotations from distinguished authorities on this point. Thus, Metchnikoff points out (_Essais Optimistes_, p. 419) that orthobiosis seems to involve the limitation of offspring in the fight against disease. Ballantyne concludes his great treatise on _Antenanal Pathology_ with the statement that "Eugenics" or well-begetting, is one of the world's most pressing problems. Dr. Louise Robinovitch, the editor of the _Journal of Mental Pathology_, in a brilliant and thoughtful paper, read before the Rome Congress of Psychology in 1905, well spoke in the same sense: "Nations have not yet elevated the energy of genesic function to the dignity of an energy. Other energies known to us, even of the meanest grade, have long since been wisely utilized, and their activities based on the principle of the strictest possible economy. This economic utilization has been brought about, not through any enforcement of legislative restrictions, but through steadily progressive human intelligence. Economic handling of genesic function will, like the economic function of other energies, come about through a steady and progressive intellectual development of nations." "There are circumstances," says C.H. Hughes, ("Restricted Procreation," _Alienist and Neurologist_, May, 1908), "under which the propagation of a human life may be as gravely criminal as the taking of a life already begun." From the general biological, as well as from the sociological side, the acceptance of the same standpoint is constantly becoming more general, for it is recognized as the inevitable outcome of movements which have long been in progress. "Already," wrote Haycraft (_Darwinism and Race Progress_, p. 160), referring to the law for the prevention of cruelty to children, "public opinion has expressed itself in the public rule that a man and woman, in begetting a child, must take upon themselves the obligation and responsibility of seeing that that child is not subjected to cruelty and hardship. It is but one step more to say that a man and a woman shall be under obligation not to produce children, when it is certain that, from their want of physique, they will have to undergo suffering, and will keep up but an unequal struggle with their fellows." Professor J. Arthur Thomson, in his volume on _Heredity_ (1908), vigorously and temperately pleads (p. 528) for rational methods of eugenics, as specially demanded in an age like our own, when the unfit have been given a better chance of reproduction than they have ever been given in any other age. Bateson, again, referring to the growing knowledge of heredity, remarks (_Mendel's Principles of Heredity_, 1909, p. 305): "Genetic knowledge must certainly lead to new conceptions of justice, and it is by no means impossible that, in the light of such knowledge, public opinion will welcome measures likely to do more for the extinction of the criminal and the degenerate than has been accomplished by ages of penal enactment." Adolescent youths and girls, said Anton von Menger, in his last book, the pregnant _Neue Sittenlehre_ (1905), must be taught that the production of children, under certain circumstances, is a crime; they must also be taught the voluntary restraint of conception, even in health; such teaching, Menger rightly added, is a necessary preliminary to any legislation in this direction. Of recent years, many books and articles have been devoted to the advocacy of eugenic methods. Mention may be made, for instance, of _Population and Progress_ (1907), by Montague Crackanthorpe, President of the Eugenics Education Society. See also, Havelock Ellis, "Eugenics and St. Valentine," _Nineteenth Century and After_, May, 1906. It may be mentioned that nearly thirty years ago, Miss J.H. Clapperton, in her _Scientific Meliorism_ (1885, Ch. XVII), pointed out that the voluntary restraint of procreation by Neo-Malthusian methods, apart from merely prudential motives, there clearly recognized, is "a new key to the social position," and a necessary condition for "national regeneration." Professor Karl Pearson's _Groundwork of Eugenics_, (1909) is, perhaps, the best brief introduction to the subject. Mention may also be made of Dr. Saleeby's _Parenthood and Race Culture_ (1909), written in a popular and enthusiastic manner. How widely the general principles of eugenics are now accepted as the sound method of raising the level of the human race, was well shown at a meeting of the Sociological Society, in 1905, when, after Sir Francis Galton had read papers on the question, the meeting heard the opinions of numerous sociologists, economists, biologists, and well-known thinkers in various lands, who were present, or who had sent communications. Some twenty-one expressed more or less unqualified approval, and only three or four had objections to offer, mostly on matters of detail (_Sociological Papers_, published by the Sociological Society, vol. ii, 1905). If we ask by what channels this impulse towards the control of procreation for the elevation of the race is expressing itself in practical life, we shall scarcely fail to find that there are at least two such channels: (1) the growing sense of sexual responsibility among women as well as men, and (2) the conquest of procreative control which has been achieved in recent years, by the general adoption of methods for the prevention of conception. It has already been necessary in a previous chapter to discuss the far-reaching significance of woman's personal responsibility as an element in the modification of the sexual life of modern communities. Here it need only be pointed out that the autonomous authority of a woman over her own person, in the sexual sphere, involves on her part a consent to the act of procreation which must be deliberate. We are apt to think that this is a new and almost revolutionary demand; it is, however, undoubtedly a natural, ancient, and recognized privilege of women that they should not be mothers without their own consent. Even in the Islamic world of the _Arabian Nights_, we find that high praise is accorded to the "virtue and courage" of the woman who, having been ravished in her sleep, exposed, and abandoned on the highway, the infant that was the fruit of this involuntary union, "not wishing," she said, "to take the responsibility before Allah of a child that had been born without my consent."[427] The approval with which this story is narrated clearly shows that to the public of Islam it seemed entirely just and humane that a woman should not have a child, except by her own deliberate will. We have been accustomed to say in later days that the State needs children, and that it is the business and the duty of women to supply them. But the State has no more right than the individual to ravish a woman against her will. We are beginning to realize that if the State wants children it must make it agreeable to women to produce them, as under natural and equitable conditions it cannot fail to be. "The women will solve the question of mankind," said Ibsen in one of his rare and pregnant private utterances, "and they will do it as mothers." But it is unthinkable that any question should ever be solved by a helpless, unwilling, and involuntary act which has not even attained to the dignity of animal joy. It is sometimes supposed, and even assumed, that the demand of women that motherhood must never be compulsory, means that they are unwilling to be mothers on any terms. In a few cases that may be so, but it is certainly not the case as regards the majority of sane and healthy women in any country. On the contrary, this demand is usually associated with the desire to glorify motherhood, if not, indeed, even with the thought of extending motherhood to many who are to-day shut out from it. "It seems to me," wrote Lady Henry Somerset, some years ago ("The Welcome Child," _Arena_, April, 1895), "that life will be dearer and nobler the more we recognize that there is no indelicacy in the climax and crown of creative power, but, rather, that it is the highest glory of the race. But if voluntary motherhood is the crown of the race, involuntary compulsory motherhood is the very opposite.... Only when both man and woman have learned that the most sacred of all functions given to women must be exercised by the free will alone, can children be born into the world who have in them the joyous desire to live, who claim that sweetest privilege of childhood, the certainty that they can expand in the sunshine of the love which is their due." Ellen Key, similarly, while pointing out (_Ueber Liebe und Ehe_, pp. 14, 265) that the tyranny of the old Protestant religious spirit which enjoined on women unlimited submission to joyless motherhood within "the whited sepulchre of marriage" is now being broken, exalts the privileges of voluntary motherhood, while admitting that there may be a few exceptional cases in which women may withdraw themselves from motherhood for the sake of the other demands of their personality, though, "as a general rule, the woman who refuses motherhood in order to serve humanity, is like a soldier who prepares himself on the eve of battle for the forthcoming struggle by opening his veins." Helene Stöcker, likewise, reckons motherhood as one of the demands, one of the growing demands indeed, which women now make. "If, to-day," she says (in the Preface to _Liebe und die Frauen_, 1906), "all the good things of life are claimed even for women--intellectual training, pecuniary independence, a happy vocation in life, a respected social position--and at the same time, as equally matter-of-course, and equally necessary, marriage and child, that demand no longer sounds, as it sounded a few years ago, the voice of a preacher in the wilderness." The degradation to which motherhood has, in the eyes of many, fallen, is due partly to the tendency to deprive women of any voice in the question, and partly to what H.G. Wells calls (_Socialism and the Family_, 1906) "the monstrous absurdity of women discharging their supreme social function, bearing and rearing children, in their spare time, as it were, while they 'earn their living' by contributing some half mechanical element to some trivial industrial product." It would be impracticable, and even undesirable, to insist that married women should not be allowed to work, for a work in the world is good for all. It is estimated that over thirty per cent. of the women workers in England are married or widows (James Haslam, _Englishwoman_, June, 1909), and in Lancashire factories alone, in 1901, there were 120,000 married women employed. But it would be easily possible for the State to arrange, in its own interests, that a woman's work at a trade should always give way to her work as a mother. It is the more undesirable that married women should be prohibited from working at a profession, since there are some professions for which a married woman, or, rather, a mother, is better equipped than an unmarried woman. This is notably the case as regards teaching, and it would be a good policy to allow married women teachers special privileges in the shape of increased free time and leave of absence. While in many fields of knowledge an unmarried woman may be a most excellent teacher, it is highly undesirable that children, and especially girls, should be brought exclusively under the educational influence of unmarried teachers. The second great channel through which the impulse towards the control of procreation for the elevation of the race is entering into practical life is by the general adoption, by the educated classes of all countries--and it must be remembered that, in this matter at all events, all classes are gradually beginning to become educated--of methods for the prevention of conception except when conception is deliberately desired. It is no longer permissible to discuss the validity of this control, for it is an accomplished fact and has become a part of our modern morality. "If a course of conduct is habitually and deliberately pursued by vast multitudes of otherwise well-conducted people, forming probably a majority of the whole educated class of the nation," as Sidney Webb rightly puts it, "we must assume that it does not conflict with their actual code of morality."[428] There cannot be any doubt that, so far as England is concerned, the prevention of conception is practiced, from prudential or other motives, by the vast majority of the educated classes. This fact is well within the knowledge of all who are intimately acquainted with the facts of English family life. Thus, Dr. A.W. Thomas writes (_British Medical Journal_, Oct. 20, 1906, p. 1066): "From my experience as a general practitioner, I have no hesitation in saying that ninety per cent. of young married couples of the comfortably-off classes use preventives." As a matter of fact, this rough estimate appears to be rather under than over the mark. In the very able paper already quoted, in which Sidney Webb shows that "the decline in the birthrate appears to be much greater in those sections of the population which give proofs of thrift and foresight," that this decline is "principally, if not entirely, the result of deliberate volition," and that "a volitional regulation of the marriage state is now ubiquitous throughout England and Wales, among, apparently, a large majority of the population," the results are brought forward of a detailed inquiry carried out by the Fabian Society. This inquiry covered 316 families, selected at random from all parts of Great Britain, and belonging to all sections of the middle class. The results are carefully analyzed, and it is found that seventy-four families were unlimited, and two hundred and forty-two voluntarily limited. When, however, the decade 1890-99 is taken by itself as the typical period, it is found that of 120 marriages, 107 were limited, and only thirteen unlimited, while of these thirteen, five were childless at the date of the return. In this decade, therefore, only seven unlimited fertile marriages are reported, out of a total of 120. What is true of Great Britain is true of all other civilized countries, in the highest degree true of the most civilized countries, and it finds expression in the well-known phenomenon of the decline of the birthrate. In modern times, this movement of decline began in France, producing a slow but steady diminution in the annual number of births, and in France the movement seems now to be almost, or quite, arrested. But it has since taken place in all other progressive countries, notably in the United States, in Canada, in Australia, and in New Zealand, as well as in Germany, Austro-Hungary, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. In England, it has been continuous since 1877. Of the great countries, Russia is the only one in which it has not yet taken place, and among the masses of the Russian population we find less education, more poverty, a higher deathrate, and a greater amount of disease, than in any other great, or even small, civilized country. It is sometimes said, indeed, that the decline of the birthrate is not entirely due to the voluntary control of procreation. It is undoubtedly true that certain other elements, common under civilized conditions, such as the postponement of marriage in women to a comparatively late age, tend to diminish the size of the family. But when all such allowances have been made, the decline is still found to be real and large. This has been shown, for instance, by the statistical analyses made by Arthur Newsholme and T.H.C. Stevenson, and by G. Yule, both published in _Journal Royal Statistical Society_, April, 1906. Some have supposed that, since the Catholic Church forbids incomplete sexual intercourse, this movement for the control of procreation will involve a relatively much greater increase among Catholic than among non-Catholic populations. This, however, is only correct under certain conditions. It is quite true that in Ireland there has been no fall in the birthrate, and that the fall is but little marked in those Lancashire towns which possess a large Irish element. But in Belgium, Italy, Spain, and other mainly Catholic countries, the decline in the birthrate is duly taking place. What has happened is that the Church--always alive to sexual questions--has realized the importance of the modern movement, and has adapted herself to it, by proclaiming to her more ignorant and uneducated children that incomplete intercourse is a deadly sin, while at the same time refraining from making inquiries into this matter among her more educated members. The question was definitely brought up for Papal judgment, in 1842, by Bishop Bouvier of Le Mans, who stated the matter very clearly, representing to the Pope (Gregory XVI) that the prevention of conception was becoming very common, and that to treat it as a deadly sin merely resulted in driving the penitent away from confession. After mature consideration, the Curia Sacra Poenitentiaria replied by pointing out, as regards the common method of withdrawal before emission, that since it was due to the wrong act of the man, the woman who has been forced by her husband to consent to it, has committed no sin. Further, the Bishop was reminded of the wise dictum of Liguori, "the most learned and experienced man in these matters," that the confessor is not usually called upon to make inquiry upon so delicate a matter as the _debitum conjugale_, and, if his opinion is not asked, he should be silent (Bouvier, _Dissertatio in sextum Decalogi præceptum; supplementum ad Tractatum de Matrimonio_. 1849, pp. 179-182; quoted by Hans Ferdy, _Sexual-Probleme_, Aug., 1908, p. 498). We see, therefore, that, among Catholic as well as among non-Catholic populations, the adoption of preventive methods of conception follows progress and civilization, and that the general practice of such methods by Catholics (with the tacit consent of the Church) is merely a matter of time. From time to time many energetic persons have noisily demanded that a stop should be put to the decline of the birthrate, for, they argue, it means "race suicide." It is now beginning to be realized, however, that this outcry was a foolish and mischievous mistake. It is impossible to walk through the streets of any great city, full of vast numbers of persons who, obviously, ought never to have been born, without recognizing that the birthrate is as yet very far above its normal and healthy limit. The greatest States have often been the smallest so far as mere number of citizens is concerned, for it is quality not quantity that counts. And while it is true that the increase of the best types of citizens can only enrich a State, it is now becoming intolerable that a nation should increase by the mere dumping down of procreative refuse in its midst. It is beginning to be realized that this process not only depreciates the quality of a people but imposes on a State an inordinate financial burden. It is now well recognized that large families are associated with degeneracy, and, in the widest sense, with abnormality of every kind. Thus, it is undoubtedly true that men of genius tend to belong to very large families, though it may be pointed out to those who fear an alarming decrease of genius from the tendency to the limitation of the family, that the position in the family most often occupied by the child of genius is the firstborn. (See Havelock Ellis, _A Study of British Genius_, pp. 115-120). The insane, the idiotic, imbecile, and weak-minded, the criminal, the epileptic, the hysterical, the neurasthenic, the tubercular, all, it would appear, tend to belong to large families (see e.g., Havelock Ellis, op. cit., p. 110; Toulouse, _Les Causes de la Folie_, p. 91; Harriet Alexander, "Malthusianism and Degeneracy," _Alienist and Neurologist_, Jan., 1901). It has, indeed, been shown by Heron, Pearson, and Goring, that not only the eldest-born, but also the second-born, are specially liable to suffer from pathological defect (insanity, criminality, tuberculosis). There is, however, it would seem, a fallacy in the common interpretation of this fact. According to Van den Velden (as quoted in _Sexual-Probleme_, May, 1909, p. 381), this tendency is fully counterbalanced by the rising mortality of children from the firstborn onward. The greater pathological tendency of the earlier children is thus simply the result of a less stringent selection by death. So far as they show any really greater pathological tendency, apart from this fallacy, it is perhaps due to premature marriage. There is another fallacy in the frequent statement that the children in small families are more feeble than those in large families. We have to distinguish between a naturally small family, and an artificially small family. A family which is small merely as the result of the feeble procreative energy of the parents, is likely to be a feeble family; a family which is small as the result of the deliberate control of the parents, shows, of course, no such tendency. These considerations, it will be seen, do not modify the tendency of the large family to be degenerate. We may connect this phenomenon with the disposition, often shown by nervously unsound and abnormal persons, to believe that they have a special aptitude to procreate fine children. "I believe that everyone has a special vocation," said a man to Marro (_La Pubertà_, p. 459); "I find that it is my vocation to beget superior children." He begat four,--an epileptic, a lunatic, a dipsomaniac, and a valetudinarian,--and himself died insane. Most people have come across somewhat similar, though perhaps less marked, cases of this delusion. In a matter of such fateful gravity to other human beings, no one can safely rely on his own unsupported impressions. The demand of national efficiency thus corresponds with the demand of developing humanitarianism, which, having begun by attempting to ameliorate the conditions of life, has gradually begun to realize that it is necessary to go deeper and to ameliorate life itself. For while it is undoubtedly true that much may be done by acting systematically on the conditions of life, the more searching analysis of evil environmental conditions only serves to show that in large parts they are based in the human organism itself and were not only pre-natal, but pre-conceptional, being involved in the quality of the parental or ancestral organisms. Putting aside, however, all humanitarian considerations, the serious error of attempting to stem the progress of civilization in the direction of procreative control could never have occurred if the general tendencies of zoölogical evolution had been understood, even in their elements. All zoölogical progress is from the more prolific to the less prolific; the higher the species the less fruitful are its individual members. The same tendency is found within the limits of the human species, though not in an invariable straight line; the growth of civilization involves a diminution in fertility. This is by no means a new phenomenon; ancient Rome and later Geneva, "the Protestant Rome," bear witness to it; no doubt it has occurred in every high centre of moral and intellectual culture, although the data for measuring the tendency no longer exist. When we take a sufficiently wide and intelligent survey, we realize that the tendency of a community to slacken its natural rate of increase is an essential phenomenon of all advanced civilization. The more intelligent nations have manifested the tendency first, and in each nation the more educated classes have taken the lead, but it is only a matter of time to bring all civilized nations, and all social classes in each nation, into line.