perhaps reasonably, a great many adherents. He recognized that a very
frequent cause of malformation in the child is to be found in morbid
antenatal conditions, but at the same time was not prepared to deny
absolutely and in every case the influence of maternal impression on such
conditions. Malebranche, the Platonic philosopher, allowed the greatest
extension to the power of the maternal imagination. In the eighteenth
century, however, the new spirit of free inquiry, of radical criticism,
and unfettered logic, led to a sceptical attitude toward this ancient
belief then flourishing vigorously.[190] In 1727, a few years after
Malebranche's death, James Blondel, a physician of extreme acuteness, who
had been born in Paris, was educated at Leyden, and practiced in London,
published the first methodical and thorough attack on the doctrine of
maternal impressions, _The Strength of Imagination of Pregnant Women
Examined_, and exercised his great ability in ridiculing it. Haller,
Roederer, and Soemmering followed in the steps of Blondel, and were either
sceptical or hostile to the ancient belief. Blumenbach, however, admitted
the influence of maternal impressions. Erasmus Darwin, as well as Goethe
in his _Wahlverwandtschaften_, even accepted the influence of paternal
impressions on the child. By the beginning of the nineteenth century the
majority of physicians were inclined to relegate maternal impressions to
the region of superstition. Yet the exceptions were of notable importance.
Burdach, when all deductions were made, still found it necessary to retain
the belief in maternal impressions, and Von Baer, the founder of
embryology, also accepted it, supported by a case, occurring in his own
sister, which he was able to investigate before the child's birth. L.W.T.
Bischoff, also, while submitting the doctrine to acute criticism, found it
impossible to reject maternal impressions absolutely, and he remarked that
the number of adherents to the doctrine was showing a tendency to increase
rather than diminish. Johannes Mueller, the founder of modern physiology in
Germany, declared himself against it, and his influence long prevailed;
Valentin, Rudolf Wagner, and Emil du Bois-Reymond were on the same side.
On the other hand various eminent gynaecologists--Litzmann, Roth, Hennig,
etc.--have argued in favor of the reality of maternal impressions.[191]

The long conflict of opinion which has taken place over this opinion has
still left the matter unsettled. The acutest critics of the ancient
belief constantly conclude the discussion with an expression of doubt and
uncertainty. Even if the majority of authorities are inclined to reject
maternal impressions, the scientific eminence of those who accept them
makes a decisive opinion difficult. The arguments against such influence
are perfectly sound: (1) it is a primitive belief of unscientific origin;
(2) it is impossible to conceive how such influence can operate since
there is no nervous connection between mother and child; (3) comparatively
few cases have been submitted to severe critical investigation; (4) it is
absurd to ascribe developmental defects to influences which arise long
after the foetus had assumed its definite shape[192]; (5) in any case the
phenomenon must be rare, for William Hunter could not find a coincidence
between maternal impressions and foetal marks through a period of several
years, and Bischoff found no case in 11,000 deliveries. These statements
embody the whole of the argument against maternal impressions, yet it is
clear that they do not settle the matter. Edgar, in a manual of obstetrics
which is widely regarded as a standard work, states that this is "yet a
mooted question."[193] Ballantyne, again, in a discussion of this
influence at the Edinburgh Obstetrical Society, summarizing the result of
a year's inquiry, concluded that it is still "_sub judice_."[194] In a
subsequent discussion of the question he has somewhat modified his
opinion, and is inclined to deny that definite impressions on the pregnant
woman's mind can cause similar defects in the foetus; they are "accidental
coincidences," but he adds that a few of the cases are difficult to
explain away. At the same time he fully believes that prolonged and
strongly marked mental states of the mother may affect the development of
the foetus in her uterus, causing vascular and nutritive disturbances,
irregularities of development, and idiocy.[195]

Whether and in how far mental impressions on the mother can
produce definite mental and emotional disposition in the child is
a special aspect of the question to which scarcely any inquiry
has been devoted. So distinguished a biologist as Mr. A.W.
Wallace has, however, called attention to this point, bringing
forward evidence on the question and emphasizing the need of
further investigation. "Such transmission of mental influence,"
he remarks, "will hardly be held to be impossible or even very
improbable," (A.W. Wallace, "Prenatal Influences on Character,"
_Nature_, August 24, 1893.)

