the toads and frogs holds the female gives testimony as to the force of the sexual ardor. 'Spallanzani (1785), in certain cruel experiments, verified that neither the amputation of posterior or anterior members, nor decapitation, nor the increasing burning of the legs, loosened the hold of the embrace. (Sexual Reproduction and Naural History of Sex, p. 109)

On the other hand the sexual impulse lacks precision. Breeders have for a long time noticed the homosexual activity of dogs, pigeons, chickens, and ducks. The stal lion, Samson teaches in his course in zootechnics, easily mistakes the route, and, until he has mounted, the groom must assist him." (Gide, loc. cit., p. 10 1)

In man the period of undifferentiated sexual instinct may be prolonged to the twenty-third year. Until that time, according to Max Dessoir, the direction of the instinct has not yet a need to attach itself to a determined end. It is undifferentiated, or, as Freud says, polymorphous. The object of the instinct does not need to belong to the opposite sex.

It is this indecision of the sexual instinct that nature has alleviated by the superabundance of the male element. Darwin speaks of the clouds of pollen which the wind carries to the conifers which it tosses about, of 'these thick clouds of pollen from which only a few grains can fall by chance upon the ovules.' (cited by Gide, loc. cit., p. 77) Among the animals, coupling takes place only when the female is in heat, but the desire of the male is permanent. In man the act of procreation is rare, once in ten months being sufficient. It is a happy circumstance for the males, slaves of the spur of desire, that the act of procreation is not the only means of giving them satisfaction, and that there exists a type of behavior 'to which,' says Sainte-Beuve, 'it is very easy to become accustomed and from which it is very difficult to become detached.

'The science of man has furnished us certain unwise precisions,' writes Jean Rostand. 'We now knew the exact molecular constitution of certain substances which condition the differentiation of the sexes. We know these substances well enough to represent them by letters and figures; we prepare them by way of synthesis; we obtain them as beautiful, white polyhedrons. It would be to use language with slight scientific presicion, but, in short, not erroneously, to say that femininity and masculinity are crystallizable.' (Thoughts of a Biologist, p. 58) If one form has the feminine form and soul, it owes it to an alcohol complex, or sterol. If a man has the

one

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