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.® 
The fact that such perversions are common accords 
poorly with the hypothesis that the only reason for the 
8Ribot, La psych, des Sent., pp. 263, 265 (Engl. ed., pp. 257, 259). 
