Yet, regarded as a whole, and notwithstanding the frequency with which they witness to congenital morbidity, the phenomena of erotic symbolism can scarcely fail to be profoundly impressive to the patient and impartial student of the human soul. They often seem absurd, sometimes disgusting, occasionally criminal; they are always, when carried to an extreme degree, abnormal. But of all the manifestations of sexual psychology, normal and abnormal, they are the most specifically human. More than any others they involve the potently plastic force of the imagination. They bring before us the individual man, not only apart from his fellows, but in opposition, himself creating his own paradise. They constitute the supreme triumph of human idealism. FOOTNOTES: [64] Binet, _Etudes de Psychologie Expérimentale_, esp., p. 84; Krafft-Ebing, _Op. cit._, p. 18. [65] G. Tarde, "L'Amour Morbide," _Archives de l'Anthropologie Criminelle_, 1890, p. 585. [66] Lucretius, Lib. IV, vv. 1150-1163. [67] Burton, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part III, Section II, Mem. III, Subs. I. [68] Judith Cladel, _Auguste Rodin Pris sur la Vie_, 1903, pp. 103-104. Some slight modifications have been made in the translation of this passage on account of the conversational form of the original. [69] W. Cyples, _The Process of Human Experience_, p. 462. Even if (as we have already seen, _ante_, p. 58) the saint cannot always feel actual physical pleasure in the intimate contact of humanity, the ardor of devoted service which his vision of humanity arouses remains unaffected. [70] "To love," as Stendhal defined it (_De l'Amour_, Chapter II), "is to have pleasure in seeing, touching, and feeling by all the senses, and as near as possible, a beloved object by whom one is oneself loved." [71] Pillon's study of "La Mémoire Affective" (_Revue Philosophique_, February, 1901) helps to explain the psychic mechanism of the process. THE MECHANISM OF DETUMESCENCE. I. The Psychological Significance of Detumescence--The Testis and the Ovary--Sperm Cell and Germ Cell--Development of the Embryo--The External Sexual Organs--Their Wide Range of Variation--Their Nervous Supply--The Penis--Its Racial Variations--The Influence of Exercise--The Scrotum and Testicles--The Mons Veneris--The Vulva--The Labia Majora and their Varieties--The Pubic Hair and Its Characters--The Clitoris and Its Functions--The Anus as an Erogenous Zone--The Nymphæ and their Function--The Vagina--The Hymen--Virginity--The Biological Significance of the Hymen.