[429] This movement, we have to remember--in opposition to the ignorant outcry of certain would-be moralists and politicians--is a beneficent movement. It means a greater regard to the quality than to the quantity of the increase; it involves the possibility of combating successfully the evils of high mortality, disease, overcrowding, and all the manifold misfortunes which inevitably accompany a too exuberant birthrate. For it is only in a community which increases slowly that it is possible to secure the adequate economic adjustment and environmental modifications necessary for a sane and wholesome civic and personal life.[430] If those persons who raise the cry of "race suicide" in face of the decline of the birthrate really had the knowledge and intelligence to realize the manifold evils which they are invoking they would deserve to be treated as criminals. On the practical side a knowledge of the possibility of preventing conception has, doubtless, never been quite extinct in civilization and even in lower stages of culture, though it has mostly been utilized for ends of personal convenience or practiced in obedience to conventional social rules which demanded chastity, and has only of recent times been made subservient to the larger interests of society and the elevation of the race. The theoretical basis of the control of procreation, on its social and economic, as distinct from its eugenic, aspects, may be said to date from Malthus's famous _Essay on Population_, first published in 1798, an epoch-marking book,--though its central thesis is not susceptible of actual demonstration,--since it not only served as the starting-point of the modern humanitarian movement for the control of procreation, but also furnished to Darwin (and independently to Wallace also) the fruitful idea which was finally developed into the great evolutionary theory of natural selection. Malthus, however, was very far from suggesting that the control of procreation, which he advocated for the benefit of mankind, should be exercised by the introduction of preventive methods into sexual intercourse. He believed that civilization involved an increased power of self-control, which would make it possible to refrain altogether from sexual intercourse, when such self-restraint was demanded in the interests of humanity. Later thinkers realized, however, that, while it is undoubtedly true that civilization involves greater forethought and greater self-control, we cannot anticipate that those qualities should be developed to the extent demanded by Malthus, especially when the impulse to be controlled is of so powerful and explosive a nature. James Mill was the pioneer in advocating Neo-Malthusian methods, though he spoke cautiously. In 1818, in the article "Colony" in the supplement to the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, after remarking that the means of checking the unrestricted increase of the population constitutes "the most important practical problem to which the wisdom of the politician and moralist can be applied," he continued: "If the superstitions of the nursery were discarded, and the principle of utility kept steadily in view, a solution might not be very difficult to be found." Four years later, James Mill's friend, the Radical reformer, Francis Place, more distinctly expressed the thought that was evidently in Mill's mind. After enumerating the facts concerning the necessity of self-control in procreation and the evils of early marriage, which he thinks ought to be clearly taught, Place continues: "If a hundredth, perhaps a thousandth part of the pains were taken to teach these truths, that are taken to teach dogmas, a great change for the better might, in no considerable space of time, be expected to take place in the appearance and the habits of the people. If, above all, it were once clearly understood that it was not disreputable for married persons to avail themselves of such precautionary means as would, without being injurious to health, or destructive of female delicacy, prevent conception, a sufficient check might at once be given to the increase of population beyond the means of subsistence; vice and misery, to a prodigious extent, might be removed from society, and the object of Mr. Malthus, Mr. Godwin, and of every philanthropic person, be promoted, by the increase of comfort, of intelligence, and of moral conduct, in the mass of the population. The course recommended will, I am fully persuaded, at some period be pursued by the people even if left to themselves."[431] It was not long before Place's prophetic words began to be realized, and in another half century the movement was affecting the birthrate of all civilized lands, though it can scarcely yet be said that justice has been done to the pioneers who promoted it in the face of much persecution from the ignorant and superstitious public whom they sought to benefit. In 1831, Robert Dale Owen, the son of Robert Owen, published his _Moral Physiology_, setting forth the methods of preventing conception. A little later the brothers George and Charles Drysdale (born 1825 and 1829), two ardent and unwearying philanthropists, devoted much of their energy to the propagation of Neo-Malthusian principles. George Drysdale, in 1854, published his _Elements of Social Science_, which during many years had an enormous circulation all over Europe in eight different languages. It was by no means in every respect a scientific or sound work, but it certainly had great influence, and it came into the hands of many who never saw any other work on sexual topics. Although the Neo-Malthusian propagandists of those days often met with much obloquy, their cause was triumphantly vindicated in 1876, when Charles Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant, having been prosecuted for disseminating Neo-Malthusian pamphlets, the charge was dismissed, the Lord Chief Justice declaring that so ill-advised and injudicious a charge had probably never before been made in a court of justice. This trial, even by its mere publicity and apart from its issue, gave an enormous impetus to the Neo-Malthusian movement. It is well known that the steady decline in the English birthrate begun in 1877, the year following the trial. There could be no more brilliant illustration of the fact, that what used to be called "the instruments of Providence" are indeed unconscious instruments in bringing about great ends which they themselves were far from either intending or desiring. In 1877, Dr. C.R. Drysdale founded the Malthusian League, and edited a periodical, _The Malthusian_, aided throughout by his wife, Dr. Alice Drysdale Vickery. He died in 1907. (The noble and pioneering work of the Drysdales has not yet been adequately recognized in their own country; an appreciative and well-informed article by Dr. Hermann Rohleder, "Dr. C.R. Drysdale, Der Hauptvortreter der Neumalthusianische Lehre," appeared in the _Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, March, 1908). There are now societies and periodicals in all civilized countries for the propagation of Neo-Malthusian principles, as they are still commonly called, though it would be desirable to avoid the use of Malthus's name in this connection. In the medical profession, the advocacy of preventive methods of sexual intercourse, not on social, but on medical and hygienic grounds, began same thirty years ago, though in France, at an earlier date, Raciborski advocated the method of avoiding the neighborhood of menstruation. In Germany, Dr. Mensinga, the gynæcologist, is the most prominent advocate, on medical and hygienic grounds, of what he terms "facultative sterility," which he first put forward about 1889. In Russia, about the same time, artificial sterility was first openly advocated by the distinguished gynæcologist, Professor Ott, at the St. Petersburg Obstetric and Gynæcological Society. Such medical recommendations, in particular cases, are now becoming common. There are certain cases in which a person ought not to marry at all; this is so, for instance, when there has been an attack of insanity; it can never be said with certainty that a person who has had one attack of insanity will not have another, and persons who have had such attacks ought not, as Blandford says (Lumleian Lectures on Insanity, _British Medical Journal_, April 20, 1895), "to inflict on their partner for life, the anxiety, and even danger, of another attack." There are other and numerous cases in which marriage may be permitted, or may have already taken place, under more favorable circumstances, but where it is, or has become, highly desirable that there should be no children. This is the case when a first attack of insanity occurs after marriage, the more urgently if the affected party is the wife, and especially if the disease takes the form of puerperal mania. "What can be more lamentable," asks Blandford (loc. cit.), "than to see a woman break down in childbed, recover, break down again with the next child, and so on, for six, seven, or eight children, the recovery between each being less and less, until she is almost a chronic maniac?" It has been found, moreover, by Tredgold (_Lancet_, May 17, 1902), that among children born to insane mothers, the mortality is twice as great as the ordinary infantile mortality, in even the poorest districts. In cases of unions between persons with tuberculous antecedents, also, it is held by many (e.g., by Massalongo, in discussing tuberculosis and marriage at the Tuberculosis Congress, at Naples, in 1900) that every precaution should be taken to make the marriage childless. In a third class of cases, it is necessary to limit the children to one or two; this happens in some forms of heart disease, in which pregnancy has a progressively deteriorating effect on the heart (Kisch, _Therapeutische Monatsheft_, Feb., 1898, and _Sexual Life of Woman_; Vinay, _Lyon Medical_, Jan. 8, 1889); in some cases of heart disease, however, it is possible that, though there is no reason for prohibiting marriage, it is desirable for a woman not to have any children (J.F. Blacker, "Heart Disease in Relation to Pregnancy," _British Medical Journal_, May 25, 1907). In all such cases, the recommendation of preventive methods of intercourse is obviously an indispensable aid to the physician in emphasizing the supremacy of hygienic precautions. In the absence of such methods, he can never be sure that his warnings will be heard, and even the observance of his advice would be attended with various undesirable results. It sometimes happens that a married couple agree, even before marriage, to live together without sexual relations, but, for various reasons, it is seldom found possible or convenient to maintain this resolution for a long period. It is the recognition of these and similar considerations which has led--though only within recent years--on the one hand, as we have seen, to the embodiment of the control of procreation into the practical morality of all civilized nations, and, on the other hand, to the assertion, now perhaps without exception, by all medical authorities on matters of sex that the use of the methods of preventing conception is under certain circumstances urgently necessary and quite harmless.[432] It arouses a smile to-day when we find that less than a century ago it was possible for an able and esteemed medical author to declare that the use of "various abominable means" to prevent conception is "based upon a most presumptuous doubt in the conservative power of the Creator."[433] The adaptation of theory to practice is not yet complete, and we could not expect that it should be so, for, as we have seen, there is always an antagonism between practical morality and traditional morality. From time to time flagrant illustrations of this antagonism occur.[434] Even in England, which played a pioneering part in the control of procreation, attempts are still made--sometimes in quarters where we have a right to expect a better knowledge--to cast discredit on a movement which, since it has conquered alike scientific approval and popular practice, it is now idle to call in question. It would be out of place to discuss here the various methods which are used for the control of procreation, or their respective merits and defects. It is sufficient to say that the condom or protective sheath, which seems to be the most ancient of all methods of preventing conception, after withdrawal, is now regarded by nearly all authorities as, when properly used, the safest, the most convenient, and the most harmless method.[435] This is the opinion of Krafft-Ebing, of Moll, of Schrenck-Notzing, of Löwenfeld, of Forel, of Kisch, of Fürbringer, to mention only a few of the most distinguished medical authorities.[436] There is some interest in attempting to trace the origin and history of the condom, though it seems impossible to do so with any precision. It is probable that, in a rudimentary form, such an appliance is of great antiquity. In China and Japan, it would appear, rounds of oiled silk paper are used to cover the mouth of the womb, at all events, by prostitutes. This seems the simplest and most obvious mechanical method of preventing conception, and may have suggested the application of a sheath to the penis as a more effectual method. In Europe, it is in the middle of the sixteenth century, in Italy, that we first seem to hear of such appliances, in the shape of linen sheaths, adapted to the shape of the penis; Fallopius recommended the use of such an appliance. Improvements in the manufacture were gradually devised; the cæcum of the lamb was employed, and afterwards, isinglass. It appears that a considerable improvement in the manufacture took place in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, and this improvement was generally associated with England. The appliance thus became known as the English cape or mantle, the "capote anglaise," or the "redingote anglaise," and, under the latter name, is referred to by Casanova, in the middle of the eighteenth century (Casanova, _Mémoires_, ed. Garnier, vol. iv, p. 464); Casanova never seems, however, to have used these redingotes himself, not caring, he said, "to shut myself up in a piece of dead skin in order to prove that I am perfectly alive." These capotes--then made of goldbeaters' skin--were, also, it appears, known at an earlier period to Mme. de Sévigné, who did not regard them with favor, for, in one of her letters, she refers to them as "cuirasses contre la volupté et toiles d'arraignée contre le mal." The name, "condom," dates from the eighteenth century, first appearing in France, and is generally considered to be that of an English physician, or surgeon, who invented, or, rather, improved the appliance. Condom is not, however, an English name, but there is an English name, Condon, of which "condom" may well be a corruption. This supposition is strengthened by the fact that the word sometimes actually was written "condon." Thus, in lines quoted by Bachaumont, in his _Diary_ (Dec. 15, 1773), and supposed to be addressed to a former ballet dancer who had become a prostitute, I find:-- "Du _condon_ cependant, vous connaissez l'usage, * * * * * "Le _condon_, c'est la loi, ma fille, et les prophètes!" The difficulty remains, however, of discovering any Englishman of the name of Condon, who can plausibly be associated with the condom; doubtless he took no care to put the matter on record, never suspecting the fame that would accrue to his invention, or the immortality that awaited his name. I find no mention of any Condon in the records of the College of Physicians, and at the College of Surgeons, also, where, indeed, the old lists are very imperfect, Mr. Victor Plarr, the librarian, after kindly making a search, has assured me that there is no record of the name. Other varying explanations of the name have been offered, with more or less assurance, though usually without any proofs. Thus, Hyrtl (_Handbuch der Topographischen Anatomic_, 7th ed., vol. ii, p. 212) states that the condom was originally called gondom, from the name of the English discoverer, a Cavalier of Charles II's Court, who first prepared it from the amnion of the sheep; Gondom is, however, no more an English name than Condom. There happens to be a French town, in Gascony, called Condom, and Bloch suggests, without any evidence, that this furnished the name; if so, however, it is improbable that it would have been unknown in France. Finally, Hans Ferdy considers that it is derived from "condus"--that which preserves--and, in accordance with his theory, he terms the condom a condus. The early history of the condom is briefly discussed by various writers, as by Proksch, _Die Vorbauung der Venerischen Krankheiten_, p. 48; Bloch, _Sexual Life of Our Time_, Chs. XV and XXVIII; Cabanès, _Indiscretions de l'Histoire_, p. 121, etc. The control of procreation by the prevention of conception has, we have seen, become a part of the morality of civilized peoples. There is another method, not indeed for preventing conception, but for limiting offspring, which is of much more ancient appearance in the world, though it has at different times been very differently viewed and still arouses widely opposing opinions. This is the method of abortion. While the practice of abortion has by no means, like the practice of preventing conception, become accepted in civilization, it scarcely appears to excite profound repulsion in a large proportion of the population of civilized countries. The majority of women, not excluding educated and highly moral women, who become pregnant against their wish contemplate the possibility of procuring abortion without the slightest twinge of conscience, and often are not even aware of the usual professional attitude of the Church, the law, and medicine regarding abortion. Probably all doctors have encountered this fact, and even so distinguished and correct a medico-legist as Brouardel stated[437] that he had been not infrequently solicited to procure abortion, for themselves or their wet-nurses, by ladies who looked on it as a perfectly natural thing, and had not the least suspicion that the law regarded the deed as a crime. It is not, therefore, surprising that abortion is exceedingly common in all civilized and progressive countries. It cannot, indeed, unfortunately, be said that abortion has been conducted in accordance with eugenic considerations, nor has it often been so much as advocated from the eugenic standpoint. But in numerous classes of cases of undesired pregnancy, occurring in women of character and energy, not accustomed to submit tamely to conditions they may not have sought, and in any case consider undesirable, abortion is frequently resorted to. It is usual to regard the United States as a land in which the practice especially flourishes, and certainly a land in which the ideal of chastity for unmarried women, of freedom for married women, of independence for all, is actively followed cannot fail to be favorable to the practice of abortion. But the way in which the prevalence of abortion is proclaimed in the United States is probably in large part due to the honesty of the Americans in setting forth, and endeavoring to correct, what, rightly or wrongly, they regard as social defects, and may not indicate