The facts which I described in the chapter of this book dealing with old age have made clear how long sexuality persists in men. As the testes resist atrophy better than other organs, and even in extreme old age still form active spermatozoa, it is natural that their condition should be reflected on the organism generally, and that feelings of love should still be excited. If by some accident Goethe had become a eunuch early in life, he would have been a different being. The moralists who have been shocked by his amorous intrigues would have been satisfied, but the world would have lost a great poet. Moreover, Goethe is no exceptional case amongst writers. The temperament of Victor Hugo and his devotion to women up to the end of his days are well known. More recently, after the death of Ibsen, a profound sensation was made by the revelation of his love for Mademoiselle Bardach, who inspired his genius during the last period of his life. Not only poetic creation but other forms of genius are intimately associated with the sexual function. The philosopher Schopenhauer, who was no ascetic, wrote as follows, at the age of twenty-five, when he was in full creative activity, “In the days and at the hours when the voluptuous instinct is strongest, when it is a burning covetousness, it is then that the greatest forces of the mind and the greatest stores of knowledge are ready for the most intense activity.” “At such moments life is truly at its strongest and most active, for its two poles are then operating most actively; and this is plain in the man of the highest intelligence. In these hours one sees more than in years of passivity” (quoted in Moebius’ _Schopenhauer_, p. 55). “This means that in Schopenhauer intellectual creation was linked with erotic excitement” (_ibid._, p. 57). It was facts of such a nature that led Brown-Séquard to his idea of strengthening cerebral activity by injections of the substance of testes. To obtain the same effect, he prescribed another means, the value of which was proved in the case of two individuals aged from forty-five to fifty years, the observations being continued over several years. “By my advice,” he said, “when these had to perform any great physical or intellectual work, they got themselves into a condition of sexual excitement.” “The testes being in this way thrown into functional activity, there was soon produced the desired increase in the power of the nerve centres.”[198] Although I insist on the existence of a close relation between intellectual activity and the sexual function, I do not mean to assert that there have not existed exceptions to the rule. Now that I have described certain important factors in the genius of Goethe, I shall pass on to a study of his state of mind in the last period of his life, the splendour and harmony of which have been so often admired. III GOETHE’S OLD AGE