derangement as observed in anomalies of the nervous
system.

It would be impossible, in an essay of this kind, to review the whole
mass of medical observation, inference and speculation which we have at
our command. Nor is a layman, perhaps, well qualified for the task of
criticism and comparison in a matter of delicacy where doctors differ as
to details. I shall therefore content myself with giving an account of
four of the most recent, most authoritative, and, as it seems to me,
upon the whole most sensible studies. Moreau, Tarnowsky, Krafft-Ebing
and Lombroso take very nearly similar views of the phenomenon; and
between them they are gradually forming a theory which is likely to
become widely accepted.

_Des Aberrations du Sens Genesique, par le Dr. Paul Moreau_, 4th
edition, 1887.

Moreau starts with the proposition that there is a sixth sense, "le sens
genital," which, like other senses, can be injured psychically and
physically without the mental functions, whether affective or
intellectual, suffering thereby. His book is therefore a treatise on the
diseases of the sexual sense. These diseases are by no means of recent
origin, he says. They have always and everywhere existed.

He begins with a historical survey, which, so far as antiquity is
concerned, is very defective. Having quoted with approval the following
passage about Greek society:--

"La sodomie se repand dans toute la Grece; les ecoles des philosophes
deviennent des maisons de debauche, et les grands exemples d'amitie
legues par le paganisme ne sont, pour la plupart, qu'une infame
turpitude voilee par une sainte apparence": having quoted these words
of Dr. Descuret, Moreau leaves Greece alone, and goes on to Rome. The
state of morals in Rome under the empire he describes as "une
depravation maladive, devenue par la force des choses hereditaire,
endemique, epidemique." Then follows a short account of the emperors and
their female relatives. "Cet erethisme genesique qui, pendant pres de
deux siecles, regna a l'etat epidemique dans Rome" he ascribes mainly to
heredity. Of Julia, the daughter of Augustus, he says, "Peut-on lutter
contre un etat morbide hereditaire?" The union of unrestrained
debauchery and ferocity with great mental gifts strikes him as a note of
disease; and he winds up with this sentence: "Parmi les causes les plus
frequentes des aberrations du sens genital, l'heredite tient la premiere
place."

Then he passes to the middle age