any real pre-eminence in the practice. Comparative statistics are difficult, and it is certainly true that abortion is extremely common in England, in France, and in Germany. It is probable that any national differences may be accounted for by differences in general social habits and ideals. Thus in Germany, where considerable sexual freedom is permitted to unmarried women and married women are very domesticated, abortion may be less frequent than in France where purity is stringently demanded from the young girl, while the married woman demands freedom for work and for pleasure. But such national differences, if they exist, are tending to be levelled down, and charges of criminal abortion are constantly becoming more common in Germany; though this increase, again, may be merely due to greater zeal in pursuing the offence. Brouardel (op. cit., p. 39) quotes the opinion that, in New York, only one in every thousand abortions is discovered. Dr. J.F. Scott (_The Sexual Instinct_, Ch. VIII), who is himself strongly opposed to the practice, considers that in America, the custom of procuring abortion has to-day reached "such vast proportions as to be almost beyond belief," while "countless thousands" of cases are never reported. "It has increased so rapidly in our day and generation," Scott states, "that it has created surprise and alarm in the minds of all conscientious persons who are informed of the extent to which it is carried." (The assumption that those who approve of abortion are necessarily not "conscientious persons" is, as we shall see, mistaken.) The change has taken place since 1840. The Michigan Special Committee on Criminal Abortion reported in 1881 that, from correspondence with nearly one hundred physicians, it appeared that there came to the knowledge of the profession seventeen abortions to every one hundred pregnancies; to these, the committee believe, may be added as many more that never came to the physician's knowledge. The committee further quoted, though without endorsement, the opinion of a physician who believed that a change is now coming over public feeling in regard to the abortionist, who is beginning to be regarded in America as a useful member of society, and even a benefactor. In England, also, there appears to have been a marked increase of abortion during recent years, perhaps specially marked among the poor and hard-working classes. A writer in the _British Medical Journal_ (April 9, 1904, p. 865) finds that abortion is "wholesale and systematic," and gives four cases occurring in his practice during four months, in which women either attempted to produce abortion, or requested him to do so; they were married women, usually with large families, and in delicate health, and were willing to endure any suffering, if they might be saved from further child-bearing. Abortion is frequently effected, or attempted, by taking "Female Pills," which contain small portions of lead, and are thus liable to produce very serious symptoms, whether or not they induce abortion. Professor Arthur Hall, of Sheffield, who has especially studied this use of lead ("The Increasing Use of Lead as an Abortifacient," _British Medical Journal_, March 18, 1905), finds that the practice has lately become very common in the English Midlands, and is gradually, it appears, widening its circle. It occurs chiefly among married women with families, belonging to the working class, and it tends to become specially prevalent during periods of trade depression (cf. G. Newman, _Infant Mortality_, p. 81). Women of better social class resort to professional abortionists, and sometimes go over to Paris. In France, also, and especially in Paris, there has been a great increase during recent years in the practice of abortion. (See e.g., a discussion at the Paris Société de Médecine Légale, _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, May, 1907.) Doléris has shown (_Bulletin de la Société d'Obstétrique_, Feb., 1905) that in the Paris Maternités the percentage of abortions in pregnancies doubled between 1898 and 1904, and Doléris estimates that about half of these abortions were artificially induced. In France, abortion is mainly carried on by professional abortionists. One of these, Mme. Thomas, who was condemned to penal servitude, in 1891, acknowledged performing 10,000 abortions during eight years; her charge for the operation was two francs and upwards. She was a peasant's daughter, brought up in the home of her uncle, a doctor, whose medical and obstetrical books she had devoured (A. Hamon, _La France en 1891_, pp. 629-631). French public opinion is lenient to abortion, especially to women who perform the operation on themselves; not many cases are brought into court, and of these, forty per cent. are acquitted (Eugène Bausset, _L'Avortement Criminel_, Thèse de Paris, 1907). The professional abortionist is, however, usually sent to prison. In Germany, also, abortion appears to have greatly increased during recent years, and the yearly number of cases of criminal abortion brought into the courts was, in 1903, more than double as many as in 1885. (See, also, Elisabeth Zanzinger, _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Bd. II, Heft 5; and _Sexual-Probleme_, Jan., 1908, p. 23.) In view of these facts it is not surprising that the induction of abortion has been permitted and even encouraged in many civilizations. Its unqualified condemnation is only found in Christendom, and is due to theoretical notions. In Turkey, under ordinary circumstances, there is no punishment for abortion. In the classic civilization of Greece and Rome, likewise, abortion was permitted though with certain qualifications and conditions. Plato admitted the mother's right to decide on abortion but said that the question should be settled as early as possible in pregnancy. Aristotle, who approved of abortion, was of the same opinion. Zeno and the Stoics regarded the foetus as the fruit of the womb, the soul being acquired at birth; this was in accordance with Roman law which decreed that the foetus only became a human being at birth.[438] Among the Romans abortion became very common, but, in accordance with the patriarchal basis of early Roman institutions, it was the father, not the mother, who had the right to exercise it. Christianity introduced a new circle of ideas based on the importance of the soul, on its immortality, and the necessity of baptism as a method of salvation from the results of inherited sin. We already see this new attitude in St. Augustine who, discussing whether embryos that died in the womb will rise at the resurrection, says "I make bold neither to affirm nor to deny, although I fail to see why, if they are not excluded from the number of the dead, they should not attain to the resurrection of the dead."[439] The criminality of abortion was, however, speedily established, and the early Christian Emperors, in agreement with the Church, edicted many fantastic and extreme penalties against abortion. This tendency continued under ecclesiastical influence, unrestrained, until the humanitarian movement of the eighteenth century, when Beccaria, Voltaire, Rousseau and other great reformers succeeded in turning the tide of public opinion against the barbarity of the laws, and the penalty of death for abortion was finally abolished.[440] Medical science and practice at the present day--although it can scarcely be said that it speaks with an absolutely unanimous voice--on the whole occupies a position midway between that of the classic lawyers and that of the later Christian ecclesiastics. It is, on the whole, in favor of sacrificing the foetus whenever the interests of the mother demand such a sacrifice. General medical opinion is not, however, prepared at present to go further, and is distinctly disinclined to aid the parents in exerting an unqualified control over the foetus in the womb, nor is it yet disposed to practice abortion on eugenic grounds. It is obvious, indeed, that medicine cannot in this matter take the initiative, for it is the primary duty of medicine to save life. Society itself must assume the responsibility of protecting the race. Dr. S. Macvie ("Mother _versus_ Child," _Transactions Edinburgh Obstetrical Society_, vol. xxiv, 1899) elaborately discusses the respective values of the foetus and the adult on the basis of life-expectancy, and concludes that the foetus is merely "a parasite performing no function whatever," and that "unless the life-expectancy of the child covers the years in which its potentiality is converted into actuality, the relative values of the maternal and foetal life will be that of actual as against potential." This statement seems fairly sound. Ballantyne (_Manual of Antenatal Pathology: The Foetus_, p. 459) endeavors to make the statement more precise by saying that "the mother's life has a value, because she is what she is, while the foetus only has a possible value, on account of what it may become." Durlacher, among others, has discussed, in careful and cautious detail, the various conditions in which the physician should, or should not, induce abortion in the interests of the mother ("Der Künstliche Abort," _Wiener Klinik_, Aug. and Sept., 1906); so also, Eugen Wilhelm ("Die Abtreibung und das Recht des Arztes zur Vernichtung der Leibesfrucht," _Sexual-Probleme_, May and June, 1909). Wilhelm further discusses whether it is desirable to alter the laws in order to give the physician greater freedom in deciding on abortion. He concludes that this is not necessary, and might even act injuriously, by unduly hampering medical freedom. Any change in the law should merely be, he considers, in the direction of asserting that the destruction of the foetus is not abortion in the legal sense, provided it is indicated by the rules of medical science. With reference to the timidity of some medical men in inducing abortion, Wilhelm remarks that, even in the present state of the law, the physician who conscientiously effects abortion, in accordance with his best knowledge, even if mistakenly, may consider himself safe from all legal penalties, and that he is much more likely to come in conflict with the law if it can be proved that death followed as a result of his neglect to induce abortion. Pinard, who has discussed the right to control the foetal life (_Annales de Gynécologie_, vols. lii and liii, 1899 and 1900), inspired by his enthusiastic propaganda for the salvation of infant life, is led to the unwarranted conclusion that no one has the rights of life and death over the foetus; "the infant's right to his life is an imprescriptible and sacred right, which no power can take from him." There is a mistake here, unless Pinard deliberately desires to place himself, like Tolstoy, in opposition to current civilized morality. So far from the infant having any "imprescriptible right to life," even the adult has, in human societies, no such inalienable right, and very much less the foetus, which is not strictly a human being at all. We assume the right of terminating the lives of those individuals whose anti-social conduct makes them dangerous, and, in war, we deliberately terminate, amid general applause and enthusiasm, the lives of men who have been specially selected for this purpose on account of their physical and general efficiency. It would be absurdly inconsistent to say that we have no rights over the lives of creatures that have, as yet, no part in human society at all, and are not so much as born. We are here in presence of a vestige of ancient theological dogma, and there can be little doubt that, on the theoretical side at all events, the "imprescriptible right" of the embryo will go the same way as the "imprescriptible right" of the spermatozöon. Both rights are indeed "imprescriptible." Of recent years a new, and, it must be admitted, somewhat unexpected, aspect of this question of abortion has been revealed. Hitherto it has been a question entirely in the hands of men, first, following the Roman traditions, in the hands of Christian ecclesiastics, and later, in those of the professional castes. Yet the question is in reality very largely, and indeed mainly, a woman's question, and now, more especially in Germany, it has been actively taken up by women. The Gräfin Gisela Streitberg occupies the pioneering place in this movement with her book _Das Recht zur Beiseitigung Keimenden Lebens_, and was speedily followed, from 1897 onwards, by a number of distinguished women who occupy a prominent place in the German woman's movement, among others Helene Stöcker, Oda Olberg, Elisabeth Zanzinger, Camilla Jellinek. All these writers insist that the foetus is not yet an independent human being, and that every woman, by virtue of the right over her own body, is entitled to decide whether it shall become an independent human being. At the Woman's Congress held in the autumn of 1905, a resolution was passed demanding that abortion should only be punishable when effected by another person against the wish of the pregnant women herself.[441] The acceptance of this resolution by a representative assembly is interesting proof of the interest now taken by women in the question, and of the strenuous attitude they are tending to assume. Elisabeth Zanzinger ("Verbrechen gegen die Leibesfrucht," _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Bd. II, Heft 5, 1907) ably and energetically condemns the law which makes abortion a crime. "A woman herself is the only legitimate possessor of her own body and her own health.... Just as it is a woman's private right, and most intimate concern, to present her virginity as her best gift to the chosen of her heart, so it is certainly a pregnant woman's own private concern if, for reasons which seem good to her, she decides to destroy the results of her action." A woman who destroys the embryo which might become a burden to the community, or is likely to be an inferior member of society, this writer urges, is doing a service to the community, which ought to reward her, perhaps by granting her special privileges as regards the upbringing of her other children. Oda Olberg, in a thoughtful paper ("Ueber den Juristischen Schutz des Keimenden Lebens," _Die Neue Generation_, June, 1908), endeavors to make clear all that is involved in the effort to protect the developing embryo against the organism that carries it, to protect a creature, that is, against itself and its own instincts. She considers that most of the women who terminate their pregnancies artificially would only have produced undesirables, for the normal, healthy, robust woman has no desire to effect abortion. "There are women who are psychically sterile, without being physically so, and who possess nothing of motherhood but the ability to bring forth. These, when they abort, are simply correcting a failure of Nature." Some of them, she remarks, by going on to term, become guilty of the far worse offence of infanticide. As for the women who desire abortion merely from motives of vanity, or convenience, Oda Olberg points out that the circles in which these motives rule are quite able to limit their children without having to resort to abortion. She concludes that society must protect the young life in every way, by social hygiene, by laws for the protection of the workers, by spreading a new morality on the basis of the laws of heredity. But we need no law to protect the young creature against its own mother, for a thousand natural forces are urging the mother to protect her own child, and we may be sure that she will not disobey these forces without very good reasons. Camilla Jellinek, again (_Die Strafrechtsreform_, etc., Heidelberg, 1909), in a powerful and well-informed address before the Associated German Frauenvereine, at Breslau, argues in the same sense. The lawyers very speedily came to the assistance of the women in this matter, the more readily, no doubt, since the traditions of the greatest and most influential body of law already pointed, on one side at all events, in the same direction. It may, indeed, be claimed that it was from the side of law--and in Italy, the classic land of legal reform--that this new movement first begun. In 1888, Balestrini published, at Turin, his _Aborto, Infanticidio ed Esposizione d'Infante_, in which he argued that the penalty should be removed from abortion. It was a very able and learned book, inspired by large ideas and a humanitarian spirit, but though its importance is now recognized, it cannot be said that it attracted much attention on publication. It is especially in Germany that, during recent years, lawyers have followed women reformers, by advocating, more or less completely, the abolition of the punishment for abortion. So distinguished an authority as Von Liszt, in a private letter to Camilla Jellinek (op. cit.), states that he regards the punishment of abortion as "very doubtful," though he considers its complete abolition impracticable; he thinks abortion might be permitted during the early months of pregnancy, thus bringing about a return of the old view. Hans Gross states his opinion (_Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie_, Bd. XII, p. 345) that the time is not far distant when abortion will no longer be punished. Radbruch and Von Lilienthal speak in the same sense. Weinberg has advocated a change in the law (_Mutterschutz_, 1905, Heft 8), and Kurt Hiller (_Die Neue Generation_, April, 1909), also from the legal side, argues that abortion should only be punishable when effected by a married woman, without the knowledge and consent of her husband. The medical profession, which took the first step in modern times in the authorization of abortion, has not at present taken any further step. It has been content to lay down the principle that when the interests of the mother are opposed to those of the foetus, it is the latter which must be sacrificed. It has hesitated to take the further step of placing abortion on the eugenic basis, and of claiming the right to insist on abortion whenever the medical and hygienic interests of society demand such a step. This attitude is perfectly intelligible. Medicine has in the past been chiefly identified with the saving of lives, even of worthless and worse than worthless lives; "Keep everything alive! Keep everything alive!" nervously cried Sir James Paget. Medicine has confined itself to the humble task of attempting to cure evils, and is only to-day beginning to undertake the larger and nobler task of preventing them. "The step from killing the child in the womb to murdering a person when out of the womb, is a dangerously narrow one," sagely remarks a recent medical author, probably speaking for many others, who somehow succeed in blinding themselves to the fact that this "dangerously narrow step" has been taken by mankind, only too freely, for thousands of years past, long before abortion was known in the world. Here and there, however, medical authors of repute have advocated the further extension of abortion, with precautions, and under proper supervision, as an aid to eugenic progress. Thus, Professor Max Flesch (_Die Neue Generation_, April, 1909) is in favor of a change in the law permitting abortion (provided it is carried out by the physician) in special cases, as when the mother's pregnancy has been due to force, when she has been abandoned, or when, in the interests of the community, it is desirable to prevent the propagation of insane, criminal, alcoholic, or tuberculous persons. In France, a medical man, Dr. Jean Darricarrère, has written a remarkable novel, _Le Droit d'Avortement_ (1906), which advocates the thesis that a woman always possesses a complete right to abortion, and is the supreme judge as to whether she will or not undergo the pain and risks of childbirth. The question is, here, however, obviously placed not on medical, but on humanitarian and feminist grounds. We have seen that, alike on the side of practice and of theory, a great change has taken place during recent years in the attitude towards abortion. It must, however, clearly be recognized that, unlike the control of procreation by methods for preventing conception, facultative abortion has not yet been embodied in our current social morality. If it is permissible to interpolate a personal opinion, I may say that to me it seems that our morality is here fairly reasonable.[442] I am decidedly of opinion that an unrestricted permission for women to practice abortion in their own interests, or even for communities to practice it in the interests of the race, would be to reach beyond the stage of civilization we have at present attained. As Ellen Key very forcibly argues, a civilization which permits, without protest, the barbarous slaughter of its carefully selected adults in war has not yet won the right to destroy deliberately even its most inferior vital products in the womb. A civilization guilty of so reckless a waste of life cannot safely be entrusted with this judicial function. The blind and aimless anxiety to cherish the most hopeless and degraded forms of life, even of unborn life, may well be a weakness, and since it often leads to incalculable suffering, even a crime. But as yet there is an impenetrable barrier against progress in this direction. Before we are entitled to take life deliberately for the sake of purifying life, we must learn how to preserve it by abolishing such destructive influences--war, disease, bad industrial conditions--as are easily within our social power as civilized nations.