ALBERT R. MANN 
 LIBRARY 
 
 New York State Colleges 
 
 OF 
 
 Agriculture and Home Economics 
 
 AT 
 
 Cornell University 
 
Cornell University Library 
 HQ 21.E47St 
 
 Sexual selection in man: 
 
 3 1924 014 055 861 
 
The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924014055861 
 
STUDIES 
 
 IN THE 
 
 Psychology of Sex 
 
 BY 
 
 HAVELOCK ELLIS 
 
STUDIES IN THE 
 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 The "Studies in the Psychology 
 of Sex" will probably be completed 
 in five volumes. Each volume is 
 sold separately, and is complete in 
 itself. 
 
 This is the only edition in Eng- 
 lish published by the author's per- 
 mission. 
 
STUDIES 
 
 IN THB 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX 
 
 Sexual Selection in Man 
 
 I. TOUCH. II. SMELL. III. HEARING. IV. VISION 
 
 BY 
 
 HAVELOCK ELLIS 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 F. A. DAVIS COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 
 1911 
 
PEEFACB. 
 
 As IN many other of these Studies, and perhaps more than 
 in most, the task attempted in the present volume is mainly of 
 a tentative and preliminary character. There is here little scope 
 yet for the presentation of definite scientific results. However 
 it may be in the physical universe, in the cosmos of science our 
 knowledge must be nebulous before it constellates into definitely 
 measurable shapes, and nothing is gained by attempting to 
 anticipate the evolutionary process. Thus it is that here, for 
 the most part, we have to content ourselves at present with the 
 task of mapping out the field in broad and general outlines, 
 bringing together the facts and considerations which indicate the 
 direction in which more extended and precise results will in the 
 future be probably found. 
 
 In his famous Descent of Man, wherein he first set forth 
 the doctrine of sexual selection, Darwin injured an essentially 
 sound principle by introducing into it a psychological confusion 
 whereby the physiological sensory stimuli through which sexual 
 selection operates were regarded as equivalent to aesthetic pref- 
 erences. This confusion misled many, and it is only within 
 recent years (as has been set forth in the "Analysis of the Sex- 
 ual Impulse" in the previous volume of these Studies) that the 
 investigations and criticisms of numerous workers have placed 
 the doctrine of sexual selection on a firm basis by eliminating its 
 hazardous aesthetic element. Love springs up as a response to 
 a number of stimuli to tumescence, the object that most ade- 
 quately arouses tumescence hjeing. tha,t which evokes love ; the 
 question of aesthetic beauty, -altjiojigh °^ develops on this basis, 
 is not itself fundamental a.a& ^B.eei' 'n®j: even be consciously 
 present at all. When we look at tfeese'.phenomena in their broad- 
 est biological aspects, love is only to a limited extent a response 
 to beauty; to a greater extent beauty is simply a name for the 
 complexus of stimuli which most adequately arouses love. If 
 
 (v) 
 
VI PEEFACE. 
 
 we analyze these stimuli to tumescence as they proceed from a 
 person of the opposite sex we find that they are all appeals which 
 must come through the channels of four senses: touch, smell, 
 hearing, and, above all, vision. When a man or a woman ex- 
 periences sexual love for one particular person from among the 
 multitude by which he or she is surrounded, this is due to the 
 influences of a group of stimuli coming through the channels 
 of one or more of these senses. There has been a sexual selection 
 conditioned by sensory stimuli. This is true even of the finer 
 and more spiritual influences that proceed from one person to 
 another, although, in order to grasp the phenomena adequately, 
 it is best to insist on the more fundamental and less complex 
 forms which they assume. In this sense sexual selection is no 
 longer a hypothesis concerning the truth of which it is possible 
 to dispute; it is a self-evident fact. The difficulty is not as to 
 its existence, but as to the methods by which it may be most 
 precisely measured. It is fundamentally a psychological process, 
 and should be approached from the psychological side. This is 
 the reason for dealing with it here. Obscure as the psychological 
 aspects of sexual selection still remain, they are full of fascina- 
 tion, for they reveal to us the more intimate sides of human 
 evolution, of the process whereby man is molded into the shapes 
 we know. 
 
 Havelock Ellis. 
 Carbis Water, 
 Lelant, Gornwall, England. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Sexual Selection in Man. 
 
 The External Sensory Stimuli Aflfecting Selection in Man. The Four 
 Senses Involved 1 
 
 Touch. 
 I. 
 
 The Primitive Character of the Skin. Its Qualities. Touch the 
 Earliest Source of Sensory Pleasure. The Characteristics of 
 Touch. As the Alpha and Omega of Affection. The Sexual Or- 
 gans a Special Adaptation of Touch. Sexual Attraction as Orig- 
 inated by Touch. Sexual Hyperaesthesia to Touch. The Sexual 
 Associations of Acne 3 
 
 II. 
 
 Ticklishness. Its Origin and Significance. The Psychology of Tick- 
 ling. Laughter. Laughter as a Kind of Detumescence. The 
 Sexual Relationships of Itching. The Pleasure of Tickling. Its 
 Decrease with Age and Sexual Activity 11 
 
 in. 
 
 The Secondary Sexual Skin Centres. Orificial Contacts. Cunnilin- 
 gus and Fellatio. The Kiss. The Nipples. The Sympathy of 
 the Breasts with the Primary Sexual Centres. This Connection 
 Operative both through the Nerves and through the Blood. The 
 Influence of Lactation on the Sexual Centres. Suckling and 
 Sexual Emotion. The Significance of the Association between 
 Suckling and Sexual Emotion. This Association as a Cause of 
 Sexual Perversity 19 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Bath. Antagonism of Primitive Christianity to the Cult of the 
 Skin. Its Cult of Personal Filth. The Reasons which Justified 
 this Attitude. Tie World-wide Tendency to Association be- 
 
 (vii) 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 tween Extreme Cleanliness and Sexual Licentiousness. The Im- 
 morality Associated with Public Baths in Europe down to Mod- 
 ern Times 31 
 
 Summary. Fundamental Importance of Touch. The Skin the Mother 
 of All the Other Senses 41 
 
 Smell. 
 I. 
 
 The Primitiveneas of Smell. The Anatomical Seat of the Olfactory 
 Centres. Predominance of Smell among the Lower Mammals. 
 Its Diminished Importance in Man. The Attention Paid to 
 Odors by Savages 44 
 
 n. 
 
 Rise of the Study of Olfaction. Cloquet. Zwaardemaker. The 
 Theory of Smell. The Classification of Odors. The Special 
 Characteristics of Olfactory Sensation in Man. Smell as the 
 Sense of Imagination. Odors as Nervous Stimulants. Vaso- 
 motor and Muscular Effects. Odorous Substances aa Drugs... 51 
 
 in. 
 
 The Specific Body Odors of Various Peoples. The Negro, etc. The 
 European. The Ability to Distinguish Individuals by Smell. 
 The Odor of Sanctity. The Odor of Death. The Odors of Dif- 
 ferent Parts of the Body. The Appearance of Specific Odors 
 at Puberty. The Odors of Sexual Excitement. The Odors of 
 Menstruation. Body Odors as a Secondary Sexual Character. 
 The Custom of Salutation by Smell. The Kiss. Sexual Selec- 
 tion by Smell. The Alleged Association between Size of Nose 
 and Sexual Vigor. The Probably Intimate Relationship be- 
 tween the Olfactory and Genital Spheres. Reflex Influences 
 from the Nose. Reflex Influences from the Genital Sphere. Ol- 
 factory Hallucinations in Insanity as Related to Sexual States. 
 The Olfactive Type. The Sense of Smell in Neurasthenic and 
 Allied States. In Certain Poets and Novelists. Olfactory Fet- 
 ichism. The Part Played by Olfaction in Normal Sexual At- 
 traction. In the East, etc. In Modern Europe. The Odor of 
 the Armpit and its Variations. As a Sexual and General Stimu- 
 lant. Body Odors in Civilization Tend to Cause Sexual Antip- 
 
CONTENTS. IX 
 
 athy unless some Degree of Tiunescenee is Already Present. 
 The Question whether Men or Women are more Liable to Feel 
 Olfactory Influences. Women Usually more Attentive to Odors. 
 The Special Interest in Odors Felt by Sexual Inverts 59 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Influence of Perfumes. Their Aboriginal Relationship to Sexual 
 Body Odors. This True even of the Fragrance of Flowers. The 
 Synthetic Manufacture of Perfumes. The Sexual Effects of 
 Perfumes. Perfumes perhaps Originally Used to Heighten the 
 Body Odors. The Special Significance of the Musk Odor. Its 
 Wide Natural DifiFusion in Plants and Animals and Man. Musk -■ 
 a Powerful Stimulant. Its Widespread Use as a Perfume. 
 Peau d'Espagne. The Smell of Leather and its Occasional 
 Sexual Effects. The Sexual Influence of the Odors of Flowers. 
 The Identity of many Plant Odors with Certain Normal and 
 Abnormal Body Odors. The Smell of Semen in this Connection. 91 
 
 V. 
 
 The Evil Effects of Excessive Olfactory Stimulation. The Symp- 
 toms of Vanillism. The Occasional Dangerous Results of the 
 Odors of Flowers. Effects of Flowers on the Voice 107 
 
 VI. 
 
 The Place of Smell in Human Sexual Selections. It has given Place 
 to the Predominance of Vision largely because in Civilized Man 
 it Fails to Act at a Distance. It still Plays a Part by Con- 
 tributing to the Sympathies or the Antipathies of Intimate 
 Contact 110 
 
 HBL&.BINO. 
 
 The Physiological Basis of Rhythm. Rhythm as a Physiological 
 Stimulus. The Intimate Relation of Rhythm to Movement. 
 The Physiological Influence of Music on Muscular Action, Cir- 
 culation, Respiration, etc. The Place of Music in Sexual Selec- 
 tion among the Lower Animals. Its Comparatively Small Place 
 in Courtship among Mammals. The Larynx and Voice in Man. 
 The Significance of the Pubertal Changes. Ancient Beliefs Con- 
 cerning the Influence of Music in Morals, Education, and Medi- 
 cine. Its Therapeutic Uses. Significance of the Romantic In- 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 terest in Music at Puberty. Men Comparatively Insuscepti- 
 ble to the Specifically Sexual Influence of Music. Rarity of 
 Sexual Perversions on the Basis of the Sense of Hearing. The 
 Part of Music in Primitive Human Courtship. Women Notably 
 Susceptible to the Specifically Sexual Influence of Music and 
 the Voice 113 
 
 n. 
 
 Summary. Why the Influence of Music in Human Sexual Selection 
 is Comparatively Small 134 
 
 Vision. 
 1. 
 
 Primacy of Vision in Man. Beauty as a Sexual Allurement. The 
 Objective Element in Beauty. Ideals of Feminine Beauty in 
 Various Parts pf the World. Savage Women sometimes Beauti- 
 ful from European Point of View. Savages often Admire Eu- 
 ropean Beauty. The Appeal of Beauty to some Extent Com- 
 mon even to Animals and Man 136 
 
 n. 
 
 Beauty to Some Extent Consists Primitively in an Exaggeration 
 of the Sexual Characters. The Sexual Organs. Mutilations, 
 Adornments, and Garments. Sexual AUurement the Original 
 Object of Such Devices. The Religious Element. Unsesthetie 
 Character of the Sexual Organs. Importance of the Secondary 
 Sexual Characters. The Pelvis and Hips. Steatopygia. Obes- 
 ity. Gait. The Pregnant Woman as a Mediaeval Type of 
 Beauty. The Ideals of the Renaissance. The Breasts. The 
 Corset. Its Object. Its History. Hair. The Beard. The Ele- 
 ment of National or Racial Type in Beauty. The Relative 
 Beauty of Blondes and Brunettes. The General European Ad- 
 miration for Blondes. The Individual Factors in the Consti- 
 tution of the Idea of Beauty. The Love of the Exotic 166 
 
 III. 
 
 Beauty Not the Sole Element in the Sexual Appeal of Vision. Move- 
 ment. The Mirror. Narcissism. Pygmalionism. Mixoscopy. 
 The Indifference of Women to Male Beauty. The Significance 
 of Woman's Admiration of Strength. The Spectacle of Strength 
 is a Tactile Quality made Visible 186 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Alleged Charm of Disparity in Sexual Attraction. The Ad- 
 miration for High Stature. The Admiration for Dark Pig- 
 mentation. The Chann of Parity. Conjugal Mating. The Sta^- 
 tistieal Results of Observation as Regards General Appear- 
 ance, Stature, and Pigmentation of Married Couples. Prefer- 
 ential Mating and Assortative Mating. The Nature of the Ad- 
 vantage Attained by the Fair in Sexual Selection. The 
 Abhorrence of Incest and the Theories of its Cause. The 
 Explanation in Reality Simple. The Abhorrence of Incest in 
 Relation to Sexual Selection. The Limits to the Charm of 
 Parity in Conjugal Mating. The Charm of Disparity in Sec- 
 ondary Sexual Characters 1D4 
 
 V. 
 
 Summary of the Conclusions at Present Attainable in Regard to 
 the Nature of Beauty and its Relation to Sexual Selection.... 210 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 The Origins of the Kiss 215 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 Histories of Sexual Development 223 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 
 
 The External Sensory Stimuli Affecting Selection in Man— Tlie Four 
 Senses Involved. 
 
 Tumescence — the process by which the organism is 
 brought into the physical and psychic state necessary to in- 
 sure conjugation and detumescence — to some extent comes 
 about through the spontaneous action of internal forces. To 
 that extent it is analogous to the physical and psychic changes 
 which accompany the gradual filling of the bladder and pre- 
 cede its evacuation. But even among animals who are by no 
 means high in the zoological scale the process is more compli- 
 cated than this. External stimuli act at every stagCj arousing 
 or heightening the process of tumescence, and in normal human 
 beings it may be said that the process is never completed with- 
 out the aid of such stimuli, for even in the auto-erotic sphere 
 external stimuli are still active, either actually or in imagina- 
 tion. 
 
 The chief stimuli which influence tumescence and thus 
 direct sexual choice come chiefly — indeed, exclusively — through 
 the four senses of touch, smell, hearing, and sight. All the phe- 
 nomena of sexual selection, so far as they are based externally, 
 act through these four senses.^ The reality of the influence 
 thus exerted may be demonstrated statistically even in civil- 
 
 ' Taste must, I believe, be excluded, for if we abstract the parts of 
 touch and smell, even in those abnormal sexual acts in which it may 
 seem to be affected, taste could scarcely have any influence. Most of 
 our "tasting," as Waller puts it, is done by the nose, which, in man, 
 is in specially close relationship, posteriorly, with the mouth. There 
 are at most four taste sensations — sweet, bitter, salt, and sour — if even 
 all of these are simple tastes. What commonly pass for taste sensa- 
 tions, as shown by some experiments of G. T. W. Patrick {Psvchological 
 Review, 1898, p. 160), are the composite results of the mingling of sen- 
 sations of smell, touch, temperature, sight, and taste. 
 
 (1) 
 
I PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 ized man, and it has been shown that, as regards, for instance, 
 eye-color, conjugal partners differ sensibly from the unmarried 
 persons by whom they are surrounded. When, therefore, we 
 are exploring the nature of the influence which stimuli, acting 
 through the sensory channels, exert on the strength and direc- 
 tion of the sexual impulse, we are intimately concerned with 
 the process by which the actual form and color, not alone of 
 living things generally, but of our own species, have been 
 shaped and are still being shaped. At the same time, it is 
 probable, we are exploring the mystery which underlies all the 
 subtle appreciations, all the emotional undertones, which are 
 woven in the web of the whole world as it appeals to us through 
 those sensory passages by which alone it can reach us. We are 
 here approaching, therefore, a fundamental subject of unsur- 
 passable importance, a subject which has not yet been ac- 
 curately explored save at a few isolated points and one which 
 it is therefore impossible to deal with fully and adequately. 
 Yet it cannot be passed over, for it enters into the whole psy- 
 chology of the sexual instinct. 
 
 Of the four senses — touch, smell, hearing, and sight — 
 with which we are here concerned, touch is the most primitive, 
 and it may be said to be the most important, though it is 
 usually the last to make its appeal felt. Smell, which occupies 
 the chief place among many animals, is of comparatively less 
 importance, though of considerable interest, in man; it is only 
 less intimate and final than touch. Sight occupies an inter- 
 mediate position, and on this account, and also on account of 
 the very great part played by vision in life generally as well 
 as in art, it is the most important of all the senses from the 
 human sexual point of view. Hearing, from the same point of 
 view, is the most remote of all the senses in its appeal to the 
 sexual impulse, and on that account it is, when it intervenes, 
 among the first to make its influence felt. 
 
TOUCH. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Primitive Character of the Skin— Its Qualities— Touch the 
 Earliest Source of Sensory Pleasure — The Characteristics of Touch — As 
 the Alpha and Omega of Affection — The Sexual Organs a Special Adap- 
 tation of Touch — Sexual Attraction as Originated by Touch — Sexual 
 Hyperaesthesia to Touch — The Sexual Associations of Acne. 
 
 We are accustomed to regard the skin as mainly owing its 
 existence to the need for the protection of the delicate vessels, 
 nerves, viscera, and muscles underneath. Undoubtedly it per- 
 forms, and by its tough and elastic textufe is well fitted to 
 perform, this extremely important service. But the skin ""Is" \ 
 not merely a method of protection against the external world; 
 it is also a method of bringing us into sensitive contact with 
 the external world. It is thus, as the organ of touch, the seat 
 of the most widely diffused sense we possess, and, moreover, 
 the sense which is the most ancient and fundamental of all — 
 the mother of the other senses./ [ 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to insist that the primitive nature 
 of the sensory function of the skin with the derivative nature 
 of the other senses, is a well ascertained and demonstrable fact. 
 The lower we descend in the animal scale, the more varied we 
 find the functions of the skin to be, and if in the higher ani- 
 mals much of the complexity has disappeared, that is only 
 because the specialization of the various skin regions into 
 distinct organs has rendered this complexity unnecessary. 
 Even yet, however, in man himself the skfh still retains, in a 
 more or less latent condition, much of its varied and primary 
 power, and the analysis of pathological and even normal phe- 
 nomena serves to bring these old powers into clear light. 
 
 (3) 
 
4 PSYCHOLOGY OF SlilX. 
 
 Woods Hutchinson {Studies in Human and Comparative Pathology, 
 1901, Chapters VII and VIII) has admirably set forth the immense im- 
 portance of the skin, as in the first place "a tissue which is silk to 
 the touch, the most exquisitely beautiful surface in the universe to the 
 eye, and yet a wall of adamant against hostile attack. Impervious 
 alike, by virtue of its wonderful responsive vitality, to moisture and 
 drought, cold and heat, electrical changes, hostile bacteria, the most 
 virulent of poisons and the deadliest of gases, it is one of the real 
 Wonders of the World. More beautiful than velvet, softer and more 
 pliable than silk, more impervious than rubber, and more durable under 
 exposure than steel, well-nigh as resistant to electric currents as glass, 
 it is one of the toughest and most dangerproof substances in the 
 three kingdoms of nature" (although, as this author adds, we "hardly 
 dare permit it to see the sunlight or breathe the open air"). But it is 
 more than this. It is, as Woods Hutchinson expresses it, the creator 
 of the entire body; its embryonic infoldings form the alimentary canal, 
 the brain, the spinal cord, while every sense is but a specialization of 
 its general organic activity. It is furthermore a kind of "skin-heart,'' 
 promoting the circulation by its own energy; it is the great heat-regu- 
 lating organ of the body; it is an excretory organ only second to the 
 kidneys, which descend from it, and finally it still remains the seat of 
 touch. 
 
 It may be added that the extreme beauty of the skin as a surface 
 is very clearly brought out by the inadequacy of the comparisons com- 
 monly used in order to express its beauty. Snow, marble, alabaster, 
 ivory, milk, cream, silk, velvet, and all the other conventional similes fur- 
 nish surfaces which from any point of view are incomparably inferior 
 to the skin itself. {Of. Stratz, Die SchonJieit des Weiblichen Korpers, 
 Chapter XII.) 
 
 With reference to the extraordinary vitality of the skin, em- 
 phasized by Woods Hutchinson, it may be added that, when experi- 
 menting on the skin with the electric current, Waller found that 
 healthy skin showed signs of life ten days or more after excision. 
 It has been found also that fragments of skin which have been pre- 
 served in sterile fluid for even aa long as nine months may still be suc- 
 cessfully transplanted on to the body. {British Medical Journal, July 
 9, 1902.) 
 
 Everything indicates, remark Stanley Hall and Donaldson 
 ("Motor Sensations in the Skin,'' Mind, 1885), that the skin is "not 
 only the primeval and most reliable source of our knowledge of the 
 external world or the archseologioal field of psychology,'' but a field in 
 which work may shed light on some of the most fundamental problems 
 of psychic action. ' Groos {Spiele der Menschen, pp. 8-16) also deals 
 with the primitive character of touch sensations. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IJT MAN. 5 
 
 Touch sensations are without doubt the first of all the sensory 
 impressions to prove pleasurable. We should, indeed, expect this from 
 the fact that the skin reflexes have already appeared befpre birth, while 
 a pleasurable sensitiveness of the lips is doubtless a factor in the 
 child's response to the contact of the maternal nipple. Very early 
 memories of sensory pleasure seem to be frequently, perhaps most fre- 
 quently, tactile in character, though this fact is often disguised in recol- 
 lection, owing to tactile impression being vague and diffused; there is 
 thus in Elizabeth Potwin's "Study of Early Memories" {Psychological 
 Review, November, 1901) no separate group of tactile memories, and 
 the more elaborate investigation by Colegrove ("Individual Memories," 
 American Journal of Psychology, January, 1899) yields no decisive re- 
 sults under this head. See, however, Stanley Hall's valuable study, 
 "Some Aspects of the Early Sense of Self," American Journal of 
 Psychology, April, 1898. Kiilpe has a discussion of the psychology of 
 cutaneous sensations {Outlines of Psychology [English translation], 
 pp. 87 et seq.). 
 
 Harriet Martineau, at the beginning of her AutoMography, re- 
 ferring to the vivid character of tactile sensations in early childhood, 
 remarks, concerning an early memory of touching a velvet button, that 
 "the rapture of the sensation was really monstrous." And a lady tells 
 me that one of her earliest memories at the age of 3 is of the exquisite 
 sensation of the casual contact of a cool stone with the vulva in 
 the act of urinating. Such sensations, of course, cannot be termed 
 specifically sexual, though they help to furnish the tactile basis on 
 which the specifically sexual sensations develop. 
 
 The elementary sensitiveness of the akin is shown by the fact 
 that moderate excitation suffices to raise the temperature, while Heiden- 
 hain and others have shown that in animals cutaneous stimuli 
 modify the sensibility of the brain cortex, slight stimulus increasing 
 excitability and strong stimulus diminishing it. FSrS has shown that 
 the slight stimulus to the skin furnished by placing a piece of metal on 
 the arm or elsewh ere suffices to increase the output of work with the . 
 ergograph. jn'F6T6 ^omptes Rendus SocUU de Biologic, July 12, 1902; 
 id. Patholof/ie des Emotions, pp. 40 ef seq.) — 
 
 F6r6 found that the application of a mustard plaster to the skin, 
 or an icebag, or a hot-water bottle, or even a light touch with a 
 painter's brush, all exerted a powerful effect in increasing muscular 
 work with the ergograph. "The tonic effect of cutaneous excitation,'^* 
 liii i< li I, "throws light on the psychology of the caress. It is al- 
 ways the most sensitive parts of the body which seek to give or to re- 
 ceive caresses. Many animals rub or lick each other. The mucous sur- 
 faces share in this irritability of the skin. The kiss is not only an jx- 
 pression of feeling; it is a means of provoEIng'it. CafagTottiSm is by 
 
PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 no means confined to pigeonsi The tonic value of cutaneous stiniula- 
 tion is fndee3^ aT'cbmmohry accepted idea. Wrestlers rub their hands 
 or limbs, and the hand-shake also is not without its physiological 
 basis. 
 
 Cutaneous excitations may cause painful sensations to cease. Many 
 massage practices which favor work act chiefly as sensorial stimulants; 
 on this account many nervous persons cannot abandon them, and 
 the Greeks and Romans found in massage not only health, but pleas- 
 ure. Lauder Brunton regards many common manoeuvres, like scratch- 
 ing the head and pulling the moustache, as methods of dilating the 
 blood-vessels of the brain by stimulating the facial nerve. The motor 
 reactions of cutaneous excitations favor this hypothesis." (F6rg, Travail 
 et Plaisir, Chapter XV, "Influence des Excitations du Toucher sur le 
 Travail.") 
 
 The main characteristics of the primitive sense of touch 
 are its wide diffusion over the whole body and the massive 
 vagueness and imprecision of the messages it sends to the brain. 
 This is the reason why it is, of all the senses, the least intel- 
 lectual and the least aesthetic; it is also the reason why it is, 
 of all the senses, the most profoundly emotional. "Touch," 
 wrote Bain in his Emotions and Will, "is both the alpha and 
 the omega of affection," and he insisted on the special sig- 
 nificance in this connection of "tenderness" — a characteristic 
 emotional quality of affection which is directly founded on 
 sensations of touch. If tenderness is the alpha of affection, 
 even between the sexes, its omega is to be found in the sexual 
 embrace, which may be said to be a method of obtaining, 
 through a specialized organization of the skin, the most ex- 
 quisite and intense sensations of touch. 
 
 "We believe nothing is so exciting to the instinct or mere passion 
 as the presence of the hand or those tactile caresses which mark affec- 
 tion," states the anonymous author of an article on "Woman in her 
 Psychological Relations," in the Journal of Psychological Medicine, 
 1851. "They are the most general stimuli in lower animals. The first 
 recourse in difficulty or danger, and the primary solace in anguish, 
 for woman is the bosom of her husband or her lover. She seeks solace 
 and protection and repose on that part of the body where she herself 
 places the objects of her own aifcction. Woman appears to have the 
 same instinctive impulse in this respect all over the world." 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 7 
 
 It is because the sexual orgasm is founded on a special 
 adaptation and intensification of touch sensations that the 
 sense of touch generally is to be regarded as occupying the 
 very first place in reference to the sexual emotions. Fere, 
 Mantegazza, Penta, and most other writeire on. thjs question 
 are here agreed. ("Touch sensations^onstitute a vast gamut for 
 the expression of affection, with at one end the note of mini- 
 mum personal affection in the brief and limited touch involved 
 by the conventional hand-shake and the conven tional kiss, and 
 at the other end the final and intimate contact in which passion 
 finds the supreme satisfaction of its most profound desire. 
 The intermediate region has its great significance for us 
 because it offers a field in which affection has its full scope, 
 but in which every road may possibly lead to the goal of 
 sexual love. It is the intimacy of touch contacts, their in- 
 evitable approach to the threshold of "^sexual emotion, which 
 leads to a jealous and instinctive parsimony in the contact of 
 skin and skin and to the tendency with the increased sensi- 
 tiveness of the nervous system involved by civilization to re- 
 strain even the conventional touch manifestation of ordinary 
 affection and esteem. V in "Cfflffa" fathers leave 'off kissing T;heir 
 daughters while they are still young' children. In England the 
 
 Jdssas an ordinary greeting between men and women — a cus- 
 tom inherited from classic and early Christian antiquity — still 
 persisted to the beginning of the eighteenth century. In 
 France the same custom existed in the seventeenth century, 
 
 T)ut m the middle of that century was beginning to be re- 
 garded as dangerous,^ while at the present time the conven- 
 tional ki^^^^Jtiie. cheek is strictly differentiated from the kiss 
 
 on t he mouth , which is reserved for lovers. ) 'i'ouch contacts 
 between person and person, other than tBTJW limited and de- 
 fined by custom, tend to become either unpleasant — as an un- 
 desired intrusion into an intimate sphere — or else, when oc- 
 curring between man and woman at some peculiar moment, 
 they may make a powerful reverberation in the emotional and 
 
 ' A. Franklin, Les Soins de Toilette, p. 81. 
 
8 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 more specifically sexual sphere. One man falls in love with his 
 future wife because he has to carry her upstairs with a sprained 
 ankle. Another dates his love-story from a romp in which 
 his cheek accidentally came in contact with that of his future 
 wife. A woman will sometimes instinctively strive to attract 
 the attention of the man who appeals to her by a peculiar and 
 prolonged pressure of the hand — the only touch contact per- 
 mitted to her. Dante, as Penta has remarked, refers to "sight 
 or touch" as the two channels through which a woman's love 
 is revived (Purgatorio, VIII, 76). Even the hand-shake of a 
 sympathetic man is enough in some chaste and sensitive women 
 to produce sexual excitement or sometimes even the orgasm. 
 The cases in which love arises from the influence of stimuli 
 coming through the sense of touch are no doubt frequent, and 
 they would be still more frequent if it were not that the very 
 proximity of this sense to the sexual sphere causes it to be 
 guarded with a care which in the case of the other senses it is 
 impossible to exercise. This intimacy of touch and the reac- 
 tion against its sexual approximations leads to what James has 
 called "the antisexual instinct, the instinct of personal isola- 
 tion, the actual repulsiveness to us of the idea of intimate con- 
 tact with most of the persons we meet, especially those of our 
 own sex." He refers in this connection to the unpleasantness 
 of the sensation felt on occupying a seat still warm from the 
 body of another person.^ The Catholic Church has always 
 recognized the risks of voluptuous emotion involved in tactile 
 contacts, and the facility with which even the most innocent 
 contacts may take on a libidinous character." 
 
 The following obsei-vation3 were written by o. lady (aged 30) who 
 has never had sexual relationships: "I am only conscious of a very 
 sweet and pleasurable emotion when coming in contact with honorable 
 men, and consider that a' comparison can be made between the idealism 
 of such emotions and those of music, of beauties of Nature, and of pro- 
 ductions of art. While studying and writing articles upon a new sub- 
 
 • W. James, Principles of Psychologii, vol. ii, p. 347. 
 
 'Numerous passages from the theologians bearing on this point 
 are brought together in Moeehialogia, pp. 221-226. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. ■ - 9 
 
 ject I came in contact with a specialist, who rendered me considerable 
 aid, and, one day, while jointly correcting a piece of work, he touched 
 my hand. This produced a sweet and pure sensation of thrill through 
 the whole system. I said nothing; in fact, was too thrilled for speech; 
 and never to this day have shown any responsive action, but for 
 months at certain periods, generally twice a month, I have experi- 
 enced the most pleasurable emotions. I have seen this friend twice 
 since, and have a curious feeling that I stand on one side of a hedge, 
 while he is on the other, and, as neither makes an approach, pleasure 
 of the highest kind is experienced, but not allowed to go beyond reason- 
 able and health-giving bounds. In some moments I feel overcome by 
 a sense of mastery by this man, and yet, feeling that any approach 
 would be undignified, some pleasure is experienced in restraining and 
 keeping within proper bounds this passional emotion. All these thrills 
 of pleasurable emotion possess a psychic value, and, so long as the 
 nervous system is kept in perfect health, they do not seem to have 
 the power to injure, but rather one is able to utilize the passionate 
 emotions as weapons for pleasure and work.'' 
 
 Various parts of the skin surface appear to have special sexual 
 sensitiveness, peculiarly marked in many individuals, especially women; 
 so that, as F6r6 remarks {L'lnstinct Sexuel, second edition, 1902, p. 
 130), contact stimulation of the lips, lobe of ear, nape of neck, little 
 finger, knee, etc., may suffice even to produce the orgasm. Some sex- 
 ually hyperaesthetic women, as has already been noted, experience this 
 when shaking hands with a man who is attractive to them. In some 
 neurotic persons this sensibility, as F6r6 shows, may exist in so mor- 
 bid a degree that even the contact of the sensitive spot with unattrac- 
 tive persons or inanimate objects may produce the orgasm. In this con- 
 nection reference may be made to the well-known fact that in some 
 hysterical subjects there are so-called "erogenous zones" simple pres- 
 sure on which suflBces to evoke the complete orgasm. There is, per- 
 haps, some significance, from our present point of view, in the fact 
 that, as emphasized by Savill ("Hysterical Skin Symptoms," Lancet, 
 January 30, 1904), the skin is one of the very best places to study 
 hysteria. 
 
 The intimate connection between the skin and the sexual sphere 
 is also shown in pathological conditions of the skin, especially in acne 
 as well as simple pimples on the face., The sexual development of 
 puberty involves a development of hair in various regions of the body 
 which previously were hairless. As, however, the sebaceous glands on 
 the face and elsewhere are the vestiges of former hairs and survive from 
 a period when the whole body was hairy, they also tend to experience 
 in an abortive manner this same impulse. Thus, we may say that, with 
 the development of the sexual organs at puberty, there is correlated ex- 
 
10 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 citeiment of the whole pilosebaceous apparatus. In the regions where 
 this apparatus is vestigial, and notably in the face, tMs abortive at- 
 tempt of the hair-follicles and their sebaceous appendages to produce 
 hairs tends only to disorganization, and simple comedones or pustular 
 acne pimples are liable to occur. As a rule, acne appears about 
 puberty and dies out slowly during adolescence. While fairly common 
 in young women, it is usually much less severe, but tends to be exacer- 
 bated at the menstrual periods; it is also apt to appear at the change 
 of life. (Stephen Mackenzie, "The Etiology and Treatment of Acne Vul- 
 garis," British Medical Journal, September 29, 1894. Laycock [Nervous 
 Diseases of Women, 1840, p. 23] pointed out that acne occurs chiefly in 
 those parts of the surface covered by sexual hair. A lucid account of 
 the origin of acne will be found in Woods Hutchinson's Studies in 
 Human and Comparative Patlwlogy, pp. 179-184. G. J. Engelmann 
 ["The Hystero-neuroses," Oynceoological Transactions, 1887, pp. 124 et 
 seq.] discusses various pathological disorders of the skin as reflex dis- 
 turbances originating in the sexual sphere.) 
 
 The influence of menstruation in exacerbating acne has been called 
 in question, but it seems to be well established. Thus, Bulkley ("Rela- 
 tion between Certain Diseases of the Skin and the Menstrual Func- 
 tion," Transactions of the Medical Society of New York, 1901, p. 328) 
 found that, in 510 cases of acne in women, 145, or nearly one-third, 
 were worse about the monthly period. Sometimes it only appeared 
 during menstruation. The exacerbation occurred much more frequently 
 just before than just after the period. There was usually some dis- 
 turbance of menstruation. Various other disorders of the skin show a 
 similar relationship to menstruation. 
 
 It has been asserted that masturbation is a frequent or constant 
 cause of acne at puberty. (See, e.g., discussion in British Medical 
 Journal, July, 1882.) This cannot be accepted. Acne very frequently 
 occurs without masturbation, and masturbation is very frequently prac- 
 ticed without producing acne. At the same time we may well believe 
 that at the period of puberty, when the pilo-sebaceous system is ah-eady 
 in sensitive touch with the sexual system, the shock of frequently re- 
 peated masturbation may (in the same way as disordered menstru- 
 ation) have its repercussion on the skin. Thus, a lady has informed 
 me that at about the age of 18 she found that frequently repeated 
 masturbation was followed by the appearance of comedones. 
 
II. 
 
 Ticklishness— Its Origin and Signifleance— The Psychology of Tick- 
 ling—Laughter—Laughter as a Kind of Detumescence — The Sexual Re- 
 lationships of Itching — The Pleasure of Ticlding — Its Decrease with 
 Age and Sexual Activity. 
 
 Touch, as has already been remarked, is the least intel- 
 lectual of the senses. There is, however, one form of touch 
 sensation — that is to say, ticklishness — which is of so special 
 and peculiar a nature that it has sometimes been put aside in 
 a class apart from all other touch sensations. Scaliger pro- 
 posed to class titillation as a sixth, or separate, sense. Alrutz, 
 of Upsala, regards tickling as a milder degree of itching, and 
 considers that the two together constitute a sensation of dis- 
 tinct quality with distinct end-organs for the mediation of 
 that quality.^ However we may regard this extreme view, 
 tickling is certainly a specialized modification of touch and 
 it is at the same time the most intellectual mode of touch sen- 
 sation and that with the closest connection with the sexual 
 sphere. To regard tickling as an intellectual manifestation 
 may cause surprise, more especially when it is remembered 
 that ticklishness is a form of sensation which reaches full de- 
 velopment very early in life, and it has to be admitted that, as 
 compared even with the messages that may be sent through 
 smell and taste, the intellectual element in ticklishness re- 
 mains small. But its presence here has been independently 
 recognized by various investigators. Groos points out the 
 psychic factor in tickling as evidenced by the impossibility of 
 self -tickling." Louis Robinson considers that ticklishness "ap- 
 pears to be one of the simplest developments of mechanical and 
 automatic nervous processes in the direction of the complex 
 
 'Alrutz's views are summarized in Psychological Review, Sept., 
 1901. 
 
 *Die Spiele der MenscJien, 1899, p. 206. 
 
 (11) 
 
12 rSTCIIOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 functioning of the higher centres which comes within the scope 
 of psychology."' Stanley Hall and Allin remark that "these 
 minimal touch excitations represent the very oldest stratum of 
 psychic life in the soul."^ Hirman Stanley, in a somewhat 
 similar manner, pushes the intellectual element in ticklishness 
 very far back and associates it with "tentacular experience." 
 "By temporary self-extension," he remarks, "even low amoeboid 
 organisms have slight, but suggestive, touch experiences that 
 stimulate very general and violent reactions, and in higher or- 
 ganisms extended touch-organs, as tentacles, antennae, hair, 
 etc., become permanent and very delicately sensitive organs, 
 where minimal contacts have very distinct and powerful reac- 
 tions." Thus ticklishness would be the survival of long passed 
 ancestral tentacular experience, which, originally a stimulation 
 producing intense agitation and alarm, has now become merely 
 a play activity and a source of keen pleasure.' 
 
 We need not, however, go so far back in the zoological 
 series to explain the origin and significance of tickling in the 
 human species. Sir J. Y. Simpson suggested, in an elaborate 
 study of the position of the child in the womb, that the ex- 
 treme excitomotory sensibility of the skin in various regions, 
 such as the sole of the foot, the knee, the sides, which already 
 exists before birth, has for its object the excitation and pres- 
 ervation of the muscular movements necessary to keep the 
 fcEtus in the most favorable position in the womb.* It is, 
 in fact, certainly the case that the stimulation of all the tick- 
 lish regions in the body tends to produce exactly that curled 
 up position of extreme muscular flexion and general ovoid 
 shape which is the normal position of the foetus in the womb. 
 We may well believe that in this early developed reflex activity 
 
 'L. Robinson, art. "Ticklishness," Tuke's Dictionary of Psycholog- 
 ical Medicine. 
 
 ^ Stanley Hall and Allin, "Tickling and Laughter," American Jour- 
 nal of Psycliology, October, 1897. 
 
 •H. M. Stanley, "Remarks on Tickling and Laughter," American 
 Journal of Psychology, vol. ix, January, 1898. 
 
 'Simpson, "On the Attitude of the Fcetus in Utero," Obstetric 
 Memoirs, 1856, vol. ii. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION- IN MAN. 13 
 
 we have the basis of that somewhat more complex ticklishness 
 which appears somewhat later. 
 
 The mental element in tickling is indicated by the fact 
 that even a child, in whom ticklishness is highly developed, 
 cannot tickle himself; so that tickling is not a simple reflex. 
 This fact was long ago pointed out by Erasmus Darwin, and 
 he accounted for it by supposing that voluntary exertion dimin- 
 ishes the energy of sensation.^ This explanation is, however, 
 inadmissible, for, although we cannot easily tickle ourselves 
 by the contact of the skin with our own fingers, we can do so 
 with the aid of a foreign body, like a feather. We may per- 
 haps suppose that, as ticklishness has probably developed under 
 the influence of natural selection as a method of protection 
 against attack and a warning of the approach of foreign bodies, 
 its end would be defeated if it involved a simple reaction to 
 the contact of the organism with itself. This need of protection 
 it is which involves the necessity of a minimal excitation pro- 
 ducing a maximal effect, though the mechanism whereby this 
 takes place has caused considerable discussion. We may, it 
 is probable, best account for it by invoking the summation- 
 irradiation theory of pain-pleasure, the summation of the stim- 
 uli in their course through the nerves, aided by capillary con- 
 gestion, leading to irradiation due to anastomoses between the 
 tactile corpuscles, not to speak of the much wider irradiation 
 which is possible by means of central nervous connections. 
 
 Prof. C. L. Herriek adopts this explanation of the phenomena of 
 tickling, and rests it, in part, on Dogiel's study of the tactile coi-puscles 
 ("Psychological Corollaries of Modem Neurological Discoveries," Jour- 
 nal of Comparative Neurology, March, 1898). The following remarks 
 of Prof. A. Allin may also be quoted in further explanation of the same 
 theory: "So far as ticklishness is concerned, a very important factor in 
 the production of this feeling is undoubtedly that of the summation of 
 stimuli. In a research of Stirling's, carried on under Ludwig's direction, 
 it was shown that reflex contractions only occur from repeated shocks 
 to the nerve-centres — that is, through summation of successive stimuli. 
 That this result is also due in some degree to an alternating increase 
 
 ' Erasmus Darwin, Zoonomia, Sect. XVII, 4. 
 
14 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 in the sensibility of the various areas in question from altered supply of 
 blood is reasonably certain. As a consequence of this summation-proc- 
 ess there would result in many cases and in cases of excessive nerv- 
 ous discharge the opposite of pleasure, namely: pain. A number of 
 instances have been recorded of death resulting from tickling, and 
 there is no reason to doubt the truth of the statement that Simon de 
 Montfort, during the persecution of the Albigenses, put some of them 
 to death by tickling the soles of their feet with a feather. An addi- 
 tional causal factor in the production of tickling may lie in the nature 
 and structure of the nervous process involved in perception in general. 
 According to certain histological researches of recent years we know 
 that between the sense-organs and the central nervous system there 
 exist closely connected chains of conductors or neurons, along which 
 an impression received by a single sensory cell on the periphery is 
 propagated avalanehelike through an increasing number of neurons 
 until the brain is reached. If on the periphery a single cell is excited 
 the avalanchelike process continues until finally hundreds or thou- 
 sands of nerve-cells in the cortex are aroused to considerable activity. 
 Golgi, lianifin y C'ajal, Koelliker, Held, Retzius, and others have 
 demonstrated the histological basis of this law for vision, hearing, and 
 smell, and we may safely assume from the phenomena of tickling that 
 the sense of touch is not lacking in a similar arrangement. May not 
 a suggestion be offered, with some plausibility, that even in ideal or 
 representative tickling, where tickling results, say, from someone point- 
 ing a finger at the ticklish places, this avalanchelike process may be in- 
 cited from central centres, thus producing, although in a modified de- 
 gree, the pleasant phenomena in question? As to the deepest causal 
 factor, I should say that tickling is the result of vasomotor shock." 
 (A. AUin, "On Laughter," Psychological Review, May, 1903.) 
 
 The intellectual element in tickling comes out in its con- 
 nection with laughter and the sense of the comic, of which 
 it may he said to constitute the physical basis. While we are 
 not here concerned with laughter and the comic sense, — a sub- 
 ject which has lately attracted considerable attention, — it may 
 be instructive to point out that there is more than an analogy 
 between laughter and the phenomena of sexual tumescence and 
 detumescence. The process whereby prolonged tickling, with 
 its nervous summation and irradiation and accompanying hy- 
 persemia, finds sudden relief in an explosion of laughter is a 
 real example of tumescence — as it has been defined in the study 
 in another volume entitled "An Analysis of the Sexual Im- 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 15 
 
 pulse" — resulting finally in the orgasm of detumescenee. The 
 reality of the connection between the sexual embrace and tick- 
 ling is indicated by the fact that in some languages, as in that 
 of the Fuegians,' the same word is applied to both. That 
 ordinary tickling is not sexual is due to the circumstances of 
 the case and the regions to which the tickling is applied. If, 
 however, the tickling is applied within the sexual sphere, then 
 there is a tendency for orgasm to take place instead of laughter. 
 The connection which, through the phenomena of tickling, 
 laughter thus bears to the sexual sphere is well indicated, as 
 Groos has pointed out, by the fact that in sexually-minded 
 people sexual allusions tend to produce laughter, this being the 
 method by which they are diverted from the risks of more 
 specifically sexual detumescenee.^ 
 
 Reference has been made to the view of Alrutz, according to 
 which tickling is a milder degree of itching. It is more convenient and 
 probably more correct to regard itching or pruritus, as it is termed in 
 its pathological forms, as a distinct sensation, for it does not arise 
 under precisely the same conditions as tickling nor is it relieved in 
 the same way. There is interest, however, in pointing out in this con- 
 nection that, like tickling, itching has a real parallelism to the special- 
 ized sexual sensations. Bronson, who has very ably interpreted the 
 sensations of itching (New York Neurological Society, October 7, 1890; 
 Medical News, February 14, 1903, and summarized in the British 
 Medical Journal, March 7, 1903; and elsewhere), regards it as a per- 
 version of the sense of touch, a dyssesthesia due to obstructed nerve- 
 excitation with imperfect conduction of the generated force into corre- 
 lated nervous energy. The scratching which relieves itching directs the 
 nervous energy into freer channels, sometimes substituting for the pru- 
 ritus either painful or voluptuous sensations. Such voluptuous sensa- 
 tions may be regarded as a generalized aphrodisiac sense comparable to 
 the specialized sexual orgasm. Bronson refers to the significant fact thai 
 itching occurs so frequently in the sexual region, and states that sexual 
 neurasthenia is sometimes the only discoverable cause of genital and 
 anal pruritus. {Cf. discussion on pruritus, British Medical Journal, 
 
 'Hyades and Deniker, Mission Scientiflque du Cap Horn, vol. vii, 
 p. 296. 
 
 ' Such an interpretation is supported by the arguments of W. Mc- 
 Dougall ("The Theory of Laughter," Nature, February 5, 1903), who 
 contends, without any reference to the sexual field, that one of the ob- 
 jects of laughter is automatically to "disperse, our attention." 
 
16 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 November 30, 1895.) Gilman, again {American Journal of Psychology, 
 vi, p. 22), considers that scratching, as well as sneezing, is comparable 
 to coitus. 
 
 The sexual embrace has an intimate connection with the 
 phenomena of ticklishness which eonld not fail to be recog- 
 nized. This connection is, indeed, the basis of Spinoza's famous 
 definition of love, — "Amor est titillatio quwdam concomitante 
 idm causce externce," — a statement which seems to be reflected 
 in Chamf ort's definition of love as "I'echange de deux fantaisies, 
 et le contact de deux epidermes." The sexual act, says Gowers, 
 is, in fact, a skin reflex.' "The sexual parts," Hall and AUin 
 state, "have a ticklishness as unique as their function and as 
 keen as their importance." Herrick finds the supreme illus- 
 tration of the summation and irradiation theory of tickling in 
 the phenomena of erotic excitement, and points out that in 
 harmony with this the skin of the sexual region is, as Dogiel 
 has shown, that portion of the body in which the tactile cor- 
 puscles are most thoroughly and elaborately provided with 
 anastomosing fibres. It has been pointed out^ that, when ordi- 
 nary tactile sensibility is partially abolished, — especially in 
 hemiansesthesia in the insane, — some sexual disturbance is spe- 
 cially apt to be found in association. 
 
 In young children, in girls even when they are no longer 
 children, and occasionally in men, tickling may be a source 
 of acute pleasure, which in very early life is not sexual, but 
 later tends to become so under circumstances predisposing to 
 the production of erotic emotion, and especially when the nerv- 
 ous system is keyed up to a high tone favorable for the produc- 
 tion of the maximum effect of tickling. 
 
 "When young," writes a lady aged 28, "I was extremely fond of 
 being tickled, and I am to some extent still. Between the ages of 10 
 and 12 it gave me exquisite pleasure, which I now regard as sexual 
 
 '■ Even the structure of the vaginal mucous membrane, it may be 
 noted, is analogous to that of the skin. D. Berry Hart, "Note on the 
 Development of the Clitoris, Vagina, and Hymen," Transactions of the 
 Edinburgh Oistetrical Society, vol. xxi, 1896. 
 
 ' W. H. B. Stoddart, "Ansesthesia in the Insane," Journal of 
 Mental Science, October, 1899. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 17 
 
 in character. I used to bribe my younger sister to tickle my feet until 
 she was tired." 
 
 Stanley Hall and Allin in their investigation of the phenomena 
 of tickling, largely carried out among young women teachers, found 
 that in 60 clearly marked cases ticklishness was more marked at one 
 time than another, "as when they have been 'carrying on,' or are in 
 a happy mood, are' nervous or unwell, after a good meal, when being 
 washed, when in perfect health, when with people they like, etc." 
 (Hall and Allin, "Tickling and Laughter," American Journal of 
 Psychology, October, 1897.) It will be observed that most of the con- 
 ditions mentioned are such as would be favorable to excitations of an 
 emotionally sexual character. 
 
 The palms of the hands may be very ticklish during sexual excite- 
 ment, especially in women, and Moll {Kontrdre Sexualempflndung, p. 
 180) remarks that in some men titillation of the skin of the back, of 
 the feet, and even of the forehead evokes erotic feelings. 
 
 It may be added that, as might be expected, titillation of the skin 
 often has the same significance in animals as in man. "In some ani- 
 mals," remarks Louis Kobinson (art. "Ticklishness," Dictionary of 
 Psychological Medicine), "local titillation of the skin, though in parts 
 remote from the reproductive organs, plainly acts indirectly upon 
 them as a stimulus. Thus, Harvey records that, by stroking the back 
 of a favorite parrot (which he had possessed for years and supposed 
 to be a male), he not only gave the bird gratification, — which was the 
 sole intention of the illustrious physiologist, — but also caused it to 
 reveal its sex by laying an egg." 
 
 The sexual significance of tickling is very clearly indicated 
 by the fact that the general ticklishness of the body, which is 
 so marked in children and in young girls, greatly diminishes, as 
 a rule, after sexual relationships have been established. Dr. 
 Gina Lombroso, who investigated the cutaneous reflexes, found 
 that both the abdominal and plantar reflexes, which are well 
 marked ia childhood and in young people between the ages of 
 15 and 18, were much diminished in older persons, and to a 
 greater extent in women than in men, to a greater extent in 
 the abdominal region than on the soles of the feet;' her re- 
 sults do not directly show the influence of sexual relationship, 
 but they have an indirect bearing which is worth noting. 
 
 'Gina Lombroso, "Sur les Reflexes Cutanfe," International Con- 
 gress of Criminal Anthropology, Amsterdam, Comptes Rendus, p. 295. 
 
18 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 The difference in ticldishness between the unmarried 
 woman and the married woman corresponds to their difference 
 in degree of modesty. Both modesty and ticklishness may be 
 said to be characters which are no longer needed. From this 
 point of view the general ticklishness of the skin is a kind of 
 body modesty. It is so even apart from any sexual significance 
 of tickling, and Louis Robinson has pointed out that in young 
 apes, puppies, and other like animals the most ticklish regions 
 correspond to the most vulnerable spots in a fight, and that 
 consequently in the mock fights of early life skill in defending 
 these spots is attained. 
 
 In Iceland, according to Margarethe Filhgg (as quoted by Max Bar- 
 tels, Zeitsohrift fur Ethnologie, 1900, ht. 2-3, p. 57), it may be known 
 whether a youth is pure or a maid is intact by their susceptibility to 
 tickling. It is considered a bad sign if that is lost. 
 
 I am indebted to a medical correspondent for the following com- 
 munication: "Married women liave told me that they find that after 
 marriage they are not ticklish under the arms or on the breasts, though 
 before marriage any tickling or touching in these regions, especially by 
 a man, would make them jump or get hysterical or 'queer,' as they 
 call it. Before coitus the sexual energy seems to be dissipated along 
 all the nerve-channels and especially along the secondary sexual routes, 
 — the breasts, nape of neck, eyebrows, lips, cheeks, armpits, and hair 
 thereon, etc., — but after marriage the surplus energy is diverted from 
 these secondary channels, and response to tickling is diminished. I have 
 often noted in insane cases, especially mania in adolescent girls, that 
 they are excessively ticklish. Again, in ordinary routine practice I 
 have observed that, though married women show no ticklishness dur- 
 ing auscultation and percussion of the chest, this is by no means al- 
 ways so in young girls. Perhaps ticklishness in virgms is Nature's 
 self-protection against rape and sexual advances, and the young girl 
 instinctively wishing to hide the armpits, breasts, and other ticklish 
 regions, tucks herself up to prevent these parts being touched. The 
 married woman, being in love with a man, does not shut up these parts, 
 as she reciprocates the advances that he makes; she no longer requires 
 ticklishness as a protection against sexual aggression." 
 
III. 
 
 The Secondary Sexual Skin Centres— Orificial Contacts— Cunnilingus 
 and Fellatio— The Kiss— The Nipples— The Sympathy of the Breasts 
 with the Primary Sexual Centres— This Connection Operative both 
 through the Nerves and through the Blood— The Influence of Lactation 
 on the Sexual Centres— Suckling and Sexual Emotion— The Significance 
 of the Association between Suckling and Sexual Emotion — This Asso- 
 ciation as a Cause of Sexual Perversity. 
 
 We have seen that the skin generally has a high degree 
 of sensibility, which frequently tends to be in more or less 
 definite association with the sexual centres. We have seen also 
 that the central and specific sexual sensation, the sexual em- 
 brace itself, is, in large measure, a specialized kind of skin 
 reflex. Between the generalized skin sensations and the great 
 primary sex\ial centre of sensation there are certain secondary 
 sexual centres which, on account of their importance, may here 
 be briefly considered. 
 
 These secondary centres have in common the fact that 
 they always involve the entrances and the exits of the body — 
 the regions, that is, where skin merges into mucous membrane, 
 and where, in the course of evolution, tactile sensibility has 
 become highly refined. It may, indeed, be said generally of 
 these frontier regions of the body that their contact with the 
 same or a similar frontier region in another person of opposite 
 sex, under conditions otherwise favorable to tumescence, will 
 tend -to produce a minimum and even sometimes a maximum 
 degree of sexual excitation. Contact of these regions with each 
 other or with the sexual region itself so closely simulates the 
 central sexual reflex that channels are set up for the same 
 nervous energy and secondary sexual centres are constituted. 
 
 It is important to remember that the phenomena we are 
 here concerned with are essentially normal. Many of them are 
 commonly spoken of as perversions. In so far, however, as 
 they are aids to tumescence they must be regarded as coming 
 
 (19) 
 
20 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 within the range of normal variation. They may be consid- 
 ered Tinsesthetic, but that is another matter. It has, moreover, 
 to be remembered that ffisthetie values are changed under the 
 influence of sexual emotion; from the lover's point of view 
 many things are beautiful which are unbeautiful from the point 
 of view of him who is not a lover, and the greater the degree 
 to which the lover is swayed by his passion the greater the 
 extent to which his normal sesthetic standard is liable to be 
 modified. A broad consideration of the phenomena among 
 civilized and uncivilized peoples amply suffices to show the 
 fallacy of the tendency, so common among unscientific writers 
 on these subjects, to introduce normal aesthetic standards into 
 the sexual sphere. From the normal standpoint of ordinary 
 daily life, indeed, the whole process of sex is unssthetic, except 
 the earlier stages of tumescence.'^ 
 
 So long as they constitute a part of the phase of tumes- 
 cence, the utilization of the sexual excitations obtainable 
 through these chaiinels must be considered within the normal 
 range of variation, as we may observe, indeed, among many 
 animals. When, however, such contacts of the orifices of the 
 body, other than those of the male and female sexual organs 
 proper, are used to procure not merely tumescence, but detumes- 
 cence, they become, in the strict and technical sense, perversions. 
 They are perversions in exactly the same sense as are the meth- 
 ods of intercourse which involve the use of checks to prevent 
 fecundation. The esthetic question, however, remains the same 
 as if we were dealing with tumescence. It is necessary that this 
 should be pointed out clearly, even at the risk of misappre- 
 hension, as confusions are here very common. 
 
 The essentially sexual character of the sensitivity of the orificial 
 contacts -is shown by the fact that it may sometimes be accidentally 
 developed even in early childhood. This is well illustrated in a case re- 
 
 ' Jonas Cohn (Allgemeine JEsthetih, 1901, p. 11) lays it down that 
 psychology has nothing to do with good or bad taste. 'The distinction 
 between good and bad taste has no meaning for psychology. On this 
 account, the fundamental conceptions of {esthetics cannot arise from 
 psychology." It may be a question whether this view can be accepted 
 quite absolutely. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 21 
 
 corded by FgrS. A little girl of 4, of nervous temperament and liable 
 to fits of anger in which she would roll on the ground and tear her 
 clothes, once ran out into the garden in such a fit of temper and threw 
 herself on the lawn in a half-naked condition. As she lay there two 
 dogs with whom she was accustomed to play came up and began to 
 lick the uncovered parts of her body. It so happened that as one dog 
 licked her mouth the other licked her sexual parts. She experienced » 
 shock of intense sensation which she could never forget and never de- 
 scribe, accompanied by a delicious tension of the sexual organs. She 
 rose and ran away with a feeling of shame, though she could not com- 
 prehend what had happened. The impression thus made was so pro- 
 found that it persisted throughout life and served as the point of de- 
 parture of sexual perversions, while the contact of a dog's tongue with 
 her mouth alone afterward sufficed to evoke sexual pleasure. (F6r6. 
 Archives de Nenrologle, 1903, No. 90.) 
 
 I do not purpose to discuss here either cunnilingus (the apposi- 
 tion of the mouth to the female pudendum) or fellatio (the apposition 
 of the mouth to the male organ), the agent in the former case being, in 
 normal heterosexual relationships, a man, in the latter a woman; they 
 are not purely tactile phenomena, but involve various other physical 
 and psychic elements. Cunnilingus was a very familiar manifestation in 
 classic times, as shown by frequent and mostly very contemptuous refer- 
 ences in Aristophajies, Juvenal, and many other Greek and Roman 
 writers; the Greeks regarded it as a Phoenician practice, just as it Is 
 now commonly considered French; it tends to be especially prevalent 
 at all periods of high civilization. Fellatio has also been equally well 
 known, in both ancient and modern times, especially as practiced by 
 inverted men. It may be accepted that both cunnilingus and fellatio, 
 as practiced by either sex, are liable to occur among Jjealthy or mor- 
 bid persons, in heterosexual or homosexual relationships. They have 
 little psychological significance, except to the extent that when prac- 
 ticed to the exclusion of normal sexual relationships they become per- 
 versions, and as such tend to be associated with various degenerative 
 conditions, although such associations are not invariable. 
 
 The essentially normal character of cunnilingus and fellatio, when 
 occurring as incidents in the process of tumescence*, is shown by the 
 fact that they are practiced by many animals. This is the case, for 
 instance, among dogs. Moll points out that not infrequently the bitch, 
 while under the dog, but before intromission, will change her position 
 to lick the dog's penis — apparently from an instinctive impulse to 
 heighten her own and his excitement — and then return to the normal 
 position, while cunnilingus is of constant occurrence among animals, 
 and on account of its frequency among dogs was called by the Greeks 
 o-icuXal (Eosenbaum, Oeschichte der lAislseuche im AUertume, fifth 
 edition, pp. 260-278 ; also notes in Moll, Untersuchungen iiber pie 
 
22 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 Libido Sexualis, Bd. 1, pp. 134, 369; and Bloeh, Beitrage zur JEtiologie 
 der Psycopathia Sexualis, Teil II, pp. 216 et seq.) 
 
 The occunence of cunnilingus as a sexual episode ol tumescence 
 among lower human races is well illustrated by a practice of the natives 
 of the Caroline Islands (as recorded by Kubary in Kis ethnographic study 
 of this people and quoted by Ploss and Bartels, Das Weib, vol. i). It is 
 here customary for a man to place a piece of fish between the labia, 
 while he stimulates the latter by his tongue and teeth until under 
 stress of sexual excitement the woman urinates; this is regarded as an 
 indication that the proper moment for intercourse has arrived. Su.h 
 a practice rests on physiologically sound facts whatever may be thought 
 of it from an aesthetic standpoint. 
 
 The contrast between the normal sesthetie standpoint in this mat- 
 ter and the lover's is well illustrated by the following quotations: Dr. 
 A. B. Holder, in the course of his description of the American Indian 
 bote, remarks, concerning fellatio: "Of all the many varieties of sexual 
 perversion, this, it seems to me, is the most debased that could be con- 
 ceived of." On the other hand, in a communication from a writer and 
 scholar of high intellectual distinction occurs the statement: "I aflBrm 
 that, of all sexual acts, fellatio is most an affair of imagination and sym- 
 pathy." It must be pointed out that there is no contradiction in these 
 two statements, and that each is justified, according as we take the point 
 of view of the ordinary onlooker or of the impassioned lover eager to 
 give a final proof of his or her devotion. It must be added that from 
 a scientific point of view we are not entitled to take either side. 
 
 Of the whole of this group of phenomena, the most typical 
 and the most widespread example is certai nly t h e ki ss. We 
 have in the lips a highly sensitive frontier region between skin 
 and niuc6us"in^einl)faiie7 in "many" respects analogous to the 
 vulvo-vaginal orifice, and reinforcible, moreover, by the active 
 movements of the still more highly sensitive tongue. Close and 
 prolonged contact of these regions, therefore, under conditions 
 favorable to tumescence sets up a powerful current of nervous 
 stimulation. Affer those contacts in which the sexual regions 
 themselves take a direct part, there is certainly no such chan- 
 nel for directing nervous force into the sexual sphere as the 
 kiss. This is nowhere so well recognized as in France, where 
 a young girl's lips are religiously kept for her lover, to such 
 an extent, indeed, that young girls sometimes come to believe 
 that the whole physical side of love is comprehended in a kiss 
 on the mouth; so highly intelligent a woman as Madame Adam 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN, 23 
 
 has described the agony she felt as a girl when kissed on the 
 lips by a man, owing to the conviction that she had thereby 
 lost her virture. Although the lips occupy this highly impor- 
 tant position as a secondary sexual focus in the sphere of touch, 
 the kiss is — unlike cunnilingiis and /e^Zaito— confined to man and, 
 indeed, to a large extent, to civilized man. .It is the outcome , 
 of a. compound evolution which ha d its b e ginnui g o^tjide™the'y 
 sphere of toudji' ''an3''it^" 
 
 l^^'^'llEi-^teresting question' of Tts'developnienrin 'this place.i 
 It wm be "discussed elsewhere.^ - — *^««««..,. ,^ 
 
 There is yet another orificial frontier region which is a 
 highly unportant tactile sexual focus : the nipple. The breasts 
 raise, indeed, several interesting questions in their intimate 
 connection with the sexual sphere and it may be worth while to 
 consider them at this point. 
 
 The breasts have from the present point of view this spe- 
 cial significance among the sexual centres that they primarily 
 exist, not for the contact of the lover, but the contact of the 
 child. This is doubtless, indeed, the fundamental fact on 
 which all the touch contacts we are here conceTned with have 
 grown up. The sexual sensitivity of the lover's lips to orificial 
 contacts has been developed from the sensitivity of the infant's 
 lips to contact with his mother's nipple. It is on the ground of 
 that evolution that we are bound to consider here the precise 
 position of the breasts as a sexual centre. 
 
 As the great secreting organs of milk, the function of the 
 breasts must begin immediately 'the child is cut off from the 
 nutrition derived from direct contact with his mother's blood. 
 It is therefore essential that the connection between the sexual 
 organs proper, more especially the womb, and the breasts 
 should be exceedingly intimate, so that the breasts may be in a 
 condition to respond adequately to the demand of the child's 
 sucking lips at the earliest moment after birth. As a matter 
 of fact, this connection is very intimate, so intimate that it 
 takes place in two totally distinct ways — by the nervous system 
 and by the blood. 
 
 'See Appendix A: "The Origins of the Kiss." 
 
24 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 The breasts of young girls sometimes become tender at puberty 
 in sympathy with the evolution of the sexual organs, although the 
 swelling of the breasts at this period is not normally a glandular process. 
 At the recurring periods of menstruation, again, sensations in the 
 breasts are not uncommon. 
 
 It is not, however, until impregnation occurs that really decisive 
 changes take place in the breasts. "As soon as the ovum is impreg- 
 nated, that is to say within a few days," as W. D. A. GrifRth states it 
 ("The Diagnosis of Pregnancy," British Medical Journal, April 11, 1903), 
 "the changes begin to occur in the breast, changes which are just as 
 well worked out as are the changes in the uterus and the vagina, 
 which, from the commencement of pregnancy, prepare for the labor 
 which ought to follow nine months afterward. These are changes in 
 the direction of marked activity of function. An organ which was pre- 
 viously quite passive, without activity of circulation and the effects 
 of active circulation, begins to grow and continues to grow in activity 
 and size as pregnancy progresses." 
 
 The association between breasts and womb is so obvious that it 
 has not escaped many savage peoples, who are often, indeed, excel- 
 lent observers. Among one primitive people at least the activity of 
 the breast at impregnation seems to be clearly recognized. The Sinangolo 
 of British New Guinea, says Seligmann {Journal of the Anthropological 
 Institute, July-December, 1902, p. 298) believe that conception takes 
 place in the breasts; on this account they hold that coitus should never 
 take place before the child is weaned or he might imbibe semen with 
 the milk. 
 
 It is natural to assume that this connection between the activity 
 of the womb and the glandular activity of the breasts is a nervous con- 
 nection, by means of the spinal cord, and such a connection certainly 
 exists and plays a very important part in the stimulating action of 
 the breasts on the sexual organs. But that there is a more direct 
 channel of communication even than the nervous system is shown 
 by the fact that the secretion of milk will take place at parturition, 
 even when the nervous connection has been destroyed. Mironoff 
 found that, when the mammary gland is completely separated from 
 the central nervous system, secretion, though slightly diminished, still 
 continued. In two goats he cut the nerves shortly before parturition 
 and after birth the breasts still swelled and functioned normally 
 {Archives des Sciences Biologiques, St. Petersburg, 1895, sunimarized in 
 V Annie Biologique; 1895, p. 329). Ribbert, again, cut out the mam- 
 mary gland of a young rabbit and transplanted it into the ear; five 
 months after the rabbit bore young and the gland secreted milk freely. 
 The ease has been reported of a woman whose spinal cord was de- 
 stroyed by an accident at the level of the fifth and sixth dorsal ver- 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN WAN. 25 
 
 tebrae, yet lactation was p€rfect)y normal (British Medical Journal, 
 August 5, 1899, p. 374). We are driven to suppose that there is some 
 chemical change in the blood, some internal secretion from the uterus 
 or the ovaries, which acts as a direct stimulant to the breasts. (See 
 a comprehensive discussion of the phenomena of the connection between 
 the breasts and sexual organs, though the conclusions are not unas- 
 sailable, by Temesvary, Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the 
 British Empire, June, 1903). That this hypothetical secretion starts 
 from the womb rather than the ovaries seems to be indicated by the 
 fact that removal of both ovaries during pregnancy will not suf- 
 fice to prevent lactation. In favor of the ovaries, see Beat'son, Lancet, 
 July, 1896; in favor of the uterus, Armand Routh, "On the Inter- 
 action between the Ovaries and the Mammary Glands," British M.d- 
 ical Journal, September 30, 1899). 
 
 While, however, the communications from the sexual or- 
 gans to the breast are of a complex and at present ill under- 
 stood character, the communication from the breasts to the sexual 
 organs is without doubt mainly and chiefly nervous. When the 
 child is put to the breast after birth the suction of the nipple 
 causes a reflex contraction of the womb, and it is held by 
 many, though not all, authorities that in a woman who does 
 not suckle her child there is some risk that the womb will not 
 return to its normal involuted size. It has also been asserted 
 that to put a child to the breast during the early months of 
 pregnancy causes so great a degree of uterine contraction that 
 abortion may result. 
 
 Freund found in Germany that stimulation of the nipples by an 
 electrical cupping apparatus brought about contraction of the pregnant 
 uterus. At an earlier period it was recommended to irritate the nipple 
 in order to excite the uterus to parturient action. Simpson, while 
 pointing out that this was scarcely adequate to produce the effect de- 
 sired, thought that placing a child to the breast after labor had begun 
 might increase uterine action. (J. Y. Simpson, Obstetric Memoirs, 
 vol i, p. 836; also F6r6, L'Instinct Sexuel, second edition, p. 132). 
 
 The influence of lactation over the womb in preventing the return 
 of menstruation during its continuance is well known. According to 
 Remfry's investigation of 900 eases in England, in 57 per cent, of cases 
 there is no menstruation during lactation. (L. Remfry, in paper read 
 before Obstetrical Society of London, summarized in the British Medical 
 Journal, January 11, 1896, p. 86). Bendix, in Germany, found among 
 
26 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 140 cases that in about 40 per cent, there was no menstruation during 
 lactation (paper read before Dusseldorf meeting of the Society of Ger- 
 man Naturalists and Physicians, 1899). When the child is not suckled 
 menstruation tends to reappear about six months after parturition. 
 It is possible that the divergent opinions of authorities concerning 
 the necessarily favorable influence of lactation in promoting the return 
 of the womb to its normal size may be due to a confusion of two 
 distinct influences: the reflex action of the nipple on the womb and 
 the effects of prolonged glandular secretion of the breasts In debilitated 
 persons. The act of suckling undoubtedly tends to promote uterine 
 contraction, and in healthy women during lactation the womb may 
 even (according to Vineberg) be temporarily reduced to a smaller size 
 than before impregnation, thus producing what is known as "lactation 
 atrophy." In debilitated women, however, the strain of milk-produc- 
 tion may lead to general lack of muscular tone, and involution of 
 the womb thus be hindered rather than aided by lactation. 
 
 On the objective side, then, the nipple is to be regarded 
 as an erectile organ, richly supplied with nerves and vessels, 
 which, under the stimulation of the infant's lips — or any simi- 
 lar compression, and even under the influence of emotion or 
 cold, — becomes firm and projects, mainly as a result of mus- 
 cular contraction; for, unlike the penis and the clitoris, the 
 nipple contains no true erectile tissue and little capacity for 
 vascular engorgement.' We must then suppose that an im- 
 petus tends to be transmitted through the spinal cord to the 
 sexual organs, setting up a greater or less degree of nervous 
 and muscular excitement with uterine contraction. These be- 
 ing the objective manifestations, what manifestations are to be 
 noted on the subjective side? 
 
 It is a remarkable proof of the general indifference with 
 which in Europe even the fairly constant and prominent charac- 
 teristics of the psychology of women have been treated until 
 recent times that, so far as I am aware, — though I have made 
 no special research to this end, — no one before the end of the 
 eighteenth century had recorded the fact that the act of 
 suckling tends to produce in women voluptuous sexual emo- 
 
 ' See J. B. Hellier, "On the Nipple Reflex," British Medical Jour- 
 nal, November 7, 1896. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 27 
 
 tions. Cabanis in 1802, in the memoir on "Influence des 
 Sexes" in his Eapports du Physique et du Moral de I'Homme, 
 wrote that several suckling women had told him that the child 
 in sucking the breast made them experience a vivid sensation 
 of pleasure, shared in some degree bj' the sexual organs. There 
 can be no doubt that in healthy suckling women this phenom- 
 enon is exceedingly common, though in the absence of any 
 methodical and precise investigation it cannot be affirmed that 
 it is experienced by every woman in some degree, and it is 
 highly probable that this is not the case. One lady, perfectly 
 normal, states that she has had stronger sexual feelings in 
 suckling her children than she has ever experienced with her 
 husband, but that so far as possible she has tried to repress 
 them, as she regards them as brutish under these circum- 
 stances. Many other women state generally that suckling is 
 the most delicious physical feeling they have ever experienced. 
 In most cases, however, it does not appear to lead to a desire 
 for intercourse, and some of those who make this statement 
 have no desire for coitus during lactation, though they may 
 have strong sexual needs at other times. It is probable that 
 this corresponds to the normal condition, and that the volup- 
 tuous sensations aroused by suckling are adequately gratified 
 by the child. It may be added that there are probably many 
 women who could say, with a lady quoted by Fere,^ that the 
 only real pleasures of sex they have ever known are those de- 
 rived from their suckling infants. 
 
 It is not difficult to see why this normal association of 
 sexual emotion with suckling should have come about. It is 
 essential for the preservation of the lives of young mammals 
 that the mothers should have an adequate motive in pleasurable 
 sensation for enduring the trouble of suckling. The most ob- 
 vious method for obtaining the necessary degree of pleasurable 
 sensation lay in utilizing the reservoir of sexual emotion, with 
 which channels of communication might already be said to be 
 open through the action of the sexual organs on the breasts 
 
 ' Fi5r6, L'liisUnct Sewuel, second edition, p. 147. 
 
28 rSYCHOLOGT OF SEX. 
 
 during pregnancy. The voluptuous element in suckling may- 
 thus be called a merciful provision of Nature for securing the 
 maintenance of the child. 
 
 Cabanis seems to have realized the significance of this connection 
 as the basis of the sympathy between mother and child, and more re- 
 cently Lombroso and Fenero have remarked (La Donna Delinquente, 
 p. 438) on the fact that maternal love has a sexual basis in the element 
 of venereal pleasure, though usually inconsiderable, experienced during 
 suckling. Houzeau has referred to the fact that in the majority of 
 animals the relation between mother and offspring is only close during 
 the period of lactation, and this is certainly connected with the fact that 
 It is only during lactation that the female animal can derive physical 
 gratification from her offspring. When living on a farm I have ascer- 
 tained that cows sometimes, though not frequently, exhibit sl'ght signs 
 of sexual excitement, with secretion of mucus, while being milked; so 
 that, as the dairymaid herself observed, it is as if they were being 
 "bulled." The sow, like some other mammals, often eats her own 
 young after birth, mistaking them, it Is thought, for the placenta, 
 which Is normally eaten by most mammals; It Is said that the sow never 
 eats her young when they have once taken the teat. 
 
 It occasionally happens that this normal tendency for suckling to 
 produce voluptuous sexual emotions is present In an extreme degree, 
 and may lead to sexual perversions. It does not appear that the sexual 
 sensations aroused by suckling usually culminate in the orgasm; this 
 however, was noted In a case recorded by F6r6, of a slightly neurotic 
 woman in whom intense sexual excitement occurred during suckling, 
 especially if prolonged; so far as possible, she shortened the periods of 
 suckling in order to prevent, not always successfully, the occurrence 
 of the orgasm (Fgrfi, Archives de Neurologie No. 30, 1903). Icard refers 
 to the case of a woman who sought to become pregnant solely for 
 the sake of the voluptuous sensations she derived from suckling, and 
 Yellowlees {Art. "Masturbation," Dictionary of Psychological Medicine) 
 speaks of the overwhelming character of "the storms of sexual feeling 
 sometimes obsei-ved during lactation." 
 
 It may be remarked that the frequency of the association between 
 lactation and the sexual sensations Is Indicated by the fact that, as 
 Savage remarks, lactational Insanity is often accompanied by fancies 
 regarding the reproductive organs. 
 
 When we have realized the special sensitivity of the ori- 
 fic'ial regions and the peculiarly close relationships between the 
 breasts and the sexual organs we may easily understand the 
 considerable part which they normally play in the art of love. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 29 
 
 As one of the chief secondary sexual characters in women, and 
 one of her chief beauties, a woman's breasts offer themselves to 
 the lover's lips with a less intimate attraction than her mouth 
 only because the mouth is better able to respond. On her side, 
 such contact is often instinctively desired. Just as the sexual 
 disturbance of pregnancy is accompanied by a sympathetic 
 disturbance in the breasts, so the sexual excitement produced 
 by the lover's proximity reacts on the breasts; the nipple be- 
 comes turgid and erect in sympathy with the clitoris; the 
 woman craves to place her lover in the place of the child, and 
 experiences a sensation in which these two supreme objects 
 of her desire are deliciously mingled. 
 
 The powerful eflfect which stimulation of the nipple produces on 
 the sexual sphere has led to the breasts playing a prominent part in 
 the erotic art of those lands in which this art has been most care- . 
 fully cultivated. Thus inJjj^i§|^ccording to Vatsyayana , many authors 
 are of the opinion that in approaching a womanalOTer should begin 
 by sucking the nipples of her breasts, and in the songs of the Bayaderes 
 of Southern India sucking the nipple is mentioned as one of the 
 natural preliminaries of coitus. 
 
