But the ascendancy gained, in early human life on the earth, over the erotic, by the egoistic-social instincts is now so great, on account of the comparative modernness of the higher type of erotic impulses, that even yet the latter are as young seedlings of some exotic plant in a forest of enormous trees. And specifically a conscious ideal is needed on every man’s part, to overcome the undue prevalence of mere competition and create anew a civilization based not solely as the present one is on the egoistic-social instinct but on the erotic instinct. Lest this be misunderstood as advocating an unlimited number of offspring, it should be emphasized that the modern erotic impulse is one leading toward love expression entirely apart from the desire to procreate. How animal-like (we may for example think in 1950) it was in the year 1923 for people to consider it wrong to go through a love episode—even married people—except when they wished a child to be conceived! Why should the erotic experiences in those days have been left to the roué and the prostitute? “What could have been meant by married love?” they will say. Now that an increased sense of responsibility has been developed in women, placed on them thoughtfully and purposefully by men, all men are able to find by actual experiment the women whom they wish for mothers of their children, and women, too, are sure beforehand, both that they want their children and that they desire those particular men for the fathers of their children. § 46 The fundamental characteristic of the erotic instinct is its recognition of the necessity of heterosexual physical and mental companionship. This belongs to both sexes equally, although men’s clubs, women’s clubs and the other occasional separations of the sexes exist—caused by the overpowering influence of egoistic-social impulses. If a man cannot see anything in a woman but a child or a fool, he has no rational excuse for seeking her company. He might as well have a dog’s. Those who see no more than that are themselves either children or fools. In such cases the real love instinct has been so overcast with prejudice or tradition that it cannot function as it should. Such a man is judging women by the egoistic-social standard and his statement means no more than that in his experience he has met more unintelligent than intelligent women. Or it means that he himself lacks that degree of intelligence which alone is able to evoke the intelligent reaction in another. The proper functioning of the true love instinct is seen only in the ineluctable conviction that man and woman are complementary, and that the union of one man and one woman composes the real individual, the social unit. Man alone, or woman alone, is only demi-human.