CHAPTER IV

THE SEXUAL APPETITE If we sum up the three preceding chapters we arrive at the philosophical conclusion that reproduction depends on the general natural tendency of all living beings to multiply indefinitely. Fission and sexual reproduction arise from the simple fact that the growth of each individual is necessarily limited in space as well as time. Reproduction is thus destined to assure the continuation of life; the individual dies but is perpetuated in his progeny. We do not know why the crossing of individuals is rendered necessary by the phenomenon of conjugation. On this subject we can only build hypotheses, but the study of nature shows us that where conjugation ceases reproduction is etiolated and finally disappears, even when it is still possible for a certain time. From the commencement of life there is thus a powerful law of attraction with the object of reproduction. At first there are unicellular organisms, in which one cell penetrates the other in the act of conjugation. Their substances combine intimately, while the molecules of each nucleus become so arranged as to give the new individual a more fresh and powerful energy of growth. In the lower multicellular plants and animals which bud, fresh buds live at the expense of the old trunk to give life to new branches, and the male cells or pollen fecundate the female cells so as to disperse the germs capable of growth and of thus reproducing the species. It is also the same in the madrepores and other agglomerated animals (such as the solitary worms), composed of parameres or metameres, so long as a single central nervous system does not coordinate the metameres, or primary agglutinated animals, into a single organism. In the higher animals, the complex polycellular individuals formed by the agglomeration of several primitive animals, are transformed into a higher and mobile unity by the aid of the great vital apparatus called the nervous system, which becomes the mental director of the living organism and invests it with its individual character. However, this higher unity of life, which always becomes more psychic, that is to say, at the same time intellectual, sentimental and voluntary, by its complication and its numerous relations with other individuals, this unity called the _central nervous system_ cannot do without the necessity for reproduction. In animal phylogeny, as soon as hermaphrodism has ceased and each individual has become the sole bearer of one of the two kinds of sexual cells, the species will eventually disappear if the male cells cannot reach the female cells by the active movement of the whole individual. Thus is produced the marvelous phenomenon of the desire of increase and reproduction, originally peculiar to the male cell, penetrating the nervous system, that is to say life and soul in its entirety, the life of the higher unity of the individual. An ardent desire, a powerful impulse thus arises in the nervous system at the time of puberty and attracts the individual toward the opposite sex. The care and the pleasure of self preservation, which had hitherto fully occupied his attention, become effaced by this new impulse. The desire to procreate dominates everything. A single pleasure, a single desire, a single passion lays hold of the organism and urges it toward the individual of the opposite sex, and to become united with it in intimate contact and penetration. It is as if the nervous system or the whole organism felt as if it had for the moment become a germinal cell, so powerful is the desire to unite with the other sex. In some beautiful verses the German poet-philosopher _Goethe_ (West-Oestlicher Divan, book VIII, "Suleika") describes the desire to procreate (p. 63): Und mit eiligem Bestreben Sucht sich, was sich angehört, Und zu ungemessnem Leben Ist Gefühl und Blick gekehrt. Sei's ergreifen, sei es raffen, Wenn es nur sich fasst und hält! Allah braucht nicht mehr zu schaffen, Wir erschaffen seine Welt! If we look at nature we see everywhere the same desire and the same attraction of the sexes for each other; the bird which warbles, the mammal which ruts, the insect which hums while pursuing the female with implacable tenacity, at the risk of their own life, employing sometimes cunning, sometimes dexterity, and sometimes force to attain their object. The ardor of the female is not always much less, but she uses coquetry, pretending to resist, and simulates repulsion. The more eager the male, the more coquettish is the female. If we observe the amorous sport of butterflies and birds, we see what efforts it costs the male to attain his object. On the other hand when the male is clumsy and slow the female often comes toward him or at any rate does not resist him, for instance in certain ants the males of which are wingless while the females have wings. The final act always consists in intimate union at the moment of copulation. In some animals Nature is prodigal in the means she employs to pursue her great object, reproduction, by aid of the sexual appetite. The apiary raises hundreds of male bees. As soon as the single queen-bee takes wing for its nuptial flight all the males follow, but a single male only, the strongest and most nimble, succeeds in reaching her. In the intoxication of copulation he abandons all his genital organs to the body of the queen and dies. The other males, now useless, are all massacred in autumn by the working bees. Sexual connection among butterflies of the Bombyx family is no less marvelous. They live for months as caterpillars and sometimes for two years as chrysalids, hibernating in a cocoon in some corner of the earth or in the bark of trees. Finally the butterfly, brilliantly colored, emerges from the cocoon and spreads its wings. It only possesses, however, a rudimentary intestinal canal for the short life which remains, for it does not require much nourishment and is only devoted to sexual connection. The female remains quiet and waits. The male, furnished with large antennæ which perceive the odor of the female at a distance of several kilometers, commences an infatuated flight through the woods and fields, as soon as his wings are sufficiently strong. His sole object is to reach the