APPENDIX B.

W. F. Daniell,op. cit., p. 36.

[218]

Journal of the Anthropological Institute, August and November, 1898, p. 106.

[219]

Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1899, ii and iii, p. 84; Velten,Sitten und Gebraüche der Suaheli, p. 12.

[220]

Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1896, p. 364.

[221]

Vambery,Travels in Central Asia, 1864, p. 323.

[222]

Heard,Journal of the Anthropological Institute, Jan.-June, 1911, p. 210. The same rule is also observed by the Christians of this district.

[223]

Haddon and Stubbs,Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents, vol. iii, p. 423.

[224]

Jeremy Taylor,The Rule of Conscience, bk. iii, ch. iv, rule xx.

Thus it would seem probable that, contrary to a belief once widely prevalent, the sexual instinct has increased rather than diminished with the growth of civilization. This fact was clear to the insight of Lucretius, though it has often been lost sight of since.[225]Yet even observation of animals might have suggested the real bearing of the facts. The higher breeds of cattle, it is said, require the male more often than the inferior breeds.[226]Thorough-bred horses soon reach sexual maturity, and I understand that since pains have been taken to improve cart-horses the sexual instincts of the mares have become less trustworthy. There is certainly no doubt that in our domestic animals generally, which live under what may be called civilized conditions, the sexual system and the sexual needs are more developed than in the wild species most closely related to them.[227]All observers seem to agree on this point, and it is sufficient to refer to the excellent summary of the question furnished by Heape in the study of "The 'Sexual Season' of Mammals," to which reference has already been made. He remarks, moreover, that, "while the sexual activity of domestic animals and of wild animals in captivity may be more frequently exhibited, it is not so violent as is shown by animals in the wild state."[228]So that, it would seem, the greater periodicity of the instinct in the wild state, alike in animals and in man, is associated with greater violence of the manifestations when they do appear.Certain rodents, such as the rat and the mouse, are well known to possess both great reproductive power and marked sexual proclivities. Heape suggests that this also is "due to the advantages derived from their intimate relations with the luxuries of civilization." Heape recognizes that, as regards reproductive power, the same development may be traced in man: "It would seem highly probable that the reproductive power of man has increased with civilization, precisely as it may be increased in the lower animals by domestication; that the effect of a regular supply of good food, together with all the other stimulating factors available and exercised in modern civilized communities, has resulted in such great activity of the generative organs, and so great an increase in the supply of the reproductive elements, that conception in the healthy human female may be said to be possible almost at any time during the reproductive period."

"People of sense and reflection are most apt to have violent and constant passions," wrote Mary Wollstonecraft, "and to be preyed on by them."[229]It is that fact which leads to the greater importance of sexual phenomena among the civilized as compared to savages. The conditions of civilization increase the sexual instinct, which consequently tends to be more intimately connected with moral feelings. Morality is bound up with the development of the sexual instinct. The more casual and periodic character of the impulse in animals, since it involves greater sexual indifference, tends to favor a loose tie between the sexes, and hence is not favorable to the development of morals as we understand morals. In man the ever-present impulse of sex, idealizing each sex to the other sex, draws men and women together and holds them together. Foolish and ignorant persons may deplore the full development which the sexual instinct has reached in civilized man; to a finer insight that development is seen to be indissolubly linked with all that is most poignant and most difficult, indeed, but also all that is best, in human life as we know it.

[225]

De Rerum Naturâ, v, 1016.

[226]

Raciborski (Traité de la Menstruation, p. 43) quotes the observation of an experienced breeder of choice cattle to this effect.

[227]

"The organs which in the feral state," as Adlerz remarks (Biologisches Centralblatt, No. 4, 1902; quoted inScience, May 16, 1902), "are continually exercised in a severe struggle for existence, do not under domestication compete so closely with one another for the less needed nutriment. Hence, organs like the reproductive glands, which are not so directly implicated in self-preservation, are able to avail themselves of more food."

[228]

Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, vol. xliv, 1900, p. 12, 31, 39.

[229]

"Love," inThoughts on the Education of Daughters.

It is a very remarkable fact that, although for many years past serious attempts have been made to elucidate the psychology of sexual perversions, little or no endeavor has been made to study the development of the normal sexual emotions. Nearly every writer seems either to take for granted that he and his readers are so familiar with all the facts of normal sex psychology that any detailed statement is altogether uncalled for, or else he is content to write a few fragmentary remarks, mostly made up of miscellaneous extracts from anatomical, philosophical, and historical works.

Yet it is as unreasonable to take normal phenomena for granted here as in any other region of science. A knowledge of such phenomena is as necessary here as physiology is to pathology or anatomy to surgery. So far from the facts of normal sex development, sex emotions, and sex needs being uniform and constant, as is assumed by those who consider their discussion unnecessary, the range of variation within fairly normal limits is immense, and it is impossible to meet with two individuals whose records are nearly identical.

There are two fundamental reasons why the endeavor should be made to obtain a broad basis of clear information on the subject. In the first place, the normal phenomena give the key to the abnormal phenomena, and the majority of sexual perversions, including even those that are most repulsive, are but exaggerations of instincts and emotions that are germinal in normal human beings. In the second place, we cannot even know what is normal until we are acquainted with the sexual life of a large number of healthy individuals. And until we know the limits of normal sexuality we are not in position to lay down any reasonable rules of sexual hygiene.

On these grounds I have for some time sought to obtain the sexual histories, and more especially the early histories, of men and women who, onprima faciegrounds, may fairly be considered, or are at all events by themselves and others considered, ordinarily healthy and normal.

There are many difficulties about such a task, difficulties which are sufficiently obvious. There is, first of all, the natural reticence to reveal facts of so intimately personal a character. There is the prevailing ignorance and unintelligence which leads to the phenomena being obscure to the subject himself. When the first difficulty has been overcome, and the second is non-existent, there is still a lack of sufficiently strong motive to undertake the record, as well as a failure to realize the value of such records. I have, however, received a large number of such histories, for the most part offered spontaneously with permission to make such further inquiries as I thought desirable. Some of these histories are extremely interesting and instructive. In the present Appendix, and in a corresponding Appendix to the two following volumes of theseStudies, I bring forward a varied selection of these narratives. In a few cases, it will be seen, the subjects are, to say the least, on the borderland of the abnormal, but they do not come before us as patients desiring treatment. They are playing their, usually active, sometimes even distinguished, part in the world, which knows nothing of their intimate histories.

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