SEX BIOLOGY AND SEX PSYCHOLOGY ^ 



"And now I see with eye serene 

 The very pulse of the machine." 



— W. Wordsworth. 



"There is reason to believe that the processes which underlie 

 all great work in art, literature, or science take place uncon- 

 sciously, or at least unwittingly. It is an interesting question to 

 ask whence comes the energy of which this work is the expression. 

 There are two chief possibilities: one, that it is derived from the 

 instinctive tendencies which, through the action of controUing 

 forces, fail to find their natural outlet; the other, that the energy 

 so arising is increased in amount through the conflict between 

 controlled and controlling forces." — W. H. Rivers. 



THE biology of sex is a vast subject. Not only 

 are there questions of sex-determination, but 

 the whole sexual selection problem has to be 

 considered, together with the evolutionary function 

 of sex, and its first origin. I can only attempt, in 

 the short space at my disposal, to deal with one or 

 two of the chief points, and only in so far as they 

 bear on questions of human sex psychology. 



In the first place, then, we have to consider the 

 evolutionary history of sex. Of its origin we can say 

 only that it is veiled in complete obscurity. Once 



1 Read before the British Society for Sex Psychology, October 

 1922. 



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