Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/229

 MORAL INFL UENCE OF PUBERAL DEVELOPMENT 2 I 5

that pederasty flourished.) Certainly the too prolonged asso- ciation of the two sexes is not exempt from dangers and incon- veniencies, but it is not by systematically avoiding dangers that one best succeeds in fortifying oneself against them. It is neces- sary that the sexual emotivity should not receive precocious satisfaction which would be harmful, but that it should be main- tained alive by the presence of the two sexes, so that each one might awaken in the other the instinctive inclination and the sentiments most adapted to prepare for the social strife for love, as it is agreed that this should become the basis of social fel- lowship. In the present social condition some of the factors of the struggle for love are subjective, others ejective, which emanate from the individual to exert an influence on the sur- roundings among which he lives; and others, more particularly, objective. The spirit of independence and of individual liberty, intelligence, moral power, beauty, and the other physical qualities which exert a power of attraction, social eminence, and wealth, constitute altogether the patrimony that man must cultivate and maintain with his own activity, sustained by the sexual emotion. The greater irrigation of the nervous system, and the eleva- tion of the sentimental tone which, as we have already observed, is in direct dependency on the puberal development, constitute in themselves a preparation for this strife. Very interesting and highly instructive in this regard is the case of infantile gigant- ism observed by Sacchi in his clinic at Genoa. In a boy of the age of five and one-half years there develops a tumor on his left testicle of a coccidinic nature. With the appearance and devel- opment of the tumor occur noteworthy physical and moral phenomena. The organs of generation attain a precocious devel- opment. The young man grows rapidly in stature ; the pubis is covered with hair as in the period of puberty, and the thighs and breast also are covered with hair ; the beard appears on the face ; the voice of the child changes ; his muscular force increases enormously, so that at the age of nine and one-half years he was capable of lifting from the ground and placing on his shoulders the weight of a quintal ; in short, the characteristics of puberty appear. At the same time the boy, whose character