[443] There is, further, another consideration which seems to me to carry weight. The progress of civilization is in the direction of greater foresight, of greater prevention, of a diminished need for struggling with the reckless lack of prevision. The necessity for abortion is precisely one of those results of reckless action which civilization tends to diminish. While we may admit that in a sounder state of civilization a few cases might still occur when the induction of abortion would be desirable, it seems probable that the number of such cases will decrease rather than increase. In order to do away with the need for abortion, and to counteract the propaganda in its favor, our main reliance must be placed, on the one hand, on increased foresight in the determination of conception and increased knowledge of the means for preventing conception,[444] and on the other hand, on a better provision by the State for the care of pregnant women, married and unmarried alike, and a practical recognition of the qualified mother's claim on society.[445] There can be little doubt that, in many a charge of criminal abortion, the real offence lies at the door of those who have failed to exercise their social and professional duty of making known the more natural and harmless methods for preventing conception, or else by their social attitude have made the pregnant woman's position intolerable. By active social reform in these two directions, the new movement in favor of abortion may be kept in check, and it may even be found that by stimulating such reform that movement has been beneficial. We have seen that the deliberate restraint of conception has become a part of our civilized morality, and that the practice and theory of facultative abortion has gained a footing among us. There remains a third and yet more radical method of controlling procreation, the method of preventing the possibility of procreation altogether by the performance of castration or other slighter operation having a like inhibitory effect on reproduction. The other two methods only effect a single act of union or its results, but castration affects all subsequent acts of sexual union and usually destroys the procreative power permanently. Castration for various social and other purposes is an ancient and widespread practice, carried out on men and on animals. There has, however, been on the whole a certain prejudice against it when applied to men. Many peoples have attached a very sacred value to the integrity of the sexual organs. Among some primitive peoples the removal of these organs has been regarded as a peculiarly ferocious insult, only to be carried out in moments of great excitement, as after a battle. Medicine has been opposed to any interference with the sexual organs. The oath taken by the Greek physicians appears to prohibit castration: "I will not cut."[446] In modern times a great change has taken place, the castration of both men and women is commonly performed in diseased conditions; the same operation is sometimes advocated and occasionally performed in the hope that it may remove strong and abnormal sexual impulses. And during recent years castration has been invoked in the cause of negative eugenics, to a greater extent, indeed, on account of its more radical character, than either the prevention of conception or abortion. The movement in favor of castration appears to have begun in the United States, where various experiments have been made in embodying it in law. It was first advocated merely as a punishment for criminals, and especially sexual offenders, by Hammond, Everts, Lydston and others. From this point of view, however, it seems to be unsatisfactory and perhaps illegitimate. In many cases castration is no punishment at all, and indeed a positive benefit. In other cases, when inflicted against the subject's will, it may produce very disturbing mental effects, leading in already degenerate or unbalanced persons to insanity, criminality, and anti-social tendencies generally, much more dangerous than the original state. Eugenic considerations, which were later brought forward, constitute a much sounder argument for castration; in this case the castration is carried out, by no means in order to inflict a barbarous and degrading punishment, but, with the subject's consent, in order to protect the community from the risk of useless or mischievous members. The fact that castration can no longer be properly considered a punishment, is shown by the possibility of deliberately seeking the operation simply for the sake of convenience, as a preferable and most effective substitute for the adoption of preventive methods in sexual intercourse. I am only at present acquainted with one case in which this course has been adopted. This subject is a medical man (of Puritan New England ancestry) with whose sexual history, which is quite normal, I have been acquainted for a long time past. His present age is thirty-nine. A few years since, having a sufficiently large family, he adopted preventive methods of intercourse. The subsequent events I narrate in his own words: "The trouble, forethought, etc., rendered necessary by preventive measures, grew more and more irksome to me as the years passed by, and finally, I laid the matter before another physician, and on his assurances, and after mature deliberation with my wife, was operated on some time since, and rendered sterile by having the vas deferens on each side exposed through a slit in the scrotum, then tied in two places with silk and severed between the ligatures. This was done under cocaine infiltrative anæsthesia, and was not so extremely painful, though what pain there was (dragging the cord out through the slit, etc.) seemed very hard to endure. I was not out of my office a single day, nor seriously disturbed in any way. In six days all stitches in the scrotum were removed, and in three weeks I abandoned the suspensory bandage that had been rendered necessary by the extreme sensitiveness of the testicles and cord. "The operation has proved a most complete success in every way. Sexual functions are _absolutely unaffected in any way whatsoever_. There is no sense of discomfort or uneasiness in the sexual tract, and what seems strangest of all to me, is the fact that the semen, so far as one can judge by ordinary means of observation, is undiminished in quantity and unchanged in character. (Of course, the microscope would reveal its fatal lack.) "My wife is delighted at having fear banished from our love, and, taken all in all, it certainly seems as if life would mean more to us both. Incidentally, the health of both of us seems better than usual, particularly so in my wife's case, and this she attributes to a soothing influence that is attained by allowing the seminal fluid to be deposited in a perfectly normal manner, and remain in contact with the vaginal secretions until it naturally passes off. "This operation being comparatively new, and, as yet, not often done on others than the insane, criminal, etc., I thought it might be of interest to you. If I shed even the faintest ray of light on this greatest of all human problems ... I shall be glad indeed." Such a case, with its so far satisfactory issue, certainly deserves to be placed on record, though it may well be that at present it will not be widely imitated. The earliest advocacy of castration, which I have met with as a part of negative eugenics, for the specific "purpose of prophylaxis as applied to race improvement and the protection of society," is by Dr. F.E. Daniel, of Texas, and dates from 1893.[447] Daniel mixed up, however, somewhat inextricably, castration as a method of purifying the race, a method which can be carried out with the concurrence of the individual operated on, with castration as a punishment, to be inflicted for rape, sodomy, bestiality, pederasty and even habitual masturbation, the method of its performance, moreover, to be the extremely barbarous and primitive method of total ablation of the sexual organs. In more recent years somewhat more equitable, practical, and scientific methods of castration have been advocated, not involving the removal of the sexual glands or organs, and not as a punishment, but simply for the sake of protecting the community and the race from the burden of probably unproductive and possibly dangerous members. Näcke has, from 1899 onwards, repeatedly urged the social advantages of this measure.[448] The propagation of the inferior elements of society, Näcke insists, brings unhappiness into the family and is a source of great expense to the State. He regards castration as the only effective method of prevention, and concludes that it is, therefore, our duty to adopt it, just as we have adopted vaccination, taking care to secure the consent of the subject himself or his guardian, of the civil authorities, and, if necessary, of a committee of experts. Professor Angelo Zuccarelli of Naples has also, from 1899 onwards, emphasized the importance of castration in the sterilization of the epileptic, the insane of various classes, the alcoholic, the tuberculous, and instinctive criminals, the choice of cases for operation to be made by a commission of experts who would examine school-children, candidates for public employments, or persons about to marry.[449] This movement rapidly gained ground, and in 1905 at the annual meeting of Swiss alienists it was unanimously agreed that the sterilization of the insane is desirable, and that it is necessary that the question should be legally regulated. It is in Switzerland, indeed, that the first steps have been taken in Europe to carry out castration as a measure of social prophylaxis. The sixteenth yearly report (1907) of the Cantonal asylum at Wil describes four cases of castration, two in men and two in women, performed--with the permission of the patients and the civil authorities--for social reasons; both women had previously had illegitimate children who were a burden on the community, and all four patients were sexually abnormal; the operation enabled the patients to be liberated and to work, and the results were considered in every respect satisfactory to all concerned.[450] The introduction of castration as a method of negative eugenics has been facilitated by the use of new methods of performing it without risk, and without actual removal of the testes or ovaries. For men, there is the simple method of vasectomy, as recommended by Näcke and many others. For women, there is the corresponding, and almost equally simple and harmless method of Kehrer, by section and ligation of the Fallopian tubes through the vagina, as recommended by Kisch, or Rose's very similar procedure, easily carried out in a few minutes by an experienced hand, as recommended by Zuccarelli. It has been found that repeated exposure to the X-rays produces sterility in both sexes, alike in animals and men, and X-ray workers have to adopt various precautions to avoid suffering from this effect. It has been suggested that the application of the X-rays would be a good substitute for castration; it appears that the effects of the application are only likely to last a few years, which, in some doubtful cases, might be an advantage. (See _British Medical Journal_, Aug. 13, 1904; ib., March 11, 1905; ib., July 6, 1907.) It is scarcely possible, it seems to me, to view castration as a method of negative eugenics with great enthusiasm. The recklessness, moreover, with which it is sometimes proposed to apply it by law--owing no doubt to the fact that it is not so obviously repulsive as the less radical procedure of abortion--ought to render us very cautious. We must, too, dismiss the idea of castration as a punishment; as such it is not merely barbarous but degrading and is unlikely to have a beneficial effect. As a method of negative eugenics it should never be carried out except with the subject's consent. The fact that in some cases it might be necessary to enforce seclusion in the absence of castration would doubtless be a fact exerting influence in favor of such consent; but the consent is essential if the subject of the operation is to be safeguarded from degradation. A man who has been degraded and embittered by an enforced castration might not be dangerous to posterity, but might very easily become a dangerous member of the society in which he actually lived. With due precautions and safeguards, castration may doubtless play a certain part in the elevation and improvement of the race.[451] The methods we have been considering, in so far as they limit the procreative powers of the less healthy and efficient stocks in a community, are methods of eugenics. It must not, however, be supposed that they are the whole of eugenics, or indeed that they are in any way essential to a eugenic scheme. Eugenics is concerned with the whole of the agencies which elevate and improve the human breed; abortion and castration are methods which may be used to this end, but they are not methods of which everyone approves, nor is it always clear that the ends they effect would not better be attained by other methods; in any case they are methods of negative eugenics. There remains the field of positive eugenics, which is concerned, not with the elimination of the inferior stocks but with ascertaining which are the superior stocks and with furthering their procreative power. While the necessity of refraining from procreation is no longer a bar to marriage, the question of whether two persons ought to marry each other still remains in the majority of cases a serious question from the standpoint of positive as well as of negative eugenics, for the normal marriage cannot fail to involve children, as, indeed, its chief and most desirable end. We have to consider not merely what are the stocks or the individuals that are unfit to breed, but also what are these stocks or individuals that are most fit to breed, and under what conditions procreation may best be effected. The present imperfection of our knowledge on these questions emphasizes the need for care and caution in approaching their consideration. It may be fitting, at this point, to refer to the experiment of the Oneida Community in establishing a system of scientific propagation, under the guidance of a man whose ability and distinction as a pioneer are only to-day beginning to be adequately recognized. John Humphrey Noyes was too far ahead of his own day to be recognized at his true worth; at the most, he was regarded as the sagacious and successful founder of a sect, and his attempts to apply eugenics to life only aroused ridicule and persecution, so that he was, unfortunately, compelled by outside pressure to bring a most instructive experiment to a premature end. His aim and principle are set forth in an _Essay on Scientific Propagation_, printed some forty years ago, which discusses problems that are only now beginning to attract the attention of the practical man, as within the range of social politics. When Noyes turned his vigorous and practical mind to the question of eugenics, that question was exclusively in the hands of scientific men, who felt all the natural timidity of the scientific man towards the realization of his proposals, and who were not prepared to depart a hair's breadth from the conventional customs of their time. The experiment of Noyes, at Oneida, marked a new stage in the history of eugenics; whatever might be the value of the experiment--and a first experiment cannot well be final--with Noyes the questions of eugenics passed beyond the purely academic stage in which, from the time of Plato, they had peacefully reposed. "It is becoming clear," Noyes states at the outset, "that the foundations of scientific society are to be laid in the scientific propagation of human beings." In doing this, we must attend to two things: blood (or heredity) and training; and he puts blood first. In that, he was at one with the most recent biometrical eugenists of to-day ("the nation has for years been putting its money on 'Environment,' when 'Heredity' wins in a canter," as Karl Pearson prefers to put it), and at the same time revealed the breadth of his vision in comparison with the ordinary social reformer, who, in that day, was usually a fanatical believer in the influence of training and surroundings. Noyes sets forth the position of Darwin on the principles of breeding, and the step beyond Darwin, which had been taken by Galton. He then remarks that, when Galton comes to the point where it is necessary to advance from theory to the duties the theory suggests, he "subsides into the meekest conservatism." (It must be remembered that this was written at an early stage in Galton's work.) This conclusion was entirely opposed to Noyes' practical and religious temperament. "Duty is plain; we say we ought to do it--we want to do it; but we cannot. The law of God urges us on; but the law of society holds us back. The boldest course is the safest. Let us take an honest and steady look at the law. It is only in the timidity of ignorance that the duty seems impracticable." Noyes anticipated Galton in regarding eugenics as a matter of religion. Noyes proposed to term the work of modern science in propagation "Stirpiculture," in which he has sometimes been followed by others. He considered that it is the business of the stirpiculturist to keep in view both quantity and quality of stocks, and he held that, without diminishing quantity, it was possible to raise the quality by exercising a very stringent discrimination in selecting males. At this point, Noyes has been supported in recent years by Karl Pearson and others, who have shown that only a relatively small portion of a population is needed to produce the next generation, and that, in fact, twelve per cent. of one generation in man produces fifty per cent. of the next generation. What we need to ensure is that this small reproducing section of the population shall be the best adapted for the purpose. "The _quantity_ of production will be in direct proportion to the number of fertile females," as Noyes saw the question, "and the _value_ produced, so far as it depends on selection, will be nearly in inverse proportion to the number of fertilizing males." In this matter, Noyes anticipated Ehrenfels. The two principles to be held in mind were, "Breed from the best," and "Breed in-and-in," with a cautious and occasional introduction of new strains. (It may be noted that Reibmayr, in his recent _Entwicklungsgeschichte des Genics und Talentes_, argues that the superior races, and superior individuals, in the human species, have been produced by an unconscious adherence to exactly these principles.) "By segregating superior families, and by breeding these in-and-in, superior varieties of human beings might be produced, which would be comparable to the thoroughbreds in all the domestic races." He illustrates this by the early history of the Jews. Noyes finally criticises the present method, or lack of method, in matters of propagation. Our marriage system, he states, "leaves mating to be determined by a general scramble." By ignoring, also, the great difference between the sexes in reproductive power, it "restricts each man, whatever may be his potency and his value, to the amount of production of which one woman, chosen blindly, may be capable." Moreover, he continues, "practically it discriminates against the best, and in favor of the worst; for, while the good man will be limited by his conscience to what the law allows, the bad man, free from moral check, will distribute his seed beyond the legal limits, as widely as he dares." "We are safe every way in saying that there is no possibility of carrying the two precepts of scientific propagation into an institution which pretends to no discrimination, allows no suppression, gives no more liberty to the best than to the worst, and which, in fact, must inevitably discriminate the wrong way, so long as the inferior classes are most prolific and least amenable to the admonitions of science and morality." In modifying our sexual institutions, Noyes insists there are two essential points to remember: the preservation of liberty, and the preservation of the home. There must be no compulsion about human scientific propagation; it must be autonomous, directed by self-government, "by the free choice of those who love science well enough to 'make themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake.'" The home, also, must be preserved, since "marriage is the best thing for man as he is;" but it is necessary to enlarge the home, for, "if all could learn to love other children than their own, there would be nothing to hinder scientific propagation in the midst of homes far better than any that now exist." This memorable pamphlet contains no exposition of the precise measures adopted by the Oneida Community to carry out these principles. The two essential points were, as we know, "male continence" (see _ante_ p. 553), and the enlarged family, in which all the men were the actual or potential mates of all the women, but no union for propagation took place, except as the result of reason and deliberate resolve. "The community," says H.J. Seymour, one of the original members (_The Oneida Community_, 1894, p. 5), "was a _family_, as distinctly separated from surrounding society as ordinary households. The tie that bound it together was as permanent, and at least as sacred, as that of marriage. Every man's care, and the