40 Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



account should be taken of the proportion of sexually preco- 

 cious heterosexual children. How many little boys, how many 

 little girls, form attachments for each other or for adults ? 

 How many little boys of five years are enamoured with a beau- 

 tiful woman or a grown-up girl ? People laugh at them and 

 repeat before them that which they think about so mysteriously 

 and express so comically and the little ones in the end explain 

 to themselves the motives for their sentiments. 



And certainly these sentimental affections are not rare with 

 children. They are foolishly encouraged because they are 

 amusing ; but as these affections when they are homosexual are 

 not amusing, they receive no attention. The child understands 

 all this obscurely ; when he gives some sign of the emotion 

 produced in him by the presence or the contact of a man, he 

 perceives that his agitation passes unnoticed. When he gives 

 a flower to. a woman people joke him ; when he puts his hand 

 in that of a man they say nothing. The man interests him 

 much more than the woman and the grown persons think the 

 contrary. The child devines very quickly that there is a misun- 

 derstanding there, and with the marvelous dissimulation of child- 

 ren he accepts the situation. Children are so dissembling, not 

 only from ignorance but still more from fear and prudence. They 

 know very early what they ought to say and especially what they 

 ought to conceal. Science ought not to be surprised at this, 

 for it exists to a certain degree among the domestic animals. 

 Vanity and love of approbation are characteristic of children as 

 of animals. 



It is natural also that the congenital invert should recall so 

 clearly the precocity of his propensities. There arrives a mo- 

 ment in the existence of every invert when he deciphers the 

 enigma of his homosexual inclination. It is then that he re- 

 views all his memories and in order to justify himself in his own 

 eyes he remembers to have been what he is from his earliest 

 infancy. Homosexuality has colored all of his young life ; he 

 has thought of it, dreamed of it, pondered over it — in perfect 

 innocence very often. While still very small he has im- 

 agined himself kidnaped by brigands or barbarians ; at 



