Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/209

MORA L I NFL UENCE OF P USER A L DE VEL 0PM ENT 1 9 5 made a eunuch in early childhood, observed that the larynx was a third smaller than that of complete men of the same age and size. The glottis was very small and the laryngeal cartilages little developed, as in a child. This is the reason why eunuchs keep their treble; and a barbarous speculation used to mutilate the boys destined to become singers in the Sistine Chapel. Muscular force also undergoes a check in eunuchs; old age comes upon them early.

To these organic modifications in the physical conditions correspond others in the psychic field. If we wish to investigate the quality of the modifications in virtue of which the development of the organs influences, first biologically and then organically, the entire organism, we find that the characteristic of the dynamic effects provoked by the genital organs is, in the male particularly, the active vascular dilatation, which locally favors the act of generation, while in general it impresses upon the organism the real character of youth, the general vital turgidity. On this basis rise the various psychic manifestations characteristic of youth: the vivacity, the rapidity of the mental processes, and consequent variation of the state of the mind, with limited field for reflection, which requires the fixing of the mind upon a determined number of images. The expansive emotions, and in general all the sthenic passions — joy, impetuosity, courage — have for their biological basis this vascular dilatation, and in this we find, both in normal and in pathological conditions, the moving principle of the conduct of the individual during this period of life, especially so far as it reflects the sexual instinct. Taking into account the conditions required for the satisfaction of the sexual instinct, either in the zoological scale or in man himself, it will not be difficult to admit, as I indicated in the International Congress of Criminal Anthropology held at Geneva in 1896, that the said instinct arises in the form of a complex emotion which sets in movement two mechanisms — the one internal and visceral, which serves in material and natural satisfaction of the instinct, the other external and expressed in the aggressive tendencies against the obstacles which oppose its satisfaction. In other words, I say that the particular emotive state created by the nascent