inverted according as one
or other predominates. It is needless to say that there are a number
of intermediate gradations, and that inverse phenomena may be produced
concurrently in the same individual.

According to Westermark elderly men generally fall more easily in love
with middle-aged women than with young girls. No doubt this is often
the case when reason and love predominate, but it is necessary to
avoid generalization, and it is curious to observe how often very old
men become enamored of quite young girls, as the latter may fall in
love with old men. It is common knowledge that young girls do not
marry old graybeards solely for their money or their name. No doubt
this is not uncommon, but I have often seen girls of eighteen or
twenty fall in love with old _roues_, when money, name and position
were theirs and not the man's. However, in such cases it is most often
the old man who is amorous. Westermark maintains that this condition
is not normal, and we shall see that very often it is a case of
commencing _senile dementia_, a pathological cerebral condition in
which the sexual appetite becomes suddenly revived.

The love of a young girl for an old man may be explained by the
intellectual superiority of the old man or by the absence of another
object for love. It is often also due to hysteria and consequently
pathological.

In old age, when the sexual life of two conjoints is extinguished,
there remains a purified love which colors the evening of their life
with autumn tints. The modern detractors of marriage too often forget
this phenomenon. No doubt the evening of conjugal life is often
troubled with discord and sorrow, but then it is usually a question of
"_mariage de convenance_," marriage for money or position, mutual
misunderstanding, or irreflective amorous intoxication. Quarrels may
also arise when pathological conditions become introduced into
marriage.

In woman, sexual ontogeny is not the same as in man. She matures
earlier and more rapidly. In our race, a woman at eighteen is sexually
mature; between eighteen and twenty-five she is in the best condition
for sexual life; toward fifty the menopause occurs, and with it
cessation of fecundity. Hence the period during which a woman is
fecund is much shorter than in man and terminates much earlier.

Owing to this, the development of the intellectual and sentimental
irradiations of the sexual appetite in woman is more rapid than in
man. A young girl