

SEX BIOLOGY AND SEX PSYCHOLOGY 141 



biological importance on the physical side. Man 

 brings with him from his animal ancestors the en- 

 docrine secretory mechanism of the reproductive or- 

 gans : but his life is not subordinated to it in such an 

 iron-bound way. To start with he has gradually lost 

 all semblance of a breeding-season. Traces of it sur- 

 vive in some primitive races, but in civilized com- 

 munities all one can say is that the number of births 

 may show a slight seasonal variation; and the repro- 

 ductive organs are capable of function in all twelve 

 months of the year — a state of affairs known, 1 be- 

 lieve, in no other vertebrate, or at least in no wild 

 species."^ 



In the second place, there has been in the female a 

 further emancipation of the sexual life. In all other 

 mammals the female will only receive the male at 

 certain well-defined periods, which in their turn de- 

 pend on cyclical changes in the ovaries. In man this 

 restriction has been overcome, and, in spite of the 

 survival of a certain degree of cyclical change in feel- 

 ing, neither sex is restricted any longer to certain 

 physically-determined periods for the consummation 

 of its sexual life. This is, we may say, a triumph of 

 mind over matter in the human organism, of the 

 mental elements of the sexual life over the purely 

 physical elements. 



This is not to deny that the sexual life of man is 

 dependent upon the reproductive hormones. It is 

 apparently necessary for proper activation of the 



7 See Carr-Saunders, '22, ch. v, and M. Stopes. 