 In some cases, and more especially in neurotic persons, the sexual 
 pleasure derived from manipulation of the nipple passes normal limits 
 and, being preferred even to coitus, becomes a perversion. In girls' 
 schools, it is said, especially in France, sucking and titillation of 
 the breasts are not uncommon; in men, also, titillation of the nipples 
 oecasionally produces sexual sensations (Fgrfe, L'Instinct Sexuel, second 
 edition, p. 132). Hildebrandt recorded the case of a young woman 
 whose nipples had been sucked by her lover; by constantly drawing 
 her breasts she became able to suck them herself and thus attained 
 extreme sexual pleasure. A. J. Bloch, of New Orleans, has noted 
 the case of a woman who complained of swelling of the breasts; the 
 gentlest manipulation produced an orgasm, and it was found that the 
 swelling had been intentionally produced for the sake of this manipu- 
 lation. Moraglia in Italy knew a very beautiful woman who was per- 
 fectly cold in normal sexual relationships, but madly excited when her 
 husband pressed or sucked her breasts. Lombroso (ArcMvio di 
 PsicMatria, 1885, fasc. IV) has described the somewhat similar case 
 of a woman who had no sexual sensitivity in the clitoris, vagina, or 
 labia, and no pleasure in coitus except in very strange positions, but 
 possessed intense sexual feelings in the right nipple as well as in the 
 upper third of the thigh. 
 
30 PSYCnOLOGT OF SEX. 
 
 It is remarkable that not only is suckling apt to be acpom- 
 panied by sexual pleasure In the mother, but that, in some cases, 
 the infant also appears to have a somewhat similar experience. This 
 is, at all events, indicated in a remarkable case recorded by F6r6 
 {L' Instinct Sexual, second edition, p. 257). A female infant child of 
 slightly neurotic heredity was weaned at the age of 14 months, but so 
 gi-eat was her affection for her mother's breasts, though she had 
 already become accustomed to other food, that this was only accom- 
 plished with great difficulty and by allowing her still to caress the 
 naked breasts several times a day. This went on for many months, 
 when the mother, becoming again pregnant, insisted on putting an end 
 to it. So jealous was the child, however, that it was necessary to con- 
 ceal from her the fact that her younger sister was suckled at her 
 mother's breasts, and once at the age of 3, when she saw her father 
 aiding her mother to undress, she became violently jealous of him. 
 This jealousy, as well as the passion for her mother's breasts, persisted 
 to the age of puberty, though she learned to conceal it. At the age of 
 13, when menstruation began, she noticed in dancing with her favorite 
 girl friends that when her breasts came in contact with theirs she ex- 
 perienced a very agieeable sensation, with erection- of the nipples; but 
 it was not till the age of 16 that she observed that the sexual region 
 took part in this excitement and became moist. From this period she 
 had erotic dreams about young girls. She never experienced any at- 
 traction for young men, but eventually married; though having much 
 esteem and affection for her husband, she never felt any but the slight- 
 est sexual enjoyment in his arms, and then only by evoking feminine 
 images. This case, in which the sensations of an infant at the breast 
 formed the point of departure of a sexual perversion which lasted 
 through life, is, so far as I am aware, unique. 
 
IV. 
 
 The Bath — Antagonism of Primitive Christianity to tlie Cult of 
 the Skin— Its Cult of Personal Filth— The Reasons which Justified this 
 Attitude — The World-wide Tendency to Association between Extreme 
 Cleanliness and Sexual Licentiousness — The Immorality Associated 
 with Public Baths in Europe down to Modem Times. 
 
 The hygiene of the skin, as well as its special cult, con- 
 sists in bathing. The bath, as is well known, attained under 
 the Eomans a degree of development which, in Europe at all- 
 events, it has never reached before or since, and the modern 
 visitor to Rome carries away with him no more impressive 
 memory than that of the Baths of Caracalla. Since the coming 
 of Christianity the cult of the skin, and even its hygiene, have 
 never again attained the same general and unquestioned ex- 
 altation. The Church killed the bath. St. Jerome tells us with 
 approval that when the holy Paula noted that any of her nuns 
 were too careful in this matter she would gravely reprove them, 
 saying that "the purity of the body and its garments means 
 the impurity of the soul."^ Or, as the modern monk of Mount 
 Athos still declares: "A man should live in dirt as in a coat 
 of mail, so that his soul may sojourn more securely within." 
 
 Our knowledge of the bathing arrangements of Koman days is 
 chiefly derived from Pompeii. Three public baths (two for both men 
 and women, who were also probably allowed to use the third occasion- 
 ally) have so far been excavated in this small town, as well as at least 
 three private bathing establishments (at least one of them for women), 
 while about a dozen houses contain complete baths for private use. 
 Even in a little farm house at Boscoreale (two miles out of Pompeii) 
 there was an elaborate series of bathing rooms. It may be added that 
 Pompeii was well supplied with water. All houses but the poorest had 
 
 ' "Dicens munditiam corporis atque vestitus animm esse immun- 
 ditiam." — St. Jerome, Ad Eustochium Tirginem, 
 
 (.^1) 
 
32 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 flowing jets, and some houses had as many as ten jets. (See Mau's 
 Pompeii, Chapters XXVI-XXVIII.) 
 
 The Church succeeded to the domination of imperial Rome, and 
 adopted many of the methods of its predecessor. But there could be 
 no greater contrast than is presented by the attitude of Paganism and 
 of Christianity toward the bath. 
 
 As regards the tendencies of the public baths in imperial Rome, 
 some of the evidence is brought together in the section on this 
 subject in Rosenbaum's GescMchte der Lustseuche im Alterthume. 
 As regards the attitude of the earliest Christian ascetics in this 
 matter I may refer the reader to an interesting passage in Lecky's 
 History of European Morals (vol. ii, pp. 107-112), in which are brought 
 together a number of highly instructive examples of the manner in 
 which many of the most eminent of the early saints deliberately cul- 
 tivated personal filth. 
 
 In the middle ages, when the extreme excesses of the early ascetics 
 had died out, and monasticlsm became regulated, monks generally took 
 two baths a year when in health; in illness they could be taken 
 as often as necessary. The rules of Cluny only allowed three towels 
 to the community: one for the novices, one for the professed, and one 
 for the lay brothers. At the end of the seventeenth century Madame 
 de Mazarin, having retired to a convent of Visitandines, one day de- 
 sired to wash her feet, but the whole establishment was set in an up- 
 roar at such an idea, and she received a direct refusal. In 1700 the 
 Dominican Richard wrote that in itself the bath is permissible, but it 
 must be taken solely for necessity, not for pleasure. The Church 
 taught, and this lesson is still inculcated in convent schools, that it 
 is wrong to expose the body even to one's own gaze, and it is not 
 surprising that many holy persons boasted that they had never even 
 washed their hands. (Most of these facts have been taken from A. 
 Franklin, Les Soins de Toilette, one of the Tie Privie d'Autrefois series, 
 in which further details may be found.) 
 
 In sixteenth-century Italy, a land of supreme elegance and fashion, 
 superior even to France, the conditions were the same, and how little 
 water found favor even with aristocratic ladies we may gather from 
 the contemporary books on the toilet, which abound with recipes 
 against itch and similar diseases. It should be added that Burckhardt 
 (Die Gultwr der Renaissance in Italien, eighth edition, volume ii, p. 
 92) considers that in spite of skin diseases the Italians of the Renais- 
 sance were the first nation in Europe for cleanliness. 
 
 It is unnecessary to consider the state of things in other European 
 countries. The aristocratic conditions of former days are the plebeian 
 conditions of to-day. So far as England is concerned, such documents 
 as Chadwick's Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Laboiiny Popa- 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 83 
 
 lation of Great Britain (1842) sufficiently illustrate the ideas and the 
 practices as regards personal cleanliness which prevailed among the 
 masses during the nineteenth century and which to a large extent still 
 prevail. 
 
 A considerable amount of opprobrium has been cast upon 
 the Catholic Church for its direct and indirect influence in 
 promoting bodily uncleanliness. Nietzsche sarcastically refers 
 to the facts, and Mr. Frederick Harrison asserts that "the tone 
 of the middle ages in the matter of dirt was a form of mental 
 disease." It would be easy to quote many other authors to the 
 same effect. 
 
 It is necessary to point out, however, that the writers who 
 have committed themselves to such utterances have not only 
 done an injustice to Christianity, but have shown a lack of his- 
 torical insight. Christianity was essentially and fundamentally 
 a rebellion against, the classic world, against its vices, and 
 against their concomitant virtues, against both its practices 
 and its ideals. It sprang up in a different part of the Medi- 
 terranean basin, from a different level of culture; it found its 
 supporters in a new and lower social stratum. The cult of 
 charity, simplicity, and faith, while not primarily ascetic, be- 
 came inevitably allied with asceticism, because from its point 
 of view sexuality was the very stronghold of the classic world. 
 In the second century the genius of Clement of Alexandria and 
 of the great Christian thinkers who followed him seized on all 
 those elements in classic life and philosophy which could be 
 amalgamated with Christianity without, as they trusted, de- 
 stroying its essence, but in the matter of sexuality there could 
 be no compromise, and the condemnation of sexuality involved 
 the condemnation of the bath. It required very little insight 
 and sagacity for the Christians to see— though we are now apt 
 to slur over the fact— that the cult of the bath was in very 
 truth the cult of the flesh.^ However profound their ignorance 
 
 'With regard to the physiological mechanism by which hathing 
 produces its tonic and stimulating effects Woods Hutchinson has an 
 interesting discussion (Chapter VII) in his Studies in Euman and 
 Comparative Pathology. 
 
34 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 of anatomy, physiology, and psychology might be, they had 
 before them ample evidence to show that the skin is an outlying 
 sexual zone and that every application which promoted the 
 purity, brilliance, and healthfulness of the skin constituted a 
 direct appeal, feeble or strong as the case might be, to those 
 passions against which they were warring. The moral was evi- 
 dent : better let the temporary garment of your flesh be soaked 
 with dirt than risk staining the radiant purity of your immor- 
 tal soul. If Christianity had not drawn that moral with clear 
 insight and relentless logic Christianity would never have been 
 a great force in the world. 
 
 If any doubt is felt as to the really essential character of the 
 connection between cleanliness and the sexual impulse it may be dis- 
 pelled by the consideration that the association is by no means con- 
 fined to Christian Europe. If we go outside Europe and even Christen- 
 dom altogether, to the other side of the world, we find it still well 
 marked. The wantonness of the luxurious people of Tahiti when first 
 discovered by European voyagers is notorious. The Areoi of Tahiti, a 
 society largely constituted on a basis of debauchery, is a unique insti- 
 tution so far as primitive peoples are concerned. Cook, after giving 
 one . of the earliest descriptions of this society and its objects at 
 Tahiti (Hawkesworth, An Account of Toyuges, etc., 1775, vol. ii, p. 55), 
 immediately goes on to describe the extreme and scrupulous cleanliness 
 of the people of Tahiti in every respect; they not only bathed their 
 bodies and clothes every day, but in all respects they carried cleanli- 
 ness to a higher point than even "the politest assembly in Europe." 
 Another traveler bears similar testimony: "The inhabitants of the 
 Society Isles are, among all the nations of the South Seas, the most 
 cleanly; and the better sort of them carry cleanliness to a very great 
 length"; they bathe morning and evening in the sea, he remarks, and 
 afterward in fresh water to remove the particles of salt, wash their 
 hands before and after meals, etc. (J. R. Forster, "Observations made 
 during a Voyage round the World," 1798, p. 398.) And William Ellis, 
 in his detailed description of the people of Tahiti {Polynesian Re- 
 searches, 1832, vol. i, especially Chapters VI and IX), while emphasizing 
 their extreme cleanliness, every person of every class bathing at least 
 once or twice a day, dwells on what he considers their unspeak- 
 able moral debasement; "notwithstanding the apparent mildness of 
 their disposition and the cheerful vivacity of their conversation, no 
 portion of the human race was ever perhaps sunk lower in brutal 
 licentiousness and moral degradation." 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. ' 35 
 
 After leaving Tahiti Cook went on to New Zealand. Here he 
 found that the people were more virtuous than at Tahiti, and also, he 
 found, less clean. 
 
 It is, however, a mistake to suppose that physical unclean- 
 liness ruled supreme through mediaeval and later times. It is 
 true that the eighteenth century, which saw the birth of so 
 much that marks our modern world, witnessed a revival of the 
 old ideal of bodily purity. But the struggle between two op- 
 posing ideals had been carried on for a thousand years or more 
 before this. The Church, indeed, was in this matter founded 
 on an impregnable rock. But there never has been a time when 
 influences outside the Church have not found a shelter some- 
 where. Those traditions of the classic world which Christianity 
 threw aside as useless or worse quietly reappeared. In no re- 
 spect was this more notably the case than in regard to the 
 love of pure water and the cult of the bath. Islam adopted 
 the complete Roman bath, and made it an institution of daily 
 life, a necessity for all classes. Granada is the spot in Europe 
 where to-day we find the most exquisite remains of Moham- 
 medan culture, and, though the fury of Christian conquest 
 dragged the harrow over the soil of Granada, even yet streams 
 and fountains spring up there and gush abundantly and one sel- 
 dom loses the sound of the plash of water. The flower of 
 Christian chivalry and Christian intelligence went to Palestine 
 to wrest the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of pagan Moham- 
 medans. They found there many excellent things which they 
 had not gone out to seek, and the Crusaders produced a kind of 
 premature and abortive Renaissance, the shadow of lost classic 
 things reflected on Christian Europe from the mirror of Islam. 
 
 Yet it is worth while to point out, as bearing on the asso- 
 ciations of the bath here emphasized, that even in Islam we may trace 
 the existence of a religious attitude unfavorable to the bath. Before 
 the time of Mohammed there were no public baths in Arabia, and it 
 was and is believed that baths are specially haunted by the djinn — the 
 evil spirits. Mohammed himself was at first so prejudiced against 
 public baths that he forbade both men and women to enter them. After- 
 ward, however, he permitted men to use them provided they wore a 
 
36 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 cloth round the loins, and women also when they could not con- 
 veniently bathe at home. Among the Prophet's sayings is found the 
 assertion: "Whatever woman enters a bath the devil is with her,'' and 
 "All the earth is given to me as a place of prayer, and as pure, ex- 
 cept the burial ground and the bath." (See, e.g., E. W. Lane, Araiian 
 Society in the Middle Ages, 1883, pp. 179-183. ) Although, therefore, the 
 bath, or hammam, on grounds of ritual ablution, hygiene, and enjoy- 
 ment speedily became universally popular in Islam among all classes 
 and both sexes, Mohammed himself may be said to have opposed it. 
 
 Among the discoveries which the Crusaders made and 
 brought home with them one of the most notable was that 
 of the bath, which in its more elaborate forms seems to have 
 been absolutely forgottten in Europe, though Eoman baths 
 might everywhere have been found underground. All authori- 
 ties seem to be agreed in finding here the origin of the revival 
 of the public bath. It is to Eome first, and later to Islam, the 
 lineal inheritor of classic culture, that we owe the cult of water 
 and of physical purity. Even to-day the Turkish bath, which 
 is the most popular of elaborate methods of bathing, recalls 
 by its characteristics and its name the fact that it is a Moham- 
 medan survival of Eoman life. 
 
 Prom the twelfth century onward baths have repeatedly 
 been introduced from the East, and reintroduced afresh in 
 slightly modified forms, and have flourished with varying de- 
 grees of success. In the thirteenth century they were very 
 common, especially in Paris, and though they were often used, 
 more especially in Germany, by both sexes in common, every 
 effort was made to keep them orderly and respectable. These 
 efforts were, however, always unsuccessful in the end. A bath 
 always tended in the end to become a brothel, and hence either 
 became unfashionable or was suppressed by the authorities. It 
 is suf&cient to refer to the reputation in England of "hot- 
 houses" and "bagnios." It was not until toward the end of 
 the eighteenth century that it began to be recognized that the 
 claims of physical cleanliness were sufficiently imperative to 
 make it necessary that the fairly avoidable risks to morality in 
 bathing should be avoided and the unavoidable risks bravely 
 incurred. At the present day, now that we are accustomed to 
 
BEXITAL SELECTION IN MAN. 37 
 
 weave ingeniously together in the texture of our lives the con- 
 flicting traditions of classic and Christian days, we have almost 
 persuaded ourselves that the pagan virtue of cleanliness comes 
 next after godliness, and we bathe, forgetful of the great moral 
 struggle which once went on around the bath. But we refrain 
 from buUding ourselves palaces to bathe in, and for the most 
 part we bathe with exceeding moderation.^ It is probable that 
 we may best harmonize our conflicting traditions by rejecting 
 not only the Christian glorification of dirt, but also, save for 
 definitely therapeutic purposes, the excessive heat, friction, and 
 stimulation involved by the classic forms of bathing. Our 
 reasonable ideal should render it easy and natural for every 
 man, woman, and child to have a simple bath, tepid in winter, 
 cold in summer, all the year round. 
 
 For the history of the bath in mediaeval times and later Europe, 
 see A. Franklin, Les Solns de Toilette, in the Vie Privie d'Autrefois se- 
 ries; Rudeck, GesoMchte der offentUchen SittUchkeit in Deutschland; T. 
 Wright, The Homes of Other Days; E. Duhren, Das GescMecMsleben in 
 England, bd. 1. 
 
 Outside the Church, there was a greater amount of cleanliness than 
 we are sometimes apt to suppose. It may, indeed, be said that the uii- 
 cleanliness of holy men and women would have attracted no attention 
 if it had corresponded to the condition generally prevailing. Before pub- 
 lic baths were established bathing in private was certainly practiced; 
 thus Ordericua Vitalis, in narrating the murder of Mabel, the Countess 
 de Montgomery, in Normandy in 1082, casually mentions that she was 
 lying on the bed after her bath {Ecclesiastical History, Book V, Chap- 
 ter XIII). In warm weather, it would appear, mediseval ladies bathed 
 in streams, as we may still see countrywomen do in Russia, Bohemia, 
 and occasionally nearer home. The statement of the historian Michelet, 
 therefore, that Percival, Iseult, and the other ethereal personages of 
 mcdiseval times "certainly never washed" {La Sorciire, p. 110) requires 
 some qualification. 
 
 In 1292 there were twenty-six bathing establishments in Paris, 
 and an attend,ant would go through the streets in the morning announc- 
 ing that they were ready. One could have a vapor bath only or a 
 hot bath to succeed it, as in the East. No woman of bad reputation, 
 
 'Thus among the young women admitted to the Chicago Normal 
 School to be trained as teachers. Miss Lura Sanborn, the director of 
 physical training, states {Doctor's Magazine, December, 1900) that a 
 bath once a fortnight is found to be not unusual. 
 
38 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 leper, or vagabond was at this time allowed to frequent the baths, 
 which were closed on Sundays and feast-days. By the fourteenth cen- 
 tury, however, the baths began to have a reputation for immorality, 
 as well as luxury, and, according to Dufour, the baths of Paris "rivaled 
 those of imperial Kome: love, prostitution, and debauchery attracted 
 the majority to the bathing establishments, where everything was cov- 
 ered by a decent veil." He adds that, notwithstanding the scandal 
 thus caused and the invectives of preachers, all went to the baths, 
 young and old, rich and poor, and he makes the statement, which 
 seems to echo the constant assertion of the early Fathers, that "a 
 woman who frequented the baths returned home physically pure only 
 at the expense of her moral purity.'' 
 
 In Germany there was even greater freedom of manners in bath- 
 ing, though, it would seem, less real licentiousness. Even the smallest 
 towns had their baths, which were frequented by all classes. As soon 
 as the horn blew to announce that the baths were ready all hastened 
 along the street, the poorer folk almost completely undressing them- 
 selves before leaving their homes. Bathing was nearly always in com- 
 mon without any garment being worn, women attendants commonly 
 rubbed and massaged both sexes, and the dressing room was frequently 
 used by men and women in common; this led to obvious evils. The 
 Germans, as WeinhoM points out {Die Deutschen Frauen im Mit- 
 telalter, 1882, bd. ii, pp. 112 et seq.), have been fond of bathing in the 
 open air in streams from the days of Tacitus and Csesar until com- 
 paratively modem times, when the police have interfered. It was the 
 same in Switzerland. Poggio, early in the sixteenth century, found 
 it the custom for men and women to bathe together at Baden, and 
 said that he seemed to be assisting at the floralia of ancient Rome, or 
 in Plato's Republic. Sfinancour, who quotes the passage (De V Amour, 
 1834, vol. i, p. 313), remarks that at the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century there was still great liberty at the Baden baths. 
 
 Of the thirteenth century in England Thomas Wright {Homes of 
 Other Days, 1871, p. 271) remarks: "The practice of warm bathing 
 prevailed very generally in all classes of society, and is frequently 
 alluded to in the mediseval romances and stories. For this purpose 
 a large bathing-tub was used. People sometimes bathed immediately 
 after rising in the morning, and we find the bath used after dinner and 
 before going to bed. A bath was also often prepared for a visitor on 
 his arrival from a journey; and, what seems still more singular, in the 
 numerous stories of amorous intrigues the two lovers usually began 
 their interviews by bathing together." 
 
 In England the association between bathing and immorality was 
 established with special rapidity and thoroughness. Baths were here 
 officially recognized as brothels, and this as early as the twelfth cen- 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 39 
 
 tury, under Henry II. These organized bath-brothels were confined 
 to Southwark, outside the walls of the city, a quarter which was also 
 given up to various sports and amusements. At a later period, "hot- 
 houses," bagnios, and hummums (the eastern liammani) were spread 
 all over London and remained closely identified with prostitution, these 
 names, indeed, constantly tending to become synonymous with brothels. 
 (T. Wright, Homes of Other Days, 1871, pp. 494-496, gives an account 
 of them.) 
 
 In France the baths, being anathematized by both Catholics and 
 Huguenots, began to lose vogue and disappear. "Morality gained," re- 
 marks Franklin, "but cleanliness lost." Even the charming and ele- 
 gant Margaret of Navarre found it quite natural for a lady to men- 
 tion incidentally to her lover that she had not washed her hands for 
 a week. Then began an extreme tendency to use cosmetics, essences, 
 perfumes, and a fierce war with vermin, up to the seventeenth century, 
 when some progress was made, and persons who desired to be very 
 elegant and refined were recommended to wash their faces "nearly 
 every day." Even in 1782, however, while a linen cloth was advised 
 for the purpose of cleaning the face and hands, the use of water was 
 still somewhat discountenanced. The use of hot and cold baths was 
 now, however, beginning to be established in Paris and elsewhere, and 
 the bathing establishments at the great European health resorts were 
 also beginning to be put on the orderly footing which is now customary. 
 When Casanova, in the middle of the eighteenth century, went to the 
 public baths at Berne he was evidently somewhat surprised when he 
 found that he was invited to choose his own attendant from a number 
 of young women, and when he realized that these attendants were, in 
 all respects, at the disposition of the bathers. It is evident that estab- 
 lishments of this kind were then already dying out, although it may 
 be added that the customs described by Casanova appear to have per- 
 sisted in Budapest and St. Petersburg almost or quite up to the present. 
 The great European public baths have long been above suspicion in 
 this respect (though homosexual practices are not quite excluded), 
 while it is well recognized that many kinds of hot baths now in u. e 
 produce a powerfully stimulating action upon the sexual system, and 
 patients taking such baths for medical purposes are frequently warned 
 against giving way to these infiuenees. 
 
 The struggle which in former ages went on around bathing estab- 
 lishments has now been in part transferred to massage establishments. 
 Massage is an equally powerful stimulant to the skin and the sexual 
 sphere,— acting mainly by friction instead of mainly by heat, — and it 
 has not yet attained that position of general recognition and popularity 
 which, in the case of bathing establishments, renders it bad policy to 
 court disrepute. 
 
40 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 Like bathing, massage is a hygienic and therapeutic method of in- 
 fluencing the skin and subjacent tissues which, together with its ad- 
 vantages, has certain concomitant disadvantages in its liability to affect 
 the sexual sphere. This influence is apt to be experienced by in- 
 dividuals of both sexes, though it is perhaps specially marked in 
 women. Jouin (quoted in Paris Journal de Midecine, April 23, 1893) 
 found that of 20 women treated by massage, of whom he made 
 inquiries, 14 declared that they experienced voluptuous sensations; 8 of 
 these belonged to respectable families; the other 6 were women of the 
 demimonde and gave precise details; Jouin refers in this connection to 
 the aliptes of Rome. It is unnecessary to add that the gynaecological 
 massage introduced in recent years by the Swedish teacher of gymnas- 
 tics, Thure-Brandt, as involving prolonged rubbing and kneading of the 
 pelvic regions, "pression glissante du vagin," etc. (Massage Gynicologique, 
 by G. de Frumerie, 1897), whatever its therapeutic value, cannot fail 
 in a large proportion of cases to stimulate the sexual emotions. 
 (Eulenburg remarks that for sexual anaesthesia in women the Thure- 
 Brandt system of massage may "naturally" be recommended, Sexuale 
 Neuropathie, p. 78.) I have been informed that in London and else- 
 where massage establishments are sometimes visited by women who 
 seek sexual gratification by massage of the genital regions by the 
 masseuse. 
 
V. 
 
 Summary— Fundamental Importance of Touch— The Skin the 
 Mother of All the Other Senses. 
 
 The sense of touch is so universally difEused over the 
 whole skin, and in so many various degrees and modifications, 
 and it is, moreover, so truly the Alpha and the Omega of 
 aifection, that a broken and fragmentary treatment of the sub- 
 ject has been inevitable. 
 
 The skin is the archsEological field of human and pre- 
 human experience, the foundation on which all forms of sen- 
 sory perception have grown up, and as sexual sensibility is 
 among the most ancient of all forms of sensibility, the sexual 
 instinct is necessarily, in the main, a comparatively slightly 
 modified form of general touch sensibility. This primitive 
 character of the great region of tactile sensation, its vagueness 
 and diffusion, the comparatively unintelleetual as well as unaes- 
 thetic nature of the mental conceptions which arise on the tac- 
 tile basis make it difficult to deal precisely with the psychology 
 of touch. The very same qualities, however, serve greatly to 
 heighten the emotional intensity of skin sensations. So that, 
 of all the great sensory fields, the field of touch is at once the 
 least intellectual and the most massively emotional. These 
 qualities, as well as its intimate and primitive association with 
 the apparatus of tumescence and detumescence, make touch 
 the readiest and most powerful channel by which the sexual 
 sphere may be reached. 
 
 In disentangling the phenomena of tactile sensibility tick- 
 lishness has been selected for special consideration as a kind 
 of sensation, founded on reflexes developing even before birth, 
 which is very closely related to sexual phenomena. It is, as it 
 were, a play of tumescence, on which laughter supervenes as a 
 play of detumescence. It leads on to the more serious phe- 
 nomena of tumescence, and it tends to die out after adolescence, 
 
 (41) 
 
42 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 at the period during which sexual relationships normally begin. 
 Such a view of ticklishness, as a kind of modesty of the skin, 
 existing merely to be destroyed, need only be regarded as one of 
 its aspects. Ticklishness certainly arose from a nonsexual start- 
 ing-point, and may well have protective uses in the young ani- 
 mal. 
 
 The readiness with which tactile sensibility takes on a 
 sexual character and forms reflex channels of communication 
 with the sexual sphere proper is illustrated by the existence of 
 certain secondary sexual foci only inferior in sexual excitability 
 to the genital region. We have seen that the chief of these 
 normal foci are situated in the orificial regions where skin and 
 mucous membrane meet, and that the contact of any two 
 orificial regions between two persons of different sex brought 
 together under favorable conditions is apt, when prolonged, 
 to produce a very intense degree of sexual erethism. This is 
 a normal phenomenon in so far as it is a part of tumescence, 
 and not a method of obtaining detumescence. The kiss is a 
 typical example of these contacts, while the nipple is of special 
 interest in this connection, because we are thereby enabled to 
 bring the psychology of lactation into intimate relationship 
 with the psychology of sexual love. 
 
 The extreme sensitiveness of the skin, the readiness with 
 which its stimulation reverberates into the sexual sphere, 
 clearly brought out by the present study, enable us to under- 
 stand better a very ancient contest — the moral struggle around 
 the bath. There has always been a tendency for the extreme 
 cultivation of physical purity to lead on to the excessive stimu- 
 lation of the sexual sphere; so that the Christian ascetics were 
 entirely justified, on their premises, in fighting against the bath 
 and in directly or indirectly fostering a cult of physical un- 
 cleanliness. WhUe, however, in the past there has clearly been 
 a general tendency for the cult of physical purity to be as- 
 sociated with moral licentiousness, and there are sufficient 
 grounds for such an association, it is important to remember 
 that it is not an inevitable and fatal association; a scrupulously 
 clean person is by no means necessarily impelled to licentious- 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN, 43 
 
 ness; a physically unclean person is by no means necessarily 
 morally pure. When we have eliminated certain forms of the 
 bath which must be regarded as luxuries rather than hygienic 
 necessities, though they occasionally possess therapeutic vir- 
 tues, we have eliminated the most violent appeals of the bath 
 to the sexual impulse. So imperative are the demands of 
 physical purity now becoming, in general opinion, that such 
 small risks to moral purity as may still remain are constantly 
 and wisely disregarded, and the immoral traditions of the bath 
 now, for the most part, belong to the past. 
 
SMELL. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Primitivenegs of Smell — The Anatomical Seat of the Olfactory 
 Centres. — Predominance of Smell among the Lower Mammals — Its Di- 
 minished Importance in Man — The Attention Paid to Odors by Savages. 
 
 The first more highly organized sense to arise on the 
 diffused tactile sensitivity of the skin is, in most eases, with- 
 out doubt that of smell. At first, indeed, olfactory sensibility 
 is not clearly differentiated from general tactile sensibility; the 
 pit of thickened and ciliated epithelium or the highly mobile 
 antennae which in many lower animals are sensitive to odorous 
 stimuli are also extremely sensitive to tactile stimuli; this is, 
 for instance, the case with the snail, in whom at the same time 
 olfactive sensibility seems to be spread over the whole body.^ 
 The sense of smell is gradually specialized, and when taste also 
 begins to develop a .kind of chemical sense is constituted. The 
 organ of smell, however, speedily begins to rise in importance 
 as we ascend the zoological scale. In the lower vertebrates, 
 when they began to adopt a life on dry land, the sense of smell 
 seems to have been that part of their sensory equipment which 
 proved most useful under the new conditions, and it developed 
 with astonishing rapidity. Edinger finds that in the brain of 
 reptiles the "area olfactoria" is of enormous extent, covering, 
 indeed, the greater part of the cortex, though it may be quite 
 true, as Herrick remarks, that, while smell is preponderant, it 
 is perhaps not correct to attribute an exclusively olfactory 
 tone to the cerebral activities of the Sauropsida or even the 
 
 *Emile Yung, "Le Sens Olfactif de I'Escargot (Helix Pomata)," 
 Archives <ie Psychologie, November, 1903. 
 
 (44) 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 45 
 
 Ichthyopsida. Among most mammals, however, in any case, 
 smell is certainly the most highly developed of the senses; it 
 gives the first information of remote objects that concern them; 
 it gives the most precise information concerning the near objects 
 that concern them; it is the sense in terms of which most of 
 their mental operations must be conducted and their emotional 
 impulses reach consciousness. Among the apes it has greatly 
 lost importance and in man it has become almost rudimentary, 
 giving place to the supremacy of vision. 
 
 Prof. G. Elliot Smith, a leading authority on the brain, has well 
 summarized the facts concerning the predominance of the olfactory 
 region in the mammal brain, and his conclusions may be quoted. It 
 should be premised that Elliot Smith divides the brain into rhinenoe- 
 phalon and neopallium. Ehinencephalon designates the regions which 
 are pre-eminently olfactory in function: the olfactory bulb, its pedun- 
 cle, the tuberculum olfactorium and locus perforatus, the pyriform 
 lobe, the paraterminal body, and the whole hippocampal formation. 
 The neopallium is the dorsal cap of the brain, with frontal, parietal, 
 and occipital areas, comprehending all that part of the brain which 
 is the seat of the higher associative activities, reaching its fullest devel- 
 opment in man. 
 
 "In the early mammals the olfactory areas form by far the greater 
 part of the cerebral hemisphere, which is not surprising when it is re- 
 called that the forebrain is, in the primitive brain, essentially an ap- 
 pendage, so to speak, of the smell apparatus. When the cerebral hemis- 
 phere comes to occupy such a dominant position in the brain it is per- 
 haps not unnatural to find that the sense of smell is the most influential 
 and the chief source of information to the animal; or, perhaps, it would 
 be more accurate to say that the olfactory sense, which conveys gen- 
 eral information to the animal such as no other sense can bring con- 
 cerning its prey (whether near or far, hidden or exposed), is much the 
 most serviceable of all the avenues of information to the lowly mam- 
 mal leading a terrestrial life, and therefore becomes predominant; and 
 its particular domain — the forebrain— becomes the ruling portion of 
 the nervous system. 
 
 "This early predominance of the sense of smell persists in most 
 mammals (unless an aquatic mode of life interferes and deposes it: 
 compare the Cetacea, Sirenia, and Pinnipedia, for example) even though 
 a large neopallium develops to receive visual, auditory, tactile, and 
 other impressions pouring into the forebrain. In the Anthropoidea 
 alone of nonaquatic mammals the olfactory regions undergo an abso- 
 lute (and not only relative, as in the CarrUvora and Vngulata) dwin- 
 
46 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 dling, which is" equally shared by the human brain, in common with 
 those of the other Simiidw, the Cercopithecidw, and the CeUdw. But 
 all the parts of the rhinencephalon, which are so distinct in macros- 
 matic mammals, can also be recognized in the human brain. The small 
 . ellipsoidal olfactory bulb is moored, so to speak, on the cribriform 
 plate of the ethmoid bone by the olfactory nerves; so that, as the place 
 of attachment of the olfactory peduncle to the expanding cerebral hemis- 
 phere becomes removed (as a result of the forward extension of the 
 hemisphere) progressively farther and farther backward, the peduncle 
 becomes greatly stretched and elongated. And, as this stretching in- 
 volves the gray matter without lessening the number of nerve-fibres in 
 the olfactory tract, the peduncle becomes practically what it is usually 
 called — i.e., the olfactory 'tract.' The tuberculum olfactorium becomes 
 greatly reduced and at the same time flattened; so that it is not easy 
 to draw a line of demarcation between it and the anterior perforated 
 space. The anterior rhinal fissure, which is present in the early human 
 foetus, vanishes (almost, if not altogether) in the adult. Part of the 
 posterior rhinal fissure is always present in the 'incisura temporalis,' 
 and sometimes, especially in some of the non-European races, the 
 whole of the posterior rhinal fissure is retained in that typical form 
 which we find in the anthropoid apes." (G. Elliot Smith, in Descrip- 
 tive and Illustrated Catalogue of the Physiological Series of Com- 
 parative Anatomy Contained in the Museum of the Royal College of 
 Surgeons of England, second edition, vol. ii.) A full statement of 
 Elliot Smith's investigations, with diagrams, is given by Bullen, Journal 
 of Mental Science, July, 1899. It may be added that the whole sub- 
 ject of the olfactory centres has been thoroughly studied by Elliot 
 Smith, as well as by Edinger, Mayer, and C. L. Herrick. In the Journal 
 of Comparative Neurology, edited by the last named, numerous dis- 
 cussions and summaries bearing on the subject will be found from 1896 
 onward. Regarding the primitive sense-organs of smell in the various 
 invertebrate groups some information will be found in A. B. Griffiths's 
 Physiology of the Invertebrata, Chapter XI. 
 
 The predominance of the olfactory area in the nervous sys- 
 tem of the vertebrates generally has inevitably involved inti- 
 mate psychic associations between olfactory stimuli and the 
 sexual impulse. For most mammals not only are all sexual 
 associations mainly olfactory, but the impressions received by 
 this sense suffice to dominate all others. An animal not only 
 receives adequate sexual excitement from olfactory stimuli, but 
 those stimuli often suffice to counterbalance all the evidence 
 of the other senses. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 47 
 
 We may observe this very well in the case S)l the dog. Thus, a 
 young dog, well known to me, who had never had connection with a 
 bitch, but was always in the society of its father, once met the latter 
 directly after the elder dog had been with a bitch. He immediately 
 endeavored to behave toward the elder dog, in spite of angry repulses, ex- 
 actly as a dog behaves toward a bitch in heat. The messages received by 
 the sense of smell were sufficiently urgent not only to set the sexual 
 mechanism in action, but to overcome the experiences of a lifetime. 
 There is an interesting chapter on the sense of smell in the mental life 
 of the dog in Giessler's Psychologie des Geruohea, 1894, Chapter XI. 
 Passy (in the appendix to his memoir on olfaction, L'Annie Psychol- 
 ogique, 1895) gives the result of some interesting experiments as to 
 the effects of perfume on dogs; civet and castoreum were found to have 
 the most powerfully exciting effect. 
 
 The influences of smell are equally omnipotent in the sexual life of 
 many insects. Thus, F6r6 has found that in cockchafers sexual coupling 
 failed to take place when the antennae, which are the organs of smell, 
 were removed; he also found that males, after they had coupled with 
 females, proved sexually attractive to other males [Comptes Renins de 
 la Sociiti de Biologic, May 21, 1898). F6r6 similarly found that, in a 
 species of Bomhyx, males after contact with females sometimes proved 
 attractive to other males, although no abnormal relationships followed. 
 (Soc. de Biol, July 30, 1898.) 
 
 With the advent of the higher apes, and especially of man, 
 all this has been changed. The sense of smell, indeed, still 
 persists universally and it is still also exceedingly delicate, 
 though often neglected.* It is, moreover, a useful auxiliary 
 in the exploration of the external world, for, in contrast to 
 the very few sensations furnished to us by touch and by taste, 
 we are acquainted with a vast number of smells, though the 
 information they give us is frequently vague. An experienced 
 perfumer, says Piesse, will have two hundred odors in his labor- 
 atory and can distinguish them all. To a sensitive nose nearly 
 everything smells. Passy goes so far as to state that he has 
 "never met with any object that is really inodorous when one 
 pays attention to it, not even excepting glass," and, though we 
 can scarcely accept this statement absolutely, — especially in 
 
 'The sensitiveness of smell in man generally exceeds that of 
 chemical reaction or even of spectral analysis; see Passy, L'Annie Psy- 
 chologiqtce, second year, 1895, p. 380. 
 
48 PSYCHOLOGY 'OF' SEX. ^ 
 
 view of the careful experiments of Ayrton, which show that, 
 contrary to a common belief, metals when perfectly clean and 
 free from traces of contact with the skin or with salt solutions 
 have no smell, — odor is still extremely widely diffused. This 
 is especially the case in hot countries, and the experiments of 
 the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition on the sense cf 
 smell of the Papuans were considerably impeded by the fact 
 that at Torres Straits everything, even water, seemed to have 
 a smell. Savages are often accused more or less justly of 
 indifference to bad odors. They are very often, however, 
 keenly alive to the significance of smells and their varieties, 
 though it does not appear that the sense of smell is notably 
 more developed in savage than in civilized peoples. Odors also 
 continue to play a part in the emotional life of man, more es- 
 pecially in hot countries. Nevertheless both in practical life 
 and in emotional life, in science and in art, smell is, at the 
 best, under normal conditions, merely an auxiliary. If the 
 sense of smell were abolished altogether the life of mankind 
 would continue as before, with little or no sensible modifica- 
 tion, though the pleasures of life, and especially of eating and 
 drinking, would be to some extent diminished. 
 
 In New Ireland, Duffield remarks {Journal of the Anthropological 
 Institute, 1886, p. 118), the natives have a very keen sense of smell; 
 imusual odors are repulsive to them, and "carbolic acid drove them 
 wild." 
 
 The New Caledonians, according to Foley {Bulletin de la Sociiti 
 d'Anthropologie, November 6, 1879), only like the smells of meat and 
 fish which are becoming "high," like popoya, which smells of fowl 
 manure, and Icava, of rotten eggs. Fruits and vegetables which are 
 beginning to go bad seem the best to them, while the fresh and natural 
 odors which we prefer seem merely to say to them: "We are not yet 
 eatable.'' (A taste for putrefying food, common among savages, by no 
 means necessarily involves a distaste for agreeable scents, and even 
 among Europeans there is a widsespread taste for offensively smelling 
 and putrid foods, especially cheese and game.) 
 
 The natives of Torres Straits were carefully examined by Dr. C. S. 
 Myers with regard to their olfactory acuteness and olfactory prefer- 
 ences. It was found that acuteness was, if anything, slightly greater 
 than among Europeans. This appeared to be largely due to the careful 
 
SEXUAL SELECTIOK IN MAN. 49 
 
 attention they pay to odors. The resemblances which they detected 
 among different odorous substances were frequently found to rest on 
 real chemical affinities. The odors they were observed to dislike most 
 frequently were asafoetida, valerianic acid, and civet, the last being re- 
 garded as most repulsive of all on account of its resemblance to fsecal 
 odor, which these people regard with intense disgust. Their favorite 
 odors were musk, thyme, and especially violet. (Report of the Cam- 
 bridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, vol. ii. Part II, 
 1903.) 
 
 In Australia Lumholtz {Among Cannibals, p. 115) found that the 
 blacks had a keener sense of smell than he possessed. 
 
 In New Zealand the Maoris, as W. Colenso shows, possessed, for- 
 merly at all events, a very keen sense of smell or else were very at- 
 tentive to smell, and their taste as regarded agreeable and disagree- 
 able odors conesponded very closely to European taste, although it 
 must be added that some of their common articles of food possessed a 
 very offensive odor. They are not only sensitive to European per- 
 fumes, but possessed various perfumes of their own, derived from plants 
 and possessing a pleasant, powerful, and lasting odor; the choicest and 
 rarest was the gum of the taramea (Aciphylla Colensoi), which was 
 gathered by virgins after the use of prayers and charms. Sir Joseph 
 Banks noted that Maori chiefs wore little bundles of perfumes around 
 their necks, and Cook made the same observation concerning the young 
 women. References to the four chief Maori perfumes are contained in 
 a stanza which is still often hummed to express satisfaction, and sung 
 by a mother to her child: — 
 
 "My little neck-satchel of sweet-scented moss. 
 My little neck-satchel of fragrant fern. 
 My little neck-satchel of odoriferous gum. 
 My sweet-smelling neck-locket of sharp-pointed taramea." 
 
 In the summer season the sleeping houses of Maori chiefs were often 
 strewed with a large, sweet-scented, flowering grass of powerful odor. 
 (W. Colenso, Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, vol. xxiv, re- 
 printed in Nature, November 10, 1892.) 
 
 Javanese women rub themselves with a mixture of chalk and strorg 
 essence which, when rubbed off, leaves a distinct perfume on the body. 
 (Stratz, Die Frauenkleidung, p. 84.) 
 
 The Samoans, Friedlander states {Zeitschrift fUr Ethnologic, 1899, 
 p. 52), are very fond of fragrant and aromatic odors. He gives a list 
 of some twenty odorous plants which they use, more especially as gar- 
 lands for the head and neck, including ylang-ylang and gardenia; he re- 
 marks that of one of these plants (cordyline) he could not himself de- 
 tect the odor. 
 
 i 
 
50 PSYCHOtOGT OF 8ES. 
 
 The Nieobarese, Man remarks {Journal of the Anthropological In- 
 stitute, 1889, p. 377), like the natives of New Zealand, particularly dis- 
 like the smell of carbolic acid. Both young men and women are very 
 partial to scents; the former say they find their use a certain passport 
 to the favor of their wives, and they bring home from the jungle the 
 scented leaves of a. certain creeper to their sweethearts and wives. 
 
 Swahili women devote much attention to perfuming themselves. 
 When a woman wishes to make herself desirable she anoints herself all 
 over with fragrant ointments, sprinkles herself with rose-water, puts 
 perfume into her clothes, strews jasmine flowers on her bed as well as 
 binding them round her neck and waist, and smokes ftdi, the perfumed 
 wood of the aloe; "every man is glaJ when his wife smells of Udi" (Vel- 
 ten, Sitten und G-ebraiiche der Suahili, pp. 212-214). 
 
II. 
 
 Rise of the Study of Olfaction — Cloquet — Zwaardemaker — The 
 Theory of Smell — The Classification of Odors — The Special Characteris- 
 tics of Olfactory Sensation in Man — Smell as the Sense of Imagination — 
 Odors as Nervous Stimulants — ^Vasomotor and Muscular EflFeets — Odor- 
 ous Substances as Drugs. 
 
 DuEiNG the eighteenth century a great impetus was given 
 to the physiological and psychological study of the senses by 
 the philosophical doctrines of Locke and the English school 
 generally which then prevailed in Europe. These thinkers had 
 emphasized the immense importance of the information de- 
 rived throTigh the senses in building up the intellect, so that 
 the study of all the sensory channels assumed a significance 
 which it had never possessed before. The olfactory sense fully 
 shared in the impetus thus given to sensory investigation. At 
 the beginning of the nineteenth century a distinguished French 
 physician, Hippolyte Cloquet, a disciple of Cabanis, devoted 
 himself more especially to this subject. After publishing in 
 3815 a preliminary work, he issued in 1821 his Osphresiologie, 
 ou Trait e des odeurs, du sens et des organes de V Olfaction, a 
 complete monograph on the anatomy, physiology, psychology, 
 and pathology of the olfactory organ and its functions, and a 
 work that may still be consulted with profit, if indeed it can 
 even yet be said to be at every point superseded. After Clo- 
 quet's time the study of the sense of smell seems to have fallen 
 into some degree of discredit. For more than half a century 
 no important progress was made in this field. Serious investi- 
 gators seemed to have become shy of the primitive senses gen- 
 erally, and the subject of smell was mainly left to those in- 
 terested in "curious" subjects. Many interesting observations 
 were, however, incidentally made; thus Laycock, who was a 
 pioneer in so many by-paths of psychology and anthropology, 
 showed a special interest in the olfactory sense, and frequently 
 
 (51) 
 
52 PSYCHOIiOGT OF SEX. 
 
 touched on it in his Nervous Diseases of Women and elsewhere. 
 The writer who more than any other has in recent years re- 
 stored the study of the sense of smell from a by-path to its 
 proper position as a highway for investigation is without doubt 
 Professor Zwaardemaker, of Utrecht. The invention of his 
 first olfactometer in 1888 and the appearance in 1895 of his 
 great work Die Physiohgie des Gerudis have served to give the 
 physiology of the sense of smell an assured status and to open 
 the way anew for much fruitful investigation, whUe a number 
 of inquirers in many countries have had their attention di- 
 rected to the elucidation of this sense. 
 
 Notwithstanding, however, the amount of work which has 
 been done in this field during recent years, it cannot be said 
 that the body of assured conclusions so far reached is large. 
 The most fundamental principles of olfactory physiology and 
 psychology are still somewhat vague and uncertain. Although 
 sensations of smell are numerous and varied, in this respect ap- 
 proaching the sensations of vision and hearing, smell still re- 
 mains close to touch in the vagueness of its messages (while the 
 most sensitive of the senses, remarks Passy, it is the least pre- 
 cise), the difficulty of classifying them, the impossibility of so 
 controlling them as to found upon them any art. It seems 
 better,, therefore, not to attempt to force the present study 
 of a special aspect of olfaction into any general scheme which 
 may possibly not be really valid. 
 
 The earliest and most general tendency in regard to the theory of 
 smell was to regard it as a kind of chemical sense directly stimulated by 
 minute particles of solid substance. A vibratory theory of smell, however, 
 making it somewhat analogous to hearing, easily presents itself. When 
 I first began the study of physiology in 1881, a speculation of this kind 
 presented itself to my mind. Long before, Philipp von Walther, a pro- 
 fessor at Landshut, had put forward a dynamic theory of olfaction 
 (PhyHologie des Menschen, 1807-8, vol. ii, p. 278). '^It is a purely dy- 
 namic operation of the odorous substance in the olfactory organ," he 
 stated. Odor is conveyed by the air, he believed, in the same way as 
 heat. It must be added that his reasons for this theory will not always 
 bear examination. More recently a similar theory has been seriously 
 put forward in various quarters. Sir William Ramsay tentatively sug- 
 gested such a theory (Nature, vol. xxv, p. 187) in analogy with light 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 53 
 
 and sound. Haycraft {Proceedings of the Royal Society nf Edinburgli, 
 1883-87, and Brain, 1887-88), largely starting from Mendeliefl's law of 
 periodicity, similarly sought to bring smell into line with the higher 
 senses, arguing that molecules with the same vibration have the same 
 smell. Rutherford {Nature, August 11, 1892, p. 343), attaching im- 
 portance to the evidence brought forward by von Brunn showing that the 
 olfactory cells terminate in very delicate short hairs, also stated his 
 belief that the different qualities of smell result from differences in the 
 frequency and form of the vibrations initiated by the action of the 
 chemical molecules on these olfactory cells, though he admitted that 
 such a conception involved a very subtle conception of molecular vibra- 
 tion. Vaschide and Van Melle (Paris Academy of Sciences, December 
 26, 1899) have, again, argued that smell is produced by rays of short 
 wave-lengths, analogous to light-rays, Eontgen rays, etc. Chemical 
 action is however, a very important factor in the production of odors; 
 this has been well shown by Ayrton {Nature, September 8, 1898). We 
 seem to be forced in the direction of a chemieo-vibratory theory, as 
 pointed out by Southerden {Nature, March 26, 1903), the olfactory -cells 
 being directly stimulated, not by the ordinary vibrations of the mole- 
 cules, but by the agitations accompanying chemical changes. 
 
 The vibratory hypothesis of the action of odors has had some in- 
 fluence on the recent physiologists who have chiefly occupied them- 
 selves with olfaction. "It is probable," Zwaardemaker writes {L'Annie 
 PsycTiologique, 1898), "that aroma is a physico-chemical attribute of the 
 molecules"; he points out that there is an intimate analogy between 
 color and odor, and remarks that this analogy leads us to suppose in 
 an aroma ether vibrations of which the period is determined by the 
 structure of the molecule. 
 
 Since the physiology of olfaction is yet so obscure it is not sur- 
 prising that we have no thoroughly scientifle classification of smells, 
 notwithstanding various ambitious attempts to reach a classifleation. 
 The classification adopted by Zwaardemaker is founded on the ancient 
 scheme of Linnaeus, and may here be reproduced: — 
 
 I. Ethereal odors (chiefly esters; Eimmel's fruity series). 
 
 II. Aromatic odors (terpenes, camphors, and the spicy, herbaceous, 
 rosaceous, and almond series; the chemical types are well determined: 
 cineol, eugenol, anethol, geraniol, benzaldehyde). 
 
 III. The balsamic odors (chiefly aldehydes, Eimmel's jasmin, violet, 
 and balsamic series, with the chemical types: terpineol, ionone, vanil- 
 lin). 
 
 IV. The ambrosiacal odors (ambergris and musk). 
 
 V. The alliaceous odors, with the eacodylio group (asafoetida, ich- 
 thyol, etc,). 
 
 VI. Empyreumatio odors. 
 
54 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 VII. Valciianaceous odors (Linnseus's Odores hircini, the eapryl 
 group, largely composed of sexual odors). 
 
 VIII. Narcotic odors (Linnseus's Odores tetri). 
 
 IX. Stenches. 
 
 A valuable and interesting memoir, "Kevue Gfinf'rale sur les Sensa- 
 tions Olfactives,'' by J. Passy, the chief French authority on this sub- 
 ject, will be found in the second volume of L'Aniice Psychologique, 1895. 
 In the fifth issue of the same year-book (for 189S) Zwaardemaker pre- 
 sents a full summary of his work and vievfs, "Les Sensations Olfactives, 
 leurs Combinaisons et leurs Compensations." A convenient, but less 
 authoritative, summary of the facts of normal and pathological olfac- 
 tion will be found in a little volume of the "Actualit6s MiSdicales" 
 series by Dr. Collet, L'Odorat et ses Troubles, 1904. In a little book 
 entitled Wegweiser zu einer Psycliologie des Qeruches (1894) Giess- 
 ler has sought to outline a psychology of smell, but his sketch can 
 only be regarded as tentative and provisional. 
 
 At the outset, nevertheless, it seems desirable that we 
 should at least have some conception of the special character- 
 istics vifhich mark the great and varied mass of sensations 
 reaching the brain through the channel of the olfactory organ. 
 The main special character of olfactory images seems to be 
 conditioned by the fact that they are intermediate in char- 
 acter between those of touch or taste and those of sight or 
 sound, that they have much of the vagueness of the first and 
 something of the richness and variety of the second, .^sthet- 
 ically, also, they occupy an intermediate position between the 
 higher and the lower senses.^ They are, at the same time, less 
 practically useful than either the lower or the higher senses. 
 They furnish us with a great mass of what we may call by- 
 sensations, w4iich are of little practical use, but inevitably be- 
 come intimately mixed with the experiences of life by asso- 
 ciation and thus acquire an emotional significance which is 
 often very considerable. Their emotional force, it may well be, 
 is connected with the fact that their anatomical seat is the 
 
 " The opinions of psychologists concerning the sesthetic significance 
 of smell, not on the whole veiy favorable, are brought together and 
 discussed by J. V. Volkelt, "Der ^sthetische Wert der niederen Sinne," 
 Zeitschrift fiir Psyelwlogie und PhyHologie der Sinnesorgane, 1902, ht. 3. 
 
SEXUAL SELKCTION IN MAN. 55 
 
 most ancient part of the brain. They lie in a remote and 
 almost disused storehouse of our minds and show the fascina- 
 tion or the repulsiveness of all vague and remote things. It 
 is for this reason that they are — to an extent that is remark- 
 able when we consider that they are much more precise than 
 touch sensations — subject to the influence of emotional asso- 
 ciations. The very same odor may be at one moment highly 
 pleasant, at the next moment highly unpleasant, in accordance 
 with the emotional attitude resulting from its associations. 
 Visual images have no such extreme flexibility; they are too 
 definite to be so easily influenced. Our feelings about the 
 beauty of a flower cannot oscillate so easily or so far as may 
 our feelings about the agreeableness of its odor. Our olfactory 
 experiences thus institute a more or less continuous series of 
 by-sensations accompanying us through life, of no great practi- 
 cal significance, but of considerable emotional significance from 
 their variety, their intimacy, their associational facility, their 
 remote ancestral reverberations through our brains. 
 
 It is the existence of these characteristics — at once so 
 vague and so specific, so useless and so intimate — which led 
 various writers to describe the sense of smell as, above all 
 others, the sense of imagination. No sense has so strong a 
 power of suggestion, the power of calling up ancient memories 
 with a wider and deeper emotional reverberation, while at the 
 same time no sense furnishes impressions which so easily 
 change emotional color and tone, in harmony with the recipi- 
 ent's general attitude. Odors are thus specially apt both to 
 control the emotional life and to become its slaves. With the 
 use of incense religions have utilized the imaginative and sym- 
 bolical virtues of fragrance. All the legends of the saints have 
 insisted on the odor of sanctity that exhales from the bodies of 
 holy persons, especially at the moment of death. Under the 
 conditions of civilization these primitive emotional associations 
 of odor tend to be dispersed; but, on the other hand, the imag- 
 inative side of the olfactory sense becomes accentuated, and 
 personal idiosyncracies of all kinds tend to manifest themselves 
 in the sphere of smell. 
 
56 PSYCHOLOGY 07 SEX. 
 
 Rousseau (in Emile, Bk. II) regarded smell as the sense of the 
 imagination. So, also, at an earlier period, it was termed (according to 
 Cloquet) by Cardano. Cloquet frequently insisted on the qualities of 
 odors which cause them to appeal to the imagination ; on their irregular 
 and inconstant character; on their power of intoxicating the mind 
 on some occasions; on the curious individual and racial preferences in 
 the matter of odors. He remarked on the fact that the Persians em- 
 ployed asafoetida as a seasoning, while valerian was accounted a per- 
 fume in antiquity. (Cloquet, Osphrdsiologie, pp. 28, 45, 71, 112.) It 
 may be added, as a curious example familiar to most people of the de- 
 pendence of the emotional tone of a smell on its associations, that, 
 while the exhalations of other people's bodies are ordinarily disagree- 
 able to us, such is not the case with our own; this is expressed in the 
 crude and vigorous dictum of the Elizabethan poet, Marston, "Every 
 man's dung smells sweet i' his own nose." There are doubtless many 
 implications, moral as well as psychological, in that statement. 
 
 The modem authorities on olfaction, Passy and Zwaardemaker, both 
 alike insist on the same characteristics of the sense of smell: its ex- 
 treme acuity and yet its vagueness. "We live in a world of odor," 
 Zwaardemaker remarks (L'Ann^e Psychologique, 1898, p. 203), "as we 
 live in a world of light and of sound. But smell yields us no distinct 
 ideas grouped in regular order, still less that are fixed in the memory 
 as a grammatical discipline. Olfactory sensations awake vague and 
 half-understood perceptions, which are accompanied by very strong 
 emotion. The emotion dominates us, but the sensation which was the 
 cause of it remains unperceivcd." Even in the same individual there are 
 wide variations in the sensitiveness to odors at different times, more es- 
 pecially as regards faint odors; Passy (U Annie Psychologique, 1895, p. 
 387) brings forward some observations on this point. 
 
 Maudsley noted the peculiarly suggestive power of odors; "there 
 are certain smells," he remarked, "which never fail to bring back to me 
 instantly and visibly scenes of my boyhood"; many of us could proba- 
 bly say the same. Another writer (E. Dillon, "A Neglected Sense," 
 Nineteenth Century, April, 1894) remarks that "no sense has a stronger 
 power of siiggestion." 
 
 Ribot has made an interesting investigation as to the prevalence 
 and nature of the emotional memory of odors {Psychology of the Emo- 
 tions, Chapter XI). By "emotional memory" is meant the spontaneous 
 or voluntary revivability of the image, olfactory or other. (For the gen- 
 eral question, see an article by P. Pillon, "La Mfimoire Affective, son 
 Importance Thfiorique et Pratique," Revue Philosophigue, February, 
 1901; also Paulhan, "Sur la Mfimoire Affective," Revue PhilosopMque, 
 December, 1902 and January, 1903.) Ribot found that 40 per cent, 
 of persons are unable to revive any such images of taste or smell; 48 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 57 
 
 per cent, could revive some; 12 per cent, declared themselves capable 
 of reviving all, or nearly all, at pleasure. In some persons there ia no 
 necessary accompanying revival of visual or tactile representations, but 
 in the majority the revived odor ultimately excites a corresponding 
 visual image. The odors most frequently recalled vifere pinks, musk, 
 violets, heliotrope, carbolic acidj the smell of the country, of grass, etc. 
 Pifiron {Revue Philosophigtie, December, 1902) has described the special 
 power possessed by vague odors, in his own case, of evoking ancient im- 
 pressions. 
 
 Dr. J. N. Mackenzie {American Journal of the Medical Sciences, 
 January, 1886) considers that civilization exerts an influence in height- 
 ening or encouraging the influence of olfaction as it affects our emo- 
 tions and judgment, and that, in the same way, as we ascend the social 
 scale the more readily our minds are influenced and perhaps perverted 
 by impressions received through the sense of smell. 
 
 Odors are powerful stimulants to the whole nervous sys- 
 tem, causing, like other stimulants, an increase of energy 
 which, if excessive or prolonged, leads to nervous exhaustion. 
 Thus, it is well recognized in medicine that the aromaties 
 containing volatile oils (such as anise, cinnamon, cardamoms, 
 cloves, coriander, and peppermint) are antispasmodics and 
 anaesthetics, and that they stimulate digestion, circulation, and 
 the nervous system, in large doses producing depression. The 
 carefully arranged plethysmographic experiments of Shields, 
 at the Johns Hopkins University, have shown that olfactory 
 sensations, by their action on the vasomotor system, cause an 
 increase of blood in the brain and sometimes in addition stimu- 
 lation of the heart; musk, wintergreen, wood violet, and es- 
 pecially heliotrope were found to act strongly in these ways.^ 
 
 Fere's experiments with the dynamometer and the ergo- 
 grapt> have greatly contributed to illustrate the stimulating 
 efEects of odors. Thus, he found that smelling musk suffices 
 to double muscular effort. With a number of odorous sub- 
 stances he has found that muscular work is temporarily height- 
 ened; when taste stimulation was added the increase of energy. 
 
 >T. E. Shields, "The Effect of Odors, etc., upon the Blood-flow," 
 Journal of Experimental Medicine, vol. i, November, 1896. In France, 
 C. Henry and Tardif have made somewhat similar experiments on 
 respiration and circulation. See the latter's Les Odeurs et les Parfums, 
 Chapter IIL 
 
58 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 notably when using lemon, was "colossal." A kind of "sen- 
 sorial intoxication" could be produced by the inhalation of 
 odors and the whole system stimulated to greater activity; the 
 visual acuity was increased, and electric and general excit- 
 ability heightened.^ Such effects may be obtained in perfectly 
 healthy persons, though both Shields and F6re have found that 
 in highly nervous persons the effects are liable to be much 
 greater. It is doubtless on this account that it is among 
 civilized peoples that attention is chiefly directed to perfumes, 
 and that under the conditions of modern life the interest in 
 olfaction and its study has been revived. 
 
 It is the genuinely stimulant qualities of odorous sub- 
 stances which led to the widespread use of the more potent 
 among them by ancient physicians, and has led a few modern 
 physicians to employ them still. Thus, vanilla, according to 
 Eloy, deserves to be much more frequently used therapeutically 
 than it is, on account of its excitomotor properties; he states 
 that its qualities as an excitant of sexual desire have long been 
 recognized and that Fonssagrives used to prescribe it for sexual 
 frigidity.' 
 
 'F6ri5, Sensation et Mourement, Chapter VI; ib., Comptes Rendus 
 de la SociiU de Biologie, November 3, December 15 and 22, 1900. 
 
 ^ Eloy, art. "Vanille," Dictionnaire Encyclopidique des Sciences 
 Midieales. 
 
IIL 
 
 The Specific Body Odors of Various Peoples — The Negro, etc. — 
 The European— The Ability to Distinguish Individuals by Smell— The 
 Odor of Sanctity— The Odor of Death— The Odors of Different Parts 
 of the Body— The Appearance of Specific Odors at Puberty— The Odors 
 of Sexual Excitement — The Odors of Menstruation — Body Odors as a 
 Secondary Sexual Character- The Custom of Salutation by Smell— The 
 Kiss — Sexual Selection by Smell — The Alleged Association between 
 Size of Nose and Sexual Vigor — The Probably Intimate Relationship 
 between the Olfactory and Genital Spheres — Reflex Influences from 
 the Nose — Reflex Influences from the Genital Sphere — Olfactory Hallu- 
 cinations in Insanity as Related to Sexual States — The Olfactive Type— 
 The Sense of Smell in Neurasthenic and Allied States — In Certain Poets 
 and Novelists — Olfactory Fetichism — The Part Played by Olfaction in 
 Normal Sexual Attraction — In the East, etc. — In Modern Europe — The 
 Odor of the Armpit and its Variations — As a Sexual and GeneraJ Stimu- 
 lant — Body Odors in Civilization Tend to Cause Sexual Antipathy unless 
 some Degree of Tumescence is Already Present — The Question whether 
 Men or Women are more Liable to Feel Olfactory Influences — Women 
 Usually more Attentive to Odors — The Special Interest in Odors Felt by 
 Sexual Inverts. 
 
 In approaching the specifically sexual aspect of odor in the 
 human species we may start from the fundamental fact — a fact 
 we seek so far as possible to disguise in our ordinary social 
 relations — that all men and women are odorous. This is 
 marked among all races. The powerful odor of many, though 
 not all, negroes is well known; it is by no means due to un- 
 cleanly habits, and Joest remarks that it is even increased by 
 cleanliness, which opens the pores of the skin ; according to Sir 
 H. Johnston, it is most marked in the armpits and is stronger 
 in men than in women. Pruner Bey describes it as "am- 
 moniacal and rancid; it is like the odor of the he-goat." The 
 odor varies not only individually, but according to the tribe ; 
 Castellani states that the negress of the Congo has merely a 
 slight "gout de noisette" which is agreeable rather than other- 
 wise. Monbuttu women, according to Parke, have a strong Gor- 
 gonzola perfume, and Emin told Parke that he could distin- 
 
 i59) 
 
60 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 guish the members of different tribes by their characteristic 
 odor. In the same way the Nicobarese, according to Man, can 
 distinguish a member of each of the six tribes of the archipelago 
 by smell. The odor of Australian blacks is less strong than 
 that of negroes and has been described as of a phosphoric char- 
 acter. The South American Indians, d'Orbigny stated, have 
 an odor stronger than that of Europeans, though not as strong 
 as most negroes; it is marked, Latcham states, even among 
 those who, like the Araueanos, bathe constantly. The Chinese 
 have a musky odor. The odor of many peoples is described as 
 being of garlic.^ 
 
 A South Sea Islander, we are told by Charles de Varigny, 
 on coming to Sydney and seeing the ladies walking about the 
 streets and apparently doing nothing, expressed much astonish- 
 ment, adding, with a gesture of contempt, "and they have no 
 smell!" It is by no means true, however, that Europeans are 
 odorless. They are, indeed, considerably more odorous than 
 are many other races, — for instance, the Japanese, — and there 
 is doubtless some association between the greater hairiness of 
 Europeans and their marked odor, since the sebaceous glands 
 are part of the hair apparatus. A Japanese anthropologist, 
 Adachi, has published an interesting study on the odor of 
 Europeans,^ which he describes as a strong and pungent smell, 
 — sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter, — of varying strength in 
 different individuals, absent in children and the aged, and hav- 
 ing its chief focus in the armpits, which, however carefully 
 they are washed, immediately become odorous again. Adachi 
 has found that the sweat-glands are larger in Europeans than 
 in the Japanese, among whom a strong personal odor is so 
 
 ' R. Andree, "Volkergeruch," in EthnograpMsche Parallelen, Neue 
 Folge, 1889, pp. 213-222, brings together many passages describing the 
 odors of various peoples. Hagen, Sexuelle Osphresiologie, pp. 166 et 
 seq., has a chapter on the subject; Joest, supplement to International 
 AroMv fur Ethnographic, 1893, p. 53, has an intertesting passage on the 
 smells of various races, as also Waitz, Introduction to Anthropology, 
 p. 103. Cf. Sir H. H. Johnston, British Central Africa, p. 395; T. H. 
 Parke, Experiences in Equatorial Africa, p. 409; E. H. Man, Journal of 
 the Anthropological Institute, 1889, p. 391; Brough Smyth, Aborigines 
 of Tictoria, vol. i, p. 7; d'Orbigny, L'Homme Amiricaln, vol. i, p. 87, etc. 
 
 ■B. Adachi "Geruch der Europaer," Globus, IS03, No. 1. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 61 
 
 uncominoii that "armpit stink" is a disqualification for the 
 army. It is certainly true that the white races smell less 
 strongly than most of the dark races, odor seeming to be cor- 
 related to some extent with intensity of pigmentation, as well 
 as with hairiness; but even the most scrupulously clean Euro- 
 peans all smell. This fact may not always be obvious to human 
 nostrils, apart from intimate contact, but it is well known to 
 dogs, to whom their masters are recognizable by smell. When 
 Hue traveled in Tibet in Chinese disguise he was not detected 
 by the natives, but the dogs recognized him as a foreigner by 
 his smell and barked at him. Many Chinese can tell by smell 
 when a European has been in a room.^ There are, however, 
 some Europeans who can recognize and distinguish their 
 friends by smell. The case has been recorded of a man who 
 with bandaged eyes could recognize his acquaintances, at the 
 distance of several paces, the moment they entered the room. 
 In another case a deaf and blind mute woman in Massachu- 
 setts knew all her acquaintances by smell, and could sort 
 linen after it came from the wash by the odor alone. Gov- 
 ernesses have been known to be able when blindfolded to 
 recognize the ownership of their pupils' garments by smell; 
 such a case is known to me. Such odor is usually described as 
 being agreeable, but not one person in fifty, it is stated, is 
 able to distinguish it with sufiicient precision to use it as a 
 method of recognition. Among some races, however, this apti- 
 tude would appear to be better developed. Dr. C. S. Myers at 
 Sarawak noted that his Malay boy sorted the clean linen ac- 
 cording to the skin-odor of the wearer.'' Chinese servants are 
 said to do the same, as well as Australians and natives of 
 Luzon.* 
 
 Although the distinctively individual odor of most persons is not 
 sufficiently marked to be generally perceptible, there are cases in which 
 
 'Hagen quotes testimonies on this point, Sexuelle Osphresiologie, 
 p. 173. The negro, Castellani states, considers that Europeans have a 
 smell of death. 
 
 'Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition, vol. ii, 
 p. 181. 
 
 • Waitz, Introduction to Anthropology, p. 103. 
 
62 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 it is more distinct to all nostrils. The most famous case of this kind 
 is that of Alexander the Great, who, according to Plutarch, exhaled 
 so sweet an odor that his tunics were soaked with aromatic perfume 
 {Convivalium Disputationum,, lib. I, quest. 6). Malherbe, Cujas, and 
 Haller are said to have diffused a, musky odor. The agreeable odor of 
 Walt Whitman has been remarked by Kennedy and others. The perfume 
 exhaled by many holy men and women, so often noted by ancient writers 
 (discussed by Gorres in the second volume of his Cliristllche Mystik) and 
 which has entered into current phraseology as a merely metaphorical 
 "odor of sanctity," was doubtless due, as Hammond first pointed out, to 
 abnormal nervous conditions, for it is well known that such conditions 
 affect the odor, and in insanity, for instance, the presence is noted of 
 bodily odors which have sometimes even been considered of diagnostic 
 importance. J. B. Friedreich, Allgemeine Diagnostilc der Psychischen 
 Krankheiten, second edition, 1832, pp. 9-10, quotes passages from vari- 
 ous authors on this point, which he accepts; various writers of more 
 recent date have made similar observations. 
 
 The odor of sanctity was specially noted at death, and was doubt- 
 less confused with the odor mortis, which frequently precedes death 
 and by some is regarded as an almost certain indication of its approach. 
 In the British Medical Journal, for May and June, 1898, will be found 
 letters from several correspondents substantiating this point. One of 
 these correspondents (Dr.Tuckey, of Tywardwi'eath, Cornwall) mentions 
 that he has in Cornwall often seen ravens flying over houses in which 
 persons lay dying, evidently attracted by a characteristic odor. 
 
 It mtist be borne in mind, however, that, while every per- 
 son has, to a sensitive nose, a distinguishing odor, we mast 
 regard that odor either as but one of the various sensations 
 given ofE by the body, or else as a combination of two or more 
 of these emanations. The body in reality gives off a number of 
 different odors. The most important of these are: (1) the 
 general skin odor, a faint, but agreeable, fragrance often to be 
 detected on the skin even immediately after washing; (2) the 
 smell of the hair and scalp; (3) the odor of the breath; (4) 
 the odor of the armpit; (5) the odor of the feet; (6) the 
 perineal odor; (7) in men the odor of the preputial smegma; 
 (8) in women the odor of the mons veneris, that of vulvar 
 smegma, that of vaginal mucus, and the menstrual odor. All 
 these are odors which may usually be detected, though some- 
 times only in a very faint degree, in healthy and well-washed 
 
SEXTTAt SELECTION IJT MAHT. 63 
 
 persons under normal conditions. It is unnecessary here to 
 take into account the special odors of various secretions and 
 excretions.^ 
 
 It is a significant fact, both as regards the ancestral sexual 
 connections of the body odors and their actual sexual associa- 
 tions to-day, that, as Hippocrates long ago noted, it is not until 
 puberty that they assume their adult characteristics. The in- 
 fant, the adult, the aged person, each has his own kind of smell, 
 and, as Monin remarks, it might be possible, within certain 
 limits, to discover the age of a person by his odor. Jorg in" 
 1832 pointed out that in girls the appearance of a specific 
 smell of the excreta indicates the establishment of puberty, and 
 ICaan, in his Psychopathia Sexualis, remarked that at puberty 
 "the sweat gives out a more acrid odor resembling musk." In 
 both sexes puberty, adolescence, early manhood and woman- 
 hood are marked by a gradual development of the adult odor 
 of skin and excreta, in general harmony with the secondary 
 sexual developments of hair and pigment. Venturi, indeed, 
 has, not without reason, described the odor of the body as a 
 secondary sexual character.' It may be added that, as is the 
 case with the pigment in various parts of the body in woman, 
 some of these odors tend to become exaggerated in sympathy 
 with sexual and other emotional states. 
 
 The odor of the infant is said to be of butyric acid; that of old 
 people to resemble dry leaves. Continent young men have been said 
 by many ancient writers to smell more strongly than the unchaste, 
 and some writers have described as "seminal odor"- — an odor resembling 
 that of animals in heat, faintly recalling that of the he-goat, accord- 
 ing to Venturi — the exhalations of the skin at such times. 
 
 During sexual excitement, as women can testify, a man very fre- 
 quently, if not normally, gives out an odor which, as usually described, 
 proceeds from the skin, the breath, or both. Grimaldi states that it is 
 as of rancid butter; others say it resembles chlorofoi-m. It is said to 
 be sometimes perceptible for a distance of several feet and to last 
 for several hours after coitus. (Various quotations are given by Gould 
 
 'Monin, Les Odeurs du Corps Humain, second edition, Paris, 1886, 
 discusses briefly but comprehensively the normal and more especially 
 the pathological odors of the body and of its secretions and excretions. 
 
 'Venturi, Degenerazione Psicho-sessuale, p. 417. 
 
64 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 and Pyle, Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, section on "Human 
 Odors," pp. 397-403.) St. Philip Neri is said to have been able to recog- 
 nize a chaste man by smell. 
 
 During menstruation girls and young women frequently give off 
 an odor which is quite distinct from that of the menstrual fluid, and 
 is specially marked in the breath, which may smell of chloroform or 
 violets. Pouchet (confirmed by Eaeiborski, Traiti de la Menstruation, 
 1868, p. 74) stated that about a day before the onset of menstruation 
 a characteristic smell is exuded. Menstruating girls are also said some- 
 times to give off a smell of leather. Aubert, of Lyons (as quoted by 
 Galopin), describes the odor of the skin of a woman during menstru- 
 ation as an agreeable aromatic or acidulous perfume of chloroform char- 
 acter. By some this is described as emanating especially from the arm- 
 pits. Sandras (quoted by Eaeiborski) knew a lady who could always 
 tell by a sensation of faintness and malaise — apparently due to a sen- 
 sation of smell — when she was in contact with a menstruating woman. 
 I am acquainted with a man, having strong olfactoiy sympathies and 
 antipathies, who detects the presence of menstruation by smell. It is 
 said that Hortense Bar6, who accompanied her lover, the botanist Com- 
 merson, to the Pacific disguised as a man, was recognized by the 
 natives as a woman by means of smell. 
 
 Women, like men, frequently give out an odor during coitus or 
 strong sexual excitement. This odor may be entirely different from 
 that normally emanating from the woman, of an acid or hircine char- 
 acter, and sufficiently strong to remain in a room for a considerable 
 period. Many of the ancient medical writers (as quoted by Schurigius, 
 Parthenologia, p. 286) described the goaty smell produced by venery, 
 especially in women; they regarded it as specially marked in harlots and 
 in the newly married, and sometimes even considered it a certain sign of 
 defioration. The case has been recorded of a woman who emitted a rose 
 odor for two days after coitus (McBride, quoted by Kiernan in an in- 
 teresting summary, ''Odor in Pathology, " Doctor's Magazine, December, 
 1900). There was, it is said {Journal des Savans, 1684, p. 39, quoting 
 from the Journal d'Angleterre) a monk in Prague who could recognize 
 by smell the chastity of the women who approached him. (This monk, 
 it is added, when he died, was composing a new science of odors.) 
 
 Gustav Klein (as quoted by Adler, Die Mangelhafte Oeschlecht- 
 sempflndungen des Weihes, p. 25) argues that the special function of 
 the glands at the vulvar orifice — the glandulw vestibulares majores — 
 is to give out an odorous secretion to act as an attraction to the male, 
 this relic of sexual periodicity no longer, however, playing an important 
 part in the human species. The vulvar secretion, however, it may be 
 added, still has a more aromatic odor than the vaginal secretion, with 
 its simple mucous odor, very clearly perceived during parturition. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 65 
 
 It may be added that we still know extremely little concerning 
 the sexual odors of women among primitive peoples. Ploss and Bar- 
 tels are only able to bring forward {Das Weib, 1901, bd. 1, p. 218) a 
 statement concerning the women of New Caledonia, who, according to 
 Moncelon, when young and ardent, give out during coitus a powerful 
 odor which no ablution will remove. In abnormal states of sexual ex- 
 citement such odor may be persistent, and, according to an ancient 
 observation, a nymphomaniac, whose periods of sexual excitement 
 lasted all through the spring-time, at these periods always emitted a 
 goatlike odor. It has been said (G. Tourdes, art. "Aphrodisie," Die- 
 tionnaire Encyclopidigue des Sciences Medicales ) that the erotic tem- 
 perament is characterized by a special odor. 
 