It has already been pointed out that a large number of cases of foetal
deformities, supposed to be due to maternal impressions, cannot possibly
be so caused because the impression took place at a period when the
development of the foetus must already have been decided. In this
connection, however, it must be noted that Dabney has observed a
relationship between the time of supposed mental impressions and the
nature of the actual defect which is of considerable significance as an
argument in favor of the influence of mental impressions. He tabulated 90
carefully reported cases from recent medical literature, and found that 21
of them were concerned with defects of structure of the lips and palate.
In all but 2 of these 21 the defect was referred to an impression
occurring within the first three months of pregnancy. This is an important
point as showing that the assigned cause really falls within a period when
a defect of development actually could produce the observed result,
although the person reporting the cases was in many instances manifestly
ignorant of the details of embryology and teratology. There was no such
preponderance of early impressions among the defects of skin and hair
which might well, so far as development is concerned, have been caused at
a later period; here, in 7 out of 15 cases, it was distinctly stated that
the impression was made later than the fourth month.[196]

It would seem, on the whole, that while the influence of maternal
impressions in producing definite effects on the child within the womb has
by no means been positively demonstrated, we are not entitled to reject it
with any positive assurance. Even if we accept it, however, it must
remain, for the present, an inexplicable fact; the _modus operandi_ we can
scarcely even guess at. General influences from the mother on the child we
can easily conceive of as conveyed by the mother's blood; we can even
suppose that the modified blood might act specifically on one particular
kind of tissue. We can, again, as suggested by Fere, very well believe
that the maternal emotions act upon the womb and produce various kinds and
degrees of pressure on the child within, so that the apparently active
movements of the foetus may be really consecutive on unconscious maternal
excitations.[197] We may also believe that, as suggested by John Thomson,
there are slight incooerdinations _in utero_, a kind of developmental
neurosis, produced by some slight lack of harmony of whatever origin, and
leading to the production of malformations.[198] We know, finally, that,
as Fere and others have repeatedly demonstrated during recent years by
experiments on chickens, etc., very subtle agents, even odors, may
profoundly affect embryonic development and produce deformity. But how the
mother's psychic disposition can, apart from heredity, affect specifically
the physical conformation or even the psychic disposition of the child
within her womb must remain for the present an insoluble mystery, even if
we feel disposed to conclude that in some cases such action seems to be
indicated.

In comprehending such a connection, however at present
undemonstrated, it may well be borne in mind that the
relationship of the mother to the child within her womb is of a
uniquely intimate character. It is of interest in this
connection to quote some remarks by an able psychologist, Dr.
Henry Rutgers Marshall; the remarks are not less interesting for
being brought forward without any connection with the question of
maternal impressions: "It is true that, so far as we know, the
nervous system of the embryo never has a direct connection with
the nervous system of the mother: nevertheless, as there is a
reciprocity of reaction between the physical body of the mother
and its embryonic parasite, the relation of the embryonic nervous
system to the nervous system of the mother is not very far
removed from the relation of the pre-eminent part of the nervous
system of a man to some minor nervous system within his body
which is to a marked extent dissociated from the whole neural
mass.

"Correspondingly, then, and within the consciousness of the
mother, there develops a new little minor consciousness which,
although but lightly integrated with the mass of her
consciousness, nevertheless has its part in her consciousness
taken as a whole, much as the psychic correspondents of the
action of the nerve which govern the secretions of the glands of
the body have their part in her consciousness taken as a whole.

"It is very much as if the optic ganglia developed fully in
themselves, without any closer connection with the rest of the
brain than existed at their first appearance. They would form a
little complex nervous system almost but not quite apart from the
brain system; and it would be difficult to deny them a
consciousness of their own; which would indeed form part of the
whole consciousness of the individual, but which would be in a
manner self-dependent." It must, if this is so, be said that
before birth, on the psychic side, the embryo's activities "form
part of a complex consciousness which is that of the mother and
embryo together." "Without subscribing to the strange stories of
telepathy, of the solemn apparition of a person somewhere at the
moment of his death a thousand miles away, of the unquiet ghost
haunting the scenes of its bygone hopes and endeavors, one may
ask" (with the author of the address in medicine at the Leicester
gathering of the British Medical Association, _British Medical
Journal_, July 29, 1905) "whether two brains cannot be so tuned
in sympathy as to transmit and receive a subtile transfusion of
mind without mediation of sense. Considering what is implied by
the human brain with its countless millions of cells, its
complexities of minute structure, its innumerable chemical
compositions, and the condensed forces in its microscopic and
ultramicroscopic elements--the whole a sort of microcosm of
cosmic forces to which no conceivable compound of electric
batteries is comparable; considering, again, that from an
electric station waves of energy radiate through the viewless air
to be caught up by a fit receiver a thousand miles distant, it is
not inconceivable that the human brain may send off still more
subtile waves to be accepted and interpreted by the fitly tuned
receiving brain. Is it, after all, mere fancy that a mental
atmosphere or effluence emanates from one person to affect
another, either soothing sympathetically or irritating
antipathically?" These remarks (like Dr. Marshall's) were made
without reference to maternal impressions, but it may be pointed
out that under no conceivable circumstance could we find a brain
in so virginal and receptive a state as is the child's in the
womb.