whole of the common property, was pledged for the maintenance and protection of the women, and the support and education of the children." It is not probable that the Oneida Community presented in detail the model to which human society generally will conform. But even at the lowest estimate, its success showed, as Lord Morely has pointed out (_Diderot_, vol. ii, p. 19), "how modifiable are some of these facts of existing human character which are vulgarly deemed to be ultimate and ineradicable," and that "the discipline of the appetites and affections of sex," on which the future of civilization largely rests, is very far from an impossibility. In many respects, the Oneida Community was ahead of its time,--and even of ours,--but it is interesting to note that, in the matter of the control of conception, our marriage system has come into line with the theory and practice of Oneida; it cannot, indeed, be said that we always control conception in accordance with eugenic principles, but the fact that such control has now become a generally accepted habit of civilization, to some extent deprives Noyes' criticism of our marriage system of the force it possessed half a century ago. Another change in our customs--the advocacy, and even the practice, of abortion and castration--would not have met with his approval; he was strongly opposed to both, and with the high moral level that ruled his community, neither was necessary to the maintenance of the stirpiculture that prevailed. The Oneida Community endured for the space of one generation, and came to an end in 1879, by no means through a recognition of failure, but by a wise deference to external pressure. Its members, many of them highly educated, continued to cherish the memory of the practices and ideals of the Community. Noyes Miller (the author of _The Strike of a Sex_, and _Zugassant's Discovery_) to the last, looked with quiet confidence to the time when, as he anticipated, the great discovery of Noyes would be accepted and adopted by the world at large. Another member of the Community (Henry J. Seymour) wrote of the Community long afterwards that "It was an anticipation and imperfect miniature of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth." Perhaps the commonest type of proposal or attempt to improve the biological level of the race is by the exclusion of certain classes of degenerates from marriage, or by the encouragement of better classes of the community to marry. This seems to be, at present, the most popular form of eugenics, and in so far as it is not effected by compulsion but is the outcome of a voluntary resolve to treat the question of the creation of the race with the jealous care and guardianship which so tremendously serious, so godlike, a task involves, it has much to be said in its favor and nothing against it. But it is quite another matter when the attempt is made to regulate such an institution as marriage by law. In the first place we do not yet know enough about the principles of heredity and the transmissibility of pathological states to enable us to formulate sound legislative proposals on this basis. Even so comparatively simple a matter as the relationship of tuberculosis to heredity can scarcely be said to be a matter of common agreement, even if it can yet be claimed that we possess adequate material on which to attain a common agreement. Supposing, moreover, that our knowledge on all these questions were far more advanced than it is, we still should not have attained a position in which we could lay down general propositions regarding the desirability or the undesirability of certain classes of persons procreating. The question is necessarily an individual question, and it can only be decided when all the circumstances of the individual case have been fairly passed in review. The objection to any legislative and compulsory regulation of the right to marry is, however, much more fundamental than the consideration that our knowledge is at present inadequate. It lies in the extraordinary confusion, in the minds of those who advocate such legislation, between legal marriage and procreation. The persons who fall into such confusion have not yet learnt the alphabet of the subject they presume to dictate about, and are no more competent to legislate than a child who cannot tell A from B is competent to read. Marriage, in so far as it is the partnership for mutual help and consolation of two people who in such partnership are free, if they please, to exercise sexual union, is an elementary right of every person who is able to reason, who is guilty of no fraud or concealment, and who is not likely to injure the partner selected, for in that case society is entitled to interfere by virtue of its duty to protect its members. But the right to marry, thus understood, in no way involves the right to procreate. For while marriage _per se_ only affects the two individuals concerned, and in no way affects the State, procreation, on the other hand, primarily affects the community which is ultimately made up of procreated persons, and only secondarily affects the two individuals who are the instruments of procreation. So that just as the individual couple has the first right in the question of marriage, the State has the first right in the question of procreation. The State is just as incompetent to lay down the law about marriage as the individual is to lay down the law about procreation. That, however, is only one-half of the folly committed by those who would select the candidates for matrimony by statute. Let us suppose--as is not indeed easy to suppose--that a community will meekly accept the abstract prohibitions of the statute book and quietly go home again when the registrar of marriages informs them that they are shut out from legal matrimony by the new table of prohibited degrees. An explicit prohibition to procreate within marriage is an implicit permission to procreate outside marriage. Thus the undesirable procreation, instead of being carried out under the least dangerous conditions, is carried out under the most dangerous conditions, and the net result to the community is not a gain but a loss. What seems usually to happen, in the presence of a formal legislative prohibition against the marriage of a particular class, is a combination of various evils. In part the law becomes a dead letter, in part it is evaded by skill and fraud, in part it is obeyed to give rise to worse evils. This happened, for instance, in the Terek district of the Caucasus where, on the demand of a medical committee, priests were prohibited from marrying persons among whose relatives or ancestry any cases of leprosy had occurred. So much and such various mischief was caused by this order that it was speedily withdrawn.[452] If we remember that the Catholic Church was occupied for more than a thousand years in the attempt to impose the prohibition of marriage on its priesthood,--an educated and trained body of men, who had every spiritual and worldly motive to accept the prohibition, and were, moreover, brought up to regard asceticism as the best ideal in life,[453]--we may realize how absurd it is to attempt to gain the same end by mere casual prohibitions issued to untrained people with no motives to obey such prohibitions, and no ideals of celibacy. The hopelessness and even absurdity of effecting the eugenic improvement of the race by merely placing on the statute book prohibitions to certain classes of people to enter the legal bonds of matrimony as at present constituted, reveals the weakness of those who undervalue the eugenic importance of environment. Those who affirm that heredity is everything and environment nothing seem strangely to forget that it is precisely the lower classes--those who are most subjected to the influence of bad environment--who procreate most copiously, most recklessly, and most disastrously. The restraint of procreation, and a concomitant regard for heredity, increase _pari passu_ with improvement of the environment and rise in social well-being. If even already it can be said that probably fifty per cent. of sexual intercourse--perhaps the most procreatively productive moiety--takes place outside legal marriage, it becomes obvious that statutory prohibition to the unfit classes to refrain from legal marriage merely involves their joining the procreating classes outside legal matrimony. It is also clear that if we are to neglect the factor of environment, and leave the lower social classes to the ignorance and recklessness which are the result of such environment, the only practical method of eugenics left open is that by castration and abortion. But this method--if applied on a wholesale scale as it would need to be[454] and without reference to the consent of the individual--is entirely opposed to modern democratic feeling. Thus those short-sighted eugenists who overlook the importance of environment are overlooking the only practical channel through which their aims can be realized. Attention to procreation and attention to environment are not, as some have supposed, antagonistic, but they play harmoniously into each other's hands. The care for environment leads to a restraint on reckless procreation, and the restraint of procreation leads to improved environment. Legislation on marriage, to be effectual, must be enacted in the home, in the school, in the doctor's consulting room. Force is helpless here; it is education that is needed, not merely instruction, but the education of the conscience and will, and the training of the emotions. Legal action may come in to further this process of education, though it cannot replace it. Thus it is very desirable that when there has been a concealment of serious disease by a party to a marriage such concealment should be a ground for divorce. Epilepsy may be taken as typical of the diseases which should be a bar to procreation, and their concealment equivalent to an annulment of marriage.[455] In the United States the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut laid it down in 1906 that the Superior Court has the power to pass a decree of divorce when one of the parties has concealed the existence of epilepsy. This weighty deliverence, it has been well said,[456] marks a forward step in human progress. There are many other seriously pathological conditions in which divorce should be pronounced, or indeed, occur automatically, except when procreation has been renounced, for in that case the State is no longer concerned in the relationship, except to punish any fraud committed by concealment. The demand that a medical certificate of health should be compulsory on marriage, has been especially made in France. In 1858, Diday, of Lyons, proposed, indeed, that all persons, without exception, should be compelled to possess a certificate of health and disease, a kind of sanitary passport. In 1872, Bertillon (Art. "Demographic," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_) advocated the registration, at marriage, of the chief anthropological and pathological traits of the contracting parties (height, weight, color of hair and eyes, muscular force, size of head, condition of vision, hearing, etc., deformities and defects, etc.), not so much, however, for the end of preventing undesirable marriages, as to facilitate the study and comparison of human groups at particular periods. Subsequent demands, of a more limited and partial character, for legal medical certificates as a condition of marriage, have been made by Fournier (_Syphilis et Mariage_, 1890), Cazalis (_Le Science et le Mariage_, 1890), and Jullien (_Blenorrhagie et Mariage_, 1898). In Austria, Haskovec, of Prague ("Contrat Matrimonial et L'Hygiène Publique," _Comptes-rendus Congrès International de Médecine_, Lisbon, 1906, Section VII, p. 600), argues that, on marriage, a medical certificate should be presented, showing that the subject is exempt from tuberculosis, alcoholism, syphilis, gonorrhoea, severe mental, or nervous, or other degenerative state, likely to be injurious to the other partner, or to the offspring. In America, Rosenberg and Aronstam argue that every candidate for marriage, male or female, should undergo a strict examination by a competent board of medical examiners, concerning (1) Family and Past History (syphilis, consumption, alcoholism, nervous, and mental diseases), and (2) Status Presens (thorough examination of all the organs); if satisfactory, a certificate of matrimonial eligibility would then be granted. It is pointed out that a measure of this kind would render unnecessary the acts passed by some States for the punishment by fine, or imprisonment, of the concealment of disease. Ellen Key also considers (_Liebe und Ehe_, p. 436) that each party at marriage should produce a certificate of health. "It seems to me just as necessary," she remarks, elsewhere (_Century of the Child_, Ch. I), "to demand medical testimony concerning capacity for marriage, as concerning capacity for military service. In the one case, it is a matter of giving life; in the other, of taking it, although certainly the latter occasion has hitherto been considered as much the more serious." The certificate, as usually advocated, would be a private but necessary legitimation of the marriage in the eyes of the civil and religious authorities. Such a step, being required for the protection alike of the conjugal partner and of posterity, would involve a new legal organization of the matrimonial contract. That such demands are so frequently made, is a significant sign of the growth of moral consciousness in the community, and it is good that the public should be made acquainted with the urgent need for them. But it is highly undesirable that they should, at present, or, perhaps, ever, be embodied in legal codes. What is needed is the cultivation of the feeling of individual responsibility, and the development of social antagonism towards those individuals who fail to recognize their responsibility. It is the reality of marriage, and not its mere legal forms, that it is necessary to act upon. The voluntary method is the only sound way of approach in this matter. Duclaux considered that the candidate for marriage should possess a certificate of health in much the same way as the candidate for life assurance, the question of professional secrecy, as well as that of compulsion, no more coming into one question than into the other. There is no reason why such certificates, of an entirely voluntary character, should not become customary among those persons who are sufficiently enlightened to realize all the grave personal, family, and social issues involved in marriage. The system of eugenic certification, as originated and developed by Galton, will constitute a valuable instrument for raising the moral consciousness in this matter. Galton's eugenic certificates would deal mainly with the natural virtues of superior hereditary breed--"the public recognition of a natural nobility"--but they would include the question of personal health and personal aptitude.[457] To demand compulsory certificates of health at marriage is indeed to begin at the wrong end. It would not only lead to evasions and antagonisms but would probably call forth a reaction. It is first necessary to create an enthusiasm for health, a moral conscience in matters of procreation, together with, on the scientific side, a general habit of registering the anthropological, psychological, and pathological data concerning the individual, from birth onwards, altogether apart from marriage. The earlier demands of Diday and Bertillon were thus not only on a sounder but also a more practicable basis. If such records were kept from birth for every child, there would be no need for special examination at marriage, and many incidental ends would be gained. There is difficulty at present in obtaining such records from the moment of birth, and, so far as I am aware, no attempts have yet been made to establish their systematic registration. But it is quite possible to begin at the beginning of school life, and this is now done at many schools and colleges in England, America, and elsewhere, more especially as regards anthropological, physiological, and psychological data, each child being submitted to a thorough and searching anthropometric examination, and thus furnished with a systematic statement of his physical condition.[458] This examination needs to be standardized and generalized, and repeated at fixed intervals. "Every individual child," as is truly stated by Dr. Dukes, the Physician to Rugby School, "on his entrance to a public school should be as carefully and as thoroughly examined as if it were for life insurance." If this procedure were general from an early age, there would be no hardship in the production of the record at marriage, and no opportunity for fraud. The _dossier_ of each person might well be registered by the State, as wills already are, and, as in the case of wills, become freely open to students when a century had elapsed. Until this has been done during several centuries our knowledge of eugenics will remain rudimentary. There can be little doubt that the eugenic attitude towards marriage, and the responsibility of the individual for the future of the race, is becoming more recognized. It is constantly happening that persons, about to marry, approach the physician in a state of serious anxiety on this point. Urquhart, indeed (_Journal of Mental Science_, April, 1907, p. 277), believes that marriages are seldom broken off on this ground; this seems, however, too pessimistic a view, and even when the marriage is not broken off the resolve is often made to avoid procreation. Clouston, who emphasizes (_Hygiene of the Mind_, p. 74) the importance of "inquiries by each of the parties to the life-contract, by their parents and their doctors, as to heredity, temperament, and health," is more hopeful of the results than Urquhart. "I have been very much impressed, of late years," he writes (_Journal of Mental Science_, Oct., 1907, p. 710), "with the way in which this subject is taking possession of intelligent people, by the number of times one is consulted by young men and young women, proposing to marry, or by their fathers or mothers. I used to have the feeling in the back of my mind, when I was consulted, that it did not matter what I said, it would not make any difference. But it is making a difference; and I, and others, could tell of scores of marriages which were put off in consequence of psychiatric medical advice." Ellen Key, also, refers to the growing tendency among both men and women, to be influenced by eugenic consideration in forming partnerships for life (_Century of the Child_, Ch. I). The recognition of the eugenic attitude towards marriage, the quickening of the social and individual conscience in matters of heredity, as also the systematic introduction of certification and registration, will be furthered by the growing tendency to the socialization of medicine, and, indeed, in its absence would be impossible. (See e.g., Havelock Ellis, _The Nationalization of Health_.) The growth of the State Medical Organization of Health is steady and continuous, and is constantly covering a larger field. The day of the private practitioner of medicine--who was treated, as Duclaux (_L'Hygiène Sociale_, p. 263) put it, "like a grocer, whose shop the customer may enter and leave as he pleases, and when he pleases"--will, doubtless, soon be over. It is now beginning to be felt that health is far too serious a matter, not only from the individual but also from the social point of view, to be left to private caprice. There is, indeed, a tendency, in some quarters, to fear that some day society may rush to the opposite extreme, and bow before medicine with the same unreasoning deference that it once bowed before theology. That danger is still very remote, nor is it likely, indeed, that medicine will ever claim any authority of this kind. The spirit of medicine has, notoriously, been rather towards the assertion of scepticism than of dogma, and the fanatics in this field will always be in a hopelessly small minority. The general introduction of authentic personal records covering all essential data--hereditary, anthropometric and pathological--cannot fail to be a force on the side of positive as well as of negative eugenics, for it would tend to promote the procreation of the fit as well as restrict that of the unfit, without any legislative compulsion. With the growth of education a regard for such records as a preliminary to marriage would become as much a matter of course as once was the regard to the restrictions imposed by Canon law, and as still is a regard to money or to caste. A woman can usually refrain from marrying a man with no money and no prospects; a man may be passionately in love with a woman of lower class than himself but he seldom marries her. It needs but a clear general perception of all that is involved in heredity and health to make eugenic considerations equally influential. A discriminating regard to the quality of offspring will act beneficially on the side of positive eugenics by substituting the pernicious tendency to put a premium on excess of childbirth by the more rational method of putting a premium on the quality of the child. It has been one of the most unfortunate results of the mania for protesting against that decline of the birthrate which is always and everywhere the result of civilization, that there has been a tendency to offer special social or pecuniary advantages to the parents of large families. Since large families tend to be degenerate, and to become a tax on the community, since rapid pregnancies in succession are not only a serious drain on the strength of the mother but are now known to depreciate seriously the quality of the offspring, and since, moreover, it is in large families that disease and mortality chiefly prevail, all the interests of the community are against the placing of any premium on large families, even in the case of parents of good stock. The interests of the State are bound up not with the quantity but with the quality of its citizens, and the premium should be placed not on the families that reach a certain size but on the individual children that reach a certain standard; the attainment of this standard could well be based on observations made from birth to the fifth year. A premium on this basis would be as beneficial to a State as that on the merely numerical basis is pernicious. This consideration applies with still greater force to the proposals for the "systematic endowment of motherhood" of which we hear more and more. So moderate and judicious a social reformer as Mr. Sidney Webb writes: "We shall have to face the problem of the systematic endowment of motherhood, and place this most indispensable of all professions upon an honorable economic basis. At present it is ignored as an occupation, unremunerated, and in no way honored by the State."