female, beginning timidly, but, as the beat of the tam-tams and
the encouraging cries of the spectators become louder, the dance
becomes more furious. The native name of the dance is _anamalis
fobil_, "the dance of the treading drake." "The dancer in his
movements imitates the copulation of the great Indian duck. This
drake has a member of a corkscrew shape, and a peculiar movement
is required to introduce it into the duck. The woman tucks up her
clothes and convulsively agitates the lower part of her body; she
alternately shows her partner her vulva and hides it from him by
a regular movement, backward and forward, of the body."
(_Untrodden Fields of Anthropology_, Paris, 1898, vol. ii, p.
112.)

Among the Gurus of the Ivory Coast (Gulf of Guinea), Eysséric
observes, dancing is usually carried on at night and more
especially by the men, and on certain occasions women must not
appear, for if they assisted at fetichistic dances "they would
die." Under other circumstances men and women dance together with
ardor, not forming couples but often _vis-à-vis_: their movements
are lascivious. Even the dances following a funeral tend to
become sexual in character. At the end of the rites attending the
funeral of a chief's son the entire population began to dance
with ever-growing ardor; there was nothing ritualistic or sad in
these contortions, which took on the character of a lascivious
dance. Men and women, boys and girls, young and old, sought to
rival each other in suppleness, and the festival became joyous
and general, as if in celebration of a marriage or a victory.
(Eysséric, "La Côte d'Ivoire," _Nouvelles Archives des Missions
Scientifiques_, tome ix, 1890, pp. 241-49.)

Mrs. French-Sheldon has described the marriage-rites she observed
at Taveta in East Africa. "During this time the young people
dance and carouse and make themselves generally merry and
promiscuously drunk, carrying the excess of their dissipation to
such an extent that they dance until they fall down in a species
of epileptic fit." It is the privilege of the bridegroom's four
groomsmen to enjoy the bride first, and she is then handed over
to her legitimate husband. This people, both men and women, are
"great dancers and merry-makers; the young fellows will collect
in groups and dance as though in competition one with the other;
one lad will dash out from the circle of his companions, rush
into the middle of a circumscribed space, and scream out 'Wow,
wow!' Another follows him and screams; then a third does the
same. These men will dance with their knees almost rigid, jumping
into the air until their excitement becomes very great and their
energy almost spasmodic, leaving the ground frequently three feet
as they spring into the air. At some of their festivals their
dancing is carried to such an extent that I have seen a young
fellow's muscles quiver from head to foot and his jaws tremble
without any apparent ability on his part to control them, until,
foaming at the mouth and with his eyes rolling, he falls in a
paroxysm upon the ground, to be carried off by his companions."
The writer adds significantly that this dancing "would seem to
emanate from a species of voluptuousness." (Mrs. French-Sheldon,
"Customs among the Natives of East Africa," _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, vol. xxi, May, 1892, pp. 366-67.) It
may be added that among the Suaheli dances are intimately
associated with weddings; the Suaheli dances have been minutely
described by Velten (_Sitten und Gebraüche der Suaheli_, pp.
144-175). Among the Akamba of British East Africa, also,
according to H.R. Tate (_Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, Jan.-June, 1904, p. 137), the dances are followed by
connection between the young men and girls, approved of by the
parents.

The dances of the Faroe Islanders have been described by Raymond
Pilet ("Rapport sur une Mission en Islande et aux lies Féroë,"
_Nouvelles Archives des Missions Scientifiques_, tome vii, 1897,
p. 285). These dances, which are entirely decorous, include
poetry, music, and much mimicry, especially of battle. They
sometimes last for two consecutive days and nights. "The dance is
simply a permitted and discreet method by which the young men may
court the young girls. The islander enters the circle and places
himself beside the girl to whom he desires to show his affection;
if he meets with her approval she stays and continues to dance at
his side; if not, she leaves the circle and appears later at
another spot."