On the whole we see that pregnancy induces a psychic state which is at
once, in healthy persons, one of full development and vigor, and at the
same time one which, especially in individuals who are slightly abnormal,
is apt to involve a state of strained or overstrained nervous tension and
to evoke various manifestations which are in many respects still
imperfectly understood. Even the specifically sexual emotions tend to be
heightened, more especially during the earlier period of pregnancy. In 24
cases of pregnancy in which the point was investigated by Harry Campbell,
sexual feeling was decidedly increased in 8, in one case (of a woman aged
31 who had had four children) being indeed only present during pregnancy,
when it was considerable; in only 7 cases was there diminution or
disappearance of sexual feeling.[199] Pregnancy may produce mental
depression;[200] but on the other hand it frequently leads to a change of
the most favorable character in the mental and general well-being. Some
women indeed are only well during pregnancy. It is remarkable that some
women who habitually suffer from various nervous troubles--neuralgias,
gastralgia, headache, insomnia--are only free from them at this moment.
This "paradox of gestation," as Vinay has termed it, is specially marked
in the hysterical and those suffering from slight nervous disorders, but
it is by no means universal, so that although it is possible, Vinay
states, to confirm the opinion of the ancients as to the beneficial
action of marriage on hysteria, that is only true of slight cases and
scarcely enables us to counsel marriage in hysteria.[201] Even a woman's
intelligence is sometimes heightened by pregnancy, and Tarnier, as quoted
by Vinay, knew many women whose intelligence, habitually somewhat obtuse,
has only risen to the normal level during pregnancy.[202] The pregnant
woman has reached the climax of womanhood; she has attained to that state
toward which the periodically recurring menstrual wave has been drifting
her at regular intervals throughout her sexual life[203]; she has achieved
that function for which her body has been constructed, and her mental and
emotional disposition adapted, through countless ages.

And yet, as we have seen, our ignorance of the changes effected by the
occurrence of this supremely important event--even on the physical
side--still remains profound. Pregnancy, even for us, the critical and
unprejudiced children of a civilized age, still remains, as for the
children of more primitive ages, a mystery. Conception itself is a mystery
for the primitive man, and may be produced by all sorts of subtle ways
apart from sexual connection, even by smelling a flower.[204] The pregnant
woman was surrounded by ceremonies, by reverence and fear, often shut up
in a place apart.[205] Her presence, her exhalations, were of extreme
potency; even in some parts of Europe to-day, as in the Walloon districts
of Belgium, a pregnant woman must not kiss a child for her breath is
dangerous, or urinate on plants for she will kill them.[206] The mystery
has somewhat changed its form; it still remains. The future of the race is
bound up with our efforts to fathom the mystery of pregnancy. "The early
days of human life," it has been truly said, "are entirely one with the
mother. On her manner of life--eating, drinking, sleeping, and
thinking--what greatness may not hang?"[207] Schopenhauer observed, with
misapplied horror, that there is nothing a woman is less modest about than
the state of pregnancy, while Weininger exclaims: "Never yet has a
pregnant woman given expression in any form--poem, memoirs, or
gynaecological monograph--to her sensations or feelings."[208] Yet when we
contemplate the mystery of pregnancy and all that it involves, how trivial
all such considerations become! We are here lifted into a region where our
highest intelligence can only lead us to adoration, for we are gazing at a
process in which the operations of Nature become one with the divine task
of Creation.


FOOTNOTES:

[169] See, e.g., Groos, _AEsthetische Genuss_, p. 249. "We have to admit,"
Groos observes, "the entrance of another instinct, the impulse to tend and
foster, so closely connected with the sexual life. It is seemingly due to
the co-operation of this impulse that the little female bird during
courtship is so often fed by the male like a young fledgling. In man
'love' from the biological standpoint is also an amalgamation of two
needs; when the tender need to protect and foster and serve is lacking the
emotion is not quite perfect. Heine's expression, 'With my mantle I
protect you from the storm,' has always seemed to me very characteristic."
Sometimes the sexual impulse may undergo a complete transformation in this
direction. "I believe there is really a tendency in women," a lady writes
in a letter, "to allow maternal feeling to take the place of sexual
feeling. Very often a woman's feeling for her husband becomes this (though
he may be twenty years older than herself); sometimes it does not,
remaining purely sex feeling. Sometimes it is for some other man she has
this curious self-obliterating maternal feeling. It is not necessarily
connected with sex intercourse. A prostitute, who has relations with
dozens of men, may have it for some feeble drunken fool, who perhaps goes
after other women. I once saw the change from sex feeling to mother
feeling, as I call it, come almost suddenly over a woman after she had
lived about four years with a man who was unfaithful to her. Then, when
all real sex feeling, the hatred of the woman he followed, the desire he
should give her love and tenderness, had all gone, came the other feeling,
and she said to me, 'You don't understand at all; he's only my little
baby; nothing he does can make any difference to me now.' As I grow older
and understand women's natures better, I can see almost at once which
relation it is a woman has to her husband, or any given man. It is this
feeling, and not sex passion, that keeps woman from being free." Not only
is there a sexual association in the impulse to foster and protect, there
would appear to be a similar element also in the response to that impulse.
Freud has especially insisted on the partly sexual character of the
child's feelings for those who care for it and tend it and satisfy its
needs. It is begun in earliest infancy; "whoever has seen the sated infant
sink back from the breast, to fall asleep with flushed cheeks and happy
smile, must say that the picture is adequate to the expression of the
sexual satisfaction of later life." The lips, moreover, are the earliest
erogenous zone. "There will, perhaps, be some opposition," Freud remarks
(_Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie_, pp. 36, 64), "to the
identification of the child's feelings of tenderness and appreciation for
those who tend it with sexual love, but I believe that exact psychological
analysis will place the identity beyond doubt. The relationship of the
child with the person who tends it is for it a continual source of sexual
excitement and satisfaction flowing from the erogenous zones, especially
since the fostering person--as a rule the mother--regards the child with
emotions which proceed from her sexual life; strokes it, kisses it, rocks
it, and very plainly treats it as a compensation for a fully valid sexual
object." Freud remarks that girls who retain the childish character of
their love for their parents to adult age are apt to make cold wives and
to be sexually anaesthetic.

[170] Esbach (in his _These de Paris_, published in 1876) showed that even
the finger nails are affected in pregnancy and become measurably thinner.

[171] C.H. Stratz, _Die Schoenheit des Weiblichen Koerpers_, Chapter VI.

[172] Iron appears to be liberated in the maternal organism during
pregnancy, and Wychgel has shown (_Zeitschrift fuer Geburtshuelfe und
Gynaekologie_, bd. xlvii, Heft II) that the pigment of pregnant women
contains iron, and that the amount of iron in the urine is increased.

[173] Vinay, _Maladies de la Grossesse_, Chapter VIII; K. Hennig,
"Exploratio Externa," _Comptes-rendus du XIIe. Congres International de
Medecine_, vol. vi, Section XIII, pp. 144-166. A bibliography of the
literature concerning the physiology of pregnancy, extending to ten pages,
is appended by Pinard to his article "Grossesse," _Dictionnaire
Encyclopedique des Sciences Medicales_.

[174] Stratz, op. cit., Chapter XII.

[175] W.S.A. Griffith, "The Diagnosis of Pregnancy," _British Medical
Journal_, April 11, 1903.

[176] J. Mackenzie and H.O. Nicholson, "The Heart in Pregnancy," _British
Medical Journal_, October 8, 1904; Stengel and Stanton, "The Condition of
the Heart in Pregnancy," _Medical Record_, May 10, 1902 and _University
Pennsylvania Medical Bulletin_, Sept., 1904 (summarized in _British
Medical Journal_, August 16, 1902, and Sept. 23, 1905.)

[177] J. Henderson, "Maternal Blood at Term," _Journal of Obstetrics and
Gynaecology_, February, 1902; C. Douglas, "The Blood in Pregnant Women,"
_British Medical Journal_, March 26, 1904; W.L. Thompson, "The Blood in
Pregnancy," _Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin_, June, 1904.

[178] H.O. Nicholson, "Some Remarks on the Maternal Circulation in
Pregnancy," _British Medical Journal_, October 3, 1903.

[179] J. Morris Slemans, "Metabolism During Pregnancy," _Johns Hopkins
Hospital Reports_, vol. xii, 1904.

[180] B. Wolff, _Zentralblatt fuer Gynaekologie_, 1904, No. 26.

[181] Tridandani, _Annali di Ostetrica_, March, 1900.

[182] R. Barnes, "The Induction of Labor," _British Medical Journal_,
December 22, 1894.

[183] See, e.g., Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition, pp. 344,
et seq.

