Affective Tendencies 367 



tion has become so closely associated with copulation, 

 is still far from a satisfactory explanation. 



But even in this incomplete form the hypothesis 

 which attributes to the sexual instinct no further signifi- 

 cance than a tendency to eliminate a disturbing element, 

 permits us to present this instinct in very different 

 light from that in which it has hitherto appeared. 

 For were this hypothesis to be accepted, the sexual in- 

 stinct would not have 'originated and developed for the 

 "good" of the species, but of the individual. It would 

 therefore not represent the "will of the species" im- 

 posing itself upon the individual, as most people now 

 maintain with Schopenhauer, but much rather would it 

 mean here as always the "will" of the single individual; 

 that is, the usual tendency to keep its stationary physio- 

 logical condition unchanged. And instead of seeing in 

 it with Weismann and all neo-Darwinists a new evidence 

 of the alleged omnipotence of natural selection, La- 

 marck's principle of individual adaptation combined with 

 the inheritance of acquired characters would be sufficient 

 to account for this as well as for all other instincts. 



Moreover, the "elimination" hypothesis is sufficient 

 by itself to explain certain peculiarities of this impulse 

 which would be quite incomprehensible from the stand- 

 point of Schopenhauer and 'the neo-Darwinians. 



Ribot, for instance, is surprised that an instinct 

 which is so exceedingly important for the continuance 

 of the species is so often subjected to certain perversions 

 which seem to involve its complete negation. 8 



The fact that such perversions are common accords 

 poorly with the hypothesis that the only reason for the 



8 Ribot, La psych, des Sent., pp. 263, 265 (Engl. ed., pp. 257, 259). 



