No More Learning

It is a practical rule with surgeons that when a dangerous loss of blood has to be made good, the blood required for transfusion must be obtained from an individual not only of the same species and family, but also of the same sex as that of the patient. The parallel between transfusion and transplantation is at once evident. If I am correct in my views, when surgeons seek to transfuse blood, instead of being content with injec-
? MALE AND FEMALE PLASMAS
tions of normal salt solution they must take the blood not merely from one of the same species, family and sex, but of a similar degree of masculinity or femininity.
Experiments on transfusion not only lend support to my belief in the existence of sex characters in the blood cor- puscles, but they furnish additional explanations of the failure of experiments in grafting ovaries or testis on indi- viduals of the opposite sex. The internal secretions of the genital glands are operative only in their appropriate en-
t'ironment of arrhenoplasm or thelyplasm.
In this connection, I may say a word as to the curative
value of organotherapy. Although, as I have shown to be the case, the transplantation of freshly extirpated genital glands into subjects of the opposite sex has no effect, it does not follow that the injection of the ovarian secretion into the blood of a male might not have a most injurious effect. On the other hand, the principle of organotherapy has been opposed on the ground that organic preparations procured from non-allied species could not possibly be expected to yield good results. It is more than likely that the medical exponents of organotherapy have lost many valuable dis- coveries in healing because of their neglect of the biological theory of idioplasm.
The theory of an idioplasm, the presence of which gives the specific race characters to those tissues and cells which have lost the reproductive faculty, is by no means generally accepted. But at the least all must admit that the race characters are collected in the genital glands, and that if experiments with extracts from these are to provide more than a good tonic, the nearest possible relationship between theanimalsexperimenteduponmustbeobserved. Parallel experiments might be made as to the effect of transplantation of the genital glands and injections of their extracts on two
castrated cocks of the same strain. For instance, the effects of the transplantation of the testes of one of them into any other part of its own body or peritoneal cavity or into any similar part of the other cock might be compared with the efifects of intravenous injection of testis extract of the one on
21
? 22 SEX AND CHARACTER
the other. Such parallel investigations would also increase our knowledge as to the most suitable media and quantities of the extracts. It is also to be desired, from the theoretical point of view, that knowledge may be gained as to whether the internal secretion of the genital glands enters into chemical union with the protoplasm of the cells or whether it acts as a physiological stimulus independent of the quantity supplied. So far we know nothing that would enable us to come to a definite opinion on this point.
The limited influence of the internal secretions of the sexual glands in formmg the sexual characters must be realised to warrant the theory of a primary, generally slight, difference in each cell, but still determinate sexual influence. * If the existence of distinct graduations of these primary characteristics in all the cells and tissues can be recognised, there follow many important and far-reaching conclusions. The individual egg-cells and spermatozoa may be found to possess different degrees of maleness and femaleness, not only in different individuals, but in the ovaries and testes of the same individual, especially at different times ; for instance, the spermatozoa differ in size and activity. We are still quite ignorant on these matters, as no one has worked on the requisite lines.
It is extremely interesting to recall in this connection that many times different investigators have observed in the testes of amphibia not only the different stages in the developmentofspermatozoa,butmatureeggs. Thisinter- pretation of the observations was at first disputed, and it was suggested that the presence of unusually large cells in the tubes of the testes had given rise to the error, but the matterhasnowbeenfullyconfirmed. Moreover,inthese Amphibia, sexually intermediate conditions are very common, and this should lead us to be careful in making statements as to the uniform presence of arrhenoplasm or thelyplasm in a body. The methods of assigning sex to a new-born
* The existence of sexual distinctions before puberty shows that the power of the internal secretions of the sexual glands does not account for everything.
? MALE AND FEMALE PLASMAS
infant seem most unsatisfactory in the light of these facts. If the child is observed to possess a male organ, even although there may be complete epi- or hypo-spadism, or a double failure of descent of the testes, it is at once described as a boy and is henceforth treated as one, although in other parts of the body, for instance in the brain, the sexual determinant may be much nearer thelyplasm than arrheno- plasm. The so> >>ner a more exact method of sex discrimina- tion is insisted upon the better.
As a result of these long mductions and deductions we may rest assured that all the cells possess a definite primary sexual determinant which mu-^t not be assumed to be alike ornearlyalikethroughoutthesamebody. Everycell,every cell-complex, and every organ have their distinctive indices on the scale between thelyplasm and arrhenoplasm. For the exact definition of the sex, an estimation of the indices over the whole body would be necessary. I should be con- tent to bear the blame of all the theoretical and practical errors in this book did I believe myself to have made the working out of a single case possible.
Differences in the primary sexual determinants, together with the varying internal secretions (which differ in quantity and quality in different individuals) produce the pheno- mena of sexually intermediate forms. Arrhenoplasm and thelyplasm, in their countless modifications, are the micro- scopic agencies which, in co-operation with the internal secretions, give rise to the macroscopic differences cited m the last chapter.
If the correctness of the conclusions so far stated maybe assumed, the necessity is at once evident for a whole series of anatomical, physiological, histological and histo-chemical investigations into those differences between male and female types, in the structure and function of the individual organs by which tue dowers of arrhenoplasm and thelyplasm express themselvesinthetissues. Theknowledgewepossessatthe present time on these matters comes from the study o averages, but averages fail to satisfy the modern statistician, and their scientific value is very small. Investigations into
23
? SEX AND CHARACTER
the sex-differences in the weight of the brain, for instance, have so far proved very little, probably because no care was taken to choose typical conditions, the assignment of sex being dependent on baptismal certificates or on super- ficial glances at the outward appearance. As if every " John " or " Mary " were representative of their sexes because they had been dubbed " male " and " female ! " It would have been well, even if exact physiological data were thought unnecessary, at least to make certain as to a few facts as to the general condition of the body, which might serve as guides to the male or female condition, such as, for instance, the distance between the great trochanters, the iliac spines, and so forth, for a sexual harmony in the different parts of the body is certainly more common than great sexual divergence.
This source of error, the careless acceptance of sexually intermediate forms as representative subjects for measure- ment, has maimed other investigations and seriously retarded the attainment of genuine and useful results. Those, for instance, who wish to speculate about the cause of the superfluity of male births have to reckon with this source of error. In a special way this carelessness will revenge itself on those who are investigating the ultimate causes that de- termine sex. Until the exact degree of maleness or female- ness of all the living individuals of the group on which he is working can be determined, the investigator will have reasontodistrustbothhismethodsandhishypotheses. If he classify sexually intermediate forms, for instance, accord- ing to their external appearance, as has been done hitherto, he will come across cases which fuller investigation would show to be on the wrong side of his results, whilst other instances, apparently on the wrong side, would right them- selves. Without the conception of an ideal male and an ideal female, he lacks a standard according to which to estimate his real cases, and he gropes forward to a super- ficial and doubtful conclusion. Maupas, for instance, who made experiments on the determination of sex in Hydatina senta, a Rotifer, found that there was always an experimental
24
? MALE AND FEMALE PLASMAS
error of from three to five per cent. At low temperatures the production of females was expected, but always about the above proportion of males appeared ; so also at the higher temperatures a similar proportion of females appeared. It is probable that this error was due to sexually intermediate stages, arrhenoplasmic females at the high temperature, thelyplastic males at the low temperature. Where the problem is more complicated, as in the case of cattle, to say nothing of human beings, the process of investigation will yield still less harmonious results, and the correction of the interpretation which will have to be made by allowing for the disturbance due to the existence of sexually intermediate forms will be much more difficult.
The study of comparative pathology of the sexual types is as necessary as their morphology, physiology and develop- ment. In this region of inquiry as elsewhere, statistics would yield certain results. Diseases manifestly much more abundant in one sex might be described as peculiar to or idiopathicofthelyplasmorarrhenoplasm. Myxoedema,for instance, is idiopathic of the female, hydrocele of the male.
But no statistics, however numerous and accurate, can be regarded as avoiding a source of theoretical error until it has been shown from the nature of any particular affection dealt with that it is in indissoluble, functional relation with maleness or femaleness. The theory of such associated diseases must supply a reason why they occur almost ex- clusively in the one sex, that is to say, in the phrase of this treatise, why they are thelyplasmic or arrhenoplasmic.
25
;;
? CHAPTER III
THE LAWS OF SEXUAL ATTRACTION
Carmen :
" L'amour est un oiseau rebelle,
Que nul ne peut apprivoiser :
Et c'est bien en vain qu'on I'appelle S'il lui convient de refuser.
Rien n'y fait ; menace ou priere : L'un parle, I'autre se tait
Et c'est I'autre que je prefere II n'a rien dit, mais il me plait.
L'amour est enfant de Boheme II n'a jamais connu de loi. "
It has been recognised from time immemorial that, in all forms of sexually differentiated life, there exists an attrac- tion between males and females, between the male and the female, the object of which is procreation. But as the male and the female are merely abstract conceptions which never appear in the real world, we cannot speak of sexual attraction as a simple attempt of the masculine and the feminine to come together. The theory which I am develop- ing must take into account all the facts of sexual relations if it is to be complete ; indeed, if it is to be accepted instead of the older views, it must give a better interpretation of all thesesexualphenomena. MyrecognitionofthefactthatM and F (maleness and femaleness) are distributed in the living world in every possible proportion has led me to the dis- covery of an unknown natural law, of a law not yet sus- pectedbyanyphilosopher,alawofsexualattraction. As
? THE LAWS Uf SEXUAL ATTRACTION 27
observations on human beings first led me to my results, I. shall begin with this side of the subject.
Every one possesses a definite, individual taste of his own with regard to the other sex. If we compare the portrait of the women which some famous man has been known to love, we shall nearly always find that they are all closely alike, the similarity being most obvious in the contour (more precisely in the " figure ") or in the face, but on closer examination being found to extend to the minutest details, ad unguem, to the finger-tips. It is precisely the same with every one else. So, also, every girl who strongly attracts a man recalls to him the other girls he has loved before. '<< We see another side of the same phenomenon when we re- call how often we have said of some acquaintance or another, " I can't imagine how that type of woman pleases him. " Darwin, in the " Descent of Man," collected many instances of the existence of this individuality of the sexual taste amongst animals, and I shall be able to show that there are analogous phenomena even amongst plants.
(Sexual attraction is nearly always, as in the case of gravi- tation, reciprocal. / Where there appear to be exceptions to this rule, there is nearly always evidence of the presence of special influences which have been capable of preventing the direct action of the special taste, which is almost always reciprocal, or which have left an unsatisfied craving, if the direct taste were not allowed its play.
The common saying, " Waiting for Mr. Right," or state- ments such as that " So-and-so are quite unsuitable for one another," show the existence of an obscure presenti- ment of the fact that every man or woman possesses certain individual peculiarities which qualify or disqualify him or her for marriage with any particular member of the opposite sex ; and that this man cannot be substituted for that, or this woman for the other without creating a disharmony.
It is a common personal experience that certain individuals of the opposite sex are distasteful to us, that others leave us cold ; whilst others again may stimulate us until, at last,
? 28 SEX AND CHARACTER
some one appears who seems so desirable that everything in the world is worthless and empty compared with union with such a one. What are the qualifications of that per- son ? What are his or her peculiarities ? If it really be the case--and I think it is--that every male type has its female counterpart with regard to sexual affinity, it looks as if there were some definite law. What is this law ? How does it act ? " Like poles repel, unlike attract," was what I was told when, already armed with my own answer, I resolutely importuned different kinds of men for a statement, and sub- mitted instances to their power of generalisation. The formula, no doubt, is true in a limited sense and for a cer- tain number of cases. But it is at once too general and too vague ; it would be applied differently by different persons, and it is incapable of being stated in mathematical terms.
This book does not claim to state all the laws of sexual affinity, for there are many ; nor does it pretend to be able to tell every one exactly which individual of the opposite sex will best suit his taste, for that would imply a complete knowledge of all the laws in question. In this chapter only one of these laws will be considered--the law which stands in organic relation to the rest of the book. I am working at a number of other laws, but the following is that to which I have given most investigation, and which ismostelaborated. Incriticisingthiswork,allowancemust be made for the incomplete nature of the material conse- quent on the novelty and difficulty of the subject.
Fortunately it is not necessary for me to cite at length either the facts from which I originally derived this law of sexual affinity or to set out in detail the evidence I obtained from personal statements. I asked each of those who helped me, to make out his own case first, and then to carry out observations in his circle of acquaintances. I have paid special attention to those cases which have been notice and remembered, in which the taste of a friend has not been understood, or appeared not to be present, or was differentfromthatoftheobserver. Theminutedegreeof knowledge of the external form of the human body which
? THE LAWS OF SEXUAL ATTRACTION
29
is necessary for the investigation is possessed by every one.
I have come to the law which I shall now formulate by a method the validity of which I shall now have to prove.
The law runs as follows :("For true sexual union it is necessary that there come together a complete male (M) and a complete female (F), even although in different cases the M and F are distributed between the two individuals in different proportions. )
The law may be expressed otherwise as follows :
if we take fx, any individual regarded in the ordinary way as a male, and denote his real sexual constitution as M^u, so many parts really male, plus Wfx, so many parts really female ; if we also take a>, any individual regarded in the ordinary way as a female, and denote her real sexual con- stitution as W(u, so many parts really female, plus Mw, so many parts really male ; then, if there be complete sexual affinity, the greatest possible sexual attraction between the
two individuals, jn and w,
(i) M/u (the truly male part in the "male") + Mw (the truly male part in the " female ") will equal a con- stant quantity, M, the ideal male ; and
(2) Wfx + W(u (the ideal female parts in respectively the " male " and the " female ") will equal a second constant quantity, W, the ideal female.
