PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE 



tions are poured. Doubtless the drake is aberrated, and 

 his accomplice still more so, but nature deserves part of 

 the blame. In general, animal aberrations require very 

 simple explanations. There is a keen desire, and very 

 urgent need, which if unsatisfied produces an inquietude, 

 which may augment until a sort of momentary madness 

 takes hold of the animal, and throws it blindly upon all 

 sorts of illusions. This may go, doubtless, to the point 

 of hallucination. There is also a need, purely muscular, 

 of at least sketching in the sexual act, either passive or 

 active; one sees, by singular inversion, cows in heat 

 mounting each other, perhaps with the idea of exciting 

 the male, or perhaps the visual representation which they 

 make themselves of the desired act, forces them to try 

 an imitation: it is a marvellous example, because it is 

 absurd, of the motor force of images. 



There are two parts in the sexual act; that of the 

 specie, and that of the individual; but that of the specie 

 is only given it by means of the individual. In relation 

 to the male in rut, it is a question of a very simple 

 natural need. He must empty his spermatic canals: 

 lacking females they say the stag rubs his prong on 

 trees to provoke ejaculation. Bitches in heat rub their 

 vulva on the ground. Such are the rudiments of onanism, 

 suddenly carried by primates to such a high degree of 

 perfection. One has seen male cantharides, themselves 

 ridden, riding other males; the argule, a small crustacean 

 parasite of fresh-water fish, is so ardent that he often 

 addresses himself to other males, or to gravid or even 

 dead females. From the microscopic beasts to man, 

 aberration is everywhere; but one should, rather, call it, 

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