SEX BIOLOGY AND SEX PSYCHOLOGY 167 



a curious and almost universal attribute of the hu- 

 man mind. The most familiar example is perhaps 

 the anthropomorphism which in religion after re- 

 ligion has invested the powers of the universe with 

 human form, human mental process, human personal- 

 ity — or at least with form, mind, and personality 

 similar to those of man; while a very simple case is 

 that in which certain neurotic types project their de- 

 pression so as to colour everything that comes into 

 their cognizance a gloomy black. 



In the sphere of sex this process is, alas, most 

 potently at work. The man in whom the sexual in- 

 stinct still lives a more or less independent, unin- 

 hibited life of its own, tends — unless he has special 

 evidence to the contrary, and often even then — to 

 interpret the behaviour and the minds of others in 

 the terms familiar to himself, and to suppose that 

 they too must be stopped by the fear of punishment 

 or of loss of caste if they are not to commit excesses. 



On the other hand, those in whom there is a con- 

 stant conflict with a sexual origin project it here, 

 there, and everywhere into the breasts of those they 

 know, and interpret others' motives in terms of their 

 own repressed wishes. 



Furthermore, most of our existing laws and cus- 

 toms are based on a state of society in which the 

 changes to which we have referred had not pro- 

 gressed as far as they have to-day, and man's psy- 

 chology was a little less removed from that of other 

 mammals. 



The result is that those who attempt the com- 