This statement must not be misunderstood. Both formulas refer to one case, to a single sexual relation, the second following directly from the first and adding nothing to it, as I set out from the point of view of an individual possessing justasmuchfemalenessashelacksofmaleness. Werehe completely male, his requisite complement would be a complete female, and vice versa. If, however, he is com- posed of a definite inheritance of maleness, and also an inheritance of femaleness (which must not be neglected), then, to complete the individual, his maleness must be com- pleted to make a unit ; but so also must his femaleness be completed.
? SEX AND CHARACTER
If; for instance, an individual be composed thus :
[fM ft i and
Uw,
then the best sexual complement of that individual will be another compound as follows :
[iM (t) i and
if W.
It can be seen at once that this view is wider in its reach than the common statement of the case. That male and female, as sexual types, attract each other is only one instance of my general law, an instance in which an imaginary individual,
30
IM ^\o W
finds its complement in an equally imaginary individual, (oM
There can be no hesitation in admittin^j the existence of definite, individual sexual preferences, and such an admission carries with it approval of the necessity of mvestigating the laws of the preference, and its relation to the rest of the bodily and mental characters of an individual. The law, as I have stated it, can encounter no initial sense of impossi- bility, and is contrary neither to scientific nor common experience. But it is not self-evident. It might be that the law, which cannot yet be regarded as fully worked out, might run as follows :
M/i -- Mfu? = a constant ;
that is to say, it may be the difference between the degrees of masculinity and not the sum of the degrees of ma-;cu- linity that is a constant quality, so that the most masculine man would stand just as far removed from his complement
J
? THE LAWS OF SEXUAL ATTRACTION
31
(who in this case would he nearly midway between mascu- hnity and femininity) as the most feminine man would be removed from his complement who would be near the extreme of femininity. Althouj^h, as I have said, this is conceivable, it is not borne oui by experience. Recognising that we have to do here witli an empirical law, and trying to observe a wise scientilic re-. traint, we shall do well to avoid speaking as if there were any " force " pulling the two individuals together as if they were puppets ; the law is no more than the statement tliat an identicnl relation can
be made out in each case of maximum sexual attraction. We are dealing, in fact, with what Ostwald termed an *' invariant" and Avenarius a " multiponible "; and this is the constant sum formed by the total masculinity and the total femininity in all cases where a pair of living beings come together with the maximum sexual attraction.
In this matter we may neglect altogether the so-called aesthetic factor, the stimulus of beauty. For does it not frequently happen that one man is completely captivated by a particular woman and raves about her beauty, whilst another, who is not the sexual complement of the woman in question, cannot imagine what his friend sees in her to admire. (Without discussing the laws of aesthetics or attempting to gather together examples of relative values, it may readily be admitted that a man may consider a woman beautiful who, from tlie aesthetic standpoint, is not merely indifferent but actually ugly, that in fact pure aesthetics deal not with absolute beauty, but merely with conceptions of beauty from which the sexual factor has been eliminatedJ
I have myseh worked out the law in, at the lowest, many hundred cases, and I have found that the exceptions were only apparent. Almost every couple one meets in the streetfurnishesanewproof. Theexceptionswerespecially instructive, as they not only suggested but led to the investi- gation of other laws of sexuality. (l myself made special investigations in the followmg way. I obtained a set of photographs of aesthetically beautiful women of blameless
? SEX AND CHARACTER
character, each of which was a good example of some definiteproportionoffemininity,andI askedanumberof my friends to inspect these and select the most beautiful. The selection made was invariably that which I had pre- dicted. With other male friends, who knew on what I was engaged, I set about in another fashion. They provided mewithphotographsfromamongstwhichI wastochoose the one I should expect them to think most beautiful. Here, too, 1 was uniformly successful. With others, I was able to describe most accurately their ideal of the opposite sex, independently of any suggestions unconsciously given by them, often in minuter detail than they had realised. Sometimes, too, I was able to point out to them, for the first time, the qualities that repelled them in individuals of
the opposite sex, although for the most part men realise more readily the characters that repel them than the characters that attract them. /
I believethatwithalittlepracticeanyonecouldreadily acquire and exercise this art on any circle of friends. A knowledge of other laws of sexual affinity would be of great importance. Anumberofspecialconstantsmightbetaken astestsoftheexistenceofcomplementaryindividuals. For instance, the law might be caricatured so as to require that the sum of the length of the hairs of any two perfect lovers should always be the same. But, as I have already shown in chapter ii. , this result is not to be expected, because all the organs of the same body do not necessarily possess the same degree of maleness or femaleness. Such heuristic rules would soon multiply and bring the whole subject into ridicule,andI shallthereforeabstainfromfurthersugges- tions of the kind.
I do not deny that my exposition of the law is somewhat dogmatical and lacks confirmation by exact detail. But I am not so anxious to claim finished results as to incite others to the study, the more so as the means for scientific investi- gations are lacking in my own case. But even if much remains theoretical, I hope that I shall have firmly riveted the chief beams in my edifice of theory by showing how it
32
? THE LAWS OF SEXUAL ATTRACTION
33
explains much that hitherto has found no explanation, and so shall have, in a fashion, proved it retrospectively by ihowing how much it would explain if it were true.
A most remarkable confirmation of my law may be found in the vegetable kingdom, in a group of facts hitherto regarded as isolated and to be so strange as to have no parallel. Every botanist must have guessed already that I have in mind the phenomena of heterostylism, first discovered by Persoon, then described by Darwin and named by Hilde- brand. ManyDicotyledons,andafewMonocotyledons,for instance, species of Primulaceae and Geraneaceae and many Rubiaceas, phanerogams in the flowers of which both the pollen and the stigma are functional, although only in cross- fertilisation, so that the flowers are hermaphrodite in struc-
ture but unisexual physiologically, display the peculiarity that in different individuals the stamens and the stigma have different lengths. The individuals, all the flowers of which have long styles and therefore high stigmas and short anthers, are, in my judgment, the more female, whilst the individuals with short styles and long anthers are more male. In addition to such dimorphic plants, there are also trimor- phic plants, such as Lythriim salicaria, in which the sexual organs display three forms differing in length. There are not only long-styled and short-styled forms, but flowers with
styles of a medium length.