 If the body odors tend to develop at puberty, to be main- 
 tained during sexual life, especially in sympathy with condi- 
 tions of sexual disturbance, and to become diminished in old 
 age, being thus a kind of secondary sexual character, -we should 
 expect them to be less marked in those cases in which the 
 primary sexual characters are less marked. It is possible that 
 this is actually the case. Hagen, in his SexueUe Osphresiologie, 
 quotes from Eoubaud's Traife de I'lmpuissance the statement 
 that the body odor of the castrated differs from that of normal 
 individuals. Burdach had previously stated that the odor of 
 the eunuch is less marked than that of the normal man. 
 
 It is thus possible that defective sexual development tends 
 to be associated with corresponding olfactory defect. HeschP 
 has reported a case in which absence of both olfactory nerves 
 coincided with defective development of the sexual organs. 
 Fere remarks that the impotent show a repugnance for sexual 
 odors. Dr. Kiernan informs me that in women after oopho- 
 rectomy he has noted a tendency to diminished (and occasionally 
 increased) sense of smell. These questions, however, await 
 more careful and extended observation. „ .. 
 
 A very significant transition from the phenomena of per- 
 sonal odor to those of sexual attraction by personal odor is to be 
 found in the fact that among the peoples inhabiting a large 
 part of the world^s surface the ordinary salutation between 
 friends is by mutual smelling of the person. In some form or 
 
 'Quoted by Fgrfi, L'Instinct Sexuel, 1902, p. 133. 
 
 E 
 
66 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 another the method of salutation by applying the nose to the 
 nose, face, or hand of a friend in greeting is found throughout 
 a large part of the Pacific, among the Papuans, the Eskimo, 
 the hill tribes of India, in Africa, and elsewhere.^ Thus, 
 among a certain hill tribe in India, according to Lewin, they 
 smell a friend's cheek: "in their language, they do not say, 
 'Give me a kiss,' but they say 'Smell me.'" And on the Gam- 
 bia, according to F. Moore, "When the men salute the women, 
 they, instead of shaking their hands, put it up to their noses, 
 and smell twice to the back of it." Here we have very clearly 
 a recognition of the emotional value of personal odor widely 
 prevailing throughout the world. The salutation on an olfac- 
 tory basis may, indeed, be said to be more general than the 
 salutation on a tactile basis on which European handshaking 
 rests, each form involving one of the two most intimate and 
 emotional senses. The kiss may be said to be a development 
 proceeding both from ihe oira??P3Ty''inKI' tfte" tactile bases, wftfr- 
 perhaps some other elements as well, and is too complex to be . 
 regarded as a phenomenon of either purely tactile or purely 
 olfactory origin." 
 
 As the sole factor in sexual selection olfaction must be 
 rare. It is said that Asiatic princes have sometimes caused a 
 number of the ladies to race in the seraglio garden until they 
 were heated; their garments have then been brought to the 
 prince, who has selected one of them solely by the odor.^ There 
 was here a sexual selection mainly by odor. Any exclusive 
 efficacy of the olfactory sense is rare, not so much because the 
 impressions of this sense are inoperative, but because agreeable 
 personal odors are not sufficiently powerful, and the olfactory 
 organ is too obtuse, to enable smell to take precedence of sight. 
 Nevertheless, in many people, it is probable that certain odors, 
 especially those that are correlated with a healthy and sexually 
 desirable person, tend to be agreeable; they are fortified by 
 
 "H; Ljng Roth, "On Salutations," Journal of the Anthropological 
 Institvte, November, 1889. 
 
 ' See Appendix A : "The Origins of the Kiss." 
 
 ° See, e. g., passage quoted by I. Bloch, Beitrdge zur ^tiologle der 
 PsychopatMa Sexualis, Teil II, p. 205. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 67 
 
 their association with the loved person, sometimes to an irre- 
 sistible degree; and their potency is doubtless increased by 
 the fact, to which reference has already been made, that many 
 odors, including some bodily odors, are nervous stimulants. 
 It is possible that the sexual associations of odors have 
 been still further fortified by a tendency to correlation between 
 a high development of the olfactory organ and a high develop- 
 ment of the sexual apparatus. An association between a large 
 nose and a large male organ is a. very ancient observation and 
 has been verified occasionally in recent times. There is nor- 
 mally at puberty a great increase in the septum of the nose, 
 and it is quite conceivable, in view of the sympathy, which, as 
 we shall see, certainly exists between the olfactory and sexual 
 region, that the two regions may develop together under a 
 common influence. 
 
 The Romans firmly believed in the connection between a large nose 
 and a large penis. "Noscitur e naso quanta sit hasta viro," stated Ovid. 
 This belief continued to prevail, especially in Italy, through the middle 
 ages; the physiognomists made much of it, and licentious women {like 
 Joanna of Naples) were, it appears, accustomed to bear it in mind, al- 
 though disappointment is recorded often to have followed. (See, e.g., the 
 quotations and references given by J. N. Mackenzie, "Physiological and 
 Pathological Relations between the Nose and the Sexual Apparatus in 
 Man." JoTina Hoiikins Hospital Bulletin, No. 82, January, 1898; also 
 Hagen, Sexuelle Osphresiologie, pp. 15-19.) A similar belief as to the 
 association between the sexual impulse in women and a long nose was 
 evidently common in England in the sixteenth century, for in Mas- 
 singer's Emperor of the Bast (Act II, Scene 1) we read, 
 
 "Her nose, which by its length assures me 
 Of storms at midnight if I fail to pay her 
 The tribute she expects." 
 
 At the present day, a proverb of the Venetian people still embodies the 
 belief in the connection between a large nose and a large sexual mem- 
 ber. 
 
 The probability that such an association tends in many eases to 
 prevail is indicated not only by the beliefs of antiquity, when more 
 careful attention was paid to these matters, but by the testimony of 
 various modem observers, although it does not appear that any series 
 of exact observations have yet been made. 
 
68 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 It may be noted that Marro, in his careful anthropological study 
 of criminals {/ Caratteri del Delinquenti) , found no class of criminals 
 with so large a proportion alike of anomalies of the nose and anomalies 
 of the genital organs as sexual offenders. 
 
 However this may be, it is less doubtful that there is a 
 very intimate relation both in men and v^omen between the 
 olfactory mucous membrane of the nose and the whole genital 
 apparatus, that they frequently show a sympathetic action, that 
 influences acting on the genital sphere will affect the nose, and 
 occasionally, it is probable, influences acting on the nose re- 
 flexly affect the genital sphere. To discuss these relationships 
 would here be out of place, since specialists are not altogether 
 in agreement concerning the matter. A few are inclined to 
 regard the association as extremely intimate, so that each re- 
 gion is sensitive even to slight stimuli applied to the other 
 region, while, on, the other hand, many authorities ignore alto- 
 gether the question of the relationship. It would appear, how- 
 ever, that there really is, in a considerable number of people 
 at all events, a reflex connection of this kind. It has especially 
 been noted that in many cases congestion of the nose precedes 
 menstruation. 
 
 Bleeding of the nose is specially apt to occur at puberty 
 and during adolescence, while in women it may take the place 
 of menstruation and is sometimes more apt to occur at the 
 menstrual periods; disorders of the nose have also been found 
 to be aggravated at these periods. It has even been possible 
 to control bleeding of the nose, both in men and women, by 
 applying ice to the sexual regions. In both men and women, 
 again, cases have been recorded in which sexual excitement, 
 whether of coitus or masturbation, has been followed by bleed- 
 ing of the nose. In numerous cases it is followed by slight 
 congestive conditions of the nasal passages and especially by 
 sneezing. Various authors have referred to this phenomenon; 
 I am acquainted with a lady in whom it is fairly constant.^ 
 
 ' It must at the same time be remembered that the more or less 
 degree of exposure involved by sexual intercourse is itself a cause of 
 nasal congestion and sneezing. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 69 
 
 Fere records the case of a lady, a nervous subject, who began to 
 experience intense spontaneous sexual excitement shortly after 
 marriage, accompanied by much secretion from the nose.'^ J. 
 N. Mackenzie is acquainted with a number of such cases, and 
 he considers that the popular expression "bride's cold" indi- 
 cates that this effect of strong sexual excitement is widely 
 recognized. 
 
 The late Professor Hack, of Freiburg, in 1884, called general 
 medical attention to the intimate connection between the nose and 
 states of nervous hyperexcitability in various parts of the body, al- 
 though such a connection had been recognized for many centuries in 
 medical literature. While Hack and his disciples thus gave promi- 
 nence to this association, they undoubtedly greatly exaggerated its im-. 
 portance and significance. (Sir Felix Semon, British Medical Journal, 
 November 9, 1901.) Even many workers who have more recently further 
 added to our knowledge have also, as sometimes happens with enthusi- 
 asts, unduly strained their own data. Starting from the fact that in 
 women during menstruation examination of the nose reveals a de- 
 gree of congestion not found during the rest of the month, Fliess (Die 
 Bezielmngen zwischen Nase und WeiMichen GesoMechtsorganen, 1«97), 
 with the help of a number of elaborate and prolonged observations, has 
 reached conclusions which, while they seem to be hazardous at some 
 points, have certainly contributed to build up our knowledge of this 
 obscure subject. Schiff {Wiener klinische Wochenschrift, 1900, p. 58, 
 summarized in British Medical Journal, February 16, 1901), starting 
 from a skeptical standpoint, has confirmed some of Fliess's results, and 
 in a large number of cases controlled painful menstruation by paint- 
 ing with cocaine the so-called "genital spots" in the nose, all possi- 
 bility of suggestion being avoided. Ries, of Chicago, has been similarly 
 successful with the method of Fliess {American Gynmcology, vol. iii. 
 No. 4, 1903). Benedikt {Wiener medieinische Wochenschrift, No. 8, 1901, 
 summarized in Journal of Medical Science, October, 1901), while point- 
 ing out that the nose is not the only organ in sympathetic relation 
 with the sexual sphere, suggests that the mechanism of the relationship 
 is involved in the larger problem of the harmony in growth and in 
 nutrition of the different parts of the organism. In this way, probably, 
 we may attach considerable significance to the existence of a kind of 
 erectile tissue in the nose. 
 
 An interesting example of a reflex influence from the nose af- 
 fecting the genital sphere has been brought foi-ward by Dr. E. S. Tal- 
 
 'F6r6, Pathologie des Emotions, p. 81, 
 
70 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 bot, of Chicago: "A 56-year-old man was operated on (September 1, 
 1803) for tlie removal of the left cartilage of the septum of the nose 
 owing to a previous traumatic fracture at the sixteenth year. No 
 pain was experienced until two years ago, when a continual soreness 
 occurred at the apical end of the fracture during the winter months. 
 The operation \\'as decided upon fearing more serious complications. 
 The parts were cocainized. No pain was experienced in the operation 
 except at one point at the lower posterior portion near the floor of the 
 nose. A profound shock to the general system followed. The reflex 
 influence of the pain upon the genital organs caused semen to flow 
 continually for three weeks. Treatment of general motor irritability 
 with camphor monobromate and conium, on consultation with Br, Kier- 
 nan, checked the flow. The discharge produced spinal neurasthenia. 
 The legs and feet felt heavy. Erythromelalgia caused uneasiness. The 
 patient walked with difficulty. The tired feeling in the feet and limos 
 was quite noticeable four months after the operation, although the 
 pain had, to a gieat extent diminished." (Chicago Academy of Medi- 
 cine, January, 1904, and private letter.) 
 
 J. N. Mackenzie has brought together a great many original ob- 
 sei-vations, together with interesting quotations from old medical liter- 
 ature, in his two papers: "The Pathological Nasal Reflex" (New York 
 Medical Journal, August 20, 1887) and "The Physiological and Patho- 
 logical Relations between the Nose and the Sexual Apparatus of Man" 
 (Johns Hoiilcins Hospital Bulletin, January 1, 1898). A number of cases 
 have also been brought together from the literature by G. Endriss in 
 his Inaugural Dissertation, Die bisherigen BeobacMunyen von Physi- 
 ologischen und Pathologischen Beziehmigen der oberen Luftwege zu den 
 Sexualorganen, Teil. II, Wtirzburg, 1892. 
 
 The intimate association between the sexual centers and 
 the olfactory tract is well illustrated by the fact that this 
 primitive and ancient association tends to come to the surface 
 in insanity. It is recognized by many alienists that insanity 
 of a sexual character is specially liable to be associated with 
 hallucinations of smell. 
 
 Many eminent alienists in various countries are very decidedly of 
 the opinion that there is a special tendency to the association of 
 olfactory hallucinations with sexual manifestations, and, although one 
 or two authorities have expressed doubt on the matter, the available 
 evidence clearly indicates such an association. Hallucinations of smell 
 are comparatively rare as compared to hallucinations of sight and hear- 
 ing; they are commoner in women than in men and they not in- 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 71 
 
 frequently occur at periods of sexual disturbance, at adolescence, in 
 puerperal fever, at the change of life, in women with ovarian troubles, 
 and in old people troubled with sexual desires or remorse for such de- 
 sires. They have often been noted as specially frequent in cases of ex- 
 cessive masturbation. 
 
 Krafft-Ebing, who found olfactory hallucinations common in vari- 
 ous sexual states, considers that they are directly dependent on sexual 
 excitement (AUgemeine Zeitschrift fiir Psychiatrie, bd. 34, ht. 4, 1877). 
 Conolly Norman believes in a distinct and frequent association be- 
 tween olfactory hallucinations and sexual disturbance (Journal of 
 Mental Science, July, 1899, p. 532). Savage is also impressed by the 
 close association between sexual disturbance or changes in the repro- 
 ductive organs and hallucinations of smell as well as of touch. He has 
 found that persistent hallucinations of smell disappeared when a dis- 
 eased ovary was removed, although the patient remained insane. He 
 considers that such hallucinations of smell are allied to reversions'. (G. 
 H. Sa,vage, "Smell, Hallucinations of," Tuke's Dictionary of Psycho- 
 logical Medicine; cf. the same author's manual of Insanity and Allied 
 Neuroses.) Matusch, while not finding olfactory hallucinations common 
 at the climacteric, states that when they are present they are con- 
 nected with uterine trouble and sexual craving. He finds them more 
 common in young women. (Matusch, Der Einfluss des Climacterium 
 auf Entstchung und Form der Geistesstorung," AUgemeine Zeitschrift 
 fiir Psychiatrie, vol. xlvi, ht. 4). F6r6 has related a significant case of 
 a young man in whom hallucinations of smell accompanied the sexual 
 orgasm; he subsequently developed epilepsy, to which the hallucina- 
 tion then constituted the aura {Comptes Rendua de la SociUi de 
 Biologic, December, 1896). The prevalence of a sexual element in olfac- 
 tory hallucinatibns has been investigated by BuUen, who examined into 
 95 cases of hallucinations of smell among the patients in several 
 asylums. (In a few cases there were reasons for' believing that 
 peripheral conditions existed which would render these hallucinations 
 more strictly illusions). Of these, 64 were women. Sixteen of the 
 women were climacteric cases, and 3 of them had sexual hallucinations 
 or delusions. Fourteen other women (chiefly cases of chronic delusional 
 insanity) had sexual delusions. Altogether, 31 men and women had 
 sexual delusions. This is a large proportion. Bullen is not, however, 
 inclined to admit any direct connection between the reproductive sys- 
 tem and the sense of smell. He finds that other hallucinations are very 
 frequently associated with the olfactory hallucinations, and considers 
 that the co-existence of olfactory and sexual troubles simply indicates 
 a very deep and widespread nervous disturbance. (F. St. John Bullen, 
 "Olfactory Hallucinations in the Insane", Journal of Mental Scienvv, 
 July, 1899.) In order to elucidate the matter fully we require further 
 precise inquiries on the lines Bullen has laid down. 
 
72 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 It may be of interest to note, in tliia connection, that smell and 
 taste hallucinations appear to be specially frequent in forms of religious 
 insanity. Thus, Dr. Zureher, in her inaugural dissertation on Joan of 
 Arc {Jeanne d'Arc, Leipzig, 1895, p. 72), estimates that on the aver- 
 age in such insanity nearly 50 per cent, of the hallucinations aflfect 
 smell and taste; she refers also to the olfactory hallucinations of 
 great religious leaders, Fi-ancis of Assisi, Katherina Emmerich, Laz- 
 zarBtti, and the Anabaptists. 
 
 It may well be, as Zwaardemaker has suggested in his 
 Physiologie des Geruclis, that the nasal congestion at menstrua- 
 tion and similar phenomena are connected with that association 
 of smell and sexuality which is observable throughout the 
 whole animal world, and that the congestion brings about a 
 temporary increase of olfactory sensitiveness during the stage 
 of sexual excitation.^ Careful investigation of olfactory acute- 
 ness would reveal the existence of such menstrual heightening 
 of its acuity. 
 
 In a few exceptional, but still quite healthy people, smell 
 would appear to possess an emotional predominance which it 
 cannot be said to possess in the average person. These excep- 
 tional people are of what Binet in his study of sexual fetichism 
 calls olf active type; such persons form a group which, though 
 of smaller size and less importance, is fairly comparable to the 
 well-known groups of visual type, of auditory type, and of 
 psychomotor type. Such people would be more attentive to 
 odors, more moved by olfactory sympathies and antipathies, 
 than are ordinary people. For these, it may well be, the su- 
 premacy accorded to olfactory influences in Jager's Entdeckung 
 der Seele, though extravagantly incorrect for ordinary persons, 
 may appear quite reasonable. 
 
 It is certain also that a great many neurasthenic people, 
 and particularly those who are sexually neurasthenic, are pecul- 
 iarly susceptible to olfactory influences. A number of eminent 
 
 ' J. N. Maelienzie similarly suggests {Johns Bojikins Hospital Bul- 
 letin, No. 82, 1898) that "irritation and congestion of the nasal mucous 
 membrane precede, or are the excitants of, the olfactory impression 
 that forms the connecting link between the sense of smell and erethism 
 of the reproductive organs exhibited in the lower animals." 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 73 
 
 poets and novelists — especially, it would appear, in France — 
 seem to be in this case. Baudelaire, of all great poets, has most 
 persistently and most elaborately emphasized the imaginative 
 and emotional significance of odor; the Fleurs du Mai and' 
 many of the Petits Poemes en Prose are, from this point of view, 
 of great interest. There can be no doubt that in Baudelaire's 
 own imaginative and emotional life the sense of smell played 
 a highly important part; and that, in his own words, odor was 
 to him what music is to others. Throughout Zola's novels — 
 and perhaps more especially in La Faute de I'Abhe Mouret — 
 there is an extreme insistence on odors of every kind. Prof. 
 Leopold Bernard wrote an elaborate study of this aspect of 
 Zola's work^ ; he believed that underlying Zola's interest in odors 
 there was an abnormally keen olfactory sensibility and large 
 development of the olfactory region of the brain. Such a sup- 
 position is, however, unnecessary, and, as a matter of fact, 
 a careful examination of Zola's olfactory sensibility, conducted 
 by M. Passy, showed that it was somewhat below normal." At 
 the same time it was shown that Zola was really a person of 
 olfactory psychic type, with a special attention to odors and a 
 special memory for them; as is frequently the case with per- 
 fumers with less than normal olfactory acuity he possessed a 
 more than normal power of discriminating odors; it is possible 
 that in early life his olfactory acuity may also have been above 
 normal. In the same way Nietzsche, in his writings, shows a 
 marked sensibility, and especially antipathy, as regards odors, 
 which has by some been regarded as an index to a real physical 
 sensibility of abnormal keenness; according to Mobius, how- 
 ever, there was no reason for supposing this to be the ease.' 
 Huysmans, who throughout his books reveals a very intense 
 pre-occupation with the exact shades of many kinds of sensory 
 impressions, and an apparently abnormally keen sensibility to 
 them, has shown a great interest in odors, more especially in an 
 oft-quoted passage in A Rehours. The blind Milton of "Para- 
 
 '■ Les Odeurs dans les Romans de Zola, Montpellier, 1889. 
 "Toulouse, Emile Zola, pp. 163-165, 173-175. 
 ' P. J. Mobius, Das Pathologische hei Nietzsche. 
 
74 PSTCHOLOGT OF SEX. 
 
 dise Lost" (as the late Mr. Grant Allen once remarked to me), 
 dwells much on scents; in this case it is doubtless to the blind- 
 ness and not to any special organic predisposition that we must 
 attribute this direction of sensory attention.^ Among our older 
 English poets, also, Herrick displays a special interest in odors 
 with a definite realization of their sexual attractiveness.^ Shel- 
 ley, who was alive to so many of the unusual aesthetic aspects 
 of things, often shows an enthusiastic delight in odors, more 
 especially those of flowers. It may, indeed, be said that most 
 poets — though to a less degree than those I have mentioned — 
 devote a special attention to odors, and, since it has been pos- 
 sible to describe smell as the sense of imagination, this need 
 not surprise us. That Shakespeare, for instance, ranked this 
 sense very high indeed is shown by various passages in his 
 works and notably by Sonnet LIV : "0, how much more doth 
 beauty beauteous seem!" — in which he implicitly places the 
 attraction of odor on at least as high a level as that of vision." 
 A neurasthenic sensitiveness to odors, specially sexual 
 odors, is frequently accompanied by lack of sexual vigor. In 
 this way we may account for the numerous cases in which old 
 men in whom sexual desire survives the loss of virile powers — ' 
 probably somewhat abnormal pei'sons at the outset — find satis- 
 faction in sexual odors. Here, also, we have the basis for 
 olfactory fetichism. In such fetichism the odor of the woman 
 alone, whoever she may be and however unattractive she may 
 be, suffices to furnish complete sexual satisfaction. In many, 
 although not all, of those cases in which articles of women's 
 
 '■ Moll has a passage on the sense of smell in the blind, more espe- 
 cially in sexual respects, Untersuchungen uber die Libido Sexualis, bd. 
 1, pp. 137 et seq. 
 
 "See, for instance, his poem, "Love Perfumes all Parts," in which 
 he declares that "Hands and thighs and legs are all richly aromatical." 
 And compare the lyrics entitled "A Song to the Maskers," "On Julia's 
 Breath," "Upon Julia's Unlacing Herself," "Upon Julia's Sweat," and 
 "To Mistress Anne Soarae." 
 
 ' There are various indications that Goethe was attentive to the 
 attraction of personal odors; and that he experienced this attraction 
 himself is shown by the fact that, as he confessed, when he once had 
 to leave Weimar on an official journey for two days he took a bodice 
 of Frau von Stein's away in order to carry the scent of her body with 
 him. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 75 
 
 clothing become the objects of fetiehistic attraction, there is 
 certainly an olfactory element due to the personal odor at- 
 taching to the garments.^ 
 
 Olfactory influences play a certain part in various sexually abnor- 
 mal tendencies and practices which do not proeeed from an exclusively 
 olfactory fascination. Thus, cunnilingus and fellatio derive part of 
 their attraction, more especially in some individuals, from a predilec- 
 tion for the odors of the sexual parts. (See, e. g., Moll, Vntersuchungen 
 iiter die Libido Sexualis, bd. 1, p. 134.) In many cases smell plays 
 no part in the attraction; "I enjoy cunnilingus, if I like the girl very 
 much," a correspondent writes, "in spite of the smell." We may as- 
 sociate this impulse with the prevalence of these practices among sexual 
 inverts, in whom olfactory attractions are often specially marked. 
 Those individuals, also, who are sexually affected by the urinary and 
 alvine excretions {"renifleurs," "ster cor aires," etc.) are largely, though 
 not necessarily altogether, moved by olfactory impressions. The attrac- 
 tion was, however, exclusively olfactory in the case of the young woman 
 recorded by Moraglia (Archlcio di Psichiatria, 1892, p. 267), who was 
 irresistibly excited by the odor of the fermented urine of men, and pos- 
 sibly also in the case narrated to Moraglia by Prof. L. Bianchi {ib. p. 
 568), in which a wife required flatus from her husband. 
 
 The sexual pleasure derived from partial strangulation (discussed 
 in the study of "Love and Pain" in a previous volume) may be asso- 
 ciated with heightened olfactory sexual excitation. Dr. Kiernan, who 
 points this out to me, has investigated a few neuropathic patients 
 who like to have their necks squeezed, as they express it, and finds that 
 in the majority the olfactory sensibility is thus intensified. 
 
 Even in ordinary normal persons, however, there can be no 
 doubt that personal odor tends to play a not inconsiderable 
 part in sexual attractions and sexual repulsions. As a sexual 
 excitant, indeed, it comes far behind the stimuli received 
 through the sense of sight. The comparative bluntness of 
 the sense of smell in man makes it difficult for olfactory in- 
 fluence to be felt, as a rule, until the preliminaries of courtship 
 are already over; so that it is impossible for smell ever to pos- 
 sess the same significance in sexual attraction in man that it 
 
 'Hagen has brought together from the literature of the subject a 
 number of typical cases of olfactory fetichism, Sexuelle Osphresiologie, 
 1901, pp. 82 et seq. 
 
76 PSTCT-IOLOGT OF SEX. 
 
 possesses in the lower animals. With that reservation there can 
 be no doubt that odor has a certain favorable or unfavorable 
 influence in sexual relationships in all human races from the 
 lowest to the highest. The Polynesian spoke with contempt of 
 those women of European race who "have no smell," and in 
 view of the pronounced personal odor of so many savage peo- 
 ples as well as of the careful attention which they so often pay 
 to odors, we may certainly assume, even in the absence of much 
 definite evidence, that smell counts for much in their sexual 
 relationships. This is confirmed by such practices as that 
 found among some primitive peoples — as, it is stated, in the 
 Philippines — of lovers exchanging their garments to have the 
 smell of the loved one about them. In the barbaric stages of 
 society this element becomes self-conscious and is clearly 
 avowed; personal odors are constantly described with com- 
 placency, sometimes as mingled with the lavish use of artificial 
 perfumes, in much of the erotic literature produced in the 
 highest stages of barbarism, especially by Eastern peoples liv- 
 ing in hot climates; it is only necessary to refer to the Song 
 of Songs, the Arabian Nights, and the Indian treatises on love. 
 Even in some parts of Europe the same influence is recognized 
 in the crudest animal form, and Krauss states that among the 
 Southern Slavs it is sometimes customary to leave the sexual 
 parts unwashed because a strong odor of these parts is re- 
 garded as a sexual stimulant. Under the usual conditions of life 
 in Europe personal odor has sunk into the background ; this has 
 been so equally under the conditions of classic, mediasval, and 
 modern life. Personal odor has been generally regarded as 
 unaesthetic; it has, for the most part, only been mentioned to 
 be reprobated, and even those poets and others who during 
 recent centuries have shown a sensitive delight and interest in 
 odors — Herrick, Shelley, Baudelaire, Zola, and Iluysmans — 
 have seldom ventured to insist that a purely natural and per- 
 sonal odor can be agreeable. The fact that it may be so, and 
 that for most people such odors cannot be a matter of indif- 
 ference in the most intimate of all relationships, is usually only 
 to be learned casually and incidentally. There can be no doubt, 
 
SEXUAL SELECTIOSr IN MAN. 77 
 
 however, that, as Kiernan points out, the extent to which olfac- 
 tion influences the sexual sphere in civilized man has been much 
 underestimated. We need not, therefore, be surprised at the 
 greater interest which has recentlj' been taken in this subject. 
 As usually happens, indeed, there has been in some writers a 
 tendency to run to the opposite extreme, and we cannot, with 
 Grustav Jager, regard the sexual instinct as mainly or altogether 
 an olfactory matter. 
 
 Of the Padmlni, the perfect woman, the "lotus woman," Hindu writ- 
 ers say that "her sweat has the odor of musk," while the vulgar woman, 
 they say, smells of fish (Kama Sutra of Yatsyayana). Ploss and Bartels 
 (Das Weib, 1901, p. 218) bring forward a passage from the Tamil 
 Kokkdgam, minutely describing various kinds of sexual odor in women, 
 which they regard as resting on sound observation. 
 
 Four things in a woman, says the Arab, should be perfumed: 
 the mouth, the armpits, the pudenda, and the nose. The Persian poets, 
 in describing the body, delighted to use metaphors involving odor. Not 
 only the hair and the down on the face, but the chin, the mouth, the 
 beauty spots, the neck, all suggested odorous images. The epithets 
 applied to the hair frequently refer to musk, ambergris, and civet. 
 (Anis el Ochohaq, translated by Huart, BiUiotMque de I'Ecole des Eautes 
 Etudes, fasc. 25, 1875.) 
 
 The Hebrew Song of Songs furnishes a typical example of a very 
 beautiful Eastern love-poem in which the importance of the appeal to 
 the sense of smell is throughout emphasized. There are in this short 
 poem as many as twenty-four fairly definite references to odors, — ^per- 
 sonal odors, perfumes, and flowers, — while numerous other references 
 to flowers, etc., seem to point to olfactory associations. Both the lover 
 and his sweetheart express pleasure in each other's personal odor. 
 
 "My beloved is unto me," she sings, "as a bag of myrrh 
 That lieth between my breasts; 
 
 My beloved is unto me as a cluster of henna flowers 
 In the vineyard of En-gedi." 
 
 And again: "His cheeks are as a bed of spices [or balsam], as banks 
 of sweet herbs." While of her he says: "The smell of thy breath [or 
 nose] is like apples." 
 
 Greek and Roman antiquity, which has so largely influenced the 
 traditions of modern Europe, was lavish in the use of perfumes, but 
 showed no sympathy with personal odors. For the Roman satirists, 
 like Martial, a personal odor is nearly always an unpleasant odor. 
 
78 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 though there are a few allusions . in classic literature recognizing 
 bodily smell as a sexual attraction. Ovid, in his Ars Amandi (Book 
 III), says it is scarcely necessary to remind a lady that she must not 
 keep a goat in her armpits: "ne trux caper iret in alas." "Mulier turn 
 bene olet ubi nihil olet" is an ancient dictum, and in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury Montaigne still repeated the same saying with complete approval. 
 
 A different current of feeling began to appear with the new 
 emotional movement during the eighteenth century. Rousseau called 
 attention to the importance of the olfactory sense, and in his educa- 
 tional work, Emile (Bk. II), he referred to the odor of a woman's 
 "cabinet de toilette" as not so feeble a snare as is commonly supposed. 
 In the same century Casanova wrote still more emphatically concerning 
 the same point; in the preface to his Mimoires he states: "I have 
 always found sweet the odor of the women I have loved"; and else- 
 where: "There is something in the air of the bedroom of the woman 
 one loves, something so intimate, so balsamic, such voluptuous emana- 
 tions, that if a lover had to choose between Heaven and this place 
 of delight his hesitation would not last for a moment" {M^moires, 
 vol. iii). In the previous century, in England, Sir Kenelm Digby, in 
 his interesting and remarkable Private Memoirs, when describing a visit 
 to Lady Venetia Stanley, afterward his wife, touches on personal odor 
 as an element of attraction; he had found her asleep in bed and on 
 her breasts "did glisten a few drops of sweatlike diamond sparks, and 
 had a more fragrant odor than the violets or primroses whose season 
 was newly passed." 
 
 In 1821 Cadet-Devaux published, in the Revue Encyclopidique, 
 a study entitled "De I'atmosphSre de la Fcmme et de sa Puissance," 
 which attracted a great deal of attention in Germany as well as in 
 France; he considered that the exhalations of the feminine body are 
 of the first importance in sexual attraction. 
 
 Prof. A. Galopin in 1886 wrote a semiscientific book, Le Parfum 
 de la Femme, in which the sexual significance of personal odor is de- 
 veloped to its fullest. He writes with enthusiasm concerning the sweet 
 and health-giving character of the natural perfume of a beloved 
 woman, and the mischief done both to health and love by the use of 
 artificial perfumes. "The purest marriage that can be contracted be- 
 tween a man and a woman," he asserts (p. 157) "is that engendered by 
 olfaction and sanctioned by a common assimilation in the brain of the 
 animated molecules due to the secretion and evaporation of two bodies 
 in contact and sympathy." 
 
 In a book written during the first half of the nineteenth century 
 which contains various subtle observations on love we read, with 
 reference to the sw.eet odor which poets have found in the breath of 
 women: "In reality many women have an intoxieatingly agreeable 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 79 
 
 breath which plays no small part In the love-compelling atmosphere 
 which they spread around them" {Eros Oder WorterhucJi iiber die 
 Physiologie, 1849, Bd. 1, p. 45). 
 
 Most of the writers on the psychology of love at this period, how- 
 ever, seem to have passsed over the olfactory element in sexual at- 
 traction, regarding it probably as too unaesthetie. It receives no em- 
 phasis either in Sgnancoui-'s De I'Amour or Stendhal's De VAmour or 
 Miehelet's L'Amour. 
 
 The poets within recent times have frequently referred to odors, 
 personal and other, but the novelists have more rarely done so. Zola 
 and Huysmans, the two novelists who have most elaborately and in- 
 sistently developed the olfactory side of life, have dwelt more on odors 
 that are repulsive than on those that are agreeable. It is therefore of 
 interest to note that in a few remarkable novels of recent times the 
 attractiveness of personal odor has been emphasized. This is notably 
 BO in Tolstoy's War and Peace, in which Count Peter suddenly resolves 
 to marry Princess Helena after inhaling her odor at a ball. In d'An- 
 nunzio's Trionfo della Morte the seductive and consoling odor of the 
 beloved woman's skin is described in several passages; thus, when 
 Giorgio kissed Ippolita's arms and shoulders, we are told, "he per- 
 ceived the sharp and yet delicate perfume of her, the perfume of the 
 skin that in the hour of joy became intoxicating as that of the tube- 
 rose, and a terrible lash to desire." 
 
 When we are dealing with the sexual significance of per- 
 sonal odors in man there is at the outset an important diSer- 
 ence to be noticed in comparison with the lower mammals. 
 Not only is the significance of odor altogether very much less, 
 but the focus of olfactory attractiveness has been displaced. 
 The centre of olfactory attractiveness is not, as usually among, 
 animals, in the sexual region, but is transferred to the upper 
 part of the body. In this respect the sexiial olfactory allure- 
 ment in man resembles what we find in the sphere of vision, 
 for neither the sexual organs of man nor of woman are usu- 
 ally beautiful in the eyes of the opposite sex, and their exhibi- 
 tion is not among us regarded as a necessary stage in court- 
 ship. The odor of the body, like its beauty, in so far as it can 
 be regarded as a possible sexual allurement, has in the course 
 of development been transferred to the upper parts. The care- 
 ful concealment of the sexual region has doubtless favored this 
 transfer. It has thus happened that when personal odor acts 
 
80 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 as a sexual allnrement it is the armpit, in any case normally 
 the chief focus of odor in the body, which mainly comes into 
 play, together with the skin and the hair. 
 
 Aubert, of Lyons, noted that during menstruation the odor of the 
 armpits may become more powerful, and describes it as being at this 
 time an aromatic odor of acidulous or chloroform character. Galopin 
 remarks that, while some women's armpits smell of sheep in rut, 
 others, when exposed to the air, have a fragrance of ambergris or violet. 
 Dark persons (according to Gould and Pyle) are said sometimes to 
 exhale a prussie acid odor, and blondes more frequently musk; Galopin 
 associates the ambergris odor more especially with blondes. 
 
 While some European poets have faintly indicated the woman's 
 armpit as a centre of sexual attraction, it is among Eastern poets that 
 we may find the idea more directly and naturally expressed. Thus, in 
 a Chinese drama ("The Transmigration of Yo-Chow," Mercure de 
 France, No. 8, 1901) we find a learned young doctor addressing the fol- 
 lowing poem to his betrothed: — ■ ' 
 
 "When I have climbed to the bushy summit of Mount Chao, 
 
 I have still not reached to the level of your odorous armpit. 
 
 I must needs mount to the sky 
 
 Before the breeze brings to me 
 
 The perfume of that embalsamed nest!" 
 
 This poet seems, however, to have been carried to a pitch of en- 
 thusiasm unusual even in China, for his future mother-in-law, after 
 expressing her admiration for the poem, remarks: "But who would 
 have thought one could find so many beautiful things under my 
 daughter's armpit!" 
 
 The odor of the armpit is the most powerful in the body, suf- 
 ficiently powerful to act as a muscular stimulant even in the absence 
 of any direct sexual association. This is indicated by an observation 
 made by FSrS, who noticed, when living opposite a laundry, that fin 
 old woman who worked near the window would, toward the close of 
 the day, introduce her right hand under the sleeve of the other to the 
 armpit ajid then hold it to her nose; this she would do about every five 
 minutes. It was evident that the odor acted as a stimulant to her fail- 
 ing energies. F(5i-S has been informed by others who have had oc- 
 casion to frequent workrooms that this proceeding is by no means un- 
 common among persons of both sexes. (F6r6, L'lnstinct Seivuel, second 
 edition, p. 135.) I have myself noticed the same gesture very delib- 
 erately made in the street by a young English woman of the working class, 
 under circumstances which suggested that it acted as an immediate 
 stimulant in fatigue. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAK. 81 
 
 Huysmans— who in his novels has insisted on odors, both those of 
 a personal kind and perfumes, with great precision — has devoted one 
 of the sketches, "Le Gousset," in his Groguis Parisiens (1880) to the 
 varying odors of women's armpits. "I have followed this fragrance in 
 the country," he remarks, "behind a group of women gleaners under 
 the bright sun. It was excessive and terrible; it stung your nostrils 
 like an unstoppered bottle of alkali; it seized you, irritating your 
 ^ mucous membrane with a rough odor which had in it something of 
 the relish of wild duck cooked with olives and the sharp odor of the 
 shallot. On the whole, it was not a vile or repugnant emanation; it 
 united, as an anticipated thing, with the formidable odors of the land- 
 scape; it was the pure note, completing with the human animals' cry 
 of heat the odorous melody of beasts and woods." He goes on to 
 speak of the perfume of feminine arms in the ball-room. ''There the 
 aroma is of ammoniated valerian, of chlorinated urine, brutally ac- 
 centuated sometimes, even with a slight scent of prussic acid about it, 
 a faint whiff of overripe peaches.'' These "spice-boxes," however, Huys- 
 mans continues, are more seductive when their perfume is filtered 
 through the garments. "The appeal of the balsam of their arms is then 
 less insolent, less cynical, than at the ball where they are more naked, 
 but it more easily uncages the animal in man. Various as the color of 
 the hair, the odor of the armpit is infinitely divisible; its gamut covers 
 the whole keyboard of odors, reaching the obstinate scents of syringa 
 and elder, and sometimes recalling the sweet perfume of the rubbed 
 fingers that have held a cigarette. Audacious and sometimes fatiguing 
 in the brunette and the black woman, sharp and fierce in the red 
 woman, the armpit is heady as some sugared wines in the blondes." It 
 wiU be noted that this very exact description corresponds at various 
 points with the remarks of more scientific observers. 
 
 Sometimes the odor of the armpit may even become a kind of 
 fetich which is craved for its own sake and in itself suffices to give 
 pleasure. F§r6 has recorded such a case, in a friend of his own, a man 
 of 60, with whom at one time he used to hunt, of robust health and 
 belonging to a healthy family. On these hunting expeditions he used 
 to tease the girls and women he met (sometimes even rather old 
 women) in a surprising manner, when he came upon them walking 
 in the fields with their short-sleeved chemises exposed. When he had 
 succeeded in introducing his hand into the woman's armpit he went 
 away satisfied, and frequently held the hand to his nose .with evident 
 pleasure. After long hesitation F6r6 asked for an explanation, which 
 was frankly given. As a child he had liked the odor, without know- 
 ing why. As a young man women with strong odors had stimulated 
 him to extraordinary sexual exploits, and now they were the only 
 women who had any influence on him. He professed to be able to 
 
82 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 recognize continence by the odor, as well as the most favorable moment 
 for approaching a woman. Throughout life a cold in the head had 
 always been accompanied by persistent general excitement. (F6r€, 
 L'Instinct Seaeuel, 1902, p. 134.) 
 
 We not only have to recognize that in the course of evolu- 
 tion the specific odors of the sexual region have sunk into the 
 background as a source of sexual allurements, we have further 
 to recognize the significant fact that even those personal odors 
 which are chiefly liable under normal circumstances to come 
 occasionally within the conscious sexual sphere, and indeed 
 purely personal odors of all kinds, fail to exert any attraction, 
 but rather tend to cause antipathy, unless some degree of 
 tumescence has already heen attained. That is to say, our 
 olfactory experiences of the human body approximate rather 
 to our tactile experiences of it than to our visual experiences. 
 Sight is our most intellectual sense, and we trust ourselves to 
 it with comparative boldness without any undue dread that 
 its messages will hurt us by their personal intimacy; we even 
 court its experiences, for it is the chief organ of our curiosity, 
 as smell is of a dog's. But smell with us has ceased to be a 
 leading channel of intellectual curiosity. Personal odors do not, 
 as vision does, give us information that is very largely intel- 
 lectual; they make an appeal that is mainly of an intimate, 
 emotional, imaginative character. They thus tend, when we 
 are in our normal condition, to arouse what James calls the 
 antisexual instinct. 
 
 "I cannot understand how people do not see how the senses are 
 connected," said Jenny Lind to J. A. Symonds (Horatio Brown, J. A. 
 Symonds, vol. i, p. 207). "What I have suffered from my sense of smell! 
 My youth was misery from my acuteness of sensibility." 
 
 Mantegazza discusses the strength of olfactory antipathies (Fisi- 
 oloffia dell' Odio, p. 101), and mentions that once when ill in Para- 
 guay he was nursed by an Indian girl of 16, who was fresh as a peach 
 and extremely clean, but whose odor — "a mixture of wild beast's lair 
 and decayed onions" — caused nausea and almost made him faint. 
 
 Moll (Untersuclmngen iiber die Libido Sexualis, bd. i, p. 135) 
 records the case of a neuropathic man who was constantly rendered 
 impotent by his antipathy to personal body odors. It had very fre- 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 83 
 
 quently happened to him to be attracted by the face and appearance 
 of a girl, but at the last moment potency was inhibited by the per- 
 ception of personal odor. 
 
 In the case of a man of distinguished ability known to me, be- 
 longing to a somewhat neuropathic family, there is extreme sensitive- 
 ness to the smell of a woman, which is frequently the most obvious 
 thing to him about her. He has seldom known a woman whose 
 natural perfume entirely suits him, and his olfactory impressions have 
 frequently been the immediate cause of a rupture of relationships. 
 
 It was formerly discussed whether strong personal odor con- 
 stituted adequate ground for divorce. Hagen, who brings forward refer- 
 ences on this point (Sexuelle Osphresiologie, pp. 75-83), considers that 
 the body odors are normally and naturally repulsive because they are 
 closely associated with the capryl group of odors, which are those of 
 many of the excretions. 
 
 Olfactoiy antipathies are, however, often strictly subordinated to 
 the individual's general emotional attitude toward the object from which 
 they emanate. This is illustrated in the ease, known to me, of a man 
 who on a, hot day entering a steamboat with a woman to whom he 
 was attached seated himself between her and a man, a stranger. He 
 soon became conscious of an axillary odor which he concluded to 
 come from the man and which he felt as disagreeable. But a little 
 later he realized that it proceeded from his own companion, and with 
 this discovery the odor at once lost its disagreeable character. 
 
 In this respect a personal odor resembles a personal touch. Two 
 intimate touches of the hand, though of precisely similar physical 
 quality, may in their emotional effects be separated by an immeasurable 
 interval,- in dependence on our attitude toward the person from whom 
 they proceed. 
 
 Personal odor, in order to make its allurement felt, and 
 not to arouse antipathy, must, in normal persons, have been 
 preceded by conditions which have inhibited the play of the 
 antisexual instinct. A certain degree of tumescence must al- 
 ready have been attained. It is even possible, when we bear 
 in mind the intimate sympathy between the sexual sphere and 
 the nose, that the olfactory organ needs to have its sensibility 
 modified in a form receptive to sexual messages, though such an 
 assumption is by no means necessary. It is when such a faint 
 preliminary degree of tumescence has been attained, however 
 it may have been attained, — for the methods of tumescence, 
 as we know, are innumerable, — that a sympathetic personal 
 
84 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 odor is enabled to make its appeal. If we analyze the cases in 
 which olfactory perceptions have proved potent in love, we 
 shall nearly always find that they have been experienced under 
 circumstances favorable for the occurrence of tumescence. 
 When this is not the case we may reasonably suspect the pres- 
 ence of some degree of perversion. 
 
 In the oft-quoted ease of the Austrian peasant who found that 
 he was aided in seducing young women by dancing with them and then 
 wiping their faces with a handkerchief he had kept in his armpit, we 
 may doubtless regard the preliminary excitement of the dance as an 
 essential factor in the influence produced. 
 
 In the same way, I am acquainted with the case of a lady not 
 usually sensitive to simple body odors (though affected by perfumes 
 and flowers) who on one occasion, when already in a state of sexual 
 erethism, was highly excited when perceiving the odor of her lover's 
 axilla. 
 
 The same influence of preliminary excitement may be seen in 
 another instance known to me, that of a gentleman who when traveling 
 abroad fell in with three charming young ladies during a long railway 
 journey. He was conscious of a pleasurable excitement caused by the 
 prolonged intimacy of the journey, but this only became definitely 
 sexual when the youngest of the ladies, stretching before him to look 
 out of the window and holding on to the rack above, accidentally 
 brought her axilla into close proximity with his face, whereupon erection 
 was caused, although he himself regards personal odors, at all events 
 when emanating from strangers, as indifferent or repulsive. 
 
 A medical correspondent, referring to the fact that with many 
 men (indeed women also) sexual excitement occurs after dancing for 
 a considerable time, remarks that he considers the odor of the woman's 
 sweat is here a considerable factor. 
 
 The characteristics of olfaction which our investigation 
 has so far revealed have not, on the whole, been favorable to 
 the influence of personal odors as a sexual attraction in civil- 
 ized men. It is a primitive sense which had its flowering time 
 before men arose; it is a comparatively unsesthetie sense; it is 
 a somewhat obtuse sense which among Europeans is usually 
 incapable of perceiving the odor of the "human flower" — to 
 use Goethe's phrase — except on very close contact, and on this 
 account, and on account of the fact that it is a predominantly 
 
SEXUAL SELEOTION IN MAIT. 85 
 
 emotional sense, personal odors in ordinary social intercourse 
 are less likely to arouse the sexual instinct than the antisexual 
 instinct. If a certain degree of tumescence is required before 
 a personal odor can exert an attractive influence, a powerful 
 personal odor, strong enough to be perceived before any degree 
 of tumescence is attained, will tend to cause repulsion, and in 
 so doing tend, consciously or unconsciously, to excite prejudice 
 against personal odor altogether. This is actually the case in 
 civilization, and most people, it would appear, view with more 
 or less antipathy the personal odors of those persons to whom 
 they are not sexually attracted, while their attitude is neutral 
 in this respect toward the individuals to whom they are sex- 
 ually attracted.^ The following statement by a correspondent 
 seems to me to express the experience of the majority of men in 
 this respect : "I do not notice that different people have differ- 
 ent smells. Certain women I have known have been in the habit 
 of using particular scents, but no associations could be aroused 
 if I were to smell the same scent now, for I should not identify 
 it. As a boy I was very fond of scent, and I associate this with 
 my marked sexual proclivities. I like a woman to use a little 
 scent. It rouses my sexual feelings, but not to any large ex- 
 tent. I dislike the smell of a woman's vagina." While the last 
 statement seems to express the feelings of many if not most 
 men, it may be proper to add that there seems no natural 
 reason why the vulvar odor of a clean and healthy woman 
 should be other than agreeable to a normal man who is her 
 lover. 
 
 In literature it is the natural odor of women rather than 
 men which receives attention. We should expect this to be the 
 ease since literature is chiefly produced by men. The question 
 as to whether men or women are really more apt to be sexually 
 influenced in this way cannot thus be decided. Among ani- 
 mals, it seems probable, both sexes are alike influenced by 
 odors, for, while it is usually the male whose sexual regions 
 
 'Moll's inquiries among normal persons have also shown that few 
 people are conscious of odor as a sexual attraction. {Untersuchungen 
 iib&r die lAbido Sexualis. Bd. 1, p. 133.) 
 
86 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 are furnished with special scent glands, when such occur, the 
 peculiar odor of the female during the sexual season is cer- 
 tainly not less efBcacious as an allurement to the male. If we 
 compare the general susceptibility of men and women to agree- 
 able odors, apart from the question of sexual allurement, there 
 can be little doubt that it is most marked among women. As 
 Groos points out, even among children little girls are more 
 interested in scents than boys, and the investigations of vari- 
 ous workers, especially Garbini, have shown that there is 
 actually a greater power of discriminating odors among girls 
 than among boys. Marro has gone further, and in an extended 
 series of observations on girls before and after the establish- 
 ment of puberty — which is of considerable interest from the 
 point of view of the sexual significance of olfaction — he has 
 shown reason to believe that girls acquire an increased sus- 
 ceptibility to odors when sexual life begins, although they show 
 no such increased powers as regards the other senses.'^ On the 
 whole, it would appear that, while women are not apt to be 
 seriously affected, in the absence of any preliminary excita- 
 tion, by crude body odors, they are by no means insusceptible 
 to the sexual influence of olfactory impressions. It is prob- 
 able, indeed, that they are more affected, and more frequently 
 affected, in this way, than are men. 
 
 Edouard de Goncourt, in his novel ChMe — the intimate history 
 of a young girl, founded, he states, on much personal observation — 
 describes (Chapter LXXXV) the delight with which sensuous, but chaste 
 young girls often take in strong perfumes. "Perfume and love,'' he 
 remarks, "impart delights which are closely allied." In an earlier chap- 
 ter (XLIV) he writes of his heroine at the age of 15: "The intimately 
 happy emotion which the young girl experienced in reading Paul et 
 Yirginle and other honestly amorous books she sought to make more 
 complete and intense and penetrating by soaking the book with scent, 
 and the love-story reached her senses and imagination throiigh pages 
 moist with liquid perfume." 
 
 ^ Marro, La PubertA, 1898, Chapter II. Tardif found in boys that 
 perfumes exerted little or no influence on circulation and respiration 
 before puberty, though his observations on this point were too few to 
 carry weight. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION- IN" MAN. 87 
 
 Garbini (ArcMvio per VAntropologia, 1896, fasc. 3) In a very thor- 
 ough investigation of a large number of children, found that the 
 earliest osmo-gustative sensations occurred in the fourth week in girls, 
 the fifth week in boys; the first real and definite olfactory sensations 
 appeared in the fifteenth month in girls, in the sixteenth in boys; 
 while experiments on several hundred children between the ages of 3 
 and 6 years showed the girls slightly, but distinctly, superior to the 
 boys. It may, of course, be argued that these results merely show a 
 somewhat greater precocity of girls. I have summarized the main in- 
 vestigations into this question in Man and Woman, revised and enlarged 
 edition, 1904, pp. 134-138. On the whole, they seem to indicate greater 
 olfactory acuteness on the part of women, but the evidence is by no 
 means altogether concordant in this sense. Popular and general scien- 
 tific opinion is also by no means always in harmony. Thus, Tardif, in 
 his book on odors in relation to the sexual instinct, throughout as- 
 sumes, as a matter of course, that the sense of smell is most keen in 
 men; while, on the other hand, I note that in a pamphlet by Mr. 
 Martin Perls, a manufacturing perfumer, it is stated with equal con- 
 fidence that "it is a well-known fact that ladies have, even without a 
 practice of long standing, a keener sense of smell than men,'' and on 
 this account he employs a staff of young ladies for testing perfumes 
 by smell in the laboratory by the glazed paper test. 
 
 It is sometimes said that the use of strong perfumes by women 
 indicates a dulled olfactory organ. On the other hand, it is said that 
 the use of tobacco deadens the sensitiveness of the masculine nose. 
 Both these statements seem to be without foundation. The use of a 
 large amount of perfume is rather a question of taste than a question 
 of sensory acuteness (not to mention that those who live in an at- 
 mosphere of perfume are, of course, only faintly conscious of it), and 
 the chemist perfumer in his laboratory surrounded by strong odors can 
 distinguish them all with great delicacy. As regards tobacco, in Spain 
 the cigarreras are women and girls who live perpetually in an atmos- 
 phere of tobacco, and Seilora Pardo Bazan, who knows them well, 
 remarks in her novel. La Trihuna, which deals with life in a tobacco 
 factory, that "the acuity of the sense of smell of the cigarreras is 
 notable, and it would seem that instead of blunting the nasal membrane 
 the tobacco makes the olfactory nerves keener." 
 
 "It was the same as if I was in a sweet apple garden, from the 
 sweetness that came to me when the light wind passed over them and 
 stirred their clothes," a woman is represented as saying concerning a 
 troop of handsome men in the Irish sagas {Cuchulain of Muirthemne, 
 p. 161). The pleasure and excitement experienced by a woman in the 
 odor of her lover is usually felt concerning a vague and mixed odor 
 which may be characteristic, but is not definitely traceable to any 
 
88 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 specific bodily sexual odor. The general odor of the man she loves, one 
 woman states, is highly, sometimes even overwhelmingly, attractive 
 to her; but the specific odor of the male sexual organs which she de- 
 scribes as fishy has no attraction. A man writes that in his relations 
 with women he has never been able to detect that they were influenced 
 by the axillary or other specific odors. A woman writes: "To me any 
 personal odor, as that of perspiration, is very disagreeable, and the 
 healthy naked human body is very free from any odor. Fresh perspira- 
 tion has no disagreeable smell; it is only by retention in the clothing 
 that it becomes objectionable. The faint smell of smoke which lingers 
 round men who smoke much is rather exciting to me, but only when it 
 is venj faint. If at all strong it becomes disagreeable. As moat of the 
 men who have attracted me have been great smokers, there is doubtless 
 a direct association of ideas. It has only once occurred to me that an 
 indifferent unpleasant smell became attractive in connection with some 
 particular person. In this case it was the scent of stale tobacco, such 
 as comes from the end of a, cold cigar or cigarette. It was, and is 
 now, very disagreeable to me, but, for the time and in connection with 
 a particular person, it seemed to me more delightful and exciting than 
 the most delicious perfume. I think, however, only a very strong 
 attraction could overcome a dislike of this sort, and I doubt if I 
 could experience such a twist-round if it had been a personal odor. 
 Stale tobacco, though nasty, conveys no mentally disagreeable idea. I 
 mean it does not suggest dirt or unhealthiness." 
 
 It is probably significant of the Somewhat considerable part which, 
 in one way or another, odors and perfumes play in the emotional life 
 of women, that, of the 4 women whose sexual histories are recorded 
 in Appendix B of vol. iii of these Studies, all are liable to experience 
 sexual effects from olfactory stimuli, 3 of them from personal odors 
 (though this fact is not in every case brought out in the histories as 
 recorded), while of the 8 men not one has considered his olfactory ex- 
 periences in this respect as worthy of mention. 
 
 The very marked sexual fascination which odor, associated with the 
 men they love, exerts on women has easily passed unperceived, since 
 women have not felt called upon to proclaim it. In sexual inversion, 
 however, when the woman takes a more active and outspoken part than 
 in normal love, it may very clearly be traced. Here, indeed, it is often 
 exaggerated, in consequence of the common tendency for neurotic and 
 neurasthenic persons to be more than normally susceptible to the in- 
 fluence of odors. In the majority of inverted women, it may safely 
 be said, the odor of the beloved person plays a very considerable part. 
 Thus, one inverted woman asks the woman she loves to send her some 
 of her hair thftt she may intoxicate herself in solitude with its per- 
 fume (ArcMvio di Psicopatie Sessuali, vol. i, fase. 3, p. 36). Again, a 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 89 
 
 young girl with some homosexual tendencies, was apt to experience 
 sexual emotions when in ordinary contact with schoolfellows whose 
 body odor was marked (F6r§, L'Instinct Sewuel, p. 260). Such ex- 
 ■amples are fairly typical. 
 
 That the body odor of men may in a large number of cases be 
 highly agreeable and sexually attractive is shown by the testimony of 
 male sexual inverts. There is abundant evidence to this efTect. Eaf- 
 falovich (L'TJranisme et I'Unisexualiti, p. 126) insists on the importance 
 of body odors as a sexual attraction to the male invert, and is inclined 
 to think that the increased odor of the man's own body during sexual 
 excitement may have an auto-aphrodisiacal effect wMch is reflected on 
 the body of the loved person. The odor of peasants, of men who' work 
 in the open air, is specially apt to be found attractive. Moll mentions 
 the case of an inverted man who found the "forest, mosslike odor" of 
 a schoolfellow irresistibly attractive. 
 
 The following passage from a letter written by an Italian marquis 
 has been sent to me: "Bonifazio stripped one evening, to give me 
 pleasure. He has the full, rounded flesh and amber coloring which paint- 
 ers of the Giorgione school gave to their S. Sebastians. When he be- 
 gan to dress, I took up an old fascia, or girdle of netted silk, which was 
 lying under his breeches, and which still preserved the warmth of nis 
 body. I buried my face in it, and was half inebriated by its exquisite 
 aroma of young manhood and fresh hay. He told me he had worn it 
 for two years. No wonder it was redolent of him. I asked him to 
 let me keep it as a souvenir. He smiled and said: 'You like it be- 
 cause it has lain so long upon my panda.' 'Yes, just so,' I replied; 
 'whenever I kiss it, thus and thus, it will bring you back to me.' 
 Sometimes I tie it round my naked waist before I go to bed. The 
 smell of it is enough to cause a powerful erection, and the contact of 
 its fringes with my testicles and phallus has once or twice pro- 
 duced an involuntary emission." 
 
 I may here reproduce a, communication which has reached me con- 
 cerning the attractiveness of the odor of peasants: "One predominant 
 attraction of these men is that they are pure and clean; their bodies 
 in a state of healthy normal function. Then they possess, if they are 
 temperate, what the Greek poet Straton called the tfivSiKTi xp'^''''" 
 (a quality which, according to this authority, is never found in 
 women). This 'natural fair perfume of the flesh' is a peculiar attri- 
 bute of young men who live in the open air and deal with natural ob- 
 jects. Even their perspiration has an odor very different from that of 
 girls in ball-rooms: more refined, ethereal, pervasive, delicate, and dif- 
 ficult to seize. When they have handled hay — in the time of hay- 
 harvest, or in winter, when they bring hay down from mountain huts — 
 the youthful peasants carry about with them the smell of 'a field the 
 
90 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 Lord hath blesssed.' Their bodies and their clothes exhale an in- 
 definable fragrance of purity and sex combined. Every gland of the 
 robust frame seems to have accumulated scent from herbs and grasses, 
 which slowly exudes from the cool, fresh skin of the lad. You do not 
 perceive it in a room. You must take the young man's hands and 
 bury your face in them, or be covered with him under the same blanket 
 in one bed, to feel this aroma. No sensual impression on the nerves of 
 smell is more poignantly impregnated with spiritual poetry — the poetry 
 of adolescence, and early hours upon the hills, and labor cheerfully ac- 
 complished, and the harvest of God's gifts to man brought home by 
 human industry. It is worth mentioning that Aristophanes, in his 
 description of the perfect Athenian Ephebus, dwells upon his being 
 redolent of natural perfumes." 
 
 In a passage in the second part of Faust Goethe (who appears 
 to have felt considerable interest in the psychology of smell) makes 
 three women speak concerning the ambrosiacal odor of yoiing men. 
 
 In this connection, also, I note a passage in a poem ("Appleton 
 House") by our own English poet Marvell, which it is of interest to 
 quote: — 
 
 "And now the careless victors play. 
 Dancing the triumphs of the hay. 
 When every mower's wholesome heat 
 Smells like an Alexander's sweat. 
 Their females fragrant as the mead 
 Which they in fairy circles tread, 
 When at their dance's end they kiss, 
 Their new-mown hay not sweeter is." 
 
IV. 
 
 The Influence of Perfumes — Their Aboriginal Relationship to 
 Sexual Body Odors— This True even of the Fragrance of Flowers— The 
 Synthetic Manufacture of Perfumes — The Sexual Effects of Perfumes — 
 Perfumes perhaps Originally Used to Heighten the Body Odors — The 
 Special Significance of the Musk Odor — Its Wide Natural Diffusion in 
 Plants and Animals and Man — Musk a Powerful Stimulant — Its Wide- 
 spread Use as a Perfume — Peau d'Espagne — The Smell of Leather and 
 its Occasional Sexual Effects — The Sexual Influence of the Odors of 
 ITlowers — The Identity of many Plant Odors with Certain Normal and 
 Abnormal Body Odors — The Smell of Semen in this Connection. 
 
 So FAK we have been mainly concerned with purely per- 
 sonal odors. It is, however, no longer possible to confine the 
 discussion of the sexual significance of odor within the purely 
 animal limit. The various characteristics of personal odor 
 which have been noted — alike those which tend to make it 
 repulsive and those which tend to make it attractive — have led 
 to the use of artificial perfumes, to heighten the natural odor 
 when it is regarded as attractive, to disguise it when it is re- 
 garded as repellent; while at the same time, happily covering 
 both of these impulses, has developed the pure delight in per- 
 fume for its own agreeableness, the aesthetic side of olfaction. 
 In this way — although in a much less constant and less elabo- 
 rate manner — the body became adorned to the sense of smell 
 jus.t as by clothing and ornament it is adorned to the sense of 
 sight. 
 
 But — and this is a point of great significance from our 
 present standpoint — we do not really leave the sexual sphere 
 by introducing artificial perfumes. The perfumes which we 
 extract from natural products, or, as is now frequently the 
 case, produce by chemical synthesis, are themselves either 
 actually animal sexual odors or allied in character or composi- 
 tion to the personal odors they are used to heighten or dis- 
 guise. Musk is the product of glands of the male Moschuf^ 
 moschiferus which correspond to preputial sebaceous glands; 
 
 (91) 
 
92 PSTOHOLOGT OF SEX. 
 
 castoreum is the product of similar sexual glands in the heaver, 
 and civet likewise from the civet; ambergris is an intestinal 
 calculus found in the rectum of the cachelot.^ Not only, how- 
 ever, are nearly all the perfumes of animal origin, in use by 
 civilized man, odors which have a specifically sexual object 
 among the animals from which they are derived, but even the 
 perfumes of flowers may be said to be of sexual character. 
 They are given out at the reproductive period in the lives of 
 plants, and they clearly have very largely as their object an 
 appeal to the insects who secure plant fertilization, such appeal 
 having as its basis the fact that among insects themselves olfac- 
 tory sensibility has in many cases been developed in their own 
 mating.^ There is, for example, a moth in which both sexes 
 are similarly and inconspicuously marked, but the males diffuse 
 an agreeable odor, said to be like pineapple, which attracts the 
 females.' If, therefore, the odors of flowers have developed 
 because they proved useful to the plant by attracting insects 
 or other living creatures, it is obvious that the advantage would 
 lie with those plants which could put forth an animal sexual 
 odor of agreeable character, since such an odor would prove 
 fascinating to animal creatures. We here have a very simple 
 explanation of the fundamental identity of odors in the animal 
 and vegetable worlds. It thus comes about that from a psy- 
 chological point of view we are not really entering a new field 
 when we begin to discuss the influence of perfumes other than 
 those of the animal body. We are merely concerned with 
 somewhat more complex or somewhat more refined sexual 
 odors; they are not specifically different from the human odors 
 and they mingle with them harmoniously. Popular language 
 
 ' H. Beauregard, UatUre Midicale Zoologique: Histoire des Drogues 
 d'origine Animale, 1901. 
 
 ^Professor Plateau, of Ghent, has for many years carried on a 
 series of experiments which would even tend to show that insects are 
 scarcely attracted by the colors of flowers at all, but mainly influenced 
 by a sense which would appear to be smell. His experiments have been 
 recorded during recent years (from 1887) in the Bulletins de VAoadimie 
 Royale de Belgique, and have from time to time been summarized in 
 Nature, e.g., February 5, 1903. 
 
 •David Sharp, Cambridge Natural History: Insects, Part II, p. 398. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 93 
 
 bears witness to the truth of this statement, and the normal 
 and abnormal human odors, as we have already seen, are con- 
 stantly compared to artificial, animal, and plant odors, to chlo- 
 roform, to musk, to violet, to mention only those similitudes 
 which seem to occur most frequently. 
 
 The methods now employed for obtaining the perfumes universally 
 used in civilized lands are three: (1) the extraction of odoriferous com- 
 pounds from the neutral products in which they occur; (2) the artificial 
 preparation of naturally occurring odoriferous compounds by syn- 
 thetic processes; (3) the manufacture of materials which yield odors 
 resembling those of pleasant smelling natural objects. (See, e.g., 
 "Natural and Artificial Perfumes," Nature, December 27, 1900.) The 
 essential principles of most of our perfumes belong to the complex class 
 of organic compounds known as terpenes. During recent years a num- 
 ber of the essential elements of natural perfumes have been studied, 
 in many eases the methods of preparing them artificially discovered, 
 and they are largely replacing the use of natural perfumes not only for 
 soaps, etc., but for scent essences, though it appears to be very difficult 
 to imitate exactly the delicate fragrance achieved by Nature. Artificial 
 musk was discovered accidentally by Bauer when studying the 
 butyltoluenes contained in a resin extractive. Vanillin, the odoriferous 
 principle of the vanilla bean, is an aldehyde which was first artificially 
 prepared by Tiemann and Haarmann in 1874 by oxidizing coniferin, a 
 glucoside contained in the sap of various coniferse, but it now appears 
 to be usually manufactured from eugenol, a phenol contained in oil 
 of cloves. Piperonal, an aldehyde closely allied to vanillin, is used in 
 perfumery under the name of heliotropin and is prepared from oil of 
 sassafras and oil of camphor. Cumarine, the material to which tonka 
 bean, sweet woodruff, and new-mown hay owe their characteristic odors, 
 was synthetically prepared by W. H. Parkin in 1868 by heating 
 sodiosalicylic aldehyde with acetic anhydride, though now more 
 cheaply prepared from an herb growing in Florida. Irone, which has 
 the perfume of violets, was isolated in 1893 from a ketone contained in 
 orris-root; and ionone, another ketone which has a very closely similar 
 odor of fresh violets and was isolated after some years' further work, 
 is largely used in the preparation of violet perfume. Irone and ionone 
 are closely similar in composition to oil of turpentine which when 
 taken into the body is partly converted into perfume and gives a 
 strong odor of violets to the urine. "Little has yet been accomplished 
 toward ascertaining the relation between the odor and the chemical con- 
 stitution of substances in general. Hydrocarbons as a class possess 
 considerable similarity in odor, so also do the organic sulphides and. 
 
94 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 to a much smaller extent, the ketones. The subject waits for some 
 one to correlate its various physiological, psychological and physical 
 aspects in the same way that Helmholtz did for sound. It seems, as 
 yet, impossible to assign any probable reason to the fact that many 
 substances have a pleasant odor. It may, however, be worth sug- 
 gesting that certain compounds, such as the volatile sulphides and 
 the indoles, have very unpleasant odors because they are normal con- 
 stituents of mammalian excreta and of putrefied animal products; the 
 repulsive odors may be simply necessary results of evolutionary proc- 
 esses." (Loc. cit., Nature, December 27, 1900.) 
 
 Many of the perfumes in use are really combinations of a great 
 many different odors in varying proportions, such as oil of rose, laven- 
 der oil, ylang-ylang, etc. The most highly appreciated perfumes are 
 often made up of elements which in stronger proportion would be re- 
 garded as highly unpleasant. 
 
 In the study and manufacture of perfumes Germany and France 
 have taken the lead in recent times. The industry is one of great im- 
 portance. In France alone the trade in perfumes amounts to £4,000,000. 
 
 It is doubtless largely owing to the essential and funda- 
 mental identity of odors — to the chemical resemblances even 
 of odors from the most widely remote sources — that we find 
 that perfumes in many cases have the same sexual effects as 
 are primitively possessed by the body odors. In northern coun- 
 tries, where the use of perfumes is chiefly cultivated by women, 
 it is by women that this sexual influence is most liable to be 
 felt. In the South and in the East it appears to be at least 
 equally often experienced by men. Thus, in Italy Mantegazza 
 remarks that "many men of strong sexual temperament cannot 
 visit with impunity a laboratory of essences and perfumes."^ 
 In the East we find it stated in the Islamic book entitled The 
 Perfumed Garden of Sheik Nefzaoui that the use of perfumes by 
 women, as well as by men, excites to the generative act. It is 
 largely in reliance on this fact that in many parts of the world, 
 especially among Eastern peoples and occasionally among our- 
 selves in Europe, women have been accustomed to perfume the 
 body and especially the vulva.^ 
 
 ' Mantegazza, Fisiologia dell' Amore, 1873, p. 176. 
 
 'Mantegazza {L'Amour dans VHumanlti, p. 94) refers to various 
 peoples who practice this last custom. Egypt was a great centre of the 
 practice more than 3000 years ago. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 95 
 
 It seems highly probable that, as has been especially em- 
 phasized by Hagen, perfumes were primitively used by women, 
 not as is sometimes the case in civilization, with the idea of 
 disguising any possible natural odor, but with the object of 
 heightening and fortifying the natural odor.^ If the primitive 
 man was inclined to disparage a woman whose odor was slight 
 or imperceptible, — turning away from her with contempt, as 
 the Polynesian turned away from the ladies of Sydney: "They 
 have no smell!" — women would inevitably seek to supplement 
 any natural defects in this respect, and to accentuate their 
 odorous qualities, in the same way as by corsets and bustles, 
 even in civilization, they have sought to accentuate the sexual 
 saliencies of their bodies. In this way we may, as Hagen sug- 
 gests, explain the fact that until recent times the odors preferred 
 by women have not been the most delicate or exquisite, but the 
 strongest, the most animal, the most sexual: musk, eastoreum, 
 civet, and ambergris. 
 
 In that interesting novel — dealing with the adventures of a Jewish 
 maiden at the Persian court of Xerxes — which under the title of 
 Esther has found its way into the Old Testament we are told that it 
 was customary in the royal harem at Shushan to submit the women to 
 a very prolonged course of perfuming before they were admitted 
 to the king: "six months with oil of myrrh and six months with 
 sweet odors." {Esther, Chapter II, v. 12.) 
 
 In the Arabian Nights there are many allusions to the use oi per- 
 fumes by women with a more or less definitely stated aphrodisiaeal 
 intent. Thus we read in the story of Kamaralzaman : "With fine in- 
 cense X will perfume my breasts, my belly, my whole body, so that my 
 skin may melt more sweetly in thy mouth, apple of my eye!" 
 
 Even among savages the perfuming of the body is sometimes prac- 
 ticed with the object of inducing love in the partner. Sohellong states 
 that the Papuans of Kaiser Wilhelm's Land rub various fragrant plants 
 into their bodies for this purpose. {Zeitschrift fur Ethnologic, 1899, ht. 
 i, p. 19.) The significance of this practice is more fully revealed by Had.- 
 don when studying the Papuans of Torres Straits, among whom the 
 initiative in courtship is taken by the women. It was by scenting 
 
 'Hagen, Sexuelle Osphrisiologie, 1901, p. 226. It has been sug- 
 gested to me by a medical correspondent that one of the primitive 
 objects of the hair, alike on head, mons veneris, and axilla, was to 
 collect sweat and heighten its odor to sexual ends. 
 
yfa PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 • himself with a pungent odorous substance that a young man indicated 
 that he was ready to be sued by the girls. A man would wear this 
 scent at the back of his neck during a dance in order to attract the 
 attention of a particular girl; it was believed to act with magical cer- 
 tainty, after the manner of a charm (Reports of the Cambndge Anthro- 
 pological Expedition to Torres Straits, vol. v, pp. 211, 222, and 328). 
 
 The perfume which is of all perfumes the most interesting 
 from the present point of view is certainly musk. With am- 
 bergris, musk is the chief member of Linnseus's group of Odores 
 ambrosiacce, a group which in sexual significances, as Zwaarde- 
 maker remarks, ranks besides the capryl group of odors. It 
 is a perfume of ancient origin ; its name is Persian^ (indicating 
 doubtless the channel whence it reached Europe) and ulti- 
 mately derived from the Sanskrit word for testicle in allusion 
 to the fact that it was contained in a pouch removed from the 
 sexual parts of the male musk-deer. Musk odors, however, 
 •often of considerable strength, are very widely distributed in 
 Nature, alike among animals and plants. This is indicated 
 by the frequency with which the word "musk" forms part of 
 the names of animals and plants which are by no means al- 
 ways nearly related. We have the musk-ox, the musky mole, 
 several species called musk-rat, the musk-duck, the musk- 
 beetle; while among plants which have received their names 
 from a real or supposed musky odor are, besides several that 
 are called musk-plant, the musk-rose, the musk-hyacinth, the 
 musk-mallow, the musk-orchid, the musk-melon, the musk- 
 cherry, the musk-pear, the musk-plum, muskat and muscatels, 
 musk-seed, musk-tree, musk-wood, etc.^ But a musky odor 
 is not merely widespread in Nature among plants and the 
 lower animals, it is peculiarly associated with man. Inci- 
 dentally we have already seen how it is regarded as character- 
 istic of some races of man, especially the Chinese. Moreover, 
 the smell of the negress is said to be musky in character, and 
 
 •The names of all our chief perfumes are Arabic or Persian: eivet, 
 musk, ambergris, attar, camphor, etc. 
 
 ''Cloquet [Osphr^siologie, pp. 73-76) has an interesting passage on 
 the prevalence of the musk odor in animals, plants, and even mineral 
 substances. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IK MAN. 97 
 
 among Europeans a musky odor is said to be characteristic of, 
 blondes. Laycock, in his Nervous Diseases of Women, stated 
 his opinion that "the musk odor is certainly the sexual odor 
 of man"; and Fere states that the musk odor is that among 
 natural perfumes most nearly approaching the odor of the sex- 
 ual secretions. We have seen that the Chinese poet vaunts 
 the musky odor of his mistress's armpits, while another Orien- 
 tal saying concerning the attractive woman is that "her navel 
 is filled with musk." Persian literature contains many refer- 
 ences to musk as an attractive body odor, and Firdusi speaks 
 of a woman's hair as "a crown of musk," while the Arabian 
 poet Motannabi says of his mistress that "her hyacinthine hair 
 smells sweeter than Scythian musk." Galopin stated that he 
 knew women whose natural odor of musk (and less frequently 
 of ambergris) was sufficiently strong to impart to a bath in 
 less than an hour a perfume due entirely to the exhalations 
 of the musky body; it must be added that Galopin was an en- 
 thusiast in this matter. 
 
 The special significance of musk from our present point 
 of view lies not only in the fact that we here have a perfume, 
 widely scattered throughout nature and often in an agreeable 
 form, which is at the same time a very frequent personal odor 
 in man. Musk is the odor which not only in the animals to 
 which it has given a name, but in many others, is a specifically 
 sexual odor, chiefly emitted during the sexual season. The sex- 
 ual odors, indeed, of most animals seem to be modifications of 
 musk. The Sphinx moth has a musky odor which is confined 
 to the male and is doubtless sexual. Some lizards have a musky 
 odor which is heightened at the sexual season; crocodiles dur- 
 ing the pairing season emit from their submaxillary glands a 
 musky odor which pervades their haunts. In the same way 
 elephants emit a musky odor from their facial glands during 
 the rutting season. The odor of the musk-duck is chiefly con- 
 fined to the breeding season.^ The musky odor of the negress 
 is said to be heightened during sexual excitement. 
 
 *I/ayeock brings together various instances of the sexual odors 
 of animals, insisting on their musky character (Nervous Diseases of 
 
 J 
 
98 PSTOHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 The predominance of musk as a sexual odor is 'associated 
 with the fact that its. actual nervous influence, apart from the 
 presence of sexual associations, is very considerable. Fere 
 found it to be a powerful muscular stimulant. In former times 
 musk enjoyed a high reputation as a cardiac stimulant; it fell 
 into disuse, but in recent years its use in asthenic states has 
 been revived, and excellent results, it has been claimed, have 
 followed its administration in cases of collapse from Asiatic 
 cholera. For sexual torpor in women it still has (like vanilla 
 and sandal) a certain degree of reputation, though it is not 
 often used, and some of the old Arabian physicians (especially 
 Avicenna) recommended it, with eastoreum and myrrh, for 
 amenorrhcea. Its powerful action is indicated by the experi- 
 ence of Esquirol, who stated that he had seen cases in which 
 sensory stimulation by musk in women during lactation had 
 produced mania. It has always had the reputation, more espe- 
 cially in the Mohammedan Bast, of being a sexual stimulant 
 to men ; "the noblest of perfumes," it is called in Ul Etab, "and 
 that which most provokes to venery." 
 
 It is doubtless a fact significant of the special sexual effects 
 of musk that, as Lay cock remarked, in cases of special idiosyn- 
 crasy to odors, musk appears to be that odor which is most liked 
 or disliked. Thus, the old English physician Whytt remarked 
 that "several delicate women who could easily bear the stronger 
 smell of tobacco have been thrown into fits by musk, ambergris, 
 or a pale rose."^ It may be remarked that in the Perfumed 
 Garden of Sheik Nefzaoui it is stated that it is by their sexual 
 effects that perfumes tend to throw women into a kind of 
 swoon, and Lucretius remarks that a woman who smells eas- 
 toreum, another animal sexual perfume, at the time of her 
 menstrual period may swoon.'' 
 
