Page:Symonds - A Problem in Modern Ethics.djvu/140

128 that only one of them, the third, is positively morbid, and only one, the second, is ipso facto vicious. The first is immoral in the same sense as all incontinence, including self-abuse, fornication, and so forth, practised faute de mieux, is immoral; but it cannot be called either morbid or positively vicious, because the habit in question springs up under extra-social circumstances. The members of the fourth category are abnormal through their constitution. Whether we refer that abnormality to atavism, or to some hitherto unapprehended deviation from the rule in their sexual conformation, there is no proof that they are the subjects of disease. At the same time it is certain that they are not deliberately vicious.

The treatment of sexual inversion by society and legislation follows the view taken of its origin and nature. Ever since the age of Justinian, it has been regarded as an unqualified crime against God, the order of the world, and the State. This opinion, which has been incorporated in the codes of all the Occidental races, sprang originally from the conviction that sterile passions are injurious to the tribe by checking propagation. Religion adopted this view, and, through the legend of Sodom and Gomorrah, taught that God was ready to punish whole nations with violent destruction if they practised the "unmentionable vice." Advancing civilisation, at the same time, sought in every way to limit and regulate the sexual appetite; and while doing so, it naturally excluded those forms which were not agreeable to the majority, which possessed no obvious utility, and which prima facie seemed to violate the cardinal laws of human nature.