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As sexual selection depends on so fluctuating an element as taste, we can understand how it is that, within the same group of birds having nearly the same habits, there should exist white or nearly white, as well as black, or nearly black species, for instance, both white and black cockatoos, storks, ibises, swans, terns, and petrels.
The connection is so completely in accordance with law, that the form taken by the sexual relation in any period may be inferred from the predominance of one or other of these universal ideas in the worship of a people.” Ibid., Intro., p. xxix. Such, in outline, is Bachofen’s famous matriarchal theory.
Many advocates of sexual abstinence have attached importance to the fact that men of great genius have apparently been completely continent throughout life. But this fact can scarcely be invoked as an argument in favor of the advantages of sexual abstinence among the ordinary population.
The menses had never appeared, and there seemed to be no sexual desire. Micklucho-Maclay found that one of the most primitive of all existing races the New Hollanders practiced ovariotomy for the utilitarian purpose of creating a supply of prostitutes, without the danger of burdening the population by unnecessary increase.
There is upon the subject of love, no doubt, much beautiful composition. throughout his works; but not one line in all the thousands which shows a sexual feeling of female attraction all is vague and passionless, save in the delicious rhythm of the verse.
The development of these organs is intelligible through sexual selection, if the most odoriferous males are the most successful in winning the females, and in leaving offspring to inherit their gradually perfected glands and odours. We have seen that male quadrupeds often have the hair on their necks and shoulders much more developed than the females; and many additional instances could be given.
Finally, for the individual who is thoroughly unsound the symbol becomes generalized; a person is no longer desired at all, being merely regarded as an appendage of the symbol, or being dispensed with altogether; the symbol is alone desired, and is fully adequate to impart by itself complete sexual gratification.
To believe that natural selection, sexual selection or any other kind of selection can account for the countless differences we see about us requires more faith in chance than a Christian is required to have in God.
But taken by itself, the fear of disease, especially if it enters the individual's life after the age when he has already experienced the force of his sexual instincts, is a feeble influence. The person who has nothing but the knowledge that he is taking great risks between him and the gratification of his sexual desires will take the risks and take them once too often.
In the Orient the harems are perfumed with intense extracts and flowers, in accordance with the strong belief in the aphrodisiac effect of odors. Krafft-Ebing quotes several interesting cases in which the connection between the olfactory and sexual functions is strikingly verified. "The case of Henry III shows that contact with a person's perspiration may be the exciting cause of passionate love.
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