Chapter 4

Dancing is so powerful an agent on the organism, as Sergi truly remarks (Les Emotions, p. 288), because its excitation is general, because it touches every vital organ, the higher centers no longer dominating. Primitive dancing differs very widely from that civilized kind of dancing—finding its extreme type in the ballet—in which energy is concentrated into the muscles below the knee. In the finest kinds of primitive dancing all the limbs, the whole body, take part. For instance, "the Marquisan girls," Herman Melville remarked inTypee, "dance all over, as it were; not only do their feet dance, but their arms, hands, fingers,—ay, their very eyes seem to dance in their heads. In good sooth, they so sway their floating forms, arch their necks, toss aloft their naked arms, and glide, and swim, and whirl," etc.If we turn to a very different people, we find this characteristic of primitive dancing admirably illustrated by the missionary, Holden, in the case of Kaffir dances. "So far as I have observed," he states, "the perfection of the art or science consists in theirbeing able to put every part of the body into motion at the same time. And as they are naked, the bystander has a good opportunity of observing the whole process, which presents a remarkably odd and grotesque appearance,—the head, the trunk, the arms, the legs, the hands, the feet, bones, muscles, sinews, skin, scalp, and hair, each and all in motion at the same time, with feathers waving, tails of monkeys and wild beasts dangling, and shields beating, accompanied with whistling, shouting, and leaping. It would appear as though the whole frame was hung on springing wires or cords. Dances are held in high repute, being the natural expression of joyous emotion, or creating it when absent. There is, perhaps, no exercise in greater accordance with the sentiments or feelings of a barbarous people, or more fully calculated to gratify their wild and ungoverned passions." (W. C. Holden,The Kaffir Race, 1866, p. 274.)

If we turn to a very different people, we find this characteristic of primitive dancing admirably illustrated by the missionary, Holden, in the case of Kaffir dances. "So far as I have observed," he states, "the perfection of the art or science consists in theirbeing able to put every part of the body into motion at the same time. And as they are naked, the bystander has a good opportunity of observing the whole process, which presents a remarkably odd and grotesque appearance,—the head, the trunk, the arms, the legs, the hands, the feet, bones, muscles, sinews, skin, scalp, and hair, each and all in motion at the same time, with feathers waving, tails of monkeys and wild beasts dangling, and shields beating, accompanied with whistling, shouting, and leaping. It would appear as though the whole frame was hung on springing wires or cords. Dances are held in high repute, being the natural expression of joyous emotion, or creating it when absent. There is, perhaps, no exercise in greater accordance with the sentiments or feelings of a barbarous people, or more fully calculated to gratify their wild and ungoverned passions." (W. C. Holden,The Kaffir Race, 1866, p. 274.)

Dancing, as the highest and most complex form of muscular movement, is the most potent method of obtaining the organic excitement muscular movement yields, and thus we understand how from the earliest zoölogical ages it has been brought to the service of the sexual instinct as a mode of attaining tumescence. Among savages this use of dancing works harmoniously with the various other uses which dancing possesses in primitivetimes and which cause it to occupy so large and vital a part in savage life that it may possibly even affect the organism to such an extent as to mold the bones; so that some authorities have associated platycnemia with dancing. As civilization advances, the other uses of dancing fall away, but it still remains a sexual stimulant. Burton, in hisAnatomy of Melancholy, brings forward a number of quotations from old authors showing that dancing is an incitement to love.[41]