female. Here again there are numerous competitors. The one who arrives first possesses the female, but expires shortly afterward. His competitors die also, exhausted by their long flight and by starvation, but without having attained their object. After copulation, the female searches for the green plants which will ensure a long caterpillar life for her offspring. There she deposits her fecundated eggs in considerable numbers and then expires in her turn, like a faded flower which has fulfilled the object of its existence and falls after leaving the fruit in its place. The French naturalist _Fabre_ has described these phenomena, relying on conclusive experiments, and my own observations and those of other naturalists confirm them fully. Among the ants, all the males die also, soon after an aërial nuptial flight, in which copulation is generally polyandrous, one male hardly waiting for the preceding one to discharge his semen before taking his place. Here the female possesses a receptacle for semen which often contains the sperm of many males, and which allows it to fecundate the eggs one after another for several years as she lays them, and thus to act as the mother of an ant's nest during a period which may extend to eleven or twelve years, or even more. In the lower organisms, love consists only in sexual instinct or appetite. As soon as the function is accomplished love disappears. It is only in the higher animals that we see a more or less durable sympathy develop between the two sexes. However, here also and even in man the sexual passion intoxicates for the moment all the senses. In his sexual rut even man is dominated as by a magic influence, and for the time he sees the world only under the aspect inspired by this influence. The object loved appears to him under celestial colors, which veil all the defects and miseries of reality. Each moment of his amorous feeling inspires sentiments which it seems to him should last eternally. He swears impossible things and believes in immortal happiness. A reciprocal illusion transforms life momentarily into mirages of paradise. The most common things, and even certain things which usually disgust him, are then the object of the most violent desire. But, as soon as the orgasm is ended and the appetite satisfied the feeling of satiety appears. A curtain falls on the scene, and, at least for the moment, repose and reality reappear. Such are, in a few words, the general phenomena of the normal sexual appetite among sexual organisms in the whole of living nature. I am not speaking here of degenerations, such as onanism and prostitution. Let us now analyze this appetite further. The natural appetites are inherited instincts the roots of which lie far back in the phylogenetic history of our ancestors. Hunger forms the basis for the preservation of the individual, the sexual appetite that for the preservation of the species, as soon as reproduction takes place by separate sexes. All appetite belongs to the motor side of nervous activity; there is something internal which urges us to an act, but, on the other hand, one or more sensations may exist at the base of this something to put it in action. I have proved, for example, that the egg-laying instinct in the corpse fly (_Lucilia cæsar_) is only produced by the odor of putrefaction. As soon as the antennæ, which contain the organ of smell, are removed from these flies they cease to lay, while other more severe operations, or removal of one antenna only does not produce this result. The mechanism of appetites is thus a lower mechanism and has its seat in the primitive nervous centers. As _Yersin_ has proved, a cricket deprived of its brain may copulate so long as the sensory irritations can reach the sexual nervous centers. We can thus say that the mechanism of appetites belongs to automatic actions deeply inherited by phylogeny. Although complicated and composed of coördinated reflex movements which follow one another in regular succession, it has no actual power of modifying the so-called voluntary acts, which depend entirely on the cerebral hemispheres, and of which we men only have a conscious feeling. The appetites are not capable of adapting themselves to new circumstances and cease to be produced when the chain is interrupted. We are obliged to admit that the instincts or appetites are accompanied by a sub-conscious introspection which, as such, can hardly enter into direct relation with our higher consciousness, that is, with our ordinary consciousness in the waking state. In spite of this, when their intensity increases, the appetites overcoming the central nervous resistances, reach the cerebral hemispheres, and consequently our introspection or higher consciousness, under a _synthetic or unified appearance_, and influence in a high degree the cerebral activities, which are reflected in association with all the elements of what we call our mind in the proper sense of the term, that is to say, our intellect, sentiments and will. It is from this point of view that sexual appetite must be considered in order to make it comprehensible. Love, with all that appertains to it, belongs as such to our mind, that is, to the activity of our cerebral hemispheres, but it is produced there by a secondary irradiation from the sexual appetite, which alone concerns us at present. We may also remark that sexual ideas when once awakened in the cerebral hemispheres by sexual appetite, are worked up there by the attention, that is to say by concentrated cerebral activity, then associated with other ideas, which on their side react strongly on the sexual appetite, developing or paralyzing it, attracting or repelling it, or finally transforming its attributes and objects. By sexual desire (libido sexualis) we mean the manner in which the sexual appetite manifests itself in man. Each term may be employed for the other. =The Sexual Appetite in Man.