[184] Arthur Giles, "The Longings of Pregnant Women," _Transactions
Obstetrical Society of London_, vol. xxxv, 1893.

[185] Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, Chapter XXX.

[186] Thus, in Cornwall, "to be in the longing way" is a popular synonym
for pregnancy.

[187] The apple, wherever it is known, has nearly always been a sacred or
magic fruit (as J.F. Campbell shows, _Popular Tales of West Highlands_,
vol. I, p. lxxv. et seq.), and the fruit of the forbidden tree which
tempted Eve is always popularly imagined to be an apple. One may perhaps
refer in this connection to the fact that at Rome and elsewhere the
testicles have been called apples. I may add that we find a curious proof
of the recognition of the feminine love of apples in an old Portuguese
ballad, "Donna Guimar," in which a damsel puts on armour and goes to the
wars; her sex is suspected and as a test, she is taken into an orchard,
but Donna Guimar is too wary to fall into the trap, and turning away from
the apples plucks a citron.

[188] A. Pinard, Art. "Grossesse," _Dictionnaire Encyclopedique des
Sciences Medicales_, p. 138. On the subject of violent, criminal and
abnormal impulses during pregnancy, see Cumston, "Pregnancy and Crime,"
_American Journal Obstetrics_, December, 1903.

[189] See especially Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, vol. i, Chapter XXXI.
Ballantyne in his work on the pathology of the foetus adds Loango negroes,
the Eskimo and the ancient Japanese.

[190] In 1731 Schurig, in his _Syllepsilogia_, devoted more than a hundred
pages (cap. IX) to summarizing a vast number of curious cases of maternal
impressions leading to birth-marks of all kinds.

[191] J.W. Ballantyne has written an excellent history of the doctrine of
maternal impressions, reprinted in his _Manual of Antenatal Pathology: The
Embryo_, 1904, Chapter IX; he gives a bibliography of 381 items. In
Germany the history of the question has been written by Dr. Iwan Bloch
(under the pseudonym of Gerhard von Welsenburg), _Das Versehen der
Frauen_, 1899. Cf., in French, G. Variot, "Origine des Prejuges Populaires
sur les Envies," _Bulletin Societe d'Anthropologie_, Paris, June 18, 1891.
Variot rejects the doctrine absolutely, Bloch accepts it, Ballantyne
speaks cautiously.

[192] J.G. Kiernan has shown how many of the alleged cases are negatived
by the failure to take this fact into consideration. (_Journal of American
Medical Association_, December 9, 1899.)

[193] J. Clifton Edgar, _The Practice of Obstetrics_, second edition,
1904, p. 296. In an important discussion of the question at the American
Gynaecological Society in 1886, introduced by Fordyce Barker, various
eminent gynaecologists declared in favor of the doctrine, more or less
cautiously. (_Transactions of the American Gynaecological Society_, vol.
xi, 1886, pp. 152-196.) Gould and Pyle, bringing forward some of the data
on the question (_Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine_, pp. 81, _et
seq._) state that the reality of the influence of maternal impressions
seems fully established. On the other side, see G.W. Cook, _American
Journal of Obstetrics_, September, 1889, and H.F. Lewis, ib., July, 1899.

[194] _Transactions Edinburgh Obstetrical Society_, vol. xvii, 1892.

[195] J.W. Ballantyne, _Manual of Antenatal Pathology: The Embryo_, p. 45.

[196] W.C. Dabney, "Maternal Impressions," Keating's _Cyclopaedia of
Diseases of Children_, vol. i, 1889, pp. 191-216.

[197] Fere, _Sensation et Mouvement_, Chapter XIV, "Sur la Psychologie du
Foetus."

[198] J. Thomson, "Defective Co-ordination in Utero," _British Medical
Journal_, September 6, 1902.

[199] H. Campbell, _Nervous Organization of Man and Woman_, p. 206; cf.
Moll, _Untersuchungen ueber die Libido Sexualis_, bd. i, p. 264. Many
authorities, from Soranus of Ephesus onward, consider, however, that
sexual relations should cease during pregnancy, and certainly during the
later months. Cf. Brenot, _De l'influence de la copulation pendant la
grosseisse_, 1903.

[200] Bianchi terms this fairly common condition the neurasthenia of
pregnancy.

[201] Vinay, _Traite des Maladies de la Grossesse_, 1894, pp. 51, 577;
Mongeri, "Nervenkrankungen und Schwangerschaft." _Allegemeine Zeitschrift
fuer Psychiatrie_, bd. LVIII, Heft 5. Haig remarks (_Uric Acid_, sixth
edition, p. 151) that during normal pregnancy diseases with excess of uric
acid in the blood (headaches, fits, mental depression, dyspepsia, asthma)
are absent, and considers that the common idea that women do not easily
take colds, fevers, etc., at this time is well founded.

