The motive that actuates the prostitute requires further investigation. The purpose of the motherly woman was easy to understand; she is the upholder of the race. But the fundamental idea of prostitution is much more mysterious, and no one can have meditated long on the subject without often doubting if it were possible to get an explanation. Perhaps the relation of the two types to the sexual act may assist the inquiry. I hope that no one will consider such a subject below the dignity of a philosopher. The spirit in which the inquiry is made is the chief matter. It is at least clear that the painters of Leda and Danäe have pondered over the problem, and many great writers--I have in mind Zola’s “Confession of Claude,” his “Hortense,” “Renée,” and “Nana,” Tolstoi’s “Resurrection,” Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler,” and “Rita,” and above all the “Sonja” of that great soul Dostoyevski--must have been thinking of the general problem rather than merely wishing to describe particular cases. The maternal woman regards the sexual relations as means to an end; the prostitute considers them as the end itself. That sexual congress may have another purpose than mere reproduction is plain, as many animals and plants are devoid of it. On the other hand, in the animal kingdom sexual congress is always in connection with reproduction and is never simply lust; and, moreover, takes place only at times suitable for breeding. Desire is simply the means employed by nature to secure the continuity of the species. Although sexual congress is an end in itself for the prostitute, it must not be assumed that it is meaningless in the mother-type. Women who are sexually anæsthetic no doubt exist in both classes, but they are very rare, and many apparent cases may really be phenomena of hysteria. The final importance attached by the prostitute to the sexual act is made plain by the fact that it is only that type in which coquetry occurs. Coquetry has invariably a sexual significance. Its purpose is to picture to the man the conquest of the woman before it has occurred, in order to induce him to make the conquest an actual fact. The readiness of the type to coquet with every man is an expression of her nature; whether it proceeds further depends on merely accidental circumstances. The maternal type regards the sexual act as the beginning of a series of important events, and so attaches value to it equally with the prostitute, although in a different fashion. The one is contented, completed, satisfied; her life is made richer and of fuller meaning to her by it. The other, for whom the act is everything, the compression and end of all life, is never satisfied, never to be satisfied, were she visited by all the men in the world.