Homogenic Love and Its Place in a Free Society  

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Homogenic Love and Its Place in a Free Society (1894) is a text by Edward Carpenter.

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HOMOGENIC LOVE

OF all the many forms that Love delights to take,

perhaps none is more interesting (for the very reason that it has been so inadequately considered) than ‘that special attachment which is sometimes denoted by the word Comradeship. In general we may say that the passion of love provides us with at once the deepest problems and the highest manifestations of life, and that to its different workings can be traced the farthest- reaching threads of human endeavor. In one guise, as the mere semi-conscious Sex-love, which runs through creation and is common to man and the lowest animals and plants, it affords a kind of organic basis for the unity of all creatures; in another, as for instance the love of the Mother for her offspring (also to be termed a passion) it seems to pledge itself to the care and guardianship of the growing race; then again in the Marriage of man and woman it becomes a thing of mystic and eternal import, and one of the corner-stones of human society; while in the form of the Comrade-

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love with which this paper is concerned, it has uses and functions which we trust will clearly appear as we proceed.

To some perhaps it may appear a little strained to place this last-mentioned form of attachment on a level of importance with the others, and such persons may be inclined to deny to the homogenic or homosexual love* (asit has been called) that intense, that penetrating, and at times overmastering character which would entitle it to rank as a great human passion. But in truth this view, when entertained, arises from a want of acquaintance with the actual facts ; and it may not be amiss here, in the briefest possible way, to indicate what the world’s History, Literature and Art has to say to us on the whole subject, before we go on to any further considerations of our own. Certainly, if the confronting of danger and the endurance of pain and distress for the sake of the loved one, if sacrifice, unswerving devotion and life-long union, constitute proofs of the reality and intensity (and let us say healthiness) of an affection, then these proofs have been given in numberless cases of such attachment, not only as existing between men, but as between women, since the world began. The records of chivalric love, ,

• Homosexual," generally used in scientific works, is of course

a bastard word. ‘‘Homogenic’’ has been suggested, as being from two roots, both Greek, i.¢., homos ‘‘ same,"’ and genos ‘* sex."

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the feats of enamored knights for their ladies’ sakes, the stories of Hero and Leander, &c., are easily paralleled, if not surpassed, by the stories of the Greek comrades-in- arms and tyrannicides—of Cratinus and Aristodemus, who offered themselves together as a voluntary sacrifice for the purification of Athens; of Chariton and Melanippus,* who attempted to assassinate Phalaris, the tyrant of Agrigentum ; of Diocles who fell fighting in defence of his loved one; or of Cleomachus who in like manner, in a battle between the Chalkidians and Eretrians, being entreated to charge the latter, ‘‘ asked the youth he loved, who was standing by, whether he would be a spectator of the fight ; and when he said he would, and affectionately kissed Cleomachus and put his helmet on his head, Cleomachus with a proud joy placed himself in the front of the bravest of the Thessalians and charged the enemy’s cavalry with such impetuosity that he threw them into disorder and routed them ; and the Eretrian cavalry fleeing in consequence, the Chalkidians won a splendid victory.’’+

The annals of all nations contain similar records— though probably among none has the ideal of this love been quite so enthusiastic and heroic as among the post-Homeric Greeks. It is well known that among the Polynesian Islanders—for the most part a very

• « Athenaeus”’ xiii., c. 78. + See Plutarch “ Eroticus,” § xvii.

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gentle and affectionate people, probably inheriting the traditions of a higher culture than they now possess— the most romantic male friendships are (or were) in vogue. Says Herman Melville in ‘‘Omoo” (ch. 39), ‘¢ The really curious way in which all Polynesians are in the habit of making bosom friends is deserving of remark. . . In the annals of the island (Tahiti) are examples of extravagant friendships, unsurpassed by the story of Damon and Pythias—in truth much more wonderful; for notwithstanding the devotion—even of life in some cases—to which they led, they were frequentiy entertained at first sight for some stranger from another island.” So thoroughly recognised indeed were these unions that Melville explains (in ‘‘ Typee,” ch. 18) that if two men of hostile tribes or ‘islands became thus pledged to each other, then each could pass through the enemy’s territory without fear of molestation or injury; and the passionate nature of these attachments is indicated by the following passage from Omoo :—*“ Though little inclined to jealousy in [ordinary] love-matters, the Tahitian will hear of no rivals in his friendship.”

Even among savage races lower down than these in the scale of evolution, and who are generally accused of being governed in their love-relations only by the most animal desires, we find a genuine sentiment of comrade-

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ship beginning to assert itself—as among the Balonda* and other African tribes, where regular ceremonies of the betrothal of comrades take ‘place, by the transfusion of a few drops of blood into each other’s drinking bowls, by the exchange of names,t+ and the mutual gift of their most precious possessions; but unfortunately, owing to the obtuseness of current European opinion on this subject, these and other such customs have been but little investigated and have by no means received the attention that they ought.

When we turn to the poetic and literary utterances of the more civilised nations on this subject we cannot. but: be struck by the range and intensity of the emotions expressed—from the beautiful threnody of David over his friend whose love was passing the love of women, through the vast panorama of the Homeric Iliad, of which the heroic friendship of Achilles and his dear Patroclus forms really the basic theme, down to the works of the great Greek age—the splendid odes of Pindar burning with clear fire of passion, the lofty elegies of Theognis, full of wise precepts to his beloved Kurnus, the sweet pastorals of Theocritus, the passionate

• See ‘Natural History of Man" by J. G. Wood. Vol:
  • Africa,”’ p. 419.

+ See also Livingstone’s ‘‘ Expedition to the Zambesi."’ Murray, 1865, p. 148. .

¥

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lyrics of Sappho, or the more sensual raptures of Anacreon. Some of the dramas of Aeschylus and Sophocles—as the Myrmidones of the former and the Loveys of Achilles of the latter—appear to have had this subject for their motive ;* and many of the prose-poem dialogues of Plato were certainly inspired by it.

Then coming to the literature of the Roman age, whose materialistic spirit could only with difficulty seize the finer inspiration of the homogenic love, and which in such writers as Catullus and Martial could only for the most part give expression to its grosser side, we still find in Virgil a noble and notable instance. His second Eclogue bears the marks of a genuine passion ; and, according to some,t he there under the name of Alexis immortalises his own love for the youthful Alexander. Nor is it possible to pass over in this connection the great mass of Persian literature, and the poets Sadi, Hafiz, Jami, and many others, whose names and works are for all time, and whose marvellous love- songs (‘‘ Bitter and sweet is the parting kiss on the lips of a friend”’) are to a large extent if not mostly addressed to those of their own sex.} |

• Though these two plays, except for some quotations, are lost.

+ Mantegazza and Lombroso. See Albert Moll, ‘‘ Contrare Sexual-empfinding,’’ second ed., p. 36.

$ Though in translations this fac is often by pious fraudulence disguised.

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Of the medieval period in Europe we have of course but few literary monuments. Towards its close we come upon the interesting story of Amis and Amile (thirteenth century), unearthed by Mr. W. Pater from the Bibliotheca Elzeviriana.* Though there is historic evidence of the prevalence of the passion we may say of this period that its sdeal was undoubtedly rather the chivalric love than the love of comrades. But with the Renaissance in Italy and the Elizabethan period in England the latter once more comes to evidence in a burst of poetic utterance,} which culminates perhaps in the magnificent sonnets of Michel Angelo and of Shakespeare; of Michel Angelo whose pure beauty of expression lifts the enthusiasm into the highest region as the direct perception of the divine in mortal form ;}

• W. Pater’s ‘‘ Renaissance,'’ pp. 8-16.

+ Among prose writers of this period Montaigne, whose treatment of the subject is enthusiastic and unequivocal, should not be overlooked. See Hazlitt’s ‘‘ Montaigne,” ch. xxvii.

t I may be excused for quoting here the sonnet No. 54, from J. A. Symonds’ translation of the sonnets of Michel Angelo:—

‘‘From thy fair face I learn, O my loved lord, That which no mortal tongue can rightly say ; The soul, imprisoned in her house of clay, Holpen by Thee to God hath often soared :

And though the vulgar, vain, malignant horde Attribute what their grosser wills obey,

Yet shall this fervent homage that I pay, This love, this faith, pure joys for us afford. Lo, all the lovely things we find on earth,

IO HOMOGENIC LOVE

and of Shakespeare—whose passionate words and amorous spirituality of friendship have for long enough been a perplexity to hide-bound commentators. Thence through minor writers (not overlooking Winckelmann * in Germany) we pass to quite modern times—in which, not withstanding the fact that the passion has been much misunderstood and misinterpreted, two names stand conspicuously forth—those of Tennyson, whose “ In Memoriam” is perhaps his finest work, and of Walt Whitman, the enthusiasm of whose poems on Comrade- ship is only paralleled by the devotedness of his labors for his wounded brothers in the American Civil War.

It will be noticed that here we have some of the _ very greatest names in all literature concerned; and that their utterances on this subject equal if they do not surpass, in beauty, intensity, and humanity of sentiment, whatever has been written in praise of the other more ordinarily recognised love. |

Resemble for the soul that rightly sees,

That source of bliss divine which gave us birth ; Nor have we first-fruits or remembrances

Of heaven elsewhere. Thus, loving loyally,

I rise to God, and make death sweet by thee.”

The labours of von Scheffler, followed by J. A. Symonds, have now pretty conclusively established the pious frauds of the nephew, and the fact that the love-poems of the elder Michel Angelo were, for the most part, written to male friends.

• See an interesting paper in W. Pater’s ‘' Renaissance.”

HOMOGENIC LOVE It

And when again we turn to the records of Art, and compare the way in which man’s sense of Love and Beauty has expressed itself in the portrayal of the male form and the female form respectively, we find exactly the same thing. The whole vista of Greek statuary

ows the male passion of beauty in high degree. Yet though the statues of men and youths (by male sculptors*) preponderate probably considerably, both in actual number and in devotedness of execution, over the statues of female figures, it is, as J. A. Symonds says in his ‘* Life of Michel Angelo,” remarkable that in all the range of the former there are hardly two or three that show a base or licentious expression, such as is not so very uncommon in the female statues. Knowing as we do the strength of the male physical passion in the life of the Greeks, this one fact speaks strongly for the sense of proportion which must have characterised this passion —at any rate in the most productive age of their Art.

In the case of Michel Angelo we have an artist who with brush and chisel portrayed literally thousands of human forms; but with this peculiarity, that while scores and scores of his male figures are obviously

• I am not aware of any cases in the plastic arts, which strongly

illustrate the homogenic sentiment as between women by the loving portrayal of female beauty by artists of the same sex—as by Sappho in literature—though no doubt there are such cases.

I2 HOMOGENIC LOVE

suffused and inspired by a romantic sentiment there is hardly oneof his female figures that isso,—the latter being mostly representative of woman in her part as mother, or sufferer, or prophetess or poetess, or in old age, or in any aspect of strength or tenderness, except that which associates itself especially with passionate love. Yet the cleanliness and dignity of Michel Angelo’s male figures are incontestable, and bear striking witness to that nobility of the sentiment in him, which we have already seen illustrated in his sonnets.

This brief sketch may suffice to give the reader some idea of the place and position in the world of the particular sentiment which we are discussing ; nor can it fail to impress him—if any reference is made to the authorities quoted—with a sense of the dignity and solidity of the sentiment, at any rate as handled by some of the world’s greatest men. At the same time it will be sure to arouse further questions. It will be evident from the instances given—and there would be no object in ignoring this fact—that this kind of love, too, like others, has its physical side; and queries will naturally arise as to the exact place and purport of the physical in it.

This is a subject which we shall have occasion to consider more in detail in the second part of this paper ;

HOMOGENIC LOVE 3

but here a few general remarks may be made. In the first place we may say that to all love and indeed to all human feeling there must necessarily be a physical side. The most delicate emotion which plays through the mind has, we cannot but perceive, its corresponding subtle change in the body, and the great passions are accompanied by wide-reaching disturbances and trans- formations of corporeal tissue and fluid. Who knows (it may be asked) how deeply the mother-love is intertwined with the growth of the lacteal vessels and the need of the suckled infant? or how intimately even the most abstract of desires—namely the religious—is rooted in the slow hidden metamorphosis by which a new creature is ‘really and physically born within the old? Richard Wagner, in a pregnant little passage in his ‘*Communication to my Friends,” says that the essence of human love “is the longing for utmost physical reality, for fruition in an object which can be grasped by all the senses, held fast with all the force of actual being.” And if this is a somewhat partial state- ment it yet puts into clear language one undoubted relation between the sensuous and the emotional in al] love, and the sweet excuse which this relation may be -said to provide for the existence of the actual world— namely that the latter is the means whereby we become conscious of our most intimate selves.*

• See pamphlet, ‘‘Sex-Love,” p. 7.

ned

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But if this is true of love in general it must be true of the Homogenic Love; and we must not be surprised to find that in all times this attachment has had some degree of physical expression. The question however as to what degree of physical intimacy may be termed in such a case fitting and natural—though a question which is sure to arise—is one not easy to answer: more especially as in the common mind any intimacy of a bodily nature between two persons of the same sex is so often (in the case of males) set down as a sexual act of the crudest and grossest kind. Indeed the difficulty here is that the majority of people, being incapable perhaps of understanding the inner feeling of the homogenic attachment,* find it hard to imagine that the intimacy has any other object than the particular orm of sensuality mentioned (i.e. the Venus aversa, which appears, be it said, to be rare in all the northern countries), or that people can be held together by any tie except the most sheerly material one—a view which of course turns the whole subject upside down, and gives rise to violent and no doubt very natural disapprobation ; and to endless recriminations and confusion.

Into this mistake we need not fall. Without denying

• As indeed the majority of people have a difficulty in

appreciating the inner feeling of most love.

HOMOGENIC LOVE 15

that -sexual intimacies do exist; and while freely admitting that, in great cities, there are to be found associated with this form of attachment prostitution and other evils comparable with the evils associated with the ordinary sex-attachment ; we may yet say that it would be a great error to suppose that the homogenic love takes as a rule the extreme form vulgarly supposed ; and that it would also be a great error to overlook the fact that in a large number of instances the relation is not distinctively sexual at all, though it may be said to be physical in the sense of embrace and endearment. While it is not my object in this paper to condemn special acts or familiarities between lovers (since these things must no doubt be largely left to individual judgment, aided by whatever light Science or Physiology may in the future be able to throw upon the subject)—still Iam anxious that it should be clearly understood that the glow of a really human and natural love between two persons of the same sex may be, and often is, felt without implying (asis so often assumed) mere depravity of character or conduct. Noonecan read the superb sonnets, already mentioned, of Shakespeare and Michel Angelo without feeling, beneath the general mass of emotional utterance, the pulsation of a distinct bodily desire; and even Tennyson, somewhat tenuous. and Broad-churchy as he is, is too great a master and

16 HOMOGENIC LOVE

too true a man not to acknowledge in his great comrade- poem “In Memoriam” (see Cantos x1II., XVIII, etc.) the passionateness of his attachment—for doing which indeed he was soundly rated by the Times at the time of its publication ; yet it would be monstrous to suppose that these men, and others, because they were capable of this kind of feeling and willing to confess its sensuous side, were therefore particularly licentious.

With these few general remarks, and the conclusion, so far, that while the homogenic feeling undoubtedly demands some kind of physical expression, the question what degree of intimacy is in all cases fitting and natural may not be a very easy one to decide—we may pass on to consider what light is thrown on the whole subject by some recent scientific investigations.

That passionate attachment between two persons of the same sex is, as we have seen, a phenomenon wide- spread through the human race, and enduring in history, has been always more or less recognised; and once at least in history—in the Greek age—the passion rose into distinct consciousness, and justified, or even it might be said glorified, itself; but in later times—especially perhaps during the last century or two of European life—it has generally been treated by the accredited thinkers and writers as a thing to be passed over in

HOMOGENIC LOVE 17

silence, as associated with mere grossness and mental aberration, or as unworthy of serious attention.

In latest times however—that is, during the last thirty years or so—a group of scientific and capable men in Germany, France, and Italy—among whom aré Dr. Albert Moll of Berlin; Krafft-Ebing, one of the leading medical authorities of Vienna, whose book on ‘‘ Sexual Psychopathy”? has passed into its eighth edition; Dr. Paul Moreau (‘‘ des Aberrations du sens | Génésique’”’); Cesare Lombroso, the author of various works on Anthropology ; Tarnowski; Mantegazza; K. H. Ulrichs, and others—have made a special and more or less impartial study of this subject: with the result that a quite altered complexion has been given to it; it being indeed especially noticeable that the change of view among the scientists has gone on step by step with the accumulation of reliable information, and that it is most marked in the latest authors, such as Krafft-Ebing and Moll.

It is not possible here to go into anything like a detailed account of the works of these various authors, their theories, and the immense number of interesting cases and observations which they have contributed ; but some of the general conclusions which flow from their researches may be pointed out. In the first place their labors have established the fact, known hitherto

18 HOMOGENIC LOVE

only to individuals, that sexual inverston—that is the leaning of sexual desire to one of the same sex—is in a vast number of cases quite instinctive and congenital, mentally and physically, and therefore twined in the very roots of individual life and practically ineradicable. To Men or Women thus affected with an innate homosexual bias, Ulrichs gave the name of Urning,* since pretty widely accepted by scientists. Too much emphasis cannot be laid on the distinction between these born lovers of their own sex, and that class of persons, with whom they age so often confused, who out of mere carnal curiosity or extravagance of desire, or from the dearth of opportunities for a more normal satisfaction (as in schools, barracks, &c.) adopt some homosexual practices. In the case of these latter the attraction towards their own sex is merely superficial and temptational, so to speak, and is generally felt by those concerned to be in some degree morbid. In the case of the former it is, as said, so deeply rooted and twined with the mental and emotional life that the person concerned has difficulty in imagining himself affected ° otherwise than he is; and to him at least the homogenic love appears healthy and natural, and indeed necessary to the concretion of his individuality.

• From Uranos—because the celestial love was the daughter of

Uranos (see Plato’s ‘‘ Symposium,’’ speech of Pausanias).

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In the second place it has become clear that the number of individuals aftected with ‘sexual inversion ’ in some degree or other is very great—much greater than is generally supposed to be the case. Itis however very difficult or perhaps impossible to arrive at satis- factory figures on the subject, for the simple reasons that the proportions vary so greatly among different peoples and even in different sections of society and in different localities, and because of course there are all possible grades of sexual inversion to deal with, from that in which the instinct is quite exclusively directed towards the same sex,* to the other extreme in which it is normally towards the opposite sex but capable occasionally and under exceptional attractions, of inversion towards its own—this last condition being

probably among some peoples very widespread, if not universal.

In the third place, by the tabulation and comparison of a great number of cases and “confessions,” it has become pretty well established that the individuals affected with inversion in marked degree do not after all differ from the rest of mankind, or womankind, in any

• With regard to the number of these quite exclusive homosexuals

(supposably born so) estimates vary, from one man in every 50 to one in every 500. See Moll. ‘‘ Contrare Sexual-empfinding,”’ second edn., p. 75.

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other physical or mental particular which can be distinctly indicated.* No congenital association with any particular physical conformation or malformation has yet been discovered; nor with any distinct disease of body or mind. Nor does it appear that persons of this class are usually of a gross or specially low type, but if anything rather the opposite—being often of refined sensitive nature and including, as Krafft-Ebing points out (‘ Psychopathia Sexualis,” seventh ed., p. 227) a great number “highly gifted in the fine arts, especially music and poetry,’ and, as Mantegazza says, + many persons of high literary and social distinction. It is true that Krafft-Ebing insists on the generally strong sexual equipment of this class of persons (among men), but he hastens to say that their emotional love is also ‘‘enthusiastic and exalted,” { and that, while bodily congress is desired, the special act with which they are vulgarly credited is in most cases repugnant to them. § The only distinct characteristic which the scientific writers claim to have established is a marked tendency to nervous development in the subject, not infrequently

• Though there is no doubt a general tendency towards

femininity of type in the male Urning, and towards masculinity in the female.

