The Sexual Life Of The Child Part 15

[102] _Delinquenza precoce e senile_, p. 197, Como, 1901.

[103] _Les Enfants menteurs_, Memoire lu a la Societe medico-psychologique, seances du 13 et 27 Nov. 1882.

[104] _Handbuch fur Untersuchungerichter_ (_Manual for Police Magistrates_), Part I. p. 110, 5th ed., Munich, 1908.

[105] _Apros.e.xia_ is the technical term for inability to fix the mind upon any subject.

[106] In the first book of _Les Confessions_.

[107] Strodtmann, _H. Heines Leben und Werke_, vol. i. p. 27 _et seq._, Berlin, 1873.

[108] _Fisiologia del Amore_.

[109] _Les Femmes homicides_, Paris, 1908. p. 39 _et seq._

[110] "Beitrage zur Kenntnis der Lebens- und Entwicklungsbedingungen der Inder" ("Contributions to our Knowledge of the Conditions of Life and Development of the Natives of India"), _Archiv fur Ra.s.sen- und Gesellschaftsbiologie_, 1907, p. 839 et seq.

[111] _Archiv fur Ra.s.sen- und Gesellschaftsbiologie_, 1906, p.

916.

[112] We are irresistibly reminded, in this connexion, of the reputed higher morality of age as compared with youth, of which La Rochefoucauld says (Maxim 192): "When our vices leave us, we flatter ourselves that it is we who leave them."--TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.

[113] Esquirol refers to this in his great work on Mental Disorders.

[114] _Die Sittlichkeitsverbrecher_ (_Offenders against s.e.xual Morality_). See also _Vierteljahrsschrift fur gerichtliche Medizin und offentliche Sanitatswesen_, Third Series, xxix, 2.

[115] The custom of taking in a man as a night-lodger in crowded working-cla.s.s tenements appears, unhappily, to be commoner in the large towns of Germany and Austria than it is in this country.

See, for instance, Adelheid Popp's _Jugendgeschichte einer Arbeiterin_ (3rd ed., Reinhardt, Munich, 1910, pp. 19, 20). But such lodgers are by no means unknown in the overcrowded quarters of English towns.--TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.

[116] _Psychiatrische Vorlesungen_, Leipzig, 1892, p. 41.

[117] Compare George Meredith on the male egoist's demand for "innocence" (_The Egoist_, p. 105): "The capaciously strong soul among women will ultimately detect an infinite grossness in the demand for purity infinite, spotless bloom." The frequency with which young widows remarry suggests that the demand for _"innocence"_ in women is largely "a result of conventional opinions."--TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.

[118] _La Prost.i.tution Clandestine_, p. 41 _et seq._, Paris, 1885.

[119] _The Intermediate s.e.x,_ Swan Sonnenschein, London, 1908, p.

86.

[120] Werthauer, _Sittlichkeitsdelikte der Grosstadt_ (_Offences against Morality in Large Towns_), p. 78 _et seq._, Berlin and Leipzig, 1908.

[121] _Verbrechen und Vergehen wider die Sittlichkeit.

Entfuhrung. Gewerbsma.s.sige Unzucht_ (_Crimes and Misdemeanours against Morality. Abduction, Professional Unchast.i.ty_), p. 115.

Reprint from the _Fergleichende Darstellung des Deutschen und Auslandischen Strafrechts_ (_Comparative Statement of German and Foreign Criminal Law_).

[122] _Das Geschlechtsleben in der Volkerpsychologie_ (_The s.e.xual Life in Folk-Psychology_), p. 557, Leipzig, 1908.

[123] Beraud, _Les Filles Publiques de Paris_, Paris, 1839.

[124] For fuller details, see Mittelmaier, _op. cit._, p. 116.

[125] "Ueber die klinisch-forensische Bedeutung des perversen s.e.xualtriebes" ("The Clinical and Legal Significance of Perversions of the s.e.xual Impulse") _Allgemeine Zeitschrift fur Psychiatrie und psychisch-gerichtliche Medizin_, vol. x.x.xix, p.

220 _et seq._, Berlin, 1883.

[126] See footnote to page 260.

[127] Compare Havelock Ellis, _Studies in the Psychology of s.e.x_, vol. vi.; _s.e.x in Relation to Society_ (Philadelphia, 1910, p.

368); "But altogether outside theoretical morality, or the question of what people 'ought' to do, there remains _practical morality_, or the question of what, as a matter of fact, people actually do. This is the really fundamental and essential morality. Latin _mores_ and Greek [Greek: ethos] both refer to _custom_, to the things that are, and not to the things that 'ought to be.'" The etymological connexion, of which Dr. Moll speaks, between the words _morality_ (or _ethics_) and _custom_, thus subsists through the intermediation of the dead languages.

But in German, the etymological connexion between _Sitte_ (custom) and _Sittlichkeit_ (morality) is immediately apparent.--TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.

