The sexual question : $b A scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological studyForel, Auguste
Science
The sexual question : $b A scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study
Forel, Auguste
Sex
Climate has a powerful action on the types of races, the latter being
generally adapted to the climate in which they live. Thus, the
European becomes darker in the tropics while negroes and Indians
become paler in the north.
LAWS OF RESEMBLANCE--HYBRIDS
Every animal species has an instinctive repugnance to pair with
another. Even where they are possible, natural hybrids are rare, and
only become a little more frequent in domestic animals and plants. The
fecundity of hybrids diminishes when they have connection among
themselves, and this explains why the instinct for such connections
tends to gradually disappear.
In his book on "The Mneme," Semon explains the infecundity of hybrids
in a very plausible manner, by the disorder that a too large quantity
of dissimilar hereditary engrams causes in the hereditary mneme of two
conjugated cells. When the parents differ from each other only in a
moderate degree homophony may still be reëstablished, and then the
divergencies have a very favorable effect on the product, by the new
combinations which they furnish in the course of its development.
Moral ideas follow the course of instincts, and this explains why
sexual connection with animals is regarded as a horrible crime. This
is especially produced by pathological aberration, or when one sex is
completely isolated from the other. There is also a certain degree of
aversion to copulation between different races, in animals as well as
man; for example, between sheep and horses of different races, and
between white men, negroes and Indians. There are, however, many
hybrids or half-breeds in South America, and in Mexico they even
constitute two-thirds of the population.
Broca maintained that human hybrids produced by the crossing of remote
races, for example, between English and negroes or Australians, were
usually sterile. Westermark disputes this, but agrees that these
hybrids become enfeebled in a few generations. It has also been
established that mixed marriage between Jews and Aryans are generally
less fecund; but this fact is not yet sufficiently explained.
Mulattoes, or hybrids between negroes and whites, constitute a
degenerate race and hardly viable, at any rate if their descendants do
not return entirely to one of the original races. Half-breeds between
whites and American Indians, also called Ladinos, seem on the contrary
to form a viable race, but one of little valor.
PROHIBITION OF CONSANGUINEOUS MARRIAGES
Sexual union between near relations nearly always causes a feeling of
repugnance in man, and has been stigmatized by the term _incest_.
Coitus between mother and son especially excites disgust. Sexual
connection between parents and children, as well as between brothers
and sisters is, however, common among certain tribes. Many other races
allow marriage between brothers and sisters, but this is elsewhere
generally condemned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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