[459] True as this statement is, it must always be remembered that an indispensable preliminary to any proposal for the endowment of motherhood by the State is a clear conception of the kind of motherhood which the State requires. To endow the reckless and indiscriminate motherhood which we see around us, to encourage, that is, by State aid, the production of citizens a large proportion of whom the State, if it dared, would like to destroy as unfit, is too ridiculous a proposal to deserve discussion.[460] The only sound reason, indeed, for the endowment of motherhood is that it would enable the State, in its own interests, to further the natural selection of the fit. As to the positive qualities which the State is entitled to endow in its encouragement of motherhood, it is still too early to speak with complete assurance. Negative eugenics tends to be ahead of positive eugenics; it is easier to detect bad stocks than to be quite sure of good stocks. Both on the scientific side and on the social side, however, we are beginning to attain a clearer realization of the end to be attained and a more precise knowledge of the methods of attaining it.[461] Even when we have gained a fairly clear conception of the stocks and the individuals which we are justified in encouraging to undertake the task of producing fit citizens for the State, the problems of procreation are by no means at an end. Before we can so much as inquire what are the conditions under which selected individuals may best procreate, there is still the initial question to be decided whether those individuals are both fertile and potent, for this is not guaranteed by the fact that they belong to good stocks, nor is even the fact that a man and a woman are fertile with other persons any positive proof that they will be fertile with each other. Among the large masses of the population who do not seek to make their unions legal until those unions have proved fertile, this difficulty is settled in a simple and practical manner. The question is, however, a serious and hazardous one, in the present state of the marriage law in most countries, for those classes which are accustomed to bind themselves in legal marriage without any knowledge of their potency and fertility with each other. The matter is mostly left to chance, and as legal marriage cannot usually be dissolved on the ground that there are no offspring, even although procreation is commonly declared to be the chief end of marriage, the question assumes much gravity. The ordinary range of sterility is from seven to fifteen per cent. of all marriages, and in a very large proportion of these it is a source of great concern. This could be avoided, in some measure, by examination before marriage, and almost altogether by ordaining that, as it is only through offspring that a marriage has any concern for the State, a legal marriage could be dissolved, after a certain period, at the will of either of the parties, in the absence of such offspring. It was formerly supposed that when a union proved infertile, it was the wife who was at fault. That belief is long since exploded, but, even yet, a man is generally far more concerned about his potency, that is, his ability to perform the mechanical act of coitus, than about his fertility, that is, his ability to produce living spermatozoa, though the latter condition is a much more common source of sterility. "Any man," says Arthur Cooper (_British Medical Journal_, May 11, 1907), "who has any sexual defect or malformation, or who has suffered from any disease or injury of the genito-urinary organs, even though comparatively trivial or one-sided, and although his copulative power may be unimpaired, should be looked upon as possibly sterile, until some sort of evidence to the contrary has been obtained." In case of a sterile marriage, the possible cause should first be investigated in the husband, for it is comparatively easy to examine the semen, and to ascertain if it contains active spermatozoa. Prinzing, in a comprehensive study of sterile marriages ("Die Sterilen Ehen," _Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft_, 1904, Heft 1 and 2), states that in two-fifths of sterile marriages the man is at fault; one-third of such marriages are the result of venereal diseases in the husband himself, or transmitted to the wife. Gonorrhoea is not now considered so important a cause of sterility as it was a few years ago; Schenk makes it responsible for only about thirteen per cent. sterile marriages (cf. Kisch, _The Sexual Life of Woman_). Pinkus (_Archiv für Gynäkologie_, 1907) found that of nearly five hundred cases in which he examined both partners, in 24.4 per cent. cases, the sterility was directly due to the husband, and in 15.8 per cent. cases, indirectly due, because caused by gonorrhoea with which he had infected his wife. When sterility is due to a defect in the husband's spermatozoa, and is not discovered, as it usually might be, before marriage, the question of impregnating the wife by other methods has occasionally arisen. Divorce on the ground of sterility is not possible, and, even if it were, the couple, although they wish to have a child, have not usually any wish to separate. Under these circumstances, in order to secure the desired end, without departing from widely accepted rules of morality, the attempt is occasionally made to effect artificial fecundation by injecting the semen from a healthy male. Attempts have been made to effect artificial fecundation by various distinguished men, from John Hunter to Schwalbe, but it is nearly always very difficult to effect, and often impossible. This is easy to account for, if we recall what has already been pointed out (_ante_ p. 577) concerning the influence of erotic excitement in the woman in securing conception; it is obviously a serious task for even the most susceptible woman to evoke erotic enthusiasm _à propos_ of a medical syringe. Schwalbe, for instance, records a case (_Deutsche Medizinisches Wochenschrift_, Aug., 1908, p. 510) in which,--in consequence of the husband's sterility and the wife's anxiety, with her husband's consent, to be impregnated by the semen of another man,--he made repeated careful attempts to effect artificial fecundation; these attempts were, however, fruitless, and the three parties concerned finally resigned themselves to the natural method of intercourse, which was successful. In another case, recorded by Schwalbe, in which the husband was impotent but not sterile, six attempts were made to effect artificial fecundation, and further efforts abandoned on account of the disgust of all concerned. Opinion, on the whole, has been opposed to the practice of artificial fecundation, even apart from the question of the probabilities of success. Thus, in France, where there is a considerable literature on the subject, the Paris Medical Faculty, in 1885, after some hesitation, refused Gérard's thesis on the history of artificial fecundation, afterwards published independently. In 1883, the Bordeaux legal tribunal declared that artificial fecundation was illegitimate, and a social danger. In 1897, the Holy See also pronounced that the practice is unlawful ("Artificial Fecundation before the Inquisition," _British Medical Journal_, March 5, 1898). Apart, altogether, from this attitude of medicine, law, and Church, it would certainly seem that those who desire offspring would do well, as a rule, to adopt the natural method, which is also the best, or else to abandon to others the task of procreation, for which they are not adequately equipped. When we have ascertained that two individuals both belong to sound and healthy stocks, and, further, that they are themselves both apt for procreation, it still remains to consider the conditions under which they may best effect procreation.[462] There arises, for instance, the question, often asked, What is the best age for procreation? The considerations which weigh in answering this question are of two different orders, physiological, and social or moral. That is to say, that it is necessary, on the one hand, that physical maturity should have been fully attained, and the sexual cells completely developed; while, on the other hand, it is necessary that the man shall have become able to support a family, and that both partners shall have received a training in life adequate to undertake the responsibilities and anxieties involved in the rearing of children. While there have been variations at different times, it scarcely appears that, on the whole, the general opinion as to the best age for procreation has greatly varied in Europe during many centuries. Hesiod indeed said that a woman should marry about fifteen and a man about thirty,[463] but obstetricians have usually concluded that, in the interests alike of the parents and their offspring, the procreative life should not begin in women before twenty and in men before twenty-five.[464] After thirty in women and after thirty-five or forty in men it seems probable that the best conditions for procreation begin to decline.[465] At the present time, in England and several other civilized countries, the tendency has been for the age of marriage to fall at an increasingly late age, on the average some years later than that usually fixed as the most favorable age for the commencement of the procreative life. But, on the whole, the average seldom departs widely from the accepted standard, and there seems no good reason why we should desire to modify this general tendency. At the same time, it by no means follows that wide variations, under special circumstances, may not only be permissible, but desirable. The male is capable of procreating, in some cases, from about the age of thirteen until far beyond eighty, and at this advanced age, the offspring, even if not notable for great physical robustness, may possess high intellectual qualities. (See e.g., Havelock Ellis, _A Study of British Genius_, pp. 120 et seq.) The range of the procreative age in women begins earlier (sometimes at eight), though it usually ceases by fifty, or earlier, in only rare cases continuing to sixty or beyond. Cases have been reported of pregnancy, or childbirth, at the age of fifty-nine (e.g., _Lancet_, Aug. 5, 1905, p. 419). Lepage (_Comptes-rendus Société d'Obstétrique de Paris_, Oct., 1903) reports a case of a primipara of fifty-seven; the child was stillborn. Kisch (_Sexual Life of Woman_, Part II) refers to cases of pregnancy in elderly women, and various references are given in _British Medical Journal_, Aug. 8, 1903, p. 325. Of more importance is the question of early pregnancy. Several investigators have devoted their attention to this question. Thus, Spitta (in a Marburg Inaugural Dissertation, 1895) reviewed the clinical history of 260 labors in primiparæ of 18 and under, as observed at the Marburg Maternity. He found that the general health during pregnancy was not below the average of pregnant women, while the mortality of the child at birth and during the following weeks was not high, and the mortality of the mother was by no means high. Picard (in a Paris thesis, 1903) has studied childbirth in thirty-eight mothers below the age of sixteen. He found that, although the pelvis is certainly not yet fully developed in very young girls, the joints and bones are much more yielding than in the adult, so that parturition, far from being more difficult, is usually rapid and easy. The process of labor itself, is essentially normal in these cases, and, even when abnormalities occur (low insertion of the placenta is a common anomaly) it is remarkable that the patients do not suffer from them in the way common among older women. The average weight of the child was three kilogrammes, or about 6 pounds, 9 ounces; it sometimes required special care during the first few days after birth, perhaps because labor in these cases is sometimes slow. The recovery of the mother was, in every case, absolutely normal, and the fact that these young mothers become pregnant again more readily than primiparæ of a more mature age, further contributes to show that childbirth below the age of sixteen is in no way injurious to the mother. Gache (_Annales de Gynécologie et d'Obstétrique_, Dec., 1904) has attended ninety-one labors of mothers under seventeen, in the Rawson Hospital, Buenos Ayres; they were of so-called Latin race, mostly Spanish or Italian. Gache found that these young mothers were by no means more exposed than others to abortion or to other complications of pregnancy. Except in four cases of slightly contracted pelvis, delivery was normal, though rather longer than in older primiparæ. Damage to the soft parts was, however, rare, and, when it occurred, in every case rapidly healed. The average weight of the child was 3,039 grammes, or nearly 6¾ pounds. It may be noted that most observers find that very early pregnancies occur in women who begin to menstruate at an unusually early age, that is, some years before the early pregnancy occurs. It is clear, however, that young mothers do remarkably well, while there is no doubt whatever that they bear unusually fine infants. Kleinwächter, indeed, found that the younger the mother, the bigger the child. It is not only physically that the children of young mothers are superior. Marro has found (_Pubertà_, p. 257) that the children of mothers under 21 are superior to those of older mothers both in conduct and intelligence, provided the fathers are not too old or too young. The detailed records of individual cases confirm these results, both as regards mother and child. Thus, Milner (_Lancet_, June 7, 1902) records a case of pregnancy in a girl of fourteen; the labor pains were very mild, and delivery was easy. E.B. Wales, of New Jersey, has recorded the history (reproduced in _Medical Reprints_, Sept. 15, 1890) of a colored girl who became pregnant at the age of eleven. She was of medium size, rather tall and slender, but well developed, and began to menstruate at the age of ten. She was in good health and spirits during pregnancy, and able to work. Delivery was easy and natural, not notably prolonged, and apparently not unduly painful, for there were no moans or agitation. The child was a fine, healthy boy, weighing not less than eleven pounds. Mother and child both did well, and there was a great flow of milk. Whiteside Robertson (_British Medical Journal_, Jan. 18, 1902) has recorded a case of pregnancy at the age of thirteen, in a Colonial girl of British origin in Cape Colony, which is notable from other points of view. During pregnancy, she was anæmic, and appeared to be of poor development and doubtfully normal pelvic conformation. Yet delivery took place naturally, at full term, without difficulty or injury, and the lying-in period was in every way satisfactory. The baby was well-proportioned, and weighed 7½ pounds. "I have rarely seen a primipara enjoy easier labor," concluded Robertson, "and I have never seen one look forward to the happy realization of motherhood with greater satisfaction." The facts brought forward by obstetricians concerning the good results of early pregnancy, as regards both mother and child, have not yet received the attention they deserve. They are, however, confirmed by many general tendencies which are now fairly well recognized. The significant fact is known, for instance, that in mothers over thirty, the proportion of abortions and miscarriages is twice as great as in mothers between the ages of fifteen and twenty, who also are superior in this respect to mothers between the ages of twenty and thirty (_Statistischer Jahrbuch_, Budapest, 1905). It was, again, proved by Matthews Duncan, in his Goulstonian lecture, that the chances of sterility in a woman increase with increase of age. It has, further, been shown (Kisch, _Sexual Life of Woman_, Part II) that the older a woman at marriage, the greater the average interval before the first delivery, a tendency which seems to indicate that it is the very young woman who is in the condition most apt for procreation; Kisch is not, indeed, inclined to think that this applies to women below twenty, but the fact, observed by other obstetricians, that mothers under eighteen tend to become pregnant again at an unusually short interval, goes far to neutralize the exception made by Kisch. It may also be pointed out that, among children of very young mothers, the sexes are more nearly equal in number than is the case with older mothers. This would seem to indicate that we are here in presence of a normal equilibrium which will decrease as the age of the mother is progressively disturbed in an abnormal direction. The facility of parturition at an early age, it may be noted, corresponds to an equal facility in physical sexual intercourse, a fact that is often overlooked. In Russia, where marriage still takes place early, it was formerly common when the woman was only twelve or thirteen, and Guttceit (_Dreissig Jahre Praxis_, vol. i, p. 324) says that he was assured by women who married at this age that the first coitus presented no especial difficulties. There is undoubtedly, at the present time, a considerable amount of prejudice against early motherhood. In part, this is due to a failure to realize that women are sexually much more precocious than men, physically as well as psychically (see _ante_ p. 35). The difference is about five years. This difference has been virtually recognized for thousands of years, in the ancient belief that the age of election for procreation is about twenty, or less, for women, but about twenty-five for men; and it has more lately been affirmed by the discovery that, while the male is never capable of generation before thirteen, the female may, in occasional instances, become pregnant at eight. (Some of the recorded examples are quoted by Kisch.) In part, also, there is an objection to the assumption of responsibilities so serious as those of motherhood by a young girl, and there is the very reasonable feeling that the obligations of a permanent marriage tie ought not to be undertaken at an early age. On the other hand, apart from the physical advantages, as regards both mother and infant, on the side of early pregnancies, it is an advantage for the child to have a young mother, who can devote herself sympathetically and unreservedly to its interests, instead of presenting the pathetic spectacle we so often witness in the middle-aged woman who turns to motherhood when her youth and mental flexibility are gone, and her habits and tastes have settled into other grooves; it has sometimes been a great blessing even to the very greatest men, like Goethe, to have had a youthful mother. It would also, in many cases, be a great advantage for the woman herself if she could bring her procreative life to an end well before the age of twenty-five, so that she could then, unhampered by child-bearing and mature in experience, be free to enter on such wider activities in the world as she might be fitted for. Such an arrangement of the procreative life of women would, obviously, only be a variation, and would probably be unsuited for the majority. Every case must be judged on its own merits. The best age for procreation will probably continue to be regarded as being, for most women, around the age of twenty. But at a time like the present, when there is an unfortunate tendency for motherhood to be unduly delayed, it becomes necessary to insist on the advantages, in many cases, of early motherhood. There are other conditions favorable or unfavorable to procreation which it is now unnecessary to discuss in detail, since they have already been incidentally dealt with in previous volumes of these _Studies_. There is, for instance, the question of the time of year and the time of the menstrual cycle which may most properly be selected for procreation.