no longer insist on the music, but the
same feeling still exists in the craving for other disguises and
adornments for the sexual impulse. We do not always realize that love
brings its own sanctity with it.

Nowadays indeed, whenever the repugnance to the sexual side of life
manifests itself, the assertion nearly always made is not so much that it
is "sinful" as that it is "beastly." It is regarded as that part of man
which most closely allies him to the lower animals. It should scarcely be
necessary to point out that this is a mistake. On whichever side, indeed,
we approach it, the implication that sex in man and animals is identical
cannot be borne out. From the point of view of those who accept this
identity it would be much more correct to say that men are inferior,
rather than on a level with animals, for in animals under natural
conditions the sexual instinct is strictly subordinated to reproduction
and very little susceptible to deviation, so that from the standpoint of
those who wish to minimize sex, animals are nearer to the ideal, and such
persons must say with Woods Hutchinson: "Take it altogether, our animal
ancestors have quite as good reason to be ashamed of us as we of them."
But if we look at the matter from a wider biological standpoint of
development, our conclusion must be very different.

So far from being animal-like, the human impulses of sex are among the
least animal-like acquisitions of man. The human sphere of sex differs
from the animal sphere of sex to a singularly great extent.[59] Breathing
is an animal function and here we cannot compete with birds; locomotion is
an animal function and here we cannot equal quadrupeds; we have made no
notable advance in our circulatory, digestive, renal, or hepatic
functions. Even as regards vision and hearing, there are many animals that
are more keen-sighted than man, and many that are capable of hearing
sounds that to him are inaudible. But there are no animals in whom the
sexual instinct is so sensitive, so highly developed, so varied in its
manifestations, so constantly alert, so capable of irradiating the highest
and remotest parts of the organism. The sexual activities of man and woman
belong not to that lower part of our nature which degrades us to the level
of the "brute," but to the higher part which raises us towards all the
finest activities and ideals we are capable of. It is true that it is
chiefly in the mouths of a few ignorant and ill-bred