sentence might serve as a motto for the title page of a treatise on the yellow-covered romance of the type which is so highly prized by hundreds of thousands of readers of both sexes. A favourite theme is to follow the fortunes of a young married couple who are estranged at first, as in Marlitt’s Zweiter Frau, Werner’s Glück auf, and Ohnett’s Hüttenbesitzer. It is, of course, psychologically and æsthetically interesting to follow the conversion from real or pretended aversion to attachment, a process from which, Spinoza tells us, deeper love results “quam si odium non præcessisset.” But the extraordinary attractive power of this novel specific for bringing about the desired result arises from a special stimulus not difficult to identify from our point of view, and inherent in the situation. 3. _The Comic of Sex_ This subject offers a difficult problem. The fact that all mankind, adult and child, the refined, cultured person as well as the primitive savage, the latest representative of centuries of civilization and his remotest ancestor, alike show a propensity to take pleasure in things relating to this subject, is one which we may deplore and yet can not characterize as entirely inexplicable. But we may ask why it is considered comical. It frequently happens that the comic impression is heterogeneous, as in the ribaldry which perverts wit from its proper sphere and makes the offence against good manners take the form of a social blunder, while unintentioned indecency may raise a laugh at the expense of the perpetrator. Yet it can not be denied that the mere introduction of the sexual element is an independent source of amusement and one which requires some special explanation.