Pitre (_Usi, etc., del Popolo Siciliano_, vol. ii, p. 24, as
quoted in Marro's _Pubertà_) states that in Sicily the youth who
wishes to marry seeks to give some public proof of his valor and
to show himself off. In Chiaramonte, in evidence of his virile
force, he bears in procession the standard of some confraternity,
a high and richly adorned standard which makes its staff bend to
a semicircle, of such enormous weight that the bearer must walk
in a painfully bent position, his head thrown back and his feet
forward. On reaching the house of his betrothed he makes proof of
his boldness and skill in wielding this extremely heavy standard
which at this moment seems a plaything in his hands, but may yet
prove fatal to him through injury to the loins or other parts.

This same tendency, which we find in so highly developed a degree
among animals and primitive human peoples, is also universal
among the children of even the most civilized human races,
although in a less organized and more confused way. It manifests
itself as "showing-off." Sanford Bell, in his study of the
emotion of love in children, finds that "showing-off" is an
essential element in the love of children in what he terms the
second stage (from the eighth to the twelfth year in girls and
the fourteenth in boys). "It constitutes one of the chief numbers
in the boy's repertory of love charms, and is not totally absent
from the girl's. It is a most common sight to see the boys taxing
their resources in devising means of exposing their own
excellencies, and often doing the most ridiculous and extravagant
things. Running, jumping, dancing, prancing, sparring, wrestling,
turning handsprings, somersaults, climbing, walking fences,
swinging, giving yodels and yells, whistling, imitating the
movements of animals, 'taking people off,' courting danger,
affecting courage are some of its common forms.... This
'showing-off' in the boy lover is the forerunner of the skilful,
purposive, and elaborate means of self-exhibition in the adult
male and the charming coquetry in the adult female, in their
love-relations." (Sanford Bell, "The Emotion of Love Between the
Sexes," _American Journal Psychology_, July, 1902; cf.
"Showing-off and Bashfulness," _Pedagogical Seminary_, June,
1903.)

If, in the light of the previous discussion, we examine such facts as
those here collected, we may easily trace throughout the perpetual
operations of the same instinct. It is everywhere the instinctive object
of the male, who is very rarely passive in the process of courtship, to
assure by his activity in display, his energy or skill or beauty, both his
own passion and the passion of the female. Throughout nature sexual
conjugation only takes place after much expenditure of energy.[34] We are
deceived by what we see among highly fed domesticated animals, and among
the lazy classes of human society, whose sexual instincts are at once both
unnaturally stimulated and unnaturally repressed, when we imagine that the
instinct of detumescence is normally ever craving to be satisfied, and
that throughout nature it can always be set off at a touch whenever the
stimulus is applied. So far from the instinct of tumescence naturally
needing to be crushed, it needs, on the contrary, in either sex to be
submitted to the most elaborate and prolonged processes in order to bring
about those conditions which detumescence relieves. A state of tumescence
is not normally constant, and tumescence must be obtained before
detumescence is possible.[35] The whole object of courtship, of the mutual
approximation and caresses of two persons of the opposite sex, is to
create the state of sexual tumescence.

It will be seen that the most usual method of attaining tumescence--a
method found among the most various kinds of animals, from insects and
birds to man--is some form of the dance. Among the Negritos of the
Philippines dancing is described by A.B. Meyer as "jumping in a circle
around a girl and stamping with the feet"; as we have seen, such a dance
is, essentially, a form of courtship that is widespread among animals.
"The true cake-walk," again, Stanley Hall remarks, "as seen in the South
is perhaps the purest expression of this impulse to courtship antics seen
in man."[36] Muscular movement of which the dance is the highest and most
complex expression, is undoubtedly a method of auto-intoxication of the
very greatest potency. All energetic movement, indeed, tends to produce
active congestion. In its influence on the brain violent exercise may thus
result in a state of intoxication even resembling insanity. As Lagrange
remarks, the visible effects of exercise--heightened color, bright eyes,
resolute air and walk--are those of slight intoxication, and a girl who
has waltzed for a quarter of an hour is in the same condition as if she
had drunk champagne.[37] Groos regards the dance as, above all, an
intoxicating play of movement, possessing, like other methods of
intoxication,--and even apart from its relationship to combat and
love,--the charm of being able to draw us out of our everyday life and
lead us into a self-created dream-world.[38] That the dance is not only a
narcotic, but also a powerful stimulant, we may clearly realize from the
experiments which show that this effect is produced even by much less
complex kinds of muscular movement. This has been clearly determined, for
instance, by Féré, in the course of a long and elaborate series of
experiments dealing with the various influences that modify work as
measured by Mosso's ergograph. This investigator found that muscular
movement is the most efficacious of all stimulants in increasing muscular
power.[39] It is easy to trace these pleasurable effects of combined
narcotic and stimulant motion in everyday life and it is unnecessary to
enumerate its manifestations.[40]

