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ike that of normal persona. The existence of a definite hereditary tendency in a homosexual direction removes that difficulty. Freud himself recognizes this and clearly asserts congenital psycho-sexual constitution, which must involve predisposition. On a general survey, therefore, it would appear that, on the psychic side, we may accept the reality of unconscious dynamic processes which in particular cases may be of the Freudian or similar type. But while the study of such mechanisms may illuminate the psychology of homosexuality, they leave untouched the fundamental organic factors now accepted by most authorities.[230] The rational way of regarding the normal sexual instinct is as an inborn organic impulse, reaching full development about the time of puberty.[231] During the period of development suggestion and association may come in to play a part in defining the object of the emotion; the soil is now ready, but the variety of seeds likely to thrive in it is limited. That there is a greater indefiniteness in the aim of the sexual impulse at this period we may well believe. This is shown not only by occasional tentative signs of sexual emotion directed toward the same sex in childhood, but by the frequently ideal and unlocalized character of the normal passion even at puberty. But the channel of sexual emotion is not thereby turned into an abnormal path. Whenever this happens we are bound to believe--and we have many grounds for believing--that we are dealing with an organism which from the beginning is abnormal. The same seed of suggestion is sown in various soils; in the many it dies out; in the few it flourishes. The cause can only be a difference in the soil. If, then, we must postulate a congenital abnormality in order to account satisfactorily for at least a large proportion of sexual inverts, wherein does that abnormality consist? Ulrichs explained the matter by saying that in sexual inverts a male body coexists with a female soul: _anima muliebris in corpore virile inclusa_. Even writers of scientific eminence, like Magnan and Gley, have adopted this phrase in a modified form, considering that in inversion a female brain is combined with a male body or male glands. This is, however, not an explanation. It merely crystallizes into an epigram the superficial impression of the matter.[232] We can probably grasp the nature of the abnormality better if we reflect on the development of the sexes and on the la
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