[202] Founding his remarks on certain anatomical changes and on a
suggestion of Engel's, Donaldson observes: "It is impossible to escape the
conclusion that in women natural education is complete only with
maternity, which we know to effect some slight changes in the sympathetic
system and possibly the spinal cord, and which may be fairly laid under
suspicion of causing more structural modifications than are at present
recognized." H.H. Donaldson, _The Growth of the Brain_, p. 352.

[203] The state of menstruation is in many respects an approximation to
that of pregnancy; see, e.g., Edgar's _Practice of Obstetrics_, plates 6 6
and 7, showing the resemblance of the menstrual changes in the breasts and
the external sexual parts to the changes of pregnancy; cf. Havelock Ellis,
_Man and Woman_, fourth edition, Chapter XI, "The Functional Periodicity
of Woman."

[204] Thus the gypsies say of an unmarried woman who becomes pregnant,
"She has smelt the moon-flower"--a flower believed to grow on the
so-called moon-mountain and to possess the property of impregnating by its
smell. Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, bd. I, Chapter XXVII.

[205] This was a sound instinct, for it is now recognized as an extremely
important part of puericulture that a woman should rest at all events
during the latter part of pregnancy; see, e.g., Pinard, _Gazette des
Hopitaux_, November 28, 1895, and _Annales de Gynecologie_, August, 1898.

[206] Ploss and Bartels, op. cit., Chapter XXIX; Kryptadia, vol. viii, p.
143.

[207] Griffith Wilkin, _British Medical Journal_, April 8, 1905.

[208] Weininger, _Geschlecht und Charakter_, p. 107. I may remark that a
recent book, Ellis Meredith's _Heart of My Heart_, is devoted to a
seemingly autobiographical account of a pregnant woman's emotions and
ideas. The relations of maternity to intellectual work have been carefully
and impartially investigated by Adele Gerhard and Helena Simon, who seem
to conclude that the conflict between the inevitable claims of maternity
and the scarcely less inevitable claims of the intellectual life cannot be
avoided.




APPENDIX.

HISTORIES OF SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT.

HISTORY I.--The following narrative has been written by a
university man trained in psychology:--

So far as I have been able to learn, none of my ancestors for at
least three generations have suffered from any nervous or mental
disease; and of those more remote I can learn nothing at all. It
appears probable, then, that any peculiarities of my own sexual
development must be explained by reference to the somewhat
peculiar environment.

I was the first child and was, naturally, somewhat spoiled--a
process which tended to increase my natural tendency to
sentimentality. On the other hand, I was shy and undemonstrative
with all except my nearest relatives, and with them as well after
my seventh or eighth year. And here it may be well to describe my
"mental type," as this is probably the most important factor in
determining the direction of one's mental development. Of mental
types the "visual" is, of course, by far the most common, but in
my own case visual imagery was never strong or vivid, and has
constantly grown weaker. The dominant part has been played by
tactual, muscular and organic sensations, placing me as one of
the "tactual motor" type, with strong "verbal motor" and
"organic" tendencies. In reading a novel I seldom have a mental
picture of the character or situation, but easily imagine the
sensations (except the visual) and feel something of the emotions
described. When telling of any event I have a strong impulse to
make the movements described and to gesticulate. I remember
events in terms of movements and the words to be used in giving
an account of them; and in thinking of any subject I can feel the
movements of the larynx and, in a less degree, of the lips and
tongue that would be involved in putting my thoughts into words.
I am easily moved to emotion, even to sentimentality, but am
seldom if ever deeply affected and am so averse to any display of
my feelings that I have the reputation among my acquaintances of
being cold, unfeeling and unemotional. I am naturally quiet and
bashful to a degree, which has rendered all forms of social
intercourse painful through much of my life, and this in spite of
a real longing to associate with people on terms of intimacy. As
a child I was sensitive and solitary; later I became morbid as
well. In a character so constituted the feelings and impulses of
the moment are likely to rule, and such has been my constant
experience, though a large element of obstinacy in my character
has kept me from appearing impulsive, and slight influences will
bring about reactions which seem out of all proportion to their
cause. For instance, I cannot, even now, read the more erotic of
Boccaccio's stories without a good deal of sexual excitement and
restlessness, which can be relieved only by vigorous exercise or
masturbation.

The first ten years of my life were passed on a farm, most of the
time without playmates or companions of my own age.