 Women; section, "Odors"). See also a section in t'hi^ Descent of Man 
 (Part II, Chapter XVIII), in which Darwin argues Hhat "the moat 
 odoriferous males are the most successful in winning the females.'' Dis- 
 tant also has an interesting paper on this subject, "Biological Sug- 
 gestions," Zoologist, May, 1902; he points out the significant fact that 
 musky odors are usually confined to the male, and argues that animal 
 odors generally are more often attractive than protective. 
 
 'R. Whytt, Works, 1768, p. 543. 
 
 'Lucretius, VI, 790-5. 
 
SEXTTAL SELECTION IN MAN. 99 
 
 Not only is musk the most cherished perfume of the 
 Islamic world, and the special favorite of the Prophet himself, 
 who greatly delighted in perfumes ("I love your world," he is 
 reported to have said in old age, "for its women and its per- 
 fumes"),^ it is the only perfume generally used by the women of 
 a land in which the refinements of life have been carried so 
 far as Japan, and they received it from the Chinese.^ 
 
 Moreover, musk is still the most popular of European 
 perfumes. It is the perfumes containing musk, Piesse states in 
 his well-known book on the Art of Perfumery, which sell best. 
 It is certainly true that in its simple form the odor of musk 
 is not nowadays highly considered in Europe. This fact is 
 connected with the ever-growing refinement in accordance with 
 which the specific odors of the sexual regions in human beings 
 tend to lose their primitive attractiveness and bodily odors gen- 
 erally become mingled with artificial perfumes and so disguised. 
 But, although musk in its simple form, and under its ancient 
 name, has lost its hold in Europe, it is an interesting and sig- 
 nificant fact that it is still the perfumes which contains musk 
 that are the most widely popular. 
 
 Peau d'Espagne may be mentioned as a highly complex and 
 luxurious perfume, often the favorite scent of sensuous per- 
 sons, which really owes a large part of its potency to the pres- 
 ence of the crude animal sexual odors of musk and civet. It 
 consists of wash-leather steeped in ottos of neroli, rose, santal, 
 lavender, verbena, bergamot, cloves, and cinnamon, subse- 
 quently smeared with civet and musk. It is said by some, prob- 
 ably with a certain degree of truth, that Peau d'Espagne is of 
 
 * Mohammed, said Ayesha, was very fond of perfumes, especially 
 "men's scents," musk and ambergris. He used also to burn camphor on 
 odoriferous wood and enjoy the fragrant smell, while he never refused 
 perfumes when ofifered them as a present. The things he cared for most, 
 said Ayeaha, were women, scents, and foods. Muir, Life of Mahomet, 
 vol. iii. p. 297. 
 
 •H. ten Kate, International Centralhlatt fUr Anthropoloffie, Ht. 
 6, 1902. This author, who made observations on Japanese with Zwaarde- 
 maker's olfactometer, found that, contrary to an opinion sometimes 
 stated, they have a somewhat defective sense of smell. He remarks 
 that there are no really native Japanese perfumes. 
 
100 PSTCHOLOGT OP SEX. 
 
 all perfumes that which most nearly approaches the odor of a 
 woman's skin; whether it also suggests the odor of leather is 
 not so clear. 
 
 There is, however, no doubt that the smell of leather has 
 a curiously stimulating sexual influence on many men and 
 women. It is an odor which seems to occupy an intermediate 
 place between the natural body odors and the artificial per- 
 fumes for which it sometimes serves as a basis; possibly it is 
 to this fact that its occasional sexual influence is owing, for, as 
 we have already seen, there is a tendency for sexual allurement 
 to attach to odors which are not the specific personal body odors 
 but yet are related to them. Moll considers, no doubt rightly, 
 that shoe fetichism, perhaps the most frequent of sexual fetich- 
 istic perversions, is greatly favored, if, indeed, it does not owe 
 its origin to, the associated odor of the feet and of the shoes.^ 
 He narrates a case of shoe fetichism in a man in which the per- 
 version began at the age of 6, when for the first time he wore 
 new shoes, having previously used only the left-off shoes of his 
 elder brother; he felt and smelt these new shoes with sensa- 
 tions of unmeasured pleasure; and a few years later began to 
 use shoes as a method of masturbation.^ Nacke has also re- 
 corded the case of a shoe f etichist who declared that the sexual 
 attraction of shoes (usually his wife's) lay largely in the odor 
 of the leather.' Krafft-Ebing, again, brings forward a case 
 of shoe fetichism in which the significant fact is mentioned 
 that the subject bought a pair of leather cuffs to smell while 
 masturbating.^ Eestif de la Bretonne, who was somewhat of a 
 shoe f etichist, appears to have enjoyed smelling shoes. It is 
 not probable that the odor of leather explains the whole of 
 shoe fetichism, — as we shall see when, in another "Study," this 
 question comes before us — and in many cases it cannot be said 
 to enter at all; it is, however, one of the factors. Such a con- 
 
 'Moll: Die Kontrare Sexualempflndtmg, third edition, 1890, p. 308. 
 'Moll: LiUdo Sexualis, bd. 1, p. 284. 
 
 'P. Naeke, "Un Cas de Fetiehisme de Souliers," Bulletin de la 
 Sociiti de Mideotne Mentale de Belpique, 1894. 
 
 *■ Psychopathia Semualis, English edition, p. 167. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTIOHr IN MAST. 101 
 
 elusion is further supported by the fact that by many the odor 
 of new shoes is sometimes desired as an adjuvant to coitus. It 
 is in the experience of prostitutes that such a device is not in- 
 frequent. Nacke mentions that a colleague of his was informed 
 by a prostitute that several of her clients desired the odor of 
 new shoes in the room, and that she was accustomed to obtain 
 the desired perfume by holding her shoes for a moment over the 
 flame of a spirit lamp. 
 
 The direct sexual influence of the odor of leather is, how- 
 ever, more conclusively proved by those instances in which it 
 exists apart from shoes or other objects having any connection 
 with the human body. I have elsewhere in these "Studies"^ 
 recorded the case of a lady, entirely normal in sexual and other 
 respects, who is conscious of a considerable degree of pleasur- 
 able sexual excitement in the presence of the smell of leather 
 objects, more especially of leather-bound ledgers and in shops 
 where leather objects are sold. She thinks this dates from the 
 period when, as a child of 9, she was sometimes left alone for a 
 time on a high stool in an oflice. A possible explanation in 
 this case lies in the supposition that 'on one of these early occa- 
 sions sexual excitement was produced by the contact with the 
 stool (in a way that is not infrequent in young girls) and that 
 the accidentally associated odor of leather permanently affected 
 the nervous system, while the really significant contact left no 
 permanent impression. Even on such a supposition it might, 
 however, still be maintained that a real potency of the leather 
 odor is illustrated by this case, and this is likewise suggested 
 by the fact that the same subject is also sexually affected by 
 various perfumes and odorous flowers not recalling leather.^ 
 
 ' Studies in the Psychology of Sex, vol. lii, "Appendix B, History 
 VIII." 
 
 'Philip Salmuth (Oiservationes MeMcw, Centuria II, no. 63) in 
 the seventeenth century recorded a case in which a young girl of noble 
 birth (whose sister was fond of eating chalk, cinnamon, and cloves) 
 experienced extreme pleasure in smelling old books. It would appear, 
 however, that in this case the fiiscination lay not so much in the odor 
 of the leather as in the mouldy odor of worm-eaten books; "foetore 
 vet&rum Wboriim, a Uattis et tineis exesorum, situque prorsus corrup- 
 torum" are Salmuth's words. 
 
102 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 It has been suggested to me by a lady that the odor of 
 leather suggests that of the sexual organs. The same sugges- 
 tion is made by Hagen,^ and I find it stated by Gould and Pyle 
 that menstruating girls sometimes smell of leather. The secret 
 of its influence may thus be not altogether obscure; in the fact 
 that leather is animal skin, and that it may thus vaguely stir 
 the olfactory sensibilities which had been ancestrally afifected 
 by the sexual stimulus of the skin odor lies the probable found- 
 ation of the mystery. 
 
 In the absence of all suggestion of personal or animal 
 odors, in its most exquisite forms in the fragrance of flowers, 
 olfactory sensations are still very frequently of a voluptuous 
 character. Mantegazza has remarked that it is a proof of the 
 close connection between the sense of smell and the sexual 
 organs that the expression of pleasure produced by olfaction 
 resembles the expression of sexual pleasures.^ Make the 
 chastest woman smell the flowers she likes best, he remarks, 
 and she will close her eyes, breathe deeply, and, if very sensi- 
 tive, tremble all over, presenting an intimate picture which 
 otherwise she never shows, except perhaps to her lover. He 
 mentions a lady who said: "I sometimes feel such pleasure in 
 smelling flowers that I seem to be committing a sin.'" It is 
 really the case that in many persons — usually, if not exclu- 
 sively, women — the odor of flowers produces not only a highly 
 pleasurable, but a distinctly and specifically sexual, effect. I 
 have met with numerous cases in which this effect was well 
 marked. It is usually white flowers with heavy, penetrating 
 odors which exert this influence. Thus, one lady (who is simi- 
 larly affected by various perfumes, forget-me-not, ylang-ylang, 
 
 '■ Sexiielle Osphrisiolbgie, p. 106. 
 
 •Mantegazza, Fisiologia delV Amore, p. 176. 
 
 "In this connection I may quote the remark of the writer of a 
 thoughtful article in the Journal of Psychological Medicine, 1851: "The 
 use of scents, especially those allied to the musky, is one of the luxuries 
 of women, and in some constitutions cannot be indulged without some 
 danger to the morals, by the excitement to the ovaria which results. 
 And although less potent as aphrodisiacs in their action on the sexual 
 system of women than of men, we have reason to think that they can- 
 not be used to excess with impunity by most." 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 103 
 
 etc.) finds that a number of flowers produce on her a definite 
 sexual efEect, with moistening of the pudenda. This effect is 
 especially produced by white flowers like the gardenia, tuberose, 
 etc. Another lady, who lives in India, has a similar experience 
 with flowers. She writes: "A scent to cause me sexual excite- 
 ment must be somewhat heavy and penetrating. Nearly all 
 white flowers so affect me and many Indian flowers with heavy, 
 almost pungent scents. (All the flower scents are quite uncon- 
 nected with me with any individual). Tuberose, lilies of the 
 valley, and frangipani flowers have an almost intoxicating effect 
 on me. Violets, roses, mignonette, and many others, though 
 very delicious, give me no sexual feeling at all. For this reason 
 the line, 'The lilies and langours of virtue for the roses and 
 raptures of vice' seems all wrong to me. The lily seems to me 
 a very sensual flower, while the rose and its scent seem very 
 good and countrified and virtuous. Shelley's description of the 
 lily of the valley, 'whom youth makes so fair and passion so 
 pale,' falls in much more with my ideas. I can quite under- 
 stand," she adds, "that leather, especially of books, might have 
 an exciting effect, as the smell has this penetrating quality, but 
 I do not think it produces any special feeling in me." This 
 more sensuous character of white flowers is fairly obvious to 
 many persons who do not experience from them any specifically 
 sexual effects. To some people lilies have an odor which they 
 describe as sexual, although these persons may be quite im- 
 aware that Hindu authors long since described the vulvar se- 
 cretion of the Padmini, or perfect woman, during coitus, as 
 "perfumed like the lily that has newly burst." ^ It is note- 
 worthy that it was more especially the white flowers — lily, 
 tuberose, etc. — which were long ago noted by Cloquet as liable 
 to cause various unpleasant nervous effects, cardiac oppression 
 and syncope." 
 
 When we are concerned with the fragrances of flowers it 
 would seem that we are far removed from the human sexual 
 field, and that their sexual effects are inexplicable. It is not 
 
 ^Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana, 1883, p. 5. 
 •Cloquet, Osplirisiologie, p. 95. 
 
104 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 SO. The animal and vegetable odors, as, indeed, we have al- 
 ready seen, are very closely connected. The recorded cases are 
 very numerous in which human persons have exhaled from 
 their skins — sometimes in a very pronounced degree — the 
 odors of plants and flowers, of violets, of roses, of pine-apple, 
 of vanilla. On the other hand, there are various plant odors 
 which distinctly recall, not merely the general odor of the 
 human body, but even the specifically sexual odors. A rare 
 garden weed, the stinking goosefoot, Chenopodium vulvaria, 
 it is well known, possesses a herring brine or putrid fish odor 
 — due, it appears, to propylamin, which is also found in the 
 flowers of the common white thorn or mayflower (Cratmgus 
 oxyacantha) and many others of the Rosacece — which recalls the 
 odor of the animal and human sexual regions.^ The reason is 
 that both plant and animal odors belong chemically to the same 
 group of capryl odors (Linnaeus's Odores hircini), so called from 
 the goat, the most important group of odors from the sexual 
 point of view. Caproic and capryl acid are contained not only 
 in the odor of the goat and in human sweat, and in animal 
 products as many cheeses, but also in various plants, such as 
 Herb Eobert (Geranium rdbertianum) , and the Stinking St. 
 John's worts (Hypericum hircinum), as well as the Chenopo- 
 dium. Zwaardemaker considers it probable that the odor of 
 the vagina belongs to the same group, as well as the odor of 
 semen (which Haller called odor aphrodisiacus), which last odor 
 is also found, as Cloquet pointed out, in the flowers of the 
 common berberry (Berberis vulgaris) and in the chestnut. A 
 very remarkable and significant example of the same odor 
 seems to occur in the case of the flowers of the henna plant, 
 the white-flowered Lawsonia (Lawsonia inermis), so widely 
 used in some Mohammedan lands for dyeing the nails and other 
 parts of the body. "These flowers diffuse the sweetest odor," 
 wrote Sonnini in Egypt a century ago; "the women delight to 
 
 'In Normandy the Chenopodium, it is said, is called "conio," and 
 in Italy erba connina (con, cunnus), on account of its vulvar odor. 
 The attraction of dogs to this plant has been noted. In the same way 
 cats are irresistibly attracted to preparations of valerian because their 
 own urine contains valerianic acid. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAJT. 105 
 
 wear them, to adorn their houses with them, to carry them to 
 the baths, to hold them in their hands, and to perfume their 
 bosoms with them. They cannot patiently endure that Chris- 
 tian and Jewish women shall share the privilege with them. 
 It is very remarkable that the perfume of the henna flowers, 
 when closely inhaled, is almost entirely lost in a very decided 
 spermatic odor. If the flowers are crushed between the fingers 
 this odor prevails, and is, indeed, the only one perceptible. It 
 is not surprising that so delicious a flower has furnished Orien- 
 tal poetry with many charming traits and amorous similes." 
 Such a simile Sonnini finds in the Song of Songs, i, 13-14.^ 
 
 The odor of semen has not been investigated, but, accord- 
 ing to Zwaardemaker, artificially produced odors (like cada- 
 verin) resemble it. The odor of the leguminous fenugreek, 
 a botanical friend considers, closely approaches the odor given 
 off in some cases by the armpit in women. It is noteworthy 
 that fenugreek contains cumarine, which imparts its fragrance 
 to new-mown hay and to various flowers of somewhat similar 
 odor. On some persons these have a sexually exciting effect, 
 and it is of considerable interest to observe that they recall to 
 many the odor of semen. "It seems very natural," a lady 
 writes, "that flowers, etc., should have an exciting effect, as the 
 original and by far the pleasanest way of love-making was in 
 the open among flowers and fields; but a more purely physical 
 reason may, I think, be found in the exact resemblance be- 
 tween the scent of semen and that of the pollen of flowering 
 grasses. The flrst time I became aware of this resemblance it 
 came on me with a rush that here was the explanation of the 
 very exciting effect of a field of flowering grasses and, perhaps 
 through them, of the scents of other flowers. If I am right, 
 I suppose flower scents should affect women more powerfully 
 than men in a sexual way. I do not think anyone would be 
 likely to notice the odor of semen in this connection unless they 
 had been greatly struck by the exciting effects of the pollen of 
 grasses. I had often noticed it and puzzled over it." As pollen 
 
 * Sonnini, Toyage dans la Haute et Basse Egypte, 1799, vol. i, p. 
 298. 
 
106 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 is the male sexual element of flowers, its occasionally stimulat- 
 ing effect in this direction is perhaps but an accidental result 
 of a unity running through the organic world, though it may 
 be perhaps more simply explained as a special form of that 
 nasal irritation which is felt by so many persons in a hay-field. 
 Another correspondent, this time a man, tells me that he has 
 noted the resemblance of the odor of semen to that of crushed 
 grasses. A scientific friend who has done much work in the 
 field of organic chemistry tells me he associates the odor of 
 semen with that produced by diastasic action on mixing flour 
 and water, which he regards as sexual in character. This again 
 brings us to the starchy products of the leguminous plants. It 
 is evident that, subtle and obscure as many questions in the 
 physiology and psychology of olfaction still remain, we cannot 
 easily escape from their sexual associations. 
 
The Evil Effects of Excessive Olfactory Stimulation — The Symp- 
 toms of Vanillism — The Occasional Dangerous Results of the Odors of 
 Flowers — ^Effects of Flowers on the Voice. 
 
 The reality of the olfactory influences with which we have 
 been concerned, however slight they may sometimes appear, is 
 sho'mi by the fact that odors, both agreeable and disagreeable, 
 are stimulants, obeying the laws which hold good for stimu- 
 lants generally. They whip up the nervous energies momen- 
 tarily, but in the end, l£ the excitation is excessive and pro- 
 longed, they produce fatigue and exhaustion. This is clearly 
 shown by Fere's elaborate experiments on the influences of 
 odors, as compared with other sensory stimulants, on the 
 amount of muscular work performed with the ergograph.^ 
 Commenting on the remark of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, that 
 "man uses perfumes to impart energy to his passion," Fere 
 remarks: "But perfimies cannot keep up the fires which they 
 light." Their prolonged use involves fatigue, which is not dif- 
 ferent from that produced by excessive work, and reproduces 
 all the bodily and psychic accompaniments of excessive work.*" 
 It is well known that workers in perfumes are apt to suffer 
 from the inhalation of the odors amid which they live. Deal- 
 ers in musk are said to be specially liable to precocious de- 
 mentia. The symptoms generally experienced by the men and 
 women who work in vanilla factories where the crude fruit is 
 prepared for commerce have often been studied and are well 
 known. They are due to the inhalation of the scent, which 
 has all the properties of the aromatic aldehydes, and include 
 
 'Fgrg, Travail et Plaisir, Chapter XIII. 
 
 ' Travail et Plaisir, p. 175. It is doubtless true of the effects of 
 odors on the sexual sphere. Ffirg records the case of a neurasthenic lady 
 whose sexual coldness toward her husband only disappeared after the 
 abandonment of a perfume (in which heliotrope was apparently the 
 chief constituent) she had been accustomed to use in excessive amounts. 
 
 (107) 
 
108 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 skin eruptions,* general excitement, sleeplessness, headache, 
 excessive menstruation, and irritable bladder. There is nearly 
 always sexual excitement, which jnay be very pronounced.'' 
 
 We are here in the presence, it may be insisted, not of a 
 nervous influence only, but of a direct effect of odor on the 
 vital processes. The experiments of Tardif on the influence 
 of perfumes on frogs and rabbits showed that a poisonous 
 efEect was exerted^; while Fere, by incubating fowls' eggs in 
 the presence of musk, found repeatedly that many abnormali- 
 ties occurred, and that development was retarded even in the 
 embryos that remained normal; while he obtained somewhat 
 similar results by using essences of lavender, cloves, etc.* The 
 influence of odors is thus deeper than is indicated by their 
 nervous effects; they act directly on nutrition. We are led, as 
 Passy remarks, to regard odors as very intimately related to 
 the physiological properties of organic substances, and the 
 sense of smell as a detached fragment of general sensibility, 
 reacting to the same stimuli as general sensibility, but highly 
 specialized in view of its protective function. 
 
 The reality and subtlety of the influence of odors is further shown 
 by the cases in which very intense eflFects are produced even by the 
 temporary inhalation of flowers or perfumes or other odors. Such 
 cases of idiosyncrasy in which a person — frequently of somewhat neu- 
 rotic temperament — becomes acutely sensitive to some odor or odors 
 have been recorded in medical literature for many centuries. In these 
 cases the obnoxious odor produces congestion of the respiratory pas- 
 sages, sneezing, headache, fainting, etc., but occasionally, it has been 
 recorded, even death. (Dr. J. N. Mackenzie, in his interesting and 
 learned paper on "The Production of the so-called 'Rose Cold,' etc.," 
 American Journal of Medical Sciences, January, 1886, quotes many 
 cases, and gives a number of references to ancient medical authors; see 
 also Layet, art. "Odeur," Dietionnaire Eneycloptiique des Sciences 
 Midicales.) 
 
 ^ It is perhaps signiflcant that many colors are especially liable to 
 produce skin disorders, especially urticaria ; a number of cases have been 
 recorded by Joal, Journal de Midedne, July 10, 1899. 
 
 'Layet, art. "Vanillisme," Dietionnaire Encyclopidique des Sciences 
 Midicales; ef. Audeoud, Revue Midicale de la Suisse Romande, October 
 20, 1899, summarized in the British Medical Journal, 1899. 
 
 »E. Tardif, Les Odeurs et Parfums, Chapter IIL 
 
 * Fgre, Sociiti de Biologic, March 28, 1896. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 109 
 
 An interesting plienomenon of the group — though it is almost too 
 common to be described as an idiosyncrasy — is the tendency of the 
 odor of certain flowers to affect the voice and sometimes even to pro- 
 duce complete loss of voice. The mechanism of the process is not fully 
 understood, but it would appear that congestion and paresis of the 
 larynx is produced and spasm of the bronchial tube. Botallus in 1565 
 (recorded cases in which the scent of flowers brought on difficulty of 
 breathing, and the danger of flowers from this point of view is well 
 recognized by professional singers. Joal has studied this question in 
 an elaborate paper (summarized in the British Medical Journal, March 
 3, 1895), and Dr. CabanSs has brought together {Figaro, January 20, 
 1894) the experiences of a number of well-known singers, teachers of 
 singing, and laryngologists. Thus, Madame Ren6e Kichard, of the Paris 
 Opera, has frequently found that when her pupils have arrived with a 
 bunch of violets fastened to the bodice or even with a violet and iris 
 sachet beneath the corset, the voice has been marked by weakness and, 
 on using the laryngoscope, she has found the vocal cords congested. 
 Madame Calv6 conflrmed this opinion, and stated that she was specially 
 sensitive to turberose and mimosa, and that on one occasion a bouquet 
 of white lilac has caused her, for a time, complete loss of voice. The 
 flowers mentioned are equally dangerous to a number of other singers; 
 the most injurious flower of all is found to be the violet. The rose is 
 seldom mentioned, and artificial perfumes are comparatively harmless, 
 though some singers consider it desirable to be cautious in using them. 
 
VI. 
 
 The Place of Smell In Human Sexual Selections — It Kas given 
 Place to the Predominance of Vision largely because in Civilized Man 
 it Fails to Act at a Distance — It still Plays a Part by Contributing to 
 the Sympathies or the Antipathies of Intimate Contact. 
 
 When we survey comprehensively the extensive field we 
 have here rapidly traversed, it seems not impossible to gain a 
 fairly acenrate view of the special place which olfactory sensa- 
 tions play in human sexual selection. The special peculiarity 
 of this group of sensations in man, and that which gives them 
 an importance they would not otherwise possess, is due to the 
 fact that we here witness the decadence of a sense which in 
 man's remote ancestors was the very chiefest avenue of sexual 
 allurement. In man, even the most primitive man, — to some 
 degree even in the apes, — it has declined in importance to 
 give place to the predominance of vision.^ Yet, at that lower 
 threshold of acuity at which it persists in man it still bathes 
 us in a more or less constant atmosphere of odors, which per- 
 petually move us to sympathy or to antipathy, and which in 
 their finer manifestations we do not neglect, but even culti- 
 vate with the increase of our civilization. 
 
 It thus comes about that the grosser manifestations of 
 sexual allurement by smell belong, so far as man is concerned, 
 to a remote animal past which we have outgrown and which, 
 on account of the diminished acuity of our olfactory organs, 
 we could not completely recall even if we desired to; the 
 sense of sight inevitably comes iuto play long before it is 
 possible for close contact to bring into action the sense of 
 smell. But the latent possibilities of sexual allurement by 
 olfaction, which are inevitably embodied in the nervous struct- 
 ure we have inherited from our animal ancestors, still remain 
 
 'Moll has a passage on this subject, Untersuchungen iiber die 
 lAMdo SexualiB. Bd. 1, pp. 376-381. 
 
 (110) 
 
SEXITAL SELECTION IN MAN. Ill 
 
 ready to be called into play. They emerge prominently from 
 time to time in exceptional and abnormal persons. They tend 
 to play an unusually larger part in the psychic lives of neuras- 
 thenic persons, with their sensitive and comparatively unbal- 
 anced nervous systems, and this is doubtless the reason why 
 poets and men of letters have insisted on olfactory impressions 
 so frequently and to so notable a degree; for the same reason 
 sexual inverts are peculiarly susceptible to odors. For a differ- 
 ent reason, warmer climates, which heighten all odors and also 
 favor the growth of powerfully odorous plants, lead to a height- 
 ened susceptibility to the sexual and other attractions of smell 
 even among normal persons; thus we find a general tendency 
 to delight in odors throughout the East, notably in India, 
 among the ancient Hebrews, and in Mohammedan lands. 
 
 Among the ordinary civilized population in Europe the 
 sexual influences of smell play a smaller and yet not altogether 
 negligible part. The diminished prominence of odors only 
 enables them to come into action, as sexual influences, on close 
 contact, when, in some persons at all events, personal odors 
 may have a distinct influence in heightening sympathy or arous- 
 ing antipathy. The range of variation among individuals is in 
 this matter considerable. In a few persons olfactory sympathy 
 or antipathy is so pronounced that it exerts a decisive influence 
 in their sexual relationships; such persons are of olfactory 
 type. In other persons smell has no part in constituting sexual 
 relationships, but it comes into play in the intimate association 
 of love, and acts as an additional excitant; when reinforced by 
 association such olfactory impressions may at times prove irre- 
 sistible. Other persons, again, are neutral in this respect, and 
 remain indifferent either to the sympathetic or antipathetic 
 working of personal odors, unless they happen to be extremely 
 marked. It is probable that the majority of refined and edu- 
 cated people belong to the middle group of those persons who 
 are not of predominantly olfactory type, but are liable from 
 time to time to be influenced in this manner. Women are prob- 
 ably at least as often affected in this manner as men, probably 
 more often. 
 
112 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 On the whole, "it may be said that in the usual life of man 
 odors play a not inconsiderable part and raise problems which 
 are not without interest, but that their demonstrable part in 
 actual sexual selection — whether in preferential mating or in 
 assortative mating — is comparatively small. 
 
HBAEING. 
 
 The Physiological Basis of Rhythm — Rhythm as a Physiological 
 Stimulus — The Intimate Relation of Rhythm to Movement — The Physi- 
 ological Influence of Music on Muscular Action, Circulation, Respiration, 
 etc. — The Place of Music in Sexual Selection among the Lower Animals 
 — Its Comparatively Small Place in Courtship among Mammals — The 
 Larynx and Voice in Man — The Significance of the Pubertal Changes — 
 Ancient Beliefs Concerning the Influence of Music in Morals, Educa- 
 tion, and Medicine — Its Therapeutic Uses — Significance of the Romantic 
 Interest in Music at Puberty — ^Men Comparatively Insusceptible to the 
 Specifically Sexual Influence of Music— Rarity of Sexual Perversions 
 on the Basis of the Sense of Hearing — The Part of Music in Primitive 
 Human Courtship — Women Notably Susceptible to the Specifically 
 Sexual Influence of Music and the Voice. , ■ ., ■' . n . 
 
 ? 
 
 UJ '.-&' A-^f 
 
 The sense of rhythm- ^on which it may be said that the- 
 sensory exciting effects of hearing, including music, finally rep* 
 — may probably be regarded as a fundamental quality of neuro- 
 muscular tissue. Not only are the chief physiological functions 
 of the body, like the circulation and the respiration, definitely 
 rhythmical, but our senses insist on imparting a rhythmic 
 grouping even to an absolutely uniform succession of sensa- 
 tions. It seems probable, although this view is still liable to 
 be disputed, that this rhythm is the result of kinassthetic sen- 
 sations, — sensations arising from movement or tension started 
 reflexly in the muscles by the external stimuli, — impressing 
 themselves on the sensations that are thus grouped.* We may 
 thus say, with Wilks, that music appears to have had its origin 
 in muscular action.'' 
 
 'This view has been more especially developed by J. B. Miner, 
 Motor, Visual, and Applied Rhiithms, Psychological Review Monograph 
 Supplements, vol. v, No. 4, 1903. 
 
 'Sir S. Wilks, Medical Magazine, January, 1894; cf. Clifford AU- 
 butt, "Music, Rhythm, and Muscle," Nature, February 8, 1894. 
 
 « (113) 
 
114 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 Whatever its exact origin may be, rhythm is certainly very 
 deeply impressed on our organisms. The result is that, what- 
 ever lends itself to the neuro-muscular rhythmical tendency of 
 our organisms, whatever tends still further to heighten and 
 develop that rhythmical tendency, exerts upon us a very de- 
 cidedly stimulating and exciting influence. 
 
 All muscular action being stimulated by rhthym, in its 
 simple form or in its more developed form as music, rhythm is 
 a stimiilant to work. It has even been argued by Biicher and 
 by Wundt' that human song had its chief or exclusive origin 
 in rhythmical vocal accompaniments to systematized work. 
 This view cannot, however, be maintained; systematized work 
 can scarcely be said to exist, even to-day, among most very 
 primitive races ; it is much more probable that rhythmical song 
 arose at a period antecedent to the origin of systematized work, 
 in the primitive military, religious, and erotic dances, such as 
 exist in a highly developed degree among the Australians and 
 other savage races who have not evolved co-ordinated sys- 
 tematic labor. There can, however, be no doubt that as soon 
 as systematic work appears the importance of vocal rhythm in 
 stimulating its energy is at once everywhere recognized. 
 Biicher has brought together innumerable examples of this 
 association, and in the march music of soldiers and the heaving 
 and hoisting songs of sailors we have instances that have uni- 
 versally persisted into civilization, although in civilization the 
 rhythmical stimulation of work, physiologically sound as is its 
 basis, tends to die out. Even in the laboratory the influence 
 of simple rhythm in increasing the output of work may be 
 demonstrated, and F6re found with the ergograph that a 
 rhythmical grouping of the movements caused an increase of 
 energy which often more than compensated the loss of time 
 caused by the rhythm." 
 
 ' Bueher, Arbeit und RhytJirnvs, third edition, 1902 ; Wundt, Yolker- 
 psychologie, 1900, Part I, p. 2C5. 
 
 "F6r6 deals fully with the question in his book. Travail et Plaisir, 
 1904, Chapter III, "Influence du Rhythme sur le Travail." 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 115 
 
 Rhythm is the most primitive element of music, and the 
 most fundamental. Wallaschek, in his hook on Primitive Music, 
 and most other writers on the subject are agreed on this point. 
 "Ehythm," remarks an American anthropologist/ "naturally 
 precedes the development of any fine perception of differences 
 in pitch, of time-quality, or of tonality. Almost, if not all, 
 Indian songs," he adds, "are as strictly developed out of modi- 
 fied repetitions of a motive as are the movements of a Mozart 
 or a Beethoven symphony." "In all primitive music," asserts 
 Alice C. Fletcher,^ "rhythm is strongly developed. The pulsa- 
 tions of the drum and the sharp crash of the rattles are thrown 
 against each other and against the voice, so that it would seem 
 that the pleasure derived by the performers lay not so much in 
 the tonality of the song as in the measured sounds arrayed in 
 contesting rhythm, and which by their clash start the nerves 
 and spur the body to action, for the voice which alone carries 
 the tone is often subordinated and treated as an additional 
 instrument." Groos points out that a melody gives us the 
 essential impression of a voice that dances^; it is a translation 
 of spatial movement into sound, and, as we shall see, its phys- 
 iological action on the organism is a reflection of that which, 
 as we have elsewhere found,^ dancing itself produces, and thus 
 resembles that produced by the sight of movement. Dancing, 
 music, and poetry were primitively so closely allied as to be 
 almost identical; they were stiU inseparable among the early 
 Greeks. The refrains in our English ballads indicate the 
 dancer's part in them. The technical use of the word "foot" 
 in metrical matters still persists to &how that a poem is funda- 
 mentally a dance. 
 
 Aristotle seems to have first suggested that rhythm and melodies 
 are motions, as actions are motions, and therefore signs of feeling. 
 
 ' Fillmore, "Primitive Scales and Rhythms," Proceedings of tJie In- 
 ternational Congress of Anthropology, Chicago, 1893. 
 
 '"Love Songs among the Omaha Indians," in Proceedings of same 
 congress. 
 
 • Groos, Spiele der Mcnschen, p. 33. 
 
 •"Analysis of the Sexual Impulse," Studies in the Psychology of 
 Sex, vol.-iii. 
 
116 PSTCHOLOaT OF SES. 
 
 "All melodies are motions," says Helmholtz. "Graceful rapidity, grave 
 procession, quiet advance, wild leaping, all these different characters 
 of motion and a thousand others can be represented by successions of 
 tones. And as music expresses these motions it gives an expresion also 
 to those mental conditions which naturally evoke similar motions, 
 whether of the body and the voice, or of the thinking and feeling prin- 
 ciple itself." (Helmholtz, On the Sensations of Tone, translated by A. 
 J. Ellis, 1885, p. 250.) 
 
 From another point of view the motor stimulus of music has been 
 emphasized by Cyples: "Music connects with the only sense that can 
 be perfectly manipulated. Its emotional charm has struck men as a 
 great mystery. There appears to be no doubt whatever that it gets all 
 the marvelous effects it has beyond the mere pleasing of the ear, from 
 its random, but multitudinous, summonses of the efferent activity, 
 which at its vague challenges stirs unceasingly in faintly tumultuous 
 irrelevancy. In this way, music arouses aimlessly, but splendidly, the 
 sheer, as yet unfulfilled, potentiality within us." (W. Cyples, The 
 Process of Human Experience, p. 743.) 
 
 The fundamental element of transformed motion in music has been 
 well brought out in a suggestive essay by Goblot ("La Musique Descrip- 
 tive," Revue PMlosopMque, July, 1901) : "Sung or played, melody figures 
 to the ear a successive design, a moving arabesque. We talk of 
 ascending and descending the gamut, of Mgli notes or low notes; the 
 higher voice of woman is called soprano, or above, the deeper voice of 
 man is called hass. Grave tones were so called by the Greeks be- 
 cause they seemed heavy and to incline downward. Sounds seem to 
 be subject to the action of gravity; so that some rise and others fall. 
 Baudelaire, speaking of the prelude to Lohengrin, remarks: 'I felt my- 
 self delivered from the bonds of weight.' And when Wagner sought to 
 represent, in the highest regions of celestial apace, the apparition of the 
 angels bearing the Holy Grail to earth, he uses very high notes, and 
 a kind of chorus played exclusively by the violins, divided into eight 
 parts, in the highest notes of their register. The descent to earth of 
 the celestial choir is rendered by lower and lower notes, the pro- 
 gressive disappearance of which represents the reascension to the ethe- 
 real regions. 
 
 "Sounds seem to rise and fall; that is a fact. It is difficult to ex- 
 plain it. Some have seen in it a habit derived from the usual nota- 
 tion by which the height of the note corresponds to its height in the 
 score. But the impression is too deep and general to be explained by 
 so superficial and recent a, cause. It has been suggested also that high 
 notes are generally produced by small and light bodies, low notes by 
 heavy bodies. But that is not always true. It has been said, again. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 117 
 
 that high notes in nature are usually produced by highly placed objects, 
 while low notes arise from caves and low placed regions. But the 
 thunder is heard in the sky, and the murmur of u, spring or the song 
 of a cricket arise from the eaith. In the human voice, again, it is said, 
 the low notes seem to resound in the chest, high notes in the head. 
 All this is unsatisfactory. We cannot explain by such coarse analogies 
 an impression which is very precise, and more sensible (this fact has 
 its importance) for an interval of half a tone than for an interval of an 
 octave. It is probable that the true explanation is to be found in the 
 still little understood connection between the elements of our nervous 
 apparatus. 
 
 "Nearly all our emotions tend to produce movement. But educa- 
 tion renders us economical of our acts. Most of these movements are 
 repressed, especially in the adult and civilized man, as harmful, dan- 
 gerous, or merely useless. Some are not completed, others are reduced 
 to a faint incitation which externally is scarcely perceptible. Enough 
 remain to constitute all that is expressive in our gestures, physiog- 
 nomy, and attitudes. Melodic intervals possess in a high degree this 
 property of provoking impulses of movement, which, even when re- 
 pressed, leave behind internal sensations and motor images. It would 
 be possible to study these facts experimentally if we had at our dis- 
 position a human being who, while retaining his sensations and their 
 motor reactions, was by special circumstances rendered entirely spon- 
 taneous like a sensitive automaton, whose movements were neither in- 
 tentionally produced nor intentionally repressed. In this way, melodic 
 intervals in a hypnotized subject might be very instructive." 
 
 A number of experiments of the kind desired by Goblot had 
 already been made by A. de Rochas in a book, copiously illustrated by 
 very numerous instantaneous photographs, entitled Les Bentiments, la 
 Musique et le Gestet, 1900. Chapter III. De Rochas experimented on a 
 single subject, Lina, formerly a model, who was placed in a condition 
 of slight hypnosis, when various simple fragments of music were per- 
 formed: recitatives, popular airs, and more especially national dances, 
 often from remote parts of the world. The subject's gestures were 
 exceedingly marked and varied in accordance with the character of 
 the music. It was found that she often imitated with considerable 
 precision the actual gestures of dances she could never have seen. The 
 same music always evoked the same gestures, as was shown by instan- 
 taneous photographs. This subject, stated to be a chaste and well- 
 behaved girl, exhibited no indications of definite sexual emotion under 
 the influence of any kind of music. Some account is given in the same 
 volume of other hypnotic experiments with music which were also nega- 
 tive as regards specific sexual phenomena. 
 
118 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 It must be noted that, as a physiological stimulus, a single 
 musical note is efPeetive, even apart from rhythm, as is well 
 shown by Fere's experiments with the dynamometer and the 
 ergograph.'^ It is, however, the influence of music on muscular 
 work which has been most frequently investigated, and both on 
 brief efl'orts with the dynamometer and prolonged work with 
 the ergograph it has been found to exert a stimulating influ- 
 ence. Thus, Scripture found that, while his own maximum 
 thumb and' finger grip with the dynamometer is 8 pounds, when 
 the giant's motive from Wagner's Rh&ingold is played it rises 
 to 8'/^ pounds.^ With the ergograph TarchanofE found that 
 lively music, in nervously sensitive persons, will temporarily 
 cause the disappearance of fatigue, though slow music in a 
 minor key had an opposite effect.' The varying influence on 
 work with the ergograph of different musical intervals and dif- 
 ferent keys has been carefully studied by Fere with many inter- 
 esting results. There was a very considerable degree of con- 
 stancy in the results. Discords were depressing; most, but 
 not all, major keys were stimulating; and most, but not all, 
 minor keys depressing. In states of fatigue, however, the 
 minor keys were more stimulating than the major, an interest- 
 ing result in harmony with that stimulating influence of various 
 painful emotions in states of organic fatigue which we have 
 elsewhere encountered when investigating sadism.* "Our mu- 
 sical culture," Fere remarks, "only renders more perceptible to 
 us the unconscious relationships which exist between musical 
 art and our organisms. Those whom we consider more en- 
 dowed in this respect have a deeper penetration of the phe- 
 nomena accomplished within them; they feel more profoundly 
 the marvelous reactions between the organism and the prin- 
 ciples of musical art, they experience more strongly that art is 
 
 Tfire, Sensation et Mouvement, Chapter V; id., Travail et Plaisir, 
 Chapter XII. 
 
 "Scripture, Thinking, Feeling, Doing, p. 85. 
 
 'Tarchanoff, "Influence de la Musique sur I'Homme et sur lea 
 Animaux," Atti dell' XI Gongresso Medico Internazionale, Home, 1894, 
 vol. ii, p. 153; also in Archives Italiennes de Biologic, 1894. 
 
 * "Love and Pain," Studies in tlw Psychology of Sex, vol. iii. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 119 
 
 within them."^ Both the higher and the lower muscular proc- 
 esses, the voluntary and the involuntary, are stimulated by mu- 
 sic. Darlington and Talbot, in Titchener's laboratory at Cor- 
 nell University, found that the estimation of relative weights 
 was aided by musie.^ Lombard found, when investigating the 
 normal variations in the knee-jerk, that involuntary reflex 
 processes are always reinforced by music ; a military band play- 
 ing a lively march caused the knee-jerk to increase at the loud 
 passages and to diminish at the soft passages, while remaining 
 always above the normal level.^ 
 
 With this stimulating influence of rhythm and music on 
 the neuro-muscular system — ^which may or may not be direct — 
 there is a concomitant influence on the circulatory and breath- 
 ing apparatus. During recent years a great many experiments 
 have been made on man and animals bearing on the effects of 
 music on the heart and respiration. Perhaps the earliest of 
 these were carried out by the Eussian physiologist Dogiel in 
 1880.* His methods were perhaps defective and his results, at 
 all events as regards man, uncertain, but in animals the force 
 and rapidity of the heart were markedly increased. Subsequent 
 investigations have shown very clearly the influence of music on 
 the circulatory and respiratory systems in man as well as in ani- 
 mals. That music has an apparently direct influence on the 
 circulation of the brain is shown by the observations of Patrizi 
 on a youth who had received a severe wound of the head which 
 had removed a large portion of the skull wall. The stimulus of 
 
 'Fgr6, Travail et Plaisir, Chapter XII, "Action Physiologique des 
 Sens Musicaux." "A practical treatise on harmony," Goblot remarks 
 {Bevue Philosophique, July, 1901, p. 61), "ought to tell us in what way 
 such an interval, or such a succession of intervals, affects us. A the- 
 oretical treatise on harmony ought to tell us the explanation of these 
 impressions. In a word, musical harmony is a psychological science." 
 He adds that this science is very far from being constituted yet; we 
 have hardly even obtained a glimpse of it. 
 
 " American Journal of Psychology, April, 1898. 
 
 'American Journal of Psychology, November, 1887. The influence 
 of rhythm on the involuntary muscular system is indicated by the oc- 
 casional effect of music in producing a tendency to contraction of the 
 bladder. 
 
 * Archiv fur Anatomic und Physiologie (Physiologisches Ab- 
 theilung), 1880, p. 420. 
 
120 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 melody produced an immediate increase in the aiHux of blood 
 to the brain.^ 
 
 In Germany the question was investigated at about the 
 same time by Mentz.^ Observing the pulse with a sphygmo- 
 graph and Marey tambour he found distinct evidence of an 
 effect on the heart ; when attention was given to the music the 
 pulse was quickened, in the absence of attention it was slowed; 
 Mentz also found that pleasurable sensations tended to slow the 
 pulse and disagreeable ones to quicken it. 
 
 Binet and Courtier made an elaborate series of experi- 
 ments on the action of music on the respiration (with the 
 double pneumograph), the heart, and the capillary circulation 
 (with the plethysmograph of Hallion and Comte) on a single 
 subject, a man very sensitive to music and himself a cultured 
 musician. Simple musical sounds with no emotional content 
 accelerated the respiration without changing its regularity or 
 amplitude. Musical fragments, mostly sung, usually well 
 known to the subject, and having an emotional effect on him, 
 produced respiratory irregularity either in amplitude or rapid- 
 ity of breathing, in two-thirds of the trials. Exciting music, 
 such as military marches, accelerated the breathing more than 
 sad melodies, but the intensity of the excitation had an effect 
 at least as great as its quality, for intense excitations always 
 produced both quickened and deeper breathing. The heart 
 was quickened in harmony with the quickened breathing. 
 Neither breathing nor heart was ever slowed. As regards the 
 capillary pulsation, an influence was exerted chiefly, if not ex- 
 clusively, by gay and exciting melodies, which produced a 
 shrinking. Throughout the experiments it was found that the 
 most profound physiological effects were exerted by those 
 pieces which the subject found to be most emotional in their 
 influence on him.' 
 
 ' M. L. Patrizi, "Primi esperimenti intomo all' influenza della muaica 
 suUa circolozione del sangue nel cervello umano," International Congress 
 fur Psychologie, Munich, 1897, p. 176. 
 
 ' PMlosophisehe Studien, vol. xi. 
 
 •Binet and Courtier, "La Vie Emotionelle," Annie Psychologlqm, 
 Third Year, 1897, pp. 104-125. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 121 
 
 Guibaud studied the question on a number of subjects, 
 confirming and extending the conclusions of Binet and Cour- 
 tier. He found that the reactions of different individuals 
 varied, but that for the same individual reactions were con- 
 stant. Circulatory reaction was more often manifest than 
 respiratory reaction. The latter might be either a simultane- 
 ous modification of depth and of rapidity or of either of these. 
 The circulatory reaction was a peripheral vasoconstriction with 
 diminished fullness of pulse and slight acceleration of cardiac 
 rhythm; there was never any distinct slowing of heart under 
 the influence of music. Guibaud remarks that when people 
 say they feel a shudder at some passage of music, this sensa- 
 tion of cold finds its explanation in the production of a periph- 
 eral vasoconstriction which may be registered by the plethys- 
 mograph.^ 
 
 Since music thus directly and powerfully affects the chief 
 vital processes, it is not surprising that it should indirectly 
 influence various viscera and functions. As Tarchanoff and 
 others have demonstrated, it affects the skin, increasing the 
 perspiration; it may produce a tendency to tears; it sometimes 
 produces desire to urinate, or even actual urination, as in 
 Scaliger's case of the Gascon gentleman who was always thus 
 affected on hearing the bagpipes. In dogs it has been shown 
 by Tarchanoff and Wartanoff that auditory stimulation in- 
 creases the consumption of oxygen 20 per cent., and the elimi- 
 nation of carbonic acid 17 per cent. 
 
 In addition to the effects of musical sound already men- 
 tioned, it may be added that, as Epstein, of Berne, has shown,^ 
 the other senses are stimulated under the influence of sound, 
 and notably there is an increase in acuteness of vision which 
 may be experimentally demonstrated. It is probable that this 
 effect of music in heightening the impressions received by the 
 other senses is of considerable significance from our present 
 point of view. 
 
 * Guibaud, Contribution d, I'itude expirimentale de I'influtnce de la 
 musigue sur la circulation el la respiration. Thfise de Bordeaux, 1898, 
 summarized in Annie Psychologique, Fifth Year, 1899, pp. 645-649. 
 
 ' International Congress of Physiology, Berne, 1895. 
 
122 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 Why are musical tones in a certain order and rhythm 
 pleasurable ? asked Darwin in The Descent of Man, and he con- 
 cluded that the question was insoluble. We see that, in reality, 
 whatever the ultimate answer may be, the immediate reason is 
 quite simple. Pleasure is a condition of slight and diffused 
 stimulation, in which the heart and breathing are faintly ex- 
 cited, the neuro-muscular system receives additional tone, the 
 viscera gently stirred, the skin activity increased; and certain 
 combinations of musical notes and intervals act as a physio- 
 logical stimulus in producing these effects.^ 
 
 Among animals of all kinds, from insects upward, this 
 physiological action appears to exist, for among nearly all of 
 them certain sounds are agreeable and attractive, and other 
 sounds indifferent and disagreeable. It appears that insects of 
 quite different genera show much appreciation of the song of 
 the Cicada." Birds show intense interest in the singing of good 
 performers even of other species. Experiments among a variety 
 of animals in the Zoological Gardens with performances on 
 various instruments showed that with the exception of seals 
 none were indifferent, and all felt a discord as offensive. Many 
 animals showed marked likes and dislikes; thus, a tiger, who 
 was obviously soothed by the violin, was infuriated by the 
 piccolo; the violin and the flute were preferred by most ani- 
 mals.' 
 
 Most persons have probably had occasion to observe the sus- 
 ceptibility of dogs to music. It may here suffice to give one personal 
 observation. A dog (of mixed breed, partly collie), very well known to 
 me, on hearing a nocturne of Chopin, whined and howled, especially 
 at the more pathetic passages, once or twice catching and drawing out 
 the actual note played; he panted, walked about anxiously, and now 
 and then placed his head on the player's lap. When the player pro- 
 
 'The influence of association plays no necessary part in these 
 pleasurable influences, for F6r6's experiments show that an unmusical 
 subject responds physiologically, with much precision, to musical inter- 
 vals he is unable to recognize. R. MacDougall also finds that the effec- 
 tive quality of rhythmical sequences does not apjjear to be dependent 
 on secondary associations (Psychological Review, January, 1903). 
 
 ' R. T. Lewis, in Nature Notes, August, 1891. 
 
 ■Cornish, "Orpheus at the Zoo," in Life at the Zoo, pp. 115-138. 
 
SEXITAL SELECTION IN MAN. 123 
 
 ceeded to a more cheerful piece by Grieg, the dog at once became in- 
 different, sat down, yawned, and scratched himself; but as soon as 
 the player returned once more to the nocturne the dog at once repeated 
 his accompaniment. 
 
 There can be no doubt that among a very large number of 
 animals of most various classes, more especially among insects 
 and birds, the attraction of music is supported and developed 
 on the basis of sexual attraction, the musical notes emitted 
 serving as a sexual lure to the other sex. The evidence on this 
 point was carefully investigated by Darwin on a very wide 
 basis.^ It has been questioned, some writers preferring to 
 adopt the view of Herbert Spencer,^ that the singing of birds 
 is due to "overflow of energy,'' the relation between courtship 
 and singing being merely "a relation of concomitance." This 
 view is no longer tenable; whatever the precise origin of the 
 musical notes of animals may be, — and it is not necessary to 
 suppose that sexual attraction had a large part in their first 
 rudimentary beginnings, — there can now be little doubt that 
 musical sounds, and, among birds, sLuging, play a very large 
 part indeed in bringing the male and the female together.^ 
 Usually, it would appear, it is the performance of the male that 
 attracts the female; it is only among very simple and primitive 
 musicians, like some insects, that the female thus attracts the 
 male.* The fact that it is nearly always one sex only that is 
 thus musically gifted should alone have sufficed to throw sus- 
 picion on any but a sexual solution of this problem of animal 
 song. 
 
 It is, however, an exceedingly remarkable fact that, al- 
 though among insects and lower vertebrates the sexual influ- 
 
 ' Descent of Man, Chapters XIII and XIX. 
 
 = "The Origin of Music" (1857), Essays, vol. ii. 
 
 •Anyone who is in doubt on this point, as regards bird song, may 
 consult the little book in which the evidence has been well summarized 
 by Hacker, Der Oesang der Togel, or the discussion in Groos's Spiele 
 der Thiere, pp. 274 et seq. 
 
 ' Thus, mosquitoes are irresistibly attracted by music, and especially 
 by those musical tones which resemble the buzzing of the female; the 
 males alone are thus attracted. (Nuttall and Shipley, and Sir Hiram 
 Maxim, quoted in Nature, October 31, 1901, p. 655, and in Lancet, Feb- 
 ruary 22, 1902.) 
 
124 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 ence of music is so large, and although among mammals and 
 predominantly in man the emotional and aesthetic influence of 
 music is so great, yet. neither in man nor any of the higher 
 mammals has music been found to exert a predominant sexual 
 influence, or even in most cases any influence at all. Darwin, 
 while calling attention to the fact that the males of most 
 species of mammals use their vocal powers chiefly, and some- 
 times exclusively, during the breeding-season, adds that "it is 
 a surprising fact that we have not as yet any good evidence 
 that these organs are used by male mammals to charm the 
 female.^ From a very different standpoint. Fere, in study- 
 ing the pathology of the human sexual instinct in the light 
 of a very full knowledge of the available evidence, states 
 that he knows of no detailed observations showing the existence 
 of any morbid sexual perversions based on the sense of hear- 
 ing, either in reference to the human voice or to instrumental 
 music.^ 
 
 When, however, we consider that not only in the animals 
 most nearly related to man, but in man himself, the larynx 
 and the voice undergo a marked sexual differentiation at 
 puberty, it is difficult not to believe that this change has an influ- 
 ence on sexual selection and sexual psychology. At puberty 
 there is a slight hypersemia of the larynx, accompanied by rapid 
 development alike of the larynx itself and of the vocal cords, 
 which become larger and thicker, while there is an associated 
 change in the voice, which deepens. All these changes are 
 very slight in girls, but very pronounced in boys, whose voices 
 are said to "break" and then become lower by at least an 
 octave. The feminine larynx at puberty only increases in the 
 proportion of 5 to 7, but the masculine larynx in the propor- 
 tion of 5 to 10. The direct dependence of this change on the 
 general sexual development is shown not merely by its oc- 
 currence at puberty, but by the fact that in eunuchs in whom 
 
 ' Descent of Man, second edition, p. 567. Grooa, in his discussion 
 of music, also expresses doubt whether hearing plays a considerable part 
 in the courtship of mammals, Spiele der Menschen, p. 22. 
 
 'F6r6, L'Instinct Sexuel, second edition, p. 137. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 125 
 
 the testicles have been removed before puberty the voice re- 
 tains its childlike qualities.^ 
 
 As a matter of fact, I believe that we may attach a consid- 
 erable degree of importance to the voice and to music gen- 
 erally as a method of sexual appeal. On this point I agree 
 with Moll, who remarks that "the sense of hearing here plays 
 a considerable part, and the stimulation received through the 
 ears is much larger than is usually believed.^ I am not, how- 
 ever, inclined to think that this influence is considerable in its 
 action on men, although Mantegazza remarks, doubtless with 
 a certain truth, that "some women's voices cannot be heard 
 with impunity." It is true that the ancients deprecated the 
 sexual or at all events the effeminating influence of some kinds 
 of music, but they seem to have regarded it as sedative rather 
 than stimulating; the kind of music they approved of as mar- 
 tial and stimulating was the kind most likely to have sexual ef- 
 fects in predisposed persons. 
 
 The Chinese and the Greeks have more especially insisted on the 
 ethical qualities of music and on its moralizing and demoralizing effects. 
 Some three thousand years ago, it is stated, a Chinese emperor, believ- 
 ing that only they who understood music are capable of governing, dis- 
 tributed administrative functions in accordance with this belief. He 
 acted entirely in accordance with Chinese morality. The texts of 
 Confucianism (see translations in the "Sacred Books of the East Series") 
 show clearly that music and ceremony (or social ritual in a wide 
 sense) are regarded as the two main guiding influences of life — music 
 as the internal guide, ceremony as the external guide, the former being 
 looked upon as the more important. 
 
 Among the Greeks Menandcr said that to many people music is 
 a powerful stimulant to love. Plato, in the third book of the Republic, 
 discusses what kinds of music should be encouraged in his ideal state. 
 He does not clearly state that music is ever a sexual stimulant, but 
 he appears to associate plaintive music (mixed Lydian and Hypolydian) 
 
 ' See Bifirent, La Puherti, Chapter IV; also Havelock Ellis, Man 
 and Woman, fourth edition, pp. 270-272. Endriss (Die Bisherigen 
 Beobachtungen von Plvysiologischen und Pathologisclien Bezichungcn der 
 oheren Luftwege zu den Sexualorganen, Teil III) brings together various 
 observations on the normal and abnormal relations of the larynx to 
 the sexual sphere. 
 
 ■Moll, Vntersuchungen Uber die Libido Sexualis, 1, p. 133. 
 
126 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 with drunkenness, effeminacy, and idleness, and considers that such 
 music is "useless even to women that are to be virtuously given, not to 
 say to men." He only admits two kinds of music: one violent and 
 suited to war, the other tranquil and suited to prayer or to persuasion. 
 He sets out the ethical qualities of music with a thoroughness which 
 almost approaches the great Chinese philosopher: "On these accounts 
 we attach such importance to a musical education, because rhythm and 
 harmony sink most deeply into the recesses of the soul, and take 
 most powerful hold of it, bringing gracefulness in their train, and mak- 
 ing a, man graceful if he be rightly nurtured, . . . leading him to 
 commend beautiful objects, and gladly receive them into his soul, and 
 feed upon them, and grow to be noble and good." Plato is, however, 
 by no means so consistent and thorough as the Chinese moralist, for 
 having thus asserted that it is the influence of music which molds the 
 soul Into virtue, he proceeds to destroy his position with the state- 
 ment that "we shall never become truly musical until we know the 
 essential forms of temperance and courage and liberality and munifi- 
 cence," thus moving in a circle. It must be added that the Greek con- 
 ception of music was very comprehensive and included poetry. 
 
 Aristotle took a wider view of music than Plato and admitted a 
 greater variety of uses for it. He was less anxious to exclude those 
 uses which were not strictly ethical. He disapproved, indeed, of the 
 Phrygian harmony as the expression of Bacchic excitement. He ac- 
 cepts, however, the function of music as a, ndSapris of emotion, a no- 
 tion which is said to have originated with the Pythagoreans. (For 
 a discussion of Aristotle's views on music, see W. L. Newman, Tlie 
 Politics of Aristotle, vol. i, pp. 359-369.) 
 
 Athenseus, in his frequent allusions to music, attributes to it 
 many intellectual and emotional properties (e. g., Book XIV, Chapter 
 XXV) and in one place refers to "melodies inciting to lawless in- 
 dulgence" (Book XIII, Chapter LXXV), 
 
 We may gather from the Priapeia (XXVI) that cymbals and 
 castanets were the special accompaniment in^ antiquity of wanton 
 songs and dances: "cymhala cum crotalis, pruriginis arma." 
 
 The ancient belief in the moralizing influence of music has sur- 
 vived into modem times mainly in a somewhat more scientific form as 
 a belief in its therapeutic effects in disordered nervous and mental con- 
 ditions. (This also is an ancient belief as witnessed by the well-known 
 example of David playing to Saul to dispel his melancholia.) In 1729 
 an apothecary of Oakham, Eichard Broune, published a work entitled 
 Medidna Musica, in which he argued that music was beneficial in many 
 maladies. In more recent days there have been various experiments 
 and cases brought forward showing its efficacy in special conditions. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 127 
 
 An American physician (W. F. Hutchinson) has shown that anaesthesia 
 may be produced with accurately made tuning iorks at certain rates of 
 vibration (summarized in the British Medical Journal, June 4, 1898). 
 Ferrand in a paper read before the Paris Academy of Medicine in Sep- 
 tember, 1895, gives reasons for classing some kinds of music as powerful 
 antispasmodics with beneficial therapeutic action. The case was sub- 
 sequently reported of a child in whom night-terrors were eased by 
 calming music in a minor key. The value of music in lunatic asylums 
 is well recognized; see e.g., Nacke, Revue de Psychiatrie, October, 1897. 
 Vaschide and Vurpas {Comptes Bendus de la Sociiti de Biologie, 
 December 13, 1902) have recorded the case of a girl of 20, suffering 
 from mental confusion with excitation and central motor disequilibrium, 
 whose muscular equilibrium was restored and movements rendered more 
 co-ordinated and adaptive under the influence of music. 
 
 While there has been much extravagance in the ancient doctrine 
 concerning the effects of music, the real effects are still considerable. 
 Not only is this demonstrated by the experiments already referred to 
 (p. 118), indicating the efficacy of musical sounds as physiological stimu- 
 lants, but also by anatomical considerations. The roots of the auditory 
 nerves, McKendrick has pointed out, are probably more widely dis- 
 tributed and have more extensive connections than those of any other 
 nerve. The intricate connections of these nerves are still only being 
 unraveled. This points to an explanation of how music penetrates to 
 the very roots of our being, influencing by associational paths reflex 
 mechanisms both cerebral and somatic, so that there is scarcely a func- 
 tion of the body that may not be affected by the rhythmical pulsations, 
 melodic progressions, and harmonic combinations of musical tones. 
 {Nature, June 15, 1899, p. 164.) 
 
 Just as we are not entitled from the ancient belief in the 
 influence of music on morals or the modern beliefs in its thera- 
 peutic influence — even though this has sometimes gone to the 
 length of advocating its use in impotence^ — to argue that 
 music has a marked influence in exciting the specifically sexual 
 instincts, neither are we entitled to find any similar argu- 
 ment in the fact that music is frequently associated with the 
 love-feelings of youth. Men are often able to associate many 
 of their earliest ideas of love in boyhood with women singing 
 or playing; but in these cases it will always be found that the 
 fascination was romantic and sentimental, and not specifically 
 
 » J. L. Roger, Traiti des Effets de la Musique, 1803, pp. 234 and 342. 
 
128 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 erotic.^ In adult life the music which often seems to us to be 
 most definitely sexual in its appeal (such as much of Wag- 
 ner's Tristan) really produces this effect in part from the as- 
 sociation with the story, and in part from the intellectual 
 realization of the composer's effort to translate passion into 
 aesthetic terms ; the actual effect of the music is not sexual, and 
 it can well be believed that the results of experiments as re- 
 gards the sexual influence of the Tristan music on men under 
 the influence of hypnotism have been, as reported, negative. 
 Helmholtz goes so far as to state that the expression of sexual 
 longing in music is identical with that of religious longing. 
 It is quite true, again, that a soft and gentle voice seems to 
 every normal man as to Lear "an excellent thing in woman," 
 and that a harsh or shrill voice may seem to deaden or even de- 
 stroy altogether the attraction of a beautiful face. But the 
 voice is not usually in itself an adequate or powerful method 
 of evoking sexual emotion in a man. Even in its supreme 
 vocal manifestations the sexual fascination exerted by a great 
 singer, though certainly considerable, cannot be compared with 
 that commonly exerted by the actress. Cases have, indeed, 
 been recorded — chiefly occurring, it is probable, in men of 
 somewhat morbid nervous disposition — in which sexual attrac- 
 tion was exerted chiefly through the ear, or in which there 
 was a special sexual sensibility to particular inflections or ac- 
 cents." Fere mentions the case of a young man in hospital 
 with acute arthritis who complained of painful erections when- 
 ever he heard through the door the very agreeable voice of 
 the young woman (invisible to him) who superintended the 
 linen.' But these phenomena do not appear to be common, 
 or, at all events, very pronounced. So far as my own inquiries 
 
 " A typical example occurs in the early life of History I in Appendix 
 B to vol. iii of these Studies. 
 
 "Vaschide and Vurpas state {Archives de Neurologie, May, 1904) 
 that in their experience music may facilitate sexual approaches in some 
 cases of satiety, and that in certain pathological cases the sexual act 
 can only be accomplished under the influence of music. 
 
 "F6r6, L'Instinct Sexuel, p. 137. Bloch {Beitrdge, etc., vol. ii, p. 
 355) quotes some remarks of Kistemaecker's concerning the sound of 
 women's garments and the way in which savages and sometimes civilized 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION' IN MAN. 129 
 
 go, only a small proportion of men would appear to experience 
 definite sexual feelings on listening to music. And the fact 
 that in woman the voice is so slightly differentiated from that 
 of the child, as well as the very significant fact that among 
 man's immediate or even remote ancestors the female's voice 
 can seldom have served to attract the male, sufficiently ac- 
 count for the small part played by the voice and by music as 
 a sexual allurement working on men.^ 
 
 It is otherwise with women. It may, indeed, be said at 
 the outset that the reasons which make it antecedently im- 
 probable that men should be sexually attracted through hear- 
 ing render it probable that women should be so attracted. 
 The change in the voice at puberty makes the deeper mascu- 
 line voice a characteristic secondary sexual attribute of man, 
 while the fact that among mammals generally it is the male 
 that is most vocal — and that chiefly, or even sometimes ex- 
 clusively, at the rutting season — renders it antecedently likely 
 that among mammals generally, including the human species, 
 there is in the female an actual or latent susceptibility to the 
 sexual significance of the male voice,^ a susceptibility which, 
 under the conditions of human civilization, may be transferred 
 
 women cultivate this rustling and clinking. Gutzkow, in his Auto- 
 biography, said that the frou-frou of a woman's dress was the music 
 of the spheres to him. 
 
 ' The voice is doubtless a factor of the first importance in sexual 
 attraction among the blind. On this point I have no data. The expres- 
 siveness of the voice to the blind, and the extent to which their likes 
 and dislikes are fo^unded on vocal qualities, is well shown by an in- 
 teresting paper written by an American physician, blind from early in- 
 fancy, James Cocke, "The Voice as an Index to the Soul," Arena, Jan- 
 uary, 1894. 
 
 'Long before Darwin had set forth his theory of sexual selection 
 Laycock had pointed out the influence which the voice of the male, 
 among man and other animals, exerts on the female {Nervous Diseases 
 of Women, p. 74). And a few years later the writer of a suggestive 
 article on "Woman in her Psychological Relations" {Journal of Psycho- 
 logical Medicine, 1851) remarked: "The sonorous voice of the male man 
 is exactly analogous in its effect on woman to the neigh and bellow of 
 other animals. This voice will have its effect on an amorous or sus- 
 ceptible organization much in the same way as color and the other 
 visual ovarian stimuli." The writer adds that it exercises a still more 
 important influence when modulated to music: "in this respect man has 
 something in common with insects as well as birds." 
 
 9 
 
130 PSYCHOLOGY 01' SEX. 
 
 to music generally. It is noteworthy that in novels written 
 by women there is a very frequent attentiveness to the quali- 
 ties of the hero's voice and to its emotional effects on the 
 heroine.' We may also note the special and peculiar personal 
 enthusiasm aroused in women by popular musicians, a more 
 pronounced enthusiasm than is evoked in them by popular 
 actors. 
 
 As an interesting example of the importance attached by women 
 novelists to the eiTects of the male voice 1 may refer to George Eliot's 
 Mill on the Floss, probably the most intimate and personal of George 
 Eliot's works. In Book VI of this novel the influence of Stephen Guest 
 (a somewhat commonplace young man) over Maggie Tulliver is 
 ascribed almost exclusively to the effect of his bass voice in singing. 
 We are definitely told of Maggie TuUiver's "sensibility to the supreme 
 excitement of music." Thus, on one occasion, "all her intentions were 
 lost in the vague state of emotion produced by the inspiring duet — 
 emotion that seemed to make her at once strong and weak: strong for 
 all enjoyment, weak for all resistance. Poor Maggie! She looked very 
 beautiful when her soul was being played on in this way by the inex-. 
 orable power of sound. You might have seen the slightest perceptible 
 quivering through her whole frame as she leaned a little forward, clasp- 
 ing her hands as if to steady herself; while her eyes dilated and bright- 
 ened into that wideopen, childish expression of wondering delight, which 
 always came back in her happiest moments." George Eliot's novels 
 contain many allusions to the powerful emotional effects of music. 
 
 It is unnecessary to refer to Tolstoy's Ereutzer Sonata, in which 
 music is regarded as the Galeotto to bring lovers together — "the con- 
 necting bond of music, the most refined lust of the senses." 
 
 ' In primitive human courtship music very frequently plays 
 a considerable part, though not usually the sole part, being gen- 
 erally found as the accompaniment of the song and the dance at 
 erotic festivals.^ The Gilas, of New Mexico, among whom 
 courtship consists in a prolonged serenade day after day with 
 the flute, furnish a somewhat exceptional case. Savage women 
 
 ' Groos refers more than once to the important part played in 
 German novels written by women by what one of them terms the 
 "bearded male voice." 
 
 ' Various Instances are quoted in the third volume of these Studies 
 when discussing the general phenomena of courtship and tumescence, 
 "An Analysis of the Sexual Impulse." 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 131 
 
 are evidently very attentive to music; Backhouse (as quoted 
 by Ling Eoth^) mentions how a woman belonging to the very 
 primitive and now extinct Tasmanian race, when shown a 
 musical box, listened "with intensity ; her ears moved like those 
 of a dog or horse, to catch the sound." 
 
 I have found little evidence to show that music, except in 
 occasional eases, exerts even the slightest specifically sexual 
 effect on men, whether musical or unmusical. But I have 
 ample evidence that it very frequently exerts to a slight but 
 definite extent such an influence on women, even when quite 
 normal. Judging from my own inquiries it would, indeed, 
 seem likely that the majority of normal educated women are 
 liable to experience some degree of definite sexual excitement 
 from music; one states that orchestral music generally tends 
 to produce this effect; another finds it chiefly from Wagner's' 
 music; another from military music, etc. Others simply state 
 — ^what, indeed, probably expresses the experience of most per- 
 sons of either sex — ^that it heightens one's mood. One lady 
 mentions that some of her friends, whose erotic feelings are 
 aroused by music, are especially affected in this way by the 
 choral singing in Roman Catholic churches.^ 
 
 In the typical cases just mentioned, all fairly normal and 
 healthy women, the sexual effects of music though definite 
 were usually quite slight. In neuropathic subjects they may 
 occasionally be more pronounced. Thus, a medical correspon- 
 dent has commvmicated to me the case of a married lady with 
 one child, a refined, very beautiful, but highly neurotic, woman, 
 married to a man with whom she has nothing in common. Her 
 tastes lie in the direction of music ; she is a splendid pianist, and 
 her highly trained voice would have made a fortune. She 
 confesses to strong sexual feelings and does not understand 
 
 ' Tht Tasmanians, p. 20. 
 
 'An early reference to the sexual influence of music on women 
 may perhaps be found in a playful passage in Swift's Martinus Serib- 
 lerus (possibly due to his medical collaborator, Arbuthnot) : "Does not 
 .(Elian tell how the Libyan mares were excited to horsing by music? 
 (which ought to be a caution to modest women against frequenting 
 operas)." Memoirs of Martinus ScriUerus, Book I, Chapter 6. (The 
 reference is to ..Elian, Hist. Animal, lib. XI, cap. 18, and lib. XII, cap. 44.) 
 
1B2 PSYCHOLOGY OP SEX. 
 
 why intercourse never affords what she knows she wants. But 
 the hearing of beautiful music, or at times the excitement of 
 her own singing, will sometimes cause intense orgasm. 
 
 Vaschide and Vurpas, who emphasize the sexually stimulating 
 effects of music, only bring forward one case in any detail, and it is 
 doubtless significant that this case is a woman. "While listening to a 
 piece of music X changes expression, her eyes become bright, the features 
 are accentuated, a smile begins to form, an expression of pleasure 
 appears, the body becomes more erect, there is a general muscular hyper- 
 tonieity. X tells us that as she listens to the music she experiences 
 sensations very like those of normal intercourse. The difference chiefly 
 concerns the local genital apparatus, for there is no flow of vaginal 
 mucus. On the psychic side the resemblance is marked." (Vaschide and 
 Vurpas, "Du Coefficient Sexual de I'Impulsion Muslcale," Archives de 
 Neiirologie, May, 1904.) 
 
 It is sometimes said, or implied, that a, woman (or a man) singa 
 better under the influence of sexual emotion. The writer of an article 
 already quoted, on "Woman in her Psychological Relations" (Journal of 
 Psychological Medicirw, 1851), mentions that "a young lady remarkable 
 for her musical and poetical talents naively remarked to a friend who 
 complimented her upon her singing: 'I never sing half so well as when 
 I've had a love-fit.'"' And George Eliot says: "There is no feeling, 
 perhaps, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not make a 
 man sing or play the better." While, however, it may be admitted that 
 some degree of general emotional exaltation may exercise a favorable 
 influence on the singing voice, it is difficult to believe that definite 
 physical excitement at or immediately before the exercise of the voice 
 can, as a rule, have anything but a deleterious effect on its quality. It 
 is recognized that tenors (whose voices resemble those of women more 
 than basses, who are not called upon to be so careful in this respect) 
 should observe rules of sexual hygiene; and menstruation frequently 
 has 11 definite influence in impairing the voice (H. Ellis, Man and 
 Woman, fourth edition, p. 290). As the neighborhood of menstruation 
 is also the period when sexual excitement is most likely to be felt, we 
 have here a further indication that sexual emotion is not favorable to 
 singing. I agree with the remarks of a correspondent, a musical 
 amateur, who writes: "Sexual excitement and good singing do not 
 appear to be correlated. A woman's emotional capacity in singing or 
 acting may be remotely associated with hysterical neuroses, but is bet- 
 ter evinced for art purposes in the absence of disturbing sexual influ- 
 ences. A woman may, indeed, fancy herself the heroine of a wanton 
 romance and 'let herself go' a little in singing with improved results. 
 But a memory of sexual ardors will help no woman to make the best of 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 133 
 
 her voice in training. Some women can only sing their best when tliey 
 think of the other women they are outsinging. One girl 'lets her soul 
 go out into her voice' thinking of jamroll, another thinking of her lover 
 (when she has none), and most, no doubt, when they think of noth- 
 ing. But no woman is likely to 'find herself in an artistic sense because 
 she has lost herself in another sense — not even if she has done so quite 
 respectably." 
 
 The reality of the association between the sexual impulse 
 and music — and, indeed, art generally — is shown by the fact 
 that the evolution of puberty tends to be accompanied by a 
 very marked interest in musical and other kinds of art. Lan- 
 caster, in a study of this question among a large number of 
 young people (without reference to difference in sex, though 
 they were largely female), found that from 50 to 75 per cent, 
 of young people feel an impulse to art about the period of 
 puberty, lasting a few months, or at most a year or two. It 
 appears that 464 young people showed an increased and pas- 
 sionate love for music, against only 102 who experienced no 
 change in this respect. The curve culminates at the age of 
 15 and falls rapidly after 16. Many of these cases were really 
 quite unmusical.^ 
 
 " E. Lancaster, "Psychology of Adolescence," Pedagogical Seminary, 
 July, 1897. 
 
11. 
 
 Summary — Why the Influence of Music in Human Sexual Selec- 
 tion is Comparatively Small. 
 
 We have seen that it is possible to set forth in a brief 
 space the facts at present available concerning the influence 
 on the pairing impulse of stimuli acting through the ear. They 
 are fairly simple and uncomplicated; they suggest few obscure 
 problems which call for analysis; they do not bring before us 
 any remarkable perversions of feeling. 
 
 At the same time, the stimuli to sexual excitement received 
 through the sense of hearing, although very seldom of exclusive 
 or preponderant influence, are yet somewhat more important 
 than is usually believed. Primarily the voice, and secondarily 
 instrumental music, exert a distinct effect in this direction, an 
 effect representing a specialization of a generally stimulat- 
 ing physiological influence which all musical sounds exercise 
 upon the organism. There is, however, in this respect, a def- 
 finite difference between the sexes. It is comparatively rare to 
 find that the voice or instrumental music, however powerful its 
 generally emotional influence, has any specifically sexual effect 
 on men. On the other hand, it seems probable that the ma- 
 jority of women, at all events among the educated classes, are 
 liable to show some degree of sexual sensibility to the male 
 voice or to instrumental music. 
 
 It is not surprising to find that music should have some 
 share in arousing sexual emotion when we bear in mind that in 
 the majority of persons the development of sexual life is ac- 
 companied by a period of special interest in music. It is 
 not unexpected that the specifically sexual effects of the voice 
 and music should be chiefly experienced by women when we 
 remember that not only in the human species is it the male in 
 whom the larynx and voice are chiefly modified at puberty, but 
 that among mammals generally it is the male who is chiefly or 
 exclusively vocal at the period of sexual activity; so that any 
 (134) 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 135 
 
 sexual sensibility to vocal manifestations must be chiefly or 
 exclusively manifested in female mammals. 
 
 At the best, however, although aesthetic sensibility to 
 sound is highly developed and emotional sensibility to it pro- 
 found and widespread, although women may be thrilled by the 
 masculine voice and men charmed by the feminine voice, it 
 cannot be claimed that in the human species hearing is a pow- 
 erful factor in mating. This sense has here suffered between 
 the lower senses of touch and smell, on the one hand, with 
 their vague and massive appeal, and the higher sense, vision, 
 on the other hand, with its exceedingly specialized appeal. 
 The position of touch as the primary and fundamental sense 
 is assured. Smell, though in normal persons it has no decisive 
 influence on sexual attraction, acts by virtue of its emotional 
 sympathies and antipathies, while, by virtue of the fact that 
 among man's ancestors it was the fundamental channel of 
 sexual sensibility, it furnishes a latent reservoir of impres- 
 sions to which nervously abnormal persons, and even normal 
 persons under the influence of excitement or of fatigue, are 
 always liable to become sensitive. Hearing, as a sense for 
 receiving distant perceptions has a wider field than is in man 
 possessed by either touch or smell. But here it comes into 
 competition with vision, and vision is, in man, the supreme and 
 dominant sense.^ We are always more affected by what we see 
 than by what we hear. Men and women seldom hear each 
 other without speedily seeing each other, and then the chief 
 focus of interest is at once transferred to the visual centre.^ 
 In human sexual selection, therefore, hearing plays a part 
 which is nearly always subordinated to that of vision. 
 
