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 fonciérement 
égoiste) 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- 
7Th. Ribot, La psychologie des sentiments, p. 258. Paris, Alcan, 
1908 (English translation in Contemporary Science Series, London, 
IQII, p. 253).—Essai sur les passions, pp. 67 ff. Paris, Alcan, 1907. 
