CORRUPTIO OPTIMI PESSIMA 143 



the path of vice. It appears that sexual per- 

 versions usually develop (under appropriate 

 stimulus) in those who are unhappily born 

 with a taint, such as lack of control ; or who 

 acquire or are led into bad habits in the 

 earliest childhood; or who have their will- 

 power and their sense of self-respect weakened 

 by other vice ; but there is no evidence that 

 the appropriate stimulus is supplied by scien- 

 tific treatises. It is certainly not as a path 

 of roses that these depict the way of sexual 

 sinners and perverts. 



PATHOLOGICAL EXPRESSIONS OF SEX. 

 There are various bases of classification 

 available in arranging the diverse forms of 

 pathological sex-expression. The first of these 

 is naturally biological 



(a) Those which have a germinal, consti- 

 tutional, or hereditary origin : e. g. extreme 

 sexual excitability of the congenital type, 

 abnormal weakness of sexual desire, general 

 lack of control. 



(b) Those which are modificational or 

 acquired, being the direct results of degener- 

 ative functions and surroundings : such as 

 exaggerated sexuality acquired through diet, 

 drink, etc. 



Most inborn morbidities are of the nature 

 of tendencies or predispositions, and there is 

 hopefulness in remembering that these will 

 not develop into actualities unless they receive 

 an appropriate " nurture." The hopefulness 

 of therapeutic treatment is increased by the 

 fact that after early childhood, when bad 

 habits are readily, though subconsciously, 

 acquired, there is a long period of latency 