¢ ‘*‘Gli amori degli uomini.”

t ‘' Psychopathia Sexualis,’’ seventh ed., p. 227.

§ Ibid: pp. 229 and 258.

HOMOGENIC LOVE ar

associated with nervous maladies; but—as I shall presently have occasion to show—there is reason to think that the validity even of this characteristic has been exaggerated.

Taking the general case of men with a marked exclusive preference for their own sex, Krafft-Ebing says (‘‘ P.S.” p. 256) ‘* The sexual life of these Homo- sexuals is mutatis mutandis just the same as in the case of normal sex-love . . . The Urning loves, deifies his male beloved one, exactly as the woman-wooing man does hts beloved. For him, he is capable of the greatest sacrifice, experiences the torments of unhappy, often unrequited, love, of faithlessness on his beloved’s part, of jealousy, and soforth. His attention is enchained only by the male form ... The sight of feminine charms is indifferent to him, if not repugnant.” Then he goes on to say that many such men, notwithstanding their actual aversion to intercourse with the female, do ultimately marry— whether from ethical, as sometimes happens, or from social considerations. But very remarkable—as illustrating the depth and tenacity of the homogenic instinct*—and pathetic too, are the records that he gives

• « How deep congenital sex-inversion roots may be gatherd

from the fac that the pleasure-dream of the male Urning has to do with male persons, and of the female with females." (Krafft-Ebing ‘‘ P.S.” seventh ed., p. 228).

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of these cases ; for in many of them a real friendship and regard between the married pair was still of no avail to overcome the distaste on the part of one to sexual intercourse with the other, or to prevent the experience of actual physical distress after such intercourse, or to check the continual flow of affection to some third person of the same sex; and thus unwillingly, so to speak, this bias remained a cause of suffering to the end.

This very brief summary of scientific conclusions, taken in conjunction with the fact (which we have already referred to) that the whole literature and life of the greatest people of antiquity—the Greeks of the Periclean age—was saturated with the passion of homogenic or comrade-love, must convince us that this passion cannot be lightly dismissed as of no account— must convince us that it has an important part to play in human affairs. On the one hand we have anathemas and execrations, on the other we have the sublime enthusiasm of a man like Plato—one of the leaders of the world’s thought for all time—who puts, for example, into the mouth of Phaedrus (in the Symposium) such a passage as this*: ‘I know not any greater blessing to a young man beginning life than a virtuous lover, or to the lover than a beloved youth. For the principle which ought to be the guide of men who would nobly live—that principle,

• Jowett's ‘* Plato (second ed.) Vol. II. p. 30.

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I say, neither kindred, nor honour, nor wealth, nor any other motive is able to implant so well as love. Of what am I speaking? Of the sense of honour and dishonour, without which neither states nor individuals ever do any good or great work. . . . . For what lover would not choose rather to be seen of all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger? The veriest coward would become an inspired hero, equal to the bravest, at such a time; love would inspire him. That courage which, as Homer says, the god breathes into the soul of heroes, love of his own nature inspires into the lover.” Or again in the ‘‘ Phaedrus”’ Plato makes Socrates say *:—‘¢ In like manner the followers of Apollo and of every other god, walking in the ways of their god, seek a love who is to be like their god, and when they have found him, they themselves imitate their god, and persuade their love to do the same, and bring him into harmony with the form and ways of the god as far as they can; for they have no feelings of envy or jealousy towards their beloved, but they do their utmost to create in him the greatest likeness of themselves and the god whom they honour. Thus fair and blissful to

• Jowett, vol. II., p. 130.

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the beloved when he is taken, is the desire of the inspired lover, and the initiation of which I speak into the mysteries of true love, if their purpose is effected.” And yet Plato throughout his discourses never suggests for a moment that the love of which he is speaking is any other than the homogenic passion, nor glosses over or conceals its strong physical substructure.

I].

WE have now I think said enough to show from the testimony of History, Literature, Art, and even of Modern Science, that the homogenic passion is capable of splendid developments; and that a love and capacity of love of so intimate penetrating and inspiring a kind— and which has played so important a part in the life- histories of some of the greatest races and individuals— is well worthy of respectful and thoughtful consideration. And I think it has become obvious that to cast a slur upon this kind of love because it may in cases lead to © aberrations and extravagances would be a most irrational thing to do—since exactly the same charges, of possible aberration and extravagance, might be brought, and the same conclusion enforced, against the ordinary sex-love.

It is however so often charged against the sentiment in question that it is essentially unnatural and morbid in character, that it may be worth while, though we have already touched on this point, to consider it here at greater length. I therefore propose to devote a few more pages to the examination of the scientific position on this subject, and then to pass on to a consideration of the general place and purpose of the homogenic

26 HOMOGENIC LOVE

or comrade-love (its sanity being granted) in human character and social life.

It might be thought that the testimonies of History, Literature and Art, above referred to, would be quite sufficient of themselves to dispose of the charge of

essential morbidity. But as mankind in general is not.

in the habit of taking bird’s eye views of History and Literature, and as it finds it easy to assume that anything a little‘exceptional is also morbid, so it is not difficult to see how this charge (in countries where the sentiment zs exceptional) has arisen and maintained itself. Science, of course, is nothing but common observation organised and systemised, and so we naturally find that with regard to this subject it started on its investigations from the same general assumptions that possessed the public mind. It may safely be said that until the phenomena of homogenic Love began to be calmly discussed by the few scientific men already mentioned, the subject had never since classical times been once fairly faced in the arena of literature or public discussion, and had as a rule been simply dismissed with opprobrious epithets well suited to give an easy victory to prejudice and ignorance. But the history of even these few years of scientific investigation bears with it a memorable lesson. For while at the outset it was easily assumed that the homogenic instinct was thoroughly morbid in itself,

ry

• s

HOMOGENIC LOVE 27

and probably always associated with distinct disease, either physical or mental, the progress of the inquiry has—as already pointed out—served more and more to dissipate this view; and it is noticeable that Krafft-Ebing and Moll—the latest of the purely scientific authorities—are the least disposed to insist upon the theory of morbidity. It is true that Krafft- Ebing clings to the opinion that there is generally some neuvosis, or degeneration of a nerve-centre, or inherited tendency in that direction, associated with the instinct ; see p. 190 (seventh ed.), also p. 227, where he speaks, rather vaguely, of ‘‘an hereditary neuropathic or psycho- pathic tendency "—xneuro(psycho )pathische Belastung. But it is an obvious criticism on this that there are few people in modern life, perhaps none, who could be pronounced absolutely free from such a Belastung! And whether the Dorian Greeks or the Polynesian Islanders or the Kelts (spoken of by Aristotle, Pol. 11. 7) or the Normans or the Albanian mountaineers, or any of the other notably hardy races among whom the passion has been developed, were particularly troubled by nervous degeneration we may well doubt ! *

• It is interesting, too, to find that Walt Whitman, who

certainly had the homogenic instin& highly developed, was characterised by his doctor, W. B. Drinkard, as having ‘‘the most natural habits, bases, and organisation he had ever met with or ever seen” in any man. ‘Jn ve Walt Whitman,” p. 115.