[128] For details, see Rosenbaum, _Geschichte der l.u.s.tseuche_ (_History of Venereal Disease_), Halle, 1893, p. 52 _et seq._

[129] It is surprising that the author makes no reference to the close a.s.sociation, in many cases, of the sentiment of disgust with unpleasant smells. The earthworm, the c.o.c.kroach, and the bed-bug are regarded as peculiarly disgusting, and all have a particularly offensive odour. The unpleasant smell of the alvine evacuations is a.s.suredly a large element in the disgust these inspire.--TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.

[130] _Die seelische Entwicklung des Kindes_ (_The Mental Development of the Child_), 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1908, p. 90.

[131] For fuller details, see the work of Rudeck, _Geschichte der offentlichen Sittlichkeit in Deutschland_ (_History of Public Morals in Germany_), 2nd ed., Berlin, 1905, p. 4 _et seq._ _Cf._ also, Alfred Martin, _Deutsches Badewesen in vergangenen Tagen_ (_German Bathing Customs in Former Days_), Jena, 1906.

[132] A German law dealing with offences against s.e.xual morals.--TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.

[133] I owe to private information, most kindly given me by Dr.

Bohn, my knowledge of numerous details bearing on this question.

[134] _Romanische Liebe und personliche Schonheit_ (_Romantic Love and Personal Beauty_), 2nd ed., Breslau, 1894, vol. ii. p.

58.

[135] This does not conflict with the fact that in these circles also much hypocrisy is practised--much more certainly than in our own country (Germany). To a still greater extent is this true of England, where also in many circles all illegitimate s.e.xual intercourse is proscribed, thus leading to the practice of hypocrisy. Because a large proportion of the population does not practise illegitimate intercourse, those who do indulge in it are led to conceal as far as possible their own illegitimate intercourse; as a result of this we find side by side and simultaneously in the same circle, on the one hand a prohibition of illegitimate intercourse based upon genuine conviction, and on the other a hypocritical condemnation of such intercourse.

Further, we have to admit that the question is an exceptionally difficult one, precisely on account of the hypocrisy and lies in which the s.e.xual life is enveloped. Naturally, where illegitimate intercourse is forbidden, those who do indulge are far more careful, and especially in guarding against venereal infection, lest the illness should betray them to others. A communication made to me very recently suggests the need for great caution in our judgment in these matters. A foreign university professor gives his students very fine lectures on the s.e.xual life, laying great stress on the beauty and importance of s.e.xual abstinence.

The lecturer was convinced that as a result of his lectures his students were exceptionally chaste and abstinent. But a colleague of this same professor at the university is no less firmly convinced, and this as the result of reports from members of his friend's audience, that the a.s.sumed chast.i.ty of the students is purely imaginary, and that in actual fact their lives are just as loose as those of students in general.

[136] See the article on "Coeducation" in _Buch von Kinde_ (_The Book of the Child_), edited by Adele Schreiber, vol. ii, Leipzig, 1907, p. 48.

[137] _Versuch einer Charakteristik des weiblichen Geschlechtes_ (_Attempt at a Characterization of the Female s.e.x_), Hanover, 1797, vol. i. p. 95.

[138] Pougin, _Dictionnaire du Theatre_, Paris, 1885, p. 715.

[139] The description of such a mental state will be found in a diary, shown to Nystrom by a young friend of his, and published by the former in his work on _The s.e.xual Life and its Laws_ (_Das Geschlechtsleben und seine Gesetze_), Berlin, 1904, p. 129.

[140] Moll, _Aerztliche Ethik_, Stuttgart, 1902, pp. 220-31.

[141] Theologians are not agreed as to when the "age of reason"

is attained. Gousset, in his _Moraltheologie zum Gebrauch der Pfarrer und Beichtvater_ (German translation of the seventh edition of a French work, _Moral Theology for the Use of Priests and Father-Confessors_), Aix, 1852, vol. ii. p. 244, demands that children should go to confession as soon as they are seven years of age; other authorities consider that the "age of reason"

begins only in the last years of childhood.

[142] _L'Amour_, 5th ed., Paris, 1861, p. 72.

[143] From what has been said before, it will have become evident that the question has different aspects in different strata of the population. I have attempted merely to formulate general principles, not to furnish an answer for every possible concrete question. Differences between town and country, between richer and poorer, between cultured and uncultured, must be given due consideration. In the case of those belonging to the less cultured and the poorer strata of society, a special use in this connexion may be found for those social inst.i.tutions which have of late come into being in various localities as the fruit of voluntary effort [corresponding to our Children's Care Committees, &c., in England--TRANSLATOR], and conducted by women of the cultured and well-to-do cla.s.ses. These inst.i.tutions may be utilised for imparting the s.e.xual enlightenment, at any rate in so far as they permit of an individual study of the child-psyche.

[144] _s.e.xuelle Belehrung der aus der Volksschule entla.s.senen Madchen_ (_The s.e.xual Instruction of Girls Leaving the Elementary School_), Leipzig, 1907.