The Catholic theologians (Debreyne,Mœchialogie, pp. 190-199) for the most part condemn dancing with much severity. In Protestant Germany, also, it is held that dance meetings and musical gatherings are frequent occasions of unchastity. Thus in the Leipzig district when a girl is asked "How did you fall?" she nearly always replies "At the dance." (Die Geschlechtlich-Sittliche Verhältnisse im Deutschen Reiche, vol. i, p. 196.) It leads quite as often, and no doubt oftener, to marriage. Rousseau defended it on this account (Nouvelle Heloïse, bk. iv, letter x); dancing is, he held, an admirable preliminary to courtship, and the best way for young people to reveal themselves to each other, in their grace and decorum, their qualities and defects, while its publicity is its safeguard. An International Congress of Dancing Masters was held at Barcelona in 1907. In connection with this Congress, Giraudet, president of the International Academy of Dancing Masters, issued an inquiry to over 3000 teachers of dancing throughout the world in order to ascertain the frequency with which dancing led to marriage. Of over one million pupils of dancing, either married or engaged to be married, it was found that in most countries more than 50 per cent. met their conjugal partners at dances. The smallest proportion was in Norway, with only 39 per cent., and the highest, Germany, with 97 per cent. Intermediate are France, 83 per cent.; America, 80 per cent.; Italy, 70 per cent.; Spain, 68 per cent.; Holland, Bulgaria, and England, 65 per cent.; Australia and Roumania, 60 per cent., etc. Of the teachers themselves 92 per cent. met their partners at dances. (Quoted from theFigaroin Beiblatt "Sexualreform" toGeschlecht und Gesellschaft, 1907, p. 175.)

In civilization, however, dancing is not only an incitement to love and a preliminary to courtship, but it is often a substitute for the normal gratification of the sexual instinct, procuring something of the pleasure and relief of gratified love. In occasionalabnormal cases this may be consciously realized. Thus Sadger, who regards the joy of dancing as a manifestation of "muscular eroticism," gives the case of a married hysterical woman of 21, with genital anesthesia, but otherwise strongly developed skin eroticism, who was a passionate dancer: "I often felt as though I was giving myself to my partner in dancing," she said, "and was actually having coitus with him. I have the feeling that in me dancing takes the place of coitus."[42]Normally something of the same feeling is experienced by many young women, who will expend a prodigious amount of energy in dancing, thus procuring, not fatigue, but happiness and relief.[43]It is significant that, after sexual relations have begun, girls generally lose much of their ardor in dancing. Even our modern dances, it is worthy of note, are often of sexual origin; thus, the most typical of all, the waltz, was originally (as Schaller, quoted by Groos, states) the close of a complicated dance which "represented the romance of love, the seeking and the fleeing, the playful sulking and shunning, and finally the jubilation of the wedding."[44]

Not only is movement itself a source of tumescence, but even the spectacle of movement tends to produce the same effect. The pleasure of witnessing movement, as represented by its stimulating effect on the muscular system,—for states of well-being are accompanied by an increase of power,—has been found susceptible of exact measurement by Féré. Hehas shown that to watch a colored disk when in motion produced stronger muscular contractions, as measured by the dynamometer, than to watch the same disk when motionless. Even in the absence of color a similar influence of movement was noted, and watching a modified metronome produced a greater increase of work with the ergograph than when working to the rhythm of the metronome without watching it.[45]This psychological fact has been independently discovered by advertisers, who seek to impress the value of their wares on the public by the device of announcing them by moving colored lights. The pleasure given by the ballet largely depends on the same fact. Not only is dancing an excitation, but the spectacle of dancing is itself exciting, and even among savages dances have a public which becomes almost as passionately excited as the dancers themselves.[46]It is in virtue of this effect of dancing and similar movements that we so frequently find, both among the lower animals and savage man, that to obtain tumescence in both sexes, it is sufficient for one sex alone, usually the male, to take the active part. This point attracted the attention of Kulischer many years ago, and he showed how the dances of the men, among savages, excite the women, who watch them intently though unobtrusively, and are thus influenced in choosing their lovers. He was probably the first to insist that in man sexual selection has taken place mainly through the agency of dances, games, and festivals.[47]

It is now clear, therefore, why the evacuation theory of the sexual impulse must necessarily be partial and inadequate. It leaves out of account the whole of the phenomena connected with tumescence, and those phenomena constitute the most prolonged, the most important, the most significant stage ofthe sexual process. It is during tumescence that the whole psychology of the sexual impulse is built up; it is as an incident arising during tumescence and influencing its course that we must probably regard nearly every sexual aberration. It is with the second stage of the sexual process, when the instinct of detumescence arises, that the analogy of evacuation can alone be called in. Even here, that analogy, though real, is not complete, the nervous element involved in detumescence being out of all proportion to the extent of the evacuation. The typical act of evacuation, however, is a nervous process, and when we bear this in mind we may see whatever truth the evacuation theory possesses. Beaunis classes the sexual impulse with the "needs of activity," but under this head he coordinates it with the "need of urination." That is to say, that both alike are nervous explosions. Micturition, like detumescence, is a convulsive act, and, like detumescence also, it is certainly connected with cerebral processes; thus in epilepsy the passage of urine which may occur (as in a girl described by Gowers with minor attacks during which it was emitted consciously, but involuntarily) is really a part of the process.[48]