[466] The best period is probably that when sexual desire is strongest, which is the period when conception would appear, as a matter of fact, most often to occur. This would be in spring or early summer,[467] and immediately after (or shortly before) the menstrual period. The Chinese have observed that the last day of menstruation and the two following days--corresponding to the period of oestrus--constitute the most favorable time for fecundation, and Bossi, of Genoa, has found that the great majority of successes in both natural and artificial fecundation occur at this period.[468] Soranus, as well as the Talmud, assigned the period about menstruation as the best for impregnation, and Susruta, the Indian physician, said that at this time pregnancy most readily occurs because then the mouth of the womb is open, like the flower of the water-lily to the sunshine. We have now at last reached the point from which we started, the moment of conception, and the child again lies in its mother's womb. There remains no more to be said. The divine cycle of life is completed. FOOTNOTES: [421] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 330. [422] Academy of Medicine of Paris, March 31, 1908. [423] _The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, vol. ii, p. 405. [424] _Population and Progress_, p. 41. [425] Cf. Reibmayr, _Entwicklungsgeschichte des Talentes und Genics_, Bd. II, p. 31. [426] "The debt that we owe to those who have gone before us," says Haycraft (_Darwinism and Race Progress_, p. 160), "we can only repay to those who come after us." [427] Mardrus, _Les Mille Nuits_, vol. xvi, p. 158. [428] Sidney Webb, _Popular Science Monthly_, 1906, p. 526 (previously published in the _London Times_, Oct. 11, 16, 1906). In Ch. IX of the present volume it has already been necessary to discuss the meaning of the term, "morality." [429] Thus, in Paris, in 1906, in the rich quarters, the birthrate per 1,000 inhabitants was 19.09; in well-to-do quarters, 22.51; and in poor quarters, 29.70. Here we see that, while the birthrate falls and rises with social class, even among the poor and least restrained class the birthrate is still but little above the general average for England, where prevention is widespread, and very considerably lower than the average (now rapidly falling) in Germany. It is evident that even among the poor class there is a process of leveling up to the higher classes in this matter. [430] I have developed these points more in detail in two articles in the _Independent Review_, November, 1903, and April, 1904. See also, Bushee, "The Declining Birthrate and Its Causes," _Popular Science Monthly_, Aug., 1903. [431] Francis Place, _Illustrations and Proofs of the Principle of Population_, 1822, p. 165. [432] See, e.g., a weighty chapter in the _Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_ of Löwenfeld, one of the most judicious authorities on sexual pathology. Twenty-five years ago, as many will remember, the medical student was usually taught that preventive methods of intercourse led to all sorts of serious results. At that time, however, reckless and undesirable methods of prevention seem to have been more prevalent than now. [433] Michael Ryan, _Philosophy of Marriage_, p. 9. To enable "the conservative power of the Creator" to exert itself on the myriads of germinal human beings secreted during his life-time by even one man, would require a world full of women, while the corresponding problem as regards a woman is altogether too difficult to cope with. The process by which life has been built up, far from being a process of universal conservation, has been a process of stringent selection and vast destruction; the progress effected by civilization merely lies in making this blind process intelligent. [434] Thus, in Belgium, in 1908 (_Sexual-Probleme_, Feb., 1909, p. 136), a physician (Dr. Mascaux) who had been prominent in promoting a knowledge of preventive methods of conception, was condemned to three months imprisonment for "offense against morality!" In such a case, Dr. Helene Stöcker comments (_Die Neue Generation_, Jan., 1909, p. 7), "morality" is another name for ignorance, timidity, hypocrisy, prudery, coarseness, and lack of conscience. It must be remembered, however, in explanation of this iniquitous judgment, that for some years past the clerical party has been politically predominant in Belgium. [435] It has been objected that the condom cannot be used by the very poorest, on account of its cost, but Hans Ferdy, in a detailed paper (_Sexual-Probleme_, Dec., 1908), shows that the use of the condom can be brought within the means of the very poorest, if care is taken to preserve it under water when not in use. Nyström (_Sexual Probleme_, Nov., 1908, p. 736) has issued a leaflet for the benefit of his patients and others, recommending the condom, and explaining its use. [436] Thus, Kisch, in his _Sexual Life of Woman_, after discussing fully the various methods of prevention, decides in favor of the condom. Fürbringer similarly (Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage_, vol. i, pp. 232 et seq.) concludes that the condom is "relatively the most perfect anti-conceptual remedy." Forel (_Die Sexuelle Frage_, pp. 457 et seq.) also discusses the question at length; any æsthetic objection to the condom, Forel adds (p. 544), is due to the fact that we are not accustomed to it; "eye-glasses are not specially æsthetic, but the poetry of life does not suffer excessively from their use, which, in many cases, cannot be dispensed with." [437] _L'Avortement_, p. 43. [438] There are some disputed points in Roman law and practice concerning abortion; they are discussed in Balestrini's valuable book, _Aborto_, pp. 30 et seq. [439] Augustine, _De Civitate Dei_, Bk. XXII, Ch. XIII. [440] The development of opinion and law concerning abortion has been traced by Eugène Bausset, _L'Avortement Criminel_, Thèse de Paris, 1907. For a summary of the practices of different peoples regarding abortion, see W.G. Sumner, _Folkways_, Ch. VIII. [441] _Die Neue Generation_, May, 1908, p. 192. It may be added that in England the attachment of any penalty at all to abortion, practiced in the early months of pregnancy (before "quickening" has taken place), is merely a modern innovation. [442] Even Balestrini, who is opposed to the punishment of abortion, is no advocate of it. "Whenever abortion becomes a social custom," he remarks (op. cit., p. 191), "it is the external manifestation of a people's decadence, and far too deeply rooted to be cured by the mere attempt to suppress the external manifestation." [443] Cf. Ellen Key, _Century of the Child_, Ch. I. Hirth (_Wege zur Heimat_, p. 526) is likewise opposed to the encouragement of abortion, though he would not actually punish the pregnant woman who induces abortion. I would especially call attention to an able and cogent article by Anna Pappritz ("Die Vernichtung des Keimenden Lebens," _Sexual-Probleme_, July, 1909) who argues that the woman is not the sole guardian of the embryo she bears, and that it is not in the interests of society, nor even in her own interests, that she should be free to destroy it at will. Anna Pappritz admits that the present barbarous laws in regard to abortion must be modified, but maintains that they should not be abolished. She proposes (1) a greatly reduced punishment for abortion; (2) this punishment to be extended to the father, whether married or unmarried (a provision already carried out in Norway, both for abortion and infanticide); (3) permission to the physician to effect abortion when there is good reason to suspect hereditary degeneration, as well as when the woman has been impregnated by force. [444] Cf. Dr. Max Hirsch, _Sexual-Probleme_, Jan., 1908, p. 23. [445] Bausset (op. cit.) sets forth various social measures for the care of pregnant and child-bearing women, which would tend to lessen criminal abortion. [446] Gomperz, _Greek Thinkers_, vol. i, p. 564. [447] F.E. Daniel, President of the State Medical Association of Texas, "Should Insane Criminals or Sexual Perverts be Allowed to Procreate?" _Medico-legal Journal_, Dec., 1893; id., "The Cause and Prevention of Rape," _Texas Medical Journal_, May, 1904. [448] P. Näcke, "Die Kastration bei gewissen Klassen von Degenerirten als ein Wirksamer Socialer Schutz," _Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie_, Bd. III, 1899, p. 58; id. "Kastration in Gewissen Fällen von Geisteskrankheit," _Psychiatrisch-Neurologische Wochenschrift_, 1905, No. 29. [449] Angelo Zuccarelli, "Asessualizzazione o sterilizzazione dei Degenerati," _L'Anomalo_, 1898-99, No. 6; id., "Sur la nécessité et sur les Moyens d'empêcher la Réproduction des Hommes les plus Dégénérés," International Congress Criminal Anthropology, Amsterdam, 1901. [450] Näcke, _Neurologisches Centralblatt_, March 1, 1909. The original account of these operations is reproduced in the _Psychiatrisch-Neurologische Wochenschrift_, No. 2, 1909, with an approving comment by the editor, Dr. Bresler. As regards castration in America, see Flood, "Castration of Idiot Children," _American Journal Psychology_, Jan., 1899; also, _Alienist and Neurologist_, Aug., 1909, p. 348. [451] It is probable that castration may prove especially advantageous in the case of the feeble-minded. "In Somersetshire," says Tredgold ("The Feeble-Mind as a Social Danger," _Eugenics Review_, July, 1909), "I found that out of a total number of 167 feeble-minded women, nearly two-fifths (61) had given birth to children, for the most part illegitimate. Moreover, it is not uncommon, but, rather the rule, for these poor girls to be admitted into the workhouse maternity wards again and again, and the average number of offspring to each one of them is probably three or four, although even six is not uncommon." In his work on _Mental Deficiency_ (pp. 288-292) the same author shows that propagation by the mentally deficient is, in England, "both a terrible and extensive evil." [452] This example is brought forward by Ledermann, "Skin Diseases and Marriage," in Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage_. [453] I may here again refer to Lea's instructive _History of Sacerdotal Celibacy_. [454] In England, 35,000 applicants for admission to the navy are annually rejected, and although the physical requirements for enlistment in the army are nowadays extremely moderate, it is estimated by General Maurice that at least sixty per cent. of recruits and would-be recruits are dismissed as unfit. (See e.g., William Coates, "The Duty of the Medical Profession in the Prevention of National Deterioration," _British Medical Journal_, May 1, 1909.) It can scarcely be claimed that men who are not good enough for the army are good enough for the great task of creating the future race. [455] The recognition of epilepsy as a bar to procreation is not recent. There is said to be a record in the archives of the town of Luçon in which epilepsy was adjudged to be a valid reason for the cancellation of a betrothal (_British Medical Journal_, Feb. 14, 1903, p. 383). [456] _British Medical Journal_, April 14, 1906. In California and some other States, it appears that deceit regarding health is a ground for the annulment of marriage. [457] Sir F. Galton, _Inquiries Into Human Faculty_, Everyman's Library edition, pp. 211 et seq.; cf. Galton's collected _Essays in Eugenics_, recently published by the Eugenics Education Society. [458] For some account of the methods and results of the work in schools, see Bertram C.A. Windle, "Anthropometric Work in Schools," _Medical Magazine_, Feb., 1894. [459] The most notable steps in this direction have been taken in Germany. For an account of the experiment at Karlsruhe, see _Die Neue Generation_, Dec., 1908. [460] Wiethknudsen (as quoted in _Sexual-Probleme_, Dec., 1908, p. 837) speaks strongly, but not too strongly, concerning the folly of any indiscriminate endowment of procreation. [461] On the scientific side, in addition to the fruitful methods of statistical biometrics, which have already been mentioned, much promise attaches to work along the lines initiated by Mendel; see W. Bateson, _Mendel's Principles of Heredity_, 1909; also, W.H. Lock, _Recent Progress in the Study of Variation, Heredity, and Evolution_, and R.C. Punnett, _Mendelism_, 1907 (American edition, with interesting preface by Gaylord Wilshire, from the Socialistic point of view, 1909). [462] The study of the right conditions for procreation is very ancient. In modern times we find that even the very first French medical book in the vulgar tongue, the _Régime du Corps_, written by Alebrand of Florence (who was physician to the King of France), in 1256, is largely devoted to this matter, concerning which it gives much sound advice. See J.B. Soalhat, _Les Idées de Maistre Alebrand de Florence sur la Puériculture_, Thèse de Paris, 1908. [463] Hesiod, _Works and Days_, II, 690-700. [464] This has long been the accepted opinion of medical authorities, as may be judged by the statements brought together two centuries ago by Schurig, _Parthenologia_, pp. 22-25. [465] The statement that, on the average, the best age for procreation in men is before, rather than after, forty, by no means assumes the existence of any "critical" age in men analogous to the menopause in women. This is sometimes asserted, but there is no agreement in regard to it. Restif de la Bretonne (_Monsieur Nicolas_, vol. x, p. 176) said that at the age of forty delicacy of sentiment begins to go. Fürbringer believes (Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage_, vol. i, p. 222) that there is a decisive turn in a man's life in the sixth decade, or the middle of the fifth, when desire and potency diminish. J.F. Sutherland also states (_Comptes-rendus Congrès International de Médecine_, 1900, Section de Psychiatrie, p. 471) that there is, in men, about the fifty-fifth year, a change analogous to the menopause in women, but only in a certain proportion of men. It would appear that in most men the decline of sexual feeling and potency is very gradual, and at first manifests itself in increased power of control. [466] See, in vol. i, the study of "The Phenomena of Sexual Periodicity." [467] Among animals, also, spring litters are often said to be the best. [468] Bossi's results are summarized in _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Sept., 1891. Alebrand of Florence, the French King's physician in the thirteenth century, also advised intercourse a day after the end of menstruation. POSTSCRIPT. "The work that I was born to do is done," a great poet wrote when at last he had completed his task. And although I am not entitled to sing any _Nunc dimittis_, I am well aware that the task that has occupied the best part of my life can have left few years and little strength for any work that comes after. It is more than thirty years ago since the first resolve to write the work now here concluded began to shape itself, still dimly though insistently; the period of study and preparation occupied over fifteen years, ending with the publication of _Man and Woman_, put forward as a prolegomenon to the main work which, in the writing and publication, has occupied the fifteen subsequent years. It was perhaps fortunate for my peace that I failed at the outset to foresee all the perils that beset my path. I knew indeed that those who investigate severely and intimately any subject which men are accustomed to pass by on the other side lay themselves open to misunderstanding and even obloquy. But I supposed that a secluded student who approached vital social problems with precaution, making no direct appeal to the general public, but only to the public's teachers, and who wrapped up the results of his inquiries in technically written volumes open to few, I supposed that such a student was at all events secure from any gross form of attack on the part of the police or the government under whose protection he imagined that he lived. That proved to be a mistake. When only one volume of these _Studies_ had been written and published in England, a prosecution, instigated by the government, put an end to the sale of that volume in England, and led me to resolve that the subsequent volumes should not be published in my own country. I do not complain. I am grateful for the early and generous sympathy with which my work was received in Germany and the United States, and I recognize that it has had a wider circulation, both in English and the other chief languages of the world, than would have been possible by the modest method of issue which the government of my own country induced me to abandon. Nor has the effort to crush my work resulted in any change in that work by so much as a single word. With help, or without it, I have followed my own path to the end. For it so happens that I come on both sides of my house from stocks of Englishmen who, nearly three hundred years ago, had encountered just these same difficulties and dangers before. In the seventeenth century, indeed, the battle was around the problem of religion, as to-day it is around the problem of sex. Since I have of late years realized this analogy I have often thought of certain admirable and obscure men who were driven out, robbed, and persecuted, some by the Church because the spirit of Puritanism moved within them, some by the Puritans because they clung to the ideals of the Church, yet both alike quiet and unflinching, both alike fighting for causes of freedom or of order in a field which has now for ever been won. That victory has often seemed of good augury to the perhaps degenerate child of these men who has to-day sought to maintain the causes of freedom and of order in another field. It sometimes seems, indeed, a hopeless task to move the pressure of inert prejudices which are at no point so obstinate as this of sex. It may help to restore the serenity of our optimism if we would more clearly realize that in a very few generations all these prejudices will have perished and be forgotten. He who follows in the steps of Nature after a law that was not made by man, and is above and beyond man, has time as well as eternity on his side, and can afford to be both patient and fearless. Men die, but the ideas they seek to kill live. Our books may be thrown to the flames, but in the next generation those flames become human souls. The transformation is effected by the doctor in his consulting room, by the teacher in the school, the preacher in the pulpit, the journalist in the press. It is a transformation that is going on, slowly but surely, around us. I am well aware that many will not feel able to accept the estimate of the sexual situation as here set forth, more especially in the final volume. Some will consider that estimate too conservative, others too revolutionary. For there are always some who passionately seek to hold fast to the past; there are always others who passionately seek to snatch at what they imagine to be the future. But the wise man, standing midway between both parties and sympathizing with each, knows that we are ever in the stage of transition. The present is in every age merely the shifting point at which past and future meet, and we can have no quarrel with either. There can be no world without traditions; neither can there be any life without movement. As Heracleitus knew at the outset of modern philosophy, we cannot bathe twice in the same stream, though, as we know to-day, the stream still flows in an unending circle. There is never a moment when the new dawn is not breaking over the earth, and never a moment when the sunset ceases to die. It is well to greet serenely even the first glimmer of the dawn when we see it, not hastening towards it with undue speed, nor leaving the sunset without gratitude for the dying light that once was dawn. In the moral world we are ourselves the light-bearers, and the cosmic process is in us made flesh. For a brief space it is granted to us, if we will, to enlighten the darkness that surrounds our path. As in the ancient torch-race, which seemed to Lucretius to be the symbol of all life, we press forward torch in hand along the course. Soon from behind comes the runner who will outpace us. All our skill lies in giving into his hand the living torch, bright and unflickering, as we ourselves disappear in the darkness. HAVELOCK ELLIS. INDEX OF AUTHORS. Abdias Achery Acton Adam, Mme. Adler, Felix Adler, O. Adner Aguilaniedo Alebrand Alexander, Dr. H. Alexandre, Alcide Allée, A. Allen, L.M. Allen, Mary W. Ambrose, St. Amélineau Ammon Amram, D.W. Angela de Fulginio Angus, H.C. Anstie Aquinas Ardu Arendt, Henrietta Aretino Aristotle Aronstam Ascarilla Aschaffenburg Astengo Astor, Mary Astruc Athanasius Athenæus Audry Augagneur Augustine, St. Aurientis Ayala Bacchimont Bachaumont Badley, J.H. Baelz Baer, K.M. Baker, Smith Balestrini Ballantyne, Dr. Ballantyne, Miss H. Balls-Headley Balzac Bangs, L.B. Bartels, Max Basedow Basil, St. Bateson Baumgarten Bausset Bax, Belfort Bazan, Emilia Pardo Beadnell, C.M. Beddoes Bedollière Bell, Sanford Benecke Benedikt Bentzon, Mme. Bérault, G. Berg, Leo Bernard, St. Berry, F. Bertherand Bertillon Besant, Mrs. Beza Bierhoff Birnbaum Bishop, G.P. Bishop, Mrs. Blacker Blake, William Blandford Blaschko Bloch, Iwan Bluhm, Agnes Blumreich Boccaccio Bohier Bois, Jules Boissier, de Sauvages Bollinger Bölsche Bonger Bongi, S. Bonhoeffer Boniface, St. Bonnifield Bonstetten Booth, C. Booth, D.S. Bossi Bouchacourt Bougainville Bourget Bouvier Boyle, F. Brachet Braun, Lily Brénier de Montmorand Brénot, H. Breuer Brieux Brinton Brouardel Brougham Lord Brown, Dr. Charlotte Bruns, Ivo