 ' Nietzsche has even suggested that among primitive men delicacy 
 of hearing and the evolution of music can only have been produced 
 Tinder conditions which made it difiBcult for vision to come into play: 
 "The ear, the organ of fear, could only have developed, as it has, in 
 the night and in the twilight of dark woods and caves. ... In 
 the brightness the ear is less necessary. Hence the character of music 
 as an art of night and twilight." (Morgenrothe, p. 230.) 
 
 ' At a concert most people are instinctively anxious to see the per- 
 formers, thus distracting the purely musical impression, and the reason- 
 able suggestion of Goethe that the performers should be invisible is 
 still seldom carried into practice. 
 
VISION. 
 
 Primacy of Vision in Man — Beauty as a Sexual Allurement — The 
 Objective Element in Beauty — Ideals of Feminine Beauty in Various 
 Parts of the World— Savage Women sometimes Beautiful from Euro- 
 pean Point of View — Savages often Admire European Beauty — The 
 Appeal of Beauty to some Extent Common even to Animals and Man. 
 
 Vision is the main channel by which man receives his 
 impressions. To a large extent it has slowly superseded all the 
 other senses. Its range is practically infinite; it brings before 
 us remote worlds, it enables us to understand the minute details 
 of our own structure. While apt for the rtiost abstract or the 
 most intimate uses, its intermediate range is of universal serv- 
 ice. It furnishes the basis on which a number of arts make 
 their appeal to us, and, while thus the most aesthetic of the 
 senses, it is the sense on which we chiefly rely in exercising the 
 animal function of nutrition. It is not surprising, therefore, 
 that from the point of view of sexual selection vision should 
 be the supreme sense, and that the love-thoughts of men have 
 always been a perpetual meditation of beauty. 
 
 It would be out of place here to discuss comparatively the 
 origins of our ideas of beauty. That is a question which be- 
 longs to aesthetics, not to sexual psychology, and it is a question 
 on which sestheticians are not altogether in agreement. We 
 need not even be concerned to make any definite assertion on 
 the question whether our ideals of sexual beauty have developed 
 under the influence of more general and fundamental laws, or 
 whether sexual ideals themselves underlie our more general 
 conceptions of beauty. Practically, so far as man and his im- 
 mediate ancestors are concerned, the sexual and the extra- 
 sexual factors of beauty have been interwoven from the first. 
 The sexually beautiful object must have appealed to funda- 
 (136) 
 
BEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 137 
 
 mental physiological aptitudes of reaction; the generally beau- 
 tiful object must have shared in the thrill which the specific- 
 ally sexual object imparted. There has been an inevitable 
 action and reaction throughout. Just as we found that the 
 sexual and the nonsexual influences of agreeable odors through- 
 out nature are inextricably mingled, so it is with the motives 
 that make an object beautiful to our eyes.^ 
 
 The sexual element in the constitution of beauty is well recognized 
 even by those writers who concern themselves exclusively with the 
 aesthetic conception of beauty or with its relation to culture. It is 
 enough to quote two or three testimonies on this point. "The whole 
 sentimental side of our sestlietie sensibility," remarks Santayana, 
 " — ^without which it would be perceptive and mathematical rather than 
 aesthetic, — is due to our sexual organization remotely stirred. . . . 
 If anyone were desirous to produce a being with a great susceptibility 
 to beauty, he could not invent an instrument better designed for that 
 object than sex. Individuals that need not unite for the birth and rear- 
 ing of each generation might retain a savage independence. For them 
 it would not be necessary that any vision should fascinate, or that any 
 languor should soften, the prying cruelty of the eye. But sex endows 
 the individual with a dumb and powerful instinct, which carries 
 his body and soul continually toward another; makes it one of the 
 dearest enjoyments of his life to select and pursue a companion, and 
 joins to possession the keenest pleasure, to rivalry the fiercest rage, and 
 to solitude an eternal melancholy. What more could be needed to 
 suffuse the world with the deepest meaning and beauty? The attention 
 is fixed upon a well-defined object, and all the effects it produces in the 
 mind are easily regarded as powers or qualities of that object. . . . 
 To a certain extent this kind of interest will center in the proper ob- 
 ject of sexual passion, and in the special characteristics of the opposite 
 sex'; and we find, accordingly, that woman is the most lovely object to 
 man, and man, if female modesty would confess it, the most interesting 
 to woman. But the effects of so fundamental and primitive a reaction 
 are much more general. Sex is not the only object of sexual passion. 
 When love lacks its specific object, when it does not yet understand 
 itself, or has been sacrificed to some other interest, we see the stifled 
 fire bursting out in various directions. . . . Passion then overflows 
 
 ' "It is likely that all visible parts of the organism, even those with 
 a definite physiological meaning, appeal to the aesthetic sense of the 
 opposite sex," Poulton remarks, speaking primarily of insects, in words 
 that apply still more accurately to the human species. E. Poulton, The 
 Colors of Animals, 1890, p. 304. 
 
138 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 and visibly floods those neighboring regions which it had always se- 
 seeretly watered. For the same nervous organization which sex in- 
 volves, with its necessarily wide branchings and associations in the 
 brain, must be partially stimulated by other objects than its specific 
 or ultimate one; especially in man, who, unlike some of the lower ani- 
 mals, has not his instincts clearly distinct and intermittent, but always 
 partially active, and never active in isolation. We may say, then, that 
 for man all nature is a secondary object of sexual passion, and that to 
 this fact the beauty of nature is largely due.'' (G. Santayana, The 
 Sense of Beauty, pp. 59-62.) 
 
 Not only is the general fact of sexual attraction an essential ele- 
 ment of sesthetic contemplation, as Santayana remarks, but we have 
 to recognize also that specific sexual emotion properly comes within the 
 sesthetic field. It is quite erroneous, as Groos well points out, to as- 
 sert that sexual emotion has no aesthetic value. On the contrary, it has 
 quite as much value as the emotion of terror or of pity. Such emotion 
 must, however, be duly subordinated to the total sesthetic effect. (K. 
 Groos, Der JEsthetisclie Genuss, p. 151.) 
 
 "The idea of beauty,'' Remy de Gourmont says, "is not an un- 
 mixed idea; it is intimately united with the idea of carnal pleasure. 
 Stendhal obscurely perceived this when he defined beauty as 'a promise 
 of happiness.' (Beauty is a woman, and women themselves have car- 
 ried docility to men so far as to accept this aphorism which they can 
 only understand in extreme sexual perversion) . . . Beauty is so 
 sexual that the only uncontested works of art are those that simply 
 show the human body in its nudity. By its perseverance in remaining 
 purely sexual Greek statuary has placed itself forever above all discus- 
 sion. It is beautiful because it is a, beautiful human body, such a 
 one as every man or every woman would desire to unite with in the 
 perpetuation of the race. . . . That which inclines to love seems 
 beautiful; that which seems beautiful inclines t'o love. This intimate 
 union of art and of love is, indeed, the only explanation of art. With- 
 out this genital echo art would never have been born and never have 
 been perpetuated. There is nothing use]ess in these deep human depths; 
 everything which has endured is necessary. Art is the accomplice of 
 love. When love is taken away there is no art; when art is taken away 
 love is nothing but a physiological need." (Remy de Gourmont, Cul- 
 ture des Hies. 1900, p. 103, and Mercure de France, August, 1901, pp. 
 298 et seq.) \ 
 
 Beauty as incarnated in the feminine body has to some extent 
 become the symbol of love even for women. Colin Scott finds that it is 
 common among women who are not inverted for female beauty whether 
 on the stage or in art to arouse sexual emotion to a greater extent than 
 male beauty, and this is confirmed by some of the histories I have re- 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 139 
 
 corded in the Appendix to the third volume of these Studies. Scott 
 considers that female beauty has come to be regarded as typical of 
 ideal beauty, and thus tends to produce an emotional effect on both 
 sexes alike. It is certainly rare to find any aesthetic admiration of men 
 among women, except in the ease of women who have had some train- 
 ing in art. In this matter it would seem that woman passively ac- 
 cepts the ideals of man. "Objects which excite a man's desire," Colin 
 Scott remarks, "are often, if not generally, the same as those affecting 
 woman. The female body has a sexually stimulating effect upon both 
 sexes. Statutes of female forms are more liable than those of male 
 form to have a stimulating effect upon women as well as men. The evi- 
 dence of numerous literary expressions seems to show that under the 
 influence of sexual excitement a woman regards her body as made for 
 man's gratification, and that it is this complex emotion which forms 
 the initial stage, at least, of her own pleasure. Her body is the symbol 
 for her partner, and indirectly for her, through his admiration of it, of 
 their mutual joy and satisfaction." (Colin Scott, "Sex and Art," Amer- 
 ican Journal of Psoyhology, vol. vii, No. 2, p. 206; also private letter.) 
 
 At the same time it must be remembered that beauty and the 
 conception of beauty have developed on a wider basis than that of 
 the sexual impulse only, and also that our conceptions of the beautiful, 
 even as concerns the human form, are to some extent objective, and may 
 thus be in part reduced to law. Stratz, in his books on feminine beauty, 
 and notably in Die Schmlieit des WeihUchen Korpers, insists on the ob- 
 jectiye element in beauty. Fapillault, again, when discussing the laws 
 of growth and the beauty of the face, argues that beauty of line in the 
 face is objective, and not a creation of fancy, since it is associated with 
 the highest human functions, moral and social. He remarks on the con- 
 trast between the prehistoric man of Chancelade, — delicately made, with 
 elegant face and high forehead, — ^who created the great Magdalenian civ- 
 ilization, and his seemingly much more powerful, but less beautiful, pre- 
 decessor, the man of Spy, with enormous muscles and powerful jaws. 
 {Bulletin de la 8ociSt6 d'AntJvropologie, 1899, p. 220.) 
 
 The largely objective character of beauty is further indicated by 
 the fact that to a considerable extent beauty is the expression of health. 
 A well and harmoniously developed body, tense muscles, an elastic and 
 finely toned skin, bright eyes, grace and animation of carriage — all 
 these things which are essential to beauty are the conditions of health. 
 It has not been demonstrated that there Is any correlation between 
 beauty and longevity, and the proof would not be easy to give, but it is 
 quite probable that such a correlation may exist, and various indica- 
 tions point in this direction. One of the most delightful of Opie's pic- 
 ures is the portrait of Pleasance Keeve (afterward Lady Smith) at the 
 age of 17. This singularly beautiful and animated brunette lived to 
 
140 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 the age of 104. Most people are probably acquainted with similar, if less 
 marked, cases of the same tendency. 
 
 The extreme sexual importance of beauty, so far, at all 
 events, as conscious experience is concerned, is well illustrated 
 by the fact that, although three other senses may and often do 
 play a not inconsiderable part in the constitution of a person's 
 sexual attractiveness, — the tactile element being, indeed, fun- 
 damental, — yet in nearly all the most elaborate descriptions of 
 attractive individuals it is the visible elements that are in most 
 cases chiefly emphasized. Whether among the lowest savages 
 or in the highest civilization, the poet and story-teller who 
 seeks to describe an ideally lovely and desirable woman always 
 insists mainly, and often exclusively, on those characters which 
 appeal to the eye. The richly laden word beauty is a synthesis 
 of complex impressions obtained through a single sense, and so 
 simple, comparativelj', and vague are the impressions derived 
 from the other senses that none of them can furnish us with 
 any corresponding word. 
 
 Before attempting to analyze the conception of beauty, regarded in 
 its sexual appeal to the human mind, it may be well to bring together a 
 few fairly typical descriptions of a beautiful woman as she appears to 
 the men of various nations. 
 
 In an Australian folklore story taken down from the lips of a 
 native some sixty years ago by W. Dunlop (but evidently not in the 
 native's exact words) we find this description of an Australian beauty: 
 "A man took as his wife a beautiful girl who had long, glossy hair hang- 
 ing around her face and down her shoulders, which were plump and 
 round. Her face was adorned with red clay and her person wrapped in 
 a fine large opossum rug fastened by a pin formed from the small bone 
 of the kangaroo's leg, and also by a string attached to a wallet made 
 of rushes neatly plaited of small strips skinned from their outside after 
 they had been for some time exposed to the heat of the fire; which being 
 thrown on her back, the string passing under one arm and across her 
 breast, held the soft rug in a fanciful position of considerable elegance; 
 and she knew well how to show to advantage her queenlike figure when 
 she walked with her polished yam stick held in one of her small hands 
 and her little feet appearing below the edge of the rug" (W. Dunlop, 
 "Australian Folklore Stories," Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 
 August and November, 1898, p. 27 ). 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 141 
 
 A Malay description of female beauty is furnished by Skeat. "The 
 brow (of the Malay Helen for whose sake a thousand desperate battles 
 are fought in Malay romances) is like the one-day-old moon; her 
 eyebrows resemble 'pictured clouds,' and are 'arched like the fighting- 
 cock's (artificial) spur'; her cheek resembles the 'sliced-off cheek of a 
 mango'; her nose, 'an opening jasmine bud'; her hair, the 'wavy blossom 
 shoots of the areca-palm'; slender is her neck, 'with a triple row of 
 dimples'; her bosom ripening, her waist 'lissom as the stalk of a flower,' 
 her head 'of a perfect oval' (literally, bird's-egg shaped), her fingers like 
 the leafy 'spears of lemon-grass' or the 'quills of the porcupine,' her eyes 
 like the splendor of the planet Venus,' and her lips like the fissure of a 
 pomegranate.'" (W. W. Skeat, Malai/ Magic, 1900, p. 363.) 
 
 In Mitford's Tales of Old Japan (vol. i, p. 215) a "peerlessly 
 beautiful girl of 16" is thus described: "She was neither too fat 
 nor too thin, neither too tall nor too short; her face was oval, like 
 a melon-seed, and her complexion fair and white; her eyes were nar- 
 row and bright, her teeth small and even; her nose was aquiline, and 
 her mouth delicately formed, with lovely red lips; her eyebrows 
 were long and fine; she had a profusion of long black hair; she spoke 
 modestly, with a soft, sweet voice, and when she smiled, two lovely 
 dimples appeared in her cheeks; in all her movements she was gentle 
 and refined." The Japanese belle of ancient times, Dr. Nagayo Sen- 
 sai remarks (Lancet, February 15, 1890) had a white face, a long, 
 slender throat and neck, a narrow chest, small thighs, and small 
 feet and hands. Balz, also, has emphasized the ethereal character of the 
 Japanese ideal of feminine beauty, delicate, pale and slender, almost 
 uncanny; and Stratz, in his interesting book. Die Korperformen In 
 Kunst und Lehen der Japaner (second edition, 1904), has dealt fully with 
 the subject of Japanese beauty. 
 
 The Singalese are great connoisseurs of beauty, and a Kandyan 
 deeply learned in the matter gave Dr. Davy the following enumeration 
 of a woman's points of beauty: "Her hair should be voluminous, like 
 the tail of the peacock, long, reaching to the knees, and terminating 
 in graceful curls; her eyebrows should resemble the rainbow, her eyes, 
 the blue sapphire and the petals of the blue manilla-flower. Her 
 nose should be like the bill of the hawk; her lips should be bright and 
 red, like coral or the young leaf of the iron-tree. Her teeth should 
 be small, regular, and closely set, and like jessamine buds. Her neck 
 should be large and round, resembling the berrigodea. Her chest 
 should be capacious; her breasts, firm and conical, like the yellow 
 cocoa-nut, and her waist small — almost small enough to be clasped 
 by the hand. Her hips should be wide; her limbs tapering; the soles 
 of her feet, without any hollow, and the surface of her body in gen- 
 eral soft, delicate, smooth, and rounded, without the asperities of 
 
142 PSTCnOLOGT OF SEX. 
 
 projecting bones and sinews." (J. Davy, An Acoount of tJw Interior of 
 Ceylon, 1821, p. 110.) 
 
 The "Padmini," or lotus-woman, is described by Hindu writers 
 as the type of most perfect feminine beauty. "She in whom the fol- 
 lowing signs and symptoms appear is called a Padmini: Her face is 
 pleasing as the full moon; her body, well clothed with flesh, is as 
 soft as the Shiras or mustard flower; her sliin is fine, tender, and fair 
 as the yellow lotus, never dark colored. Her eyes are bright and 
 beautiful as the orbs of the fawn, well cut, and with reddish comers. 
 Her bosom is hard, full, and high; she has a good neck; her nose is 
 straight and lovely; and three folds or wrinkles cross her middle — about 
 the umbilical region. Her yoni [vulva] resembles the opening lotus bud, 
 and her love-seed is perfumed like the lily that has newly burst. She 
 walks with swanlike [more exactly, flamingolike] gait, and her voice 
 is low and musical as the note of the Kokila bird [the Indian cuckoo] ; 
 she delights in white raiment, in fine jewels, and in rich dresses.. 
 She cats little, sleeps lightly, and being as respectful and religious 
 as she is clever and courteous, she is ever anxious to worship the 
 gods and to enjoy the conversation of Brahmans. Such, then, is the 
 Padmini, or lotus-woman." (The Kama Sutra of Yatsyayana, 1883, p. 
 11.) 
 
 The Hebrew ideal of feminine beauty is set forth in various 
 passages of the Song of Songs. The poem is familiar, and it will 
 suffice to quote one passage: — 
 
 "How beautiful are thy feet in sandals, O prince's daughter! 
 Thy rounded thighs are like jewels. 
 The work of the hands of a cunning workman. 
 Thy navel is like a rounded goblet 
 Wherein no mingled wine is wanting; 
 Thy belly is like a heap of wheat 
 Set about with lilies. 
 Thy two breasts are like two fawns 
 That are twins of a roe. 
 Thy neck is like the tower of ivory; 
 
 Thine eyes as the pools in Hcshbon, by the gate of Bathrabbim; 
 Thy nose is like the tower of Lebanon 
 That looketh toward Damascus. 
 Thine head upon thee is like Carmel 
 And the hair of thine head like purple; 
 The king is held captive in the trusses thereof. 
 This thy stature is like to a palm-tree. 
 And thy breasts to clusters of grapes, 
 And the smell of thy breath like apples, 
 And thy mouth like the best wine." 
 
SEXTTAL SELECTION IN MAN. 143 
 
 And the man is thus desevibed in the same poem: — 
 
 "My beloved is fair and ruddy, 
 The chiefest among ten thousand. 
 His head as the most fine gold. 
 
 His locks are bushy (or curling), and black as a raven. 
 His eyes are like doves beside the water-brooks. 
 Washed with milk and fi.tly set. 
 
 His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as banks of sweet herbs; 
 His lips are as lilies, dropping liquid myrrh. 
 His hands are as rings of gold, set with beryl; 
 His body is as ivory work, overlaid with sapphires. 
 His legs are as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold. 
 His aspect is like Lebanon, excellent as the cedars. 
 His mouth is most sweet; yea, he is altogether lovely." 
 
 "The maiden whose loveliness inspires the most impassioned ex- 
 pressions in Arabic poetry," Lane states, "is celebrated for her slender 
 figure: She is like the cane among plants, and is elegant as a twig 
 of the oriental willow. Her face is like the full moon, presenting 
 the strongest contrast to the color of her hair, which is of the 
 deepest hue of night, and falls to the middle of her back (Arab 
 ladies are extremely fond of full and long hair). A rosy blush 
 overspreads the center of each cheek; and a mole is considered an ad- 
 ditional charm. The Arabs, indeed, are particularly extravagant in 
 their admiration of this natural beauty spot, which, according to its 
 place, is compared to a drop of ambergris upon a dish of alabaster or 
 upon the surface of a ruby. The eyes of the Arab beauty are intensely 
 black,' large, and long, of the form of an almond: they are full of 
 brilliancy; but this is softened by long silken lashes, giving a tender 
 and languid expression that is full of enchantment and scarcely to be 
 improved by the adventitious aid of the black border of kohl; for this 
 the lovely maiden adds rather for the sake of fashion than necessity, 
 having what the Arabs term natural kohl. The eyebrows are thin 
 and arched; the forehead is wide and fair as ivory; the nose straight; 
 the mouth, small; the lips of a brilliant red; and the teeth, like pearls 
 set in coral. The forms of the bosom are compared to two pome- 
 granates; the waist is slender; the hips are TOde and large; the feet 
 and hands, small; the fingers, tapering, and their extremities dyed 
 with the deep orange tint imparted by the leaves of the henna." 
 
 Lane adds a more minute analysis from an unknown author 
 quoted by El-Ishakee: "Four things in a woman should be Uack — the 
 
 •"The Arabs in general," Lane remarks, "entertain a prejudice 
 against blue eyes — a prejudice said to have arisen from the great num- 
 ber of blue-eyed persons among certain of their northern enemies." 
 
144 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 hair of the head, the eyebrows, the eyelashes, and tlie dark part 
 of the eyes; four white — the complexion of the skin, the white of 
 the eyes, the teeth, and the legs; four red — the tongue, the lips, the 
 middle of the cheeks, and the gums; four round — the head, the neck, 
 the forearms, and tne ankles; four long — the back, the fingers, the 
 arms, and the legs; four wide — the forehead, the eyes, the bosom, and 
 the hips; four j^Wfe— the eyebrows, the nose, the lips, and the fingers; 
 four thick — the lower part of the back, the thighs, the calves of the 
 legs, and the knees; four small — the ears, the breasts, the hands, and 
 the feet." (E. W. Lane, Arabian Society in the Middle Ages, 1883, 
 pp. 214-216.) 
 
 A Persian treatise on the figurative terms relating to beauty 
 shows that the hair should be black, abundant, and wavy, the eye- 
 brows dark and arched. The eyelashes also must be dark, and like 
 arrows from the bow of the eyebrows. There is, however, no in- 
 sistence on the blackness of the eyes. We hear of four varieties of 
 eye; the dark-gray eye (or narcissus eye); the narrow, elongated 
 eye of Turkish beauties; the languishing, or love-intoxicated, eye; 
 and the wine-colored eye. Much stress is laid on the quality of 
 brilliancy. The face is sometimes described as brown, but more espe- 
 cially as white and rosy. There are many references to the down on 
 the lips, which is described as greenish (sometimes bluish) and com- 
 pared to herbage. This down and that on the chee^kS and the stray 
 hairs near the ears were regarded as very great beauties. A beauty 
 spot on the chin, cheek, or elsewhere was also greatly admired, and 
 evoked many poetic comparisons. The mouth must be very small. In 
 stature a beautiful woman must be tall and erect, like the cypress or 
 the maritime pine. While the Arabs admired the rosiness of the legs 
 and thighs, the Persians insisted on white legs and compared them 
 to silver and crystal. (Ants El-Ochchdg, by Shereef-Eddin RomI, trans- 
 lated by Huart, BibliotMque de I'Ecole des Uautes Etudes, Paris, 
 fase. 25, 1875.) 
 
 In the story of Kamaralzaman in the Arabian Nights El-Sett 
 Budur is thus described: "Her hair is so brown that it is blacker 
 than the separation of friends. And when it is arrayed in three 
 tresses that reach to her feet I seem to see three nights at once. 
 
 "Her face is as white as the day on which friends meet again. 
 If I look on it at the time of the full moon I see two moons at once. 
 
 "Her cheeks are formed of an anemone divided into two corollas; 
 they have the purple tinge of wine, and her nose is straighter arid 
 more delicate than the finest sword-blade. 
 
 "Her lips are colored agate and coral; her tongue secretes 
 eloquence; her saliva is more desirable than the juice of grapes. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 145 
 
 "But her bosom, blessed be the Creator, is a living seduction. It 
 bears twin breasts of the purest ivory, rounded, and that may be 
 held within the five fingers of one hand. 
 
 "Her belly has dimples full of shade and arranged with the har- 
 mony of the Arabic characters on the seal of a Coptic scribe in Egypt. 
 And the belly gives origin to her finely modeled and elastic waist. 
 
 "At the thought of her flanks I shudder, for thence depends a 
 mass so weighty that it obliges its owner to sit down when she has 
 risen and to rise when she lies. 
 
 "Such are her flanks, and from them descend, like white marble, 
 her glorious thighs, solid and straight, united above beneath their 
 crown. Then come the legs and the slender feet, so small that I am 
 astounded they can bear so great a weight." 
 
 An Egyptian stela in the Louvre sings the praise of a, beautiful 
 woman, a queen who died about 700 B.C., as follows: "The beloved 
 before all women, the king's daughter who is sweet in love, the fairest 
 among women, a maid whose like none has seen. Blacker is her hair 
 than the darkness of night, blacker than the berries of the black- 
 beny bush (?). Harder are her teeth (?) than the flints on the 
 sickle. A wreath of flowers is each of her breasts, close nestling on 
 her arms." Wiedemann, who quotes this, adds: "During the whole 
 classic period of Egyptian history with few exceptions (such, for ex- 
 ample, as the reign of that great innovator, Amenophis IV) the ideal 
 alike for the male and the female body was a slender and but slightly 
 developed form. Under the Ethiopian rule and during the Ptolemaic 
 period in Egypt itself we find, for the first time, that the goddesses 
 are represented with plump and well-developed outlines. Examination 
 of the mummies shows that the earlier ideal was based upon actual 
 facts, and that in ancient Egypt slender, sinewy forms distinguished 
 both men and women. Intermariage with other races and harem life 
 may have combined in later times to alter the physical type, and with 
 it to change also the ideal of beauty." (A. Wiedemann, Popular Lit- 
 erature in Ancient Egypt, p. 7.) 
 
 Commenting on Plato's ideas of beauty in the Banquet Emfirie- 
 David gives references from Greek literature showing that the typical 
 Greek beautiful woman must be tall, her body supple, her fingers 
 long, her foot small and light, the eyes clear and moderately large, the 
 eyebrows slightly arched and almost meeting, the nose straight and 
 fii-m, nearly — but not quite — aquiline, the breath sweet as honey. 
 (Emfiric-David, Reeherches sur I'Art Statuaire, new edition, 18G3, p. 42.) 
 
 At the end of classic antiquity, probably in the fifth century, Aris- 
 tsenetus in his first Epistle thus described his mistress Lais: "Her cheeks 
 are white, but mixed in imitation of the splendor of the rose; her 
 lips are thin, by a narrow space separated from the cheeks, but more 
 
 10 
 
146 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 red; her eyebrows are black and divided in the middle; the nose 
 straight and proportioned to the thin lips; the eyes large and bright, 
 with very black pupils, surrounded by the clearest white, each color 
 more brilliant by contrast. Her hair is naturally curled, and, as 
 Homer's saying is, like the hyacinth. The neck is white and propor- 
 tioned to the face, and though unadorned more conspicuous by its 
 delicacy; but a necklace of gems encircles it, on which her name is 
 written in jewels. She is tall and elegantly dressed in garments fitted 
 to her body and limbs. When dressed her appearance is beautiful; 
 when undressed she is all beauty. Her walk is composed and slow; 
 she looks like a cypress or a palm stirred by the wind. I cannot 
 describe how the swelling, symmetrical breasts raise the constraining 
 vest, nor how delicate and supple her limbs are. And when she speaks, 
 what sweetness in her discourse!" 
 
 Renier has studied the feminine ideal of the Provengal poets, the 
 troubadours who used the "langue d'oc." "They avoid any description 
 of the feminine type. The indications refer in great part to the slen- 
 der, erect, fresh appearance of the body, and to the white and rosy 
 coloring. After the person generally, the eyes receive most praise; 
 they are sweet, amorous, clear, smiling, and bright. The color is never 
 mentioned. The mouth is laughing, and vermilion, and, smiling 
 sweetly, it reveals the white teeth and calls for the delights of the 
 kiss. The face is clear and fresh, the hand white and the hair con- 
 stantly blonde. The troubadours seldom speak of the rest of the body. 
 Peire Vidal is an exception, and his reference to the well-raised breasts 
 may be placed beside a reference by Bertran de Born. The general 
 impression conveyed by the love lyrics of the langue d'oc is one of 
 great convention. There seemed to be no salvation outside certain 
 phrases and epithets. The woman of Provence, sung by hundreds of 
 poets, seems to have been composed all of milk and roses, a blonde 
 Nuremburg doll." (E. Renier, II Tipo Estetico della Donna nel 
 Medimvo, 1885, pp. 1-24.) 
 
 The conventional ideal of the troubadours is, again, thus de- 
 scribed: "She is a lady whose skin is white as milk, whiter than the 
 driven snow, of peculiar purity in whiteness. Her cheeks, on which 
 vermilion hues alone appear, are like the rosebud in spring, when it 
 has not yet opened to the full. Her hair, which is nearly always be- 
 decked and adorned with flowers, is invariably of the color of flax, as 
 soft as silk, and shimmering with a sheen of the finest gold." (J. F. 
 Rowbotham, The Troubadours and Courts of hove, p. 228.) 
 
 In the most ancient Spanish romances, Renier remarks, the definite 
 indications of physical beauty are slight. The hair is "'of pure gold," 
 or simply fair (rubios, which is equal to blondos, a word of later intro- 
 duction), the face white and rosy, the hand soft, white, and fragrant; 
 
SEXUAL SELECTIOIT IN MAN. 147 
 
 in one place we find a reference to the uncovered breasts, whiter than 
 crystal. But usually the ancient Castilian romances do not deal with 
 these details. The poet contents himself with the statement that a 
 lady is the sweetest woman in the world, la mas linda mujer del mundo." 
 (R. Renier, 11 Tipo Estetico delta Donna nel Medimvo, pp. 68 et seq.) 
 
 In a detailed and well-documented thesis, Alwin Schultz describes 
 the characteristics of the beautiful woman as she appealed to the 
 German authors of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. She must be 
 of medium height and slender. Her hair must be fair, like gold; long, 
 bright, and curly; a man's must only reach to his shoulders. Dark 
 hair is seldom mentioned and was not admired. The parting of the 
 hair must be white, but not too broad. The forehead must be white 
 and bright and rounded, without wrinkles. The eyebrows must be 
 darker than the hair, arched, and not too broad, as though drawn 
 with a pencil, the space betwen them not too broad. The eyes must be 
 bright, clear, and sparkling, not too large or too small; nothing 
 definite was said of the color, but they were evidently usually blue. 
 The nose must be of medium size, straight, and not curved. The 
 cheeks must be white, tinged with red; if the red was absent by 
 nature women used rouge. The mouth must be small; the lips full 
 and red. The teeth must be small, white, and even. The chin must 
 be white, rounded, lovable, dimpled; the ears small and beautiful; 
 the neck of medium size, soft, white, and spotless; the arm small; the 
 hands and fingers long; the joints small, the nails white and bright 
 and well cared for. The bosom must be white and large; the 
 breasts high and rounded, like apples or pears, small and soft. The 
 body generally must be slender and acitive. The lower parts of 
 the body are very seldom mentioned, and many poets are even too 
 modest to mention the breasts. The buttocks must be rounded, one 
 poet, indeed, mentions, and the thighs soft and white, the meinel (mons) 
 brown. The legs must be straight and narrow, the calves full, the 
 feet small and narrow, with high instep. The color of the skin gen- 
 erally must be clear and of a tempered rosiness. (A. Schultz, Quid 
 de Perfecta Corporis Humani Pulchritudine Germani ScbouU XII et 
 XIII Senserint, 1866.) A somewhat similar, but shorter, account is 
 given by K. Weinhold (Die Deutschen Frauen im Mittelalter, 18S2, 
 bd. 1, pp. 219 et seq). Weinhold considers that, like the French, the 
 Germans admired the mixed eye, vair or gray. 
 
 Adam de la Halle, the Artois trouvire of the thirteenth century, 
 in a piece ("Li Jus Adan ou de la feuillie") in which he brings himself 
 forward, thus describes his mistress: "Her hair had the brilliance 
 of gold, and was twisted into rebellious juris. Her forehead was very 
 regular, white, and smooth; her eyebrows, delicate and even, were 
 two brown arches, which seemed traced with a brush. Her eyes. 
 
148 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 bright and well cut, seemed to me vairs and full of caresses; they 
 were large beneath, and their lids like little sickles, adorned by twin 
 folds, veiled or revealed at her will her loving gaze. Between her eyes 
 descended the pipe of her nose, straight and beautiful, mobile when 
 she was gay; on either side were her rounded, white cheeks, on 
 which laughter impressed two dimples, and which one could see 
 blushing beneath her veil. Beneath the nose opened a mouth with 
 blossoming lips; this mouth, fresh and vermilion as a rose, revealed 
 the white teeth, in regular array; beneath the chin sprang the white 
 neck, descending full and round to the shoulder. The powerful nape, 
 white and without any little wandering hairs, protruded a little over 
 the dress. To her sloping shoulders were attached long arms, large 
 or slender where they so should be. What shall I say of her white 
 hands, with their long fingers, and knuckles without knots, delicately 
 ending in rosy nails attached to the flesh by a clear and single line? 
 I come to her bosom with its firm breasts, but short and high pointed, 
 revealing the valley of love between them, to her round belly, her 
 arched flanks. Her hips were flat, her legs round, her calf large; she 
 had a slender ankle, a lean and arched foot. Such she was as I saw 
 her, and that which her chemise hid was not of less worth." (Houdoy, 
 La Beautd des Femmes, p. 125, who quotes the original of this passage, 
 considers it the ideal model of the mediseval woman.) 
 
 In the twelfth century story of Auoassin et Nicolette, "Nicolette 
 had fair hair, delicate and curling; her eyes were gray (fairs) and 
 smiling; her face admirably modeled. Her nose was high and well 
 placed; her lips small and more vermilion than the cherry or the rose 
 in summer; her teeth were small and white; her firm little breasts 
 raised her dress as would two walnuts. Her figure was so slender that 
 you could inclose it with your two hands, and the flowers of the mar- 
 guerite, which her toes broke as she walked with naked feet, seemed 
 black in comparison with her feet and legs, so white wag she." 
 
 "Her hair was divided into a double tress," says Alain of Lille in 
 the twelfth century, "which was long enough to kiss the ground; the 
 parting, white as the lily and obliquely traced, separated the hair, and 
 this want of symmetry, far from hurting her face, was one of the ele- 
 ments of her beauty. A golden comb maintained that abundant hair 
 whose brilliance rivaled it, so that the fascinated eye could scarce dis- 
 tinguish the gold of the hair from the gold of the comb. The ex- 
 panded forehead had the whiteness of milk, and rivaled the lily; her 
 bright eyebrows shone like gold, not standing up in a brush, and, 
 without being too scanty, orderly ananged. The eyes, serene and bril- 
 liant in their friendly light, seemed twin stars, her nostrils em- 
 balsamed with the _odor of honey, neither too depressed in shape nor 
 too prominent, were of distinguished form; the nard of her mouth of- 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 149 
 
 fered to the smell a treat of sweet odors, and her half-open lips in- 
 vited a kiss. The teeth seemed cut in ivory ; her cheeks, like the 
 carnation of the rose, gently illuminated her face and were tem- 
 pered by the transparent whiteness of her veil. Her chin, more 
 polished than crystal, showed silver reflections, and her slender neck 
 fitly separated her head from the shoulders. The firm rotundity of 
 her breasts attested the full expansion of youth; her charming arms, 
 advancing toward you, seemed to call for caresses; the regular curve 
 of her flanks, justly proportioned, completed her beauty. All the 
 visible traits of her face and form thus sufficiently told what those 
 charms must be that the bed alone knew." (The Latin text is given 
 by Houdoy, La BeauU des Femmes dti Xlle an XTIe Siicle, p. 119. 
 Kobert de Flagy's portrait of Blanchefleur in Sarin-le-Loheram, written 
 in same century, reveals very similar traits.) 
 
 "The young woman appeared with twenty brightly polished dag- 
 gers and swords," we read in the Irish Tain Bo Cuailgne of the Badhbh 
 or Banshee who appeared to Meidhbh, "together with seven braids for' 
 the dead, of bright gold, in her right hand; a speckled garment of 
 green ground, fastened by a bodkin at the breast under her fair, 
 ruddy countenance, enveloped her form; her teeth were so new and 
 bright that they appeared like pearls artistically set in her gums; like 
 the ripe berry of the mountain ash were her lips; sweeter was her 
 voice than the notes of the gentle harp-strings when touched by the 
 most skillful flnger, and emitting the most enchanting melody; whiter 
 than the snow of one night was her skin, and beautiful to behold 
 were her garments, which reached to her well molded, bright-nailed 
 feet; copious tresses of her tendriled, glossy, golden hair hung before, 
 while others dangled behind and reached the calf of her leg.'' (Os- 
 sianic Transactioiis, vol. ii, p. 107.) 
 
 An ancient Irish hero is thus described: "They saw a great 
 hero approaching them; fairest of the heroes of the world; larger 
 and taller than any man; bluer than ice his eye; redder than the 
 fresh rowan berries his lips; whiter than showers of pearl his teeth; 
 fairer than the snow of one night his skin; a protecting shield with a 
 golden border was upon him, two battle-lances in his hands; a sword 
 with knobs of ivory [teeth of the sea-horse], and ornamented with 
 gold, at his side ; he had no other accoutrements of a hero besides these ; 
 he had golden hair on his head, and had a fair, ruddy countenance." 
 (The Banquet of Dun na n-gedh, translated by O'Donovan, Irish Archwo- 
 logical Society, 1842.) 
 
 The feminine ideal of the Italian poets closely resembles that 9f 
 those north of the Alps. Petrarch's Laura, as described in the Can- 
 zoniere, is white as snow; her eyes, indeed, are black, but the fairness 
 of her hair is constantly emphasfzed; her lips are rosy; her teeth 
 
160 PSTCHOrOGT OF SEX. 
 
 white; her cheeks rosy; her breast youthful; her hands white and' 
 slender. Other poets insist on the tall, white, delicate body; the 
 golden or blonde hair; the bright or starry eyes (without mention of 
 color), the brown or black arched eyebrows, the straight nose, the 
 small mouth, the thin vermilion lips, the small and firm breasts. 
 (Renier, II Tipo Estetico, pp. 87 et seq.) 
 
 Marie de France, a French mediseval writer of the twelfth century, 
 who spent a large part of her life in England, in the Lai of Lanval 
 thus describes a beautiful woman: "Her body was beautiful, her hips 
 low, the neck whiter than snow, the eyes gray (vairs), the face white, 
 the mouth beautiful, the nose well placed, tne eyebrows brown, the 
 forehead beautiful, the head curly and blonde; the gleam of gold 
 thread was less bright than her hair beneath the sun." 
 
 The traits of Boccaccio's ideal of feminine beauty, a voluptuous 
 ideal as compared with the ascetic mediseval ideal which had pre- 
 viously prevailed, together with the characteristics of the very beautiful 
 and almost classic garments in which he arrayed women, have been 
 brought together by Hortis (Studi sulle opere Lattne del Boccaccio, 
 1879, pp. 70 et seq.). Boccaccio admired fair and abundant wavy hair, 
 dark and delicate eyebrows, and brown or even black eyes. It was 
 not until some centuries later, as Hortis remarks, that Boccaccio's 
 ideal woman was embodied by the painter in the canvases of Titian. 
 
 The first precise description of a, famous beautiful woman was 
 written by Niphus in the sixteenth century in his De Pulchro et 
 Amore, which is regarded as the first modem treatise on sesthetics. 
 The lady described is Joan of Aragon, the greatest beauty of her 
 time, whose portrait by Raphael (or more probably Giulio Romano) 
 is in the Louvre. Niphus, who was the philosopher of the pontifical 
 court and the friend of Leo X, thus describes this princess, whom, 
 as a, physician, he had opportunities of observing accurately: "She is 
 of medium stature, straight, and elegant, and possesses the grace 
 which can only be imparted by an assemblage of characteristics which 
 are individually faultless. She is neither fat nor bony, but succulent; 
 her complexion is not pale, but white tinged with rose; her long 
 hair is golden; her ears are small and in proportion with the size 
 of her mouth. Her brown eyebrows are semicircular, not too bushy, 
 and the individual hairs short. Her eyes are blue (cwsiusj, brighter 
 than stars, radiant with grace and gaiety beneath the dark-brown 
 eyelashes, which are well spaced and not too long. The nose, sym- 
 metrical and of medium size, descends perpendicularly from between 
 the eyebrows. The little valley separating the nose from the upper 
 lip is divinely proportioned. The mouth, inclined to be rather small, 
 is always stiiTed by a sweet smile; the rather thick lips are made of 
 honey and coral. The teeth are small, polished as ivory, and sym- 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 151 
 
 metrically ranged, and the breath has the odor of the sweetest per- 
 fumes. Her voice is that of a goddess. The chin is divided by a dim- 
 ple; the whole face approximates to a virile rotundity. The straight 
 long neck, white and full, rises gracefully from the shoulders. On the 
 ample bosom, revealing no indication of the bones, arise the rounded 
 breasts, of equal and fitting size, and exhaling the pei-fume of the 
 peaches they resemble. The rather plump hands, on the back like 
 snow, on the palm like ivory, are exactly the length of the face; the 
 full and rounded fingers are long and terminating in round, curved 
 nails of soft color. The chest as a whole has the form of a pear, re- 
 versed, but a little compressed, and the base attached to the neck in 
 a delightfully well-proportioned manner. The belly, the flanks, and 
 the secret parts are worthy of the chest; the hips are large and 
 rounded; the thighs, the legs, and the arms are in just proportion. 
 The breadth of the shoulders is ^.Iso in the most perfect relation to 
 the dimensions of the other parts of the body; the feet, of medium 
 length, teiininate in beautifully arranged toes." (Houdoy reproduces 
 this passage in La BeauU des Femmes; cf. also Stratz, Die Schonheit 
 des WeiUiehen Korpers, Chapter III.) 
 
 Gabriel de Minut, who published in 1587 a treatise of no very great 
 importance, De la Beaut6, also wrote under the title of La PaulegrapMe 
 a very elaborate description, covering sixty pages, of Paule de Viguier, 
 a Gascon lady of good family and virtuous life living at Toulouse. 
 Minut was her devoted admirer and addressed an affectionate poem 
 to her just before his death. She was seventy years of age when he 
 wrote the elaborate account of her beauty. She had blue eyes and 
 fair hair, though belonging to one of the darkest parts of France. 
 
 Ploss and Bartels (Das Weib, bd. 1, sec. 3) have independently 
 brought together a number of passages from the writers of many coun- 
 tries describing their ideals of beauty. On this collection I have not 
 drawn. 
 
 When we survey broadly the ideals of feminine beauty set 
 down by the peoples of many lands, it is interesting to note 
 that they all contain many features which appeal to the 
 sesthetic taste of the modern European, and many of them, 
 indeed, contain no features which obviously clash with his 
 canons of taste. It may even be said that the ideals of some 
 savages affect us more sympathetically than some of the ideals 
 of our own mediaeval ancestors. As a matter of fact, European 
 travelers in all parts of the world have met with women who 
 were gracious and pleasant to look on, and not seldom even 
 in the strict sense beautiful, from the standpoint of European 
 
152 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 standards. Such individuals have been found even among 
 those races with the greatest notoriety for ugliness. 
 
 Even among so primitive and remote a people as the Australians 
 beauty in the European sense is sometimes found. "I have on two 
 occasions," Lumholtz states, "seen what might be called beauties 
 among the women of western Queensland. Their hands were small, 
 their feet neat and well shaped, with so high an instep that one 
 asked oneself involuntarily where in the world they had acquired this 
 aristocratic mark of beauty. Their figure was above criticism, and 
 their skin, as is usually the case among the young women, was as soft 
 as velvet. When these black daughters of Eve smiled and showed 
 their beautiful white teeth, and when their eyes peeped coquettishly 
 from beneath the curly hair which hung in quite the modern fashion 
 down their foreheads," Lumholtz realized that even here women could 
 exert the influence ascribed by Goethe to women generally. (C. Lum- 
 holtz, Among Cannibals, p. 132.) Much has, again, been written about 
 the beauty of the American Indians. See, e.g., an article by Dr. Shu- 
 feldt, "Beauty from an Indian's Point of View," Cosmopolitan Maga- 
 zine, April, 1895. Among the Seminole Indians, especially, it is said 
 that types of handsome and comely women are not uncommon. (Clay 
 MacCauley, "Seminole Indians of Florida," Fiph Annual Report of the 
 Bureau of Ethnology, 1883-1884, pp. 493 et seg.) 
 
 There is much even in the negress which appeals to the European 
 as beautiful. "I have met many negresses," remarks Castellani {Les 
 Femmes au Congo, p. 2), "who could say proudly in the words of the 
 Song of Songs, 'I am black, but comely.' Many of our peasant women 
 have neither the same grace nor the same delicate skin as some na- 
 tives of Cassai or Songha. As to color, I have seen on the African con- 
 tinent creatures of pale gold or even red copper whose fine and satiny 
 skin rivals the most delicate white skins; one may, indeed, find 
 beauties among women of the darkest ebony." He adds that, on the 
 whole, there is no comparison with white women, and that the negress 
 soon becomes hideous. 
 
 The very numerous quotations from travelers concerning the 
 women of all lands quoted by Ploss and Bartels {Das Weib, seventh 
 edition, bd. i, pp. 88-106) amply suffice to show how frequently some 
 degree of beauty is found even among the lowest human races. Cf., 
 also, Manteg£izza's survey of the women of different races from this 
 point of view, Fisiologia delta Donna, Cap. IV, 
 
 The fact that the modem European, whose culture may be 
 supposed to have made him especially sensitive to aesthetic 
 beauty, is yet able to find beauty among even the women of 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 153 
 
 savage races serves to illustrate the statement already made 
 that, whatever modifying influences may have to be admitted, 
 beauty is to a large extent an objective matter. The existence 
 of this objective element in beauty is confirmed by the fact 
 that it is sometimes found that the men of the lower races ad- 
 mire European women more than women of their own race. 
 There is reason to believe that it is among the more intelligent 
 men of lower race — that is to say those whose sesthetic feelings 
 are more developed — that the admiration for white women is 
 most likely to be found. 
 
 "Mr. Winwood Reade," staled Darwin, "who has had ample op- 
 portunities for observation, not only with the negroes of the West 
 Coast of Africa, but with those of the interior who have never as- 
 sociated with Europeans, is convinced that their ideas of beauty are, 
 on the wlwle, the same as ours; and Dr. Eohlfs writes to me to the 
 same effect with respect to Bornu and the ccunti'ies inhabited by the 
 Pullo tribes. Mr. Reade found that he agreed with the negroes in 
 their estimation of the beauty of the native girls; and that their 
 appreciation of the beauty of European women corresponded with 
 ours. . . . The Fuegians, as I have been informed by a missionary 
 who long resided with them, considered European women as ex- 
 tremely beautiful ... I should add that a most experienced ob- 
 server, Captain [Sir E.] Burton, believes that a woman whom we con- 
 sider beautiful is admired throughout the world." (Darwin, Descent 
 of Man, Chapter XIX.) 
 
 Mantegazza quotes a conversation between a South American 
 chief and an Argentine who had asked him which he preferred, the 
 women of his own people or Christian women; the chief replied that 
 he admired Christian women most, and when asked the reason said 
 that they were whiter and taller, had finer hair and smoother skin. 
 (Mantegazza, Fisiologia delta Donna, Appendix to Cap. VIII.) 
 
 Nordenskjold, as quoted by Ploss and Bartels, states that the 
 Eskimo regard their own type as more ugly than that produced by 
 crossing with white persons, and, according to Kropf, the Nosa Kaffers 
 admire and seek the fairer half-castes in preference to their own women 
 of pure race (Ploss and Bartels, Das Weib, seventh edition, b^. 1, p. 78). 
 There is a widespread admiration for fairness, it may be added, among 
 dark peoples. Pair men are admired by the Papuans at Torres Straits 
 (Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition, vol. v, p. 327). 
 The common use of powder among the women of dark-skinned peoples 
 bears witness to the existence of the same ideal. 
 
154 PSYCHOLodT OF SEX. 
 
 Stratz, in his books Die Schmheit des Weiblichen Kbrpers and 
 Die Rassenschiinheit des Weibes, argues that the ideal of beauty ig 
 fundamentally the same throughout the world, and that the finest 
 persons among the lower races admire and stmggle to attain the 
 type which is only found commonly and in perfection among the white 
 peoples of Europe. When in Japan he found that among the numer- 
 ous photographs of Japanese beauties everywhere to be seen, his 
 dragoman, a, Japanese of low birth, selected as the most beautiful those 
 which displayed markedly the Japanese type with narrow-slitted eyes 
 and broad nose. When he sought the opinion of a Japanese pho- 
 tographer, who called himself an artist and had some claim to be 
 so considered, the latter selected as most beautiful three Japanese 
 girls who in Europe also would have been considered pretty. In Java, 
 also, when selecting from a large number of Javanese girls a few suit- 
 able for photographing, Stratz was surprised to find that a Javanese 
 doctor pointed out as most beautiful those which most closely corre- 
 sponded to the European type. (Stratz, Die Rassenschimlieit des 
 Weibes, fourth edition, 1903, p. 3; id., Die Eorpeiiormen der Japaner, 
 1904, p. 78.) 
 
 Stratz reproduces (Eassenschonheit, pp. 36 et seq.) a, representa- 
 tion of Kwan-yin, the Chinese goddess of divine love, and quotes some 
 remarks of Borel's concerning the wide deviation of the representa- 
 tions of the goddess, a type of gracious beauty, from the Chinese 
 racial type. Stratz further reproduces the figure of a Buddhistic god- 
 dess from Java (now in the Archseological Museum of Leyden) which 
 represents a type of loveliness corresponding to the most refined and 
 classic European ideal. 
 
 Not only is there a fundamentally objective element in 
 beauty throughout the human species, but it is probably a big- 
 nifieant fact that we may find a similar element throughout the 
 whole animated world. The things that to man are most beau- 
 tiful throughout Nature are those that are intimately asso- 
 ciated with, or dependent upon, the sexual process and the sex- 
 ual instinct. This is the case in the plant world. It is so 
 throughout most of the animal world, and, as Professor Poul- 
 ton, in referring to this often unexplained and indeed unno- 
 ticed fact, remarks, "the song or plume which excites the mat- 
 ing impulse in the hen is also in a high proportion of cases 
 most pleasing to man himself. And not only this, but in their 
 past history, so far as it has been traced {e.g.j in the develop- 
 ment of the characteristic markings of the male peacock and 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 155 
 
 argus pheasant), such features have gradually become more and . 
 more pleasing to us as they have acted as stronger and stronger 
 stimuli to the hen."^ 
 
 ' Nature, April 14, 1898, p. 55. 
 
II. 
 
 Beauty to Some Extent Consists Primitively in an Exaggeration 
 of tlie Sexual Characters — The Sexual Organs — Mutilations, Adorn- 
 ments, and Garments — Sexual Allurement the Original Object of Such 
 Devices — The Religious Element — Unsesthetie Character of the Sexual 
 Organs — Importance of the Secondary Sexual Characters — The Pelvis 
 and • Hips — Steatopygia — Obesity — Gait — ^The Pregnant Woman as a 
 MediiBval Type of Beauty — The Ideals of the Kenaissance— The 
 Breasts — The Corset — Its Object — Its History — Hair — The Beard — The 
 Element of National or Racial Type in Beauty — The Relative Beauty 
 of Blondes and Brunettes — The General European Admiration for 
 Blondes-^The Individual Factors in the Constitution of the Idea of 
 Beauty — The Love of the Exotic. 
 
 In the constitution of our ideals of masculine and feminine 
 beauty it was inevitable that the sexual characters should from 
 a very early period in the history of man form an important 
 element. Prom a primitive point of view a sexually desirable 
 and attractive person is one whose sexual characters are either 
 naturally prominent or artificially rendered so. The beautiful 
 woman is one endowed, as Chaucer expresses it, 
 
 "With buttokes brode and brestes rounde and hye"; 
 
 that is to say, she is the woman obviously best fitted to bear 
 children and to suckle them. These two physical characters, 
 indeed, since they represent aptitude for the two essential acts 
 of motherJiood, must necessarily tend to be regarded as beau- 
 tiful among all peoples and in all stages of culture, even in high 
 stages of civilization when more refined and perverse ideals 
 tend to find favor, and at Pompeii as a decoration on the east 
 side of the Purgatorium of the Temple of Isis we find a repre- 
 sentation of Perseus rescuing Andromeda, who is shown as a 
 woman with a very small head, small hands and feet, but with 
 a fully developed body, large breasts, and large projecting 
 nates.^ 
 
 'Figured in Mau's Pompeii, p. 174. 
 (156) 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 157 
 
 To a certain extent — and, as we shall see, to a certain 
 extent only — the primary sexual characters are objects of ad- 
 miration among primitive peoples. In the primitive dances of 
 many peoples, often of sexual significance, the display of the 
 sexual organs on the part of both men and women is frequently 
 a prominent feature. Even down to mediaeval times in Europe 
 the garments of men sometimes permitted the sexual organs to 
 be visible. In some parts of the world, also, the artificial en- 
 largement of the female sexual organs is practiced, and thus 
 enlarged they are considered an important and attractive feat- 
 ure of beauty. 
 
 Sir Andrew Smith informed Darwin that the elongated nymphse 
 (or "Hottentot apron") found among the women of some South African 
 tribes was formerly greatly admired by the men (Descent of Man, 
 Chapter XIX). This formation is probably a natural peculiarity of 
 the women of these races which is very much exaggerated by in- 
 tentional manipulation due to the admiration it arouses. The mis- 
 sionary Merensky reported the prevalence of the practice of artificial 
 elongation among the Basuto and other peoples, and the anatomical 
 evidence is in favor of its partly artificial character. (The Hottentot 
 apron is fully discussed by Ploss and Bartels, Das Weib, bd. 1, sec. vi.) 
 
 In the Jaboo country on the Bight of Benin in West Africa, 
 Daniell stated, it was considered ornamental to elongate the labia 
 and the clitoris artificially; small weights were appended to the 
 clitoris and gradually increased. (W. F. Daniell, Topography of Gulf 
 of Guinea, 1849, pp. 24, 53.) 
 
 Among the Bawenda of the northern Transvaal, the missionary 
 Wessmann states, it is customary for young girls from the age of 
 8 to spend a certain amount of time every day in pulling the lahia 
 major a in order to elongate them; in selecting a. wife the young men 
 attach much importance to this elongation, and the girl whose labia 
 stand out most is most attractive. [Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie, 1894, 
 ht. 4, p. 363.) 
 
 It may be added that in various parts of the world mutilations 
 of the sexual organs of men and women, or operations upon them, are 
 practiced, for reasons which are imperfectly known, since it usually 
 happens that the people who practice them are unable to give the 
 reason for the practice, or they assign a reason which is manifestly 
 not that which originally prompted the practice. Thus, the excision 
 of the clitoris, practiced in many parts of East Africa and frequently 
 supposed to be for the sake of dulling sexual feeling (J. S. King, 
 Journal of the Anthropological Society, Bombay, 1890, p. 2), seems very 
 
158 PSTCnOLOGT 0¥ SEX. 
 
 doubtfully accounted for thus, for the women have it done of their 
 own accord; "all Sobo women [Niger coast] have their clitoris cut 
 off; unless they have this done they are looked down upon, as slave 
 women who do not get cut; as soon, therefore, as a Sobo woman has 
 collected enough money, she goes to an operating woman and pays 
 her to do the cutting." (Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 
 August-November, 1898, p. 117.) The Comte de Cardi investigated this 
 matter in the Niger Delta: "I have questioned both native men and 
 women," he states, "to try and get the natives' reason for this rite, but 
 the almost universal answer to my queries was, 'it is our country's 
 fashion.' " One old man told him it was practiced because favorable 
 to continence, and several old women said that once the women of 
 the land used to suffer from a peculiar kind of madness which this 
 rite reduced. (Journal of the Anthropological Institute, August-No- 
 vember, 1899, p. 59.) In the same way the subincision of the urethra 
 (mika operation of Australia) is frequently supposed to be for the 
 purpose of preventing conception (See, e.g., the description of the 
 operation by J. G. Garson, Medical Press, February 21, 1894), but this is 
 very doubtful, and E. C. Stirling found that subincised natives often 
 had large families. (Intercolonial Quarterly Journal of Medicine and 
 Surgery, 1894.) 
 
 A passage in the Mainz Chronicle for 1367 (as quoted by Sehultz, 
 Das Eofische Leben, p. 297) shows that at that time the tunics of 
 the men were so made that it was always possible for the sexual 
 organs to be seen in walking or sitting. 
 
 This insistence on the naked sexual organs as objects of 
 attraction is, however, comparatively rare, and confined to 
 peoples in a low state of culture. Very much more widespread 
 is the attempt to beautify and call attention to the sexual or- 
 gans by tattooing,^ by adornment and by striking peculiarities 
 of clothing. The tendency for beauty of clothing to be accepted 
 as a substitute for beauty of body appears early in the history 
 of mankind, and, as we know, tends to be absolutely accepted 
 in civilization.^ "We exclaim," as Goethe remarks, "'What a 
 
 " As a native of Lukunor said to the traveler Mertens, "It has the 
 same object as your clothes, to please the women." 
 
 ' "The greatest provocations of lust are from our apparel," as 
 Burton states (Anatomy of Melancholy, Part III, Sec. II, Mem. II, 
 Subs. Ill), illustrating this proposition with immense learning. Stanley 
 Hall (American Journal of Psychology, vol. ix, Part III, pp. 365 et seq.) 
 has some interesting observations on the various psychic Influences of 
 clothing; cf. Bloeh, Beitrdge zur JEtiologie der Psyehopathia Sexualis, 
 Teil II, pp. 330 et seq. 
 
 ^r 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAW. 159 
 
 beautiful little foot!' when we have merely seen a pretty shoe; 
 we admire the lovely waist when nothing has met our eyes but 
 an elegant girdle." Our realities and our traditional ideals are 
 hopelessly at variance; the Greeks represented their statues 
 without pubic hair because in real life they had adopted the 
 oriental custom of removing the hairs ; we compel our sculptors 
 and painters to make similar representations, though they no 
 longer correspond either to realities or to our own ideas of what 
 is beautiful and fitting in real life. Our artists are themselves 
 equally ignorant and confused, and, as Stratz has repeatedly 
 shown, they constantly reproduce in all innocence the deforma- 
 tions and pathological characters of defective models. If we 
 were honest, we should say — like the little boy before a picture 
 of the Judgment of Paris, in answer to his mother's question 
 as to which of the three goddesses he thought most beautiful — 
 "I can't tell, because they haven't their clothes on." 
 
 The concealment actually attained was not, however, it 
 would appear, originally sought. Various authors have brought 
 together evidence to show that the main primitive purpose of 
 adornment and clothing among savages is not to conceal the 
 body, but to draw attention to it and to render it more attrac- 
 tive. Westermarck, especially, brings forward numerous exam- 
 ples of savage adornments which serve to attract attention to 
 the sexual regions of man and woman.^ He further argues that 
 the primitive object of various savage peoples in practicing cir- 
 cumcision, as other similar mutilations, is really to secure sex- 
 ual attractiveness, whatever religious significance they may 
 sometimes have developed subsequently. A more recent view 
 
 ' Eistory of Human Marriage, Chapter IX, especially p. 201. We 
 have a striking and comparatively modem European example of an 
 article of clothing designed to draw attention to the sexual sphere in 
 the codpiece (the French hraguette), familiar to us through fifteenth 
 and sixteenth century pictures and numerous allusions in Rabelais and 
 in Elizabethan literature. This was originally a metal box for the 
 protection of the sexual organs in war, but subsequently gave place to 
 a leather case only worn by the lower classes, and became finally an 
 elegant article of fashionable apparel, often made of silk and adorned 
 with ribbons, even with gold and jewels. (See, e.g., Bloch, Beitrage 
 zur Mltiologie der PsyeTiopatMa Sexualis, Teil I, p. 159.) 
 
160 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 represents the magical influence of both adornment and mutila- 
 tion as primary, as a method of guarding and insulating danger- 
 ous bodily functions. Frazer, in The Golden Bough, is the most 
 able and brilliant champion of this view, which undoubtedly 
 embodies a large element of truth, although it must not be 
 accepted to the absolute exclusion of the influence of sexual 
 attractiveness. The two are largely woven in together.^ 
 
 There is, indeed, a general tendency for the sexual func- 
 tions to take on a religious character and for the sexual organs 
 to become sacred at a very early period in culture. Generation, 
 the reproductive force in man, animals, and plants, was realized 
 by primitive man to be a fact of the first magnitude, and 
 he symbolized it in the sexual organs of man and woman, which 
 thus attained to a solemnity which was entirely independent of 
 purposes of sexual allurement. Phallus worship may almost be 
 said to be a universal phenomenon; it is found even among 
 races of high culture, among the Eomans of the Empire and the 
 Japanese to-day; it has, indeed, been thought by some that one 
 of the origins of the cross is to be found in the phallus. 
 
 "Hardly any other object," remarks Dr. Kichard Andree, "has 
 been with such great unanimity represented by nearly all peoples as 
 the phallus, the symbol of procreative force in the religions of the 
 East and an object of veneration at public festivals. In the Moabitie 
 Baal Peor, in the cult of Dionysos, everywhere, indeed, except in 
 Persia, we meet with Priapic representations and the veneration ac- 
 corded to the generative organ. It is needless to refer to the great 
 significance of the Linga puja, the procreative organ of the god Siva, 
 in India, a god to whom more temples were erected than to any 
 other Indian deity. Our museums amply show how common phallic 
 representations are in Africa, East Asia, the Pacifie, frequently in con- 
 nection with religious worship." (R. Andree, "Amerikansche Phallus- 
 Darstellungen," Zeitschrift filr Ethnologie, 1895, ht. 6, p. 678.) 
 
 Women have no external generative organ like the phallus to 
 play a large part in life as a sacred symbol. There is, however, some 
 
 'A correspondent in Ceylon has pointed out to me that in the 
 Indian statues of Buddha, Vishnu, goddesses, etc., the necklace always 
 covers the nipples, a sexually attractive adornment being thus at the 
 same time the guardian of the orifices of the body. Crawley (The 
 Mystic Rose, p. 135) regards mutilations as in the nature of permanent 
 amulets or charms. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 161 
 
 reason to believe that the triangle is to some extent such a symbol. 
 Lejeune {"La Representation Sexuelle en Religion, Art, et Pfidagogie," 
 Bulletin de la SocleU d'Anthropologie, Paris, October 3, 1901) brings 
 forward reasons in favor of the view that the triangular hair-covered 
 region of the mons veneris has had considerable significance in this 
 respect, and he presents various primitive figures in illustration. 
 
 Apart from the religious and magical properties so widely 
 accorded to the primary sexual characters, there are other 
 reasons why they should not often have gained or long retained 
 any great importance as objects of sexual allurement. They 
 are unnecessary and inconvenient for this purpose. The erect 
 attitude of man gives them here, indeed, an advantage pos- 
 sessed by very few animals, among whom it happens with ex- 
 treme rarity that the primary sexual characters are rendered 
 attractive to the eye of the opposite sex, though they often are 
 to the sense of smeU. The sexual regions constitute a pecul- 
 iarly vulnerable spot, and remain so even in man, and the need 
 for their protection which thus exists conflicts with the promi- 
 nent display required for a sexual allurement. This end is far 
 more effectively attained, with greater advantage and less dis- 
 advantage, by concentrating the chief ensigns of sexual at- 
 tractiveness on the upper and more conspicuous parts of the 
 body. This method is well-nigh universal among animals as 
 well as in man. 
 
 There is another reason why the sexual organs should be 
 discarded as objects of sexual allurement, a reason which al- 
 ways proves finally decisive as a people advances in culture. 
 They are not sesthetieally beautiful. It is fundamentally neces- 
 sary that the intromittent organ of the male and the receptive 
 canal of the female should retain their primitive characteris- 
 tics; they cannot, therefore, be greatly modified by sexual or 
 natural selection, and the exceedingly primitive character they 
 are thus compelled to retain, however sexually desirable and 
 attractive they may become to the opposite sex under the in- 
 fluence of emotion, can rarely be regarded as beautiful from the 
 point of view of aesthetic contemplation. Under the influence 
 of art there is a tendency for the sexual organs to be diminished 
 
162 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 in size, and in no civilized country has the artist ever chosen to 
 give an erect organ to his representations of ideal ma=,culine 
 beauty. It is mainly because the unsesthetic character of a 
 woman's sexual region is almost imperceptible in any ordinary 
 and normal position of the nude body that the feminine form 
 is a more aesthetically beautiful object of contemplation than 
 the masculine. Apart from this character we are probably 
 bound, from a strictly aesthetic point of view, to regard the 
 male form as more sesthetically beautiful.^ The female form, 
 moreover, usually overpasses very swiftly the period of the 
 climax of its beauty, often only retaining it during a few weeks. 
 
 The following communication from a correspondent well brings 
 out the divergences of feeling in this matter: 
 
 "You write that the sex organs, in an excited condition, cannot 
 be called sesthetic. But I believe that they are a source, not only of 
 curiosity and wonder to many persons, but also objects of admiration. 
 I happen to know of one man, extremely intellectual and refined, who 
 delights in lying between his mistress's thighs and gazing long at the 
 dilated vagina. Also another man, married, and not intellectual, who 
 always tenderly gazes at his wife's organs, in a strong light, before in- 
 tercourse, and kisses her there and upon the abdomen. The wife, though 
 amative, confessed to another woman that she could not understand 
 the attraction. On the other hand, two married men have told me 
 that the sight of their wives' genital parts would disgust them, and 
 that they have never seen them. 
 
 "If the sexual parts cannot be called eesthetic, they have still a 
 strong charm for many passionate lovers, of both sexes, though not 
 often, I believe, among the unimaginative and the uneducated, who are 
 apt to ridicule the organs or to be repelled by them. Many women 
 confess that they are revolted by the sight of even a husband's com- 
 plete nudity, though they have no indifference for sexual embraces. I 
 think that the stupid bungle of Nature in making the generative organs 
 serve as means of relieving the bladder has much to do with this re- 
 vulsion. But some women of erotic temperament find pleasure in look- 
 ing at the penis of a husband or lover, in handling it, and in kissing it. 
 Prostitutes do this in the way of business; some chaste, passionate 
 wives act thus voluntarily. This is scarcely morbid, as the mammalia 
 
 'Mantegazza, in his discussion of this point, although an ardent 
 admirer of feminine beauty, decides that woman's form is not, on the 
 whole, more beautiful than man's. See Appendix to Cap. IV of 
 Fisiologia della Donna. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 163 
 
 of most species smell and lick each others' genitals. Probably primitive 
 man did the same.'' 
 
 BrantSme (Tie des Dames Galantes, Diseours 11) has some remarks 
 to much the same effect concerning the difference between men, some 
 of whom take no pleasure in seeing the private parts of their wives 
 or mistresses, while others admire them and delight to kiss them. 
 
 I must add that, however natural or legitimate the attraction of 
 the sexual parts may be to either sex, the question of their purely 
 oesthetic beauty remains unaffected. 
 
 Eemy de Gourmont, in a discussion of the aesthetic element in 
 sexual beauty, considers that the invisibility of the sexual organs is 
 the decisive fact in rendering women more beautiful than men. "Sex, 
 which is sometimes an advantage, is always a burden and always a 
 flaw; it exists for the race and not for the individual. In the human 
 male, and precisely because of his erect attitude, sex is the predom- 
 inantly striking and visible fact, the point of attack in a struggle at 
 close quarters, the point aimed at from a distance, an obstacle for the 
 eye, whether regarded as a rugosity on the surface or as breaking the 
 middle of a line. The harmony of the feminine body is thus geometric- 
 ally much more perfect, especially when we consider the male and the 
 female at the moment of desire when they present the most intense and 
 natural expression of life. Then the woman, whose movements are all 
 interior, or only visible by the undulation of her curves, preserves her 
 full aesthetic value, while the man, as it were, all at once receding to- 
 ward the primitive state of animality, seems to throw off all beauty 
 and become reduced to the simple and naked conditon of a genital or- 
 ganism.'' (Eemy de Gourmont, Physique de I'Amour, p. 69.) Remy de 
 Gourmont proceeds, however, to point out that man has his revenge 
 after a woman has become pregnant, and that, moreover, the propor- 
 tions of the masculine body are more beautiful than those of the 
 feminine body. 
 
 The primary sexual characters of man and woman have 
 thus never at any time played a very large part in sexual 
 allurement. With the growth of culture, indeed, the very 
 methods which had been adopted to call attention to the sex- 
 ual organs were by a further development retained for the pur- 
 pose of concealing them. From the first the secondary sexual 
 characters have been a far more widespread method of sexual 
 allurement than the primary sexual characters, and in the most 
 civilized countries to-day they still constitute the most attrac- 
 tive of such methods to the majority of the population. 
 
164 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY OF SES. 
 
 The main secondary sexual chaiactera in woman and the type 
 which they present in beautiful and well-developed persona are sum- 
 marized as follows by Stratz, who in his book on the beauty of the body 
 in woman seta forth the reasons for the characteristics here given: — 
 
 Delicate bony structure. Small hand, with long index fingei. 
 
 Rounded forma and breasts. Rounded shoulders. 
 
 Broad pelvis. Straight, small clavicle. 
 
 Long and abundant hair. Small and long thorax. 
 Low and narrow boundary of pub- Slender waist. 
 
 ic hair. Hollow sacrum. 
 
 Sparse hair in armpit. Prominent and domed nates. 
 
 No hair on body. Sacral dimples. 
 
 Delicate skin. Rounded and thick thighs. 
 
 Rounded skull. Low and obtuse pubic arch. 
 
 Small face. Soft contour of knee. 
 
 Large orbita. Rounded calves. 
 
 High and slender eyebrowa. Slender ankle. 
 
 Low and small lower jaw. Small toea. 
 Soft transition from cheek to neck. Long second and short fifth toe. 
 
 Rounded neck. Broad middle incisor teeth. 
 Slender wrist. 
 
 (Stratz, Die ScMnheit des WeWlichen Eorpers, fourteenth edition, 
 1903, p. 200. This statement agi-ees at most points with my own 
 exposition of the secondary sexual characters: Man and Woman, fourth 
 edition, revised and enlarged, 1904.) 
 
 Thus we find, among most of the peoples of Europe, Asia, 
 and Africa, the chief continents of the world, that the large 
 hips and buttoclcs of women are commonly regarded as an im- 
 portant feature of beauty. This secondary sexual character 
 represents the most decided structural deviation of the fem- 
 inine type from the masculine, a deviation demanded by the 
 reproductive function of women, and in the admiration it 
 arouses sexual selection is thus working in a line with natural 
 selection. It cannot be said that, except in a very moderate 
 degree, it has always been regarded as at the same time in a 
 ,line with the claims of purely aesthetic beauty. The European 
 artist frequently seeks to attenuate rather than accentuate the 
 protuberant lines of the feminine hips, and,i± is noteworthy that 
 the Japanese also regard small hips as beautiful. Nearly 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 165 
 
 everywhere else large hips and buttocks are regarded as a mark 
 of beauty, and the average man is of this opinion even in the 
 most aesthetic countries. The contrast of this exuberance with 
 the more closely knit male form, the force of association, and 
 the unquestionable fact that such development is the condition 
 needed for healthy motherhood, have served as a basis for an 
 ideal of sexual attractiveness which appeals to nearly all people 
 more strongly than a more narrowly sesthetic ideal, which must 
 inevitably be somewhat hermaphroditic in character. 
 
 Broad hips, which involve a large pelvis, are necessarily 
 a characteristic of the highest human races, because the races 
 with the largest heads must be endowed also with the largest 
 pelves to enable their large heads to enter the world. The 
 white race, according to Bacarisse, has the broadest sacrum, the 
 yeUow race coming next, the black race last. The white race 
 is also stated to show the greatest curvature of the sacrum, the 
 yellow race next, while the black race has the flattest sacrum.^ 
 The black race thus possesses the least developed pelvis, 
 the narrowest, and the flattest. It is certainly not an acci- 
 dental coincidence that it is precisely among people of black 
 race that we find a simulation of the large pelvis of the higher 
 races admired and cultivated in the form of steatopygia. This 
 is an enormously exaggerated development of the subcutaneous 
 layer of fat which normally covers the buttocks and upper 
 parts of the thighs in woman, and in this extreme form con- 
 stitutes a kind of natural fatty tumor. Steatopygia cannot be 
 said to exist, according to Deniker, unless the projection of the 
 buttocks exceeds 4 per cent, of the individual's height; it fre- 
 quently equals 10 per cent. True steatopygia only exists among 
 Bushman and Hottentot women, and among the peoples who 
 are by blood connected with them. An unusual development 
 of the buttocks is, however, found among the Woloffs and many 
 other African peoples.'' There can be no doubt that among the 
 
 'For a discussion of the anthropology of the feminine pelvis, see 
 Ploss and Bartels, Das Weii, bd. 1. Sec. VI. 
 
 ^^ Picas and Bartels, loc. cit.; Deniker, Bevue d'Anthropologie, Jan- 
 uary 15, 1889, and Races of Man, p. 93. 
 
166 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 black peoples of Africa generally, whether true steatopygia 
 exists among them or not, extreme gluteal development is re- 
 garded as a very important, if not the most important, mark of 
 beauty, and Burton stated that a Somali man was supposed to 
 choose his wife by ranging women in a row and selecting her 
 who projected farthest a tergo} In Europe, it must be added, 
 clothing enables this feature of beauty to be simulated. Even 
 by some African peoples the posterior development has been 
 made to appear still larger by the use of cushions, and in Eng- 
 land in the sixteenth century we find the same practice well 
 recognized, and the Elizabethan dramatists refer to the "bum- 
 roll," which in more recent times has become the bustle, de- 
 vices which bear witness to what Watts, the painter, called "the 
 persistent tendency to suggest that the most beautiful half of 
 humanity is furnished with tails."" In reality, as we see, it is 
 simply a tendency, not to simulate an animal character, but to 
 emphasize the most human and the most feminine of the sec- 
 ondary sexual characters, and therefore, from the sexual point 
 of view, a beautiful feature.' 
 
 Sometimes admiration for this characteristic is associated 
 with admiration for marked obesity generally, and it may be 
 noted that a somewhat greater degree of fatness may also be 
 regarded as a feminine secondary sexual character. This ad- 
 miration is specially marked among several of the black peoples 
 of Africa, and here to become a beauty a woman must, by 
 drinking enormous quantities of milk, seek to become very fat. 
 Sonnini noted that to some extent the same thing might be" 
 found among the Mohammedan women of Egypt. After bright 
 eyes and a soft, polished, hairless skin, an Egyptian woman, he 
 stated, most desired to obtain embonpoint; men admired fat 
 
 ' Darwin, 
 
 = G. F. Watts, "On Taste in Dress," Nineteenth Century^ 1883. 
 
 'From mediaeval times onwards there has been a tendency to 
 treat the gluteal region with contempt, a tendency well marked in 
 speech and custom among the lowest classes in Europe to-day, but 
 not easily traceable in classic times. Diihren (Dos Geschlechtsleben in 
 England, bd. II, pp. 359 et seq.) brings forward quotations from 
 sesthetic writers and others dealing with the beauty of this part of 
 the body. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 167 
 
 women and women sought to become fat. "The idea of a very 
 fat woman," Sonnini adds, "is nearly always accompanied in 
 Europe by that of softness of flesh, effacement of form, and 
 defect of elasticity in the outlines. It would be a mistake thus 
 to represent the women of Turkey in general, where all seek to 
 become fat. It is certain that the women of the Bast, more 
 favored by Nature, preserve longer than others the firmness of 
 the flesh, and this precious property, joined to the freshness 
 and whiteness of their skin, renders them very agreeable. It 
 must be added that in no part of the world is cleanliness car- 
 ried so far as by the women of the East."^ 
 
 The special characteristics of the feminine hips and but- 
 tocks become conspicuous in walking and may be further em- 
 phasized by the special method of walking or carriage. The 
 women of some southern countries are famous for the beauty 
 of their way of walk; "the goddess is revealed by her walk," 
 as Virgil said. In Spain, especially, among European countries, 
 the walk very notably gives expression to the hips and buttocks. 
 The spine is in Spain very curved, producing what is termed 
 ensellure, or saddle-back — a characteristic which gives great 
 flexibility to the back and prominence to the gluteal regions, 
 sometimes slightly simulating steatopygia. The vibratory 
 movement naturally produced by walking and sometimes arti- 
 flcially heightened thus becomes a trait of sexual beauty. Out- 
 side' of Europe such vibration of the flanks and buttocks is 
 more frankly displayed and cultivated as a sexual allurement. 
 The Papuans are said to admire this vibratory movement of the 
 buttocks in their women. Young girls are practiced in it by 
 their mothers for hours at a time as soon as they have reached 
 the age of 7 or 8, and the Papuan maiden walks thus whenever 
 she is in the presence of men, subsiding into a simpler gait 
 when no men are present. In some parts of tropical Africa the 
 women walk in this fashion. It is also known to the Egyptians, 
 and by the Arabs is called ghung.^ As Mantegazza remarks, the 
 
 ' Sonnini, Voyage, etc., vol. i, p. 308. 
 
