The term normal homosexuality will doubtless surprise those accustomed to the conventional classification; at least until a little fuller thought shall be found, I think, to justify its use. The category includes, in contradistinction to the conditions already mentioned, only those males who have sexual desires and inclinations for males exclusively, and solely, whether the desires and inclinations be congenital or acquired. I have ventured upon this new classification of such inverts—which differs radically from that of Ulrichs, Fe're, Ellis, Krafft-Ebtng and other distinguished psychologists—not with any purpose save but to unify, and if possible aimplify, the entire subject; giving it not only a greater degree of correctness but such a division and arrangement as will make it easier both to study and to follow, with a proper consecution of thought.

A normal abnormality may sound at first blush like a contradiction of terms; but I think a little consideration will suffice to convince the prima facie objector that the term is scientifically proper. The accepted definition of normality is correspondence to a given type; and as types are the product solely of observed uniform continuance, by parity of reasoning, it is not hard to see that, where an abnormality, bo called, can be shown always to have existed in the individual without change, normal abnormality becomes not only possible in idea but strictly correct and rational in expression. If any basis of argument exist, it is to be found in the limitations of ordinary language as a vehicle of concrete scientific thought, or in the word normal, itself, rather than its synthetic associate.

Psychologically, the love of a male for a male is just as real, just as exalted, just as normal to the natural invert, mentally, morally and physically, as the love of a man for a woman. He deifies, idealizes, worships the male object of his passion, just as the man does the female; has never known any other kind of love; makes the same sacrifices, endures the same jealousy, suffers the same agonies from unrequited attachment, and behaves in all things exactly as does the subject of the orthodox heterosexual passion.

The bodily contact of a sympathetic man produces the same thrill that a sexually-minded normal man feels when he touches a woman whom he desires; except that, the impulse of the normal invert is even stronger, he usually suffering from a sexual neurasthenia in which both erection and ejaculation are more easily induced.

I state these facts in a spirit of scientific fairness to this unfortunate class of beings; to soften, if possible, the existing prejudice against them, and to show that, being no more accountable for their condition than the normal individual is for his, apart, from the moral phases of the question, society has no more right to visit them with its opprobrium, or punishment, than it has to punish the demented, the idiot or the epileptic. I am not attempt ing to justify homosexuality, as did many Greek and Roman, as well as later and abler, writers of France, England and Germany. I do not think it can be justified on any ground. It is a dangerous, damning, demoralizing and widespread pathological vice; much more widely spread than commonly supposed, which should come within the purview of the law, not in the vindices flamma* of the Roman Code,1 but according to the sublime principles of Christianity; and demanding, not alone the firmest measures of repression, but, that charity and intelligence which will understand its nature, while disarming it of its dangers.

1 While Conatantine, Theodosius and Vnlentinian passed laws against homosexuality, but little muling is required to show that the provisions of these laws were very feebly enforced. The Code Napoleon omitted to punish it; and in the French law of today there are aaiy three conditions under which it becomes a crime: outrage public a jnideur, when it is performed with n possibility of witnesses; and, in absence of consent, with violence. It is penal in Germany, Austria, Russia, England and the United States, and with various modifications in Spain, Portugal and Holland.

These dangers are, briefly: loss of self respect, loss of public respect, loss of health, loss of domestic happiness, loss of the joy of fatherhood, loss of the high ideals of life, and, if religion be a verity, loss of the immortal soul.

I put the penalties in italics, to impress them upon the reader's consciousness at the outset; for, in the pursuit of a scientific theme, the writer's mind is usually too closely engaged with the phenomena of rational fact to pay much attention to questions of mere ethical morality.

The normal invert, if he marry, as is not frequently the case, is, or may be, relatively potent; but instead of thinking of his wife, during the act of intercourse, he calls up the image of a male; just as it is possible occasionally for a normal man to have psychological intercourse with a male, by fancying the latter a female. There is never natural heterosexual desire, however; and marriage is always entered into, if at all, for some ulterior purpose, financial, social or other. I have known such men, when partly intoxicated, or otherwise aphrodisiacally stimulated, to attempt connection with women; but in nearly every case fruitlessly, as they afterward informed me, the erection disappearing immediately at contact with the opposite sex.

At the same time, those very men were capable, at the merest touch of a sympathetic male, of the most powerful erection, and even ejaculation. Indeed I am surprised that any man should remain long in doubt on the question of sexual inversion, as many profess to have done; the matter of pleasure from male contact alone, without the concomitant inclination to contrary occupations, and associations, which usually accompanies such esses, being adequate proof of its existence. The following will illustrate this, as well as other features of the abnormality: