lity
not accounted for on the exploit or food side, and this element is, I
believe, genetically connected with sexual life. Unlike the struggle
for existence in the ordinary sense of the phrase, the courtship of
the sexes presents a situation in which an appeal is made for the
favor of another personality, and the success of this appeal has a
survival value--not for the individual, but for the species through
the individual. We have, in fact, a situation in which the good
opinion of another is vitally important. On this account the means
of attracting and interesting others are definitely and bountifully
developed among all the higher species of animals. Voice, plumage,
color, odor, and movement are powerful excitants in wooing and aids
both to the conquest of the female and the attraction of the male. In
this connection we must also recognize the fact that reproductive life
must be connected with violent stimulation, or it would be neglected
and the species would become extinct; and, on the other hand, if the
conquest of the female were too easy, sexual life would be in danger
of becoming a play interest and a dissipation, destructive of energy
and fatal to the species. Working, we may assume, by a process of
selection and survival, nature has both secured and safeguarded
reproduction. The female will not submit to seizure except in a high
state of nervous excitation (as is seen especially well in the wooing
of birds), while the male must conduct himself in such a way as to
manipulate the female; and, as the more active agent, he develops a
marvelous display of technique for this purpose. This is offset by the
coyness and coquetry of the female, by which she equally attracts and
fascinates the male and practices upon him to induce a corresponding
state of nervous excitation.[163]

This is the only situation in the life of the lower animals, at
any rate, where the choice of another is vitally important; and
corresponding with the elaborate technique to secure this choice we
have in wooing pleasure-pain reactions of a violent character. In a
word, extreme sensitiveness to the judgment of another answers on
the subjective side to technique for the conquest of a member of the
opposite sex. It seems, therefore, that we are justified in concluding
that our vanity and susceptibility have their origin largely in sexual
life, and that, in particular, our susceptibility to the opinion of
others and our dependence on their good