on,
himself creating his own paradise. They constitute the supreme triumph of
human idealism.

FOOTNOTES:

[64] Binet, _Etudes de Psychologie Experimentale_, esp., p. 84;
Krafft-Ebing, _Op. cit._, p. 18.

[65] G. Tarde, "L'Amour Morbide," _Archives de l'Anthropologie
Criminelle_, 1890, p. 585.

[66] Lucretius, Lib. IV, vv. 1150-1163.

[67] Burton, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part III, Section II, Mem. III,
Subs. I.

[68] Judith Cladel, _Auguste Rodin Pris sur la Vie_, 1903, pp. 103-104.
Some slight modifications have been made in the translation of this
passage on account of the conversational form of the original.

[69] W. Cyples, _The Process of Human Experience_, p. 462. Even if (as we
have already seen, _ante_, p. 58) the saint cannot always feel actual
physical pleasure in the intimate contact of humanity, the ardor of
devoted service which his vision of humanity arouses remains unaffected.

[70] "To love," as Stendhal defined it (_De l'Amour_, Chapter II), "is to
have pleasure in seeing, touching, and feeling by all the senses, and as
near as possible, a beloved object by whom one is oneself loved."

[71] Pillon's study of "La Memoire Affective" (_Revue Philosophique_,
February, 1901) helps to explain the psychic mechanism of the process.

THE MECHANISM OF DETUMESCENCE.

I.

The Psychological Significance of Detumescence--The Testis and the
Ovary--Sperm Cell and Germ Cell--Development of the Embryo--The External
Sexual Organs--Their Wide Range of Variation--Their Nervous Supply--The
Penis--Its Racial Variations--The Influence of Exercise--The Scrotum and
Testicles--The Mons Veneris--The Vulva--The Labia Majora and their
Varieties--The Pubic Hair and Its Characters--The Clitoris and Its
Functions--The Anus as an Erogenous Zone--The Nymphae and their
Function--The Vagina--The Hymen--Virginity--The Biological Significance of
the Hymen.

In analyzing the sexual impulse we have seen that the process whereby the
conjunction of the sexes is achieved falls naturally into two phases: the
first phase, of tumescence, during which force is generated in the
organism, and the second phase, of detumescence, in which that force is
discharged during conjugation.[72] Hitherto we have been occupied mainly
with the first phase, that of tumescence, and with its associated psychic
phenomena. It was inevitable that this should be so, for it is during the
slow process of tumescence that sexual selection is decided