Although only dimorphism and trimorphism have been
recognised in the books, these conditions do not exhaust the actual complexities of structure. Darwin himself pointed out that if small differences were taken into account, no less than five different situations of the anthers could be distinguished. Alongsidesuchplaincasesofdiscontinuity, of the separation of the different degrees of maleness and femaleness in plainly distinct individuals, there are also cases in which the different degrees grade into each other without breaks in the series. There are analogous cases of discon- tinuity in the animal kingdom, although they have always been thought of as unique and isolated phenomena, as the parallel with heterostylism had not been suggested, in
c
? SEX AND CHARACTER
34
several genera of insects, as, for instance, some Earwigs (Forficulce) and Lamellicorn Beetles {Lucanus cervus), the Sta. g-heet\e (Dynasies hercules), and Xylotrupes gideon, there are some males in which the antennae, the secondary sexual characters by which they differ most markedly from the females, are extremely long, and others in which they are very short. Bateson, who has written most on this subject, distinguishes the two forms as " high males " and " low males. " It is true that a continuous series of intermediate forms links the extreme types, but, none the less, the vast majority of the individuals are at one extreme or the other. Unfortunately, Bateson did not investigate the relations between these different types of males and the females, and so it is not known if there be female types with special sexual affinity for these male types. Thus these observa- tions can be taken only as a morphological parallel to heterostylism and not as cases of the law of complementary sexual attraction.
Heterostylous plants may possibly be the means of estab<< lishing my view that the law of sexual complements holds good for every kind of living thing. Darwin first, and after him many other investigators have proved that in heterosty- lous plants fertilisation has the best results, or, indeed, may be possible only when the pollen from a macrostylous flower (a flower with the shortest form of anthers and longest pistil) falls on the stigma of a microstylous blossom (one where the pistil is the shortest possible and the stamens at their greatest length), or vice versa. In other words, if the best result is to be attained by the cross-fertilisation of a pair of flowers, one flower with a long pistil, and there-
fore high degree of femaleness, and short stamens must be mated with another possessing a correspondingly short pistil, and so, with the amount of femaleness complementary to the first flower, and with long stamens complementary to the short stamens of the first flower. In the case of flowers where there are three pistil lengths, the best results may be expected when the pollen of one blossom is transmitted to another blossom in which the stigma is the nearest comple.
? THE LAWS OF SEXUAL ATTRACTION
35
ment of the stigma of the flower from which the pollen came ; if another combination is made, either naturally or by artificial fertilisation, then, if a result follows at all, the seedlings are scanty, dwarfed and sometimes infertile, much as when hybrids between species are formed.
It is to be noticed that the authors who have discussed heterostylism are not satisfied with the usual explanation, which is that the insects which visit the flowers carry the pollen at different relative positions on their bodies corre- sponding to the different lengths of the sexual organs and so produce the wonderful result. Darwin, moreover, admits that bees carry all sorts of pollen on every part of their bodies ; so that it has still to be made clear how the female organs dusted with two or three kinds of pollen make their choice of the most suitable. The supposition of a power of choice, however interesting and wonderful it is, does not account for the bad results which follow artificial dusting with the wrong kind of pollen (so-called " illegitimate fertilisation "). The theory that the stigmas can only make use of, or are capable of receiving only " legitimate pollen " has been proved by Darwin to be erroneous, inas-
much as the insects which act as fertilisers certainly some- times start various cross-breedings.
The hypothesis that the reason for this selective retention on the part of individuals is a special quality, deep-seated in the flowers themselves, seems more probable. CWe have probably here to do with the presence, just as in human beings, of a maximum degree of sexual attraction between individuals, one of which possesses just as much femaleness as the other possesses maleness, and this is merely another mode of stating my sexual law. > The probability of this interpreta- tion is increased by the fact that in the short-styled, long- anthered, more male flowers, the pollen grains are larger
and the papillae on the stigmas are smaller than the corre- sponding parts of the long-styled, short-anthered, more femaleflowers. Herewehavecertainlytodowithdifferent degreesofmalenessandfemaleness. Thesecircumstances supply a stong corroboration of my law of sexual affinity,
? SEX AND CHARACTER
that in the vegetable kingdom as well as in the animal kingdom (I shall return later to this point) fertilisation has the best results when it occurs between parents with maximum sexual affinity. *
Consideration of sexual aversion affords the readiest proof thatthelawholdsgoodthroughouttheanimalkingdom. I should like to suggest here that it would be extremely interesting to make observations as to whether the larger, heavier and less active egg-cells exert a special attraction on the smaller and more active spermatozoa, whilst those egg- cells with less food-yolk attract more strongly the larger and less active spermatozoa. It may be the case, as L. Weill has already suggested in a speculation as to the factors that determine sex, that there is a correlation between the rates of motion or kinetic energies of conjugating sexual cells. It has not yet been determined, although indeed it would be difficult to determine, if the sexual cells, apart from the streams and eddies of their fluid medium, approach each other with equal velocities or sometimes display special activity. There is a wide field for investigation here.
^s I have repeatedly remarked, my law is not the only law of sexual affinity, otherwise, no doubt, it would have been discovered long ago. Just because so many other factors are bound up with it,t because another, perhaps manv other laws sometimes overshadow it, cases of undis- turbed action of sexual affinity are rareJ As the necessary investigations have not yet been finished, I will not speak at length of such laws, but rather by way of illustration I shall refer to a few factors which as yet cannot be demon- strated mathematically.
I shall begin with some phenomena which are pretty
* For special purposes the breeder, whose object frequently is to modify natural tendencies, will often disregard this law.
f In speaking of the sexual taste in men and women, one thinks at once of the usual but not invariable preference individuals show for a particular colour of hair. It would certainly seem as if the reason for so strongly marked a preference must lie deep in human nature.
36
? If
THE LAWS OF SEXUAL ATTRACTION
37
generally recognised. Men when quite young, say under twenty, are attracted by much older women (say those of thirty-five and so on), whilst men of thirty-five are attracted bywomenmuchyoungerthanthemselves. Soalso,onthe other hand, quite young girls (sweet seventeen) generally prefer much older men, but, later in life, may marry strip- lings. The whole subject deserves close attention and is both popular and easily noticed.
In spite of the necessary limitation of this work to the consideration of a single law, it will make for exactness if I try to state the formula in a more definite fashion, without the deceptive element of simplicity. Even without being able to state in definite quantities the other factors and the co-operating laws, we may reach a satisfactory exactness by the use of a variable factor.