Brynmor-Jones Bucer Budge, A.W. Buffon Bulkley, D. Büller Bumm Bunge Burchard Burdach Buret Burnet Burton, Sir R. Burton, Robert Busch Bushee Butler, G. Butterfield Byers Cabanis Caird, Mona Callari Calvin Calza Canudo Capitaine Caron Carpenter, Edward Casanova Caspari Cataneus Cattell, J. McKeen Caufeynon Cazalis Chaignon Chambers, E.K. Chambers, W.G. Chapman, G. Chapman, J. Cheetham Cheng, Mme. Cheyne Child, May Chotzen, M. Chrysostom Cicero Ciuffo Clapperton, Miss Clappier Clarke Clement of Alexandria Clement E. Cleveland, C. Clouston Coates, W. Codrington, R.W. Coghlan Colombey Coltman Commenge Cook, G.W. Cook, Capt. J. Cooper, A. Cope, E.D. Correa, Roman Coryat Crackanthorpe Cranmer Crawley, A.E. Crocker Curr Gushing, W. Cyples Daniel, F.E. Dareste Dargun Darmesteter, J. Darricarrère Darwin Daudet, A. D'Aulnoy, Mme. Daya, W. Debreyne D'Enjoy, Paul Dens Deodhar, Mrs. Kashibai Descartes Despine Després Dessoir, Max Diaz de Isla Diday Diderot Digby, Sir K. Dill Dluska, Mme. Dodd, Catherine Doléris Donaldson, Principal Donnay Drysdale, C.R. Drysdale, G. Duclaux Dühren, _see_ Bloch, Iwan. Dufour, P. Dukes Dulaure Dulberg Dumas, G. Duncan, Matthews Dunnett Dunning Dupouey Durkheim Durlacher Dyer, I. Edgar, J. Clifton Egbert, S. Ehrenfels, C. von Elliot, G.F.S. Ellis, Sir A.B. Ellis, Havelock Ellis, William Elmy, Ben., _see_ Ethelmer, Ellis. Enderlin, Max Engelmann Ennius Enzensberger Erb Erhard, F. Escherich Esmein Espy de Metz Ethelmer, Ellis Eulenburg Evans, Mrs. Grainger Farnell Farrer, R.T. Federow Ferdy, H. Féré Ferrand Ferrero, G. Ferriani Fiaschi Fiaux Fielding Finger Fischer, W. Fitchett Flesch, Max Flogel Flood Forberg Forel Fornasari Fothergill, J.M. Fouquet Fournier Fox, G. Fracastorus Fraser, Mrs. Frazer, J.G. Freeman French, H.C. Freud Friedjung Friedländer Fuchs, N. Funk, W. Fürbringer Fürth, Henriette Gache Gaedeken Gallard Galton, Sir F. Gardiner, J.S. Garrison, C.G. Gaultier, J. de Gautier, L. Geary, N. Gennep, A. Van Gérard Gerhard, Adele Gerhard, W. Gerson, A. Gesell Gibb, W.T. Gibbon Giles, A.E. Giles, H.A. Gillard, E. Gillen Gilles de la Tourette Ginnell Giuffrida-Ruggeri Glück, L. Godard Godfrey, J.A. Godwin, W. Goethe Gomperz Goncourt Goodchild, F.M. Goring Gottheil Gottschling Gourmont, Remy de Graef, R. de Graf, A. Grandin Green, C.M. Gregory the Great Gregory of Nazianzen Gregory of Nyssa Gregory of Tours Gregory M. Griesinger Gross Gross, H. Grosse Gulick, L.H. Gurlitt, L. Gury Guttceit Guyau Guyot Gyurkovechky Haddon, A.C. Hagelstange Hale Hall, A. Hall, Stanley Hall, W. Haller Hamilton, A. Hammer Hammond, W.A. Hamon, A. Hard, Hedwig Hardy, Thomas Harris, A. Harrison, F. Hartland, E.S. Harwood, W.L. Haskovec Haslam, J. Hausmeister, P. Havelburg Hawkesworth Haycraft Hayes, P.J. Haynes, E.S.P. Hegar Heidenhain, A. Heidingsfeld Heimann Hellmann Hellpach Helme, T.A. Helvétius Herbert, Auberon Herman, G. Hermant, A. Herodotus Heron Hesiod Hiller Hinton Hirsch, Max Hirschfeld, Magnus Hirth, G. Hobhouse, L.T. Hobson, J.A. Hoffmann, E. Holbach Holder, A.B. Holmes, T. Holt, R.B. Hopkins, Ellice Hort Houzel Howard, G.B. Howitt, A.W. Hudrey-Menos, J. Hughes, C.H. Humboldt, W. Von Hutchinson, Sir J. Hutchinson, Woods Hyde, J.N. Hyrtl Inderwick Ivens, F. Jacobi, Mary P. Jacobsohn, L. Janet Janke Jastrow, M. Jeannel Jellinek, C. Jentsch, K. Jerome, H. John of Salisbury Jones, Sir W. Jullien Kaan Kalbeck Karin, Karina Keller, G. Kelly, H.A. Kennedy, Helen Key, Ellen Keyes, E.L. Kiernan Kind, A. Kingsley, C. Kirk, E.B. Kisch Klotz Knott, J. Kossmann Kowalewsky, Sophie Krafft-Ebing Krauss, F.S. Krukenberg, Frau Kubary Kullberg Kurella Lacroix, P. Lafargue, Paul La Jeunesse, E. Lallemand Lambkin Lancaster Landor Landret Langsdorf Lapie Laplace Lasco, John à Lauvergne Laycock Lea Lecky Lederer Ledermann Lee, Sidney Lefebvre, A. Legg, J.W. Lemonnier, C. Lenkei Lepage Letourneux Lévy-Bruhl Lewis, Denslow Lewitt Leyboff Lilienthal Lindsey, B.B. Lippert Lischnewska, Maria Liszt Livingstone, W.P. Lock, W.H. Logan Lombroso Löwenfeld Lowndes Lucas, Clement Lucretius Lumholtz Luther Lydston Lyttelton, E. Maberly, G.C. MacMurchy, Dr. Helen Macvie Madam, M. Maeterlinck Magruder, J. Maillard-Brune Maine Maitland Malthus Mandeville, B. Mannhardt Mantegazza, A. Mantegazza, P. Marçais Marchesini Marcuse, J. Marcuse, M. Margueritte, P. Margueritte, V. Marholm, L. Marro Martindale, Miss Martineau Marx, V. Massalongo Masson Mathews, A. Mathews, R.H. Matignon Maudsley Maurice, General Mayor Mayreder, Rosa McBride, G.H. McCleary, G.F. McIlquham Melancthon Menger, A. von Menjago Mensinga Meredith, G. Mérimée Merrick Metchnikoff Meyer-Benfey, H. Meyer, Bruno Meyer, E.H. Meyrick Michelet Michels, R. Migne Mill, J. Mill, J.S. Millais, J.G. Miller, Noyes Miln, L.J. Milner Milton Möbius Molinari, G. de Moll Mönkemöller Montaigne Montesquieu Montmorency Mookerji Moore, Samson Morasso More, Sir T. Moreau, Christophe Morley, Lord Morley, Margaret Morris, William Morrow Mortimer, G. Moryson, Fynes Mott, F.W. Multatuli Münsterberg Murray, Gilbert Mylott Näcke Naumann, F. Nefzaoui Neisser Neugebauer Newman, G. Newsholme, A. Niessen, Max von Nietzold Nietzsche Niven Noble, M. Noggerath Northcote, Rev. H. Notthaft Noyes, J.H. Nyström Obersteiner Obici Odo of Cluny Oefele Okamura Olberg, Oda Omer, Haleby Ostwald, H. Ott Ovid Owen, R.D. Paget, Sir J. Palladius Pappritz, Anna Parent-Duchâtelet Paré Parsons, E.C. Parsons, J. Patmore, C. Paton, Noel Paul, Dr. H. Paulucci de Calboli Paulus Pearson, K. Péchin Pepys Pernet Perruc Perry-Coste Petermann, J. Petrie, Flinders Picard Pike Pinard Pinkus Pinloche Place, Francis Plato Plarr, V. Plautus Playfair, Sir W.S. Ploss Plutarch Pole, M.T. Pollack, Flora Pollock, Sir F. Potter, M.A. Potton Power, D'Arcy Powys Prat Price, J. Prevost, M. Prinzing Probst-Biraben Proksch Pudor Punnett Pyke, Rafford Querlon, Meusnier de Quirós, C. Bernaldo de Rabelais Rabutaux Raciborski Radbruch Ramdohr Ramsay, Sir W.M. Rasmussen Ratramnus Redlich Reed, C. Régnier, H. de Reibmayr Reinhard Remo, P. Remondino Renan Renooz, Céline Renouf, C. Renouvier Restif de la Bretonne Reuss Reuther, F. Revillout Rhys, Sir J. Ribbing Ribot Rich, H. Richard, C. Richard, E. Richmond, Mrs. Ennis Ritter, Dr. Mary Robert, U. Robertson, W. Robinovitch, L. Rogers, Anna Rohde Rohleder Rolfincius Rosenberg Rosenthal Rousseau Routh Rudeck Rufinus Tyrannius Ruggles, W. Rüling, Anna Ruskin Russell, Mrs. Bertrand Rust, H. Rutgers Ryan, M. Ryckère, E. de Sabine, J.K. Sacher-Masoch, Wanda von Sainte-Beuve Saleeby Salimbene Salvat Sanborn, Lura Sanchez, T. Sandoz, F. Sanger Sarraute-Lourié, Mme. Schäfenacker Schaudinn Schlegel, F. Schmid, Marie von Schmidt, R. Schneider, C.K. Schopenhauer Schrader, O. Schrank Schreiber, Adele Schreiner, Olive Schrempf Schrenck-Notzing Schroeder, E.A. Schroeder, T. Schultz, Alwyn Schultze-Malkowsky, E. Schurig Schurtz, H. Schwalbe Scott, Colin Scott, J.F. Ségur Seligmann Sellman, W.A.B. Sénancour Seneca Séropian Sévigné, Mme. de Seymour, H.J. Shakespeare Shaw, G.B. Shebbeare, Rev. C.J. Shelley Sherwell Shufeldt Sidgwick, H. Sidis, Boris Sieroshevski Simmel Simon, Helene Sinclair, Sir W. Smith, Robertson Soalhat Somerset, Lady Henry Sommer, R. Soranus Spencer, Baldwin Spencer, Herbert Spitta Stanmore, Lord Stefanowski Stefánsson Stevenson, R.L. Stevenson, T.H.C. Stöcker, Helene Strampff Stratz, C.H. Streitberg, Gräfin Ströhmberg Sturge, Miss Suidas Sullivan, W.C. Sumner, W.G. Susruta Sutherland, J.F. Sutherland, W.D. Sykes, J.F.J. Tait, W. Talbot, E.S. Tammeo Tarde Tarnowsky, Pauline Taylor, R.W. Tenney Tennyson Terman, L.M. Tertullian Theresa, W. Thomas, A.W. Thomas, N.W. Thomas, Prof. W. Thomson, J.A. Thoreau Thuasne Tilt Tobler Todhunter Tolstoy Tout, C. Hill Traill Tredgold Trewby Troll-Borostyáni I. von Trollope, A. Turnbull Ulpian Ungewitter Unna Urquhart Vacher de Lapouge Valentino Valera Vanderkiste Varendonck Vatsyayana Vaux, Rev. J.E. Velden, Van den Velten Venette Veniero Vickery, A. Drysdale Vinay Vinci, L. de Vines, Miss Virchow Vitrey Voltaire Vries, de Wächter Wagner, C. Wahrmund Wales, E.B. Walter, J. von Ward, Lester Wardlaw, R. Warker, Van de Warren, M.A. Wasserschleben Watkins Webb, Sidney Weinberg Weininger Welander Welch, F.H. Wells, H.G. Werthauer Wessmann Westermarck Wharton Wheeler, C.B. Wheeler, Mrs. Whitaker, Nellie C. Whitman, Walt Wiedow Wilcox, Ella W. Wilhelm William of Malmsbury Williams, Dawson Williams, Hugh Williams, W. Roger Windle, C.A. Wollstonecraft, M. Yule, G. Adney Zacchia Zache Zanzinger, E. Zeno Zoroaster Zuccarelli INDEX OF SUBJECTS. Abortion, arguments against modern advocates of the practice of Abstinence, alleged evil results of alleged good results of as a preparation for marriage criticism of conception of intermediate views of moral results of sexual, in relation to chastity the problems of Abyssinia, prostitution in sexual initiation in Achilleus and Nereus, legend of Adultery Africa, chastity on West Coast of Alcohol, as a sexual stimulant in pregnancy in relation to the orgy Alexander VI and courtesans Ambil anak Marriage America, divorce in marriage in prostitution in American Indians, appreciate asceticism sexual initiation among their Sabbath orgies words for love among Aphrodite Pandemos Art in relation to sexual impulse Asceticism among early Christians appreciated by savages definition of in religion later degeneracy of value of Ascetics, attitude towards sex of mediæval Aspasia Athletics for women Aucassin et Nicolette Australia, marriage system in saturnalian festivals in sexual initiation in Auvergne, story of the Two Lovers of Azimba Land, sexual initiation in Babies, children's theories on the origin of Babylonia, high status of women in religious prostitution in Bawenda, sexual initiation among Beena marriage Beethoven Behn, Aphra Belgium, prostitution in Bestial, human sexual impulse not Bible in relation to sexual education Biometrics Birth, civilized tendency to premature Birthrate, decline of Blindness in relation to gonorrhoea Botany in sexual education Bredalbane case Breed _versus_ nurture Bride-price Brothel, decay of in ancient Rome in the East mediæval modern defence of modern regulation of origin of Bundling Burmah, prostitution in Canon law, defects of its importance origin of persistence of its traditions sound kernel of Carlyle Carnival, origin of Castration, modern developments of the practice of Chastity among early Christians definition of girdle of in modern Fiji in what sense a virtue modern attitude towards Protestant attitude towards romantic literature of the function of Child, as foundation of marriage characteristics of eldest born its need of two parents Childhood, sexual activity in sexual teaching in China, divorce in prostitution in Chivalry on position of women, influence of Christianity, attitude towards chastity attitude towards lust attitude towards nakedness failed to recognize importance of art of love its influence on position of women on marriage mixed attitude towards sexual impulse towards prostitution towards seduction Civilization and prostitution and the sexual impulse Coitus, _a posteriori_ best time for during pregnancy ethnic variations in excess in injuries due to unskilful _interruptus_ morbid horror of needs to be taught prayer before proper frequency of religious significance of _reservatus_ Collusion, doctrine of Conception, conditions of prevention of Concubine Condom Conjugal rights or rites Consent, age of Consultation de Nourrisson Contract, marriage as a Corinth, prostitution at Country life and sexuality Courtesan, origin of term Courtship, the art of Criminality in relation to prostitution Cyprus, prostitution at Dancing, hygienic value of as an orgy D'Aragona, Tullia Divorce, by mutual consent causes for in ancient Rome in ancient Wales in China in England in France in Germany in Japan in Russia in Switzerland in United States Milton's views on modern tendency of Protestant attitude towards question of damages for reform of tendency of legislation regarding transmission of venereal disease as a cause for Drama, modern function of the Dysmenorrhoea Economic factor, of marriage of prostitution Education in matters of sex for women Egypt, high status of women in Eldest born child, characteristics of England, marriage in prostitution in Erotic element in marriage Eskimo, divorce among sexual initiation among Eugenics false ideas of foundation by Galton importance of environment in relation to in relation to castration Noyes a pioneer in positive wide acceptance of principle of Excretory centers as affecting estimate of sexual impulse Exogamy, origin of Families and degeneracy, large Father in relation to family Fecundation, artificial Festivals, seasonal Fidus Fiji, chastity in Flirtation Fools, Feast of Fornication, theological doctrine of France, divorce in prostitution in Franco, Veronica Gallantry, the ancient conception of Geisha, the General paralysis and syphilis Genius, in relation to chastity in relation to love Germany, divorce in marriage in prostitution in Gestation, length of Girdle of chastity Girls, interest in sex matters masculine ideals of Girls, sex education of their need of sexual knowledge Gnostic elements in early Christian literature Goddesses in forefront of primitive pantheons Gonorrhoea, nature and results of _And see_ Venereal Diseases. Goutte de Lait Greeks, origin of their drama prudery among rarity of ideal sexual love among their attitude towards nakedness their conception of the orgy their erotic writings Group-marriage Gynæcocracy, alleged primitive Hetairæ Hindu attitude towards sex Holland, prostitution in Homosexuality among prostitutes Huddersfield scheme Hysteria Ideals of girls, masculine Illegitimacy in Germany Imperia Impotency in popular estimation Impurity, disastrous results of teaching feminine early Christian views of India, story of The Betrothed of sacred prostitution in Individualism and Socialism Infantile mortality in relation to suckling by mother in relation to syphilis Infantile sexuality Insanity and prostitution Intellectual work in relation to sexual activity in men in women Ireland, divorce in high status of women in ancient Italy, prostitution in Jamaica, results of free sexual unions in Japan, attitude towards love in automatic legitimation of children in divorce in prostitution in Jealousy Jesus Jews, as parents prostitution among ancient status of women among Judas Thomas's Acts Kadishtu Kant Korea, prostitution in Lactation Lectures on sexual hygiene Lenclos, Ninon de Love an essential part of marriage art of definition of difficulties of art of for more than one person future development of how far an illusion in childhood in relation to chastity inevitable mystery of its value for life testimonies to immense importance of Lust, in relation to love theological conception of Lydian prostitution Mahommedanism and prostitution and sanctity of sex its regard for chastity Male continence Malthus Mammary activity in infancy Manuals of sexual hygiene Maoris, results of loss of old faith among Marriage, advantages of early ambil anak and prostitution as a contract as a fact as a sacrament as an ethical sacrament beena by capture certificates for criticism of evolution of for a term of years from legal point of view in early Christian times in old English law in relation to eugenics in relation to morals in Rome independent of forms inferior forms of love as a factor of modern tendencies in regard to objections to early objects of procreation as a factor of Protestant attitude towards trial variations in order of Masturbation among prostitutes anxiety of boys about in relation to sexual abstinence Matriarchy, alleged primitive Matrilineal descent Mendelism Mendes, the rite at Menstruation, brought on by sexual excitement coitus during hygiene of instruction regarding Missionaries' attempt to impose European customs Modesty consistent with nakedness Monogamy Montanist element in early Christian literature Morality, meaning of the term Motherhood, early age of endowment of Mothers, duty to instruct daughters duty to suckle infant responsibility for their own procreative acts schools for the sexual teachers of children Mylitta, prostitution at temple of Mystery in matters of sex, evil of Nakedness, an alleged sexual stimulant as a prime tonic of life consistent with modesty educational value of hygienic value of in literature and art in mediæval Europe in relation to sexual education its moral value its spiritual value modern attitude towards Neo-Malthusianism Neurasthenia, sexual Newton New Zealand, result of decay of _tapu_ in sexual freedom in ancient Night-courtship customs Notification of Births Act venereal diseases Nurture _versus_ breed Nutrition compared to reproduction Obscenity, early Christian views of Orgy, among savages in classic times in mediæval Christianity its religious origin modern need of Oneida Community Ouled-Nail prostitution Ovarian irritation Ovid Penitentials, the Physician, alleged duty to prescribe sexual intercourse as a social reformer his place in sexual hygiene Platonic friendship Poetry in relation to sexual impulse Polygamy Precocity, sexual Pregnancy, among primitive peoples coitus during early hygiene of Premature birth Procreation, best age for best season for control of its place in marriage methods of control of the science of Promiscuity, theory of primitive Prostitutes, as artists as guardians of the home at the Renaissance attitudes towards bully in Austria in classic times in France in Italy injustice of social attitude towards number of servants who become psychic and physical characteristics tendency to homosexuality their motives for adopting avocation their sexual temperament under Christianity Prostitution, among savages as affected by Christianity as an equivalent of criminality causes of civilizational value of decay of State regulation of definition of economic factor of essentially unsatisfactory nature of in modern times in relation to marriage in the East moral justification of need for humanizing on the stage origin and development of present social attitude towards regulation of religious rise of secular to acquire marriage portion Protestantism, attitude towards prostitution Prudery in ancient times Puberty, initiation at, among savages sexual education at sexual hygiene at Puericulture Puritans, attitude towards unchastity towards marriage Quaker conception of marriage Rape, cannot be committed by husband on wife wedding night often a Religious prostitution Renaissance, prostitutes at the Reproduction compared to nutrition Responsibility in matters of sex, personal Rest, during pregnancy, importance of during menstruation Ring, origin of wedding Robert of Arbrissel Romantic literature of chastity love, late origin of Rome, attitude towards nakedness in ancient conception of the orgy in marriage in prostitution in status of women in Russia, divorce in sexual freedom in Sabbath orgy Sacrament, marriage as a Sacred prostitution Sale-marriage Savages, prostitution among rarity of love among sexual education among Scandinavian method of dealing with venereal diseases School, its place in sexual education Schools for mothers Seduction, early Church's attitude towards Servants frequently become prostitutes Sexual abstinence Sexual anæsthesia, a cause of Sexual education among savages and coitus and nakedness Sexual hygiene and art and literature and religion at puberty at school in childhood in relation to sexual abstinence Sexual innocence, value of Sexual morality Sexual neurasthenia Sexual physiology in education Sexual precocity Shakespeare in relation to sexual education Slavs, sexual freedom among Socialism and individualism Spain, prostitution in Stage, prostitution on the State, its interest in children nurseries Sterility in relation to gonorrhoea Stirpiculture causes of Stork legend of origin of babies Suckling in relation to puericulture Swahili, sexual education among Switzerland, divorce in prostitution in Syphilis, its prevalence nature and results of of the innocent questions of the origin of _And see_ Venereal Diseases. Tahiti, chastity and unchastity in old Teachers and sexual hygiene Teutonic custom, influence on position of women influence on marriage Theatre, as a beneficial form of the orgy early Christian attitude towards Thekla, legend of Town life and sexuality Trappists, régime of Trent, Council of Trial-marriage Urban life and sexuality Uterine fibroids Vaginismus Vasectomy Venereal diseases, conquest of the free treatment of need of enlightenment concerning notification of personal responsibility for punishment for transmission of Venice, prostitution in Virgin, intercourse with as a cure for syphilis original meaning of the term Virginity, why valued Wagner's music dramas Wales, divorce in ancient White slavery Wife-purchase among ancient Germans in modern times Woman movement Women, alleged tendency to dissimulation among the Jews and sexual abstinence erotic characteristics of ignorance of art of love in Arabia in Babylonia in Egypt in modern Europe in relation to divorce in relation to free sexual unions in Rome inequality before the law moral equality with men must not be compulsory mothers not attracted to innocent men position as affected by Teutonic custom procreative age of their high status in ancient Ireland their need of economic independence their need of personal responsibility their need of sexual knowledge understand love better than men Yakuts, attitude towards virginity Yuman Indians, sexual initiation among Zoölogy and sexual education