If Krafft-Ebing’s theory of masturbation being an index of homosexuality were true, it might well be set forth as a demonstrable fact, in the hope that this knowledge would be a stepping-stone to constructive results in our understanding of the sexual life. However, in addition to being a fallacious conception, it has the further discredit of probably having wrought great damage to masturbating youths in giving them a false and hopeless impression of their actual situation. If a youth in his effort to overcome masturbation, believes himself, in addition, to be a predestined victim of homosexuality--especially with the prevailing social stigma which that condition carries--the injurious effect may quite conceivably be disastrous. Magnus Hirschfeld, one of the greatest of contemporary authorities on the sex question in all its phases, is convinced that homosexuality is a normal state, and that genuine homosexuality is always an inborn condition. His views may be summed up in the statement that there is a genuine inborn homosexuality which must not be considered a morbidity. Furthermore, it should not be confused either with bisexuality or with pseudo-sexuality. Those who look upon homosexuality from the psycho-pathological viewpoint are in agreement to this extent--that the homosexual condition is not a product of degeneration in the ordinary sense, but, rather, a neurosis. Stekel states emphatically, “_I have never yet found a homosexual who was not a neurotic._” The relationship of neurosis and homosexuality is set forth by the same authority as follows: (a) Pronounced physical and mental stigmata of degeneration are relatively rare among homosexual men and women; at any rate such signs are not more frequent in proportion to the total number of homosexuals than among the heterosexuals of both sexes. (b) On the other hand, we find frequently and not merely as a result of homosexuality, _a greater instability of the nervous system_ (frequently shown in the periodic character of endogenous temperamental instability.) (c) The family of the homosexual often contains a larger number of nervous persons and such as deviate from the normal sexual type. This latter observation, of course, tends to give homosexuality an hereditary aspect, which is Hirschfeld’s opinion. But, when analyzed, this may mean that a nervous or neurotic disposition is inherited, which, under certain environmental conditions (the negative attitude of parents, the dominant mother, etc.) leads to a homosexual goal. Dr. Iwan Bloch, who has world-wide standing as a sexologist, gives the following interesting opinion: 1. The so-called “undifferentiated” stage of the sexual instinct is often eliminated when the instinct becomes directed toward a definite particular sex among heterosexuals or homosexuals before the advent of puberty. Homosexuality shows a definite, clear direction of the sexual instinct towards the same sex long before puberty.