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.Such habitual direction of thesex impulse towards one person is certainly an essential condition orfeature of sex love; but an habitual lusting for a particular person wouldbe a crude sentiment not worthy of the name of love.Sex love is acomplex sentiment, and in its constitution the protective impulse andtender emotion of the parental instinct are normally combined with theemotional conative disposition of the sex instinct, restraining, softening,and ennobling the purely egoistic and somewhat brutal tendency of lust.The presence of the maternal element in the attitude of a womantowards her lover has been recognized by countless writers of romance.And that the tender protective element commonly enters into the senti-ment of the man for the beloved woman is equally obvious.That sexlove should thus combine the most purely altruistic with the most ruth-lessly egoistic tendency of human nature, seems sufficiently accountedfor in the case of the woman by the great strength of the maternal im-pulse and the ease with which it is aroused in her in all personal rela-tions; and in the man it is perhaps sufficiently accounted for by the factthat woman, especially at the age at which she is most strongly attrac-tive to man, resembles in many respects, both mental and physical, the 266/William McDougallchild, the normal object of the parental or protective impulse.It is, then, a mistake to attribute to the sex instinct all the manifesta-tions of sex love; for this sentiment is commonly highly complex, andinvolves not only the emotional-conative dispositions of the sexual andparental instincts, but those of other instincts also, notably those of theinstincts of self-display and self-abasement The importance of distin-guishing between the sex instinct and the sentiment of sex love, and ofrecognizing the complex constitution of the latter, is well illustrated bythe controversies raised among the mental pathologists by the doctrinesof Professor Sigmund Freud.Freud proposes to extend very greatly thesphere commonly attributed to sexuality in human life, assigning a sexualroot to mental and nervous disorders of almost every kind, as well as toall dreams and to other processes of normal mental life that have noobvious connexion with sex.It seems to me that this immense extensionof the sphere of sexuality (which has excited acute opposition to Freud sdoctrines and obscures for many the important and valuable truths con-tained in them) is in large part an error due to the neglect of the distinc-tion insisted upon in the foregoing paragraph.For Freud and his dis-ciples, taking the sentiment of sex love as the type of all love, regard asmanifestations of sexuality all modes of behaviour and of feeling thatare of the same kind as those that occur as phases in the life-history ofthis sentiment.They are thus led to regard as sexual, or as containing asexual element, the love of parents for their children and of children fortheir parents, as well as every other variety of love and every manifesta-tion of tender emotion.Expressions of other emotional and conativetendencies that commonly enter into the composition of the sentiment ofsex love have been in a similar way and for the same reason regarded bywriters of this school as indicative of the presence of the sexual tone inrelations in which they are displayed, or spoken of as components of thenormal sexuality of man and woman.172 If we carefully observe thisdistinction, we shall find no reason to regard the sex instinct as compris-ing any tendencies other than those which are directly concerned in ef-fecting the first and second stages of the process of fertilization.If we adopt this relatively restricted view of the scope of the sexinstinct in man, it still appears as one of considerable complexity on itsexecutive side; and on its perceptual side it is certainly more complexthan has commonly been assumed.In earlier chapters of this book Ihave urged, in opposition to a widely held view, that the structure of aninstinct generally involves one or more perceptual dispositions which An Introduction to Social Psychology/267render the possessor of the instinct capable of attentively singling outand discriminatively perceiving objects or situations of the kind thatdemand the instinctive reaction.The sex instinct is no exception to thisrule.We have seen that in the animals the presence of the recognitionmarks of sex implies that the sex instinct renders them capable of distin-guishing the members of the opposite sex from those of their own, andthat this truth is especially obvious in the case of those animals whichreact sexually on the first occasion of encountering a member of theother sex.In man, since the sexual instinct does not normally ripen orbecome excitable until the individual has greatly developed both hisperceptual capacities and his power of self-direction, no such directevidence of the innate perceptual organization of the instinct can becited; but there is no reason to believe that in this respect the sex instinctof the human species has undergone any considerable degree of degen-eration or involution.And we have indirect evidence supporting the viewhere maintained.In the first place, the great emotional effect and aes-thetic value of the human form, especially of the female form for man,can hardly be accounted for without this assumption [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Such habitual direction of thesex impulse towards one person is certainly an essential condition orfeature of sex love; but an habitual lusting for a particular person wouldbe a crude sentiment not worthy of the name of love.Sex love is acomplex sentiment, and in its constitution the protective impulse andtender emotion of the parental instinct are normally combined with theemotional conative disposition of the sex instinct, restraining, softening,and ennobling the purely egoistic and somewhat brutal tendency of lust.The presence of the maternal element in the attitude of a womantowards her lover has been recognized by countless writers of romance.And that the tender protective element commonly enters into the senti-ment of the man for the beloved woman is equally obvious.That sexlove should thus combine the most purely altruistic with the most ruth-lessly egoistic tendency of human nature, seems sufficiently accountedfor in the case of the woman by the great strength of the maternal im-pulse and the ease with which it is aroused in her in all personal rela-tions; and in the man it is perhaps sufficiently accounted for by the factthat woman, especially at the age at which she is most strongly attrac-tive to man, resembles in many respects, both mental and physical, the 266/William McDougallchild, the normal object of the parental or protective impulse.It is, then, a mistake to attribute to the sex instinct all the manifesta-tions of sex love; for this sentiment is commonly highly complex, andinvolves not only the emotional-conative dispositions of the sexual andparental instincts, but those of other instincts also, notably those of theinstincts of self-display and self-abasement The importance of distin-guishing between the sex instinct and the sentiment of sex love, and ofrecognizing the complex constitution of the latter, is well illustrated bythe controversies raised among the mental pathologists by the doctrinesof Professor Sigmund Freud.Freud proposes to extend very greatly thesphere commonly attributed to sexuality in human life, assigning a sexualroot to mental and nervous disorders of almost every kind, as well as toall dreams and to other processes of normal mental life that have noobvious connexion with sex.It seems to me that this immense extensionof the sphere of sexuality (which has excited acute opposition to Freud sdoctrines and obscures for many the important and valuable truths con-tained in them) is in large part an error due to the neglect of the distinc-tion insisted upon in the foregoing paragraph.For Freud and his dis-ciples, taking the sentiment of sex love as the type of all love, regard asmanifestations of sexuality all modes of behaviour and of feeling thatare of the same kind as those that occur as phases in the life-history ofthis sentiment.They are thus led to regard as sexual, or as containing asexual element, the love of parents for their children and of children fortheir parents, as well as every other variety of love and every manifesta-tion of tender emotion.Expressions of other emotional and conativetendencies that commonly enter into the composition of the sentiment ofsex love have been in a similar way and for the same reason regarded bywriters of this school as indicative of the presence of the sexual tone inrelations in which they are displayed, or spoken of as components of thenormal sexuality of man and woman.172 If we carefully observe thisdistinction, we shall find no reason to regard the sex instinct as compris-ing any tendencies other than those which are directly concerned in ef-fecting the first and second stages of the process of fertilization.If we adopt this relatively restricted view of the scope of the sexinstinct in man, it still appears as one of considerable complexity on itsexecutive side; and on its perceptual side it is certainly more complexthan has commonly been assumed.In earlier chapters of this book Ihave urged, in opposition to a widely held view, that the structure of aninstinct generally involves one or more perceptual dispositions which An Introduction to Social Psychology/267render the possessor of the instinct capable of attentively singling outand discriminatively perceiving objects or situations of the kind thatdemand the instinctive reaction.The sex instinct is no exception to thisrule.We have seen that in the animals the presence of the recognitionmarks of sex implies that the sex instinct renders them capable of distin-guishing the members of the opposite sex from those of their own, andthat this truth is especially obvious in the case of those animals whichreact sexually on the first occasion of encountering a member of theother sex.In man, since the sexual instinct does not normally ripen orbecome excitable until the individual has greatly developed both hisperceptual capacities and his power of self-direction, no such directevidence of the innate perceptual organization of the instinct can becited; but there is no reason to believe that in this respect the sex instinctof the human species has undergone any considerable degree of degen-eration or involution.And we have indirect evidence supporting the viewhere maintained.In the first place, the great emotional effect and aes-thetic value of the human form, especially of the female form for man,can hardly be accounted for without this assumption [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]