 "Ploss and Bartels, Das Weib, bd. 1, Sec. Ill; Mantegazza, 
 Fisiologia della Donna, Chapter III. 
 
168 rSYCHOLOGT OF SEX. 
 
 essentially feminine character of this gait makes it a method 
 of sexual allurement. It should be observed that it rests on 
 feminine anatomical characteristics, and that the natural walk 
 of a femininely developed woman is inevitably diiferent from 
 tkat of a man. 
 
 In an elaborate discussion of beauty of movement Stratz sum- 
 marizes the special characters of the gait in woman as follows: "A 
 woman's walk is chiefly distinguished from a man's by shorter steps, 
 the more marked forward movement of the hips, the greater length of 
 the phase of rest in relation to the phase of motion, and by the fact 
 that the compensatory movements of the upper parts of the body are 
 less powerfully supported by the action of the arms and more by the 
 revolution of the flanks. A man's walk has a more pushing and active 
 character, a woman's a more rolling and passive character; while a 
 man seems to seek to catch his fleeing equilibrium, a woman seems to 
 seek to preserve the equilibrium she has reached .... A woman's 
 walk is beautiful when it shows the definitely feminine and rolling 
 character, with the greatest predominance of the moment of extension 
 over that of flexion." (Stratz, Die Schiinheit des Weiblichen Kbrpers, 
 fourteenth edition, p. 275.) 
 
 An occasional development of the idea of sexual beauty 
 as associated with developed hips is found in the tendency 
 to regard the pregnant woman as the most beautiful type. 
 Stratz observes that a woman artist once remarked to him that 
 since motherhood is the final aim of woman, and a woman 
 reaches her full flowering period in pregnancy, she ought to be 
 most beautiful when pregnant. This is so, Stratz replied, if 
 the period of her full physical bloom chances to correspond 
 with the early months of pregnancy, for with the onset of 
 pregnancy metabolism is heightened, the tissues become active, 
 the tone of the skin softer and brighter, the breasts firmer, so 
 that the charm of fullest bloom is increased until the moment 
 when the expansion of the womb begins to destroy the harmony 
 of the form. At one period of European culture, however, — 
 at a moment and among a people not very sensitive to the most 
 exquisite assthetic sensations, — the ideal of beauty has even 
 involved the character of advanced pregnancy. In northern 
 Europe during the centuries immediately preceding the Eenais- 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 169 
 
 sance the ideal of beauty, as we may see by the pictures of the 
 time, was a pregnant woman, with protuberant abdomen and 
 body more or less extended backward. This is notably apparent 
 in the work of the Van Bycks: in the Eve in the Brussels 
 Gallery; in the wife of Arnolfini in the highly finished por- 
 trait group in the National Gallery; even the virgins in the 
 great masterpiece of the Van Eycks in the Cathedral at Ghent 
 assume the type of the pregnant woman. 
 
 "Through all the middle ages down to Diirer and Cranach," quite 
 truly remarks Laura Marholm (as quoted by I. Bloch, Beitrdge zur 
 /Etiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis, Teil I, p. 154), "we find a very 
 peculiar type which has falsely been regarded as one of merely ascetic 
 character. It represents quiet, peaceful, and cheerful faces, full of in- 
 nocence; tall, slender, young figures; the shoulders still scanty; the 
 breasts small, with slender legs beneath their garments; and round 
 the upper part of the body clothing that is tight almost to the point of 
 constriction. The waist comes just under the bosom, and from this 
 point the broad skirts in folds give to the most feminine part of the 
 feminine body full and absolutely unhampered power of movement and 
 expansion. The womanly belly even in saints and virgins is very pro- 
 nounced in the carriage of the body and clearly protuberant beneath 
 the clothing. It is the maternal function, in sacred and profane figures 
 alike, which marks the whole type — indeed, the whole conception — of 
 women." For a brief period this fashion reappeared in the eighteenth 
 century, and women wore pads and other devices to increase the size 
 of the abdomen. 
 
 With the Eenaissance this ideal of beauty disappeared 
 from art. But in real life we still seem to trace its survival in 
 the fashion for that class of garments which involved an im- 
 mense amount of expansion below the waist and secured such 
 expansion by the use of whalebone hoops and similar devices. 
 The Elizabethan farthingale was such a garment. This was 
 originally a Spanish invention, as indicated by the name (from 
 verdugardo, provided with hoops), and reached England through 
 France. We find the fashion at its most extreme point in the 
 fashionable dress of Spain in the seventeenth century, such as 
 it has been immortalized by Velasqiiez. In England hoops died 
 
170 PSTCHOLOGT OF SEX. 
 
 out during the reign of George III but were revived for a time, 
 half a century later, in the Victorian crinoline.^ 
 
 Only second to the pelvis and its integuments as a second- 
 ary sexual character in woman we must place the breasts.^ 
 Among barbarous and civilized peoples the beauty of the breast 
 is usually highly esteemed. Among Europeans, indeed, the im- 
 portance of this region is so highly esteemed that the general 
 rule against the exposure of the body is in its favor abrogated, 
 and the breasts are the only portion of the body, in the narrow 
 sense, which a European lady in full dress is allowed more or 
 less to uncover. Moreover, at various periods and notably in 
 the eighteenth century, women naturally deficient in this re- 
 spect have sometimes worn artificial busts made of wax. Sav- 
 ages, also, sometimes show admiration for this part of the body, 
 and in the Papuan folk-tales, for instance, the sole distinguish- 
 ing mark of a beautiful woman is breasts that stand up.^ On 
 the other hand, various savage peoples even appear to regard 
 the development of the breasts as ugly and adopt devices for 
 flattening this part of the body.* The feeling that prompts 
 this practice is not unknown in modern Europe, for the Bul- 
 garians are said to regard developed breasts as ugly; in 
 mediaeval . Europe, indeed, the general ideal of femiuine slen- 
 derness was opposed to developed breasts, and the garments 
 tended to compress them. But in a very high degree of civil- 
 ization this feeling is unknown, as, indeed, it is unknown to 
 most barbarians, and the beauty of a woman's breasts, and of 
 
 "Bloch brings together various interesting quotations concerning 
 the farthingale and the crinoline. (Beltrage zur JEUologie der Psycho- 
 pathia Sexualis, Teil I, p. 156.) He states that, like most other feminine 
 fashions in dress, it was certainly invented by prostitutes. 
 
 "The racial variations in the form and character of the breasts 
 are great, and there are considerable variations even among Europeans. 
 Even as regards the latter our knowledge is, however, still very vague 
 and incomplete; there is here a fruitful field for the medical anthro- 
 pologist. Ploss and Bartels have brought together the existing data 
 (Das Weib, bd. 1, See. VIII). Stratz also discusses the subject {Die 
 Schonheit das WeibUchen Korpers, Chapter X). 
 
 » Ca/rribridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, vol. v, 
 p. 28. 
 
 • These devices are dealt with and illustrations given by Ploss and 
 Bartels, Das Weib (loo. cit.J. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 171 
 
 any natural or artificial object which suggests the gracious 
 curves of the hosom, is a universal soiirce of pleasure. 
 
 The casual vision of a girl's breasts may, in the chastest youth, 
 evoke a strange perturbation. (Cf., e.g., a passage in an early chapter 
 of Marcelle Tinayre's La Maison du Piohi.) We need not regard this 
 feeling as of purely sexual origin; and in addition even to the sesthetie 
 element it is probably founded to some extent on a reminiscence of the 
 earliest associations of life. This element of early association was very 
 well set forth long ago by Erasmus Darwin: — 
 
 "When the babe, soon after it is bom into this cold world, is 
 applied to its mother's bosom, its sense of perceiving* warmth is first 
 agreeably affected; next its sense of smell is delighted with the odor 
 of her milk; then its taste is gratified by the flavor of it; afterward 
 the appetites of hunger and of thirst afford pleasure by the possession 
 of their object, and by the subsequent digestion of the aliment; and, 
 last, the sense of touch is delighted by the softness and smoothness of 
 the milky fountain, the source of such variety of happiness. 
 
 "All these various kinds of pleasure at length become associated 
 with the form of the mothej^s breast, which the infant embraces with 
 its hands, presses with its lips, and watches with its eyes; and thus 
 acquires more accurate ideas of the form of its mother's bosom than 
 of the odor, flavor, and warmth which it perceives by its other senses. 
 And hence at our maturer years, when any object of vision is presented 
 to us which by its wavy or spiral lines bears any similitude to the 
 form of the female bosom, whether it be found in a landscape with 
 soft gradations of raising and descending surface, or in the forms of 
 some antique vases, or in other works of the pencil or the chisel, we 
 feel a general glow of delight which seems to influence all our senses; 
 and if the object be not too large we experience an attraction to em- 
 brace it with our lips as we did in our early infancy the bosom of our 
 mother." (E. Darwin, Zomomia, 1800, vol. i, p. 174.) 
 
 The general admiration accorded alike to developed breasts 
 and a developed pelvis is evidenced by a practice which, as em- 
 bodied in the corset, is all but universal in many European 
 countries, as well as the extra-European countries inhabited by 
 the white race, and in one form or another is by no means un- 
 known to peoples of other than the white race. 
 
 The tightening of the waist girth was little known to the 
 Greeks of the best period, but it was practiced by the Greeks 
 of the decadence and by them transmitted to the Eomans; 
 
172 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 there are many references in Latin literature to this practice, 
 and the ancient physician wrote against it in the same sense 
 as modern doctors. So far as Christian Europe is concerned it 
 would appear that the corset arose to gratify an ideal of ascetic- 
 ism rather than of sexual allurement. The bodice in early 
 medifeval days bound and compressed the breasts and thus 
 tended to efface the specifically feminine character of a 
 woman's body. Gradually, however, the bodice was displaced 
 downward, and its effect, ultimately, was to render the breasts 
 more prominent instead of effacing them. Not only does the 
 corset render the breasts more prominent; it has the further 
 effect of displacing the breathing activity of the lungs in an 
 upward direction, the advantage from the point of sexual 
 allurement thus gained being that additional attention is drawn 
 to the bosom from the respiratory movement thus imparted to 
 it. So marked and so constant is this artificial respiratory 
 effect, under the influence of the waist compression habitual 
 among civilized women, that until recent years it was commonly 
 supposed that there is a real and fundamental difference in 
 breathing between men and women, that women's breathing is 
 thoracic and men's abdominal. Tit is now known that under 
 natural and healthy conditions there is no such difference^but 
 that men and women breathe in a precisely identical manner. 
 The corset may thus be regarded as the chief instrument of 
 sexual allurement which the armory of costume supplies to a 
 woman, for it furnishes her with a method of heightening at 
 once her two chief sexual secondary characters, the bosom 
 above, the hips and buttocks below. We cannot be surprised 
 that all the scientific evidence in the world of the evil of the 
 corset is powerless not merely to cause its abolition, but even 
 to secure the general adoption of its comparatively harmless 
 modifications. •> 
 
 i 
 
 Several books have been written on the history of the porset. 
 Lgoty (Le Corset A trovers les Ages, 1893) accepts Bouvier's divMion of 
 the phases through which the coi-set has passed: (1) the b^ids, or 
 fasdee, of Greek and Roman ladies; (2) period of transition^ during 
 greater part ot middle ages, classic traditons still subsisting; "^3) end 
 
SEXTTAL SELECTION IN MAN. 173 
 
 of middle ages and beginning of Renaissance, when tight bodices were 
 worn; (4) the period of whalebone bodices, from middle of sixteenth 
 to end of eighteenth centui-ies; (5) the period of the modern corset. We 
 hear of embroidered girdles in Homer. Even in Rome, however, the 
 fasciae were not in general use, and were chiefly employed either to 
 support the breasts or to compress their excessive development, and 
 then called mamillare. The zona was a girdle, worn usually round 
 the hips, especially by young girls. The modem corset is a combination 
 of the fascia and the zona. It was at the end of the fourteenth century 
 that Isabeau of Bavaria introduced the custom of showing the breasts 
 uncovered, and the word "corset" was then used for the first time. 
 
 Stratz, in his Frawenkleidung (pp. 366 et seq.), and in his Schonheit 
 des Weiblichen Korpers, Chapters VIII, X, and XVI, also deals with the 
 corset, and illustrates the results of compression on the body. For a 
 summary of the evidence concerning the difference of respiration in man 
 and woman, its causes and results, see Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman, 
 fourth edition, 1904, pp. 228-244. With reference to the probable influ- . 
 ence of the corset and unsuitable clothing generally during early life in 
 impeding the development of the mammary glands, causing inability to 
 suckle properly, and thus increasing infant mortality, see especially a 
 paper by Professor Bollinger {Correspondenz-blatt Deutsch. Gesell. An- 
 thropologie, October, 1899). 
 
 The compression caused by the corset, it must be added, is not 
 usually realized or known by those who wear it. Thus, Rushton Parker 
 and Hugh Smith found, in two independent series of measurements, that 
 the waist measurement was, on the average, two inches less over the 
 corset than round the naked waist; "the great majority seemed quite 
 unaware of the fact." In one case the difference was as much as five 
 inches. {British Medical Journal, September 15 and 22, 1900.) 
 
 The breasts and the developed hips are characteristics of 
 women and are indications of functional efEectiveness as well 
 as sexual allurement. Another prominent sexual character 
 which belongs to man, and is not obviously an index of func- 
 tion, is furnished by the hair on the face. The beard may be 
 regarded as purely a sexual adornment, and thus comparable to 
 the somewhat similar growth on the heads of many male ani- 
 mals. From this point of view its history is interesting, for it 
 illustrates the tendency with increase of civilization not merely 
 to dispense with sexual allurement in, the primary sexual or- 
 gans, but even to disregard those growths which would appear 
 to have been developed solely to act as sexual allurements. The 
 
174 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 cultivation of the beard belongs peculiarly to barbarous races. 
 Among these races it is frequently regarded as the most sacred 
 and beautiful part of the person, as an object to swear by, an 
 object to which the slightest insult must be treated as deadly. 
 Holding such a position, it must doubtless act as a sexual al- 
 lurement. "Allah has specially created an angel in Heaven," it 
 is said in the Arabian Nights, "who has no other occupation 
 than to sing the praises of the Creator for giving a beard to men 
 and long hair to women." The sexual character of the beard 
 and the other hirsute appendage is significantly indicated by 
 the fact that the ascetic spirit in Christianity has always sought 
 to minimize or to hide the hair. Altogether apart, however, 
 from this religious influence, civilization tends to be opposed 
 to the growth of hair on the masculine face and especially to 
 the beard. It is part of the well-marked tendency with civiliza- 
 tion to the abolition of sexual differences. We find this general 
 tendency among the Greeks and Eomans, and, on the whole, 
 with certain variations and fluctuations of fashion, in modern 
 Europe also. Schopenhauer frequently referred to this dis- 
 appearance of the beard as a mark of civilization, "a barometer 
 of culture."^ The absence of facial hair heightens iEsthetic 
 beauty of form, and is not felt to remove any substantial sex- 
 ual attraction. 
 
 That even the Egyptians regarded the beard as a mark of beauty 
 and an object of veneration is shown by the fact that the priests wore 
 it long and cut it off in grief (Herodotus, Euterpe, Chapter XXXVI). 
 The respect with which the beard was regarded among the ancient 
 Hebrews is indicated in the narrative (II Samuel, Chapter X) which tells 
 how, when David sent his servants to King Hanun the latter shaved off 
 half their beards; they were too ashamed to return in this condition, 
 and remained at Jericho until their beards had grown again. A passage 
 in Ordericus Vitalis (Ecclesiastieal History, Book VIII, Chapter X) is 
 interesting both as regards the fashions of the twelfth century in 
 England and Normandy and the feeling that prompted Ordericus. Speak- 
 ing of the men of his time, he wrote: "The forepart of their head is 
 
 'See, e.g., Parerga und Paralipomena, bd. 1, p. 189, and bd. 2, p. 
 482. Moll has also discussed this point (Untarsuchungen iiber die 
 lAUdo Sexualis, bd. 1, pp. 384 et seq.j. 
 
BEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 175 
 
 bare after the manner of thieves, while at the back they nourish long 
 hair like harlots. In former times penitents, captives and pilgrims 
 usually went unshaved and wore long beards, as an outward mark of 
 their penace or captivity or pilgrimage. Now almost all the world wear 
 crisped hair and beards, canying on their faces the token of their filthy 
 lust like stinking goats. Their locks are ciirled with hot irons, and in- 
 stead of wearing caps they bind their heads with fillets. A knight sel- 
 dom appears in public with his head uncovered, and properly shaved, ac- 
 cording to the apostolic precept (I Corinthians, Chapter XI, verses 7 
 and 14)." 
 
 We have seen that there is good reason for assuming a 
 eertaia fundamental tendency whereby the most various peo- 
 ples of the world, at all events in the person of their most in- 
 telligent members, recognize and accept a common ideal of 
 feminine beauty, so that to a certain extent beauty may be said 
 to have an objectively aesthetic basis. We have further found 
 that this aesthetic human ideal is modified, and very variously 
 modified in different countries and even in the same country 
 at different periods, by a tendency, prompted by a sexual im- 
 pulse which is not necessarily in harmony with aesthetic canons, 
 to emphasize, or even to repress, one or other of the prominent 
 secondary sexual characters of the body. We now come to 
 another tendency which is apt to an even greater extent to 
 limit the cultivation of the purely aesthetic ideal of beauty: 
 the influences of national or racial type. 
 
 To the average man of every race the woman who most 
 completely embodies the type of his race is usually the most 
 beautiful, and even mutilations and deformations often have 
 their origin, as Humboldt long since pointed out, in the effort 
 to accentuate the racial type.^ Eastern women possess by 
 
 ' Speaking of some South American tribes, he remarks ( Travels, 
 English translations, 1814, vol. iii, p. 236) that they "have as great an 
 antipathy to the beard as the Eastern nations hold it in reverence. 
 This antipathy is derived from the same source as the predilection for 
 flat foreheads, which is seen in so singular a manner in the statues of 
 the Aztec heroes and divinities. Nations attach the idea of beauty to 
 everything which particularly characterizes their own physical confor- 
 mation, their natural physiognomy." See also Westermarek, History 
 of Marriage, p. 261. Ripley {Races of Europe, pp. 49, 202) attaches 
 much importance to the sexual selection founded on a tendency of this 
 kind. 
 
176 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 nature large and conspicuous eyes, and this characteristic they 
 seek still further to heighten by art. The Ainu are the hairiest 
 of races, and there is nothing which they consider so beautiful 
 as hair. It is difficult to be sexually attracted to persons who 
 are fundamentally unlike ourselves in racial constitution.^ 
 
 It frequently happens that this admiration for racial char- 
 acteristics leads to the idealization of features which are far 
 removed from aesthetic beauty. The firm and rounded breast is 
 certainly a feature of beauty, but among many of the black 
 peoples of Africa the breasts fall at a very early period, and 
 here we sometimes find that the hanging breast is admired as 
 beautiful. 
 
 The African Baganda, the Eev. J. Eoseoe states (Journal of the 
 Anthropological Institute, January-June, 1902, p. 72), admire hanging 
 breasts to such an extent that their young women tie them down in 
 order to hasten the arrival of this condition. 
 
 "The most remarkable trait of beauty in the East/' wrote Sonnini, 
 "is to have large black eyes, and nature has made this a characteristic 
 sign of the women of these countries. But, not content with this, 
 the women of Egypt wish their eyes to be still larger and blacker. To 
 attain this Mussulmans, Jewesses, and Christiana, rich and poor, all tint 
 their eyelids with galena. They also blacken the lashes (as Juvenal 
 tells us the Roman ladies did) and mark the angles of the eye so that 
 the fissure, appears larger." (Sonnini, Toyage dans la Haute et Basse 
 Egypte, 1799, vol. i, p. 290.) Kohl is thus only used by the women who 
 have what the Arabs call "natural kohl." As Flinders Petrie has found, 
 the women of the so-called "New Race,'' between the sixth and tenth 
 dynasties of ancient Egypt, used galena and malachite for painting 
 their faces. Jewish women in the days of the prophets painted their 
 eyes with kohl, as do some Hindu women to-day. 
 
 "The Ainu have a great affection for their beards. They regard 
 them as a sign of manhood and strength and consider them as especially 
 handsome. They look upon them, indeed, as a great and highly prized 
 treasure." (J. Batchelor, The Ainu and their Folklore, p. 162.) 
 
 A great many theories have been put foi-ward to explain the Chi- 
 nese fashion of compressing and deforming the foot. The Chinese are 
 
 ' "Differences of race are irreducible,'' Abel Hermant remarks (Con- 
 fession d'un Enfant d'Eier, p. 209), "and between two beings who love 
 each other they cannot fail to produce exceptional and instructive re- 
 actions. In the first superficial ebullition of love, indeed, nothing not- 
 able may be manifested, but in a fairly short time the two lovers, in- 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 177 
 
 great admirers of the feminine foot, and show extreme sexual sensi- 
 tiveness in regard to it. Chinese women naturally possess very small 
 feet, and the main reason for binding them is probably to be found 
 in the desire to make them still smaller. (See, e.g., Stratz, Die Frauen- 
 kleidimg, 1904, p. 101.) 
 
 An interesting question, which in part finds its explana- 
 tion here and is of considerable significance from the point of 
 view of sexual selection, concerns the relative admiration be- 
 stowed on blondes and brunettes. The question is not, indeed, 
 one which is entirely settled by racial characteristics. There 
 is something to be said on the matter from the objective stand- 
 point of sesthetic considerations. Stratz, in a chapter on beauty 
 of coloring in woman, points out that fair hair is more beauti- 
 ful because it harmonizes better with the soft outlines of 
 woman, and, one may add, it is more brilliantly conspicuous ; a 
 golden object looks larger than a black object. The hair of the 
 armpit, also, Stratz considers should be light. On the other 
 hand, the pubic hair should be dark in order to emphasize the 
 breadth of the pelvis and the obtusity of the angle between the 
 mons veneris and the thighs. The eyebrows and eyelashes 
 should also be dark in order to increase the apparent size of 
 the orbits. Stratz adds that among many thousand women he 
 has only seen one who, together with an otherwise pejjf ect form, 
 has also possessed these excellencies in the highest measure. 
 "With an equable and matt complexion she had blonde, very 
 long, smooth hair, with sparse, blonde, and curly axillary hair; 
 but, although her eyes were blue, the eyebrows and eyelashes 
 were black, as also was the not overdeveloped pubic hair.^ 
 
 We may accept it as fairly certain that, so far as any ob- 
 jective standard of aesthetic beauty is recognizable, that stand- 
 ard involves the supremacy of the fair type of woman. Such 
 supremacy in beauty has doubtless been further supported by 
 
 nately hostile, in striving to approach each other ?trike against an in- 
 visible partition which separates them. Their sensibilities are divergent; 
 everything in each shocks the other; even their anatomical conforma- 
 tion, even the language of their gestures; all is foreign." 
 
 'C. H. Stratz, Die Schonheit des Weiblichm Korpers, fourteenth 
 edition. Chapter XII. 
 
178 PSTCHOLOGT OF SEX. 
 
 the fact that in most European countries the ruling caste, the 
 aristocratic class, whose superior energy has brought it to the 
 top, is somewhat blonder than the average population. 
 
 The main cause, however, in determining the relative 
 amount of admiration accorded in Europe to blondes and to 
 brunettes is the fact that the population of Europe must be 
 regarded as predominantly fair, and that our conception of 
 beauty in feminine coloring is influenced by an instinctive de- 
 sire to seek this type in its finest forms. In the north of Eu- 
 rope there can, of course, be no question concerning the pre- 
 dominant fairness of the population, but in portions of the 
 centre and especially in the south it may be considered a ques- 
 tion. It must, however, be remembered that the white popula- 
 tion occupying all the shores of the Mediterranean have the 
 black peoples of Africa immediately to the south of them. 
 They have been liable to come in contact with the black peoples 
 and in contrast with them they have tended not only to be 
 more impressed with their own whiteness, but to appraise still 
 more highly its blondest manifestations as representing a type 
 the farthest removed from the negro. It must be added that 
 the northerner who comes into the south is apt to overestimate 
 the darkness of the southerner because of the extreme fairness 
 of his o^jupeople. The differences are, however, less extreme 
 than we are apt to suppose ; there are more dark people in the 
 north than we commonly assume, and more fair people in the 
 south. Thus, if we take Italy, we find in its fairest part, 
 Venetia, according to Easeri, that there are 8 per cent, com- 
 munes in which fair hair predominates, 81 per cent, in which 
 brown predominates, and only 11 per cent, in which black 
 predominates ; as we go farther south black hair becomes more 
 prevalent, but there are in most provinces a few communes in 
 which fair hair is not only frequent, but even predominant. It 
 is somewhat the same with light eyes, which are also most 
 abundant in Venetia and decrease to a slighter extent as we go 
 south. It is possible that in former days the blondes prevailed 
 to a greater degree than to-day in the south of Europe. Among 
 the Berbers of the Atlas Mountains, who are probably allied to 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 179 
 
 the South Europeans, there appears to be a fairly considerable 
 proportion of blondes/ while on the other hand there is some 
 reason to believe that blondes die out under the iniiuence of 
 ciyilization as well as of a hot climate. 
 
 However this may be, the European admiration for blondes 
 dates back to early classic times. Gods and men in Homer 
 would appear to be frequently described as fair.^ Venus is 
 nearly always blonde, as was Milton's Eve. Lucian refers to 
 women who dye their hair. The Greek sculptors gilded the 
 hair of their statues, and the figurines in many cases show very 
 fair hair.' The Eoman custom of dyeing the hair light, as Eenier 
 has shown, was not due to the desire to be like the fair Ger- 
 mans, and when Home fell it would appear that the custom of 
 dyeing the hair persisted, and never died out ; it is mentioned by 
 Anselm, who died at the beginning of the twelfth century.* 
 
 In the poetry of the people in Italy brunettes, as we should 
 expect, receive much commendation, though even here the 
 blondes are preferred. When we turn to the painters and poets 
 of Italy, and the aesthetic writers on beauty from the Eenais- 
 sance onward, the admiration for fair hair is unqualified, 
 though there is no correspondingly unanimous admiration for 
 blue eyes. Angelico and most of the pre-Kaphaelite artists usu- 
 ally painted their women with flaxen and lightTgsjJien hair, 
 which often became brown with the artists, of the Eenaissance 
 period. Firenzuola, in his admirable dialogue on feminine 
 beauty, says that a woman's hair should be like gold or honey 
 
 'See, e.g., Sergi, The Mediterranean Race, pp. 59-75. 
 
 'Sergi {The Mediterranean Race, Chapter I), by an analysis of 
 Homer's color epithets, argues that in very few oases do they involve 
 fairness; but his attempt scarcely seems successful, although most of 
 these epithets are undoubtedly vague and involve a certain range of 
 possible color. 
 
 'Lfichat's study of the numerous realistic colored statues recently 
 discovered in Greece (summarized in Zentralblatt fiir Anthropologic, 
 1904, ht. 1, p. 22) shows that with few exceptions the hair is fair. 
 
 * Eenier, II Tipo Estetieo, pp. 127 et seq. In another book, Les 
 Femmes Blondes selon les Peintres de I'Ecole de Venise, par deux Veni- 
 tiens (one of these "Venetians" being Armand Baschet), is brought to- 
 gether much information concerning the preference for blondes in litera- 
 ture, together with a great many of the recipes anciently used for 
 making the hair fair. 
 
180 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 or the rays of the sun. Luigini also, in his Libra delta hella 
 Donna, says that hair must be golden. So also thought Pe- 
 trarch and Ariosto. There is, however, no corresponding predi- 
 lection among these writers for blue eyes. Firenzuola said 
 that the eyes must be dark, though not black. Luigini said 
 that they must be bright and black. Niphus had previously 
 said that the eyes should be 'T)lack like those of Venus" and 
 the skin ivory, even a little brown. He mentions that Avicenna 
 had praised the mixed, or gray, eye. 
 
 In France and other northern countries the admiration for 
 very fair hair is just as marked as in Italy, and dates back to 
 the earliest ages of which we have a record. "Even before the 
 thirteenth century," remarks Houdoy, in his very interesting 
 study of feminine beauty in northern France during mediaeval 
 times, "and for men as well as for women, fair hair was an 
 essential condition of beauty; gold is the term of comparison 
 almost exclusively used."^ He mentions that in the Acta Sanc- 
 torum it is stated that Saint Godelive of Bruges, though other- 
 wise beautiful, had black hair and eyebrows and was hence 
 contemptuously called a crow. In the Chanson de Roland and 
 all the French mediaeval poems the eyes are invariably 
 vairs. This epithet is somewhat vague. It comes from varius, 
 and signifies mixed, which Houdoy regards as showing various 
 irradiations, the same quality which later gave rise to the term 
 iris to describe the pupillary membrane.^ Vair would thus 
 describe not so much the color of the eye as its brilliant and 
 sparkling quality. While Houdoy may have been correct, it 
 still seems probable that the eye described as vair was usually 
 assumed to be "various" in color also, of the kind we commonly 
 call gray, which is usually applied to blue eyes encircled with 
 a ring of faintly sprinkled brown pigment. Such eyes are fairly 
 typical of northern France and frequently beautiful. That this 
 was the case seems to be clearly indicated by the fact that, as 
 Houdoy himself points out, a few centuries later the vair eye 
 
 'J. Houdoy, La BeauU des Femmes dans la LitUrature et dans 
 I'Art du Xlle au XTIe Si&cle, 1876, pp. 32 et seq. 
 " Houdoy, op. cit; pp. 41 et seq. 
 
SEXtJAL SELECTION IN MAN. 181 
 
 was regarded as vert, and green eyes were celebrated as the most 
 beautiful.^ The etymology was false, but a false etymology will 
 hardly suffice to change an ideal. At the Renaissance Jehan 
 Lemaire, when describing Venus as the type of beauty, speaks 
 of her green eyes, and Eonsard, a little later, sang: — 
 
 "Noir je veux I'ceil et brun le teint, 
 Bien que Tceil verd toute la France adore." 
 
 Early in the sixteenth century Brantome quotes some lines 
 current in France, Spain, and Italy according to which a woman 
 should have a white skin, but black eyes and eyebrows, and adds 
 that personally he agrees with the Spaniard that "a brunette 
 is sometimes equal to a blonde,"^ but there is also a marked ad- 
 miration for green eyes in Spanish literature; not only in the 
 typical description of a Spanish beauty in the Oelestina (Act I) 
 are the eyes green, but Cervantes, for example, when referring 
 to the beautiful eyes of a woman, frequently speaks of them as 
 green. 
 
 It would thus appear that in Continental Europe generally, 
 from south to north, there is a fair uniformity of opinion as 
 regards the pigmentary type of feminine beauty. Such varia- 
 tion as exists seemingly involves a somewhat greater degree 
 of darkness for the southern beauty in harmony with the 
 greater racial darkness of the southerner, but the variations 
 fluctuate within a narrow range; the extremely dark type is 
 always excluded, and so it would seem probable is the extremely 
 fair type, for blue eyes have not, on the whole, been considered 
 to form part of the admired type. 
 
 If we turn to England no serious modification of this con- 
 clusion is called for. Beauty is still fair. Indeed, the very 
 word "fair" in England itself means beautiful. That in the 
 seventeenth century it was generally held essential that beauty 
 should be blonde is indicated by a passage in the Anatomy of 
 Melancholy, where Burton argues that "golden hair was ever 
 
 ■^Houdoy, op. cit., p. 83. 
 
 " BrantSme, Vie des Dames Galantes, Discours II. 
 
182 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 in great account," and quotes many examples from classic and 
 more modern literature.^ That this remains the case is suffi- 
 ciently evidenced by the fact that the ballet and chorus on the 
 English stage wear yellow wigs, and the heroine of the stage 
 is blonde, while the female villain of melodrama is a brunette. 
 While, however, this admiration of fairness as a mark of 
 beauty unquestionably prevails in England, I do not think it 
 can be said — as it probably can be said of the neighboring and 
 closely allied country of France — that the most beautiful 
 women belong to the fairest group of the community. In most 
 parts of Europe the coarse and unbeautiful plebeian type tends 
 to be very dark; in England it tends to be very fair. England 
 is, however, somewhat fairer generally than most parts of 
 Europe; so that, while it may be said that a very beautiful 
 woman in Prance or in Spain may belong to the blondest sec- 
 tion of the community, a very beautiful woman in England, 
 even though of the same degree of blondeness as her Conti- 
 nental sister, will not belong to the extremely blonde section 
 of the English community. It thus comes about that when we 
 are in northern France we find that gray eyes, a very fair but 
 yet unfreekled complexion, brown hair, finely molded features, 
 and highly sensitive facial expression combine to constitute a 
 type which is more beautiful than any other we meet in France, 
 and it belongs to the fairest section of the French population. 
 When we cross over to England, however, unless we go to a 
 so-called "Celtic" district, it is hopeless to seek among the 
 blondest section of the community for any such beautiful and 
 refined type. The English beautiful woman, though she may 
 still be fair, is by no means very fair, and from the English 
 standpoint she may even sometimes appear somewhat dark": 
 In determining what I call the index of pigmentation — or de- 
 gree of darkness of the eyes and hair — of different groups in 
 the National Portrait Gallery I found that the "famous beau- 
 
 ' Anatomy of Melancholy, Part III, Sec. II, Mem. II, Subs. II. 
 
 'It is significant that Burton (Antomy of Melancholy, loc cit.), 
 while praising golden hair, also argues that "of all eyes black are most 
 amiable," quoting many examples to this effect from classic and later 
 literature. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 183 
 
 ties" (my own personal criterion of beauty not being taken into 
 account) was somewhat nearer to the dark than to the light end 
 of the scale.^ If we consider, at random, individual instances of 
 famous English beauties they are not extremely fair. Lady 
 Venetia Stanley, in the early seventeenth century, who became 
 the wife of Sir Kenelm Digby, was somewhat dark, with brown 
 hair and eyebrows. Mrs. Overall, a little later in the same 
 century, a Lancashire woman, the wife of the Dean of St. 
 Paul's, was, says Aubrey, "the greatest beauty in her time in 
 England," though very wanton, with "the loveliest eyes that 
 were ever seen"; if we may trust a ballad given by Aubrey she 
 was dark with black hair. The Gunnings, the famous beauties 
 of the eighteenth century, were not extremely fair, and Lady 
 Hamilton, the most characteristic type of English beauty, had 
 blue, brown-flecked eyes and dark chestnut hair. Coloration is 
 only one of the elements of beauty, though an important one. 
 Other things being equal, the most blonde is most beautiful; 
 but it so happens that among the races of Great Britain the 
 other things are very frequently not equal, and that, notwith- 
 standing a conviction ingrained in the language, with us the 
 fairest of women is not always the "fairest." So magical, how- 
 ever, is the effect of brilliant coloring that it serves to keep 
 alive in popular opinion an unqualified belief in the universal 
 European creed of the beauty of blondeness. 
 
 We have seen that underlying the conception of beauty, 
 more especially as it manifests itself in woman to man, are to 
 be found at least three fundamental elements: First there is 
 the general beauty of the species as it tends to culminate in 
 the white peoples of European origin ; then there is the beauty 
 due to the full development or even exaggeration of the sex- 
 ual and more especially the secondary sexual characters; and 
 last there is the beauty due to the complete embodiment of the 
 particular racial or national type. To make the analysis fairly 
 complete must be added at least one other factor: the influ- 
 ence of individual taste. Every individual, at all events in 
 
 '"Relative Abilities of the Fair -and the Dark," Monthly Review, 
 August, 1901; of. H. Ellis, A Study of British Genius, p. 215. 
 
184 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 civilization, within certain narrow limits, builds up a feminine 
 ideal of his own, in part on the basis of his own special organ- 
 ization and its demands, in part on the actual accidental attrac- 
 tions he has experienced. It is unnecessary to emphasize the 
 existence of this factor, which has always to be taken into 
 account in every consideration of sexual selection in civilized 
 man. But its variations are numerous and in impassioned lov- 
 ers it may even lead to the idealization of features which are in 
 reality the reverse of beautiful. It may be said of many a man, 
 as d'Annunzio says of the hero of his Trionfo della Morte in 
 relation to the woman he loved, that "he felt himself bound to 
 her by the real qualities of her body, and not only by those 
 which were most beautiful, but specially by those which trere 
 least leautiful" (the novelist italicizes these words), so that his 
 attention was fixed upon her defects, and emphasized them, 
 thus arousing within himself an impetuous state of desire. 
 Without invoking defects, however, there are endless personal 
 variations which may all be said to come within the limits of 
 possible beauty or charm. "There are no two women," as 
 Stratz remarks, "who in exactly the same way stroke back a 
 rebellious lock from their brows, no two who hold the hand in 
 greeting in exactly the same way, no two who gather up their 
 skirts as they walk with exactly the same movement."^ Among 
 the multitude of minute difEerences — which yet can be seen 
 and felt — the beholder is variously attracted or repelled ac- 
 cording to his own individual idiosyncrasy, and the operations 
 of sexual selection are effected accordingly. 
 
 Another factor in the constitution of the ideal of beauty, 
 but one perhaps exclusively found under civilized conditions, is 
 the love of the unusual, the remote, the exotic. It is commonly 
 stated that rarity is admired in beauty. This is not strictly 
 true, except as regards combinations and characters which vary 
 only in a very slight degree from the generally admired type. 
 "Jucundutn nihil est quod non reficit variatas" according to the 
 saying of Publilius Syrus. The greater nervous restlessness 
 
 > Stratz, Die Schonheit dea WeiUichen Korpers, p. 217. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 185 
 
 and sensibility of civilization heightens this tendency, which 
 is not infrequently found also among men of artistic genius. 
 One may refer, for instance, to Baudelaire's profound admira- 
 tion for the mulatto type of beauty.^ In every great centre of 
 civilization the national ideal of beauty tends to be somewhat 
 modified in exotic directions, and foreign ideals, as well as for- 
 eign fashions, become preferred to those that are native. It is 
 significant of this tendency that when, a few years since, an 
 enterprising Parisian journal hung in its salle the portraits of 
 one hundred and thirty-one actresses, etc., and invited the votes 
 of the public by ballot as to the most beautiful of them, not one 
 of the three women who came out at the head of the poll was 
 French. A dancer of Belgian origin (Cleo de Merode) was by 
 far at the head with over 3000 votes, followed by an American 
 from San Francisco (Sybil Sanderson), and then a Polish 
 woman. 
 
 "■Bloch (Beitrdge sur JEUologie der Psychopathia SexuaUs, Teil II, 
 pp. 261, et seq.) brings together some facts bearing on the admiration 
 for negresses in Faa-is and elsewhere. 
 
III. 
 
 Beauty not the Sole Element in the Sexual Appeal of Vision — 
 Movement — The Mirror — Narcissism — Pygmalionism — Mixoseopy — The 
 IndifiFerence of Women to Male Beauty — The Significance of Woman's 
 Admiration of Strength — The Spectacle of Strength is a Tactile Quality 
 made Visible. 
 
 OuH discussion of the sensory element of vision in human 
 sexual selection has been mainly an attempt to disentangle the 
 chief elements of beauty in so far as beauty is a stimulus to 
 the sexual instinct. Beauty by no means comprehends the 
 whole of the influences which make for sexual allurement 
 through vision, but it is the point at which all the most pow- 
 erful and subtle of these are focused; it represents a fairly 
 definite complexus, appealing at once to the sexual and to the 
 sesthetic impulses, to which no other sense can furnish anything 
 in any degree analogous. It is because this conception of 
 beauty has arisen upon it that vision properly occupies the 
 supreme position in man from the point of view which we 
 here occupy. 
 
 Beauty is thus the chief, but it is not the sole, element 
 in the sexual appeal of vision. In all parts of the world this 
 has always been well understood, and in courtship, in the effort 
 to arouse tumescence, the appeals to vision have been multi- 
 plied and at the same time aided by appeals to the other senses. 
 Movement, especially in the form of dancing, is the most im- 
 portant of the secondary appeals to vision. This is so well rec- 
 ognized that it is scarcely necessary to insist upon it here; it 
 may suffice to refer to a single typical example. The most 
 decent of Polynesian dances, according to William Ellis, was the 
 hura, which was danced by the daughters of chiefs in the pres- 
 ence of young men of rank with the hope of gaining a future 
 husband. "The daughters of the chiefs, who were the dancers 
 on these occasions, at times amounted to five or six, though 
 occasionally only one exhibited her symmetry of figure and 
 (186) 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 187 
 
 gracefulness of action. Their dress was singular, but elegant. 
 The head was ornamented with a fine and beautiful braid of 
 human hair, wound round the head in the form of a turban. 
 A triple wreath of scarlet, white, and yellow flowers adorned 
 the head-dress. A lose vest of spotted cloth covered the lower 
 part of the bosom. The tihi, of fine white stiilened cloth fre- 
 quently edged with a scarlet border, gathered like a large frill, 
 passed under the arms and reached below the waist; while a 
 handsome fine cloth, fastened round the waist with a band or 
 sash, covered the feet. The breasts were ornamented with rain- 
 bow-colored mother-of-pearl shells, and a covering of curiously 
 wrought network and feathers. The music of the hura was the 
 large and small drum and occasionally the flute. The move- 
 ments were generally slow, but always easy and natural, and no 
 exertion on the part of the performers was wanting to render 
 them graceful and attractive."^ We see here, in this very 
 typical example, how the extraneous visual aids of movement, 
 color, and brilliancy are invoked in conjunction with music to 
 make the appeal of beauty more convincing in the process of 
 sexual selection. 
 
 It may be in place here to mention, in passing, the considerable 
 place which vision occupies in normal and abnormal methods of heighten- 
 ing tumescence under eireumstancea which exclude definite selection by 
 beauty. The action of mirrors belongs to this group of phenomena. 
 Mirrors are present in profusion in high-class brothels — on the walls 
 and also above the beds. Innocent youths and girls are also often 
 impelled to contemplate themselves in mirrors and sometimes thus 
 produce the first traces of sexual excitement. I have referred to the 
 developed forms of this kind of self-contemplation in the Study of 
 Auto-erotism, and in this connection have alluded to the fable of Nar- 
 cissus, whence Nacke has since devised the term Narcissism for this 
 group of phenomena. It is only necessary to mention the enormous 
 production of photographs, representing normal and abnormal sexual ac- 
 tions, specially prepared for the purpose of exciting or of gratifying 
 sexual appetites, and the frequency with which even normal photographs 
 of the nude appeal to the same lust of the eyes. 
 
 • William Ellis, Polynesian Researches, second edition, 1832, vol. 1, 
 p. 215. 
 
188 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 Pygmalionism, 'or falling in love with statues, is a rare form of 
 erotomania founded on the sense of vision and closely related to the 
 allurement of beauty. (I here use "pygmalionism" as a general term for 
 the sexual love of statues; it is sometimes restricted to cases in 
 which a man requires of a prostitute that she shall assume the part 
 of a statue which gradually comes to life, and finds sexual gratifica- 
 tion in this performance alone; Eulenburg quotes examples, Sexuale 
 Neuropathie, p. 107.) An emotional interest in statues is by no means 
 uncommon among young men during adolescence. Heine, in Florentine 
 Nights, records the experiences of a boy who conceived a sentimental 
 love for a statue, and, as this book appears to be largely autobio- 
 graphical, the incident may have been founded on fact. Youths have 
 sometimes masturbated before statues, and even before the image of 
 the Virgin; such cases are known to priests and mentioned in manuals 
 for confessors. Pygmalionism appears to have been not uncommon 
 among the ancient Greeks, and this has been ascribed to their aesthetic 
 sense; but the manifestation is due rather to the absence than to the 
 presence of aesthetic feeling, and we may observe among ourselves that 
 it is the ignorant and uncultured who feel the indecency of statues and 
 thus betray their sense of the sexual appeal of such objects. We have 
 to remember that in Greece statues played a very prominent part in 
 life, and also that they were tinted, and thus more lifelike than with 
 us. Lucian, Athenaeus, jElian, and others refer to cases of men who 
 fell in love with statues. Tarnowsky (Sexual Instinct, English edition, 
 p. 85) mentions the case of a young man who was arrested in St. Peters- 
 burg for paying moonlight visits to the statue of a nymph on the ter- 
 race of a country house, and Krafft-Ebing quotes from a French news- 
 paper the case which occurred in Paris during the spring of 1877 of a 
 gardener who fell in love with a Venus in one of the parks. (I. Bloch, 
 Beitrdge zw Mtiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis, Teil II, pp. 297-305, 
 brings together various facts bearing on this group of manifestations.) 
 
 Necrophily, or a sexual attraction for corpses, is sometimes re- 
 garded as related to pygmalionism. It is, however, a more profoundly 
 morbid manifestation, and may perhaps be regarded as a kind of per- 
 verted sadism. 
 
 Founded on the sense of vision also we find a phenomenon, border- 
 ing on the abnormal, which is by Moll termed mixoscopy. This means 
 the sexual pleasure derived from the spectacle of other persons engaged 
 in natural or perverse sexual actions. (Moll, Kontrare Sexualemp- 
 findung, third edition, p. 308. Moll considers that in some cases mix- 
 oscopy is related to masochism. There is, however, no necessary con- 
 nection between the two phenomena.) Brothels are prepared to ac- 
 commodate visitors who merely desire to look on, and for their con- 
 venience carefully contrived peepholes are provided; such visitoi'S are in 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 189 
 
 Paris termed "voyeurs." It is said by Coffignon that persons hide at 
 night in the bushes in the Champs ElysSes in the hope of witnessing 
 such scenes between servant girls and their lovers. In England during 
 a country walk I have come across an elderly man carefully ensconced 
 behind a bush and intently watching through his field-glass a couple 
 of lovers reclining on a bank, though the actions of the latter were not 
 apparently marked by any excess of indecorum. Such impulses are 
 only slightly abnormal, whatever may be said of them from the point 
 of view of good taste. They are not very far removed from the legiti- 
 mate curiosity of the young woman who, believing herself unobserved, 
 turns her glass on to a group of young men bathing naked. They 
 only become truly perverse when the gratification thus derived is sought 
 in preference to natural sexual gratification. They are also not normal 
 when they involve, for instance, a man desiring to witness his wife 
 in the act of coitus with another man. I have been told of the case 
 of a scientific man who encouraged his wife to promote the advances 
 of a young friend of his own, in his own drawing-room, he himself re- 
 maining present and apparently taking no notice; the younger man 
 was astonished, but accepted the situation. In such a ease, when the 
 motives that led up to the episode are obscure, we must not too hastily 
 assume that masochism or even mixoscopy is involved. For informa- 
 tion on some of the points mentioned above see, e.g., I. Bloch, Beitriige 
 zur JEtiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis, Teil I, pp. 200 et seq.; Teil II, 
 pp. 195 et seq.) 
 
 Wide, however, as is the appeal of beauty in sexual selec- 
 tion, it cannot be said to cover by any means the whole of the 
 visual field In its sexual relationship. Beauty in the human 
 species is, above all, a feminine attribute, making its appeal to 
 men. Even for women, as has already been noted, beauty is 
 still a feminine quality, which they usually admire, and in cases 
 of inversion worship with an ardor which equals, if it does not 
 surpass, that experienced ■ by normal men. But the normal 
 woman experiences no corresponding cult for the beauty of 
 man. The perfection of the body of man is not behind that of 
 woman in beauty, but the study of it only appeals to the artist 
 or the sesthetician ; it arouses sexual enthusiasm almost exclu- 
 sively in the male sexual invert. Whatever may be the case 
 among animals or even among savages, in civilization the man 
 who is most successful with women is not the most handsome 
 
190 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 man, and may be the reverse of handsome.^ The maiden, accord- 
 ing to the old saying, who has to choose between Adonis and 
 Hercules, will turn to Hercules. 
 
 A correspondent writes: "Men are generally attracted in the first 
 instance by a woman's beauty, either of face or figure. Frequently this 
 is the highest form of love they are capable of. Personally, my own 
 love is always prompted by this. In the case of my wife there was cer- 
 tainly a leaven of friendship and moral sympathies but these alone 
 would never have been translated into love had she not been young and 
 good-looking. Moreover, I have felt intense passion for other women, 
 in my relations with whom the elements of moral or mental sympathy 
 have not entered. And always, as youth and beauty went, I be- 
 lieve I should transfer my love to some one else. 
 
 "Now, in woman I fancy this element of beauty and youth does 
 not enter so much. I have questioned a, large number of women — 
 some married, some unmarried, young and old ladies, shopgirls, ser- 
 vants, prostitutes, women whom I have known only as friends, others 
 with whom I have had sexual relations — and I cannot recollect one 
 instance when a woman said she had fallen in love with a man for 
 Ms looks. The nearest approach to any sign of this was in the 
 instance of one, who noticed a handsome man sitting near us in a hotel, 
 and said to me: 'I should like him to kiss me.' 
 
 "I have also noticed that women do not like looking at my body, 
 when naked, as I like looking at theirs. My wife has, on a few oc- 
 casions, put her hand over my body, and expressed pleasure at the 
 feeling of my skin. (I have very fair, soft skin.) But I have never 
 seen women exhibit the excitement that is caused in me by the sight 
 of their bodies, which I love to look at, to stroke, to kiss all over." 
 
 It is interesting to point out, in this connection, that the admira- 
 tion of strength is not confined to the human female. It is by, the 
 spectacle of his force that the male among many of the lower animals 
 sexually affects the female. Darwin duly allows for this fact, while 
 some evolutionists, and notably Wallace, consider that it covers the 
 whole field of sexual selection. When choice exists, Wallace states, "all 
 the facts appear to be consistent with the choice depending on a variety 
 of male characteristics, with some of which color is often correlated. 
 Thus, it is the opinion of some of the best observers that vigor and 
 liveliness are most attractive, and these are, no doubt, usually as- 
 sociated with some intensity of color. . . . There is reason to be- 
 
 " Stendhal {De I'Amour, Chapter XVIII) has some remarks on 
 this point, and refers to the influence over women possessed by Lekain, 
 the famous actor, who was singularly ugly. "It is passion," he re- 
 marks, "which we demand; beauty only furnishes probabilities." 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 191 
 
 lieve that it is his [the male bird's] presistency and energy rather than 
 his beauty which wins the day." (A. R. Wallace, Tropical Nature, 1898, 
 p. 199.) In his later book, Darwinism (p. 295), Wallace reaffirms his 
 position that sexual selection means that in the rivalry of males for 
 the female the most vigorous secures the advantage; "ornament," he 
 adds, "is the natural product and direct outcome of superabundant 
 health and vigor." As regards woman's love of strength, see Wester- 
 marck. History of Marriage, p. 255. 
 
 Women admire a man's strength rather than his beauty. 
 This statement is commonly made, and with truth, but, so far 
 as T am aware, its meaning is never analyzed. When we look 
 into it, I think, we shall find that it leads us into a special 
 division of the visual sphere of sexual allurement. The spec- 
 tacle of force, while it remains strictly within the field of 
 vision, really brings to us, although unconsciously, impressions 
 that are correlated with another sense — that of touch. We in- 
 stinctively and unconsciously translate visible energy into en- 
 ergy of pressure. In admiring strength we are really admiring 
 a tactile quality which has been made visible. It may therefore 
 be said that, while through vision men are sexually afEected 
 mainly by the more purely visual quality of beauty, women are 
 more strongly affected by visual impressions which express 
 qualities belonging to the more fundamentally sexual sense of 
 touch. 
 
 The distinction between the man's view and the woman's 
 view, here poiated out, is not, it must be added, absolute. Even 
 for a man, beauty, with all these components which we have 
 already analyzed in it, is not the sole sexual allurement of 
 vision. A woman is not necessarily sexually attractive in the 
 ratio of her beauty, and with even a high degree of beauty may 
 have a low degree of attraction. The addition of vivacity or 
 the addition of languor may each furnish a sexual allurement, 
 and each of these is a translated tactile quality which possesses 
 an obscure potency from vague sexual implications.^ But while 
 
 * The charm of a woman's garments to a man is often due in 
 part to their expressiveness in rendering impressions of energy, vivacity, 
 or languor. This has often been realized by the poets, and notably by 
 Herrick, who was singularly sensitive to these qualities in a woman's 
 garments. 
 
192 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 in the man the demand for these translated pressure qualities 
 in the visible attractiveness of a woman are not usually quite 
 clearly realized, in a woman the corresponding craving for the 
 visual expression of pressure energy is much more pronounced 
 and predominant. It is not difficult to see why this should be 
 so, even without falling back on the usual explanation that 
 natural selection implies that the female shall choose the male 
 who will be the most likely father of strong children and the 
 best protector of his family. The more energetic part in phys- 
 ical love belongs to the man, the more passive part to the 
 woman; so that, while energy in a woman is no index to 
 effectiveness In love, energy in a man furnishes a seeming index 
 to the existence of the primary quality of sexual energy which 
 a woman demands of a man in the sexual embrace. It may be 
 a fallacious index, for muscular strength is not necessarily cor- - 
 related with sexual vigor, and in its extreme degrees appears to 
 be more correlated with its absence. But it furnishes, in 
 Stendhal's phrase, a probability of passion, and in any case it 
 still remains a symbol which cannot be without its effect. We 
 must not, of course, suppose that these considerations are al- 
 ways or often present to the consciousness of the maiden who 
 "blushingly turns from Adonis to Hercules," but the emotional 
 attitude is rooted in more or less unerring instincts. In this way 
 it happens that even in the field of visual attraction sexual se- 
 lection influences women on the underlying basis of the more 
 primitive sense of touch, the fundamentally sexual sense. 
 
 Women are very sensitive to the quality of a man's toucli, and 
 appear to seek and enjoy contact and pressure to a greater extent than 
 do men, although in early adolescence this impulse seems to he marked 
 in hoth sexes. "There Is something strangely winning to most women/* 
 remarks George Eliot, in TJie Mill on the Floss, "in that offer of the 
 firm arm; the help is not wanted physically at that moment, but 
 the sense of help — the presence of strength that is outside them and yet 
 theirs — meets a continual want of the imagination.'' 
 
 Women are often very critical concerning a man's touch and his 
 method of shaking hands. Stanley Hall (Adolescence, vol. ii, p. 8) 
 quotes a gifted lady as remarking: "I used to say that, however much 
 I liked a man, I could never marry him if I did not like the touch of 
 his hand, and I feel so yet." 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 193 
 
 Among the elements of sexual attractiveness which make a special 
 appeal to women, extreme personal cleanliness would appear to take 
 higher rank than it takes in the eyes of a man, some men, indeed, 
 seeming to make sui-prisingly small demands of a woman in this re- 
 spect. If this is so we may connect it with the fact that beauty in a 
 woman's eye is to a much greater extent than in a man's a picture of 
 energy, in other words, a translation of pressure contacts, with which 
 the question of physical purity is necessarily more intimately as- 
 sociated than it is with the picture of purely visual beauty. It is 
 noteworthy that Ovid (Ars Amandi, lib. I) urges men who desire to 
 please women to leave the arts of adornment and effeminacy to those 
 whose loves are homosexual, and to practice a scrupulous attention to 
 extreme neatness and cleanliness of body and garments in every detail, 
 a sun-browned skin, and the absence of all odor. Some two thousand 
 years later Brummell in an age when extravagance and effeminacy often 
 marked the fashions of men, introduced a new ideal of unobtrusive 
 simplicity, extreme cleanliness (with avoidance of perfumes), and ex- 
 ■ quisite good taste; he abhorred all eccentricity, and may be said to 
 have constituted a tradition which Englishmen have ever since sought, 
 more or less successfully to follow; he was idolized by women. 
 
 It may be added that the attentiveness of women to tactile con- 
 tacts is indicated by the frequency with which in them it takes on mor- 
 bid forms, as the dilire du contact, the horror of contamination, the ex- 
 aggerated fear of touching dirt. (See, e.g., Raymond and Janet, Les Ob- 
 sessions et la Psychasthinie.) 
 
IV. 
 
 The Alleged Charm of Disparity in Sexual Attraction — ^The Ad- 
 miration for High Stature — The Admiration for Dark Pigmentation — 
 The Charm of Parity — Conjugal Mating — The Statistical Results of Ob- 
 servation as Regards General Appearance, Stature, and Pigmenta- 
 tion of Married Couples — Preferential Mating and Assortative Mating 
 — The Nature of the Advantage Attained by the Fair in Sexual Selec- 
 tion — The Abhorrence of Incest and the Theories of its Cause — The Ex- 
 planation in Reality Simple — The Abhorrence of Incest in Relation to 
 Sexual Selection — The Limits to the Charm of Parity in Conjugal Mat- 
 ing — The Charm of Disparity in Secondary Sexual Characters. 
 
 When we are dealing with the senses of touch, smell, and 
 hearing it is impossible at present, and must always remain 
 somewhat difficult, to investigate precisely the degree and 
 direction of their influence in sexual selection. We can marshal 
 in order — as has here been attempted — the main facts and 
 considerations which clearly indicate that there is and must be 
 such an influence, but we cannot even attempt to estimate its 
 definite direction and still less to measure it precisely. With 
 regard to vision, we are in a somewhat better position. It is 
 possible to estimate the direction of the influence which certain 
 visible characters exert on sexual selection, and it is even pos- 
 sible to attempt their actual measurement, although there must 
 frequently be doubt as to the interpretation of such measure- 
 ments. 
 
 Two facts render it thus possible to deal more exactly with 
 the influence of vision on sexual selection than with the in- 
 fluence of the other senses. In the first place, men and women 
 consciously seek for certain visible characters in the persons to 
 whom they are attracted; in other words, their "ideals" of a 
 fitting mate are visual rather than tactile, olfactory, or audi- 
 tory. In the second place, whether such "ideals" are potent in 
 actual mating, or whether they are modified or even inhibited 
 by more potent psychological or general biological influences, it 
 (194) 
 
BEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 195 
 
 is ill either case possible to measure and compare the visible 
 characters of mated persons. 
 
 The two visible characters which are at once most fre- 
 quently sought in a mate and most easily measurable are de- 
 gree of stature and degree of pigmentation. Every youth or 
 maiden pictures the person he or she would like for a lover as 
 tall or short, fair or dark, and such characters are measurable 
 and have on a large scale been measured. It is of interest in 
 illustration of the problem of sexual selection in man to consider 
 briefly what results are at present obtainable regarding the in- 
 fluence of these two characters. 
 
 It has long been a widespread belief that short people are 
 sexually attracted to tall people, and tall people to short; that 
 in the matter of stature men and women are affected by what 
 Bain called the "charm of disparity." It has not always pre- 
 vailed. Many centuries ago Leonardo da Vinci, whose insight 
 at so many points anticipated our most modern discoveries, 
 affirmed clearly and repeatedly the charm of parity. After 
 remarking that painters tend to delineate the figures that re- 
 semble themselves he adds that men also fall in love with and 
 marry those who resemble themselves; "chi s'innamora volun- 
 tieri s'innamorano de cose a loro simiglianti" he elsewhere puts 
 it.^ But from that day to this, it would seem Leonardo's 
 statements have remained unknown or unnoticed. Bernardin 
 de Saint-Pierre said that "love is the result of contrasts," and 
 Schopenhauer affirmed the same point very decisively; various 
 scientific and unscientific writers have repeated this state- 
 ment." 
 
 So far as stature is concerned, there appears to be very 
 little reason to suppose that this "charm of disparity" plays any 
 notable part in constituting the sexual ideals of either men or 
 women. Indeed, it may probably be affirmed that both men 
 and women seek tallness in the person to whom they are sex- 
 ually attracted. Darwin quotes the opinion of Mayhew that 
 
 'L. da Vinci, Prammenti, selected by Solmi, pp. 177-180. 
 ' Westermarck, who accepts the "charm of disparity," gives ref- 
 erences, History of Human Marriage, p. 354. 
 
196 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 among dogs the females are strongly attracted to males of large 
 size.^ I believe this is true, and it is probably merely a par- 
 ticular instance of a general psychological tendency. 
 
 It is noteworthy as an indication of the direction of the sexual 
 ideal in this matter that the heroines of male novelists are rarely short 
 and the heroes of female novelists almost invariably tall. A reviewer 
 of novels addressing to lady novelists in the Speaker (July 26, 1890) "A 
 Plea for Shorter Heroes," publishes statistics on this point. "Heroes," 
 he states, "are longer this year than ever. Of the 192 of whom I have 
 had my word to say since October of last year, 27 were merely 
 tall, and 11 were only slightly above the middle height. No less than 
 85 stood exactly six feet in their stocking soles, and the remainder 
 were considerably over the two yards. I take the average to be six feet 
 three." 
 
 As a slight test alike of the supposed "chargi of disparity" as 
 well as of the general degree in which tall and short persons are sought 
 as mates by those of the opposite sex I have examined a series of 
 entries in the Round-About, a publication issued by a club, of which 
 the president is Mr. W. T. Stead, having for its object the purpose of pro- 
 moting correspondence, friendship, and marriage between its members. 
 There are two classes of entries, one inserted with a view to "in- 
 tellectual friendship,'' the other with a view to marriage. I have not 
 thought it necessary to recognize this distinction here; if a man de- 
 scribes his own physical characteristics and those of the lady he would 
 like as a friend, I assume that, from the point of view of the present 
 inquiry, he is much on the same footing as the man who seeks a wife. 
 In the series of entries which I have examined 35 men and women 
 state approximately the height of the man or woman they seek to 
 know; 30 state in additon their own height. The results are expressed 
 in the table on the following page. 
 
 Although the cases are few, the results are, in two main respects, 
 sufficiently clear without multiplication of data. In the first place, 
 those who seek parity, whether men or women, are in a majority over 
 those who seek disparity. In the second place, the existence of any 
 disparity at all is due only to the universal desire to find a tall per- 
 son. Not one man or woman sets down shortness as his or her ideal. 
 The very fact that no man in these initial announcements ventures to 
 set himself down as short (although a, considerable proportion describe 
 themselves as tall) indicates a consciousness that shortness is un- 
 desirable, as also does the fact that the women very frequently describe 
 themselves as tall. 
 
 "^ Descent of Man, Part II, Chapter XVIIL 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 
 
 197 
 
 The same charm of disparity which has been supposed to 
 rule in selective attraction as regards stature has also been 
 assumed as regards pigmentation. The fair, it is said, are 
 attracted to the dark, the dark to the fair. Again, it must be 
 said that this common assumption is not confirmed either by 
 introspection or by any attempt to put the matter on a statis- 
 tical basis.^ 
 
 Women. 
 
 Men. 
 
 Totals. 
 
 Tall women seek tall men 8 
 
 Short women seek short men . 
 
 Medinm-sized women seek me- 
 dium-sized men 
 
 Seek parity . 8 
 
 Tall men seek tall women . 6 
 
 Short men seek short women, 
 
 Medium-sized men seek me- 
 dium-sized women . . 3 
 
 Seek parity 9 
 
 14 
 
 
 3 
 
 17 
 
 Tall women seek short men . 
 
 Short women seek tall men . 4 
 
 Medium-sized woman seeks tall 
 man . 1 
 
 Seek disparity . 5 
 
 Tall men seek short women 
 
 Short men seek tall women 
 
 Medium-sized men seek tall 
 women . . . 8 
 
 Seek disparity 8 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 9 
 13 
 
 
 Men of unknown height seek 
 tall women . . .5 
 
 5 
 
 Most people who will carefully introspect their own feelings 
 and ideals in this matter will find that they are not attracted 
 to persons of the opposite sex who are strikingly unlike them- 
 selves in pigmentary characters. Even when the abstract ideal 
 
 ' Bloch (Beitrage sur JStiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis, Teil II, 
 pp. 260 et seq.) refers to the tendency to admixture of races and to the 
 sexual attraction occasionally exerted by the negress and sometimes 
 the negro on white persons as evidence in favor of such charm of dis- 
 parity. In part, however, we are here concerned with vague state- 
 ments concerning imperfectly known facts, in part with merely in- 
 dividual variations, and with that love of the exotic under the stimu- 
 lation of civilized conditions to which reference has already been 
 made (p. 184). 
 
198 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY 01" SEX. 
 
 of a sexually desirable person is endowed with certain pigmen- 
 tary characters, such as blue eyes or darkness, — either of which 
 is liable to make a vaguely romantic appeal to the imagination, 
 — it is usually found, on testing the feeling for particular per- 
 sons, that the variation from the personal type of the subject 
 is usually only agreeable within narrow limits, and that there 
 is a very common tendency for persons of totally opposed pig- 
 mentary types, even though they may sometimes be considered 
 to possess a certain aesthetic beauty, to be regarded as sexually 
 unattractive or even repulsive. With this feeling may per- 
 haps be associated the feeling, certainly very widely felt, that 
 one would not like to marry a person of foreign, even though 
 closely allied, race. 
 
 From the same number of the Round-About from which I have ex- 
 tracted the data on stature, I have obtained corresponding data on pig- 
 mentation, and have embodied them in the following table. They are 
 likewise very scanty, but they probably furnish as good a general indi- 
 cation of the drift of ideals in this matter as we should obtain from 
 more extensive data of the same character. 
 
 Women. 
 
 Men. 
 
 Totals. 
 
 Fair women seek fair men 2 
 
 Dark woman seeks dark man . 1 
 
 Seek parity . . 3 
 
 Fair men seek fair women . 2 
 
 Dark men seek dark women . 7 
 
 Seek parity . 9 
 
 4 
 
 8 
 12 
 
 Fair women seek dark men . 4 
 
 Dark woman seeks fair man . 1 
 
 Seek disparity , . 5 
 
 Fair men seek dark women . 3 
 
 Dark men seek fair women 4 
 
 Medium-colored man seeks 
 dark woman . 1 
 
 Medium-colored man seeks 
 fair woman . 1 
 
 Seek disparity 9 
 
 7 
 5 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 14 
 
 
 Men of unknown color seek 
 dark women . . 3 
 
 3 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 199 
 
 It will be seen that in the ca,se of pigmentation there is not as 
 in the case of stature a decided charm of parity in the formation of 
 sexual ideals. The phenomenon, however, remains essentially anal- 
 ogous. Just as in regard to stature there is without exception an ab- 
 stract admiration for tall persons, so here, though to a less marked ex- 
 tent, there is a general admiration for dark persons. As many as 5 
 out of 8 women and 14 out of 21 men seek a dark partner. This 
 tendency ranges itself with the considerations already brought forward 
 (p. 182), leading us to believe that, in England at all events, the admira- 
 tion of fairness is not efficacious to promote any sexual selection, and 
 that if there is actually any such selection it must be put down to 
 other causes. No doubt, even in England the abstract sesthetic ad- 
 miration of fairness is justifiable and may influence the artist. Proba- 
 bly also it influences the poet, who is affected by a long-established 
 convention in favor of fairness, and perhaps also by a general ten- 
 dency on the part of our poets to be themselves fair and to yield to 
 the charm of parity, — the tendency to piefer the women of one's own 
 stock, — which we have already found to be a real force.^ But, as a mat- 
 ter of fact, our famous English beauties are not very fair; probably our 
 handsomest men are not very fair, and the abstract sexual ideals of 
 both our men and our women thus go out toward the dark. 
 
 The formation of a sexual ideal, while it furnishes a pre- 
 disposition to be attracted in a certain direction, and undoubt- 
 edly has a certain weight in sexual choice, is not by any means 
 the whole of sexual selection. It is not even the whole of the 
 psychic element in sexual selection. Let us take, for instance, 
 the question of stature. There would seem to be a general tend- 
 ency for both men and women, apart from and before experi- 
 ence, to desire sexually large persons of the opposite sex. It may 
 even be that this is part of a wider zoological tendency. In the 
 human species it shows itself also on the spiritual plane, in the 
 desire for the infinite, in the deep and unreasoning feeling that 
 it is impossible to have too much of a good thing. But it not 
 
 ' In this connection the exceptional case of Tennyson is of interest. 
 He was born and bred in the very fairest part of England (Lincoln- 
 shire), but he himself and the stock from which he sprang were dark 
 to a very remarkable degree. In his work, although it reveals traces 
 of the conventional admiration for the fair, there is a marked and 
 unusual admiration for distinctly dark women, the women resembling 
 the stock to which he himself belonged. See Havelook Ellis, "The Color 
 Sense in Literature," Contemporary Review, May, 1896. 
 
200 PSYCHOLOGY OP SEX. 
 
 infrequently happens that a man in whose youthful dreams of 
 love the heroine has always heen large, has not been able to 
 calculate what are the special nervous and other characteristics 
 most likely to be met in large women, nor how far these corre- 
 lated characteristics would suit his own instinctive demands. 
 He may, and sometimes does, find that in these other de- 
 mands, which prove to be more important and insistent than 
 the desire for stature, the tall women he meets are less likely to 
 suit him than the medium or short women.^ It may thus happen 
 that a man whose ideal of woman has always been as tall may 
 yet throughout life never be in intimate relationship with a tall 
 woman because he finds that practically he has more marked 
 affinities in the case of shorter women. His abstract ideals are 
 modified or negatived by more imperative sympathies or antipa- 
 thies. 
 
 In one field such sympathies have long been recognized, 
 especially by alienists, as leading to sexual unions of parity, 
 notwithstanding the belief in the generally superior attraction 
 of disparity. It has often been pointed out that the neuro- 
 pathic, the insane and criminal, "degenerates" of all kinds, show 
 a notable tendency to marry each other. This tendency has not, 
 however, been investigated with any precision.* 
 
 The first attempt on a statistical basis to ascertain what 
 degree of parity or disparity is actually attained by sexual selec- 
 tion was made by Alphonse de CandoUe.' Obtaining his facts 
 from Switzerland, North Germany, and Belgium, he came to 
 the conclusion that marriages are most commonly contracted 
 between persons with difEerent eye-colors, except in the case of 
 brown-eyed women, who (as Schopenhauer stated, and as is 
 
 ' It is noteworthy that in the Round-About, already referred to, 
 although no man expresses a desire to meet a short woman, when he 
 refers to announcements by women as being such as would be likely 
 to suit him, the persons thus pointed out are in a notable proportion 
 short. 
 
 ' It has been discussed by F. J. Debret, La Selection Natitrelle 
 dans I'espice humaine (These de Paris), 1901. Debret regards it as due 
 to natural selection. 
 
 * "H6r6dit6 de la Couleur des Yeux dans I'espece humaine," Archives 
 des Sciences physiques et naturelles, s6r. iii, vol. xii, 1884, p. 109. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 201 
 
 seen in the English data of the sexual ideal I have brought 
 forward) are found more attractive than others. 
 
 The first series of serious observations tending to confirm 
 the result reached by the genius of Leonardo da Vinci and to 
 show that sexual selection results in the pairing of like rather 
 than of unlike persons was made by Hermann Fol, the embryol- 
 ogist.^ He set out with the popular notion that married people 
 end by resembling each other, but when at Nice, which is visited 
 by many young married couples on their honeymoons, he was 
 struck by the resemblances already existing immediately after 
 marriage. In order to test the matter he obtained the photo- 
 graphs of 251 young and old married couples not personally 
 known to him. The results were as follows: — 
 
 Resemblances Nonresemblances 
 
 Couples. (Percentage). (Percentage). Total. 
 
 Young 132, about 66.66 66, about 33.33 198 
 
 Old 38, about 71.70 15, about 28.30 53 
 
 He concluded that in the immense majority of marriages of 
 inclination the contracting parties are attracted by similarities, 
 and not by dissimilarities, and that, consequently, the resem- 
 blances between aged married couples are not acquired during 
 conjugal life. Although Fol's results were not obtained by good 
 methods, and do not cover definite points like stature and eye- 
 color, they represented the conclusions of a highly skilled and 
 acute observer and have since been amply confirmed. 
 
 Galton could not find that the average results from a fairly 
 large number of cases indicated that stature, eye-color, or other 
 personal characteristics notably influenced sexual selection, 
 as evidenced by a comparison of married couples.^ Karl 
 
 ^ Revue Bcientiflque, Jan., 1891. 
 
 'F. Galton, Natural Inheritance, p. 85. It may be remarked that 
 while Galton's tables on page 206 show a slight excess of disparity as 
 regards sexual selection in stature, in regard to eye color they anticipate 
 Karl Pearson's more extensive data and in marriages of disparity show 
 a decided deficiency of observed over chance results. In English Men 
 of Science (pp. 28-33), also, Galton found that among the parents parity 
 decidedly prevailed over disparity (78 to 31) alike as regards tempera- 
 ment, hair color, and eye color. 
 
202 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 Pearson, however, in part making lise of a large body of 
 data obtained by Galton, referring to stature and eye-color, 
 has reached the conclusion that sexual selection ultimately re- 
 sults in a marked degree of parity so far as these characters are 
 concerned.^ As regards stature, he is unable to find evidence 
 of vrhat he terms "preferential mating''; that is to say, it does 
 not appear that any preconceived ideals concerning the desir- 
 ability of tallness in sexual mates leads to any perceptibly 
 greater tallness of the chosen mate; husbands are not taller 
 than men in general, nor wives than women in general. In 
 regard to eye-color, however, there appeared to be evidence of 
 preferential mating. Husbands are very decidedly fairer than 
 men in general, and though there is no such marked difference 
 in women, wives are also somewhat fairer than women in gen- 
 eral. As regards "assortative mating," as it is termed by Pear- 
 son,- — ^the tendency to parity or to disparity between husbands 
 and wives, — the results were in both cases decisive. Tall men 
 marry women who are somewhat above the average in height; 
 short men marry women who are somewhat below the average, 
 so that husband and wife resemble each other in stature as 
 closely as uncle and niece. As regards eye-color there is also 
 a tendency for like to marry like; the light-eyed men tend to 
 marry light-eyed women more often than dark-eyed women; 
 the dark-eyed men tend to marry dark-eyed women more often 
 than light-eyed. There remains, however, a very considerable 
 difference in the eye-color of husband and wife; in the 774 
 couples dealt with by Pearson there are 333 dark-eyed women to 
 only 351 dark-eyed men, and 533 light-eyed men to only 441 
 light-eyed women. The women in the English population are 
 darker-eyed than the men"; but the difference is scarcely so 
 
 *Karl Pearson, Phil. Trans. Royal Society, vol. clxxxvii, p. 273, 
 a,nd vol. cxcv, p. 113; Proceedings of the Royal Society, vol. Ixvi, p. 28; 
 Qrammar of Science, second edition, 1900, pp. 425 et seq.; Biometrika, 
 November, 1903. The last-named periodical also contains a study on 
 "Assortative Mating in Man," bringing forward evidence to show that, 
 apart from environmental influence, "length of life is a character which 
 is subject to selection"; that is to say, the long-lived tend to marry 
 the long-lived, and the short-lived to marry the short-lived. 
 
 " For a summary of the evidence on this point see Havelook Ellis, 
 Man and Woman, fourth edition, 1904, pp. 2.56-264. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN, 203 
 
 great as this; so that even if wives are not so dark-eyed as 
 women generally it would appear that the ideal admiration for 
 the dark-eyed may still to some extent make itself felt in actual 
 mating. 
 
 While we have to recognize that the modification and even 
 total inhibition of sexual ideals in the process of actual mating 
 is largely due to psychic causes, such causes do not appear to 
 cover the whole of the phenomena. Undoubtedly they count for 
 much, and the man or the woman who, from whatever causes, has 
 constituted a sexual ideal with certain characters may in the 
 actual contacts of life find that individuals with other and even 
 opposed characters most adequately respond to his or her pay- 
 chic demands. There are, however, other causes in play here 
 which at first sight may seem to be not of a purely psychic 
 character. One unquestionable cause of this kind comes into 
 action in regard to pigmentary selection. Fair people, possibly 
 as a matter of race more than from absence of pigment, are 
 more energetic than dark people. They possess a sanguine 
 vigor and impetuosity which, in most, though not in all, fields 
 and especially in the competition of practical life, tend to give 
 them some superiority over their darker brethren. The greater 
 fairness of husbands in comparison with men in general, as 
 found by Karl Pearson, is thus accounted for; fair men are 
 most likely to obtain wives. Husbands are fairer than men in 
 general for the same reason that, as I have shown elsewhere,^ 
 created peers are fairer than either hereditary peers or even 
 most groups of intellectual persons; they have possessed in 
 higher measure the qualities that insure success. It may be 
 added that with the recognition of this fact we have not really 
 left the field of sexual psychology, for, as has already been pointed 
 out, that energy which thus insures success in practical life is 
 itself a sexual allurement to women. Energy in a woman in 
 courtship is less congenial to her sexual attitude than to a 
 man's, and is not attractive to men; thus it is not surprising, 
 even apart from the probably greater beauty of dark women, 
 
 ' "The Comparative Abilities of the Fair and the Dark," Monthly Re- 
 view, August, 1901. 
 
