366 Appendix 



The more or less brilliant or striking "wedding gar- 

 ment" which nearly all animals assume when in love, 

 arises from an abnormal condition of general hyper- 

 secretion occasioned again by the hormonic products of 

 the germinal substance. At any rate it shows how deep 

 is the physiological disturbance caused in all somatic 

 cells by the germinal substance. The effort to expel so 

 disturbing an element then becomes a tendency to copu- 

 lation as means of effecting this expulsion. Hence the 

 fundamentally selfish character (nature fonder ement 

 ego'iste) of sexual love which Ribot rightly emphasizes: 

 "In the immense majority of animals, and frequently 

 in man, the sexual instinct is not accompanied by any 

 tender emotion. The act once accomplished, there is 

 separation and forgetting." 7 



It remains to be explained why copulation of the 

 sexes is the only means of eliminating the germinal 

 substance, whereas the single individual is sufficient for 

 the removal of all other more or less similar waste 

 matter. 



It is easy to suppose that the reason lies in the 

 peculiar nature of the substance itself, and there are two 

 circumstances that may perhaps, if considered together, 

 contribute a little to the desired explanation: First, the 

 attraction by the ovum of the spermatozoon even at some 

 distance by means of secretions diffused in all direc- 

 tions; and second, the fact that hermaphroditism prob- 

 ably preceded sexual dimorphism in the phylogeny of 

 pluricellular organisms. Still we must recognize the fact 

 that the phylogenetic process, which by this elimina- 



7 Th. Ribot, La psychologic des sentiments, p. 258. Paris, Alcan, 

 1908 (English translation in Contemporary Science Series, London, 

 1911, p. 253). Essai sur les passions, pp. 67 ff. Paris, Alcan, 1907. 