28 HOMOGENIC LOVE

As to Moll, though he speaks* of the instinct as morbid (feeling perhaps in duty bound to do so), it is very noticeable that he abandons the ground of its association with other morbid symptoms — as this association, he says, is by no means always to be observed; and is fain to rest his judgment on the dictum that the mere failure of the sexual instinct to propagate the species is itself pathological—a dictum which in its turn obviously springs from that pre- judgment of scientists that generation is the sole object of love, and which if pressed would involve the good doctor in awkward dilemmas, as for instance that every worker-bee is a pathological specimen.

With regard to the nerve-degeneration theory, while it may be allowed that sexual inversion is not uncommonly found in connection with the specially nervous temperament, it must be remembered that its occasional association with nervous troubles or disease is quite another matter ; since such troubles ought perhaps to be looked upon as the vesults rather than the causes of the inversion. It is difficult of course for outsiders not personally experienced in the matter to realise the great strain and tension of nerves under which those persons grow up from boyhood to manhood—or from

• « Contrare Sexual-empfindung,” second ed., p. 269.

+ See ‘ Sex-Love," p. 23.

HOMOGENIC LOVE 29

girl to womanhood—who find their deepest and strongest instincts under the ban of the society around them; who before they clearly understand the drift of their own natures discover that they are somehow cut off from the sympathy and understanding of those nearest to them; and who know that they can never give expression to their tenderest yearnings of affection without exposing themselves to the possible charge of actions stigmatised as odious crimes.* That such a strain, acting on one who is perhaps already of a nervous temperament, should tend to cause nervous prostration or even mental disturbance is of course obvious ; and if such disturbances are really found to be commoner among homogenic lovers than among ordinary folk we have in these social causes probably a sufficient explanation of the fact. .

Then again in this connection it must never be forgotten that the medico-scientific enquirer is bound on the whole to meet with those cases that ave of a morbid character, rather than with those that are healthy in

-

• «Though then before my own conscience I cannot reproach

myself, and though I must certainly reject the judgment of the world about us, yet I suffer greatly. In very truth I have injured no one, and I hold my love in its nobler activity for just as holy as that of normally disposed men, but under the unhappy fate that allows us neither sufferance nor recognition I suffer often more than my life can bear.'’'—(Extract from a letter given by Krafft-Ebing.)

30 HOMOGENIC LOVE

their manifestation, since indeed it is the former that he lays himself out for. And since the field of his research is usually a great modern city, there is little wonder if. disease colours his conclusions. In the case of Dr. Moll, who carried out his researches largely under the guidance of the Berlin police (whose acquaintance with the subject would naturally be limited to its least satisfactory sides), the only marvel is that his verdict is so markedly favorable as it is. As Krafft-Ebing says in his own preface ‘‘It is the sad privilege of Medicine, and especially of Psychiatry, to look always on the reverse side of life, on the weakness and wretchedness of man.”

Having regard then to the direction in which science has been steadily moving in this matter, it is not difficult to see that the epithet ‘‘ morbid” will probably before long be abandoned as descriptive of the homogenic bias—that is, of the general sentiment of love towards a person of the same sex. That there are excesses of the passion—cases, as in ordinary sex-love, where mere physical desire becomes a mania—we may freely admit; but as it would be unfair to judge of the purity of marriage by the evidence of the Divorce courts, so it would be monstrous to measure the truth and beauty of the attachment in question by those instances which stand most prominently perhaps in the eye of the

HOMOGENIC LOVE 31

modern public ; and after all deductions there remains, we contend, the vast body of cases in which the manifestation of the instin¢ét has on the whole the character of normality and healthfulness—sufficiently so in fact to constitute this @ distinc? vanety of the sexual passion. The question, of course, not being whether the instinct is capable of morbid and extravagant manifesta- tion—for this can easily be proved of any instinct—but whether it is capable of a healthy and sane expression. And this, we think, it has abundantly shown itself to be. |

Anyhow the work that Science has practically done has been to destroy the dogmatic attitude of the former current opinion from which itself started, and to leave the whole subject freed from a great deal of mis- understanding, and much more open than before. Its labors—and they have been valuable in this way—have been chiefly of a negative character. While unable on the one hand to characterise the physical attraction in question as definitely morbid or the result of morbid tendencies, it is unable on the other hand to say positively at present what physiological or other purpose is attained by the instinct.

This question of the physiological basis of the homogenic love—to which we have more than once alluded—is a very important one; and it seems a strange

32 HOMOGENIC LOVE

oversight on the part of Science that it has hitherto taken so little notice of it. The desire for corporeal intimacy of some kind between persons of the same sex existing as it does in such force and so widely over the face of the earth, it would seem almost certain that there must ‘be some physiological basis for the desire: but until we know more than we do at present as to what this basis may be, we are necessarily unable to under- stand the desire itself as well as we might wish. It may be hoped that this is a point to which attention will be given in the future. Meanwhile, though the problem is a complex one, it may not be amiss here to venture a suggestion or two.

In the first place it may be suggested that an ‘important part of all love-union, mental or physical, is its influence personally on those concerned. This influence is, of course, subtle and hard to define; and one can hardly be surprised that Science, assuming hitherto in its consideration of ordinary sexual relations that the mutual actions and reactions were directed solely to the purpose of generation and the propagation of the species, has almost quite neglected the question of the direct influences on the lovers themselves. Yet everyone is sensible practically that there is much more in an Intimacy with another person than the question of children alone; that even setting aside the effects of actual

HOMOGENIC LOVE 33

sex-intercourse there are subtle elements passing from one to another which are indispensable to personal well-being, and which make some such intimacy almost a necessary condition of health. It may be that there are some persons for whom these necessary reactions can only come from one of the same sex. In fact it is obvious there are such persons. ‘‘ Successful love,” says Moll (p- 125) ‘* exercises a helpful influence on the Urning. His mental and bodily condition improves, and capacity of work increases—just as it often happens in the case of a normal youth with fis love.” And further on (p. 173) in a letter from a man of this kind occur these words: ‘¢ The passion is I suppose so powerful, just because one looks for everything in the loved man—Love, Friendship, Ideal, and Sense-satisfaction. . . . Asitisat present I suffer the agonies of a deep unresponded passion, which wake me like a nightmare from sleep. And I am conscious of physical pain in the region of the heart.” In such cases the love, in some degree physically expressed, of another person of the same sex, is clearly as much a necessity and a condition of healthy life and activity, as in more ordinary cases is the love of a person of the opposite sex.

