150 SEX 



a noteworthy fact that the great majority of 

 the records of sexual perversions in animals 

 refer to captive or domesticated forms which 

 suffer from repressive conditions. 



THE WORK OF FREUD. The most important 

 recent contributions to the pathology of sex 

 are those of Prof. Sigmund Freud ; but it is 

 still uncertain how many of his conclusions 

 will stand even his own criticism. For like 

 most progressive investigators he has from 

 time to time modified several of his doctrines 

 in the light of fresh facts. One of the general 

 results of his work has been to show that some 

 sexual agency operates to an unexpected 

 extent in the causation of neurotic manifesta- 

 tions. Some of these, like hysteria and 

 obsessions (" psycho-neuroses "), are traced 

 back by Freud to erotic experience in child- 

 hood, to the influence of unconscious or 

 repressed idea-complexes. Neurasthenia and 

 anxiety -neurosis (" true neuroses ") are re- 

 ferred to the present abnormal condition of 

 the sexual functions of the individual. 

 Hysteria, it may be said, is more psychic ; and 

 neurasthenia more toxic; but both have a 

 sexual basis. 



In nervous (" neuropathic ") families there 

 is often sexual precocity in the young children, 

 even in the suckling, and there is often careless 

 over-fondling on the part of the parents; 

 constitutional weakness and precocious ex- 

 perience may thus combine with very detri- 

 mental results. After the third or fourth 

 year there is the happy latent period of child- 

 hood, but the influence of early habits may 

 last and may warp the whole adolescence. 