The first formula was only an abstract general statement of what is common to all cases of maximum sexual attrac- tion so far as the sexual relation is governed by the law. I must now try to find an expression for the strength of the sexual affinity in any conceivable case, an expression which, on account of its general form, can be used to describe the relationship between any two living beings, even if these belong to different species or to the same sex.
aM f
'
( ssW ss' M
(where a, a', ss, and ss' are each greater than o and less than unity) define the sexual constitutions of any two living beings between which there is an attraction, then the strength of the attraction may be expressed thus :
a-ss
where /' is an empirical or analytical function of the period during which it is possible for the individuals to act upon one another, what may be called the "reaction-time"; whilst K is the variable factor in which we place all the
? SEX AND CHARACTER
known and unknown laws of sexual affinity, and which also varies with the degree of specific, racial and family relation- ship, and with the health and absence of deformity in the two individuals, and which, finally, will become smaller as the actual spacial distance between the two is greater, and which can be determined in any individual case.
When in this formula a = /3 A must be infinity ; this is the extreme case ; it is sexual attraction as an elemental force, as it has been described with a weird mastercrait by Lynkeus in the novel "Im Postwangen. " Such sexual attraction is as much a natural law as the downward growth of a rootlet towards the earth, or the migration of bacteria to the oxygen at the edge of a microscopic cover-glass.
But it takes some time to grow accustomed to such a view. I shall refer to this point again.
li a -- ss has its maximun value, which is when it equals unity, then A=K . /.
This would be the extreme case of the action of all the sympathetic and antipathetic relations between human beings (leaving out of account social relations in their narrowest sense, which are merely the safeguards of communities) which are not included in the l. iw of sexual affinity. As K generally increases with the strength of congenital relation- ship, A has a greater value when the individuals are of the same nationality than when they belong to different nation- alities. The value of f is great in this case, and onr; can investigate its fluctuations, as, for instance, when two domestic animals of different species are in association ; at first it usually stands for violent enmity, or fear of each other (and A has a negative value), whilst later on a friendship may come about.
When K = o in the formula
K. /'
then A = o, which means that between two living beings of origin too remote there may be no trace of sexual attraction.
38
_ A=
? THE LAWS OF SEXUAL ATTRACTION
39
The provisions of the criminal statute-books, however, in reference to sodomy and bestiality show plainly that even in the case of very remote species K has a value greater thannothing. Theformulamayapplytotwoindividuals not only not of the same species, but even not of the same order.
It is a new theory that the union of male and female organisms is no mere matter of chance, but is guided by a definite law ; and the actual complexities which I have merely suggested show the need for complete investigation into the mysterious nature of sexual attraction.
The experiments of Wilhelm Pfeffer have shown that the male cells of many cryptogams are naturally attracted not merely by the female cells, but also by substances which they have come in contact with under natural conditions, or which have been nitroduced to them experimentally, in the latter case the substances being sometimes of a kind with which they could not possibly have come in contact, except under theconditionsofexperiment. Thusthemalecellsofferns are attracted not only by the malic acid secreted naturally by the archegonia, but by synthetically prepared malic acid, whilst the male cells of mosses are attracted either by the natural acid of the female cells or by acid prepared from cane sugar. A male cell, which, we know not how, is influenced by the degree of concentration of a solution, moves towards the most concentrated part of the fluid. Pfeffer named such movements " chemotactic " and coined the word " chemotropism " to include these and many other asexual cases of motion stimulated by chemical bodies. There is much to support the view that the attraction exercised by females on males which perceive them at a distance by sense organs is to be regarded as analogous in certain respects with chemotropism.
It seems highly probable that chemotropism is also the explanation of the restless and persistent energy with which for days together the mammalian spermatozoa seek the entrance to the uterus, although the natural current pro- duced from the mucous membrane of the uterus is frorO
? SEX AND CHARACTER
within outwards. The spermatozoon, in spite of all me- chanical and other hindrances, makes for the egg-cell with an almost incredible certainty. In this connection we may call to mind the prodigious journeys made by many fish
; salmon travel for months together, practically without taking
any food, from the open sea to the sources of the Rhine, against the current of the river, in order to spawn in locali- ties that are safe and well provided with food.
I have recently been looking at the beautiful sketches which P. Falkenberg has made of the processes of fertilisa- tion in some of the Mediterranean seaweeds. When we speak of the lines of force between the opposite poles of magnets we are dealing with a force no more natural than that which irresistibly attracts the spermatozoon and the egg-cell. The chief jdifference seems to be that in the case of the attraction between the inorganic substances, strains are set up in the media between the two poles, whilst in the living matter the forces seem confined to the organisms themselves. According to Falkenberg's observations, the spermatozoa, in moving towards the egg-cells, are able to overcome the force which otherwise would be exercised upon them by a source of light. The sexual attraction, the chemotactic force, is stronger than the phototactic force.
/when a union has taken place between two individuals wno, according to my formula, are not adapted to each other, if later, the natural complement of either appears, the inclination to desert the makeshift at once asserts itself, in accordance with an inevitable law of nature. A divorce takes place, as much constitutional, depending on the nature of things, as when, if iron sulphate and caustic potash are brought together, the SO4 ions leave the iron to unite with the potassium. When in nature an adjustment of such differences of potential is about to take place, he who would approve or disapprove of the process from the moral point of view would appear to most to play a ridiculous partf
This is the fundamental idea in Goethe's "Wahlver- wandtschaften " (Elective Affinities), and in the fourth
40
? THE LAWS OF SEXUAL ATTRACTION 41
cnapter of the first part of that work he makes it the subject of a playful introduction which was full of un- dreamed of future significance, and the full force of which he was fated himself to experience in later life. I must con- fess to being proud that this book is the first work to take up hisideas. Nonetheless,itisaslittlemyintentionasitwas the intention of Goethe to advocate divorce ; I hope only to explain it. There are human motives which indispose man to divorce and enable him to withstand it. This I shall discuss later on. The physical side of sex in man is less completely ruled by natural law than is the case with lower animals. Wegetanindicationofthisinthefactthatman is sexual throughout the year, and that in him there is less trace than even in domestic animals of the existence of a special spring breeding-season.
The law of sexual affinity is analogous in another respect to a well-known law of theoretical chemistry, although, indeed, there are marked differences. The violence of a chemical reaction is proportionate to the mass of the sub- stances involved, as, for instance, a stronger acid solution unites with a stronger basic solution with greater avidity, just as in the case of the union of a pair of living beings with strong maleness and femaleness. But there is an essential difference between the living process and the reaction of the lifeless chemical substances. The living organism is not homogeneous and isotropic in its composi- tion ; it is not divisible into a number of small parts of identical properties. The difference depends on the principle of individuality, on the fact that every living thing is an individual, and that its individuality is essen- tially structural. And so in the vital process it is not as in inorganic chemistry ; there is no possibility of a larger pro- portion forming one compound, a smaller proportion form- ing another. The organic chemotropism, moreover, may be negative. In certain cases the value of A may result in
a negative quantity, that is to say, the sexual attraction may appear in the form of sexual repulsion. It is true that in purely chemical processes the same reaction may take place
? SEX AND CHARACTER
atdifferentrates. Taking,however,thetotalfailureofsome reaction by catalytic interference as the equivalent of a sexual repulsion, it never happens, according to the latest investigations at least, that the interference merely induces thereactionafteralongerorshorterinterval. Ontheother hand, it happens frequently that a compound which is formed at one temperature breaks up at another tempera- ture. /Here the " direction " of the reaction is a function of the temperature, as, in the vital process, it may be a function of time.
