ys and from 12 to 14 in girls,--while
in later years it must be regarded as pathological." He added very truly
that in this early period the sexual emotion has not become centered in
the sexual organs. This latter fact is certainly far too often forgotten
by grown-up persons who suspect the idealized passion of boys and girls of
a physical side which children have often no suspicion of, and would view
with repulsion and horror. How far the sexual instinct may be said to be
undifferentiated in early puberty as regards sex is a little doubtful. It
is comparatively undifferentiated, but except in rare cases it is not
absolutely undifferentiated.

We have to admit, however, that, in the opinion of the latest
physiologists of sex, such as Castle, Heape, and Marshall, each sex
contains the latent characters of the other or recessive sex. Each sex is
latent in the other, and each, as it contains the characters of both
sexes (and can transmit those of the recessive sex) is latently
hermaphrodite. A homosexual tendency may thus be regarded as simply the
psychical manifestation of special characters of the recessive sex,
susceptible of being evolved under changed circumstances, such as may
occur near puberty, and associated with changed metabolism.[128]

William James (_Principles of Psychology_, vol. ii, p. 439)
considered inversion "a kind of sexual appetite of which very
likely most men possess the germinal possibility." Conolly Norman
(Article "Sexual Perversion," Tuke's _Dictionary of Psychological
Medicine_) also stated that "the sexual passion, at its first
appearance, is always indefinite, and is very easily turned in a
wrong direction," and he apparently accounted for inversion by
this fact, and by the precocity of neurotics. Obici and
Marchesini (_Le 'Amicizie' di collegio_, p. 126) refer to the
indeterminate character of the sexual feelings when they first
begin to develop. A correspondent believes that sexual feelings
are undifferentiated in the early years about puberty, but at the
same time considers that school life is to some extent
responsible; "the holidays," he adds, "are sufficiently long to
counteract it, however, provided the boy has sisters and they
have friends; the change from school fare and work to home
naturally results in a greater surplus of nerve-force, and I
think most boys 'fool about' with servants or their sisters'
fri