As far back as I can remember I indulged in elaborate day-dreams
in which I figured as the chief character along with a few others
who were chiefly creatures of my imagination, but at times
borrowed from reality. These others were always boys until I
learned the proper function of the sexual organs, when girls
usurped the whole stage in numbers beyond the limits of a Turkish
harem. Even at school my day-dreams were scarcely interrupted,
for my shyness and timidity made me very unpopular among my
schoolmates, who tormented me after the fashion of small boys or
neglected me, as the spirit moved them. To make matters worse, I
was brought up under the "sheltered life system," kept carefully
away from the "bad boys," which category included nearly all the
youngsters of the community, and deluged with moral homilies and
tirades on things religious until I was thoroughly convinced that
goodness and discomfort, the right and the unpleasant, were
strictly synonymous; and I was kept through much of the time
facing the prospect of an early death, to be followed by the good
old orthodox hell or the equal miseries of its gorgeous
alternative. I may say in all seriousness that this is a
conservative and unexaggerated account of one phase of my early
life--the one, I think, that tended most strongly to make me
introspective and morbid. Later on, when I was trying to abandon
the habit of masturbation, this early training greatly increased
the despair I felt at each successive failure.

The first traces of sexual excitement that I can now recall
occurred when I was about 4 years old. I had erections quite
frequently and found a mild pleasure in fondling my genitals when
these occurred, especially just after waking in the morning. I
had no notion of an orgasm, and never succeeded in producing one
until I was 13 years of age. In the summer of my sixth year I
experienced pleasurable sensations in daubing my genitals with
oil and then fondling or rubbing them, but I abandoned this
amusement after getting some irritating substance into the
meatus. A year later my mother warned me that playing with my
penis would "make me very sick," but since experience had taught
me that this was not true, my conviction that what was forbidden
must necessarily be pleasant, sent me directly to my favorite
retreat in the barn loft to experiment. Since, however, I failed,
in spite of persistent effort, to produce any such pleasant
results as I had expected, I soon gave up my attempts for other
kinds of amusement.

A few months after this, in midsummer, a very sensual servant
girl began a series of attempts to satisfy herself sexually with
my help. She came nearly every day into the loft where I was
playing and did her best to initiate me into the mysteries of
sexual relationships, but I proved a sorry pupil. She would rub
my penis until it became erect and then, placing me upon her,
would insert the penis in her vulva and make movements of her
thighs and hips calculated to cause friction. At times she varied
the program by lying upon me and embracing me passionately. I can
remember distinctly her quick, gasping breath and convulsive
movements. She generally ended the seance by persuading me to
perform cunnilingus upon her. None of these performances were
intelligible to me and I invariably protested against being
compelled to leave my play to amuse her. Even her fondling of my
genitals annoyed me; and, stranger still, I preferred satisfying
her by cunnilingus to the attempts at coitus.

It was nearly a year later that I experienced the first
unmistakable manifestations of the sexual impulse--erections
accompanied by lustful feeling and vague desires of whose proper
satisfaction I had no notion whatever. It never occurred to me to
associate my experiences with the servant girl with these new
sensations. The peculiar fact about them was that they were
generally occasioned by the infliction of pain upon animals. I do
not remember how I first discovered that they could be evoked in
this way, but I can clearly recollect many of my efforts to
arouse this pleasurable excitement by abusing the dog or the
cats, or by prodding the calves with a nail set in the end of a
broom handle. I seldom manipulated my genitals at this time, and
when I did it was for the purpose of causing sexual excitement
rather than allaying it.

During this same year I got my first idea of sexual intercourse
by watching animals copulate; but my powers of observation must
have been limited, for I supposed that the penis of the male
entered the anus of the female. In watching the coitus of animals
I experienced lively sexual excitement and lustful sensations,
located not only in the genitals, but apparently in the anus as
well. I often excited, myself by imagining myself playing the
part of the female animal--a peculiar combination of passive
pederasty and bestiality. A servant girl put me to right on the
error of observation just mentioned, but neglected to apply the
principle to human animals, and I remained for another year in
complete ignorance of the structure of woman's sexual organs and
of the intercourse between man and woman. In the meantime I
cultivated my fancies of intercourse with animals, often still
perversely imagining myself taking the part of the female; and
the notion of such relationships gradually became so familiar as
to seem possible and desirable. This is especially significant in
view of later developments.