Dancing is so powerful an agent on the organism, as Sergi truly
remarks (_Les Emotions_, p. 288), because its excitation is
general, because it touches every vital organ, the higher centers
no longer dominating. Primitive dancing differs very widely from
that civilized kind of dancing--finding its extreme type in the
ballet--in which energy is concentrated into the muscles below
the knee. In the finest kinds of primitive dancing all the limbs,
the whole body, take part. For instance, "the Marquisan girls,"
Herman Melville remarked in _Typee_, "dance all over, as it were;
not only do their feet dance, but their arms, hands,
fingers,--ay, their very eyes seem to dance in their heads. In
good sooth, they so sway their floating forms, arch their necks,
toss aloft their naked arms, and glide, and swim, and whirl,"
etc.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


FOOTNOTES:

[1] C. Lloyd Morgan, "Instinct and Intelligence in Animals," _Nature_,
February 3, 1898.

[2] _Essais_, livre iii, ch. v.

[3] Féré, "La Prédisposition dans l'étiologie des perversions sexuelles,"
_Revue de médecine_, 1898. In his more recent work on the evolution and
dissolution of the sexual instinct Féré perhaps slightly modified his
position by stating that "the sexual appetite is, above all, a general
need of the organism based on a sensation of fullness, a sort of need of
evacuation," _L'Instinct sexuel_, 1899, p. 6. Löwenfeld (_Ueber die
Sexuelle Konstitution_, p. 30) gives a qualified acceptance to the
excretory theory, as also Rohleder (_Die Zeugung beim Menschen_, p. 25).

[4] Goltz, _Centralblatt für die med. Wissenschaften_, 1865, No. 19, and
1866, No. 18; also _Beiträge zur Lehre von den Funktionen des Frosches_,
Berlin, 1869, p. 20.

[5] J. Tarchanoff, "Zur Physiologie des Geschlechtsapparatus des
Frosches," _Archiv für die Gesammte Physiologie_, 1887, vol. xl, p. 330.

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

[7] See, e.g., Shattock and Seligmann, "The Acquirement of Secondary
Sexual Characters," _Proceedings of the Royal Society_, vol. lxxiii, 1904,
p. 49.

[8] For facts bearing on this point, see Guinard, art. "Castration,"
Richet's _Dictionnaire de Physiologie_. The general results of castration
are summarized by Robert Müller in ch. vii of his _Sexualbiologie_; also
by F.H.A. Marshall, _The Physiology of Reproduction_, ch, ix; see also E.
Pittard, "Les Skoptzy," _L'Anthropologie_, 1903, p. 463.

[9] For an ancient discussion of this point, see Schurig, _Spermatologia_,
1720, cap. ix.

[10] J.J. Matignon, _Superstition, Crime, et Misère en Chine_, "Les
Eunuques du Palais Impérial de Pékin," 1901.

[11] P. Marie, "Eunuchisme et Erotisme," _Nouvelle Iconographie de la
Salpêtrière_, 1906, No. 5, and _Progrès médical_, Jan. 26, 1907.

[12] _Pedagogical Seminary_, July, 1897, p. 121.

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

[14] Guinard, art. "Castration," _Dictionnaire de Physiologie_.

[15] M.A. Colman, _Medical Standard_, August, 1895; Clara Barrus,
_American Journal of Insanity_, April, 1895; Macnaughton-Jones, _British
Gynæcological Journal_, August, 1902; W.G. Bridgman, _Medical Standard_,
1896; J.M. Cotterill, _British Medical Journal_, April 7, 1900 (also
private communication); Paul F. Mundé, _American Journal of Obstetrics_,
March, 1899.