In the value of the factor " /," the time of reaction, a final analogy of sexual attraction with chemical processes may be found, if we are willing to trace the comparison without laying too much stress upon ity Consider the formula for the rapidity of the reaction, the different degrees of rapidity with which a sexual attraction between two individuals is established, and reflect how the value of "A" varies with the value of " t. " However, what Kant termed mathematical vanity must not tempt us to read into our equations complicated and difficult processes, the validity of which is uncertain. All that can be implied is simple enough ; sensual desire increases with the time during which two individuals are in propinquity ; if they were shut up together, it would develop if there were no repulsion, or practically no repulsion between them, in the fashion of some slow chemical process which takes much time before its result is visible. Such a case is the confi- dence with which it is said of a marriage arranged without love, " Love will come later ; time will bring it. "
It is plain that too much stress must not be laid on the analogy between sexual affinity and purely chemical pro- cesses. None the less, I thought it illuminating to make the comparison. It is not yet quite clear if the sexual attrac- tion is to be ranked with the " tropisms," and the matter cannot be settled without going beyond mere sexuality to discuss the general problem of erotics. The phenomena of love require a different treatment, and I sliall return to theminthesecondpartofthisbook. Nonetheless,there
42
? THE LAWS OF SEXUAL ATTRACTION
43
are analogies that cannot be denied when human attractions andchemotropismarecompared. I mayreferasaninstance to the relation between Edward and Ottilie in Goethe's " Wahlverwandtschaften. "
Mention of Goethe's romance leads naturally to a dis- cussion of the marriage problem, and I may here give a few of the practical inferences which would seem to follow from the theoretical considerations of this chapter. It is clear that a natural law, not dissimilar to other natural laws, exists with regard to sexual attraction ; this law shows that, whilst innumerable gradations of sexuality exist, there always may be found pairs of beings the members of which are almostperfectlyadaptedtooneanother. Sofar,marriage has its justification, and, from the standpoint of biology, free love is condemned. Monogamy, however, is a more difficult problem, the solution of which involves other con- siderations, such as periodicity, to which I shall refer later, and the change of the sexual taste with advancing years.
^A second conclusion may be derived from heterostylism, especially with reference to the fact that " illegitimate fertili- sation " almost invariably produces less fertile offspring. This leads to the consideration that amongst other forms of life the strongest and healthiest offspring will result from unions in which there is the maximum of sexual suitability. As the old saying has it, " love-children " turn out to be the finest, strongest, and most vigorous of human beings. Those who are interested in the improvement of mankind must therefore, on purely hygienic grounds, oppose the ordinary mercenary marriages of convenience. }
It is more than probable that the law of sexual attraction may yield useful results when applied to the breeding of animals. More attention will have to be given to the secondary sexual characters of the animals which it is proposed to mate. The artificial methods made use of to secure the serving of mares by stallions unattractive to them do not always fail, but are followed by indifferent results. Probably an obvious result of the use of a substituted stallion in impregnating a mare is the extreme nervousness
? SEX AND CHARACTER
44
of the progeny, which must be treated with bromide and other drugs. So, also, the degeneration of modern Jews may be traced in part to the fact that amongst them marriages for other reasons than love are specially common.
Amongst the many fundamental principles established by the careful observations and experiments of Darwin, and since confirmed by other investigators, is the fact that both very closely related individuals, and those whose specific characters are too unlike, have little sexual attraction for each other, and that if in spite of this sexual union occurs, the offspring usually die at an early stage or are very feeble, or are practically infertile. So also, in heterostylous plants " legitimate fertilisation " brings about more numerous and vigorous seeds than come from other unions.
^t may be said in general that the offspring of those parents which showed the greatest sexual attraction succeed best^
Tnis rule, which is certainly universal, implies the correct, ness of a conclusion which might be drawn from the earlier part of this book, When a marriage has taken place and children have been produced, these have gained nothing from the conquest of sexual repulsion by the parents, for such a conquest could not take place without damage to the mental and bodily characters of the children that would come of it. ^t is certain, however, that many childless marriageshavebeenlovelessmarriages. Theoldideathat the chance of conception is increased where there is a mutual participation in the sexual act is closely connected with what we have been considering as to the greater intensity of the sexual attraction between two comple- mentary individuals^
? CHAPTER IV
HOMO-SEXUALITY AND PEDERASTY
The law of Sexual Attraction gives the long-sought-for explanation of sexual inversion, of sexual inclination towards members of the same sex, whether or no that be accompanied by aversion from members of the opposite sex. Without reference to a distinction which I shall deal with later on, I may say at once that it is exceedingly probable that, in all cases of sexual inversion, there will be found indications of the anatomical characters of the other sex. There is no such thing as a genuine "psycho-sexual her-
maphroditism "
the men who are sexually attracted by men have outward marks of effeminacy, just as women of a similar disposition to those of their own sex exhibit male characters. That this should be so is quite intelligible if we admit the close parallelism between body and mind, and further light is thrown upon it by the facts explained in the second chapter of this book ; the facts as to the male or female principle not being uniformly present all over the same body, but distributed in different amounts in different organs. In all cases of sexual inversion, there is invariably
;
an anatomical approximation to the opposite sex.
Such a view is directly opposed to that of those who would maintain that sexual inversion is an acquired character, and one that has superseded normal sexual impulses. Schrenk-Notzing, Kraepelin, and Fere are amongst those writers who have urged the view that sexual inversion is an acquired habit, the result of abstinence from normal intercourse and particularly induced by example. But what about the first offender ? Did the god Herma-
? SEX AND CHARACTER
phroditos teach him ? It might equally be sought to prove that the sexual inclination of a normal man for a normal woman was an unnatural, acquired habit--a habit, as some ancient writers have suggested, that arose from some acci- dental discovery of its agreeable nature. Just as a normal man discovers for himself what a woman is, so also, in the case of a sexual " invert " the attraction exercised on him by a person of his own sex is a normal product of his development from his birth. Naturally the opportunity must come in which the individual may put in practice his desire for inverted sexuality, but the opportunity will be taken only when his natural constitution has made the indi- vidual ready for it. That sexual abstinence (to take the second supposed cause of inversion) should result in any- thing more than masturbation may be explained by the supposition that inversion is acquired, but that it should be coveted and eagerly sought can only happen when the demand for it is rooted in the constitution. In the same fashion normal sexual attraction might be said to be an
acquired character, if it could be proved definitely that, to fall in love, a normal man must first see a woman or a picture of a woman. Those who assert that sexual inversion is an acquired character, are making a merely incidental or accessory factor responsible for the whole constitution of an organism.
