146 SEX 



unless it is exhibited in conditions where nor- 

 mal sexual gratification is practicable. In 

 some forms, the sexual inversion may be 

 traced back to perverting experiences in early 

 childhood; in other cases it can be referred, 

 in part at least, to unnatural conditions, 

 including in that phrase the absence of 

 members of the opposite sex, of which our 

 civilised societies, even at their would-be 

 educational best, yield so many and such 

 flagrant and disastrous instances. The so- 

 called " uranist " variation is sometimes associ- 

 ated with other peculiarities, such as vanity, 

 mendacity, hyperaesthesia, and a femininity 

 in males, but it seems clear that there are 

 occasionally uranists who are otherwise nor- 

 mal. From all such anomalies one turns 

 with relief to the opinion of Sancho Panza 

 the wise, who liked a man to be a man and a 

 woman a woman. 



REASONS FOR PATHOLOGICAL INSTABILITY. 

 Even a slight acquaintance with the facts 

 of the case the unhappiness, the struggle, 

 the brooding, the dread, the loss of vigour, 

 the bad habits, the obsessions, the evil done 

 to others raises the question why there is 

 in man this apparently great liability to 

 pathological expression ? Some of the reasons 

 are not far to seek. In wild nature there is 

 very little disease, unless we include parasit- 

 ism. Unhealthy and defective creatures are 

 speedily eliminated, and there is no hereditary 

 accumulation of weakness or vice. In man- 

 kind this socially merciful selection is in great 

 part evaded by society itself, and in many 

 ways, from philanthropic to legal, all of which 