There appears, indeed, to be a special and intimate connection between the explosion of sexual detumescence and the explosive energy of the bladder; so that they may reinforce each other and to a limited extent act vicariously in relieving each other's tension. It is noteworthy that nocturnal and diurnal incontinence of urine, as well as "stammering" of the bladder, are all specially liable to begin or to cease at puberty. In men and even infants, distention of the bladder favors tumescence by producing venous congestion, though at the same time it acts as a physical hindrance to sexual detumescence[49]; in women—probably not from pressure alone, but from reflex nervous action—a full bladder increases both sexual excitement and pleasure, and I have been informed by several women that they haveindependently discovered this fact for themselves and acted in accordance with it. Conversely, sexual excitement increases the explosive force of the bladder, the desire to urinate is aroused, and in women the sexual orgasm, when very acute and occurring with a full bladder, is occasionally accompanied, alike in savage and civilized life, by an involuntary and sometimes full and forcible expulsion of urine.[50]The desire to urinate may possibly be, as has been said, the normal accompaniment of sexual excitement in women (just as it is said to be in mares; so that the Arabs judge that the mare is ready for the stallion when she urinates immediately on hearing him neigh). The association may even form the basis of sexual obsessions.[51]I have elsewhere shown that, of all the influences which increase the expulsive force of the bladder, sexual excitement is the most powerful.[52]It may also have a reverse influence and inhibit contraction of the bladder, sometimes in association with shyness, but also independently of shyness. There is also reason to supposethat the nervous energy expended in an explosion of the tension of the sexual organs may sometimes relieve the bladder; it is well recognized that a full bladder is a factor in producing sexual emissions during sleep, the explosive energy of the bladder being inhibited and passing over into the sexual sphere. Conversely, it appears that explosion of the bladder relieves sexual tension. An explosion of the nervous centers connected with the contraction of the bladder will relieve nervous tension generally; there are forms of epilepsy in which the act of urination constitutes the climax, and Gowers, in dealing with minor epilepsy, emphasizes the frequency of micturition, which "may occur with spasmodic energy when there is only the slightest general stiffness," especially in women. He adds the significant remark that it "sometimes seems to relieve the cerebral tension,"[53]and gives the case of a girl in whom the aura consisted mainly of a desire to urinate; if she could satisfy this the fit was arrested; if not she lost consciousness and a severe fit followed.

If micturition may thus relieve nervous tension generally, it is not surprising that it should relieve the tension of the centers with which it is most intimately connected. Sérieux records the case of a girl of 12, possessed by an impulse to masturbation which she was unable to control, although anxious to conquer it, who only found relief in the act of urination; this soothed her and to some extent satisfied the sexual excitement; when the impulse to masturbate was restrained the impulse to urinate became imperative; she would rise four or five times in the night for this purpose, and even urinate in bed or in her clothes to obtain the desired sexual relief.[54]I am acquainted with a lady who had a similar, but less intense, experience during childhood. Sometimes, especially in children, the act of urination becomes an act of gratification at the climaxof sexual pleasure, the imitative symbol of detumescence. Thus Schultze-Malkowsky describes a little girl of 7 who would bribe her girl companions with little presents to play the part of horses on all fours while she would ride on their necks with naked thighs in order to obtain the pleasurable sensation of close contact. With one special friend she would ride facing backward, and leaning forward to embrace her body impulsively, and at the same time pressing the neck closely between her thighs, would urinate.[55]Féré has recorded the interesting case of a man who, having all his life after puberty been subject to monthly attacks of sexual excitement, after the age of 45 completely lost the liability to these manifestations, but found himself subject, in place of them, to monthly attacks of frequent and copious urination, accompanied by sexual day-dreams, but by no genital excitement.[56]Such a case admirably illustrates the compensatory relation of sexual and vesical excitation. This mutual interaction is easily comprehensible when we recall the very close nervous connection which exists between the mechanisms of the sexual organs and the bladder.