204 PSYCHOLOGY 0¥ SEX. 
 
 that the preponderance of fairness among wives as compared 
 to women generally, indicated by Karl Pearson's data, is very 
 slight. It may possibly be accounted for altogether by homogamy 
 — the tendency of like to marry like — in the fair husbands. 
 
 The energy and vitality of fair people is not, however, it 
 is probable, merely an indirect cause of the greater tendency of 
 fair men to become husbands; that is to say, it is not merely 
 the result of the generally somewhat greater ability of the fair to 
 attain success in temporal affairs. In addition to this, fair men, 
 if not fair women, would appear to show a tendency to a greater 
 activity in their specifically sexual proclivities. This is a point 
 which we shall encounter in a later Study and it is therefore 
 unnecessary to discuss it here. 
 
 In dealing with the question of sexual selection in man 
 various writers have been puzzled by the problem presented by 
 that abhorrence of incest which is usually, though not always, 
 so clearly marked among the different races of mankind.^ It was 
 once commonly stated, as by Morgan and by Maine, that this 
 abhorrence was the result of experience ; the raarriages of closely 
 related persons were found to be injurious to offspring and were 
 therefore avoided. This theory, however, is baseless because the 
 marriages of closely related persons are not injurious to the off- 
 spring. Consanguineous marriages, so closely as they can be 
 investigated on a large scale, — that is to say, marriages between 
 cousins, — as Huth was the first to show, develop no tendency 
 to the production of offspring of impaired quality provided the 
 parents are sound ; they are only injurious in this respect in so 
 far as they may lead to the union of couples who are both de- 
 fective in the same direction. According to another theory, 
 that of Westermarck, who has very fully and ably discussed the 
 whole question,^ "there is an innate aversion to sexual inter- 
 course between persons living very closely together from early 
 youth, and, as such persons are in most eases related, this 
 
 *The fact that even in Europe the ahhorrence to incest is not 
 always strongly felt is brought out by Bloeh, Beitrdge eur ^tiologie 
 der Psychopathia Sexualis, Teil II, pp. 263 et seg. 
 
 'Westermarck, Eistory of Marriage, Chapters XIV and XV. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION' IN MAN. 205 
 
 feeling displays itself chiefly as a horror of intercourse between 
 near kin." Westermarck points out very truly that the prohibi- 
 tion of incest could not be founded on experience even if (as he 
 is himself inclined to believe) consanguineous marriages are 
 injurious to the offspring; incest is prevented "neither by laws, 
 nor by customs, nor by education, but by an instinct which under 
 normal circumstances makes sexual love between the nearest 
 kin a psychic impossibility." There is, however, a very radical 
 objection to this theory. It assumes the existence of a kind of 
 instinct which can with difficulty be accepted. An instinct is 
 fundamentally a more or less complicated series of reflexes set 
 in action by a definite stimulus. An innate tendency at once so 
 specific and so merely negative, involving at the same time de- 
 liberate intellectual processes, can only with a certain force be 
 introduced into the accepted class of instincts. It is as awkward 
 and artificial an instinct as would be, let us say, an instinct to 
 avoid eating the apples that grew in one's own orehard."^ 
 
 The explanation of the abhorrence to incest is really, how- 
 ever, exceedingly simple. Any reader who has followed the dis- 
 cussion of sexual selection in the present volume and is also 
 familiar with the "Analysis of the Sexual Impulse" set forth in 
 the previous volume of these Studies will quickly perceive that 
 the normal failure of the pairing instinct to manifest itself in 
 the case of brothers and sisters, or of boys and girls brought up 
 together from infancy, is a merely negative phenomenon due to 
 the inevitable absence under those circumstances of the condi- 
 tions which evoke the pairing impulse. Courtship is the process 
 by which powerful sensory stimuli proceeding from a person of 
 the opposite sex gradually produce the physiological state of 
 tumescence, with its psychic concomitant of love and desire, 
 more or less necessary for mating to be effected. But between 
 those who have been brought up together from childhood all the 
 sensory stimuli of vision, hearing, and touch have been dulled by 
 
 'Crawley {The Mystic Rose, p. 446) has pointed out that it is not 
 legitimate to assume the possibility of an "instinct" of this character; 
 instinct has "nothing in its character but a response of function to en- 
 vironment." 
 
206 PSYCHOLOGY OP SEX. 
 
 use, trained to the calm level of afEection, and deprived of their 
 potency to arouse the erethistic excitement which produces sex- 
 ual tumescence.^ Brothers and sisters in relation to each other 
 have at puberty already reached that state to which old married 
 couples by the exhaustion of youthful passion and the slow usage 
 of daily life gradually approximate. Passion between brother 
 and sister is, indeed, by no means so rare as is sometimes sup- 
 posed, and it may be very strong, but it is usually aroused by 
 the aid of those conditions which are normally required for the 
 appearance of passion, more especially by the unfamiliarity 
 caused by a long separation. In reality, therefore, the usual 
 absence of sexual attraction between brothers and sisters requires 
 no special explanation; it is merely due to the normal absence 
 under these circumstances of the conditions that tend to produce 
 sexual tumescence and the play of those sensory allurements 
 which lead to sexual selection." It is a purely negative phe- 
 nomenon and it is quite unnecessary, even if it were legitimate, 
 to invoke any instinct for its explanation. It is probable that 
 the same tendency also operates among animals to some extent, 
 tending to produce a stronger sexual attraction toward those of 
 their species to whom they have not become habituated.' In 
 animals, and in man also when living under primitive condi- 
 
 ' Fromentin, in his largely autobiographic novel Dominique, makes 
 Olivier say: "Julie is my cousin, which is perhaps a reason why she 
 should please me less than anyone else. I have always known her. We 
 have, as it were, slept in the same cradle. There may be people who 
 would be attracted by this almost fraternal relationship. To me the 
 very idea of marrying someone whom I knew as a baby is as absurd 
 as that of coupling two dolls." 
 
 "It may well be, as Crawley argues {The Mystic Rose, Chapter 
 XVII), that sexual taboo plays some part among primitive people in 
 preventing incestuous union, as, undoubtedly, training and moral ideas 
 do among civilized peoples. 
 
 ' The remarks of the Marquis de Brisay, an authority on doves, 
 as communicated to Giard (L'Intermidiare des Biologistes, November 
 20, 1897), are of much interest on this point, since they correspond to 
 what we find in the human species: "Two birds from the same nest 
 rarely couple. Birds coming from the same nest behave as though they 
 regarded coupling as prohibited, or, rather, they know each other too 
 well, and seem to be ignorant of their difference in sex, remaining un- 
 affected in their relations by the changes which make them adults." 
 Westermarck {op. eit., p. 334) has some remarks on a somewhat similar 
 tendency sometimes observed in dogs and horses. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 207 
 
 tions, sexual attraction is not a constant phenomenon^; it is an 
 occasional manifestation only called out by powerful stimu- 
 lation. It is not its absence which we need to explain ; it is its 
 presence which needs explanation, and such an explanation we 
 find in the analysis of the phenomena of courtship. 
 
 The abhorrence of incest is an interesting and significant 
 phenomenon from our present point of view, because it instruc- 
 tively points out to us the limits to that charm of parity which 
 apparently makes itself felt to some considerable extent in the 
 constitution of the sexual ideal and still more in the actual 
 homogamy which seems to predominate over heterogamy. This 
 homogamy is, it will be observed, a racial homogamy; it relates 
 to anthropological characters which mark stocks. Even in this 
 racial field, it is unnecessary to remark, the homogamy attained 
 is not, and could not be, absolute ; nor would it appear that such 
 absolute racial homogamy is even desired. A tall man who 
 seeks a tall woman can seldom wish her to be as tall as himself; 
 a dark man who seeks a dark woman certainly will not be dis- 
 pleased at the inevitably greater or less degree of pigment which 
 he finds in her eyes as compared to his own. 
 
 But when we go outside the racial field this tendency to 
 homogamy disappears at once. A man marries a woman who, 
 with slight, but agreeable, variations, belongs to a like stock to 
 himself. The abhorrence of incest indicates that even the sexual 
 attraction to people of the same stock has its limits, for it is 
 not strong enough to overcome the sexual indifference between 
 persons of near kin. The desire for novelty shown in this sexual 
 indifference to near kin and to those who have been housemates 
 from childhood, together with the notable sexual attractiveness 
 often possessed by a strange youth or maiden who arrives in a 
 small town or village, indicates that slight differences in stock, 
 if not, indeed, a positive advantage from this point of view, are 
 certainly not a disadvantage. When we leave the consideration 
 of racial differences to consider sexual differences, not only do 
 we no longer find any charm of parity, but we find that there 
 
 •See Appendix to vol. iii of these Studies, "The Sexual Impulse 
 among Savages." 
 
208 PSYCHOLOGY OV SEX. 
 
 is an actual cliarm oi disparity. At this point it is necessary 
 to remember all that has been brought forward in earlier pages^ 
 concerning the emphasis of the secondary sexual characters in 
 the ideal of beauty.. All those qualities which the woman desires 
 to see emphasized in the man are the precise opposite of the 
 qualities which the man desires to see emphasized in the woman. 
 The man must be strong, vigorous, energetic, hairy, even rough, 
 to stir the primitive instincts of the woman's nature ; the woman 
 who satisfies this man must be smooth, rounded, and gentle. It 
 would be hopeless to seek for any homogamy between the manly 
 man and the virile woman, between the feminine woman and 
 the effeminate man. It is not impossible that this tendency to 
 seek disparity in sexual characters may exert some disturbing 
 influences on the tendency to seek parity in anthropological 
 racial characters, for the sexual difference to some extent makes 
 itself felt in racial characters. A somewhat greater darkness of 
 women is a secondary (or, more precisely, tertiary) sexual char- 
 acter, and on this account alone, it is possible, somewhat at- 
 tractive to men.'' A difference in size and stature is a very 
 marked secondary sexual character. In the considerable body 
 of data concerning the stature of married couples reproduced 
 by Pearson from Galton's tables, although the tall on the aver- 
 age tend to marry the tall, and the short the short, it is yet 
 noteworthy that, while the men of 5 ft. 4 ins. have more wives 
 at 6 ft. 2 ins. than at any other height, men of 6 ft. show, in an 
 exactly similar manner, more wives at 5 ft. 3 ins. than at any 
 other height, although for many intermediate heights the most 
 numerous groups of wives are taller." 
 
 In matters of carriage, habit, and especially clothing the 
 love of sexual disparity is instinctive, everywhere well marked, 
 and often carried to very great lengths. To some extent such 
 
 • See, especially, ante, pp. 163 et seg. 
 
 • Kistemaecker, as quoted by Bloch {Beitrage, etc., ii, p. 340), al- 
 ludes in this connection to the dark clothes of men and to the tendency 
 of women to wear lighter garments, to emphasize the white underlinen, 
 to cultivate pallor of the face, to use powder. "I am white and you 
 are brown; ergo, you must love me": this affirmation, he states, may 
 be found in the depths of every woman's heart. 
 
 •K. Pearson, Qrammar of Science, second edition, p. 430. 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAIT. 209 
 
 differences are due to the opposing demands of more fundamental 
 differences in custom and occupation. But this cause by no 
 means adequately accounts for them, since it may sometimes 
 happen that what in one land is the practice of the men is in 
 another the practice of the women, and yet the practices of the 
 two sexes are still opposed.^ Men instinctively desire to avoid 
 doing things in women's ways, and women instinctively avoid 
 doing things in men's ways, yet both sexes admire in the other 
 sex those things which in themselves they avoid. In the matter 
 of clothing this charm of disparity reaches its highest point, and 
 it has constantly happened that men have even called in the aid 
 of religion to enforce a distinction which seemed to them so 
 urgent.^ One of the greatest of sex allurements would be lost 
 and the extreme importance of clothes would disappear at once 
 if the two sexes were to dress alike; such identity of dress has, 
 however, never come about among any people. 
 
 "In Man and Woman (fourth edition, p. 65) I have referred to a 
 curious example of this tendency to opposition which is of almost world- 
 wide extent. Among some people it is, or has been, the custom for the 
 women to stand during urination, and in these countries it is usually 
 the custom for the man to squat; in most countries the practices of 
 the sexes in this matter are opposed.. 
 
 "It is sufficient to quote one example. At the end of the six- 
 teenth century it was a serious objection to the fashionable wife of 
 an English Brownist pastor in Amsterdam that she had "bodies [a 
 bodice or corset] tied to the petticoat with points [laces] as men 
 do their doublets and their hose, contrary to I Thess., v, 22, conferred 
 with Deut. xxii, 5j and I John ii, 16." 
 
Summary of the Conclusions at Present Attainable in Regard to 
 the Nature of Beauty and its Eelation to Sexual Selection. 
 
 The consideration of vision has led us into a region in 
 which, more definitely and precisely than is the case with any 
 other sense, we can observe and even hope to measure the opera- 
 tion of sexual selection in man. In the conception of feminine 
 beauty we possess an instrument of universal extension by which 
 it seems possible to measure the nature and extent of such selec- 
 tion as exercised by men on women. This conception, with which 
 we set out, is, however, by no means so precise, so easily available 
 for the attainment of sound conclusions, as at first sight it may 
 seem to be. 
 
 It is true that beauty is not, as some have supposed, a mere 
 matter of caprice. It rests in part on (1) an objective basis of 
 sesthetie character which holds all its variations together and 
 leads to a remarkable approximation among the ideals of femin- 
 ine beauty cherished by the most intelligent men of all races. 
 But beyond this general objective basis we find that (2) the 
 specific characters of the race or nation tend to cause divergence 
 in the ideals of beauty, since beauty is often held to consist in 
 the extreme development of these racial or national anthropo- 
 logical features; and it would, indeed, appear that the full 
 development of racial characters indicates at the same time the 
 full development of health and vigor. We have further to con- 
 sider that (3) in most countries an important and usually essen- 
 tial element of beauty lies in the emphasis of the secondary and 
 tertiary sexual characters: the special, characters of the hair in 
 woman, her breasts, her hips, and innumerable other qualities of 
 minor saliency, but all apt to be of significance from the point 
 of view of sexual selection. In addition we have (4) the factor of 
 individual taste, constituted by the special organization and the 
 peculiar experiences of the individual and inevitably affecting 
 his ideal of beauty. Often this individual factor is merged into 
 (210) 
 
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 211 
 
 collective shapes, and in this way are constituted passing fashions 
 in the matter of beauty, certain influences which normally affect 
 only the individual having become potent enough to affect many 
 individuals. Finally, in states of high civilization and in indi- 
 viduals of that restless and nervous temperament which is com- 
 mon in civilization, we have (5) a tendency to the appearance of 
 an exotic element in the ideal of beauty, and in place of admir- 
 ing that kind of beauty which most closely approximates to the 
 type of their own race men begin to be agreeably affected by 
 types which more or less deviate from that with which they are 
 most familiar. 
 
 While we have these various and to some extent conflicting 
 elements in a man's ideal of feminine beauty, the question is 
 still further complicated by the fact that sexual selection in the 
 human species is not merely the choice of the woman by the 
 man, but also the choice of the man by the woman. And when 
 we come to consider this we find that the standard is altogether 
 different, that many of the elements of beauty as it exists in 
 woman for man have here fallen away altogether, while a new 
 and preponderant element has to be recognized in the shape of 
 a regard for strength and vigor. This, as I have pointed out, is 
 not a purely visual character, but a tactile pressure character 
 translated into visual terms. 
 
 When we have stated the sexual ideal we have not yet, how- 
 ever, by any means stated the complete problem of human sexual 
 selection. The ideal that is desired and sought is, in a large 
 measure, not the outcome of experience; it is not even neces- 
 sarily the expression of the individual's temperament and idio- 
 syncrasy. It may be largely the result of fortuitous circum- 
 stances, of slight chance attractions in childhood, of accepted 
 traditions consecrated by romance. In the actual contacts of 
 life the individual may find that his sexual impulse is stirred by 
 sensory stimuli which are other than those of the ideal he had 
 cherished and may even be th^ reverse of them. 
 
 Beyond this, also, we have reason for believing that factors 
 of a still more fundamentally biological character, to some extent 
 deeper even than all these psychic elements, enter into the prob- 
 
212 PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. 
 
 lem of sexual selection. Certain individuals, apart altogether 
 from the question of whether they are either ideally or prac- 
 tically the most fit mates, display a greater energy and achieve 
 a greater success than others in securing partners. These indi- 
 viduals possess a greater constitutional vigor, physical or mental, 
 which conduces to their success in practical affairs generally, and 
 probably also heightens their specifically philogamie activities. 
 Thus, the problem of human sexual selection is in the 
 highest degree complicated. When we gather together such 
 scanty data of precise nature as are at present available, we 
 realize that, while generally according with the results which 
 the evidence not of a quantitative nature would lead us to accept, 
 their precise significance is not at present altogether clear. It 
 would appear on the whole that in choosing a mate we tend to 
 seek parity of racial and individual characters together with 
 disparity of secondary sexual characters. But we need a much 
 larger number of groups of evidence of varying character and 
 obtained under varying conditions. Such evidence will doubt- 
 less accumulate now that its nature is becoming defined and 
 the need for it recognized. In the meanwhile we are, at all 
 events, in a position to assert, even with the evidence before 
 us, that now that the real meaning of sexual selection is be- 
 coming clear its efBcacy in human evolution can no longer be 
 questioned. 
 
APPENDICES. 
 
APPENDIX A. 
 
 THE OEIGINS OF THE KISS. 
 
 J\Ianifestations resembling the kiss, whether with the ob- 
 ject of expressing affection or sexual emotion, are found among 
 various animals much lower than man . The caressing of the 
 antennae practiced by snails and various insects during sexual 
 intercourse is of the nature of a kiss. "Rirdp use their bills for a 
 kind of caress. Thus, referring to guillemots and their practice 
 of nibbling each other's feet, and the interest the mate always 
 takes in this proceeding, which probably relieves irritation caused 
 by insects, Edmund Selous remarks: "When they nibble and 
 preen each other they may, I think, be rightly said to cosset and 
 caress, the expression and pose of the bird receiving the benefit 
 being often beatific.'*^ Among mammals, such as th^^^^ggjje 
 have what closely resembles a kiss, and the dog who smells, licks, 
 and gently bites his master or a bitch, combines most of the 
 sensory activities involved in the various forms of the human 
 
 As practiced by man, the kiss involves mainly either the 
 sense of touch or that of smell. Occasionally it involves to some 
 extent both sensory elements.^ 
 
 The tactile kiss is certainly very ancient and primitive. It 
 is c ommon amonfy mammal s generally. The human infant ex- 
 hibits, in a very marked degree, the impulse to carry everything 
 to the mouth and to lick or attempt to taste it, possibly, as Com- 
 payre suggests,* from a memory of the action of the lips pro- 
 
 »E.^ Selous, Bird Watching, 1901, p. 191. This author adds: "It 
 seems probable indeed that the conferring a practical benefit of the 
 kind indicated may be the origin of the caress throughout nature." 
 
 'Tylor terms the kiss "the salute by tasting," and d'Enjov de- 
 fines it as "a bite and a suction"; there seems, however, little evidence 
 to show that the kiss contains any gustatory element in the strict 
 sense. 
 
 •Compayre, L'Evolution intellectuelle et morale de Venfant, p. 9. 
 
 (315) 
 
216 APPENDIX A. 
 
 traded to seize the maternal nipple. The affectionate child, as 
 Mantegazza remarks/ not only applies inanimate objects to its 
 lips or tongue, but of its own impulse licks the people it likes. 
 Stanley Hall, in the light of a large amoiint of information he 
 obtained on this point, found that "some children insist on lick- 
 ing the cheeks, necks, and hands of those they wish to caress," 
 or like having animals lick them.^ This impulse in children 
 may be associated with the maternal impulse in animals to lick 
 the young. "The method of licking the young practiced by the 
 mother," remarks S. S. Buckman, "would cause licking to be 
 associated with happy feelings. And, further, there is the allay- 
 ing of parasitical irritation which is afforded by the rubbing and 
 hence results in pleasure. It may even be suggested that the 
 desire of the mother to lick her young was prompted in the first 
 place by a desire to bestow on her offspring a pleasure she felt 
 herself." The licking impulse in the child may thus, it is pos- 
 sible, be regarded as the evanescent manifestation of a more 
 fundamental animal impulse,' a manifestation which is liable to 
 appear in adult life under the stress of strong sexual emotion. 
 Such an association is of interest if, as there is some reason to 
 believe, the kiss of sexual love originated as a development of 
 the more primitive^issTDes?owe3~by "the mother on her child^^r 
 1 it is sometimes found that the maternal kiss is practiced where 
 I the sexual kiss is unknown. 
 
 The impulse to bite is also a part of the tactile element 
 which lies at the origin of kissing. As Stanley Hall notes, chil- 
 dren are fond of biting, though by no means always as a method 
 of affection. There is, however, in biting a distinctly sexual 
 origin to invoke, for among many animals the teeth (and among 
 birds the bill) are used by the male to grasp the female more 
 firmly during intercourse. This point has been discussed in the 
 
 'Mantegazza, Physiognomy and Expression, p. 144. 
 
 ■ G. Stanley Hall, "The Early Sense of Self," American Journal of 
 Psychology, April, 1898, p. 361. 
 
 " In some parts of the world the impulse persists into adult life. 
 Sir S. Baker (Ismailia, p. 472) mentions licking the eyes as a sign of 
 affection. 
 
THE ORIGINS OF THE KISS. 217 
 
 previous volume of these Studies in reference to "Love and 
 Pain," and it is unnecessary to enter into further details here. 
 The heroine of Kleist's Penthesilea remarks : "Kissing (Kiisse) 
 rhymes with biting (Bisse), and one who loves with the whole 
 heart may easily confound the two." 
 
 The kiss, as known in Europe, has developed on a sensory 
 basis that is mainly tactile, although an olfactory element may 
 sometimes coexist. The kiss thus understood is not very widely 
 spread and is not usually found among rude and uncultured 
 peoples. We can trace it in Aryan and Semitic antiquity, but in 
 no very pronounced form; Homer scarcely knew it, and the 
 Greek poets seldom mention °TL™To-day it may be said to be 
 "linbwh all "ovei: Europe except in Lapland. Even in Europe it 
 is probably a comparatively modern discovery ; and in all the 
 Celtic tongues, Ehys states, there is no word for "kiss," the word 
 employed being always borrowed from the Latin pax.^ At a 
 fairly early historic period, however, the Welsh Cymri, at all 
 events, acquired a knowledge of the kiss, but it was regarded 
 as a serious matter and very sparingly used, being by law only 
 permitted on special occasions, as at a game called rope- 
 playing or a carousal ; otherwise a wife who kissed a man not her 
 husband could be repudiated. Throughout eastern Asia it is un- 
 known; thus, in Japanese' literature kisses and embraces have 
 no existence. "Kisses and embraces are simply unknown in 
 Japan as tokens of affection," Lafcadio Heam states, "if we 
 except the solitary fact that Japanese mothers, like mothers all 
 over the world, lip and hug their little ones betimes. After 
 babyhood there is no more hugging or kisses; such actions, 
 except in the case of infants, are held to be immodest. Never 
 do girls kiss one another; never do parents kiss or embrace 
 their children who have become able to walk." This holds true, 
 and has always held true, of all classes; hand-clasping is also 
 foreign to them. On meeting after a long absence, Hearn re- 
 marks, they smile, perhaps cry a little, they may even stroke each 
 other, but that is all. Japanese affection "is chiefly shown in 
 
 '^Book of Common Prayer in Manx Oaelic, edited by A. W. Moore 
 and J. IU178, 1895. 
 
218 APPENDIX A. 
 
 acts of exquisite courtesy and kindness."' Among nearly all 
 of the black races of Africa lovers never kiss nor do mothers 
 usually kiss their babies.^ Among the American Indians the 
 tactile kiss is, for the most part, unknown, though here and 
 there, as among the Fuegians, lovers rub their cheeks together.' 
 Kissing is unknown to the Malays. In North Queensland, how- 
 ever, Eoth states, kissing takes place between mothers (not 
 fathers) and infants, also between husbands and wives; but 
 whether it is an introduced custom Eoth is unable to say; he 
 adds that the Pitta-Pitta language possesses a word for kissing.* 
 
 It must be remarked, however, th at in many parts of the 
 world where the tact ile kiss, as we un derstan d it. is usually said 
 to be unknown, it_^ still exists as betwe en a mpt hgr, aRd..t^er ^^yT 
 and "tHis "seems to support the view advocated by Lombroso that 
 the lovers' kiss is de velo ped from ^ the maternal kis^ . Thus, the 
 Angoni Zulus to the north of the Zambesi, Wiese states, kiss their 
 small children on both cheeks" and among the Fuegians, accord- 
 ing to Hyades, mothers kiss their small children. 
 
 Even in Europe the kiss in early mediaeval days was, it 
 seems probable, not widely known as an expression of sexual 
 love; it would appear to have been a refinement of love only 
 practiced by the more cultivated classes. In the old ballad of 
 Glasgerion the lady suspected that her secret visitor was only a 
 churl, and not the knight he pretended to be, because when he 
 came in his master's place to spend the night with her he kissed 
 her neither coming nor going, but simply got her with child. 
 It is only under a comparatively high state of civilization that 
 the kiss has been emphasized and developed in the art of love. 
 Thus the Arabic author of the Perfumed Garden, a work re- 
 
 *L. Hearn, Out of the East, 1895, p. 103. 
 
 'See, e.g., A. B. Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples, p. 288. AmoBg the 
 Swahili the kiss is practiced, but exclusively between married people 
 and with very young children. Velten believes they learned it from the 
 Arabs. 
 
 'Hyades and Deniker, Mission Smentifique du Cap Horn, vol. vii, 
 p. 245. 
 
 * W. Eoth, Ethnological Notes Among the Queensland Aborigines, 
 p. 184. 
 
 ' Zeitsohrift fiir Ethnologie, 1900, ht. 5, p. 200. 
 
THE ORIGINS OF THE KISS, 219 
 
 vealing the existence of a high degree of social refinement, insists 
 on the great importance of the kiss, especially if applied to the 
 inner part of the mouth, and he quotes a proverb that "A moist 
 kiss is better than a hasty coitus." Such kisses, as well as on 
 the face generally, and all over the body, are frequently referred 
 to by Hindu, Latin, and more modem erotic vi^riters as among 
 the most efficacious methods of arousing love.^ 
 
 A reason which may have stood in the way of the develop- 
 ment of the kiss in a sexual direction has probably been the fact 
 that in the near East the kiss was largely monopolized for 
 sacred uses, so that its erotic potentialities were not easily 
 perceived. Among the early Arabians the gods we re wor- 
 shiped by a kiss.'_ T his was th e ingjitj^l wajTof-grei'iin^ theiouse 
 gods on entering or leaving.* In Eome the kiss was a sign of 
 reverence and respect far more than a method of sexual excita- 
 tion.* Among the early Christians it had, an all but sacra- 
 mental significance. It retains its ancient and serious meaning 
 in many usages of the Western and still more the Eastern 
 Churches; the relics of saints, the foot of the pope, the hands 
 of bishops, are kissed, just as the ancient Greeks kissed the 
 images of the gods. Among ourselves we still have a legally 
 recognized example of the sacredness of the kiss in the form of 
 taking an oath by kissing the Testament.' 
 
 So far we have been concerned mainly with the tactile kiss, 
 which is sometimes supposed to have arisen in remote times to 
 the east of the Mediterranean — ^where the vassal kissed his 
 suzerian and where the kiss of love was known, as we learn from 
 the Songs of Songs, to the Hebrews — and has now conquered 
 
 '■E.g., the Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana, Bk. Ill, Chapter L 
 
 'Hosea, Chapter xiii, v. 2; I Kings, Chapter xix, v. 18. 
 
 ' Wellhausen, Reste Arabischen Heidentums, p. 109. 
 
 *The Romans recognized at least three kinds of kiss: the osculum, 
 for friendship, given on the face; tlie Msium, for affection, given on 
 the lips; the suavium, given between the lips, reserved for lovers. 
 
 'In other parts of the world it would appear that the kiss some- 
 times has a sacred or ritual charactej/ Thus, according to Rev. J. 
 Macdonald, {Journal of the Anthropological Institute, November, 1890, 
 p. 118), it is part of the initiation ceremony of a girl at her first 
 menstruation that the women of the village should kiss her on the 
 cheek, and on the mons veneris and labia. 
 
220 APPENDIX A. 
 
 nearly the whole of Europe. But over a much larger part of the 
 world and even in one corner of Europe (Lapland, as well as 
 among the Eussian Yakuts) a different kind of salutation rules, 
 the olfactory kiss. This varies in form in different regions and 
 sometimes simulates a tactile kiss, but, as it exists in a typical 
 form in China, where it has been carefully studied by d'Enjoy, 
 it may be said to be made up of three phases: (1) the nose is 
 applied to the cheek of the beloved person; (2) there is a long 
 nasal inspiration accompanied by lowering of the eyelids; (3) 
 there is a slight smacking of the lips without the application 
 of the mouth to the embraced cheek. The whole process, d'Enjoy 
 considers, is founded on sexual desire and the desire for food, 
 smell being the sense employed in both fields. In the form 
 described by d'Enjoy, we have the Mongolian variety of the 
 olfactory kiss. The Chinese regard the European kiss as odious, 
 suggesting voracious cannibals, and yellow mothers in the French 
 colonies still frighten children by threatening to give them the 
 white man's kiss. Their own kiss the Chinese regard as exclu- 
 sively voluptuous ; it is only befitting as between lovers, and not 
 only do fathers refrain from kissing their children except when 
 very young, but even the mothers only give their children a rare 
 and furtive kiss. Among some of the hill-tribes of south-east 
 India the olfactory kiss is found, the nose being applied to the 
 cheek during salutation with a strong inhalation; instead of 
 saying "Kiss me," they here say "Smell me." The Tamils, I 
 am told by a medical correspondent in Ceylon, do not kiss dur- 
 ing coitus, but rub noses and also lick each other's mouth and 
 tongue. The olfactory kiss is known in Africa; thus, on the 
 Gambia in inland Africa when a man salutes a woman he takes 
 her hand and places it to his nose, twice smelling the back of it. 
 Among the Jekris of the Niger coast mothers rub their babies 
 with their cheeks or mouths, but they do not kiss them, nor do 
 lovers kiss, though they squeeze, cuddle, and embrace.^ Among 
 the Swahilis a smell kiss exists, and very young boys are taught 
 to raise their clothes before women visitors, who thereupon play- 
 
 ^ Journal of the Anthropological Institute, August and November, 
 1898, p. 107. 
 
THE ORIGINS OF THE KISS. 221 
 
 fully smell the penis; the "child who does this is said to "give 
 tobacco.'"^ Kissing of any kind appears to be unknown to the 
 Indians throughout a large part of America: Ira Thirn states 
 that it is unknown to the Indians of Guiana, and at the other 
 end of South America Hyades and Deniker state that it is un- 
 known to the Fuegians. In North America the olfactory kiss is 
 known to the Eskimo, and has been noted among some Indian 
 tribes, as the Blackfeet. It is also known in Polynesia. At 
 Samoa kissing was smelling.^ In 'Sew Zealand, also, the hongi, 
 or nose-pressing, was the kiss of welcome, of mourning, and of 
 sympathy.' In the Malay archipelago, it is said, the same word 
 is used for "greeting" and "smelling." Among the Dyaks of 
 the Malay archipelago, however, Vaughan Stevens states that 
 any form of kissing is unknowTi.* In Borneo, Breitenstein tells 
 us, kissing is a kind of smelling, the word for smelling being 
 used, hut he never himself saw a man kiss a woman; it is 
 always done in private." 
 
 The olfactory kiss is thus seen to have a much wider ex- 
 tension over the world than the European (or Mediterranean) 
 tactile kiss. In its most complete development, however, it is 
 mainly found among the people of Mongolian race, or those 
 yellow peoples more or less related to them. - 
 
 The literature of the kiss is extensive. So far, however, as 
 that literature is kncrwn to me, the following list includes every- 
 thing that may be profitably studied : BaHiig, The Expression of 
 the Emotions; Ling Eoth, "Salutations," Journal of the Anthro- 
 pological Institute, JSlovember, 1889 ; K. Andree, "Nasengruss," 
 Ethnographische Parallelen, second series, 1889, pp. 323-227; 
 Alfred KirchhofI, "Vom Ursprung des Kiisses," Deutsche Revue, 
 May, 1895; Lombroso, "I/Origine du Baiser," Nouvelle Revue, 
 1897, p. 153 ; Paul d'Enjoy, "Le Baiser en Europe et en Chine," 
 Bulletin de la Societe d' Anthropologic, Paris, 1897, fasc. 2. 
 fsnr 'yY^W'fiybnnlfM The Kiss and its History (translated 
 
 ^Velten, Sitten und Gehrauche der Suaheli, p. 142. 
 'Turner, Samoa, p. 45. 
 
 • Tregear, Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 1889. 
 'Zeitsohrift fiir Ethnologle, 1896, ht. 4, p. 272. 
 'Breitenstein, 21 Jahre in India, vol. i, p. 224. 
 
222 APPENDIX A. 
 
 from the Danish by W. F. Harvey), deals rather with the his- 
 tory of the kiss in civilization and literature than with its bio- 
 logical origins and psychological significance. 
 
APPENDIX B. 
 
 HISTOEIBS OP SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 The histories here recorded are similar in character to those 
 given in Appendix B of the previous volume. 
 
 HiSTOET I. — C. D., clergyman, age, 34. Height about 5 ft. 8 in. 
 Weight, 8st. 81b. Complexion, fair. Physical infirmities, very myopic, 
 tendency to consumption. 
 
 "My family is of old lineage on both sides. My parents were 
 normal and fairly healthy; but I consider that heredity, though not 
 vitiated, is somewhat overrefined, and there is a neuropathic tendency, 
 which has appeared in myself and in one or two other members of the 
 family. As a child, I suffered, though not very frequently, from noctur- 
 nal enuresis. My sexual nature, though normal, has been keenly alive 
 and sensitive as far back as I can remember; and as I look back I discern 
 within myself in early childhood what I now understand to be a de- 
 cided masochistic or passively algolagnic tendency. So far as I remem- 
 ber, this manifested itself in me in two aspects; one psychic or senti- 
 mental and free from carnality, expressing itself in imaginative visions 
 such as the following: I used to imagine myself kneeling before a 
 young and beautiful woman and being sentenced by her to some punish- 
 ment, and even threatened with death. At other times I would pic- 
 ture myself as a wounded soldier watched over on his sickbed by queenly 
 women. These visiooas always included 4n imagination of something 
 heroic in my own personality. No doubt they were the sajne kind of 
 dreamings as are present in multitudes of imaginative children; they 
 are only of interest in so far as a sexual element was present; and that 
 was algolagnic in character. 
 
 "1 had a small fund of natural common sense, and my surround- 
 ings were not favorable to sentimental imaginings; consequently I be- 
 lieve I began to throw them off at an early age, though the temperament 
 which produced them is still a part of my nature. 
 
 "On the carnal side, the sexual instinct was decidedly algolagnic. 
 Masturbation is one of my earliest recollections; indeed, it was not at 
 first, so far as I remember, associated with any sexual ideas at all; but 
 began as a reflex animal act. I do not remember its first occurrence. It 
 soon, however, became associated in my mind with algolagnic excite- 
 ment, giving rise to reveries which took the ordinary form of imagining 
 
 (223) 
 
224 APPENDIX B. 
 
 oneself stripped and whipped, etc., by persons of the opposite sex. The 
 dramatis personce in my own algolagnic reveries were elderly women; 
 somewhat strangely, I did not associate physical sexuality at this 
 period with young and attractive women. If scientific light on these 
 matters were generally available in the practical bringing up of children, 
 persons in charge of young children might refrain from exciting an 
 algolagnic tendency or doing anything calculated to awake sexual emo- 
 tions prematurely. In my own case, I recollect acts performed by 
 older persons in ignorance and thoughtlessness which undoubtedly tended 
 to foster and strengthen my algolagnic instinct. 
 
 "Little or nothing was done to prevent, discover, or remedy the 
 pernicious habit into which I was falling unknowingly. Circumcision 
 was perhaps little thought of in those days as a preventive of juvenile 
 masturbation ; at any rate, it was not resorted to in my case. I remem- 
 ber, indeed, that a nurse discovered that I was practicing masturbation, 
 and I think she made a few half-hearted attempts to stop it. It was 
 probably these attempts which gave me a growing feeling that there 
 was something wrong about masturbation, and that it must be practiced 
 secretly. But they were unsuccessful in their main object. The practice 
 continued. 
 
 "I went to school at the age of 10. There I came in contact almost 
 without warning, with the ordinary lewdness and grossness of school 
 conversation, and took to it readily. I soon became conversant with 
 the theory of sexual relations; but never got the opportunity of sexual 
 intercourse, and probably should have felt some moral restraint even 
 had such opportunity presented itself, for coitus, however interesting it 
 might be to talk about, was a bigger thing to practice than masturba- 
 tion. I masturbated fairly frequently, occasionally producing two 
 orgasms in quick succession. I seldom masturbated with the hand; my 
 method was to lie face downward. There was probably little or no 
 homosexuality at my first school. I never heard of it till later, and 
 it was always repugnant to me, though surrounded with a certain mor- 
 bid interest. Masturbation was discountenanced openly at the school, 
 but was, I believe, extensively practiced, both at that school and at 
 the two others I afterward attended. The boys often talked about the 
 hygiene of it; and the general theory was that it was somehow physically 
 detrimental; but I heard no arguments advanced sufficiently cogent to 
 make me see the necessity for a real moral effort against the habit, 
 though, as I neared puberty, I was Indulging more moderately and with 
 greater misgivings. 
 
 "The fact of becoming acquainted with the theory of sexual inter- 
 course tended to diminish the algolagnia, and to impel my sexual instinct 
 into an ordinary channel. On one occasion circumstances brought me into 
 close contact with a woman for about three or four weeks, I being 
 
HISTORIES OF SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT. 225 
 
 a mere boy and she very much my senior. I felt sexually attracted by 
 this woman, and allowed myself a degree of familiarity with her which 
 I have since recognized as undue and have deeply regretted. It did not, 
 however, go to the length of seduction, and I trust may have passed 
 away without leaving any permanent harm. It should, indeed, be re- 
 marked here that I never knew a woman sexually till my marriage; and 
 with the one exception mentioned I do not recall any instance of con- 
 duct on my part toward a woman which could be described as giving 
 her an impulse downhill. 
 
 "On the psychic side my sexual emotions awoke in early childhood ; 
 and though my love affairs as a boy were not frequent and were kept 
 to myself, they attained a considerable degree of emotional power. 
 Leaving out of account the precocious movements of the sexual instinct 
 to which I have already referred as colored by psychic algolagnia, I may 
 say that somewhat later, from the age of puberty and onward, I had 
 three or four love affairs, devoid of any algolagnic tendency, and con- 
 siderably more developed on the psychic and emotional, than on the 
 physical, side. In fact, my experience has been that wl^en deeply in 
 love, when the mind is full of the love ecstasy, the physical element of 
 sexuality is kept — doubtless only temporarily — in abeyance. 
 
 "To return now to the subject of masturbation. Here befell the 
 chief moral struggle of my early life; and no terms that I have at 
 command will adequately describe the stress of it. 
 
 "A casual remark heard one day as I was arriving at puberty con- 
 vinced me that there must be truth in the vague schoolboy theory tjiat ' 
 masturbation was weakening. It was to the effect that the evil results 
 of masturbation practiced in boyhood would manifest themselves in 
 later life. I then realized that I must relinquish masturbation, and I 
 set myself to flght it; but with grave misgivings that, owing to the 
 early age at which I had formed the habit, I had already done myself 
 serious harm. 
 
 "Before many weeks had passed, I had formed a resolution to ab- 
 stain, which I kept thereafter without — so far as I remember — ^more 
 than one conscious lapse into my former habit. Here it must be said 
 at once that, so far as touches my own experience of a struggle of this 
 kind, the religious factor is of primary importance as strengthening 
 and sustaining the moral effort which has to be made. I am writing 
 an account of my sexual, not my spiritual, experiences; but I should 
 not only be untrue to my convictions, but unable to give an accurate 
 and penetrating survey of the development of my sex life, unless I were 
 clearly to state that it was to a large extent on that life that my 
 strongest and most valuable religious experiences arose.' It is to the 
 
 •My Christian faith is of a somewhat nonemotional, intellectual 
 type, with a considerable element of agnostic reserve. 
 
226 APPENDIX B. 
 
 endeavor to discipline the sexual instinct, and to grapple with the 
 difficulties and anxieties of the sex life, that I owe what I possess of 
 spiritual religion, of the consciousness that my life has been brought 
 into contact with Divine love and power. 
 
 "My early habits, after they were brojcen off, left me none the less 
 a legacy of sexual neurasthenia and a slight varicocele. My nocturnal 
 pollutions were overf requent ; and I brooded over them, being too reti- 
 cent and too much afraid of exposure at school and possible expulsion 
 to confide in a doctor. Far better for me had I done so, for a few 
 years later I received the truest kindness and sympathy in regard to 
 sexual matters at the hands of more than one medical man. But 
 while at school I was afraid to speak of the trouble which so unnerved 
 and depressed me; and as a consequence my morbid fears grew stronger, 
 being intensified by generalities which I met with from time to time 
 in my reading on the subject of the punishment which nature metes out 
 to impurity. 
 
 "On leaving school my sex life continued for some years on the 
 same lines: a struggle for chastity, morbid fears and regrets about the 
 past, efforts to cope with the neurasthenia, and a haunting dread of 
 coming insanity. These troubles were increased by my sedentary life. 
 However I obtained medical aid, and put as good a face on matters as 
 possible. 
 
 "But the most trying thing of all has yet to be mentioned — the 
 discovery that I had not yet got fully clear of the habit of masturba- 
 tion. I had, indeed, repudiated it as far as my conscious waking mo- 
 ments were concerned, even though strongly impelled by sexual desire; 
 but one night, about a year after I had relinquished the practice, I found 
 myself again giving way to it in those moments between sleeping and 
 waking when the will is only semiconscious. It was as if a race took 
 place for wakefulness between my physical instinct, on the one side, and 
 my moral sense and inhibitory nerves on the other; and very frequently 
 the physical instinct won. This, perhaps, is not an uncommon experi- 
 ence, but it distressed me greatly; and I never felt safe from it until 
 marriage. I resorted to various expedients to combat this tendency, at 
 length having to tie myself in a certain position evei-y night with a 
 cord round my legs, so as to render it Impossible to turn over upon my 
 face. 
 
 "In my early manhood the strain on my constitution was consider- 
 able from causes other than the sexual neurasthenia, which, indeed, I 
 am now well aware I exaggerated in importance. Medical advisers 
 whom I consulted in that period assured me that this was so; and, 
 though at the time I often thought that they were concealing the real 
 facts from me out of kindliness, my own reading has since convinced 
 me that they spoke nothing but scientific truth. 
 
niSTOEIES OF SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT. 227 
 
 "The years went on. I went through a university course, and in 
 spite of my poor health took a good degree. The agony of my struggle 
 for chastity seemed to come to a climax about four years later when 
 for a long period, partly owing to overstudy and partly to the sexual 
 strain, I fell into a condition of severe nervous exhaustion, one of the 
 most distressing symptoms of which was insomnia. The dreaded cloud 
 of insanity seemed to come closer. I had to use alcohol freely at 
 nights; and might by now have become a drunkard, had I not been 
 casually — or I must say. Providentially — directed to the common sense 
 plan of measuring my whisky in a dram glass; so that the alcohol could 
 not steal a march upon me. 
 
 "This period was one of acute mental suffering. One cause of the 
 nervous tension was — as I have now no doubt — the need of healthy 
 sexual intercourse. I proved this eventually. My circumstances, which 
 had long been adverse to marriage, at length were shaped in that direc- 
 tion. I renewed acquaintance with a lady whom I had known well 
 some years before; and our friendship ripened until, after much per- 
 plexity on my side, owing to the uncertainty of my health and pros- 
 pects, I decided that it was right to speak. We were married after a 
 few months; and I realized that I had gained an excellent wife. We did 
 not come together sexually for some nights after marriage; but, having 
 once tasted the pleasure of the marriage bed, I have to admit that, 
 partly owing to ignorance of the hygiene of marriage, I was for some 
 time rather unrestrained in conjugal relations, requiring intercourse 
 as often as eight or nine times a month. This was not unnatural when 
 one considers that I had now for the first time free access to a woman, 
 after a long and weary struggle to preserve chastity. Married life, how- 
 ever, tends naturally — or did so in my ease — to regulate desire; and 
 when I began to understand the ethics and hygiene of sex, as I did a 
 year or two after marriage, I was enabled to exercise increasing 
 self-restraint. We are now sparing in our enjoyment of conjugal pleas- 
 ure. We have had no children; and I attribute this chiefly to the 
 remaining sexual weakness in myself.^ But I may say that not only 
 my sexual power, but my nerve-power and general health, were greatly 
 improved by marriage; and though I have fallen back, the last year or 
 two, into a poor state of health, the cause of this is probably overwork 
 rather than anything to do with sex. Not but what it must be said 
 that, had it not been for the juvenile masturbation superadded to a 
 neuropathic temperament, my constitution would no doubt have endured 
 
 ' On having connection with my wife I frequently exhibit suf- 
 ficient sexual power to produce orgasm in her; but on occasion, es- 
 pecially during the first year or so of married life, I have been unable 
 to do this, owing to the too rapid action of the reflexes in myself, 
 imd have even, now and again, had emissions ante portam. 
 
228 APPENDIX B. 
 
 the general strain of life tetter than it has done. The algolagniaj being 
 one of the congenital conditions of my sexual instinct, must be con- 
 sidered fundamental, and certainly has not been eliminated. If I were 
 to allow myself indulgence in algolagnic reveries they would even now 
 excite me without difficulty; but I have systematically discouraged them, 
 so that they give me iittle or no practical trouble. My erotic dreams, 
 which years ago were (to the best of my remembrance) frequently algo- 
 lagnic, are now almost invariably normal. 
 
 "My conjugal relations liave always been on the lines of strictly 
 normal sexuality. I have a deep sense of the obligations of monogainous 
 marriage, besides a sincere aflfeetion for my wife; consequently I repress 
 as far as possible all sexual inclinations, such as will come involuntarily 
 sometimes, toward other women. 
 
 "From what I have disclosed, it will be seen that I am but a frail 
 man; but for many years I have striven honestly and hard to discipline 
 sexuality within myself, and to regulate it according to right reason, 
 pure hygiene, and the moral law; and I can but hope and believe that 
 the Divine Power in which I have endeavored to trust will in the future, 
 as it has done in the past, working by natural methods and through the 
 current events of my life, amend and control my sex life and conduct 
 it to safe and honorable issues." 
 
 HiSTOBT 11. — A. B., married, good general health, dark hair, fair 
 complexion, short-sighted, and below medium height. Parents both 
 belong to healthy families, but the mother suffered from nerves during 
 early years of married life, and the father, a very energetic and am- 
 bitious man, was cold, passionless, and unscrupulous. A. B. is the oldest 
 child; two of the brothers and sisters are slightly abnormal, nervously. 
 But, so far as is known, none of the family has ever been sexually ab- 
 normal. 
 
 A. B. was a bright, intelligent child, though inclined to be melan- 
 choly (and in later years prone to self-analysis). At preparatory school 
 was fairly forward in studies, at public school somewhat backward, at 
 University suddenly took a liking to intellectual pursuits. Throughout 
 he was slack at games. Has never been able to learn to swim from 
 nervousness. Can whistle well. Has always been fond of reading, and 
 would like to have been an author by profession. He married at 24, and 
 has had two children, both of whom showed congenital physical ab- 
 normalities. 
 
 Before the age of 7 or 8 A. B. can remember various trifling in- 
 cidents. "One of the games I used to play with my sister," he writes, 
 "consisted in pretending we were 'father and mother* and were re- 
 lieving ourselves at the w. c. We would squat down in various 
 parts of the room, prolong the simulated act, and talk. I do not re- 
 member what our conversation was about, nor whether I had an erection. 
 
HISTOEIES OF SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT. 229 
 
 I used also to make water from a balcony into the garden, and in other 
 unusual places. 
 
 "The first occasion on which I can recollect experiencing sensa- 
 tions or emotions similar in character to later and more developed 
 feelings of desire was at the age of about 7 or 8, when I was a day- 
 boy at a large school in a country town and absolutely innocent as to 
 deed, thought, or knowledge. I fell in love with a boy with whom I 
 was brought in contact in my class, about my own age. I remember 
 thinking him pretty. He paid me no attention. I had no distinct de- 
 sire, except a wish to be near him, to touch him, and to kiss him. 
 I blushed if I suddenly saw him, and thought o£ hira when absent and 
 speculated on my chances of seeing him again. I was put into a state 
 cf high ecstasy when he invited me to join him and some friends one 
 summer evening in a game of rounders. 
 
 "At the age of 8 I was told by my father's groom where babies 
 came from and how they were produced. (I already knew the dif- 
 ference in sexual organs, as my sister and I were bathed in the same 
 room.) He told me no details about erection, semen, etc. Nor did he 
 take any liberties with me. I used to notice him urinating; he used 
 to push back the foreskin and I thought his penis large. 
 
 "When about 8 years old the nursemaid told me that the boy at 
 her last place had intercourse with his sister. I thought it disgusting. 
 About a year later I told the nurse I thought the story of Adam and 
 Eve was not true and that when Eve gave Adam the apple he had 
 intercourse with her and she was punished by having children. I 
 don't know if I had thought this out, or if it had been suggested to 
 me by others. This nurse used often to talk about my 'tassel.' 
 
 "A family of several brothers went to the same school with me, 
 and we used to indulge in dirty stories, chiefly, however, of the w. c. 
 type rather than sexual. 
 
 "When I was about 10 I learned much from my father's coachman. 
 He used to talk about the girls he had had intercourse with, and how 
 he would have liked this with my nursemaid. 
 
 "A year later I went to a large day school. I think most of the 
 boys, if not nearly all, were very ignorant and innocent in sexual 
 matters. The only incident in this connection I can recollect is asking 
 a, boy to let me see his penis; he did so. 
 
 "During the summer holidays, at a watering place I attended a 
 theatrical performance and fell in love with a girl of about 12 who 
 acted a part. I bought a photograph of her, which I kept and kissed 
 for several years after. About the same time I thought rather tenderly 
 of a girl of my own age whose parents knew mine. I remember feeling 
 that r should like to kiss her. Once I furtively touched her hair. 
 
230 APPENDIX B. 
 
 "When I was 12 I was sent to a small preparatory boarding school, 
 in the country. During the holidays I used to talk about sexual things 
 with my father's footman. He must have told me a good deal. I used 
 to have erections. One evening, when I was in bed and everyone else 
 out (my mother and the children in the country) he came up to my 
 room and tried to put his hand on my penis. I had been thinking of 
 sexual matters and had an erection. I resisted, but he persisted, and 
 when he succeeded in touching me I gave in. He then proceeded to mas- 
 turbate me. I sank back, overcome by the pleasant sensation. He 
 then stopped and I went on myself. In the meantime he had taken out 
 his penis and masturbated himself before me until the orgasm occurred. 
 I was disgusted at the sight of his large organ and the semen. He then 
 left me. I could hardly sleep from excitement. I felt I had been 
 initiated into a great and delightful mystery. 
 
 "I at once fell into the habit of masturbation. It was some 
 months before I could produce the orgasm; at about 13 a slight froth 
 came; at about 14 a little semen. I do not know how frequently I 
 did it — perhaps once or twice a week. I used to feel ashamed of my- 
 self afterward. I told the man I was doing it and he expressed sur- 
 prise I had not known about it before he told me. He warned me to 
 stop doing it or it would injure my health. I pretended later that I 
 had stopped doing it. 
 
 yi practiced solitary masturbation for some months. At first the 
 semen was small in amount and watery. 
 
 "I had not at this time ever succeeded in drawing the foreskin 
 below the 'corona.' After masturbation I would sometimes feel local 
 pain in the penis, sometimes pains in the testicles, and generally a feel- 
 ing of shame, but not, I think, any lassitude. The shame was a vague 
 sense of discomfort at having done what I knew others would regard 
 as dirty. I also experienced fears that I was injuring my health. 
 
 "It was not long before I found a few other boys at the preparatory 
 school with whom I talked of sexual things and in some cases pro- 
 ceeded to acts. The boys were between the ages of 9 and 14; they 
 left at 14 or 15 for tlie public schools. We slept in bedrooms — several 
 in one room. 
 
 "There was no general conversation on sexual matters. Few of 
 the boys knew anything about things — perhaps 7 or 8 out of 40. Be- 
 fore describing my experiences at the school I may mention that I cannot 
 remember having at this period any wish to experience heterosexual 
 intercourse; I knew as yet nothing of homosexual practices; and I did 
 not have, except in one case, any love or affection for any of the boys. 
 
 "One night, in my bedroom — there were about six of us — we were 
 talking till rather late. My recollection commences with being aware 
 that aU the boys were asleep except myself and one other, P. (the son 
 
HISTOEIES OF SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT. 231 
 
 of a clergyman), who was in a bed at exactly the opposite end 
 of the room. I suppose we must have been talking about this sort 
 of thing, for I vividly remember having an erection, and suddenly — as 
 if by premonition — getting out of my bed, and, with heart beating, go- 
 ing softly over to P.'s bed. He exhibited no surprise at my pres- 
 ence; a few whispered words took place; I placed my hand on his 
 penis, and found he had an erection. I started masturbating him, but 
 he said he had just finished. I then suggested getting into bed with 
 him. (I had never heard at that time of such a thing being done, the 
 idea arose spontaneously.) He said it was not safe, and placed his 
 hand on my penis, I think with the object of satisfying and getting rid 
 of me. He masturbated me till the orgasm occurred. 
 
 "I had no further relations with him, except on one occasion, 
 shortly afterward, when one day, in the w. c. he asked me to masturbate 
 him. I did so. He did not oflFer to do the same to me. 
 
 "He was a delicate, feeble boy; not good at work; womanish in 
 his ways; inclined to go in for petty bullying, until a boy showed 
 fight, when he discovered himself to be an arrant coward. Four or five 
 years later I met him at the university. His greeting was cool. My 
 next affair was with a boy who was about my age (13), strong, full- 
 blooded, coarse, always in 'hot water.' He was the son of the head- 
 master of one of the best-known public schools. It was reported 
 that two brothers had been expelled from this public school for what 
 we called 'beastliness.' He told me his older brother used to have 
 intercrural intercourse with him. This was the first I had heard of 
 this. We used to masturbate mutually. I had, however, no affection 
 or desire for him. 
 
 "With E., another boy, I had no relations, but I remember him 
 as the first person of the same sex for whom I experienced love. He 
 was a small, fair, thin, and . little boy, some two years younger 
 than myself, so my inferior in the social hierarchy of a school. 
 
 "At the end of my last term I had two disappointments. I was 
 beaten by a younger and clever boy for the first place in the school, and 
 also beaten by one point in the competition for the Athletic Cup by 
 a stronger boy who had only come to the school that very term. How- 
 ever, as a consolation prize, and as I was leaving, the headmaster 
 gave me a second prize. This soothed my hurt feelings, and I remem- 
 ber, just after the 'head' had read out the prizes, on the last day of 
 term, E., coming up to me, putting his arm on my shoulder, looking 
 at me rather pensively, and in a voice that thrilled me and made 
 me wish to kiss and hug him, tell me he was so glad I had got a 
 prize and that it was a shame that other chap had beaten me for 
 the cup. 
 
 "I was three years (aged 12 to 15) at the preparatory school. 
 I started in the bottom form and ended second in the school. My 
 
232 APPENDIX B. 
 
 reports were generally good, and I was keen to do well in work. I 
 was considerably influenced by the 'head.' He was a clergyman, but a 
 man of wide reading, broad opinion, great scholarship, and great en- 
 thusiasm. We became very friendly. 
 
 "During the holidays I now first practiced intercrural intercourse 
 with a younger brother. I started touching his penis, and causing 
 erections, when he was about 5. Afterward I got him to masturbate 
 me and I masturbated him; I used to get him into bed with me. On 
 one occasion I spontaneously (never having heard of such a thing) made 
 him take my penis in his mouth. 
 
 "This went on for several years. When I was about 16 and he 
 about 10, the old family nurse spoke to me about it. She told me 
 he had complained of my doing it. I was in great fear that my 
 parents might hear of it. I went to him; told him I was sorry, but I 
 had not understood he disliked it, but that I would not do it again. 
 
 "About a year later (having persisted in this promise) I made 
 overtures to him, but he refused. I then commended his conduct, and 
 said I knew he was quite right, and begged him to refuse again if I 
 should ever suggest it. I did not ever suggest it again. For many 
 years I bitterly reproached myself for having corrupted him. How- 
 ever, I do not think any harm has been done him. But my self- 
 reproaches have caused me to feel I owe some reparation to him. I 
 also have more affection for him than for my other brothers and sisters. 
 
 "At the age of 15 I went to one of the large public schools. I was 
 fairly forward for my age, and entered high. But I made small progress. 
 I had bad repoits; I was 'slack in games,' and not popular among 
 the boys. In fact, I stood still, so that when I left I was backward 
 in comparison with other boys of even less natural intelligence. 
 
 "The teaching was certainly bad. Moreover, I had not any friends, 
 and this made me very sensitive. It was to a great extent my fault. 
 When I first went there I was taken up by a set above me — ^boys 
 who were 'senior* to me in standing. When they left I found myself 
 alone. 
 
 "My unpopularity was increased by my being considered to put 
 on 'side'; also because I paid attention to my dress. 
 
 "At the public school I had homesexual relations with various 
 boys, usually without any passion. With one boy, however, I was deeply 
 in love for over a year; I thought of him, dreamed of him, would have 
 been content only to kiss him. But my courtship met with no success. 
 
 "When carrying on with other boys the desire to reach the crisis 
 was not always strong, perhaps out of shyness or modesty. Occasionally 
 I had intercrural connection, which gave me the first intimation of 
 what intercourse with a woman was like. When I masturbated in soli- 
 tude I used to continue till the orgasm. 
 
HISTORIES OF SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT. 233 
 
 "My housemaster one day sent for me and said he had walked 
 through my cubicle and noticed a stain on the sheet. At this time I 
 used to have nocturnal emissions. I cannot remember whether on this 
 occasion the stain was due to one, or to masturbation. But I imagined 
 that one did not have 'wet dreams' unless one masturbated. So when 
 he went on to say that this was a proof that I was immoral I acknowl- 
 edged I masturbated. He then told me I would injure my health — pos- 
 sibly 'weaken my heart/ or 'send myself mad'; he said that he would 
 ask me to promise never to do it again. 
 
 "I promised. I left humiliated and ashamed of myself; also gen- 
 erally frightened. He used to send for me every now and then, and 
 ask me if I had kept my promise. For some months I did. Then I 
 relapsed, and told him when he asked me. Ultimately he ceased send- 
 ing for me — apparently convinced either that I was cured or that I was 
 incorrigible. 
 
 "A year or so afterward he discovered in my study (for I was now 
 in the upper school and had a study) a French photograph that a boy 
 had given me, entitled 'Qui est dans ma chambreV It represented a 
 man going by mistake into the wrong bedroom; inside the room was a 
 woman, in nightdress, in an attitude that suggested she had just been 
 relieving herself. My housemaster told me the picture was terribly 
 indecent, and that, taken with what he knew of my habits, it showed 
 I was not a safe boy to be in the school. He added that he did not 
 wish to make trouble at home, but that he advised me to get my parents 
 to remove me at the end of that term, instead of the following term, 
 when, in the ordinary course of things, I should have left. 
 
 "I wrote to my people to say I was miserable at school, and I was 
 removed at the end of that term. 
 
 "My first case of true heterosexual passion was with a girl called 
 D., whom I first knew when she was about 16. My family and hers 
 were friendly. My attraction to her soon became a matter of com- 
 mon knowledge and joking to members of my family. She was a dark, 
 passionate-looking child, with large eyes that — to me — seemed full of 
 an inner knowledge of sexual mysteries. Precocious, vain, jealous, un- 
 truthful — ^those were qualities in her that I myself soon recognized. 
 But the very fact that she was not conventionally 'goody-goody' proved 
 an attraction to me. 
 
 "I never openly made love to her, but I delighted to be near her. 
 Our ages were sufficiently separated for this to be noticeable. I dreamed 
 of her, and my highest ideal of blesse'dness was to kiss her and 
 tell her I loved her. I heard that she had been discovered talking in- 
 decently in a w. e. to some little boys, sons of a friend of my family's. 
 The knowledge of this precocity on her part intensified my fascination 
 for her. 
 
234 APPENDIX B. 
 
 "When I left home to return to school I kissed her— the only time. 
 Absence did nothing to diminish my affection. I thought of her all 
 day long, at work or at play. I wrote her a letter — ^not openly passion- 
 ate, but my real feelings toward her must have been apparent. I found 
 out afterward that her mother opened the letter. 
 
 "When I returned home for the holidays her mother asked me not 
 to write her any letters and not to pay attentions to her, as I might 
 'spoil her.' I promised. I was, of course, greatly distressed. 
 
 "D. used to come to our house to see my younger sister. She had 
 clearly been warned by .her mother not to allow me to speak to her. 
 I was too nervous to make any advances; besides, I had promised. 
 As I grew older, my passion died out. I have hardly ever seen her since. 
 She married some years ago. I still retain sentimental feelings toward 
 her. 
 
 "I was now 18; I had stopped growing and was fairly broad and 
 healthy. Intellectually I was rather precocious, though not ambitious. 
 But I was no good at games, had no tastes for physical exercises, 
 and no hobbies. 
 
 "During the holidays, in my last year at school, I had gone to the 
 Royal Aquarium with a, school companion. This was followed by one 
 or two visits to the Empire Theatre. It was then that I first discov- 
 ered that sexual intercourse took place outside the limits of mar- 
 ried life. On one occasion my friend talked to one of the women who 
 were walking about. This same friend spoke to a prostitute at Oxford. 
 (At this time I went up to the university.) Once or twice I met this 
 girl. She used to ask about my friend. My feelings toward her were a 
 combination of admiration for her physical beauty, a sense of the 
 'mystery' of her life, and pity for her isolated position. 
 
 "On the whole, my first university term produced considerable im- 
 provement in me. I began to be interested in my work and to read a 
 fair amount of general literature. I learned to bicycle and to row. I 
 also made one intimate friend. 
 
 "In my first holiday I went to the Empire and made the acquaint- 
 ance of a girl there, W. H. She attracted me by her quiet appearance. I 
 eventually made arrangements to pay her a visit. My apprehensions con- 
 sisted of: 1. Fear of catching venereal disease. This I decided to 
 safeguard by using a 'French letter.' 2. Fear that she might have a 
 'bully.' 
 
 "The girl showed no sexual desire; but at that time this did not 
 attract my attention. 
 
 "I got very much 'gone' on her, paid her several visits, gave her 
 some presents I could ill afford, and felt very distressed when she in- 
 formed me she was to be married and therefore could not see me any 
 more. 
 
HISTOHIES OF SEXUAL DETELOPMENT. 235 
 
 "My experiences with prostitutes cover a period of twelve years. 
 During three years of this period I was continually in their company. 
 I have had intercourse with some two dozen; in some cases only once; 
 in others on numerous occasions. They have usually been of the class 
 that frequent Piccadilly, St. James Restaurant, the Continental Hotel, 
 and the Dancing Clubs. Usual fee, £2 for the night; in one 
 case, £5. ' 
 
 "1. Not one of them, as far as I knew, was a drunkard. 
 
 "2. As a rule, they were not mercenary or dishonest. 
 
 "3. In their language and general behavior they compared favor- 
 ably with respectable women. 
 
 "4. I never caught venereal disease. 
 
 "5. I twice caught pediculi. 
 
 "6. I did not find them, as a rule, very sensual or fond of indecent 
 talk. As a rule, they objected to stripping naked; they did not touch 
 my organs; they did not suggest masturbation, sodomy, or fellatio. 
 They seldom exhibited transports, but the better among them seemed 
 sentimental and affectionate. 
 
 "7. Their accounts of their first fall were nearly always the same. 
 They got to know a 'gentleman,' often by his addressing them in the 
 street; he took them about to dinners and theatres; they were quite 
 innocent and even ignorant; on one occasion they drank too much; 
 and before they knew what was happening they were no longer virgins. 
 They do not, however, apparently round on the man or expose him or 
 refuse to have anything more to do with him. 
 
 "8. They state — in common with the outwardly 'respectable' 
 women whom I have had a chance of catechising — that before the first 
 intercourse they did not feel any conscious desire for intercourse and 
 hardly devoted any thought to it, that it was very painful the first 
 time, and that some time elapsed before they commenced to derive 
 pleasure from it or to experience the orgasm. 
 
 "E. B. was the second woman I had intercourse with. She was a 
 prostitute, but very young (about 18) and had only been in London 
 a few months. I met her first in the St. James Restaurant. I spoke a 
 few words to her. The next day I saw her in the Burlington Arcade. I 
 was not much attracted to her; she was pretty, in a coarse, buxom 
 style; vulgar in manners, voice, and dress. She asked me to go home 
 with her; I refused. She pressed me; I said I had no money. She still 
 urged me, just to drive home with her and talk to her while she dressed 
 for the evening. I consented. We drove to lodgings in Albany Street. 
 We went in. She proceeded to kiss me. I remained cold, and told her 
 again I had no money. She then said: "EJiat does not matter. You 
 remind me of a boy I love. I want you iS^J^ my fancy boy.' I was 
 flattered by this. I saw a good deal of her. She was sentimental. I 
 
236 APPENDIX B. 
 
 never gave her any money. When I had some, she refused to take it, 
 but allowed me to spend a little in buying her a present. On the 
 night before I left London she wept. She v^rote me illiterate, but 
 affectionate letters. One day she wrote to me that she was to be 
 kept by a man, but that she had made it a condition with him that 
 she should be allowed to have me. I had never been in love with 
 her, because of her vulgarity. I therefore took the earliest oppor- 
 tunity of letting matters cool, by not writing often, etc. The next 
 thing I remember was my fascination, a few months later, for S. H. 
 
 "She was not a regular prostitute. She had taken a very minor 
 part in light opera. She was American by birth, young, slim, and spoke 
 like a lady. Her hair was dyed; her breasts padded. She acted senti- 
 ment, but was less affectionate than E. B. I met her when she was out 
 of a job. I gave her £2 whenever I met her. She was not mercenary. 
 She was sensual. I became very much in love with her. I discovered 
 her, however, writing letters to a fellow whom I had met one day when 
 I was walking with her. He was only an acquaintance, but the brother 
 of my most intimate friend. What I objected to was that in this 
 letter to him she protested she did not care for me, but could not afford 
 to give me up. She had to plead guilty, but 1 was so fascinated by her 
 I still kept in with her, for a time, until she was kept by a man, and I 
 had found other women to interest me. 
 
 "Owing to the strict regulations made by the university authori- 
 ties, prostitutes find it hard to make a living there, and I never had 
 anything to do with one. My adventures were among the shop- 
 girl class, and were of a comparatively innocent nature. One of them, 
 however, M. S., a very undemonstrative shopgirl, was the only girl not 
 a prostitute with whom I had so far had intercourse. 
 
 "About this time I made the acquaintance of three other prosti- 
 tutes, who, however, were nice, gentle, quiet girls, neither vulgar nor 
 mercenary. A night passed with them always meant to me much more 
 than mere intercourse. They were — especially two of them — of a senti- 
 mental nature, and would go to sleep in my arms. There was, on my 
 part, not any passion, but a certain sympathy with them, and pity 
 and affection. I remained faithful to. the first, J. H., until she was 
 kept by a man, and gave up her gentlemen friends. Then came D. V. 
 She got in the family way and left London. Last, M. P. She was not 
 pretty, but a good figure, well dressed, a bright conversationalist, and 
 an intelligent mind. Her regular price for the night was £5, but when 
 she got to know one she would take one for less and take one 'on 
 tick.' She was very sensual. On one occasion, between 11 p.m. and 
 about midday the following day I experienced the orgasm eleven or 
 twelve times. 
 
HISTOKIES OP SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT. 237 
 
 "During term time I was often prevented from having women by 
 want of money and absence from London. I considered myself lucky 
 if I could have a woman once or twice a month. My allowance was 
 not large enough to admit of such luxuries; and I was only able 
 to do what I did by being economical in my general expenditure 
 and living, and by running up bills for whatever I could get on 
 credit. I lived in the hopes of picking up 'amateurs' who would give 
 me what I wanted for the love of it and without payment. My 
 efforts were not very successful at present, except in the case of 
 M. S. I considered myself very lucky in having discovered her, and I 
 should have stuck to her for longer but for the rival attraction of 
 another. There was, however, no deep" sentiment on either side. 
 
 "But in order to preserve a continuity in my account of the 
 women, I have left out two cases of temporary reversion to homo- 
 sexual practices. During the periods when I could not get a woman 
 I had recourse once more to masturbation. At times I had 'wet dreams' 
 in which boys figured; and my thoughts, in waking hours, sometimes 
 reverted to memories of my school experiences. I think, however, that 
 I should have preferred a woman." 
 
 The homosexual reversions were as follows: — 
 "1. 1 had arranged to meet a shopgirl one evening, outside the town. 
 She did not turn up. The meeting place was a railway bridge. Wait- 
 ing there too, a few feet from me, was a boy of about 15. He was em- 
 ployed (I afterward found) by a gardener, and was waiting to meet his 
 brother, who was engaged on the line. I got into casual conversation 
 mth him, and suddenly found myself wondering whether he ever mas- 
 turbated. With a feeling, that I can only describe by calling it an in- 
 tuition, I moved nearer him, and asked: "Do you ever play with your- 
 self?' He did not seem surprised at the abruptness of my question, 
 and answered 'yes.' I thereupon touched his penis, and found he had 
 an erection I I suggested retiring to a bench that was near. We sat 
 down. I masturbated him till he experienced the orgasm; then inter- 
 crtirally. I gave him a shilling, and said good night. 
 
 "2. During my last summer at the university I took to gardening. 
 There was a small piece of garden behind the house in which I had lodg- 
 ings. My landlady suggested getting a cousin of hers, employed by a 
 nurseryman, to supply me- with plants, etc. He was a youth of about 16 
 or 17, tall, dark, not bad favored in looks. I forget how many times I 
 saw him — ^not many, perhaps twice or thrice; but one day, when he 
 came to see me in my room, about something connected with the garden, 
 I gave him some old clothes of mine. He was a great deal taller than 
 myself, and I suggested his trying on the trousers to see if they would 
 fit. I do not know whether I made this suggestion with any ulterior 
 motive or whether I had ever before thought of him in connection with 
 
238 APPENDIX B. 
 
 any sexual relations. I only know that once more, as if guided ty in- 
 stinct, I felt he would not rebuff me, although certainly no indecent 
 talk had ever taken place between us. I pretended to help him to 
 pull up the trousers, and let my hand touch his penis. He did not re- 
 sist; and I felt his penis for a few seconds. I then proposed he should 
 come upstairs to my bedroom. No one was in the house. We went up. 
 He did not at first have an erection. I asked why. He said 'because 
 you are strange to me.' He then felt my penis. Eventually we mutually 
 masturbated one another. I gave him half a crown. 
 
 "Some short time afterward he came again to the house. On this 
 occasion I attempted fellatio, I don't think I had at that time ever 
 heard of such a practice. He said, however, he did not like it. He 
 masturbated interenirally. He said he had never done this before, al- 
 though he had had girls. (The other boy also told me he had had 
 girls.) 
 
 "3. On another occasion I was out bicycling. A boy, of about 10 
 years of age, offered me a bunch of violets for a penny. I told him I 
 would give him a shilling to pick me a large bunch. I am not sure if I 
 had any ulterior motive. He proceeded into a. wood on the side of the 
 road; I dismounted from my machine and followed him. He was a 
 pretty, dark boy. He made water. I went up to him and asked him to 
 let me feel his penis. He at once jumped away, and ran off shrieking. 
 I was frightened, mounted my bicycle, and rode as fast as I could home. 
 
 "There was no sentiment in the above cases. It is also to be noted 
 that in neither instance did I make any arrangements to see the person 
 again. As far as I can remember, when once I was satisfied I felt dis- 
 gust for my act. In the case of women this was never so. 
 
 "Two of the women described in the foregoing pages stand out 
 above the others. Perhaps I have not sufliciently shown that in the 
 cases of W. H. and S. H. I felt a considerable degree of pasHon. W. H. 
 was the first woman with whom I had had intercourse; this invested her 
 in my heart, with a peculiar sentiment. In neither case can I be accused 
 of fickleness. Indeed, I may say that up to this time I had had no 
 opportunity of being fickle. I never saw enough, or had enough, of 
 a woman to get a surfeit of her. 
 
 "The case I now come to presents the features of the cases of W. 
 H. and S. H. in a stronger form. I was then 20; I have since then mar- 
 ried; I am a father; my experiences have been many and varied; but 
 still I must confess that no other woman has ever stirred my emotions 
 more than — I doubt if as much as — D. C. Up to date, if there has been 
 any grand passion in my life, it is my love for her. D. C, when I got 
 to know her — by talking to her in the street- — ^was a girl of about 20. 
 She was short and plump; dark hair; dark, mischievous eyes; a fair 
 complexion; small features; quiet manners, and a sensual ensemble. I 
 
HISTOniES OF SEHTAL DEVEtOPMEXT. 239 
 
 do not know -wliat her father wa*. He was dead, her mother kept a 
 university lodging house. She spoke and behaved like a lady, blie 
 dressed quietly; was absolutdy unmercenary; her iBtelUgenee— <.£, her 
 intellectual calibre — was not great. Her master-paeeion was one thing. 
 The first evening I walked out with her she put her hand down on my 
 penis, before I had even kissed her, and proposed intercourse. I was 
 surprised, almost embarrassed; she herself led me to a wall, and stand- 
 ing up made me do it. 
 
 "Next day. we went away for -the day together. I may say she 
 was alicau* ready and never satisfied. She was sensual rather than 
 sentimental. She was ready to shower her favors anywhere and 
 to anyone. My feelings toward her soon became affectionate and sen- 
 timental, and then passionate. I thought of nothing else all day long; 
 wrote her long letters daily; simply lived to see her. 
 
 "I found she was engaged to be married. Her Hand, a school- 
 master, himself used to have intercourse with her, but he had taken a 
 religious turn and thought it was wicked to do it until they married. 
 I had intercourse with her on every possible occasion: in private rooms 
 at hotels, in railway carriages, in a field, against a wall, and — ^when the 
 holidays came — she stayed a night with me in London. She had ap- 
 parently no fear of getting in the family way, and never used any pre- 
 cai^tian. Sensual as she was, she did not show her feelings hy outward 
 demonstration. 
 
 "On one occasion she proposed fellatio. S]fe said she had done it 
 taJier fland and liked it. This is the only case I have known of a 
 woman wishing to do it for the love of it. 
 
 "The emotional tension on my nerves — the continual jealousy 
 I was in, the knowledge that before long she would marry and we 
 must part— eventually caused me to get ill. She never told me she 
 loved me more than any other man ; yet, owing to my importunity, she 
 saw nnidi more of me than anyone else. It came to the ears of her 
 fiand tfist she was in my company a great deal; there was a meeting 
 of the three of na — convened at his wish — at whi^ she bad formally, 
 before him, to say 'good-bye' to me. Yet we still continued to meet 
 and to hsve intercourse. 
 
 Tbea the date of her marriage drew near. She wrote me sayii^ that 
 ■he cbnld not see me any more. I forced myself, however, on her, and 
 our relation* still continued. Her elder sister interviewed me and said 
 she would inform the authorities unless I gave her up; a brother, too, 
 came yt wtt rat and made a row. 
 
 *I li»d what I seriously intended to be a last meeting with her. 
 But after that she came up to London to see me, we went to a hotel 
 together. We arranged to see one another agiun, but she did not write. 
 I had now left the university. I heard she- was married. 
 
HISTORIES OF SBXtTAL DEVELOPMENT. 241 
 
 covered, the interest in me was less purely platonic. Our relations toward 
 one another were absolutely correct. Yet we were intimate, informal, 
 and talked on subjects that would be considered forbidden topics be- 
 tween two young persons by most people. I felt she was a true friend. 
 She, too, confided to me her troubles. 
 
