GENERAL PATHOLOGY 



385 



appears as soon as an opportunity for the natural exercise of 

 the function occurs. It is very different with human homo- 

 sexuals, who are mostly so from birth. And here again we 

 must distinguish true homo-sexuality from the irregularities 

 of blase wastrels. Normal thought and feeling cannot explain 

 how a man can choose another man for active sexual action, 

 or a woman passively submit herself to another woman. But 

 when a man with female instincts submits to another man, or 

 a woman with male instincts chooses another woman to satisfy 

 her desires, Taruffi is entirely right in regarding this as psychi- 

 cal hermaphrodism, as these abnormalities can only be ex- 

 plained by supposing that the opposite sexual powers have 

 remained present in a latent form. 



FIG. 195. Hen with cock's plumage. 



Darwin has collected instances of the appearance in animals 

 of secondary sexual characteristics which had hitherto been 

 latent. Among domestic and wild birds (fowls, peacocks, 

 ducks, partridges and pheasants), for instance, the hens have 

 after a time developed cock feathers (Fig. 195) and behaved 

 like the cock birds. In the same way does from some cause 

 which has aroused the latent male potentiality have developed 

 antlers. 1 Males have also assumed female characteristics, as 

 among domestic fowls when the cocks sometimes take the 

 appearance and manner of hens. 2 



1 Darwin, loc. cit.. iv., p. 58. 

 25 



2 Ibid., iii., p. 280. 