Nor are such relationships found to be confined to these two centers; in a lesser degree the more remote explosive centers are also affected; all motor influences may spread to related muscles; the convulsion of laughter, for instance, seems to be often in relation with the sexual center, and Groos has suggested that the laughter which, especially in the sexually minded, often follows allusions to the genital sphere is merely an effort to dispel nascent sexual excitement by liberating an explosion of nervous energy in another direction.[57]Nervousdischarges tend to spread, or to act vicariously, because the motor centers are more or less connected.[58]Of all the physiological motor explosions, the sexual orgasm, or detumescence, is the most massive, powerful, and overwhelming. So volcanic is it that to the ancient Greek philosophers it seemed to be a minor kind of epilepsy. The relief of detumescence is not merely the relief of an evacuation; it is the discharge, by the most powerful apparatus for nervous explosion in the body, of the energy accumulated and stored up in the slow process of tumescence, and that discharge reverberates through all the nervous centers in the organism.

"The sophist of Abdera said that coitus is a slight fit of epilepsy, judging it to be an incurable disease." (Clement of Alexandria,Pædagogus, bk. ii, chapter x.) And Cœlius Aurelianus, one of the chief physicians of antiquity, said that "coitus is a brief epilepsy." Féré has pointed out that both these forms of nervous storm are sometimes accompanied by similar phenomena, by subjective sensations of sight or smell, for example; and that the two kinds of discharge may even be combined. (Féré,Les Epileptiques, pp. 283-84; also "Exces Vénériens et Epilepsie,"Comptes-rendus de la Société de Biologie, April 3, 1897, and the same author'sInstinct Sexuel, pp. 209, 221, and his "PriapismeEpileptique,"La Médecine Moderne, February 4, 1899.) The epileptic convulsion in some cases involves the sexual mechanism, and it is noteworthy that epilepsy tends to appear at puberty. In modern times even so great a physician as Boerhaave said that coitus is a "true epilepsy," and more recently Roubaud, Hammond, and Kowalevsky have emphasized the resemblance between coitus and epilepsy, though without identifying the two states. Some authorities have considered that coitus is a cause of epilepsy, but this is denied by Christian, Strümpell, and Löwenfeld. (Löwenfeld,Sexualleben und Nervenleiden, 1899, p. 68.) Féré has recorded the case of a youth in whom the adoption of the practice of masturbation, several times a day, was followed by epileptic attacks which ceased when masturbation was abandoned. (Féré,Comptes-rendus de la Socitété de Biologie, April 3, 1897.)

It seems unprofitable at present to attempt any more fundamental analysis of the sexual impulse. Beaunis, in the work already quoted, vaguely suggests that we ought possibly to connect the sexual excitation which leads the male to seek the female with chemical action, either exercised directly on the protoplasm of the organism or indirectly by the intermediary of the nervous system, and especially by smell in the higher animals. Clevenger, Spitzka, Kiernan, and others have also regarded the sexual impulse as protoplasmic hunger, tracing it back to the presexual times when one protozoal form absorbed another. In the same way Joanny Roux, insisting that the sexual need is a need of the whole organism, and that "we love with the whole of our body," compares the sexual instinct to hunger, and distinguishes between "sexual hunger" affecting the whole system and "sexual appetite" as a more localized desire; he concludes that the sexual need is an aspect of the nutritive need.[59]Useful as these views are as a protest against too crude and narrow a conception of the part played by the sexual impulse, they carry us into a speculative region where proof is difficult.

