tive
influences of his own life, and which has done as much to create
those very figures in the street as qualities in the circulation
of the blood may do to form a finger or other limb. He comes into
touch with a very real Presence or Power--one of those organic
centers of growth in the life of humanity--and feels this larger
life within himself, subjective, if you like, and yet intensely
objective. And more. For is it not also evident that the woman,
the mortal woman who excites his Vision, _has_ some closest
relation to it, and is, indeed, far more than a mere mask or
empty formula which reminds him of it? For she indeed has within
her, just as much as the man has, deep subconscious Powers
working; and the ideal which has dawned so entrancingly on the
man is in all probability closely related to that which has been
working most powerfully in the heredity of the woman, and which
has most contributed to mold _her_ form and outline. No wonder,
then, that her form should remind him of it. Indeed, when he
looks into her eyes he sees _through_ to a far deeper life even
than she herself may be aware of, and yet which is truly hers--a
life perennial and wonderful. The more than mortal in him beholds
the more than mortal in her; and the gods descend to meet."
(Edward Carpenter, _The Art of Creation_, pp. 137, 186.)

It is this mighty force which lies behind and beneath the aberrations we
have been concerned with, a great reservoir from which they draw the
life-blood that vivifies even their most fantastic shapes. Fetichism and
the other forms of erotic symbolism are but the development and the
isolation of the crystallizations which normally arise on the basis of
sexual selection. Normal in their basis, in their extreme forms they
present the utmost pathological aberrations of the sexual instinct which
can be attained or conceived. In the intermediate space all degrees are
possible. In the slightest degree the symbol is merely a specially
fascinating and beloved feature in a person who is, in all other respects,
felt to be lovable; as such its recognition is a legitimate part of
courtship, an effective aid to tumescence. In a further degree the symbol
is the one arresting and attracting character of a person who must,
however, still be felt as a sexually attractive individual. In a still
further degree of perversion the symbol is effective, ev