There is little reason for saying that sexual inversion is acquired, and there is just as little for regarding it as in- heritedfromparentsorgrandparents. Suchanassertion, it is true, has not been made, and seems contrary to all experience ; but it has been suggested that it is due to a neuropathic diathesis, and that general constitutional weak- ness is to be found in the descendants of those who have displayed sexual inversion. In fact sexual inversion has usually been regarded as psycho-pathological, as a symptom of degeneration, and those who exhibit it have been con- sidered as physically unfit. This view, however, is falling into disrepute, especially as Krafft-Ebing, its principal champion, abandoned it in the later editions of his work.
46
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? HOMO-SEXUALITY AND PEDERASTY
None the less, it is not generally recognised that sexual inverts may be otherwise perfectly healthy, and with regard toothersocialmattersquitenormal. Whentheyhavebeen asked if they would have wished matters to be different with them in this respect, almost invariably they answer in the negative.
It is due to the erroneous conceptions that I have men- tioned that homo-sexuality has not been considered in relation with other facts. Let those who regard sexual inversion as pathological, as a hideous anomaly of mental development (the view accepted by the populace), or believe it to be an acquired vice, the result of an execrable seduc- tion, remember that there exist all transitional stages reaching from the most masculine male to the most effeminate male and so on to the sexual invert, the false and true hermaphrodite ; and then, on the other side, suc- cessively through the sapphist to the virago and so on until the most feminine virgin is reached. In the interpretation of this volume, sexual inverts of both sexes are to be defined as individuals in whom the factor a (see page 8, chap, i. ) is very nearly 0. 5 and so is practically equal to a ; in other words, individuals in whom there is as much maleness as femaleness, or indeed who, although reckoned as men, may contain an excess of femaleness, or as women and yet be moremalethanfemale. Becauseofthewantofuniformity in the sexual characters of the body, it is fairly certain that many individuals have their sex assigned them on account of the existence of the primary male sexual characteristic, even although there may be delayed descensus iesHculorum, or epi- or hypo-spadism, or, later on, absence of active sperma- tozoa, or even, in the case of assignment of the female sex, absence of the vagina, and thus male avocations (such as compulsory military service) may come to be assigned to
those in whom a is less than 0. 5 and a greater than 0. 5. The sexual complement of such individuals really is to be found on their own side of the sexual line, that is to say, on the side on which they are reckoned, although in reality they may belong to the other.
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? SEX AND CHARACTER
Moreover, and this not only supports my view but can b<< explained only by it, there are no inverts who are completely sexually inverted. In all of them there is from the begin- ninganinclinationtobothsexes; theyare,infact,bisexual. It may be that later on they may actively encourage a slight leaning towards one sex or the other, and so become practically unisexual either in the normal or in the inverted sense, or surrounding influence may bring about this result forthem. Butinsuchprocessesthefundamentalbisexuality is never obliterated and may at any time give evidence of its suppressed presence.
Reference has often been made, and in recent years has increasingly been made, to the relation between homo- sexuality and the presence of bisexual rudiments in the embryonic stages of animals and plants. What is new in my view is that according to it, homo-sexuality cannot be regarded as an atavism or as due to arrested embryonic development,orincompletedifferentiationofsex; itcannot be regarded as an anomaly of rare occurrence interpolating itself in customary complete separation of the sexes. Homo-sexuality is merely the sexual condition of these intermediate sexual forms that stretch from one ideally sexual condition to the other sexual condition. In my view all actual organisms have both homo-sexuality and hetero- sexual ity.
That the rudiment of homo-sexuality, in however weak a form, exists in every human being, corresponding to the greater or smaller development of the characters of the opposite sex, is proved conclusively from the fact that in the adolescent stage, while there is still a considerable amount of undifferentiated sexuality, and before the internal secretions have exerted their stimulating force, passionate attachments with a sensual side are the rule amongst boys as well as amongst girls.
A person who retains from that age onwards a marked tendency to "friendship" with a person of his own sex must have a strong taint of the other sex in him. Those, however, are still more obviously intermediate sexual forms,
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? HOMO-SEXUALITY AND PEDERASTY
who, after association with both sexes, fail to have aroused in them the normal passion for the opposite sex, but still endeavour to maintain confidential, devoted affection with those of their own sex.
There is no friendship between men that has not an ele- ment of sexuality in it, however little accentuated it may be in the nature of the friendship, and however painful the idea of the sexual element would be. But it is enough to remember that there can be no friendship unless there has been some attraction to draw the men together. Much of the affection, protection, and nepotism between men is due to the presence of unsuspected sexual compatibility.
An analogy with the sexual friendship of youth may be traced in the case of old men, when, for instance, with the involution following old age, the latent amphisexuality of manappears. Thismaybethereasonwhysomanymen of fifty years and upwards are guilty of indecency.
Homo-sexuality has been observed amongst animals to a considerable extent. F. Karsch has made a wide, if not complete, compilation from other authors. Unfortunately, practically no observations were made as to the grades of maleness or femaleness to be observed in such cases. But we may be reasonably certain that the law holds good in the animal world. If bulls are kept apart from cows for a considerable time, homo-sexual acts occur amongst them; the most female are the first to become corrupted, the others later, some perhaps never. (It is amongst cattle that the greatest number of sexually intermediate forms have been recorded. ) This shows that the tendency was latent in them, but that at other times the sexual demand was satis- fiedinnormalfashion. Cattleincaptivitybehaveprecisely asprisonersandconvictsinthesematters. Animalsexhibit not merely onanism (which is known to them as to human beings), but also homo-sexuality ; and this fact, together with the fact that sexually intermediate forms are known to occur amongst them, I regard as strong evidence for my law of sexual attraction.
Inverted sexual attraction, then, is no exception to my D
49
? SEX AND CHARACTER
law of sexual attraction, but is merely a special case of it. An individual who is half-man, half-woman, requires as sexual complement a being similarly equipped with a share of both sexes in order to fulfil the requirements of the law. This explains the fact that sexual inverts usually associate only with persons of similar character, and rarely admit to intimacy those who are normal. The sexual attraction is mutual, and this explains why sexual inverts so readily recognise each other. This being so, the normal element in human society has very little idea of the extent to which homo-sexuality is practised, and when a case becomes public property, every normal young profligate thinks that he has a right to condemn such " atrocities. " So recently as the year 1900 a professor of psychiatry in a German university urged that those who practised homo-sexuality should be castrated.