We are now, however, at all events, in a better position to define the contents of the sexual impulse. We see that there are certainly, as Moll has indicated, two constituents in that impulse; but, instead of being unrelated, or only distantly related, we see that they are really so intimately connected as to form two distinct stages in the same process: a first stage, in which—usually under the parallel influence of internal and external stimuli—images, desires, and ideals grow up within the mind, while the organism generally is charged with energy and the sexual apparatus congested with blood; and a second stage, in which the sexual apparatus is discharged amid profound sexual excitement, followed by deep organic relief. By the first process is constituted the tension which the second process relieves. It seems best to call the first impulse theprocess of tumescence; the second theprocess of detumescence.[60]The first, taking on usually a more active form in the male, has the double object of bringing the male himself into the condition in which discharge becomes imperative, and at the same time arousing in the female a similar ardent state of emotional excitement and sexual turgescence. The second process has the object, directly, of discharging the tension thus produced and, indirectly, of effecting the act by which the race is propagated.

It seems to me that this is at present the most satisfactory way in which we can attempt to define the sexual impulse.

[1]

C. Lloyd Morgan, "Instinct and Intelligence in Animals,"Nature, February 3, 1898.

[2]

Essais, livre iii, ch. v.

[3]

Féré, "La Prédisposition dans l'étiologie des perversions sexuelles,"Revue de médecine, 1898. In his more recent work on the evolution and dissolution of the sexual instinct Féré perhaps slightly modified his position by stating that "the sexual appetite is, above all, a general need of the organism based on a sensation of fullness, a sort of need of evacuation,"L'Instinct sexuel, 1899, p. 6. Löwenfeld (Ueber die Sexuelle Konstitution, p. 30) gives a qualified acceptance to the excretory theory, as also Rohleder (Die Zeugung beim Menschen, p. 25).

[4]

Goltz,Centralblatt für die med. Wissenschaften, 1865, No. 19, and 1866, No. 18; alsoBeiträge zur Lehre von den Funktionen des Frosches, Berlin, 1869, p. 20.

[5]

J. Tarchanoff, "Zur Physiologie des Geschlechtsapparatus des Frosches,"Archiv für die Gesammte Physiologie, 1887, vol. xl, p. 330.

[6]

E. Steinach, "Untersuchungen zur vergleichenden Physiologie der männlicher Geschlechtsorgane insbesondere der accessorischen Geschlechtsdrüsen,"Archiv für die Gesammte Physiologie, vol. lvi, 1894, pp. 304-338.

[7]

See,e.g., Shattock and Seligmann, "The Acquirement of Secondary Sexual Characters,"Proceedings of the Royal Society, vol. lxxiii, 1904, p. 49.

[8]

For facts bearing on this point, see Guinard, art. "Castration," Richet'sDictionnaire de Physiologie. The general results of castration are summarized by Robert Müller in ch. vii of hisSexualbiologie; also by F. H. A. Marshall,The Physiology of Reproduction, ch, ix; see also E. Pittard, "Les Skoptzy,"L'Anthropologie, 1903, p. 463.

[9]

For an ancient discussion of this point, see Schurig,Spermatologia, 1720, cap. ix.

[10]

J. J. Matignon,Superstition, Crime, et Misère en Chine, "Les Eunuques du Palais Impérial de Pékin," 1901.

[11]

P. Marie, "Eunuchisme et Erotisme,"Nouvelle Iconographie de la Salpêtrière, 1906, No. 5, andProgrès médical, Jan. 26, 1907.

[12]

Pedagogical Seminary, July, 1897, p. 121.

[13]

See, for instance, the case reported in another volume of theseStudies("Sexual Inversion"), in which castration was performed on a sexual invert without effecting any change.

[14]

Guinard, art. "Castration,"Dictionnaire de Physiologie.

[15]

M. A. Colman,Medical Standard, August, 1895; Clara Barrus,American Journal of Insanity, April, 1895; Macnaughton-Jones,British Gynæcological Journal, August, 1902; W. G. Bridgman,Medical Standard, 1896; J. M. Cotterill,British Medical Journal, April 7, 1900 (also private communication); Paul F. Mundé,American Journal of Obstetrics, March, 1899.

[16]

See Swale Vincent,Internal Secretion and the Ductless Glands, 1912; F. H. A. Marshall,The Physiology of Reproduction, 1910, ch. ix; Munzer,Berliner klinische Wochenschrift, Nov., 1910; C. Sajous,The Internal Secretions, vol. i, 1911. The adrenal glands have been fully and interestingly studied by Glynn,Quarterly Journal of Medicine, Jan., 1912; the thyroid, by Ewan Waller,Practitioner, Aug., 1912; the internal secretion of the ovary, by A. Louise McIlroy,Proceedings Royal Society Medicine, July, 1912. For a discussion at the Neurology Section of the British Medical Association Meeting, 1912, seeBritish Medical Journal, Nov. 16, 1912.

