wn by the historical examples of distinguished
inverts; and, while it is certainly true that these considerations apply
chiefly to the finer-grained natures, the histories I have brought
together suffice to show that such natures constitute a considerable
proportion of inverts. The helplessly gross sexual appetite cannot thus be
influenced; but that remains true whether the appetite is homosexual or
heterosexual, and nothing is gained by enabling it to feed on women as
well as on men.

A strictly ascetic life, it needs scarcely be said, is with difficulty
possible for all persons, either homosexual or heterosexual. It is,
however, outside the province of the physician to recommend his inverted
patients to live according to their homosexual impulses, even when those
impulses seem to be natural to the person displaying them. The most that
the physician is entitled to do, it seems to me, is to present the
situation clearly, and leave to the patient a decision for which he must
himself accept the responsibility. Forel goes so far as to say that he
sees no reason why inverts should not build cities of their own and marry
each other if they so please, since they can do no harm to normal adults,
while children can be protected from them.[264] Such notions are, however,
too far removed from our existing social conventions to be worth serious
consideration.

The standpoint here taken up, it may be remarked, by no means
denies to the invert a right to the fulfillment of his impulses.
Numa Praetorius remarks, it would seem justly, that while the
invert must properly be warned against unnatural sexual license,
and while those who are capable of continence do well to preserve
it, to deny all right to sexual activity to the invert merely
causes those inverts who are incapable of self-control to throw
recklessly aside all restraints (_Zeitschrift fuer sexuelle
Zwischenstufen_, vol. viii, 1906, p. 726). The invert has the
right to sexual indulgence, it may be, but he has also the duty
to accept the full responsibility for his own actions, and the
necessity to recognize the present attitude of the society he
lives in. He cannot be advised to set himself in violent
opposition to that society.

The world will not be a tolerable place for pronounced inverts
until they are better understood, and that will involve a radical
change in general and even medical opinion. An i