ike that of normal persona. The existence
of a definite hereditary tendency in a homosexual direction removes that
difficulty. Freud himself recognizes this and clearly asserts congenital
psycho-sexual constitution, which must involve predisposition. On a
general survey, therefore, it would appear that, on the psychic side, we
may accept the reality of unconscious dynamic processes which in
particular cases may be of the Freudian or similar type. But while the
study of such mechanisms may illuminate the psychology of homosexuality,
they leave untouched the fundamental organic factors now accepted by most
authorities.[230]

The rational way of regarding the normal sexual instinct is as an inborn
organic impulse, reaching full development about the time of puberty.[231]
During the period of development suggestion and association may come in to
play a part in defining the object of the emotion; the soil is now ready,
but the variety of seeds likely to thrive in it is limited. That there is
a greater indefiniteness in the aim of the sexual impulse at this period
we may well believe. This is shown not only by occasional tentative signs
of sexual emotion directed toward the same sex in childhood, but by the
frequently ideal and unlocalized character of the normal passion even at
puberty. But the channel of sexual emotion is not thereby turned into an
abnormal path. Whenever this happens we are bound to believe--and we have
many grounds for believing--that we are dealing with an organism which
from the beginning is abnormal. The same seed of suggestion is sown in
various soils; in the many it dies out; in the few it flourishes. The
cause can only be a difference in the soil.

If, then, we must postulate a congenital abnormality in order to account
satisfactorily for at least a large proportion of sexual inverts, wherein
does that abnormality consist? Ulrichs explained the matter by saying that
in sexual inverts a male body coexists with a female soul: _anima
muliebris in corpore virile inclusa_. Even writers of scientific eminence,
like Magnan and Gley, have adopted this phrase in a modified form,
considering that in inversion a female brain is combined with a male body
or male glands. This is, however, not an explanation. It merely
crystallizes into an epigram the superficial impression of the
matter.[232]

We can probably grasp the nature of the abnormality better if we reflect
on the development of the sexes and on the la