[17]

Since this was written I have come across a passage inHampa(p. 228), by Rafael Salillas, the Spanish sociologist, which shows that the analogy has been detected by the popular mind and been embodied in popular language: "A significant anatomico-physiological concordance supposes a resemblance between the mouth and the sexual organs of a woman, between coitus and the ingestion of food, and between foods which do not require mastication and the spermatic ejaculation; these representations find expression in the popular namepapogiven to women's genital organs. 'Papo' is the crop of birds, and is derived from 'papar' (Latin,papare), to eat soft food such as we call pap. With this representation of infantile food is connected the termleche[milk] as applied to the ejaculated genital fluid." Cleland, it may be added, in the most remarkable of English erotic novels,The Memoirs of Fanny Hill, refers to "the compressive exsuction with which the sensitive mechanism of that part [the vagina] thirstily draws and drains the nipple of Love," and proceeds to compare it to the action of the child at the breast. It appears that, in some parts of the animal world at least, there is a real analogy of formation between the oral and vaginal ends of the trunk. This is notably the case in some insects, and the point has been elaborately discussed by Walter Wesché, "The Genitalia of Both the Sexes in Diptera, and their Relation to the Armature of the Mouth,"Transactions of the Linnean Society, second series, vol. ix, Zoölogy, 1906.

[18]

Näcke now expresses himself very dubiously on the point; see,e.g.,Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie, 1905, p. 186.

[19]

Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis, Berlin, 1897-98.

[20]

Moll adopts the term "impulse of detumescence" (Detumescenztrieb) instead of "impulse of ejaculation," because in women there is either no ejaculation or it cannot be regarded as essential.

[21]

I quote from the second edition, as issued in 1881.

[22]

This is the theory which by many has alone been seen in Darwin'sDescent of Man. Thus even his friend Wallace states unconditionally (Tropical Nature, p. 193) that Darwin accepted a "voluntary or conscious sexual selection," and seems to repeat the same statement inDarwinism(1889), p. 283. Lloyd Morgan, in his discussion of the pairing instinct inHabit and Instinct(1896), seems also only to see this side of Darwin's statement.

[23]

In hisVariation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, Darwin was puzzled by the fact that, in captivity, animals often copulate without conceiving and failed to connect that fact with the processes behind his own theory of sexual selection.

[24]

Beaunis,Sensations Internes, ch. v, "Besoins Sexuels," 1889. It may be noted that many years earlier Burdach (in hisPhysiologie als Erfahrungswissenschaft, 1826) had recognized that the activity of the male favored procreation, and that mental and physical excitement seemed to have the same effect in the female also.

[25]

It is scarcely necessary to point out that this is too extreme a position. As J. G. Millais remarks of ducks (Natural History of British Ducks, p. 45), in courtship "success in winning the admiration of the female is rather a matter of persistent and active attention than physical force," though the males occasionally fight over the female. The ruff (Machetes pugnax) is a pugnacious bird, as his name indicates. Yet, the reeve, the female of this species, is, as E. Selous shows ("Sexual Selection in Birds,"Zoölogist, Feb. and May, 1907), completely mistress of the situation. "She seems the plain and unconcerned little mistress of a numerous and handsome seraglio, each member of which, however he flounce and bounce, can only wait to be chosen." Any fighting among the males is only incidental and is not a factor in selection. Moreover, as R. Müller points out (loc. cit., p. 290), fighting would not usually attain the end desired, for if the males expend their time and strength in a serious combat they merely afford a third less pugnacious male a better opportunity of running off with the prize.

[26]

L. Tillier,L'Instinct Sexuel, 1889, pp. 74, 118, 119, 124et seq., 289.

[27]

K. Groos,Die Spiele der Thiere, 1896;Die Spiele der Menschen, 1899; both are translated into English.

[28]

Prof. H. E. Ziegler, in a private letter to Professor Groos,Spiele der Thiere, p. 202.