It has probably been the arbitrary limitation of the function of love to child-breeding which has (uncon- sciously) influenced the popular mind against the form

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34 HOMOGENIC LOVE

of love which we are considering. That this kind of union was not concerned with the propagation of the race was in itself enough to make people look askance at it; that any kind of love-union could exist in which the sex-act might possibly sot be the main object was an incredible proposition. And, in enforcing this view, no doubt the Hebraic and Christian tradition has exercised a powerful influence—dating, as it almost certainly does, from far-back times when the multiplication of the tribe was one of the very first duties of its members, and one of the first, necessities of corporate life; though nowadays when the need has swung round all the other way it is not unreasonable to suppose that a similar ‘revolution will take place in people’s views of the place and purpose of the non-child-bearing love. We find in some quarters that even the most naive attachments between youths are stigmatised as “unnatural” (though, inconsistently enough, not those between girls)—and this can only well be from an assumption that all familiarities are meant by Nature to lead up to generation and race-propagation. Yet no one—if fairly confronted with the question—would seriously maintain that the mutual stimulus, physical mental and moral, which flows from embrace and endearment is nothing, and that because these things do not lead to actual race propagation therefore they must be discountenanced.

HOMOGENIC LOVE 35

If so, must even the loving association between man and wife, more than necessary for the breeding of children, or after the period of fertility has passed, be also discountenanced ? Such questions might be multiplied indefinitely. They only serve to show how very crude as yet are all our theories on these subjects, and how necessary it is in the absence of more certain knowledge to suspend our judgment.*

Summarizing then some of our conclusions on this rather difficult question we may say that the homogenic love, as a distinct variety of the sex-passion, is in the main subject to the same laws as the ordinary love; that it probably demands and requires some amount of physical intimacy; that a wise humanity will quite recognise this; but that the degree of intimacy, in default of more certain physiological knowledge than we have, is a matter which can only be left to the good sense and feeling of those concerned; and that while we do not deny for a moment that excesses of physical appetite exist, these form no more reason for tabooing all expression of the sentiment than they do in the case of the more normal love. We may

• «The truth is that we can no more explain the inverted sex-

feeling than we can the normal impulse; all the attempts at explanation of these things, and of Love, are defective." (Moll, second ed. p. 253.)

36 HOMOGENIC LOVE

also say that if on the side of science much is obscure, there is no obscurity in the principles of healthy morality involved; that there is no exception here to the law that sensuality apart from love is degrading and something less than human; or to the law that love— true love—seeks nothing which is not consistent with the welfare of the loved one; and that here too the principle of Transmutation applies*—the principle that Desire in man has its physical emotional and spiritual sides, and that when its outlet is checked along one channel, it will, within limits, tend to flow with more vehemence along the other channels—and that reason- able beings, perceiving this, will (again within limits) check the sensual and tend to throw the centre of their love-attraction upwards.

Probably in this, as in all love, it will be felt in the end by those who devote themselves to each other and to the truth, to be wisest to concentrate on the veal thing, on the enduring deep affection which is the rea] satisfaction and outcome of the relation, and which like a young sapling they would tend with loving care till it grows into a mighty tree which the storms of a thousand years cannot shake; and those who do so heartily and truly can leave the physical to take care of itself. This

• See ‘‘ Sex-Love," p. 8.

4 \

HOMOGENIC LOVE 37

indéed is perhaps the only satisfactory touchstone of the righiness and fitness of human relations generally, in sexutl matters. People, not unnaturally, seek for an absolite rule in such matters, and a fixed line between the right and the wrong; but may we not say that there is no,rule except that of Love—Love making use, of course, of whatever certain knowledge Science may from time i time be able to provide ?

And speaking of the law of Transmutation and its importence, it is clear, I think, that in the homosexual love—whether between man and man or between woman and woman—the physical side, from the very nature of the case, can never find expression quite so freely and perfectly as in the ordinary heterosexual love; and therefore that there is a ‘natural’ tendency for the former love to run rather more along emotional channels.* And this no doubt throws light on the fact that love of the homogenic type has inspired such a vast amount of heroism and romance—and is indeed only paralleled in this respect (as J. Addington Symonds has pointed out in his paper on Dantesque and Platonic ideals of Love)} by the loves of Chivalry, which of course owing to their special character, were subject to a similar transmutation,

• See ‘* Marriage," p. 7.

+ See ‘‘In the Key of Blue’’ by J. A. Symonds. (Publ: by Elkin Matthews, 1893.)

38 HOMOGENIC LOVE

It is well-known that Plato in many passages in his dialogues gives expression to the opinion that the love which at that time was common among the Greek youths had, in its best form, a special func¢tion in educational social and heroic work. I have already quoted a passage from the ‘“‘Symposium,” in which Phaedrus speaks of the inspiration which this love provides towards an honorable and _ hero:c life. Pausanias in the same dialogue says *: ‘In Ionia and other places, and generally in countries which are subject to the barbarians, the custom is held to be dishonorable ; loves of youths share the evil repute of philosophy and gymnastics because they are inimtcal to tyranny, for the interests of rulers require that their subjects should be poor in spirit, and that there should be no strong bond of friendship or society between them—which love above all other motives, is likely to inspire, as our Athenian tyrants learned by experience.”’ This is a pretty strong statement of the political significance of this kind of love.

Richard Wagner in his pamphlet ‘*The Art-work of the Future” + has some interesting passages to the same effe¢t—showing how the conception of ‘the beauty of manhood became the formative influence of the

• Jowett’s ‘‘ Plato,’’ second ed. vol. ii. p. 33.

+ Prose-works of Richard Wagner, translated by W. A. Ellis.

HOMOGENIC LOVE 39

—_ State. He says :—‘ This beauteous naked man is the kernel of all Spartanhood ; from genuine delight in thd beauty of the most perfect human body—that of the male—arose that spirit of comrade-ship which pervades and shapes the whole economy of the Spartan State. This love of man to man, in its primitive purity, proclaims itself as the noblest and least selfish utterance of man’s sense of beauty, for it teaches man to sink and merge his entire self in the object of his affection; ’ and again :—-“‘ The higher element of that love of man to man consisted even in this: that 1t excluded the motive of egoistic* physicalism. Nevertheless it not only included a purely spiritual bond of friendship, but this spiritual friendship was the blossom and the crown of the physical friendship. The latter sprang directly from delight in the beauty, aye in the material bodily beauty of the beloved comrade; yet this delight was no egoistic yearning, but a thorough stepping out of self into unreserved sympathy with the comrade’s joy in himself; involuntarily betrayed by his life-glad beauty-prompted bearing. This love, which had its basis in the noblest pleasures of both eye and soul—not like our modern postal correspondence of sober friendship, half business- like, half sentimental—was the Spartan’s only tutoress of youth, the never-ageing instructress alike of boy and

• The emphasis is on the word egoitstic.