Up to my eleventh or twelfth year the erotic element in my
daydreaming varied with the seasons. In the summer it played a
dominant part, while in the winter it was almost entirely absent,
owing, it may be, to the fact that most of my time was spent
indoors or on long, tiresome tramps to and from school, and the
further fact that during the winter I saw but little of the
animals which had acted as a stimulus to sexual excitement. So
little was I troubled in winter and so ignorant was I of normal
intercourse that sleeping with a cousin, a girl of about my own
age (7 or 8 years), resulted in no addition to my knowledge of
things sexual.

It was early in my ninth year that I first learned something of
the anatomical difference between man and woman and of the
functions of the sexual organs in coitus. These were explained to
me by a young male servant, who, however, told me nothing of
conception or pregnancy. At first I was very little interested,
as it did not immediately occur to me to associate my own erotic
experiences with the matter of these revelations; but under the
faithful tuition of my new instructor I soon began to desire
normal coitus, and my interest in the sexual affairs of animals
weakened accordingly. His teachings went still further, for he
masturbated before me, then persuaded me to masturbate him, and
finally practiced coitus inter femora upon me. He also tried to
masturbate me, but was unable to produce an orgasm, though I
found the experiment mildly pleasurable.

Early in my eleventh year we left the farm and lived in the city
for several months. In the meantime there had been no
developments in my sexual life beyond what has already been
indicated. In the city I found so much to interest and amuse me
that I almost entirely forgot my erotic day-dreams and desires.
Though my chief playmates were two girls of about my own age I
never thought of attempting sexual intercourse with them, as I
might easily have done, for they were much wiser and more
experienced in these things than myself. Shortly before the end
of our stay in town an older schoolmate explained to me as much
of the process of reproduction as is usually known by a
precocious youngster of 12 years, but I firmly refused to credit
his statements. He adduced the fact of lactation in proof of the
correctness of his views, but I had been too thoroughly steeped
in supernaturalism to be very amenable to naturalistic evidence
of this sort and remained obdurate. But the suggestion stayed
with me and perplexed me not a little; when we returned to the
farm I began to watch the reproductive process in animals.

The following two years were decidedly unpleasant. I was growing
rapidly and was sluggish, awkward and stupid. At school I was
more unpopular than ever and seemed to have a positive genius
for doing the wrong thing. On the rare occasions when my
companions admitted me to their counsels I was a willing dupe and
catspaw, with the result that I was much in trouble with my
teachers. Being morbidly sensitive I suffered keenly under these
circumstances and, as my health was not at all good, I often made
of my frequent headaches excuses to stay at home, where I would
lie abed brooding over my small troubles or, more often, dreaming
erotic day-dreams and making repeated attempts to produce an
orgasm. But though these efforts were accompanied by the most
lustful thoughts and my imagination created situations of
oriental extravagance, I was 13 years old when they first met
with success. I remember the occasion very distinctly, the more
so because I thought of it much and bitterly when shortly
afterwards I tried to abandon a habit which the family "doctor
book" assured me must result in every variety of damnation. At
the moment, however, I was greatly surprised and gratified and
tried at once to repeat the delightful sensation, but was unable
to do so until the following day. From that time to the present I
think I have masturbated an average of ten times per week, and
this is certainly a very conservative estimate; for though up to
my sixteenth year I could seldom produce an orgasm more than once
a day I have often, during the last four or five years, produced
it from four to seven times per day without difficulty and this
for days and even weeks in succession. During these periods of
excessive masturbation very little liquid was ejaculated and the
pleasurable sensations were slight or entirely lacking.

From the time when I began masturbating regularly practically my
whole interest centered in things pertaining to sex. I read the
chapters of the family "doctor book" which treated of sexual
matters; my day-dreams were almost exclusively erotic; I sought
opportunities to talk about sex-relationships with my
schoolmates, with whom I was now slowly getting on better terms;
I collected pictures of nude women, learned a great number of
obscene stories, read such obscene books as I could obtain and
even searched the dictionary for words having a sexual
connotation. Up to my fifteenth year, when ejaculation of semen
began, there was a strong sadistic coloring to my day-dreams.
Through this period, too, my bashfulness in the presence of the
opposite sex increased until it reached the point of absurdity.

When fifteen years old I began to practice coitus inter femora on
my brother and continued it intermittently for about two years.
The experience was disappointing, for I had confidently expected
a great increase of pleasure over masturbation in this act; and
in casting about for some stronger stimulus I recurred to the
forgotten idea of intercourse with animals. I promptly tried to
put the idea to a test, but failed several times, and finally
succeeded, only to find that the result fell far short of my
expectations. Nevertheless I continued the practice irregularly
for about three years--or rather through that part of the three
years that I spent at home, for while I was at school opportunity
for such indulgence was lacking. Long familiarity with the idea