[29]

Die Spiele der Thiere, p. 244. This had been briefly pointed out by earlier writers. Thus, Haeckel (Gen. Morph., ii, p. 244) remarked that fighting for females is a special or modified kind of struggle for existence, and that it acts on both sexes.

[30]

It may be added that in the human species, as Bray remarks ("Le Beau dans la Nature,"Revue Philosophique, October, 1901, p. 403), "the hymen would seem to tend to the same end, as if nature had wished to reinforce by a natural obstacle the moral restraint of modesty, so that only the vigorous male could insure his reproduction." There can be no doubt that among many animals pairing is delayed so far as possible until maturity is reached. "It is a strict rule amongst birds," remarks J. G. Millais (op. cit., p. 46), "that they do not breed until both sexes have attained the perfect adult plumage." Until that happens, it seems probable, the conditions for sexual excitation are not fully established. We know little, says Howard (Zoölogist, 1903, p. 407), of the age at which birds begin to breed, but it is known that "there are yearly great numbers of individuals who do not breed, and the evidence seems to show that such individuals are immature."

[31]

A. Marro,La Puberté, 1901, p. 464.

[32]

Lloyd Morgan,Animal Behavior, 1900, pp. 264-5. It may be added that, on the esthetic side, Hirn, in his study (The Origins of Art, 1900), reaches conclusions which likewise, in the main, concord with those of Groos.

[33]

It may be noted that the marriage ceremony itself is often of the nature of a courtship, a symbolic courtship, embodying a method of attaining tumescence. As Crawley, who has brought out this point, puts it, "Marriage-rites of union are essentially identical with love charms," and he refers in illustration to the custom of the Australian Arunta, among whom the man or woman by making music on the bull-roarer compels a person of the opposite sex to court him or her, the marriage being thus completed. (E. Crawley,The Mystic Rose, p. 318.)

[34]

The more carefully animals are observed, the more often this is found to be the case, even with respect to species which possess no obvious and elaborate process for obtaining tumescence. See, for instance, the detailed and very instructive account—too long to quote here—given by E. Selous of the preliminaries to intercourse practised by a pair of great crested grebes, while nest-building. Intercourse only took place with much difficulty, after many fruitless invitations, more usually given by the female. ("Observational Diary of the Habits of the Great Crested Grebe,"Zöologist, September, 1901.) It is exactly the same with savages. The observation of Foley (Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie de Paris, November 6, 1879) that in savages "sexual erethism is very difficult" is of great significance and certainly in accordance with the facts. This difficulty of erethism is the real cause of many savage practices which to the civilized person often seem perverse; the women of the Caroline Islands, for instance, as described by Finsch, require the tongue or even the teeth to be applied to the clitoris, or a great ant to be applied to bite the parts, in order to stimulate orgasm. Westermarck, after quoting a remark of Mariner's concerning the women of Tonga,—"it must not be supposed that these women are always easily won; the greatest attentions and the most fervent solicitations are sometimes requisite, even though there be no other lover in the way,"—adds that these words "hold true for a great many, not to say all, savage and barbarous races now existing." (Human Marriage, p. 163.) The old notions, however, as to the sexual licentiousness of peoples living in natural conditions have scarcely yet disappeared. See Appendix A; "The Sexual Instinct in Savages."

[35]

In men a certain degree of tumescence is essential before coitus can be effected at all; in women, though tumescence is not essential to coitus, it is essential to orgasm and the accompanying physical and psychic relief. The preference which women often experience for prolonged coitus is not, as might possibly be imagined, due to sensuality, but has a profound physiological basis.

[36]

Stanley Hall,Adolescence, vol. i, p. 223.

[37]

See Lagrange'sPhysiology of Bodily Exercise, especially chapter ii. It is a significant fact that, as Sergi remarks (Les Emotions, p. 330), the physiological results of dancing are identical with the physiological results of pleasure.

[38]

Groos,Spiele der Menschen, p. 112. Zmigrodzki (Die Mutter bei den Volkern des Arischen Stammes, p. 414et seq.) has an interesting passage describing the dance—especially the Russian dance—in its orgiastic aspects.

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