=--Man represents the active element in sexual union, and in him the sexual appetite, or desire for coitus, is at first the stronger. This desire develops spontaneously, and the role of fecundator represents the principal male activity. This appetite powerfully affects the male mind, although sexual life plays a less important part in him than in the female. In boys, the sexual appetite is often prematurely awakened, excited in unnatural ways by bad example. Moreover, it varies enormously in different individuals, a point to which we shall return when dealing with pathology. Leaving aside unnatural appetites and abnormal forms of sexual instinct we shall describe here its most spontaneous and normal form. =Puberty. Awakening of the Sexual Instinct in Boys.=--Sooner or later in different individuals, the boy pays attention to his erections, which are at first produced in a reflex and involuntary manner. Mental development and reflection, so precocious in man, are causes which draw attention to the differences of the sexes before the sexual appetite is developed. It is, however, the first signs of this appetite which concentrate the attention on these differences, for in their absence, the boy is more indifferent to them than to the straight or crooked form of a nose. Man has the habit of passing by without notice anything which does not interest him, and this is why we find, in individuals whose sexual appetite is developed late or feebly, an indifference and ignorance in these matters which appear almost incredible to those whose sexual appetite is precocious and violent; while, on the contrary, the lively interest which the latter show in everything concerning the sexes appears foolish and absurd to the sexually indifferent. The pairing of animals, even of insects, awakens a curious interest in those whose sexual dispositions are strong and precocious; they comprehend very quickly the reason and are led to draw analogies with their own sensations in the same domain. The aspect of the female sex has, however, a much stronger action still on the normal man. But here is produced a peculiar phenomenon. What especially excites the boy in the aspect of the female sex is anything unusual; the sight of certain parts of the skin which are normally covered, the clothes or ornaments, particular odors, women whom the boy is not accustomed to see, etc. It is for this reason that brothers and sisters do not excite, or excite very little, their reciprocal sexual appetite, at least if there are no anomalies or exceptional exhibitions. The sexual appetites of boys among savage peoples who live naked is hardly at all excited by naked girls; on the other hand, it is strongly excited by those who are clothed or ornamented in a peculiar manner. The sexual appetite of a Mahometan is strongly excited by the nudity of the feminine face, that of the European by that of a woman's legs, because women are accustomed to veil their faces in the first case and their legs in the second. These are naturally only relative differences. When the sexual appetite of man is violent and unsatisfied woman excites it in a general way, if she is not too old or repulsive. A second important character of the normal sexual appetite is the special attraction that appearances of health and strength in woman produce in man. Healthy forms, normal odors, a normal voice, a skin healthy in appearance and to the touch, constitute attractions which charm and excite man, while all that is unhealthy or faded, every pathological odor, produce a repulsive effect and hinders or diminishes sexual desire. Everything connected with the sexual organs, their appearance, touch and odor, tend to excite the sexual appetite, all the more when they are usually covered; it is the same with the breasts. The first sexual sensations are of a quite indeterminate nature; something unconscious and obscure inclines the boy toward the female sex and makes it appear desirable. A boy may thus become enamored of the portrait of a woman with a swelling bosom and alluring eyes and be seized with desire, either at their sight or only on remembrance. This desire is not concentrated especially on the sexual act, as with an adult who is already experienced in these matters; it is more generalized and vague, although sensual. For a long time, these repeated aspirations, impulses and desires, remain unsatisfied. In different individuals the imagination associates the most diverse images with such manifestations of the sexual appetite. The objects of the latter appear in dreams and provoke nocturnal erections. The boy soon remarks a sensory localization of his appetites in his sexual organs, especially in the glans penis, but also in the surrounding parts, and the known or only vaguely defined image of the female sexual organs, which is hardly present at the first appearance of his desires, begin to excite him more and more. In natural or savage man, as well as in animals, the boy then makes attempts at coitus and soon attains his object, for, in the state of nature, man marries as soon as puberty is attained. =Nocturnal Emissions.=--In civilized man such difficulties are opposed to marriage, that he replaces it by prostitution, or by more or less unnatural means, as soon as his sexual appetite becomes strong. In those who abstain, the images produced by sexual excitation, combined with erections, act more strongly during sleep than waking and produce ejaculations of semen called nocturnal emissions or pollutions. These generally occur during erotic dreams, and as the dreams produce the illusion of real perception, in quality as well as in intensity, it is not surprising that they are followed by an orgasm and ejaculation of semen. =Masturbation.=--In the waking state the unsatisfied sexual appetite may produce such excitation that the boy applies friction to the glans penis, which cause voluptuous sensations. As soon as he has made this discovery he repeats the act and provokes ejaculation of semen artificially. Thus arises the bad habit of masturbation or onanism, a habit which is both depressing and exhausting, which takes an increasing hold on those who practice it. Although from the purely mechanical point of view masturbation causes a more normal ejaculation than nocturnal emissions, which are often interrupted by awakening and the vanishing of the dream which produced them, it has a much more harmful effect, by its frequency and especially by its depressing action on sentiment and will. We shall return to this subject in