54 Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



sexual. The inversion of the great inverts may always be par- 

 doned ; it does not hinder them from being themselves, from 

 accomplishing their work in the work. Do we believe that 

 Plato, Walt Whitman, Michael Angelo, the Great Conde, 

 Winckelmann and the host of others deserve or desire pity for 

 their homosexuality ? 



Great men are great by reason of what they are, in spite 

 of all the infirmities and the abcidents of this life. Men of 

 genius, whether homosexual, heterosexual or indifferent, make 

 it very plain that men are not to be classified according to their 

 sexual bent, but for other considerations of a different order. 

 If great men and men of large heart and lofty spirit find them- 

 selves outside the pale of the pity which people like to organize 

 for the aid of inverts, ordinary men who are uranists and who 

 are sick, degenerate, unbalanced, weakly, unfortunate, hypo- 

 crites, ought to be judged like the sick, the unfortunate, the 

 feeble or the craven — but why excite our sympathy for them ? 

 Read carefully their autobiographies and tell me frankly and hon- 

 estly, would they have been worth any more, would they have 

 been more happy, more virtuous, if they had been heterosexual 

 and as prone to sexuality ? 



As for prostitutes, extortioners of hush-money, adven- 

 turers, let us be just ; but not indulgent ! I speak of prosti- 

 tutes of all degress of the social hierarchy. Even those who 

 gladly sell-themselves and who love their business and their 

 keeper are given over to the extortion of hush-money and theft. 

 The man of the world who resorts to one of them knows what 

 threatens him and hardly deserves the pity that would gladly be 

 given him if one considered the consequences only of his folly. 



The hypocrites or the cynical debauchees who try to de- 

 prave or who do deprave children, young boys or very young 

 men are treated by public opinion with commendable justice and 

 contempt. TJiis sev£?ity and this contejnpt ought not to be dimin- 

 ished. The inverts often share this contempt and some of them 

 avoid each other and criticize each other and spurn each other. 

 This is less from sexual inappetence, I think, than because they 

 understand each other and despise each other too much. 