40 HOMOGENIC LOVE

man, the ordainer of common feasts and valiant enter- prises; nay the inspiring helpmeet on the battle-field. For this it was that knit the fellowship of love into battalions of war, and fore-wrote the tactics of death- daring, in rescue of the imperilled or vengeance for the slaughtered comrade, by the infrangible law of the soul’s most natural necessity.”

The last sentence in this quotation is well illustrated by a passage from a ‘privately printed” pamphlet entitled A Problem in Greek Ethics, in which the author endeavors to reconstruct as it were the genesis of comrade-love among the Dorians in early Greek times. Thus :—** Without sufficiency of women, without the sanctities of established domestic life, inspired by the memory of Achilles and venerating their ancestor Herakles,* the Dorian warriors had special opportunity for elevating comradeship to the rank of an enthusiasm. The incidents of emigration into a distant country— perils of the sea, passages of rivers and mountains, assaults of fortresses and cities, landings on a hostile shore, night vigils by the side of blazing beacons, foragings for food, picquet service in the front of watchful foes—involved adventures capable of shedding

• Whose tomb on account of his attachment to Iolaus was a

place where Comrades swore troth to each other. (Plutarch on Love, section xvii.)

HOMOGENIC LOVE 41

the lustre of romance on friendship. Thesecircumstances, by bringing the virtues of sympathy with the weak, tenderness for the beautiful, protection for the young, together with corresponding qualities of gratitude, self-devotion, and admiring attachment into play, may have tended to cement unions between man and man no less firm than that of marriage. On such connections a wise captain would have relied for giving strength to his battalions, and for keeping alive the flames of enterprise and daring.” The author then goes on to suggest that though in such relations as those indicated the physical probably had its share, yet it did not at that time overbalance the emotional and spiritual elements, or lead to the corruption and effeminacy of a later age.

At Sparta the lover was called Espnélos, the inspirer, and the younger beloved Aites, the hearer. This alone would show the partly educational aspects in which comradeship was conceived; and a hundred passages from classic literature might be quoted to prove how deeply it had entered into the Greek mind that this love was the cradle of social chivalry and heroic life. Finally it seems to have been Plato’s favorite doctrine that the relation if properly conducted led up to the disclosure of true philosophy in the mind, to the divine vision or mania, and to the remembrance or rekindling within the soul of all the forms of celestial beauty. He

42 HOMOGENIC LOVE

speaks of this kind of love as causing a “‘ generation in the beautiful*’’ within the souls of the lovers. The image of the beloved one passing into the mind of the lover and upward through its deepest recesses reaches and unites itself to the essential forms of divine beauty there long hidden—the originals as it were of all creation—and stirring them to life excites a kind of generative descent of noble thoughts and impulses, which thenceforward modify the whole cast of thought and life of the one so affected.

I have now said enough I think to show that though Science has not as yet been able to give any decisive utterance on the import of the physical and physiological side of the homogenic passion (and it must be remembered that its real understanding of this side of the ordinary sex-love is very limited), yet on its ethical and social sides—which cannot of course, in the last resort, be separated from the physiological—the passion is pregnant with meaning, and has received at various times in history abundant justification. And in truth it seems the most natural thing in the world that just as the ordinary sex-love has a special function in the propagation of the race, so the other love should have its special function in social and heroic work, and in the generation

• «Symposium’’: Speech of Socrates.

/

HOMOGENIC LOVE 43

—not of bodily children—but of those children of the mind, the philosophical conceptions and ideals which transform our lives and those of society. This without limiting too closely. In each case the main object may be said to be union. But as all love is also essentially creative, we naturally look for the creative activities of different kinds of love in different directions—and seem to find them so.

If there is any truth—even only a grain or two—in these speculations, it is easy to see that the love with which we are specially dealing is a very important factor in society, and that its neglect, or its repression, or its vulgar misapprehension, may be matters of considerable danger or damage to the common-weal. It is easy to see that while on the one hand the ordinary marriage is of indispensable importance to the State as providing the workshop as it were for the breeding and rearing of children, another form of union is almost equally indispensable to supply the basis for social activities of other kinds. Every one is conscious that without a close affectional tie of some kind his life is not complete, his powers are crippled, and his energies are inadequately spent. Yet it is not to be expected (though it may of course happen) that the man or woman who have dedicated themselves to each other and to family life should leave the care of

44 HOMOGENIC LOVE

their children and the work they have to do at home in order to perform social duties of a remote and less obvious, though may-be more arduous, character. Nor is it to be expected that a man or woman single-handed, without the counsel of a helpmate in the hour of difficulty, or his or her love in the hour of need, should feel equal to these wider activities. If—to refer once more to classic story—the love of Harmodius had been for a wife and children at home, he would probably not have cared, and it would hardly have been his business, to slay the tyrant. And unless on the other hand each of the friends had had the love of his comrade to support him, the two could hardly have nerved themselves to this audacious and ever-memorable exploit. So it is difficult to believe that anything except that kind of comrade-union which satisfies and invigorates the two lovers and yet leaves them free from the responsibilities and zmpedimenta of family life can supply the force and liberate the energies required for social and mental activities of the most necessary kind. For if the slaughter of tyrants is not the chief social duty now-a-days, we have with us hydra-headed monsters at least as numerous as the tyrants of old, and more difficult to deal with, and requiring no little courage to encounter. And beyond the extirpation of evils we have solid work waiting to be done in the patient and life-long

HOMOGENIC LOVE 45

building up of new forms of society, new orders of thought, and new institutions of human solidarity—all of which in their genesis will meet with opposition, ridicule, hatred, and even violence. Such campaigns as these—though different in kind from those of the Dorian mountaineers described above—will call for equa hardihood and courage and will stand in need of a comradeship as true and valiant. It may indeed be doubted whether the higher heroic and spiritual life of a nation is ever quite possible without the sanction of this attachment in its institutions; and it is not unlikely that the markedly materialistic and commercial character of the last age of European civilised life is largely to be connected with the fact that the only form of love and love-union that it has recognised has been one founded on the quite necessary but comparatively materialistic basis of matrimonial sex- intercourse and child-breeding.*

