one of these views.  Very widely divergent views of sexual inversion are largely justified by the position and attitude of the investigator.  It is natural that the police-official should find that his cases are largely mere examples of disgusting vice and crime.  It is natural that the asylum superintendent should find that we are chiefly dealing with a form of insanity.  It is equally natural that the sexual invert himself should find that he and his inverted friends are not so very unlike ordinary persons.  We have to recognize the influence of professional and personal bias and the influence of environment.

There have been two main streams of tendency in the views regarding sexual inversion:  one seeking to enlarge the sphere of the acquired (represented by Binet,—­who, however, recognized predisposition,—­Schrenck-Notzing, and recently the Freudians), the other seeking to enlarge the sphere of the congenital (represented by Krafft-Ebing, Moll, Fere, and today by the majority of authorities).  There is, as usually happens, truth in both these views.  But, inasmuch as those who represent the acquired view often deny any congenital element, we are called upon to discuss the question.  The view that sexual inversion is entirely explained by the influence of early association, or of “suggestion,” is an attractive one and at first sight it seems to be supported by what we know of erotic fetichism, by which a woman’s hair, or foot, or even clothing, becomes the focus of a man’s sexual aspirations.  But it must be remembered that what we see in erotic fetichism is merely the exaggeration of a normal impulse; every lover is to some extent excited by his mistress’s hair, or foot, or clothing.  Even here, therefore, there is really what may fairly be regarded as a congenital element; and, moreover, there is reason to believe that the erotic fetichist usually displays the further congenital element of hereditary neurosis.  Therefore, the analogy with erotic fetichism does not bring much help to those who argue that inversion is purely acquired.  It must also be pointed out that the argument for acquired or suggested inversion logically involves the assertion that normal sexuality is also acquired or suggested.  If a man becomes attracted to his own sex simply because the fact or the image of such attraction is brought before him, then we are bound to believe that a man becomes attracted to the opposite sex only because the fact or the image of such attraction is brought before him.  Such a theory is unworkable.  In nearly every country of the world men associate with men, and women with women; if association and suggestion were the only influential causes, then inversion, instead of being the exception, ought to be the rule throughout the human species, if not, indeed, throughout the whole zooelogical series.  We should, moreover, have to admit that the most fundamental human instinct is so constituted as to be equally well adapted for sterility as for that propagation of the race which, as a matter of fact, we find dominant throughout the whole of life.  We must, therefore, put aside entirely the notion that the direction of the sexual impulse is merely a suggested phenomenon; such a notion is entirely opposed to observation and experience, and will with difficulty fit into a rational biological scheme.