 "We corresponded with one another frequently. Sometimes it oc- 
 curred to me that it was rather strange she should be so keen to write to 
 me, to hear from me, and to see me; but I had never thought of her, con- 
 sciously, except as a friend ; I never for a moment imagined she thought 
 of me except as an interesting and intelligent friend. Nor did the idea 
 of illicit love ever suggest itself to me. She was one of those women 
 whose face and expression put aside any such thought. I was, indeed, 
 inclined to regard her as a good influence on me, but as passionless. I 
 confided to her the afi'air of D. C, which took place during our ac- 
 quaintance. She was distressed, but sympathetic and not prudish. I 
 did not suspect the cause of her distress; I thought it was owing to her 
 disappointment in the ideals she had formed of me. She invited me to 
 join her and her family for a part of the summer (I had now left the uni- 
 versity, having obtained my degree in low honors) and I decided to join 
 them. At this stage there began to impress itself on my mind the possi- 
 bility that she cared for me; also the desirability, if that were so, of 
 becoming engaged to her. I found my feelings became warmer. On 
 several occasions we found ourselves alone. Then, one day, our talk 
 became more personal, more tender; and I kissed her. I do recollect 
 distinctly the thought flashing through my mind, as she allowed me to 
 kiss her, that she was not after all the passionless and 'straight' girl 
 I had thought. But the idea must have been a very temporary one; 
 it did not return; she declared her love for me; and without any express 
 'proposal' on my part we walked home that afternoon mutually taking 
 ■ it for granted that we were engaged. I was happy, and calmly happy; 
 proud and elated. 
 
 "Circumstances now made it necessary for me to make money for 
 myself and I was forced to enter a profession for which I had never 
 felt any attraction; indeed, I had never considered the possibility of it, 
 until I became engaged, and saw I must support myself if I were ever 
 to marry. I worked hard, and rapidly improved my position. 
 
 "I think I am correct in stating that from the day I became en- 
 gaged my sexual troubles seemed to have ceased. My thoughts and 
 passions were centred on one woman. We wrote to one another twice 
 every week, and as far as I was concerned every thought and feeling 
 I had I told her, and the receipt of her letters was for me the event of 
 my life for nearly three years. My anxiety in connection with my 
 work used up a great deal of my energy, and, although I looked forward 
 
242 APPENDIX B. 
 
 to the time when I should have a woman at my side every night, my 
 sexual desires were in abeyance. Nor did I feel any desire or tempta- 
 tion for other women. 
 
 "I masturbated, but not frequently. Generally I did it to the ac- 
 companiment of images or scenes associated with my betrothed, some- 
 times the act was purely auto-erotic. My leisure time was devoted to 
 reading. 
 
 "On only one occasion did I have intercourse with a woman dur- 
 ing my engagement (three years) ; it was with a girl whose acquaintance 
 I had made at the university and who asked me to come to see her. 
 
 "I married at the age of 24. Looking back on the early days of 
 my married life it is now a, matter of surprise to me that I was so 
 far from exhibiting the transports of passion which since then have 
 accompanied any intercourse with a new woman. Partly I was fright- 
 ened of shocking her; partly my three years of comparative abstinence 
 had chastened me. It was some weeks before I ever saw my wife en- 
 tirely naked; I never touched her parts with my hand for many 
 months; and after the first few weeks I did not have intercourse with 
 her frequently. 
 
 "Perhaps this was to be expected. The basis of my affection for 
 her had always been a moral or mental one rather than physical, al- 
 though she was a handsome, well-made girl. Besides, money and other 
 worries kept my thoughts busy, ■ as well as struggles to make both ends 
 meet. 
 
 "Indeed, I may say my sexual nature seemed to be dying out. 
 When I had been married less than six months I discovered that sexual 
 intercourse with my wife no longer meant what sexual intercourse used 
 to mean — no excitement or exaltation or ecstasy. My wife perhaps 
 contributed to this by her attitude. She confessed afterward to me 
 that for the first week or so she positively dreaded bedtime, so physically 
 painful was intercourse to her; that it was many weeks, if not months, 
 before she experienced the orgasm. For the first year and more, of mar- 
 riage she could not endure touching my penis. This at first disap- 
 pointed me; then annoyed and finally almost disgusted me. 
 
 "Later on, she learned to experience the orgasm. But she was 
 very undemonstrative during the act, and it was seldom that the orgasm 
 occurred simultaneously; she took a much longer time. 
 
 "I ceased to think about sexual matters. When I had been mar- 
 ried about three years I was aware that, in my case, marriage meant 
 the loss of all mad ecstasy in the act. I knew that if I had no 
 work to do, and plenty of money, and temptation came my way, I 
 should like to have another woman. But there was no particular wo- 
 man to enchain my fancy and I did not have time or money or in- 
 clination to hunt for one. 
 
HISTOETES OF SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT. 243 
 
 "A,t times I masturbated. Sometimes I did this to the accom- 
 paniment of homosexual desires or memories of the past. Then I got 
 my wife to masturbate me. 
 
 "About four years after my marriage I got a woman from Picca- 
 dilly Circus to do fellatio. I had never had this done before. She did 
 not do it genuinely, but used her fingers. 
 
 "As stated above various anxieties, the fact that I could always 
 satisfy my physical desires, all served to calm me. I was also in- 
 terested in my work and had become ambitious to improve my posi- 
 tion and was very energetic. 
 
 "On the whole, notwithstanding money worries, the first four or 
 five years of my married life were the happiest in my life. Certainly 1 
 was very free from sexual desires; and the general effect of marriage 
 was to make me economical, energetic, ambitious, and unselfish. I was 
 certainly overworked. I seldom got to bed before 1 or 2; my meals 
 were irregular; and I became worried and nervous. At the beginning 
 of my fifth year of married life I got run down, and had a severe illness, 
 and at one time my life was in danger, but I had a fairly rapid con- 
 valescence. 
 
 "My illness was critical, in more senses than one. My conva- 
 lescence was accompanied by a remarkable recrudescence of my sexual 
 feelings. I will trace this in detail: 1. As I got well — but while still 
 in bed — I found myself experiencing, almost continually, violent erec- 
 tions. These were at first of an auto-erotic character, and I mastur- 
 bated myself, thus gaining relief to my nerves. 2. I also found my 
 thoughts tending toward sexual images, and I felt a desire toward my 
 nurse. I first became conscious of this when I noticed that I ex- 
 perienced an erection during the time that she was washing me. I 
 mentioned the matter to my doctor, who told me not to worry, and 
 said the symptoms were usual in the circumstances. 3. When I got 
 up and about I found myself desiring very keenly to have intercourse 
 with my wife. I can almost say that I felt more sexually excited than 
 I had done for four or five years. As soon, however, as I had had in- 
 tercourse with my wife a few times I felt my desire toward her cease. 
 4. My thoughts now centered on having a woman to do fellatio, and 
 as soon as I was well enough to go out I got a prostitute to do this. 
 
 "Just before I was ill my wife had a child, which was bom with 
 more than one abnormality. No doubt the shock and worry caused 
 by this got me into a low state and predisposed me to my illness. But 
 the consequences were farther reaching still. The child underwent an 
 operation, and my wife had to take her away into the country for 
 nearly six weeks, so as to give her better air. I was left alone in 
 London, for the first time since my marriage. The worry in connec- 
 tion with the child, and the heavy expenses, served to keep me nerv- 
 
244 APPENDIX B. 
 
 ously upset after I had apparently recovered physically from the illness. 
 Once more I found myself thinking about women. As an addi- 
 tional factor in the situation I became friendly with an old college- 
 chum whom I had not seen much of for many years. He lived the 
 life of a tashionable young bachelor and was at the time keeping a 
 woman. The only common interest between us was women. I found 
 myself reverting to the old condition of rampant lust that had been 
 such a, curse to me in my university days. Some books he lent me had 
 a decided effect. They gave me erections; and it was on top of the 
 excitement thus engendered that one day I got a woman to do fellatio, 
 as already mentioned. Moreover, since my illness, I found all my pre- 
 vious energy and ambition had gone. 
 
 "I have stated that I was in London alone with two servants. The 
 housemaid was a young girl; nice looking, with beautiful eyes and a 
 sensual expression. She had been with us for about a year. I can- 
 not remember when I first thought of her in a sexual way. But one 
 evening I suddenly felt a, desire for her. I talked to her; I found 
 my voice trembling; I let my hand, as if by accident, touch hers; she 
 did not withdraw it; and in a second I had kissed her. She did not 
 resist. I took her on my knee, and tried to take liberties, which she 
 resisted, and I desisted. 
 
 "Next day I kissed her again, and put my hand inside her breasts. 
 The same evening I took her to an exhibition. On the way home, in a 
 hansom cab, I made her masturbate me. This was followed by a, feel- 
 ing of great relief, elation, and pride. 
 
 "Next morning, when she came up to my bedroom to call me, 
 I kissed and embraced her; she allowed me to take liberties, and, reas- 
 suring her by saying I would use a preventive, I had intercourse with 
 her. She flinched somewhat. She then told me she was at her period 
 and that she had never had intercourse with a man before. 
 
 "During the next few weeks I found her an adept pupil, though 
 always shy and undemonstrative. I took her to a hotel, and experienced 
 the intensest pleasure I had ever had in undressing her. I had lately 
 heard about cunnilingus. I now did it to her. I soon found I experi- 
 enced very great pleasure in this, as did she. (I had attempted it 
 with my wife, but found it disgusted me.) I also had intercourse per 
 anum. (This again was an act I had heard about, but had never been 
 able to regard as pleasurable. But books I had been reading stated it 
 was most pleasant both to man and woman.) She resisted at first, find- 
 ing it hurt her much; it excited me greatly; and when I had done it 
 in this way several times she herself seemed to like it, especially if I 
 kept my hand on her clitoris at the same time. 
 
 "My relations with the housemaid, with whom I cannot pretend 
 that I was in love, were only put an end to by satiety, and when I 
 
HISTORIES OF SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT. 245 
 
 went away for my holidays I was utterly exhausted. This was, how- 
 ever, only the first of a series of relationships, at least one of which 
 deeply stirred my emotional nature. These experiences, however, it is 
 unnecessary to detail. There have also been occasional homosexual 
 episodes. 
 
 "I think I am now in a much healthier condition than I have been 
 for some years. (I assume that it is not healthy for all one's thoughts 
 to be always occupied on sexual subjects.) The conclusion I come to is 
 that I can live a normal, healthy life, devoting my thoughts to my work, 
 and finding pleasure in friendship, in my children, in reading, and in 
 other sources of amusement, as long as I can have occasional relations 
 with a young girl — i.e., about once a week. But if this outlet for my 
 sexual emotions is stopped sexual thoughts obsess my brain; I become 
 both useless and miserable. 
 
 "I have never regretted my marriage. Not only do I feel that 
 life without a wife and home and children would be miserable, but I en- 
 tertain feelings of great affection toward my wife. We are well suited 
 to one another; she is a woman of character and intelligence; she 
 looks after my home well, is a sensible and devoted mother, and 
 understands me. I have never met a woman I would have sooner mar- 
 ried. We have many tastes and likings in common, and — what is not 
 possible with most women — I can, as a rule, speak to her about my 
 feelings and find a listener who understands. 
 
 "On the other hand, all passion and sentiment have died out. It 
 seems to me that this is inevitable. Perhaps it is a good thing this 
 should be so. If men and women remained in the state of erotic ex- 
 citement they are in when they marry, the business and work of the 
 world would go hang. Unfortunately, in my ease this very erotic ex- 
 citement is the chief thing in life that appeals to me! 
 
 "The factors that in my case have produced this death of passion 
 and sentiment are as follows: — 
 
 "1. Familiarity. When one is continually in the company of a 
 person all novelty dies out. In the case of husband and wife, the 
 husband sees his wife every day; at all times and seasons; dressed, 
 undressed; ill; good tempered, bad tempered. He sees her wash and 
 perform other functions; he sees her naked whenever he likes; he can 
 have intercourse with her whenever he feels inclined. How can love (as 
 I use the expression — i.e., sexual passion) continue? 
 
 "2. Satiety. I am of a 'hot,' sensual disposition, inclined to ex- 
 cess, as far as my health and nerves are concerned. The appetite gets 
 jaded. 
 
 "3. Absence of strong sexual reciprocity on the part of my wife. 
 I have referred to this above. She likes intercourse, but she is never 
 outwardly demonstrative. She has naturally a chaste mind. She never 
 
246 APPENDIX B. 
 
 is guilty of those little indecencies which affect some men a great deal. 
 She does not like talking of these things; and she tells me that if I 
 died, she would never want to have intercourse again with anyone. At 
 times, especially recently, she has even asked me to have intercourse 
 with her, or to masturbate her; but it is seldom that the orgasm occurs 
 contemporaneously. In this respect she is different from other women 
 I knew, in whom the mere fact that the orgasm was occurring in me 
 at once produced it in them. At the same time I doubt whether even 
 strong sexual reciprocity would have retained my passion for long. 
 
 "4. During the early years of our married life money worries 
 caused at times disagreements, reproaches and quarrels. Passion and 
 sentiment are fragile and cannot stand these things. 
 
 "5. The fact that I had already had other women diminished the 
 feeling of awe with which many regard the. sexual act and the viola- 
 tion of sexual conventions. 
 
 "6. Loss of beauty. Loss of figure is, I fear, inseparable from 
 childbearing especially if the woman works hard. We have always had 
 servants, still my wife has always worked hard, at sewing, etc. 
 
 "I have stated that I entertain feelings of respect and admira- 
 tion for my wife. But I almost loathe the idea of intercourse with her. 
 I would sooner masturbate, and think of another woman than have 
 intercourse with her. It causes nausea in me to touch her private 
 parts. Yet with other women it affords me mad pleasure to kiss them, 
 every part of their bodies. But my wife still feels for me the love she 
 had when we first married. There lies the tragedy." 
 
 The following narrative is a continuation of History XII 
 in the previous volume : — 
 
 History III. — I had become good looking. For a time I knew 
 what it was to have loving looks from every woman I met, and 
 being saner and healthier I would seem to be moving in a divine at- 
 mosphere of color and fragrance, pearly teeth and bright eyes. Even 
 the old women with daughters looked at me amiably — married women 
 with challenge and maidens with Paradise in their eyes. 
 
 "I was standing one morning at St. Peter's corner, with two young 
 friends, when a girl went by, coming over from the Roman Catholic 
 cathedral. When she had passed she looked back, with that imperious 
 swing that is almost a command, at me, as my friends distinctly ad- 
 mitted. They advised me to follow her; I did so, and she turned a 
 prettyi blushing face and pair of dark gi'ay eyes, with just the kind 
 of eyebrows I liked: brown, very level, rather thick, but long. Her 
 teeth and mouth were perfect, and she spoke with a slight Irish 
 brogue. She let me do all the talking whUe she took my measure. 
 
HISTOEIES OF SEXUAL BEVELOPMENT. 247 
 
 God knows what she saw in me! I spoke in an affected manner, I re- 
 member, imitating some swell character I had seen on the stage a 
 night or two before, but I was wise enough not to talk too much and 
 to behave myself. She promised to meet me again and made the ap- 
 pointment. She was a school-teacher and engaged to be married to 
 some one else. She meant to amuse herself her own way before she 
 married. The second night I met her she allowed me to kiss her as 
 much as I liked and promised all her favors for the third night. We 
 took a long walk, and in the dark she gave herself to me, but I 
 hurt her so much I had to stop two or three times. She had had con- 
 nection only once, years before, when at school herself. She was in- 
 clined to be sensual, but she was young, fresh, and pretty, and her 
 kisses turned my head. I fell genuinely in love with her and told her 
 so, one night when she was particularly fascinating, with the tears in 
 my eyes; and her face met mine with equal love. The first night or 
 two I had felt no pleasure — whether through years of self-abuse or not 
 I do not know, — but this night my whole being was excited. I met 
 her once and sometimes twice a week and was always thinking of her. 
 My sister saw me looking love-sick one day and I heard her say 'He's 
 in love,' which rather flattered me, and I looked more love-sick and 
 idiotic than ever. It was all wrong and pei-verted. She continued to 
 meet her flanci, and intended to marry him. We both spoke of 'him' 
 as an adultress speaks of her hvisband. That high level of tears and 
 childlike joy in our youth and love was never reached again. But I 
 realized her sex, her kisses, her presence — after all those years of horror 
 (if she had only known) — more even than the sexual act itself; while 
 she, as time went on, commenced to show a curiosity which I thought 
 desecrating; she liked to examine — to 'let her hand stray,' were her 
 words. Even her beauty seemed impaired some nights and I caught a 
 gleam in her eye and a curve of her lip I thought vulgar. But per- 
 haps the next night I met her she would be as bright as ever. 
 
 "I introduced her to my friends, who knew our relations, for I 
 blabbed everything. But she did not mind their knowing and if we 
 met would give them all a kiss, so that I felt I had been rather too 
 profuse in my hospitality, though I still would say: 'Have another one, 
 Bert; I don't mind.' But whatever ass I made of myself she' forgave 
 me anything, and was fonder of me every time we met, while I, al- 
 though I did not know it for a long time, was less fond of her. 
 She knew how to revive my love, however. Some nights she would 
 not meet me, and I would be like a madman. Other nights she would 
 meet me, but not let me raise her dress. She would lie on me, on a 
 moonlit night, and her young face in shadow like a siren's in its 
 frame of hair, merely to kiss me. But what kisses! Slow, cold kisses 
 changing to clinging, passionate ones. She would leave my mouth to 
 
248 APPENDIX B, 
 
 look around, as if frightened, and come back, open-mouthed, with a 
 side-contact of lips that brought out unexpected felicities. 
 
 "One night her Hanoi saw us together, and followed me after I 
 left her, but on turning a corner I ran. I ridiculed him to her and 
 despised him. I should have found it difficult to say why. Another 
 night her brother attacked me, and it would have gone hard with me, 
 but Anne pulled me in and banged the door. We were in a friend's 
 house, but her father came around soon and laid a stick about her 
 shoulders, in my presence. I tried to talk big, and said something 
 idiotic about being as good a man as her betrothed, as though my in- 
 tentions were honorable, which for one brief moment made Anne look 
 at me, paler faced and changed, such a strange glance. But he beat 
 her home, enjoying my rage, and she went away, crying in her hands. 
 I was allowed to go unmolested. 
 
 "I soon received a letter from her asking me not to mind and 
 making an appointment, at which she turned up cheerful and un- 
 concerned. She went to confession, and would meet me afterwards; 
 and her faith in that, and the difference of our religions (if I had any 
 religion) would make her seem strange and alien to me at times, even 
 banal. At last our meetings became a mere habit of sensuality, with 
 all charm, and suggestion of better things eliminated. . . , 
 
 "I went with my friend George (who shared my room) one after- 
 noon and called at Annie's school; she kept an infants' school of her 
 own. She came to the door herself. It was the first time I had seen 
 her in daylight, and I thought her cheek-bones bigger; she certainly 
 was not so pretty as on the first evening I met her. George had told 
 me he would sleep away if I wanted the room, and when next I met 
 her she promised to come and sleep with me. Before I had always met 
 her on the grass, under trees. She came, and the sight of her young 
 limbs and breasts revived something of my love for her, my better love. 
 But she was insatiable and more sensual every day. One day she came 
 when I was not well, and would not go away disappointed. I had met 
 a very pretty girl about this time, and now resolved to give Annie 
 up, which I did in the crudest manner, cutting her dead, and refusing 
 to answer her letters and touching messages. I heard that she would 
 cry for hours, but I was harder than adamant. . . . 
 
 "I ^thought myself very much in love with the very pretty girl 
 for whom I had thrown up Annie. She lived with her mother and two 
 sisters, one older than herself, the other a mere child. The eldest sister, 
 a handsome, dark girl like a Spaniard, was not virtuous. She was good 
 natured; too much so, and took her pleasure with several of us, dying, 
 not long after, of consumption. I thought her sister, my girl, was vir- 
 tuous, and I meant to marry her — some day. At any rate, I saw her 
 mother, who lived in a well-furnished house and was a superior woman. 
 
HISTOKIES OF SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT. 249 
 
 This did not prevent my trying to seduce her daughter. I did not 
 succeed for a long time, though she did not cease meeting me. The sis- 
 ters came to see us. I knew, one night, her sister was upstairs with D. 
 and I guessed what they were at, so I suggested to her she should creep ■ 
 up on them for fun. She did so, came back, excited and pale — and gave 
 herself to me. But she was not a virgin and in time I had a glimpse 
 of her unhappy fate and her mother's position. Her father was dead 
 or divorced, and her mother, I believe, was mistress to some wealthy 
 bookmaker. I am not sure, there was always a mystery hanging over 
 the mother, nor am I certain that she connived at her daughter's seduc- 
 tion, but the girl's account was that after some successful Cup day 
 there had' been too much champagne drunk all around, and that a man 
 she looked on as a friend came into her bedroom that night when she 
 was t£te monUe and seduced or violated her — whichever word you like 
 to choose. Since then his visits had been frequent until she met me, 
 she said, and if I would be true to her she would be a true wife to me, 
 and I believed her and still believe she meant what she said. But I left 
 Melbourne shortly after this, our letters got few and far between, and 
 ultimately I heard she was married to a young man who had always 
 been in love with her. . . . 
 
 "Among the inmates of the boarding house was a 'married' couple 
 who stayed for some time; he was an insignificant, ugly, little, cross- 
 eyed commercial traveler; she was a pretty, lirtle creature who looked 
 as innocent and was as merry as a child; we all vied in paying her at- 
 tentions and waited on her like slaves, the husband always smiling a 
 cryptic smile. After they had left it was hinted they were not married 
 at all; the oldest hands had been taken in. . . . One afternoon I 
 met Dolly, the commercial traveler's wife, and she stopped and spoke 
 to me. I remembered what I had heard and ventured on some pleasantry 
 at which she laughed, and on my proposing that we should go for a 
 walk she consented. She had left the commercial traveler, it came out 
 in conversation, and we went on talking and walking, one idea only 
 in my mind now: could I detain her till dark? Dolly, who was very 
 pretty indeed, amused herself with me for hours, playing hot and cold, 
 snubbing me one minute, encouraging me with her eyes another. Hour 
 after hour went and she found this game so entertaining that she ac- 
 companied me to the park behind the Botanical Gardens, and it was 
 not until it was too late for me to catch a train home that she gave 
 herself to me. In fact, we stayed out the whole of that warm summer 
 night. As the hours went by she told me of her home in London and 
 how she first went wrong. She had been a good girl till one day on 
 an excursion she drank some rum or gin, which seemingly revived some 
 dormant taint of heritage; when she went home that night she fell 
 flat at her mother's feet. Her parents, well-to-do shopkeepers, who had 
 
250 APPENDIX B. 
 
 forgiven her several times before, turned her out. She became, one 
 man's mistress and then another's. She began early, and was scarcely 
 19 now. She would leave oflF the drink for a time and- try to be re- 
 spectable. She loved her father and mother, but she could not help 
 drinking at times. She spoke cheerfully and laughingly about it aJl; 
 she was young, strong, good natured, and careless. We went to sleep 
 for a little while and then wandered in the early morning down toward 
 the cemetery, when shp tried to tidy her hair, asking me how I 
 had enjoyed myself and not waiting for an answer. She was thirsty, 
 she said, and when the public houses opened we went and had a drink. 
 It was the first time I had seen her drink alcohol, — at the boarding 
 house she had always been the picture of health and sweetness, — and 
 I saw a change come over her at once, so that I understood all that she 
 had told me. The sleepless night may have made it worse, but the 
 look that came into her eyes, and the looseness of the fibres not only 
 of her tell-tale wet mouth, but of every muscle of her face was startling 
 and piteous to see. She saw my look and laughed, but her laugh was 
 equally piteous to hear, and when she spoke again her voice had 
 changed too, and was equally piteous. She asked for another. 'No, 
 don't,' I begged, for the pretty girl I had flattered myself I had 
 passed a summer's night with that most young men would envy, showed 
 signs of changing, like some siren, into a flabby, blear-eyed boozer. 
 That hurt my vanity. 
 
 "I met her another night and she took me to her lodgings, and I 
 slept with her all night. I no longer tried to stop her drinking, but 
 drank with her. I ceased to treat her with courtesy and gallantry; she 
 noticed it, but only drank the more, drank till she became dirty in 
 her ways, till her good looks vanished. I left her, too drunk to stand, 
 as some friend, a woman, called on her. 
 
 "She came to see me once more, like her old self, so well dressed 
 and well behaved, and chatted so cheerfully to my landlady that the 
 latter afterward congratulated me on having such a friend. Dolly car- 
 ried a parcel of underclothing she had made, with a few toys, for the 
 children of a poor man in the suburbs, and I accompanied her to the 
 house. There was great excitement among the ragged children; in fact, 
 the atmosphere became so dangerously full of love and charity that I 
 commenced to feel uncomfortable, — the shower of roses again,- — and 
 was glad to find myself in the open air. We went for a walk and had 
 several drinks, which made the usual change in Dolly. I got tired of 
 her, determined I would leave her, spoke cruelly, and finally — after hav- 
 ing connection with her on the dry seaweed — rose and left her brutally, 
 walked away faster and faster, deaf to her remonstrances, and careless 
 whether or how she reached the station. , , , 
 
HISTORIES OP SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT. 251 
 
 "I had gone to lodge with a family whom I had been accustomed 
 to visit as a friend; there were two daughters; the elder, engaged to a 
 young German- -who was away with a survey party, had a rather plain 
 face, but a strong one and was herself a strong character, and I came 
 to like her in spite of myself; the second girl had light golden hair, -a, 
 fresh complexion, a short nose, and rather large mouth, which con- 
 tained beautiful teeth; they were both good, obedient, innocent church- 
 going, daughters. As there was plenty of amusement there of an 
 evening, singing and dancing, I did not go out, got into better ways, 
 and gradually gave up drinking to excess. I was so improved in ap- 
 pearance that an old acquaintance did not recognize me. My anecdotes 
 and fun amused Mrs. S., the mother of the girls. She could be very 
 violent on occasion, I found, and I learned that there had been terrible 
 scenes at times, and that from time to time it had been necessary to 
 place her in an asylum. I went for drives with the girls and to 
 theatres, and ought to have been happy and glad to find myself in 
 such good quarters. The mother trusted me so entirely that she left 
 me for hours with the girls, the younger one of whom I would kiss 
 sometimes. She was engaged to a young fellow whom I spoke to 
 patronizingly, but whose shoes I was not worthy to fasten. I was the 
 cause of quarrels between them. They made it up again, but I think 
 he noticed the change that was taking place in Alice. For from 
 kissing her I had gone on— all larking at first. We formed the habit 
 of sitting down on the sofa when alone and kissing steadily for ten 
 minutes or more at a time. She was excited without knowing what 
 was the matter with her — but I knew. And one day when our mouths 
 were together I drew her to me and commenced to stroke her legs 
 gently down. She trembled like a string bow, and allowed my hand 
 to go farther. And then she was frightened and ashamed and com- 
 menced to laugh and cry together. She had these hysterical attacks 
 several times and they always frightened me. It ended in my seduc- 
 ing her. She broke off her engagement, and then was sorry; but soon 
 she thought only of me. . . . One day Alice and I were nearly caught. 
 I had just left her on the sofa and had commenced drawing at a table 
 with my back to her when suddenly her mother came in without her 
 shoes, while Alice had one hand up her clothes arranging her under- 
 clothing. The mother stopped dead and shot me one glance I shall 
 never forget. 'Why, Alice, you frighten me!' she said. I feigned sur- 
 prise and asked 'What is th& matter?' Alice, although she was fright- 
 ened out of her wits, managed to stammer: 'He couldn't see me — you 
 couldn't see me, could you?' appealing to me. But I had managed to 
 collect my senses a bit and although still under that maternal eye I 
 asked, — at last turning slowly around to Alice: 'See? What do you 
 meant See what?' And I looked so mystified that the mother waa 
 
252 APPENDIX B. 
 
 deceived, and .contented herself with scolding Alice and telling her 
 to run no risks of that sort. I breathed again. 
 
 "But I was near the end of my tether. Alice and I talked about 
 everything now. She told me about her life at boarding school and 
 the strange ideas some of the girls had about men and marriage. After 
 leaving school she had been sent to a large millinery or drapery estab- 
 lishment to learn sewing and dressmaking. Here, she said, the talk was 
 awful at times, and one girl had a book with pictures of men's organs 
 of generation, which was passed around and excited their curiosity to 
 the highest pitch. 
 
 "I had days of tenderness and contrition, and even told her I 
 would get on and marry her. Then the tears would come into her eyes 
 and she would say : 'I seem to feel as if you were my husband now.' . . . 
 
 "I had to see a, man on business and went to his cottage. The 
 door was opened by his wife, a handsome, dark-eyed young woman, 
 who looked as if butter would not melt in her mouth. After leaving 
 a message I went on talking to her on other subjects. She piqued my 
 vanity in some way, and made me feel curious and restless. I found 
 myself thinking of her after I left and looking back I saw she was 
 still looking at me. 
 
 "To make a long story short, she encouraged me. It ended by 
 my leaving the S. family and going to board with them. T. D., the 
 husband, was glad of my company and my money. They had a little 
 boy — ^whose father T. was not. I soon understood her inviting looks at 
 me. For she was a general lover, and an old man, in a good government 
 billet, visited her often when T. D. was away: I will call him Silenus. 
 There was also a dark, handsome man who built organs. The latter 
 came one day and sent for some beer. I was working in my room, and 
 it so happened that before he knocked she had been going further than 
 usual in her talk with me; in fact, as good as giving me the word. 
 When her friend was admitted he had to pass my open door and he 
 gave me a look with his black eyes and I gave him a look which told 
 each what the other's game was. It is wonderful what a lot can be 
 learned from a single glance of the eyes. When I saw the little boy 
 bringing in the beer I felt that he had bested me. But she brought 
 me in a glass first, and putting her down on the sofa I scored first. It 
 was done so suddenly, so brutally, that, accustomed as she must 
 have been to such scenes she turned red and bit her under lip. But 
 she sent the other man away in a few minutes. After that she was 
 insatiable; it was every day and sometimes twice in one day. I com- 
 menced to be gloomy and miserable again. And there was not even 
 a pretense of love. There was no deception about her; ghe even intro- 
 duce me to Silenus and we made excursions together, for which he 
 paid, as he had plenty of money. We were always drinking, until at 
 
HISTOEIES OF SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT. 253 
 
 last I could eat nothing unless I had two or three whiskies. I became 
 very thin, my horizon seemed black and all things at an' end. (But T. 
 D. enjoyed his meals and was really fond of his wife and her boy and 
 his work; life was pleasant to him.) She would go up to town with 
 me and to a certain hotel; after drinking she would leave me wait- 
 ing while she retired with the handsome young landlord for a short 
 time. She told me when she came back that he was a great favorite 
 with married women. 
 
 "She told me that Silenus visited a woman who practiced fellatio 
 on him. Mrs. D. thought such practices abominable and could not 
 imagine how a woman could like doing such a thing. 
 
 "When she was out walking with me one day T. D.'s name came 
 up and she said in a slightly altered voice: "He told me he loved me!' 
 It was a word seldom used by her except in jest. I threw a startled 
 look at her and caught an inquisitive and apologetic look in return, 
 such a strange and touching glance that I saw I had not yet under- 
 stood her, — there was an enigma somewhere. When, bit by bit, she 
 told me her life, I understood, or thought I understood, that strange 
 childlike glance in this young woman steeped to her eyes in sin. No one 
 had even made love to her or spoken to her of love in her life. 
 
 "It had commenced at school. She must have been a particularly 
 fine and handsome girl, judging from her photographs. She had seen 
 boys playing with girls' privates under the form and felt jealous that 
 they did not play with her's. She had no mother to look after her and 
 she soon found plenty of boys to play with her, and young men, too, 
 as she grew older. She took it as she took her meals. She had bteen 
 really fond of her child's father, but as he had shown no tenderness for 
 her, nothing but a craving for sensual gratification, she would rather 
 have died than let him know. She soon tired of her attachments, she 
 told me. She did not like T. D. He was not the complacent husband; 
 he was spirited enough, but he believed everything she told him. One 
 day he came home unexpectedly when we were together on the bare 
 palliass in her room. It was a critical moment when his knocks were 
 heard, and in the hurry and excitement some moisture was left on the 
 bed. The knocks became louder, but she was calmer than I, and bade 
 me run down to the closet. I could hear her cheerful and chaffing voice 
 greeting him. When I walked in back to my own room she called out: 
 'Here's T. home!' I learned afterward that he had been surly and sus- 
 picious, and had seen the moisture on the bed, and asked about it, 
 whereupon she had turned the tables upon him completely: he ought to 
 be ashamed of himself; she knew what he meant by his insinuations; if 
 he must know how that moisture come on the bed, why she put the 
 soap there in a hurry to catch a flea. He believed her and brought her 
 a present nezt day in atonement for his suspicions. 
 
254 APPENDIX B. 
 
 "During her monthly periods, when I could not touch her, she 
 would come in and play with me until emissions occurred, and my feel- 
 ings had become so perverted that I even preferred this to coitus. The 
 orgasm would occur twice in her, to once in me, and though her eyes 
 were rather hard and her mouth too, she always looked well and cheer- 
 ful, while I was gloomy and depressed. In her side, however, was a 
 hard lump, which pained her at times, and which, doubtless, was wait- 
 ing its time. . . . 
 
 "One day I felt so low in health that I proposed to T. -D. that we 
 should take a boat and sail out in the bay for a day or two. The sea, 
 the change, the open air revived me, and I even made sketches of the 
 black sailor as he steered the boat. One day when I was left alone in 
 charge of the boat, as I felt the time hanging on my hands, for the sea, 
 the blue sky, the lovely day gave me no real pleasure, I remember 
 abusing myself, the old habit reasserting itself as soon as I was alone 
 and idle. When T. D. came back he brought Mrs. D. with him, laughing 
 and jolly as usual. She was surprised when lying next to me under 
 the deck on our return I did not respond to her advances. It would 
 have pleased her, with her husband only a few feet away. After that 
 I spent a night with her, but she was getting tired of me. I did not 
 care for her, but it hurt my vanity and I made a few attempts to be 
 impertinent. She looked at me coldly and threatened to complain to 
 T. . . . 
 
 "I want to relate an impression I received one night about this 
 time when with several friends we called at a brothel. I forget my 
 companion, but I remember two faces. It was winter, and great de- 
 pression prevailed in Adelaide. We had been talking to the mistress as 
 we drank some beer and were pretending to be jolly fellows, although 
 we were wet, cold, and had not enjoyed ourselves (at least, I had not), 
 and she was speaking harshly and jeeringly about two girls she had now 
 who had not earned a penny for the past week. Just then we heard 
 footsteps and she said in a lower tone: 'Here they are.' They came 
 in, unattended, having ascertained which the brothel-keeper snorted and 
 turned her back to them. The faces of the girls, who were quite young, 
 looked so miserable that even I pitied them. The look on the face of 
 one of those girls as she stood by the hearth drawing off her gloves lives 
 in my memory. Too deep for tears was its sorrow, shame, and hope- 
 lessness. . . . 
 
 "I had given up drink and was living in the bush. To anyone 
 with normal nerves it would have been a happy time of quiet, rustic 
 peace, beauty, and relief from city life. With me it was restless vanity 
 amounting to madness. In every relation, action, of possible event in 
 which I figured or might figure in the future, I always instantaneously 
 called up an imaginary audience. And then this imaginary audience 
 
HISTORIES OF SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT. 255 
 
 admired everything I did or might do, and put the most heroic, gallant, 
 and romantic construction on my acts, appearance, lineage, and breeding. 
 Suppose I saw a pretty girl on a bush road. Instead of thinking 'There 
 is a pretty girl; I should like to know her or kiss her,' as I suppose a 
 healthy, normal young man would think, I thought after this fashion: 
 'There is a pretty girl; now, as I pass her she will think I am a hand- 
 some and aristocratic-looking stranger, and, as.^! can-y a sketch-book, 
 an artist — "A landscape painter! How romantic!" she will say, and 
 then she will fall in love with me,' etc. This preoccupation with what 
 other people might think or would think so engrossed all my time that 
 I had no means of enjoying the presence, thought, or favor of the divine 
 creatures I met, and I must have appeared 'cracked' to them with my 
 reticence, pride, and silly airs. 
 
 "I met girls as foolish as myself sometimes. Once at a table d'Mte 
 I met a young girl who went for a walk with me and let me know her 
 carnally although she was little more than a schoolgirl. She was going 
 down to town- soon, she said, and would meet me at a certain hotel 
 (belonging to relations of hers) in Adelaide on a, certain date, some time 
 ahead; if I took a room there she would come into it during the night. 
 In the meanwhile I had given way to drink again and abused myself 
 at intervals. I came down to town, drunk, in the coach, and kept my 
 appointment with the young girl at the hotel, expecting a night of 
 pleasure ; but she merely stared at me coldly as if she Jiad never seen 
 me before. I abused myself twice in my solitary room. . . . 
 
 "I met a middle-aged schoolteacher (who had once been an officer 
 in the army) down for his holidays. As he spoke well, and was a 'gen- 
 tleman,' I cultivated him. One night he asked me to meet a girl he 
 had an appointment with and teU her he was not well enough to meet 
 her. He foolishly told me the purpose of their intended meeting. I 
 went to the try sting-place, at the back of the hotel, and met the girl. 
 On delivering my message she smiled, made some joke about her friend, 
 and looked at me as much as to say.: 'You will do as well.' I had been 
 drinking, and in the most brutal manner I took her into a closet. By 
 some strange chance or state of nerves she gave me exquisite pleasure, 
 but the orgasm came with me before it did with her, and in spite of 
 her disappointment and protests I stood up and pulled her out of the 
 place for fear some one should find us there. Still protesting she fol- 
 lowed me, but her foot slipped on the paved court, and she fell down 
 on her face. When she rose I saw that her front teeth were broken. 
 I looked at her without pity, with impatience, and abruptly leaving her 
 I went into the hotel to 'the colonel.' I commenced to tell him lies, 
 when he asked me Wth a weak laugh what had been keeping me. I 
 smiled with low cunning and drunken vanity, evading the question. 
 Then he accused me directly. I only laughed; but, drunk as I was, I 
 
256 APPENDIX ,'B. 
 
 remember the look of the ageing bachelor as he saw he had been be- 
 trayed by a younger man. He had known her for years. . . . 
 
 "I was now living in the home of a woman who was separated 
 from her husband and kept lodgers. She had a daughter, with, whom I 
 walked out, a pretty girl who drank like a fish, as her mother also did. 
 There were other lodgers coming and going. I would lie down all day 
 and keep myself saturated with beer. I commenced to get fat and 
 bloated, with the ways of a brothel bully. A broken-down, drunken 
 old woman who visited the house and had been a beautiful lady in her 
 youth told me I should end my days on the gallows trap. The same 
 woman when drunk would lift up her dress, sardonically, exposing her- 
 self. Other old women would congregate in the neglected and dirty 
 bedrooms and tell fortunes with the cards. ■ One little woman, an 
 onanist, was like a character out of Dickens, exaggerated, affected, un- 
 natural, with remains of gentility and society manners. Amidst all 
 this drunkenness and abandonment May, the landlady's daughter, pre- 
 served her virginity. Young lodgers would take liberties with her, but 
 at a certain stage would receive a stinger on the face. The girl liked 
 mp and would kiss me, but nothing else. And then — out of this home 
 of drunkenness and shame — May fell in love with some pretty boy she 
 met by chance, whom she never asked to her home. She began to 
 neglect me, even to neglect drink, and to dream, preoccupied. I felt a 
 restless jealousy, but she would look at me, without resentment, with- 
 out recognition, without seeing me, look me straight in the eyes as I 
 was talking to her, and dream and dream. This same pretty boy 
 seduced her, I believe. When next I met her she was 'on the town,' 
 her one dream of spring over. ... 
 
 "About this time I had one of those salutary turns that have 
 marked epochs in my life, and as a result I left that house and reso- 
 lutely abstained from drink. ... I was now in a small up-country 
 town. I commenced to play croquet and to ride out. Sometimes I was 
 invited to dinner by a young man at the bank, whose house was kept 
 by his sister. She had a small figure, a pretty but rather narrow 
 face, and well-bred manners; but there was a look in her asymmetrical 
 eyes, in the shape of her thin hands, even in the stoop of her shoulders, 
 that seemed passionate. One day — ^when her brother, a fine, sweet- 
 blooded manly young athlete, was absent — I commenced to pull her 
 about. She gave me one passionate kiss, but said: 'No! Do you know 
 what keeps me straight? It is the thought of my brother.' I refrained, 
 from molesting her further. I met other girls, some pretty and arro- 
 gant, others plain and hungry-eyed; it was a country town where there 
 were four or five females to every male. But I could not speak frankly 
 and candidly to a young woman as the young banker did. . . . 
 
 "I remember that one night, when I was living at the Port, I 
 
HISTOKIES OF SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT. 257 
 
 slept all night with a prostitute who had taken ». fancy to me and 
 who used to cry on my shoulder, much to my impatience and annoy- 
 ance. In the same bed with us, lying beside me, was a girl aged about 
 12. On my expressing surprise I was told she was used to it and noticed 
 nothing. But in the morning I turned my liead and looked at her, and 
 even in the dim light of that dirty bedroom I could see that her eyes 
 had noticed and understood. She pressed herself against me and smiled ; 
 it was not the smile of an infant. I could record many instances I 
 have observed of the precocity of children. 
 
 "At one time I made the acquaintance of three young men, two 
 in the customs, the other in a surveyor's ofBce. At the first glance you 
 would have said they were ordinary nice young clerks, but on becom- 
 ing better acquainted you would notice certain peculiarities, a looseness 
 of mouth, a restless, nervous inquietude of manner, an indescribable 
 gleam of the eye. They were very fond of performing and singing at ama- 
 teur minstrel shows and developed a certain comic vein they thought 
 original, though it reminded me of professional corner-men. However, 
 I enjoyed their singing and drinking habits and went to their lodgings 
 several nights to play cards, drink beer, and tell funny stories. One 
 night they asked me to stay all night and on going to a room with 
 two beds I was told to have one. Presently one of the young men 
 came in and commenced to undress. But before going to his bed he 
 made a remark which, though I had been drinking, opened my eyes. 
 I told him to shut up and go to bed, speaking firmly and rather coldly, 
 and he went reluctantly to his own bed. But another night when they 
 had shifted their lodgings and were all sleeping in the same room I was 
 drunk and went to bed with' the same fair-haired young man. On 
 waking up in the night I found my bedmate tampering with me. The 
 old force came over me and I abused him, but refused to commit the 
 crime he wanted me to. His penis was small and pointed. I rose early 
 in the morning, sobered, suffering, and covered with shame, and went 
 hastily away, refusing to stay for breakfast. I thought I caught an 
 amazed and evil smile on the faces of the other two. Meeting the three 
 the same evening in the street, I passed them blushing, and my bed- 
 mate of the previous night blushed also. . . . 
 
 "I now took cheap lodgings in North Adelaide. Here I had slight 
 recurrences of the strangeness and fear of going mad which I had 
 experienced once before. I led such a solitary life and fell into such 
 a queer state that I turned to religion and attended church regularly. 
 It was approaching the time for those young men and women who 
 wished to be confirmed to prepare themselves, and a struggle now 
 ensued between my pride and my wish to gain rest and peace of mind 
 in Jesus. I was self-conscious to an incredible degree, and dreaded ex- 
 posure or making an exhibition of myself, but still went to church, 
 
 ■ 17 
 
HISTOEIES OF SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT. 259 
 
 that there is always a certain amount of preliminary thought and 
 dalliance before I do this deed; doubtless this it is that renders me 
 incapable of resisting. I decided, therefore, never to let my thoughts 
 commence to dwell on lustful things, but to think of something else on 
 the first intimation of their appearance in my mind. I rigorously fol- 
 lowed this rule; and it proved successful, and I recommend it to others 
 in the same predicament as myself. After suffering weeks and months 
 of dread and illness once more, falling away in flesh and turning yellow, 
 I gradually mended a little. I had a better color and tone, and was 
 something like other young men, barring a strange alternate exaltation 
 and depression. Even this gradually became less noticeable, and ray 
 moods more even and reliable.'' 
 
INDEX OP AUTHOES. 
 
 Adachi, 60. 
 Adam, Madame, 22. 
 Adler, 64. 
 Lilian, 131, 188. 
 Allbutt, Clifford, 113. 
 Allen, Grant, 74. 
 AUin, A., 12, 13, 16, 17. 
 Alrutz, 11, 15. 
 Andree, 60, 160, 221. 
 Anselm, St., 179. 
 Arbuthnot, 131. 
 Ariosto, 180. 
 Aristcenetus, 145. 
 Aristophanes, 21, 90. 
 Aristotle, 115, 126. 
 Athenseus, 126, 188. 
 Aubert, 64, 80. 
 Audeoud, 108. 
 Avioenna, 98, 180. 
 Ayrton, 48,52. 
 
 Bacarisse,. 165. 
 Backhouse, 131. 
 Bain, A., 6, 195. 
 Baker, Sir S., 216. 
 Balz, 141. 
 
 Baschet, Armand, 179. 
 Batchelor, J., 176. 
 Baudelaire, 73, 185. 
 Bazan, Pardo, 87. 
 Beatson, 25. 
 Beauregard, 92. 
 Bendix, 25. 
 Benedikt, 69. 
 Bernard, L., 73. 
 
 Bernardin de St. Pierre, 107, 105. 
 Bianchi, L., 75. 
 Bigrent, 125. 
 Binet, 72, 120. 
 Bloch, A. G., 29. 
 
 Bloch, I., 66, 128, 158, 159, 169, 
 170, 185, 188, 189, 197, 204, 208. 
 Boccaccio, 150. 
 Bollinger, 173. 
 Borel, 154. 
 Botallus, 109. 
 Branteme, 163. 
 Breitenstein, 221. 
 
 Brisay, Marquis de, 206. 
 
 Bronson, 15. 
 
 Broune, R., 126. 
 
 Brown, H., 82. 
 
 Brunton, Sir Lauder, 6. 
 
 Blicher, 114. 
 
 Buckman, S. S., 216. 
 
 Bulkley, 10. 
 
 BuUen, F. St. John, 46, 71. 
 
 Burckhardt, 32. 
 
 Burdaeh, 65. 
 
 Burton, Sir R., 153, 166. 
 
 Burton, R., 158, 181, 182. 
 
 Cabanes, 109. 
 
 Cabanis, 27. 
 
 Cadet-Devaux, 78. 
 
 Candolle, A. de, 200. 
 
 Cardano, 56. 
 
 Cardi, Comte di, 158. 
 
 Casanova, 39, 78. 
 
 Castellani, 59, 61, 152. 
 
 Cervantes, 181. 
 
 Chadwiek, 32. 
 
 Chamfort, 16. 
 
 Chaucer, 156. 
 
 Clement of Alexandria, 33. 
 
 Cloquet, 51, 56, 96, 103, 104. 
 
 Cocke, J., 129. 
 
 Coffignon, 189. 
 
 Cohn, Jonas, 20. 
 
 Colegrove, 5. 
 
 Colenso, W., 49. 
 
 Collet, 54. 
 
 Compayre, 215. 
 
 Cook, Captain, 34, 49. 
 
 Cornish, 122. 
 
 Courtier, 120. 
 
 Crawley, 205, 206. 
 
 Cyples, W., 116. 
 
 Daniell, W. F., 157. 
 D'Annunzio, 79, 184. 
 Dante, 8. 
 
 Darlington, L., 119. 
 Darwin, C, 98, 122, 123, 124, 153, 
 157, 190, 195, 221. 
 
 (261) 
 
262 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Darwin, E., 13, 171. 
 Davy, J., 142. 
 Deniker, 15, 165, 218, 221. 
 D'Enjoy, 215, 220, 221. 
 Digby, Sir K., 78. 
 Dillon, E., 56. 
 Distant, 98. 
 Dogiel, 16, 119. 
 Donaldson, H. H., 4. 
 D'Orbigny, 60. 
 Duffield, 48. 
 Dufour, 38. 
 Duhren, E., 37, 166. 
 Dunlop, W., 140. 
 
 Edinger, 44, 46. 
 
 Eliot, George, 130, 132, 192. 
 
 Ellis, A. B., 218. 
 
 Ellis, A. J., 116. 
 
 Ellis, Havelock, 87, 115, 118, 125, 
 
 132, 164, 173, 183, 199, 202, 203, 
 
 209. 
 Ellis, W., 34, 186. 
 Eloy, 58. 
 
 EmSric-David, 145. 
 Emin Pasha, 59. 
 EndrisB, J., 70, 125. 
 Engelmann, I. J., 10. 
 Epstein, 121. 
 Esquirol, 98. 
 Eulenburg, 40, 188. 
 
 F6r6, 5, 7, 9, 21, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 
 47, 58, 65, 69, 71, 80, 81, 89. 97, 
 107, 108, 114, 118, 122, 124, 123. 
 
 Ferrand, 127. 
 
 Ferrero, 28. 
 
 Filhfis, Margarethe, 18. 
 
 Fillmore, 115. 
 
 Firenzuola, 179, 180. 
 
 Flagy, R. de, 149. 
 
 Fletcher, A. C, 115. 
 
 Fliess, 69. 
 
 Fol, H., 201. 
 
 Foley, 48. 
 
 Forster, J. B., 34. 
 
 Franklin, A., 7, 32, 37. 
 
 Frazer, J. G., 160. 
 
 Friedlander, 49. 
 
 Friedreich, J. B., 82. 
 
 Fromentin, 206. 
 
 Frumerie, G. de, 40. 
 
 Galopin, 64, 78, 80. 
 Galton, F., 201, 208. 
 Garbini, 86, 87. 
 
 Garson, 158. 
 
 Giard, 206. 
 
 Giessler, 47, 54. 
 
 Gilman, 16. 
 
 Goblet, 116, 119. 
 
 Goethe, 84, 135, 158. 
 
 Goncourt, E. de, 86. 
 
 Gorres, 62. 
 
 Gould, 63, 80, 102. 
 
 Gourmant, Eeray de, 138, 163. 
 
 Griffith, W. D. A., 21. 
 
 Griffiths, A. B., 46. 
 
 Grimaldi, 63. 
 
 Groos, K., 4, 11, 15, 86, 115, 123, 
 
 124, 130, 138. 
 Guibaud, 121. 
 
 Hack, 69. 
 
 Hacker, 123. 
 
 Hagen, 60, 61, 65, 67, 75, 83, 95, 102. 
 
 Hall, G. Stanley, 4, 5, 12, 16, 17, 
 
 158, 192, 216. 
 Halle, A. de la, 147. 
 Haller, 104. 
 Harrison, F., 33. 
 Hart, D. Berry, 16. 
 Harvey, W. F., 222. 
 Hawkesworth, 34. 
 Haycraft, 52. 
 Hearn, Lafeadio, 217. 
 Heine, 188. 
 Hellier, J. B., 26. 
 Helmholtz, 94, 116, 128. 
 Henry, C, 57. 
 Hermant, Abel, 176. 
 Herodotus, 174. 
 Herrick, C. L., 13, 16, 44, 46. 
 Herrick, R., 74, 191. 
 Heschl, 65. 
 Hildebrandt, 29. 
 Hippocrates, 63. 
 Holder, A. B., 22. 
 Hortis, 150. 
 Houdoy, 148, 151, 180. 
 Houzeau, 28. 
 Huart, 77, 144. 
 Humboldt, W. von, 175. 
 Hutchinson, W. F., 126. 
 Hutchinson, Woods, 4, 10, 33. 
 Huysnians, 73, 81. 
 Hyades, 15, 218, 221. 
 
 Jager, 72, 77. 
 James, W., 8, 82. 
 Janet, 193. 
 Jerome, St., 31. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 263 
 
 Joal, 109. 
 
 Joest, 59, 60. 
 
 Johnston, Sir H. H., 59, CO. 
 
 Jorg, 63. 
 
 Jouin, 40. 
 
 Juvenal, 21. 
 
 Kaan, 63. 
 
 Kate, H. ten, 99. 
 
 Kennedy, 62. 
 
 Kiernan, J. G., 64, 65, 75, 77. 
 
 King, J. S., 157. 
 
 Kirehhoff, A., 221. 
 
 Kistemaeeker, 128, 208. 
 
 IClein, G., 64. 
 
 Kleist, 217. 
 
 Kraflft-Ebing, 71, 100, 188. 
 
 Krauss, 76. 
 
 Kubary, 22. 
 
 Kiilpe, 5. 
 
 Lane, E. W., 36, 143. 
 
 Lankaster, E., 133. 
 
 Lateham, 60. 
 
 Laycock, 10, 51, 97, 98, 120. 
 
 Layet, 108. 
 
 Lgchat, 179. 
 
 Lecky, 32. 
 
 Lejeune, 161. 
 
 Lemaire, J., 181. 
 
 Leoty, 172. 
 
 Lewin, 65. 
 
 Lewis, A. T., 122. 
 
 Linneeus, 53. 
 
 Lombard, 119. 
 
 Lombroso, C, 28, 29, 218, 221. 
 
 Lombroso, Gina, 17. 
 
 Lucian, 179, 188. 
 
 Lucretius, 98. 
 
 Luigini, 180. 
 
 Lumholtz, 49, 152. 
 
 MaeCauIey, 152. 
 MacDonald, J., 219. 
 MaeDougall, R., 122. 
 MacKenzie, J. N., 57, 67, 69, 70, 72, 
 
 108. 
 MacKenzie, S., 10. 
 Man, E. H., 50, 60. 
 Mantegazza, 7, 82, 94, 102, 125, 152, 
 
 153, 162, 167, 216. 
 Marholm, L., 169. 
 Marie de France, 150. 
 Marro, 68, 86. 
 Maxston, J., 56. 
 Martial, 77. 
 
 Martineau, Harriet, 5, 
 
 Massinger, 67. 
 
 Matusch, 71. 
 
 Mau, 32. 
 
 Mauds] ey, H., 56. 
 
 Maxim, Sir H., 123. 
 
 McBride, 64. 
 
 McDougall, W., 15. 
 
 MeKendrick, 127. 
 
 Melle, Van, 53. 
 
 Menander, 125. 
 
 Mentz, 120. 
 
 Merensky, 157. 
 
 Mertens, 158. 
 
 Michelet, 37, 79. 
 
 Milton, 73. 
 
 Miner, J. B., 113. 
 
 Minut, G. de, 151. 
 
 Mironoflf, 24. 
 
 Mitford, 141. 
 
 Mebius, 73. 
 
 Moll, 17, 21, 74, 75, 82, 85, 100, 110, 
 
 125, 174, 188. 
 Moncelon, 65. 
 Monin, 63. 
 Moore, A. W., 217. 
 Moore, F., 66. 
 Moraglia, 29, 75. 
 Motannabi, 97. 
 Muir, Sir W., 99. 
 Myers, C. S., 48, 61. 
 
 Nacke, 100, 101, 127, 187. 
 Newman, W. L., 126. 
 Nietzsche, 33, 135. 
 Niphus, 150, 180. 
 Nordenskjold, 153. 
 Norman, Conolly, 71. 
 Nuttall, 123. 
 Nyrop, 221. 
 
 O'Donovan, 149. 
 Orderieus Vitalis, 37, 174. 
 Ovid, 67, 78, 193. 
 
 Papillault, 139. 
 
 Parke, T. H., 59, 60. 
 
 Parker, Rushton, 173. 
 
 Passy, J., 52, 54, 56, 73, 108. 
 
 Patrick, G. T. W., 1. 
 
 Patrizi, M. L., 120. 
 
 Paulhan, 56. 
 
 Pearson, K., 201, 203, 204, 208. 
 
 Penta, 7, 8. 
 
 Perls, 87. 
 
 Petrarch, 149, 180. 
 
264 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Petrie, Flinders, 176. 
 
 Pifiron, 67. 
 
 Piesse, 47, 99. 
 
 Pillon, E., 56. 
 
 Plateau, 92. 
 
 Plato, 125. 
 
 Ploss, 22, 65, 77, 151, 153, 157, 165, 
 
 167, 170. 
 Plutarch, 62. 
 Potwin, E., 5. 
 Pouehet, 64. 
 
 Poulton, E. B., 137, 154. 
 Pruner Bey, 59. 
 Pyle, 64, 80, 102. 
 
 Raciborski, 64. 
 
 Raffalovich, 89. 
 
 Kamsey, Sir W., 52. 
 
 Kaseri, 178. 
 
 Raymond, 193. 
 
 Reade, Winwood, 153. 
 
 Remfrey, 25. 
 
 Renier, R., 146, 147, 150, 179. 
 
 Restif de la Bretonne, 100. 
 
 Rhys, J., 217. 
 
 Ribbert, 24. 
 
 Ribot, 56. 
 
 Ries, 69. 
 
 Ripley, 175. 
 
 Robinson, Louis, 11, 17, 18. 
 
 Rochas, A. de, 117. 
 
 Roger, J. L., 127. 
 
 Rohlfs, 153. 
 
 Romi, Shereef-Eddin, 77, 144. 
 
 Ronsard, 18 K 
 
 Roscoe, J., 176. 
 
 Rosenbaum, 21, 32. 
 
 Roth, H. Ling, 66, 131, 221. 
 
 Roth, W., 218. 
 
 Roubaud, 65. 
 
 Rousseau, 56, 78. 
 
 Routh, A., 25. 
 
 Rowbotham, J. F., 140. 
 
 Rudeck, 37. 
 
 Rutherford, 53. 
 
 Salmuth, P., 101. 
 
 Sanborn, L., 37. 
 
 Santayana, G., 137. 
 
 Savage, G., 28, 71. 
 
 Savill, 9. 
 
 Schellong, 95. 
 
 SchiflF, 69. 
 
 Schopenhauer, 174, 195, 200. 
 
 Schultz, A., 147, 158. 
 
 SchurigluB, 64. 
 
 Scott, Colin, 138. 
 
 Scripture, E. W., 118. 
 
 Seligmann, 24. 
 
 Selous, E., 215. 
 
 Semon, Sir F., 69. 
 
 Senancour, 38, 79. 
 
 Sensai, Nagayo, 141. 
 
 Sergi, 179. 
 
 Shakespeare, 74. 
 
 Sharp, D., 92. 
 
 Shelley, 74. 
 
 Shields, T. E., 57. 
 
 Shipley, 123. 
 
 Shufeldt, 152. 
 
 Simpson, Sir J. Y., 12, 25. 
 
 Skeat, W. W., 141. 
 
 Smith, Sir A., 157. 
 
 Smith, G. Elliot, 45. 
 
 Smith, H., 173. 
 
 Smyth, Brough, 60. 
 
 Sonnini, 104, 166, 176. 
 
 Southerden, 53. 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, 123. 
 
 Spinoza, 16. 
 
 Stanley, Hiram, 12. 
 
 Stendhal, 79, 190, 192. 
 
 Stevens, Vaughan, 221. 
 
 Stirling, E. C, 158. 
 
 Stoddart, W. H. B., 16. 
 
 Stratz, C. H., 4, 49, 139, 141, 151, 
 
 154, 159, 164, 168, 170, 173, 177, 
 
 184. 
 Swift, 131. 
 Symonds, J. A., 82. 
 Syrua, Publilius, 184. 
 
 Talbot, E. B., 119. 
 Talbot, E. S., 69. 
 TarchanoflF, 118, 121. 
 Tardif, 57, 108. 
 Tarnowsky, 188. 
 Temesvary, 25. 
 Tennyson, 199. 
 Tinayre, Marcelle, 171. 
 Tolstoy, 79, 130. 
 Toulouse, 73. 
 Tourdes, G., 65. 
 Tregear, 221. 
 Tuckey, 62. 
 Turner, 221. 
 Tylor, E. B., 215. 
 
 Varigny, C. de, 60. 
 Vaachide, 53, 127, 128, 132. 
 Vatsyayana, 29, 77, 103, 142, 219. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 265 
 
 Velten, 50, 218, 221. 
 Venturi, 63. 
 Vinci, L. de, 195. 
 Vineberg, 26. 
 Volkelt, 54. 
 Vurpas, 128, 132. 
 
 Waitz, 60, 61. 
 Wallace, A. R., 190. 
 Wallasehek, 115. 
 Waller, A., 1, 4. 
 Walther, P. von, 52. 
 •Wartanoff, 121. 
 Watts, G. P., 106. 
 Weinhold, K., 38, 147. 
 Wellliausen, 219. 
 Wessmann, 157. 
 
 Westermarck, 159, 175, 191, 195, 
 
 204, 206. 
 Whytt, 98. 
 Wiedemann, A., 145. 
 Wiese, 218. 
 Wilks, Sir S., 113. 
 Wright, T., 37, 38, 39. 
 Wundt, 114. 
 
 Yellowlees, 28. 
 Yung, E., 44. 
 
 Zola, 73. 
 Zurcher, 72. 
 
 Zwaarderaaker, 52, 53, 54, 56, 72, 
 104, 105. 
 
INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 
 
 Acne in relation to sexual devel- 
 opment, 10. 
 Esthetics, standard modified by 
 love, 20. 
 
 in region of smell, 54. 
 
 in relation to the sexual im- 
 pulse, 137. 
 Ainu, 176. 
 
 Alexander the Great, odor of, 62. 
 Ambergris, 80, 95, 97. 
 American Indians, 60. 
 
 types of beauty, 152. 
 
 ideas of beauty, 153, 175. 
 
 seldom acquainted with kiss, 221. 
 Anaesthesia produced by tuning 
 
 forks, 127. 
 Antisexual instinct, 8. 
 Arabs, ideal of beauty, 143. 
 
 kissing among, 218, 219. 
 Armpit, odor of, 59, 60, 77, 78, 80 
 
 et seq., 84, 88, 95, 105. 
 Asafoetida, 49, 53, 56. 
 Assortative mating, 202. 
 Australians, 60, 61. 
 
 ideal of beauty, 140, 152. 
 
 kissing among, 218. 
 
 Bath, its history in modern Eu 
 rope, 36 et seq. 
 opposed by early Christians, 31 
 also by Mohammed, 35. 
 Baudelaire's olfactory sensibility 
 
 73. 
 Beard in relation to beauty, 173. 
 Beauty as the symbol of love, 138 
 the chief agent in sexual selec 
 
 tion, 136. 
 the sexual element in sesthetic 
 
 137. 
 its largely objective character 
 
 139, 151, 154. 
 ideals of, among various peo 
 
 pies, 140 et seq. 
 sometimes found in lowest races, 
 
 152. 
 primary sex characters as an 
 
 element of, 157 et seq. 
 clothing in relation to, 158. 
 secondary sexual characters as 
 an element of, 163 et seq. 
 
 (266) 
 
 Beauty in relation to pigmenta- 
 tion, 177 et seq., 197 et seq. 
 the individual element in ideal 
 
 of, 183. 
 the exotic element, 184. 
 in relation to stature, 195 et seq. 
 Bird song, origin of, 123. 
 Biting in relation to origin of kiss- 
 ing, 216. 
 Blind, sense of smell in the, 74. 
 
 sensitiveness to voice, 129. 
 Blondes, the admiration for; 177 
 
 et seq., 197 et seq. 
 Breasts, as an element of beauty, 
 170 et seq., 176. 
 as a tactile sexual focus, 23 et 
 seq. 
 Breath, odor of, 64, 78. 
 Brothels, public baths once synony- 
 mous with, 38. 
 Brummell, 193. 
 Brunettes, the admiration for, 177 
 
 et seq., 197 et seq. 
 Bustle, 166. 
 
 Capryl odors, 104. 
 
 Carbolic acid disliked by savages, 
 
 48, 50. 
 Castoreum, 47, 92, 95, 98. 
 Cataglottism, 5. 
 
 Catholic theologians, on danger of 
 tactile contacts, 8. 
 opposed bathing, 31. 
 Chenopodium vulvaria, 104. 
 Chinese ideal of beauty, 176. 
 odor of, 60. 
 music among, 125. 
 practice the olfactory kiss, 220. 
 Christianity, its use of the kiss, 
 219. 
 opposition to bathing, 31 et seq. 
 Civet, 47, 49, 92, 96. 
 Cleanliness and Christianity, 33 et 
 seq. 
 in relation to sexual attraction, 
 192. 
 Clitoris, defoi-mation of, 157. 
 Clothing, sexual attraction of, 158, 
 
 169, 171, 191, 208. 
 Codpiece, 159. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 267 
 
 Coitus, body odor during, 63. 
 Comic sense, 14. 
 Continence, odor of, 63, 82. 
 Corset, 171 et seq. 
 Crinoline, 170. 
 Cumarine, 93, 105. 
 Gunnilingus, 21, 75. 
 Cutaneous excitation, tonic effects 
 of, 5. 
 
 Dancing in sexual selection, 186. 
 
 Death, odor of, 62. 
 
 Degenerates sexually attracted to 
 
 one another, 200. 
 Disparity, the sexual charm of, 195 
 
 et seq., 208. 
 Dogs practice cunnllinyus, 21. 
 predominance of smell in mental 
 
 life of, 47, 104. 
 susceptibility to music, 122. 
 Doves, sexual attraction among, 
 
 206. 
 Dyeing the hair, origin of, 179. 
 
 Egyptian ideal of beauty, 145, 166, 
 
 174, 176. 
 Emotional memory, 56. 
 English type of beauty, 182. 
 Erogenous zone, 9. 
 Eskimo, 66, 153. 
 Eunuchs, odor of, 65. 
 Europeans, odor of, 60. 
 Exotic element in ideal of beauty, 
 
 184. 
 Eyes as a factor of beauty, 176 et 
 
 seq. 
 
 Fairness in relation to vigor, 203. 
 the admiration for, 153, 177 et 
 seq., 197 et seq., 208. 
 Farthingale, 169. 
 Fellatio, 21, 75. 
 
 Fetichism, olfactory, 74, 81, 100. 
 urinary, 75. 
 shoe, 100. 
 Flowers, occasional injurious effect 
 of perfumes of, 108. 
 sexual character of their per- 
 fume, 92, 102 et seq. 
 French ideal of beauty, 147, 182. 
 Fuegians, 15, 153, 218. 
 
 German ideal of beauty, 147. 
 Goethe's olfactory sensibility, 74. 
 Gray eyes, admiration for, 180. 
 
 Greeks, conception of music, 125. 
 
 ideal of beauty, 145. 
 
 pygmalionism among, 188. 
 Gre?n eyes, admiration for, 180. 
 Gunnings, the, 183. 
 
 Hair as an element of beauty, 159, 
 
 173, 177 et seq. 
 sexual development of, 91. 
 suggested function of, 95. 
 odor of, 97. 
 Hallucinations of smell, 70. 
 Hamilton, Lady, 183. 
 Hebrews acquainted with kiss, 219. 
 
 ideal of beauty, 142. 
 Henna plant, ordor of, 104. 
 Heterogamy, 207. 
 Hindu ideal of beauty, 142. 
 Hips as a feature of beauty, 164 
 
 et seq. 
 Homogamy, 204, 207. 
 Hottentot apron as a feature of 
 
 beauty, 157. 
 Hura dance, 186. 
 Hypnosis, effect of music during, 
 
 117. 
 Hysteria and the skin, 9. 
 
 Immorality and bathing, 37 et seq. 
 Incest, origin of the abhorrence of, 
 
 204 et seq. 
 Incontinence, odor of, 64. 
 Indians, American, ideas of beauty, 
 153, 175. 
 odor of, 60. 
 types of beauty, 152. 
 seldom acquainted with kiss, 221. 
 Infants, odor of, 63. 
 Insects and music, 123. 
 
 smell in their sexual life, 47, 92, 
 97. 
 Inversion, influence of odor in sex- 
 ual, 80 et seq. 
 Irish ideal of beauty, 149. 
 Italian ideal of beauty, 149, 179. 
 Itching, its parallelism to sexual 
 tumescence, 15. 
 
 Japanese ideal of beauty, 141, 154. 
 
 odor of, 60. 
 
 perfumes among, 99. 
 
 unacquainted with kiss, 217. 
 Javanese, 49, 154. 
 Jewish ideal of beauty, 142. 
 Joan of Aragon as a type of 
 beauty, 150. 
 
268 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Kiss, the, 5, 7, 22, 66, 213 et fieq. 
 Kwan-yln as a type of beauty, 154. 
 
 Lactation, controlling influences 
 
 on, 24. 
 in relation to menstruation, 25. 
 Larynx at puberty, 124. 
 Laughter as a form of detumes- 
 
 cence, 14. 
 Leather, odor of, 64, 100 et seq. 
 Lily, odor of, 103. 
 Longevity and beauty, 139. 
 
 Malays, ideals of beauty, 141. 
 
 the kiss among, 221. 
 Maoris, 49. 
 
 Married couples, degree of resem- 
 blance between, 200 et seq. 
 Massage as a sexual stimulant, 6, 
 
 39. 
 Masturbation, in relation to acne, 
 10. 
 in relation to bleeding of nose, 
 
 68. 
 in relation to hallucinations of 
 smell, 71. 
 Melody, the nature of, 115. 
 Memories, olfactory, 56. 
 
 tactile, 5. 
 Menstruation in relation to acne, 
 10. 
 in relation to lactation, 25. 
 in relation to body odors, 64. 
 in relation to bleeding of nose, 
 68. 
 Mirror as a method of heightening 
 
 tumescence, 187. 
 Mixoscopy, 188. 
 Modesty in relation to ticklishness, 
 
 18. 
 Mohammed, his love of perfumes, 
 99. 
 his opinion of public baths, 35. 
 Mohammedans, attitude toward 
 bath, 35. 
 preference for musk perfume, 98. 
 Mosquitoes, attracted by music, 
 
 123. 
 Moths, sexual odors of, 92, 97. 
 Movement, beauty of, 168, 186. 
 Music, among Chinese and Greeks, 
 125. 
 origins of, 113 et seq. 
 effects of, during hypnosis, 117. 
 physiological influence of, 118 et 
 seq. 
 
 Music, why it is plfasarable, 199. 
 its sexual attraction among ani- 
 mals, 123. 
 in man, 124 et seq. 
 supposed therapeutic effects, 126. 
 Musk, 53, 57, 60, 63, 77, 80, 91, 93, 
 
 93, 96 et seq., 107. 
 Mutilations among savages for 
 magic purposes 160. 
 for sake of beauty, 157, 175. 
 
 Narcissism, 187. 
 
 Nasal mucous membrane and geni- 
 tal sphere, 68 et seq. 
 
 Nates as a feature of beauty, 164 
 et seq. 
 
 Necklace, significance of, 160. 
 
 Necrophily, 188. 
 
 Negress, beauty of, 152, 185. 
 odor of, 59, 96. 
 
 Negro ideas of beauty, 153. 
 odor of, 59. 
 mode of kissing, 218, 220. 
 
 Neopallium, 45. 
 
 Neurasthenia and olfactory sus- 
 ceptibility, 72, 107. 
 in relation to pruritus, 15. 
 
 Nicobarese, 50, 60. 
 
 Nietzsche's supposed olfactory sen- 
 sibility, 73. 
 
 Nipple as a sexual focus, 23 et seq. 
 
 Nose and sexual organs, supposed 
 connection between, 67. 
 
 Obesity, the oriental admiration 
 
 ■for, 166. 
 Odors, artificial, 93. 
 classification of, 53. 
 as stimulants, 57, 80, 98. 
 as medicines, 58, 98. 
 distinctive of various human 
 
 races, 39. 
 of sanctity, 62. 
 of death, 62. 
 of the body, 62 et seq. 
 Olfaction in relation to sexual se- 
 lection, 66 et seq. (See 
 "Odors" and "Smells.") 
 the study of, 50 et seq. 
 Olfactory area of brain, 44 et seq. 
 Oophorectomy and sense of smell, 
 
 65. 
 Orgasm as a skin reflex. 16. 
 founded on tactile sensations, 7. 
 produced by various tactile con- 
 tacts. 9. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 269 
 
 Ornament, its religious significance, 
 160. 
 sexual significance of, 159. 
 Overall, Mrs., 183. 
 
 Padimini, 77, 142. 
 
 Papuans, 48, 66, 95, 167. 
 
 Parity, the sexual charm of, 195 et 
 seg. 
 
 Peasants, odor of, 89. 
 
 Peau d'Espagne, 99. 
 
 Perfume, ancient use of, 77, 96. 
 sexual influence of, 86, 91 et seq. 
 results of excessive stinmlatioii 
 by, 107 et seg. 
 
 Persian ideal of beauty, 144. 
 
 Phallus worship, 160. 
 
 Pigmentation connected with in- 
 tensity of odor, 61, 80. 
 in relation to beauty, 177 et seg.,- 
 
 197 et seg. 
 in relation to vigor, 203. 
 
 Polynesian dancing, 186. 
 
 Pompeii, 31, 156. 
 
 Preferential mating, 202. 
 
 Pregnancy as an ideal of beauty, 
 68. 
 
 Primary sex characters as an ele- 
 ment of beauty, 157. 
 
 Provengal ideal of beauty, 146. 
 
 Pruritus, 15. 
 
 Puberty, accompanied by increased 
 interest in art, 133. 
 olfactory sensibility at, 86. 
 
 Pygmalionism, 188. 
 
 Reeve, Pleasaunce, 183. 
 Kenaissance type of beauty, 179. 
 Restif de la Bretonne, 100. 
 Rhinencephalon, 45. 
 Rhythm, as a, stimulant, 114. 
 the sense of, 113. 
 
 Saddleback as a feature of beauty, 
 
 167. 
 Salutation by smelling, 66. 
 Samoans, 49. 
 Sanctity, odor of, 62. 
 Savages, important part played by 
 odor in their mental life, 48. 
 sometimes beautiful, 152. 
 their ideals of beauty, 140, 157 
 et seg. 
 Secondary sexual characters in re- 
 lation to sexual attraction, 
 163 et seg., 208. 
 
 Semen, odor of, 104 et seg. 
 Sexual diff'erencea in admiration of 
 beauty, 190. 
 in olfactory acuteness, 86, 87. 
 in urination, 209. 
 Shoe fetichism, 100. 
 Singalese ideal of beauty, 141. 
 Singing as affected by sexual emo- 
 tion, 132. 
 Skin, complexity of its functions, 3 
 
 et seg. 
 Smell, antipathies aroused by, 82. 
 its evolution, 44. 
 sexual significance in animals, 46. 
 its significance in man, 47 et seg. 
 theory of, 52. 
 
 special characteristics of, 54. 
 as the sense of the imagination, 
 
 56. 
 as distinctive of races and indi- 
 viduals, 59 et seg. 
 hallucinations of, 70. 
 in part the foundation of kiss, 
 
 220 et seg. 
 results of its excessive stimula- 
 tion, 107 et seg. 
 
 Sneezing and sexual stimulation, 
 
 68. 
 Spanish ideal of beauty, 146. 
 
 saddleback as an element of, 167. 
 Stanley, Lady Venetia, 183. 
 Statues, sexual love of, 188. 
 Stature in relation to beauty, 195 
 
 et seg., 208. 
 Steatopygia, 165. 
 Strength, the admiration of women 
 
 for, 190 et seg., 203. 
 Suckling as a cause of perversion, 
 
 28. 
 as a source of sexual emotion, 
 
 27. 
 Swahilis, 50. 
 
 Tahiti, 34. 
 
 Tallness, the admiration of, 195 et 
 seg. 
 
 Taste no part in sexual, selec- 
 tion, 1. 
 
 Tattooing, 158. 
 
 Tennyson, 199. 
 
 Thure-Brandt system of massage 
 as a sexual stimulant, 40. 
 
 Ticklishness, 11. 
 not a simple reflex, 13. 
 
270 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Ticklishness explainable by sum- 
 mation irradiation theory, 
 14. 
 in relation to the sexual em- 
 brace, 15 et seq. 
 diminishes with age, 17. 
 also after marriage, 18. 
 Touch, of kiss, 215 et seq. 
 Touch, in part, foundation of kiss, 
 215 et seq. 
 the most primitive of all senses, 
 
 3 et seq. 
 the first to prove pleasurable, 5. 
 the most emotional sense, 6. 
 foundation of sexual orgasm, 7. 
 Triangle as a sexual symbol, 161. 
 Tumescence as a necessajry prelim- 
 inary to sexual influence of 
 odors, 83. 
 the chief stimuli of, 1. 
 
 Urinary fetichism, 75. 
 Urination, habits of sexes in, 109. 
 Uterus, its relations to breast, 23 
 et seq. 
 
 Yair, significance of term, 180. 
 
 Valerianic acid, 49, 104. 
 
 Vanilla, 58, 93, 104, 107. 
 
 Viguier, Paule de, 151. 
 
 Violet perfume, 49, 80, 93, 104. 
 
 Voice as a source of sexual stim- 
 ulation, 128 et seq. 
 
 Vulvar odor, alleged function of, 
 64. 
 
 Wagner's music, emotional effects 
 
 of, 128, 131. 
 Walk, beauty of, 167. 
 Whitman, odor of Walt, 62. 
 
 Zola's olfactory sensibility, 73,