• It is interesting in this connection to notice the extreme

fervor, almost of romance, of the bond which often unites lovers of like sex over a long period of years, in an unfailing tenderness of treatment and consideration towards each other, equal to that shown in the most successful marriages, The love of many such men, says Moll (p. 119), ‘‘developed in youth lasts at times the whole life through, I know of such men, who had not seen their first love for years, even decades, and who yet on meeting showed the old fire of their first passion, In other cases a close love- intimacy will last unbroken for many years,”

46 HOMOGENIC LOVE

Walt Whitman, the inaugurator, it may almost be said, of a new world of democratic ideals and literature, and—as one of the best of our critics * has remarked— the most Greek in spirit and in performance of modern writers, insists continually on this social function of ‘‘intense and loving comradeship, the personal and passionate attachment of man to man.” ‘I will make,” he says, ‘‘the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon, I will make divine magnetic lands. . . . I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each others necks, by the love of comrades.” And again, in Democratic Vistas, ‘‘ It is to the development, identification, and general prevalence of that fervid comradeship (the adhesive love at least rivaling the amative love hitherto possessing imaginative literature, if not going beyond it), that I look for the counterbalance arid offset of materialistic and vulgar American Democracy, and for the spiritualisation thereof. . . . I say Democracy infers such loving comradeship, as its most inevitable twin or counterpart, without which it will be incomplete, in vain, and incapable of perpetuating itself.”

Yet Whitman could not have spoken, as he did, with a kind of authority on this subject, if he had not been fully aware that through the masses of the people this attachment was already alive and working—though

• J. A. Symonds.

HOMOGENIC LOVE ~ 47

doubtless in a somewhat suppressed and unself-conscious form—and if he had not had ample knowledge of its effects and influence in himself and others around him, Like all great artists he could but give form and light to that which already existed dim and inchoate in the heart of the people. To those who have dived at all below the surface in this direction it will be familiar enough that the homogenic passion ramifies widely through all modern society, and that among the masses of the people as among the classes, below the stolid surface and reserve of British manners, letters pass and enduring attachments are formed, differing in no very obvious respect from those correspondences which persons of opposite sexes knit with each other under similar circumstances; but that hitherto while this passion has occasionally come into public notice through the police reports, etc., in its grosser and cruder forms, its more sane and spiritual manifestations — though really a moving force in the body politic—have remained unrecognised. 7

It is hardly needful in these days when social questions loom so large upon us to emphasise the importance of a bond which by the most passionate and lasting com- pulsion may draw members of the different classes together, and (as it often seems to do) none the less strongly because they are members of different classes.

48 HOMOGENIC LOVE

A moment’s consideration must convince us that such a comradeship may, as Whitman says, have ‘deepest relations to general politics.” It is noticeable, too, in this deepest relation to politics that the movement among women towards their own liberation and emancipation which is taking place all over the civilised world has been accompanied by a marked development of the homogenic passion among the female sex. It may be said that a certain strain in the relations between the opposite sexes which has come about owing to a growing consciousness among women that they have been oppressed and unfairly treated by men,* and a growing unwillingness to ally themselves unequally in marriage—that this strain has caused the womankind to draw more closely together and to cement alliances of their own. But whatever the cause may be it is pretty certain that such comrade-alliances—and of a quite passionate kind—are becoming increasingly common, and especially perhaps among the more cultured classes of women, who are working out the great cause of their sex’s liberation; nor is it difficult to see the importance of such alliances in such a campaign. In the United States where the battle of women’s independence has been fought more vehemently perhaps than here, the tendency mentioned is even more

strongly marked. _ 7

• See ‘‘ Woman,”’ p. 11, etc.

HOMOGENIC LOVE 49

In conclusion there are a few words to be said about the legal aspect of this important question. It has to be remarked that the present state of the Law—arising as it does partly out of some of the misapprehensions above alluded to, and partly out of the sheer unwillingness of legislators to discuss the question—is really quite impracticable and unjustifiable, and will no doubt have to be altered.

The Law, of course, can only deal, and can only be expected to deal, with the outward and visible. It cannot control feeling; but it tries—in those cases where it is concerned—to control the expression of feeling. It has been insisted on in this essay that the Homcgenic Love is a valuable social force, and, in cases, an indispensable factor of the noblest human character ; also that it has a necessary root in the physical and sexualorganism. This last is the point where the Law steps in. ‘We know nothing’’—it says—‘‘ of what may be valuable social forces or factors of character, or of what may be the relation of physical things to things spiritual ; but when you speak of a sexual element being present in this kind of love, we can quite understand that ; and that is just what we mean to suppress. That sexual element is nothing but gross indecency, any form of which by our Act of 1885 we make criminal.”

Whatever substantial ground the Law may have had

50 HOMOGENIC LOVE

for previous statutes on this subject—dealing with a specific act (sodomy)—it has surely quite lost it in passing so wide-sweeping a condemnation on all relations between male persons.* It has undertaken a censorship over private morals (entirely apart from social results) which is beyond its province, and which —even if it were its province—it could not possibly fulfil; it has opened wider than ever before the door to a real social evil and crime—that of blackmailing ; and it has thrown a shadow over even the simplest and most natural expressions of an attachment which may, as we have seen, be of the greatest value in national life.+

That the homosexual passion may be improperly indulged in, that it may lead, like the heterosexual, to public abuses of liberty and decency we of course do not deny; but as, in the case of persons of opposite sex, the law limits itself on the whole to the maintenance of public order, the protection of the weak from violence and insult,} and of the young from their inexperience: so it should be here. Whatever teaching may be thought desirable on the general principles of

• Though, inconsistently enough, making no mention of females.

+ Dr. Moll maintains (second ed., pp. 314, 315) that if familiarities between those of the same sex are made illegal, as immoral, self-abuse ought much more to be so made.

t Though it is doubtful whether the marriage-laws even do this!

HOMOGENIC LOVE 51

morality concerned must be given—as it can only be given—by the spread of proper education and ideas, and not by the clumsy bludgeon of the statute-book.*

We have shown the special functions and really indispensable import of the homogenic or comrade love, in some form, in national life, and it is high time now that the modern States should recognise this in their institutions—instead of (as is also done in schools and places of education) by repression and disallowance perverting the passion into its least satisfactory channels. If the dedication of love were a matter of mere choice or whim, it still would not be the business of the State to compel that choice; but since no amount of compulsion can ever change the homogenic instinct in a person, where it is innate, the State in trying to effect such a change is only kicking vainly against the pricks of its own advantage—and trying, in view perhaps of the conduct of a licentious few, to cripple and damage a respectable and valuable class of its own citizens.

• In France, since the adoption of the Code Napoleon, sexual]

inversion is tolerated under the same restrictions as normal sexuality ; and according to Carlier, formerly Chief of the French Police, Paris is not more depraved in this matter than London. Italy in 1889 also adopted the principles of the Code Napoleon on this point.

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