f the altruist.
Between the two extremes there is an infinite number of gradations
according to the nature of the instincts and dispositions. The same
man may be a good and generous father, and a social exploiter with
neither shame nor pity. Another will pose as a social benefactor,
while at home he is an egoist and a tyrant. The individual
dispositions of recent phylogeny are combined in every way with
education, customs, habit and social position to produce results which
are often paradoxical, and the factors of which are ambition, vanity,
temper, etc. Recent phylogeny is reflected also in many of the
irradiations of the sexual appetite of which we have spoken in Chapter
V. Audacity, jealousy, sexual braggardism, hypocrisy, prudery,
pornography, coquetry, exaltation, etc., depend in each particular
case, according to their degree of development, on a combination of
individual sexual hereditary dispositions with individual dispositions
in the other domains of sentiment, intelligence and will. In this way,
the sexual individuality of one man is constituted in a very complex
and very different way to that of other men, owing to the high
development of the human brain, as well as to the infinite variability
and adaptability of his aptitudes. It is impossible to give even an
incomplete explanation of all the symphonic gradations (often
cacophonic) which represent an individuality, or to fix clearly what
distinguishes it from others. However, when the principle is
understood, it is not difficult to estimate the sexual individuality
of each person more or less correctly.

Strong hereditary dispositions of character may be recognized in early
infancy. When the ancestry of a man is well known the roots of his
recent phylogeny may be traced to his ancestors. Here we observe the
effect of crossing between varieties or different races, or on the
contrary that of consanguinity. This effect is observed in character
and in sexual disposition, as much as in the shape of the nose, or the
color of the skin and hair, etc. It is important that men should learn
to know themselves, and also study each other from this point of view
before marrying. On the whole, we may say that the average civilized
man of our race possesses as his "phylogenetic baggage" a strong
sexual appetite, very variable sentiments of love, generally somewhat
mediocre, (we have seen that conjugal love is more strongly developed
in most monkeys than in man), lastly al