The therapeutical remedies which have been used to combat homo-sexuality, in cases where such treatment has been attempted, are certainly less radical than the advice of the professor ; but they serve to show only how little the natureofhomo-sexualitywasunderstood. Themethodused at present is hypnotism, and this can rest only on the theory thathomo-sexualityisanacquiredcharacter. Bysuggesting the idea of the female form and of normal congress, it is sought to accustom those under treatment to normal rela- tions. But the acknowledged results are very few.
The failure is to be expected from our standpoint. The hypnotiser suggests to the subject the image of a "typical" woman, ignorant of the innate differences in the subject and unaware that such a type is naturally repulsive to him. And as the normal typical woman is not his complement, it is fruitless of the doctor to advise the services of any casual Venus, however attractive, to complete the cure of a man who has long shunned normal intercourse. If our formula were used to discover the complement of the male invert, it would point to the most man-like woman, the Lesbian or Sapphist type. Probably such is the only type of woman who would attract the sexual invert or please him. If a
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? HOMO-SEXUALITY AND PEDERASTY
51 cureforsexualinversionmustbesoughtbecauseit cannot be left to its own extinction, then this theory offers the following solution. Sexual inverts must be brought to sexual inverts, from homo-sexualists to Sapphists, each in their grades. Knowledge of such a solution should lead to repeal of the ridiculous laws of England, Germany and Austria directed against homo-sexuality, so far at least as to make the punishments the lightest possible. In the second part of this book it will be made clear why both the active and the passive parts in male homo-sexuality appear disgraceful, although the desire is greater than in the case of the normal relation of a man and woman. In the abstract
there is no ethical difference between the two.
In spite of all the present-day clamour about the existence of different rights for different individualities, there is only one law that governs mankind, just as there is only one logic and not several logics. It is in opposition to that law, as well as to the theory of punishment according to which the legal offence, not the moral offence, is punished, that we forbid the homo-sexualist to carry on his practices whilst we allow the hetero-sexualist full play, so long as both avoid open scandal. Speaking from the standpoint of a purer state of humanity and of a criminal law untainted by the pedagogic idea of punishment as a deterrent, the only logical and rational method of treatment for sexual inverts would be to allow them to seek and obtain what they require where they can, that is to say, amongst other
inverts.
My theory appears to me quite incontrovertible and con-
clusive, and to afford a complete explanation of the entire set of phenomena. The exposition, however, must now face a set of facts which appear quite opposed to it, and which seem absolutely to contradict my reference of sexual inversion to the existence of sexually intermediate types, and my explanation of the law governing the attraction of these types for each other. It is probably the case that my explanation is sufficient for all female sexual inverts,fbut it is certainly true that there are men with very little taint oi
? SEX AND CHARACTER
femaleness about them who yet exert a very strong influ- ence on members of their own sex, a stronger influence than that of other men who may have more femaleness --an influence which can be exerted even on very male men, and an influence which, finally, often appears to be much greater than the influence any woman can exert on these men. ^ Albert Moll is justified in saying as follows : "There exist psycho-sexual hermaphrodites who are at- tracted by members of both sexes, but who in the case of each sex appear to care only for the characters peculiar to that sex ; and, on the other hand, there are also psycho- sexual (? ) hermaphrodites who, in the case of each sex, are attracted, not by the characteristics peculiar to that sex, but by those which are either sexually indifferent or even antagonistic to the sex in question. " Upon this distinction depends the difference between the two sets of phenomena indicated in the title of this chapter--Homo-sexuality and Pederasty. The distinction may be expressed as follows : The homo-sexualist is that type of sexual invert who prefers very female men or very male women, in accordance with the general law of sexual attraction. The pederast, on the other hand, may be attracted either by very male men or by very female women, but in the latter case only in so far as he is not pederastic. Moreover, his inclination for the male sex is stronger than for the female sex, and is more deeply seated in his nature. The origin of pederasty is a problem in itself and remains unsolved by this investi- gation.
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? CHAPTER V
THE SCIENCE OF CHARACTER AND THE SCIENCE OF FORM
In view of the admitted close correspondence between matter and mind, we may expect to find that the conception of sexually intermediate forms, if applied to mental facts, will yield a rich crop of results. The existence of a female mental type and a male mental type can readily be imagined (and the quest of these types has been made by many investigators), but such perfect types never occur as actual individuals, simply because in the mind, as in the body, all sorts of sexually intermediate conditions exist. My concep- tion will also be of great service in helping us to discriminate between the different mental qualities, and to throw some light into what has always been a dark corner for psycholo- gists--thedifferencesbetweendifferentindividuals. Agreat step will be made if we are able to supply graded categories for the mental diathesis of individuals ; if it shall cease to be scientific to say that the character of an individual is merely male or female ; but if we can make a measured judgment and say that such and such an one is so many partsmaleandsomanypartsfemale. Whichelementin any particular individual has done, said, or thought this or the other ? By making the answer to such a question pos- sible, we shall have done much towards the definite descrip- tion of the individual, and the new method will determine thedirectionoffutureinvestigation. Theknowledgeofthe past, which set out from conceptions which were really confused averages, has been equally far from reaching the broadest truths as from searching out the most intimate,
? SEX AND CHARACTER
54
detailed knowledge. This failure of past methods gives us hope that the principle of sexually intermediate forms may serve as the foundation of a scientific study of character and justifies the attempt to make of it an illuminating principle for the psychology of individual differences. Its application to the science of character, which, so far, has been in the hands of merely literary authors, and is from the scientific point of view an untouched field, is to be greeted more warmly as it is capable of being used quanti- tatively, so that we venture to estimate the percentage of maleness and femaleness which an individual possesses even in the mental qualities. The answer to this question is not given even if we know the exact anatomical position of an organism on the scale stretching from male to female, although as a matter of fact congruity between bodily and mental sexuality is more common than incongruity. But we must remember what was stated in chap. ii. as to the uneven distribution of sexuality over the body.
The proportion of the male to the female principle in the same human being must not be assumed to be a constant quantity. An important new conclusion must be taken into account, a conclusion which is necessary to the right application of the principle which clears up in a striking fashion earlier psychological work. The fact is that every human being varies or oscillates between the maleness and the femaleness of his constitution. In some cases these oscillations are abnormally large, in other cases so small as to escape observation, but they are always present, and when they are great they may even reveal themselves in theoutwardaspectofthebody. Likethevariationsinthe magnetism of the earth, these sexual oscillations are either regular or irregular. The regular forms are sometimes minute ; for instance, many men feel more male at night. The large and regular oscillations correspond to the great divisions of organic life to which attention is only now being directed, and they may throw light upon many puzzling phenomena. The irregular oscillations probably depend chiefly upon the environment, as for instance on
?