al causes which have produced this
state of things have been done away with.

As a rule, a normal and adaptable man will conduct himself in sexual
matters as in others according to the prevailing fashion. He will most
often succeed in accommodating his sentiments to those of his
conjoint. On the other hand, this average representative of normal
mediocrity easily becomes the slave of routine and incapable of new
ideas. However normal he may be, he has less faculty of adaptation or
mental plasticity and less liberty, than a man of higher nature
independent of prejudices.

ONTOGENY OF SEXUAL LIFE

The first striking fact in the ontogeny of sexual life is the
following: All the sexual organs, both external and internal, remain
in an embryonic and non-functional state, not only in the embryo but
for a long time in the child. The organs and their elements exist, but
they are still small, imperfectly developed, and in a state of rest.
At the time of puberty, which varies in different individuals, the
sexual glands and the other copulatory apparatus enlarge and begin to
functionate. In the European races puberty occurs between the age of
twelve and seventeen years in girls, and between fourteen and nineteen
in boys; it is generally earlier in the South and later in the North.
It is curious to note that the correlative irradiations of the sexual
appetite in the human mind develop much earlier than the organs, or
even the sexual appetite. Again, the sexual appetite often appears
before the normal development of the genital organs. In other rare
cases the sexual appetite is absent in the adult, even when the
corresponding organs are well-developed. (Vide Chapter VIII.) Such
irregularities of the sexual appetite belong to the domain of
pathology.

On the other hand, it is quite normal for young girls and boys to show
early signs of mental differences corresponding to those we have
described in Chapter V. In young girls we observe coquetry and
jealousy and the desire for finery. Their love of dolls and the care
they take of them, is very characteristic of the precocious instinct
of their sex. This is an early sign of instinctive maternal love,
before the development of any sexual sensation or function. Among boys
we observe a tendency to brag and to boast of their strength before
girls, to show their contempt for dolls and the coquetry of little
girls, and also to pose as protectors, etc.

Sexual jealousy already exists in