[16] See Swale Vincent, _Internal Secretion and the Ductless Glands_,
1912; F.H.A. Marshall, _The Physiology of Reproduction_, 1910, ch. ix;
Munzer, _Berliner klinische Wochenschrift_, Nov., 1910; C. Sajous, _The
Internal Secretions_, vol. i, 1911. The adrenal glands have been fully and
interestingly studied by Glynn, _Quarterly Journal of Medicine_, Jan.,
1912; the thyroid, by Ewan Waller, _Practitioner_, Aug., 1912; the
internal secretion of the ovary, by A. Louise McIlroy, _Proceedings Royal
Society Medicine_, July, 1912. For a discussion at the Neurology Section
of the British Medical Association Meeting, 1912, see _British Medical
Journal_, Nov. 16, 1912.

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

[18] Näcke now expresses himself very dubiously on the point; see, e.g.,
_Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie_, 1905, p. 186.

[19] _Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, Berlin, 1897-98.

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

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

[22] This is the theory which by many has alone been seen in Darwin's
_Descent of Man_. Thus even his friend Wallace states unconditionally
(_Tropical Nature_, p. 193) that Darwin accepted a "voluntary or conscious
sexual selection," and seems to repeat the same statement in _Darwinism_
(1889), p. 283. Lloyd Morgan, in his discussion of the pairing instinct in
_Habit and Instinct_ (1896), seems also only to see this side of Darwin's
statement.

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

[24] Beaunis, _Sensations Internes_, ch. v, "Besoins Sexuels," 1889. It
may be noted that many years earlier Burdach (in his _Physiologie als
Erfahrungswissenschaft_, 1826) had recognized that the activity of the
male favored procreation, and that mental and physical excitement seemed
to have the same effect in the female also.

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

[26] L. Tillier, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, 1889, pp. 74, 118, 119, 124 et seq.,
289.

[27] K. Groos, _Die Spiele der Thiere_, 1896; _Die Spiele der Menschen_,
1899; both are translated into English.

[28] Prof. H.E. Ziegler, in a private letter to Professor Groos, _Spiele
der Thiere_, p. 202.

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

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

[31] A. Marro, _La Puberté_, 1901, p. 464.

[32] Lloyd Morgan, _Animal Behavior_, 1900, pp. 264-5. It may be added
that, on the esthetic side, Hirn, in his study (_The Origins of Art_,
1900), reaches conclusions which likewise, in the main, concord with those
of Groos.

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

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

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

[36] Stanley Hall, _Adolescence_, vol. i, p. 223.

[37] See Lagrange's _Physiology of Bodily Exercise_, especially chapter
ii. It is a significant fact that, as Sergi remarks (_Les Emotions_, p.
330), the physiological results of dancing are identical with the
physiological results of pleasure.

[38] Groos, _Spiele der Menschen_, p. 112. Zmigrodzki (_Die Mutter bei den
Volkern des Arischen Stammes_, p. 414 et seq.) has an interesting passage
describing the dance--especially the Russian dance--in its orgiastic
aspects.

[39] Féré, "L'Influence sur le Travail Volontaire d'un muscle de
l'activité d'autres muscles," _Nouvelles Iconographie de la Salpêtrière_,
1901.

[40] "The sensation of motion," Kline remarks ("The Migratory Impulse,"
_American Journal of Psychology_, October, 1898, p. 62), "as yet but
little studied from a pleasure-pain standpoint, is undoubtedly a
pleasure-giving sensation. For Aristippus the end of life is pleasure,
which he defines as gentle motion. Motherhood long ago discovered its
virtue as furnished by the cradle. Galloping to town on the parental knee
is a pleasing pastime in every nursery. The several varieties of swings,
the hammock, see-saw, flying-jenny, merry-go-round, shooting the chutes,
sailing, coasting, rowing, and skating, together with the fondness of
children for rotating rapidly in one spot until dizzy and for jumping from
high places, are all devices and sports for stimulating the sense of
motion. In most of these modes of motion the body is passive or
semipassive, save in such motions as skating and rotating on the feet. The
passiveness of the body precludes any important contribution of stimuli
from kinesthetic sources. The stimuli are probably furnished, as Dr. Hall
and others have suggested, by a redistribution of fluid pressure (due to
the unusual motions and positions of the body) to the inner walls of the
several vascular systems of the body."