hus, Hirschfeld (_Die Homosexualitaet_,
p. 177) states that of 500 inverts, 62 per cent. showed nervous symptoms
of one kind or another: sleeplessness, sleepiness, tremors, stammering,
etc.

[185] Hirschfeld finds that 54 per cent, of inverts become conscious of
their anomaly under the age of 14. The anomaly may, however, be present at
this early age, but not consciously until later. Hence the larger
percentage recorded above.

[186] In this connection I may quote an observation by Raffalovich: "It is
natural that the invert should very clearly recall the precocity of his
inclinations. In the existence of every invert a moment arrives when he
discovers the enigma of his homosexual tastes. He then classes all his
recollections, and to justify himself in his own eyes he remembers that he
has been what he is from his earliest childhood. Homosexuality has colored
all his young life; he has thought over it, dreamed over it, reflected
over it--very often in perfect innocence. When he was quite small he
imagined that he had been carried off by brigands, by savages; at 5 or 6
he dreamed of the warmth of their chests and of their naked arms. He
dreamed that he was their slave and he loved his slavery and his masters.
He has had not the least thought that is crudely sexual, but he has
discovered his sentimental vocation."

[187] Leppmann mentions a case (certainly extreme and abnormal) of a
little girl of 8 who spent the night hidden on the roof, merely in order
to be able to observe in the morning the sexual organs of an adult male
cousin (_Bulletin de l'Union Internationale de Droit Penal_, 1896, p.
118).

[188] I fully admit, as all investigators must, the difficulty of tracing
the influence of early suggestions, especially in dealing with persons who
are unaccustomed to self-analysis. Sometimes it happens, especially in
regard to erotic fetichism, that, while direct questioning fails to reach
any early formative suggestion, such influence is casually elicited on a
subsequent occasion.

[189] I may add that I see no fundamental irreconcilability between the
point of view here adopted and the facts brought forward (and wrongly
interpreted) by Schrenck-Notzing. In his _Beitraege zur AEtiologie der
Contraerer Sexualempfindung_ (Vienna, 1895), this writer states: "The
neuropathic disposition is congenital, as is the tendency to precocious
appearance of the appetites, the lack of psychic resistance, and the
tendency to impera